Callie's Heroes

PART II - CORPORAL PUNISHMENT

Ahead of the group, the line slowly inched its way forward. From what Callie could see, as each person got to the front, they were asked some questions, followed by someone holding up something and peering through it. In most cases, the person was waved on, but occasionally there were some more questions.

“Hey! What are you doing? Watch where you swing that thing!” shouted a voice towards the front of the other line.

“I-I-I am s-s-sorry,” responded a quiet female voice.

Ahead, a Dwarf had his hand roughly on the tunic of the small, blue-haired Pixie that Callie had seen earlier.. “If I wanted a face full of Pixie wing, I’d pay your mother for it!” he snarled. A few other Dwarves around him all laughed, encouraging their friend.

“My m-m-mother? I-I-I-...”

“You-you-you what?” taunted the Dwarf. “You are an idiot? Is that it?”

“N-n-no. I j-j-just …”

“Yeah, that’s it. Another weak, Pixie idiot!”. With that, he shoved the small Pixie, hard, a confused, shocked look appearing on her face.

The stunned, frightened Fae stumbled backwards, trying to maintain her footing before finally tripping and falling over. The bottom of the Pixie’s wing hit the ground first, and as she fell, the wing bent in half, folding over on itself. The wing was stronger than it looked at first, and it held the Pixie's entire weight for a moment. But quickly, there came a series of small cracking sounds, and then in an instant the wing snapped, dropping the Pixie’s body to the ground with a soft thump. A strong pause of silence passed before the poor Pixie let out a piercing scream of agony. She slowly rolled over onto her stomach, revealing that half the wing swung free, attached with only a thin, nearly transparent skin and luck, no rigidity to it at all. Again the poor thing howled in pain.

The Dwarf that had pushed her simply pointed. “See, boys. I d-d-d-d-d-d-don’t know why they even let them in,” he laughed. “One good push and it’s all over.” The other Dwarves joined in the laughter.

Almost by instinct, Xin started forward to help the downed Pixie. Vanis grabbed her arm. “Don’t. She’ll need a high tier healer, and you’ll only get in the way.” With his other hand, he gestured towards several camp staff rushing to the sound of the screams. The poor girl let out another anguished cry, now tinged with a sob.

Within moments the prone Pixie was swarmed by camp personnel. One of them, an animal person of some kind, maybe a wolf, immediately took her hand, screaming “Look at me! Concentrate on my face!” while another person held down her shoulders to keep her from rolling. A third held down her legs to prevent thrashing.

“Have her bite this,” an armored Elf woman said, running up to the tending personnel and assessing the injury. She handed someone her leather dagger sheath, after she had slipped the dagger out. With a flick of her wrist, she threw the dagger through the air where it embedded itself cleanly into a wooden post. “Nobody touches that!” she yelled out, “It’s my favorite knife!” The Pixie bit into the leather and the screams became muffled.

“You!” the Elven woman said, turning and pointing at the Dwarf. He quickly lost the grin on his face. In a crackling flash of orange light she disappeared, only to reappear next to the assailant. She grabbed his tunic and in one clean motion, lifted him high over her head. The woman spun, dropping to one knee as she slammed the Dwarf to the ground in a single, easy motion. She looked up to the group helping the Pixie and commanded “Get a litter and get her to the Healer, now! Be very careful! You don’t want to move that wing!”

Callie and the rest could only watch in stunned silence as the Pixie was tended to. A pair of guards ran up to the Elf woman, saluting. “Major Celeste!” one of the men snapped. She looked up, a dangerous anger in her eyes. It took a moment but she regained her composure enough to snap out “Get him up!”

Major Celeste stood and looked around, finally taking in the whole situation. The Dwarf’s cronies had quickly and quietly blended into the line of recruits and other onlookers. Her subordinates were working to wrestle the Dwarf to his feet and the recruits remaining in line were all standing around with dumb, shocked expressions on their faces, save the few Fairies in line that were all wincing in sympathetic pain for their fellow Fae.

“Callie, down!” Tazrok ordered, extending his right arm out at an angle towards the ground,

“What?” Callie asked, puzzled.

“Down! Now!” Tazrok had an expression on his face of pure rage.

Callie quickly started to scramble down his arm, a look of concern on her face. Lena raced forward to help lift her the rest of the way to the ground.

“Tazrok, don’t do something foolish, again!” Lena implored. “You won’t kill him, promise me!”

“Only mangle,” Tazrok responded with a snarl. “Promise.”

“Tazrok! Don’t you dare pull his legs off! You don’t need that kind of trouble!”

The Ogre shook Lena away and began to stomp slowly and surely towards the Dwarf, now on his feet and held by the two guards. Major Celeste noticed the Ogre coming their way and saw the anger on his face. She quickly put two and two together and saw what was about to happen. She raced towards the Ogre.

“Stand down, Recruit. It’s all over.”

“It not over yet,” Tazrok snarled, anger rippling off him.

Celeste finally reached him and put her hand out to stop him. “I said to stand down!”. A blast of the Major’s Command Aura washed out from her and over all gathered around.” Tazrok stopped in mid-stride and looked down to her.

“I am Corporal Punishment.” he said flatly, something somehow pushing back against the Major’s magic.

Major Celeste strained her neck to get a good hard look into his eyes. She could see that the Ogre, in addition to being truly angry, was also in complete control. He wasn’t in the red-eyed Berserker Rage she was expecting, just rightfully full of anger. “Are you going to kill him?” Celeste asked in a low, whispered, voice.

