Warlord

Jeram recognized the spell when his feet wouldn’t move. It was a nasty little incantation called “Carpet of Adhesion”. It was great for freezing someone in place, then shooting them while they were immobile. He’d never had it cast on him while in his own basement before.

“This is new,” he said out loud. “Did I spill the glue?”

“Laugh, buffoon,” Nekajo materialized on the basement steps.

“EEYAUGH!” Lightning burned through Jeram’s body. Instantly, his armor sprang up to protect him, but its weakness to electricity made it a poor shield. Jeram panted, still in pain. “Call it even now?”

Nekajo called lightning again, searing his helpless opponent.

“I have your wife,” Nekajo chuckled. “Soon, I’ll have your daughter as well. Would you like to see them?”

“Not particularly,” Jeram gasped. “This is my quiet time.”

The magic lightning roasted the elf a third time.

“GODDAMMIT!!” Jeram gritted his teeth. “You do that sixty more times and I might really be hurt.”

Nekajo rumbled with laughter. “I won’t try to kill you quickly! First, you’ll watch your wife and daughter beg for my cock, turned into mindless sluts before your eyes. Then you’ll die, knowing that they’ll bear my children until it kills them!”

“You really only have the one scheme, don’t you?” Jeram smirked under his helmet.

“Silence, fool!” Nekajo struck Jeram with lightning over and over, creating deep burns in his magical armor.

“Your wife is a whore,” Nekajo sneered. “I’ve fucked her face, her pussy, and her asshole and she still begged for more. She loved how much my manhood stretched her!”

“Wow, in her ass?” Jeram was laughing. “She only ever let me do that twice!”

“STOP LAUGHING!” Nekajo electrocuted the elf, unable to hurt him enough to quell his rage.

Jeram was choking now, feeling blood in his lungs. “You know your problem?” he coughed. “You’re greedy.”

“You peon,” Nekajo snarled. “You’re about to die!”

“You’re greedy,” Jeram said again. “I don’t look like you, I can’t do what you do, I don’t have half what you have! Why am I such a big deal to you?”

“You’re nothing to me.”

“You fucked my wife in the butt, and she loved it! You know what I’d pay to be able to do that?! You can have any woman you meet! You can cast spells, heal fast, you’re immortal...if I had all that, NOBODY could get me down!”

“You small minded MAGGOT!” Nekajo slammed Jeram again.

Jeram banished his armor. He was grinning, blood trickling from dozens of burns on his body. Nekajo snarled, unable to shake the elf’s smile.

“Here’s the thing,” Jeram touched a ring on his finger, and a cloud blocked out the sun outside. The basement darkened noticeably.

Nekajo tried another spell. Nothing.

“Anti-Magic cloud talisman,” Jeram coughed, blood coming up. “I bought it here in town. That was really your advantage over me in a fight.”

Jeram’s armor returned, knitting itself back together. He drew his sword.

“Now, you pretty much have to run,” Jeram said pleasantly. “Because you can’t draw your sword without a spell, and you can’t cast armor without a spell, and you can’t teleport without a spell.”

He flicked his sword. “But my sword can still drink your soul,” he said.

Nekajo was frozen. Fear, alien and unfamiliar, filled his chest. He wouldn’t run. He wouldn’t run from this pathetic mortal.

“She’ll have my child,” Nekajo snarled. “Your wife will have my child.”

“Cool,” Jeram smiled. “Maybe he’ll be a pimp-ass wizard who can support me in my old age. Maybe he’ll be able to appreciate what he’s got. Maybe he’ll be what you could have been.”

With a bloodcurdling roar, Nekajo threw himself at Jeram, trying to wrest the sword from the elf’s hands.

Seconds later, his soulless husk fell to the ground.



Kaila looked up, tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Jeram poured a healing potion over her. Her body’s wounds closed. “Nothing to be sorry for,” he told her, and took her in his arms.

“I’m pregnant,” she choked. “I can feel it!”

“Babies are all pretty much the same,” Jeram told her. “Hell, this one will probably grow up really strong, smart and healthy.”

“I won’t be able to look at it,” Kaila said. “I’ll always see him in it.”

“He’s dead,” Jeram said. “The baby might be half him, but it’s also half you. And I’m pretty sure you have more good in you than he had evil in him.”

“You’re such an idiot,” Kaila held him and cried.