#langoth

Halsin emerged from the shadows, his silver-tipped club resting on his shoulder, a slight smile on his lips.  They locked eyes.  

The ritual of the look was a battle of wills, and if the will of prey and hunter were both resolute, could go on for minutes.  The young elf did not wish to lose, but Halsin was older, wiser--and stronger.  Yet the youth wouldn’t concede, even as the moon began to lower in the sky and the night grew stiller, paler--fading almost to dawn.  

Urgency nearly broke Halsin’s will; he must have the youth, his loins insisted, before day broke and the ritual ended.  His own mind betrayed him with images of taking the young elf on the ground between them, feeling the hunter shudder beneath him as they climaxed together.  

But Halsin remained firm and something in the other elf wavered and he dropped his blue-green eyes to the forest floor, his lips twisting bitterly.  Defeat.

With a growl of victory, Halsin closed the gap between them in a single stride, grabbing the youth’s fine bow, nocked arrow and all, and tossing it aside as though it were dead wood for kindling.  

Up close, the wildness in the elf’s eyes was apparent.  Halsin wondered if he was drugged--but no, it was panic.  He even smelled of fear and why not, if it was his first Wild Game?  Tenderly, Halsin took the youth’s chiseled chin in his hand, tipping it so their eyes met again.  Words were forbidden, but with his gaze he made the youth understand that he was safe, that no harm would come to him.  At least, nothing that wouldn’t heal after a few days of rest.

He started slowly, his hand moving up to caress the youth’s temples and then down his throat, the firm plateaus of his chest muscles, pausing to circle the young elf’s hardened nipples.  The youth gulped audibly, but he didn’t flinch or break away.  That was good--to turn back now was to desecrate the Leaflord’s offering.  

Already hard, Halsin leaned forward to kiss the youth, and half of him still marveled at his beauty, even as the other half was distracted by his other qualities.  The barest moan escaped his pillowy lips as Halsin teased him with his tongue.  The druid dragged his hand through the youth’s dark auburn hair, as long and soft as a girl’s, eliciting another barely audible groan.

Now he trailed his hand downward, skimming the lean muscled ridges of his abs and closing around his hard cock, hot to his touch.  The youth cried out, and the sound was both a plea and an exclamation.  When he pulled away, need was written on his face, along with the fear Halsin had seen before.  This youth had been ill-treated, once, Halsin realized.  The thought enraged him, waking the bear within.  He kissed the young elf fiercely, raking his fingers down his side, growling into his gasping mouth.  

And then the youth fought back, pushing him hard against a lichen-slickened trunk.  This was not in accordance with the ritual, but Halsin welcomed it, laughing in appreciation at the young elf’s spirit, his will to survive.

Smiling now, the youth took Halsin’s cheeks in his hands and pulled him into a deep, lingering kiss.  Electricity shot through his body as their cocks brushed against one another, and it was Halsin’s turn to gasp.  

The youth tracked his hand down the druid’s body, achingly slowly, still wearing a sly smile.  The druid’s breathing became shallow and rapid as the young elf’s limber, strong fingers circled around his pelvis, knuckles just brushing against his balls.  He knelt, his lips so close to Halsin’s cock that he could feel the hot sigh of his breath on it.

Halsin’s desire was building up into something dangerous, he felt, like an unslakeable fire that could incinerate an entire forest.  

As if in answer, the youth took him in mouth, his tongue first hesitantly lapping the weeping tip of the druid’s cock, then his entire thick shaft.  Halsin groaned, thankful for the support of the tree trunk behind him, as the youth ran his tongue up and down, holding the druid’s hips as they thrust rhythmically.  He licked him as flames lick against a log, consuming him as he went.

He felt his climax coming, too quickly.  “Stop,” Halsin said, breaking the ritual, but the hunter wouldn’t stop until his work was done.  He took him in deeper, to the back of his throat, and looked up at the druid with those piercing eyes of blue-green, entreating him.  

He lost control and came in the youth’s mouth, grasping the slick side of the tree as his body shuddered and spurted against his will.

The youth fell onto his hands and knees, gasping and wiping his mouth.  A streak of black earth marked one lean thigh, up to the hip, like an ugly brand.

Halsin felt frustration and desire in equal measure, looking at the beautiful young elf crouched before him.  This wasn’t how the ritual was supposed to go, but… it had all become a bit rote after all these years, hadn’t it?  Worn thin, like a threadbare cloak.

As much as he wished to position himself behind the youth, to carry out the rite with a few powerful thrusts--and despite the pleasurable interlude, he felt eminently capable of doing just that--he also wanted to see into what territories this new approach led them.

The young elf regarded him from the ground, as though privy to his thoughts.  He smiled--inviting, or mocking?--and Halsin made up his mind.  They would complete the ritual but with perhaps a bit more license than the ancient priests had intended.

A growl in his throat, Halsin pinned the youth to the ground, looming over him, their faces nearly touching.  He knew he was an imposing figure, and he used it to his full advantage.  His big, callused hand found the hunter’s erection and he squeezed and stroked, enjoying the mingled pleasure and pain on the young elf’s face.  As one hand worked, the other reached for the silver tipped club he’d dropped.  The youth had a nice, polite dick.  It was big without being offensively large; straight and long, clean lined as his beautifully worked bow.  He took it into his mouth and the youth groaned, losing himself in the sensation of Halsin’s tongue sliding along his length, running his teeth ever so gently along the less sensitive length of his shaft.  

Just as the young elf was about to lose himself, Halsin took his club and teased the silver tip against the youth’s ass.  The cold metal made him gasp and struggle, but Halsin put all the weight of his muscled shoulders onto the hunter’s hips, pinning him down as he slid the first inch of the shaft inside of him.

It was nearly dawn, and the youth’s cry shook a flock of nearby ravens from their roost.  The boughs of the pine trees loosed their silvery drops on the two figures below, who were insensible to the disturbance.

Halsin didn’t stop pleasuring the young elf with his mouth even as he began to thrust the club deeper and deeper into him, his own cock hardening with every thrust of the runed weapon.  

The youth had begun to pant and moan, the volume increasing as the powerful druid put his weight onto him once again, pinning him down as sucked and thrust inside him at the same time.  Deeper, and deeper still, until several inches of the club were inside of the youth, his face a mask of naked gratification.

