Interlude: Politic

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Sirist
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Interlude: Politic

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WARNING: This story may be graphic in violence, contain adult themes such as torture, mutilation, adult language, or contain content of a sexual nature, including incest, androgyny and transgender. In short, it’s about Dark Elves.

Interlude: Politic

“Dizaun,” called Voyage through a crack in the door, “they’re beginning to arrive. You should be getting ready, no?”

The light spilling in through the hallway illuminated a sliver of the Druchii sorcerer sitting as still and silent as a statue. Dizaun Cadsane’s pale complexion and snowy white hair coupled with his wan silken night robe made him appear as if carved from alabaster. Only the Dark Elf’s piercing blue eyes made him look alive, and even they stared into the distance, lingering on the corpses of his own men miles away from Voyage.

“Dizaun,” he tried again, “pull yourself together. This isn’t befitting a general, even a traitorous one.”

A muscle in Dizaun’s face reared at the accusation, but still he made no reply. His eyes burned into Voyage’s cat-like amber pupils with barely constrained rage. The only true traitors in this equation that is my life are Malekith and Morathi.

Voyage did not stop. “Everyone loses a battle or two. Feel grateful that you killed more than a few of your opponents in the process, and now have enough warpstone to eck out a life of luxury, even on the lamb, no? Cut your losses, and remember what you’re doing today, or these generals will laugh in your pretty face. Or is it your plan to win them over with simpering and begging?” The sorcerer of Nurgle shrugged, a smirk budding on his golden-limned lips, “At this rate, the only thing of yours that they will want is what’s between your legs, and most of them are queer enough as it is.”

The Druchii was a viper in the darkness, his hand clawing through the air in a blow that would rake across Voyage’s face. Voyage was faster, catching Dizaun’s wrist scant inches away from his eyes, the inch-long lacquered nails clacking against one another as they stretched for the human’s skin. “I am never defeated,” snarled Cadsane.

“Then stop acting it.”

Dizaun’s face contorted in anger, but he had no excuses or denials to return Voyage’s simple barbs. “You serve the same ruinous power as those beastmen! Tell me, why did they not come? Where were they when we needed them most?”

“I am not Morghur,” replied Voyage, “so I can only guess why they didn’t show, no? Be thankful that the Night Goblins arrived. That’s one out of two.”

“No, that is one out of three. The Asrai turned on us. They joined with the Empire as soon as they were given a chance.” Dizaun felt the silk of his night-robe fall from his shoulder, the white fabric catching in the crook of his pinned arm’s elbow.

“You seem more calm,” tested Voyage, “so I’ll let you go.” Releasing his cold fingers, Voyage took a step back from his former pupil. “Understand that the other side of the coin you flip so often is to lose, Dizaun, and eventually, everyone’s luck catches up with them. The trick is to minimize your losses.”

Dizaun replaced the fabric of his robe, pulling it tightly to himself. He managed a slow nod. “I understand, but to my men and the generals pursuing me, every defeat is a sign of weakness.”

“Dizaun, you, your men, and the generals pursuing you are Dark Elves. You should all be used to losing by now. The Sundering, the First and Second Invasions of Ulthuan, your race’s excursions into Lustria while Archaon swept through the very forest we fight in; all of it ended in defeat for your people. In fact, the only wars you Druchii have won thus far have been the one on Lumbria and the War of Flesh and Blood – and the last one simply because it was a civil war, which is bad for everyone involved, no?

“What your race has managed to do, however, is to not suffer simple defeat, but to lose spectacularly. So you lose your homeland; let’s blow it up. The invasions of Ulthuan cost countless High Elven lives. And while the Druchii race didn’t manage to achieve victory during its time fighting in Lustria, countless generals returned with riches, slaves, and magical artifacts beyond count, and you were one of those generals.

“The truth of this little venture is that you’re probably not going to find the Nemesis Crown. Raviel Von Hault is probably going to sell you out. Malekith is probably going to fail in claiming the Crown for himself, and’ll exercise his rage on a few of the loyalist generals here today under your banner of truce. You called them here offering the power to defeat their enemies, yes? Now, do you still have that power, or has bad luck and stupid mistakes taken it from you?”

“No,” snapped Dizaun. He turned away from Voyage, clutching the sides of his robe tighter to his chest. Such simple truths, and many are ones that I have already come to acknowledge. I have lost a few battles, yes, but not the war, and that it is one inevitability he proposes that I refuse to accept.

“You,” growled a female voice from the doorway, “get the frig out.” Her tone nearly matched Dizaun’s in pitch and timbre. He turned his head, looking over his shoulder to see a Druchii woman that could easily be his double standing directly behind Voyage holding a cast-iron lantern. Her pure white hair was straight, tied back behind her head in a dark blue thong, showing her long, striking ears and wan skin. She wore blue satin uniform and white linen trousers that looked more at home on Empire admiralty than a Dark Elf sorceress. Her fingers tensed around the wooden hilt of a falchion hanging from her sword-belt as her eyes coldly fixed on Voyage. “I want to talk to my brother.”

