A/N: Alright, I have no idea where this came from. I've never been remotely interested in Lorne's past but this entire chapter possessed me and just wouldn't let go until I was finished. Subsequent chapters are probably inevitable. Oh, and yes, the bold and all-caps title is intentional. Lorne's a big dude, he deserves equally large titles. )
CASUALTIES
"On your knees, Neverwinter scum."
He stood firm, grimacing at the added weight on his shattered right leg. His ragged breath hitched in his chest, maybe from a few broken ribs; he would notnurse his wounds in front of this Luskan bitch.
The woman drew a long sigh. Then, with a venomous hiss, her stiletto-heeled boot connected with his injured leg, and the pain drove him roaring to his knees.
"Much better." She purred. "That's the problem with you filth. Never willing to give up the ghost even in the face of failure. Not very smart." Her eyes raked the battered remnants of the pathetic 'squad', their dozen or so faces caked with dried blood and dirt. "And you have failed. Neverwinter will burn. Burn by the very holy woman that once healed your people." She sneered. "How ironic."
He mustered enough strength to spit at her feet. His mouth was dry and dusty. He glared defiantly up into her petulant face.
"Answer me something, ambassador." His voice rumbled. "How long since they bought you? Did they curry your loyalty through love of country?" His bloodied mouth rose at one corner. "Or through fear?
She was young for an ambassador. Inexperienced. Both made her quick to anger. Rage contorted her features. "SILENCE!" She stepped backward, lips curled. "Miblir."
A lithe man in black leathers—black as pitch and all the shadows even grown men feared—glided forward to stand beside her. "Yes, Ambassador?"
She sniffed impatiently, gazing down her nose and through thick lashes at the fallen man. "Finish him."
The remaining soldiers of the defeated Neverwinter squad struggled and protested against their bindings. It availed them nothing. A glint of cold steel silenced the man they had followed, to whatever end. The man whom had kept them alive and breathing.
His throat poured crimson on the Luskan soil as he died. The Neverwinter pride in him balked at this fate, but it slowly ebbed away into a forgotten ache.
The last thing his dimming eyes beheld was sky. Sky and a blood-red sun.
Lorne's sergeant had been a good man. He didn't take any guff or dissent and gods help you if you questioned his judgment. But damn it, he'd had convictions. Principles even.
The sergeant had implored, no demanded really, that the Captain give Lorne a shot at the Luskan bastards. Lorne was a mountain of a man; strong, determined, fearsome. A man like Lorne was wasted in the reserves, and did Neverwinter little good in sitting around and waiting for a chance to bloody his knuckles a bit.
It was on account of this man, this man whose body was already cooling in death, that Lorne had been given the opportunity to experience thereal war. No border control or gate defense or guard duty. Just two armies vying to murder one another and leave as much mess behind as possible.
Lorne had muttered a 'thanks' to the sergeant earlier that day. The frontlines made for a welcome change.
Now he hated him for it.
"The fool." The young ambassador managed to unclench her fists. She still appeared shaken from the sergeant's last words. She ran her fingers through her dark, shoulder-length mane to calm herself. "No, no, Miblir. Don't stow that pretty dagger just yet. From the look of this bunch, there won't be many survivors."
Lorne searched the faces of the men nearest him. All young bucks with few hopes in this war other than simple comforts and living another day. Some he called friends. Others earned his scorn. But all were brothers now, in this moment. Brothers in their inevitable fate.
The one called Miblir leered. "Careful. Lest you displease Garius again. I see he can be quite..." He trailed a grimy thumb down one of her shoulders, where an angry, barely healed gash marred the pale flesh. "...ah, brutal."
Her nails gripped like talons as she thrust his hand from her. "That was different, you swine." Her voice quieted. "That was my own error." The cold, predatory sheen returned to her leaden eyes. "Do not touch me again, Miblir. Master Garius has been a most generous tutor. I think you'll find that I, too, can be brutal." Those talons crackled in frenzied energy.
Miblir held up his hands, only placating her of course; the leer remained.
The ambassador commanded Miblir and his fellow assassins to maneuver the Neverwinter soldiers into an interrogation line. Lorne was pleased to find that it took the entire squad, six men and Miblir himself, to subdue and wrestle him into place.
He took in the straight-shot profiles of his comrades. An interrogation line? A line of cows bound for the slaughterhouse fit better.