His rhythm increased as he sensed the youth reaching his climax and at the critical moment, he pulled away from his cock and sank his teeth into the muscle of the youth’s inner thigh like a feral beast.  The young elf sighed as he came, a strand of opals garlanding Halsin’s chest and neck.  Halsin slid the silver-tipped club out from the young elf’s body and rested against his lean thigh as he caught his breath.

The sky was lightening; the ritual had ended.  But Halsin still was not finished.  

Slowly, he rose to his hands and knees, looming over the young elf.  The wildness had returned to his eyes, but desire remained there, and now, too, trust.  Halsin dragged his hand through the elf’s hair once again, kissing the back of his neck as he rose to all fours beneath him.  Now, the ritual would be complete.

He was already hard again, and the youth was ready for him.  Without preamble, he grabbed the youth’s pelvis and entered him, just a shallow dip at first, teasing himself as much as he was being careful not to injure him.  Halsin knew his girth was too much for most to comfortably accommodate.

The young elf hissed in pain as he went deeper and Halsin had to remind himself to go slowly, gently.  He was so tight.  He rocked him, leaning in close to whisper sweet words into the young elf’s ear.  

The first birdsong echoed through the wood as their tempo increased, and Halsin was fully inside him, gasping with every thrust, his hair, loosened from its binding, spilling across the youth’s back.  His cries began to sound ever more urgent, pleading.  Like the woman, he begged Halsin, “please,” as the druid’s thrusts became less gentle.  The youth bowed his head, dropping his shoulders and raising his hips in a gesture of total submission, and only then did Halsin come, spilling his seed inside him for the second time.

When he withdrew, the youth’s face had been ground into the earth, leaving dirt in his dark eyebrows and grime across his cheeks, which Halsin brushed off tenderly before losing himself in another depthless kiss that tasted of wild thyme and chestnut honey.  He wanted to break all the rules, to ask the youth his name, to travel with him--wherever he was going.  To protect him from whatever it was that haunted him, perhaps even to avenge him.

But before he could speak, the young elf had broken away, snatching up his precious bow, thing of beauty that it was, and vanishing into the morning fog.  

*

When Halsin returned to the grove, no one noticed that he was even sulkier than when he’d left.  They were simply relieved to have his gentle tyranny over Kagha’s outright dictatorship.

“Please Master Halsin,” said the drow priestess, shaking him out of his reverie one dinner evening.  She grabbed his arm.  “Please,” she repeated, inevitably drawing into his mind the soft skinned woman and the beautiful, wild elf.  “Don’t ever leave us again.”

And for some years, he didn’t.

*

Halsin, in his wild shape, paced from one side of his cage to the other.  The opportunity to end Ketheric’s wickedness--finally, to end the blight he’d put on the land--had been simply too tempting to pass up.  He would make the same decision again, though with perhaps more reliable companions.  The distant, rational, elven part of his mind realized that, even as the bear simply raged at his incarceration.

Once the goblin spawn had discovered the entertainment value of baiting the bear, they quickly returned.  Their torments did not serve to diminish the bear’s rage.

Just when the druid was almost entirely subsumed in the fury, he heard a familiar voice echoing down the cavernous hall.  A figure strode down the stone steps to his cage, and before him, as though by some magic charm, stood the young elf, still carrying his beautiful bow.  The bear’s anger faded to the background, and Halsin’s mind returned, dizzy at seeing him again.

He could not know him in his bear shape, but all the same the youth’s face crumpled in sympathy to see his wretchedness.

“He’s helpless, let him go,” he commanded the goblins.  His voice so strong, certain.  Had they met again in the forest, now, would the youth have prevailed in the battle of wills?  Halsin thought the answer was perhaps yes. The goblins cackled and jeered.  Halsin growled, for a battle was sure to follow.  And it did, gods help them.  The youth moved with a grace rare even among elves, nocking, drawing, and shooting in a single fluid motion. The walls were shining with goblin blood and the bear’s mouth full of foul entrails by the end of it.   

When the last goblin was skewered by the youth’s arrow, a shot that pierced her skull right between the eyes, Halsin reclaimed his elven shape.  

The youth’s eyes widened in recognition, but he said nothing as the druid whispered a few healing words.  Halsin smiled, though he wanted to laugh, or perhaps weep.  Both.  

Langoth loosed an arrow at the ancient styx dragon’s neck; it merely plinked off its armored scales.

The dragon seemed to chuckle, exhaling plumes of flame with its laughter. Your spirits will make a meager meal but there is rich entertainment in watching you struggle, at least, said the dragon. It raised one clawed foot, blotting out the grey sky and Halsin dove, a line of white hot fire screaming across the back of his leg where the dragon’s spur caught his flesh. He yelled as its poison sank into muscle--his soul, in fact, for in this plane, body and soul were one.

The pain was vivid. Halsin opened himself to it, allowed it to sharpen his focus and turned back to the dragon. There was no weakness he could perceive, no gap in the undulant ranks of its black scales. But every dragon was tender around the muzzle and this one had foolishly lowered his, the better to watch him suffer. Halsin screamed again for effect, clutching his leg and the dragon sank even lower, its face in striking range. Marshaling all of his strength, Halsin drew the club from his back and threw it like a javelin into the dragon’s nose. It struck true, showering him a waterfall of hot, black blood, like tar.

The creature’s tortured shriek was terrible as it echoed across their minds. Halsin staggered over to Langoth, both his wound and his head on fire.

“When the time comes--whatever else should happen,” Halsin said, “You must take my hand.”

Before Langoth could reply, the dragon was upon them again. It was no longer toying with them: now it was out for blood. Only luck saved Halsin from being cut in two as he dove away--this time the dragon’s claws sliced through empty air.

How much longer? Langoth asked. He wove and tumbled around the dragon’s legs, avoiding its swiping claws with limber grace that might be a dance but for the raging dragon above them.

The monster busy with Langoth, Halsin ignored the throbbing pain in his leg and closed his eyes for a moment to test the link he’d left to the plane where their bodies lay, lifeless.

...was a mad idea, what if they don’t come back at all? Across the planes, Astarion’s voice was watery and hollow, as though he were speaking from the other end of a very long sea cave.

Master Halsin’s nearly past the point of no return, looks like, Wyll said. Hells, what’s that on his leg?

Gale’s voice echoed more forcefully in Halsin’s mind. Less commentary, if you please, this does require a bit of focus, you know--Halsin, is that you? Is it time?

