Shadows Within

Allright, I'm going to change something up here... I'll use the "proper" capitalizations for this chapter and see how I (and y'all) like them.

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Pale faces swarmed around him, leering at his body in the half-shadows. Try as he might, the boy couldn't shrink back any farther; all of the slack had been pulled out of the chains, pulling his limbs spread-eagle away from his body.
Fear and hatred were etched in every line of Kalderin's young face. This had happened every day prior in the week, if it was even still the same week that he remembered. Time was begining to lose its meaning in this place.
One of the women bent down, putting her head near his and taking a deep breath. Every fiber in his body was screaming, calling for him to strike.

And when she ran her tongue along his cheek, he couldn't restrain himself.

The rogue lashed out with the only free part of his body, slamming his forehead against her lips as they passed by. Spots swam in his vision, but Kalderin saw her reel back and lift a hand to her mouth.
She wiped the skin, blood flowing freely from the impact, and glared at him. She began to pool a spell in her hands, but someone behind her lowered her wrists.
Damiran stepped forward, a playful smile on his face. "Now, now, sister," he said, looking the boy over, "you can't go breaking our new toy just yet."
The human gave him a defiant glare, matching gazes with his pompous captor. The blood elf strutted over, his skin reflecting the weak torch light, a ball of magic in his hands, and tapped his fingers to the boy's forehead.
The light became much brighter... and he saw just how many elves were in the room.

As expected, there was not a single scrap of clothing to be found anywhere.

Kalderin choked back his fear, or tried to. His voice was flat an unquestioning when he spoke.
"So. I'm to be the main course, then."
The sin'dorei nodded, still smiling.
The boy looked at every one in the room, the turned back to his captor. "When you die, Damiran... rest assured, it will be by my hand."
The elf's smile grew broader as he and his sister sauntered up to him, both visibly aroused. "I'll keep that in mind."

The sheet flew to one side, the dagger already held tight in his sweat-drenched palm. With heavy, unsure breaths, Kalderin cast nervous, unsteady glances around the room. Still the inn, lucky enough.
But he didn't let himself relax. That was one of the last things her ever wanted to see in his sleep, a reminder of those seven months of hell.
It took several minutes for the rogue's body to ease itself back to a sit and lay his knife on the bedside table. A glance outside showed the quiet path of the outpost, only the occasional adventurer or guard idling along the dusty road. Anyone else would feel safe here, but he felt terribly vulnerable.
Good thing I'm awake, then, he thought. His body was already fully active, the old magic propelling him from his sleep like a bullet. Now, he just needed something to do.
Clearing his mind, the human dug out his leatherworking patterns and looked over them. It had been a long time since he had a chance to practice.

"So, what's the plan?"
Fronai looked across the table, shaking his head. "Honestly, I'm not quite sure yet. They're too alert for anyone to get in unnoticed."
Juna nodded, suppressing a shudder. "They're not stupid, unfortunately," the orc said, looking at the bottom of her cup.
Half-dead lips curled away from stark white teeth as Dagor grinned. "Then we go through."
"It's not that simple, Dagor," the other warrior told him, shaking his head. "If it was more than just us, it might be possible, but we don't have access to any real manpower."
The forsaken shrugged, his shoulder skin going into an awkward slough. "Well, you said it yourself, Fronai. You're not leaving until they've been taken care of."

One of the chairs slid away for the table. "Whend'choo get 'eah?" Rajas asked with a groggy, gruff voice.
"Late last night. Why do you care?"
"Ah didn't tink choo'd boddah wit' dis, mon." The mage summoned a bottle of water and twisted the cork out, taking a long draught from the glass.
Again, Dagor gave a loose shrug. "It's relevant to my interests, you could say," the forsaken told them.
The troll scoffed, but said nothing else.

Shyla yawned, letting herself slump into a seat, and rubbed her eyes. Metal and pewter clinked as Fronai set out dishes on the table, passing around the preserved remnants of the previous night's meal.
The shaman nodded in thanks, taking a mouthful of vegetables that she couldn't remember the name of at the moment, and glanced at the warrior.
"Any ideahs, mon?" she asked after swallowing.
The orc sighed. "Either we go in and fight our way to wherever those warlocks are," he replied, "or we get Kalderin to sneak in and kill them."
"Flattering, but I don't think I'm that good."

