Realms of the Arcane - Brian M. Thomsen [19]
These callous words sent through Mbugua a shiver that started at the top of his spine and darted down the length of his leonine back. It was true that this was the very path he'd hoped Malenti's ambition might take; however, the ease with which the young sea elf spoke of his father's death was chilling.
"You will stop the sahuagin?" pressed the wemic.
Malenti nodded and turned away. His hand was already upon his dagger as he splashed into the sea, as if he could not wait to shed sahuagin blood.
And thus it was, for many years to come. The sahuagin hordes returned to Ka'Narlist's keep with the dark of each moon, as they were pledged to do. But they brought with them not piles of dark pearls, but tales of fierce battles and ambush, and of a mighty sea-elven leader who had raised the sea folk against them.
Malenti, he was called. Malenti, the Sahuagin Scourge.
As Mbugua listened to the stories told of his sea-elven son, he struggled to keep his swelling pride from his face. Ka'Narlist, however, was not so stoic.
"A thousand spears and my highest favor to the sahuagin who brings me this Malenti!" vowed the furious wizard as the latest moon-dark ceremony drew to a close. "Bring him in alive, and I will match the reward with a thousand tridents!"
For such a treasure, any sahuagin would cheerfully slay his nearest kin. The monsters took to the sea with renewed ferocity, each determined to win the promised reward, and the regard of their lord.
Even so, nearly three years passed before the sahuagin finally captured their nemesis. They dragged Malenti to Ka'Narlist Keep, entangled in nets and bleeding from a score of small malicious wounds, into the great hall to await the judgment of their lord.
Despite the seeming gravity of the situation, Mbugua's heart was light as he made his way into the hall in response to the wizard's summons. By all reports, Malenti had amassed an enormous army of sea folk. Surely the army was gathered at shore's edge even now, awaiting only Malenti's command to strike. Time and again had the sea elves overcome the sahuagin fighters: the wemic was confident that they would do so again, and that, at long last, Ka'Narlist's brutal reign of magic and misery would end.
When the hall was full and the clacking speech of the excited sahuagin had subsided into a few scattered clicks, the wizard made his appearance. In a magically enhanced voice, he recited the charges against Malenti, then granted him the right to speak before sentence was carried out.
"Take away the nets," Malenti demanded boldly. "When I stand before you, when I look into your face, then will I speak."
With a cruel smile, the wizard lifted his hands. Lines of flame leapt from his fingers and singed away the entangling nets-doing no little damage to the prisoner in the process.
Bereft of much of his hair, his skin much reddened and blistered, and his blackened garments hanging in tatters, Malenti nonetheless rose proudly to his feet and faced down the powerful wizard.
"At last we meet… Father," he said in a ringing voice that carried to every corner of the great hall. He paused, obviously enjoying the stunned expression on Ka'Narlist's face and the hushed expectation of the sahuagin throng.
"Oh yes, I am the first of your sahuagin children, the one you discarded when you found my appearance unpleasing. I am Malenti, the Sahuagin Scourge. The sahuagin scourge," he emphasized, "for such I am indeed. Though I did not have the advantages of training and weaponry that you lavished upon these others, I have done what I could." He paused, lifting his arms as if to invite the wizard's inspection.
The wemic tensed, certain that the signal to attack would come at any moment. Moments passed, and it did not. It occurred to Mbugua that the wizard was studying Malenti closely, and that the wizard did not seemed at all displeased by what he saw.
The sea elf shrugged off the remnants of his