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Fiction Herald Of The Old Ones

What Are Thrones Made Of? - Part VII: Not All Schemers Are Smart​


"Do not ask which creature screams in the night. Do not question who waits for you in the shadow. It is my cry that wakes you in the night, and my body that crouches in the shadow. I am Tzeentch and you are the puppet that dances to my tune..."
— Tzeentch, the Architect of Fate.​


“The first thing you need to understand about worshipers of the Changer of Ways is that all of them are making horseshit up, busking it and generally fucking about. They all claim that they had it all figured out from the start, and they are all lying. The second thing you need to know? It’s that that only makes them even more dangerous.”
— Words of Witch Hunter Hauke von Hinnerk-Hansen.





Near Jaguar’s Mouth Cave, Outskirts of Skeggi, Jungles of Pahualaxa
2nd of Silðimánuður, 2545 VR // 40.0.9.16.17 5 Kabʼan 10 Sak​

Torfi can’t do anything but dodge and scamper back, just as his hounds had, as the enormous reptilian clad in greenish golden armor bears down on them. His mind doesn’t even harken back to the javelins holstered at his back, or the dagger hanging from his leather belt. Why would it?

Around them, the members of Adella’s hunting party -her allies, her Jarlvakt, and who knows who else- shout in alarm as they themselves raise spears and notch arrows. The twang-like sounds of bowstrings as arrows are let loose are instantly followed by those of arrowheads striking metal, bouncing off armored scales with depressive thuds. The couple that do find purchase look like not even their entire length could be enough to pierce through skin and into flesh, let alone cause a debilitating wound.

And even if they could, why would he ever help the people whose death’s he’s just orchestrated?

No, all that the young man does is continue retreating towards the desiccated reef’s steep climb up to what would be the waterline on most days. He’d assumed from the start that the stunt would cost him his life, but he’s not dumb enough to actively seek it. Instead, as he follows the distant barks of terrified hounds, he can’t help but look back.

Just in time for the body of a jarlvakt, one of Adella’s huscarls, to fly towards him. Torfi dodges by throwing himself down, meaning that the body clad in scraps of mail armor and fur instead snaps into the reef with a sound of cracking coral and the squelching of impaled flesh.

The man’s corpse looks back at Torfi with glazed eyes, giving him a much faster-than-usual show of how exactly the reef has grown for hundreds of years. And yet, he can’t help but follow the trajectory backwards, recentering his sight on the futile attempts to down the storkäft.

Adella seems to have had the same plan as himself, using the fools who had followed them to the cave’s mouth and the discordant volleys as a distraction to get as far away from the beast as possible. Another one of her bodyguards, a warrior wearing a simple helm of sheet metal decorated with ram horns, tries to put himself between the lizardman and his King, only for the beast -still wearing collars and ropes of feathers ruined by years in saltwater- to rear up and bring both of its four-clawed fists down upon the man like scale-encrusted boulders.

The mashed corpse’s legs are still twitching as the animal simply stomps through and continues its growling and slobbering charge towards the Jarl of Lyssa Bay. Torfi is endlessly glad that it has chosen her and not him for a target. But he isn’t necessarily surprised. After all, for as long as Norscans have raided Lustria, there has been a clear awareness that its native beastmen have an aversion for anything and everything touched by the Gods.

And not even witches or viktis like Njal and Soren are as touched by the Gods as beings like Adella. And so the Raven-touched woman continues to retreat. For a second, her eyes catch his. And for the first time since his father died, Torfi can’t deny himself a hound’s satiated smile.

Her own eyes, however, return an unknowable stare. “KILL IT, KILL IT! YOUR KING COMMANDS!” She focuses on the foe at hand, screaming orders with a discordant and echoing loudness that should be impossible in the coastal outdoors.

That seems to steel the resolve of her wavering warriors, who redouble their efforts. Those who only have spears, axes and the odd sword even climb down the reef -which, Torfi notes, is slowly filling up with water as the low tide ends- to try and surround the monster.

To little success.

Every tail-swipe crushes a chest, every snap of crocodilian jaws breaks bodies in half, every claw-swipe sends chunks of gore the size of sausages flying out of screaming bodies.

Spears bend as they are thrust against a supposedly weaker underbelly, axeheads bounce and shields splinter as the animal grabs their cords through the wooden structures painted with the King’s toothed raven. It is a massacre that leaves a dozen broken bodies in the way to Adella’s shape, which remains stuck to one of the bone-encrusted coral ledges.

The bodies mix with the seawater, moving and wedging here and there as the incoming waves rise and rise, some of those furthest behind, closest to the demolished cave entrance, even begin being picked at by opportunistic seabirds and reptiles.

If Torfi had the mind to look for it, he could dunk his head under the water and find hundreds of crabs and fish nipping at floating pieces of flesh and the rent-open corpses. But he doesn’t, for the sight that unfolds over the water as the troll-sized reptilian reaches Adella is twice as horrifying.

The woman climbs up to one of the coraline ledges, letting her cloak of filthy blackbird feathers fall off her with a tug as it catches on one of the stake-shaped growths of the living material. That leaves her body, from legs glistening with red-tinged seawater to her strange headdress to which Losteriksson’s Crown had been added, completely exposed with the exception of a loincloth and a now-broken bandage that exposes one of her breasts.

Where a nipple should be, a long-tongued mouth hisses. Torfi vomits right then and there.