The final chair moved, the human lowering himself gently down and picking up a few of the mage's summoned rolls.
"After all the stunts you've pulled?" Dagor said, narrowing his eye sockets. "Spare me the humor."
"I'm serious," the boy shot back, scowling. "Any more than two, and I'd be over my head, not to mention those... things, whatever the hell they were, from yesterday."
The trolless shuddered. "Good poin'. Dey could be anywheaeh."

"Can ya sens' dem, boy?" Rajas asked, breaking his cold silence.
Kalderin bit off a piece of the bread before answering. "They can hide their presence in a humanoid form, but there's still a minor fel aura around them. It's fairly... unique."
Juna gave him a weary eye for his hesitation. "The catch?" she asked.
"They can still find me. I have one of my own, remember?" the rogue sighed, tearing off another hunk and chewing.

"And you've no way to deactivate it?" Fronai queried.
"I only wish," the human told him. "Although, it's probably our best bet."
Twisting the chain in his left hand, the young man began to feel nervous worry creep on him. Doing this made him feel like he was putting the others in danger, but unless they could get an army into the craig, there was little other choice.
Shyla was looking at him funny, but he managed to keep himself in check and smirk at her. She returned the gesture, if a little hesitantly, and returned her attention to her plate.
Dagor looked at everyone slowly. "So, it's a plan, then?"
The orc warrior looked at his companins, then gave a questioning glance to the human.
"It is."

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Although waiting with baited breath was not unusual for one of the Forsaken, in Dagor's mind, the term would certainly apply to him for the moment. The human had just snuck off down the ridge, leaving them to rely on Fronai's telescope and Shyla's farsight to watch for any anomalies in the camp. If it were not for the anticipation of a large melee to come, the warrior would be bored out of his rotting skull.
Glancing over to the troll, he saw much of his own expression reflected; half reluctant waiting, half twitchy expectation. Juna, on the other hand, was shifting her weight around, throwing paranoid looks everywhere, and being restless in general.
If he weren't so dead, he might have cared.
But right now, there were other things to attend to. He sharpened his swords with gentle force, and selfishly hoped something would go wrong. Just a little.

The human's supernatural senses jumped a little near every cluster of tents he passed. Demons, warlocks, or mages in every one.
Wonderful.
Muted arcane magic hovered in the air around him, but his field was no more powerful than the rest in the area. Some of the camps held empty cages near them, holding the disintegrating remnants of humanoid corpses within, many of them seeming small and child-like.
Probably kobolds, he thought bitterly. I'll worry about that later.

The few guards posted near the camp's center fell without much fuss; after all, people with slit throats tended not to make much noise. Kalderin crept closer, seeing several figures gathered around an extinguished fire pit speaking in hushed tones.
"I am sure of it," a feminine voice said.
"We can't go jumping off with little more than your intuition," a male drawled.
A high, disgusted snort sounded off. "Yes, we've seen where that usually gets us," another woman said haughtily.
"Would this change your minds, then?" the first voice asked.

There was a heavy silence before anyone spoke again. "Is that so?" a man asked in a deep voice. "It seems we doubted you wrongly this time."
"Very well, then," the uppity woman replied, "tell Damiran that we will support his mad plan."
Kalderin's body froze solid.
"At once, of course," the girl said, and a wave of magic passed over the area. The human's mind barely registered that she had left. All he knew is that these people needed to die.
Now.

The human woman reclined slightly, sighing. "Do you really think that he'll come through?" she asked, looking at her companions.
"Damiran would do just about anything to regain his standing," the gnome replied as he stood.
"And how are you so sure?" she shot back.
The gnome grinned. "I've worked with him. Mad, yes, but utterly devoted to a cause when he finds one."
With a rumbling grunt, the tauren spoke. "Let's just hope his cause isn't trying to kill us."
"Agreed," the woman nodded.

The tauren shifted, then looked behind him. "Eavesdropping again, Horus?" he asked directly to the rogue.
Kalderin stopped his surprise from giving him away, and calmly dissipated his stealth, making sure to pull his hood down. "Just curious," he lied in a sheepish voice.
The human suppressed a chuckle, the single braid in her hair shaking. "Always expected from you," she commented.
Seeing that this was normal, the rogue adopted a shy, almost childish mindset... it reminded him of the days in the orphanage.
And so the show begins.

"Does Damiran know about our... assistants?" he asked in a hesitant voice, shifting his eyes as he spoke.
The gnome answered. "Oh, I'm sure he has an idea, but the full scope seems lost on him. For the moment, at least."
Kalderin nodded. "I see. And yesterday's incident?"
"He'll know by now," the tauren said. "We told his messenger. She even warned us about the one who did it."
The rogue put on a confused look. "Who?"
"Some human, Rhode or something. Damiran's been hunting him for years, apparently."
"He must be formidable, then."
"If what Damiran has said is to be believed," the woman retorted, "then he's at least part demon."

