Camille's face looks demonic and her skin turns almost purple. "Kill them all, except that bastard Brand! Kill them, now!"

  A streak moves through the crowd tossing aside both the hangers on and the City Watch with equal ease. I doubt any of them can clearly follow the streak's movements. As Dacbold grabs Camille by the back of the neck and tosses her onto a pile of her City Watch, she shrieks like a damned soul.

  There is a flash of light in Brand's left eye and he narrows them. After staring at Dacbold for a moment, he grins that predatory grin. "You're Coalescent."

  Dacbold returns Brand's stare without blinking. "So?"

  Brand snorts like a bull. "You're stronger than a human in the second circle, but then, you're a Dvergar."

  Just looking at Brand, he seems ready to fight. He knows Dacbold is Coalescent, and he does not seem in the least bit afraid. If anything, he seems eager for the chance to fight.

  After frowning at Vili, the DokkAlfar woman slides across the half-step separating her from Brand. She slips her hand into his, and hugs his arm, pressing that almost flat chest tight against his upper arm.

  "I thought you liked rock apes." The DokkAlfar's voice is a soft purr, and it looks like she is trying to breath the question into Brand's ear.

  Brand frowns, and his eyes flicker toward Vili. "When they aren't interfering assholes."

  Even with his nasty smile, Vili looks like he is on the verge of laughing. He turns toward Dacbold. "You should try him out. He killed an ogre lord in one on one combat. Even though, he fucked around when he should have killed it."

  Brand turns a hostile glare on Vili. "You've been talking to Thrall too much."

  "I watched the fight. You should have killed that thing in less than thirty seconds."

  "Whatever."

  Brand straightens up. "You're Dacbold."

  "Yeah. It seems like you might really be Talon."

  "Talon's dead. I'm Brand, now."

  "Stupid name, but it suits your ugly face."

  "I like him. He tells the truth." The Hispanic looking guy, who is still leaning against the launch, has an inflammatory smirk on his face.

  Brand looks at me. "Is there someplace we can talk without the annoying cunt getting in our way?"

  "Follow me." I start walking toward my house.

  "Third, take the longboats back to the Night Raven. We'll call for them, when we need them again."

  "Aye, Master." One of the DokkAlfar speaks those words.

  My head snaps around, and I stare at the DokkAlfar with incredulity. He has a completely straight face, and his fist is over his heart in the style of salute that is common to both Dvergar and Alfar. I never expected to hear a DokkAlfar calling a human Master in this lifetime. Looking at Brand, he has the demeanor of someone who expects this kind of treatment from the DokkAlfar.

  "Kanchek, Valcrit, Tyrend, you three are with me."

  "Yes, Master." The two armored DokkAlfar salute Brand.

  "Coming. I wouldn't miss this for anything." That comment comes from the Hispanic looking human.

  Brand stares at a Half-Alfar, a gaudily dressed one that was in the second launch. "You come too!"

  That Half-Alfar has an angry, bitter expression on his face when he salutes, and he, also, seems to be afraid. "Aye, Master."

  Talon was never a leader. He did everything he could to stay by himself. Brand may be Talon, but he has changed. He is a different person. I am not sure how to read him. I think he is an even bigger killer now, but he is not quite the loner that he was.

  Is the change in Brand because of the DokkAlfar woman hanging on his arm? She looks like she is barely more than a girl, but with an Alfar that is deceptive. Based on appearances, she would be twenty-three or twenty-four at the most, but Dacbold says that she is a Coalescent, in the second circle no less. There is no way anyone that young could be Coalescent. It normally takes decades, at the very least, to achieve Coalescence, and most beings die before reaching the first circle.

  Dacbold, already, being Coalescent means that he is an unbelievable freak. His Dvergar Body has incredible potential, and his Mind and Soul have insane potential, as well. Still, his reaching Coalescence in just twelve years was a miracle. Farnulf and I still have not managed to completely fuse with our bodies. I am further along than Farnulf, but there are still problems. It was a lot easier for many of the humans.

  "You've changed. In the past, you could never stay quiet this long. You were always chattering with people about nothing."

