PreCursive

  The silen the clearing pressive.

  After Nate and the other sves had been forced into the forest, Magnus had ordered his guards to go fetch the usual things he needed for a ‘hunt’. Namely, his small mobile gazebo, plete with a chair and a side table. Anticipating what else he wanted, and afraid of his rea if they hadn’t, the guards had alsht bae of the manor servants with refreshments as well. Only fnus, though.

  Now Magnus was idly sipping on juice, reing in aravagant chair and watg the tree line in anticipation. All the while his servant did a masterful job of hiding his nervousness behind him. Probably had a ton of practice.

  Azarus didn’t care about any of that, though. He was used to Magnus’s egotism, by this point. He’d dealt with it all his life and was tired of it. When he’d been younger, he’d been disturbed by the tless acts of his younger cousin’s cruelty. Even from a young age, Azarus had beeain that the way that Magnus acted was wrong somehow. From the ck of care for others, to the sudden spurts of violence, Azarus had grown numb to it over the years. By now, he had ceased to be merely disturbed by Magnus. He was ht disgusted by him as well.

  If pressed, Azarus would have a hard time naming someohat he personally hated more than Magnus. Oh sure, there were people in his life that had caused him more hardship. He held plenty of general rese for people in his family, either matrilineal or patrilineal. With all the shit his uncle had put him through, he no longer held even the slightest bit of affe for the bastard.

  Azarus tried not to hold the same feelings for Ely. He really, really did. But sometimes, even though he k was selfish of him, he just wished she would stick her neck out for him even once. He wished that the girl who used to defy her father to py knights with him as a child would use her pull for his be for once. Gods, at least she ologetic about it. More than he could say about the rest of his blood. Most of the fuckers took active delight in taking advantage of him.

  Azarus cast a baleful gre over at Magnus, who was eating dainty little sandwiches now. If the heir of Savoy noticed at all, he didn’t care. Gods, he should have knower than to have just waltzed in the front gate. Irospect, he khat he should have deyed their return to town until the much earlier morn, when it was still dark out. Magnus, the zy shite, would have been much less likely to wake up so early in order to ambush them. If he had just been able to get Nate ba his house, he would have had enough legal prote to at least dey Magnus. By dwarven w, anyone who was sheltering uhe wful roof of another had certain protes. He doubted he could have kept Magnus away forever, but Azarus could have at least prepared Nate for this shite better.

  Nate…

  Azarus heaved a sigh, casting his gaze downward to stare at the dirt beh his feet. He was trying to be optimistic about Nate’s ces, but it was hard. The guy had little to no training, and now he was supposed tle a high-level monster back here? Azarus truthfully didn’t see how it ossible. The st he’d been able to check, Magnus was around level seventy-two. That meant that Nate somehow o find and safely lead a mohat was at least sixty-two baagnus to kill steal, in order to satisfy his heartless challehat was the only way that Magnus would get anything out of killing a monster. After that, the Aether density released from the monster’s death would be too low to tribute muate wasn’t even level ten, fod’s sake. The man didn’t even have a css.

  To the best of his knowledge, only a handful of sves had ever survived one of Magnus’s ‘hunts’. They’d all beeher former woodsmen or professional soldiers. Evehey typically didn’t survive for long afterward. Azarus khat of the sves that had mao survive one of these hunts, none were still alive. Magnus, the sadistic shite, was frustrated whenever one of his sves mao succeed. So much so, that he made sure they were included in the roster whenever he held another one. Given that Magnus held one of these abominations nearly every month, the successful sves didn’t typically st loher they didn’t mao recover from their wounds in time to perfain, or their luck didn’t hold out.

  Azarus was broken out of his musings by movement out of the er of his eye. Looking up, he could see that the bushes at the tree line were rustling. He could feel his heartbeat pick up in anticipation at the thought of what that might mean. Was it Nate? Was he ing back? Azarus could see that the other people in the clearing had noticed, as well. The guards as well as Magnus. Magnus sat up in his chair while setting his drink down oable o him, while two of the guards stepped in front of him protectively, swords drawn.

  “Out of the way, fools,” Magnus grumbled. “You’re blog my view.”

  The guards acquiesced, mumbling apologies. Magnus didn’t even notice, just staring at the trembling bush across the clearing hungrily.

  A few moments ter, one of the sves stumbled out from the tree line. Azarus tried not to be disappointed and focused instead oate of the human.

  He didn’t look great. The sve was covered in blood and it wasn’t hard to see why. He was covered in wounds, big and small. Scrapes and gashes littered his body, with the rgest being the one on his gut. As the sve limped his way into the clearing, Azarus could see that the man had been nearly disemboweled and was barely holding himself together by clutg his stomach. It seemed like something had taken a pretty successful swipe at his head as well, as the man was missing his left ear entirely. By the time the man made it halfway across the clearing, however, it was clear.

  The sve hadn’t brought back a monster with him. Nothing followed out of the trees.

  Azarus took a deep breath. He knew what that meant. Judging by the malicious glint growing in Magnus’s eyes, he did too. Azarus made the scious decision to not Observe the man.

  He didn’t want to carry the weight of his name.

  Slowly and dramatically, Magnus stood up from his extremely out-of-pce extravagant chair. By the time the sve had reached the foot of the stairs that led up to the gazebo, Magnus had stood up to his full height and was gring down at the sve imperiously.

  “Well, well, well. What do we have here, hmm?” Magnus said, with a cold smile.