Almost, he thought, Be ready. He felt the wizard’s assent and turned back to the fray. Langoth had sunk an ice arrow into the dragon’s nostril and it was trying to scratch it away, howling from its sting.

Halsin dashed over to the ranger, avoiding the sweep of the dragon’s tail as it staggered and bellowed in blind rage. They would just have to hope the distraction lasted long enough to complete the ritual. Langoth looked shaken but unhurt, his keen eyes watchful. Even as the dragon roared above them, Halsin felt a surge of love, of humility in the face of its enormity: greater than any ancient guardian of the Fugue Plane, greater even than death. “It’s time,” he said. Their hands joined and he reached across the void again, to Gale.

What if it’s too late? Langoth said. He sensed the ranger’s despair.

“Just don’t let go. No matter what happens.”

In answer, Langoth interlaced his fingers and squeezed them tight. The druid shut his eyes and perceived, worlds away, Gale whispering the incantations that would bring their souls back.

Halsin, Langoth’s voice rang in his mind, sharp with fear.

He opened his eyes to see the dragon bearing down on them, its mouth open, throat welling with blue fire.

“Don’t let go,” Halsin said, even as every instinct screamed at him to break away, to dive to safety. Langoth gripped his hand so hard he feared his bones would bruise.

The styx dragon bore down on them, a gout of flame shooting from its maw. Halsin closed his eyes again. The ritual was nearly complete--a few words away, if Gale did not stumble.

I need to tell you something, Langoth said. While there’s time. I--

But before he could finish, darkness took them both.

*

“...breathing, that has to be a good sign, surely?”

Dim, green light danced around him. Langoth moaned and shut his eyes again. Cold, he was so cold. Everything from his waist up was agony: pain that throbbed, ached, stung, burned, and stabbed. From the waist down, all was numb.

“Langoth,” Wyll said. He heard the warlock approach but couldn’t bear to open his eyes again. His voice sounded distant. “Hells, he’s properly torn up. Here, give us that potion.”

A hand cradled his head, tipped it back, and another held a phial of healing potion to his bloodied lips. It slid down his throat and he sighed as it took effect, restoring life to his stiff limbs. A sickening crunch as his spine reknit itself and sensation rushed back to his legs. He shivered. It felt as though he’d never be warm again.

“Halsin,” he said, remembering. The fugue plane, the dragon, the blue flames--he struggled to his hands and knees and collapsed with a groan.

“It’s alright, mate. Halsin is just there, look.” Wyll pointed to the other corner of the courtyard, where the druid was staggering to his feet, shaking his thick mane of hair and rubbing his face. Langoth sank back down in relief. They had made it, somehow.

“I’m fine too,” Astarion said. “If you were wondering. I also nearly died, on your behalf. Again.”

“Thank the gods,” Langoth rasped with a smile. He shut his eyes and breathed deeply--real air, again. Even though it was centuries stale and stank of fungus and dead minotaur, there was no sweeter smell.

“Actually, thank Gale,” the wizard said, approaching with Halsin by his side. “It was a very near thing, indeed. Suppose I owed you for all the times you’ve pulled me back from death’s door.”

The druid leaned over him and took Langoth’s icy hands between his own. “Thank you,” Langoth whispered.

Halsin laid a hand on his chest. “Don’t speak. You need food. Your soul has been too long in Kelemvor’s kingdom and needs to be fully restored.”

“And nothing better for that than a nice warming mug of soup,” Gale said. “I would know. I shall see to it.”

An arm around Halsin’s waist, Langoth limped past the minotaur corpses laid out on blood slick flagstones to sit in the fort’s cozy refectory by the fire that Gale had set roaring with a cantrip.

“Rest here,” Halsin said, helping into a dusty leather chair which was surprisingly comfortable, considering its age. “But don’t sleep yet. Your soul’s connection to your body is still too tenuous.”

“Stay with me?” he asked. Their eyes met and warmth spread through him; heat not just from the roaring fire. Gale busied himself nearby with the cooking, humming tunefully as he banged pots and spoons and asking Astarion if he might use his dagger to mince the garlic.

Halsin eased down beside Langoth on a rickety bench, favoring one leg.

“The dragon?” It still hurt to speak.

Halsin nodded, wincing as he settled onto the bench. “It will mend, in time.”

“Did I hear the word dragon?” Wyll said. “I think that might be next on my list, having taken down a minotaur single handedly.”

Astarion shot him an acid look from across the room.

“Well, almost single handedly. Alright, you lot all helped.”

“Your magnanimity, Wyll, is as ever, inspirational,” Gale said, magicking a stream of hot water into the cookpot.

Langoth laughed, and felt a little warmer still. It was good, he reflected, to be alive. The heady scent of garlic and onions sizzling over the fire reached his nose and his stomach growled.

“Well, our foray into the Underdark is off to a wonderful start,” Astarion said from the shadows. “I just can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings. Perhaps decapitation?” He met Langoth’s eye.

“Stop sulking in the corner, Astarion,” Langoth said. “We survived, didn’t we?”

The vampire spawn scoffed but he approached and even sat on the bench with Halsin. At the opposite end, but it was a start.

“Mad idea, coming down here,” Astarion said, looking moodily into the fire. He turned to Langoth and with unexpected emotion said, “We almost lost you.”

“Well, you didn’t,” Langoth said. “And we will make it to Moonrise Towers.”

Astarion tutted, rolled his bloodred eyes, and resumed the conversation on Langoth’s behalf.  Yes, they were looking for a healer.  Could Halsin possibly trouble himself to assist with their mind devouring tadpole issue…?

When Halsin spoke, it was to Langoth that he responded, his face grim.  Was there worry in his eyes?  Worry for him?

He could barely feel his feet as they ascended the dungeon stairs to vanquish the last remaining goblin leader--Dror Ragzlin, and his weary bones told him it would be their hardest fight yet.  He glanced over at Halsin, back in his wild shape.  

The druid had recognized him, hadn’t he?  Suddenly he was unsure.

“Someone’s in lo-ove,” Astarion teased in a singsong voice, just below the threshold of the others’ hearing.  He bared his fangs in a simulacrum of a smile.  “Should I be jealous?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Langoth said, keeping his eyes forward, bow drawn.  He’d never wished more for a goblin sneak attack, but unfortunately, they’d cleared all of the temple except for Ragzlin’s chambers at its heart.

