Slann
Killer Angel
Prophet of the Stars
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Next chapter, as you can probably guess, comes the solar conclussion of this storyline.
time to re-read it in its entirety!
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Fiction Herald Of The Old Ones
- Thread starter Mr.Crocodile
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time to re-read it in its entirety!
Temple Guard
Mr.Crocodile
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Robber Killer, Killer Robber - Part X: The Coldhide
"It had twelve legs, all writhing, dangling down and six long swaying necks, a hideous head on each, each head barbed with a triple row of fangs, thickset, packed tight – and armed to the hilt with black death!"
Spear of the Gods, Jungle of Squalls, Isthmus of Lustria
29th of Erntezeit, 2538 IC // 40.0.9.15.18 12 Etzʼnabʼ 11 Yax
Reinhardt stumbles, the greenwood rod resting across his shoulder blades digging into his sunburnt skin thanks to the overweight cloth satchels hanging from both ends. The man keeps his eyes forward, even as sweat stings his eyes enough to blur his vision, and he is forced to pant like a dog just to keep enough air entering and leaving his lugs.
Step after step, he keeps moving with a rhythm that only resounds in his mind. He still remembers, merely weeks after his capture -which had occurred three years ago while sailing the Sea of Claws- that he had been put to work in a lumber camp in dreary Naggaroth. There, some of his fellow slaves, southlanders whose tongue or tribe he knew nothing of, had sung to keep themselves working with coordination and rhythm.
Their masters had had the mouths of all of them sewn for long enough that some had died from starvation, and then had forced them to “free” each other with their own hands as part of some public festivity. After that, the singing had ended. It had not mattered -as one of the southlanders had begged- that the singing made them more efficient. After all, the singing had also lifted their spirits.
And cruelty is the point among their masters.
That is also why Reinhardt doesn’t offer to help carry the sacks of gold being lifted by the younger lad just in front of him. He knows that that would only lead to himself carrying the weight and being whipped. And the lad would immediately be ordered to refill his saddlebags to bursting, most likely also being whipped before or after.
Cruelty is the point.
And so he keeps walking, hoping that this will be his last trip to the beachhead, praying to Sigmar that the dark elves will finally collectively agree that their greed is sated. He’s long given up on his captors realizing that this hellish expedition would ever be profitable -by now, he’s quite sure that more than half of his fellow slaves have perished- or about the fact that mangled corpses just keep… Showing up.
If the exhaustion doesn’t kill him, a snake bite of a spider’s sting will do him in. And that’s assuming that none of the pale immortals decide to just stave off their boredom and aches on his body. His best hope, as depressing as it is, is that he and the rest of the slaves could soon be ordered to march into the bowels of ships. He’s heard that the druchii tend to get rid of their slaves on return trips to allow for more cargo.
But they’ve genuinely lost so many hands that he doesn’t need to be a hopeful idiot to believe such a thing could happen. And so, Reinhardt keeps walking, shouldering the weight of two apple basket-sized piles of gold and gems chiseled and levered out of a weapon’s shaft taller than any mountain he has ever seen.
A wondrous sight to behold. Or at least it would be wondrous if his first look at it hadn’t been followed by the beheading of three slaves who had tried to run for the treeline. Why they had tried to do so escaped him. If the tales told during what few hours or rest they are allowed are true, one could argue that the bipedal monsters without are no better than those within.
Perhaps it is being exhausted and underfed like he’s never been before -even by the standards of the Druchii, his current masters seem overly petty- or perhaps it is just that the thousand people who have traversed the footpath between the spear and the beachhead have made the soil hard as rock. Or maybe it’s the weight that leaves his upper back bleeding.
But finally, after almost four years of grueling servitude, a body that should be the very image of vitality age-wise simply gives up. In some ways, the flesh is just joining the mind in a breaking that happened long ago.
He stumbles and falls, the greenwood carrying pole falling before him, at first sliding to press down on his neck, but then fully stumbling as the gold and gems stabs into the ground.
Blood pouring from his nose mixed with the foamy saliva that puddles around his dirt-eating face. His arms spasm and tremble uncontrollably as he lays there, incapable of even trying to sit up and lean against something, anything.
The lad before him keeps walking, the people behind him keep walking like ants barely disturbed by a fallen leaf. They do give him a wide berth, however, as they do not want to be close by to watch what is surely about to happen.
They won’t whip him, he knows, the druchii have a knack for telling when a slave is too broken even for them. He’ll likely be made an example out of, perhaps nailed to a nearby tree, or flensed alive to provide entertainment for the officers. Hopefully, he may be given over to the admiral’s thing , such a death would be gruesome to behold, but lightning fast to endure.
Armored leather boots stomp towards him, shouting in a language that his owners have never had a reason to teach him. He can hear the sound of a blade being unsheathed, of drums, of whips cracking in the distance, of shouting, of…
‘Wait, drums?’
The vibrations are steady, only audible thanks to the ear that he has directly against the ground. They come in sets of four. First two almost in unison, and the latter two only a moment afterwards.
Then come more, and more. And then he is no longer feeling drumbeats, but also hearing them.
And then he realizes. Some are drum beats.
The rest? The rest are steps.
Quickening steps.
A stampede.
The druchii reaches him, Reinhardt feels it as a glove studded with sharp metal grabs his ratty shirt -in the process lacerating his mid-back- and hauls him upwards. The dark elf likely wants to look him in the eye as he chooses punishments.
The imperial takes in a snort of bloody phlegm and spits it up, landing the glop of reddened snot against the slaver’s cheek. Reinhardt smiles. The blade moves towards his belly as the elf sneers.
Then shadows fall upon them both, and a mace tipped with a stone the size of his own head leaves him looking at a gorish pulp. His would-be-killer’s entire head having been flattened into the base of his neck.
This time, the shock does allow him some extra strength. Reinhardt lands on his back and scuttles back like a terrified rodent, looking up. The thing that looks down on him is covered in azure scales painted with oranges and reds, its body decorated with piercings, fixings and collars of gold.
It turns its head, reminding Reinhard -whose father had been a chicken farmer- of the way foxes would inspect interesting things.
The lizardman raises an arm -the one not holding the massive stone maul, and points . Reinhardt doesn’t think twice, abandoning the bags of gold, and follows the four-fingered and clawed hand’s directions.
He knows not what he and the rest of the slaves are running towards. But they all know what they are running away from , and he sure as Sigmar’s Mighty Balls will not be staying around to see how both things mix together,
Rankec looks up when the sound of something cracking makes his long knife-like ear twitch. His eyes locate the source soon enough, even as the land-wards winds once again undo part of his hair bun and a few strands of hair as black as tar intrude upon his vision. His eyes find the sight of some kind of… Tree frog, one that is clearly too large for the branch it has cracked with its weight, leaving the slimy and clumsy animal hanging from its front limbs, while its much larger back limbs kick and try to find somewhere to grab onto.
The sight of the struggling animal should have caused him to, at the very least, let out a sensible chuckle. Instead, all he does is let out a scoff, and return to what had been keeping him busy during his tedious guard shift in the slave pens.
Digging scum out from under his nails with his dagger.
Usually something as menial as keeping tabs of the humans would have been relegated to one of the more well-trained slaves, being beneath the standing of even a Druchii unattached to a clan like himself.
But they had run out of those early on, as they had been attached to scouts as porters, or as leaders of work crews. And now, the fleet greatly diminished, menial tasks fall upon those like him, next lowest.
‘What did I think, jumping aboard one of that bitch’s ships? The only thing I’m getting out of this fucking idiocy is maybe a promotion if we recruit fresh meat when we return to cross the Witch Gate.’
He, like a thousand others, had been entranced by the idea of a raiding expedition deeper into Lustria than Coldhide’s fleets ever had. On top of that, the mutiny had been easy on him, he’d been irrelevant enough to not have anyone in particular seek his death out during the chaos.
Now, with his pale skin burned and his joints chaffed from wearing leather and metal in a climate of salt and humidity, he’s reconsidering the fact that the price for betraying Admiral Coldhide is simply being paid in posterior installments.
‘I never thought I’d miss Clar Karond, at least there the gold would be useful…’ He grimaces as his dagger punctures the tip of his left ring finger, letting out a single drop of blood. Currently, he is richer than he had ever been in his life before joining the current endeavour. But enough gold to encumber a slave is quite useless among a fleet where almost everyone else has the same amount, or more. Currency among his fellows has become favours rather than silver pieces, and there’s -quite obviously- no one to buy anything from with his newly acquired gems.
Rankec stands up from his leaning position against the pen’s stake wall. He gives a look into it, but finds nothing more than expected: A few hundred off shift slaves, resting on piles of dried grass they themselves had been made to collect. The place reeks of human filth, he should order a few of them to gather buckets of the nearby sea’s water, to at least splash away the worst of it. But he has already accepted that he’ll be exposed to the ordure of humans until the Admiral’s delusional daughter finally gives in and orders them all back aboard the ships the fleet still has enough hands to-
ZWOOP
Rankec jumps in place, suddenly lanced by some kind of insect, his neck stung just as the rest of his body had been now for a thousand times. The druchii moves to slap the offending mosquito, slapping his own neck. Instead of a possibly satisfying crunch, his palm slams into-
A diminutive piece of wood, thinner than even a food skewer, so brittle it cracks under his slap. As he brings his hand back to visually inspect it, he can feel a tingling sensation up and down his neck.
The piece of wood is diminutive, the tip stained red with his blood, alongside some kind of thin whitish pellicule. Rankec’s mind instantly floods with explosive fear, his body pumping out adrenaline. He goes to shout and alert the rest of the guards. In doing so, he goes to take a step.
His leg -both legs, in fact- has fallen asleep, his mouth opens more due to gravity than him trying to scream, little more than a strained whimper comes as his body limply slams into the ground.
Within a few more moments, he can’t even move his eyes to look around, much less close his eyelids. His heart, just like the rest of the parts of his body controlled by neurons -meaning, the totality of it- stops sending or receiving signals as soon as his bloodstream carries the poison to it.
The last thing he sees is the reptilian foot of something that scampers and climbs out of the pen, its other clawed foot landing on his back, he can’t feel that either.
A few moments later, and as the pen’s entrance is unlocked and slaves quietly try to remove each other's shackles and collars, his body is already dead. It’ll take a few hours for it to reach the parlor of death, however, a strange quirk of the hot and humid local climate.
Somewhere, far above the ongoing events, a treefrog finds it footing and returns to the dense canopy, just in time to avoid a flying reptile’s snapping jaws.
The commotion, the violence, the sounds of battle, they come like the boiling of water, unnoticeable at first, catastrophically overflowing if you are distracted from it for but a second.
In her case, one moment she is overlooking her camp as her troops retreat closer to the moored ships, alerted by the few wounded who manage to flee into the beachhead from the dirt path to the Spear of the Gods. Davara doesn’t doubt for a second that all those still within the jungle have been cut down to the last.
The next moment, even after her crews ready to put the Ravenships to sea, the sounds of commotion make her focus on the westernmost edges of the camp, where she had had the slave pens built, making sure to have them downwind, where the slave’s stenches would be carried away instead of mingling with Lustria’s odors in her nostrils.
What her eyes find is the distant sight of blue-scaled reptiles scampering up and down stake walls and tents, jumping upon the unready while the tail end of a mob of escaping slaves disappears into the treeline, skirting clear of the scaled creatures vomiting forth from it. For a second, she doubts whether she should divest some of her soldiers to seek them out, be it to check the reptilian infiltrators or to put down the slaves, who seem to have attempted to use the commotion to stage an escape.
‘Fools, the jungle will punish them as much as I will.’ She growls, making up her mind and deciding to forget the hu… Mans…?
‘You will repay the insolence of your trespassing by giving into our care all the human slaves you have brought to Lustria, with enough food and water to sustain tem for twenty days and twenty nights.’ Her mind provides the Herald’s words, his words.
Suddenly, she is much less content with letting them succumb to the diseases and beasts of the jungles. Her face grows into a snarling sneer, and the usurping fleetmaster begins to turn to bark orders out for Rures -who by now has gone from being her most reliable captain to de facto being her second in command- to echo out.
Only then does she realize that the proverbial water is already boiling, and her skin is already getting scalded. The first wave of the reptilian assault has already arrived.
It arrives in the form of something she had never pondered the possibility of before. In her father’s tellings of his and other fleetmasters’ forays into Lustria, there had been plentiful mentions of garrisons and scattered bands like the ones she herself had faced already. Instead, what breaches the treeline consolidates within a few seconds into the solid ranks of a marching unit of infantry. Infantry made up of massive snarled reptiles, their head crests decorated with jaguar-like spots of fiery colors.
Davara is reminded of the appearance of some of the saurus slain during her plundering of the temple dedicated to the saurian sun god. As the ranks solidify into a shield wall facing the palisade her darkshards are massed behind, she admits something to herself for the first time in her one hundred and fifty nine years of life, Davara Coldhide truly entertains the fact that her expedition might…
She shakes her head, and starts barking orders, her gestures somewhat diminished by her immobilized arm. Her eyes remain locked in that wall of strangely-shaped shields as crossbow bolts slam and stab into them, barely lessening the enemy’s momentum. Even when the bolts slam against one of the monstrous heads sticking out of the shield wall, the creature’s sloping crests often divert them like a rounded metal shield would.
Still, reptiles do fall here and there. Hopefully enough for the gaps in the shield wall to allow for a cascading amount of damage. Then her eye catches a glint that makes her squint. Just a line behind the forwardmost elements of the shield wall, where -for some reason- the air wavers as if in a desert, stands a saurus taller than most, its scales copper-like in their colouration.
Equally cupric is the massive standard that he holds aloft, a piece of glinting metal decorated with streamers that resemble the licks of a flame. A particularly bright reflection off it forces her to squint her eyes.
Then another, a few seconds later, and another, and another, quickening until-
Davara hisses in pain as everything she can see becomes harsh white. From the sound of it, the silent flash has had a similar effect on those readying her ship, they all are left blinded as if they had stared at an eclipse’s end.
Those sounds of annoyance and pain are soon drowned out by others, much more prescient. The sounds of combat, of weapons slamming into armor, of dying warriors, of tearing flesh and cracking bone.
When her vision finally clear enough, her eyes red and stinging, Davara is gifted with the daunting sight of what exactly the reptiles have done during the precious few seconds in which they -by arcane means- have left her entire expedition blinded.
They have closed the gap. Saurus warriors have climbed over the palisade like agile birds in the precious few seconds during which the firing line has been disabled. At the same time, the treeline is now teeming with even more foes, a veritable army, breaking through defenses and clawing its way towards the ships, her ships.
“Rures, we set sail, immediately.”
“I… Admiral…”
“What?!” She turns around, ready to use her still-usable arm to cut the would-be traitor down, if needed be.
Instead, he finds him pointing at… Well, all around them.
The vessel is awash with sailors and reavers, trying to, indeed, put the ship to sea. Something made impossible by the fact that their sails have had to be retracted, as the wind is…
The squalls race inland.
“The sails are useless, if we cut anchors and attempt to set sail with this wind, the ship will run agro-”
“Then gather the galley-slaves, you useless-!”
“THERE ARE NO GALLEY SLAVES LEFT!” Rures screams back.
…
Davara takes an insecure step back, the small of her back hitting the ship’s gunwale, she turns around just in time to hear a bellow so loud that it overrides the newly-learned lesson not to look at the enemy force directly.
The lizardmen have split themselves in two, leaving a causeway-like space between the two halves of their force. A wide one, of many spans. And, only barely large enough for the colossal greenish shape that trampes its way out of the treeline, armed with horns that make quick work of tree trunks, and that will even more easily breach her palisade.
A warbeast, one of four sturdy legs, covered in rough armor and a semicircular crest covered in horns, the color of a drab swamp. A stegadon. One with a platform, a howdah, firmly planted upon its upper back, one stuffed with both of the lizardmen breeds.
And a single shape perched upon its horns. Humanoid and wielding a great pole weapon. With that kind of momentum, the thing will easily stampede all the way to where the gangplanks connect to the still moored ships.
“ALL WHO DO NOT TAKE UP OARS WILL BE ABANDONED!” She finds herself screaming, instantly, dozens of those still ashore start running for said gangplanks, abandoning baskets and bags of gold and gems. Hopefully enough to flee beyond the reptiles’ ability to swim after, and then parallel to the coast until the squalls give up.
Davara jumps up her vessel’s rigging, strong core muscles doing the job a necrotizing arm cannot. And whistles as loudly as her lungs can provide for.
“Buy me time, girl, buy me time…” She mutters.
From the waves starts breaking out a mass of serpentine necks and grasping webbed limbs, a mass of scales as green as emeralds breaches out of the frothing waves. Pinkish tongues, proboscis and retractable jaws snap and twist.
The most valued of all things she took from her father during her coup.
Her family’s namesake.
The Coldhide Kharibdyss.
“KILL THEM!” She orders it. “KILL HIM! THE HUMAN, TEAR HIM APART!”
The monster’s five heads don’t make for much of a collective name, but servitude under generations of Davara’s ancestors have trained the monster well enough to sense their intent.
The monster starts swimming closer to shore, its bulk so large that it actively shoves another ravenship aside, throwing a few of those in its rigging overboard, to be snapped up by the mouths of two of its heads. Davara can hardly begrudge the monster for grabbing a snack, considering that it represents her sole chance of delaying the enemy long enough to make it out alive at all.
"It had twelve legs, all writhing, dangling down and six long swaying necks, a hideous head on each, each head barbed with a triple row of fangs, thickset, packed tight – and armed to the hilt with black death!"
- Recollections of Khyprian warlord Oulixēs the Lost.
Spear of the Gods, Jungle of Squalls, Isthmus of Lustria
29th of Erntezeit, 2538 IC // 40.0.9.15.18 12 Etzʼnabʼ 11 Yax
Reinhardt stumbles, the greenwood rod resting across his shoulder blades digging into his sunburnt skin thanks to the overweight cloth satchels hanging from both ends. The man keeps his eyes forward, even as sweat stings his eyes enough to blur his vision, and he is forced to pant like a dog just to keep enough air entering and leaving his lugs.
Step after step, he keeps moving with a rhythm that only resounds in his mind. He still remembers, merely weeks after his capture -which had occurred three years ago while sailing the Sea of Claws- that he had been put to work in a lumber camp in dreary Naggaroth. There, some of his fellow slaves, southlanders whose tongue or tribe he knew nothing of, had sung to keep themselves working with coordination and rhythm.
Their masters had had the mouths of all of them sewn for long enough that some had died from starvation, and then had forced them to “free” each other with their own hands as part of some public festivity. After that, the singing had ended. It had not mattered -as one of the southlanders had begged- that the singing made them more efficient. After all, the singing had also lifted their spirits.
And cruelty is the point among their masters.
That is also why Reinhardt doesn’t offer to help carry the sacks of gold being lifted by the younger lad just in front of him. He knows that that would only lead to himself carrying the weight and being whipped. And the lad would immediately be ordered to refill his saddlebags to bursting, most likely also being whipped before or after.
Cruelty is the point.
And so he keeps walking, hoping that this will be his last trip to the beachhead, praying to Sigmar that the dark elves will finally collectively agree that their greed is sated. He’s long given up on his captors realizing that this hellish expedition would ever be profitable -by now, he’s quite sure that more than half of his fellow slaves have perished- or about the fact that mangled corpses just keep… Showing up.
If the exhaustion doesn’t kill him, a snake bite of a spider’s sting will do him in. And that’s assuming that none of the pale immortals decide to just stave off their boredom and aches on his body. His best hope, as depressing as it is, is that he and the rest of the slaves could soon be ordered to march into the bowels of ships. He’s heard that the druchii tend to get rid of their slaves on return trips to allow for more cargo.
But they’ve genuinely lost so many hands that he doesn’t need to be a hopeful idiot to believe such a thing could happen. And so, Reinhardt keeps walking, shouldering the weight of two apple basket-sized piles of gold and gems chiseled and levered out of a weapon’s shaft taller than any mountain he has ever seen.
A wondrous sight to behold. Or at least it would be wondrous if his first look at it hadn’t been followed by the beheading of three slaves who had tried to run for the treeline. Why they had tried to do so escaped him. If the tales told during what few hours or rest they are allowed are true, one could argue that the bipedal monsters without are no better than those within.
Perhaps it is being exhausted and underfed like he’s never been before -even by the standards of the Druchii, his current masters seem overly petty- or perhaps it is just that the thousand people who have traversed the footpath between the spear and the beachhead have made the soil hard as rock. Or maybe it’s the weight that leaves his upper back bleeding.
But finally, after almost four years of grueling servitude, a body that should be the very image of vitality age-wise simply gives up. In some ways, the flesh is just joining the mind in a breaking that happened long ago.
He stumbles and falls, the greenwood carrying pole falling before him, at first sliding to press down on his neck, but then fully stumbling as the gold and gems stabs into the ground.
Blood pouring from his nose mixed with the foamy saliva that puddles around his dirt-eating face. His arms spasm and tremble uncontrollably as he lays there, incapable of even trying to sit up and lean against something, anything.
The lad before him keeps walking, the people behind him keep walking like ants barely disturbed by a fallen leaf. They do give him a wide berth, however, as they do not want to be close by to watch what is surely about to happen.
They won’t whip him, he knows, the druchii have a knack for telling when a slave is too broken even for them. He’ll likely be made an example out of, perhaps nailed to a nearby tree, or flensed alive to provide entertainment for the officers. Hopefully, he may be given over to the admiral’s thing , such a death would be gruesome to behold, but lightning fast to endure.
Armored leather boots stomp towards him, shouting in a language that his owners have never had a reason to teach him. He can hear the sound of a blade being unsheathed, of drums, of whips cracking in the distance, of shouting, of…
‘Wait, drums?’
The vibrations are steady, only audible thanks to the ear that he has directly against the ground. They come in sets of four. First two almost in unison, and the latter two only a moment afterwards.
Then come more, and more. And then he is no longer feeling drumbeats, but also hearing them.
And then he realizes. Some are drum beats.
The rest? The rest are steps.
Quickening steps.
A stampede.
The druchii reaches him, Reinhardt feels it as a glove studded with sharp metal grabs his ratty shirt -in the process lacerating his mid-back- and hauls him upwards. The dark elf likely wants to look him in the eye as he chooses punishments.
The imperial takes in a snort of bloody phlegm and spits it up, landing the glop of reddened snot against the slaver’s cheek. Reinhardt smiles. The blade moves towards his belly as the elf sneers.
Then shadows fall upon them both, and a mace tipped with a stone the size of his own head leaves him looking at a gorish pulp. His would-be-killer’s entire head having been flattened into the base of his neck.
This time, the shock does allow him some extra strength. Reinhardt lands on his back and scuttles back like a terrified rodent, looking up. The thing that looks down on him is covered in azure scales painted with oranges and reds, its body decorated with piercings, fixings and collars of gold.
It turns its head, reminding Reinhard -whose father had been a chicken farmer- of the way foxes would inspect interesting things.
The lizardman raises an arm -the one not holding the massive stone maul, and points . Reinhardt doesn’t think twice, abandoning the bags of gold, and follows the four-fingered and clawed hand’s directions.
He knows not what he and the rest of the slaves are running towards. But they all know what they are running away from , and he sure as Sigmar’s Mighty Balls will not be staying around to see how both things mix together,
Coldhide Fleet Beachhead, Jungle of Squalls, Isthmus of Lustria
Rankec looks up when the sound of something cracking makes his long knife-like ear twitch. His eyes locate the source soon enough, even as the land-wards winds once again undo part of his hair bun and a few strands of hair as black as tar intrude upon his vision. His eyes find the sight of some kind of… Tree frog, one that is clearly too large for the branch it has cracked with its weight, leaving the slimy and clumsy animal hanging from its front limbs, while its much larger back limbs kick and try to find somewhere to grab onto.
The sight of the struggling animal should have caused him to, at the very least, let out a sensible chuckle. Instead, all he does is let out a scoff, and return to what had been keeping him busy during his tedious guard shift in the slave pens.
Digging scum out from under his nails with his dagger.
Usually something as menial as keeping tabs of the humans would have been relegated to one of the more well-trained slaves, being beneath the standing of even a Druchii unattached to a clan like himself.
But they had run out of those early on, as they had been attached to scouts as porters, or as leaders of work crews. And now, the fleet greatly diminished, menial tasks fall upon those like him, next lowest.
‘What did I think, jumping aboard one of that bitch’s ships? The only thing I’m getting out of this fucking idiocy is maybe a promotion if we recruit fresh meat when we return to cross the Witch Gate.’
He, like a thousand others, had been entranced by the idea of a raiding expedition deeper into Lustria than Coldhide’s fleets ever had. On top of that, the mutiny had been easy on him, he’d been irrelevant enough to not have anyone in particular seek his death out during the chaos.
Now, with his pale skin burned and his joints chaffed from wearing leather and metal in a climate of salt and humidity, he’s reconsidering the fact that the price for betraying Admiral Coldhide is simply being paid in posterior installments.
‘I never thought I’d miss Clar Karond, at least there the gold would be useful…’ He grimaces as his dagger punctures the tip of his left ring finger, letting out a single drop of blood. Currently, he is richer than he had ever been in his life before joining the current endeavour. But enough gold to encumber a slave is quite useless among a fleet where almost everyone else has the same amount, or more. Currency among his fellows has become favours rather than silver pieces, and there’s -quite obviously- no one to buy anything from with his newly acquired gems.
Rankec stands up from his leaning position against the pen’s stake wall. He gives a look into it, but finds nothing more than expected: A few hundred off shift slaves, resting on piles of dried grass they themselves had been made to collect. The place reeks of human filth, he should order a few of them to gather buckets of the nearby sea’s water, to at least splash away the worst of it. But he has already accepted that he’ll be exposed to the ordure of humans until the Admiral’s delusional daughter finally gives in and orders them all back aboard the ships the fleet still has enough hands to-
ZWOOP
Rankec jumps in place, suddenly lanced by some kind of insect, his neck stung just as the rest of his body had been now for a thousand times. The druchii moves to slap the offending mosquito, slapping his own neck. Instead of a possibly satisfying crunch, his palm slams into-
A diminutive piece of wood, thinner than even a food skewer, so brittle it cracks under his slap. As he brings his hand back to visually inspect it, he can feel a tingling sensation up and down his neck.
The piece of wood is diminutive, the tip stained red with his blood, alongside some kind of thin whitish pellicule. Rankec’s mind instantly floods with explosive fear, his body pumping out adrenaline. He goes to shout and alert the rest of the guards. In doing so, he goes to take a step.
His leg -both legs, in fact- has fallen asleep, his mouth opens more due to gravity than him trying to scream, little more than a strained whimper comes as his body limply slams into the ground.
Within a few more moments, he can’t even move his eyes to look around, much less close his eyelids. His heart, just like the rest of the parts of his body controlled by neurons -meaning, the totality of it- stops sending or receiving signals as soon as his bloodstream carries the poison to it.
The last thing he sees is the reptilian foot of something that scampers and climbs out of the pen, its other clawed foot landing on his back, he can’t feel that either.
A few moments later, and as the pen’s entrance is unlocked and slaves quietly try to remove each other's shackles and collars, his body is already dead. It’ll take a few hours for it to reach the parlor of death, however, a strange quirk of the hot and humid local climate.
Somewhere, far above the ongoing events, a treefrog finds it footing and returns to the dense canopy, just in time to avoid a flying reptile’s snapping jaws.
The commotion, the violence, the sounds of battle, they come like the boiling of water, unnoticeable at first, catastrophically overflowing if you are distracted from it for but a second.
In her case, one moment she is overlooking her camp as her troops retreat closer to the moored ships, alerted by the few wounded who manage to flee into the beachhead from the dirt path to the Spear of the Gods. Davara doesn’t doubt for a second that all those still within the jungle have been cut down to the last.
The next moment, even after her crews ready to put the Ravenships to sea, the sounds of commotion make her focus on the westernmost edges of the camp, where she had had the slave pens built, making sure to have them downwind, where the slave’s stenches would be carried away instead of mingling with Lustria’s odors in her nostrils.
What her eyes find is the distant sight of blue-scaled reptiles scampering up and down stake walls and tents, jumping upon the unready while the tail end of a mob of escaping slaves disappears into the treeline, skirting clear of the scaled creatures vomiting forth from it. For a second, she doubts whether she should divest some of her soldiers to seek them out, be it to check the reptilian infiltrators or to put down the slaves, who seem to have attempted to use the commotion to stage an escape.
‘Fools, the jungle will punish them as much as I will.’ She growls, making up her mind and deciding to forget the hu… Mans…?
‘You will repay the insolence of your trespassing by giving into our care all the human slaves you have brought to Lustria, with enough food and water to sustain tem for twenty days and twenty nights.’ Her mind provides the Herald’s words, his words.
Suddenly, she is much less content with letting them succumb to the diseases and beasts of the jungles. Her face grows into a snarling sneer, and the usurping fleetmaster begins to turn to bark orders out for Rures -who by now has gone from being her most reliable captain to de facto being her second in command- to echo out.
Only then does she realize that the proverbial water is already boiling, and her skin is already getting scalded. The first wave of the reptilian assault has already arrived.
It arrives in the form of something she had never pondered the possibility of before. In her father’s tellings of his and other fleetmasters’ forays into Lustria, there had been plentiful mentions of garrisons and scattered bands like the ones she herself had faced already. Instead, what breaches the treeline consolidates within a few seconds into the solid ranks of a marching unit of infantry. Infantry made up of massive snarled reptiles, their head crests decorated with jaguar-like spots of fiery colors.
Davara is reminded of the appearance of some of the saurus slain during her plundering of the temple dedicated to the saurian sun god. As the ranks solidify into a shield wall facing the palisade her darkshards are massed behind, she admits something to herself for the first time in her one hundred and fifty nine years of life, Davara Coldhide truly entertains the fact that her expedition might…
She shakes her head, and starts barking orders, her gestures somewhat diminished by her immobilized arm. Her eyes remain locked in that wall of strangely-shaped shields as crossbow bolts slam and stab into them, barely lessening the enemy’s momentum. Even when the bolts slam against one of the monstrous heads sticking out of the shield wall, the creature’s sloping crests often divert them like a rounded metal shield would.
Still, reptiles do fall here and there. Hopefully enough for the gaps in the shield wall to allow for a cascading amount of damage. Then her eye catches a glint that makes her squint. Just a line behind the forwardmost elements of the shield wall, where -for some reason- the air wavers as if in a desert, stands a saurus taller than most, its scales copper-like in their colouration.
Equally cupric is the massive standard that he holds aloft, a piece of glinting metal decorated with streamers that resemble the licks of a flame. A particularly bright reflection off it forces her to squint her eyes.
Then another, a few seconds later, and another, and another, quickening until-
Davara hisses in pain as everything she can see becomes harsh white. From the sound of it, the silent flash has had a similar effect on those readying her ship, they all are left blinded as if they had stared at an eclipse’s end.
Those sounds of annoyance and pain are soon drowned out by others, much more prescient. The sounds of combat, of weapons slamming into armor, of dying warriors, of tearing flesh and cracking bone.
When her vision finally clear enough, her eyes red and stinging, Davara is gifted with the daunting sight of what exactly the reptiles have done during the precious few seconds in which they -by arcane means- have left her entire expedition blinded.
They have closed the gap. Saurus warriors have climbed over the palisade like agile birds in the precious few seconds during which the firing line has been disabled. At the same time, the treeline is now teeming with even more foes, a veritable army, breaking through defenses and clawing its way towards the ships, her ships.
“Rures, we set sail, immediately.”
“I… Admiral…”
“What?!” She turns around, ready to use her still-usable arm to cut the would-be traitor down, if needed be.
Instead, he finds him pointing at… Well, all around them.
The vessel is awash with sailors and reavers, trying to, indeed, put the ship to sea. Something made impossible by the fact that their sails have had to be retracted, as the wind is…
The squalls race inland.
“The sails are useless, if we cut anchors and attempt to set sail with this wind, the ship will run agro-”
“Then gather the galley-slaves, you useless-!”
“THERE ARE NO GALLEY SLAVES LEFT!” Rures screams back.
…
Davara takes an insecure step back, the small of her back hitting the ship’s gunwale, she turns around just in time to hear a bellow so loud that it overrides the newly-learned lesson not to look at the enemy force directly.
The lizardmen have split themselves in two, leaving a causeway-like space between the two halves of their force. A wide one, of many spans. And, only barely large enough for the colossal greenish shape that trampes its way out of the treeline, armed with horns that make quick work of tree trunks, and that will even more easily breach her palisade.
A warbeast, one of four sturdy legs, covered in rough armor and a semicircular crest covered in horns, the color of a drab swamp. A stegadon. One with a platform, a howdah, firmly planted upon its upper back, one stuffed with both of the lizardmen breeds.
And a single shape perched upon its horns. Humanoid and wielding a great pole weapon. With that kind of momentum, the thing will easily stampede all the way to where the gangplanks connect to the still moored ships.
“ALL WHO DO NOT TAKE UP OARS WILL BE ABANDONED!” She finds herself screaming, instantly, dozens of those still ashore start running for said gangplanks, abandoning baskets and bags of gold and gems. Hopefully enough to flee beyond the reptiles’ ability to swim after, and then parallel to the coast until the squalls give up.
Davara jumps up her vessel’s rigging, strong core muscles doing the job a necrotizing arm cannot. And whistles as loudly as her lungs can provide for.
“Buy me time, girl, buy me time…” She mutters.
From the waves starts breaking out a mass of serpentine necks and grasping webbed limbs, a mass of scales as green as emeralds breaches out of the frothing waves. Pinkish tongues, proboscis and retractable jaws snap and twist.
The most valued of all things she took from her father during her coup.
Her family’s namesake.
The Coldhide Kharibdyss.
“KILL THEM!” She orders it. “KILL HIM! THE HUMAN, TEAR HIM APART!”
The monster’s five heads don’t make for much of a collective name, but servitude under generations of Davara’s ancestors have trained the monster well enough to sense their intent.
The monster starts swimming closer to shore, its bulk so large that it actively shoves another ravenship aside, throwing a few of those in its rigging overboard, to be snapped up by the mouths of two of its heads. Davara can hardly begrudge the monster for grabbing a snack, considering that it represents her sole chance of delaying the enemy long enough to make it out alive at all.
Temple Guard
Mr.Crocodile
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Gotta ask, how many of you saw the Kharibdyss coming? I wasn't specially sneaky about it, but also didn't see the point in obscuring its existance. I hope I threaded the line and kept the reveal interesting.
As to the end of this story arc. While last chapter was the emotional conclussion to its plotlines, this one is the action one. Apologies for the cliffhanger, but I simply had to
I hope you enjoyed the story and I honestly appreciate all and any kudos or comments you may be gracious enough to gift me! And in case any of you are interested, here's the link to my Discord server, where I discuss my projects and all are welcome
It would be great if, if you enjoyed the story that is, you took a second of your time to go over to ao3 and left a kudo and a comment over there, since it is my main posting site.
As to the end of this story arc. While last chapter was the emotional conclussion to its plotlines, this one is the action one. Apologies for the cliffhanger, but I simply had to
I hope you enjoyed the story and I honestly appreciate all and any kudos or comments you may be gracious enough to gift me! And in case any of you are interested, here's the link to my Discord server, where I discuss my projects and all are welcome
It would be great if, if you enjoyed the story that is, you took a second of your time to go over to ao3 and left a kudo and a comment over there, since it is my main posting site.
Temple Guard
Mr.Crocodile
Well-Known Member
- Messages
- 234
- Likes Received
- 525
- Trophy Points
- 93
Robber Killer, Killer Robber - Part XI: Cauterization
“For every ten men you send west, you lose two to the sea, two in the streets of Skeggi, and five in the jungle. That leaves… hang on… five plus… no, wait, I can do this…”
The beast that rises before the Herald of Pahuax carries the stench of dark magic with every dribble and breath of briny ether that leaves or enters its body through any of its five heads. But especially the one in the middle.
Roland can’t do anything but stop his march towards the ships -most still moored, the rest failing to row against the squalls and waves- as he beholds the monster pulling itself ashore by clawing at the sandbanks, clearly heavy enough not to be comfortable on land, but too large for such a constraint to fully stop it. The way its heft quakes and the spined fins that decorate it tremble with each heave makes him think of how a seal on the fatter side of things would navigate such terrain.
Except seals aren’t usually armed with hull-rending claws, or multiple serpentine necks each topped with a blind face made up of a mixture of barbed tongues and strange grasping appendages, the central one being further equipped with a frankly grotesque lower jaw, so long and flexible as to curl into itself, its teeth forming a spiraling saw. At least, Roland reasons, not in his experience.
Tentatively, the herald utters a few noises in the language of the marine reptiles, those whose flippers breach the warm waters that surround his homeland. If the nameless monster even hears him, it certainly does not react. And it does not surprise him, for the miasma of dark magic wafts from it like the smell of rotting fish.
Somewhere in the distance, he can hear the loud bellowing of a stegadon and the shattering of wood. Wajgrani -and the skinks upon his howdah- are doing a wonderful job at breaking through yet another section of the defenses. Under any other circumstance, Roland might have called them back to him. But Wajgrani is a subadult, young enough that it may still take half a decade for him to reach the size to carry his complete howdah. And while stegadons are formidable animals at any age…
Roland winces and steps back as the monster is met in battle by the foremost line of the saurus cohort. He gets a pretty good look at how the monster’s necks lashes out, one grabbing a good hold of one of the warriors, and simply swallowing and shredding half of his body before the mess of blood and gore simply spills out of its mouth, the lower half of a reptilian warrior twice Roland’s size simply slamming into the sand, the waist-height area at which the “bite” had occurred having quite literally been blended.
No, there is no way Roland is exposing the Stegadon to something twice its size and with that kind of ability to simply tear through scales.
“Kharibdyss…” A voice growls by his side. Roland finds himself staring up at the exposed gums of a hissing Old Blood Moiak, the green saurus’ muzzle stained by druchii blood that shines red under the sun.
A Kharibdyss, loathsome beast of the uncharted depths.
Roland strives to remember the creature's name, and to seek to educate himself on the warbeasts of his masters’ northern enemies. “Have you fought them before?”
“I was chosen to lead this army because I have had the pleasure of excissing parties of the Fallen Itz’xa’khanx before. They are fond of twisting the natural world into their enthrallment.”
“What ought we to do? It seems lumbering enough to avoid on land but…”
“It will decimate us if we attempt to reach the ships without putting it down.”
“How did you slay it, last time you encountered one?”
“Surrounded it with a strong shield wall of saurus, stabbed at it to keep it from picking a point from which to break out. Eventually, exhaustion killed it as much as the wounds we inflicted.”
“Even that will delay us far too long.” Roland observes as more of the ships try to make their way out of a coast adamant on keeping them within its bossom.
“Indeed. We will have to distract it by other means.”
“What do you suggest?”
“Make it angry. Its mind is simple, partitioned between three heads instead of multiplied. If something grabs its attention enough, it will seek it out for as long as it can.”
Roland takes in a deep breath, knowing what the saurus is about to suggest.
“You seem singularly adept at catching the attention of the foes, First among the Xho’za’khanx. I am sure you will do nicely. Fear not, as soon as the enemy is routed and its vessels captured, we will come to your aid.”
Roland takes a first grasp of his polearm and hisses in his own unavoidably human way. “Old Ones protect me…”
And, with little other fanfare, he starts shouting and grunting the sounds of challenging in every beast-language he has been taught by a lifetime spent in the Jungles of Pahualaxa.
The Kharibdyss may be unable to communicate with him, or vice versa, but all predators are deeply familiar with what it sounds like when another beast encroaches upon one’s territory.
One of the jawless heads snaps around to directly point at him, forgetting about the warrior it had been trying to nip at. Roland redoubles his efforts. Slowly, one by one, the heads begin turning to focus on him. Ultimately, he gathers the attention of the central head as its disgusting jaw toys with a mangled corpse.
“COME ON!” Roland waves with his polearm. “YOU FIVE HEADED CANCER, COME AND GET ME!”
The monster’s response is the garbled roar of something that can only close its maws by curling its tongues and crustacean-like appendages while squirting a heavy spray of bloodied seaspray.
Governor-General Siegmund Armbruster isn’t one to take strolls across the city he is the ruler -manager would be a more adept descriptor- of. The years haven’t made him any more accustomed to either of the seasonal extremes that the New World cyclically tries to kill him with. As such, he can’t be anything other than deeply uncomfortable as he inspects the fleet of vessels leaving out of Sudburg’s deepwater port.
His garb, the full uniform he continues to force himself to wear whenever he appears in public among the city’s young aristocracy or settler levies, is meant to be usable in campaign or parade at all times of the year. The Old World year, that is. Here, at the height of Lustria’s dry season, he is experiencing heat worse than the worst of his youth’s summer campaigns.
The only thing that brings him comfort is the wind. Today, it seems, it has become his balm. As early as the hour before his own awakening in the morning, the winds have been strong, constant, and unidirectional in their south-eastwards direction. Usually, and especially in the dry season, winds coming from Lustria’s inexorable inland regions would be sapped of all humidity, carrying the smell of natural wildfires. Today, however, the winds appear strong enough that they seem to be crossing the width of the Isthmus without losing much of the marine humidity and salt of the Far Sea.
And while Siegmund is grateful enough already for the respite that every gust offers him, he is still far down the list of those glad for it. Much higher than him are the hundreds of dockworkers laboring to load the bellies of eight different galleons with hundreds of sacks, barrels, bundles, rolls, baskets and boxes of every one of the goods that Sudburg’s less adventurous industries produce. Those men, whose skins are covered by a sheen of sweat, utter thankful prayers whenever the winds pick up. If only the winds could also get rid of the flies, the mosquitoes, the scurrying rats, the welts, the cuts and the pinpricks, the work might have been even bearable!
In coordination with those men are the crews of all the galleons preparing to leave before the winds die down, and those of other less hurried vessels of lesser tonnage. Those men constantly enter and exit the lower decks through hatch covers as if they were miners lowering themselves into a mine shaft. Unlike miners, they obviously tend to exit the hatches less burdened than how they entered. But the constant movement up and down ladders carrying the loads seems exhausting enough.
Finally there is a second force of sailors, spry men who climb up and down rigging, inspect sails and make last-minute repairs. First and second-class mates of all the ships inspect the work and deliver harshly shouted critiques to their men’s work. To a degree, it reminds the Governor-General of the ambience that would be created by an army on the march as it deconstructed its fieldcamp.
The two seasons of Lustria do make one thing simple, and that is the commerce of foodstuffs. The rainy season is for planting, for growing, for fattening animals and for harvesting from the nearby jungles. The dry season is for harvesting, for processing, for drying, curing, or fermenting, and for exporting.
