Chapter 8 – Khrashnak

“Is all prepared?” Blue Skin asked her.

Khrashnak thumbed the edge of her sword’s crosspiece. The gesture was a tell, and she knew it. Perhaps Blue Skin did as well, but if he did, he would never tell her. The man was guarded in such things.

“I heard the chants.” Blue Skin added, as though it were of no consequence. An offhand comment about the fog on the Plain.

Khrashnak did not precisely fear the man, but she knew she was not his equal. She did not know what he was, truly, but his power had never failed and she did not wish to test it. Yet.

He is no Dark Lord.

“Yes, Master.” she said. His head rose from the tome he studied and his deep set, almost hollowed blue eyes met Khrashnak’s alert brown ones. There was disapproval there, but it was not a new thing. Blue Skin did not like being called Master.

But he does not refuse the title.

As if the man could read her thoughts he made a disgruntled noise in throat and waved nonchalantly at her. “It is of no consequence now. Laws do not last forever.” The last words seemed to pain him slightly. Often strange things did. It passed quickly and was never acknowledged.

“Come now, Khrasnak.” Blue Skin said. “There is no need for that between us. I am not Him.”

It was a subtle rebuke. Oft repeated, but it held little sting. I am no Dark Lord. These had been the first words Blue Skin spoke to Urukhainen who had discovered the Zig. To those uruk who had found the man bound to the place, wasted and alone. Men had once dwelt in the area, that was clear from the ruins around the Zig. Many thousands of men. And other things as well. Orcs. Easterlings. Troll-men. Variags. Things best left to the nightmares of history. The Zig had been a prison and temple. It still was.

“I know, Master.” Khrashnak said. A question she had long desired to ask but had always denied herself the right rose again within her.

“Ask.” Blue Skin said, in the eerie, prescient manner of his.

The man’s tattooed skin, an expanse of blue markings which covered every inch of him Khrash had ever seen, save his eyeballs, even his tongue, glimmered in the light of the lamps on the walls of the chamber. They were inside the Friary, a place within the massive complex of the Zig, inaccessible save for one door near the center of the complex. The Friary itself was a warren of hallways and rooms, most of which were home to friars, mendicants who served under Pastor, who served under Blue Skin, who served The One. They did not call it religion. But it was. They did not call it a church, but it was. The room was called the Chancery, and it was the place where all the tomes which held Truth lay. The room which Blue Skin had used to raise the Urukhainen from the mud, to glory.

“How did you come to this place, Master?” Khrashnak asked.

“Long have you desired this knowledge, Captain.” Blue Skin said, not raising his eyes from the pages he perused. His blue hand trailed down a page, making a hoary, scratching sound. Khrashnak had killed Sheilas in the mountain lairs, she had hunted Eldar with their feral steel, had even battled with a tree-troll, but none of those things had engendered such fear in her as that dry, scratching sound of Blue Skin’s finger trailing along a page.

“You fear me still, Captain.” Blue Skin said, his tone making clear he was saddened by this, if not at all surprised. “I do not desire your fear, only your friendship.”

Long ago one offered friendship and gifts. He nearly destroyed us.

“I am not him!” Blue Skin snarled. His face twisted with barely suppressed rage. “For years uncounted I have struggled against him! My task was done and my release not granted! But for me there would have been no Return. No Last Ship!” The words were a bitter littany, but not one Khrash had ever heard, though the sound of them from Blue Skin seemed odd – as though he said them often, to himself. His eyes met hers. They shone with a fervent, fey light. A blue light which Khrash felt she could fall into and swim forever.

This is why so many worship him. This is why his religion has become ours.

With a mighty effort, Khrash resisted. She pushed back against the creeping feeling, the need she could feel within herself to align with whatever mystical energy flowed from Blue Skin. It hurt and seemed to drag towards an infinity but eventually Blue Skin sighed and his eyes lost their bright, blue gleam. Khrash exhaled deeply, dizzy for a moment with the effort.

“I have revealed the Truth to all, Captain. There is nothing more.” Blue Skin said, all trace of anger and bitterness gone. All his power was once again cloaked. But they both knew it was neither gone nor diminished. And still his voice had strength, a gentle, but firm persuasion which lent it power and righteousness.

“I...” Khrash began, but Blue Skin rose, his midnight blue robes swishing as he grabbed his staff and used it to steady himself. His frame was smaller than hers, smaller than any Urukhainen, small as one of the Easterlings the Urukhainen kept as farm slaves. For a time, when she was new to his presence Khrash had entertained the belief that Blue Skin was in fact one of the Easterlings, a man, and nothing more, despite his powers. That belief had not lasted long. Blue Skin’s velvety voice silenced Khrash.

“I do not wish to indulge your doubts, Captain.” Blue Skin said. “You rule the Urukhainen, by right and I serve the Urukhainen. I am no master, whatever some call me.”

The man said these words as though he believed them, said them with such power Khrash had to fight with all her being to keep herself from believing them as well. But Blue Skin gave no evidence that he knew the effect of his voice. He never did.

Perhaps he is what he says he is, perhaps the rest is simply unknowable, even to him.

The thought interested Khrash, it was new. But she did not really believe it.

“You will lead the Fists to reclaim what was once theirs, that an more. I have seen it. And you will find glory such as none of your people have ever known. This also I have seen. But that does not answer your question. And I will always answer your questions.”

This last was said with a touch of mockery. But only a touch, so soft Khrash might have believe she had imagined it entirely.

“I am a man.” Blue Skin. “Of power. Sent by those who have all power. To battle the Dark Lord. To blunt his attempts to darken all the lands of the middle Earth. My task was to penetrate his darkness, to infect his kingdoms with religion. To turn his uncounted armies of Men against the very darkness he offered them. In this, I succeeded. But the cost was high. I gave all to my task, and in giving power so completely I was bound to this land, to this place. I cannot leave it. And I cannot die, so long as it lives. So, I remain. Left behind by those I saved, forgotten by those who sent me, and alone. Until the Urukhainen found me. Until the Urukhainen saved me!”

Fervent blue light shone from not just his eyes now, but from his blue tattoos as well. It gifted him with an aura of foggy starlight. Khrash knew, somehow, if she stared too long at the aura she would become lost within it, and Blue Skin would own her. This realization terrified her.

I am Urukhainen! I am Captain of the Fists of Andelos! I am the Heir to the Broken Sword! I will be no thrall!

But even in her own mind the words sounded weak, ineffectual. She swayed on her feet, overcome. Blue Skin made a slight growl in his throat. Khrash tilted as the room around her swam. She no longer heard the sounds the man made as words, though they were. His spell settled over her and she was not strong enough to fight it off. Like a second skin it tightened around her entire body, uncomfortable at first, second nature after.

Blue Skin leaned hard on his staff, his blue aura shining out brightly in one last flash before disappearing.

“I hope my answer satisfies.” he murmured.

Khrash blinked in confusion. What answer?

“Of course, Master.” she said.

“You know I do not like being called so, Captain.” Blue Skin said, smirking up at her.

“Yes, Master, I do.” And she did known. But it hardly mattered now. He was her Master and she would serve him, she knew it, reveled it.

Save for the tiniest part of her, deep within, which resisted, secretly, as it held on to what was still Khrashnak, child of two heritages, and master of both.

I am Urukhainen. I am Numinoran. The voice whispered, like a child whispering a mantra to shadows on the wall of its bedroom as it prepared for sleep, frightened of the nightmares to come. I am Khrashnak Ven, Dunadan. We shall again rule!

Next Chapter: Chapter 9 - Anrik