“Oh, I think you do.  If we manage to survive this next little scrap with the goblins, you’re going to spill everything, aren’t you, darling?  And what exactly was that little exchange with the Priest of Pain about, hmm?”  

Normally, Astarion’s menacing flirtations amused him, but not today.  Not for this.  He lunged at the vampire spawn, hunting dagger to his throat.  

“Leave it,” he said, as softly as he could, pinning him with his fiercest stare.  Astarion only laughed, damn him.  Ahead, Shadowheart had stopped; they’d reached Ragzlin.  

He’d never been so ready for a fight; usually, they filled him with dread.  That he might experience the helpless feeling of lying prone and powerless before his enemies, or feel the pains of death wrack his body, organs shutting down, the light of the world dimming.  The bloodied edge of a raised maul, poised to brain him.

He had come closer to death more times since the Nautiloid abduction than ever before in his life.  The experiences--whether he was fighting giant, venomous spiders, screeching intellect devourers, or most horrifically of all, the deadly harpies--had terrorized even his dreams.  They reminded him of the time before.  His first and most traumatic brush with death, and at the hands of his own brothers.  

And yet, rather than study the layout of the hall, pacing the dim corners and finding the best advantage its terrain had to offer as they always did, he pushed past Shadowheart, Gale, Wyll, and the bear that was the Druid Halsin, kicking down the door and launching an arrow right at Ragzlin’s head.  

It only served to enrage the fiend.

But then the bear bounded in roaring before him, shielding him from the worst of the retaliation.  Langoth felt every blow as though it were his own flesh being pierced, burned, mauled.

It was a brutal fight, and he had no shame in admitting they would have lost it without the druid.  Especially as he’d rushed in so thoughtlessly.  He had paid the price; his bow arm was barely still attached to his body, a mangled pulp of gore and broken bones.  

“What in the hells, Langoth,” Gale said, groaning as Shadowheart hefted him off the stone ground, and not for the first time that day.  “I know you’re not exactly a Bezantur scholar, but a frontal assault on a hobgoblin and twelve of his minions?  What possessed you?”  

He felt a stab of remorse as Gale began hacking up blood.  How needlessly, recklessly stupid he’d been.  Never apologize, the ghost of his brother reminded him, silencing his apology to the mage before it began.

Nearby, Halsin transformed out of his wild shape and Astarion chuckled knowingly.  “Oh, I think I can guess what possessed him.”

“Are you alright?” Halsin murmured, only to him.  Before Langoth could answer, the druid muttered some healing words over his maimed arm.  He winced and hissed as the magic knitted his muscle, skin, and bones back together.  When he tested the flex of his hand, it wasn’t even stiff, much less sore.  He glanced up at the druid, and electricity seemed to snap as their eyes connected.

“Er, I could use some healing too,” Gale said.  His tone was wry but the effect was spoiled as he began choking on his own aspirated blood.  Halsin abruptly turned and it was like basking on a rock when the sun had suddenly vanished behind a cloud.

Once he’d seen to Gale and mended Wyll’s cracked skull, Halsin addressed the whole party, though once again he looked directly at Langoth.  

“Return to the grove, I’ll make my own way there.”

He nodded, feeling Astarion’s eyes on him, sensing him smirk.  “And our... problem?” he asked.

“Once I’ve seen to some matters, then we can discuss your problem,” Halsin promised.  He left without another word, changing his form to that of a mouse to slip past the drunken goblins still cavorting outside the shattered sanctum.

“Onward,” Langoth said, and the word sounded harsh even in his own ears.  

He felt poised as though on some precipice, staring down into the dark, unknown shadows that lay beneath.  And the ground beneath his feet had just given way.

*

He delayed their return to the grove as long as possible, even tried to find Lae’zel’s cursed Creche.  If he had hoped Astarion would forget his obvious connection with the druid, he was disappointed.  The hectoring grew so obnoxious that he finally commanded the elf to stay at their camp, and there he remained, in a sulk.

The air was sweet around the grove: vetiver, blackcurrants, and sun-warmed cedar.  He’d recognized the smell as being somehow familiar when they’d first arrived, weeks ago.  Comforting, even safe.  Now the connection with the druid seemed so obvious.  It had been in his skin, his hair, his mouth--every part of him that Langoth had smelled and tasted.  

Through the blood-spattered gate, Halsin was waiting for them--for him.

Even as he spoke to them of the grove’s fate, the elf seemed to be watching him for some sign of--what?  Recognition?  Remorse?  Or did he fear Langoth would give away their secret?

He seemed about to turn away from them but stopped himself.  “Before you speak to Zevlor,” he said slowly, “May I--have a word?”

What could he do but agree?  

He felt his companions’ eyes on them as they slipped behind a toppled statue at the far end of the grove.  This, Langoth decided, was his chance.  

He had already decided that if Halsin had recognized him--for it had been a long time ago, and he didn’t doubt the druid had more than his share of enthusiastic partners--he would be cool, reserved.  Distant.  He could ill afford any distraction and his feelings about Halsin were too complex.  The way the endless field of stars in the night sky were complex, or the depthless mysteries of the sea.  The unseen roots of an ancient arakhor tree, spanning continents.

But all of it fell away when, as soon as they were out of sight, Halsin took Langoth’s face in his hands and spoke the words, “I have thought of that night every solitary day of the past twenty years.”  And Langoth’s resolve crumbled to sand.

He looked up into the druid’s hazel eyes; he felt he could read him so easily, see the weariness, sadness, and abject loneliness of Halsin’s soul, even alongside his strength, that steely will that would not bend or sunder to any assault.  Before, he’d seen the scars on his body, as the dawn brightened the forest, telling of innumerable battles fought and won. More battles than Langoth had years.

His proud words caught in his throat and he found himself instead kissing Halsin, with a passion, a need, that frightened him.  It was just like that night.  He was losing himself, body and soul.

“Here?” he asked--no, begged, the word half-breath.  

He could see Halsin prevaricate, certainly about to command patience, they had waited this long.  But instead, he said, “You’ll need to be quiet.  Can you?”

Langoth remembered their night together, how he had broken the ritual, cried out, even begged.  Hot blood rushed to his cheeks.  He nodded.