The sight draws worshipful amazement from those still alive and trying to take the lizardman down like idiots, making it clear to Torfi that he’s still among a small group of those "privileged" enough to have seen the hundred or so wound-like mouths covering the woman’s body.

Mouths with breath as ragged as her original one. Mouths which sneer. Mouths which quiver and move as… If…

Speaking.

No, chanting.

Adella’s words become louder and louder, more and more shrill and chorus-like as the monster makes its final, open-jawed approach. It doesn’t even need to climb up the ledge, it is so tall that her position barely puts the blessed woman at eye-height with a snarling face covered by an enormous four-horned helm.

Torfi winces as her volume picks up, more and more until she is louder than a chanting longhouse or a marching army, until some of her own guard -those nearest- began to fall with bleeding ears and the stumbles of drunk men, cracking their necks against the shallow-bottomed water or being cut and rasped by the merciless coral.

The beast makes its final lunge, a ram of toothed jaws as fast as a whip.

But not enough.

Flames of an impossibly pink color he has only seen in the wings of the rarest jungle birds spew like lancets out of each and every one of her mouths.

The will of the Gods made manifest in an impossible gust of flames.

The pink fire engulfs the beast, making it utter a sound of thunderous pain that Torfi has never before heard.

And it only barely helps the woman survive as an arm -scales and flesh already melting off it- suddenly lashes out of the column of fire to strike at her, slamming her back with a crackling explosion Torfi can only hope to be her bones.

The flames go out within seconds of the dying beast’s blow, but the damage is done.

And Torfi, alongside less than a dozen beatific survivors, is left staring in gape-mouthed horror as the horrible burned beast, its armor melted into its body, takes one.

Two.

And three earthshaking stamps more before its charred body finally gives up, a mouth of dripping metal and bare blackened teeth failing to clasp around Adella’s prone form.

“HEY, YOU!” Torfi and a few others are broken from their stupor as someone shouts over the squawing sounds of the converging carrion-eating gulls. “YOU TRAITOR!”

‘Oh, yeah.” Torfi realizes. Everyone still alive -hopefully not the King’s broken body- knows that he’d been the one to guide them here.

And so the kennel-master turns, grabs onto a solid-looking piece of coral grown around a split skull, and fucking runs for it.




Council Rock, Port Reaver, Settlers’ Cove
18th of Brauzeit, 2538 I.C. // 40.0.9.16.18 6 Etzʼnabʼ 11 Sak​

Having been built up and remodeled by multiple kings of Port Reaver to function as a last bastion during the -many- attempts to overthrow them has left the squareish fort a complicated maze, and not even the kind one builds to confound attackers. From the uneven lines of fire given by the towers at each of its corners, to the cramped space of its inner courtyard, it certainly lacks the comforts of even the poorest of the pleasure yachts under Serena’s flag.

‘At least,’ She mulls. ‘None of the crews of those were idiotic enough to attempt to make it on their own.’

And yet, she is likely to lose one of those hulls soon anyways. The bulk of the damage of the Boar’s taxes had already been accounted for by her paymasters, and while she is far from having lost her fortune, some preventive belt-tightening is in order.

The problem, she finds herself mulling as she sheaths her saber after finishing the day’s training, is time. Time, not a lack of it. In fact, an overabundance of it. If only she could make that scarce with a few cuts.

“He fought well.” She speaks to her bodyguards as one goes to poke at the bleeding shape currently creating a red puddle in the middle of the sandy court. “Take him to Cadavas.” She mentions her private physician. “And have him patch the lad up at my expense.”

With little more words, she retires, leaving the men to their jeering and peacocking. As a seat-holder of Port Reaver’s council, she is entitled to quarters in the fortress in times of accord -which isn’t the current case, but Bastjan seems adamant in acting like it- and with the recent vacancy of the token numbers of men he had kept manning it now gone by his own orders…

The man seems to have given Council Rock -and what it symbolizes- up in all ways but the outspoken one.

And that suits her just fine, unlike men like Favieres and Dubosc, she has no interest in spending her nights among tavern-crawlers or maddened priestess-whores. And Al-Isar seems intent on copying them, as the news of their cadre seems adamantly centered on sampling every pleasure the city can bring him and his uplifted friends.

‘Pleasure…’ She thinks back to her yachts. Indeed, back in the Old World she would have no issue in selling it off for a good price -specially considering that she had gotten it for a price of spilled blood and naught else- in any of a dozen ports to anyone from a petulant nobleborn brat to a merchant with dreams of fucking his way into blue-bloodedness.

But here in Lustria? Where everyone is poor as shit, wants her to hang from the noose, or a direct competitor? Not a single buyer worth the headache on her side of the Great Ocean.

So what would her best option be then? Send it off to carry out the weeks -depending on the weather, even months- long trip back east, hoping that its captain will indeed carry the sale out, and won’t skim anything off the top? And all of that assuming that a pleasure yacht would survive the fraught voyage at all.

“Would take too long… Too many unknowns…” She mulls over as she enters her private rooms in one of the corner towers. The most spacious one, of course.

“Mistress?” Speaks a voice.

“Nothing for you to concern yourself with, Lance.” Serena speaks to the much younger man currently carrying a bundle of blankets, likely cleaning her bed up. He looks at her with those big blue eyes of his, half-hidden by the mass of blonde locks she enjoys tugging at so much. “Has Lady drawn me a cold bath?”