  The sve fell to his k the foot of the stairs, uo hold himself up under his own strength. Panting, he gazed up at Magnus standing above him. “Please…please m’lord…” The sve uttered, weakly.

  Magnus raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Please lease show mercy? Please don’t make me go ba there? Oh, please. I’ve heard it all before.” He smirked. “Or perhaps you mean…please kill me?”

  The sve was clearly too delirious from blood loss to care about Magnus’s grandstanding. “Please…please…I tried, m’lord…I tried…the beast almost killed me…”

  Magnus rolled his eyes dramatically and sighed. “Oh yes, I’m sure you tried very hard.” He waved a hand dismissively. “But that doesn’t matter now, does it? I gave very clear instrus, and outlihe very clear sequences if you didn’t follow them.”

  The sve started breathing heavily in a panic that mao pierce his agony. Bonelessly, he flopped forward onto the stairs. Slowly, the sve started crawling up the stairs. He reached out weakly to grasp at Magnus’s robe hem. “Please…” The sve sobbed. “Please m’lord…show mercy…”.

  His words only made Magnus sneer. “Get…” Magnus said derisively, winding back his right leg. “OFF of me, you worm!” He kicked the sve off of him, sending him flying off of the gazebo. The sve flew through the air and nded in the dirt with a strangled moan of anguish.

  Azarus ched his fists at the btant sadism on dispy. He stepped forward from where he had been standing off to the side. His movement made the guards snap to attention and stand in front of him, barring the way. Azarus just ighem to stare up at his cousin. “Stop it, Magnus.” He growled. “If yoing to kill him, just do it already. Stop t the man already.”

  Magnus looked up from where he had been iing the hem of his robe to s Azarus. “Having a bit of a sce attack, are we cousin? No longer willing to sit bad watch as I have fun with my property, are you?” He ughed derisively. “How terribly amusing that this new development only occurred after you grew attached to some cattle of your own.”

  That actually mao cause a pang of guilt in Azarus. Magnus wasn’t wrong, he supposed. Not for the reason that he’d said, of course. But it was far easier to ighe way that Magnus mistreated his sves when it didn’t happen in front of him. The way that svery was so promi in this town disgusted him. Most of the people in this town disgusted him. Before Nate had e around, he’d spent most of his time hiding out in the home he had built frey and himself at the edge of town. It was so, so easy tet that outside of his walls, while he was smithing, his sadistic cousin was routinely subjeg people to sadistic death games.

  But what was he supposed to do about it? Even if he wao do something for the sves of Addersfield that Magnus was mistreating, the w wasn’t on his side. Magnus erfectly within his right uhe eyes of the Principality to do whatever he wanted with, as he said, his property. While svery wasn’t as popur in non-Savoy owned nds, within them sves were sidered little better than cattle. He would just be throwing away either his life or his freedom if he tried to interfere and stop Magnus. He’d never done anything about it before, as he didn’t know what that would mean frey. Probably nothing good. He doubted most other dwarves that his uncle would assign to care frey would treat him like an actual person, and not just an artifad potion mae. Oe had ehe situation, his responsibility for the two men had only grown.

  That wasn’t even ting his responsibility towards the human kingdom fetting Grey out of here…

  He couldn’t afford to antagonize Magnus, here and now. Not even for a man that Magnus was btantly t in front of him. That didn’t mean the decision didn’t make him feel like slime, though. He scowled, but stepped back from the guards.

  He didn’t look at the sve, who had begun sobbing to himself quietly.

  Magnus chuckled mogly. “I thought so. Now scurry away, you feathered half-breed. I’m busy.” He turned back to the sve that was now staring bnkly at the sky while he sobbed silently. “Now, where were we…” Magnus desded the stairs theatrically, seemingly for his own be. Certainly, nobody else in the clearing was impressed by his self-absorbed grandstanding.

  He came to stand above the despairing sve lying in the dirt. Slowly, making sure that the sve was trag his movements, Magnus reached into his robes. He drew the bck tablet he had shown off earlier out of an inside pocket. The sve let out another sob at the sight of it.

  “Now…” Magnus said breathily, eagerly. “Let’s see what kind of colr you were fitted with, hmm?”

  Bringing the tablet up and scrolling through something only he could see, Magnus smiled sinisterly and looked up o time to lock eyes with the sve. He didn’t break eye tact with him as he casually reached out and pressed a finger onto the tablet.

  The rea was immediate.

  The breaths of the sve gradually began to pick up, as he began to gasp. His hands flew up to grasp at his neck as he experienced a shot of adrenaline, despite his wounds. He mao crawl to his knees as the color on his face began to ge from the pale white of blood loss to a pale blue.

  “Oh,” Magnus excimed in surprise. “Now that’s a rare one. I didn’t even know I had any more breath-stealers.” He watched hungrily as the sve began to slohyxiate in front of him.

  The rest of the clearing was dead silent as the sve was slowly choked to death by the colr around his neck. Azarus couldn’t watymore by the time the sve began to dig bloody furrows into his ne a desperate attempt to get his colr off.

  He looked away. Damn his cowardice, but he looked away.

  Before long the gasps of the sve ceased as he died. The silen the clearing was broken by Magnus letting out a satisfied sigh. “Well!” He said, g his hands ohat was a nice, satisfying diversion. But I think we all know which…clusion I’m looking forward to the most, eh?” He finished, shooting a smirk over his shoulder at Azarus.

  Azarus grit his teeth in order to not react to his cousin’s obvious provocation. He wasn’t sure he succeeded.