(31) - The Scarlet Vengence - Part I

My Friend,

I spent the week asking questions of those who live nearby, and following the trail of these malefactors to their lair; they are in a basement apartment in the Old Town, three doors left of the Pig and Whistle. The Kaldorei seems to be in charge, but doesn't wear the livery. Neighbors say they usually don't come out until dusk, and mostly keep to themselves.

Good hunting!"

The note was unsigned.

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Officer Pomery was an experienced constable of the Stormwind city guard, and had often been assigned to investigate murders and other crimes.

His stomach rebelled at the room before him.

Two humans were nailed to the wall by a large metal spike. Not just any spike - it had been driven through their stomachs, and resembled a solid boar-spear head - except where a boar-spear head was a spearhead followed by a metal shaft, and a cross-piece to keep the boar from running up the spear to attack its holder, this cross-piece was more of a trident, with two smaller tines that also pentrated the bodies. There was an empty socket where the shaft had been removed on both of them. Blood had drained down the bodies and pooled, and as he drew nearer a cloud of flies flew up around his eyes and ears.

Grimly, he examined them. Their tongues had been removed as well.

Then he saw the Night Elf.

He was strapped to a chair by lengths of fine mithril chain - an expensive device - that had been pulled tight and padlocked shut. His ears were maimed. His hands had been secured to the arms of the chair, and were likewise mutilated. Finally, someone had given the corpse a mercy stroke across the throat, and his head was tilted back, the opening an unnatural grin.

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Father Crowley awoke with a start. His rented room was pitch black, his windows shuttered. He lay back, and began to relax again. His head had almost reached the pillow when something hard insured that he would indeed sleep.

When his eyes opened again, he found that he was in a cell. His legs and arms were both manacled to the wall.

He was quite naked.

"Good evening, Father" came a deep voice. The voice seemed familiar to him... but he could not place it. He turned his head to find its owner; to his left was a fellow sitting backwards in a chair. "Where... where am I" the ambassador from the Scarlet Crusade mumbled through the haze of pain. "Why am I brought here? Free me, at once!"

"Oh, in time" said the fellow. "Do you remember me, Father? You once sent me on an errand to Desolace..."

"I have sent many potential recruits to Desolace. Who are you?"

"My name is FitzSilver. Griffonclaw FitzSilver. Welcome to your new home."

"What do you mean!? Release me - you are in serious trouble! When the Archbishop is told.." His head snapped back as Griffonclaw reached out and slapped his face, all the might of his power arms behind the blow.

"You're making the assumption that you'll be leaving here, Father." Griffonclaw's causal tone belied the rage on his face, and the fire in his eyes.

"Why do you torment me? I am a Man of the Light..." Crowley began. The back of Griffonclaw's gauntlet ripped across his face, the metal edges taking portions of his cheek with it. Griffonclaw said something in the low chant, and Crowley felt the power of the Light manifest, healing both his face and his headache.

"You sir? You are an abuser of the Light... " Griffonclaw's face grew harder as a thought occured to him. "Of course, some might say that I am, too... but that isn't why you're here tonight. You are here... " Griffonclaw stepped closer, and grabbed Crowley's face in his hand, squeezing. "... to answer a very, very simple question."

Griffonclaw reached up and casually bent Crowley's left index finger back until it snapped, the bone breaking almost inaudible under Crowley's scream. Holding it it position, Griffonclaw chanted again. The finger started to heal... but Griffonclaw held it, and the bones knitted, but in the wrong place. Crowley screamed again, as Griffonclaw kept talking.

"Did you know I once spent a week in the hands of Ordo Draconis, while they tortured me thus? They didn't even want anything from me... just my pain. My humiliation. My agony." He began to pace. "They taught me much, in that week... what parts hurt the most, and how to use the healing of the Light to make it worse. " He spun, and his booted foot lashed out, crumpling Crowley's knee joint from the side. "I managed to keep flirting with them, though. They found it most... disconcerting." Griffonclaw lashed out again, his fist landing solidly against Crowley's solar plexus. Griffonclaw stepped back as the Scarlet Crusader vomited, fouling his front.

"What do you want!?" screamed Crowley. Griffonclaw doused him with a bucketful of water, and healed his leg... correctly, this time.

And then he snapped that bent index finger, and healed it correctly as well. He kept pouring Light into Crowley until the agony in which he'd been was nothing but a memory.

A recent memory.

"What I want is simple" said the paladin in a quiet voice, all the more chilling because of his seeming rational calm. "I want to know if kidnapping and beating Dathala was your idea, or if it came from someone else - and if so, who?"

"Who?" asked Crowley, genuinely confused.

Griffonclaw said only one word.

"Fine."

What else he did was not fine, however. When Crowley could speak again, Griffonclaw asked again. "Dathala, my slave. My beautiful, intelligent, capable Kaldorei slave." Griffonclaw watched a spasm of panic cross his victim's face as the identity registered. "Ahh, you just didn't know her name..." Griffonclaw grasped Crowley's hair, and slammed his forehead into Crowley's nose. Blood gushed.

"Now.... was it your idea, or someone else's?"

Crowley remained silent... mostly. Griffonclaw ignored the whimper.

"You know, I can do this all night... " Griffonclaw remarked casually. "Those who beat her are dead, and they told me that you gave the order... but if you were just passing it along, I won't require you to die, or even suffer anything else." He leaned closer, his voice "I've seen your basement at the Scarlet Monstary, you sanctimonious bastard... I know that you know everyone breaks, if they don't die first... and we both know I can keep you alive almost indefinitely."

He backed away. "So lets save us the time, me the effort, and you... the agony. You will break. Whether I flay your body and coat it with salt, whether I snip away very important parts, or whether I grease your feet and suspend them over coals until the flesh breaks away, thoroughly cooked... You will break."

Griffonclaw healed his victim's nose.

"But let me assure you of one thing... just as the Cathedral would never punish you for your crimes because they can't prove them, neither will they lose sleep over this... even if you could prove it. They know what you are, but turn away for political reasons, because you hunt the Scourge more than you catch innocents... but I am not part of them, although we've made our peace."

Griffonclaw slipped a dagger from his belt, and impaled Crowley's right hand. "I have friends who bear the scars of your Crusade's handiwork... I want to cry every time I see her face. Even with the scar, she is beautiful, but you poisoned her soul." Griffonclaw twisted the embedded knife. "I may no longer be any better than you bastards," he growled. "But I'm not on your side."

He healed the hand with the knife blade still imbedded.

He removed the knife from Crowley's maimed hand.

He healed the hand again.

"That really, really hurts... I remember when Wanderspirit did that to me..." he mused. "Now... tell me. Who gave the order?"