The vessels being loaded right now with Sudburgs bounties will arrive -depending on the winds and current, of course- in one or two months to the great ports of the Old World, mainly to those of the empire and its allies, considering whose colony Siegmund administers.
Hopefully, Brocco’s true masters in ultramar will be gladdened to see the profits and so will be Siefmund’s own superiors. Perhaps glad enough to further invest resources into shoring the city up…
It depends as much, he knows, in the competition’s luck as it does on the labour of the city’s populace. But at this point there is not much he can do beyond pray, is there?
“Father!” A voice distracts him.
Turning around, the old officer sees his own daughter approach him, single-minded in a way that forces the dockworders to swerve and weave around her, for once.
“Noemie, I thought you’d still be busying yourself with the travelvers, now that most of them are soon to leave.”
“Oh, I was,” She smiles. “Until this arrived.”
From among the bricks of paper, parchment pieces and notebooks that turn his daughter’s ever-present satchel into an obese piece of leather, she pulls a singular letter, its wax seal broken, but visibly decorated with an imprint of a bicephalous eagle holding some kind of plant.
“A response from Santa Magritta? Already?”
“Arrived this morning aboard one of those smaller ships that Brocco and König hate so much. Penned by the viceroy’s own son.”
His daughter is, of course, referring to the unlicensed merchants and smugglers who make their wealth trading up and down Lustria’s oriental coast, stopping at colonies and outposts. Officially, such a thing is frowned upon. Most colonies are obligated to only trade with their mainlands, and dens of criminality like Port Reaver, Skeggi or the derelict Swamp Town would especially be frowned upon.
And yet, the reality is that the different pockets of civilization have limited and distinct resources or needs, meaning that their prosperity relies on a certain degree of unsanctioned mercantilism. Secondarily, they also make for convenient couriers.
“Son? I was under the impression that the viceroy was without children, especially at her age.”
“Believe me, father, the contents of the letter are going to be a lot more relevant than that detail to you.” She smiles, ecstatic.
‘This is going to be bad.’ Siegmund realizes as he unfurls the parchment.
Firstly, he's surprised by how little writing there is upon the yellowed material.
Then he actually begins to read.
‘Captain General of the Laguna Brillante Ariel Verin de San Pedro Mendoza-Velasco Ferrer del Sur y Cueva, Diestro of Santa Magritta; to his excellency the governor-generalship of the Autonomous Imperial Colony of Sudburg Siegmund Armbruster, Bearer of the Star of Sigmar; Greetings.’
‘It is not our fault that we are better at this than you, a joderse putos.’
‘Have a good afternoon.’
…
“Uh?”
“Right?” His daughter starts laughing.
Roland leaps out of the way as one of the heads slams into the ground he had been standing on seconds before, the rest of them remaining entangled in the rapidly shredding tent canvas that he had fooled the amphibian monster into racing through.
Moments later, as he hears the approaching clamoring of mandibles he is forced to use his momentum to swing his polearm -and his entire body- around, describing a predictable arch that slams into the side of another one of the individual heads. The attack would have been suicidal against any cognizant opponet, but against the Kharibdyss it does a good enough job. The sickle spikes that cover the weapon’s golden obstinate brace dig into the side of the thing’s tubular head, sending it reeling back and almost carrying both the weapon and himself with it.
Individually, he has quickly learned, none of the heads are particularly dangerous. They are comparable to more natural beasts he has already faced, and the length of his weapon deprives their tongues and appendages from tasting his skin.
Now, it is whenever the body and all the heads collaborate that his only option becomes that of simply running away in short bursts. Just enough to put himself out of reach, but close enough to dart in whenever that causes its five-fold wandering mind to switch targets.
He has bloodlet the monster. But one could be forgiven for not noticing, as the scale of the cuts, punctures and bludgeoned scales he has pockmarked its body with pale in comparison to the total area of the monster’s body. The obstinate blade of his polearm has severed a number of tongues and mandibles, but that’s as meaningful as downing a copse of trees within an entire jungle.
And so, he continues facing it as he constantly walks back, stepping over bodies and the wares of the destroyed camp, his mind singularly focused on keeping the right distance between himself and the longest of the monster’s necks. The enemy could have won around him, and he still would not have noticed.
Roland’s eyes flicker to the webbed claws of the beast, the way in which the musculature of the arms that they connect to grows taunt. The kharibdyss’ necks also retreat into an s-shape.
“Not again…” The Herald groans to himself.
With force unfitting for a creature of its nature, the five-headed monstrosity shoves itself forwards, all five heads weaving and snaking in hops to be the one to get at him first. Just as in previous times, Roland does his best to jump to the side, avoiding the oncoming shrine-sized mutant by the skin of his teeth, literally feeling how one of its many quill-tipped fins graves his back and almost catches onto the leather strap that crosses his chest.
The jump leaves him unbalanced and stumbling as he turns on a dime, fearful that the monster might be flanking him with one of its heads as the body continues to move forwards. With little thought, he delivers a downwards swipe against the mass of greenish scales before him. The strike is so forceful that it actually leaves his shoulders sore as blood begins to stream from the cut. The monster barely slows down, and drags him alongside itself even as it lets multiple gurgling screams of pain.
His weapon, he realizes, has found its mark near the base of one of the outlying necks, carving down into a good fourth of its diameter and…
Roland tugs at it.
Leaving it stuck upon its vertebra.
The monster coils into itself, Roland lets go of the weapon rather than be dragged along. While the affected head begins to droop and twitch, another one slams itself into the wound, while it clearly is trying to remove the weapon, the anxious force with which its tongues wrap around the shaft instead shatter the wood as it pulls back, shards of obstinate and bent gold alloy remaining embedded upon the profusely bleeding cut.
Roland isn’t left with much time to consider what he should do, now that he’s lost his blade. But most importantly, the agonizing monster continues to coil and turn around itself. He sees its paddle-like tail tip -armored with spikes like those of a djuradon, its thin skin scarred with holes all over- seconds before it slams into him. A few moments which feel like an eternity, before he can react -as if there was anything he could do- the entire world has started orbiting around him, his feet are unconnected to the ground, and he-
SLAM
Something catches his fall, and subsequently breaks , being just brittle enough not to break his back, but far from soft enough to welcome him for a painless landing. His entire body is battered, the breath is driven from his lungs, and his vision is overtaken by white hot pain. He comes in and out of consciousness multiple times in quick succession. While he is no longer tumbling through the air, his sense of balance very much believes so.
Gasping, he manages to hold his torso up by digging his elbows into the ground of what must be a destroyed tent of some kind, the pain of splinters making it clear that he has been “cushioned” by a pile of crates.
“Owww…” He groans, only for his churned stomach to unload itself, the sensory overload greater than even the worst of Swamp Town’s stenches.
As he continues to fail to stand up, the vibrating ground does not help. A small part of his mind that is still thinking about the wider context notifies him that there’s only two things lage enough around here to cause such quakes. And he doubts Wajgrani is coming to his aid.
The sunlight that makes it through the half-collapsed tent dimms, the smell of marine rot assaults his nostrils as it mixes with his own vomit and that of… Charring wood?
Roland looks up. And up, and up across a wide torso that forks into five necks, one of them limp, unresponsive and being dragged along by the rest of the creature’s body.
“One head, only four to go…” He allows himself to joke as he finds himself being stared down by four eyeless heads. The central one’s strange jaw coils and uncoils multiple times, implying a grotesquery of a creature licking its chops.
Thoughts start racing across Roland’s head. Shame at his failure, sadness borne of the knowledge that his sister will have to carry their kind’s role on the Great Plan alone, fear and anger sourced within the same pit of hate within his chest, and most of all…
The heads rear back, it is clear that the monster intends to draw and quarter him in its own way.
He can’t stop feeling the burning heat that laps at the small of his back.
And yet, as the heads begin their momentous descent towards his defenseless body… A blur of vibrant blues and unmistakable oranges. A feathered shape that flies against the wind with a speed unnatural to its species.
Tlahui, as much as he may be a carrion bird, is still a carrion bird of Lustria.
Which means that, even if his claws may be far from as sharp as a falcon’s or as strong as an eagle’s, they still do some mighty damage to the head the rylok lands upon, tearing at its facial tentacles like a songbird pulling earthworms out of the soil.
The sudden impact distracts the monster, its massive claws landing on either side of Roland’s as its heads stay their attack, two of them trying to snap at the bird before it flutters away, barely missing its wings with their bites.
It gives Roland a few precious seconds to scoot back, thankful for his companion’s reckless stunt. In his retreat, his palm comes across some kind of grip, and instinctively grasps it. Any weapon or tool would be welcome in this very mo-
“MAHRLECT!” He shouts in pain and lets go, as he finds that whatever he has grabbed is, in fact, hot enough to blister his hand. Roland looks back to see whatever it may be, and attempts to further avoid it.
What his eyes locate takes his breath away.
A mighty macuahuitl of the scale that only a saurus would be able to wield in a one-handed manner. Its blade is wrapped in steaming towels, clearly used by the druchii to contain the heat it produces, strong enough that the uncovered handle is singeing the ground it touches.
The smell of sulphur clogs Roland’s nostrils.
His brain, dazed as it is, instantly recognizes what can only be a heirloom of his masters’ masters.
Had the Druchii not raided the Monument of the Sun, precisely to pillage it?
Had the Cohort of the Copper Sun, blessed spawning of Lord Chotec himself, not joined them in their pursuit?
Has he not, less than an hour earlier, beheld the sanctimonious usage of the Sun Standard of Chotec? The mighty relic had blinded the entire enemy force for them to exploit.
The Burning Blade of Chotec, sits there, unattended, before his very own eyes.
Growling, however, brings him back from his fascination.
The kharibdyss, it seems, has given up on snapping Tlahui out of the sky, and the bird has allowed the squalls to take it far higher away than it could ever reach. As such, its attention has returned to him.
“Oh Lord of the Sun…” Roland grunts as he tries to raise himself to his knees. “You whose rays warm the bodies of the children of my very own master. You who fashioned Tlanxla’s chariot from the metal that is the sun’s engine, you who return to us each and every day to breathe life into the world. Forgive my intrusion, so that I may use your fire to cauterize that rot which infects the paradise you made for us…” He whispers to himself, cobbling together a prayer from a childhood of being taught about the Old Ones by Scar Veteran Nakor.
When both of his hands reach around the weapon’s handle, the biting pain is still there. Yet, somehow, the pain is dulled, and his palms only burn as if scalded, and not as if branded.
“HEY, YOU ABYSSAL FREAK, HOW ABOUT YOU EAT A WARM MEAL FOR ONCE?” He shouts, and with the last of his strength, throws the weapon forwards and upwards. If there’s anything that his short time baiting the kharibdyss has taught him, it is that the monster’s heads will thoughtlessly snap at anything that is placed before them.
Including, apparently, the swallowing whole of the weapon that gyrates towards the outstretched central head. Messily it swallows, its gullet wide enough that the steaming blade passes through most of the way before its effects begin to take.
And take, they do, as the weapon becomes fully lodged near the base of the central neck, the monster’s screams and clawing at itself become deafening. And yet, as it claws at its own chest, and all five heads -including the dead one- begin to cough and reech like smokestacks, there is little it can do. This is no mere torch or cloth soaked in the spit of salamanders, such fires would theoretically be put out by the lack of air inside the monster. The Burning Blade acts like a forge, producing its own heat, boiling and searing the monster from the inside.
The marine hydra continues to contort itself backwards towards the beach, its fins becoming crisp films as spasmodic movements slow down. Maybe it is trying to get to the water, or to its master. Or maybe its boiling brains don’t have the capacity to do more than fire off charred neurons at random.
Within less than a minute, the body has collapsed, the cuts that Roland has laid across its body becoming the birthplaces of what at first are flames the size of candles, but soon enough grow and lap at more of the creature’s flesh until it is nothing more than a gigantic cremated husk.
Roland attempts to walk towards it, but his legs give out and leave him gasping for air on his knees. Out in the distance, he can see swaying vessels, some still moored, some freed with their hulls slamming against each other or outright beached. their masts broken or covered by climbing lizardmen, the waves around them piling hundreds of bodies against the shore.
Some are out to sea, a wonderfully pitiful number, their sails nowhere to be seen as oars move like the legs of a centipede.
Maybe it is just his exhausted imagination offering a morsel of celebration to his brain. Or maybe it is true. In either case, he can’t take his eyes away from a diminutive and white haired speck upon the deck of the largest seaborne vessel. Is she looking at him, with her rotting arm and seething eyes?
He hopes so.
Roland collapses face first into the sand. Somewhere nearby, a Rylok starts to share a meal of roasted sea monster with a flock of local seagulls.
“Take care of the weak, they will be escorted on the way to Pahuax, but our masters will not wait for the wounded or the sick.” Roland finishes his explanation of what is soon to happen, and Chloe nods in reverent understanding, the crowd of freed slaves seated and eating around him looking up at him as if he were some kind of object of worship, an idea that makes Roland deeply uncomfortable.
Idly, he wonders how his sister and their younger charges may take the news that their cohort could soon be joined by a force slightly larger than one hundred adult humans . He is as curious as he is scared.
Also making him uncomfortable are the bandages now covering his hands, which join the rest across his upper body. A sight that leaves his torso half-covered in leaf-made ointment packings and wrappings made with the cloth of ransacked enemy corpses. The result means that his body is covered in a mismatched collection of greens.
Still, as he walks across the camp, he can only be content. His belly is full of hearty food, courtesy of the ecstatic warriors of the Cohort of the Copper Sun, who had invited him and his skink companions to dine with them. Fresh in his mind is the amused chittering that the sight of Spawn Leader Tlemiauatl embracing him like a lost spawn-mate had produced amongst them all.
He cannot deny it, the idea of having aided the blessed of Chotec in regaining their patron’s weapon fills him with pride.
As he walks, he can’t help but overhear the latest news as the skinks of the force chitter about them. According to Tek’Qila, a red-crested skink attached to the force had received a vision the night after their battle upon the Coldhide “fleet”. The skink has spoken with reverence of a vision from devouring Sotek himself, in which the serpent-god had demanded that all the captured foes -those not already sacrificed during the celebrations- must be sent to The Watcher, so that their blood may be employed to paint the blank facet of the monument with the hissing face of Sotek the Deliverer.
A recovered relic and a god-given command all on the same day. Surely, the Old Ones smile upon the host of Pahaux.
“Welser-Nakor!” A roar distracts Roland from his musings as he walks among the firepits and the cauldrons. As it turns out, Kharibdyss do have a pleasant richness to their flesh.
The voice is that of Old Blood Moiak, who beckons Roland closer. He is surprised, as the general had already commended him on his feat soon after waking him from his exhausted sleep.
Roland jogs up to him, bowing as he does so, still unused to gesturing without his weapon on hand. Something he ought to fix when they return home after a few days of travel. Curiously, standing by the green saurus’ shadow is a skink, one whose scales -blue, but painted with the reds and yellowish greens of Hexoatl- shimmer as if recently shed.
“A message for you, kharibdyss-slayer, from the City of the Sun, if you would believe.”
The skink offers up -literally, considering their heights- a clay tablet which Roland gingerly grabs and reads quickly enough.
Only to be left with an ajar mouth and the wide eyes of an idiot.
“I will have supplies be allocated to you, Herald.” The Old Blood laughs.
‘By the command of Lord of the Solar-City, Mage Lord of the Second Spawning Mazdamundi, heeded be his deeds, the one who herald the armies of the City of Ashes is summoned to audience within the halls of the Stellar Pyramids of the Southern Skies.’
“Mahrlect…” Is all that the stupefied human can utter.
“For every ten men you send west, you lose two to the sea, two in the streets of Skeggi, and five in the jungle. That leaves… hang on… five plus… no, wait, I can do this…”
-Ignor the Uncountable, Marienburg Press-Ganger.
Coldhide Beachhead, Jungle of Squalls, Isthmus of Lustria
40.0.9.15.18 12 Etzʼnabʼ 11 Yax
40.0.9.15.18 12 Etzʼnabʼ 11 Yax
The beast that rises before the Herald of Pahuax carries the stench of dark magic with every dribble and breath of briny ether that leaves or enters its body through any of its five heads. But especially the one in the middle.
Roland can’t do anything but stop his march towards the ships -most still moored, the rest failing to row against the squalls and waves- as he beholds the monster pulling itself ashore by clawing at the sandbanks, clearly heavy enough not to be comfortable on land, but too large for such a constraint to fully stop it. The way its heft quakes and the spined fins that decorate it tremble with each heave makes him think of how a seal on the fatter side of things would navigate such terrain.
Except seals aren’t usually armed with hull-rending claws, or multiple serpentine necks each topped with a blind face made up of a mixture of barbed tongues and strange grasping appendages, the central one being further equipped with a frankly grotesque lower jaw, so long and flexible as to curl into itself, its teeth forming a spiraling saw. At least, Roland reasons, not in his experience.
Tentatively, the herald utters a few noises in the language of the marine reptiles, those whose flippers breach the warm waters that surround his homeland. If the nameless monster even hears him, it certainly does not react. And it does not surprise him, for the miasma of dark magic wafts from it like the smell of rotting fish.
Somewhere in the distance, he can hear the loud bellowing of a stegadon and the shattering of wood. Wajgrani -and the skinks upon his howdah- are doing a wonderful job at breaking through yet another section of the defenses. Under any other circumstance, Roland might have called them back to him. But Wajgrani is a subadult, young enough that it may still take half a decade for him to reach the size to carry his complete howdah. And while stegadons are formidable animals at any age…
Roland winces and steps back as the monster is met in battle by the foremost line of the saurus cohort. He gets a pretty good look at how the monster’s necks lashes out, one grabbing a good hold of one of the warriors, and simply swallowing and shredding half of his body before the mess of blood and gore simply spills out of its mouth, the lower half of a reptilian warrior twice Roland’s size simply slamming into the sand, the waist-height area at which the “bite” had occurred having quite literally been blended.
No, there is no way Roland is exposing the Stegadon to something twice its size and with that kind of ability to simply tear through scales.
“Kharibdyss…” A voice growls by his side. Roland finds himself staring up at the exposed gums of a hissing Old Blood Moiak, the green saurus’ muzzle stained by druchii blood that shines red under the sun.
A Kharibdyss, loathsome beast of the uncharted depths.
Roland strives to remember the creature's name, and to seek to educate himself on the warbeasts of his masters’ northern enemies. “Have you fought them before?”
“I was chosen to lead this army because I have had the pleasure of excissing parties of the Fallen Itz’xa’khanx before. They are fond of twisting the natural world into their enthrallment.”
“What ought we to do? It seems lumbering enough to avoid on land but…”
“It will decimate us if we attempt to reach the ships without putting it down.”
“How did you slay it, last time you encountered one?”
“Surrounded it with a strong shield wall of saurus, stabbed at it to keep it from picking a point from which to break out. Eventually, exhaustion killed it as much as the wounds we inflicted.”
“Even that will delay us far too long.” Roland observes as more of the ships try to make their way out of a coast adamant on keeping them within its bossom.
“Indeed. We will have to distract it by other means.”
“What do you suggest?”
“Make it angry. Its mind is simple, partitioned between three heads instead of multiplied. If something grabs its attention enough, it will seek it out for as long as it can.”
Roland takes in a deep breath, knowing what the saurus is about to suggest.
“You seem singularly adept at catching the attention of the foes, First among the Xho’za’khanx. I am sure you will do nicely. Fear not, as soon as the enemy is routed and its vessels captured, we will come to your aid.”
Roland takes a first grasp of his polearm and hisses in his own unavoidably human way. “Old Ones protect me…”
And, with little other fanfare, he starts shouting and grunting the sounds of challenging in every beast-language he has been taught by a lifetime spent in the Jungles of Pahualaxa.
The Kharibdyss may be unable to communicate with him, or vice versa, but all predators are deeply familiar with what it sounds like when another beast encroaches upon one’s territory.
One of the jawless heads snaps around to directly point at him, forgetting about the warrior it had been trying to nip at. Roland redoubles his efforts. Slowly, one by one, the heads begin turning to focus on him. Ultimately, he gathers the attention of the central head as its disgusting jaw toys with a mangled corpse.
“COME ON!” Roland waves with his polearm. “YOU FIVE HEADED CANCER, COME AND GET ME!”
The monster’s response is the garbled roar of something that can only close its maws by curling its tongues and crustacean-like appendages while squirting a heavy spray of bloodied seaspray.
Tiefwässer Port, Autonomous Imperial Colony of Sudburg, Settler’s Cove, Isthmus of Lustria
Governor-General Siegmund Armbruster isn’t one to take strolls across the city he is the ruler -manager would be a more adept descriptor- of. The years haven’t made him any more accustomed to either of the seasonal extremes that the New World cyclically tries to kill him with. As such, he can’t be anything other than deeply uncomfortable as he inspects the fleet of vessels leaving out of Sudburg’s deepwater port.
His garb, the full uniform he continues to force himself to wear whenever he appears in public among the city’s young aristocracy or settler levies, is meant to be usable in campaign or parade at all times of the year. The Old World year, that is. Here, at the height of Lustria’s dry season, he is experiencing heat worse than the worst of his youth’s summer campaigns.
The only thing that brings him comfort is the wind. Today, it seems, it has become his balm. As early as the hour before his own awakening in the morning, the winds have been strong, constant, and unidirectional in their south-eastwards direction. Usually, and especially in the dry season, winds coming from Lustria’s inexorable inland regions would be sapped of all humidity, carrying the smell of natural wildfires. Today, however, the winds appear strong enough that they seem to be crossing the width of the Isthmus without losing much of the marine humidity and salt of the Far Sea.
And while Siegmund is grateful enough already for the respite that every gust offers him, he is still far down the list of those glad for it. Much higher than him are the hundreds of dockworkers laboring to load the bellies of eight different galleons with hundreds of sacks, barrels, bundles, rolls, baskets and boxes of every one of the goods that Sudburg’s less adventurous industries produce. Those men, whose skins are covered by a sheen of sweat, utter thankful prayers whenever the winds pick up. If only the winds could also get rid of the flies, the mosquitoes, the scurrying rats, the welts, the cuts and the pinpricks, the work might have been even bearable!
In coordination with those men are the crews of all the galleons preparing to leave before the winds die down, and those of other less hurried vessels of lesser tonnage. Those men constantly enter and exit the lower decks through hatch covers as if they were miners lowering themselves into a mine shaft. Unlike miners, they obviously tend to exit the hatches less burdened than how they entered. But the constant movement up and down ladders carrying the loads seems exhausting enough.
Finally there is a second force of sailors, spry men who climb up and down rigging, inspect sails and make last-minute repairs. First and second-class mates of all the ships inspect the work and deliver harshly shouted critiques to their men’s work. To a degree, it reminds the Governor-General of the ambience that would be created by an army on the march as it deconstructed its fieldcamp.
The two seasons of Lustria do make one thing simple, and that is the commerce of foodstuffs. The rainy season is for planting, for growing, for fattening animals and for harvesting from the nearby jungles. The dry season is for harvesting, for processing, for drying, curing, or fermenting, and for exporting.
The vessels being loaded right now with Sudburgs bounties will arrive -depending on the winds and current, of course- in one or two months to the great ports of the Old World, mainly to those of the empire and its allies, considering whose colony Siegmund administers.
Hopefully, Brocco’s true masters in ultramar will be gladdened to see the profits and so will be Siefmund’s own superiors. Perhaps glad enough to further invest resources into shoring the city up…
It depends as much, he knows, in the competition’s luck as it does on the labour of the city’s populace. But at this point there is not much he can do beyond pray, is there?
“Father!” A voice distracts him.
Turning around, the old officer sees his own daughter approach him, single-minded in a way that forces the dockworders to swerve and weave around her, for once.
“Noemie, I thought you’d still be busying yourself with the travelvers, now that most of them are soon to leave.”
“Oh, I was,” She smiles. “Until this arrived.”
From among the bricks of paper, parchment pieces and notebooks that turn his daughter’s ever-present satchel into an obese piece of leather, she pulls a singular letter, its wax seal broken, but visibly decorated with an imprint of a bicephalous eagle holding some kind of plant.
“A response from Santa Magritta? Already?”
“Arrived this morning aboard one of those smaller ships that Brocco and König hate so much. Penned by the viceroy’s own son.”
His daughter is, of course, referring to the unlicensed merchants and smugglers who make their wealth trading up and down Lustria’s oriental coast, stopping at colonies and outposts. Officially, such a thing is frowned upon. Most colonies are obligated to only trade with their mainlands, and dens of criminality like Port Reaver, Skeggi or the derelict Swamp Town would especially be frowned upon.
And yet, the reality is that the different pockets of civilization have limited and distinct resources or needs, meaning that their prosperity relies on a certain degree of unsanctioned mercantilism. Secondarily, they also make for convenient couriers.
“Son? I was under the impression that the viceroy was without children, especially at her age.”
“Believe me, father, the contents of the letter are going to be a lot more relevant than that detail to you.” She smiles, ecstatic.
‘This is going to be bad.’ Siegmund realizes as he unfurls the parchment.
Firstly, he's surprised by how little writing there is upon the yellowed material.
Then he actually begins to read.
‘Captain General of the Laguna Brillante Ariel Verin de San Pedro Mendoza-Velasco Ferrer del Sur y Cueva, Diestro of Santa Magritta; to his excellency the governor-generalship of the Autonomous Imperial Colony of Sudburg Siegmund Armbruster, Bearer of the Star of Sigmar; Greetings.’
‘It is not our fault that we are better at this than you, a joderse putos.’
‘Have a good afternoon.’
…
“Uh?”
“Right?” His daughter starts laughing.
Coldhide Beachhead, Jungle of Squalls, Isthmus of Lustria
Roland leaps out of the way as one of the heads slams into the ground he had been standing on seconds before, the rest of them remaining entangled in the rapidly shredding tent canvas that he had fooled the amphibian monster into racing through.
Moments later, as he hears the approaching clamoring of mandibles he is forced to use his momentum to swing his polearm -and his entire body- around, describing a predictable arch that slams into the side of another one of the individual heads. The attack would have been suicidal against any cognizant opponet, but against the Kharibdyss it does a good enough job. The sickle spikes that cover the weapon’s golden obstinate brace dig into the side of the thing’s tubular head, sending it reeling back and almost carrying both the weapon and himself with it.
Individually, he has quickly learned, none of the heads are particularly dangerous. They are comparable to more natural beasts he has already faced, and the length of his weapon deprives their tongues and appendages from tasting his skin.
Now, it is whenever the body and all the heads collaborate that his only option becomes that of simply running away in short bursts. Just enough to put himself out of reach, but close enough to dart in whenever that causes its five-fold wandering mind to switch targets.
He has bloodlet the monster. But one could be forgiven for not noticing, as the scale of the cuts, punctures and bludgeoned scales he has pockmarked its body with pale in comparison to the total area of the monster’s body. The obstinate blade of his polearm has severed a number of tongues and mandibles, but that’s as meaningful as downing a copse of trees within an entire jungle.
And so, he continues facing it as he constantly walks back, stepping over bodies and the wares of the destroyed camp, his mind singularly focused on keeping the right distance between himself and the longest of the monster’s necks. The enemy could have won around him, and he still would not have noticed.
Roland’s eyes flicker to the webbed claws of the beast, the way in which the musculature of the arms that they connect to grows taunt. The kharibdyss’ necks also retreat into an s-shape.
“Not again…” The Herald groans to himself.
With force unfitting for a creature of its nature, the five-headed monstrosity shoves itself forwards, all five heads weaving and snaking in hops to be the one to get at him first. Just as in previous times, Roland does his best to jump to the side, avoiding the oncoming shrine-sized mutant by the skin of his teeth, literally feeling how one of its many quill-tipped fins graves his back and almost catches onto the leather strap that crosses his chest.
The jump leaves him unbalanced and stumbling as he turns on a dime, fearful that the monster might be flanking him with one of its heads as the body continues to move forwards. With little thought, he delivers a downwards swipe against the mass of greenish scales before him. The strike is so forceful that it actually leaves his shoulders sore as blood begins to stream from the cut. The monster barely slows down, and drags him alongside itself even as it lets multiple gurgling screams of pain.
His weapon, he realizes, has found its mark near the base of one of the outlying necks, carving down into a good fourth of its diameter and…
Roland tugs at it.
Leaving it stuck upon its vertebra.
The monster coils into itself, Roland lets go of the weapon rather than be dragged along. While the affected head begins to droop and twitch, another one slams itself into the wound, while it clearly is trying to remove the weapon, the anxious force with which its tongues wrap around the shaft instead shatter the wood as it pulls back, shards of obstinate and bent gold alloy remaining embedded upon the profusely bleeding cut.
Roland isn’t left with much time to consider what he should do, now that he’s lost his blade. But most importantly, the agonizing monster continues to coil and turn around itself. He sees its paddle-like tail tip -armored with spikes like those of a djuradon, its thin skin scarred with holes all over- seconds before it slams into him. A few moments which feel like an eternity, before he can react -as if there was anything he could do- the entire world has started orbiting around him, his feet are unconnected to the ground, and he-
SLAM
Something catches his fall, and subsequently breaks , being just brittle enough not to break his back, but far from soft enough to welcome him for a painless landing. His entire body is battered, the breath is driven from his lungs, and his vision is overtaken by white hot pain. He comes in and out of consciousness multiple times in quick succession. While he is no longer tumbling through the air, his sense of balance very much believes so.
Gasping, he manages to hold his torso up by digging his elbows into the ground of what must be a destroyed tent of some kind, the pain of splinters making it clear that he has been “cushioned” by a pile of crates.
“Owww…” He groans, only for his churned stomach to unload itself, the sensory overload greater than even the worst of Swamp Town’s stenches.
As he continues to fail to stand up, the vibrating ground does not help. A small part of his mind that is still thinking about the wider context notifies him that there’s only two things lage enough around here to cause such quakes. And he doubts Wajgrani is coming to his aid.
The sunlight that makes it through the half-collapsed tent dimms, the smell of marine rot assaults his nostrils as it mixes with his own vomit and that of… Charring wood?
Roland looks up. And up, and up across a wide torso that forks into five necks, one of them limp, unresponsive and being dragged along by the rest of the creature’s body.
“One head, only four to go…” He allows himself to joke as he finds himself being stared down by four eyeless heads. The central one’s strange jaw coils and uncoils multiple times, implying a grotesquery of a creature licking its chops.
Thoughts start racing across Roland’s head. Shame at his failure, sadness borne of the knowledge that his sister will have to carry their kind’s role on the Great Plan alone, fear and anger sourced within the same pit of hate within his chest, and most of all…
The heads rear back, it is clear that the monster intends to draw and quarter him in its own way.
He can’t stop feeling the burning heat that laps at the small of his back.
And yet, as the heads begin their momentous descent towards his defenseless body… A blur of vibrant blues and unmistakable oranges. A feathered shape that flies against the wind with a speed unnatural to its species.
Tlahui, as much as he may be a carrion bird, is still a carrion bird of Lustria.
Which means that, even if his claws may be far from as sharp as a falcon’s or as strong as an eagle’s, they still do some mighty damage to the head the rylok lands upon, tearing at its facial tentacles like a songbird pulling earthworms out of the soil.
The sudden impact distracts the monster, its massive claws landing on either side of Roland’s as its heads stay their attack, two of them trying to snap at the bird before it flutters away, barely missing its wings with their bites.
It gives Roland a few precious seconds to scoot back, thankful for his companion’s reckless stunt. In his retreat, his palm comes across some kind of grip, and instinctively grasps it. Any weapon or tool would be welcome in this very mo-
“MAHRLECT!” He shouts in pain and lets go, as he finds that whatever he has grabbed is, in fact, hot enough to blister his hand. Roland looks back to see whatever it may be, and attempts to further avoid it.
What his eyes locate takes his breath away.
A mighty macuahuitl of the scale that only a saurus would be able to wield in a one-handed manner. Its blade is wrapped in steaming towels, clearly used by the druchii to contain the heat it produces, strong enough that the uncovered handle is singeing the ground it touches.
The smell of sulphur clogs Roland’s nostrils.
His brain, dazed as it is, instantly recognizes what can only be a heirloom of his masters’ masters.
Had the Druchii not raided the Monument of the Sun, precisely to pillage it?
Had the Cohort of the Copper Sun, blessed spawning of Lord Chotec himself, not joined them in their pursuit?
Has he not, less than an hour earlier, beheld the sanctimonious usage of the Sun Standard of Chotec? The mighty relic had blinded the entire enemy force for them to exploit.
The Burning Blade of Chotec, sits there, unattended, before his very own eyes.
Growling, however, brings him back from his fascination.
The kharibdyss, it seems, has given up on snapping Tlahui out of the sky, and the bird has allowed the squalls to take it far higher away than it could ever reach. As such, its attention has returned to him.
“Oh Lord of the Sun…” Roland grunts as he tries to raise himself to his knees. “You whose rays warm the bodies of the children of my very own master. You who fashioned Tlanxla’s chariot from the metal that is the sun’s engine, you who return to us each and every day to breathe life into the world. Forgive my intrusion, so that I may use your fire to cauterize that rot which infects the paradise you made for us…” He whispers to himself, cobbling together a prayer from a childhood of being taught about the Old Ones by Scar Veteran Nakor.
When both of his hands reach around the weapon’s handle, the biting pain is still there. Yet, somehow, the pain is dulled, and his palms only burn as if scalded, and not as if branded.
“HEY, YOU ABYSSAL FREAK, HOW ABOUT YOU EAT A WARM MEAL FOR ONCE?” He shouts, and with the last of his strength, throws the weapon forwards and upwards. If there’s anything that his short time baiting the kharibdyss has taught him, it is that the monster’s heads will thoughtlessly snap at anything that is placed before them.
Including, apparently, the swallowing whole of the weapon that gyrates towards the outstretched central head. Messily it swallows, its gullet wide enough that the steaming blade passes through most of the way before its effects begin to take.
And take, they do, as the weapon becomes fully lodged near the base of the central neck, the monster’s screams and clawing at itself become deafening. And yet, as it claws at its own chest, and all five heads -including the dead one- begin to cough and reech like smokestacks, there is little it can do. This is no mere torch or cloth soaked in the spit of salamanders, such fires would theoretically be put out by the lack of air inside the monster. The Burning Blade acts like a forge, producing its own heat, boiling and searing the monster from the inside.
The marine hydra continues to contort itself backwards towards the beach, its fins becoming crisp films as spasmodic movements slow down. Maybe it is trying to get to the water, or to its master. Or maybe its boiling brains don’t have the capacity to do more than fire off charred neurons at random.
Within less than a minute, the body has collapsed, the cuts that Roland has laid across its body becoming the birthplaces of what at first are flames the size of candles, but soon enough grow and lap at more of the creature’s flesh until it is nothing more than a gigantic cremated husk.
Roland attempts to walk towards it, but his legs give out and leave him gasping for air on his knees. Out in the distance, he can see swaying vessels, some still moored, some freed with their hulls slamming against each other or outright beached. their masts broken or covered by climbing lizardmen, the waves around them piling hundreds of bodies against the shore.
Some are out to sea, a wonderfully pitiful number, their sails nowhere to be seen as oars move like the legs of a centipede.
Maybe it is just his exhausted imagination offering a morsel of celebration to his brain. Or maybe it is true. In either case, he can’t take his eyes away from a diminutive and white haired speck upon the deck of the largest seaborne vessel. Is she looking at him, with her rotting arm and seething eyes?
He hopes so.
Roland collapses face first into the sand. Somewhere nearby, a Rylok starts to share a meal of roasted sea monster with a flock of local seagulls.
Spear of the Gods, Jungle of Squalls, Isthmus of Lustria
40.0.9.15.19 13 Kawak 12 Yax
40.0.9.15.19 13 Kawak 12 Yax
“Take care of the weak, they will be escorted on the way to Pahuax, but our masters will not wait for the wounded or the sick.” Roland finishes his explanation of what is soon to happen, and Chloe nods in reverent understanding, the crowd of freed slaves seated and eating around him looking up at him as if he were some kind of object of worship, an idea that makes Roland deeply uncomfortable.
Idly, he wonders how his sister and their younger charges may take the news that their cohort could soon be joined by a force slightly larger than one hundred adult humans . He is as curious as he is scared.
Also making him uncomfortable are the bandages now covering his hands, which join the rest across his upper body. A sight that leaves his torso half-covered in leaf-made ointment packings and wrappings made with the cloth of ransacked enemy corpses. The result means that his body is covered in a mismatched collection of greens.
Still, as he walks across the camp, he can only be content. His belly is full of hearty food, courtesy of the ecstatic warriors of the Cohort of the Copper Sun, who had invited him and his skink companions to dine with them. Fresh in his mind is the amused chittering that the sight of Spawn Leader Tlemiauatl embracing him like a lost spawn-mate had produced amongst them all.
He cannot deny it, the idea of having aided the blessed of Chotec in regaining their patron’s weapon fills him with pride.
As he walks, he can’t help but overhear the latest news as the skinks of the force chitter about them. According to Tek’Qila, a red-crested skink attached to the force had received a vision the night after their battle upon the Coldhide “fleet”. The skink has spoken with reverence of a vision from devouring Sotek himself, in which the serpent-god had demanded that all the captured foes -those not already sacrificed during the celebrations- must be sent to The Watcher, so that their blood may be employed to paint the blank facet of the monument with the hissing face of Sotek the Deliverer.
A recovered relic and a god-given command all on the same day. Surely, the Old Ones smile upon the host of Pahaux.
“Welser-Nakor!” A roar distracts Roland from his musings as he walks among the firepits and the cauldrons. As it turns out, Kharibdyss do have a pleasant richness to their flesh.
The voice is that of Old Blood Moiak, who beckons Roland closer. He is surprised, as the general had already commended him on his feat soon after waking him from his exhausted sleep.
Roland jogs up to him, bowing as he does so, still unused to gesturing without his weapon on hand. Something he ought to fix when they return home after a few days of travel. Curiously, standing by the green saurus’ shadow is a skink, one whose scales -blue, but painted with the reds and yellowish greens of Hexoatl- shimmer as if recently shed.
“A message for you, kharibdyss-slayer, from the City of the Sun, if you would believe.”
The skink offers up -literally, considering their heights- a clay tablet which Roland gingerly grabs and reads quickly enough.
Only to be left with an ajar mouth and the wide eyes of an idiot.
“I will have supplies be allocated to you, Herald.” The Old Blood laughs.
‘By the command of Lord of the Solar-City, Mage Lord of the Second Spawning Mazdamundi, heeded be his deeds, the one who herald the armies of the City of Ashes is summoned to audience within the halls of the Stellar Pyramids of the Southern Skies.’
“Mahrlect…” Is all that the stupefied human can utter.
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So, with this chapter, we have reached the conclussion of HotOO's third arc, and the first one that I worked to plot and draft out for the most part, since it was caught up by my hiatus. I think it really shows, it wastes a lot less time and has a stronger focus on the actual plotlines of the arc, even if most of them are setup for later events.
All in all, I hope you have enjoyed this arc. And I would love to hear which part of it you enjoyed the most!
A small (one or two weeks) hiatus will ocur after the interlude to allow me the time to fully draft the upcoming arc, the title of which will be releaved in the notes of said upcoming interlude!
I hope you enjoyed the story and I honestly appreciate all and any kudos or comments you may be gracious enough to gift me! And in case any of you are interested, here's the link to my Discord server, where I discuss my projects and all are welcome
It would be great if, if you enjoyed the story that is, you took a second of your time to go over to ao3 and left a kudo and a comment over there, since it is my main posting site.
All in all, I hope you have enjoyed this arc. And I would love to hear which part of it you enjoyed the most!
A small (one or two weeks) hiatus will ocur after the interlude to allow me the time to fully draft the upcoming arc, the title of which will be releaved in the notes of said upcoming interlude!
I hope you enjoyed the story and I honestly appreciate all and any kudos or comments you may be gracious enough to gift me! And in case any of you are interested, here's the link to my Discord server, where I discuss my projects and all are welcome
It would be great if, if you enjoyed the story that is, you took a second of your time to go over to ao3 and left a kudo and a comment over there, since it is my main posting site.
Temple Guard
Mr.Crocodile
Well-Known Member
- Messages
- 234
- Likes Received
- 525
- Trophy Points
- 93
Interlude III: A Head In The Pools
“A Norscan seaman is like an Empire politician: Full of Lies!”
- Popular Tilean proverb.
Styrmir’s morning starts as they all tend to this time of the year, with his back hurting and his legs dangling over the stained cloth that makes up his hammock. The groan with which he greets the rafters of the stilt-built longhouse he is currently living in doesn’t answer back, and neither do the couple rats scurrying through it. The things have the bristly and dunny fur of spiny tree-rats, which makes sense considering that they are nibbling at the thatch roof.
Styrmir blinks for a moment, and thinks back to the last time he saw a proper mangy plaguerat like those which had been so common in the ports and ships of the Sea of Claws. It may have been as far back as five years ago? Back aboard the longship that had carried him to this skin-rotting land?
He can’t say he misses them, however. Rodents which don’t spread disease are one of the few ways in which the Lustrian fauna is less cruel to mankind. Which is lucky, because the native vermin are no easier to eradicate.
With that analysis, Styrmir swings his legs over the hammock’s edge, careful to avoid his heel getting caught up with the other hammock just below, and lowering his head to avoid headbutting the back of the man resting in the one above.
The middle hammocks are generally the most expensive. The lower ones put a man closer to anything that may crawl into the longhouse, and the higher ones are an outright hazard to get in and out of. Around Styrmir, dozens of clanless norscans and other travelers sleep. Usually, a longhouse would be outfitted with beds and bunk beds all along the walls. But the Boarding Longhouse of Clan Vik has augmented how many men it can squeeze money out of by simply hanging hammocks from every rafter and wooden pole inside the longhouse.
As usual, he’s one of the very first to wake up, judging by the few empty hammocks or cots. Styrmir notes this as he grabs his bag of belongings, which doubles as his pillow, And he’d do the same with his tools, which hang from a large nail in the wooden post he sleeps attached to, if they weren’t too large.
No one in the Boarding Longhouse of Clan Vik is above stealing. That is likely why so many of them have ended up in the Boarding Longhouse of Clan Vik in the first place.
In any case, Styrmir doesn’t waste much time, grabbing his shovel, his rake, and his mounted net, and starts heading out, not even stopping by the bubbling cauldron in the middle of the longhouse. Partially because he does not trust the Viks’ cooking, partially because living meagerly tends to teach men how to feed themselves for free.
Leaving the longhouse, Styrmir is greeted by the usual smell of brackish water and humanity that always remains in Skeggi, and takes a few moments to “enjoy” the view as he sits on the lip of the elevated building’s edge.
