Message-ID: <21595asstr$944064600@assm.asstr.org>
From: eriadoriii@aol.comnospam (EriadorIII)
Subject: {ASSM} The Ring of Power. Part One
X-Original-Message-ID: <19991201001416.01136.00000173@ng-fy1.aol.com>
Date: Wed, 1 Dec 1999 11:10:00 -0500
Path: assm.asstr.org!not-for-mail
Approved: <assm@asstr.org>
Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories
Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d
X-Archived-At: <URL:http://assm.asstr.org/Year1999/21595>
X-Moderator-Contact: ASSTR ASSM moderation <story-admin@asstr.org>
X-Story-Submission: <story-submit@asstr.org>
X-Moderator-ID: dennyw, Lambchop
Foreward: The Ring of Power is a story set in a fantasy land that I have been
working with for some while. It is an ongoing story about the adventures of
our hero. It takes up part way through his quest for the mythical Ring of
Power. His motives plus the details of his past will be explored at a later
date, in context with the story. The first posting has no sex and is somewhat
violent, but read on because your patience will be rewareded in the following
parts.
Part One: Blackwood
He could still hear it stalking him.
He crouched behind the tree trying to catch his breath. His heart beat with
fear as he heard the creature drag its bulk through the trees. He only had a
few moments before the thing caught his trail.
Mercyn took a moment to look at his dagger, the lone weapon he still had as
the others were still embedded in the creatures thick hide. The blade of his
knife was covered in a sticky black substance that passed for the blood of the
monster that trailed him. He took a moment to wipe the blade on the moss that
grew at the base of the tree and then launched himself from his hiding spot,
driving deeper into the forest.
The locals referred to it as Os Saloes da Sombra in their own
language but Mercyn's people had long referred to it with a less elegant name,
the Blackwood. Legends abounded as to the denizens of the forests. One of
Mercyn's favorites was of the old man who lived forever and could change his
shape into a beast. Most of the other stories centered around faeries and
dragons and dreadful orcs. Always the hero of the stories stood victorious
over his foul foes, defeating them and gallantly saving the damsel in distress.
Mercyn smiled grimly, wondering what one of those heroes would have done if
they faced the creature that even now hunted him. Probably the same thing he
was doing, running for his life.
He hadn't gone far before he heard the bellow of the monster,
signifying that he had recaptured the man's trail. Despite the size of the
monster and its apparent lack of speed, Mercyn knew from horrible experience
that the creature could move with incredible speed. As if in answer to that
memory, the oozing slash across the man's leg began to throb through the haze
of adrenalin.
Mercyn pushed aside all weariness and began to run with all the speed his
tortured body could muster. Branches reached out at him clutching at his face
and his clothes. Roots and bushes lunged out at him, trying to trip him as he
dodged through the underbrush. Several times he fell, adding another layer of
bruises to his body and creating another set of slashes across the exposed
portions of his flesh. Each time he stood again and continued to run, but the
bellowing of the beast came closer and closer, ever gaining ground as if the
forest were no imposition to it at all.
Mercyn burst through a thick hedge of bushes, the monster close
enough that he could here the low rumbling sound it made as its huge legs
trampled the earth beneath it. He imagined he could feel the creature's hot
breath on the back of his neck, he imagined that he could sense the monster's
fell gaze on his fleeing back. Desperately he began to try to visualize a way
he could escape the beast or, at the very least, a place where he could fight
back and at least earn a warrior's death. He was so distracted by the fear of
the beast and his thoughts of escape, that he didn't notice the gully until his
foot came down on earth that was several feet lower then he expected.
The gully was not very deep, but it was enough to throw the
overbalanced man head over heels, tumbling twenty feet down the rugged slope to
land sprawling at the bottom of the gully.
A sharp spike of pain in his left angle told Mercyn that his
ankle was broken or at the very least severly sprained. He rolled over onto
his back and felt agony rip through his right side. His hands clutched at the
hilt of his dagger that had managed to embed itself in his side during the
fall. He grasped the hilt and, with his rapidly failing strength, pulled the
blade free. Blood gushed from the wound and with it the remainder of the
warrior's strength. He slumped back on the ground and waited as the life
rushed out of him.
That was how the monster found him, exhausted and resigned to
death. The creature caught sight of the dying man and paused at the top of the
gully. It was huge. Mercyn estimated that it was nearly fifty feet long and
its shoulders stood higher than a man. It stalked through the underbrush like
a giant centipede, with over a dozen legs on either side, each the width of a
moderate-sized tree trunk and each muscled with an ungodly strength. The
beasts body was covered in a dull black fur. The fur was long and unruly, the
creatures natural habitat had contributed to numerous twigs and leaves getting
trapped in the unruly mess. Beneath the fur, the creatures hide was thick and
as hard as stone. Twice Mercyn had hacked the creature with his sword, both
times the weapon had rebounded with force, nearly pulling the man's shoulders
from their sockets. The skin was created from several plate-like
configurations, each put together like a piece of a puzzle. Mercyn had tried
to shove his sword between two of the plates, and while it did seem to cause
the beast some sort of pain, he had succeeded only in trapping his weapon in
the monster's side.