“Bite my arm, if you need to,” Halsin said, his sonorous voice suddenly hoarse.  There was no time to undress; how long could their “conversation” reasonably last before his companions grew impatient, or curious?  Before a tiefling or druid chanced over to this little alcove?

All thought melted away as the druid stood behind him and brushed aside his long hair to trail kisses down his exposed neck.  He gasped to feel his hot breath on his neck once again, and memories of the past threatened to collapse in on the present.  Halsin’s rough fingers found the front of his jerkin, loosened the laces to stroke his chest beneath.

“Quickly,” he reminded Halsin.  The druid didn’t need to be told twice.  With a swift, decisive motion, he pulled down Langoth’s breeches, then pushed aside his own tunic.  He felt Halsin’s erection pressing against his bare flesh and moaned into the other man’s open palm, already cupping his mouth in anticipation.  Was it possible that he was even bigger than he’d remembered?

Halsin paused for a moment, breath still hot on his neck, then Langoth felt the viscous touch of oil smear his skin.  He’d poured a flask of it on his cock, thank the gods for that.  Now his attention was back on Langoth, and his fingers slipped between his cheeks, finding his ass and slipping inside easily with the oil.  

A fire that had been kindling within him exploded into full, roaring burn and he moaned again into Halsin’s hand, too loudly this time.

“Shhh,” the druid said.  He shifted closer to offer his meaty, gauntleted arm to bite.  Langoth sighed against it instead, and Halsin kissed his neck again, with the utmost tenderness, before sliding his cock deep inside him.

Now he did bite, hard, making the druid suck in his breath.  The sensation was too much for Langoth, far too much, and yet exactly what he had longed for, like a cup filled exactly to its brim.  The druid pulled him tighter with his strong arm wrapped around Langoth’s face even as his hips found a rhythm, a tempo to which Langoth’s desire also beat.  

The druid’s breath was ragged, gasping.  Heat coursed down his body, up again, like some kind of healing magic, bringing life back into his limbs where fear and death had too often resided, these past weeks.  And before.  The time before, when he had nearly--

Another thrust, too deep, and he cried out instead of biting.  Halsin hushed him again, reminding him, with his powerful embrace, that he was safe.

“Whisper my name,” Langoth murmured.  “Please.”

Halsin bent lower, so his lips, impossibly soft, brushed his ear, and whispered, “Langoth” as he thrust again and again, relentless.  His lips found Langoth’s neck once more, his hectic breath and soft groans telling him how close he was to coming.  The sun emerged from the clouds and warmed the rocks where they were braced.  In that moment of perfect ecstasy, sun beating down on them, they both climaxed as one, Langoth’s bite on the druid’s arm drawing blood.

They rested there some moments before Halsin withdrew, taking Langoth in his arms and kissing him deeply again.  “I have missed your taste,” the druid sighed.

Langoth rested his head on his strong shoulder, the demons at bay for a time, feeling only the perfect peace of Halsin’s embrace, his own satisfaction, the tranquility of the grove.  

“We should go,” he finally said.  “What will we--?” “Once I settle things here, I am coming with you,” Halsin said, and his voice brooked no argument.  More softly, he added, “I won’t let anything happen to you, Langoth.  I swear.”  He took him again into his arms and held him.  

They stayed as long as they dared, then Halsin dusted him off--another memory resurfaced, how before he had brushed the dirt from his face, when they had finished.  As tenderly as a mother, he set Langoth’s jerkin straight, relacing the top and brushing something invisible from his shoulder.  All the while, Langoth looked up at him in a kind of wonderment.

While though the tempest loudly roars,

I hear the truth, it liveth.

And though the darkness ‘round me close,

Songs in the night it giveth.

Traditional

Halsin experienced a familiar dread as they descended from the ruined temple into the Underdark.  Born of the stale air, the way the bare rock hollowed the echoes of their footsteps and hushed words.  Memories rose like revenants, unbidden.  He steadied himself with a glance at his beloved.

Astarion, ever sensitive to the undercurrents, said, “Has someone died?  Are we going to be grim and silent the whole way down?”

Wyll snorted.  “No, mate, we’ll be stopping in a bit to have another party.  We invited the tieflings back for another round, didn’t you hear?”

The ranger was outwardly composed; only his eyes betrayed any disquiet.  

“Well, we all know Langoth isn’t much one for parties,” Astarion said, baring his fangs in a sort of hybrid of smile and snarl.  The vampire spawn was stubborn with his grudges, Halsin had noted.  Eager to cling to past slights.  He was certain there was reason for that beyond mere jealousy but the chances of getting close enough to him to learn those reasons were slim.

“Children, children,” Gale said, raising his hands in placation.  “Don’t argue, you’ll wake the duergar.”

“What no one tells you about adventuring is that it’s ninety percent boredom and ten percent raining entrails,” Astarion grumbled with a woeful sigh that said you can’t even make a joke around here.

“Gale is right,” Halsin said.  “Things long dormant reside in the Underdark.  Best not to disturb them.”

Astarion’s eye roll was so dramatic it couldn’t be missed even in the gloom of the dank stair.  But he said no more and each was left alone with his own thoughts.  Halsin ran through his regrets like a long-remembered prayer, unable to escape their compelling call.  It was enough to make him wish Astarion would start prattling again.

The stair spilled onto ruins thick with desiccated corpses at least a century old.  Skulls riven by ax blades, chests bristling with black arrows.  The silence beyond was somehow watchful.

“What is this place?” Langoth’s soft voice seemed to be absorbed into the unending darkness around them.  Halsin suppressed a shudder.

“The dwarf said something of an ancient fort,” he said.  “These are Selune’s faithful, if I had to guess.”  

Wyll held his torch aloft to inspect one of the skeletons, illuminating a silver emblem that bore the goddess’s mark.  “Think you might be onto something, Halsin.”

“So--sorry, are we talking now?” Astarion said with an ironic smile.  “Let’s just look around for anything useful and move on.  This place is… creepy, whatever it is.  And not in a good way.”

“For once, I find myself in agreement with the vampire spawn,” Gale said.  “There is some dark magic here.  Let’s get whatever we need and go forth.”

Langoth squinted into the distance, where a shaft of light beamed down from some unseen source.  “Very well.  A quick sweep.”

