As he faced his friends, Kevin’s thoughts raced. This task is what God had prepared his life for and he was ready to rise to the challenges.
“My friends,” he addressed them, “I am so glad to be with you for whatever little time we still have. I trust that you have all been praying and seeking direction for your teams. We know that we cannot go into Ninda because of their military blockade.” Kevin indicated the wall of armored men standing in the distance.
“It is not so much that we cannot enter that country; we have little reason to do so. Other teams have already gained access.” Kevin held up a tightly bound scroll sent via raven. “Rashnir and Zeh-Ahbe’ send their greetings from Ninda. When we passed through Driscul they were just entering the Kantror farm district.”
The people in the circle happily smiled and nodded. That their friends, perhaps the two most notorious of their acquaintances, might not make it out of Jand undetected had always been a concern.
Kevin held up another scroll. “More good news,” he said, “Drowdan writes that they’ve encountered no surveillance. He says that they have the buzz of the forest to the north and the sounds of the ocean to the south. They have a perfectly peaceful corridor to travel through which appears untouched by any man or ekthro. They hope to arrive at the southwest edge of the Quey forest in a few days. Then, they too will divide further.
“I have a few general ideas of how we should disperse through the region, but do any of you have specific input that you want to share?”
“We are planning to divide my numbers in half,” Nipanka informed them. “Thaadim and Erki will take over the secondary group.”
“A wise decision,” Kevin assented. Each of the eleven team-leaders retained a few more than one hundred people to each group; Nipanka’s workload was greater than any other man’s. Kevin agreed that sharing the burden would be smart.
Nipanka continued, “We plan on going into Lol. I think that the people of Driscul will be able to relate to the men and women of the mining communities which dot the countryside. Although, some of our own intend to travel east, cutting across Ninda to reach southeastern Gleend as quickly as possible. We understand that we’re committed to a westerly migration, but they want to try and reach their Gleendish loved ones immediately and then make for the Western Gate beyond Nod.”
Rah’-be spoke up, “I plan to skirt through the south-eastern Lol and Gleend border and go into Domn.”
His kinsman, Sil-tarn looked at him, surprised. It was apparent that he did not know of his friend's plans. Their parting was inevitable, but it had come earlier than expected
“We know almost nothing about Domn,” Rah’-be explained. “Even the elf, Dri’Bu, has little knowledge of it beyond the fact that it’s a desolate place; such little information passes its borders—not because of hostility but because there seems so little worth drawing people beyond its borders.”
Rah’-be continued, “The words that you spoke, Kevin, at the communion and funeral service have burrowed deep within my heart. You said that every human deserves the chance to hear the Gospel message at least once in their lifetime. I fully agree and cannot discount any people who might exist in that country. People of the sparsely populated regions are no less important than the strategic areas you all travel to.”
Sil-tarn nodded his head. “You must do as you feel called to do, brother. Not a day will go by that I’ll forget to pray for your mission to the men and women of Domn.”
“Your goal is noble, and in the Lord’s will,” Kevin said. “Resistance is everywhere and not everyone will meet with the same measure of success, but you can never know when words or actions might break through and reach someone. Sometimes, when we think that an audience has completely closed their minds and hearts to the Truth, the Holy Spirit will finally bring light to their hearts and minds.” Kevin looked sidelong at their prisoner as he spoke; Prock, the Wyvern Rider, leader of Absinthium’s now destroyed acolytes, stared daggers of hatred at the leadership council seated around the nearby fire.
His arms remained tied behind a pole firmly planted in the ground. Were it not so, their captive would assuredly try to murder them all.
***
Lightning flashed, cinder and ash blew by and lithe bodies jumped in tandem. Tucking into a rolling maneuver, they stayed below the danger that whizzed just above their heads. Iron shurikens in the shape of a multi-rayed sun zipped above the heads of the black-clad initiates.
They jumped and dodged the bladed projectiles as they pressed onward towards their goal at the center of the field. Absinthium watched over the exercise; it was really more of a culling session, in reality.
Twenty-three men raced through the Fields of Splendor, the grassy field that lay in between the Babel Tower and the Monastery of Light, perched atop the Briganik mountains. These men had been handpicked by the Luciferian prophet to join the ranks of the acolytes. Twenty-seven men had been selected; their numbers would be brutally pruned until only twelve remained. They would replace those who had been lost in the fight at Grinden.
The Battle of Grinden was a momentous loss for the Luciferian Order, though only a handful of individuals even knew that it had gone poorly. Absinthium lost all of his acolytes except for Wynn, the team’s explosives expert. The caisson master was now the leader of his acolytes.
Absinthium, along with his remaining acolyte, were able to recover only nine of the deceased members' bodies. The other dead men were lost amongst the wreckage or too ruined to use in their dark magics. Wynn would not miss his rival, the Wyvern Rider.
Surrounding the battlefield where these men trained stood those nine cadaverous bodies. The arch-mage and his remaining servant had performed the necessary necromantic rites to reanimate the corpses of those fallen in battle. Dark servants of the temple had previously stitched up and bolted together those bodies crushed at Grinden under giant stones flung from the heavens.
While the necromantic nine acolytes could be used efficiently and easily, they consumed a great deal of power to maintain and only Absinthium could do it for long. The archmage could only keep them animated properly while they remained in the range of sight, after that they shambled along like any regular zombie. If nearby, Wynn could maintain the nine, but it consumed all of his concentration to do so.
The Acolytes needed to be whole again—they were a critical piece of dark plans already set in motion. Each member of the team filled a special role; each acolyte brought specific talents to the group, and those skillsets were lumped into the collective unit under Absinthium’s direction.
Twenty-three men dodged past each other and through the fray, trying to attain their goal: to enter combat and kill their marked opponent without getting killed themselves. The training was grueling and there were specific rules to the deadly game. Candidates were not allowed to hinder each other in their pursuit of their opponent; doing so would fatally disqualify them.
Meandering through the makeshift barricades, stepping in and out of the flickering flame light hurried orc slaves Absinthium had shipped in for their training exercises. Each one nearly human in appearance, they differed from their goblin ekthro in many noticeable ways. The goblins possessed hunched backs, elongated snouts, a slightly chitinous hide, and crooked legs with short bulbous tails; orcs stood straight like men, though maybe more muscled, with green or olive skin, and a mouth like a boar. Some even brandished the beginnings of tusks.
The orcs on the training field each brandished a sword and buckler provided by their keepers. