Search for a war raptor: Takk

[moonshadows]

When asked to investigate rumors of a particularly large and powerful Blackrock orc in the Burning Steppes, Ryxl was only too happy to comply. Her hatred for the tainted, demon-infested orcs that refused to follow the true Warchief was matched only by her hatred for the Black Dragons that aided them. The pleasure Ironheart took in killing them was a very close second, however. The hulking purple raptor had inherited Kalika Ironheart’s hatred of the traitor orcs when he had eaten her heart, and he enjoyed killing them almost as much as his master did. The two of them had killed so many Blackrock orcs while searching for this supposed super-orc that Ryxl was considering starting some sort of trophy collection. Contemplating it made for a pleasant distraction while she ride Ironheart from one orc outpost to the next. Ears were easy and neat, but too impersonal. Teeth were nicely personal, but too much work. Skulls were much to large, and by the time Ironheart was done with an orc, fingers were too hard to find still intact. So far, there was no sign of this extra-powerful orc, and Ryxl was starting to think it didn’t exist.

Famous last words.

The camp was like any other Ryxl and Ironheart had been to – a few tents scattered around a central building – and the two of them were cheerfully carving their way through the outer hall of the building when a bellowing roar stopped everyone in their tracks. Hunter, raptor, three warlocks and a warrior blinked at each other for a moment at the sound. Ironheart recovered first, one clawed foot tearing out the bowels of the warrior and charging towards the corner just as the biggest, meanest orc Ryxl had ever seen came around it.

The orc swung a huge hammer; the raptor dodged it and leaped, fastening his jaws on the giant orc’s meaty neck. The hammer’s head made a sick thunk as it his Ironheart’s side, but the raptor just clawed for a foothold and hung on. Through the bond that linked their spirits, Ryxl understood that the raptor refused to let go until the giant orc was dead, even if it meant that he died as well. Ryxl couldn’t help with this fight – she didn’t want to shoot at the orc and risk hitting the purple raptor, but the warlocks…those were fair game.

Rage – both hers and the raptor’s – surged through her veins and she shrugged off the bolts of shadow the Blackrock warlocks were throwing at her. They, however, were unable to similarly shrug off her arrows. They quickly found themselves pinned to the walls, bleeding slowly or with arrows through organs essential to continued life. The fight between raptor and orc continued, both looking worse for the wear as they savaged each other. Ryxl watched helplessly, ignoring the dying warlocks, until a wet chuckle from one of them drew her attention to him.

“Your pet is dead,” the warlock rasped in the harsh accent of Blackrock Mountain.

“Whatchoo be talkin’ about, mon?” Ryxl asked, the strength of her trollish accent proportional to her rage.

“That’s Gruklash, one of Warchief Blackhand’s champions, bred by dark magic to be stronger than any orc alive.” The warlock leered at her, bleeding slowly. “The pride of Blackrock, warriors specially bred from the finest orcish stock, conceived through magic to take the best from both parents and born to serve the Warchief with absolute loyalty. Your beast doesn’t stand a chance.”

Ryxl turned her back on he pinned warlock to watch Ironheart battle Gruklash. Behind her, the orc grinned as the bleeding stopped and his wounds began to close.

“Dat be where joo be wrong, mon,” she said smugly. “Dat raptah, he be eatin’ da hea’t an’ spirit o’ me mot’er, an’ gainin’ her strengt’. Mebbe joo hear o’ her – her name be Kalika Ironheart.”

Gruklash sank to his knees, beating weakly at Ironheart’s head  as the raptor jerked it back and forth, finally ripping the orc’s throat out. He raised his head in a victory cry, and Ryxl was about to add her own, when a blast of dark magic from behind her blew the raptor’s head to bits. As his body fell onto that of his final kill, Ryxl turned and saw the warlock – no longer bleeding – leer at her again.

“Oh, I’ve heard of Kalika,” he said, hands glowing darkly.

The blast took the stricken hunter in the face.

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The world swam hazily around Ryxl, and nothing made sense. A face loomed before her and she frowned. Hadn’t she seen that face before?

“Ah, you’re awake,” the warlock said. “Don’t bother trying to talk, the drugs won’t wear off for a while yet. Don’t try to get up, either – I’ve taken the precaution of tying you down.” One hand stroked Ryxl’s thigh, and anger stirred sluggishly in her at the realization that her pants were gone. “When Kalika took her vengeance, we though the seed of life planted in her was lost to us forever. How fortunate that you came back of your own will, and at an age suitable for carrying on our work.”

Vengeance, something whispered in Ryxl’s mind. Vengeance.

The hand slid up to caress the bare skin of her stomach. “The warrior chosen to plant his seed in you said that even drugged and tied down, you were more of a pleasure than a duty. I may take a taste of that myself, now that the seed has taken root.”

Ryxl frowned, trying to remember why ‘vengeance’ should mean something to her.

“Oh, you doubt that you carry the seed of life inside you?” The hand vanished, then swam into sight holding an ornate dagger.

Vengeance. Vengeance.

