Y'Nfalle: From Beyond Ancient Gates

Amongst the many elven kingdoms of the world, Vatur was considered both the smallest and the most peaceful one. Boasting the fact that in their long history, they only had a single war against another intelligent species, that war being the one against the humans of the Marbella kingdom, over seven hundred years ago, when the human kingdom was first founded.

The war ended with a truce, as the humans weren't powerful enough to penetrate deep into the heart of the Silver Forest, which protected the Vatur elves since the day they made it their home, and the elves were not numerous enough to win any large-scale battles.

Ever since that war ended, the elves of Vatur enjoyed a life of peace and prosperity. Even the relationship with their human neighbours from Marbella improved, finally reaching the status of an official alliance, when the humans led by King Ootar Augustin Marbella came to the aid of the elves when their home was under attack by the orc hordes from the North.

That battle was the first time Eirlys ever experienced real combat, and the brutality of the beasts left behind by the Demon Lord many millennia ago. Orcs, creatures born from ogres that were malformed and corrupted by dark magics, struck fear into the hearts of even the bravest warriors, be they elf or man. It was a common practice for both women and men to take their lives when captured by the foul creatures, to avoid the atrocious fate of being made into playthings or used to bolster the orc population.

Eirlys, having been lucky enough to never get captured, nor ever witness the state the victims of orc "playtimes" were found in, never fully understood the horror of it. She often heard that those rescued wouldn't go on to live long, be it from the wounds taking their toll or from the shattered sanity driving them to end their lives. Still, she believed herself strong enough to endure such brutality without fully losing her mind.

She felt she knew pain, having experienced it many times during her life. Grief from losing a loved one or a comrade to the enemy, a wound from being incautious during a battle or hunting, the long ache of love unreturned.

As her black hair stuck to her sweat-slicked face, her cheeks salted by tears, and droplets of spit flying out of her mouth with each laboured breath, Eirlys understood she did not know pain. The pain brought on by a gleeful tormentor, one who takes delight in the act itself, rather than what that act aims to accomplish.

From early in the morning, Eirlys was placed in the loving hands of Captain Anita Howler. The only thing that Warhound told her was that what was about to happen to her would be an interrogation. However, immediately after that sentence, the human woman removed the translator stone she was given.

As the sun rose higher and higher in the sky, so did the elf's screams. By the time she was given her first break and Anita retrieved the stone to ask a few questions, Eirlys's upper body, stripped of all clothing, was already covered in bruises and cuts. She was restrained in a metal chair, which was bolted to the floor, her hands cuffed to the table in front of her in such a way that she had her hands splayed open on the cool surface.

Anita seemed to have an inexhaustible imagination when it came to the ways in which to cause further anguish to her plaything. She looked at Eirlys and all the bruises that covered her back, shoulders and sides, with the same admiration an artist would look at their painting with.

Eirlys fought to maintain her sanity, to hold out and endure as if there would be an end to the torture. She dared not meet Anita's gaze because the sick pleasure in the Warhound's amber eyes threatened to crush all hope and delusions the elf had about being rescued.

Anita walked around the table and Eirlys, never taking her eyes off the elf. She reached and grabbed the translator stone before stopping right behind the elven general, grabbing her bruised shoulders and squeezing.
"I hope that workout has helped you warm up to me, and maybe even loosened your lips a bit, hm? Why don't you tell me what I want to know? Which is... well, everything, really."

"Go to Hell, bitch." Eirlys replied with clenched teeth, her green eyes bloodshot from straining.

Howler moved the elf's hair to the side before bending down and placing her chin on Eirlys's left shoulder. Her breath was ragged as she struggled to contain herself. The Warhound's arms wrapped around the general's bare torso, almost like a hug. But the pressure from the squeeze was so intense that Eirlys felt like her chest was going to cave in.

"You're such a lucky girl," Anita whispered.
"The Colonel said I'm not allowed to play with you too hard. 'No mutilation,' he said. I worry that this place might have softened him."

Ever defiant, Eirlys shook her head back, hoping to hit the human in the nose, but failed to do so. Anita giggled, placing a kiss on the side of the elf's neck before standing up straight. She circled her toy a few more times before walking to one of the bags in the corner and pulling out a strange device with prongs and another, which Eirlys recognised immediately, a pair of pliers.

"You know, I've been thinking…" Howler spoke matter-of-factly, while placing the tools down on the table.
"You elves live veeeeery long lives, or so people told me. I bet you live so long you even forget what pain is. No matter how bad an injury, eventually the memory of it must fade, right?"

The elven general just glared at her. Nothing in the room was from her world, and even if it were, she was far too exhausted to cast any meaningful spells that could help her escape.

Anita tossed the stone back into the bag she pulled the tools from and looked at the two items with an indecisive look on her face. Finally, she placed the pliers on the table and approached Eirlys with the strange tool, pressing its metallic prongs right at the centre of the elf's torso. With a press of a button, electricity was introduced to the general's system.

