Love As The Darker Binding Ch. 10

He was intelligent and capable of both wit and craftiness, though he used those traits a little too seldom to his mind. He was also very sensitive in a few ways, much like the other two, which was why he was chosen for this duty as well. He could hear the thoughts and words of the infernal from great distances if he listened for them.

That ability was the unusual thing for what he was, indeed for what they all were.

But he'd always cursed his luck, once he'd heard of the greatest pit fighters of all time, a pair missing now for thousands of years. From what he'd learned of them, they were the same breed as he was, made to kill in the pits - with or without weapons as needed.

He wasn't made to have a great mind in his skull, though he had one all the same. He wanted to fight with those two famous ones, either before them or at their sides, he didn't care. All that he knew of them - the last that anyone had heard - they were members of the Lost Horde - which made their legends even greater, he supposed.

He was here to work with the others as they so often had before. They were used to living in isolation for long periods of time. He was as important to things overall as the others. They each had talents; some common to them all, and some quite unique.

When they'd been brought together at first, the females had been terrified to only look at him. But after some time working together, they'd come together as parts of a well-oiled machine. If necessary, Darett'h was there to provide the muscle and when he was in a murderous mood, he was something to see when he worked. If there was no need to be covert, the two females cheered him then as they watched. They'd learned that he wasn't dull or unthinking, and after saving their skins the first dozen times or so, they came to find fondness for him in their hearts.

Temma had been fearful and distant at first. B'Naht as well, and both were watchful, the green-skinned one especially for any domineering and cruel male tendencies in him. It happened sometimes, but never toward them. All that they saw in him was care, concern and a wish for some friendship. Temma bonded tightly with B'Naht over time, and she didn't mind the thought of mating with either gender. B'Naht wanted only females, ideally.

But they both adored their huge protective and quiet friend and did for him as they could on occasion, knowing that in his heart, he would have wanted a female for his own. As what they were for Abi, they were regarded with a bit of fear and suspicion by the other demons. That tended to isolate them to a degree, but they didn't mind all that much. They weren't the right kinds for each other, but they were a little tribe between them in some regards.

"Remain here and listen," Abi said, "You may leave to feed yourselves at some point, but try to remain out of the sight of humans if possible. It is unlikely, but you may hear something of interest from even them, so I give you the ability to understand any human tongue.

Something is on the wind, and I wish to learn what it is. For this, I need listeners and a quiet place.

If you find out something, you may call to me quietly. I will hear you and return. You may be here for as much as ninety of the days here. Understood?"

The beast nodded for them all, "As you wish, lord."

With that, Abi nodded and left.

Darett'h looked around and thought that they'd won some sort of dubious prize in getting this duty. The cave around them was far better than where they lived in garrison, since they had it all to themselves and when he thought back to where he'd lived in the Dark Realms, well ...

He smiled to himself. This was a palace.

He set his pack down in the other room down the short hall and looked around the cave.

He fashioned a broom out of a tree's bough and some branches pressed together in layers and bound with some fibrous thin roots. After that, he swept the cave out thoroughly. If this was to be their home for the next while, then it was going to be kept clean.

It took them a while, but it also calmed them for listening later, once they'd eaten a little of their rations. When the rations were consumed in a few days, they'd have to hunt up something, but the thought didn't bother any of them much. They just had to remain alert and hidden as much as possible.

They had a little of the crude ale which was brewed at the abbey. It wasn't nectar or anything, but it would do for as long as it lasted and they'd be sure to drink it before it went bad.

As he worked, Darett'h thought about removing his armor and laying his weapons down, but they didn't impede him in any way and he was so used to carrying them that the thought soon slipped his mind. He only remembered and removed everything later, after he was pleased with the neatness of the place.

He sat down preparing to listen after the light meal as the first watch. As what he was, he was bred for hardship and if he didn't move, he consumed little energy. The only thing which bothered him at all was that he was a little lonely, deep in his heart. It was something which he always kept to himself, though the others knew of it.

If you're a little famous as a pit fighter, and you then take up soldiering for a demon lord, you just keep little things like your feelings hidden inside of you.

Darett'h had been in love before, but it hadn't gone well. The sad part to him was that he'd liked it very much while it had lasted. But it had pointed something out to him as it ended, and that was that he was something of a misfit among his own kind.

The female wanted to be fucked like it was the end of the world every single time, and when it had gone sour, she told him that it was good to learn it then, before she'd spawned from their matings, "I want to be fucked to the edge of my life every night by one like you, not this quiet pushing that I get. What sort of weak and malformed young would I get from it with you? "

She'd told him that she'd tell everyone of his weak side. It had been before he'd begun to work for the demon lord who he worked for now, and it had happened far away.

Her final hard words to him, calling him weak and worthless had caused him to take her to the edge of her life then. She'd looked up from his grasp around her throat. "Yes! This is what I want from you, just like this! Now fuck me!"

Darett'h suddenly knew that she'd never really loved him at all. His next thoughts were memories of overhearing her prideful talk to other females. He looked into her eyes and threw her a short distance away, feeling hurt and wanting to be alone.