Skeggi’s “Raudur Town” is a misnomer for a series of reasons. Firstly, it implies that all the foreigners in Skeggi can fit in a single sixth of the area within the palisades, which is a falsehood. Styrmir knows well that the “true” Skeggialings are nothing more than a large minority who just so happen to control all the important bits of the city. Then there’s people like himself, other Norscans from the Old World tribes or clanless, finding work, stopping over before or after incursions into Lustria or hoping to be inducted by the King. Which doesn’t happen that often, but also isn’t a fool’s dream.
And then, there’s the non-norscans and non-humans. Who gravitate to the Raudur Town because that’s where the Skeggialings built all the lodgings and set up all the businesses catering to them.
As such, Styrmir can easily find sights as common as a dwarf haggling for climate-appropriate garments from a Skeggialing merchant, or a party of imperial “adventurers” leaving their lodgings and almost falling off into the mud due to their hangovers. But if he were to walk into another area of the town, he'd see the same sights, just less frequently and hidden by those such as Skeggialings tending to their farms or other Americans like himself selling their blood and toil in the slums.
Well, not fully like himself. As a clanless Norscan Styrmir’s position in life is… More a fluid and less of a solid. He’s obviously better treated than the average foreigner, but not if they have money. He could loan a serf, but not own one, and if he were to get in trouble with even the least of the Skeggialing clans -like those dog-fuckers in the outskirts- he’d still be completely at their mercy and without access to a trial under the King’s perview.
Still, Styrmir looks like the Norscan he is, which means that rarely does he get into trouble unless he invites it upon himself. And even half-naked in his small clothes -with his actual clothes in his belongings bag, and his tools slung over his shoulder- no one thinks to rob or hassle him as he walks onto the “beaches” of Skeggi.
In truth, they are little more than muddy esplanades in what had been sections of mangrove and beachside jungle cleared away by Losteriksson centuries prior, made muddy by the constant trampling of the burgeoning settlement and the coming and going of longships.
Perfect for what Styrmir is here for.
After years on the job, he’s become an unwilling expert on the brackish mud. He knows which sections his quarries are most comfortable in, and which areas of quicksand to avoid. How the high and low tides alter these areas, how the wet season creates freshwater pools and brackish streams, and how the dry season will harden the upper layers into a crust.
Soon enough, others of his same mind visible in either direction and with the sun not yet risen, Styrmir shovels a large chunk of sandy mud and splatters it into his net, moving along to the waterline to dissolve it, revealing the treasures within.
Sandfleas and beachhoppers. Perfect for boiling later in the morning for a long breakfast of shell-pulling. Clams and mussels of all shapes and sizes as well, some actually desirable enough that sometimes he instead sells or haggles them in exchange for other food items and drinks that keep his diet healthy.
Sand-coins, strange living rocks, no less valuable thanks to them being accepted as a form of currency by the locals once one strips them white-clean. Literal money just there, hidden in the sand.
Bloodworms and other slimy things, happily haggled by fishermen in exchange for their lesser catches. There’s a few families which have become Styrmir’s daily customers.
But also proper items. Shells and fragments of coral, also worth something if one develops an eye for them. Small bits of scrap metal, mostly nails and other knicknacks. Worthless on their lonesome, but valuable if brought to the settlement’s blacksmiths in larger amounts. Every now and then, Styrmir even finds items that may earn him a good dinner or a replacement for some worn-down garment, such as lost coins or a ring. Pendants of glass beads or silver from some corpse lost at sea.
And so Styrmir’s morning continues, and his different baskets slowly fill up, some faster than others, some remain sadly empty. Such is the life of a Skeggi beach-trawler.
Well, some beach-trawlers do have loftier dreams, Styrmir may have given up on them years earlier, but that does not mean he’s not aware of them. He can see that flash of excitement in the eyes of his fellows -almost all clanless Norscans- when their rakes catch onto something particularly heavy-seeming, or their shovels uncover something metallic and weirdly shaped.
They are still searching for it .
The Crown of Losteriksson.
That had been what the first breach-trawlers of Skeggi had started searching for, merely a couple of generations after the death of the King of Lyssa Bay. It had all started with the burials.
At first, the earliest Skeggialings had dealt with their death the way all Norscans did: inconsistently. Some had been buried under tumuli, others burned and remembered through runestones, others had been given grand ship burials with dozens of sacrifices -like Losteriksson himself- or burned at sea.
Then, over the years, they had all started to realize the idiocy of it. The tumuli would be either swallowed by the Jungle, or lure scavengers. The runestone would always sink under the soft ground, and the ship burials would just be even worse versions of the tumuli. In the end, every form of burial other than burning at sea had been banned by one of Losteriksson’s descendants, and even by then, the treasures of all the graves had already been robbed or swallowed by the mud.
Treasures such as Losteriksson’s Crown, allegedly bolted to his head by one of the great early Viktis of the tribe, both as part of a ritual to defend the settlement from the jungle’s horrors, and as a sign of respect.
After all, how could any King of Skeggi surpass Losteriksson, if they could never even wear his crown?
Or, conversely, how could an usurper's claim not be made more legitimate, if not by wearing the crown. Clearly, finding the long-lost crown among the mud and muck would mark any man or woman with the gods’ blessings to take the King’s Hill and the Scarp.
And so the trawlers had trawled, searching endlessly for a skeleton allegedly covered in emerald and barnacles in equal amounts, with the iron crown still attached to it. All hoping that such a find would catapult them to mastery of the city, or at least into the favour of whichever wanna-be king would take them into their retinue.
As mad as the men who thought they could find -and most delusional, take- the gold-built cities of the Lizardmen, just less likely to die.
For years and years the first beach-trawlers had combed every last bit of free land in Skeggi, some even searching under and between the stilts of every building. The most extreme had even moved onto the submerged caves and tunnels of Corpse Reef, or the base of the Scarp.
To no avail.
Most had then moved onto trying to make a living out of the digging and raking and sieving they had become so adept at, only caring about the crown secondarily. And nowadays it is the age of men like Styrmir. Those who had come to Lustria searching a new life, only to discover themselves too weak or too sane to join those who would march into the jungles, or too lonesome and poor to start their own workshops or stores.
But resourceful enough to dig a meager living out of sand and mud.
By the time the blazing midday sun arrives, Styrmir has found enough to barely feed himself with some salt and a pot of boiling water. After that, he’ll spend the afternoon roving the markets and hoping to sell enough of his other finds to pay for himself some ale, some fruit, maybe, and if he’s lucky, he’ll be able to start saving enough coins and sand coins to move into a place less cramped than a hammock in the Boarding Longhouse of Clan Vik.
For the first time in perhaps two years, Styrmir’s day is interrupted by commotion. Today he woke up later than usual, knowing that the late night’s high-tide would have otherwise left him standing and wasting his time.
What Norscan would begrudge a beach-trawler for enjoying his sleep?
Because of that, his arrival to the “beach” that he usually trawls -the Playa, named so by some long-dead King with an obsession for Estalia- is delayed well into the sunrise. A sunrise which gives him a good sight of a deeply bothersome sight.
A large commotion, a massive crowd gathered near the water’s edge, clamoring and speaking over each other. Perhaps some kind of brawl or dispute is going on in the middle of them all, it’s not rare for some Norscan longships’ crews to get into trouble with the Dodvakt -the force of marauders and fishermen with authority over the waters and shores of Skeggi- even before stepping foot into the settlement.
“-YOU ALL SEE, BEHOLD WITH YOUR VERY OWN EYES, THE RAVEN GOD AND THE EAGLE FAVOR HER AND HER ALONE” Roars a voice.
‘Might as well check what the fuck they are going about…’ Styrmir grumbles to himself, knowing that the thumping of hundreds of feet and the loudness will surely have scared off half of the critters he ought to trawl.
He doesn’t make his way too deeply into the crowd, his status makes sure of that, but he does get enough of a view.
The woman standing in the middle of the crowd is instantly recognizable, with her face covered in lesions and her heavy feather cloak. Adella of the Graelings is not a woman people forget easily.
And yet, what robs Styrmir of his breath is not the fact that such a powerful woman would be standing in the middle of the beach at such strange hours, or that her loyals would have dragged a rowboat all the way to the middle so she could stand above the crowd.
No, what leaves Styrmir’s mouth agape is the fact that in the middle of it all, there’s a hole dug into the sand, so close to the waterline that the bottom of it is being filled by seawater seeping in.
And that in her hands, the woman holds a skull. Brown-black and made soft by the war of sand, mud and salt, missing all its teeth and its lower-left third, but undeniably a skull.
A band of rusted iron nailed to it. Rusted… But large and clearly and complexely decorated at some point in the forgotten past. For too complex and old to be just another hoax.
“MAKE IT KNOWN!” The same voice roars again, one of her followers. “THAT TODAY, ADELLA OF THE GRAELINGS HAS FOUND LOSTERIKSSON’S CROWN!”
And all Styrmir can think of as the crowd explodes in amazed cheering and incredulous arguing is…
‘No she fucking didn’t, I’ve been trawling that chunk of the Playa twice a week for the last three fucking years.’
“A Norscan seaman is like an Empire politician: Full of Lies!”
- Popular Tilean proverb.
Raudur Town, Skeggi, Lyssa Bay, Jungles of Pahualaxa
19th of Kornskurðarmánuður, 2545 VR // 40.0.9.16.0 1 Ajaw 13 Yax
19th of Kornskurðarmánuður, 2545 VR // 40.0.9.16.0 1 Ajaw 13 Yax
Styrmir’s morning starts as they all tend to this time of the year, with his back hurting and his legs dangling over the stained cloth that makes up his hammock. The groan with which he greets the rafters of the stilt-built longhouse he is currently living in doesn’t answer back, and neither do the couple rats scurrying through it. The things have the bristly and dunny fur of spiny tree-rats, which makes sense considering that they are nibbling at the thatch roof.
Styrmir blinks for a moment, and thinks back to the last time he saw a proper mangy plaguerat like those which had been so common in the ports and ships of the Sea of Claws. It may have been as far back as five years ago? Back aboard the longship that had carried him to this skin-rotting land?
He can’t say he misses them, however. Rodents which don’t spread disease are one of the few ways in which the Lustrian fauna is less cruel to mankind. Which is lucky, because the native vermin are no easier to eradicate.
With that analysis, Styrmir swings his legs over the hammock’s edge, careful to avoid his heel getting caught up with the other hammock just below, and lowering his head to avoid headbutting the back of the man resting in the one above.
The middle hammocks are generally the most expensive. The lower ones put a man closer to anything that may crawl into the longhouse, and the higher ones are an outright hazard to get in and out of. Around Styrmir, dozens of clanless norscans and other travelers sleep. Usually, a longhouse would be outfitted with beds and bunk beds all along the walls. But the Boarding Longhouse of Clan Vik has augmented how many men it can squeeze money out of by simply hanging hammocks from every rafter and wooden pole inside the longhouse.
As usual, he’s one of the very first to wake up, judging by the few empty hammocks or cots. Styrmir notes this as he grabs his bag of belongings, which doubles as his pillow, And he’d do the same with his tools, which hang from a large nail in the wooden post he sleeps attached to, if they weren’t too large.
No one in the Boarding Longhouse of Clan Vik is above stealing. That is likely why so many of them have ended up in the Boarding Longhouse of Clan Vik in the first place.
In any case, Styrmir doesn’t waste much time, grabbing his shovel, his rake, and his mounted net, and starts heading out, not even stopping by the bubbling cauldron in the middle of the longhouse. Partially because he does not trust the Viks’ cooking, partially because living meagerly tends to teach men how to feed themselves for free.
Leaving the longhouse, Styrmir is greeted by the usual smell of brackish water and humanity that always remains in Skeggi, and takes a few moments to “enjoy” the view as he sits on the lip of the elevated building’s edge.
Skeggi’s “Raudur Town” is a misnomer for a series of reasons. Firstly, it implies that all the foreigners in Skeggi can fit in a single sixth of the area within the palisades, which is a falsehood. Styrmir knows well that the “true” Skeggialings are nothing more than a large minority who just so happen to control all the important bits of the city. Then there’s people like himself, other Norscans from the Old World tribes or clanless, finding work, stopping over before or after incursions into Lustria or hoping to be inducted by the King. Which doesn’t happen that often, but also isn’t a fool’s dream.
And then, there’s the non-norscans and non-humans. Who gravitate to the Raudur Town because that’s where the Skeggialings built all the lodgings and set up all the businesses catering to them.
As such, Styrmir can easily find sights as common as a dwarf haggling for climate-appropriate garments from a Skeggialing merchant, or a party of imperial “adventurers” leaving their lodgings and almost falling off into the mud due to their hangovers. But if he were to walk into another area of the town, he'd see the same sights, just less frequently and hidden by those such as Skeggialings tending to their farms or other Americans like himself selling their blood and toil in the slums.
Well, not fully like himself. As a clanless Norscan Styrmir’s position in life is… More a fluid and less of a solid. He’s obviously better treated than the average foreigner, but not if they have money. He could loan a serf, but not own one, and if he were to get in trouble with even the least of the Skeggialing clans -like those dog-fuckers in the outskirts- he’d still be completely at their mercy and without access to a trial under the King’s perview.
Still, Styrmir looks like the Norscan he is, which means that rarely does he get into trouble unless he invites it upon himself. And even half-naked in his small clothes -with his actual clothes in his belongings bag, and his tools slung over his shoulder- no one thinks to rob or hassle him as he walks onto the “beaches” of Skeggi.
In truth, they are little more than muddy esplanades in what had been sections of mangrove and beachside jungle cleared away by Losteriksson centuries prior, made muddy by the constant trampling of the burgeoning settlement and the coming and going of longships.
Perfect for what Styrmir is here for.
After years on the job, he’s become an unwilling expert on the brackish mud. He knows which sections his quarries are most comfortable in, and which areas of quicksand to avoid. How the high and low tides alter these areas, how the wet season creates freshwater pools and brackish streams, and how the dry season will harden the upper layers into a crust.
Soon enough, others of his same mind visible in either direction and with the sun not yet risen, Styrmir shovels a large chunk of sandy mud and splatters it into his net, moving along to the waterline to dissolve it, revealing the treasures within.
Sandfleas and beachhoppers. Perfect for boiling later in the morning for a long breakfast of shell-pulling. Clams and mussels of all shapes and sizes as well, some actually desirable enough that sometimes he instead sells or haggles them in exchange for other food items and drinks that keep his diet healthy.
Sand-coins, strange living rocks, no less valuable thanks to them being accepted as a form of currency by the locals once one strips them white-clean. Literal money just there, hidden in the sand.
Bloodworms and other slimy things, happily haggled by fishermen in exchange for their lesser catches. There’s a few families which have become Styrmir’s daily customers.
But also proper items. Shells and fragments of coral, also worth something if one develops an eye for them. Small bits of scrap metal, mostly nails and other knicknacks. Worthless on their lonesome, but valuable if brought to the settlement’s blacksmiths in larger amounts. Every now and then, Styrmir even finds items that may earn him a good dinner or a replacement for some worn-down garment, such as lost coins or a ring. Pendants of glass beads or silver from some corpse lost at sea.
And so Styrmir’s morning continues, and his different baskets slowly fill up, some faster than others, some remain sadly empty. Such is the life of a Skeggi beach-trawler.
Well, some beach-trawlers do have loftier dreams, Styrmir may have given up on them years earlier, but that does not mean he’s not aware of them. He can see that flash of excitement in the eyes of his fellows -almost all clanless Norscans- when their rakes catch onto something particularly heavy-seeming, or their shovels uncover something metallic and weirdly shaped.
They are still searching for it .
The Crown of Losteriksson.
That had been what the first breach-trawlers of Skeggi had started searching for, merely a couple of generations after the death of the King of Lyssa Bay. It had all started with the burials.
At first, the earliest Skeggialings had dealt with their death the way all Norscans did: inconsistently. Some had been buried under tumuli, others burned and remembered through runestones, others had been given grand ship burials with dozens of sacrifices -like Losteriksson himself- or burned at sea.
Then, over the years, they had all started to realize the idiocy of it. The tumuli would be either swallowed by the Jungle, or lure scavengers. The runestone would always sink under the soft ground, and the ship burials would just be even worse versions of the tumuli. In the end, every form of burial other than burning at sea had been banned by one of Losteriksson’s descendants, and even by then, the treasures of all the graves had already been robbed or swallowed by the mud.
Treasures such as Losteriksson’s Crown, allegedly bolted to his head by one of the great early Viktis of the tribe, both as part of a ritual to defend the settlement from the jungle’s horrors, and as a sign of respect.
After all, how could any King of Skeggi surpass Losteriksson, if they could never even wear his crown?
Or, conversely, how could an usurper's claim not be made more legitimate, if not by wearing the crown. Clearly, finding the long-lost crown among the mud and muck would mark any man or woman with the gods’ blessings to take the King’s Hill and the Scarp.
And so the trawlers had trawled, searching endlessly for a skeleton allegedly covered in emerald and barnacles in equal amounts, with the iron crown still attached to it. All hoping that such a find would catapult them to mastery of the city, or at least into the favour of whichever wanna-be king would take them into their retinue.
As mad as the men who thought they could find -and most delusional, take- the gold-built cities of the Lizardmen, just less likely to die.
For years and years the first beach-trawlers had combed every last bit of free land in Skeggi, some even searching under and between the stilts of every building. The most extreme had even moved onto the submerged caves and tunnels of Corpse Reef, or the base of the Scarp.
To no avail.
Most had then moved onto trying to make a living out of the digging and raking and sieving they had become so adept at, only caring about the crown secondarily. And nowadays it is the age of men like Styrmir. Those who had come to Lustria searching a new life, only to discover themselves too weak or too sane to join those who would march into the jungles, or too lonesome and poor to start their own workshops or stores.
But resourceful enough to dig a meager living out of sand and mud.
By the time the blazing midday sun arrives, Styrmir has found enough to barely feed himself with some salt and a pot of boiling water. After that, he’ll spend the afternoon roving the markets and hoping to sell enough of his other finds to pay for himself some ale, some fruit, maybe, and if he’s lucky, he’ll be able to start saving enough coins and sand coins to move into a place less cramped than a hammock in the Boarding Longhouse of Clan Vik.
Beaches of Skeggi, Lyssa Bay, Jungles of Pahualaxa
22nd of Kornskurðarmánuður, 2545 VR // 40.0.9.16.3 4 Akʼbʼal 16 Yax
22nd of Kornskurðarmánuður, 2545 VR // 40.0.9.16.3 4 Akʼbʼal 16 Yax
For the first time in perhaps two years, Styrmir’s day is interrupted by commotion. Today he woke up later than usual, knowing that the late night’s high-tide would have otherwise left him standing and wasting his time.
What Norscan would begrudge a beach-trawler for enjoying his sleep?
Because of that, his arrival to the “beach” that he usually trawls -the Playa, named so by some long-dead King with an obsession for Estalia- is delayed well into the sunrise. A sunrise which gives him a good sight of a deeply bothersome sight.
A large commotion, a massive crowd gathered near the water’s edge, clamoring and speaking over each other. Perhaps some kind of brawl or dispute is going on in the middle of them all, it’s not rare for some Norscan longships’ crews to get into trouble with the Dodvakt -the force of marauders and fishermen with authority over the waters and shores of Skeggi- even before stepping foot into the settlement.
“-YOU ALL SEE, BEHOLD WITH YOUR VERY OWN EYES, THE RAVEN GOD AND THE EAGLE FAVOR HER AND HER ALONE” Roars a voice.
‘Might as well check what the fuck they are going about…’ Styrmir grumbles to himself, knowing that the thumping of hundreds of feet and the loudness will surely have scared off half of the critters he ought to trawl.
He doesn’t make his way too deeply into the crowd, his status makes sure of that, but he does get enough of a view.
The woman standing in the middle of the crowd is instantly recognizable, with her face covered in lesions and her heavy feather cloak. Adella of the Graelings is not a woman people forget easily.
And yet, what robs Styrmir of his breath is not the fact that such a powerful woman would be standing in the middle of the beach at such strange hours, or that her loyals would have dragged a rowboat all the way to the middle so she could stand above the crowd.
No, what leaves Styrmir’s mouth agape is the fact that in the middle of it all, there’s a hole dug into the sand, so close to the waterline that the bottom of it is being filled by seawater seeping in.
And that in her hands, the woman holds a skull. Brown-black and made soft by the war of sand, mud and salt, missing all its teeth and its lower-left third, but undeniably a skull.
A band of rusted iron nailed to it. Rusted… But large and clearly and complexely decorated at some point in the forgotten past. For too complex and old to be just another hoax.
“MAKE IT KNOWN!” The same voice roars again, one of her followers. “THAT TODAY, ADELLA OF THE GRAELINGS HAS FOUND LOSTERIKSSON’S CROWN!”
And all Styrmir can think of as the crowd explodes in amazed cheering and incredulous arguing is…
‘No she fucking didn’t, I’ve been trawling that chunk of the Playa twice a week for the last three fucking years.’
Temple Guard
Mr.Crocodile
Well-Known Member
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While this interlude obviouly sets up some what will happen in HotOO's next storyarc (which I can reveal shall be titled "What are Thrones Made of?") I also really enjoy showing these kinds of snapshots of what a "normal" day-to-day of someone's life can be in a world as crazy as Warhammer fantasy, so Styrmir was a really fun chance to do so. Hope you all also enjoyed it, and that it will fill your head with theories!
As for said upcoming arc, I plan on actually drafting it all out from first chapter to last before I actually start writing it, which inevitably means that this fic will go into a hiatus for a couple months. I would usually apologize for that, but since it always results in better stories in my experience, I don't think any of you will want an apology.
See you all -somewhat- soon!
I hope you enjoyed the story and I honestly appreciate all and any kudos or comments you may be gracious enough to gift me! And in case any of you are interested, here's the link to my Discord server, where I discuss my projects and all are welcome
It would be great if, if you enjoyed the story that is, you took a second of your time to go over to ao3 and left a kudo and a comment over there, since it is my main posting site.
As for said upcoming arc, I plan on actually drafting it all out from first chapter to last before I actually start writing it, which inevitably means that this fic will go into a hiatus for a couple months. I would usually apologize for that, but since it always results in better stories in my experience, I don't think any of you will want an apology.
See you all -somewhat- soon!
I hope you enjoyed the story and I honestly appreciate all and any kudos or comments you may be gracious enough to gift me! And in case any of you are interested, here's the link to my Discord server, where I discuss my projects and all are welcome
It would be great if, if you enjoyed the story that is, you took a second of your time to go over to ao3 and left a kudo and a comment over there, since it is my main posting site.
Temple Guard
Mr.Crocodile
Well-Known Member
- Messages
- 234
- Likes Received
- 525
- Trophy Points
- 93
What Are Thrones Made Of? - Part I: The Coming…
To understand Skeggi, one need only take the lessons learned for pre-Borġian Port Reaver and apply them to their logical extreme. Skeggi was a politically stagnant settlement since its founding. Seen as little more than an outpost and raid-launching point by the greater Norsi tribes of the Old World -already inflexible in their own ways- there never was an incentive to expand or improve its defenses or infrastructure beyond what these revenue-makers desired. Even the Palisade, perhaps the most famous piece of the city’s landscape, was only the maintained result of Losteriksson’s work, with none of the generations afterwards caring for it beyond maintenance.
And much like Port Reaver, the same inefficiency caused this hidebound nature: Uncaring leadership. While it is true that the Jarldom of Lyssa Bay was held by the Losteriksson Clan up until the Final Siege of Skeggi, this ignores the truth of power in the settlement. As in other Norscan fiefdoms, the violent usurpation of power was a feature and not an anomaly.
Almost all Kings of Skeggi did meet their ends violently. Most at the hands of usurpers which would often be then replaced back by a new Losteriksson a few years later, but almost as often by other members of the same family. Because of this, it became common for Kings to “invite” all their possible heirs to prove their mettle against the jungles, hence freeing them up from some threats, but creating a continuum of Kingships built upon personal glory and reputation, but little to no competence or drive towards materially improving the Jarldom.
If it weren’t for the fact that stilt-built huts and longhouses were rebuilt or replaced every few years, the Skeggi that Losterikkson built and that was razed in the 26th Century would have been identical.
“FUCK!” Pirate Lord Panos Dubosc grunts as he bucks his hips in short and uneven thrusts against those of the woman he is vigorously fucking. He’d probably be able to congratulate himself for a good performance if he had the presence of mind to care for the noises she is making and the words she moans in that desert-dweller language.
But all the borderlander cares for is the fact that his dick feels real good, on account of the tight wet cunt it is repeatedly being sunk into. More important still, he can feel himself on the edge of cumming, which is good for more reasons than the utterly obvious.
The bed, a sprawling and almost-circular mass stuffed with feathers, is covered in satin sheets, and equally slippery materials seem to upholster all the cushions around them. This makes it all slippery in a way only enhanced by their own sweaty bodies. If it weren’t for his feet -firmly planted on the chamber’s rock flooring- he would have probably slipped and headbutted Kelba’s tits by now. Something which he isn’t inherently against, but which would have probably killed the mood.
Still, said legs are close to trembling and may fail him at any moment -on account for the fact that he is about to cum- which means that there’s only one thing he can do.
“FUCK! I’M ABOUT TO-!”
“INSIDE!” The Stromfelite claws at his back something fierce, trying to hook her legs around his in a way that only expedites his collapse. With a deeply undignified grunt, the man ejaculates, his entire body growing stiff for a few seconds at the climax of the pleasure as he finally loses his balance. He does manage to gather the presence of mind to twist his fall to the side, not crushing the woman he just fucked to completion, his softening cock messily sliping out of her well-fucked cunt.
“Oh gods… That was a good one.” He groans more to himself than to the Arabyan beauty, his words muffled by the satin as he slightly sinks into the bed.
“Indeed…” The priestess answers with a lilting laugh. Again, if Panos were a little less focused on his post-coital bliss, he may have noticed how much less winded than him she seems to be.
It takes them both a few more minutes to fully compose themselves, moving and squirming closer to the head of the bed. In the end, Kelba props herself up to comfortably drink from a half-forgotten wooden goblet of wine. Panos’ own probably spilled somewhere else in the room. Something he doesn’t give two shits about, since Kelba seems happy enough giving him sips of her own as they lounge together.
As always, the steady and comfortable temperatures of the Sunken Cloister mean that neither of them feels a need to cover up as their sweat dries up. And ever-so-slowly the pungent and aphrodisiac smell of sex is replaced by the everpresent aromas of saltwater.
Still. Panos can hardly stop himself from holding a specific thought, his eyes sliding down to the mess he -they- have made between the woman's legs. “I am not raising any bastards, Kelba.” He plainly says.
“The Shark takes all offerings of the flesh. Your seed will not take.” She dismissively answers with the most upsetting version of a “Don’t worry about it.” possible.
“Okaaaay… Still, this was as fun as I remembered. At this point, you may be half of the reason why I still bother to set sail for this wretched continent and this blasted port.”
“What is the other half? Don’t tell me you are double-timing me, Panos?” She asks with a smile. They both know that he’s as much of a whoremonger as any other corsair, and that she opens her legs to any pirate captain or lord willing to sacrifice a hefty sum to either of her altars.
“That pig can say all he wants about improving the city. But anything that gets done here gets done because someone made a slave do it. As long as this place is hungry for manpower, I will keep coming back.”
She murmurs with a nod. Panos is well aware of Kelba’s preference for the bloodier kinds of piracy. But he’s too tuckered out to find the energy in him to argue for the worthiness of slave-trading as a profession.
Soon, however, they both realize that they need to clean themselves up. One has chattel to peddle, the other has a temple to run. In doing so -cleaning and dressing themselves back up- they are exposed to the eclectic realities of Port Reaver.
They expect to come out to a temple full of priests and sailors doing what priests and sailors do in a temple to the Oceanic Gods. Instead, they find themselves surrounded by a chaotic crowd, as if someone had taken a blunderbuss to the wasps’ nest that is Port Reaver.
Kelba is quickly surrounded by lesser and karyotypical faithful. But Panos is quickly set upon by a very specific demographic, his own men. Half-Hand Bellot, one of his fleet’s captains, reaches him first. Or, more accurately, his shouts give the Pirate Lord the most context with the least amount of words.
“Lord Dubusc! The King has passed a new law. Says he will no longer collect taxes from the lords and the independent captains!”
And for a few seconds, the body-peddler’s world collapses.
“What?” He asks with a trickle of a voice.
“Says… Law says now his men are going to start charging per ship that makes port here, effective tomorrow at sunrise.”
He is a Pirate Lord, he needs no further explanations.
“How many?” He asks simply, his sight momentarily twitching to his own armaments, and to Abbess of the Sunken Cloister. His guns and blades are exactly where he needs them to be. Kelba, on the other hand…
She looks like she’s just been told that the local ogres have started eating dogfish. To her, such a law is a direct challenge to the laws of piracy and her gods, to the ideal that the strong should enjoy the weak’s bounties.
“Thr-three ships, sir. The Lungs, the Racote and the Pink Bride. They seem to have left for Skeggi. We also caught the Cronsborg’s crew trying to sell off our -your- cargo but have managed to box them in.
The numbers are simple. Under a single lord, an entire fleet could enjoy the port and chandlers and a hundred other amenities for a laughable price.
Not anymore.
And with that incentive gone, who knows how many captains may be getting the most problematic kinds of ideas…
The presence of Skeggi and its population is evidently clear long before one actually gets close enough to behold the settlement’s impressive palisade through the greenery of the coastal jungles. At least, it is to Torfi, a trained hunter and tracker. Njal can only tell insofar as Käck and Saga -who also begin to pick up the smells of “civilization”- perk up and seem to become excited. Not as excited as they should be, not with their missing packmate, but excited enough to give Torfi’s heart some warmth.
The telltale signs are all clearly there, however. The sight of stumps, not rotten through or scorched by lightning, but flatly cut by ripsaws and axeheads. Jungle footpaths lacking in the tracks of the jungle’s larger fauna, and instead dusted and flattened by boots and the marks of the hooves of men foolish enough to import pack animals. The sight of discarded trash the unseen natives would never leave behind, like campfire stonerings or half-buried latrines, as it was not rare for many parties heading into the jungle to spend a few nights just beyond the palisade trying -and failing- to acclimatize themselves.
After that point, it does not take them long to come across the most obvious of signs: People. Loggers -the imposing Drenok not among them- coming and going from their current worksites, trappers returning with dozens of birds and small animals hanging behind their backs and from their belts, entire motley adventuring parties leaving, heavy with supplies and the spirits of people who don’t understand that about a third of their forces will be killed by mosquitoes and filthy water, and not in some legendary battle against non-present dragons.
But Torfi is not here to warn idiots not to be idiots. He is here to get… Home…
The palisade, despite his life having been spent within it, despite the fact that he’s never even seen another settlement’s to compare it against, will never fail to impress. A wall of wooden stakes as tall as the trees that it had been made out of, so tall that only features like the rickety King’s Hill or the Scarp are visible as both young Skeggialings step out to the ring of cleared land that surrounds Skeggi’s land-facing side. Here, meager and temporary farmsteads try to survive, just beyond the protections offered by a mighty defense erected by Losteriksson himself.
Unlike most other things Torfi has ever seen, the palisade is clear of floral growths or even so much as lichens or dried-up mosses, the wooden stakes tall and slightly flared outwards, blocking anything and everything except the gaping entrance built into it. According to his parents, the stave-walls had never needed replacement or upkeep, their wood so dry and hard it might as well be petrified. And it really does show.
Still, even as astounding as it is, he has lived his entire life in a kennel of which a wall was the palisade itself, so the structure doesn’t distract them for too long, and quickly enough, flanked by both hounds, they approach the aforementioned open wooden gateway.
Only then, do they start realizing that something is wrong.
For one, the gates are unguarded, no Veslvakt in sight. Considering that said formation’s reason for existing was to guard the palisade, the fact that not a single one roams the gate-side area can only mean one thing. After all, only one person in all of Skeggi can actually give any jakkers actual orders without getting killed: The King.
And why would King Inga do something as dumb as give the Veslvakt permission to slack on their duties?
“Did we miss out on any holidays?” Torfi asks hushedly, growing tense.
“Not in the Godly taint-licking side of things.” Njal answers.
As they walk closer and actually cross the threshold, the telltale smells and sounds of overextended celebrations hit them like a wall only a tad less solid than the palisade. The smells of spilled mead and blood. Longhouses ruined, some little more than burned patches in the ground. while others are full of the hustle and bustle of women tending to injured and hungover men. Corpses and drunkards litter the twisting streets.
“Oh… Fuck…” Njal begins to mutter, connecting the dots just a few moments sooner than Torfi.
Njal’s dream. A dream of a revelry where Torfi would have been fed to his own hounds.
“LONG LIVE KING ADELLA!” The words explode out of a nearby longhouse where the celebrations seem to not have lost strength. And soon are followed by cheering and dozens of repetitions of the same four words. “Long live King Adella! Long live King Adella! Long live King Adella…!”
“They… She… Issued a rugl…” Njal swallows awkwardly, making mention of the bizarre ritualized climb one would need to accomplish to directly deal with the King.
“Inga… Amma… She is… Dead?” Torfi’s heart breaks, his mind dragging up a familial nickname used during the feasts of his childhood. Back when the Losterikksons had been in a time of glory, and even distant relatives like his father enjoyed their cauldrons and barrels.
Then Torfi begins to remember the rest of Njal’s retold dreams, and takes off with possessed and desperate speed in the kennel’s directions. With a shout, Njal is left behind, but both hounds catch up.
“Please… Oh Gods please no…”
Somewhere in the Jungles of Pahualaxa
40.0.9.16.5 6 Chikchan 18 Yax
Chloe does her best to get to the front of the crowd. But the anxiety of hundreds of ex-slaves to the Druchii surrounded by a thousand lizardmen means that the mass of gathered humans is evenly split between those trying to be at the edges in case they need to flee and those wanting to be as close as possible to their… Their…
Their saviour.
‘Roland.’ She reminds herself. ‘His name is Roland and he is… He is…’
The young imperial woman fails to find any words to describe the strange equally young man that doesn't make her blush or internally chastise herself. And yet, the very fact that she has time to get dreamy about him, when weeks before she had been a slave counting her time until an unthinkably violent death… Yeah…
Still, she tries to get closer to the front of the crowd rapidly growing in the middle of what seems to be a natural clearing. On the edges of that clearing, she can see many of the aforementioned hulking and diminutive reptilian creatures waiting. It is early in the morning, the army has barely finished unmaking their camp for another day of marching through the dreary jungles. And yet, with their bellies filled with at least two meals every day, the people around her are hopeful.
In the end, she manages to squeeze herself a couple “rows” before where he actually stands, atop a befelled tree’s trunk, calmly waiting, everything that makes him unique in full view.
His body bare with the exception of his short leather skirt, from bare feet to a chest only covered by the belt strapped around his chest so that he may keep hold of some belongings, the rest of his body decorated with bracelets, anklets and a collar of precious metals and shining gemstones. His skin tanned by constant exposure, yet marked by paler strips and nicks of scarred skin, all of it shaved finely and covered in the same geometric paints that adorn many of the reptiles.
He looks down on them with his bright blue eyes, his braids gently moving in the breeze. In one hand, he holds his butchering polearm like a staff. Upon his other shoulder, equally as still, rests a lustrian vulture of colorful plumage.
His eyes roam across the crowd. Chloe can only hope they’re looking for her. But instead he merely begins to talk.
“Today,” He speaks loudly, his imperial pronunciation warped by his guttural accent. “Our traveling together ends.”
And Chloe’s smile dies a swift death.
Everyone else around her reacts even more visibly, gasping and grabbing at each other, the people on the edges start looking at the reptiles, as still as they had been minutes before. Chloe ends up needing a few seconds to realize that most people are interpreting his words to mean that this clearing will be the end of them all. But Chloe doesn’t fear that for even a second, still intently listening.
“My duties call me in a different direction to yours.” He continues explaining. “You shall continue the travel eastwards to Pahuax, the City of Ash, and the domain of my liege Lord Tleconexquiza. Upon your arrival you will be put under his protection as I once was, when I was released from the jaws of the enemy. Until your arrival, the Children of the Old Ones will continue to guard and feed you as they have so far.” To that, the crowd finally calms down and contracts yet again towards him. “But this protection will not be infinite in its patience. I recommend you keep as closely to the column’s core as you can. The Saurus will not wait for stragglers who fall behind. And the Skinks will not heal the wounded or tend to the sick. That will be your own responsibility to bear until your eyes fall upon the ashen terraces.”
“What then?” Shouts a voice from among the crowd.
“Then you will cross the thresholds of Pahualaxa and be given succor and rest among the Xho’za’khanx, my kindred.”
‘There’s more of them?’ Chloe wonders, a thought echoed by many more.
“You will find yourself under the care and protection of Elma Welser-Nakor, my spawn- -my sister- and must heed her every word of advice or command. It is her duty to care for all warmbloods, and it will be yours to honor her efforts.”
“What then?” Another voice, even more insistent, asks. “When will we be allowed to return to our homes? Will she help us find the ports?”
This time Roland’s -the Herald’s- answer takes a few more seconds to arrive. But when it does, it is a killing blow. “I understand you were taking unwillingly and violently from all corners of your continent. This is but proof of what importance the Great Plan holds. For only it will remove such needless suffering and taint from the world. Rejoice, you will serve the furtherment of the Great Plan in Pahuax, so that less suffer what you have suffered. And maybe some day none will.”
And as easily as that, with literally nothing more than a curt nod, he steps off the trunk and towards the treeline. So dumbfounded are they all as they try to parse direct meaning through his words, that he has already disappeared beyond the treeline before Chloe’s eyes begin to water.
They have not been freed. They have merely been stolen by new masters. Masters who soon enough begin to move like a river of scales.
And the humans can do nothing but follow.
“Fuck!” Is all that Njal can utter as he finally catches up with Torfi at the kennel’s entrance, the precinct's walls much lower than the palisade, but still usually capable of giving his best friend’s family and longhouse the rare luxury that is privacy in Skeggi.
Not anymore. The signs of the revelry they must have closely missed are no less obvious here than anywhere else Njal has run through. One of the kennel’s gates is ajar, while the other has been fully torn off its hinges. The witch ends up needing a few moments to steel himself before he crosses the threshold, dreading what he may find on the other side.
The stench of death hits him first. Very different from those that the kennels usually produce -which aren't necessarily better, thanks to all the dog piss and shit- and nothing like the home he has spent his entire childhood visiting.
The yard is littered with the bodies of, no surprise there, mutilated dogs, animals beaten to death by clubs and axes. Every single cage is busted open, and he even lets out a gasp when he catches onto the fact that the gory lumps here and there are the crushed bodies of puppies.
And amidst it all, on his knees, lies a catatonic Torfi. Blankly staring towards his family’s ransacked longhouse. Njal can only guess that it wasn’t all outright burned down purely because of how close it is to the palisade.
Still, he approaches his friend, lowering himself to his knees as well and trying to get Torfi to react, to cry, to roar in rage… Anything, anything that will save him from having to reckon with the fact that he knew this would happen. That he risked Torfi’s family for a chance to get him distracted and out of the city, and that now they all may be-
“No-no bodies. They… Somewhere else.”
“What?” Njal asks, alarmed.
“They weren’t.. They are.. Didn’t find any… Bodies.”
“Good. Good.” Njal reacts with a shaking voice.
Then, before he has even a sliver of a chance to put his friend back together. The hounds begin to bark.
The two last ones.
Alerted, both youth turn around. And find the entryway to the kennels blocked by a crew of jakkers. At their head, none other than-
“Reidarson…” Torfi snarls.
“Hey there, Ornolfsson.” The hulking blonde, surrounded by smiling inbred relatives, greets them. “Congratulations. We were all wondering when you may show up, the wager pouch is still fat with bets on who’d get a hold of you first.”
“Reidarson.” Njal tries to intervene, using the weight of his status as a witch to save his friend.
“Apologies, Vikti. But the orders come from way up. Literally.” The man interrupts. “Hope you aren’t tired, Torfi, the new King wants to meet you, and we ain’t gonna make the way up easy on you…”
To understand Skeggi, one need only take the lessons learned for pre-Borġian Port Reaver and apply them to their logical extreme. Skeggi was a politically stagnant settlement since its founding. Seen as little more than an outpost and raid-launching point by the greater Norsi tribes of the Old World -already inflexible in their own ways- there never was an incentive to expand or improve its defenses or infrastructure beyond what these revenue-makers desired. Even the Palisade, perhaps the most famous piece of the city’s landscape, was only the maintained result of Losteriksson’s work, with none of the generations afterwards caring for it beyond maintenance.
And much like Port Reaver, the same inefficiency caused this hidebound nature: Uncaring leadership. While it is true that the Jarldom of Lyssa Bay was held by the Losteriksson Clan up until the Final Siege of Skeggi, this ignores the truth of power in the settlement. As in other Norscan fiefdoms, the violent usurpation of power was a feature and not an anomaly.
Almost all Kings of Skeggi did meet their ends violently. Most at the hands of usurpers which would often be then replaced back by a new Losteriksson a few years later, but almost as often by other members of the same family. Because of this, it became common for Kings to “invite” all their possible heirs to prove their mettle against the jungles, hence freeing them up from some threats, but creating a continuum of Kingships built upon personal glory and reputation, but little to no competence or drive towards materially improving the Jarldom.
If it weren’t for the fact that stilt-built huts and longhouses were rebuilt or replaced every few years, the Skeggi that Losterikkson built and that was razed in the 26th Century would have been identical.
- “Collected Lectures on Lustria”, by Gottlieb Ochsner. Volume II: On the Isthmus and its City States.
Inner Chambers of the Sunken Cloister, Port Reaver, Settler’s Cove, Isthmus of Lustria
2nd of Brauzeit, 2538 IC // 40.0.9.16.4 5 K’an 17 Yax
2nd of Brauzeit, 2538 IC // 40.0.9.16.4 5 K’an 17 Yax
“FUCK!” Pirate Lord Panos Dubosc grunts as he bucks his hips in short and uneven thrusts against those of the woman he is vigorously fucking. He’d probably be able to congratulate himself for a good performance if he had the presence of mind to care for the noises she is making and the words she moans in that desert-dweller language.
But all the borderlander cares for is the fact that his dick feels real good, on account of the tight wet cunt it is repeatedly being sunk into. More important still, he can feel himself on the edge of cumming, which is good for more reasons than the utterly obvious.
The bed, a sprawling and almost-circular mass stuffed with feathers, is covered in satin sheets, and equally slippery materials seem to upholster all the cushions around them. This makes it all slippery in a way only enhanced by their own sweaty bodies. If it weren’t for his feet -firmly planted on the chamber’s rock flooring- he would have probably slipped and headbutted Kelba’s tits by now. Something which he isn’t inherently against, but which would have probably killed the mood.
Still, said legs are close to trembling and may fail him at any moment -on account for the fact that he is about to cum- which means that there’s only one thing he can do.