***

It was around noon when Clyde decided to check up on Captain Howler and the elven prisoner. Several hours in Anita's hands would've made even a rock start to talk, so he doubted that the elf managed to keep her secrets to herself for that long.

The box Eirlys was being interrogated in was divided into two uneven parts, separated by a large, one-way mirror. The larger of the two rooms was the interrogation chamber. While somewhat soundproof, Clyde could still hear the elf's hoarse screaming as he approached the structure.

Out of many things that Eirlys screamed during her relentless torture, crying out for mercy and divulging any useful information about the Vatur Kingdom weren't among them. She could feel herself slipping in and out of consciousness, but every time she would start passing out, Anita would splash water on her face and electrocute her to jolt her back to being awake.

It was evident that despite Howler's enjoyment of the process, she was getting frustrated by the limitation Clyde had imposed on her artistic freedom. She felt that had she been given free rein of the interrogation, the elven general would've already given them everything she knew.

Anita had finished ripping out the last of Eirlys's nails and began contemplating giving her long ears a trim, too, when Clyde interrupted her by knocking on the large mirror. His voice came through the speaker inside the room.

"That's enough for now, Captain."

Howler sighed and tossed the pliers on the table, looking at the elf with disgust. Eirlys's nose was broken, the dripping blood making a mess of her chin, neck and chest, and her right eye was swollen shut. Her bladder had given out by the time Anita finished with her brutal pedicure. She trembled in her seat, too out of it to even register Clyde's voice over the speaker or the fact that the torture had stopped.

"Fine. I could use some fresh air anyway; it smells like piss in here." The female Warhound growled and left the room, slamming the door behind her.

"Jesus fucking Christ." The Colonel thought to himself while looking at the elf through the one-way mirror. He turned to Anita as she stepped outside.
"So, learned anything?"

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Howler sucked on her teeth and shook her head.
"Nope. The little bitch is as tight-lipped as a nun's cunt. Bet if I trimmed her ears a bit or made sure she can never hold a bow again, she'd tell us everything."

Clyde interlocked his fingers, tapping his thumbs together while thinking, looking at the elf, then at Anita, then at the elf again.
"No. I think we will try a different approach for a bit. There's a theory I'd like to confirm."

"What, why? What theory?" Howler asked, looking surprised that her suggestion was rejected so quickly.

"Seems there is an overseeing figure that is orchestrating all the resistance against us. Someone who has both the elves and the humans under her thumb." The large Warhound replied, already turning and heading for the door.

Anita could sense the uncertainty in his voice, and she did not appreciate being lied to. She moved quickly, putting herself in-between the Colonel and the exit to the interrogation box.
"Clyde, what the fuck is going on here?"

Clyde raised an eyebrow, surprised by her question and attitude, before his expression became stern and disapproving.
"What do you mean, 'what is going on here'?"

"What I mean is, you tie my hands when it comes to getting the information we need. You make sure I don't hurt her irreparably, like we won't just put a bullet in her skull the second she is no longer of use." Howler hissed, not hiding her frustration as she stared the man in the eyes.
"What's more, you leave behind a soldier to cover that blonde hoe's retreat. A man from my fucking unit. And then you bring them all here like on some fucking field trip and give them a little box to stay in."

The Colonel frowned and argued back.
"So? I've grown to like them; they're not bad people. Marcel and Jeremy agree. Plus, I see Perriman is still kicking, and you even gave him a uniform and have him doing chores and basic training. Besides, your man is fine; he returned unscathed this morning. I wouldn't have told him to stay behind if I wasn't sure he'd come back."

Anita scoffed and rolled her eyes.
"Perriman? Please, he's funny and all, but in a 'monkey in a tuxedo' kind of way. I'd put him down the second he so much as breathes funny."

There was a long pause as the two Warhounds stared each other down like animals about to try and rip one another limb from limb. If Eirlys hadn't passed out in the interrogation chair, she would've definitely felt the tension outside of her room.

Howler sighed and shook her head when she realised Clyde's anger was merely a superficial reaction and that her words wouldn't get any sort of rise out of him. She took a step back, crossed her arms and leaned against the door.
"And it's not about me being worried if the guy you left behind would die or not. I just don't see why leave him behind at all. It's a waste of time, manpower, ammo, effort, fucking everything. These bastards ain't worth it."

"I just don't wanna see 'em die needlessly." The Colonel replied.

His words seemed to hit a nerve with Anita, and not a good nerve at all. She erupted again, staring daggers at Clyde.
"Don't wanna see 'em die needlessly? Since when? Where was this sense of philanthropy in Botswana, Latvia or Ecuador?"

"What? That was years, even decades ago!" The large man argued back.

"Fine. What about Cambodia then? Six months before Derek and you got reassigned to the gate missions." She continued.