The female hadn't gotten it and came screeching back at him demanding to know why he wouldn't take her to the edge to fuck her.

Darett'h only said she needed a new partner, because he didn't think that he wanted to stop at the edge of her life anymore.

That had been so long ago, but he'd never forgotten how it felt to love someone and fail in her expectations of him. He'd been alone ever since, avoiding all of the ones who made lots of noise and said that they wanted him.

He could give them what they wanted. They just couldn't give what he wished for in return. He cleared the memories from his mind and prepared to begin the task that he was there to do.

He sat without moving for ten days and nights, only breathing and listening while the others sought to learn what they could of this place.

----

Carrie lay in her bed at night. Another larper weekend had come and gone, though when asked by her friends, she'd begged off with a fib about her period.

This night, she couldn't sleep and after a time, she found herself thinking about setting up a little store out here just for them, selling the things which she always had on hand anyway. She was having trouble trying to think of reasons which went against the idea.

Then she cursed, seeing that thinking this way was best left for morning, not while she was trying to sleep.

She sat up, deciding that if she was up anyway, she'd make herself a cup of herbal tea to relax her mind.

As she walked downstairs, she suddenly had a strange feeling come to her and she brushed it off. It had been going on for over a week now. She didn't really even know what it was, it was just there somehow. As she sat sipping, she thought about it and felt that it was still there. Nothing bad, nothing good, just ... just something.

When she finished the cup, she turned off the lights in the kitchen and was about to walk up the stairs again. But she stopped, her foot on the first step.

It was still there in her mind.

She stepped over to the window and looked out for a little while. The moon was full and she could see amazing detail out there. Her eyes went here and there, a little aimlessly until she saw a patch of blackness in the dark of the slope of a low ridge out there.

She didn't know what it was, but she felt certain after a moment that the darkness lay in the direction of her feeling.

She thought of going back to bed and walking over there first thing in the morning.

She thought of tossing and turning all night long, knowing that now it would be worse. She had the feeling and a general direction to it. She'd never be able to fall asleep now.

Then she did go upstairs, but not to sleep. She got dressed and took up her shotgun.

Working the action once to put a round in the chamber, she set the safety and slid another shell into the magazine to take up the space.

After that, she opened the door and stepped out onto the porch, standing there for a full five minutes to allow her eyes to get used to the darker light level out here.

----

Dareth knew that someone was coming. He hadn't called to anyone or anything, but he felt this one come up the gentle slope to the cave. Maybe an hour before he'd gotten up and stepped outside to urinate and then he ate a little before sitting down in the same place as before.

There hadn't been anyone out there then. But he knew that there was someone out there now.

He considered what to do about it and he decided to do nothing, so he sat where he was, breathing even less and listening even more.

---

Carrie stood at the mouth of the cave, listening and not hearing a thing. She hadn't even known that the cave had been there all of this time. It took a bit of courage and determination, but she made her decision and moved to step inside, stopping first to pull her LED flashlight out of her pocket.

Turning it on, she scanned what she could see of the cave's interior for a few moments and seeing little, she stepped inside.

It wasn't until then that she noticed the footprints in the very thin dust, large and odd-looking, as though an oversized moose had walked through here. Everything in her sight was covered with a thin layer of dust. Her attention was drawn to the back wall for a moment and she forgot the tracks. What she saw in the light of her flashlight was a sort of altar and beyond that, she saw the stones of the old brickwork, as though this had once been a holy pace or something.

She looked further and noticed that there were candles here, all of them new-looking, though she also saw a lot of drippings as well as though there had been candles used here earlier at some point. She shone the light around and noticed a bit of a short hallway, but she decided against going in there for now.

After finding something like this, she planned to come back here when it was at least daylight outside and with a spare flashlight, just in case. She stepped back and leaned against a large rock lump next to the sort of pathway that she'd been on. She was wondering if she might turn this into something of an attraction for the larpers, now that she'd gotten a little more profit-minded about them.

But there would be insurance issues to be considered, she thought as she leaned there, sweeping her light around a little more. She stepped away from the lump that she'd been leaning against and shone the light on it.

Carrie stared then. What she'd assumed to be just a large boulder embedded in the floor turned out to be nothing like that at all. It seemed to be a statue of some sort of being who was sitting cross-legged with his eyes closed. She looked at it some more and decided that it must have been placed there as a warning. He was wearing nothing and his 'skin' looked as dark as the rest of the rock from which he'd been carved.

He had horns which stuck out of his head at the sides close to the front of his massive head before turning downward to curl around like a ram's horns. She looked some more, and saw that all of him was massive as far as that went. He was sitting on his ass, but the top of his head was near to the middle of her chest in height from the floor. And that didn't allow for his horns.

She looked at his arms and was a little surprised. They were huge, larger than any man's could ever be, but they didn't look wrong on him. They were in proportion to the rest. For that matter, all of what she saw on him looked to be proportionate. She leaned on him again as she looked around once more.

What she saw now puzzled her. The place looked a little crude to her, as though whoever had made it was just using what they could to make the place into something for their uses or needs, whatever they might have been.

