An ache like no other hammered Lothar's mind and left no inch of his body agony free. While the King roused to bubbling flashing lights in his field of vision, his body rattled down to the very fiber of him. The strobing effect settled slowly as he felt around, trying to sit up but found no strength in him except for the dire soreness of his head and back. What his hand did land on was the knobby shoot like bar. Grabbing about more Lothar realized there was one every two or three inches. And when his eyes refocussed the veteran warrior realized he was laying back on hard rock with a cage made of thick sturdy hewn wood bars.
"What the-" envisioning the short brutal recall of Atiesh being shot out of the sky, Lothar pushed himself up and looked around trying to recognize anything.
Surrounding the battered man was cages, lined all the way along a stonehenge type wall. Encircling the outskirts of some fortified city that was dug into the landscape with cobbled together tools. Rustic was putting it politely seeing the fabricated huts with roofs thatched with dried limbs and everything secured with all peeling sewn from countless beasts. Jerking around Lothar heard a voice.
"Pst! My King! Sch!" Squinting three cages down, Lothar saw the mage. Who was chucking tiny pebbles in his direction. Which Lothar didn't understand why, it's not like any of the small rocks made it to him.
A scowl mixed with confusion Lothar's verdant eyes locked with the young mage's. About to speak again Lothar flinched when unwittingly out of nowhere a monstrous creature slammed a snake shaped cudgel into Khadgar's cage with such force that the man was tossed back into the wooden bars.
"Trankil!" it barked viscously to Khadgar, the creature showing skin like that of a sea sick on looker, green from head to toe all nearly eight feet of it. The green hue all in contrast to ice white hair that was spiked up in a mohawk, lack of hygiene the only thing keeping the impressive hairdo up in place. Khadgar sat back in his confines far from the beast, the words it slurred and spoke to another approaching comrade, this one blue in tone, were nothing the mage could identify.
"Ki kote nan yon sèl la ti?" The blue one gnashed it's tusks at the other. Their conversation out of either human's range in dialect. Khadgar's brown eyes shot over to Lothar further down the line in his pen. Even the King's eyes were locked on the two brutes, hyper aware of their movements as he slid back into his cage hoping to cause no stir.
Looking back over to his locked away companion, Lothar saw Khadgar's pleading eyes questioning what this all was.
Lothar silently mouthed the word, 'Trolls.'
The question mark formed on the mage's face in the form of his eyebrows furrowing and a shake of the head. Once more Lothar mouthed the word and tipped his head in a quick gesture to the savage creatures exchanging whatever information they needed before what appeared to be a female, skin as green as the mossy knolls in the area and hair as fire red as the autumn leaves, approached the two larger males. They spat something at one another, knocked their oversized tusks together and then disappeared down towards the middle of the circular village.
Refocussing on the situation Lothar wasted no time rattling the cage looking for a weak point in the construction of the aged wood.
"Trolls?!" Khadgar's whisper barely that as he exclaimed in a panic, "How did trolls see us at night?!"
Working with a stiff aching body Lothar positioned his feet with the best leverage for his legs and kicked at the surely ancient wood keeping him in, "Trolls live everywhere boy!" Lothar grunted as he gave the wood bars another kick with his bare feet, nothing, "I wasn't watching, Atiesh flew too slow over the lower lands!" Another kick to no avail, "They're Amani, just look at their color and wears. It means we didn't make it past even the Hinterlands territory."
"Trolls are dumb primitive things, like animals! How did they attack us?!" Khadgar taking a different route to escape his own confines. Working over every inch of the cage searching for a weak spot, anything he could hit once to weaken the structure.
"Don't they teach you anything in that stupid floating city?!" Lothar cursed under his breath, sweat beading on his hairline with each kick the shoeless king was making no progress escaping.
Khadgar touched what seemed like a cracked lattice of the cage, eyeing it he pushed hard trying to further the crack, "I don't know! I mean, probably it's just-"
"It's just you ditched your training with no actual knowledge of anything!" Lothar grunted, his thighs aching after the fourth attempt to break free.
"They are stuck in their ways and didn't see the corruption happening under their noses!" Struggling Khadgar even felt stupid when his arcane sputtered out like a wet match. Frantically looking the mage saw scrappy inscriptions on the four corners of the cage, "Runes, how?!"
"You'd know that the Amani tribe practices voodoo if you cared to study!" Lothar gave in, nothing was budging. Panting he moved back to sitting on his bum and took a breather trying to think of a plan to escape while catching his breath, "Great, I'm going to die with a mage who couldn't even complete mage school-"
"It is not mage school!" Khadgar growled, it was quickly apparent that he couldn't force the worn cage open even with the slight blemish he found in the wood. Huffing he was about to move to the side closest to Lothar to conjure up a plan, but that was cut off short when the original green troll came back but this time with two extra brutes at his disposal.
"Pote yo nan chèf la," the instruction from the green male troll was obvious to the two humans as both lackeys took to different cages. There was little struggling even both human men standing six foot at best were dwarfed by the mostly seven and a half feet of pure muscle and bone of the well weathered beings.
