All-Flag Rangers: Part II, the Bull of the West
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Cyrodiil, 4E 97
"The beast is down there. Hurry up, I ain't want it's stench to stick to me."
The bent old man snorted as he struggled to hold the trapdoor open. Iszir pushed him aside, holding the door up with one hand. Aurelius climbed down and between the two of them they helped Furioso find his way down the ladder. Iszir nodded the old man away before leaping down, the door slamming shut behind them.
The caves were dark, lit by the flames of a single torch just off the ladder's side.
Aurelius took it, raising it high to cast the light farther into the caverns. In this light his eyes could pass for normal. Furioso walked forward confidently, Iszir ghosting him like a ward, ready in case the blind priest stumbled. But he didn't, and as Aurelius lifted the torch looking round the room, Furioso walked into the darkness as if he knew precisely where he were going.
All around them there were empty cages and some, Aurelius could smell, with dried blood from long ago still on the bars. The weird rituals and horrible human sacrifices of ancient Hackdirt formed the basis for many children's tales across Cyrodiil. It was surreal to be standing in the very caverns where some version of those tales had once actually occurred. Aurelius put it out of mind and followed the quickly vanishing forms of the moth priest and the sword-singer, carrying the light with him.
When the captain caught up Furioso had already found what they'd come for. A huge cage set into the stone wall itself, the steel bars thick as arms, with the caverns only inhabitant. As Aurelius neared the torchlight fell into the cage and revealed the beast. First the hooves, cloven and huge, up the matted and muddy fur of a bulls legs, thick and strong. At the waist the fur gradually fell away into a mass of furrish hairs trailing up a man's broad brown chest from which sprouted two arms thicker than an orc's head. And above the chest most disconcerting of all, a man's head but more elongated, chin and nose protuding like a bull's snout with huge tauran horns jutting out the sides of the shaggy head of hair. It was one of the most feared monsters of Cyrodiil - a minotaur.
"Hi." it said, with what Aurelius thought might be a hint of gloom.
"Hello my friend," said Furioso, crouching down to sit on the cold stone floor. Iszir took a standing position at his side, hands behind hir back but somehow still exuding the intensity of a notched arrow. Furioso continued, "I have come a long way to see you."
"Why? What you want?" the beast asked. Aurelius could not place the accent, it had a hint of the Hackdirt twang he'd heard above, but something else, something more guttural.
"Very direct," observed Furioso, "I myself am not so forward. My name is Furioso, and I am a Moth Priest from the Imperial City. This dark, shaven figure standing at my side is Iszir, a Sword-Singer from the Alik'r desert. And the olive-skinned metal man behind me is Captain Aurelius Leto-Shaihe, a Tribune of the Imperial Legion." the minotaur snorted at that last bit, and for a moment it looked all bull and no man, it's head shaking a bit as it snorted through a golden nose-ring that wasn't actually there. Aurelius took great offense at that, being insulted by a monster.
"And what issue have you with the Emperor's Legions, bull?" said Aurelius, "Have some respect. The last thing of note your people ever did was be defeated by our departed Emperor Titus Mede after he took the Imperial City and ousted that filthy warlord you all called king."
The minotaur stood then, and even behind the bars he seemed like he would never stop growing, rising and rising till he stood almost eight feet tall. He leaned forward, his eyes reflecting, Aurelius thought, rage. He opened his mouth, and the Captain's free arm went to the gladius at his side, "I'm sorry, what speak of?" it asked politely. Then it snorted again, turned it's head and spit up a loogy before lamenting, "I hate colds."
Aurelius let the blade go as he realized the look on it's face had been confusion.
"You've not had the luxury of a historical education, have you?" said Furioso, "Allow me to teach you something of civilization: it's called manners. Tell us your name, my friend, that we may know to whom we speak."
The minotaur shuffled back a couple steps, looking almost shy.
"I... I not use in long time," He seemed to be thinking, remembering, "Last time... last time the lord beat I for it. Said I not earn it. Said I use bull name, be prouder, said the men betray I and I should betray I's mother-name." He shook his head, "Now I not remember."
"Who was this lord you speak of?" asked Aurelius warily.
"Asterion." Aurelius huffed, and stepped back. Asterion was a minotaur lord who had gathered the remnants of the Horn King's forces after Titus Mede had ousted them from White-Gold in 4E 14. He had been harassing cities for decades since, but he and his minotaur army had dissapeared some ten years ago after a large battle near the ruins of old Sutch back when Aurelius was just a spearman. Now Furioso had brought them to try and recruit some straggler from his vanished army?
"How you find I?" it said to Furioso, "The people here not tell no one. They want kill I themself, not let Imps do it." it said Imps with a glance to Aurelius.
"I was told about you several years ago by a woman," said Furioso, "who claimed to have been midwife to Saint Alessia reborn, birthing the son of Morihaus. She said that she and the local priest had worked together to stave the town off killing the child for a couple years, when he'd grown big enough to fend for himself. Then they worked together to free him into the wilderness, where he ran away and they never saw him again."
The minotaur smiled, and something in Aurelius finally cracked. It had crooked teeth, like a child who had lost them too early and they'd grown back wrong and nobody had been around to help set them. It was a wide smile that almost broke it's face in two, and had all the innocence and happiness of a little boy.
"I remember her! She was only person that fed I, and she made Father teach I to talk." "Father?" asked Aurelius bewilderedly. A midwife got a bull to teach a minotaur how to talk?
"He means the priest," said Furioso before turning back to the minotaur, who continued. "I not son of Mor or Al-Esh, I's mother was poor and stupid, and she had a farmer's bull and then had I."
"I know," said Furioso, "I've spoken to the priest who confirmed it. He told me how your mother died giving birth to you, complications with the uh," he gestured at the minotaur's horns, "extra parts. And after you escaped the midwife fled the town afraid they'd suspect her, and sometime after that she joined a Cult of Morihaus and became convinced you were the Morihine. Morihaus incarnate, birthed of his own divine seed, in secret. She told me in the hopes I would find you and take you back to the Imperial City with me."
The minotaur looked up at him, eyes curiously solemn. "Will you?"
"Only if you can tell me your name."
The minotaur thought for a moment, face contorted in concentration.
"A... Ale..."He snorted again, this time in frustration, then looked up suddenly, eyes filled with glee he leapt at the bars and slammed into them so even Iszir was startled.
"Alessandros! I's name is ALESSANDROS!" he roared his name like a warrior of old.
"Good!" said Furioso. "Well Alessandros, if you help us fight bad people, if you help us keep good people safe, I'll take you to the Imperial City, and," Furioso took out a huge brass key and unlocked the cage, "I'll make sure you never forget your name again, 'cause you've earned it."
As the cage door creaked open, the beast exploded out to attack the priest, arms crushing the priest, over him like a lion leaping onto a gazelle. In a flash Iszir's longsword was at the minotaur's neck and Aurelius's gladius pointed at his heart, but not before they heard Furioso's death rattle.
In the second before their blades sunk into the monster's flesh, they both had the same realization. That wasn't a death rattle. It was laughter. Furioso was laughing.
"Please! Hah! p- please stop Alessandros!" came the priests voice from somwhere in the mass of shaggy haired arms and chest, "You're hugging too hard!"
Alessandros let the priest go and stepped back, "Sorry..." he said sheepishly.
The priest straightened his robe and blindfold before speaking again, "I suppose that means, well welcome. Welcome to the team."
Alessandros grinned that huge, crooked smile again.
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