  Brand's comments jar me out of my reverie. We are already more than two-thirds of the way to my place. I look at Dacbold, but his blank "I know nothing!" expression makes me want to hit him.

  I look back at Brand. "After you were murdered, a lot happened. Most of it was ugly; more than half of the expeditionary force was killed. Only a few thousand of them escaped being enslaved, and most of those were Thug Horde. We're still not sure how many have survived and may still be held in slavery someplace. There are a few people who still travel all over Sudnel looking for survivors, but most of us gave up on the search years ago."

  Brand frowns. "Everyone changes. Nothing, ever, stays the same."

  "Your lack of manners never changes."

  Brand looks at me, with confusion in his eyes.

  "You haven't introduced your girlfriend."

  "Girlfriend?" As Brand looks at the DokkAlfar woman, his attitude is odd. It almost seems like he is confused. He does not seem to know what his relationship with her is.

  The DokkAlfar woman looks at me with narrowed eyes. "When you say girlfriend, what do you mean?"

  As her meaning hits me, I scratch my chin. We have been using the Slave Tongue from the Battleground of the Damned. It was what Brand first used. The thing about the Slave Tongue is that it actually does not have the word girlfriend in it. For decades, we have just been stringing the words for girl and friend together to make one word like in English. The word we use for friend is not really the same as the English word, in the first place. In the Slave Tongue, there is no direct translation for friend. The word we use would be closer to comrade or compatriot in English. The DokkAlfar language may not have a direct translation for girlfriend, either. The concept probably does not exist in their culture.

  Not expecting much, I look at Dacbold, but he is studiously inspecting the sky, with a smirk that he does not bother to hide. That bastard.

  When I look at Brand, he has an even bigger smirk than Dacbold. The DokkAlfar is his girlfriend, and he clearly has no intention of helping me out. He is another bastard.

  "Uh, well, it's a term from English, our native language. It doesn't really translate well into the Slave Tongue. I guess the simplest way to explain it is that when a man and a woman love each other and are in a relationship, the woman is called his girlfriend."

  The DokkAlfar woman frowns and looks at Brand. "Love is an emotion that belongs to the weak. I do not love Brand. I fuck him because he has a big dick. Bestiality is the best kind of fucking. DokkAlfar males' dicks are too small to give me pleasure."

  Brand, Kanchek, and Valcrit do not even blink, but Tyrend bursts out laughing. The gaudily dressed Half-Alfar cannot seem to decide if he wants to be offended or afraid.

  The DokkAlfar woman looks at Tyrend, frowning. "Your dick is barely bigger than a DokkAlfar male's dick, and you go limp after suffering only the smallest pain. You were not very satisfying when I fucked you."

  Tyrend grins at the DokkAlfar woman. "I'm not a monster like Brand. He slurps down pain like it was his mother's milk and goes looking for more."

  As the DokkAlfar woman looks at Brand, her eyes get a misty, faraway look in them, and she caresses his scarred cheek. "Brand's Power makes it impossible to keep him restrained while torturing him. He is better at giving pain than receiving it. He has even hurt me bad enough to make me scream. Just his touch makes me wet."

  The way Brand and the DokkAlfar are staring at each makes it look like they want to go at it right in the street.

  What? The? Fuck? Are they both sick in the head? Brand has a lot more scars than just the ones from those burns. They are mostly new. They do not have the faded white appearance that older scars take on. I thought they were wounds in battle, but could they be from this crazy DokkAlfar that is hanging onto his arm?

  I can barely imagine what kind of hell it would be growing up, as a white male on Earth, with Brand's face, but was the bullying bad enough to warp him badly enough that he would let some crazy bitch torture him just to get laid?

  That crazy bitch likes being hurt too, but what did Brand do to hurt her bad enough to make her scream? I do not think they are talking about a little leather and lace BDSM.

  "So, Brand, what is your girlfriend's name?"

  The crazy DokkAlfar bitch looks at me like I am a cockroach or something just as disgusting. "I am not Brand's girlfriend. There are no foolish sentiments like love or like between males and females; there is only lust and usefulness. Brand is my man. I am Elan'fer'sha."