“It should be ready, mistress.” He smiles as she walks by. He also yelps when she grabs hold of his loose shirt and pulls him along to the room she has made into her bathroom by virtue of good ventilation.

There, she finds her bathtub being filled with clear water by a figure near identical to Lance, only more feminine. She’d gotten the twins as part of her price only a couple of years ago, they had been some kind of special deal offered by the vessel’s slavemaster to his Arabyan clients. A young boy fit for being made into a pit-fighter, and a matching pleasure slave.

Serena had ended up deciding to use them both for the latter role.

The girl greets her with a shy smile and a bow, and soon enough the twins are both upon her, helping remove every bit of clothing on her body with just a few extra -and welcome- graces and touches.

Soon enough she is laid in a tub overflowing with just enough water to deal with the Lustrian heat, incense burning on a small table near her as Lance starts working at her feet, and Lady rubs her shoulder with enough force to elicit grunts of satisfied pain.

“You seem… Stressed… Mistress…”

“Of course I am.” Serena squirms into the girl’s hands, lowering herself as much as she can into the water. “I am sworn to take part in a stillborn coup.”

She catches a glimpse of the twins looking at each other. Not in surprise -she keeps them abreast of most of her dealings- but in some reasonable amount of fear. A failed coup implies her getting the traitor’s treatment, and new masters for them.

Masters who would likely tend to be a lot less… Soft on them.

“Have any of the other lords broken your pact, mistress?” Lance asks.

“No, but I expect one of us soon will. It may even be me. This… We failed to see the bigger picture.”

“You rarely do, mistress.” The girl comforts, nibbling at her ear.

“I did this time… Bastjan… Giving so much of his fleet up when he became King may not have been as stupid of a decision as we had assumed. It means that most of his men are here, slowly becoming guards and -Manann forbid it, bureaucrats while ours are scattered across the Great Sea.”

“I’m not sure I follow, mistress, the four of you surely have more force at your command than he ever could?”

“Of course you don’t follow, Lance.” She smiles, squinting at him between the mounds of her breasts. “I keep you for your fingers, not your brains.”

Lady laughs a little at the insult, but the brother does little more than offer a rueful smile as he goes back to massaging the soles of her feet.

“None of us are stupid enough to keep our fleets together. Not without the backbone of a Port Reaver of our own -or a cove like the one Hamidou used to have- to deal with the burden. Only Dubosc has a third of his fleet in Settler’s Cove at any given time, and that’s because of all his slave barges. The rest of us keep the fleets spread like scattershot. Between that and all the mutineers… It may take months before we actually have enough cannons and sabers here to take the Cittadella, and he sure as hell won’t come out to meet us at sea. Months that that land-lubing pig will have to continue trying to strengthen himself. And months for that upstart Billings to keep trying to make himself a hidden Lord. They are both like a bunch of barnacles you can’t remove from a hull because bad waves would get your swabs killed.” Serena lets out a moan as Lady times her explanation’s end with the applying of pressure to a particularly stubborn knot.

Serena’s arms shoot backwards, grappling around the girl’s neck with a splash, Then her legs kick out, locking stunned Lance’s neck between her thighs.

“But… I am not going to be the one to break the news to the rest, not when I can use the time to also reposition myself. And I distinctly remember coming here to relax for the day. So, come on. Relax me.” She commands.

The twins share a look of blushing mischief. Only when they are entangled so does she get to see the sharpness behind their beautiful eyes.

“Yes, misstress…” They moan in unison.




Beaches of Skeggi, Lyssa Bay, Jungles of Pahualaxa
3rd of Silðimánuður, 2545 VR // 40.0.9.16.18 6 Etzʼnabʼ 11 Sak​

“Fuck y-ugh!” Torfi tries to bark as two warriors -of which he only recognizes one as a survivor of his assasination attempt- drag him along the sand of Skeggi’s Playa. They do so amidst a crowd that only parts for their drawn weapons.

Torfi doesn’t even try to raise his head, scared that his eyes may cross those of Njal or his mother, that their last sight of him before he is shoved and chained to a stone, will be that of him bent of body and broken of will. If he is going to be put through the Blood Eagle, he doesn’t want them to remember that version of him.

That is the only thing that could have drawn the attention of so many, the execution of the idiot mutt-boy who thought he could trick a daughter of the Raven into getting herself killed. Kingslaying, as it turns out, is only frowned upon by his people if it ends in failure.

His eyes are blurry and stinging, partially because of the sand he’s being dragged through, partially because -once he had been caught- he’s been on the receiving end of a beating that had left his right eye swollen-shut along half a hundred other bruises and cuts.

At least they hadn’t broken any bones or ran him through. That would have meant his likely death before his execution.

Which is why he is left entirely dumbfounded when one of his captors lets go of him, shoving him against a rock half-buried on the silty-beach’s edge.

“Stay there.” The woman growls, turning to look at her companion. “If he moves, pin him to the stone through his belly, King isn’t that interested.” She gestures to the spear held in the other’s hands. Who eyes him not with hate but with… Amazement.

“You the kid who tried to sick a damned lizardman on the King? And I thought the sand-eaters were stupid.” A voice speaks. For a second Torfi thinks it’s that of the guard who has been left with him at the head of the crowd gathering upon the beach while trying not to get their fur boots or bare feet stuck in one of its many quicksand patches. The crowd slowly becomes louder and louder with gasping and animated speaking.