“Aw,” mocked Voyage, “I’m wounded, no?”

“Don’t you have camp-followers to frig?”

“Disuan Cadsane, you’re always so pleasant. Do you eat with that mouth?”

“No,” she replied, “I keep a spare in my pocket. Get out.”

“Fine. I believe my work here’s done.” The Chaos worshipper shouldered past Disuan, and slinked into the hallway, his black leather outfit moaning and whispering with each step.

Disuan waited for the noise of Voyage’s passage to die off before closing the door behind her. “Dizaun, I’m still against this.”

“It is beyond calling off, sweet sister.” Dizaun sat back down on the crudely cobbled chair, crossing one leg over the other. “Today’s meeting could permanently reverse our fortunes. No more risky raids for slaves or riches. Maybe even no more running, yes?”

“No,” sighed Disuan, “I think that dream isn’t going to ever be realized. I got word from our intelligence amongst the splinter group attacking Tor Thana: Shadowblade is here in the Great Forest, and he’s killing rogue Druchii generals. Our successes and the loyalists’ failures are making Malekith resort to extremes to get his men back in line.”

“Excellent.” Dizaun tapped one of his claw-like nails against his full lips. “The more drastic his measures, the more he alienates his loyalist generals by refusing them reward for the heads of the rogues, and the more desperate those rogues in turn become as their fear of their former King builds. As both groups grow more distant from Malekith, they will find themselves growing closer to me.”

“What about Rackeith? They could just as easily join him.”

“Yes, what about him? The Exile Lord has tied himself to a goal that is no longer possible. Because he is directly contradicting Malekith’s orders by staying in one place, he is drawing the brunt of Malekith’s ire. Only a lunatic would join him at this point.”

“The same could be said of you.”

Dizaun fixed his twin sister with a dangerously blank stare, “Enough. Help me dress.”

Hanging the lantern by the door and walking towards the make-shift dresser, Disuan began to dig through folded garments. “What look are you going for this time?”

“Austere.”

Disuan froze. “Are you joking?”

“No,” chuckled Dizaun, “I am most serious. These generals do not know me. They do not serve me – yet. And their backgrounds are as varied as the grains of sand on a beach. Rebels and loyalists; Cultists and Khainites; beastmasters and corsairs. The one thing that all of these generals will be able to agree upon is that we are not at a place where we can readily indulge in frivolous measures. They do not care what I wear, no? They instead care simply about whether I can offer them a way out, and that is what I will give them. So something elegant, but not showy, if you would. I want to be respected by these generals; not gawked at.”

The sorceress resumed her rummaging, producing a long crimson cloak trimmed in gold and a simple black bodysuit made of lacquered black leather strips. His legs would be covered by a long dark grey tabard, reminiscent of the color of the Ashen Fleet, and a pair of black, thigh-high leather boots. Disuan laid them out on the mattress of Dizaun’s salvaged bed, before taking a seat next to her brother and, with fine comb in hand, untangled her twin’s curly white locks, brushing them until each hair shown like sunlight on fresh snow.

The light of day had finally penetrated the canopy of the Great Forest, beams of sunlight sneaking through cracks in the ceiling as Disuan continued to brush Dizaun’s hair. Beneath Disuan’s fingers, her brother’s hair had become nearly straight. Deeming it finished, she squeezed Dizaun’s shoulder, slowly rising.

“Disuan, the earrings.”

Even though Dizaun could not see his sister, he imagined a grimace on her face. She does not like this, though she knows it to be necessary. So condescending. So like father, no? But still… His sister’s feet moved hesitantly, as if trying to step over a sudden swarm of vipers, stopping briefly towards the headboard of Dizaun’s bed, before returning to stand behind Dizaun. The faint jingle of polished iron danced beneath her ears as fine elven fingers bent the clasps into shape.

A rush of orgasmic pleasure slithered through Dizaun Cadsane’s body, eliciting a sigh through his full lips. He could imagine through the fog of delight wrapping around his mind the sudden surge of skin here; the immediate recession of flesh there as his clothes rearranged themselves on appearing and disappearing curves. In truth, Dizaun knew that little about his physical body would change. His throat would grow more slender, his shoulders would round only slightly, his hips would fill out perhaps a pin’s breadth beyond their existing feminine shape; the only significant change was having grown a fully working set of female organs. But in his mind, Dizaun Cadsane, the son of Carten Cadsane, vanished, and in his place sat the Pirate Queen Dizaun Cadsane, exile High Sorceress of Naggaroth and Lady-Admiral of the Ashen Fleet.