  The bitch is crazy. She reminds me of the tsundere characters in old anime. She looks at Brand like she is head over heels in love, but she talks like they are nothing more than casual fuck buddies or maybe, just a John and whore.

  "It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Thorrin Hammerfist. He's Dacbold." I smile and nod to this crazy bitch Elan'fer'sha and point at Dacbold.

  The way she looks at Dacbold is even more hostile than the way she looks at me. She is probably aware of him being Coalescent and sees him a potential threat. There sure as hell is no love lost between the Dvergar and Alfar. This is just the kind of bullshit we do not need. This mission from Boran is getting off to such a god damn wonderful start.

  There is no more conversation while we cover the rest of the distance to my house. It is probably for the best. I am not sure how to deal with this new version of Talon, or maybe, as Brand, he is different than he was as Talon. He is colder and harder than in the past, and there is a darkness inside of him that frightens me a bit.

  "This is my home. I have enough rooms for all of you for the night. The rest of the people, who might be useful on Earth, will be here around dinner time."

  My house is outside of the town proper, and Elan'fer'sha looks in the direction of Refuge. "I am interested in looking around. I have never been in one of these squalid human towns that was not being conquered."

  Brand nods. "I need to talk to Thorrin. Kanchek, take Valcrit and guard Elan!"

  The two armored DokkAlfar salute Brand. "Yes, Master!"

  As Elan'fer'sha leaves, those two armored DokkAlfar follow about a pace behind her.

  Brand looks at the gaudily dressed Half-Alfar. His attitude towards this Half-Alfar is disdainful. "Duncrik, have you crewed airships out here on Taereun?"

  Duncrik frowns. "Aye, Master."

  "How long would it take to sail from here to Freeport?"

  Duncrik's eyes widen in surprise. "Freeport?"

  "Yes, Freeport."

  Duncrik purses his lips and looks at the Night Raven. "As long as we don't run into storms or hostile airships, twelve or thirteen days if the winds favor us. If they don't, it might take twenty or twenty-one."

  Brand nods, in an introspective manner. "Don't get lost. You'll be in on tonight's meeting."

  "Aye, Master." If Duncrik is trying to hide his anger and his dislike for Brand, he is doing a bad job of it. After looking like he was choking on his reply to Brand's last command, he struts out away from my house, looking neither right nor left.

  I wait until the Half-Alfar is out of hearing range. "He's going to be trouble. Why do you have him for your captain?"

  Brand frowns for a moment before sighing. "Thrall gave him to me, but I haven't figured out why."

  I shake my head. "Who is Thrall?"

  "The Smith God of Gor'achen Citadel."

  I cannot keep an amused expression off my face. "He's real? I always thought that was just some bullshit legend."

  Brand almost seems to smile. "He's real, but he's not a False Name. He's just a powerful Transcendent, whose father seems to be one of the Jotun Lords. He has some kind of history with them that isn't exactly cordial."

  "Huh. Let's get a beer. I have some good stuff in the house. We've built some pretty good Power-based refrigeration systems, so it's not at room temperature like most of the people in this world seem to like it."

  As I open the front door, Silvy is rocking back and forth on her heals in the front hall. "Welcome back, Lord Thorrin!"

  When Dacbold and Brand come in behind me, Silvy starts to quiver and looks like she is ready to bolt out of the room. The eye that the orcs left her is glued to Brand's face, and he is staring back, with slightly squinted eyes.

  "You've really changed. I never would have thought you'd keep slaves."

  I feel a surge of anger and glare at Brand. "Silvy is not a slave. What the hell has happened to you? Why would you talk about her like that?"

  As Brand shifts his stare onto me, I have to steel myself not to take a step back. I have stared at some pretty nasty predators over the years, but none of them hold a candle to the intense malice in Brand's eyes. He is not Talon anymore. Despite his Body, Talon was still human inside. Brand's is a monster in human flesh.

  "Spend a few months in Gor'achen with a slave collar on your neck, and you'll learn how to tell slaves from people who are just stuck in slave collars. When someone is broken to their collar, they are a slave. Even though she isn't wearing it, she is broken to her collar." Brand gestures in Silvy's direction with his chin.