The truly horrifying aspect of the creature was its head. Stuck
on the end of a long, sinuous neck, the beast's head was dominated by a huge
mouth. Acidic saliva seeped between several rows of horrifyingly sharp teeth.
Two fangs protruded from the front of the upper jaw, each fang being as long as
a man's arm. A vile green ichor dripped from the fangs and sizzled when it hit
the ground. So far Mercyn had been able to avoid that mouth, but the things
head moved with terrifying speed and dodging had not been easy. Above the
massive jaws were set a row of three eyes. The outer two eyes were segmented
like an insect's. From his experience, Mercyn knew that these eyes gave the
creature a nearly supernatural peripheral vision. He had been able to disable
the monster's leftmost eye with his dagger but his reward had been the jagged
slash in his thigh. The center eye, was horribly human and twice as large as
the others. Once Mercyn had caught the gaze of that giant red pupil and had
nearly become entranced by the depths therein. Only a massive exertion of
willpower had pulled his eyes away from that trap, moments before the creature
had crushed him with its massive body.
Now the beast had the man trapped. It stood at the top of the
gully and raised the front part of its body in a mock salute of the fallen
warrior. It raised its head towards the sky and let forth a loud roar tinged
with an inhuman joy. The neck then came down and the center eye focused on its
fallen prey. Mercyn marshalled the remainder of his strength and met the
creature's hungry gaze. He could almost imagine that the monster was smiling.
The creature swung its head from side to side, examining the
gully. Mercyn copied the response, trying to get a sense of his immediate
environment. The warrior found that he had not fallen all the way to the
bottom. He had come up short of the bottom, having slid to a stop against a
pile of rotting and moss-covered logs. About ten feet further down the slope,
a small stream burbled through the gully. Mercyn watched with a detached sense
of irony as a rivulet of his own blood even now merged with the stream,
creating little clouds of blood and dirt mixing in the stream. In either
direction the gully continued to wind its way through the forest, quietly
escorting the stream on its path. The far slope of the gully was similar to
the first, a steep slope of dirt and mud speckled with brush and dead trees,
but it extended nearly twenty feet higher then the ground on the near side.
Satisfied that the gully contained no hidden dangers the monster
returned its gaze to the prone human beneath it. It took a tentative step
forward onto the slope, meaning to approach the warrior. The first two of its
mighty legs set onto the slope, sending dirt and rock tumbling down the slope
and banging against the human. When the second set of legs landed on the
slope, a large part of the slope itself came loose and slid down the slope.
Reacting with inhuman speed, the monster shifted its weight to its back legs
and reared up into the air one more time, this time pulling back from the gully
and the dirt slide.
The sliding earth collided with Mercyn, pouring a mass of dirt into his lungs
and stinging rocks into his open wounds. When the dust cleared, he realized
that the monster could not reach him in the gully, at least not without risking
itself losing its balance and sliding down the hill.
The creature realized this also and had regrouped at the top of
the slope. It locked its center eye on the man below and Mercyn felt a wave of
disorientation wash over his consciousness and a voice that was not his own
invaded his mind.
"COME TO ME"
The words echoed in his brain, reverbrating through the pain
induced haze. Before he knew what he was doing, Mercyn was on his hands and
knees and was crawling up the slope and into the gaping maw of the monster.
A stab of pain in his side managed to pierce the monster-induced haze and gave
him a moment of clarity. Using the false strength imbued by the monster's
call, Mercyn turned his movements and managed a controlled slide the rest of
the way down the gully, ending with a splash in the tiny brook.
"COME TO ME. COME TO ME."
The creatures words still echoed in his brain, but the pain had
formed a wall, apportioning off part of his brain and relegating the call to
the outer recesses.
The stream was very small and very shallow, perhaps a couple feet wide and
never deeper than several inches. The ward was very cold, though, and quickly
seeping through Mercyn's boots, adding to his general discomfort. He ignored
it, just as he ignored the persistent call of the monster.
The urge to survive was now gaining strength inside him and he
reached for a bush on the far slope and began to pull himself up the hill and
away from the beast.
The creature's voice exploded in his mind as the beast let out a
piercing scream of unrequited rage. Unnatural pain pieced Mercyn's physical
discomfort and wrapped the man's mind with a blanket of agony. The pain
receded as he was verging on passing out, the receding voice stealing away the
remainder of the false strength, leaving him stripped bare with only his urgent
desire to live empowering his muscles.
He continued to climb the slope as the monster raged behind him.
Watching its prey escape caused the creature to continue its violent bellows of
rage. When the fleeing figure had nearly reached the top of the far slope rage
overcame good sense in the monster and it plunged down into the gully, pursuing
its prey. The ground quickly came loose beneath the beast and its great weight
threw it off balance and sent it tumbling into the gully, rolling to a stop at
the bottom, completely disrupting the stream.