But no, the voice comes from another shape, the one using the rock he’s been dumped by as a seat.

Torfi turns to look at it.

“Gods, you look like a pig who ran off halfway being fucked by a troll.” The man laughs.

Said man is wiry, a Norscan with deeply sun-tanned skin, unkept strands of long greying hair and a beard that hasn’t been cleaned up since the ex-kennelmaster was born. He also smells like brine and wears a mismatched collection of ratty rags and newish clothes, all decorated with bits and pieces of seashells.

The tools the man has resting on his shoulder as he looks down on Torfi with a smile give his nature away. A bucket shiny with salt crystals, a rake, a shovel and a ratty net tied around a stick.

‘A beach-trawler.’ Torfi blinks with his one good eye. ‘My lungs are about to be pulled out my back like fishguts, and my last conversation is going t to be with a fucking bloodworm slurper.’

In truth, it’s good company for an orphaned kennelmaster who never amounted to much in life.

“Name’s Styrmir, kid. And I gotta say, helping hunt that thing down? Now that takes some balls right there.”

…

“Uh…?”

“Oh, right, you are bleeding outta your ear. Here, lemme help you.” The man grabs Torfi’s sore shoulder, turning his entire pain-stiffed body just enough to leave him looking at.

“Fuuuuuuck…”

About thirty people, mostly thralls directed by a few shouting overseers, trying to pull the enormous and blackened corpse of the Lizardman, its partially melted armor still glinting under the sun. The enormous body is half-propped up a barge of hastily tied-together logs, clearly not big enough to handle its weight judging by the way in which it lists. About half the thralls are actually on the beach, pulling at the ropes tied to it to drag against the coming and going waves. Others push and pull while standing nipples-deep in the water, and a couple even try to row with oars while awkwardly standing on the charred flesh and wet wood.

And overwatching it all at a few hundred paces down the beach? Adella herself, once more draped in a cloak of feathers. A different one.

The woman stiffens once Torfi’s gaze falls on her.

Her head turns, sparing Torfi a single-mouthed smile and wink.

Not only has he failed to kill the King, now she has yet another accolade to her legend. No one has defeated such a formidable saurian near Skeggi since the wet season when Drenok Johansen arrived at Skeggi.

All thanks to Torfi.

And because of that, it does not surprise him that she eventually approaches him. Of course, she makes the beaten mutt lick his wounds for a half hour more, which is how long it takes for the slaves to finally drag the monster ashore.

Adella climbs upon its back aided by her worshipful guard, her nature will not likely remain a secret for long. And that’s if she hasn’t chosen to make use of it too.

The way in which the crowd, which moves like an army of ants around her and the corpse, reacts to words Torfi can barely hear certainly implies as such.

But approach she does, letting her allies and guards divvy and butcher the creature up with aid from Gothi Bloðugr, who barks and roars with maddened excitement at such a grand sacrifice. Torfi spies the thing’s entire head being carted off to the base of the King’s Hill.

“I better get going kid, can’t stand around liars you know? Makes an honest Norscan’s blood boil.” The crowd parts around Adella as she approaches, barely giving Styrmir the time to scurry off. But not without oddly critical parting words for the beaten dog.

“Let us be, I need to confer with my Kennelmaster.” The woman commands, creating an odd lake of privacy among a crowd of thousands. Even the non-norscans surround the dead beast and join the impromptu festivities, Torfi spies.

A single one of Adella’s talon-sharp nails touched Torfi’s chin, making him look up. She’s so close that he can count every single one of the ritualistic oval scars adorning her face. Close enough that only he can hear the rest of her mouth when Adella speaks.

“YOU MONGREL, I WILL FEED ON YOUR EYES, I WILL FLAY YOU WITH PLIERS!”

“Hello there, Torfi. I would apologize for your state, but we had to make sure you wouldn’t… Scurry off… Again…” Her smile is too excited, too happy.

“I could put you to so much good use… Yes I could.”

“So, you want to draw it out? I won’t beg. I ain’t that kinda mutt.” He tries to steady himself, straighten his back.

“I can still change my mind you know, I can still kill you, I can still-”

“No, no, I am afraid I have only come here to congratulate you. Torfi.”

“If you didn’t smell of dog, you’d be such a pretty bird…”

“Congratulate me on what? On not killing you? I wasn’t even lucky enough for that bastard Reidarson to be there.”

“Next time you try to kill me, you’d do better to have more than one plan, retarded boy-thing.”

“Is that so? If I remember correctly, I ordered that you organize a hunt, didn’t I?” She asks, had her lips always been this thin? “And you did! You gained me the best trophy I could have asked for, Kennelmaster.”

“The thrill… I haven’t been this excited since I made my parents kill each other….”

“What then?” Torfi asks, managing to rise himself to his knees.