  "Lord Thorrin, please, don't fight with him over Silvy. If something happens to Lord Thorrin, where will Silvy go?"

  I turn around and hug Silvy. She grabs my shirt and shivers, while trying not to sniffle. I have not seen her like this since I pulled her out of that orc hellhole. She was barely alive after being raped and tortured by them for over two years. None of our healers could do much about the scars, and she always keeps herself wrapped up like a towel head from the Mideast. Her mental state has been fragile ever since, but she is not a slave.

  "Silvy, go pour a pitcher of beer. Bring that and three mugs to my study."

  "Yes, Lord Thorrin!" The way Silvy runs toward the kitchen, she seems to be elated. As long I give her small things to do outside of her daily work, she always acts like this. It is pathetic, but it is about the only way I have ever found to cheer her up.

  Looking over my shoulder at Brand, I see the disgust in his eyes. Even when he was Talon, he never had any tolerance for weakness. He drove himself harder than anyone I have ever known. He was like a block of iron without the slightest give in him for anything, and he did not have any tolerance for the failing of others. Now, I think he might be even worse.

  "She'll be a slave forever."

  Tyrend's voice, coming from right next to me, makes me jump. I never saw or heard him get that close to me.

  Tyrend smirks. Actually, he has not stopped smirking since throwing his verbal jab at Brand back at their launches. "Brand's right. She's broken. I've seen too many like her in Gor'achen. Once they get like that, they never recover. Though, if you can manage to find one with a bit of meat on her bones, she will make a good fuck. Women like that, they'll do anything to please you."

  Brand has a disgusted look on his face as he stares at Tyrend. "You and your fat ass sows. How do you even get your dick hard for a sack of blubber?"

  If I was a couple inches shorter, I think my jaw would hit the floor. I thought Brand was disgusted by Tyrend's sick comment about using a woman who has been as badly abused as Silvy for sex. He just does not like Tyrend's taste in women. I mean, yeah, getting it up for a fat chick takes a pretty fucked up mentality, but come on, using a poor girl like Silvy for your personal fuck toy is inhuman.

  Tyrend's smirk never wavers. "Fat women need fucking too, and they'll take much better care of you than some skinny-ass bitch."

  "Whatever." Brand walks through the door on his right into my sitting room.

  As Brand's bulk moves out of my line of sight, I see Vili standing in the still open door of my house, with an amused grin plastered on his annoying face. He would be enjoying this, the fucking asshole.

  Dacbold is standing not too far from Vili, with a smirk on his face. *This reminds me of some of the better times during The Great Fuck Over.*

  *What are you talking about? Tyrend's nothing but a sexual predator. Brand may have been Talon, once, but now, he's an insane monster. How is this anything like the better times?*

  *You can't feel it can you? The pain. Brand doesn't know much beyond pain, anymore. If he's not feeling pain, he's going to hurt someone around him and watch them suffer. He doesn't even realize he's doing it.*

  I stare incredulously at Vili. *How the hell did you get in my party chatroom?*

  Vili laughs that nasty laugh I hate so much. *Do you really think that pathetic joke you call security protocols is going to keep Me out of your little toy?*

  I cannot stop myself from sighing. No matter what, I can never win against Vili. He is always ten steps ahead.

  *Ask Brand what his Secrets of Steel are.*

  This time my jaw definitely hits the floor. *He's a Maker? An Earth-born human is a Maker?*

  *Ask him!* There is no questioning Vili's commanding demeanor.

  "Hey, Brand."

  Brand turns to look at me. "Yeah?"

  "What are your Secrets of Steel?"

  As his eyes narrow, Brand looks at me with a frown. After a moment, his stare shifts to the smirking Vili.

  "Pain. Cruelty." There is a Power in those words that causes them to hit me like a physical blow. The way Brand says 'them', they carry more meaning than just their simple definitions.

  As Brand's face goes blank from shock and his jaw hangs open, Vili laughs nastily.

  What? The? Hell? What just happened? What did Brand do just now? Whatever he might have done, those Secrets are too dark. How can anyone sane have Secrets like those?

  I look at Dacbold, and he grimly returns my stare. *What have we gotten ourselves into?*

 

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