“FUCK! I’M ABOUT TO-!”
“INSIDE!” The Stromfelite claws at his back something fierce, trying to hook her legs around his in a way that only expedites his collapse. With a deeply undignified grunt, the man ejaculates, his entire body growing stiff for a few seconds at the climax of the pleasure as he finally loses his balance. He does manage to gather the presence of mind to twist his fall to the side, not crushing the woman he just fucked to completion, his softening cock messily sliping out of her well-fucked cunt.
“Oh gods… That was a good one.” He groans more to himself than to the Arabyan beauty, his words muffled by the satin as he slightly sinks into the bed.
“Indeed…” The priestess answers with a lilting laugh. Again, if Panos were a little less focused on his post-coital bliss, he may have noticed how much less winded than him she seems to be.
It takes them both a few more minutes to fully compose themselves, moving and squirming closer to the head of the bed. In the end, Kelba props herself up to comfortably drink from a half-forgotten wooden goblet of wine. Panos’ own probably spilled somewhere else in the room. Something he doesn’t give two shits about, since Kelba seems happy enough giving him sips of her own as they lounge together.
As always, the steady and comfortable temperatures of the Sunken Cloister mean that neither of them feels a need to cover up as their sweat dries up. And ever-so-slowly the pungent and aphrodisiac smell of sex is replaced by the everpresent aromas of saltwater.
Still. Panos can hardly stop himself from holding a specific thought, his eyes sliding down to the mess he -they- have made between the woman's legs. “I am not raising any bastards, Kelba.” He plainly says.
“The Shark takes all offerings of the flesh. Your seed will not take.” She dismissively answers with the most upsetting version of a “Don’t worry about it.” possible.
“Okaaaay… Still, this was as fun as I remembered. At this point, you may be half of the reason why I still bother to set sail for this wretched continent and this blasted port.”
“What is the other half? Don’t tell me you are double-timing me, Panos?” She asks with a smile. They both know that he’s as much of a whoremonger as any other corsair, and that she opens her legs to any pirate captain or lord willing to sacrifice a hefty sum to either of her altars.
“That pig can say all he wants about improving the city. But anything that gets done here gets done because someone made a slave do it. As long as this place is hungry for manpower, I will keep coming back.”
She murmurs with a nod. Panos is well aware of Kelba’s preference for the bloodier kinds of piracy. But he’s too tuckered out to find the energy in him to argue for the worthiness of slave-trading as a profession.
Soon, however, they both realize that they need to clean themselves up. One has chattel to peddle, the other has a temple to run. In doing so -cleaning and dressing themselves back up- they are exposed to the eclectic realities of Port Reaver.
They expect to come out to a temple full of priests and sailors doing what priests and sailors do in a temple to the Oceanic Gods. Instead, they find themselves surrounded by a chaotic crowd, as if someone had taken a blunderbuss to the wasps’ nest that is Port Reaver.
Kelba is quickly surrounded by lesser and karyotypical faithful. But Panos is quickly set upon by a very specific demographic, his own men. Half-Hand Bellot, one of his fleet’s captains, reaches him first. Or, more accurately, his shouts give the Pirate Lord the most context with the least amount of words.
“Lord Dubusc! The King has passed a new law. Says he will no longer collect taxes from the lords and the independent captains!”
And for a few seconds, the body-peddler’s world collapses.
“What?” He asks with a trickle of a voice.
“Says… Law says now his men are going to start charging per ship that makes port here, effective tomorrow at sunrise.”
He is a Pirate Lord, he needs no further explanations.
“How many?” He asks simply, his sight momentarily twitching to his own armaments, and to Abbess of the Sunken Cloister. His guns and blades are exactly where he needs them to be. Kelba, on the other hand…
She looks like she’s just been told that the local ogres have started eating dogfish. To her, such a law is a direct challenge to the laws of piracy and her gods, to the ideal that the strong should enjoy the weak’s bounties.
“Thr-three ships, sir. The Lungs, the Racote and the Pink Bride. They seem to have left for Skeggi. We also caught the Cronsborg’s crew trying to sell off our -your- cargo but have managed to box them in.
The numbers are simple. Under a single lord, an entire fleet could enjoy the port and chandlers and a hundred other amenities for a laughable price.
Not anymore.
And with that incentive gone, who knows how many captains may be getting the most problematic kinds of ideas…
Great Palisade of Skeggi, Lyssa Bay, Jungles of Pahualaxa
19th of Haustmánuður, 2545 VR // 40.0.9.16.5 6 Chikchan 18 Yax
19th of Haustmánuður, 2545 VR // 40.0.9.16.5 6 Chikchan 18 Yax
The presence of Skeggi and its population is evidently clear long before one actually gets close enough to behold the settlement’s impressive palisade through the greenery of the coastal jungles. At least, it is to Torfi, a trained hunter and tracker. Njal can only tell insofar as Käck and Saga -who also begin to pick up the smells of “civilization”- perk up and seem to become excited. Not as excited as they should be, not with their missing packmate, but excited enough to give Torfi’s heart some warmth.
The telltale signs are all clearly there, however. The sight of stumps, not rotten through or scorched by lightning, but flatly cut by ripsaws and axeheads. Jungle footpaths lacking in the tracks of the jungle’s larger fauna, and instead dusted and flattened by boots and the marks of the hooves of men foolish enough to import pack animals. The sight of discarded trash the unseen natives would never leave behind, like campfire stonerings or half-buried latrines, as it was not rare for many parties heading into the jungle to spend a few nights just beyond the palisade trying -and failing- to acclimatize themselves.
After that point, it does not take them long to come across the most obvious of signs: People. Loggers -the imposing Drenok not among them- coming and going from their current worksites, trappers returning with dozens of birds and small animals hanging behind their backs and from their belts, entire motley adventuring parties leaving, heavy with supplies and the spirits of people who don’t understand that about a third of their forces will be killed by mosquitoes and filthy water, and not in some legendary battle against non-present dragons.
But Torfi is not here to warn idiots not to be idiots. He is here to get… Home…
The palisade, despite his life having been spent within it, despite the fact that he’s never even seen another settlement’s to compare it against, will never fail to impress. A wall of wooden stakes as tall as the trees that it had been made out of, so tall that only features like the rickety King’s Hill or the Scarp are visible as both young Skeggialings step out to the ring of cleared land that surrounds Skeggi’s land-facing side. Here, meager and temporary farmsteads try to survive, just beyond the protections offered by a mighty defense erected by Losteriksson himself.
Unlike most other things Torfi has ever seen, the palisade is clear of floral growths or even so much as lichens or dried-up mosses, the wooden stakes tall and slightly flared outwards, blocking anything and everything except the gaping entrance built into it. According to his parents, the stave-walls had never needed replacement or upkeep, their wood so dry and hard it might as well be petrified. And it really does show.
Still, even as astounding as it is, he has lived his entire life in a kennel of which a wall was the palisade itself, so the structure doesn’t distract them for too long, and quickly enough, flanked by both hounds, they approach the aforementioned open wooden gateway.
Only then, do they start realizing that something is wrong.
For one, the gates are unguarded, no Veslvakt in sight. Considering that said formation’s reason for existing was to guard the palisade, the fact that not a single one roams the gate-side area can only mean one thing. After all, only one person in all of Skeggi can actually give any jakkers actual orders without getting killed: The King.
And why would King Inga do something as dumb as give the Veslvakt permission to slack on their duties?
“Did we miss out on any holidays?” Torfi asks hushedly, growing tense.
“Not in the Godly taint-licking side of things.” Njal answers.
As they walk closer and actually cross the threshold, the telltale smells and sounds of overextended celebrations hit them like a wall only a tad less solid than the palisade. The smells of spilled mead and blood. Longhouses ruined, some little more than burned patches in the ground. while others are full of the hustle and bustle of women tending to injured and hungover men. Corpses and drunkards litter the twisting streets.
“Oh… Fuck…” Njal begins to mutter, connecting the dots just a few moments sooner than Torfi.
Njal’s dream. A dream of a revelry where Torfi would have been fed to his own hounds.
“LONG LIVE KING ADELLA!” The words explode out of a nearby longhouse where the celebrations seem to not have lost strength. And soon are followed by cheering and dozens of repetitions of the same four words. “Long live King Adella! Long live King Adella! Long live King Adella…!”
“They… She… Issued a rugl…” Njal swallows awkwardly, making mention of the bizarre ritualized climb one would need to accomplish to directly deal with the King.
“Inga… Amma… She is… Dead?” Torfi’s heart breaks, his mind dragging up a familial nickname used during the feasts of his childhood. Back when the Losterikksons had been in a time of glory, and even distant relatives like his father enjoyed their cauldrons and barrels.
Then Torfi begins to remember the rest of Njal’s retold dreams, and takes off with possessed and desperate speed in the kennel’s directions. With a shout, Njal is left behind, but both hounds catch up.
“Please… Oh Gods please no…”
Somewhere in the Jungles of Pahualaxa
40.0.9.16.5 6 Chikchan 18 Yax
Chloe does her best to get to the front of the crowd. But the anxiety of hundreds of ex-slaves to the Druchii surrounded by a thousand lizardmen means that the mass of gathered humans is evenly split between those trying to be at the edges in case they need to flee and those wanting to be as close as possible to their… Their…
Their saviour.
‘Roland.’ She reminds herself. ‘His name is Roland and he is… He is…’
The young imperial woman fails to find any words to describe the strange equally young man that doesn't make her blush or internally chastise herself. And yet, the very fact that she has time to get dreamy about him, when weeks before she had been a slave counting her time until an unthinkably violent death… Yeah…
Still, she tries to get closer to the front of the crowd rapidly growing in the middle of what seems to be a natural clearing. On the edges of that clearing, she can see many of the aforementioned hulking and diminutive reptilian creatures waiting. It is early in the morning, the army has barely finished unmaking their camp for another day of marching through the dreary jungles. And yet, with their bellies filled with at least two meals every day, the people around her are hopeful.
In the end, she manages to squeeze herself a couple “rows” before where he actually stands, atop a befelled tree’s trunk, calmly waiting, everything that makes him unique in full view.
His body bare with the exception of his short leather skirt, from bare feet to a chest only covered by the belt strapped around his chest so that he may keep hold of some belongings, the rest of his body decorated with bracelets, anklets and a collar of precious metals and shining gemstones. His skin tanned by constant exposure, yet marked by paler strips and nicks of scarred skin, all of it shaved finely and covered in the same geometric paints that adorn many of the reptiles.
He looks down on them with his bright blue eyes, his braids gently moving in the breeze. In one hand, he holds his butchering polearm like a staff. Upon his other shoulder, equally as still, rests a lustrian vulture of colorful plumage.
His eyes roam across the crowd. Chloe can only hope they’re looking for her. But instead he merely begins to talk.
“Today,” He speaks loudly, his imperial pronunciation warped by his guttural accent. “Our traveling together ends.”
And Chloe’s smile dies a swift death.
Everyone else around her reacts even more visibly, gasping and grabbing at each other, the people on the edges start looking at the reptiles, as still as they had been minutes before. Chloe ends up needing a few seconds to realize that most people are interpreting his words to mean that this clearing will be the end of them all. But Chloe doesn’t fear that for even a second, still intently listening.
“My duties call me in a different direction to yours.” He continues explaining. “You shall continue the travel eastwards to Pahuax, the City of Ash, and the domain of my liege Lord Tleconexquiza. Upon your arrival you will be put under his protection as I once was, when I was released from the jaws of the enemy. Until your arrival, the Children of the Old Ones will continue to guard and feed you as they have so far.” To that, the crowd finally calms down and contracts yet again towards him. “But this protection will not be infinite in its patience. I recommend you keep as closely to the column’s core as you can. The Saurus will not wait for stragglers who fall behind. And the Skinks will not heal the wounded or tend to the sick. That will be your own responsibility to bear until your eyes fall upon the ashen terraces.”
“What then?” Shouts a voice from among the crowd.
“Then you will cross the thresholds of Pahualaxa and be given succor and rest among the Xho’za’khanx, my kindred.”
‘There’s more of them?’ Chloe wonders, a thought echoed by many more.
“You will find yourself under the care and protection of Elma Welser-Nakor, my spawn- -my sister- and must heed her every word of advice or command. It is her duty to care for all warmbloods, and it will be yours to honor her efforts.”
“What then?” Another voice, even more insistent, asks. “When will we be allowed to return to our homes? Will she help us find the ports?”
This time Roland’s -the Herald’s- answer takes a few more seconds to arrive. But when it does, it is a killing blow. “I understand you were taking unwillingly and violently from all corners of your continent. This is but proof of what importance the Great Plan holds. For only it will remove such needless suffering and taint from the world. Rejoice, you will serve the furtherment of the Great Plan in Pahuax, so that less suffer what you have suffered. And maybe some day none will.”
And as easily as that, with literally nothing more than a curt nod, he steps off the trunk and towards the treeline. So dumbfounded are they all as they try to parse direct meaning through his words, that he has already disappeared beyond the treeline before Chloe’s eyes begin to water.
They have not been freed. They have merely been stolen by new masters. Masters who soon enough begin to move like a river of scales.
And the humans can do nothing but follow.
The Kennels, Skeggi, Jungles of Pahualaxa
19th of Haustmánuður, 2545 VR // 40.0.9.16.5 6 Chikchan 18 Yax
19th of Haustmánuður, 2545 VR // 40.0.9.16.5 6 Chikchan 18 Yax
“Fuck!” Is all that Njal can utter as he finally catches up with Torfi at the kennel’s entrance, the precinct's walls much lower than the palisade, but still usually capable of giving his best friend’s family and longhouse the rare luxury that is privacy in Skeggi.
Not anymore. The signs of the revelry they must have closely missed are no less obvious here than anywhere else Njal has run through. One of the kennel’s gates is ajar, while the other has been fully torn off its hinges. The witch ends up needing a few moments to steel himself before he crosses the threshold, dreading what he may find on the other side.
The stench of death hits him first. Very different from those that the kennels usually produce -which aren't necessarily better, thanks to all the dog piss and shit- and nothing like the home he has spent his entire childhood visiting.
The yard is littered with the bodies of, no surprise there, mutilated dogs, animals beaten to death by clubs and axes. Every single cage is busted open, and he even lets out a gasp when he catches onto the fact that the gory lumps here and there are the crushed bodies of puppies.
And amidst it all, on his knees, lies a catatonic Torfi. Blankly staring towards his family’s ransacked longhouse. Njal can only guess that it wasn’t all outright burned down purely because of how close it is to the palisade.
Still, he approaches his friend, lowering himself to his knees as well and trying to get Torfi to react, to cry, to roar in rage… Anything, anything that will save him from having to reckon with the fact that he knew this would happen. That he risked Torfi’s family for a chance to get him distracted and out of the city, and that now they all may be-
“No-no bodies. They… Somewhere else.”
“What?” Njal asks, alarmed.
“They weren’t.. They are.. Didn’t find any… Bodies.”
“Good. Good.” Njal reacts with a shaking voice.
Then, before he has even a sliver of a chance to put his friend back together. The hounds begin to bark.
The two last ones.
Alerted, both youth turn around. And find the entryway to the kennels blocked by a crew of jakkers. At their head, none other than-
“Reidarson…” Torfi snarls.
“Hey there, Ornolfsson.” The hulking blonde, surrounded by smiling inbred relatives, greets them. “Congratulations. We were all wondering when you may show up, the wager pouch is still fat with bets on who’d get a hold of you first.”
“Reidarson.” Njal tries to intervene, using the weight of his status as a witch to save his friend.
“Apologies, Vikti. But the orders come from way up. Literally.” The man interrupts. “Hope you aren’t tired, Torfi, the new King wants to meet you, and we ain’t gonna make the way up easy on you…”
Temple Guard
Mr.Crocodile
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HELLO! THE HotOO HIATUS IS OVER, GET READY FOR THE FIST ARC IN THIS PROJECT TO BE FULLY PLANNED BEFOREHAND!
ENJOY THE FOLLOWING 10 PART STORY, I SURE AS HELL AM ENJOYING WRITING IT!
I hope this was a good start to the upcoming arc! While Roland is -as usual- going to continue to be our overarching protag, this arc is even more focused on Torfi than the last one + the newly "freed" humans will also be a focal point once they get to Pahuax! Fun times!
I hope you enjoyed the story and I honestly appreciate all and any kudos or comments you may be gracious enough to gift me! And in case any of you are interested, here's the link to my Discord server, where I discuss my projects and all are welcome
It would be great if, if you enjoyed the story that is, you took a second of your time to go over to ao3 and left a kudo and a comment over there, since it is my main posting site.
ENJOY THE FOLLOWING 10 PART STORY, I SURE AS HELL AM ENJOYING WRITING IT!
I hope this was a good start to the upcoming arc! While Roland is -as usual- going to continue to be our overarching protag, this arc is even more focused on Torfi than the last one + the newly "freed" humans will also be a focal point once they get to Pahuax! Fun times!
I hope you enjoyed the story and I honestly appreciate all and any kudos or comments you may be gracious enough to gift me! And in case any of you are interested, here's the link to my Discord server, where I discuss my projects and all are welcome
It would be great if, if you enjoyed the story that is, you took a second of your time to go over to ao3 and left a kudo and a comment over there, since it is my main posting site.
Temple Guard
Mr.Crocodile
Well-Known Member
- Messages
- 234
- Likes Received
- 525
- Trophy Points
- 93
What Are Thrones Made Of? - Part II: …Of Dark Things
“To greet the Elector Count of Hochland, I had to bow at the waist ten times along the Great Hall, never making eye contact. To greet the king of Skeggi, I had to climb hand over hand up a rickety staircase. ‘Tis the same always, with Human kings — they want you bent over.”
The Reidarson warrior shoves Torfi forwards one last time, sending him stumbling to his knees at the base of the King’s Hill, itself more of a hump growing out of the Scarp that dominates the entirety of Skeggi as its sole point of elevated terrain. The young norscan’s knees sting, as the base of it is scattered with the bones and belongings of those who had tried and failed to climb it over the centuries, cracking their backs or breaking their necks while stumbling down.
Usually, nothing in Skeggi would remain in the open for long without being swallowed by the mud or taken by someone else. But according to most Viktis, dying to the rugl had long been equivalent to sacrificing one’s body to the Gods. And not all Norscans would be willing to make that transgression.
Torfi looks up, it’s the only direction worth looking towards at the base of the Scarp, which leaves him looking at the underside of the structure which is the seat of power, the Highholt, all Kings of Skeggi and Jarls of Lyssa Bay have ruled from since the times of Losteriksson. It would be inaccurate to call it circular, it is more of a broken wheel, with each spoke being a longhouse or some other kind of construction sticking out of the hill’s top, each longer than the others and supported by longer, steeper and less sane stilts.
On top of that, literally, floors have been added to it, each also sporting its own uneven wings, giving the entire structure the look of a smashed pinecone sticking out of the top of a pile of dirty, just many magnitudes larger.
‘No house may be taller or grander than the King’s.’ His father had once told him. And that includes all previous kings, from the current one’s point of view. Torfi can only wonder what expansion Adella my attempt, in order to solidify herself as rightfully superior to Amma.
And, obvious, there’s the distance between himself and the bottom of said structure. A hill of loose coastal sandstone embedded with pebbles and rocks, made brittle by the yearly bartering of storms and the constant digging of the hands and feet of those trying to climb it.
A tumbling-down mess, a rugl indeed. Torfi remembers climbing on his father’s it as a very young kid, before Amma had taken the throne and started holding her feasts in a longhouse at “stilt-level.” A tradition also as old as Skeggi, meant to keep trouble-makers and time-wasters away from the king, their family, their servants and guard. But also one that would force the king to have bondsmen and advisers down below who could be trusted to be delegated upon. Although Torfi feels that last one is more of an inconvenience than something the founder actually would have sought.
Want to have audience with the King? You climb.
Want to kill the king? You climb while arrows and rocks are thrown down at you.
“Come on, start climbing. The King is generous, but she won’t waste her time waiting for your dog-fucking arse much longer.”
Torfi bites back a response, Reidarson is armed and surrounded by clansmen.
Torfi takes a look back as that smiling bastards, then another look up the hill…
And begins to climb.
As expected his boots, meant to handle the jungle terrain, don’t do him much good in a steep hill of loose rock and sand. And after a few stumbles where he only manages to stay in place thanks to digging furrows into the hill with his nails, torfi ckicks them iff his own feet to make use of his bare soles and toes.
Eventually, he gets into a rhythm , slowly and carefully climbing on all fours.
“If it makes you feel better!” Reidarson laughs from bellow -Torfi has barely climbed the height of a tree’s worth of hill- with a teasing tone. “The King’s taken to having even us climb, says it tests our mettle. But don’t worry, we haven’t had time to make the serfs install the ideas she’s had for additions just yet!”
The thing that keeps him climbing is little else than an imagination kept busy by images of the entire Reidarson Clan getting pulled apart by his hounds. As hard as hge tries, he can’t stop himself from remembering that almost all his hounds lay gutted and crushed halfway across the settlement.
The Citadella isn’t usually sealed off to the people of Port Reaver. After all, the pirate port’s heart may be its protected harbour. But its brains is to be found within the fortified island’s walls.
Stefan wonders, following by that logic, what part of the body Von Danling’s Tower may be. After all, most people don’t do well when one of their organs stops working for a generation, so it can’t be a vital one. But Stefan’s limited knowledge of biology -where to bite and scratch when someone catches you with their money in your hands- doesn’t giove him any clues as to organs that make the body magically eat better when they are used.
And speaking of eating better… That has not been a concern of Stefan’s for a while. At some point after starting his work for the wizard, of eating meals more than once a day, the ever-present hunger only occasionally abated by the gruel served at Saint Sissy’s had… Gone away. Which is the reason why he is visiting the fortress.
As observed before, the city guards at the open gates don’t really stop people coming in or out. After all, food needs to enter the barracks’ larders and the king’s personal kitchen, craftsmen and guildsmen need to fix whatsoever they may have been hired to fix, and every captain or man of import in the city has the right to seek audience.
The Citadella is only ever sealed off when the king wills it so, and in a normal day like this one, he obviously doesn't.
One of the guards even recognizes him as the messengers always coming and going from the edge of the jungle, giving Stefan a nod. The man wears the white-red stripped pantaloons that are the guard’s supposed uniform, although -like most- the white of his is more of a creamy color. The other guard’s uniform seems to just be the clothes of a sailor whose not yet used to the idea of being a patroller of streets and not decks. Still, he holds a shield painted with the king’s tusked skull.
That one doesn’t recognize him, but also lets him move through the gatehouse without a single question asked. “That one’s pretty late. He may not get a ration.” The man speaks, still within Stefan’s hearing range. “Doesn’t look like he is in a hurry, either. They are growing used to it, I tell you. When this whole fancy dies, they’ll be twice as annoying when they go back to begging for hardtack.”
“That one’s not here for the stew, idiot.” The first guard chastises. “He’s the warlock’s skivvy. How do you not recognise him?”
“Oh, fuck, really? I thought he was dead. Onslow told me that the warlock had sacrificed him to make the farmers better. Cut his balls off and all, the way the arabyan ones do.”
“Onslow makes a fucked up story every time someone doesn’t show up for two days. Come on Bert, you can’t be that green, we pressganged you like two months ago!”
Stefan continues walking, finding himself amused. The last thing the wizard wants in his magical dealings is the involvement of animals. And what are boys, if not animals?
‘Besides,’ He thinks to himself, remembering yet another conversation overheard on his way here. ‘Ulrich’s crew is still busy dealing with a mutinie in the docks, there’d be more than enough food if I were here for that.’
Which he actually is, here because of food, just not for a straightforward reason.
Stefan makes his way quickly and easily. Even if he weren’t becoming familiar with the castle’s layout, the telltale noises of talking and drinking would guide him. And so would those of gruff pirates mixed with the kickering of…
Kids…
Stefan finds the doors to the cantina meant for the guards’ eating left ajar. There’s reason to keep it closed, as what little seabreeze makes it in staves off the stifling heat of bubbling stew cauldrons and dozens of bodies arranged in long wooden tables and banks.
Closer to the actual kitchens, and the doors leading to the larders and cellars, there are pirates-turned guards drinking and eating, or playing cards, dice and other betting games of skill and luck to kill time until their shift arrives.
But the tables farthest from them, on the opposite corner of the room -a matter of safekeeping the foodstuffs, Stefan had been told- paints a very different picture.
Orphans, street urchins and gutterspines. The same kinds of boys and girls Stefan used to run, steal, swindle and beg with. Eating the same dishes as those ex-corsairs but with twice the gusto and abandon. For some, this would be the only full meal of the day. For others, the first full meal in months.
Stefan’s reward, as asked of the King. That the Citadella’s kitchen would be open to the city’s orphans, as long as they didn’t cause any trouble. The man had grumbled something about costs, but Von Danling had apparently convinced him by way of his predictions of how much the outskirts' farms would produce come next wet season.
Stefan feels…
It feels good.
His gaze pans across their faces. Few are older than him, but even the ones whose names he knows and whose ages are close to his look younger because of the years of missed meals. This doesn’t get them out of Saint Sissy or the even worse places they may sleep in. This doesn’t heal infected cuts or bones broken and mended in the wrong shape. But… But at least they won’t go as hungry anymore.
And that makes Stefan happy.
Happy only, of course, until someone notices him.
Ripface, a spoon stuck in his wrecked mouth, his split uper lip, the scars covering the left side of his mouth and his chipped teeth fully visible and stained by some kind of greenish gruel. And something much worse.
Eyes, eyes wide and open.
The thankful eyes of someone who knows why he’s not so hungry anymore. That Stefan does not like. It makes him unfortoable, specially because, quickly enough, Ripface’s gesturing make others notice him. Soon enough, he’ll be swarmed and-
“Hey, kid, move aside. I have already cracked enough skulls today.” A gruff voice speaks behind him. Stefan turns quickly, and realizes that he’s been blocking the way for a group of eight or so men.
All of them look to have been roughed-up, their clothes rumpled and speckled with blood, their faces and hands showing the signs of punches, both given and received. He even recognizes the man at the head, he’s seen him today already. Seems like Ulrich is done beating up mutinied crews for the day.
“Oh, sure, apologies.” He moves aside, expecting -and hoping- that the new arrivals will block the entrance long enough for Ripface and the others to focus back on their free food.
“Sigmar,” The man grumbles, quickly forgetting him as he enters. “I swear if the King doesn’t revert this fucking law, we’ll be beating people up until the wet season arrives.”
Torfi leaves quickly. Apparently, the king’s decision on how taxes should be paid has made a lot of captains want to make it on their own. Some with deals, others by leaving without a word… And some by trying to take ships by force.
As a show of goodwill, the King has taken to dealing with the latter kind of mutiny in the Lords’ names. So far, Stefan has started seeing new faces among the men sold to work in the farms, the Felldowns and even construction…
But something tells him that cityguards beating men who no longer like being under Lords is going to be far from the worst trouble to come.
Torfi has only ever stepped into the spoke-wheeled and staggered halls of the Highholt once before in his life. But despite that having happened at a much younger age, he immediately realizes that something is wrong the moment he pulls himself over the hill’s edge and into one of the roofed platforms.
Empty.
And his realization only strengthens once he properly steps inside.
The Highholt is empty, fully empty.
“The King makes them climb to…” Torfi wheezes to himself.
‘Does that mean… She makes them stay down? Makes them climb every time she needs them? That’s…’ He mulls over. “Crazy…”
“Crazy… Noooooo… We aren’t crazy…” A voice, echoing and faint, answers-
…
Torfi turns around in place, trying to locate the voice’s source somewhere in the empty halls of the Highholt… And finds absolutely nothing. Which is worse than finding anyone, at this stage.
“Come to us… Little pup…” Another voice speaks up just different enough to be noticeable, but equally as faint and echoey. This time, just slightly more directional. Torfi corrects himself, that is even worse.
The voices come from the structure’s center… From the throne room. And with no other options available other than braving another conversation with Reidarson… He enters it.
The voices become louder and louder, but never actually loud.
“Come to us, Losterikssonson…”
“No… Son of the kennelmaster.”
“We missed you, in our revelry, we had to make do with your beasts.”
“We would like to rectify this mistake…”
“Do not worry… Beast-slaying is beneath us.”
“We much prefer making a loyal hound out of you.”
The further in he walks, the darker the structure becomes. For minutes on end, the voices continue to speak, most of the time directly conflicting things. Some compliment him, others insult him. Some claim to want to skin him, others to reward him for acts he’s not sure he actually is responsible for. And so and so on, until he starts seeing the flickers of oil lamps, one hanging from each post that marks the end of the hallway and the open area of the throne room.
And her.
He’s seen her before, in passing and among crowds. Adella of the Graelings, a woman of severe features and always cloaked in a cape of raven feathers from the cold homeland, her head shaved with the exception of a top-knot decorated with teeth and bones, her hairless face covered in scars of some childhood pox, her gaze severe, but inquisitive. A part of Torfi would have had to admit, under less ruinous circumstances, he’d have been far from surprised to ear of her kingship.
The woman seated upon a throne of driftwood and Lustrian ivory? She is not Adella of the Graelings. Or, more accurately, Adella of the Graelings is gone, and left behind is the real Adella.
The woman rests back, her feathered coat open for the first time Torfi has ever seen. Her body now only hidden behind a leathery corset and a short skirt, open by way of slits at both of her thighs.
Her eyes gaze down on him, shadowed by what could be sooty makeup as easily as unnaturally blackened skin, she seems… Interested.
But Torfi does not return her gaze, his stare is instead focused on all her visible skin. At first, he simply assumed her facial scars to be much more than just facial. But all across her body, wider or narrower, longer or shorter, they glisten like flesh, some big enough to seem on the verge of opening. Opening like…
Lips…
Adella’s body is covered in nascent mouths.
Instantly, Torfi takes a knee. “You… My King.” He corrects himself. “You are blessed by the gods? Chosen?”
“Chosen!? You insult me! I am champion of the Fell Raptor himself!”
“By the Raven God. Yes.” Finally her true… Her original mouth opens and speaks. It sounds just as he remembers her sounding in those fleeting encounters.
“Lap at my feet, pup, for I am goddess to you~”
“And you have kept your gift hidden?”
“Not hidden, for my splendor was for all worthy to see. You whelp.”
“Had I not, Skeggi would have knelt to me without understanding why they ought to.” Her head leans like a bird’s to the side. Surrounding her topknot, a circlet of rusted iron lies upon her head. Losteriksson’s crown, nailed to his skull by his killers.
“I simply had to be careful, for even in Skeggi the southrons seek to deny the true masters.”
“I… See…” Torfi gulps. “You had me summoned.”
“You are a mutt, I called and you came.”
“Indeed…” The woman stands up, her other voices yip, laugh and coo, amused by the movement. “The rest of your family was not making itself easy to trace. But I knew that you, eldest brother, would make yourself seen eventually.”
“How I wished to welcome you as you so deserved…”
Torfi’s breath hitches… His family are hidden. They are alive?
“You are of Skeggi’s inbreed stock. Deny it not.”
“Tell me,” She continues to speak. “You are of Losteriksson’s blood, yes?”
“Your blood is worthy in the eyes of the Gods. It would be an insult for me to ignore it.”
“My… My father was son to one of King Inga’s siblings, yes.”
“Mutts, truly, you will mix with anything that comes to your mudflat.”
“The only one left. Other than Floki Lostsson, of course. But I might as well discount him. If he’s anywhere, he’s either some bones encrusted with fungi, or bones in a beast’s belly.”
“Lostson… How I wish I could have made myself bride to him…”
Floki… Grandson to the dead King… Torfi’s second cousin. A man whose been gone for half a decade in some mission that should have lasted a single raiding season. At least with her judgement of his fate, Torfi can agree. “The formal heir… Yes. But no longer.”
“Are you hound, are you wolf, or are you jackal?”
“No longer, indeed. Tell me, Torfi Ornolfsson, kennel master of Skeggi. Do you thirst for my throne? My crown?”
“Loyalty will only be rewarded. I am worthy, you feel it true.”
“No. I do not.” He answers quickly and curtly. By now, Adella is standing just before his kneeling self. Slowly, he begins to feel her hands upon his head, claws that further mark her as blessed raking down his scalp and pulling him to look up at her.
“I will sample your eyes as the crow does of the dead oxen.”
“Well then. We of Skeggi ought to value actions more than words, should we not?”
“Serve, submit.”
“Ye-yes.” She could kill him right now, so easily. Yet, she lets go.
“YOU WILL FOREVER KNEEL WITH YOUR TAIL BETWEEN YOUR LEGS, HOUND.”
“Then, you shall prove your loyalty to your King.”
“Entertain me, did your master teach you any tricks, puppy?”
“How so?”
“BLOOD, ENOUGH TO DROWN ME.”
“Your father organized hunts for his King and bondsmen. You shall do the same for me.” She explains. “The grandest hunt Skeggi has seen in living memory.”
“How I will reward you, your mind will never be able to conceive.”
“I… I will.” Testingly, Torfi stands up, slowly backing away.
“BEGONE! FILTH!”
“Now, you may go.” She says as she returns to her throne. “I would have you start working… Immediately.”
“I expect great things of you, Kennelmaster~”
Torfi can’t help himself. He bows one last time.
And runs for his life.
The trip back down the King’s Hill add not been easy, but with legs and feet scrapped, a few bruised toes and his back and arse left sore by the necessity to drag himself downwards at times, he’d actually made it to the bottom.
Once there, thankful, he was greeted by no one, his captors clearly not expecting him to come back out anytime soon, or alive. Between that, and the darkness afforded by the setting sun in a place where no one bothers to light torches other than the ones burning at their own thresholds, he makes a quick getaway.
One that soon takes him to the slums. The crossing of which should be his fastest way to the kennels and the attached longhouse. But Torfi is not going back home.
The slums are, as one would expect, the worst part of Skeggi. The structures here are of far smaller size and worst make than the longhouses of the powerful clans, and unlike the supposedly inviting explorer’s and merchant “districts,” here there is no incentive for jakkers or craftsmen to keep their corners clean. Certainly none of the fancy ways of building of foreign-town.
Here, the stilt-raised huts are squat and short, many uneven by way of bad construction or the mudflat’s constant swallowing and sinking.
And yet, here -where one must weave between stilts, as there are no states- Torfi is hoping to find the one plñace other than the kennels where he’s ever felt at home.
Njal’s hut. No larger than all the others, yet the hundreds of charms, gifts and offerings tied to its stilts and hanging from its threshold and the edges of its platform mark it as unique. Most of Skeggi’s viktis live as guests or members of their households. Soren Hoarder and Najl are the only two expectations, and the former seems content with the life of a homeless roamer.
Njal had for years “politely” refused his father’s invitations to join their own household. Refusals that had been justified by a desire not to bother them with the constant coming and going of people hoping to learn something from his dreams. And yet, by virtue of those dreams, the witch likely has the best hut in all of the slums. A low bar to clear, but cleared nonetheless.
Torfi approaches it, crossing paths with other people likewise truing to get to theirs before the darkness made the jakkers unwilling to patrol them, and thus the tugs incapable of finding a jakker gang that would be willing to take them in would come out.
Torfi’s hut is well within view. But the cramped nature of the slums and the sounds of cooking, arguing and talking from inside all the ones he walks under masks whether someone may be inside. Sure, faint light and wisps of smoke come out from it, but that could easily be some food Njal has left cooking while doing Gods-know what else.
That is, until Torfi hears the voices.
For a moment, he freezes, expecting Adella’s many to have caught up with him. Perhaps she has changed her plans for him, and he is to be taken back to the Highholt to fulfil the whims of the raven-touched King.
Then he hears something else.
A bark.
And breaks into a run.
The sounds become louder. The chattering of children, the whimpering and yipping of hounds unhappy at being kept in a cramped hut. The arguing of two voices, tinged with worry and with sorrow.
Torfi climbs up the ladder, the wood digs into his sore feet and he almost slips and breaks his teeth against the platform. But he recovers quikly, and pushes himself through and into the -cramped indeed- hut.
Overhere, Haimiaz and Eistla playing on top of Njal’s cot.
Over there, his mother Groa, whose arguing with Njal has been cut short by his arrival.
And a floor covered in a blanket of half a dozen sarlish hounds.
Torfi tries to leap for his mother, to hug her. Before he can, Torfi tackles him alongside said remainders of his pack.
They are alive.
His family isn’t gone.
There is still a chance.
“To greet the Elector Count of Hochland, I had to bow at the waist ten times along the Great Hall, never making eye contact. To greet the king of Skeggi, I had to climb hand over hand up a rickety staircase. ‘Tis the same always, with Human kings — they want you bent over.”
- Friggen Kaldouttir, Dwarf Veteran.
Base of the King’s Hill, Skeggi, Jungles of Pahualaxa
19th of Haustmánuður, 2545 VR // 40.0.9.16.5 6 Chikchan 18 Yax
19th of Haustmánuður, 2545 VR // 40.0.9.16.5 6 Chikchan 18 Yax
The Reidarson warrior shoves Torfi forwards one last time, sending him stumbling to his knees at the base of the King’s Hill, itself more of a hump growing out of the Scarp that dominates the entirety of Skeggi as its sole point of elevated terrain. The young norscan’s knees sting, as the base of it is scattered with the bones and belongings of those who had tried and failed to climb it over the centuries, cracking their backs or breaking their necks while stumbling down.
Usually, nothing in Skeggi would remain in the open for long without being swallowed by the mud or taken by someone else. But according to most Viktis, dying to the rugl had long been equivalent to sacrificing one’s body to the Gods. And not all Norscans would be willing to make that transgression.
Torfi looks up, it’s the only direction worth looking towards at the base of the Scarp, which leaves him looking at the underside of the structure which is the seat of power, the Highholt, all Kings of Skeggi and Jarls of Lyssa Bay have ruled from since the times of Losteriksson. It would be inaccurate to call it circular, it is more of a broken wheel, with each spoke being a longhouse or some other kind of construction sticking out of the hill’s top, each longer than the others and supported by longer, steeper and less sane stilts.
On top of that, literally, floors have been added to it, each also sporting its own uneven wings, giving the entire structure the look of a smashed pinecone sticking out of the top of a pile of dirty, just many magnitudes larger.
‘No house may be taller or grander than the King’s.’ His father had once told him. And that includes all previous kings, from the current one’s point of view. Torfi can only wonder what expansion Adella my attempt, in order to solidify herself as rightfully superior to Amma.
And, obvious, there’s the distance between himself and the bottom of said structure. A hill of loose coastal sandstone embedded with pebbles and rocks, made brittle by the yearly bartering of storms and the constant digging of the hands and feet of those trying to climb it.
A tumbling-down mess, a rugl indeed. Torfi remembers climbing on his father’s it as a very young kid, before Amma had taken the throne and started holding her feasts in a longhouse at “stilt-level.” A tradition also as old as Skeggi, meant to keep trouble-makers and time-wasters away from the king, their family, their servants and guard. But also one that would force the king to have bondsmen and advisers down below who could be trusted to be delegated upon. Although Torfi feels that last one is more of an inconvenience than something the founder actually would have sought.
Want to have audience with the King? You climb.
Want to kill the king? You climb while arrows and rocks are thrown down at you.
“Come on, start climbing. The King is generous, but she won’t waste her time waiting for your dog-fucking arse much longer.”
Torfi bites back a response, Reidarson is armed and surrounded by clansmen.
Torfi takes a look back as that smiling bastards, then another look up the hill…
And begins to climb.
As expected his boots, meant to handle the jungle terrain, don’t do him much good in a steep hill of loose rock and sand. And after a few stumbles where he only manages to stay in place thanks to digging furrows into the hill with his nails, torfi ckicks them iff his own feet to make use of his bare soles and toes.
Eventually, he gets into a rhythm , slowly and carefully climbing on all fours.
“If it makes you feel better!” Reidarson laughs from bellow -Torfi has barely climbed the height of a tree’s worth of hill- with a teasing tone. “The King’s taken to having even us climb, says it tests our mettle. But don’t worry, we haven’t had time to make the serfs install the ideas she’s had for additions just yet!”
The thing that keeps him climbing is little else than an imagination kept busy by images of the entire Reidarson Clan getting pulled apart by his hounds. As hard as hge tries, he can’t stop himself from remembering that almost all his hounds lay gutted and crushed halfway across the settlement.
The Citadella Upon Re Island, Port Reaver, Settler’s Cove, Isthmus of Lustria
3rd of Brauzeit, 2538 I.C. // 40.0.9.16.5 6 Chikchan 18 Yax
3rd of Brauzeit, 2538 I.C. // 40.0.9.16.5 6 Chikchan 18 Yax
The Citadella isn’t usually sealed off to the people of Port Reaver. After all, the pirate port’s heart may be its protected harbour. But its brains is to be found within the fortified island’s walls.
Stefan wonders, following by that logic, what part of the body Von Danling’s Tower may be. After all, most people don’t do well when one of their organs stops working for a generation, so it can’t be a vital one. But Stefan’s limited knowledge of biology -where to bite and scratch when someone catches you with their money in your hands- doesn’t giove him any clues as to organs that make the body magically eat better when they are used.
And speaking of eating better… That has not been a concern of Stefan’s for a while. At some point after starting his work for the wizard, of eating meals more than once a day, the ever-present hunger only occasionally abated by the gruel served at Saint Sissy’s had… Gone away. Which is the reason why he is visiting the fortress.
As observed before, the city guards at the open gates don’t really stop people coming in or out. After all, food needs to enter the barracks’ larders and the king’s personal kitchen, craftsmen and guildsmen need to fix whatsoever they may have been hired to fix, and every captain or man of import in the city has the right to seek audience.
The Citadella is only ever sealed off when the king wills it so, and in a normal day like this one, he obviously doesn't.
One of the guards even recognizes him as the messengers always coming and going from the edge of the jungle, giving Stefan a nod. The man wears the white-red stripped pantaloons that are the guard’s supposed uniform, although -like most- the white of his is more of a creamy color. The other guard’s uniform seems to just be the clothes of a sailor whose not yet used to the idea of being a patroller of streets and not decks. Still, he holds a shield painted with the king’s tusked skull.
That one doesn’t recognize him, but also lets him move through the gatehouse without a single question asked. “That one’s pretty late. He may not get a ration.” The man speaks, still within Stefan’s hearing range. “Doesn’t look like he is in a hurry, either. They are growing used to it, I tell you. When this whole fancy dies, they’ll be twice as annoying when they go back to begging for hardtack.”
“That one’s not here for the stew, idiot.” The first guard chastises. “He’s the warlock’s skivvy. How do you not recognise him?”
“Oh, fuck, really? I thought he was dead. Onslow told me that the warlock had sacrificed him to make the farmers better. Cut his balls off and all, the way the arabyan ones do.”
“Onslow makes a fucked up story every time someone doesn’t show up for two days. Come on Bert, you can’t be that green, we pressganged you like two months ago!”