"̸N̶o̵w̴ ̶I̵ ̶l̷e̶t̶ ̷y̴o̵u̵ ̸g̸o̴ ̷o̵f̷f̵,̴ ̷t̶o̷ ̶y̸o̶u̷r̷ ̶d̵o̷g̴s̵ ̸a̵n̵d̷ ̴y̵o̵u̸r̵ ̴w̸i̶t̷c̷h̶ ̷a̵n̵d̵ ̶y̵o̶u̵r̸ ̴m̷o̵t̸h̶e̵r̷ ̷a̸n̴d̴ ̵t̶h̴o̵s̴e̵ ̴c̵u̶t̸e̴ ̴l̷i̶t̸t̵l̶e̷ ̸t̵h̷i̵n̸g̸s̶.̸ ̵T̴h̸e̵ ̶R̶a̵v̸e̴n̵ ̶w̷o̷u̸l̶d̶ ̴n̴o̴t̴ ̷l̶o̵o̷k̸ ̶d̶o̶w̵n̵ ̸u̴p̴o̷n̴ ̷m̸e̵ ̷w̸i̷t̸h̷ ̴k̷i̵n̷d̸ ̸e̵y̸e̴s̵ ̵i̷f̴ ̴I̸ ̵w̶e̶r̴e̵ ̵t̷o̶ ̴p̵u̷n̷i̵s̸h̸ ̴y̷o̸u̶ ̷f̷r̶o̴m̶ ̴b̸e̵a̸t̴i̵n̸g̸ ̵m̵e̶ ̷a̷t̷ ̷m̸y̵ ̶o̴w̶n̸ ̸g̶a̸m̵e̶.̸ ̸B̵u̶t̵ ̷t̴h̴a̴t̵ ̸j̴u̷s̵t̴ ̸m̵e̶a̵n̴s̸ ̶y̴o̸u̴ ̸h̵a̴v̴e̸ ̸c̸o̴n̸s̵e̷n̸t̵e̶d̴ ̷t̷o̷ ̷p̷l̵a̶y̶i̴n̴g̸ ̴m̷i̶n̴e̵.̵"̸ The woman backs off, threats implicit and explicit in words spoken by a dozen mouths, in unison for once. "̷E̴n̸j̸o̵y̴ ̴y̷o̸u̶r̵ ̶f̵r̴e̷e̶d̴o̶m̷,̶ ̴S̸o̶n̷ ̴o̵f̶ ̵O̴r̶n̶o̸l̶f̶.̸ ̴N̷e̶x̸t̵ ̶t̸i̸m̶e̵ ̶y̶o̸u̵ ̸f̸a̷i̶l̸,̶ ̷i̶t̵ ̵w̵o̶n̷'̸t̷ ̶b̴e̵ ̴e̴n̶t̷e̷r̵t̴a̶i̵n̴i̴n̷g̸ ̴e̸n̸o̵u̷g̶h̷ ̶t̷o̴ ̷l̴e̷t̴ ̶y̴o̶u̷ ̸s̸u̴r̵v̷i̴v̶e̴.̸"̸
 
A bunch of people, including both editors for this fic, were very much hoping/expecting for Adella to get splattered this chapter.
Obviously, that didn't happen :3
I still have too much fun I can squeeze out of her fucked-up character!

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 :D

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.
 

What Are Thrones Made Of? - Part VIII: He Just… Showed Up​

"Upon the southern horizon of Hexoatl, on the eve of the equinox, stellar pyramids will rise above the jungle canopy. That is our deadline, that is our target. I will not waste a single minute waiting for the sick or injured, and have it known that no man who slows us down with his childish paranoias will receive the full pay I offered to true warriors of the empire."

— Sir Hugh Weidendorf, two hours before mysteriously falling to his death during his Northern Lustria Expedition.


Icnoyotl Favela, Temple-City of Pahuax, Jungles of Pahualaxa
40.0.9.16.19 7 Kawak 12 Sak​

Malte doesn’t say anything as he shoves the curtain of beads aside and enters the mudbrick “house” he had been instructed to sleep in days after their arrival to this… City of cold-blooded beastmen. For that is what they are, those chaos-worshippers and their army of stolen children might have argued differently, but the doubts seeded by a direct refusal on letting them go had only been proved by the way in which -like a dripping wooden ceiling while a storm rages outside- people had steadily begun to lessen in numbers.

First it had been those who had braved escape during the first couple nights. No wonder. By now, he envies them, they are the only ones he’d assume to have had any chances.

Then, those who had died or succumbed to illness in the week and days after their arrival to Pahuax. The Lizardmen -or their spokeschildren- had blamed it on slow-festering diseases of the jungle, a couple even on accidents. The fact that some may have been truthful had only made him sure of the inhumanity of it.

Then it had been that group four days ago. More than two dozen, maybe thirty. Almost thirty, prodded by that old witch who had caused trouble back in the slave holds of the elves.

He doesn’t miss those torture-happy daemon-born things, but at least they had not offered food and kindness with one hand and the butcher’s cleaver with the other. Slavery and livestock-ship, apparently, weigh quite differently on a man’s soul.

He still remembers, having uttered prayers to Sigmar the day his shackles had been removed by one of the frill-headed goblinoids. Back then he had just expected to die like all others, breaking his back to help the Sigmar-damned elves carry their stolen gold.

Now? Now he doesn’t even have the reprieve of that knowledge.

Still, entering the one-room building covered in cots and a cooking pit does serve as a small mercy, it has been days since the lizards had given up on making them share their housing with their cold-blooded kind, and there’s enough structures that he only needs to share the building with five other men, all of them sent off by that heretic girl to work with the fish-farming lizards.