Kalderin deepened his confused face. "How would that be possible?"
The tauren shrugged, inspecting the barrel of his gun. "No one knows for sure," he sighed.
A twinge of spirit magic ran through the air nearby; Shyla's farsight, probably. But the human didn't have much time to think.
"Masters!" a voice called, one of the guards hurrying across the grounds. "Intruder!"
All three of them sprung to their feet, and the tauren gave him a single, feirce look - Kalderin's years of training knew what it meant. Nodding, the rogue slipped into a shadow, hoping that his companions weren't in danger.

"Sometin's got'em riled up, mon," the shaman relayed, snapping her spell. Her eyes looked to the others, who were preparing for battle.
"It's about damn time," Dagor muttered, pulling his swords free.
Fronai glared around him as he hefted his axe. "Don't sound so happy. If they've found-"
But his words were cut short by the sound of a heavy leather sap hitting armor. Shyla wheeled around to face the rogue, but something hit her, too, and everything went dark.

Shit.
The guards were dragging the others toward the camp's center; Kalderin noted that it was taking five of them to keep the forsaken under any sort of control.
The situation probably couldn't get much worse. Everything was riding on a single detail.
It's all about the timing, kid, Jasper's voice whispered in his mind. Hit the right place at the right time, and anything collapses. Anything.
The human snuck his way around, hiding a few more bodies inside the tents, then waited.

"Looks like we got Juna back," one of the goblins laughed.
They could deal with the rest in a moment. Ignoring the flailing, shouting corpse, the tauren knelt down, still managing to rise above the orc's head. "Did you really think you could get away?" he asked with a calm voice.
"You don't own me," she spat back.
A rueful shake of the head was all he chose to respond with as he stood. "We'll see about that."

"Where's Horus?" the gnome asked, that much Shyla knew. Their three captors were speaking in the tongue of the Alliance, most of which was lost on her companions. The trolless caught a few sparse words, but nothing of value.
The female human gave a sudden, harsh laugh, and pulled a metal choker from under her robes. She walked over to Juna with firm steps and knelt, meeting the orc's eye; the greenskin was looking very worried as the human spoke, moving to place it around the captive's neck. The shaman thought she heard her say, "You're mine," but wasn't too sure.
But suddenly, the intricacies of Common stopped mattering; when a person begins to cough up blood instead of speaking, it tends to complicate things.

Timing.
The dagger was just pulling free, but Kalderin had no time to waste; the throwing axe felt light in his hands as he threw, hurling the missile hard enough to unbalance one of Dagor's restrainers. The forsaken punched one of the guards with a mailed fist, giving him enough time to draw a blade.
There was little pause in the human's stride as his remorseless instincts kicked in, setting his body to lunge forward and stab the nearest foe dead through the chest; not quite hitting the heart, but still causing an aggravated wound. The figure staggered and released its hold on Rajas.
Fel energy exploded into existence nearby as some of the bandits mutated again. An arrow struck the human in the leg, but he grit his teeth and remained standing. The mage didn't hesitate now that he was free, calling a ring of cold around him.

Dagor heard the arcane blast, and lashed out with both swords to free his legs. The chilled flesh of his captors released their hold, and the warrior quickly righted himself. Freeing the others came first, if they all wanted to survive.
It was a simple matter, however. One or two strikes was all he needed to cause the breathing fools to relinquish their grips and even the odds. Fronai nodded in thanks as he hefted his axe, the turned to glare at the tauren.
The demons were fast approaching, though. The human yanked an arrow out of his thigh fiercely, his eye-lights shifting color, bouncing between blue and green with muted fervor.
Shyla hurled out a bolt of lightning, challenging the gnome directly, but a large club whisked past the undead's face, drawing his attention. The fun was just beginning.

There was no stopping it this time. If he was force-fed any more energy, Kalderin wouldn't be able to keep the demon at bay. With a deep reluctance, he pocketed Shyla's gift, and let the demonic power course through his body. Green flames wreathed his hands and shone from his eyes, making some of their enemies hesitate.
"It's him!" one of them shouted. Even the two remaining ringleaders looked shocked, if only for a moment.
The tuaren growled and hefted a spear. "Then KILL him!" he bellowed, charging at Fronai.
"That's right," the young human heard himself say in the demon's tongue. "Face your death."

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