by Hondo Jinx
For a long time, she stayed like that, head pressed against the stone, lost to despair with the cold wind whipping over her, the flames of her resilience guttering low.
Until…
“Thelia.”
A deep voice, familiar and yet unfamiliar—and utterly commanding.
Startled, she straightened, turned, and nearly cried out with surprise.
Before her stood the most famous of all red elves, the legendary hero in his black plate mail, his flaming sword in hand.
“Mooret,” she said, her voice muffled to a whisper by awe.
“No, my lady,” Mooret said, and flipped up the visor of his great helm to reveal the face of her beloved cousin, Parus. But surely Parus’s eyes had never burned like that, as fiercely as a thousand suns…
The knight in black plate, be he Parus, Mooret, or some hybrid of the two men, pressed his flaming sword point into the ground and fell to one knee, bowing his head to her. “I have returned to you, my lady. My sword, my strength, my life are yours.”
For several seconds, Thelia could only stare down at him, trying to make sense of the moment while her gown and his flaming sword fluttered in the gusting winds.
Then she gathered herself, took a deep breath, and said, “Rise, Parus. Rise and serve me.”
“Yes, my lady,” Parus said, and stood. Walking past her, he stood at the railing, gave the loud screech, and thrust his flaming sword overhead.
Black specks lifted from distant peaks and raced in her direction. And not just from the peak behind which the eagles she’d earlier summoned had disappeared. Dark shapes were flying this way from all up and down the range.
A short time later, giant eagles filled the railing before them, the railings below, and the air about the eyrie. Dozens of birds, flapping and screeching with excitement.
Meanwhile, Thelia’s emotions had cooled and strengthened like a fresh-forged blade plunged into water, excitement tempered into confidence.
Thelia strolled along the walkway, chin held high, with Parus at her side, always one step behind. The eagles clacked and shuddered as she passed, bowing their heads nervously, not daring to meet her fiery eyes.
Her doubt, fear, and loneliness were gone like ash in the wind. The eagles had returned. Mooret—in some form—had returned. And these events could only mean one thing.
She really was living at the center of the great prophecy.
The Homecoming was at hand. This was the dawn of the second rise of the red elves.
And for the first time, Thelia believed—no, Thelia knew—that she actually was the True Matriarch.
“Thank you, cousin,” she said, allowing a slight smile. “We must send word of these events to our lost brethren out in the world beyond the Wildervast.”
“Yes, my lady,” Parus said, starting for the stairwell. “I will have fresh meat carried up to your eagles and will prepare scrolls for your emissaries.”
“Very well,” Thelia said, “but there is no need to descend the long stairwell. I’ve been meaning to try a new spell.” She spun her ring of holding, mumbling ancient words, and reached out to touch Parus’s shoulder.
The world disappeared.
And instantly reappeared, though the clamoring eagles, whipping wind, and panoramic vistas had vanished. Now they stood before the great tapestry.
The fourth spell worked, she realized. We teleported to the exact spot I’d intended.
A short time earlier, this success would have amazed her. But now, she—the True Matriarch in both title and reality—accepted this feat as part of the natural order of things.
Everything had changed.
“Look, cousin,” she said, gesturing toward the tapestry, where flames burned at the farthest edge of their unfolding history, birthing a new scene. In the new image, she and Parus—though, in his black armor and flaming sword, the figure in the tapestry was completely indistinguishable from the great Mooret—stood atop the eyrie, surrounded by giant eagles. “The prophecies of old are upon us. Come, let us call our people home.”
16
Building the Horde
Three or four hundred Mullet Men clamored at the edge of the forest, shouting challenges and shaking their weapons overhead.
They were strange fuckers, no two exactly alike, a tribe of warlike barbarians whose bodies combined human and animal features. Dan saw fur, scales, tails, and feathers. The Mullet Men shared only one unifying feature. Males and females alike shaved their heads on both sides, leaving a puff of hair in the front, a strip across the top, and a shaggy mess at the back of their heads.