There was little to be found; a few decaying log books that confirmed their suspicions about the fort’s defenders, some rusty weapons and moldering provisions.  The center courtyard was warded by a magnificent statue of Selune holding aloft a magicked gem; they all stared at it, transfixed by its power.  “Strange,” Langoth said, his voice tight with apprehension.

They turned as one at the sound of quiet snorting outside the black iron gate.  Halsin’s blood chilled in his veins.  He had never seen a minotaur so close--few who did ever lived to tell of it.  

It stamped and brayed, enraged by their mere presence.

Langoth’s face went bloodless with terror.  He drew his sword and held it aloft as he started spitting out commands.  “Gale, above the gate.  Wyll, stand back on the rear stair--”

But his next orders were cut off as the minotaur charged the gate, throwing it down as though it were made of willow branches rather than wrought iron.  It howled again, knocking them back with the force of its assault.

What followed could only be described as carnage.  

Gale went down in the first attack, his chest partly caved in by the minotaur’s horn, darkening the front of his robes with blood.  Halsin ran to his side, whispering healing words to restore some life to the wizard’s broken body.  He held his breath as the spells did their work and Gale staggered to his feet with a moan.

He turned back to the fight to see Astarion sinking his dagger deep into the minotaur’s side; its bellow resounded in the dark like a thunderclap in the night.  Wyll blasted it with an infernal cantrip.  Halsin felt a ripple of hope, a lightness in his heart--perhaps they would survive this encounter.

Then a second minotaur came screaming from the darkness beyond the fort and his hope curdled into dread.  

The flagged floor was painted red with their blood within minutes.  Time lost meaning as Halsin ran from one man to the next, healing gashes and broken bones and bleeding organs and landing a blow on the minotaurs where he could.  But he might have been swinging his club at the stone pillars for all the good it did.  

Astarion’s scream shook the timbers of the ancient fort as he was caught between the two minotaurs, unable to escape.  They had succeeded in pinning him down.  Overwhelmed by battle rage and fear, Halsin felt the bear claim him.  

His fury was easier in this form: less complex, more satisfying to wield.  He loped over to the minotaurs, parting them with a vicious attack that finally drew blood.  The bear savored its taste, barely noticing that the vampire spawn took the opening to slip away.  One minotaur followed and the bear cornered the other, standing on his hind legs to roar before launching another furious onslaught against the monster.

The bear did not hear the exclamations behind him, the companions shouting his name, begging the druid’s aid.  It wasn’t the first time his rage had rendered him deaf and blind with tragic consequences.  He finally turned away from the corpse of the first minotaur to see Langoth lying face down in a pool of blood, his body broken beneath the triumphant howl of the second beast.

The shock was enough to call him back, gasping, to his druid form.  The monster leapt away to harry Gale again and Halsin staggered over to Langoth’s ruined body, senselessly shouting his name.  

But his lover was far beyond hearing: he was dead.

*

When Langoth opened his eyes, he thought he’d awoken in one of the strange illithid dreams that had tormented him, where a being with the druid’s face tried to tempt him with empty promises.  It had the same peculiar light, the same airless quality.

But there was no dim facsimile of Halsin here.  There was nothing at all, other than colorless earth beneath his feet and the grey smudge of a horizon.

Where am I?  he asked aloud.  But there was no noise when he spoke.  Nor was there a smell to the soil, to the air.  Desperation rising, he tried to scream.  But once again, there was no sound.

As if in answer to Langoth’s silent cry, Halsin’s voice rang out, distant but clear.  He was calling Langoth’s name, despair inscribed in each syllable.

That was when Langoth realized he was dead.  He was in the Fugue Plane now, the waypoint between the mortal world and what lay beyond.  He fell to his knees.  

Halsin growled and straddled him, looming above the slighter man, his broad shoulders blocking the rising sun.  They were both still bare from the waist up and he raked his fingers down the ranger’s chest as he bent to kiss him ravenously.  Langoth gasped at the mingled sensation of Halsin’s rough hands and plunging kiss; his hips rose to brush the front of the druid’s pants, finding him already hard.  He ground up against him in slow, firm strokes, provoking a groan from deep in Halsin’s throat.

“You don’t realize what you do to me,” Halsin gasped.  “Gods.”

The youth just smiled as though he knew precisely his effect on the druid and pulled Halsin’s muscled ass closer to him and thrusting faster, harder.    

The feeling of Langoth’s own desire pressing and stroking against his own was nearly enough to finish him.  But before that could happen, Halsin grabbed him around the waist and flipped him onto his belly, jerking down his leather breeches as the elf moaned beneath him.  The birdsong around them was in full throated climax as he plunged into him, feeling the elf’s sublime tightness barely giving way to his thick cock.  Langoth exclaimed, in both pain and pleasure, as Halsin thrust mercilessly, driven by blind need.

“Langoth,” he murmured; he knew how his lover enjoyed hearing his own name on Halsin’s lips.  The ranger cried out in response and Halsin pulled him closer, wrapping his muscled arm around his chest.  In contrast to last night, his peak was building slowly, inexorably, like a wall rising stone by stone.  

The rising sun struck the table, bathing them both in an orange glow.  His lover was beautiful beneath him, his strong back rippling in the soft dawning light.  Halsin tracked the muscles with his hand and then slid it down below to stroke his member.  The ranger gasped, thrusting eagerly against his touch, and they moved as one.  

Langoth’s breath quickened, shoulders faltered.  As he felt his lover come, Halsin himself lost control; with one thrust, and then another, he finished, gasping, on the elf’s back.

The chorus had abated and the sun’s rays had mellowed.  Langoth sat up beside him, leaning close.  “We should get back before the others wake,” he said.

“I do hope Astarion hasn’t waited up for you,” Halsin said.  He didn’t even try to suppress his laughter, though he knew it was unkind.  

Langoth was more circumspect but a ghost of a smile played on his lips as he said, “I’m certain he had no shortage of other entertainments last night.”

No one stirred at the camp when they returned--no one, except--

“The hero returns!  Ah, and the wise and mighty king of druids, Master Halsin!  I’ve a new stanza to celebrate your victory, good sirs, only I struggle to find a word that rhymes with ‘muscular,’ and I feel I would be derelict in my sacred commission as bard and poet if I failed to mention Master Halsin’s particular, ah, physical qualities… and allusion simply doesn’t suffice, I don’t think, when it comes to his spectacular form!”