“Dizaun, they’re going to be growing impatient soon.” Disuan began striding for the door, eager to be gone.

“Very well.” The exile general smiled as he watched her leave. “Close the door. I would not want prying eyes to see what they should not.”

Disuan humorlessly pushed the door into its frame.

It was not long before a fully clothed Dizaun was climbing the stairs of the abandoned manor’s tower. The moment of truth, in so many ways. The sunlight reached for him as he made the final turn. A low hum – not of birds or insects, but of the hushed voices of men – filled the air outside. Dizaun lived for that noise, knowing he could silence it in a word; in a gesture. His pace quickened as he climbed to the balcony.

Beneath the crude planks and rails of the wide balcony, a larger crowd than even Dizaun had anticipated had gathered. Near a hundred lords and representatives from Druchii hosts raiding the length and breadth of the Great Forest had assembled, each one dressed as somber as they must have felt. The clearing around the manor that must have once been fields until choked by weeds and then trampled by beastmen was filled with the cream of the young Druchii crop. Each one sported their own livery or that of their masters over black robes. A select few wore hideous deathmasks of Khaine, and scant others were dressed in flamboyant costumes that put even Dizaun to shame, turning the manor into the sight of some dieing carnival. The majority of the lords wore the purple and black of the Witch-King of Naggaroth. Few of the generals talked to anyone beyond their own entourage, and not a soul mixed between the invisible lines they had drawn between Cultist, Loyalist, and Rogue. A tough crowd to sway. I will have to tread carefully, no?

Dizaun had no illusions that they were here because he had invited them. Instead, they came out of greed, eager to steal what Dizaun offered; or out of a hope to behead the exile Druchii, sizing ‘her’ up; or even out of simple curiosity. But when the crowd’s murmur began to die, and each lord and lady rose their eyes to take in the former Lady-Admiral of the Ashen Fleet, Cadsane could not help but feel a tremor of his old power.

Using a simple trick, Dizaun amplified his voice with his magical gifts, leaning forward over the rail unconsciously. “I am sorry to keep you all waiting. I am sure that you can gather who I am from my missive to you or your lord, and I will skip the list of titles I have accrued in awe or in anger, assuring you simply that I am Dizaun Cadsane.

“I would like to ask you, my lords, a simple question: are we winning? And if we are, why do the goals of the other races seem so easily within their grasp whilst our own, and the Nemesis Crown along with them, seem so far from our grasp?”

Stony silence gave Dizaun the reply he needed. The anger, insult and shame of the gathered generals seemed palpable.

A young lord, perhaps an age with Dizaun himself, shouted from behind his deathmask, the sound of his voice shrieking through the grills in its iron face, “What goals? We were told to come, and raid, and fight! We have done this!”

“You are right,” cooed Dizaun, “and we have indeed done these things. With as little direction as we have received, that is. I did not come here at Malekith’s behest, but I would assume the majority of those assembled here are only slightly older than myself. Inexperienced. Ambitious. Clamoring for renown. And instead finding only failure; if not, blatant persecution from the Witch-King himself for pursuing the solution to these three wantings.”

“We did not come here to be insulted, traitorous witch,” growled a young general with features familiar to Dizaun, though she could not place them. “We came to hear how you proposed to make us strong again, unless this is some double-cross from your lying mouth.”

“I did, and please pardon any insult. Though I do not wish to provoke you, I feel I must now explain my exile. I left Naggaroth on my own initiative; not because the Witch-King was displeased by me, though we can all be sure he is now that I have left, but because I felt that I could continue to serve the Druchii race better by taking the fight from our successful campaign in Lumbria to the Old World. Malekith disagreed, asking me to remain with my Lord Captains in the eastern seas around Lumbria, an area held fast by our race even in my absence. Unable to reach a compromise, I was forced to leave my post to better my people.”

A lie, but one they will be less likely to doubt. The real reason is one even Malekith will not make public, lest it be known he decorated and celebrated the exploits of a male sorcerer. Dizaun continued on.

“My heart has been heavy since that day, but in the last few weeks, it has grown all the heavier, watching Druchii I fought beside in Lumbria fighting one another. While such things are not unheard of, even in times of war, I know that there are ways of uniting our people to reach glories and victories unattainable by lesser races. Never, even in the repertoire of the ‘traitorous witch’ in front of you, have I known assassination of generals working to fulfill the orders of their Dread Liege been amongst them.”

“Rackieth is a traitor!” A general from the huddle of loyalists jabbed a finger towards the representative of the Exile Lord as readily as he would a sword-point. “He ignores the will of the Witch-King, besieging a city with no benefit to our cause! The assassination was another warning to him for his flagrant disobeying of our Liege’s orders!”

Shouts began to ring out like blades freed from sheathes. The huddled camps of Dark Elf warriors began to grow dangerously close, surging at one another.