Dan would win them over or wipe them out.
Their champion was huge—probably seven feet tall and somewhere north of four hundred pounds—part human, part bear, and part something else. Lobster, Dan thought.
Dark fur covered most of the hulking body, out of which sprouted four arms.
The thick, furry upper arms ended in oversized human hands that brandished a battle axe and a broadsword.
The chitinous lower set terminated in huge red claws that matched the champion’s red breastplate, which looked less like armor and more like a partial exoskeleton.
The big, weird bastard strutted back and forth, clanging his axe and sword, snapping his massive claws, and shouting at Dan’s people in an ugly, garbled language.
“He says he will cut holes in you with his fishing knife and fuck you with his penises,” Mahgreet, the captain of the red elves, translated without so much as a grin.
“Penises?” Dan said. “This guy has more than one dick?”
“He’s a fucking liar,” Fup said. The half-orc mercenary snorted with disdain. “All these savages are liars. And they’re so fucking stupid, they make up shit nobody would ever believe.”
“I’m less hung up on the multiple dicks and more perplexed by the fishing knife thing,” Nadia said, grinning. “He was specific about that? He actually said fishing knife?”
Mahgreet nodded. Again, she showed no amusement. Parus’s stand-in was a disciplined soldier to the core if not exactly a laugh riot.
Nadia laughed. “That’s hilarious. Maybe it’s some big insult among Mullet Men to get wasted by third-rate weapons. You should kill his ass with a back scratcher.”
Ula, who had been glaring across the field at the potentially multiple-penised champion, slashed the air with her glowing battle axe. “Husband-chief, please let Ula kill asshole.”
Dan thought about it for a second. Sending a female out to kill the enormous champion would deliver a powerful message to the Mullet Men.
But Dan shook his head. He would do the killing, just as he would give the invitation.
The breeze shifted, and Dan winced at the stench of the Mullet Men.
“Want me to blast him to bits?” Tolla, the green elf sharpshooter, asked from behind the Fist of Fury.
“No,” Dan said. “But if they charge us, light them up.”
Dan rolled his shoulders and moved forward.
“What is your message, Master Dan?” Mahgreet asked. “What do I tell them?”
“Say nothing,” Dan said, pulling his triple-bladed sword from his back. “Talon will do the talking.”
He stepped out in front of his people.
The Mullet Men gave an ugly, chaotic roar full of barks and whistles and what sounded like belches.
Their champion bellowed and rushed forward, sprinting toward Dan. The Mullet Men jeered with bloodthirsty glee.
Dan walked slowly toward his charging opponent. Behind him, his people hollered encouragement.
Then the gigantic bear-lobster-man was on him, attacking in a whirling blur of snapping claws and slashing blades.
Dan dipped calmly under the attacks, slid past his opponent, and doubled the giant over with a triple-bladed slash across the abdomen. Talon sliced through the red exoskeleton as if it were made of paper.
Swiveling behind his opponent, Dan grabbed a fistful of mullet, chopped downward with Talon, and separated the ch
ampion’s head from his shaggy shoulders.
The Mullet Man’s body wobbled, spurting jets of blood from the stump that had only a short time earlier been a thick, furry neck. The big red claws snapped the empty air a few times. The brutal and primitive human face of the decapitated head stared angrily up at Dan, its mouth opening and closing as if trying to shout one last curse.
Dan could respect that. And the champion’s terminal belligerence gave Dan a degree of faith in these strange bastards.
After all, he needed fighters, and nothing was more important to a fighter than warrior spirit.
The hulking body toppled to the ground with a heavy thump, and the decapitated head faded into death.
The Mullet Men stared in dumbstruck silence.
Dan hoisted the head into the air. “I am Dan Marshall of the Free, Warlord of the Wildervast,” he declared, “and this is my valley. Who among you speaks Common?”