“The spirits bound into this blade are compelled to obey. The seed of a new life IS inside you, and it WILL be born. You cannot stop it.”

Vengeance. Ryxl mouthed the word, seeing golden eyes that glowed red. The warlock laughed.

“Call all you like, no one will hear you.”

“There’s no point in calling for help,” the orc warlock said with a smirk. “No one will hear you, in here.”

The eyes glowed. Vengeance.

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Vengeance, Ryxl thought, still seeing red-gold eyes hanging in her mind. She remembered what the word meant for her, now. Naked, violated, and bound at hand and foot, she smiled.

The warlock arched one eyebrow. “What could you possibly have to smile about?”

“Vengeance,” Ryxl said carefully, fighting the drug that still deadened her body. The one clouding her mind had weakened enough that she had no trouble sending out the mental call.

The puzzled look on the warlock’s face as Arikara appeared silently behind him, and his scream of surprised dismay as she struck and severed his spinal cord, were memories Ryxl would treasure forever.

Unsurprisingly, Arikara was significantly unhappy with what had been done to her mistress. Her wrath took a remarkably thorough form, the warlock slowly reduced to a collection of bloody bits that was truly impressive when you considered the windserpent’s lack of claws.

True to his word, no one came running at the screams.

When the serpent’s wrath had been eased – that is to say, when there was no piece left that was big enough to rip into a smaller piece – she returned to Ryxl’s side and carefully gnawed the straps holding her down until the orc was able to move freely. Or would have been able to, if the drug had worn off entirely. Attempts to sit up failed, and Ryxl wound up rolling off the table. There was no doubt in her mind – which by this time was quite clear – that what the warlock had said was true. She could feel the evil magic curling around and inside her womb, protecting the seed of life that now grew inside her, tying the unborn child to Rend Blackhand. Kalika’s decision to raise her daughter in the wilds of Stranglethorn Vale made more sense, now. It also explained her emphasis on never having children, not to mention the reinforced loyalty to the true Warchief, Thrall.

Ryxl was not one to give up without a fight…and as Arikara’s presence attested, she was no stranger to working with spirits. She formed a mental image of the ritual dagger, fixed it firmly in her mind, and waited until the windserpent stopped flitting around the gore-splattered room. Once the location of the dagger had been identified, Ryxl began the task of forcing her drugged limbs to take her there. Standing was out of the question, but crawling on all fours was equally beyond her abilities for the moment. The hunter wound up propelling herself clumsily across the floor through flailing and kicking, getting thoroughly covered in blood in the process. After a few minutes, she had dragged herself within arm’s reach of the dagger, and was able to fling one arm out a few times until her hand landed on the hilt and she could force numb fingers around it. She could feel the carvings on the blade forming reins of power that let her interact with the structure of the spell violating her. With any luck, cutting the structure of the spell wound break it.

“The spirits give,” she ground out, closing both hands carefully around the hilt and rolling onto her side, “and the spirits take away.” She drove the point into her abdomen, just below the belly button, with as much strength as she could scrape together…which wasn’t much. The spell didn’t break, however, and with a muttered curse Ryxl threw herself into a light trance so she could work more directly with the spirits bound to the blade.

She was not pleased with what they told her.

The spirits bound to the blade were compelled to obey, true, but they obeyed the commands carved into the dagger – not the one holding it. Now that their magic had been invoked, there was no way to undo it. There WOULD be a child born with the best traits of both parents, and it WOULD be driven to serve the Warchief faithfully. The seed of life, once given, could not be taken away again.

Most races would accept the inevitable at this point, but trolls faced with a dead end were more likely to try to find a way around than admit defeat, and Ryxl had practically been raised by trolls.

“Which Warchief?” she asked, and smiled when the spirits milled insubstantially about in confusion. They had no answer for that; there was no name carved onto the blade. “My Warchief is Thrall, son of Durotan,” she informed them. “Will this child serve MY Warchief, or HIS?” A mental thumb jerked at he bits of warlock strewn about clarified who “he” was.

After some  quiet debate, the spirits came to a decision. The magic had been invoked by the warlock, but he was dead and the hunter was alive, and she currently held the blade. The fact that an angry Spirit of Vengeance was licking its chops and glaring at them played no small part in their decision. The child would follow the son of Durotan.

Ryxl’s grin got more predatory. She had the advantage now, and she intended to use it. “Does the child have to come in due time, or can its development be delayed for a while?”

When Ryxl finally found Ironheart’s body, it had been tossed onto a rubbish heap. She blinked back tears of pain and rage and tentatively prodded the body with her hunter’s magic – no good, the spirit had long since fled. There would be no resurrection for the hulking purple raptor who had been her loyal companion. Ryxl throttled back her grief; there would be time to mourn later. Grimly, she cut the raptor’s heart out and carved bite-sized pieces from it, chewing and swallowing each one until she had eaten the whole heart. The raptor had eaten the heart of her mother, and now she had eaten the heart of the raptor. Both Kalika and Ironheart would now be part of Ryxl until the day of her death, but it was cold comfort as she made the journey to Sen’jin on foot.