Tazrok looked down and through gritted teeth, quietly spat out, “Won’t kill. Promised Lena Elf.”

Major Celeste raised her eyebrows, surprise and perhaps a tiny smidge of admiration showing on her face. “Then by all means, Corporal, proceed,” she said loudly after a pause, before lowering her hand and standing aside. “Whatever you do, he needs to be able to be healed!” she added in a sharp whisper.

“Will only mangle some.”

Before him, the Dwarf’s eyes suddenly got wide as he realized the Ogre was not stopping, and nobody was doing anything about it. “Wait! You can’t! He’ll kill me! He’ll rip me apart! He’ll tear my limbs off! Stop him!” He tried to twist and squirm away, but he was held firmly in place.

Tazrok slammed one fist into his open hand and the air exploded with a thundering CRACK that echoed off the walls and through the courtyard. He did it again, the crash of thunder even louder this time.

And yet no one dared stop the Ogre as he stormed the remaining steps, Major Celeste following behind him, struggling to keep up and maintain her bearing. The guardsmen both looked nervously at the Major, who raised her hand in a calming motion. They both swallowed hard and stiffened in attention. Behind them, the downed Pixie let out another moan, now almost all sobs, her blue hair bobbing in time with her wails of agony.

Finally the Ogre finished his angry, menacing walk. The Dwarf had stopped squirming and now was actively babbling. Tazrok just stared into his terrified eyes. “Major Elf!” he said in a loud voice.

It took a moment, but Major Celeste jerked as she realized the Ogre meant her. She walked around behind the Dwarf, facing the giant Ogre. “Yes Corporal!” she snapped.

“Hang beard next to bell.” he said slowly and loudly.

Major Celeste was confused, but in a moment figured it out. “Soldiers, turn him around!” she ordered. The two Guardsmen, nearly in perfect unison, spun the Dwarf to face her. His eyes went round and in between sobs he cried, “No! Not my beard!”

In one fluid motion, Celeste reached towards her dagger, still embedded in the wooden post meters away. With a flick of her wrist, the knife launched through the air and she caught it deftly. She looked down at the wide-eyed Dwarf and in one single, fluid motion, sliced his beard off at the chin. It dropped to the ground like a length of dead rope.

The Major slid the dagger into her belt for safe keeping, and then snapped to attention. “Corporal!” she said smartly, barely resisting the urge to salute. He was only a recruit and she was a Major for star’s sake, why would she obey his orders?. But somehow this was his moment, and there seemed to be no way that she should impede that.

“Turn him,” Tazrok growled, and again the guardsmen quickly spun the Dwarf around. The now beardless Dwarf actively sagged in their arms, all strength to resist having drained out of him, and only a low whimper remaining.

Tazrok reached down and grabbed the front of the Dwarf’s tunic in his fist. He squeezed and squeezed until it was tight enough to shake the Dwarf out of his daze. Slowly he lifted the Dwarf off the ground with just one arm until they were eye to eye. A thin trickle of water leaked from the Dwarf’s leg, splattering on the ground.

Tazrok looked down at the stream of urine hitting the earth and scoffed before again locking eyes with the Dwarf. He narrowed his eyes further and slowly snarled, “Always bigger bully!” With that he launched the Dwarf several meters through the air. The bully hit the ground and flipped end over end before coming to rest in a heap. Tazrok let out a loud grunt and turned to face the crowd.

“I AM CORPORAL PUNISHMENT! YOU … WILL ALL … BEHAVE! THIS, I HAVE DECIDED!”

The roar spread through the courtyard. It bounced off the walls and came back again. It was loud and terrible and terrorizing and you knew in your gut that you had been given your one and only warning.

Major Celeste looked up at the Ogre towering twice her height with a mix of awe, wonder, admiration and not just a little bit of fear. This was only the second class of recruits at the camp since she had arrived back here, and the previous term didn’t have an Ogre. Before that, she had only ever met an Ogre once. It was on the battlefield when he was in a full-on Berserker frenzy, and in that moment, you wanted to be anywhere else you could be. Even now, with this Ogre only a recruit and actually fully in control, Celeste wasn’t afraid to admit that this person was simply intimidating.

Celeste took a deep breath. “Th-Thank you Corporal.” She said, the barest hesitation in her voice. “Carry on.”

The big man turned back to her and then nodded a grunt of acknowledgement. He motioned towards the injured Pixie, now almost completely quiet save a tiny whimper. “Fix blue Pixie,” Tazrok said. He then looked over to the fallen Dwarf, still in a crumpled heap, moaning. “Fix Dwarf.”

“O-Of course, Corporal.”

“But take time for Dwarf,” he added with a sly smile on his face. With that, he turned and walked back towards the end of the line.

Major Celeste watched the Ogre walk away, dumbfounded as to what just happened to her. She had just taken orders, willingly, from a recruit! Whatever had happened, it wasn’t a Command Aura that the Ogre sent out to counter her, it was … pure, raw … something; something primal.

Celeste blinked her eyes to clear her head, and turned to the two guardsmen. They were just as stunned at what happened as the throng of recruits around her. “You two, you heard the Corporal! Hang that useless knot of hair by the courtyard bell for all to see!”

“Yes, Major,” they responded in unison. One bent to grab the limp rope of hair and both ran off.

“We’ll need another medic for this Dwarf, too!” the Major finally called out, looking at the moaning form, before adding, “No need to rush!”