And yet they'd had the ability to carve something as realistic-looking - for all of its size and oddness - as this statue out of the rock? It didn't make sense.

She looked at his face again, this stone beast or whatever he was supposed to have been. He didn't look human, but she liked his face anyway. He looked a little equine to her in a way. There was a bit of a snout, and he had a wide sort of nose which ran from his eyebrows to the end of that snout, ending in nostrils which were located a little at the sides of it and not really where she'd have expected, such as near the top. His ears were similar to a horse's, though they were a little smaller, she guessed.

With a start, she found that he was handsome to her. She smiled to herself.

"It figures," she said softly, "I get a look at a statue that looks just awesome to me. But it's a statue." She shone her light a little lower, "Whoever carved this ... at least they gave you something pretty nice to look at."

She leaned against the statue again, thinking about lighting one of the candles. With a little light like that, her new statue friend ought to look pretty hot in a primal flickering sort of way. "Damn," she chuckled as she had a naughty thought, "With a little romantic candle light, I might just give in to my stupid little urge right now and kiss you, after wiping this dust off your lips."

She'd been joking in a light-hearted way. Well, half-joking ... sort of ... she thought.

She did want to light a candle now, though. She wanted to see this statue in something other than the cold bluish glare of her flashlight.

She switched the flashlight to her other hand as she dug down deep into her pocket, looking for the lighter which she always carried because some larper would always come to ask her if she had one. She was sure that she'd left it in the pocket of these jeans. She stopped to rearrange things, holding the shotgun under her left arm, the one which now held the flashlight in that hand.

A couple of things happened then, though Carrie didn't really think them through until a little later. She lost a little of her balance as she fished for the disposable lighter and it caused her to put her other hand out on the shoulder of the statue for some support. That hand held the flashlight with her thumb and forefinger and though she still held it, it shifted in her grasp so that the beam illuminated the footprints on the floor of the cave once more. She saw them, but took little notice again.

She heard voices.

Someone was approaching the cave entrance. Whoever they were, Carrie didn't understand their speech, hearing only strange clicks, light conversational grunts and a little whispered laughter. They were still too far away to make anything more out. She looked around quickly and saw few options as far as concealment went, other than whatever was down the hallway off to the side. She didn't want to go there, not knowing what was in there. For all that she knew it might lead to a hole in the floor.

But she suddenly knew that she didn't want to be noticed here in this cave for some reason.

As the sounds became louder, Carrie began to look frantically for a place to hide. She looked down for a moment and then she scrambled around in front of the statue to crouch there. It took her only an instant to realize that if whoever was coming was used to the statue being here, they'd notice the other lump which was her in no time.

She spun around and sat in the lap of the statue, making sure that she didn't hit anything with the shotgun while holding it by the barrel with her fingers wrapped around the sliding fore grip to keep it from rattling.

She asked herself what the hell she was doing, but from the way that it felt to her, this was the safest place. She turned off her flashlight and waited. The sounds began to make sense to her as they grew louder. What was spoken was soft, almost furtive, so she gathered that they didn't wish to be heard by anyone out there.

And yet ... as whoever it was came near to the entrance of the cave, Carrie still heard the speech, still unintelligible to her by the sounds, though she was beginning to understand what was said in her head.

They were talking about the game that they'd hunted and killed and how it would make a nice change for them, now that their rations were running low.

As they walked in through the entrance, Carrie suddenly knew somehow that they were both female and most of all, that they weren't human. She didn't know how she knew that, since she couldn't see for the bulk of the statue and didn't dare to risk a look. She just knew it.

"Our large one still listens," one said to the other, "We must be quiet."

Carrie didn't know what that meant, but she almost gasped as she saw a small glow from the back wall. She looked up and saw a tiny flame on one of the candles and as she looked, it grew to a regular sized flame, the sort that you'd see on any candle and the interior of the cave lit up just a little bit.

There had been no one near it when it was lit.

"That is enough," a second voice said, "Hang the game up over there, Temma. We can clean it further when Darett'h is finished."

"These fungi are good to eat," the one which Carrie assumed was Temma as she stared at their shapes said with her mouth a little full while she leaned her thin body forward against the altar. She looked at what she held carefully, "You only need to pick off the grass."

As Carrie stared at them, she saw that this Temma was a little intent on doing just that in the low light of the candle, though she seemed to have missed it as one slipped from her fingers to land on the floor and roll over to Carrie.

She was looking at a mushroom.

Carrie's eyes opened wider as she watched the other one who was shorter squat down behind Temma and begin to kiss her haunches.

"B'Naht, "the taller one side, "Be a little careful. I don't mind if I miss a blade of grass, but I have no wish to eat something which has landed in mouse shit."

"There is no mouse here," B'Naht whispered, "Only me, lover. Pick the grass all you like as you eat, but turn around for me. I want you."

Carrie almost smiled to hear the tone of the reply. She couldn't see it, but she imagined that Temma would be rolling her eyes just then over the timing.

To her amazement, Temma turned around and set her hooves apart to give the smaller one a little room as she tried to eat the last of what she had in a bit of a hurry after leaning her butt against the altar.