Oaths a progression fant.., p.10
Oaths: A Progression Fantasy Epic, page 10
As for Lukotor, his power was at its peak and his allies readied.
The hour of his reward had come.
Avernix’s war-camp unfurled before the Forest of Giants, their campfires numerous and wide-spread. A legion of colossal trees filled the western sky: brooding mountains of wood and craggy, black bark. Each trunk grew ten paces broad and ten times that in height, their twisted branches clawing at the stars.
Their sword-sized leaves had long wilted and fallen to the withered grass beneath, the ancient boughs above strangling precious sunlight. Even the launching towers of the Cymorillian dragon princes would have been dwarfed in their presence, with vines thicker than men’s waists hanging between their naked limbs like the webs of a demon-spider.
The ancient canopy teemed with avian life. Crows as large as dogs and ravens greater still. Bristling vultures bent like old men and creatures at once reptile and raptor, with bright feathers over iridescent scale and beaks crowded with pointed teeth.
Other things drove unease into the warriors, though. In the shadow of the ancient sentinels—long enough to fall over the entire encampment—they recalled childhood tales told by crackling fireside. Tales of things that dwelt in the darkened bowers within, emerging to feast on human flesh. Tales of things with gnarled hands, curving horns, and perverse, unending hungers.
Tales of ogres.
Even the horde’s hulking war-mastodons, draped in heavy bronze chain, and armed with tusks that shattered shields, were but timid mice near the grasping tree roots. Their great bodies steamed as they herded together, grumbling and shifting their weights with broad ears waving nervously.
Brave the warriors were, but the wolf cannot help but turn craven before the saber-toothed tiger. Yet in the midst of the camp, the horde brewed their own evils.
Booming thundered in the night.
A deep drum thrummed, and a tower of flame writhed above a bonfire belching a column of inky smoke. Depraved symbols scarred the earth encircling the blaze and dancers wildly capered around them, clad only in the hides of albino does. They chanted guttural incantations in the vile Tongue of Demons, which pierced mortal ears. Grasped in bony hands, they waved fatty torches rendered from an unspeakable source in supplication.
Twisting, the column of foul smoke pulsed with their monstrous invitation, and maddening shapes began to shimmer within. They twisted in time with the dancers’ movements.
The drum grew in tempo, the dance more frantic.
A voice like the cracking of ice cried above the din. “Three who Dwell in Ash!”
The shapes in the smoke paused.
“We come with sacrifice for your dread blessing!”
Lukotor the Wise stepped forth, with his bone talismans rattling on his vulture-feathered cape. Unnaturally towering and cadaverous, age had bent him little, but withered what little girth he’d had in youth. His great height was akin to a corpse stretched on the rack, and eyes that were pools of darkness swam above a crooked nose. Iron-grey hair fell down to the shoulders, braided in the sparkling jewels of dead souls. Between twisted hands and talon-like nails, he bore a viridian jar of clay, scrawled with symbols twinned to those marring the earth.
A vile whispering dripped from its depths.
“Bring the offering.” The wizard waved a clawed hand, and two sweltering Illian eunuchs shuffled forth with heads bowed. Their backs were scarred from the cruelties of the whip.
Between them hung a comely Olubrian boy bound to a birch trunk, shrouded in white, gagged, and painted with symbols too foul to name. The sun-and-stars symbol of the sky cult hung despoiled around his neck. His eyes rolled with panic, and he struggled so desperately against his bonds that the cords were stained red. The eunuchs placed him before the flame, then quickly shuffled from the circle.
Lukotor smiled widely, revealing a tangle of rotted teeth. “Flesh to fill your bellies,” he offered to the smoke. “Blood to wet your tongues. A soul of mortal-kind to bolster your power.” He bowed so low that his bejewelled braids brushed the earth. “Protect us and gird our warriors against the dark ahead. Confuse watching eyes so that we may pass through yonder wood. Grant us this boon, and our gratitude will be a hundred sacrifices.”
All paused, still as held breath.
Smoke thickened and the heat of the fire ebbed away.
The fumes grew darker, like water when something foul bubbled in its deep. Three vast silhouettes formed in the column. One mountainous. One lean. The last squamous. Light recoiled from their vile presence, and their auras held an ancient, primeval terror.
