Drix - Stricken
-
"Let's play 'Bash the Goblin'!"
"Yeah!"
"Bash him, bash him, bash him!"
"Ewwww! he smells!"
"Bash him, thrash him, stomp him, chomp him!"A small dwarf child, lay curled in a protective ball, his unusually white skin stained red and purple with blood and welts.
"Tear his clothes!"
"Yeah! Goblins shouldn't have clothes"
"Tear him, scare him, cut him, gut him!"
"HAHAhaha!"
"Smack him, kill the smelly goblin!"The other dwarven children circled, taunting, laughing and occasionally putting the boot in.
"Don't touch him too much you might catch something!"
"Ewwww! icky!"
"Strangle him, mangle him, poke him, choke him!"
"Is he dead? He looks dead!"
"Leg it!"As they fled, Drix slowly raised his head, his face blackened and bruised. He whispers, repetitively. His jaw clenching. Like a rasping venomous chant of defiant hatred.
"Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead"
-
_Long had he trod these cold lands.
He had bullied, intimidated, robbed, deceived and blackmailed.
Few seemed to care or notice.
He had murdered.
But nobody batted an eyelid in this cruel land.
He had done all this, yet his goal was still out of reach.
Fear. He wanted to be feared. He wanted mothers to pick up their screaming children and flee in terror when he approached.
No people would laugh at him any more. They would show him respect or their souls would spend eternity trapped in a rotting corpse. Restless, angry and tormented.
Then, just as he started to gather in power, just as he found kindred spirits, just when their hate had become united into one common purpose, folk started to take interest. BAH! They had left him and his allies alone for a long while, why now, when he was getting close to his goal!
Perhaps it was time to act.
Perhaps it was time…._
A loud man, loudly declaring his faith and his intentions, disturbed him from his reverie.
Drix looked around with thinly veiled hatred in his eyes at the preacher and the folk of Norwick who listened.
"So there you are, and I know your name….. "
Drix smiled, his teeth yellow, blackened.
-
He had waiting so long for this moment. Years in the planning and it was finally here. It had been so simple, luring his kin into his lair. Over the years they had lost interest in him, moved on as if nothing had ever happened. But Drix had never forgotten. Bitterness, jealousy and anger had twisted him into a dwarf full of malice.
The small cave was squalid and dark, filled with strange objects and experiments gone awry.
The four dwarves in the middle of the room were asleep. They had succumbed to the magical slumber so easily. Drix smiled, his rotten teeth like small yellow tombstones. With a small cackle he gathered their weapons and lowered the spiked metal cage down from the ceiling, trapping them.
Slowly they awoke, one by one realisation dawning on them as to their predicament. They were angry, they shouted threats through the bars, but Drix just laughed, his rasping, grating laugh sending shivers down their spines.
With glee he chanted in a gutteral tongue, tracing red glyphs in the air. The air became filled with a putrid smelling smoke, and there was a flash of red light. The dwarves looked on in horror as a horned imp appeared amongst them. Their eyes widened with the words, "Ah Sever… Make it slow my pet, very very slow".
Only Drix heard their screams.