He’d been of a fishing family back before the elfs had kidnapped him and his crew -of whom he is the last survivor- as his mother had been one of many net-weavers in Meurkenhavn, and he’d inherited his boat from his own father. But after twenty years of serfdom -nearly half his life- his scarred body barely remembers the cold waters of the Sea of Claws, his mind only being able to conjure the foggiest versions of a girl he had once hoped to make into a wife.

‘At least things are clean here.’ He grunts, having been given explicit orders to wash up every afternoon after a day spent netting the shoals of fish found in the ash-dusted canals and reservoirs of the stone city. None of the smell of dead fish and fungus-infested feet that would be expected inside of a cramped boat’s cabin hit him now.

That doesn’t mean he isn’t unpleasantly surprised, however.

Because his entrance to the hut isn’t met by his fellow fish-herders hushedly talking or preparing dinner. It is instead met by a crowded room. Crowded with men and women.

Malte can clearly hear someone talking in the middle of it all, there aren’t that many people to block noise. But there must be at least an entire third of the humans trapped in the city here, and they all seem to be raptly listening to the same voice.

Pushing himself forwards, Malte finds that voice to belong to a man he is sure he hadn’t seen among those who had survived the trek through the jungle. His hair is of a curled red, almost dark copper, color, his skin is covered in freckles, and his body is clothed in a mix between human clothes and the garments worn by the cultist children, as he wears a clearly oversized shirt of white cotton alongside a kilt of some native animal’s hide, his feet bare and decorated with bangles.

The one always surrounded by children.

“Now, I can’t promise you much else. If you get to the city, you will do it by stealing as much as you can the day before and by roughing the land. I can find you the way, not succor.” His words are spoken with a strong accent Malte can’t place at all, certainly not Imperial or Kislevite, his smile is full-thoothed and confident.

Malte understands the insanity of the context he had stumbled into pretty quickly.

“Steal? You want us to steal from them?” A woman of terrified eyes and with a body marked by the "entertainment" of dark elves whimpers.

“Oh, it’ll work out, believe me.” The man nods to her. “The lizards, their brains ain’t that big, you see? They mostly work on instinct. If you don’t look like you are stealing, if you act like you are grabbing this waterskin or that basket of dried fruit because you need it right now or someone else ordered you to, they won’t think anything of it.” The man moves his hand behind himself, for a second Malte thinks he’s about to do something as crass as scratching his ass. But the scrawny man’s hand comes out of a back pocket holding so many golden and silvery trinkets that he even lets a few clatter to the ground. “Otherwise, how would I have gotten a hold of these? That one.” He points at a circlet that looks like an ox ring. “Came out of the nose of one of the massive ones, they can be dumber than trolls, if you know the rules.”

“And you will teach us those rules, help us escape? It is madness.”

“Not madness. Believe me, they eat the ones who go mad first. And it won’t be help either. However many of you get to Sudburg alive -and believe me, you want me to take you to Sudburg- will pay me with whatever you manage to scrape off here.”

Somehow, the greed he speaks with assuages Malte’s fears.

“What about… The children?” Another voice speaks.

“Oh, the tykes? Been working at them for a year now. Hopeless, a lot of them. Their brains are baked by whatever keeps the lizardmen docile to each other. It’ll happen to you too, eventually.” Surprised gazes and gasps meet his words. “What? You all come from the Old World, right? How else the fuck would beastmen manage to build a city? In any case, I am pretty sure it’s in the food, and that it’s slow-acting enough that we still don’t have to worry about it.”

“We shouldn’t abandon them!”

“How about the guys in the pits and the cages, huh?!” The redhead snaps. “I know you have seen them, ‘cause I see them every day. Dwarves, men, halflings and even a couple ogres, every single party that enters this chunk of the jungle winds up there waiting to get their heads mounted on pikes. But I haven’t seen a single one of you ask about them. Why? Because you think they are hopeless, and you are right, no trick of mine could get ‘em out. Well, get it into your heads that the kids are the same thing, they just aren’t chained to walls… I guess, there’s a couple are new enough that I could grab, consider it a show of grace as long as you all stick to the plan.”

Malte can’t help but agree.

“Now, before we get down another doomed tangent…It’ll happen in a few nights. The dry seasons isn’t… literal, I heard some of the skinks chirping about some weird summer storm. We’ll use the lightning and cold-shock of the rain to get past them. You’ll see the sign the morning of, grab everything you can and meet me at the gate by the red pyramid to the north. There’s a swamp near it, it’ll hide our smell. After that…”

The man’s smile returns.

“You just make sure not to lose track of whatever direction I’m running in, I sure as hell won’t be turning back.”




Stellar Pyramids of the Southern Skies, Jungles of Pahualaxa, Isthmus of Lustria
40.0.9.17.0 8 Ajaw 13 Sak​

O'exizip can’t help but let out an annoyed hiss as he continues to scrub away at the brown-stained splotch marring one of the many levels that make up the enormity of the Pyramid of the Belt of Stars. Sunset will arrive soon, and the movement of the steps will make it near-impossible for him to continue trying to fulfil his duties.

Still, he gives himself a few moments to breath and take a gulp from his gourd of water, his body appreciating the rest, and his quick mind even more so as it distracts itself by drinking in the monumental sights around him.