“We all do, more or less,” a deep voice replied, “but only I speak for all.”
The stunned mob parted, and a burly gorilla man came forward. He looked like a big silverback, but he stood straight, wore pants and knee-high boots, and his face was more human than ape. His long mullet was streaked in gray.
“You carry a strange sword,” the gorilla man said.
Dan shrugged his shoulders. “It’s a good sword.” He tossed the decapitated head into the air, held out Talon, and—schlack—the head passed through the blades and fell to the ground as four distinct slices of bone, blood, and brain matter.
“I am Boad, King of the Mullet Men,” the gorilla man said. “What do you want of us, Warlord of the Wildervast?”
“War is coming,” Dan said, staring at Boad but speaking loudly enough that all the Mullet Men could hear his voice.
His confidence was high—killing a gigantic asshole had a way of doing that, and he understood that his functional charisma in this moment was maxed the fuck out—but he also knew that he needed to say the right things if he was going to win over the Mullet Men and begin to build his horde.
“This spring,” he said, “outsiders—so-called civilized men—will invade the Wildervast. Tens of thousands of outsiders with advanced arms and armor.” Then, remembering his audience, Dan added, “and sorcerers.”
The Mullet Men shouted curses, obviously hating wizards like the true barbarians that they were.
“The outsiders sent an ambassador to my home,” Dan said. “I showed him hospitality and listened to his words. Then, when I told him that we would not bow and lick their boots, the so-called ambassador fired a lightning bolt into my chest. He was no ambassador. He was an assassin—a craven wizard who struck without warning and disappeared before I could draw my sword.”
Actually, my sword was melted by the bolt, and I was stretched out on the floor, Dan thought, but this version of the event definitely told better.
The Mullet Men stirred angrily at his words, obviously offended by the assassin’s stealth, cowardice, and sorcery.
“The civilized men say they will tame the Wildervast,” Dan said. “They say they will cut our timber, kill our game, and cover our land in roads and towns.”
“They will never take the land of the Mullet Men,” Boad said, and thumped his chest with a furry forearm.
“Alone, you stand no chance against them,” Dan said. “They are too many—and too powerful.”
“The Mullet Men are great warriors,” Boad said, thumping his thick chest again. “They will never—”
“Enough!” Dan interrupted. “I do not question your battle courage or the might of your people. But let us be clear. I could kill every one of you right now. Either one at a time by myself or all at once with the help of my friends.”
The Mullet Men hissed and grumbled. Boad stuck out his chest and scowled, but the Mullet King said nothing, and Dan knew that he had them.
“I am the Warlord of the Wildervast,” Dan said again, panning his hard gaze across the motley mob. “This valley is mine. Your land is mine. You are mine.”
Boad laughed bitterly. “You sound much the same as these so-called civilized men.”
“No,” Dan said. “I am their opposite. Beneath my rule, you will keep what’s yours. Your land, your weapons, your women. You will live as free men. I demand no tribute—save one. Come with me now, Mullet Men. Come with me now, fight by my side, and we will crush the outsiders!”
The barbarians roared in approval, pumping their weapons overhead. Someone yelled something profoundly disturbing about goats, but even that deviant was apparently onboard.
Thank you, 25 charisma, Dan thought.
Boad nodded, a dangerous smile coming onto his face. “And would you have me bow before you?”
Dan snorted, putting as much contempt into the noise as he could manage. “If you would bow, I have no need of you. I want fighting men, not slaves. I want you standing up straight with a weapon in your hands and blood in your heart.”
Boad roared approving laughter and shouted, “The Mullet Men will fight for you, Warlord of the Wildervast! We will kill the outsiders with pig scrapers and fuck them with our many penises!”
The tribesmen erupted in bloodthirsty cheers.
“Together,” Dan said, channeling his favorite movie, “we will crush our enemies, see them driven before us, and hear the lamentation of their women!”
