Chapter 261

The carriages of the Queens rolled through the winding roads of Re-Estize, and little by little, as the guards blended together in their rotations of securing each other's charges, the two groups began to grow more comfortable with one another.

"They're coming along nicely, aren't they?" The Queen of Frost asked while she cradled the infant son of the Holy Queen of Roble and the Allfather of Nazarick. She tapped his nose with the tip of her taloned hand and drew a giggle from the boy. His hands closed around the rounded part of her talon and tugged. Her hand moved with his pull. "And your son has quite a grip." Neia added, drawing her finger away to avoid accidentally harming him.

"They are, and he does." The holy Queen gave a radiant smile to her counterpart. "Your suggestion of drinking contests between the two groups and breaking up the rivalry with duels… it was a good one."

"Thank you." Neia replied and held the swaddled infant back to her opposite number.

Calca accepted him into her arms with the greatest care, and asked, "Is that how you united the Demihumans?"

"Wouldn't you like to know." Neia gave a fangy smile at the Queen as if she were holding some closely guarded secret.

"Yes, actually." Calca said matter of factly and glanced over to the circle of soldiers where a bare chested orc and an equally bare chested paladin rolled around amidst the cheers of their comrades.

"Okay, sure." Neia said with a rough laugh, "That was part of it. Demihumans aren't all that different, they just live harder lives. A strong individual may gather a lot of followers, but there are lots of strong individuals, if one treats you like dirt, go to another who behaves better. So even the worst of them have limits unless they want to rule a kingdom of one. I used my reputation and knowledge to win more than duels, I won battles, then offered the losers a future and integrated them into my army. Plus, we had a common enemy." She gave a long, lingering, though wrathless look to the Holy Queen.

"That makes sense… so now that all that is over?" The Queen asked.

"Now we build up, things have already changed. Demalbion is getting stronger all the time, new mining operations are just the tip of the mountain. Thanks to the dark dwarves we've hired, we'll be building up our artisan class for years to come. No more need to steal and pillage to gain wealth. We'll create it ourselves."

"Demihuman merchants wandering through the Holy Kingdom." Calca remarked, "If somebody had said something about that five years ago I wouldn't have believed it. We barely believed they had merchants at all."

Neia nodded, "I thought the same way, but they did have a very small merchant class, but it was never secure enough to thrive. With your permission, Your Majesty, I'd like to make formal contact with your most important merchant… Tinamok, I think, was his name. I want to formally integrate our merchants into the international guild and he seems like just the man to go to for it."

The cheers went up and the two Queens paused to glance at the source of the noise, the human was over the orc and was steadily bringing fists down against the orc's big snout.

"We can arrange for a meeting, but it will have to be in Hoburns, and you'll have to bring along some of your merchants, plus you'll need to have a few humans among them." The Queen made the offer, and faster than she expected, the dragonid who sat across from her on the log, gave a sharp nod.

"I expected terms like that, we'll bring samples of some of our finished goods too, and perhaps you should invite your husband, after all, he will effectively be ruling most of the places we expect to trade with. Plus I'd be lying if I were to say I wasn't hoping to meet him again… a human eager for the unity of all kinds… It's almost unthinkable. If things had gone differently?" Neia sighed, "I might have headed for his Kingdom on my own just as a nameless squire."

"He's proven persuasive in that regard." Calca acknowledged, decidedly overlooking her own past point of view, "Though it hasn't hurt that he's got magic power nobody has seen in centuries. The priests in my country are wondering if he's a player."

"You mean a full blown god? I'm not surprised." Neia answered, "He may very well be."

"Don't tell the Theocracy that, you know how they think of these things, they're so dogmatically entrenched that even the word of a god might not change their minds." Calca snorted and then began to coo to her infant as his breathing settled into a sleeping rhythm.

"I know. And sooner or later, we'll trade words about that. Hopefully that is all we'll trade, but only time will tell." Neia answered and when the smell of rich stew reached the seated royals, she crudely licked her lips. "Enough serious talk for now though, shall we eat?"

"Yes. Yes, let's." The Queen of the Roble Holy Kingdom answered as the bowls were brought over and a cheer went up, a bloody and bruised orc stood with his fist raised high in victory while the paladin huffed and puffed as he was helped up by his friends.

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"Elves are so… gross." Cerebrate muttered as the little one lay curled up holding the place where he'd used his favorite weapon on her. This one was only a half breed, but still, she had those ears. 'The body stays young at least, nice, fine bones, but their faces tend to have that angular look, and the ears are ugly and wiggle when they're scared, like fucking deer looking for danger.' Part of Cerebrate resented the coin he'd spent on her.

And regretted what it would mean for his travels. 'After I leave the Theocracy, I'll have to take side roads to avoid suspicion, maybe dispose of her part of the way there…'

That was another upside to his purchase, if he used it up, it would mean less to him to get rid of it.