Having been spawned into Hexoatl’s pools as a Skink of the Industrial Caste, he’d spent the first two decades of his life mastering everything and anything to do with the upkeep of the City of the Sun’s enormous temples and otherwise mountain-emasculating architecture. He’d learned how to fight the weathering of weaker stones, which vines are an aesthetic boon while others do nothing but cause trouble and invite vermin, he’d learned to take chisel and mallet to the decoration of newly-laid stone, and much more.

Eventually, through those years, he had found his own way of excelling: Cleaning. Few Skinks could sweep a floor more efficiently than O'exizip, or do as good of a job at removing the odors of a beast’s pen, what brews could best be used to clean any embellishment, no matter its make.

And his skill had not gone unnoticed, neither had that of his spawn-kin. When the Oracle in service to Mage-Lord Balygyi-Ploj had sent a messenger to Hexoalt requesting a replenishment of his workforces, his own cohort had been chosen as part of the prestigious and preen-worthy deployment.

He still remembers, but half a dozen seasons earlier, the uniqueness with which the Stellar Pyramids had stricken his sight. Much like Hexoatl’s, the three enormous structures in the middle of the jungle had been mostly of beautifully carved stone and stepped, but there the similarities had ended.

The Pyramids of Midnight, the Belt of Stars, and Midday, had lacked the right-sided foundations of most of his race’s architecture, forgoing squares, rectangles or hexagons in favour of a rounder shape. The Stellar Pyramids of the Southern Skies had long ago been formed from a series of stepped rings, each ring carved with glyphs large enough for a Kroxigor to stand atop them, and freely moving thanks to the work of long-gone Mage-Priests.

Their turning, with each ring dedicated to a different constellation or set of more lonely celestial bodies, working to constantly track the relative positions of everything upon the firmament. Even right now -even hidden from his sight by the sun’s own glare- the tiers of the Pyramid of Midday turn, some as slowly as the growth of leaves, some fast enough to blur his vision, each tier grinding against the one above and the one below like a set of Old One-given millstones.

The air is filled by a low rumble like distant thunder that he has grown to feel homely. To be tasked with care for a place of such astrological learning, a vital node in the Geomantic Web, is surely the best one could hope for his life to be dedicated to. For their careful alignment draws from the power of the Heavens, and those who seek knowledge of the future are afforded far greater insight in their presence, an insight only attainable if those like O'exizip refuse to falter at their own role in the Great Plan.

‘You are nothing less than the most important of the system’s tiers.’ He remembers a poetic traveling oracle telling him and his spawn brothers moons ago. ‘For without you, none could turn.’

He had been one of many Lizardmen from across Lustria regularly engaging in lengthy pilgrimages to the Stellar Pyramids, all of them happy to teach the local cohorts and learn from the resident stargazers. Famous enough is his new home, that twice already he has seen palanquins carrying slumbering lords arrive so that the Slann may meditate in the pyramids’ shadows, sitting upon the enormous viewing platform provided for this purpose.

As he works more than halfway up one such structure, O'exizip can’t help but wonder why their lords prefer this to sitting atop the pyramids’ peaks, as is their usual practice where he was born. It may be that from this position the pyramids appear to point toward particular celestial alignments. Or perhaps the Slann may divine something in the steady, grinding rotation of the stone rings, not too dissimilar from how they lull his sleep.

‘Or maybe they simply get dizzy sitting on the constantly moving rings.’ He jests and huffs to himself as he wets his stiff-bristled brush with more cleaning solution and gets back to work.

Much like millstones, the Stellar Pyramids of the Southern Skies had long needed to be wetted to function at their best capacity, a requirement easily served by regular caravans from Hexoalt and its subordinate coastal outposts.

The last one had included a batch of the corrupted Itz’xa’khanx, apparently the result of a victory against a raiding fleet brought to them by their sibling city to the south. And yet…

‘If only their blood weren’t so much of a Mahrlect to scrub.’

For it has been days since the last sacrifice. And while its geometry is perfect, the glyphs carved upon it weren’t exactly designed with blood drainage in mind, leaving him with the task of scrubbing an entire circle for days until it is all done.

Part of him hopes to have a talk with whoever it was that had the idea to send out such wonderful offerings. Another part hopes to-

“SKREEE!”

In a blink, O'exizip stands up, his colorful frill going tense and his pupils dilating. Without fault, the same reaction is triggered in the dozens of other workers laboring away at their own sections of the many rings.

It is the grating call of a vulture, one of the jungle’s many carrion beasts. Unusually loud and unusually persistent as it lowers itself more and more, flying wide circles near the edge of the collection of huts and workshops that surround the Stellar pyramids.

An omen of some kind, no carrion bird ever calls with such insistency.

His gaze, like those of all his spawn-brothers, tracks the avian shape’s flight as if it were a fly for a chameleon to snipe at. The workers below are alerted as well, but they lack his vantage point as the animal -its wings of night-blue and fiery colors- finishes its descent at the jungle’s edge.

Just in time for the stumbling, limping and blood-covered shape of what is unmistakable a human to stagger out of the treeline, and take a couple steps.

It looks up. Despite the distance, O'exizip can’t help but feel like its heavily-lidded eyes are looking straight at him.

Then, it collapses headfirst into the ground.




Butcher Street, Port Reaver, Settler’s Cove
21st of Brauzeit, 2538 I.C. // 40.0.9.17.1 1 Imix 14 Sak​

“So… We are going to the jungles to… Grow trees?” Stefan asks, a pack full of just-bought supplies strapped to his back. He still remembers the conversation from days ago, how the wizard had offered to grow trees for the shipwright in exchange for privileges for the king.