“Does he?” The magically amplified shout from Dizaun’s lips burst through the din of the lordly mob, forcing the lords to shield their pointed ears and turn back to the balcony. Beyond thin cries of outrage and pain, the volatile situation seemed defused for the moment.

“Does he? It is true he calls himself the Exile Lord, and is thusly a rogue from the Witch-King, but what keeps the same self-exile that I myself have described from applying to Rackieth? If any race should reclaim the old Elven Kingdoms, it should be the True Elves. Malekith can not disagree with such a claim. No, Malekith did not assassinate Rackieth’s general out of spite or because Rackieth deserved to lose his man. I put it to frustration. This war is not going well for us, and we will not win. It is that simple, and Malekith does not take defeat well. Do any of us?

“But this fact does not make us helpless, nor does it make us a moot point. I have a proposal; one that will make victory for the Human Empire, Dwarves, or whatever race should win a hollow one.

“I have found us power. I have found us a way out. And it is called Vragthar’s Monolith.”

For a moment, the significance of the arcane ruins seemed lost on the gathered generals as they stared at one another blankly. But when Dizaun met the eyes of some of them, they realized it was fear. A sorceress from the Cultists, bedecked in a sheer robe of fuchsia and purple silks, was the first to react, “Vragthar’s Monolith is a place of worship for the followers of the Old Night. It is a focus for the powers of Chaos in this world, capable of calling them into the Mortal Realms.”

“Indeed,” replied Dizaun, “which is exactly what I plan to use it for.”

“Consorting with Chaos?” crowed a rogue dressed in Rackieth’s livery. “So much for your story of disagreement with our King!”

“My story is true,” parried Cadsane, “as is the fact that we Druchii have bent the powers of Chaos to do our bidding for millennia. Our most potent magic draws daemons from the aethyr to destroy our enemies; how different is this ritual?

“However, I am just one sorceress. I will need help casting the spell that will draw the daemons into this world, and in sufficient quantities to reap havoc upon the Old World. And I will need protection from the arrows and blades and mundane weapons of war that our foes will bring to bare to stop this ritual from occurring.

“My proposal is that all of us, regardless of where our loyalties lie, amass our forces at Vragthar’s Monolith. Put aside your differences for this one day; this one battle. Malekith will be no more displeased with any of us upon our return, and could very well be more kind to us because of our success there. He asks us to disrupt our enemies’ efforts to fight back and to find the Crown. With a horde of daemons marching on the cities of the Empire, they will quickly lose interest in the relic in order to defend themselves – if they can. I implore you to go back to your lords and your hosts and tell them the wisdom of this plan. Otherwise, nothing but ill awaits your return to Naggaroth.”

“What proof do we have that you can successfully bind the powers of Chaos?” One of the Temple Witches spoke, her white hair and brass eyes marking her station. “Who is to say that your plan will succeed? What if we find the entities dissipate as soon as they leave the Monolith’s ruins?”

Dizaun nodded, as if giving her credence, before reaching beneath his cloak. He pulled out a massive horn, chased in gold, carved from what appeared to be the tooth of some giant animal. Pursing his lips, he blew a long, rumbling note that made the trees shake and the balcony rattle until Cadsane feared it would collapse beneath him. But he did not stop.

A chorus of bellows gave the horn reply, a cacophony of roars echoing from all around the clearing. Some edged on human, though all were bestial. Hundreds of hoofed feet shook the ground harder than even the horn had. Druchii generals drew their swords, all three camps of Dark Elf merging to form a unit of young nobles ready for what the woods would bring them.

One by one, out of the forest, beastmen galloped into the clearing. Tens. Dozens. Hundreds. Each one misshapen by the powers of Chaos. The bellowing and roaring ceased with the same suddenness as the call of the horn. As if they were all of one mind, they dropped their swords, spears, axes and shields, stared up at Dizaun Cadsane, and knelt. Even massive minotaurs silently fell to one hairy knee, their ancient eyes full of fury barely restrained.

The nobles broke their sudden ranks before they, too, stared up at Dizaun Cadsane. A mix of expressions from awe to fear to hatred filled Cadsane’s bright blue eyes; he only smiled back. One by one, the nobles trickled out of the clearing towards their mounts in the nearby stables. Dizaun knew they would ride fast and hard, either to tell their host of the plan Cadsane had devised, or to tell them where Cadsane was hiding.

As the last of them strode to the stables, Dizaun fell back into the shadows of the manor’s tower, sighing in relief. “I will have to thank Voyage for his part in the little lie, no? I hope his beastmen keep a mind about themselves not to butcher my little messengers.”
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Draknir
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Post by Draknir »

Nice. Nice, nice, nice. Good story indeed, as it was expectable from you. Need to have more of this...
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