Stefan continues walking, finding himself amused. The last thing the wizard wants in his magical dealings is the involvement of animals. And what are boys, if not animals?
‘Besides,’ He thinks to himself, remembering yet another conversation overheard on his way here. ‘Ulrich’s crew is still busy dealing with a mutinie in the docks, there’d be more than enough food if I were here for that.’
Which he actually is, here because of food, just not for a straightforward reason.
Stefan makes his way quickly and easily. Even if he weren’t becoming familiar with the castle’s layout, the telltale noises of talking and drinking would guide him. And so would those of gruff pirates mixed with the kickering of…
Kids…
Stefan finds the doors to the cantina meant for the guards’ eating left ajar. There’s reason to keep it closed, as what little seabreeze makes it in staves off the stifling heat of bubbling stew cauldrons and dozens of bodies arranged in long wooden tables and banks.
Closer to the actual kitchens, and the doors leading to the larders and cellars, there are pirates-turned guards drinking and eating, or playing cards, dice and other betting games of skill and luck to kill time until their shift arrives.
But the tables farthest from them, on the opposite corner of the room -a matter of safekeeping the foodstuffs, Stefan had been told- paints a very different picture.
Orphans, street urchins and gutterspines. The same kinds of boys and girls Stefan used to run, steal, swindle and beg with. Eating the same dishes as those ex-corsairs but with twice the gusto and abandon. For some, this would be the only full meal of the day. For others, the first full meal in months.
Stefan’s reward, as asked of the King. That the Citadella’s kitchen would be open to the city’s orphans, as long as they didn’t cause any trouble. The man had grumbled something about costs, but Von Danling had apparently convinced him by way of his predictions of how much the outskirts' farms would produce come next wet season.
Stefan feels…
It feels good.
His gaze pans across their faces. Few are older than him, but even the ones whose names he knows and whose ages are close to his look younger because of the years of missed meals. This doesn’t get them out of Saint Sissy or the even worse places they may sleep in. This doesn’t heal infected cuts or bones broken and mended in the wrong shape. But… But at least they won’t go as hungry anymore.
And that makes Stefan happy.
Happy only, of course, until someone notices him.
Ripface, a spoon stuck in his wrecked mouth, his split uper lip, the scars covering the left side of his mouth and his chipped teeth fully visible and stained by some kind of greenish gruel. And something much worse.
Eyes, eyes wide and open.
The thankful eyes of someone who knows why he’s not so hungry anymore. That Stefan does not like. It makes him unfortoable, specially because, quickly enough, Ripface’s gesturing make others notice him. Soon enough, he’ll be swarmed and-
“Hey, kid, move aside. I have already cracked enough skulls today.” A gruff voice speaks behind him. Stefan turns quickly, and realizes that he’s been blocking the way for a group of eight or so men.
All of them look to have been roughed-up, their clothes rumpled and speckled with blood, their faces and hands showing the signs of punches, both given and received. He even recognizes the man at the head, he’s seen him today already. Seems like Ulrich is done beating up mutinied crews for the day.
“Oh, sure, apologies.” He moves aside, expecting -and hoping- that the new arrivals will block the entrance long enough for Ripface and the others to focus back on their free food.
“Sigmar,” The man grumbles, quickly forgetting him as he enters. “I swear if the King doesn’t revert this fucking law, we’ll be beating people up until the wet season arrives.”
Torfi leaves quickly. Apparently, the king’s decision on how taxes should be paid has made a lot of captains want to make it on their own. Some with deals, others by leaving without a word… And some by trying to take ships by force.
As a show of goodwill, the King has taken to dealing with the latter kind of mutiny in the Lords’ names. So far, Stefan has started seeing new faces among the men sold to work in the farms, the Felldowns and even construction…
But something tells him that cityguards beating men who no longer like being under Lords is going to be far from the worst trouble to come.
Highholt, Skeggi, Jungles of Pahualaxa
19th of Haustmánuður, 2545 VR // 40.0.9.16.5 6 Chikchan 18 Yax
19th of Haustmánuður, 2545 VR // 40.0.9.16.5 6 Chikchan 18 Yax
Torfi has only ever stepped into the spoke-wheeled and staggered halls of the Highholt once before in his life. But despite that having happened at a much younger age, he immediately realizes that something is wrong the moment he pulls himself over the hill’s edge and into one of the roofed platforms.
Empty.
And his realization only strengthens once he properly steps inside.
The Highholt is empty, fully empty.
“The King makes them climb to…” Torfi wheezes to himself.
‘Does that mean… She makes them stay down? Makes them climb every time she needs them? That’s…’ He mulls over. “Crazy…”
…
Torfi turns around in place, trying to locate the voice’s source somewhere in the empty halls of the Highholt… And finds absolutely nothing. Which is worse than finding anyone, at this stage.
The voices come from the structure’s center… From the throne room. And with no other options available other than braving another conversation with Reidarson… He enters it.
The voices become louder and louder, but never actually loud.
The further in he walks, the darker the structure becomes. For minutes on end, the voices continue to speak, most of the time directly conflicting things. Some compliment him, others insult him. Some claim to want to skin him, others to reward him for acts he’s not sure he actually is responsible for. And so and so on, until he starts seeing the flickers of oil lamps, one hanging from each post that marks the end of the hallway and the open area of the throne room.
And her.
He’s seen her before, in passing and among crowds. Adella of the Graelings, a woman of severe features and always cloaked in a cape of raven feathers from the cold homeland, her head shaved with the exception of a top-knot decorated with teeth and bones, her hairless face covered in scars of some childhood pox, her gaze severe, but inquisitive. A part of Torfi would have had to admit, under less ruinous circumstances, he’d have been far from surprised to ear of her kingship.
The woman seated upon a throne of driftwood and Lustrian ivory? She is not Adella of the Graelings. Or, more accurately, Adella of the Graelings is gone, and left behind is the real Adella.
The woman rests back, her feathered coat open for the first time Torfi has ever seen. Her body now only hidden behind a leathery corset and a short skirt, open by way of slits at both of her thighs.
Her eyes gaze down on him, shadowed by what could be sooty makeup as easily as unnaturally blackened skin, she seems… Interested.
But Torfi does not return her gaze, his stare is instead focused on all her visible skin. At first, he simply assumed her facial scars to be much more than just facial. But all across her body, wider or narrower, longer or shorter, they glisten like flesh, some big enough to seem on the verge of opening. Opening like…
Lips…
Adella’s body is covered in nascent mouths.
Adella of the Thousand Mouths.
King of Skeggi, Jarl of Lyssa Bay.
King of Skeggi, Jarl of Lyssa Bay.
Instantly, Torfi takes a knee. “You… My King.” He corrects himself. “You are blessed by the gods? Chosen?”
“By the Raven God. Yes.” Finally her true… Her original mouth opens and speaks. It sounds just as he remembers her sounding in those fleeting encounters.
“And you have kept your gift hidden?”
“Had I not, Skeggi would have knelt to me without understanding why they ought to.” Her head leans like a bird’s to the side. Surrounding her topknot, a circlet of rusted iron lies upon her head. Losteriksson’s crown, nailed to his skull by his killers.
“I… See…” Torfi gulps. “You had me summoned.”
“Indeed…” The woman stands up, her other voices yip, laugh and coo, amused by the movement. “The rest of your family was not making itself easy to trace. But I knew that you, eldest brother, would make yourself seen eventually.”
“How I wished to welcome you as you so deserved…”
Torfi’s breath hitches… His family are hidden. They are alive?
“Tell me,” She continues to speak. “You are of Losteriksson’s blood, yes?”
“My… My father was son to one of King Inga’s siblings, yes.”
“The only one left. Other than Floki Lostsson, of course. But I might as well discount him. If he’s anywhere, he’s either some bones encrusted with fungi, or bones in a beast’s belly.”
Floki… Grandson to the dead King… Torfi’s second cousin. A man whose been gone for half a decade in some mission that should have lasted a single raiding season. At least with her judgement of his fate, Torfi can agree. “The formal heir… Yes. But no longer.”
“No longer, indeed. Tell me, Torfi Ornolfsson, kennel master of Skeggi. Do you thirst for my throne? My crown?”
“No. I do not.” He answers quickly and curtly. By now, Adella is standing just before his kneeling self. Slowly, he begins to feel her hands upon his head, claws that further mark her as blessed raking down his scalp and pulling him to look up at her.
“Well then. We of Skeggi ought to value actions more than words, should we not?”
“Ye-yes.” She could kill him right now, so easily. Yet, she lets go.
“Then, you shall prove your loyalty to your King.”
“How so?”
“Your father organized hunts for his King and bondsmen. You shall do the same for me.” She explains. “The grandest hunt Skeggi has seen in living memory.”
“I… I will.” Testingly, Torfi stands up, slowly backing away.
“Now, you may go.” She says as she returns to her throne. “I would have you start working… Immediately.”
Torfi can’t help himself. He bows one last time.
And runs for his life.
Slums of Skeggi, Jarldom of Lyssa Bay, Jungles of Pahualaxa
The trip back down the King’s Hill add not been easy, but with legs and feet scrapped, a few bruised toes and his back and arse left sore by the necessity to drag himself downwards at times, he’d actually made it to the bottom.
Once there, thankful, he was greeted by no one, his captors clearly not expecting him to come back out anytime soon, or alive. Between that, and the darkness afforded by the setting sun in a place where no one bothers to light torches other than the ones burning at their own thresholds, he makes a quick getaway.
One that soon takes him to the slums. The crossing of which should be his fastest way to the kennels and the attached longhouse. But Torfi is not going back home.
The slums are, as one would expect, the worst part of Skeggi. The structures here are of far smaller size and worst make than the longhouses of the powerful clans, and unlike the supposedly inviting explorer’s and merchant “districts,” here there is no incentive for jakkers or craftsmen to keep their corners clean. Certainly none of the fancy ways of building of foreign-town.
Here, the stilt-raised huts are squat and short, many uneven by way of bad construction or the mudflat’s constant swallowing and sinking.
And yet, here -where one must weave between stilts, as there are no states- Torfi is hoping to find the one plñace other than the kennels where he’s ever felt at home.
Njal’s hut. No larger than all the others, yet the hundreds of charms, gifts and offerings tied to its stilts and hanging from its threshold and the edges of its platform mark it as unique. Most of Skeggi’s viktis live as guests or members of their households. Soren Hoarder and Najl are the only two expectations, and the former seems content with the life of a homeless roamer.
Njal had for years “politely” refused his father’s invitations to join their own household. Refusals that had been justified by a desire not to bother them with the constant coming and going of people hoping to learn something from his dreams. And yet, by virtue of those dreams, the witch likely has the best hut in all of the slums. A low bar to clear, but cleared nonetheless.
Torfi approaches it, crossing paths with other people likewise truing to get to theirs before the darkness made the jakkers unwilling to patrol them, and thus the tugs incapable of finding a jakker gang that would be willing to take them in would come out.
Torfi’s hut is well within view. But the cramped nature of the slums and the sounds of cooking, arguing and talking from inside all the ones he walks under masks whether someone may be inside. Sure, faint light and wisps of smoke come out from it, but that could easily be some food Njal has left cooking while doing Gods-know what else.
That is, until Torfi hears the voices.
For a moment, he freezes, expecting Adella’s many to have caught up with him. Perhaps she has changed her plans for him, and he is to be taken back to the Highholt to fulfil the whims of the raven-touched King.
Then he hears something else.
A bark.
And breaks into a run.
The sounds become louder. The chattering of children, the whimpering and yipping of hounds unhappy at being kept in a cramped hut. The arguing of two voices, tinged with worry and with sorrow.
Torfi climbs up the ladder, the wood digs into his sore feet and he almost slips and breaks his teeth against the platform. But he recovers quikly, and pushes himself through and into the -cramped indeed- hut.
Overhere, Haimiaz and Eistla playing on top of Njal’s cot.
Over there, his mother Groa, whose arguing with Njal has been cut short by his arrival.
And a floor covered in a blanket of half a dozen sarlish hounds.
Torfi tries to leap for his mother, to hug her. Before he can, Torfi tackles him alongside said remainders of his pack.
They are alive.
His family isn’t gone.
There is still a chance.
Temple Guard
Mr.Crocodile
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While Adella had already been part of the story up to this point, I consider the chapter you just read to be her true introduction.
I can take no credit for her illustration or character concept, as both come from the pages of WHFRP's 5th Edition Lustria book.
A lot of what you are going to read as HotOO continues will come from that book, as its the first deeper exploration of Lustria or the Lizardmen we have gotten since... 2012!?
I hope you enjoyed the story and I honestly appreciate all and any kudos or comments you may be gracious enough to gift me! And in case any of you are interested, here's the link to my Discord server, where I discuss my projects and all are welcome
It would be great if, if you enjoyed the story that is, you took a second of your time to go over to ao3 and left a kudo and a comment over there, since it is my main posting site.
I can take no credit for her illustration or character concept, as both come from the pages of WHFRP's 5th Edition Lustria book.
A lot of what you are going to read as HotOO continues will come from that book, as its the first deeper exploration of Lustria or the Lizardmen we have gotten since... 2012!?
I hope you enjoyed the story and I honestly appreciate all and any kudos or comments you may be gracious enough to gift me! And in case any of you are interested, here's the link to my Discord server, where I discuss my projects and all are welcome
It would be great if, if you enjoyed the story that is, you took a second of your time to go over to ao3 and left a kudo and a comment over there, since it is my main posting site.
Temple Guard
Mr.Crocodile
Well-Known Member
- Messages
- 234
- Likes Received
- 525
- Trophy Points
- 93
What Are Thrones Made Of? - Part III: Conversations on the Edge
"The observations in Corenzo's logbook suggest the coatl is a beast of some intelligence, wondrous and ancient -- a mystery even to the lizard-folk themselves."
“Does the wonderment ever cease?” Asks Roland, his legs dangling over the edge.
“It has not for me, that is certain, Warm-blood.” Answers Skink Chief Itza-Uax, a very recent new acquaintance who had graciously invited Roland to share his food and his cohort’s communal encampment. With little reason other than recognition of those traveling between Pahuax and Hexoatl making mention of the Xho’za’khanx Herald to the Mage-Lord of Pahuax.
“How far down it have you traveled?”
“We once spent a particularly harsh dry season camped in one of the temples carved into the wall, three days of travel down. I was still just a Brave at the time, and travelled for thirty days down the escarpments. At such depth there’s no longer anything larger than insects crawling around the walls, and the midday sun is little more than a diminutive sliver of white light upon a false sky. The cold would have killed me, had our expedition not been guarded by priestly libations to Chotec. ”
Roland’s answer comes in little more than wide eyes and an amazed hum. The expression must feel alien to the Skink, since such an emotion would only be shown through stillness in a reptilian face. But Roland’s attention remains glued to the sight before and below him.
The Infinity Chasm, yet another mark left upon the world by the passing of the Old Ones: A chasm about fifteen leagues in length and wider than Pahuax’ footprint on average, let alone at its widest stretch.
And yet, its length is the least relevant fact about it.
For its name is accurate.
The Infinity Chasm is bottomless. Not of a bottom too deep to be reached without becoming trapped in the process, but literally bottomless. The result of one of many battles during the Great Catastrophe. According to the stories, Roland remembers as he watches Tlahui dip in and out of the darkness below, one of many demonic hosts that had come to besiege Hexoatl -likely one that had avoided the conflagration of Pahuax- had been met by Mage-Lord Ixachicatlan during their march.
Aided by a host of feathered serpents the First-Generation Slann had called upon Axlberyn-The-Firmament and dragged a gash of the endless void into just under the filthying feet of the daemonic parade.
It had been swallowed, and so had been the one who had ripped into the world to protect it, and most of those who had aided him.
Most, but not all.
“I would invite you to travel with us to the abode of master Xa’Qua the Vengeance, for he is an emissary of both Sotek and Tepoc, and his wisdom could surely aid in your mission.” The Skink speaks of his master, the last Coatl of the chasm, and the guardian who keeps it from collapsing or growing both.
“And I thank that invitation.” Roland bows, his bare feet continuing to dangle over the edge, his bare chest feeling the constant yet subtle pull of its emptiness and cold. For a second, he considers what it would feel like to stand up and step off it. But he doubts he’d be the first or last living thing to engage such morbid curiosity. Besides, his life still has its utility.
“But,” He continues to speak. “That would be dereliction of my mission, to willingly delay it even for theoretical gains. Besides, I would have to offer one of your animal sacrifices as my own, and I am not deserving of such hospitality.”
“That is, precisely, why it is hospitality.” The Skink admonishes with little bite. “But your logic is sound, and you must commit yourself as we do to Vengeance's service. Still, allow my cohort to fill your waterskin and share some viands, this land is not familiar to you, is it?”
“I have never travelled this far north, no. For most of my life the Macu Peaks have been a distant feature in the horizon, not…”
“Not home, as they are to us.” The Skink completes. Roland can do nothing but acquiesce. He will need the supplies if he doesn’t want to have to stop to gather, fish or hunt every single day of the trip ahead, doubling its length.
Instead, Roland goes back to taking in the landscape. Beyond the scar of darkness cutting across the Isthmus before him starts the immensity of the Macu Peaks, a mountain massif so tall that its peaks are dusted in snow all year round, tall enough that Roland needs to crane his neck back to take them all in.
A spark of memory comes to him. Of lessons, maybe under Elder Prakesh-to, maybe under some other scholar, but certainly not under Scar-Veteran Nakor for the teaching had been far too clinical. He’d been made to memorize the names of each of the peaks and to recognize them by sight, something much harder for him than the learning of Saurian or of the beasts of the land and sky…
But something Elma had excelled at.
‘She would have loved to see everything here...’ He mourns for a moment before he remembers that they both are to play their roles. ‘Still, I wonder how she is doing. I have never been sent on tasks back-to-back, so she’s likely expecting me to be returning with the army…’
Tlahui once more becomes visible as he ascends up the chasms’ depths, feathers iridescent against a devouring darkness. It is a testament to its depth how slowly he seems to do so, when the truth is more a matter of scale. Once the carrion bird does arrive, it instantly flaps and waddles its way to Roland’s side. Expecting to share in some of the offered food.
‘Itzl…’ Roland counties to mull. ‘I miss her. I hope Barra and the rest of the saved ones aren’t giving her too much trouble.’
“Roland… I swear to all the Old Ones… I’m going to kick your ass so hard you’ll be tasting my toes for an entire rotation of the Sacred Round!” Swears the woman, loudly enough that everyone else standing on top of the mighty stone structure that is one of Pahuax’s six gates gets to hear her clearly.
Among them are Zidna and Jakob, who watch on too astonished to try and parse what the woman might have said, which would be a challenge considering that neither of them speaks a lick of any of the dialects of Saurian spoken in the city.
Still, they can very easily guess why the woman is so upset, considering the unbelievable sight before them. At first, they had been alerted by the sound of blowing horns and constant drums, then, by the almost synchronized way in which the lizardmen coming and going through the part of the city that was “for” the humans.
Zidna would have much rather used the window of opportunity offered by the distraction to find some way out of the city that wouldn't involve getting eaten in the jungles. Or at least to make or steal some weapon that could replace her long-snapped skewer. But Jakob, grabbing at the healed stump where his right hand had once been, had instead looked at her, anxiously excited.
In the end, the older girl gives in, like she always does.
The sight that had greeted them at the city’s outskirts had been a terrifying one. Indeed, a literal army of Lizardmen had arrived to the city, headed by over-decorated and hulking warriors with rotting and flensed skulls decorating their bodies, and by war beasts carrying all sorts of plunder. After them, if still flanked by rows of spear-wielding warriors, had come multiple files of…
For the first time in their lives, many of the humans and homely Lizardmen of Pahuax behold the dreaded Druchii. Of course, they aren’t exactly dread-inspiring right now. These ones are half-naked, with bleeding feet and burned backs, manacled to each other by rusted iron manacles or with their backs bent by simple yokes. They all also seem filthy, many with their lithe complexions having been turned bony by hunger. There can’t be much more than a hundred of them, and yet among a sea of lizards with blue scales painted the colors of fire and ash, they absolutely stand out like the wights they are.
For a moment Zidna pities them, then she remembers what they are. When Jakob asks what they are or what might happen to them, she elects not to answer him.
Finally arrives the gross of the army, its baggage train and many foot-lizards.
And trailing after them… Skittish and unsure…
Humans, adult humans. Hundreds of them and in far from as bad of a shape as the dark elves. That doesn’t mean they look good, far from it. Zidna sees many with wounds, and not particularly well cared-for wounds. Limping or grabbing onto cuts and bruises. They also look tired, and hungry, just not to the point that she would have worried about having to fight them off if she had been back in Swamp Town. They lack that stare of desperation she’s become so good at finding, the kind that makes children act like adults, and adults act like animals.
Something tells her that the Lizardmen wouldn’t be happy to see humans killing each other for chunks of hard bread in their city. And she makes a mental note not to chance seeing how they would deal with it.
If the elves had been stoic or even defiant, the people look, collectively, to be struck by a mix of apprehension and amazement. The individual faces she inspects run a gamut from the horrified to the worshipful.
“They have taken them from the elves.” She says.
“Freed them, like us?” Jakob, mouth agape, manages to say.
“No.” She corrects, but doesn’t specify that both question and assertion are wrong.
‘They have taken them for the same reason they took us.’ She surmises to herself. ‘They want more slaves.’
The army disperses into the city with staggering efficiency, as if every single small or great reptilian beastman knew exactly where to go to rest, or where to deposit what. Soon enough, the army has dissolved into the city’s population. Zidna guesses that there probably wasn’t a distinction to begin with.
But the humans…
They remain at the city’s threshold, in the stone-paved road just outside the city, watching with fear and with no cold-blooded rearguard to bring them forward, they stare as the walls and buildings closest to the city’s edge become crowded with more and more reptiles, and the few dozens of Swamp Town’s orphans become specs among the hundreds of children and young adults who already dress and speak like false lizards.
Behind them, in the alien city that wakes up every morning covered in a dusting of ash, energies begin to rouse in the same way Zidna would see Swamp Town’s over-crawl become active whenever some moron arrived from the Old World babbling about his wealth or from the jungles while proclaiming his success.
‘Just less drunken rapists and more drunken maneaters, I guess.’
Still, the people out there beyond the walls can’t stay there forever, and so eventually one of the runty lizardmen comes up to the woman -Elma- who gives orders to Barra and commands some level of respect when dealing with the reptiles.
‘Just like in the farms back home. Even among the slaves some would do the whipping instead of getting the whip.’
What follows is a short and angry conversation. At least from the woman’s side, Zidna can’t tell anything from the reptile’s own body language beyond that it probably isn’t actually invested in what is going on.
Then she steps forwards, going from being on top of the gate to being on top of the gate, there for all those frightened and confused people to see.
“Greeting, you who have been liberated from the chains of the Fallen Second Race. My name is Elma Welser-Nakor, and you should know that I am sister by blood and creed to the one who saved you. Who had the saurus and skinks of an entire army feed and protect you. Who, like all you see before you,” She waves around to both the human youths and gathered beasts. “Serves the covenant of this city, its Mage-Lord and a covenant greater than us all.”
‘She can’t believe that’s going to convince any of them to give up-’
“Much like you,” She starts again, something heavy in her voice, if Zidna didn’t know better, she’d think the woman to be speaking earnestly. “I arrived in this city broken, by parents taken from me by repugnant beasts like the ones who now line our gallows. Here, I was healed. Here, I was fed. I was taught to read and write in all tongues I could find tutors in. I have been given fair recompense for hard work, and never have I been punished with an empty stomach or a bare cot. Before you stand Pahuax, the City of Ash, enter it, and you will be shown no less hospitality than I was as a child.”
Jakob moves closer to her, instinctively, Zidna wraps her arm around his shoulders. ‘A well-fed slave is still a slave. This is why we chose the undercrawl.’
But of course, the host before them have no choice. Either they enter the city, or they die in the jungles.
It starts with a young woman, her skin made tan by years working under the sun. Soon, others follow, men and women, younger and older. Lonely or clinging to each other. But no children, no old hags or churls.
Just a workforce, transplanted.
“I hope the fucking fallen have broken them enough.” Zidna catches herself hearing muttering as Elma walks by them on her way to the ground level. “Otherwise I’m going to have to juggle so much shit. Roland, you fucking idiot.”
Theoretically, it is not allowed for the Pirate Lords who make up the King’s Council to meet upon the rock without inviting the King to join them. Thankfully, they are all of a demographic well known to only care about the upholding of the laws of men when it suits them.
No wonder they so readily take to politics when conditions allow for them to do so.
Case in point, there are supposedly four Pirate Lords who hold seats of power in Port Reaver’s council. Which to begin with ignores the rising authority commanded by one unexpectedly alive “Captain-in-Chief” Billings, who by now meets all the conditions one should to demand a seat upon the rock, yet seems satisfied enough with the rumors of his arrangements for bi-monthly meetings with the king.
Another important detail is that, while there are only four thrones arranged around the table -with the King’s missing- there in fact are five people in the room. Closest to the room’s sole and narrow sea-facing window, they remain still.
Seated upon their thrones rest the freshly shaved Pirate Lord Dubosc, the incensed-looking Pirate Lord Geffray Favieres, and the impassive Pirate Lady Serena.
And then there’s the throne which should belong by all rights to the slave-taking Arabyan Lord, Salhi Hamidou. Very recently, news reached the New World of the man’s unfortunate passing. Apparently, he had been killed in battle with a rival somewhere in the Sorcerer’s Islands, back in his homeland and near the piratical stronghold that is the Bay of Corsairs. The news of who had done the deed had not actually reached them across the Ocean, which many had taken to mean it was all a lie.
But the truth shown in the room is that Captain Al-Isar, one of his inner circle, had reported it so and immediately taken control of half of his fleet on this side of the Ocean. There had been no formal handover through King Bastjan. But since Al-Isar could easily be proven a liar, or an usurped truth-teller, within the following weeks, none had seen a point to it.
What is certain is that he is the one with the weakest position of them all, even knowing that all their positions have been weakened by recent events.
“So… I take none of us are willing to share exactly how much damage Geffray’s goblin-brained scheme has hurt us?” Speaks up Dubosc, breaking the awkward silence in the most inflammatory way possible.
“Je t'emmerde!” Suddenly stands up the Bretonnian. “I will hang you from my bowsprint as I sail through a coral reef! Ta mère la pute!”
“He is not insulting you by stating the obvious, m’lord.” Dares speak up the Arabyan in their midsts. “You should have consulted your fellows at the very least, they may have found a way to destabilize Billing’s bid. Instead, every day more captains and crews join his petty council. Soon, he’ll have out-hulled any one of us.”
“Bah!” The Bretonnian seethes again. “He failed already with the same plan, how should I have expected that le Cochon would be a bad-enough of a Pirate King to accept his idiotic idea.”
“Because,” Finally speaks up the most silent of their midsts, the corsair Serena. “We have ignored the truth for far too long.”
“And what may that be?” Dubosc speaks up again, still mulling his own lost crews -and thus, revenues- as he raises his gaze to her.
“That Bastjan Borġ does not wish to be a pirate, king or sailor.” Speaks their guest, resting by the window and listening in as the waves lap at the rocky scraps that surround the lonely fort. “That he will not honor trident nor shark, that he wants to end the natural order of things in this wild continent and replace it with the stagnant statesmanship of the Old World.”
“You mean-?” Geffray goes to speak.
“He wants to end the age of the Pirate Kings, just as the Tileans once sought to in Sartosa. He feeds the orphans instead of letting them fend and feed themselves. He takes sailors and turns them into footmen and bureaucrats. We should have seen the truth when he tried to turn an entire quarter of Port Reaver into a home for Bretonnian investors and exporters, but the flames -as cleansing as they were- hid the truth with their smoke. Perhaps he was always like this, or perhaps that warlock has filled his mind with the pollens and molds of his kind. It does not matter. He will continue to build his walls and invest in his farms. And under your eyes, he will build a city that will trade with the colonies instead of take from them.”
“Those are grave accusations,” Sentences Serena. “Abbess.”
For indee, Sister Baħar stands among them, having been smuggled to the Council Rock in a breach of laws much more severe than even the slighting of the King.
“They are not unfounded, for our gods have spoken to me. They have spoken to me, to await, as I have given Bastjan years to prove his worthiness in their eyes, to behold, and see with mine own eyes, as you have, how he intends to bend us into unnatural civilization. And to teach…”
For a moment, they all remain stunned, for a vision from any God would make an entire war-fleet stop against the currents, let alone one spoken by their highest representative in the New World.
“Teach?”
“Teach him a lesson.”
“That we will do.” Dubosc speaks up, looking around once more. “Then we are in agreement, we will work together.” He throws as stern of a stare as he can in the older Bretonnian Lord’s direction. “And to pool our means in making this city remember what it is. After that… After that, he or she who is naturally fit will rise, as has always been the case.”
All agree, although only Al-Isar does so vocally, likely trying to assert himself.
“And how, exactly, will we do that?” Geffray still finds a way to be a contrarian. “As her holiness has eloquently put, he is re-shaping Port Reaver into, what? An Imperial port? A tilean mercantile republic? The more he tries, the more people will be fooled into siding with him. And then there’s the citadel and that guard of his he’s hedged his bets on. And the wizard.”
“No, it will not be easy.” The cultist speaks up again. “But hardship is our lifeblood, the Gods are on our side, and the night is long…”
“Simply fascinating, my friend, you must tell me more of these traditions around this hill of yours. Otherwise I would have assumed it to be nothing other than a defensive feature!” The man, who speaks with a staggering speed despite his clear unfamiliarity with Skeggi’s Norscan pidgin, continues writing in a diary with a corner that seems to have simply rotted off.
The Eureka Tavern would never be Torfi’s first choice of meeting point with Njal. But a long time has passed since he made his original assessment of the place. Years ago, he remembers, his father had been hired as a huntsman and guide to a group of Estalians seeking aid for an expedition inland. And Torfi had been allowed, thanks to his childhood ability to be a yapper, to follow him to the agreed-upon meeting point.
The tavern might be as attached as his home in the kennels is -had been, he forlornly reminds himself- but said attachment point is on the almost-opposite side of Skeggi, where the stockade meets the western end of its perimeter at the sea, and surrounding Foreign Town.
The Eureka had been, as many would say, “built by Tileans and taken by Estalians”, and boyhood Torfi had found himself surrounded by people off-puttingly comfortable with the blazing sun, loud and faster-speaking than any human ought to be, disgustingly friendly and with a feverish interest in “oro y plata.”
Today, however, it is a welcome respite. Everywhere else in Skeggi seems to have been taken over by… By a mania Torfi feels quite confident he knows the root of. Every morning the settlement wakes up to news of some newly-formed jakker gang showing up, made up of the two which collapsed the previous night. The smell of fires has become as strong as those of the mired docks, as without a fault some longhouse or workshop goes up in flames every day.
‘She’s turning things upside down…’
And Torfi can’t even fault her for it. No more than he can fault his dogs for wanting to hunt, or himself for wanting to eat. But that doesn’t mean he has to be happy about it, just as he wouldn't be happy to be stung by a scorpion.
‘Still, it would be nice to at least know if there is some design to it… Has Skeggi ever had a Chosen King?’ As far as he knew, it never had. The Gods didn’t seem too concerned with the ongoings of the New World, and all those touched by their power he has ever heard of had come to Lustria after already becoming renowned.
And against that, what can he do? He’s a dogless kennelmaster who has to drink and buy from among the foreigners of Skeggi, for not even Adella seems crazy enough to touch the imports and revenue brought in by Estalians, Imperials and others.
Skeggi can’t feed itself without buying from southrons. But you can't buy that food without southron coin. And what use could the raven have for a dead jungle-side village?
And talking of southron coin. Torfi takes another swig from the mug he hasn’t had to pay for.
“Now, tell me, this friend of yours. A witch you say? I am not familiar with women who cavort with chaos, as the practice has been successfully eradicated in my homeland, but I would love to hear from her.”
“Him.”
“Mh?”
“Njal, my friend, is a man just like us, Señor Gazal.”
“Ah, a warlock then. I am still learning your language. Apologies, my young friend.”
“No, he’s a witch. Just like how our king is a woman and not a reina.” Torofi scoffs. “I don’t understand why your people are obsessed with coming up with extra words when they aren’t needed.”
“Maybe,” a voice starts them both. “It’s because they speak so fast they need to make new words up to keep their mouths moving.”
“Njal, hello, this is-” Torfi tries to recover his aloof posture against the wall, and mostly fails.
“Dudo Gazal,” The Estalian offers his hand for Njal to shake, which the Estalian happily answers. “I have come to Skeggi after hearing much of it in the docks of Diamanterra, where I hail from.”
“And what do you hope to find among us, eastern friend?” Njal, as usual, follows the man along for his own bemusement.
“I hope to compile a history of Norscan explorations of this land. Of which Skeggi is pivotal, as you must already know. Young master Torfi has already corrected many of my assumptions, and he made it clear you, as a person renowned amongst your kind, could offer me a wider picture?”
Njal turns to Torfi, speaking in a much more closed dialect. “What’s he going on about?”
“I don’t know, the storytellers already know all the things worth remembering. But he promised all the food and drink I wanted for as long as I answer his questions. And that’s a mouth less for us two and mother to worry about.”
“Fair enough, any luck with… With setting the hunt up?” Worry suddenly tinges Njal’s eyes, which in turn brings down Torfi’s mood and is even picked up by the confused foreigner.
“A third of the hunters and trappers I know are out. Another third are dead. And the last third won’t talk to me. How about you, any dreams about… us?”
“They are sparser than usual. And either too vague or about the people who have been making offerings since I came back… Sorry…”
“Don’t worry, you already help too much.”
“Bullshit… But…” The witch turns around and slams his palms against the tavern’s counter. “Hey, I’ll be having what the one who smells like a dog is having.” Then, almost as fast, he turns around and gives the Estalian what he wants. “Questions, uh? I happen to answer those as a way of life. So I’m all ears and all tongues, my friend.”
And as Torfi becomes obsolete to the conversation, his mind can only wander back to the issue that has been monopolizing his mind for days now.
How is he going to set up a hunt for Adella that won’t just be a way for her to have fun while killing him?
And another question too, from a voice deeper in his mind that he does not want to acknowledge, for it may not be his to begin with.
‘And how do I get her killed along the way?
"The observations in Corenzo's logbook suggest the coatl is a beast of some intelligence, wondrous and ancient -- a mystery even to the lizard-folk themselves."
— High Priestess Stalmetz of Carroburg.
The Infinity Chasm, Jungles of Pahualaxa, Isthmus of Lustria
40.0.9.16.7 8 Manik’ 0 Sak
40.0.9.16.7 8 Manik’ 0 Sak
“Does the wonderment ever cease?” Asks Roland, his legs dangling over the edge.
“It has not for me, that is certain, Warm-blood.” Answers Skink Chief Itza-Uax, a very recent new acquaintance who had graciously invited Roland to share his food and his cohort’s communal encampment. With little reason other than recognition of those traveling between Pahuax and Hexoatl making mention of the Xho’za’khanx Herald to the Mage-Lord of Pahuax.
“How far down it have you traveled?”
“We once spent a particularly harsh dry season camped in one of the temples carved into the wall, three days of travel down. I was still just a Brave at the time, and travelled for thirty days down the escarpments. At such depth there’s no longer anything larger than insects crawling around the walls, and the midday sun is little more than a diminutive sliver of white light upon a false sky. The cold would have killed me, had our expedition not been guarded by priestly libations to Chotec. ”
Roland’s answer comes in little more than wide eyes and an amazed hum. The expression must feel alien to the Skink, since such an emotion would only be shown through stillness in a reptilian face. But Roland’s attention remains glued to the sight before and below him.
The Infinity Chasm, yet another mark left upon the world by the passing of the Old Ones: A chasm about fifteen leagues in length and wider than Pahuax’ footprint on average, let alone at its widest stretch.
And yet, its length is the least relevant fact about it.
For its name is accurate.
The Infinity Chasm is bottomless. Not of a bottom too deep to be reached without becoming trapped in the process, but literally bottomless. The result of one of many battles during the Great Catastrophe. According to the stories, Roland remembers as he watches Tlahui dip in and out of the darkness below, one of many demonic hosts that had come to besiege Hexoatl -likely one that had avoided the conflagration of Pahuax- had been met by Mage-Lord Ixachicatlan during their march.
Aided by a host of feathered serpents the First-Generation Slann had called upon Axlberyn-The-Firmament and dragged a gash of the endless void into just under the filthying feet of the daemonic parade.
It had been swallowed, and so had been the one who had ripped into the world to protect it, and most of those who had aided him.
Most, but not all.
“I would invite you to travel with us to the abode of master Xa’Qua the Vengeance, for he is an emissary of both Sotek and Tepoc, and his wisdom could surely aid in your mission.” The Skink speaks of his master, the last Coatl of the chasm, and the guardian who keeps it from collapsing or growing both.
“And I thank that invitation.” Roland bows, his bare feet continuing to dangle over the edge, his bare chest feeling the constant yet subtle pull of its emptiness and cold. For a second, he considers what it would feel like to stand up and step off it. But he doubts he’d be the first or last living thing to engage such morbid curiosity. Besides, his life still has its utility.
“But,” He continues to speak. “That would be dereliction of my mission, to willingly delay it even for theoretical gains. Besides, I would have to offer one of your animal sacrifices as my own, and I am not deserving of such hospitality.”
“That is, precisely, why it is hospitality.” The Skink admonishes with little bite. “But your logic is sound, and you must commit yourself as we do to Vengeance's service. Still, allow my cohort to fill your waterskin and share some viands, this land is not familiar to you, is it?”
“I have never travelled this far north, no. For most of my life the Macu Peaks have been a distant feature in the horizon, not…”
“Not home, as they are to us.” The Skink completes. Roland can do nothing but acquiesce. He will need the supplies if he doesn’t want to have to stop to gather, fish or hunt every single day of the trip ahead, doubling its length.
Instead, Roland goes back to taking in the landscape. Beyond the scar of darkness cutting across the Isthmus before him starts the immensity of the Macu Peaks, a mountain massif so tall that its peaks are dusted in snow all year round, tall enough that Roland needs to crane his neck back to take them all in.
A spark of memory comes to him. Of lessons, maybe under Elder Prakesh-to, maybe under some other scholar, but certainly not under Scar-Veteran Nakor for the teaching had been far too clinical. He’d been made to memorize the names of each of the peaks and to recognize them by sight, something much harder for him than the learning of Saurian or of the beasts of the land and sky…
But something Elma had excelled at.
‘She would have loved to see everything here...’ He mourns for a moment before he remembers that they both are to play their roles. ‘Still, I wonder how she is doing. I have never been sent on tasks back-to-back, so she’s likely expecting me to be returning with the army…’
Tlahui once more becomes visible as he ascends up the chasms’ depths, feathers iridescent against a devouring darkness. It is a testament to its depth how slowly he seems to do so, when the truth is more a matter of scale. Once the carrion bird does arrive, it instantly flaps and waddles its way to Roland’s side. Expecting to share in some of the offered food.
‘Itzl…’ Roland counties to mull. ‘I miss her. I hope Barra and the rest of the saved ones aren’t giving her too much trouble.’
Theozil Gate, Pahuax - The City of Ash, Isthmus of Lustria
40.0.9.16.10 11 Ok 3 Sak
40.0.9.16.10 11 Ok 3 Sak
“Roland… I swear to all the Old Ones… I’m going to kick your ass so hard you’ll be tasting my toes for an entire rotation of the Sacred Round!” Swears the woman, loudly enough that everyone else standing on top of the mighty stone structure that is one of Pahuax’s six gates gets to hear her clearly.
Among them are Zidna and Jakob, who watch on too astonished to try and parse what the woman might have said, which would be a challenge considering that neither of them speaks a lick of any of the dialects of Saurian spoken in the city.
Still, they can very easily guess why the woman is so upset, considering the unbelievable sight before them. At first, they had been alerted by the sound of blowing horns and constant drums, then, by the almost synchronized way in which the lizardmen coming and going through the part of the city that was “for” the humans.
Zidna would have much rather used the window of opportunity offered by the distraction to find some way out of the city that wouldn't involve getting eaten in the jungles. Or at least to make or steal some weapon that could replace her long-snapped skewer. But Jakob, grabbing at the healed stump where his right hand had once been, had instead looked at her, anxiously excited.
In the end, the older girl gives in, like she always does.
The sight that had greeted them at the city’s outskirts had been a terrifying one. Indeed, a literal army of Lizardmen had arrived to the city, headed by over-decorated and hulking warriors with rotting and flensed skulls decorating their bodies, and by war beasts carrying all sorts of plunder. After them, if still flanked by rows of spear-wielding warriors, had come multiple files of…
For the first time in their lives, many of the humans and homely Lizardmen of Pahuax behold the dreaded Druchii. Of course, they aren’t exactly dread-inspiring right now. These ones are half-naked, with bleeding feet and burned backs, manacled to each other by rusted iron manacles or with their backs bent by simple yokes. They all also seem filthy, many with their lithe complexions having been turned bony by hunger. There can’t be much more than a hundred of them, and yet among a sea of lizards with blue scales painted the colors of fire and ash, they absolutely stand out like the wights they are.
For a moment Zidna pities them, then she remembers what they are. When Jakob asks what they are or what might happen to them, she elects not to answer him.
Finally arrives the gross of the army, its baggage train and many foot-lizards.
And trailing after them… Skittish and unsure…
Humans, adult humans. Hundreds of them and in far from as bad of a shape as the dark elves. That doesn’t mean they look good, far from it. Zidna sees many with wounds, and not particularly well cared-for wounds. Limping or grabbing onto cuts and bruises. They also look tired, and hungry, just not to the point that she would have worried about having to fight them off if she had been back in Swamp Town. They lack that stare of desperation she’s become so good at finding, the kind that makes children act like adults, and adults act like animals.
Something tells her that the Lizardmen wouldn’t be happy to see humans killing each other for chunks of hard bread in their city. And she makes a mental note not to chance seeing how they would deal with it.
If the elves had been stoic or even defiant, the people look, collectively, to be struck by a mix of apprehension and amazement. The individual faces she inspects run a gamut from the horrified to the worshipful.
“They have taken them from the elves.” She says.
“Freed them, like us?” Jakob, mouth agape, manages to say.
“No.” She corrects, but doesn’t specify that both question and assertion are wrong.
‘They have taken them for the same reason they took us.’ She surmises to herself. ‘They want more slaves.’
The army disperses into the city with staggering efficiency, as if every single small or great reptilian beastman knew exactly where to go to rest, or where to deposit what. Soon enough, the army has dissolved into the city’s population. Zidna guesses that there probably wasn’t a distinction to begin with.