“Yes.” Answers the woody wizard with a smile. Despite being nothing more than a scrawny lad and a scrawny old man, people give them a wide berth. Stefan hopes that it's because of how recognizable Von Danling is, because he really does not want the other option.

“Uhh… Isn’t that what the forest is for?”

“It would be, if we lived in some manicured lordling’s country estate where every tree is or isn’t there for some idiotic reason.”

Stefan doesn’t really have it in him to say anything, just looking up at the seemingly offended hedge-making mage until he realizes Stefan was actually hoping for a real answer.

“The truth, boy, is that Lustria’s forests are unique in their deadliness, but quite similar to all others in their basic nature: They weren’t put across the world for Sigmar’s children to enjoy, but have built themselves, and men are merely making use of them through their ingenuity.”

As the wizard talks they both take a turn to the right, and the cramped street suddenly widens. This is because that turn is made so they can cross the constantly-under-repair bridge that goes over the canal-moat that separates the older part of the city, with its densely packed and narrow streets, to the more open portion with its half-abandonned walls.

It really is a stark change, going from three, four or even five-storied buildings with bowing walls to an area of homesteads dotted with patches of farming or livestock fences. And then there’s the even more open area of plantations north of said area and the work-dense Felldowns.

“Not all wood is the same, you see.” Von Danling continues to speak as Stefan takes in the sights. Even having lived in the tower, surrounded by plantations, he doesn’t think he’ll ever feel truly safe out of the cramped streets that had made it possible to survive as a thief. “Sure, most of it burns, but you wouldn’t catch a smart man filling his fireplace with spruce. And most wood can be worked, but I am yet to find a lord who had his mansion built with silver fir timber. Wood is alive, and always changing, too. Which means that even a good species may produce bad timber if it has grown infested or in soil that it does not belong in.” Of course, Stefan wouldn’t know, he only knows the names of those trees because the wizard likes talking about botany. The only trees he’s ever seen are the jungle’s, and the only ones the explorers talk about are the ones that bear good fruit, or the ones who like killing people.

Of course, the wizard keeps talking as they walk by the walls. And much to his astonishment, they have not gotten smaller since the last time Stefan had to walk by the point where they abruptly end, showing their innards of walkways and inner materials like a severed limb.

“This is even more of an issue in Lustria, for fungi here are voracious, and saurians love uprooting them in their marching, so many woods have developed trunks so hard that they would make hornbeam blush like a maiden…”

For years, it had been expected for anyone building anything in Port Reaver to grab loose bricks and stone from either the top or the unfinished ends of the walls. But not anymore. Today, Stefan even spots some men patrolling the top of it. Either that, or overwatching the workers breaking their backs near it.

The Poza, that pond of fetid water, is…

Still as disgusting as usual. The dry season has lowered its water level enough to reveal a good fourth of all the things generations of Port Reaver’s visitors had dumped into it.

But, today, there are men working away at it, or at least the ground near it, where the abandoned stockade once built to “complete” the wall all the way to the Freddo river’s left bank and thus to the city’s west. The stockade had also been mostly cannibalized for fencing and posting. But today Stefan watches as an ogre works away at it, pulling the trunks that make it up from the soil and piling them up on a couple of nearby carts.

“So I will be focusing on the species that experience has taught our ship-making friends are best: Lustrian cedar, new world locust and mountain tamarind, of these, I hope to establish…”

The bulk of the workers -a good two dozen- are working away at some kind of ditch not yet connected to the fecal waters. They are all naked, and many have enough whip-scars that Stefan can guess their being here means that the dungeons are empty. His best guess is that they are meant to drain the pond. Maybe it will cause trouble with the wall-finishing the King is always worrying about?

What he knows for certain is that the King will not be lacking in men. The city watch has only gotten more and more zealous about their work, dragging out of taverns and whorehouses any man suspected of not paying the constantly-updating taxes or breaking any of the King’s other laws.

What few streetrats he still manages to exchange a word with here or there seem to be all the happier for it. His “kind” go missing less often now, and when they still do, some even get found and sent to the barracks to be fixed up by the guard’s tooth-puller.

The negotiations with Lady Azzarello had born fruit too, apparently. Or at least, he finds a few less angry faces every time he’s recently had to run there and back to the Felldowns. With the king actually coordinating with her now, her ship-builders and ship-fixers are working a little less like headless chickens, and a bit more like work crews.

Captains are still angry about fishing boats and cargo-movers being prioritized over their vessels. But now there’s men wearing the King’s tusked skull around the yards almost every day, and that has its impact too.

And so, having managed to distract himself from the botanical rant for long enough, Stefan realizes his fatal mistake.

The reason they had exited the city and gone even beyond the vine-covered tower’s distance from it is that they are headed for Port Reaver’s logging yard. Which necessitates crossing the jungle.

At which’s edge he is now, because he got too distracted by ignoring the wizard to complain about following the wizard.

“Now, come on boy. Trees take time, even to me, and we ought not waste it.”

‘Fuck.’
 
This chapter was real fun to write, I love balancing things as disparate as heavy plot development, comedy, and observational world building.
I hope it was fun to read about for you readers!

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 :D

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.
 
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