He took a bite of his stew. Venison, deer were plentiful, and the meat had a rich, succulent flavor… but still, the lack of spices was a problem. He frowned down at the bowl. 'Since the Kingdom of Nazarick's policies, trade has slowed down a lot, the last three places didn't even have salt to spare.'

Meat without spices was still meat, but while he looked down at the cheap wooden bowl of broth, meat, potato chunks, and a few other ingredients, he couldn't help but find it bland.

"Owie… it hurts… why won't the bleeding stop…" The half elf girl whimpered, more to herself than to him. Her golden hair was a tangled mess now after her brief, futile struggle before she became a limp, groaning doll, which in turn became a weeping lump of sweaty, dirty flesh.

'That's it!' Cerebrate snapped his fingers and the little frown on his face turned upside down. "Slut girl, get over here, and be quick about it!" He snapped his fingers again and pointed to his feet.

He saw the way her dull eyes sharpened and widened with fear, and she got to wobbly feet with the greatest difficulty and slowness, and walked with pain filled, shaking steps, her legs kept apart to avoid more pain between them until she all but collapsed in front of him. "M-Master?" She asked.

Cerebrate held the bowl under her chin right eye. "Cry into this, I need salt."

The callous indifference was worse than cruelty, and she quietly began sobbing again, tears running over the rim of the wooden bowl, until he drew it back from her, stirred, and took a bite.

'A little too much salt.' He thought as he put the wooden spoon into his mouth and glanced at the kneeling half breed. "What? Go clean yourself, you stink." He said and pointed toward a river just a little off to the side of the road where Cerebrate's makeshift camp sat.

"I smell like you…" She accused him and looked up at him with bitter, hate filled eyes.

"Bitch!" He snapped, and the fist of the knight connected with her face, she howled in pain as she was snapped backward and sent flying, crashing and bouncing over the dirt and grass.

"My eye… my eye… my eye…" She whimpered as she clutched at the injury.

"Just clean yourself up, it's a long journey ahead and you're not getting back in my carriage while you stink." Cerebrate hissed.

A few yards away, the carriage driver, a human of the Theocracy, watched the scene with a mix of disinterest, curiosity, and disgust. Cerebrate didn't think anything of the servant, neither loved nor loathed, as long as he drove, it was fine. 'Even if he says anything he shouldn't in some other country, so what? There'll be no proof to be had.'

Content with this reasoning, Cerebrate ate his meal in peace while the weeping girl kept saying, "My eye… my eye…" And staggered out of view and toward the river.

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Layali clutched her injury as she staggered away from the monster. When she moved her hand aside, she felt her eye come with it. Being only sixty-seven, she was still a child, but she'd seen enough injuries to know what this meant. 'My eye is taken out of its socket… it's bad… real bad… and the rest…' The abuse of her kind was nothing new, but until this one, nobody had shown any interest in her that way.

'But that's all this one wants… there's nowhere I can go… no parents… nobody will help me… this is a nightmare… I'm living in a nightmare… why… for what?' She whimpered quietly as she sank her body into the river.

'Clean, I have to get clean… wash him off, wash him out, I have to get clean…' She grabbed a handful of sand from the embankment and began to use it to scrub the blood and dirt from everywhere on her body.

Layali sank deeper into the water, she scrunched her toes into the soft ground as the cool waters rushed around her and raced away. The one good part of traveling with the monster who called himself Cerebrate was that she could see the long horizons. 'The world is so much bigger than I thought… so much bigger…'

The water was up to her nose, one hand clung to the agony filled eye socket while the other struggled to clean herself off… minute after minute until an hour passed and her flesh was raw and red and the scrapes of the raw scrubbing grew worse and worse.

'I'm still not clean… I'll never be clean…' Laylali whimpered and blew bubbles in the water as she screamed into it when that realization hit.

Her good eye darted around, searching for somewhere, anywhere, but intuitively she knew the truth, 'There's nowhere to run… got nothing, nowhere… no one…'

She recalled briefly the day her mother passed away, her body buried in the field she toiled over. The elves who worked with her didn't mourn her, and the words of one of the older slaves came back to Layali now as she sat in the cool water of the river, listening to its endless babble as it raced far, far beyond her view. "We don't mourn, because her problems are over. Nobody will harm her now."

'That's the place I can run to… where even the monster can't follow me…' Layali removed her hand from her eye, and it fell dangling down against her cheek, still hanging on to the red retina and dripping blood into the water that was swiftly carried away and disappeared into the current.

The half elf took one more deep breath, lowered her face under the water, it picked up her eye and pulled it to float on the surface of the water to create a bizarre moment when she could see both clearly and a blur both at once in two different directions.

The water rushed over her head, she curled up beneath it, dragging the dangling eye down under water with her, and began to scream once more into the water.

Layali's screaming went on until the bubbles stopped, and she didn't feel the water beginning to carry her away.