But the humans…
They remain at the city’s threshold, in the stone-paved road just outside the city, watching with fear and with no cold-blooded rearguard to bring them forward, they stare as the walls and buildings closest to the city’s edge become crowded with more and more reptiles, and the few dozens of Swamp Town’s orphans become specs among the hundreds of children and young adults who already dress and speak like false lizards.
Behind them, in the alien city that wakes up every morning covered in a dusting of ash, energies begin to rouse in the same way Zidna would see Swamp Town’s over-crawl become active whenever some moron arrived from the Old World babbling about his wealth or from the jungles while proclaiming his success.
‘Just less drunken rapists and more drunken maneaters, I guess.’
Still, the people out there beyond the walls can’t stay there forever, and so eventually one of the runty lizardmen comes up to the woman -Elma- who gives orders to Barra and commands some level of respect when dealing with the reptiles.
‘Just like in the farms back home. Even among the slaves some would do the whipping instead of getting the whip.’
What follows is a short and angry conversation. At least from the woman’s side, Zidna can’t tell anything from the reptile’s own body language beyond that it probably isn’t actually invested in what is going on.
Then she steps forwards, going from being on top of the gate to being on top of the gate, there for all those frightened and confused people to see.
“Greeting, you who have been liberated from the chains of the Fallen Second Race. My name is Elma Welser-Nakor, and you should know that I am sister by blood and creed to the one who saved you. Who had the saurus and skinks of an entire army feed and protect you. Who, like all you see before you,” She waves around to both the human youths and gathered beasts. “Serves the covenant of this city, its Mage-Lord and a covenant greater than us all.”
‘She can’t believe that’s going to convince any of them to give up-’
“Much like you,” She starts again, something heavy in her voice, if Zidna didn’t know better, she’d think the woman to be speaking earnestly. “I arrived in this city broken, by parents taken from me by repugnant beasts like the ones who now line our gallows. Here, I was healed. Here, I was fed. I was taught to read and write in all tongues I could find tutors in. I have been given fair recompense for hard work, and never have I been punished with an empty stomach or a bare cot. Before you stand Pahuax, the City of Ash, enter it, and you will be shown no less hospitality than I was as a child.”
Jakob moves closer to her, instinctively, Zidna wraps her arm around his shoulders. ‘A well-fed slave is still a slave. This is why we chose the undercrawl.’
But of course, the host before them have no choice. Either they enter the city, or they die in the jungles.
It starts with a young woman, her skin made tan by years working under the sun. Soon, others follow, men and women, younger and older. Lonely or clinging to each other. But no children, no old hags or churls.
Just a workforce, transplanted.
“I hope the fucking fallen have broken them enough.” Zidna catches herself hearing muttering as Elma walks by them on her way to the ground level. “Otherwise I’m going to have to juggle so much shit. Roland, you fucking idiot.”
Council Rock, Port Reaver, Settler’s Cove, Isthmus of Lustria
8th of Brauzeit, 2538 I.C. // 40.0.9.16.10 11 Ok 3 Sak
8th of Brauzeit, 2538 I.C. // 40.0.9.16.10 11 Ok 3 Sak
Theoretically, it is not allowed for the Pirate Lords who make up the King’s Council to meet upon the rock without inviting the King to join them. Thankfully, they are all of a demographic well known to only care about the upholding of the laws of men when it suits them.
No wonder they so readily take to politics when conditions allow for them to do so.
Case in point, there are supposedly four Pirate Lords who hold seats of power in Port Reaver’s council. Which to begin with ignores the rising authority commanded by one unexpectedly alive “Captain-in-Chief” Billings, who by now meets all the conditions one should to demand a seat upon the rock, yet seems satisfied enough with the rumors of his arrangements for bi-monthly meetings with the king.
Another important detail is that, while there are only four thrones arranged around the table -with the King’s missing- there in fact are five people in the room. Closest to the room’s sole and narrow sea-facing window, they remain still.
Seated upon their thrones rest the freshly shaved Pirate Lord Dubosc, the incensed-looking Pirate Lord Geffray Favieres, and the impassive Pirate Lady Serena.
And then there’s the throne which should belong by all rights to the slave-taking Arabyan Lord, Salhi Hamidou. Very recently, news reached the New World of the man’s unfortunate passing. Apparently, he had been killed in battle with a rival somewhere in the Sorcerer’s Islands, back in his homeland and near the piratical stronghold that is the Bay of Corsairs. The news of who had done the deed had not actually reached them across the Ocean, which many had taken to mean it was all a lie.
But the truth shown in the room is that Captain Al-Isar, one of his inner circle, had reported it so and immediately taken control of half of his fleet on this side of the Ocean. There had been no formal handover through King Bastjan. But since Al-Isar could easily be proven a liar, or an usurped truth-teller, within the following weeks, none had seen a point to it.
What is certain is that he is the one with the weakest position of them all, even knowing that all their positions have been weakened by recent events.
“So… I take none of us are willing to share exactly how much damage Geffray’s goblin-brained scheme has hurt us?” Speaks up Dubosc, breaking the awkward silence in the most inflammatory way possible.
“Je t'emmerde!” Suddenly stands up the Bretonnian. “I will hang you from my bowsprint as I sail through a coral reef! Ta mère la pute!”
“He is not insulting you by stating the obvious, m’lord.” Dares speak up the Arabyan in their midsts. “You should have consulted your fellows at the very least, they may have found a way to destabilize Billing’s bid. Instead, every day more captains and crews join his petty council. Soon, he’ll have out-hulled any one of us.”
“Bah!” The Bretonnian seethes again. “He failed already with the same plan, how should I have expected that le Cochon would be a bad-enough of a Pirate King to accept his idiotic idea.”
“Because,” Finally speaks up the most silent of their midsts, the corsair Serena. “We have ignored the truth for far too long.”
“And what may that be?” Dubosc speaks up again, still mulling his own lost crews -and thus, revenues- as he raises his gaze to her.
“That Bastjan Borġ does not wish to be a pirate, king or sailor.” Speaks their guest, resting by the window and listening in as the waves lap at the rocky scraps that surround the lonely fort. “That he will not honor trident nor shark, that he wants to end the natural order of things in this wild continent and replace it with the stagnant statesmanship of the Old World.”
“You mean-?” Geffray goes to speak.
“He wants to end the age of the Pirate Kings, just as the Tileans once sought to in Sartosa. He feeds the orphans instead of letting them fend and feed themselves. He takes sailors and turns them into footmen and bureaucrats. We should have seen the truth when he tried to turn an entire quarter of Port Reaver into a home for Bretonnian investors and exporters, but the flames -as cleansing as they were- hid the truth with their smoke. Perhaps he was always like this, or perhaps that warlock has filled his mind with the pollens and molds of his kind. It does not matter. He will continue to build his walls and invest in his farms. And under your eyes, he will build a city that will trade with the colonies instead of take from them.”
“Those are grave accusations,” Sentences Serena. “Abbess.”
For indee, Sister Baħar stands among them, having been smuggled to the Council Rock in a breach of laws much more severe than even the slighting of the King.
“They are not unfounded, for our gods have spoken to me. They have spoken to me, to await, as I have given Bastjan years to prove his worthiness in their eyes, to behold, and see with mine own eyes, as you have, how he intends to bend us into unnatural civilization. And to teach…”
For a moment, they all remain stunned, for a vision from any God would make an entire war-fleet stop against the currents, let alone one spoken by their highest representative in the New World.
“Teach?”
“Teach him a lesson.”
“That we will do.” Dubosc speaks up, looking around once more. “Then we are in agreement, we will work together.” He throws as stern of a stare as he can in the older Bretonnian Lord’s direction. “And to pool our means in making this city remember what it is. After that… After that, he or she who is naturally fit will rise, as has always been the case.”
All agree, although only Al-Isar does so vocally, likely trying to assert himself.
“And how, exactly, will we do that?” Geffray still finds a way to be a contrarian. “As her holiness has eloquently put, he is re-shaping Port Reaver into, what? An Imperial port? A tilean mercantile republic? The more he tries, the more people will be fooled into siding with him. And then there’s the citadel and that guard of his he’s hedged his bets on. And the wizard.”
“No, it will not be easy.” The cultist speaks up again. “But hardship is our lifeblood, the Gods are on our side, and the night is long…”
Eureka Tavern, Skeggi, Jarldom of Lyssa Bay, Jungles of Pahualaxa
24th of Haustmánuður, 2545 VR // 40.0.9.16.10 11 Ok 3 Sak
24th of Haustmánuður, 2545 VR // 40.0.9.16.10 11 Ok 3 Sak
“Simply fascinating, my friend, you must tell me more of these traditions around this hill of yours. Otherwise I would have assumed it to be nothing other than a defensive feature!” The man, who speaks with a staggering speed despite his clear unfamiliarity with Skeggi’s Norscan pidgin, continues writing in a diary with a corner that seems to have simply rotted off.
The Eureka Tavern would never be Torfi’s first choice of meeting point with Njal. But a long time has passed since he made his original assessment of the place. Years ago, he remembers, his father had been hired as a huntsman and guide to a group of Estalians seeking aid for an expedition inland. And Torfi had been allowed, thanks to his childhood ability to be a yapper, to follow him to the agreed-upon meeting point.
The tavern might be as attached as his home in the kennels is -had been, he forlornly reminds himself- but said attachment point is on the almost-opposite side of Skeggi, where the stockade meets the western end of its perimeter at the sea, and surrounding Foreign Town.
The Eureka had been, as many would say, “built by Tileans and taken by Estalians”, and boyhood Torfi had found himself surrounded by people off-puttingly comfortable with the blazing sun, loud and faster-speaking than any human ought to be, disgustingly friendly and with a feverish interest in “oro y plata.”
Today, however, it is a welcome respite. Everywhere else in Skeggi seems to have been taken over by… By a mania Torfi feels quite confident he knows the root of. Every morning the settlement wakes up to news of some newly-formed jakker gang showing up, made up of the two which collapsed the previous night. The smell of fires has become as strong as those of the mired docks, as without a fault some longhouse or workshop goes up in flames every day.
‘She’s turning things upside down…’
And Torfi can’t even fault her for it. No more than he can fault his dogs for wanting to hunt, or himself for wanting to eat. But that doesn’t mean he has to be happy about it, just as he wouldn't be happy to be stung by a scorpion.
‘Still, it would be nice to at least know if there is some design to it… Has Skeggi ever had a Chosen King?’ As far as he knew, it never had. The Gods didn’t seem too concerned with the ongoings of the New World, and all those touched by their power he has ever heard of had come to Lustria after already becoming renowned.
And against that, what can he do? He’s a dogless kennelmaster who has to drink and buy from among the foreigners of Skeggi, for not even Adella seems crazy enough to touch the imports and revenue brought in by Estalians, Imperials and others.
Skeggi can’t feed itself without buying from southrons. But you can't buy that food without southron coin. And what use could the raven have for a dead jungle-side village?
And talking of southron coin. Torfi takes another swig from the mug he hasn’t had to pay for.
“Now, tell me, this friend of yours. A witch you say? I am not familiar with women who cavort with chaos, as the practice has been successfully eradicated in my homeland, but I would love to hear from her.”
“Him.”
“Mh?”
“Njal, my friend, is a man just like us, Señor Gazal.”
“Ah, a warlock then. I am still learning your language. Apologies, my young friend.”
“No, he’s a witch. Just like how our king is a woman and not a reina.” Torofi scoffs. “I don’t understand why your people are obsessed with coming up with extra words when they aren’t needed.”
“Maybe,” a voice starts them both. “It’s because they speak so fast they need to make new words up to keep their mouths moving.”
“Njal, hello, this is-” Torfi tries to recover his aloof posture against the wall, and mostly fails.
“Dudo Gazal,” The Estalian offers his hand for Njal to shake, which the Estalian happily answers. “I have come to Skeggi after hearing much of it in the docks of Diamanterra, where I hail from.”
“And what do you hope to find among us, eastern friend?” Njal, as usual, follows the man along for his own bemusement.
“I hope to compile a history of Norscan explorations of this land. Of which Skeggi is pivotal, as you must already know. Young master Torfi has already corrected many of my assumptions, and he made it clear you, as a person renowned amongst your kind, could offer me a wider picture?”
Njal turns to Torfi, speaking in a much more closed dialect. “What’s he going on about?”
“I don’t know, the storytellers already know all the things worth remembering. But he promised all the food and drink I wanted for as long as I answer his questions. And that’s a mouth less for us two and mother to worry about.”
“Fair enough, any luck with… With setting the hunt up?” Worry suddenly tinges Njal’s eyes, which in turn brings down Torfi’s mood and is even picked up by the confused foreigner.
“A third of the hunters and trappers I know are out. Another third are dead. And the last third won’t talk to me. How about you, any dreams about… us?”
“They are sparser than usual. And either too vague or about the people who have been making offerings since I came back… Sorry…”
“Don’t worry, you already help too much.”
“Bullshit… But…” The witch turns around and slams his palms against the tavern’s counter. “Hey, I’ll be having what the one who smells like a dog is having.” Then, almost as fast, he turns around and gives the Estalian what he wants. “Questions, uh? I happen to answer those as a way of life. So I’m all ears and all tongues, my friend.”
And as Torfi becomes obsolete to the conversation, his mind can only wander back to the issue that has been monopolizing his mind for days now.
How is he going to set up a hunt for Adella that won’t just be a way for her to have fun while killing him?
And another question too, from a voice deeper in his mind that he does not want to acknowledge, for it may not be his to begin with.
‘And how do I get her killed along the way?
Temple Guard
Mr.Crocodile
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This chapter is basically a guy having a really nice sightseeing afternoon and then a dozen other people dealing with The Bullshit™
I hope you enjoyed the story and I honestly appreciate all and any kudos or comments you may be gracious enough to gift me! And in case any of you are interested, here's the link to my Discord server, where I discuss my projects and all are welcome
It would be great if, if you enjoyed the story that is, you took a second of your time to go over to ao3 and left a kudo and a comment over there, since it is my main posting site.
I hope you enjoyed the story and I honestly appreciate all and any kudos or comments you may be gracious enough to gift me! And in case any of you are interested, here's the link to my Discord server, where I discuss my projects and all are welcome
It would be great if, if you enjoyed the story that is, you took a second of your time to go over to ao3 and left a kudo and a comment over there, since it is my main posting site.
Temple Guard
Mr.Crocodile
Well-Known Member
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- 234
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- 525
- Trophy Points
- 93
What Are Thrones Made Of? - Part IV: The Lurking Fear
“A Norscan seaman is like an Imperial aristocrat: Full of lies and way too used to their own odors.”
— Captain Alessandri, Tilean Trader.
Roland lowers his head into the cool waters of the subalpine lake, leaving only his back warmed by the relentless sun of the dry season. His eyes adjust as he makes himself comfortable in a splay-legged version of a push-up, letting the water do most of the work of holding his weight as he tries to relax and spend as little of the air in his lungs as possible. He could slightly raise his head to take in fresh air once he needs it, but Lake Incantol’s waters are not pristine enough to do that without losing sight of his quarry.
He stays in such a position for a few minutes. By far long enough for his Blessing to start acting up. The first sign is a fluttering of wings by his ear, which is above the waters and makes him flinch, almost falling belly-first into the stony and shallow lakebed. Then comes an ayot, a slider turtle with a complexly patterned shell wide enough that one could use it as a platter for two meals. For a second, the small beaked reptile looks at him as it glides across the water bottom. Then, grazing him with its small claws and the edges of its shell, it decides to employ his back like its kin usually would a floating log or half-submerged boulder. It climbs up quickly and nests itself on the small of Roland’s back.
Within minutes, four more follow, half of them not even of the same species. Then the fluttering of wings comes back. He hopes it’s something like a kingfisher, small and dainty. But when long legs thump against the back of his head, dunking it in a haze of bubbles, Roland corrects himself and realizes a heron has decided to use his head of dark hair as its own fishing perch.
‘Glorious Itzil…’ Roland grumbles to himself as he comes up for air, trying not to disturb any of the animals, as that would sabotage his own plans. ‘How you test your chosen tools…’
With such a long period since he had exerted his abilities in the Salamancer Cove and little chance to make himself useful in the pens and corrals of Pahuax, the latent nature given to him by the Three-Horned Old One can do nothing but simply emanate.
‘If only it worked on prey…’ He laments, lowering himself again as one of the bug-eyed frogs native to the lake swims past. Indeed, he had learned soon in his childhood that his gift to communicate and even command beasts would never make itself useful if his intent was to eat or directly harm the creature. Lord-God Itzil, in his fair wisdom, has decided to confer to all beasts instincts towards survival that not even his might could budge.
Which means that it ends up taking twenty minutes and becoming a waystation for a dozen animals -snails had started sucking at his toes looking for scum, and an ibis had placed itself squarely on top of Roland’s skirt-clad arse- before the actual animal he is hoping for arrives.
Assuming his still body and the shadow projected by it to offer some kind of safety, a michmaliztli -a word used by his people to refer to any kind of fish edible but otherwise lacking noteworthy features- had arrived. Thankfully one much larger than the minnows he’s been seeing for a while now, too large for the heron to steal it from him.
The fish is about as long as his own forearm, with a golden-backed body of green scales, large anal and dorsal fins, and the upturned mouth of something with a diet based on water-skimming insects. Details that Roland logs in his mind in case what he abouts to do makes it a species to avoid or seek out from now on.
The fish swims closer, tranquil, until it crosses between his left arm and leg, staying nearly-still under his belly for a few seconds before it moves higher, under his chest, then his neck, then his.
“RAGH!”
SPLASH
Roland lunges backwaters, letting his own body’s weight do most of the work as he stops holding himself up on all fours. His mouth snaps just by it, catching one of its fins before it shakes itself free. For a second it looks like it is about to escape.
But Roland has two arms.
The birds fly away, squawking and crying at the indignity. The turtles find their nap ruined as they are dunked back into the water. The amphibians and minnows scatter in all directions, and the snails retract into their shells, all of it as Roland’s shoulder thumps against the water’s bottom and he becomes engulfed in silt, upset from between pebbles and bubbles of his thrashing.
Until he emerges.
And the dying fish, its gills hooked by his curled finger and its head crushed, is held up for the enormity of the mountain-framed lake to see. The view is only more beautiful as he takes in gulps of the temperate mountain region, known as Sotek’s Eyes precisely for the beauty of the lakes nestled between its peaks.
“Praise be to Tzunki!” He shouts for an audience of offended critters as he walks back out of the water and towards his waterside camp, where a cot of weaved fronds, his belongings and a campfire with a readied spit lay.
It takes him only a couple minutes to gut the fish and rid it of bothersome scales with a blade of obsidian. The scraps are left to rest by the remains of last night’s dinner, a heap of duckbones on top of a colorful heap of said waterfowl’s feathers.
While the fish starts to cook over the fire, Roland starts preparing himself, refilling his waterjug, putting on his harness and other such things. He plans on eating as he walks, and so he walks closer to the subalpine’s treeline to collect leaves large enough to hold it cleanly.
And then he stops.
For the treeline is quiet, as it should never be in the sole presence of a Blessed of Itzil. Roland takes a step back, remembering that he’d left his polearm by his cot, and looks up into the sky, his blue eyes instantly finding the distant mote that is his high flying companion.
Tlahui flies in slow and wide circles around the jungle before him. Signaling that which carrion birds are made by nature to signal.
Death.
“Meister Fronisch.” The King greets from his throne as the wiry Marienburger enters the mostly-empty chamber. Bastjan adjusts himself as best as he can, as the chair fancifully carved out of driftwood doesn’t really fit a man of his frame and girth.
It had been the secondary throne of a previous King whose name he does not know, the kind that had bedecked the Citadella’s inner chambers with the kinds of luxuries Bastjan remembers having mostly sold off to pay for a good chunk of his no-longer-abandoned new city walls. The throne had not sold, forgotten when compared to rich tapestries and bronzen sconces. His supposed true throne still sits at Council Rock, too heavy to be worth sending for when he knows sooner or later he will have to attend one of the gatherings he’s so obviously not being invited to.
Not too long ago, he wouldn’t even have “called” for one of the city’s benefactors to present himself as an Old Worlder King would have.
But the last time he held a private meeting outside of his fortress with anyone other than the hedge-mage, an ogre had attempted to eat him. So he feels the shift is warranted.
“King Borġ,” The man greets by taking his feather-capped bonnet off. Apparently some kings would demand bowing or kneeling, but his Borderlander-arse is not going to demand that from a Wastelander of all people. “I am glad you have answered my request this quickly, this is a matter of great importance.”
“Am I correct in assuming you come to ask about my new law?”
“Yes. To be blunt, I need only have a single question satisfied. Will your men demand that the vessels of the Fronisch Company pay your per-hull tax?”
In truth, it had been a question he had asked himself at first. On the one hand, doing such a thing would have greatly increased his revenues. Which in turn would have allowed for him to put a dent into his debts to the Felldowns without hurting his other plants.
On the other hand, the Fronisch brother before him is the only man in Port Reaver to command a force -as small as it is- of well-trained men. His city guard, as large as it is, is too green and still too piratical in its ways to win a pitched battle against drilled men. And the brother who he has never seen, from his offices in Marienburg, commands enough coin to outfit a mercenary expedition large enough to contend against Bastjan’s old fleet.
And so, he for once does what his predecessors always did: He chooses the path of least resistance.
“Well, that depends, Meister Fronisch,” The king leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees and intercrossing his fingers. “Is the Fronisch Company a pirate coalition? Do you purport to have a claim to a seat in the Council Rock?”
“No, it is not. And no, I do not. The Fronisch Company is accredited by the Board for the Accreditation of Agents of Free Trade, and I possess documents proving this.” The man says, as if Bastjan would ever actually demand them.
‘You have a committee for deciding who can and can’t smuggle. And people call us thieves.’ He instead thinks to himself. And he is not making any unfounded accusations. All which pirates bring to Port Reaver and isn’t sold, traded or used within its bounds, eventually is bought by the Marienburgers with the goal of being sold in any of a dozen Old World ports, all of them with explicit laws against buying pirates’ prices.
“Then you will continue to operate as you have so far under my protection, and those who came before me.”
The man had not been lying. And satisfied with his answer, leaves.
“He is likely the man who most profits from your new law, you know that, right?” Speaks up one of the guards who had been guarding the room. His armor ill-fitted, and the clothes under it clearly too fine to wear in such a profession.
The other guard soon begins helping the former one take off said armor, revealing a man a decade younger than Bastjan, but with the same tell-tale scars and permanent tan of one who has spent his life as a sea-dog.
“I do. He’ll be able to buy at dirt-cheap prices from the newly independent crews, and the more the Lords lose, the less weight they can throw around when negotiating with him.
“And it’ll probably take years for Billings to convince the Lower Council to let him negotiate in his name, especially with all the captains who have only now won back their independence.” The now un-armored man nods as he walks up to the King, shaking his hand as Bastjan gets off his throne and firmly shakes back.
“But it won’t last forever. And he may try to put a squeeze on me then.”
“Or you may decide to expand your imports. And then he may decide you no longer are the reasonable and profitable King he wants you to be.”
“Which is why you are here, Daddo, how’s my request going?”
Daddo of Sartosa, a born-and-bred pirate who had once been one of the closest captains in Bastjan’s flotilla during his years as a sea-lord. The man had always had a knack for coin, not even bothering to have a quartermaster aboard his own vessel.
Most of Bastjan’s captains had disappeared into retirement in pirate-friendly ports back east after they’d gotten the most of his first year as King. But not Daddo, the man had taken to the Doganale House like a pig to slop.
The large building, standing just across the bridge connecting Re Island to the port itself, had been for long before his arrival the office through which previous kings’ collectors of taxes, bribes and protection money had been managed by a ratty bunch of sea-dogs too shrewd for their own good.
So in love had Daddo been with the position that Bastjan rarely sees him leave his office for little else than monthly reports. Enough so that the man -too engrossed in his abacus, tallies and gridded parchments- had missed the public executions of dozens of men before his home and place of work.
Thankfully, Daddo cares not for how much or on what Basstjan spends his treasury, only on making sure that none of what is collected or spent goes unaccounted for.
“It’s being hard. I understand Kristoff cannot handle the workload of outfitting your guard. But the other smiths in the city are used to fixing bent cutlasses. Not forging halberds. We will have to buy from Skeggi, or even find someone willing to import.”
“I have summoned Bohos to come in a few hours, he is eccentric enough that he could have what we want, or point us in the right direction.”
“He’ll want a cut.” Daddo warns. He may not oppose his captain-king’s spending, but he’s a counselor nonetheless.
“Everyone wants a cut in this fucking city. Even the wizard.” Bastjan laughs.
“Yeah, it’s almost like we are all pirates.”
Roland feels the pressure at the back of his head peak for the hundredth time. The best thing Tlahiu can do for him as the blessed rylok flies high above him. Now that he’s once more entered the isthmus’ lowland jungles, where hills and downed trees are both obstacles of equal scale, the canopy is too thick for the bird to track him. And traveling alone also means his position can’t be estimated by way of a larger force.
Avian creatures like Tlahui have excellent eyesight, but even during the harsh dry season vast swathes of the canopy are as dense as palisades. And unlike palisades, they are teeming with life that can only distract the animal.
So instead he is relegated to being an inaccurate source of warnings. With so much foliage, a monkey jumping between branches can cause no more or less of a commotion than Roland’s persecutors. And the issue is no different with flying reptiles, toucans, macaws or raptors.
Instead, Roland’s main source of worry -and sometimes comfort- is found on his side of the impenetrable canopy, in the form of the same soundscape that had so worried him at first. Whatever is chasing him, it is inducing fear upon the creatures of the land that no natural and native predator could. Monkeys fear raptors, but deer do not. Peccaries and deer fear jaguars, but songbirds do not. Herdbeasts and cerapods fear cold ones, but Roland should have long come across much larger jungle-eaters by now. And howlers? He would expect anything following him from above -for he has found no tracks- to cause them to incessantly echo across Pahualaxa, and yet the jungle grows still whenever he stops moving forwards.
It -likely they- are tailing him closely behind. And the irregularity with which the signs become apparent and disappear, he’s not leaving the threat behind, and the threat is not truly catching up to him.
‘Waiting for me to tire myself out, or to make a dangerous mistake that’ll leave me defenseless.’ Thus he’d gone last night without making camp to sleep, and the tiredness of the constant marching is nipping at his heels. The only comfort he can gather is that whatever his enemy is, it does not trust itself to face him in battle.
And that only narrows the list of possible culprits slightly. Whether he likes it or not, his blessing doesn’t remove the inherently human smell of his sweat in the air or the tanned hue of his scale-bare skin. And there are few predators in Lustria which wouldn't consider a man of any kind a worthwhile meal.
Roland can’t help but grimace as he is once again reminded of the inadequacy of his body. Lord Itzl had blessed all predators with the good instincts to judge prey. And that will never not include him by way of his unadapted biological brethren.
So far he’s only allowed himself to make a few stops at the foot of impressive trees, the kind only colossadons or thunder-lizards would feast off. Climbing one of them roughly every time a fourth of the day passes has allowed him to get into literal contact with Tlahui, and judge his progress towards the nearest safe haven.
The Obsidian Column, impossible to miss in its twisting and coiling form of pure volcanic glass, formed out of a single speck of Old One Inhamex’s rage and as tall as the tallest of grand temples, but only as wide as a hut.
A landmark of godly precision exactly halfway between Pahuax and Hexoatl in a perfectly straight line. And one inhabited by a large force of Lizardmen. At his current pace, Roland could reach it before his second night on the run.
Which is likely the reason why, that precise moment, his stalkers decide to take their chances.
It is nothing other than the groaning of a branch under too much weight, just shy of being heavy enough to snap it. Quickly followed by the sound of that tension being suddenly released.
Roland’s swing is full-bodied, his body turns in place from the tips of his toes to the ends of his fingers as they grip onto his polearm’s shaft, conveying every drop of momentum his body can produce on instinct alone.
In the end, the blurry weapon-head of obstinate embedded into a golden armature slams into its target.
Instantly, every single hair in Roland’s usually-shaven body stands on end as the bony shape of too-long limbs and too-blue naked skin, is slammed aside. The impact had felt like one which should have killed anything. And yet there is not but a thin glob of already-congealed blood glued to it.
Before he can study it further, the unnatural and unnervingly humanoid shape pulls and yanks itself back into the underbrush, far from Rolan, who stays in the relative openness of the game trail he’d been using to progress.
The next one doesn’t even try to catch him off guard, breaching the treeline like a speartip through skin. Teeth filed into arrowheads inside a mouth with lips that have been chewed off.
Roland stabs forward, and the aberration dodges with tendon-twisting force. His weapon grazes skin and opens it like a dry and crumbling leaf, no blood comes out, revealing muscles the color of jerky.
The bald-headed monster slams into Roland, extra-joined fingers with rake-like fingernails stab into his shoulders and push him backwards, likely hoping to pin him before a killing bite to the neck.
Roland has just enough time to deliver a high kick to the middle of its chest, throwing them both out of balance and letting him stumble back as it lets go.
He retreats one, two, three steps, trying to get his bearing and anticipating the next attack.
Then a rock, crudely grabbed off the jungle floor, slams into the back of his head, and everything goes dark.
“Next, please!” Elma asks from inside the mudbrick building, quickly, the curtain of beads keeping both insects and the worst of the heat outside is parted, and a man enters. He bears the marks of all who have been under the Druchii for any amount of time. His skin is covered in uneven scars, his eyes are dark, and whatever his body might have once been like, the version of him before her is on the razor edge between lean and starved.
That will improve, she knows, as the hundreds of newcomers become accustomed to life in a city where food is abundant even when seasonal extremes bite at their storehouses. But that will be slow, and full bellies will do little to curb what she knows will soon become pressing issues.
The man eyes the skinks sitting on either side of her warily. One, Yuctle, slowly weaves a khipu, a many-braided length of rope used for number-keeping. The other, Tlelle, holds both an abacus of stone beads and a long-winded scroll. Neither looks back at the man, focused on their efficient work.
Elma doesn’t get up from her cross-legged position in the plant fiber carpet, using her long skirts as cushion as she gestures for the man to sit down. “Hello, my friend.” She gives the most honest smile she can muster. And it’s quite honest. She really does want to help these people, she just has too much of a familiar knowledge of statistics.
“I know what this is for.” The man does as he is told, putting himself at near-eye level. “Everyone who's already been here talks about it. My name is Gerolf Schirmer. I was taken from Hargendorf, in Nordland, like most here, although I am not of the Grand Barony. I was a member of the city’s leatherworking guild before I was taken.”
Elma doesn’t care for his name or old home, all she needs to know is where he can be sent off to. But she has found that letting such individualistic details make the conversations less awkward.
“Could you show me your hands, please?” Elma raises her own in a cupping motion. After a few awkward seconds, the man does indeed raise his arms, letting her visually and physically inspect hands calloused by hard labour. But working hands, nonetheless. Sometimes the Druchii would cut, snap and bend the fingers of artists and craftsmen to break their spirits, and that’s a hassle that she hasn’t even begun dealing with.
Not the case of Gerolf, she happily notes, switching to low saurian. “Leatherworker, healthy.”
“Workshop Twelve can take him in.” Tlelle assesses instantly. “Spawn Elder Neyok has reported positively on yesterday’s Xho’za’khanx delivery.”
“Good, if you feel you are strong enough,” Elma switches back to reikspiel. “You can go through the main road into the city from here and take the fifth turn right. Leather workshops have a particular smell and look you will be a lot more familiar with than myself, but you can easily find it by a large carving of a flayed livestock animal. The leather of reptilian beasts is tougher to work with than what you may be used to, but I have been told it lends itself to more demanding pieces.”
Silently, Yuctle tallies the man.
“But,” Elma continues. “Please do feel free to rest a day or two more if your body demands you do so. Pahuax appreciates all’s work, but it appreciates all’s health twice as much.”
The man, perhaps confused by her quick talking to the skinks, or by the offer she makes, can only nod and, in his confusion, leaves without saying much else. But there is a light of hope in his eyes. Men long for the ability to answer their calling, she knows, all creatures of the Great Plan do to some degree. The ability to ply his ware in exchange for safety and an end to hunger and punishment. Many like Gerolf could truly come to call Pahuax their homes.
If no one does anything stupid.
“Next please!” Elma says again, before the bead curtain has time to stop swinging. At this rate, she may be done processing all the new humans in a day more. Of course, that will still leave her with the work of dealing with all those whose processing has left them marked as unfit or untrustworthy.
And with the work of finding solutions for the still-unsteady youngs of the Swamp Town Cadre. And with Barra and his inability to actually deal with them.
And with her actual daily duties as Spawn Elder to the First Xho’za’khanx Cohort.
‘I hope that wherever you are, Roland,’ She mulls. ‘It is miserable there.’
The next arrival, a woman clearly old enough to have been mother more than once, and with the body of one who has indeed reared warmblood children, hides not the fact that she will be trouble for Elma.
For once, her hand goes instantly for her rope belt when she sees the two small Lizardmen. Going for a blade that isn’t there. Women go to great lengths to be good to their progeny, sometimes doing things one wouldn’t expect their sex to be capable of.
‘Don’t I know that.’
“Please, my friend, come and sit. The lizardmen of Pahuax mean you no harm.”
“Last few nights didn’t exactly help that.”
Elma winces, remembering the way in which the druchii prisoners had been allocated to the different temples, monuments and arenas of the city in order to stretch out the second half of the victory celebrations. Elma herself had attended to the sacrifices at the Halls of Heroes last night. The energy had been electric, surrounded as she had been by nearly all her cohort upon the lizardman-packed esplanade. The unnatural elves had been butchered, each turned into multiple morsels for the tomb of dozens of ancient heroes of the City of Ash.
“Do they know imperial?” The woman asks.
“No more than you know their tongues." Elma lies. Any lizardman who works with her or the other xho’za’khanxs for long enough ends up picking up some human vocabulary.
“Good,” The woman says. “My name is Ottilia. I have been talking with some of the younger boys here. The ones who were in city guards and crews and militias before they were taken.”
“You have?” Elma’s eyebrow quirks. “That is… Good.” She lathers her tone with false hope. The skinks falsely turn to inquisitively look at her. “We will talk about this later. I need to give you work or they will grow suspicious.”
“Put me up at one of the farms. Who knows what those implements could be used for.”
Minutes later, the woman leaves and Elma sighs, looking up and directly into the eyes of the blowgun-armed skink hanging from the rafters. “It can’t be an actual kill, they will grow suspicious. Do something to her food.”
The skink makes an agreeable chirrup, and leaves by crawling up the edge of a back window with its wooden panels left ajar.
Elma’s entire body sags. She would have hoped that the conspiring and sedition wouldn’t have started this quickly.
‘At least with the children and odd non-sacrificial adult I could have just sent them off.’ She remembers the much easier solutions of years back. ‘But not with these many, not with these many.’ She rues, understanding that it won’t take long for the ashen streets of Pahuax to once more turn into bloodied mud.
“Next, please!”
“And you promise the Witch will read my fate in tonight’s dreams?” Egil of the Deathkeepers nervously rubs his hands as he guides Torfi through the sharp rocks and dead corals that make up the half of the corpse reef visible by night.
“He will,” Torfi answers, trying not to cut himself or snag his clothes against anything that would rip them. “The promise of a Witch is the promise of the Gods.”
It had been one of the reasons Losteriksson had settled where he had, everyone knew. In a massive coastline of mangroves and saltmarshes, it had been the only solid piece of geography to anchor a settlement around, at least shields Skeggi from one venue of approach -from the northeast, parallel to the shoreline- and would have theoretically forced an enemy to sail around it.
No one had ever tried to invade Skeggi,as far as he knows. Usurpers like the one whose voices occupy his dreams would do such things from the inside. And yet, even without a history of opposed landings, Corpse Reef had still earned her name.
Torfi hops down another ledge of slick stone, holding onto a protrusion to keep himself from slipping, and it fazes him not when he realizes that the convenient handhold is actually a large-sized femur the other side of which has become fused under the grown coral into the rock.
‘Probably a mpinguary,’ The young hunter guesses from the size of it. Even animals that large can be carried off by the rivers into the sea. The seas of Lustria are not kind even to bloated corpses, picked apart as they tend to be by seagulls and flying reptiles both. But where there’s coral for bodies to be snagged against, bodies will snag. And in the waters around the Norscan outpost? A lack of bodies would be concerning.
And so they continue their way down a reef where great old corals use bones as retaining walls, and young ones as fertile soil.
It would be a grisly sight, if Torfi hadn’t grown up chasing other Skeggialing boys and girls up and down it, or inspecting the tidal pools for animals to poke at.
Eventually, the man before him -only a year or so older than Torfi, but treated as an adult by way of membership in a jakker crew- comes to a stop.
Njal had indeed worked as hard as Torfi to find a solution, and unlike himself, the Witch had contacts by way of the kind of people who would naturally come to exist in a society that is home to witches, viktis and augurs.
The kind of person who can’t go a few weeks without begging for their fortune and future being explained to them.
Egil is very much not the only one among the Deathkeepers the Dodvakt, jakkers long charged with patrolling Skeggi’s sealane approaches, and its unofficial guild of fishermen- who fits such a description. But he is the only one singularly obsessed with being the focus of one of Njal’s infallible dreams, and that is exactly what Torfi needs.
“There, there it is. We call it Jaguar’s Mouth, because of those two corals that look like… You probably guessed.”
“And you say, people have been going missing near it?” Torfi quirks his eyebrow, indeed, the low tide has revealed a rocky outcrop one could reach by wading a few minutes through the still-submeged area of the reef. And it does indeed look vaguely like the gaping mouth of some warm-blooded predator. Under the low tide only the gaping cave that is the mouth is visible, but the tunnel’s floor itself remains submerged, only making it look darker.
“Yeah, bonepickers -that’s what we call the vagrants who come here looking to tug and chip valuables out of the newer sets of bones- are usually crawling around here whenever there’s low tides. There should be more than a dozen around us right now, hissing like pissy seabirds, but…”
Torfi looks around. While the settlement behind them is as loud as ever, the coralcovered slope they are standing near the bottom of is devoid of human life.
“We heard of one of them bragging about finding goldbars, of all things, near the mouth. By the time we went to pay him a visit, he’d already gotten strangled, and we got no idea if it was by another bonepicker or literally anyone else. He slept in one of those filthy boarding longhouses. So the bars are a no-show. But the other pickers started wading out and swimming to the cave to check and…”
“They are all gone.”
“Or spooked, they come and go, half of them could be whoring themselves across town for all I know, or any other kind of work better than inspecting bones as eels try to bite your cock tip.”
Suddenly, the idea of wading out to check the cave entrance himself isn’t as compelling.
“Okay then,” Torfi scratches the back of his ear, where his father and mother usually do to both children and hounds. “If anyone else starts looking and goes missing again, find me and tell me, I’ll put in a good word with Njal.”
Egil smiles at that, but soon starts heading back.
Torfi stays behind for a couple more minutes. His eyes focused on the cave’s yawning darkness.
‘Mamma will know for sure.’ He ends up deciding, not committing to a plan just yet.
“A Norscan seaman is like an Imperial aristocrat: Full of lies and way too used to their own odors.”
— Captain Alessandri, Tilean Trader.
Shores of Lake Incantol, Sotek’s Eyes, Isthmus of Lustria
40.0.9.16.11 12 Chuwen 4 Sak
40.0.9.16.11 12 Chuwen 4 Sak
Roland lowers his head into the cool waters of the subalpine lake, leaving only his back warmed by the relentless sun of the dry season. His eyes adjust as he makes himself comfortable in a splay-legged version of a push-up, letting the water do most of the work of holding his weight as he tries to relax and spend as little of the air in his lungs as possible. He could slightly raise his head to take in fresh air once he needs it, but Lake Incantol’s waters are not pristine enough to do that without losing sight of his quarry.
He stays in such a position for a few minutes. By far long enough for his Blessing to start acting up. The first sign is a fluttering of wings by his ear, which is above the waters and makes him flinch, almost falling belly-first into the stony and shallow lakebed. Then comes an ayot, a slider turtle with a complexly patterned shell wide enough that one could use it as a platter for two meals. For a second, the small beaked reptile looks at him as it glides across the water bottom. Then, grazing him with its small claws and the edges of its shell, it decides to employ his back like its kin usually would a floating log or half-submerged boulder. It climbs up quickly and nests itself on the small of Roland’s back.
Within minutes, four more follow, half of them not even of the same species. Then the fluttering of wings comes back. He hopes it’s something like a kingfisher, small and dainty. But when long legs thump against the back of his head, dunking it in a haze of bubbles, Roland corrects himself and realizes a heron has decided to use his head of dark hair as its own fishing perch.
‘Glorious Itzil…’ Roland grumbles to himself as he comes up for air, trying not to disturb any of the animals, as that would sabotage his own plans. ‘How you test your chosen tools…’
With such a long period since he had exerted his abilities in the Salamancer Cove and little chance to make himself useful in the pens and corrals of Pahuax, the latent nature given to him by the Three-Horned Old One can do nothing but simply emanate.
‘If only it worked on prey…’ He laments, lowering himself again as one of the bug-eyed frogs native to the lake swims past. Indeed, he had learned soon in his childhood that his gift to communicate and even command beasts would never make itself useful if his intent was to eat or directly harm the creature. Lord-God Itzil, in his fair wisdom, has decided to confer to all beasts instincts towards survival that not even his might could budge.
Which means that it ends up taking twenty minutes and becoming a waystation for a dozen animals -snails had started sucking at his toes looking for scum, and an ibis had placed itself squarely on top of Roland’s skirt-clad arse- before the actual animal he is hoping for arrives.
Assuming his still body and the shadow projected by it to offer some kind of safety, a michmaliztli -a word used by his people to refer to any kind of fish edible but otherwise lacking noteworthy features- had arrived. Thankfully one much larger than the minnows he’s been seeing for a while now, too large for the heron to steal it from him.
The fish is about as long as his own forearm, with a golden-backed body of green scales, large anal and dorsal fins, and the upturned mouth of something with a diet based on water-skimming insects. Details that Roland logs in his mind in case what he abouts to do makes it a species to avoid or seek out from now on.
The fish swims closer, tranquil, until it crosses between his left arm and leg, staying nearly-still under his belly for a few seconds before it moves higher, under his chest, then his neck, then his.
“RAGH!”
SPLASH
Roland lunges backwaters, letting his own body’s weight do most of the work as he stops holding himself up on all fours. His mouth snaps just by it, catching one of its fins before it shakes itself free. For a second it looks like it is about to escape.
But Roland has two arms.
The birds fly away, squawking and crying at the indignity. The turtles find their nap ruined as they are dunked back into the water. The amphibians and minnows scatter in all directions, and the snails retract into their shells, all of it as Roland’s shoulder thumps against the water’s bottom and he becomes engulfed in silt, upset from between pebbles and bubbles of his thrashing.