Clyde looked her in the eyes and sighed. Her eyes were the colour amber, warm yet equally unbearable to look at for too long. He always believed they were an attribute that fit her perfectly, given how wild and brutal she was known to be. Everything else, the pretty face and the slender figure, seemed more like a disguise for her true nature.

Arguments with Anita were no different from physical altercations with her, both ordeals being a battle of attrition and winning either against her was nothing short of a Pyrrhic victory. The Colonel sighed and lowered his head, reaching for a cigar in his shirt pocket, but realising he had forgotten them at his quarters.
"That was different. Hell, here is different. For the first time, I don't have the organisation or the employers breathing down my neck, questioning and trying to meddle in every decision I make. Back home, we were always kept on a tight leash. Here we're given free rein. I don't have orders, only the overall mission. No guide or directive on how to approach and deal with a situation."

"Fine. That I can understand." Anita conceded with a loud sigh.
"But why such care as to what happens to these medieval fucks? Why go to lengths such as befriending some of them? Ensuring they retreat safely. They are disposable. Not worth the bullets it takes to put them down. Is it because they're primitive? Lacking gear to match ours? If so, when then fuck did that ever matter to either of us?"

"True. I've killed people with less, for less. I've killed people for as little as because I was told to do it. But here I ain't being told shit. No laws, no human or elf rights, nothing to tie consequence to atrocity. I could've had all the adventurers that surrendered during the failed dungeon assault killed. I could take them, imprison them, torture them like that elf in there and then kill them. Nothing to say I can't. I can kill whoever I want, I can kill whenever and as much as I want." Clyde spoke, once more meeting Anita's gaze, but this time with a steely look of his own.

Anita could see, despite the stern expression he wore, the hunger all of them were plagued with unendingly seemed dim. Not quite gone, for it could never be gone, it was built into them no differently than needing food or sleep. But it seemed almost satiated, kept a bay somehow.
Clyde watched as her own frustration slowly simmered down, and only when she finally looked away with a huff did he continue his monologue.
"Yet I find myself not wanting to at all. All the technical and logistical limitations aside, it comes down to not wanting to. To have the option of trying out the alternative approach. God know when I'll get that opportunity again."

"I see." That was all Anita said in response.

She knew the Colonel well. The two of them, despite the noticeable age difference, got along quite well in the past. Even now, Clyde did not seem strange or alien to her, despite apparently adopting a philosophy on life that was almost a full 180 from his old self. Anita instead felt like she was seeing a new layer to the man, something that may have always been there as a part of him all along, just never got the chance to surface.

Clyde, playing his own words back in his head and realising he may have sounded a bit too much like a peace-loving hippie, quickly took to correcting himself.
"Don't get me twisted, I'm not saying I wanna grab the elves by the arm and sing Kumbaya. Those pointy-eared tree humpers are still gonna get the ass kicking of a millennium. Turn their fucking forest into a suburban neighbourhood."

Anita grinned.
"Good. I was starting to get worried that this place turned you full pussy."

"Shut the fuck up." The Colonel laughed.

"While we're on the subject of busting your balls, reports of you three getting captured and the incident with the wyverns caught the organisation's attention." Howler said as her face went serious again.

Clyde's expression also dropped when he heard her.
"And?"

"I've been told that losing three assets in a year's time is unacceptable and that such fucking around will not be tolerated. We are, after all, pretty expensive to make and maintain. They said that if the issue is equipment, it will be sorted. But should so much as one more asset end up MIA, for whichever reason and regardless of if they're recovered or not, they will be pulling all of us back and assigning the rest of the operation to Zilla and Pixie."

The Colonel facepalmed and groaned loudly while rubbing his face with both of his hands. Perhaps not every action taken on the other side of the gates was without consequences.
And the thought of Warhounds Number Seven and Number Eight definitely didn't help brighten his mood. Clyde knew that if having any sort of humanity was a dying trait amongst augmented soldiers, then that trait was well and truly extinct in the newest generations of Warhounds.

"Fucking great," Clyde mumbled into his hands.
"Alright, I admit. Playing 'representative of Earth' was incredibly idiotic on my part. I never thought shit could go sideways that badly."

"You know what this means, right?" Anita asked.

"Yeah. We're gonna have to start lying on the reports." The large man chuckled, and so did the captain.

Clyde looked over his right shoulder at the elf that passed out in the interrogation chair, then back at Anita.

"I'm done with her." Howler said and waved her hand dismissively.
"You soured the fun."

The Colonel rubbed both of his eyes with his fists while grimacing.
"Oh, Boo Hoo. Get her ass to the medic, I want her fixed up as much as possible and able to chat as soon as possible."

Clyde patted Anita on the shoulder, then jokingly moved her out of his way with a slow push as if she weighed nothing and left the interrogation box. Howler looked at the door as it closed and then at Eirlys, before letting out an exasperated sigh and going to check if the general was still among the living.