He thought he heard Langoth mutter, “It’s far too early for this.”  But it might have only been his imagination.

“Druids do not have kings,” Halsin explained to Volo, for at least the third time since they had met last week.  “And you needn’t talk about my, er, form.  Though I am flattered.”  

“Of course you and I know druids don’t have kings,” Volo said, as though Halsin were being quite stupid.  “But we need to remember our audience doesn’t have the sophistication required to understand the ‘first amongst equals’ principle espoused by the druids, et cetera.  Oh!  It’s so obvious.  ‘Muscle,’ singular--rhymes with ‘tussle.’  Perfection!”  Volo strummed a chord on his lute with a fervor that was frankly alarming and Halsin instinctively looked around for an exit.

“Right, I need to wash,” he said, heading for the river.  “Goodbye.”

“I also need to see to a--personal matter.  Gods keep you, Volo,” Langoth called behind his shoulder.  “I will remember how you left me out in the cold just now,” he added under his breath, even as the corner of his lips twitched.  Halsin’s heart lurched pleasantly and he turned his gaze back toward the rushing water of the Chionthar, already slipping out of his tunic.  

“I would aid you against any enemy in the deepest dungeon of the Underdark,” Halsin said.  “But you’re on your own with the bard.”

They bathed together in the rushing stream, Langoth capering on the rocks and diving into the deep pool under a cataract as Halsin watched.  The water was cold and bracing and Halsin couldn’t resist enjoying it in his bear form; there was simply no comparison to experiencing the icy rush of the river running through his thick fur.  He changed back once he emerged, dripping, onto the shore, Langoth close behind in his smallclothes.

“Someone was up late,” a smooth voice teased.  The Blade of the Frontiers emerged from his tent, wearing a lopsided grin and little else.  He had a bowl of streaky, grayish gruel that looked distinctly unappetizing.  But then, a human would eat nearly anything.

“Ah.  Did you... enjoy the celebration?” Langoth asked, color rising to his cheeks.  But then, from behind Wyll, the haughty cleric called Shadowheart emerged from the tent, cheeks even redder than Langoth’s, if it were possible.  Her lips were still stained purple from last night’s cheap wine.  Halsin’s head nearly throbbed in sympathy. 

“Evidently so,” Halsin remarked.  The young people were so obviously uncomfortable that he almost laughed.  But then he remembered his own tenderness and shame in his youth and his heart softened for them.  “Gods, but we’ve earned some respite, have we not?  And much still lies ahead.”

The others eagerly seized on this line of discussion and a profusion of enthusiastic, if stilted, comments followed about battles fought, foes defeated, and speculation of those still to come.  Halsin enjoyed seeing Langoth with his companions, his earnest expressions, the innocence of his words.  Finally, the young people extricated themselves from their rhetorical bondage and all sauntered off in different directions, Langoth grabbing his elbow as they went.  

The youth didn’t want to let him out of his sight and this, too, was touching.  He had all the hours of the day for his lover, whose face was a song of which he could never tire.  In contrast to Volo’s forced rhymes.

They laid their clothes to dry in a sunny spot by the river and Halsin rested beneath a friendly looking ash tree and closed his eyes.  He asked its name with a minute scratch of his thumb against the bark and it answered; a name that sounded like the rustling of acorns against one another in the mellowness of autumn.  A lovely name, one he committed to memory.  Halsin sighed, the sun warming his chest, grateful to be alive on such a day.  

“Are you just going to meditate now?”  Langoth’s voice came from leagues away.  Halsin opened his eyes.  “Only… I had a question.”

He regarded Langoth, ready for nearly anything.  

“You said before that you had defeated Ketheric but it seemed as though perhaps you knew him, once.  Do you--is there...?”  

“‘Is there more to the story?’ you mean?”

Langoth bit the inside of his cheek, mustering his nerve.  “Well, is there?”

Halsin leaned back against the ash who was named after a sound of acorns rustling, feeling every year of his five centuries.  “There is always more to the story,” he said.

“Tell me,” Langoth said softly, looking at his hands.  He sensed the story was troubling, and he was not wrong.  Halsin thought Langoth was probably rarely wrong when it came to troubling things.  They whispered to the secret wound he carried in his breast, like calling to like.  Halsin sighed.

“Of course I shall tell you if you wish to know,” he said.  And yet, even as he spoke the words, he was unsure if he should.  “It all began in Waterdeep,” he began.

*

Have you been?  Magic runs through that city, and I feel it in my marrow whenever I cross into its wards.  The city was built on a mountain of mithral, on the ashes of a forgotten citadel of Illefarn.  Ancient seams of blood and magic run beneath it.  You can hear it, like a ringing in your ears.

There was some reason for me to be there, but I barely recall it.  All I now remember is him.  And what came after, of course.

I spurned the inn, as I always do.  Too much comfort has always seemed suspicious to me, as have affections exchanged for coin.  Yet there is precious little nature left in Waterdeep, so I took my repose in a graveyard, under the open sky.  The only place in the city where one could find a tree.  

They were sad and lonely, those trees: a weeping willow, a scrawny, leafless box, and a twisted old yew.  The yew had gone mad from loneliness--yews are prone to madness in any case, but this one was particularly ill.  Perhaps that is why the priests of Shar claimed this particular graveyard for their rituals.  The yew had seeped its poison into the very ground and it was a dark and morbid place.  Full of shadows.  Now I wonder if the sick yew wasn’t in some indirect way the genesis of all that’s happened since.  

I watched them under the cover of a glamour so that I seemed to their eyes like a stone gargoyle warding a tomb.  They were initiating a half-elf and his terror carried on the wind.  I could smell it.  He was barely grown, undernourished.  His voice was strong though, and surprisingly deep, like the low roll of the tide coming in from the sea’s depths.  

I’ve been alive long enough to learn not to cast easy judgments.  Shar and her dark worship--what were such things to me?  Was it so different to swear oneself to the Dark One as it was to the Lady of Pain?  Or the Lord of the Dead?  But something in this ritual chilled me.  

It felt as though… this dark ritual had meaning beyond its meaning.  My mother had the gift of foresight and some little of it passed to me.  I cannot see the future as though I were watching a play, as she did.  But I can often sense danger, or tidings of happiness to come.  It’s kept me alive, more times than I can count, this gift.  And now, it filled me with dread.  The dread of a hundred kingdoms falling.  A dread worse than mere death or danger.  The dread of a coming apocalypse.