Until he emerges.
And the dying fish, its gills hooked by his curled finger and its head crushed, is held up for the enormity of the mountain-framed lake to see. The view is only more beautiful as he takes in gulps of the temperate mountain region, known as Sotek’s Eyes precisely for the beauty of the lakes nestled between its peaks.
“Praise be to Tzunki!” He shouts for an audience of offended critters as he walks back out of the water and towards his waterside camp, where a cot of weaved fronds, his belongings and a campfire with a readied spit lay.
It takes him only a couple minutes to gut the fish and rid it of bothersome scales with a blade of obsidian. The scraps are left to rest by the remains of last night’s dinner, a heap of duckbones on top of a colorful heap of said waterfowl’s feathers.
While the fish starts to cook over the fire, Roland starts preparing himself, refilling his waterjug, putting on his harness and other such things. He plans on eating as he walks, and so he walks closer to the subalpine’s treeline to collect leaves large enough to hold it cleanly.
And then he stops.
For the treeline is quiet, as it should never be in the sole presence of a Blessed of Itzil. Roland takes a step back, remembering that he’d left his polearm by his cot, and looks up into the sky, his blue eyes instantly finding the distant mote that is his high flying companion.
Tlahui flies in slow and wide circles around the jungle before him. Signaling that which carrion birds are made by nature to signal.
Death.
Cittadella, Port Reaver, Settler’s Cove, Isthmus of Lustria
9th of Brauzeit, 2538 I.C. // 40.0.9.16.11 12 Chuwen 4 Sak
9th of Brauzeit, 2538 I.C. // 40.0.9.16.11 12 Chuwen 4 Sak
“Meister Fronisch.” The King greets from his throne as the wiry Marienburger enters the mostly-empty chamber. Bastjan adjusts himself as best as he can, as the chair fancifully carved out of driftwood doesn’t really fit a man of his frame and girth.
It had been the secondary throne of a previous King whose name he does not know, the kind that had bedecked the Citadella’s inner chambers with the kinds of luxuries Bastjan remembers having mostly sold off to pay for a good chunk of his no-longer-abandoned new city walls. The throne had not sold, forgotten when compared to rich tapestries and bronzen sconces. His supposed true throne still sits at Council Rock, too heavy to be worth sending for when he knows sooner or later he will have to attend one of the gatherings he’s so obviously not being invited to.
Not too long ago, he wouldn’t even have “called” for one of the city’s benefactors to present himself as an Old Worlder King would have.
But the last time he held a private meeting outside of his fortress with anyone other than the hedge-mage, an ogre had attempted to eat him. So he feels the shift is warranted.
“King Borġ,” The man greets by taking his feather-capped bonnet off. Apparently some kings would demand bowing or kneeling, but his Borderlander-arse is not going to demand that from a Wastelander of all people. “I am glad you have answered my request this quickly, this is a matter of great importance.”
“Am I correct in assuming you come to ask about my new law?”
“Yes. To be blunt, I need only have a single question satisfied. Will your men demand that the vessels of the Fronisch Company pay your per-hull tax?”
In truth, it had been a question he had asked himself at first. On the one hand, doing such a thing would have greatly increased his revenues. Which in turn would have allowed for him to put a dent into his debts to the Felldowns without hurting his other plants.
On the other hand, the Fronisch brother before him is the only man in Port Reaver to command a force -as small as it is- of well-trained men. His city guard, as large as it is, is too green and still too piratical in its ways to win a pitched battle against drilled men. And the brother who he has never seen, from his offices in Marienburg, commands enough coin to outfit a mercenary expedition large enough to contend against Bastjan’s old fleet.
And so, he for once does what his predecessors always did: He chooses the path of least resistance.
“Well, that depends, Meister Fronisch,” The king leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees and intercrossing his fingers. “Is the Fronisch Company a pirate coalition? Do you purport to have a claim to a seat in the Council Rock?”
“No, it is not. And no, I do not. The Fronisch Company is accredited by the Board for the Accreditation of Agents of Free Trade, and I possess documents proving this.” The man says, as if Bastjan would ever actually demand them.
‘You have a committee for deciding who can and can’t smuggle. And people call us thieves.’ He instead thinks to himself. And he is not making any unfounded accusations. All which pirates bring to Port Reaver and isn’t sold, traded or used within its bounds, eventually is bought by the Marienburgers with the goal of being sold in any of a dozen Old World ports, all of them with explicit laws against buying pirates’ prices.
“Then you will continue to operate as you have so far under my protection, and those who came before me.”
The man had not been lying. And satisfied with his answer, leaves.
“He is likely the man who most profits from your new law, you know that, right?” Speaks up one of the guards who had been guarding the room. His armor ill-fitted, and the clothes under it clearly too fine to wear in such a profession.
The other guard soon begins helping the former one take off said armor, revealing a man a decade younger than Bastjan, but with the same tell-tale scars and permanent tan of one who has spent his life as a sea-dog.
“I do. He’ll be able to buy at dirt-cheap prices from the newly independent crews, and the more the Lords lose, the less weight they can throw around when negotiating with him.
“And it’ll probably take years for Billings to convince the Lower Council to let him negotiate in his name, especially with all the captains who have only now won back their independence.” The now un-armored man nods as he walks up to the King, shaking his hand as Bastjan gets off his throne and firmly shakes back.
“But it won’t last forever. And he may try to put a squeeze on me then.”
“Or you may decide to expand your imports. And then he may decide you no longer are the reasonable and profitable King he wants you to be.”
“Which is why you are here, Daddo, how’s my request going?”
Daddo of Sartosa, a born-and-bred pirate who had once been one of the closest captains in Bastjan’s flotilla during his years as a sea-lord. The man had always had a knack for coin, not even bothering to have a quartermaster aboard his own vessel.
Most of Bastjan’s captains had disappeared into retirement in pirate-friendly ports back east after they’d gotten the most of his first year as King. But not Daddo, the man had taken to the Doganale House like a pig to slop.
The large building, standing just across the bridge connecting Re Island to the port itself, had been for long before his arrival the office through which previous kings’ collectors of taxes, bribes and protection money had been managed by a ratty bunch of sea-dogs too shrewd for their own good.
So in love had Daddo been with the position that Bastjan rarely sees him leave his office for little else than monthly reports. Enough so that the man -too engrossed in his abacus, tallies and gridded parchments- had missed the public executions of dozens of men before his home and place of work.
Thankfully, Daddo cares not for how much or on what Basstjan spends his treasury, only on making sure that none of what is collected or spent goes unaccounted for.
“It’s being hard. I understand Kristoff cannot handle the workload of outfitting your guard. But the other smiths in the city are used to fixing bent cutlasses. Not forging halberds. We will have to buy from Skeggi, or even find someone willing to import.”
“I have summoned Bohos to come in a few hours, he is eccentric enough that he could have what we want, or point us in the right direction.”
“He’ll want a cut.” Daddo warns. He may not oppose his captain-king’s spending, but he’s a counselor nonetheless.
“Everyone wants a cut in this fucking city. Even the wizard.” Bastjan laughs.
“Yeah, it’s almost like we are all pirates.”
East of Sotek’s Eyes, Jungles of Pahualaxa, Isthmus of Lustria
40.0.9.16.12 13 Eb’ 4 Sak
40.0.9.16.12 13 Eb’ 4 Sak
Roland feels the pressure at the back of his head peak for the hundredth time. The best thing Tlahiu can do for him as the blessed rylok flies high above him. Now that he’s once more entered the isthmus’ lowland jungles, where hills and downed trees are both obstacles of equal scale, the canopy is too thick for the bird to track him. And traveling alone also means his position can’t be estimated by way of a larger force.
Avian creatures like Tlahui have excellent eyesight, but even during the harsh dry season vast swathes of the canopy are as dense as palisades. And unlike palisades, they are teeming with life that can only distract the animal.
So instead he is relegated to being an inaccurate source of warnings. With so much foliage, a monkey jumping between branches can cause no more or less of a commotion than Roland’s persecutors. And the issue is no different with flying reptiles, toucans, macaws or raptors.
Instead, Roland’s main source of worry -and sometimes comfort- is found on his side of the impenetrable canopy, in the form of the same soundscape that had so worried him at first. Whatever is chasing him, it is inducing fear upon the creatures of the land that no natural and native predator could. Monkeys fear raptors, but deer do not. Peccaries and deer fear jaguars, but songbirds do not. Herdbeasts and cerapods fear cold ones, but Roland should have long come across much larger jungle-eaters by now. And howlers? He would expect anything following him from above -for he has found no tracks- to cause them to incessantly echo across Pahualaxa, and yet the jungle grows still whenever he stops moving forwards.
It -likely they- are tailing him closely behind. And the irregularity with which the signs become apparent and disappear, he’s not leaving the threat behind, and the threat is not truly catching up to him.
‘Waiting for me to tire myself out, or to make a dangerous mistake that’ll leave me defenseless.’ Thus he’d gone last night without making camp to sleep, and the tiredness of the constant marching is nipping at his heels. The only comfort he can gather is that whatever his enemy is, it does not trust itself to face him in battle.
And that only narrows the list of possible culprits slightly. Whether he likes it or not, his blessing doesn’t remove the inherently human smell of his sweat in the air or the tanned hue of his scale-bare skin. And there are few predators in Lustria which wouldn't consider a man of any kind a worthwhile meal.
Roland can’t help but grimace as he is once again reminded of the inadequacy of his body. Lord Itzl had blessed all predators with the good instincts to judge prey. And that will never not include him by way of his unadapted biological brethren.
So far he’s only allowed himself to make a few stops at the foot of impressive trees, the kind only colossadons or thunder-lizards would feast off. Climbing one of them roughly every time a fourth of the day passes has allowed him to get into literal contact with Tlahui, and judge his progress towards the nearest safe haven.
The Obsidian Column, impossible to miss in its twisting and coiling form of pure volcanic glass, formed out of a single speck of Old One Inhamex’s rage and as tall as the tallest of grand temples, but only as wide as a hut.
A landmark of godly precision exactly halfway between Pahuax and Hexoatl in a perfectly straight line. And one inhabited by a large force of Lizardmen. At his current pace, Roland could reach it before his second night on the run.
Which is likely the reason why, that precise moment, his stalkers decide to take their chances.
It is nothing other than the groaning of a branch under too much weight, just shy of being heavy enough to snap it. Quickly followed by the sound of that tension being suddenly released.
Roland’s swing is full-bodied, his body turns in place from the tips of his toes to the ends of his fingers as they grip onto his polearm’s shaft, conveying every drop of momentum his body can produce on instinct alone.
In the end, the blurry weapon-head of obstinate embedded into a golden armature slams into its target.
Instantly, every single hair in Roland’s usually-shaven body stands on end as the bony shape of too-long limbs and too-blue naked skin, is slammed aside. The impact had felt like one which should have killed anything. And yet there is not but a thin glob of already-congealed blood glued to it.
Before he can study it further, the unnatural and unnervingly humanoid shape pulls and yanks itself back into the underbrush, far from Rolan, who stays in the relative openness of the game trail he’d been using to progress.
The next one doesn’t even try to catch him off guard, breaching the treeline like a speartip through skin. Teeth filed into arrowheads inside a mouth with lips that have been chewed off.
Roland stabs forward, and the aberration dodges with tendon-twisting force. His weapon grazes skin and opens it like a dry and crumbling leaf, no blood comes out, revealing muscles the color of jerky.
The bald-headed monster slams into Roland, extra-joined fingers with rake-like fingernails stab into his shoulders and push him backwards, likely hoping to pin him before a killing bite to the neck.
Roland has just enough time to deliver a high kick to the middle of its chest, throwing them both out of balance and letting him stumble back as it lets go.
He retreats one, two, three steps, trying to get his bearing and anticipating the next attack.
Then a rock, crudely grabbed off the jungle floor, slams into the back of his head, and everything goes dark.
Xho’za’khanx Favela, Temple-City of Pahuax, Jungles of Pahualaxa
40.0.9.16.13 1 B’en 6 Sak
40.0.9.16.13 1 B’en 6 Sak
“Next, please!” Elma asks from inside the mudbrick building, quickly, the curtain of beads keeping both insects and the worst of the heat outside is parted, and a man enters. He bears the marks of all who have been under the Druchii for any amount of time. His skin is covered in uneven scars, his eyes are dark, and whatever his body might have once been like, the version of him before her is on the razor edge between lean and starved.
That will improve, she knows, as the hundreds of newcomers become accustomed to life in a city where food is abundant even when seasonal extremes bite at their storehouses. But that will be slow, and full bellies will do little to curb what she knows will soon become pressing issues.
The man eyes the skinks sitting on either side of her warily. One, Yuctle, slowly weaves a khipu, a many-braided length of rope used for number-keeping. The other, Tlelle, holds both an abacus of stone beads and a long-winded scroll. Neither looks back at the man, focused on their efficient work.
Elma doesn’t get up from her cross-legged position in the plant fiber carpet, using her long skirts as cushion as she gestures for the man to sit down. “Hello, my friend.” She gives the most honest smile she can muster. And it’s quite honest. She really does want to help these people, she just has too much of a familiar knowledge of statistics.
“I know what this is for.” The man does as he is told, putting himself at near-eye level. “Everyone who's already been here talks about it. My name is Gerolf Schirmer. I was taken from Hargendorf, in Nordland, like most here, although I am not of the Grand Barony. I was a member of the city’s leatherworking guild before I was taken.”
Elma doesn’t care for his name or old home, all she needs to know is where he can be sent off to. But she has found that letting such individualistic details make the conversations less awkward.
“Could you show me your hands, please?” Elma raises her own in a cupping motion. After a few awkward seconds, the man does indeed raise his arms, letting her visually and physically inspect hands calloused by hard labour. But working hands, nonetheless. Sometimes the Druchii would cut, snap and bend the fingers of artists and craftsmen to break their spirits, and that’s a hassle that she hasn’t even begun dealing with.
Not the case of Gerolf, she happily notes, switching to low saurian. “Leatherworker, healthy.”
“Workshop Twelve can take him in.” Tlelle assesses instantly. “Spawn Elder Neyok has reported positively on yesterday’s Xho’za’khanx delivery.”
“Good, if you feel you are strong enough,” Elma switches back to reikspiel. “You can go through the main road into the city from here and take the fifth turn right. Leather workshops have a particular smell and look you will be a lot more familiar with than myself, but you can easily find it by a large carving of a flayed livestock animal. The leather of reptilian beasts is tougher to work with than what you may be used to, but I have been told it lends itself to more demanding pieces.”
Silently, Yuctle tallies the man.
“But,” Elma continues. “Please do feel free to rest a day or two more if your body demands you do so. Pahuax appreciates all’s work, but it appreciates all’s health twice as much.”
The man, perhaps confused by her quick talking to the skinks, or by the offer she makes, can only nod and, in his confusion, leaves without saying much else. But there is a light of hope in his eyes. Men long for the ability to answer their calling, she knows, all creatures of the Great Plan do to some degree. The ability to ply his ware in exchange for safety and an end to hunger and punishment. Many like Gerolf could truly come to call Pahuax their homes.
If no one does anything stupid.
“Next please!” Elma says again, before the bead curtain has time to stop swinging. At this rate, she may be done processing all the new humans in a day more. Of course, that will still leave her with the work of dealing with all those whose processing has left them marked as unfit or untrustworthy.
And with the work of finding solutions for the still-unsteady youngs of the Swamp Town Cadre. And with Barra and his inability to actually deal with them.
And with her actual daily duties as Spawn Elder to the First Xho’za’khanx Cohort.
‘I hope that wherever you are, Roland,’ She mulls. ‘It is miserable there.’
The next arrival, a woman clearly old enough to have been mother more than once, and with the body of one who has indeed reared warmblood children, hides not the fact that she will be trouble for Elma.
For once, her hand goes instantly for her rope belt when she sees the two small Lizardmen. Going for a blade that isn’t there. Women go to great lengths to be good to their progeny, sometimes doing things one wouldn’t expect their sex to be capable of.
‘Don’t I know that.’
“Please, my friend, come and sit. The lizardmen of Pahuax mean you no harm.”
“Last few nights didn’t exactly help that.”
Elma winces, remembering the way in which the druchii prisoners had been allocated to the different temples, monuments and arenas of the city in order to stretch out the second half of the victory celebrations. Elma herself had attended to the sacrifices at the Halls of Heroes last night. The energy had been electric, surrounded as she had been by nearly all her cohort upon the lizardman-packed esplanade. The unnatural elves had been butchered, each turned into multiple morsels for the tomb of dozens of ancient heroes of the City of Ash.
“Do they know imperial?” The woman asks.
“No more than you know their tongues." Elma lies. Any lizardman who works with her or the other xho’za’khanxs for long enough ends up picking up some human vocabulary.
“Good,” The woman says. “My name is Ottilia. I have been talking with some of the younger boys here. The ones who were in city guards and crews and militias before they were taken.”
“You have?” Elma’s eyebrow quirks. “That is… Good.” She lathers her tone with false hope. The skinks falsely turn to inquisitively look at her. “We will talk about this later. I need to give you work or they will grow suspicious.”
“Put me up at one of the farms. Who knows what those implements could be used for.”
Minutes later, the woman leaves and Elma sighs, looking up and directly into the eyes of the blowgun-armed skink hanging from the rafters. “It can’t be an actual kill, they will grow suspicious. Do something to her food.”
The skink makes an agreeable chirrup, and leaves by crawling up the edge of a back window with its wooden panels left ajar.
Elma’s entire body sags. She would have hoped that the conspiring and sedition wouldn’t have started this quickly.
‘At least with the children and odd non-sacrificial adult I could have just sent them off.’ She remembers the much easier solutions of years back. ‘But not with these many, not with these many.’ She rues, understanding that it won’t take long for the ashen streets of Pahuax to once more turn into bloodied mud.
“Next, please!”
Corpse Reef, Skeggi, Jungles of Pahualaxa
27th of Haustmánuður, 2545 VR // 40.0.9.16.13 1 B’en 6 Sak
27th of Haustmánuður, 2545 VR // 40.0.9.16.13 1 B’en 6 Sak
“And you promise the Witch will read my fate in tonight’s dreams?” Egil of the Deathkeepers nervously rubs his hands as he guides Torfi through the sharp rocks and dead corals that make up the half of the corpse reef visible by night.
“He will,” Torfi answers, trying not to cut himself or snag his clothes against anything that would rip them. “The promise of a Witch is the promise of the Gods.”
It had been one of the reasons Losteriksson had settled where he had, everyone knew. In a massive coastline of mangroves and saltmarshes, it had been the only solid piece of geography to anchor a settlement around, at least shields Skeggi from one venue of approach -from the northeast, parallel to the shoreline- and would have theoretically forced an enemy to sail around it.
No one had ever tried to invade Skeggi,as far as he knows. Usurpers like the one whose voices occupy his dreams would do such things from the inside. And yet, even without a history of opposed landings, Corpse Reef had still earned her name.
Torfi hops down another ledge of slick stone, holding onto a protrusion to keep himself from slipping, and it fazes him not when he realizes that the convenient handhold is actually a large-sized femur the other side of which has become fused under the grown coral into the rock.
‘Probably a mpinguary,’ The young hunter guesses from the size of it. Even animals that large can be carried off by the rivers into the sea. The seas of Lustria are not kind even to bloated corpses, picked apart as they tend to be by seagulls and flying reptiles both. But where there’s coral for bodies to be snagged against, bodies will snag. And in the waters around the Norscan outpost? A lack of bodies would be concerning.
And so they continue their way down a reef where great old corals use bones as retaining walls, and young ones as fertile soil.
It would be a grisly sight, if Torfi hadn’t grown up chasing other Skeggialing boys and girls up and down it, or inspecting the tidal pools for animals to poke at.
Eventually, the man before him -only a year or so older than Torfi, but treated as an adult by way of membership in a jakker crew- comes to a stop.
Njal had indeed worked as hard as Torfi to find a solution, and unlike himself, the Witch had contacts by way of the kind of people who would naturally come to exist in a society that is home to witches, viktis and augurs.
The kind of person who can’t go a few weeks without begging for their fortune and future being explained to them.
Egil is very much not the only one among the Deathkeepers the Dodvakt, jakkers long charged with patrolling Skeggi’s sealane approaches, and its unofficial guild of fishermen- who fits such a description. But he is the only one singularly obsessed with being the focus of one of Njal’s infallible dreams, and that is exactly what Torfi needs.
“There, there it is. We call it Jaguar’s Mouth, because of those two corals that look like… You probably guessed.”
“And you say, people have been going missing near it?” Torfi quirks his eyebrow, indeed, the low tide has revealed a rocky outcrop one could reach by wading a few minutes through the still-submeged area of the reef. And it does indeed look vaguely like the gaping mouth of some warm-blooded predator. Under the low tide only the gaping cave that is the mouth is visible, but the tunnel’s floor itself remains submerged, only making it look darker.
“Yeah, bonepickers -that’s what we call the vagrants who come here looking to tug and chip valuables out of the newer sets of bones- are usually crawling around here whenever there’s low tides. There should be more than a dozen around us right now, hissing like pissy seabirds, but…”
Torfi looks around. While the settlement behind them is as loud as ever, the coralcovered slope they are standing near the bottom of is devoid of human life.
“We heard of one of them bragging about finding goldbars, of all things, near the mouth. By the time we went to pay him a visit, he’d already gotten strangled, and we got no idea if it was by another bonepicker or literally anyone else. He slept in one of those filthy boarding longhouses. So the bars are a no-show. But the other pickers started wading out and swimming to the cave to check and…”
“They are all gone.”
“Or spooked, they come and go, half of them could be whoring themselves across town for all I know, or any other kind of work better than inspecting bones as eels try to bite your cock tip.”
Suddenly, the idea of wading out to check the cave entrance himself isn’t as compelling.
“Okay then,” Torfi scratches the back of his ear, where his father and mother usually do to both children and hounds. “If anyone else starts looking and goes missing again, find me and tell me, I’ll put in a good word with Njal.”
Egil smiles at that, but soon starts heading back.
Torfi stays behind for a couple more minutes. His eyes focused on the cave’s yawning darkness.
‘Mamma will know for sure.’ He ends up deciding, not committing to a plan just yet.
Temple Guard
Mr.Crocodile
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It's insane to think that this is Ch40 of a project I have been working on 5 years, and only within the last month did I actually figure out when I would be ending the story.
I actually think this chapter's best moment was King Bastjan's conversation with Daddo. My original plans for the Port Reaver plotlines back in 2022 were way less refined than they are now, and if I could I would have established his character much earlier, instead of having to suddenly justify why he's here now. But writing is a continuous learning experience, so I'll not too hard on myself.
I hope you enjoyed the story and I honestly appreciate all and any kudos or comments you may be gracious enough to gift me! And in case any of you are interested, here's the link to my Discord server, where I discuss my projects and all are welcome
It would be great if, if you enjoyed the story that is, you took a second of your time to go over to ao3 and left a kudo and a comment over there, since it is my main posting site.
I actually think this chapter's best moment was King Bastjan's conversation with Daddo. My original plans for the Port Reaver plotlines back in 2022 were way less refined than they are now, and if I could I would have established his character much earlier, instead of having to suddenly justify why he's here now. But writing is a continuous learning experience, so I'll not too hard on myself.
I hope you enjoyed the story and I honestly appreciate all and any kudos or comments you may be gracious enough to gift me! And in case any of you are interested, here's the link to my Discord server, where I discuss my projects and all are welcome
It would be great if, if you enjoyed the story that is, you took a second of your time to go over to ao3 and left a kudo and a comment over there, since it is my main posting site.
Slann
Killer Angel
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Temple Guard
Mr.Crocodile
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What Are Thrones Made Of? - Part V: Cadaver’s Folly
It used to be that vessels entering the Settler’s Cove would use the “ruins” of Eicherburg as a marker by which one could ascertain their distance to the region’s surviving settlements or fix navigational measurements. The reason for this is simple. Unlike most other ruined efforts of mankind to settle the New World, the stone buildings of what soon earned the name of Darien’s Folly remained untouched by weather or flora for centuries, its small parcel of coast cleared out and its structures bare for all to see.
In order to reckon the settlement’s origins, we must turn back to Year 1698 of the Imperial Calendar. At that time, what we now know to be the powerful city-state of Marienburg and the Wasteland nominally under its control were still known as the Barony of Westerland, and thus still an integral elector countship of the Empire of Man. While formal independence was still more than six centuries away at the time, this did not mean that the region was without tribulations.
At the time, the families of the mercantile class in the city had long begun to assert the power which in modern times corresponds to the Houses which control much of Marienburg’s Burgerhof. Among said families stood that of accomplished aristocrat Eicher Darien, who earned much of his fortune in trading with the -at the time nascent- New World sealanes. Because of this, it should surprise none that it was his family which spearheaded and subsidized the construction of a settlement in Settler’s Cove.
Originally named New Marienburg, the colony saw enough success to become a permanent local fixture. Enough so that, for example, within a few years of its humble settlement by a few thousand wastelander peasants, many of the town’s wooden buildings had been torn down and replaced by permanent stone constructions. This is notable, as it would take centuries for many of Lustria’s modern human polities to improve themselves in such a way.
The colony’s success, however, drew the interest of Emperor Sigismund IV and his council, who -fearing that the city could be seen as a symbol of Marienburger independence- had it ordered that all ships heading for it from the Sea of Claws should be confiscated or burned.
This instantly put a chokehold onto a city which had -regretably- invested little into autonomy in matters of food and other basic necessities, as Eicher had expected that the constant influx of vessels from his home city would solve such a bottleneck.
His attempts to appease Imperial authorities -such as the renaming of the settlement to Eicherburg in 1701- largely failed, starving the city into a ghostly ruin less than a decade after its founding. While it is unclear when the last of Darien’s Folly two thousand inhabitants perished, the colony remained untouched by nature until the 26th Century.
Many alleged that the city’s pristine status was the result of its haunting by the ghosts of the hungering dead, with some adventurers who have dared to attempt looting it claiming that the walls and ceilings of Darien’s Folly record the hunger-borne madness that choked the townsfolk until they could no longer move or stand.
What is clear is that the ruins are much harder to find nowadays, and that their deterioration has erased any clues as to what the final days of the colony might have been like.
For as long as Stefan remembers, the Felldowns have been the second-busiest corner of Port Reaver, just after the port. And it doesn’t take a wizard to figure out why. A Lustrian pirate outpost lives -and most importantly- dies by its ships. And so, the only thing almost as important as the place where all the ships are is the one where new ships are built, and really damaged ones drydock.
That business had been constant during his earlier childhood- and had only increased after the arrival of King Bastjan, but so had the trouble. Trouble most of his fellow orphans had stayed out of. After all, they all used to be too small to really get hired for any shipwright jobs, and said shipwrights -men who would spend their days sweating and half-naked under the dry season sun- weren’t really good pickpocketing targets.
And yet, things in the ever-busy place have only changed faster and faster since Stefan’s short stint working in and around them.
‘Three months.’ He realizes to himself. ‘Maybe four, has it really been such little time?’
Back then, he’d felt as if being just one of a dozen messengers for one of the major merchants in the city had been his big break in life, a cot and the prospects of buying himself some new clothes seemed like a gift from the Sea Gods.
Now… Well, he may still be an errand boy, but he is one to the second-most powerful man in Port Reaver. One who the people around have grown more and more fond of as orchard and crop plagues have lessened their impact under his watch.
‘They just like him because they don’t have to pay him for his services, though.’ Stefan reminds himself. Von Danling’s deal with the King did mean that his services would be exchanged for certain privileges and the throne’s covering of his tower’s and experiments’ costs. ‘If he asked for payment, everyone who can’t afford it would hate his guts.’
Case in point…
“I have been waiting for that brigantine I paid for IN FULL for half a year now! If it takes any longer, I might as well stop calling myself a pirate!” An angry man, one among dozens, hammers his fist against the large wooden panels which are the entrance to the built-up warehouse used by the Felldowns’ master shipwright as both headquarters, study and private residence.
“My galleon has been in drydock long enough that I’ve had time to squeeze a bastard out.” A female captain, a rare but not strange sight, roars by the man, her hands permanently grabbing onto the handles of both of her pistols. “Do you expect me to birth out an entire workcrew to do your work for you, Azzarello?”
“Lord Al-Isar demands a report on the two hulks being repaired in this here port!” A third man, dressed in the colors of one of the pirate lords, howls. “The Gulf of Medes remains ripe with bodies, and his business will NOT be impeded!”
There’s not that many of them. A dozen or so captains of self-governing ships, almost as many captains of lordly fleets -with their respective bodyguards- and even a couple “representatives” of the Lower Council.
A group of people far outsized by the hundreds upon hundreds who continue to work around them. certainly a magnitude too small to be called a mob, but offended enough to be riot-like in their animosity.
“I blame you for this. Just so we are all clear.” A woman’s stern voice distracts Stefan from his watching from one of the shattered windows directly above the angry and milling crowd.
Yasmeen Azzarello has not changed one bit since Stefan last saw her. The older Arabyan woman remains as stern-looking and grey-haired as always. Her winkled skin having once been that of a hard-worked beauty, a charcoal pencil rests on her ear as she glares at her guest.
Thankfully, that is not Stefan himself.
“I probably deserve it, yes, although I don’t believe that is too relevant to our current discussion.” Answers calmly the King’s wizard. Stefan can’t help but notice that -no matter how many meals they literally share- Cryston von Danling’s anatomy remains remarkably branch-like.
“It isn’t, you believe?” The woman’s tone becomes even more irate. “When Bastjan took Re Island, it didn’t bother me much. He’d be the seventh king this city has had since I came to live in it. Then he started trying to finish that damned wall, and siphoned half my workforce to work on it by offering them years’ worth of his loot. But at least they all returned when his funds ran dry. Then he built those fancy houses for Bretonnians of his, and half of his apprentices suddenly fancied themselves architects. Have you got the least idea of how many projects I had to delay?”
Stefan does. According to the few streetrats who eat at the guard’s barracks and don’t look at him weird, the Felldowns may be the best place -alongsides the dockyards themselves- to repair or modify vessels. But only Azzarello and her small collection of aides had the knowledge far above a ship’s carpenter necessary to permanently modify functioning ships, or design entirely new variants. An invaluable service to the richer captains and lords.
Half the orphans and guttersnipes dreamt of being taken in by the woman, taught how to read and write and draw and create such things. Part of Stefan wonders if that may have been his fate, had he stuck around the Felldowns instead of being stolen by the bushmage.
“And then… And then you arrive. Your stunt out in Last Henge cost me weeks of work, tons of material, a dozen tradesmen and three times as many hard-laborers. And as if that weren’t enough, now he’s thrown every last crew and fleet into disarray, and is planning on doing the wall bullshit again?!”
“Yes,” The wizard answers, scratching his beard in a way that lets a couple twigs and dry leaves fall off it. “That is a very good summary of your -our- relationship with the King. And one that I hope will not cloud your judgement of the proposal I am about to make.”
The master shipwright’s eyes roll. “Unless you can find me three hundred able-bodied men who will take no payment other than food, I doubt so.”
“Sadly, manpower is not within my purview. But your second-most cost is.”
“Don’t try to sell me that you can grow me copses of perfect timber, wizard. There are men like you in my homeland. If you were capable of doing such a thing once, you would have already killed yourself trying to do it a second time.”
Von Danling laughs at that, nodding along. “Indeed… But I understand enough to offer a much more reasonable solution. Port Reaver is already wealthy in wood. The problem, as it always has been, is to extract it.”
“Without losing entire camps to beasts and illness, you mean.”
“Precisely. And in that I can help. My powers are limited in force, but not in scope. I could -let us say- easily spend a day or two of my time every week visiting the logging yards with which you have more advantageous agreements for lumber prices. Guide them to patches of jungle where the wood is easier to extract, of good quality, and not as exposed to threats. That would cut your raw material-related costs by almost half, by the reckoning of Master Daddo.”
“And what do you get out of such generosity?” The untrusting woman asks.
“Other than saving the lives of hard-working men and easing the lives of the people of Port Reaver, you mean?”
“Yes, I mean.”
“The King -for I am a mere servant- expects that in exchange for this privilege -which will be extended to none others in Port Reaver- you will continue lending him your workforce in projects like the ones you yourself have enumerated.”
“My people keep getting siphoned off, but I get theoretically cheaper lumber. And I am supposed to be grateful?”
“I will not insult your intelligence, Master Azzarello. You know the other option is to continue having to deal with the king’s whims in exchange for… Nothing?”
The woman takes a few moments, Stefan watches intently as she seems to tune in to the angry clients without.
“On one condition.”
“I’m listening.”
“None of my people go into the jungles again. None of them.”
“Mhh, I believe the King will be glad to accept such a reasonable demand.”
“He better fucking be.” The woman gets up, and so does the wizard as well, who turns to speak to Stefan.
“Lad. if you would, sneak out one of the side windows and inform the King of our agreement. And if you’d be so kind, stop by the barracks as you do so and inform a banner of the troublemakers gathered outside. After all, it is in the interest of Port Reaver that its greatest industry work unimpeded, is it not?”
Stefan nods, and begins heading for the door, exchanging a look with the Master Shipwright. For a second, her mask of anger and resentment breaks, replaced by eyes which look at him… With happiness?
“Oh, and one last thing.” Von Danling claps his hand as Stefan walks out the door and closes it. Obviously, the boy stays put, listening in. “As your backlog of contracts and projects becomes less congested… Our King would not be bothered, so to say, if those paid for by the Pirate Lords of this city were not prioritized. After all, I believe all loot is shared equally when a vessel is successfully boarded. And it would make little sense for such fairness not to be applied in a city ruled by pirates, would it be?”
“No, I suppose it wouldn’t be.” For once, the weathered woman’s tone actually seems happy.
Darien’s Folly, Jungles of Pahualaxa, Isthmus of Lustria
When Roland wakes up with a splitting ache at the back of his head, slumped against the cold rock wall of a ruined larder in-set into some wall, his options are limited, but not inexistent.
The first thing he tries to do is get up by pushing himself back against the wall, which fails when his brain sends him back down with a stab of pain. After a few moments of cringing in pain and tears squeezing out of his hard-shut eyes, he musters the energy to bring his hand back to the area the pain’s epicenter is in. The fact that he can -somewhat- think and move his own body means that the wound can’t have been catastrophic.
The back of his head is indeed swollen but whatever his assailant had used to concuss him had not fissured bone. As he palms his hair, all he finds is long locks tanged and matted with dried blood. And when he prods further with a hiss of pain, he finds a dry scab.
No pieces of bone hanging off bits of flesh or brains outside of where they should be, as he’s often seen from those who have fallen to the maces of saurus in combat or sacrifice. For now, that is good enough.
Roland tries to take stock of himself. The rest of his body parts feel like they are where they should be, battered and cut by -likely- having been dragged through the jungle, but entirely manageable.
With one exception.
At first, as he grazes his own leg, he assumes the wound in his outer right thigh which is surrounded by a large amount of dried blood may have been a cut from a dagger or pierced by a spear or arrowhead.
Then he realizes that it is too-wide of a wound. Rectangular, instead of slit-like, and deep enough that he could press his fingertip inside of it. He doesn’t, of course, for the cut reveals the tender flesh of his leg muscle below the skin.
Some half forgotten conversation sparks in his mind. From back when he’d still been learning the languages of men, and Scar-Veteran Nakor would take him as observer in small thief-killing raids.
“The cuts around the lower torso are the best, that is where all the fat is in these ones.” One saurus among the group had said the night after a skirmish. Roland remembers having sat a small distance away with his Spawn Elder as the blue-scaled saurus had taught him how to make sense of the overlapping metal armor humans would often wear.
“No, the legs are best. It’s the only part of their scrawny bodies where there’s enough flesh to just take a big bite without a bone getting caught between your fangs. You cannot deny how satisfying it is, spawn-brother!” Another saurus had countered, a strip of uncooked flesh hanging from his maw.
Which helps Roland realize a simple truth.
He has been sampled, like a batch of fermented metoctli almost ready to be enjoyed.
And somehow, the idea of being tasted before a feast brings him comfort.
Because between that and fuzzy memories of his assailers, he can narrow down what has captured him. A most necessary element to his escape. He is dealing with no lost adventurers or malicious slave-takers. The former wouldn’t have managed to down him, the latter wouldn’t have sampled his skin and flesh.
He is dealing with the things that -according to the elders- have dwelled in Lustria almost for as long as the humanity they decay from has. The results of some failed attempt at conquest centuries prior which lizardmen parties had never managed to excise.
As he mulls over any more specific information he could dredge from memory, Roland continues to inspect himself. His polearm is gone, obviously, and so is the satchel he’d been using to carry his travel-wares.
His leather kilt is still on him, but many of the bracelets and anklets he’d worn are missing, or have been snapped, their beads, golden pieces and other decorations strewn about. None large enough to be used as a weapon. He can even feel how sore he is in part of his head other than the wounded area, signifying that some of his braids have been pulled at to get the metal and ivory rings keeping them from unwinding.
So, he has no physical tools at his disposal. Improvisation shall be his only other option.
Which is a fortunate realization, as sound and movement alert him to the arrival of one of his captors to whatever room the larder is set in. The door is ajar, and judging by the loud groaning sound of something being moved off it, it had likely been blocked off by some other larger piece of furniture.
What greets his squinting eyes when his captor slams the door open is nothing short of a horrid sight.
A Xibalban, a byproduct of the horrific things mankind had long ago taught itself by listening to the anathema’s whisperings.
A ghoul, as most humans would call it.
Like the ones which had attacked him, the creature is humanoid and fully naked. Which is an irrelevant detail, considering how its gaunt nature is homogeneous, and what might have been a reproductive appendage centuries ago is barely a dry husk. Roland sees that first of all because he is still lying on the ground, and the undead also happens to be a stretched parody of human anatomy. Its legs are so thin that they look more like stilts. Its chest is so stretched that the gaps between its ribs -their contours perfectly visible through papery and gaunt skin- are wide enough to fit three fingers horizontally.
One of the thing’s arms is missing right at the shoulderblade, the uneven scar tissue around it indicating anything but a careful amputation, but the other is long enough that the ghoul is both upright and has a tripodal stance.
Its head is the only thing un-stretched, which only makes it feel more alien to the body it doesn’t fit on. It is hairless and with fascial features so diminished that Roland can see a dent where its nasal bone ends and cartilage starts. Its lips are dry and stained with congealed blood.
And it looks down on him with such a maddened hunger.
Roland doesn’t even try to talk with it as the monster grabs his hair and pulls him upright with its remaining arm. The pain makes Roland scream with reignited pain, but at least it forces his body to react, adrenaline helping him find the energy and balance to stand just before the undead offense to nature begins ambling, dragging and pulling him somewhere else inside the dank stone structure. A ruin of some kind. Built by humans, judging by the poor stonework. It reminds him of Sudburg’s Waldeswacht, or the fortifications he’d inspected from a distance while investigating Port Reaver.
Certainly, it fits the description of the nest which he’d been taught of in younger years, halfway between the surviving human colonies and the anathema-worshipping outpost. A place humans may have another name for, but which his elders deigned to call the Xibalban Stoneworks.
As they move, the xibalban makes more and more pitiful sounds, clearly and deeply bothered by being forced to carry and not devour what it perceives as food. It is a thing driven by hunger as much as the Dark Elves are by cruelty.
It smells like a corpse after a day in the scorching sun mixed with other kinds of rot, and Roland sees its brittle skin is covered in scars and embedded with rocks and shards of bone.
And it is taking him towards more of its kind. For as they move the smells become stronger, and the babbling raspy noises of other creatures like itself become distressingly louder. The ground becomes littered with bones, most splintered for their marrow, and with filthy piles of branches, leaves and long-filthied cloths clearly used as nests by the animalistic undead.
It doesn't take much longer for them to reach some kind of hall. Perhaps a grand room for a council or a throne. Perhaps it used to be a place for feasting, judging by the wooden fragments strewn about, being clambered over the gathered commensals.
What once may have been wooden or even glass windows are just holes in the wall. It is night, and Roland knows not where he may have been taken, but the cloudless sky means that the twin moons let through enough light to give him a good look at them all.
Despite their common features -fatless bodies stretched in unnatural shapes, protruding bones, curved and crooked backs, faces of thin half-decayed teeth, fangs, and distended mouths- each ghoul is unique among its kind. And most unique of them all is the one which lets out a growl in a mockery of what once must have been some archaic form of imperial.
The word is undecipherable, but all the ghouls quickly fall silent in anything but salivating growls and pitiful wines. The one that speaks stands out, opposite to Roland and at the head of the collected diners.
What remains of Eicher Darien.
It is the largest of them all, with a back so crooked and bulging that his torso has the general shape of a kidney. From it hang two spindly arms, the right one twice as thick but bending inwards, the left one spindly, and curled around a stake which might have a decade ago been the handle of a spear. Stabbed through its skull and body are a collection of bones broken into stabbing shapes, and from a waist supported by two uncannily thin legs hangs a belt of skulls.
It takes a staggering step towards Roland as he is shoved off by his assumed guard. Then another. With every step, something jangles from the ghast’s neck. It may have once been the leather harness or collar of some animal, or a belt of great quality. But it is now little other than a gnawed strip of leather from which hangs a massive key. Too large to belong to a functional lock. It reminds him of the one he once saw resting in a cabinet in the office of the Governor-General during a visit years ago.
To the leader goes the first and most choice bite. A law of nature applied even among the unnatural.
As it moves towards Roland, dwarfing him, the beast’s mouth opens, an anoxic miasma of rotting meat exiting it and making the Xho’za’khanx’s eyes water. Its teeth are all shattered, hammered, into gnarly triangles, a mockery of shark’s teeth. It is lipless, and a tongue waves and drools too long to fit in a human mouth.
It will kill him, with bites and slams and stabs of its splintered stake, or maybe it will rip his throat out, or maybe it will simply start enjoying his fatty torso meat or a mouthful of his leg, and its thirty or so subordinates will clamber and fight over each other, they will eat him alive.
Or maybe… Maybe not.
Xibalbans hunger. That is why the jungle quiets around them. Anything that doesn’t flee their spanning limbs becomes food. Likely, their only concern in prey selection is finding something just small enough to eat in full before it can be stolen by its fellow undead.
The thing looking down on him may once upon a time have hosted a human intelligence. But no longer. Calling it animalistic would be an insult to the instincts of the beasts which his patron has made him kin to.
“They will not care for what is served, will they?” Rolan speaks in reikspiel, igniting not even a spark of recognition from it. “They’ll just be hoping for a feast. So I shall give them that.”
Roland lunges and extends his arm.
Spooked, the misbegotten ghast both tries to snap at him and reels back.