The boy shrieked into the gag, trying to pull away, and his clenching teeth tore his tongue. Smoke began to issue from him, and his body paled as something too precious was drawn from it. His form lessened, becoming wan and more translucent with every breath as more of it ebbed away in smoke. His bonds and gag fell, and a wail echoed through the air even as his essence was drawn into the column.
For a moment, a brighter spot floated in the smog.
Then the silhouettes were upon it.
The screams stopped.
Flame flared, drew itself inward, then winked out. Only cool and dark lay in its wake.
“The blessing is granted!” Lukotor crowed in triumph. “Tomorrow we shall walk amongst the forest under the protection of the Three that Dwell in Ash!” He turned, and behind him spread the force of Avernix: tall, iron-tough men and women in bronze scale and animal hide. Their eyes shone with fervour. “Fear not beasts! Fear not the brutish ogres or the dead’s futile wrath!” He clawed the air, snatching some imaginary thing in his grip. “We shall soon clutch the Egg of Gergorix, and demons and gods will cower before us! We will call forth an age where our will is law!”
Their answer roared through the night.
He gave them a pleased look.
“Remember who those warriors belong to, Lukotor,” a deep voice rumbled by Lukotor’s shoulder, startling the old wizard.
King Avernix had approached him with the silence of a lynx. An unnerving feat for a man his size. The fire-haired conqueror only rose to the towering old man’s jaw, but he was twice his weight in iron-hard muscle. A newly forged crown of overlordship lay comfortably on his brow, and his beard seemed to bristle in its beaten golden clasps. He wore a wry smile. “You’ve gotten attached.”
“Overlord!” Lukotor started to give a low bow, but a strong hand caught his shoulder.
The sovereign waved wearily. “Even to me, you do not bow to the earth like a grovelling slave.”
Lukotor dipped his head instead. “You are kind, overlord.”
“I have gratitude,” Avernix corrected. “Were it not for Lukotor, I would still be raiding Heban farmsteads for pigs and goats.”
“You forged farm-raiders into an army, overlord. They are your sword.”
“I may be their smith, but you are the flame that made them malleable.”
“Your words are kind tonight, overlord.”
Avernix glanced at the smouldering embers of the sacrifice. “They are realistic. Soft words weaken a warrior’s arm, but what is real is real.” He looked to the trees. “So, at last you have come to the end of your quest.”
“So fate has decreed.” Lukotor looked upon the forest wall of verdant titans, his gaze trying to penetrate its ominous depths. “When I have the egg in hand, I will show as much gratitude as Overlord Avernix the Blood-Bearded. I will raise a hand to the skies and make rain so your crops never wither. I will destroy all armies that oppose you—”
“Not all,” Avernix chuckled. “I would not have my warriors and I growing fat and bored.”
Lukotor grinned. “I’ll see to sparing you a few then, overlord, and I shall bear more gifts. Your throne will be adorned in Yamaputran rubies, you will be served by slaves whose bloodlines draw from kings. Your sons will have Cymorillian princesses, Vestulai champions, nymph-maids from the Olubrian wetlands—”
Avernix threw his head back, shaking the night with tremendous mirth. “Leave some for yourself, Lukotor!”
The wizard’s grin was tight. “My pleasures will be more… exotic in nature.”
“Wizards,” the conqueror snorted and shook his head. “Always grasping. I say cold liquor, a good fight, hot meat and hotter women are enough for any man. And that’s what we’ll have tonight.” He gestured to the feast tent. “We have whole aurochs roasting in butter, wine, and salt, and the slaves have been set to cooling Skjernan mead and spicing it with Heban rosewater. Agisil and Eppon are busy selecting tonight’s entertainment from the captives. Eppon has two strong Vestulai mercenaries, freshly caught yesterday: we shall make them dance for us!”
The wizard chuckled politely. “I am sure the twins will choose well.”
Avernix’s grin turned foxlike. “The Vestulai guarded a wizardess from the City of Glass. Perhaps she’ll be more to your tastes.”
“Then say no more. Now, it’s a celebration!”
The two men’s laughter rose into the night.
Chapter 10
Thieves, Rope, and Liquor
Kyembe the Spirit Killer jolted awake.