Again, the spirits retreated for a conference. There was nothing in the runes stating that the child had to develop and be born in the normal span of time, and it was well within their power to put the child’s development on hold until Ryxl was ready for it to continue. It didn’t take much pressure for them to surrender and agree to keep the seed dormant until the hunter was ready for it to grow and bear fruit. Pleased with these concessions, Ryxl pulled herself out of her trance. She wasn’t done bullying the spirits in the blade, not by a long shot, but this was not the time or place to do it. For now, it was enough to know that she would not be bearing a traitor child anytime soon. The drugs were wearing off enough that she could stand, and it was time to make her escape.

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As the village came into sight, Arikara gave her master one last affectionate nuzzle and then faded back into the spirit world. She would be there in an instant if Ryxl needed her, of course, but they had both learned long ago that those with strong ties to the spirits could – and would – see her for what she really was. The orc followed the road to he raptor training compound, not really sure why she was there except that she wanted very badly to feel a raptor’s bulk beneath her hands, and she had no desire to find a new one to tame. To her surprise, however, Zjolnir was not surprised to see her.

“I see you got my letter, mon,” he said by way of greeting, surprising her further. “Since your last visit, when you got that big purple raptor o’ yours to let you ride him, Takk been eager to learn. I think he be ready to let you ride, now.”

Ryxl was only half listening; the black raptor greeting her got most of her attention. Something about the way he was greeting her was starkly different from Ironheart’s affection, and it took a minute before she realized that Takk was greeting her as alpha male to packleader, but without any of the overtones of wanting to mate, or having mated. He was treating her as a clutchmate, a sister.

“He not be wantin’ to be left behind again,” she said absently, returning the raptor’s greeting and wondering how he had come to the realization that mating was not an option. “An’ he not gonna be.”

“What about that big purple beastie you had?”

The hunter buried her face in the raptor’s shoulder, inhaling the dusty, musky scent of him. “He die a warrior’s death,” she said shortly.

Zjolnir wisely did not press the issue. “Come get da saddle,” he said instead. “He always fight me when I try to put it on him, like he be tellin’ me I not be his rider.”

Takk followed Ryxl without being commanded to as she followed the troll, and he glared at Zjolnir the entire time she was saddling him – but stood completely, obediently, still.

The raptor trainer laughed. “Yes, mon, I know I not be your rider!”

Takk snorted once as if to say ‘damn right you’re not’, and proceeded to ignore the troll completely, toes tapping impatiently as the orc got the last straps adjusted. The black raptor was every bit as tall as Ironheart had been, but not so broad or bulky. She had been thinking while saddling him, and it occurred to her that Takk grasped the fact that she was not a raptor. Packleader all the same, but not a raptor and therefore ‘alpha male’ status did not revolve around mating with her. Ironheart had never understood this, and kept himself at a beta male status. He had also never comprehended the images that she used so easily with Arikara, but had never tried with Takk. Time to see if her black raptor was as intelligent as he seemed to be.

Ryxl caught the reins with one hand and turned the raptor’s head so that she could meet his eyes, sending him an image of her riding on his back. The impatient agreement she got back both pleased and surprised her, and she invited the raptor to elaborate on the impatience. She saw herself on Ironheart’s back, as though through Takk’s eyes, and felt the raptor’s anger that this other male was invading his territory. Yes, he understood that she was not a raptor, but she was still his packleader and if she needed something done, it was going to be him that did it – not that dumb purple brute. Once he was sure she understood, he sent back the image of her on his back and turned so that she could mount.

Well, she was not about to refuse such a blatant invitation! Carefully, because she was not used to Takk’s back, she settled herself into the saddle. Takk stood completely at ease, not bucking or sprinting off or showing that he was the slightest bit uncomfortable at having a two-legs on his back the way other raptors were. The challenging look he gave Zjolnir conveyed that having Ryxl on his back was the way things should be, and that there would be trouble if anyone tried to interfere.

Zjolnir had no such thoughts of interference. His eyebrows shot up at the unusual acceptance of a rider on his back, however. He’d seen only a handful of raptors not try to rid themselves of their riders, but they were born and raised by domesticated raptors – never one tamed from the wild. He gave a low whistle. “Ya, mon,” he said slowly. “He be ready for you. His trainin’ be over, you got yourself a war raptor for sure.”

Ryxl guided Takk in a few simple directions – forward, left, right, stop – and then rode him back to the troll. “Do I owe you anything for training him?”

“Nah, mon. He practically train himself after he see you on dat other raptor. You wanna watch him around da ladies, though. He be pretty enough to catch their eyes, and he know it. I bet I get a few dusky babies next season.”

“I’ll remember that.” Ryxl nodded. “We gotta be goin’, mon. Got a report to make.” She through the troll a salute and turned the raptor towards the road.

“Spirits be wit’ you, mon!” Zjolnir called to her as she trotted off, and waved a farewell.

“They already are,” Ryxl muttered, urging Takk into a run he was only too happy to oblige her with. “They already are.”