Grabbing Lothar first it didn't make a difference for the King to struggle, the troll simply held his head smashed into the dirt with a two fingered hand that made child's play of pinning the full grown man down. Lothar shot Khadgar a look insisting he didn't struggle while the troll looped an itchy twine around his wrists and bound him like a squealing hog. Following in his commander's footsteps the mage offered no resistance as the other troll pinned his chest down to the flaky cool earth. Spring dirt covering their tunic and trousers as both men were hoisted up on their feet and lead with the towering barbarians behind them and their lead traipsing further into the village.
From the thatched huts arose an interesting number of what was surely tribe members. Woman, their skin just as leathery and brightly tinted as the men, tusks twisting out or down or up and pointed ears flicking at the small parade through their humble home. Even children of every size from wee babies to gangly noisy children watching with intent at the two men being walked to the center.
"Fain...we need to fine Fain," Khadgar's sharp whisper to his King was as urgent as could be. Adverting his eyes quickly over to him Lothar and Khadgar were quickly given a rough jostle.
"Trankil!" the one troll in charge snapped back at them as his workers jerked them up tight by their scratchy bindings.
Sealing their lips both King and Mage shot one another worried glances as the huts they wandered through gave way to a strange temple like structure the rose in the middle of their hamlet tucked away in the rolling hills of the lower forests of Azeroth. Trailing behind the others came droning out of their huts. All assortments of them lining up around the face of the open temple.
Khadgar and Lothar in unison found both their eyes following up the steep steps of the runic outcropping but neither of them could see what was located at the very top of the stone shrine. Curious as the three trolls escorting them kept approaching the temple the rest of the village seemed to stop at an invisible line which they all began pushing and clamoring for a front seat to the unknown activities.
Soon to find out what was keeping the trolls at the bottom of the stone work, both men were led up the cold rock steps, shoeless and stripped of everything but their thin tunic and trousers. Shoved up roughly, only urging them to go faster with the large pace of the trolls who took two or three steps at a time. Half way up one of the brutes jabbed Khadgar hard enough mid step and sent the mage face first into the rough stone step.
"Jajaja," a rumbling laugh from all three of them after their partner knocked the little man over. Lothar gritting his teeth as Khadgar tried to prop himself up without the use of his arms. Instead the same troll grabbed the mop of brown hair and yanked the man up on two feet. Lothar could see the pain etch into his friends face as his skull was pulled beyond what it should be. At least only for that moment as the troll released him and prodded him further up the steps. Frothing Lothar could feel his hot blood surge through his veins under his cold skin. But for nothing as his captor nudged him on and Lothar was marched up the steps to the top.
Before the plateau became obvious, the sticky pungent scent of blood assaulted both their nostrils. From the top step they could see trickling trails of crimson blood oozing from the top step. Sharing horrified looks the men thought the worse about the bloods relation to their predicament. It seeped down the rocky temple and Lothar and Khadgar winced at the strong scent of whatever they mashed together with the blood. Yanking them on to the top of the alter was suddenly met with the masses below bellowing and cheering.
"Fain!" the warlock's name choked out of both men's mouth when green and brown eyes saw the missing woman strewn out on a slab of rock. Arms bound above her head and feet tied down to the opposite end of the solid table, her blue eyes quickly darted over to the call of her name.
"Mmff!" a muffed exaggeration was all she could manage, a blood soaked cloth binding stuffed in her mouth, it was surely supposed to be white just like the garments adorning her body.
Stripped of completely everything, Fain lay stomach exposed to the sun window carved into the temples stone canopy. A duo of female trolls ladling curdling blood over her legs and up across her groin onto the white cloth underwear like garments she wore. Her blue eyes stricken with panicking fear as the huge female trolls worked their way up her body, drenching her in blood and soaking the skimpy white cloth covering her breasts and loins. One of them taking a full ladle and slowly pouring it over her cloth gag. Khadgar and Lothar struggling to be freed as her gurgled screams were muffled by blood and tears streamed down her pale stained cheeks.
"Tonbe ajenou!" the troll who'd been escorting them turned to the men and they were instantly brought to their kneels before the beast. The resistance nothing to the oversized humanoids who held the kneeling humans down. Outrage fueling Mage and King as Fain contorted every which way in her restraints.
Nothing.
When he was able to peel his eyes off Fain's helpless form across the grounds, Khadgar audibly made a gagging gasp of a noise. Lothar following in suit with a subtle astonished noise when his eyes landed on Atiesh's disfigured, mutilated and slaughtered body.
Fain screamed and the men's attention jerked back to her. Her scream set off another wave of cheers from below. This time it continued even the trolls holding them down thrumming with excitement jittering through their lanky bodies. Louder Fain's muffled protests, the louder the pure glee from the village. Her protests growing silent as the troll who'd the men had seen throughout this entire endeavor came to stand on the edge facing his village.
Standing quiet signaled the clan to quell their excitement slowly but surely the village fell quiet. Horrified awe Lothar and Khadgar watched the barbarian raise Atiesh's severed head up to the sun sitting high in its sky throne. A moment of silence where the air hung heavy, even the flies buzzing around the bloodied head seemed to slow. Then an eruption of cheers and the troll called out something that confused Khadgar.
He looked over at Lothar to ask what he was doing but felt his gut drop when his King was as pale as a sheet, "Wh-What did he say?"
Like in stasis Lothar took a moment to even blink. Then his dilated green eyes darted to Khadgar. The lowness in his voice sending shivers up the mage's spine, "They're going to gut her....for their fertility sacrifice."