She examined them each in turn, running an appraising eye over their bodies as if examining stallions. She checked their height, estimated their weight, kicked them in the gut to see if they could take it, questioned them on seemingly random topics, and held an individual though brief conversation with each.
Lorne paid little heed to any of it. The words merged into one long ramble that he neither cared nor wanted to hear. He focused on the barren ground between his knees. Pity he wouldn't live for a rescue party.
But even that notion turned numb in his rapidly wavering mind, all fuzzy indifference. Even his heart, earlier charged and thrumming in rage, palpitated into…nothing. He couldn't even feel it anymore. He snapped his aching head skyward, all at once certain that the Luskan harpy had killed him during his thoughts and sent him to whatever plane awaited.
His eyes were met with her silhouette framed against the darkening sky.
She arched a brow approvingly as she surveyed him. "And we have the runt of the litter, I see." She drawled. A slender hand reached out to grab hold of his powerful jaw, but he gnashed his teeth at her fingers. She drew back. A deep but warning laugh rose in her throat.
Lorne flexed against the coils around his wrists and ankles, willing his muscles to bulge and snap the tethers. They just dug stinging furrows into his skin. If they gave way, he would tear this...creature and all her sniveling minions until not even their precious Hosttower could scry their remains.
"Release me." He ordered.
She responded by ramming her foot into his abdomen. He grunted, and a few white sparkles floated in his vision, but that was all.
He roared in bestial laughter. "That dainty toe of yours will not break me, Torio Claven."
The squad of assassins shifted in disquiet.
"My, aren't we the brazen wretch?" Torio narrowed her eyes; but her curiosity had piqued and she could not mask that. Her voice dropped to an almost cautious whisper. "Only Master Garius and insolent morons call me by name. And while you are insolent, you don't strike me as a moron." A gleam to the eye and a sneer. "Yet."
Lorne strained against the ropes again, the pain it caused only stoking his anger. "Release me." He said again.
"Tell me, greycloak." Torio placed a hand on her hip, tone strong and unyielding. "What do they call you?" She waved the other hand in his comrades' direction.
He faltered for a moment; he'd almost forgotten them. Then a broad grin split his face. "I am Death Without Mercy." His fellow soldiers murmured in ill-disguised humor.
Torio's lips parted and invoked a deadly incantation and she swiped it at the youngest among their number. Owain's slight frame buckled. He writhed and hollered as the magic coursed through his body, frying every inch of flesh until his eyes rolled into the back of his head from the agony of it. Torio cut the spell.
Lorne lunged forward, but with his ankles and wrists fastened together like they were, he plummeted forward onto his face. He bellowed unintelligible curses at her as the rage claimed him. The rage he'd never learned to control. His breath stirred violent puffs of dry earth into the air. If he could just reach her, any part of her, he would crush her, crush her with his body and his hate and...
A pitiful moan sounded from a few feet away. Owain had lived.
Torio backpedaled from Lorne's spread-eagled body and had the assassination squad lift him and muscle him back in his place.
Lorne craned his neck to find Owain blistered and bloodied; his skin was raw. But he was alive. For one instant, he successfully blocked out Torio completely.
"Miblir, end him if you like."
The assassin knelt in front of Owain's scorched body and raised his head by what hair remained. He carved a macabre smile across the boy's throat; it was not long before he lay motionless. When Lorne witnessed this, something snapped.
It was the ropes that bound him.
With an inhuman cry, he slammed Torio into the ground, their bodies kicking up a cloud of dust. He pinned her arms to her sides to prevent any more of her foul magics. She shrieked, demanding that the band of assassins aide her.
"Do something, you pissants!"
In unison, the assassins backed away, and assumed the casual stances of spectators viewing a jousting match. Miblir's thin, serpentine chuckle pierced what little coherency Lorne's mind allowed him.
"Tut tut, dear Torio. Pissants, is it? Well then. If we are nothing, then we shall do nothing." They all snickered darkly.
Lorne laughed in triumph, though it mirrored a vicious growl. He cinched her arms between his thighs, and raised his fists high over her head. She screamed in fear.
"I will crush your skull. Let us see how your spells fare then." His fists came down, hard.
Something firm collided with the back of his head, as if a giant hand had bull-rushed him. He collapsed forward on top of Torio.
He knew nothing but darkness.