The stench of unwashed bodies, blighted wounds, and filth struck his nose, carried by a damp wind that goose pimpled his burnt umber skin. The Sengezian’s crimson eyes opened painfully, squinting into the gloom, his vision swimming. The creak of rope and wood met his pointed ears. His mouth felt drier than the Ahari Desert when the fire-winds roared, and his belly churned ominously, the stale remnants of the previous night of drink lurking on his tongue. Such was the ruin of spirits, yet he never seemed to learn. Groaning like a dying man, he tried to reach for his waterskin.
Something creaked behind him.
Bindings bit into his wrists.
“What?” he murmured. Propped against a wooden pole, his hands were lashed behind his back and rope knotted about his ankles.
Something stirred behind him.
“You’re finally awake, you drooling, liquor-swilling lecher!” a familiar voice hissed in Makkadian. “I should gut you! Gut you!”
Wurhi the Rat—who had joined him during wild adventure in Zabyalla—must have been very close. Her whisper was that of a club driving into his skull. A club that had been set aflame. And full of enraged bees.
While waiting for the throbbing to stop, Kyembe looked about. The crescent moon provided meagre illumination, but eyes inherited from his dark elf mother cut through the black. A sea of erected poles stretched in every direction, surrounded by recumbent figures bound to their bases. The stink of sweat, defecation, and death lay in all directions. Snores mingled with groans of pain and ailing whimpers formed a sickening melody beneath a despairing voice that wailed for aid from their ancestors in the Garric tongue.
A small fire spat smoke and murky light nearby, revealing a pair of fur-clad warriors sharing a wineskin while seated cross-legged in the dirt, their tall bronze tipped spears pointed skyward. Kyembe’s eyes followed the wan column of smoke and froze.
Titanic trees loomed silently to the west, nearly consuming the sky. He needed to crane his neck to merely see the canopy. It could only be the Forest of Giants. He’d heard tell of it from Garumnan mercenaries trying to frighten their comrades.
“Wurhi,” Kyembe’s deep voice croaked. “Why are we here?”
“These bastards have taken us! And robbed us!”
Alarmed, the Sengezian looked down to find nearly all his worldly possessions gone. He wore his white tunic and loincloth, but the star patterned over-robe he’d taken from the late Merchant Prince Cas—a favourite garment he’d fastidiously cared for—was missing. The rest of his share of plunder from that venture was gone as well, along with his ivory hilted sword and…
He wiggled a finger, noticing a weightless absence.
Someone had removed his ring, his object of power and oldest companion.
His lips tightened. This somewhat offended him. In truth, much more than somewhat. “How did this happen?” he growled.
The Zabyallan had been bound to the same pole, facing the opposite direction. Her beady green eyes glared at him over her shoulder. “Think! Think, you drunken fool!” Cracked lips snarled back over her teeth, revealing a slight overbite.
“My skull aches too much to think.”
“It’ll ache a lot more when I smash it open!”
Groaning, Kyembe strained his mind.
They had stopped at a bustling alehouse by the River Obelax near the Great Western Road that led to Laexondael. They’d drank there, and Kyembe had met Ku-Hassandra, a wizard of the City of Glass in mid-journey to Laexondael’s markets to purchase cast off Cymorillian dragon scales.
Accompanying her had been two red-eyed Vestulai bodyguards, whose names eluded him. Wurhi had tricked them into a game of ‘Tooth’ with a pair of drunk trappers, a portly Laexondaelic merchant, and a rangy mercenary woman the little Zabyallan had taken a liking to. He and Ku-Hassandra had bartered spells while Wurhi had taken most of her opponents’ electrum, silver, and pride. Kyembe himself had gambled but once with the little thief during their crossing of the Sea of Gods.
He had sworn to never do so again.
While waiting for the game to end, he and the wizard ordered more ale and discussed the finer pronunciations of the thousand dialects of demons. They’d continued drinking as the conversation grew more lively, running out of ale long before they’d run out of words. She invited him back to her river ship for a cup of arrack, and Kyembe of Sengezi was not the sort to pass up a drink with a beautiful, quick-witted woman.