17
Let There Be Light!
“Yes, it will be slow and dangerous,” Holly told Jorbin Ateel, “but my orders stand. We destroy the dome and will protect Est eel Est at all costs.”
“Of course, my lady,” Jorbin said with a bow that rattled his enormous keyring. “I will relay your command to the scaffolding team, and if they grumble, I’ll shove my boot up their asses.”
Holly laughed. “Thank you, Jorbin. You define dependability. And as always, you know how to make me laugh.”
High above, the dome of the central keep bustled with activity. Gnomes and elves perched in the upper limbs of the great delving tree, looking like a flock of agitated black birds from this distance. They were constructing a net of strong cables between the top of the tree and apex of the dome thirty feet higher up. Overtop this webbing they would spread animal hides, creating a shield against falling rubble.
Meanwhile, the scaffolding teams were hard at work outside, surrounding the upper tower in a skeletal framework that would allow them to cautiously and systematically remove the upper dome one small piece at a time.
Est eel Est would soon have sunlight and fresh air again.
Holly could barely contain herself. It was all so amazing.
The miracles had started this morning, when she first knelt to pray before the great delving tree and had felt compelled to recite restore plant. It was a ridiculous compulsion, of course, as she had already exhausted the ancient inscriptions of restore plant and restore tree.
But a life given to prayer had taught Holly to put more faith in spiritual guidance than in logic or even fact. So she had ignored the absurdity of her compulsion, explored her mind, and made a shocking discovery.
The restore plant spell was available to her—as was restore tree.
In casting the spells—and, no doubt, through dedicated prayer, thank the wind and stars—she had somehow gained these spells. Now, having had time to recover from her initial shock, Holly viewed the development as surprising yet understandable.
After all, druids were not wizards. Sorcerers saw themselves as the center of their universes. They sought to control magic, to enslave it. They chose their magical schools and set out to learn specific spells. These spells they recorded in scrolls and spell books, and each day, they once again memorized their magic.
Druids, on the other hand, understood that they were but one small piece of a much larger whole. They gained magic through prayer, and the spells they received were ultimately not of their choosing but came to them out of the great oversoul which transcended yet connected all living things. The oversoul understood the needs of
any druid far more accurately, and some said presciently, than did the druid herself.
Holly had wasted no time questioning the availability of these spells. Instead, she had cast them immediately and gone back to prayer. When she next opened her eyes, tiny blue specks twinkled up at her from a patch of darkening moss.
Then, after Dan had arrived and Holly had explained her change in plans, she had noticed a line of tiny green buds studding a lower branch of Est eel Est.
The great delving tree was not dead!
Now she knew in her heart that she would bring Est eel Est back to full health.
For several minutes, she had been so overcome by emotion, all she could do was kneel, weep, and offer prayers of gratitude.
Then she had risen, summoned Jorbin Ateel, and given her orders. She commandeered a full company of soldiers, who had been worked briskly ever since.
Once the scaffolding was safely in place, drilling would begin. Holly had climbed atop the tower, studied the structure, and drawn the blueprint herself, carefully marking the spot where each hole was to be drilled.
Next, workers would score the dome, manufacturing faint fracture lines between the drilled holes. Then they would weave catch ropes through specific sections of the roof, starting at the apex, and chisel the fracture lines between the holes, breaking away one section at a time. Finally, they would use the catch ropes to lift loosened sections from the dome, protecting the delving tree from debris and providing the sunlight, air, and precipitation Est eel Est needed to heal fully.
But first, they must dismantle coil of flame that had burned night and day atop the keep for thousands of years.
With pleasure, Holly thought.
From her earliest days here in the valley, when they were still huddling in the cliffside caves, she had hated the sight of the eternal flame burning atop the keep like the leering eye of a gigantic demon. The flame, which had been installed by the red elf usurpers, served as a constant reminder of what had happened to her ancestral home and her ancestors alike.