Alfýkin: The Last of the Elves

Hope is Fading

Darkness. That was all he knew. Stifling, choking, blinding darkness. Darkness and suffering for what was not known to anyone. How could they know? They hadn't been told. No one knew. No one, but him. Soon it would become known, but no one would know it. No one could.

The darkness was ripped away from him and he was thrown to the ground, now blinded by light. Blinking in response to flickering torchlight, he stood, leaning heavily to one side to take the weight off his badly hurt leg that had only a week to heal. Long, ragged black hair hung limply across his face hiding gaunt cheeks and dead, grey eyes once silver with life. His good leg was kicked out from underneath and he fell forward onto his forearms with a cry. Harsh laughter rippled through the cavern dimly lit by torches.

He was at least a mile underground, and had been so for the last two hundred or more years. He'd given up counting the days long ago. The warmth of the sun was long forgotten, the wind in his hair, and a breath of clean air were no longer. The laughter quieted to a low growl. He dared look up. The sight that met his eyes filled him with anger and disgust.

Thousands upon thousands of goblins scuttled across a cavern large enough to hold a city. The ceiling was lost in darkness. In the center of it all was the Goblin King in all his revolting glory. Though he had seen the creature many times, and his forebears before, the sheer size and foulness struck him anew each time.

The Goblin King sat before him upon a throne of wood and crudely shaped iron. His too small crown was smashed onto his head, piercing the soft, flabby flesh. His immense girth spilled out of the throne, every move caused the pulsating fat beneath his translucent skin to quiver and shake as though it feared him. Warts, prickly with black hairs, grew all over his body. Growths covered his face, contorting it nearly beyond recognizable shape. Open lesions oozed blood and yellow pus. His belly was smooth and hairless, the skin stretched until it looked ready to burst.

The Goblin King looked upon the figure crouched at his feet and snarled, "Where are they, elf?"

"Two-hundred years and your kind has still kept me upon a pedestal by not naming me," the elf spoke. His voice was thin and weak but laced with malice. The Goblin King roared with fury.

"Do not bandy words with me, puny elf! You are not worthy of a name!" He motioned for the elf to be brought forward. The smaller goblins, no less revolting than their king, pushed the elf forward. He stumbled in a futile attempt to remain upright but slipped on a puddle of slimy blood, just hours dry, and slammed into the king's rotting flesh. The ordor of his garmentless body suffocated the elf, filling his head, nose, and lungs with the stench of death.

Zaharias. That was his name. He'd long forgotten the sound of his name from another's lips. The name itself was but a distant memory too far to bring further than myth, lost beyond all reckoning but for the voice, weak and dying, whispering when all was lost in shadows.

The Goblin King, Slurgoc, reached out with his thick, meaty hands, wrapping them around Zaharias' neck and pulling the elf closer until he couldn't move. Even if he wanted to there was no way the elf could have escaped. Two-hundred years of captivity had robbed him of his former strength, leaving him weak as a sickly child. Slurgoc enjoyed watching him struggle and felt a perverse pleasure when he gave up and hung in his hands limply.

Zaharias, starved and malnourished, weighed barely over one hundred pounds, and in Slurgoc's hands he was nothing. It would be so easy to squeeze his hands just a little and break him, to end the miserable creature's life. But he needed something, something only the elf had.

"Where are they?" Slurgoc demanded, his voice, deep and gutteral, boomed throughout the cavern silencing his minions. They all leaned forward, anxious to hear if the prisoner would speak. It was a long formed tradition, when the king remembered he had the elf in his possession. Weeks or months might pass before he remembered the elf locked in the deepest dungeon. At times it would even be years. The last time that had happened Zaharias had nearly escaped, having broken through his cell he was almost free when he was spotted by the guards and brought down, but not before killing dozens of goblins with his bare hands.

"I said where are they!" Slurgoc shouted, causing the elf to flinch. He opened his eyes and looked around the cavern as if confused. The king slowly started squeezing his neck. For a moment the elf didn't respond, then, just when Slurgoc thought he wouldn't, Zaharias started thrashing and clawing at the king's hands and wrists with sharp nails. Slurgoc laughed, even when Zaharias gouged deep bloody strips of skin away. Slurgoc dropped the elf onto the ground, still laughing. Zaharias crumpled to the ground rubbing his bruised neck, black and blue from previous encounters. A faint glimmer of life sparked deep inside him and he stood, shaking violently, to his feet. With a burst of sudden strength he launched himself at the Goblin King but was easily batted aside like a fly.

He lay on the filthy ground, unmoving but breathing faintly. The spark of life vanished leaving behind a broken shell, alive only because of what secrets it held. Spirit broken, soul damaged.

"Did you really think you could harm me, elf?" Slurgoc spat, spittle flew from his grey lips splattering the ground in front. He sneered cruelly. From his spot on the ground Zaharias' eyes traced a long, thin scar stretching from the king's left shoulder to his right hip. Slurgoc noticed his gaze and looked at the scar.

"Perhaps I was wrong. You are most capable of harming me." His voice was thick with sarcasm. "I will give you one last chance to kill me. Should you win, you will go free. But if you fail," he picked Zaharias up, "I will make your miserable life hell." He tossed Zaharias aside but as he fell Slurgoc kicked him sharply in the ribs, sending him flying into the goblins who stood twenty feet in front of their king with an audible crack. Zaharias screamed and held his hand pressed against his broken ribs. Warm blood streamed down his side where the king's toenails had pierced his flesh.

"One last chance, elf," Slurgoc cackled madly, his minions joined him in discorded harmony that grated against Zaharias's sensitive ears. "One more time."

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Sup guys? I'm extremely bored right now. And tired. And very hungry. (Mom! Where's the food? When will it be done?!) Been a busy few days.

This chapter will be continued later on in the book for you to cringe over.

Vote and comment.

Bye

Yours tiredly and hungrily,

Illeandir