But one cup turned to two. Then to three. All wits—quick or slow—had deserted them by and by. The last he remembered, they were arm in arm, belting out a bawdy song of a foolish fisherman, an ugly mermaid, and a conniving lobster. Then the cabin door had been kicked in. And… and nothing.
He told Wurhi most of what he recalled.
“That’s right! That’s right, fool!” she snapped. “If you had your wits, you could’ve blown these bastards to ash, and we’d be halfway to Laexondael! But you had to go off with that magus and have… have weird wizard writhings!”
He gave her a puzzled look. “Nothing so vigorous. We merely shared arrack and conversa—”
“I don’t care what you—Wait.” She blinked. “She had arrack? Real arrack? Here?”
“I had three cups of it.” He grimaced. “To my regret.”
“And you didn’t steal any for me?” she whispered as though she’d just found her father’s murderer.
“Steal from a host?” he hissed incredulously. “And have Kyembe of Sengezi known as an honourless, gutless bastard? Are you mad?”
Wurhi stared at him for several heartbeats, before sealing her mouth lest her scream alert the entire encampment. “Now you’re awake,” she said after she’d steadied her breath. “Time to leave.” She began to squirm in her bonds, her hands bending upward at an astounding angle to reach the knots.
Kyembe tried as well, but even his flexible wrists could not bend that far. He made a noise of disgust. “I am useless. Can you free yourself?”
“Please,” she scoffed. “It’d take these sausage-fingered filth-lickers a hundred years to tie a knot that’d hold me. Almost out; then we find which of these bastards took our things. If there’s any god or demon that favours us, they won’t be far.” She glanced to the east. “I want Cas’ treasure back, but I won’t be dying for it.”
Kyembe’s eyes narrowed in thought. “Wurhi, if they robbed us already then why do we still live? What is their purpose for us? Did you see anything while I slept?”
Wurhi gestured ahead of herself with her chin. “You see that?”
Kyembe craned his neck and spied a pole some ten paces to the north, seemingly swaying and dancing in the firelight. A figure slumped at its base in the stillness of death, and a torrent of black ash had run from slackened maw down their breast.
“Before you woke—” she squirmed in her bonds “—an old man came, and I think he’s got pull over these barbarians. He had four warriors with him that must’ve had bulls for fathers, but they followed him around like kittens.”
“What did this old man look like?”
“Foul. Like a slithery, corpse-eating vulture playing at being a man. He had a fortune of jewels tied in his hair, I—”
“Wait,” Kyembe said sharply. “Were they braided to the ends? Like flowers at the end of the stalk?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Just everywhere. Why?”
Kyembe sighed in relief. “Never mind. What did these men do?”
Wurhi eyed him suspiciously. “They looked at a bunch of the prisoners and were just getting to us when the old man saw a boy and man tied to the pole there. He pointed at the boy and those two-legged oxen cut him loose and started to drag him off. The man tied to the pole started shouting hard, but the old man took something out of a pouch that glowed orange and waved it.” She shuddered. “The glow was so low you’d nearly miss it, and it didn’t make a sound. The poor bastard started choking and writhing around like a speared fish. Threw up ash and flopped over dead.”
“Pyromancy.” Kyembe glowered at the corpse. “He burnt his lungs from the inside.”
The tiny Zabyallan froze in her struggles. “He can do that? Can you do that?”
“It is strenuous enough to merely direct hellfire; I do not have such precision.” He glanced backward again toward his naked hand. “And without my ring I do not have much of anything.”
“What?” Her eyes grew very wide. “You mean we might run into that soot-spewing, innard-frying wizard with no way to defend ourselves?”
“We will have our wits.”
“And he’ll have our insides!”
“Shhhh!” Kyembe hissed, glancing toward the nearest guards. The two warriors quaffed their ale and lounged as though the surrounding poles were date-palms in the oasis-gardens of Saba-Aful. “Not so loud. What happened to the child they took?”
Wurhi shuddered. “Dragged him that way.” She jerked her chin to the east. “Then I saw a big fire rise up. That’s when the screaming started. Never heard anything like it, not even when The Maw worked over someone’s bones with their saw-knives. It was like it was right beside m—Aha! Yes!” Her bonds fell, and she whipped her hands forth, rotating her wrists, which popped in their sockets. She began to free her ankles while Kyembe mulled over her story.