Mercyn was most of the way up the far slope when he felt the
ground shake from the force of the beasts fall. He clutched at a small bush as
the slope around him trembled, the dirt coming loose around him and starting to
slide back into the gully.
Mercyn paused to marshal his strength and looked back over his
shoulder and down at the creature. The monster had slid into a heap directly
beneath him and was a jumble of flailing legs as it worked to right itself. A
loud roar issued from the creature and echoed through the gully. Mercyn turned
away and reached for another bush to resume his climb. His hands clutched the
plant but, as he shifted his weight away from the other bush, the plant came
free, tearing out of the ground. Wildly, he grabbed for the other bush but his
hand encountered air as he began to slide down the hill.
As he slid, Mercyn rolled onto his back and watched as he plummeted
towards the monster at the bottom of the gully. He scrambled for a hand-hold
to stop his slide but his weakened body was unable to do anything but slightly
slow him down.
The monster below was unaware of its prey's slide as its focus was
on righting itself. The man was only a few feet away when it became aware of
his approach and the creature raised its vile head to spy the human.
Mercyn had a horrible vision of sliding directly into the beast's
jaws, but when the monster lifted his head, it allowed the human to slide
beneath the creature's head and towards the scrambling mass of its body. As he
slid beneath the beast's jaws as flash of burnished gold caught his eye and in
terrified desperation he reached out and grasped the hilt of his sword, which
still was imbedded in the monster's neck.
They say that fear can exhort a man to extreme exhibits of strength
and this was proven true as terror induced strength flooded Mercyn's hands and
hardened his grasp on the protruding weapon, bringing his slide to a halt just
short of the stamping mass of the creature's legs.
The beast raised its head to the sky when it felt the human grasp
the imbedded blade, attempting to fling the human clear. Mercyn held on with
desperate strength and managed to swing himself onto the monster's shoulders,
resting himself between the protruding spines on the monster's back.
Quickly the beast's head whipped around on the sinuous neck and tried to snap
its jaws around the warrior. Mercyn jerked away as the teeth snapped inches
from his face. A drop of the green ichor from the fangs landed on his cheek
and added a small burning sensation to the overall landscape of pain that
wracked his body.
A cramping at his hip brought his attention back to his side,
where somehow he had managed to keep possession of his dagger. While holding
on with one hand, he reached down with the other and brought the dagger back up
near his face. When the creature's maw struck a second time, he slashed with
his knife, but the beast whipped its head away with astounding speed.
Strength was quickly becoming a thing of the past as the creature
continued to try and shake the warrior loose while simultaneously striking with
its vicious jaws. Desperation took control of the warrior's body and he
shifted his weight, preparing himself to leap. When the head whipped around
again, Mercyn leaped, attempting to clear the creature's jaws. Amazingly he
succeeded and landed on the ridge of bone directly above the monster's upper
jaw.
The monster quickly whipped its neck in the air to dislodge the
human. As he felt himself fly up into the air and come loose from the beast,
Mercyn grasped his dagger in both hands and plunged it into the creature's
central eye, driving it deep into the beast.
A piercing scream, accompanied by the return of the horrible mind
blast of pain, sounded through the forest and the creature began to swing its
head wildly from side to side. Mercyn held on desperately to the dagger and
used the momentum of the creature's head to drive the dagger deeper into the
eye and into the monster's brain.
The screaming became louder, the thrashing became wilder and the mind
blast became stronger as Mercyn drove the blade deeper. Both his arms were now
elbow deep in the creatures destroyed eye, the black blood was boiling out
around his arms, the warmth of the liquid numbing his arms. Blood fountained
from the wound, more than a little splashing the warrior in the face and
washing into his mouth and nose. But with a single-mindedness that had long
lost any thoughts other than killing this monster, Mercyn drove the blade
deeper, until he felt his hands and his blade pierce the softness of the
creature's brain. Then his strength gave out and, with a jerk, he felt himself
let go of the dagger and come free of the beast.
A surreal sensation of falling from a long distance wrapped his mind
as he flew through the air, and then he smashed into the ground. The
creature's agony had reached a crescendo and the beast's roar had reached
levels that could not be heard by human ears. The mind blast from the dying
monster was also at its peak and it wrapped the human completely in its grasp,
overwhelming all sense of self. Pain became Mercyn's only companion as he felt
darkness reach across his mind and finally envelop him in the mercy of
unconsciousness.
--
If you enjoyed this work, take a moment to email the author. Your comments
are their only payment. Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is
copyright with all rights reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
+----------------' Story submission `-+-' Moderator contact `--------------+
| <story-submit@asstr.org> | <story-admin@asstr.org> |
| ASSM Archive site +-----------------+--------------------+ Newsgroup FAQ |
| <http://assm.asstr.org/>---<http://assm.asstr.org/erotica/assm/faq.html> |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| This newsgroup is moderated by ASSTR, an entity supported by donations. |
| If you enjoy this newsgroup, please consider making a donation to help |
| Alt.Sex.Stories Text Repository keep providing this free service for you.|
| </> Donations: </donations.html> |
\_________________________________________________________________________/