Roland’s hand wraps around the damaged leather collar, and pulls down, straining with all his strength. He fears it may snap, and eventually it does, sending the key to a forgotten city clattering to the ground and breaking the stunned crowd of the undead.
Not before Roland’s pulling puts the ghast's neck slightly lower than eye level to himself.
The perfect height for him to bite into.
Skin gives away under his teeth like taut paper, but the flesh he sinks them into is as hard as jerky, and rotted blood congealed into a texture denser than honey fills his mouth.
But Roland pushes through. The thing is the definition of consumptive decay, its disgusting flesh hiding little. Finally, he meets another layer of resistance, a ribbed and hardened tube.
And rips out the ghasts windpipe, using its own thrashing to propel himself backwards as he spits the damned flesh out and slams against the ground.
The ghoul thrashes and bleed clumps of liquid decay. It is not meat worth eating even to the most desperate of scavengers.
But xibalbans are lesser than the most diminutive of carrion beetles. And in a blinking moment, the entire hall explodes into a cannibalistic frenzy.
They slam and crash into each other, biting and shoving for a chance at their master’s subpar flesh. The ones who do not fall for the rush and try to reach Roland are also delayed, as they have to cross the middle of the melee to get to him anyways, and half of them get caught up by it, finally succumbing to the frenzy and joining as a second wave.
“SKREEEE!”
The long-damned ruin erupts into a disgusting cacophony of howling, fighting and shouting. But not one loud enough to mask the sound that comes from one of the windowholes.
A massive bird flaps its winds as it squeaks and jumps on one of their edges, Roland had never seen such beautiful feathers reflect the guiding light of moonlight. He thinks not of what might lay beyond, for the within is a den of evil.
Roland jumps through the window, screaming a prayer to his godly lord.
“I swear to Carnun and all the bog-gods, if this is the way I die…” Barra grumbles -instinctively resorting to a mother language he hasn’t had a conversation in for years- to himself as he does his best to squeeze through a crowd of massive ash-stained reptilian warriors, the smallest one among them still easily capable of tearing his skull off like a ripe fruit in order to crack it and drink the insides.
At least he can hope his brains will taste good. They are all he’s got going on for himself
And yet, they all ignore him. He hopes that it’s because his smell is recognizable to their flaring nostrils. Or maybe it is the coat of paint some of the funnier kids have taken to periodically slathering him in.
But it’s probably just that they are all too engrossed with the spectacle he is trying to reach the viewing gallery for. Sure, a couple times he gets squeezed between two of the hulking warrior-caste and starts praying really hard, but eventually he makes it to the sheer stone ledge that separates the storerooms and barracks of the stable from the inner courtyard hewn out of solid rock, an indented pit just deep enough that the animals inside can’t just leap out, and blocked by thick wooden doors that lead onto the ramp that would let them all leave when called upon by whichever particularly scary saurus is their commander.
Barra comes to stand by the side of just the local he’d been hoping to find. The only other human in this corner of Pahuax.
Well, the only other living one.
“Fuuuuuuuck…” He offers as commentary as he stops shoulder to shoulder next to Elma Welser-Nakor, the stern young woman’s eyes locked on the aforementioned courtyard.
The remains strewn about it are much smaller in numbers than the size of the patches of blood-soaked sand and random pieces of meat and guts would suggest, but there’s still enough, currently being feasted upon, to paint a clear picture in red.
Twenty, maybe thirty corpses, human corpses, served as the day’s special meal to what passes for cavalry among the lizardmen. The Cold Ones, as they are called, are not like the small and slick -often- feathered bipedal reptiles Barra has seen dozens of times while “guiding” parties through Lustria. These are not slender-snouted false-birds stalking brooks like herons would, or talon-footed opportunists scurrying with eggs or small game caught in their jaws,
These are monsters with bodies covered in hard greenish scales and crowns, rows and collars of spikes covering them from their brush snouts to their muscular tails. With muscular arms capable of rending armor with their claws and haunches dense with enough corded muscle to carry an armored saurus with little complaint.
They are snarling reptilians which tug at the arms and spines of mostly eaten corpses until ligaments snap like tensed ropes.
The bodies are unrecognizable. They aren’t even bodies anymore, just segments of bone that still have layers of gristle, muscle and connective tissue attached to them. The animals almost play with them, prodding with their noses and kicking and throwing them to reposition and reveal the last few worthwhile bites.
“Caught one of your kids talking about it near where all the newbies are. I sent her off to that place where the skinks force them to stay quiet and sweep cobwebs. The rest got the message, but I don’t think you can keep this quiet very long, especially not if anyone involved made it out.”
“They didn’t.” Elma says with an emotionless voice. “They tried to use the Zultec Gate, just a few hundred meters south of here. The men that Ottilia woman got ideas into the head of. She must have guessed I wasn’t actually planning on helping and left as early as she felt she could. The skinks tallying all they took from pantries are bothered, since the saurus didn’t bother to recover anything.”
“You still haven’t told me why you are so sure there’s no survivors.”
“Because after the skinks at the Temple of Caxuatun alerted the barracks of the main group heading into the jungle, they themselves started looking for every adult human on this quadrant of the city. Have any of the children taught you about Caxuatun yet?”
“Nope.”
“He is the predator, he who stalks the deep jungles, whose passing causes the beasts to become suddenly silent and the winds to become still.” Elma recites a litany.
“Ah, yeah that’ll do it. So, no witnesses?”
“Not fully, keep facing down, but look to the upper left, to the space between two of the archest decorated with images of prey.” She explains.
Barra does as instructed, and finds himself looking at the small shape barely peeking out of the stables’ roof.
Skewer Girl.
“She’s going to keep being trouble. Believe me, I’m an expert.”
“Magnitudes less than the adults, they take priority. There is no way that none of this batch didn’t speak about it. For now, we will maintain the lie that they did make it out. But don’t force it, there isn’t a wide gap between the mistrust many of them see me with, and the tentative trust they have in you.”
“I know how to lie to people, Elma. But you need a solution, a quick one. If you want this-” Barra blanches for a second as the hollow sound of a cold one snapping while it crushes a ribcage underfoot, the organs still stuck to its inner lining becoming mashed. “Not to end up with all of them dead.”
“I’m working on a solution, a proper one.”
“And will I be privy to your plans for it?”
Elma doesn’t bother to respond, which Barra takes as his cue to leave.
She doesn’t show up back at the human-full part of the city for a few more hours.
Maybe, Barra guesses, staying until the end had been her way of paying respect.
Or she’d stayed to keep an eye on their small beholder.
Or maybe she got some twisted satisfaction from seeing how those who had defied her orders had ended up faring.
He doesn’t fucking know. Somehow he finds himself missing the Herald. Who could have guessed the animal-whispering warrior-freak would end up being the easier one to get a read on?
Godspile Mountain is not a place Njal visits often. And that’s despite how common it is for Skeggi’s wealthy and superstitious to pay for viktis, witches and other god-hearers. It’s probably just that the people who seek him out for his prophetic dreams don’t really feel the need to make offerings when the visions are positive, and get desperate for the help of more powerful soothsayers when they are negative.
It’s not like he likes the place either. All the offering left near the top of the false-mountian -which is in truth little more than a pile of refuse half as tall as the King’s Scarp- rot with a forceful and eyewatering smell. The gutters of dry blood run brown every time it rains in Skeggi, and one is always at risk of getting shat on or pecked by the seaside carrion-eaters which descend upon offering the moment the pious are gone.
But today he clambers up the gore and smile without voicing a complaint, side by side with Torfi as his best friend hauls the body of an entire tapir behind himself. It’s not a large one, to be honest, and the animal is already skinned to earn the kennelmaster’s struggling family some coin-shaped leeway.
But it’s the result of an unusually successful hunt so close to the city. Njal can only hope their masters are trying to push his friend onwards.
Being half as tall as the Scarp and far less steep, the two silent friends reach the Godspile’s top after a few more minutes of climbing stairs made out of bone, coral and trash.
There, they do not find themselves alone. Njal is surprised to find the Godspile’s opposite side to be host to two arguing shapes he is familiar with.
"Bloody" Sven and Vitki Gustaf seem to be having some kind of argument about who should get to use the hilltop’s best “altar”, an old tubular column of stone looted from a reptilian ruin decades ago, carved with images of some kind of gory sacrificial display.
Behind Sven stands a group of more than a dozen warriors of some jakker group tied to Adella, judging by the hastily drawn eyes on their shield and clothes, each clearly made with different blue dyes, many already faded or peeling because of some mistake in their making or applying.
Two of them carry a naked body Njal doesn’t recognize. Unconscious and covered in grime, but alive.
The group behind Gustaf is some family Njal vaguely remembers to be locals. They have children and elderly among their numbers, but almost as many warriors as the group of ambitious youths. They carry a variety of offerings, from small game to livestock, some alive, some dead. One of them -a child- carries a struggling chicken by the neck.
Njal can’t help but smile at the sight of the little one, but it’s soon ruined by the loudening argument over who should get to use the “altar” first.
“Come on.” Njal turns and instructs. “Here is fine, just leave it on the ground.”
Torfi nods wordlessly, his eyes also lingering on the brewing confrontation, grunting as he throws off the skinned and vaguely hog-like corpse, which lands on the Godspile with the wet sounds of exposed meat getting snagged on all sorts of things.
Torfi steps back, and hands Njal his sacrificial knife.
An old thing of knapped stone with a bone handle, likely made by his father.
Njal takes a deep breath, and kneels.
“Blood for the Hound to lap, for it is his due.” He drags the blade along the flayed body’s neck. Corpse blood, half-clotted, flows with some difficulty, but the heat of the sun keeps it eerily lukewarm. “May he fill you with fury when you most need it.”
“Guts for the Crow, for they are his due.” He slides the blade along the corpse’s belly, then he rests it on the ground and inserts his hands into the cut, pulling out as much of the lining which holds the intestines as he can. “May your wounds heal, and your success fill your belly.”
“Loins for the serpent, for they are his due.” He cuts the animal’s genitals off, pressing the blade as deeply as he can to get all of their bits. “May he fill you with vigor when your mortal flesh fails you.”
“Eyes for the Raptor, for it is his due.” He gouges out one eye, but Torfi needs to help him manoeuvre the tapir’s head to get the other. They share an awkward smile. “May he guide your strikes when you most need them to land true.”
Njal stands up, and looks at Torfi.
His friend’s body is covered in scratches, and half of them he knows to be hidden by clothing. The result of a dangerous stunt pulled in order to confirm the hunch which is now the core of a hare-brained scheme.
Hare-brained enough that they both had felt it warranted hedging the odds and calling upon the Gods. After all, who likes suicidal tasks more than the Great Powers?
The two start climbing down the Godspile that very moment, leaving the entire body for the Gods to divvy up among themselves. It’ll take half a day for the rumor mill to inform them both that the confrontation they had beheld would end up in a brawl and five people dead. Two among Adella’s cronies, three among the clansmen.
Darkly, Njal can only hope the added butchery will only attract the Great Powers towards his friend’s efforts even more.
It used to be that vessels entering the Settler’s Cove would use the “ruins” of Eicherburg as a marker by which one could ascertain their distance to the region’s surviving settlements or fix navigational measurements. The reason for this is simple. Unlike most other ruined efforts of mankind to settle the New World, the stone buildings of what soon earned the name of Darien’s Folly remained untouched by weather or flora for centuries, its small parcel of coast cleared out and its structures bare for all to see.
In order to reckon the settlement’s origins, we must turn back to Year 1698 of the Imperial Calendar. At that time, what we now know to be the powerful city-state of Marienburg and the Wasteland nominally under its control were still known as the Barony of Westerland, and thus still an integral elector countship of the Empire of Man. While formal independence was still more than six centuries away at the time, this did not mean that the region was without tribulations.
At the time, the families of the mercantile class in the city had long begun to assert the power which in modern times corresponds to the Houses which control much of Marienburg’s Burgerhof. Among said families stood that of accomplished aristocrat Eicher Darien, who earned much of his fortune in trading with the -at the time nascent- New World sealanes. Because of this, it should surprise none that it was his family which spearheaded and subsidized the construction of a settlement in Settler’s Cove.
Originally named New Marienburg, the colony saw enough success to become a permanent local fixture. Enough so that, for example, within a few years of its humble settlement by a few thousand wastelander peasants, many of the town’s wooden buildings had been torn down and replaced by permanent stone constructions. This is notable, as it would take centuries for many of Lustria’s modern human polities to improve themselves in such a way.
The colony’s success, however, drew the interest of Emperor Sigismund IV and his council, who -fearing that the city could be seen as a symbol of Marienburger independence- had it ordered that all ships heading for it from the Sea of Claws should be confiscated or burned.
This instantly put a chokehold onto a city which had -regretably- invested little into autonomy in matters of food and other basic necessities, as Eicher had expected that the constant influx of vessels from his home city would solve such a bottleneck.
His attempts to appease Imperial authorities -such as the renaming of the settlement to Eicherburg in 1701- largely failed, starving the city into a ghostly ruin less than a decade after its founding. While it is unclear when the last of Darien’s Folly two thousand inhabitants perished, the colony remained untouched by nature until the 26th Century.
Many alleged that the city’s pristine status was the result of its haunting by the ghosts of the hungering dead, with some adventurers who have dared to attempt looting it claiming that the walls and ceilings of Darien’s Folly record the hunger-borne madness that choked the townsfolk until they could no longer move or stand.
What is clear is that the ruins are much harder to find nowadays, and that their deterioration has erased any clues as to what the final days of the colony might have been like.
— “Collected Lectures on Lustria”, by Gottlieb Ochsner. Volume II: On the Isthmus and its City States.
The Felldowns, Port Reaver, Settler’s Cove, Isthmus of Lustria
14th of Brauzeit, 2538 I.C. // 40.0.9.16.14 2 B’en 7 Sak
14th of Brauzeit, 2538 I.C. // 40.0.9.16.14 2 B’en 7 Sak
For as long as Stefan remembers, the Felldowns have been the second-busiest corner of Port Reaver, just after the port. And it doesn’t take a wizard to figure out why. A Lustrian pirate outpost lives -and most importantly- dies by its ships. And so, the only thing almost as important as the place where all the ships are is the one where new ships are built, and really damaged ones drydock.
That business had been constant during his earlier childhood- and had only increased after the arrival of King Bastjan, but so had the trouble. Trouble most of his fellow orphans had stayed out of. After all, they all used to be too small to really get hired for any shipwright jobs, and said shipwrights -men who would spend their days sweating and half-naked under the dry season sun- weren’t really good pickpocketing targets.
And yet, things in the ever-busy place have only changed faster and faster since Stefan’s short stint working in and around them.
‘Three months.’ He realizes to himself. ‘Maybe four, has it really been such little time?’
Back then, he’d felt as if being just one of a dozen messengers for one of the major merchants in the city had been his big break in life, a cot and the prospects of buying himself some new clothes seemed like a gift from the Sea Gods.
Now… Well, he may still be an errand boy, but he is one to the second-most powerful man in Port Reaver. One who the people around have grown more and more fond of as orchard and crop plagues have lessened their impact under his watch.
‘They just like him because they don’t have to pay him for his services, though.’ Stefan reminds himself. Von Danling’s deal with the King did mean that his services would be exchanged for certain privileges and the throne’s covering of his tower’s and experiments’ costs. ‘If he asked for payment, everyone who can’t afford it would hate his guts.’
Case in point…
“I have been waiting for that brigantine I paid for IN FULL for half a year now! If it takes any longer, I might as well stop calling myself a pirate!” An angry man, one among dozens, hammers his fist against the large wooden panels which are the entrance to the built-up warehouse used by the Felldowns’ master shipwright as both headquarters, study and private residence.
“My galleon has been in drydock long enough that I’ve had time to squeeze a bastard out.” A female captain, a rare but not strange sight, roars by the man, her hands permanently grabbing onto the handles of both of her pistols. “Do you expect me to birth out an entire workcrew to do your work for you, Azzarello?”
“Lord Al-Isar demands a report on the two hulks being repaired in this here port!” A third man, dressed in the colors of one of the pirate lords, howls. “The Gulf of Medes remains ripe with bodies, and his business will NOT be impeded!”
There’s not that many of them. A dozen or so captains of self-governing ships, almost as many captains of lordly fleets -with their respective bodyguards- and even a couple “representatives” of the Lower Council.
A group of people far outsized by the hundreds upon hundreds who continue to work around them. certainly a magnitude too small to be called a mob, but offended enough to be riot-like in their animosity.
“I blame you for this. Just so we are all clear.” A woman’s stern voice distracts Stefan from his watching from one of the shattered windows directly above the angry and milling crowd.
Yasmeen Azzarello has not changed one bit since Stefan last saw her. The older Arabyan woman remains as stern-looking and grey-haired as always. Her winkled skin having once been that of a hard-worked beauty, a charcoal pencil rests on her ear as she glares at her guest.
Thankfully, that is not Stefan himself.
“I probably deserve it, yes, although I don’t believe that is too relevant to our current discussion.” Answers calmly the King’s wizard. Stefan can’t help but notice that -no matter how many meals they literally share- Cryston von Danling’s anatomy remains remarkably branch-like.
“It isn’t, you believe?” The woman’s tone becomes even more irate. “When Bastjan took Re Island, it didn’t bother me much. He’d be the seventh king this city has had since I came to live in it. Then he started trying to finish that damned wall, and siphoned half my workforce to work on it by offering them years’ worth of his loot. But at least they all returned when his funds ran dry. Then he built those fancy houses for Bretonnians of his, and half of his apprentices suddenly fancied themselves architects. Have you got the least idea of how many projects I had to delay?”
Stefan does. According to the few streetrats who eat at the guard’s barracks and don’t look at him weird, the Felldowns may be the best place -alongsides the dockyards themselves- to repair or modify vessels. But only Azzarello and her small collection of aides had the knowledge far above a ship’s carpenter necessary to permanently modify functioning ships, or design entirely new variants. An invaluable service to the richer captains and lords.
Half the orphans and guttersnipes dreamt of being taken in by the woman, taught how to read and write and draw and create such things. Part of Stefan wonders if that may have been his fate, had he stuck around the Felldowns instead of being stolen by the bushmage.
“And then… And then you arrive. Your stunt out in Last Henge cost me weeks of work, tons of material, a dozen tradesmen and three times as many hard-laborers. And as if that weren’t enough, now he’s thrown every last crew and fleet into disarray, and is planning on doing the wall bullshit again?!”
“Yes,” The wizard answers, scratching his beard in a way that lets a couple twigs and dry leaves fall off it. “That is a very good summary of your -our- relationship with the King. And one that I hope will not cloud your judgement of the proposal I am about to make.”
The master shipwright’s eyes roll. “Unless you can find me three hundred able-bodied men who will take no payment other than food, I doubt so.”
“Sadly, manpower is not within my purview. But your second-most cost is.”
“Don’t try to sell me that you can grow me copses of perfect timber, wizard. There are men like you in my homeland. If you were capable of doing such a thing once, you would have already killed yourself trying to do it a second time.”
Von Danling laughs at that, nodding along. “Indeed… But I understand enough to offer a much more reasonable solution. Port Reaver is already wealthy in wood. The problem, as it always has been, is to extract it.”
“Without losing entire camps to beasts and illness, you mean.”
“Precisely. And in that I can help. My powers are limited in force, but not in scope. I could -let us say- easily spend a day or two of my time every week visiting the logging yards with which you have more advantageous agreements for lumber prices. Guide them to patches of jungle where the wood is easier to extract, of good quality, and not as exposed to threats. That would cut your raw material-related costs by almost half, by the reckoning of Master Daddo.”
“And what do you get out of such generosity?” The untrusting woman asks.
“Other than saving the lives of hard-working men and easing the lives of the people of Port Reaver, you mean?”
“Yes, I mean.”
“The King -for I am a mere servant- expects that in exchange for this privilege -which will be extended to none others in Port Reaver- you will continue lending him your workforce in projects like the ones you yourself have enumerated.”
“My people keep getting siphoned off, but I get theoretically cheaper lumber. And I am supposed to be grateful?”
“I will not insult your intelligence, Master Azzarello. You know the other option is to continue having to deal with the king’s whims in exchange for… Nothing?”
The woman takes a few moments, Stefan watches intently as she seems to tune in to the angry clients without.
“On one condition.”
“I’m listening.”
“None of my people go into the jungles again. None of them.”
“Mhh, I believe the King will be glad to accept such a reasonable demand.”
“He better fucking be.” The woman gets up, and so does the wizard as well, who turns to speak to Stefan.
“Lad. if you would, sneak out one of the side windows and inform the King of our agreement. And if you’d be so kind, stop by the barracks as you do so and inform a banner of the troublemakers gathered outside. After all, it is in the interest of Port Reaver that its greatest industry work unimpeded, is it not?”
Stefan nods, and begins heading for the door, exchanging a look with the Master Shipwright. For a second, her mask of anger and resentment breaks, replaced by eyes which look at him… With happiness?
“Oh, and one last thing.” Von Danling claps his hand as Stefan walks out the door and closes it. Obviously, the boy stays put, listening in. “As your backlog of contracts and projects becomes less congested… Our King would not be bothered, so to say, if those paid for by the Pirate Lords of this city were not prioritized. After all, I believe all loot is shared equally when a vessel is successfully boarded. And it would make little sense for such fairness not to be applied in a city ruled by pirates, would it be?”
“No, I suppose it wouldn’t be.” For once, the weathered woman’s tone actually seems happy.
Darien’s Folly, Jungles of Pahualaxa, Isthmus of Lustria
When Roland wakes up with a splitting ache at the back of his head, slumped against the cold rock wall of a ruined larder in-set into some wall, his options are limited, but not inexistent.
The first thing he tries to do is get up by pushing himself back against the wall, which fails when his brain sends him back down with a stab of pain. After a few moments of cringing in pain and tears squeezing out of his hard-shut eyes, he musters the energy to bring his hand back to the area the pain’s epicenter is in. The fact that he can -somewhat- think and move his own body means that the wound can’t have been catastrophic.
The back of his head is indeed swollen but whatever his assailant had used to concuss him had not fissured bone. As he palms his hair, all he finds is long locks tanged and matted with dried blood. And when he prods further with a hiss of pain, he finds a dry scab.
No pieces of bone hanging off bits of flesh or brains outside of where they should be, as he’s often seen from those who have fallen to the maces of saurus in combat or sacrifice. For now, that is good enough.
Roland tries to take stock of himself. The rest of his body parts feel like they are where they should be, battered and cut by -likely- having been dragged through the jungle, but entirely manageable.
With one exception.
At first, as he grazes his own leg, he assumes the wound in his outer right thigh which is surrounded by a large amount of dried blood may have been a cut from a dagger or pierced by a spear or arrowhead.
Then he realizes that it is too-wide of a wound. Rectangular, instead of slit-like, and deep enough that he could press his fingertip inside of it. He doesn’t, of course, for the cut reveals the tender flesh of his leg muscle below the skin.
Some half forgotten conversation sparks in his mind. From back when he’d still been learning the languages of men, and Scar-Veteran Nakor would take him as observer in small thief-killing raids.
“The cuts around the lower torso are the best, that is where all the fat is in these ones.” One saurus among the group had said the night after a skirmish. Roland remembers having sat a small distance away with his Spawn Elder as the blue-scaled saurus had taught him how to make sense of the overlapping metal armor humans would often wear.
“No, the legs are best. It’s the only part of their scrawny bodies where there’s enough flesh to just take a big bite without a bone getting caught between your fangs. You cannot deny how satisfying it is, spawn-brother!” Another saurus had countered, a strip of uncooked flesh hanging from his maw.
Which helps Roland realize a simple truth.
He has been sampled, like a batch of fermented metoctli almost ready to be enjoyed.
And somehow, the idea of being tasted before a feast brings him comfort.
Because between that and fuzzy memories of his assailers, he can narrow down what has captured him. A most necessary element to his escape. He is dealing with no lost adventurers or malicious slave-takers. The former wouldn’t have managed to down him, the latter wouldn’t have sampled his skin and flesh.
He is dealing with the things that -according to the elders- have dwelled in Lustria almost for as long as the humanity they decay from has. The results of some failed attempt at conquest centuries prior which lizardmen parties had never managed to excise.
As he mulls over any more specific information he could dredge from memory, Roland continues to inspect himself. His polearm is gone, obviously, and so is the satchel he’d been using to carry his travel-wares.
His leather kilt is still on him, but many of the bracelets and anklets he’d worn are missing, or have been snapped, their beads, golden pieces and other decorations strewn about. None large enough to be used as a weapon. He can even feel how sore he is in part of his head other than the wounded area, signifying that some of his braids have been pulled at to get the metal and ivory rings keeping them from unwinding.
So, he has no physical tools at his disposal. Improvisation shall be his only other option.
Which is a fortunate realization, as sound and movement alert him to the arrival of one of his captors to whatever room the larder is set in. The door is ajar, and judging by the loud groaning sound of something being moved off it, it had likely been blocked off by some other larger piece of furniture.
What greets his squinting eyes when his captor slams the door open is nothing short of a horrid sight.
A Xibalban, a byproduct of the horrific things mankind had long ago taught itself by listening to the anathema’s whisperings.
A ghoul, as most humans would call it.
Like the ones which had attacked him, the creature is humanoid and fully naked. Which is an irrelevant detail, considering how its gaunt nature is homogeneous, and what might have been a reproductive appendage centuries ago is barely a dry husk. Roland sees that first of all because he is still lying on the ground, and the undead also happens to be a stretched parody of human anatomy. Its legs are so thin that they look more like stilts. Its chest is so stretched that the gaps between its ribs -their contours perfectly visible through papery and gaunt skin- are wide enough to fit three fingers horizontally.
One of the thing’s arms is missing right at the shoulderblade, the uneven scar tissue around it indicating anything but a careful amputation, but the other is long enough that the ghoul is both upright and has a tripodal stance.
Its head is the only thing un-stretched, which only makes it feel more alien to the body it doesn’t fit on. It is hairless and with fascial features so diminished that Roland can see a dent where its nasal bone ends and cartilage starts. Its lips are dry and stained with congealed blood.
And it looks down on him with such a maddened hunger.
Roland doesn’t even try to talk with it as the monster grabs his hair and pulls him upright with its remaining arm. The pain makes Roland scream with reignited pain, but at least it forces his body to react, adrenaline helping him find the energy and balance to stand just before the undead offense to nature begins ambling, dragging and pulling him somewhere else inside the dank stone structure. A ruin of some kind. Built by humans, judging by the poor stonework. It reminds him of Sudburg’s Waldeswacht, or the fortifications he’d inspected from a distance while investigating Port Reaver.
Certainly, it fits the description of the nest which he’d been taught of in younger years, halfway between the surviving human colonies and the anathema-worshipping outpost. A place humans may have another name for, but which his elders deigned to call the Xibalban Stoneworks.
As they move, the xibalban makes more and more pitiful sounds, clearly and deeply bothered by being forced to carry and not devour what it perceives as food. It is a thing driven by hunger as much as the Dark Elves are by cruelty.
It smells like a corpse after a day in the scorching sun mixed with other kinds of rot, and Roland sees its brittle skin is covered in scars and embedded with rocks and shards of bone.
And it is taking him towards more of its kind. For as they move the smells become stronger, and the babbling raspy noises of other creatures like itself become distressingly louder. The ground becomes littered with bones, most splintered for their marrow, and with filthy piles of branches, leaves and long-filthied cloths clearly used as nests by the animalistic undead.
It doesn't take much longer for them to reach some kind of hall. Perhaps a grand room for a council or a throne. Perhaps it used to be a place for feasting, judging by the wooden fragments strewn about, being clambered over the gathered commensals.
What once may have been wooden or even glass windows are just holes in the wall. It is night, and Roland knows not where he may have been taken, but the cloudless sky means that the twin moons let through enough light to give him a good look at them all.
Despite their common features -fatless bodies stretched in unnatural shapes, protruding bones, curved and crooked backs, faces of thin half-decayed teeth, fangs, and distended mouths- each ghoul is unique among its kind. And most unique of them all is the one which lets out a growl in a mockery of what once must have been some archaic form of imperial.
The word is undecipherable, but all the ghouls quickly fall silent in anything but salivating growls and pitiful wines. The one that speaks stands out, opposite to Roland and at the head of the collected diners.
What remains of Eicher Darien.
It is the largest of them all, with a back so crooked and bulging that his torso has the general shape of a kidney. From it hang two spindly arms, the right one twice as thick but bending inwards, the left one spindly, and curled around a stake which might have a decade ago been the handle of a spear. Stabbed through its skull and body are a collection of bones broken into stabbing shapes, and from a waist supported by two uncannily thin legs hangs a belt of skulls.
It takes a staggering step towards Roland as he is shoved off by his assumed guard. Then another. With every step, something jangles from the ghast’s neck. It may have once been the leather harness or collar of some animal, or a belt of great quality. But it is now little other than a gnawed strip of leather from which hangs a massive key. Too large to belong to a functional lock. It reminds him of the one he once saw resting in a cabinet in the office of the Governor-General during a visit years ago.
To the leader goes the first and most choice bite. A law of nature applied even among the unnatural.
As it moves towards Roland, dwarfing him, the beast’s mouth opens, an anoxic miasma of rotting meat exiting it and making the Xho’za’khanx’s eyes water. Its teeth are all shattered, hammered, into gnarly triangles, a mockery of shark’s teeth. It is lipless, and a tongue waves and drools too long to fit in a human mouth.
It will kill him, with bites and slams and stabs of its splintered stake, or maybe it will rip his throat out, or maybe it will simply start enjoying his fatty torso meat or a mouthful of his leg, and its thirty or so subordinates will clamber and fight over each other, they will eat him alive.
Or maybe… Maybe not.
Xibalbans hunger. That is why the jungle quiets around them. Anything that doesn’t flee their spanning limbs becomes food. Likely, their only concern in prey selection is finding something just small enough to eat in full before it can be stolen by its fellow undead.
The thing looking down on him may once upon a time have hosted a human intelligence. But no longer. Calling it animalistic would be an insult to the instincts of the beasts which his patron has made him kin to.
“They will not care for what is served, will they?” Rolan speaks in reikspiel, igniting not even a spark of recognition from it. “They’ll just be hoping for a feast. So I shall give them that.”
Roland lunges and extends his arm.
Spooked, the misbegotten ghast both tries to snap at him and reels back.
Roland’s hand wraps around the damaged leather collar, and pulls down, straining with all his strength. He fears it may snap, and eventually it does, sending the key to a forgotten city clattering to the ground and breaking the stunned crowd of the undead.
Not before Roland’s pulling puts the ghast's neck slightly lower than eye level to himself.
The perfect height for him to bite into.
Skin gives away under his teeth like taut paper, but the flesh he sinks them into is as hard as jerky, and rotted blood congealed into a texture denser than honey fills his mouth.
But Roland pushes through. The thing is the definition of consumptive decay, its disgusting flesh hiding little. Finally, he meets another layer of resistance, a ribbed and hardened tube.
And rips out the ghasts windpipe, using its own thrashing to propel himself backwards as he spits the damned flesh out and slams against the ground.
The ghoul thrashes and bleed clumps of liquid decay. It is not meat worth eating even to the most desperate of scavengers.
But xibalbans are lesser than the most diminutive of carrion beetles. And in a blinking moment, the entire hall explodes into a cannibalistic frenzy.
They slam and crash into each other, biting and shoving for a chance at their master’s subpar flesh. The ones who do not fall for the rush and try to reach Roland are also delayed, as they have to cross the middle of the melee to get to him anyways, and half of them get caught up by it, finally succumbing to the frenzy and joining as a second wave.
“SKREEEE!”
The long-damned ruin erupts into a disgusting cacophony of howling, fighting and shouting. But not one loud enough to mask the sound that comes from one of the windowholes.
A massive bird flaps its winds as it squeaks and jumps on one of their edges, Roland had never seen such beautiful feathers reflect the guiding light of moonlight. He thinks not of what might lay beyond, for the within is a den of evil.
Roland jumps through the window, screaming a prayer to his godly lord.
Cold-One Stables, Temple-City of Pahuax, Jungles of Pahualaxa, Isthmus of Lustria
40.0.9.16.15 3 Men 8 Sak
40.0.9.16.15 3 Men 8 Sak
“I swear to Carnun and all the bog-gods, if this is the way I die…” Barra grumbles -instinctively resorting to a mother language he hasn’t had a conversation in for years- to himself as he does his best to squeeze through a crowd of massive ash-stained reptilian warriors, the smallest one among them still easily capable of tearing his skull off like a ripe fruit in order to crack it and drink the insides.
At least he can hope his brains will taste good. They are all he’s got going on for himself
And yet, they all ignore him. He hopes that it’s because his smell is recognizable to their flaring nostrils. Or maybe it is the coat of paint some of the funnier kids have taken to periodically slathering him in.
But it’s probably just that they are all too engrossed with the spectacle he is trying to reach the viewing gallery for. Sure, a couple times he gets squeezed between two of the hulking warrior-caste and starts praying really hard, but eventually he makes it to the sheer stone ledge that separates the storerooms and barracks of the stable from the inner courtyard hewn out of solid rock, an indented pit just deep enough that the animals inside can’t just leap out, and blocked by thick wooden doors that lead onto the ramp that would let them all leave when called upon by whichever particularly scary saurus is their commander.
Barra comes to stand by the side of just the local he’d been hoping to find. The only other human in this corner of Pahuax.
Well, the only other living one.
“Fuuuuuuuck…” He offers as commentary as he stops shoulder to shoulder next to Elma Welser-Nakor, the stern young woman’s eyes locked on the aforementioned courtyard.
The remains strewn about it are much smaller in numbers than the size of the patches of blood-soaked sand and random pieces of meat and guts would suggest, but there’s still enough, currently being feasted upon, to paint a clear picture in red.
Twenty, maybe thirty corpses, human corpses, served as the day’s special meal to what passes for cavalry among the lizardmen. The Cold Ones, as they are called, are not like the small and slick -often- feathered bipedal reptiles Barra has seen dozens of times while “guiding” parties through Lustria. These are not slender-snouted false-birds stalking brooks like herons would, or talon-footed opportunists scurrying with eggs or small game caught in their jaws,
These are monsters with bodies covered in hard greenish scales and crowns, rows and collars of spikes covering them from their brush snouts to their muscular tails. With muscular arms capable of rending armor with their claws and haunches dense with enough corded muscle to carry an armored saurus with little complaint.
They are snarling reptilians which tug at the arms and spines of mostly eaten corpses until ligaments snap like tensed ropes.
The bodies are unrecognizable. They aren’t even bodies anymore, just segments of bone that still have layers of gristle, muscle and connective tissue attached to them. The animals almost play with them, prodding with their noses and kicking and throwing them to reposition and reveal the last few worthwhile bites.
“Caught one of your kids talking about it near where all the newbies are. I sent her off to that place where the skinks force them to stay quiet and sweep cobwebs. The rest got the message, but I don’t think you can keep this quiet very long, especially not if anyone involved made it out.”
“They didn’t.” Elma says with an emotionless voice. “They tried to use the Zultec Gate, just a few hundred meters south of here. The men that Ottilia woman got ideas into the head of. She must have guessed I wasn’t actually planning on helping and left as early as she felt she could. The skinks tallying all they took from pantries are bothered, since the saurus didn’t bother to recover anything.”
“You still haven’t told me why you are so sure there’s no survivors.”
“Because after the skinks at the Temple of Caxuatun alerted the barracks of the main group heading into the jungle, they themselves started looking for every adult human on this quadrant of the city. Have any of the children taught you about Caxuatun yet?”
“Nope.”
“He is the predator, he who stalks the deep jungles, whose passing causes the beasts to become suddenly silent and the winds to become still.” Elma recites a litany.
“Ah, yeah that’ll do it. So, no witnesses?”
“Not fully, keep facing down, but look to the upper left, to the space between two of the archest decorated with images of prey.” She explains.
Barra does as instructed, and finds himself looking at the small shape barely peeking out of the stables’ roof.
Skewer Girl.
“She’s going to keep being trouble. Believe me, I’m an expert.”
“Magnitudes less than the adults, they take priority. There is no way that none of this batch didn’t speak about it. For now, we will maintain the lie that they did make it out. But don’t force it, there isn’t a wide gap between the mistrust many of them see me with, and the tentative trust they have in you.”
“I know how to lie to people, Elma. But you need a solution, a quick one. If you want this-” Barra blanches for a second as the hollow sound of a cold one snapping while it crushes a ribcage underfoot, the organs still stuck to its inner lining becoming mashed. “Not to end up with all of them dead.”
“I’m working on a solution, a proper one.”
“And will I be privy to your plans for it?”
Elma doesn’t bother to respond, which Barra takes as his cue to leave.
She doesn’t show up back at the human-full part of the city for a few more hours.
Maybe, Barra guesses, staying until the end had been her way of paying respect.
Or she’d stayed to keep an eye on their small beholder.
Or maybe she got some twisted satisfaction from seeing how those who had defied her orders had ended up faring.
He doesn’t fucking know. Somehow he finds himself missing the Herald. Who could have guessed the animal-whispering warrior-freak would end up being the easier one to get a read on?
The Godspile, Skeggi, Jarldom of Lyssa Bay, Jungles of Pahualaxa
1st of Silðimánuður, 2545 VR // 40.0.9.16.16 4 Kʼibʼ 9 Sak
1st of Silðimánuður, 2545 VR // 40.0.9.16.16 4 Kʼibʼ 9 Sak
Godspile Mountain is not a place Njal visits often. And that’s despite how common it is for Skeggi’s wealthy and superstitious to pay for viktis, witches and other god-hearers. It’s probably just that the people who seek him out for his prophetic dreams don’t really feel the need to make offerings when the visions are positive, and get desperate for the help of more powerful soothsayers when they are negative.
It’s not like he likes the place either. All the offering left near the top of the false-mountian -which is in truth little more than a pile of refuse half as tall as the King’s Scarp- rot with a forceful and eyewatering smell. The gutters of dry blood run brown every time it rains in Skeggi, and one is always at risk of getting shat on or pecked by the seaside carrion-eaters which descend upon offering the moment the pious are gone.
But today he clambers up the gore and smile without voicing a complaint, side by side with Torfi as his best friend hauls the body of an entire tapir behind himself. It’s not a large one, to be honest, and the animal is already skinned to earn the kennelmaster’s struggling family some coin-shaped leeway.
But it’s the result of an unusually successful hunt so close to the city. Njal can only hope their masters are trying to push his friend onwards.
Being half as tall as the Scarp and far less steep, the two silent friends reach the Godspile’s top after a few more minutes of climbing stairs made out of bone, coral and trash.
There, they do not find themselves alone. Njal is surprised to find the Godspile’s opposite side to be host to two arguing shapes he is familiar with.
"Bloody" Sven and Vitki Gustaf seem to be having some kind of argument about who should get to use the hilltop’s best “altar”, an old tubular column of stone looted from a reptilian ruin decades ago, carved with images of some kind of gory sacrificial display.
Behind Sven stands a group of more than a dozen warriors of some jakker group tied to Adella, judging by the hastily drawn eyes on their shield and clothes, each clearly made with different blue dyes, many already faded or peeling because of some mistake in their making or applying.
Two of them carry a naked body Njal doesn’t recognize. Unconscious and covered in grime, but alive.
The group behind Gustaf is some family Njal vaguely remembers to be locals. They have children and elderly among their numbers, but almost as many warriors as the group of ambitious youths. They carry a variety of offerings, from small game to livestock, some alive, some dead. One of them -a child- carries a struggling chicken by the neck.
Njal can’t help but smile at the sight of the little one, but it’s soon ruined by the loudening argument over who should get to use the “altar” first.
“Come on.” Njal turns and instructs. “Here is fine, just leave it on the ground.”
Torfi nods wordlessly, his eyes also lingering on the brewing confrontation, grunting as he throws off the skinned and vaguely hog-like corpse, which lands on the Godspile with the wet sounds of exposed meat getting snagged on all sorts of things.
Torfi steps back, and hands Njal his sacrificial knife.
An old thing of knapped stone with a bone handle, likely made by his father.
Njal takes a deep breath, and kneels.
“Blood for the Hound to lap, for it is his due.” He drags the blade along the flayed body’s neck. Corpse blood, half-clotted, flows with some difficulty, but the heat of the sun keeps it eerily lukewarm. “May he fill you with fury when you most need it.”
“Guts for the Crow, for they are his due.” He slides the blade along the corpse’s belly, then he rests it on the ground and inserts his hands into the cut, pulling out as much of the lining which holds the intestines as he can. “May your wounds heal, and your success fill your belly.”
“Loins for the serpent, for they are his due.” He cuts the animal’s genitals off, pressing the blade as deeply as he can to get all of their bits. “May he fill you with vigor when your mortal flesh fails you.”
“Eyes for the Raptor, for it is his due.” He gouges out one eye, but Torfi needs to help him manoeuvre the tapir’s head to get the other. They share an awkward smile. “May he guide your strikes when you most need them to land true.”
Njal stands up, and looks at Torfi.
His friend’s body is covered in scratches, and half of them he knows to be hidden by clothing. The result of a dangerous stunt pulled in order to confirm the hunch which is now the core of a hare-brained scheme.
Hare-brained enough that they both had felt it warranted hedging the odds and calling upon the Gods. After all, who likes suicidal tasks more than the Great Powers?
The two start climbing down the Godspile that very moment, leaving the entire body for the Gods to divvy up among themselves. It’ll take half a day for the rumor mill to inform them both that the confrontation they had beheld would end up in a brawl and five people dead. Two among Adella’s cronies, three among the clansmen.
Darkly, Njal can only hope the added butchery will only attract the Great Powers towards his friend’s efforts even more.
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I'm surprised by how many readers (and even my editors) failed to realize that the "draugr" from the previous arc were also the things attacking Roland in this one. I even considered going back and re-editing it to make it more clear, but when fanfiction is concerned I feel learning from your mistakes doesn't necessitate going back to fix them.
In any case, this was one of my favorite chapters to write in a while. I really enjoy writing chapters where every single scene is completely different in tone, rhythm and events from each other.
I hope you enjoyed the story and I honestly appreciate all and any kudos or comments you may be gracious enough to gift me! And in case any of you are interested, here's the link to my Discord server, where I discuss my projects and all are welcome
It would be great if, if you enjoyed the story that is, you took a second of your time to go over to ao3 and left a kudo and a comment over there, since it is my main posting site.
In any case, this was one of my favorite chapters to write in a while. I really enjoy writing chapters where every single scene is completely different in tone, rhythm and events from each other.
I hope you enjoyed the story and I honestly appreciate all and any kudos or comments you may be gracious enough to gift me! And in case any of you are interested, here's the link to my Discord server, where I discuss my projects and all are welcome
It would be great if, if you enjoyed the story that is, you took a second of your time to go over to ao3 and left a kudo and a comment over there, since it is my main posting site.