The half-elf turned and even in the gloom of the moonless night, I recognized his face.  For my mother had shown me this face when I was a boy, in the final moments of her life.  She met a violent end--but that, I will speak of another time.  I had believed she showed his face to me because he was my destiny.  But perhaps she showed me because he would be my doom. 

In my shock, the glamour slipped.  Only the half-elf saw me.  And I recovered so that when he turned back I was once again disguised as senseless stone.  

Perhaps that would have been the end of all if I had left it alone.  But destiny carves a path before itself, one we mortals are incapable of altering.  Such I have come to believe, though perhaps only as means to absolve myself.  

They completed their ritual by draining the youth of his blood, to the point of death.  And many do die.  But the half-elf did not, and Shar claimed another acolyte to her worship.  How peaceful he looked in that moment, on the precipice between life and death.  They bore him off on their shoulders into the night, leaving me with mad yew and my own dark thoughts.

The very next day I sought the Temple of Shar.  It’s no simple place to find, even in permissive Waterdeep.  Her worship is outlawed and her followers jailed when discovered.

You may well ask why I troubled myself.  Why I could not leave well enough alone, as the humans are wont to say.  I was compelled by both curiosity and dread.  

It is a strange thing to say aloud, but the image of the half-elf’s face was all I had left of my mother and even as it repelled me, I also felt closer again to her somehow in finding him.  I had to know the meaning behind it, to recover even this small remnant of her memory.  If you have lost someone, perhaps you understand my meaning.  

It took some days and many false turns but in the end, I located their temple.  Simple chance finally led me to the right direction--or destiny carving its path before me, take your pick.  

If I was worried about what I might say to the half-elf when I met him, I needn’t have, for he recognized me immediately.

“The gargoyle of a druid I saw,” he said, by way of greeting.  “So you weren’t a vision from my Dark Lady, after all.”

He always spoke like that.

I answered that I had seen the ritual, and feared for his life.  I asked how he had come into the service of the Dark Goddess and he told me his story.  It was a brutal, tragic tale, and he told it without remorse or sentimentality.  When again I pressed him--why did he devote himself to Shar?  He answered that none other had claimed him, only the Lady of Loss.  As though his life were simply a ripe apple falling senseless from a tree.

In my pride, I thought that by removing this youth from Shar’s faithful would heal him, that I could restore the balance to his soul.  That I could heal him.

I took him to the Emerald Grove.  The power of that place is ancient, its healing magic is more powerful than you ken.  Not just Silvanus’s power, though that resides there too.  I believed the grove would restore him and would avert the darkness that lay ahead.  

In how many legends to mortals hasten along the very events they sought to prevent?  Well, here is another.

For a time, I believed that Ketheric was healed.  The light returned to his eyes, the blood to his flesh.  By day, he walked the forest with me and I taught him such that I know: more than most will learn, but still precious little compared with the forest’s immensity.  Every tree is a world unto itself.

And I loved him.  Desired him.  Claimed him.  It blinded me to the truth.  For Shar would not be so easily forsaken.  She was jealous of her supplicants and for Ketheric she had great designs.  

I believed he had left Shar behind in distant Waterdeep.  In Ketheric, I thought I saw my destiny to bring him back into the light.  

Only arrogance and perhaps lovesickness can explain why it took me so long to realize why the forest grew darker over those seasons.  Parasites thrived and the trees fought silent battles within the buried paths beneath the earth.  Plants that once were allies became bitterest enemies and starved each other out, poisoning one another’s roots.  Pestilential insects devoured the warring plants.  Even the water was tainted, sickening creatures and the druids in my grove.

Kagha saw the truth first.  And if perhaps you wondered why I allowed her to stay, here is the reason.  Because Kagha’s heart may be as hard as ironwood, but she is unflinching in the face of the truth and I--well, now I know that I cannot always trust my own judgment.

She unmasked Ketheric, finally made me see, but by then it was too late.  He had seen the power of the grove, and he desired it for himself.  For his Dark Lady.  Ketheric escaped my judgment and Kagha’s wrath but I knew he would return.

Three years passed and in that time, Ketheric became a force.  More than a mere man.  He was a legend and followers flocked to him, drawn to his power.  More than power; his absence of fear.  For since that night that Shar had taken him, I had never once witnessed him frightened of anything.  That was the source of his terrible charisma, I believe, why people followed him into madness and marched to their deaths on his order, with happy hearts.  That they, too, could be so fearless.  

He took the Temple of Selune first.  The priests there fought hard and long but Ketheric would not be thwarted and his forces seemed limitless.  The stories are still told of the terrible butchery committed in the Shattered Sanctum, and I will not repeat them.  

They rode out from the Shattered Sanctum to terrorize the country.  That is when we first spoke of the Rite of Thorns, for there was no question of protecting the surrounding land from Ketheric’s army.  Then the Harpers came.

I could tell you all manner of stories about the long history of the Harpers and the Emerald Grove, but those romances only imply the true foundation of that ancient alliance: one born of dire necessity against unassailable darkness.   Which is all to say, the Harpers and the Druids have joined when all seemed lost.

So it seemed to us then.  With the power of the Shattered Sanctum and an army of faithful, Ketheric completed a dark ritual, one that required a fountain of blood sacrifice.   The Shadow Curse.  A plague on the land and all that lived there, committing their souls into bondage to Shar.

He completed the ritual and cast the land into darkness before I could finally end him.  I held him as he died, and he looked just as he did on the night in the Waterdeep graveyard.  At peace, finally, in the arms of his Goddess.  The only one he ever truly loved, I still believe.  

That fight nearly took my life.  As for the others, I marched them to their graves.  Of all the druids and Harpers who fought on that day none survived.  A handful of Ketheric’s dark justiciars escaped, scattered.  Of those, all have fallen to madness or early deaths.  

Only I now remain witness to the horrors of that long night.  

*

Halsin found it hard to hold his lover’s gaze for shame.  Now he knew of his failure, his blindness.  He would scorn him, as Kagha had: weak, arrogant, feckless.

Instead, Langoth took his hand in his own, kissing his rough knuckles.  Forgiveness so sublime, so unexpected that his eyes pricked with unshed tears.  

“You did what you could.  And we will end the curse when we reach Moonrise Towers.  That I promise you.”