The Keep

Series includes violence and sex and is not recommended for young readers

Startled by Chu’la’s scream, he paused in abject horror that she would think it was him, not Jumwa, who had tried to kill her. Before his heart could hurt anymore though, Jumwa twisted and punched him across the jaw, knocking him back. Chu’la struggled to raise her pregnant body up on her palms, but wobbled from the concussion and loss of blood that still dripped from the back of her head.

The large forest troll moved over top of him, his movements were slow and sloppy due to the blows to the back of his head and the younger troll took the chance to strike Jumwa on the side of the head again, knocking him to the hut’s earthen floor, unconscious.

Chu’la cried out again, screaming and crying in terror as the man she had conspired to ensnare into matrimony was presumed, in her mind, dead.

There were no tears in his eyes now. The smaller troll raised the rock above himself and brought it down on Chu’la’s head. With a sickening sound, her skull gave way and she slumped to the ground as he rained blow after blow upon; the only witness to the horrific sight being the blurry eyed Jumwa, as he struggled to see and rise to his feet.

~~

It gnaws at him. Anjasa had been apprehended some days ago by the Silvermoon security and it had taken him a while to track down where she was held. A particularly shady and nasty officer had taken her into custody and it took a great deal of gold to even bribe his way into a visit with her; much of what they stole, in fact.

That took time, however. At first it was all he could do to bribe his way into getting a glimpse of her, and he could tell she had been tortured, beaten and worse. If she had resisted their questioning, which it seems she had, it seemed unlikely anyone could for much longer.

When they open the door to the interrogation room, Anjasa cringes, scooting into the corner, terrified of what was to come. She sees little more than a dark silhouette at the doorway.

Jumwa looks upon a bruised and broken version of the lover he had only a few days ago spent glorious moments of bliss with. He doubts she could even make him out through her swollen eyes, but he was wrong.

“J-… Jumwa…?” she murmurs, her jaw making terrible noises in her effort to speak, her voice harder and raspier than usual.

He clenches his fist and grinds his teeth, bracing himself for what he was about to do.

~~

Chu’la was more than killed. Her head had been ground into something unrecognisable, and even Jumwa was terrified.

Turning to him, the smaller troll huffed and heaves with the exertion. Only after he had finished Chu’la did it occur to him the child was likely his, and she had used him to fool Jumwa all along. The sadness he felt from that thought was almost crippling, and he nearly fumbled and dropped the rock.

Jumwa took this as his moment of opportunity, reaching for his hunting knife in the hopes of doing away with the wimpy killer and going ahead with his plan of blaming it all on him, as he had intended from the beginning.

But his grasp was slow, awkward and incapable of wielding the knife with strength had he been able to take it out anyways. The other troll took it from his weak hands instead and shoved him over onto his back.

Looking down on the other troll, he noticed Jumwa didn’t cower, didn’t beg. He raised the knife, and still nothing. The last tear he would ever cry rolled down his cheek before he plunged the knife into Jumwa’s chest. With little sign of hesitation he carved from that broad stony chest the heart of his opponent that had haunted him his entire life and ripped the still beating organ out of his steamy body.

In the cool night air, the flesh of that organ felt glorious and yet still sickening. He bit into it time and again, until he had devoured the essence of his former enemy. He bore a grim and gruesome visage. The blood of two marked his hands, chest, face and mouth in particular. In that dark hut he narrowed his eyes and looked down at the dead troll before him, plucking the feathered necklace from his neck.

Witch doctor? Not anymore.

What was his, is mine, he thought to himself and placed the intricate witch doctors insignia about his neck.

Lifting the stone one more time he brought it down on the former Jumwa’s face, a loud crunch the last remnant of that ‘handsome’ face that so many women ogled.

A dark sneer marked his face, devoid of compassion or feeling as he licked his upper lip. I have to leave, he thought. His thoughts now only of himself, he stole into the night to leave and never return, to start again with a new name and the title he was deprived of unfairly.

~~

Jumwa carries the dark haired mercenary in his arms, dropping the battered and disfigured body in a corner of the cell, his fist weapons bloodied from the fight with the guards. There could be no witnesses to what he had to do.

His chest heaving from the taxing battle to wipe out both the guards and then his female accomplice, but there was no way he could allow himself to chance this. Any could turn him in and the careless heist would cost him dearly.

Turning away from the body, he strides over and stoops down next to Anjasa, scooping her up in his arms, “It’s all in place now.” He kisses her forehead, “we can go.”

She looks up at him through swollen, black eyes; her head turning like it was on a rusty hinge. Through pouted, puffy lips she speaks in a muffled voice, “I love ju…”

Nodding to her, he hesitates before carrying his lover into the back alley of Silvermoon; none about at that late hour as he whisks her away to safety. He left behind a scene that would leave any to think that the thief’s accomplice had returned to cover his trail and eliminate her.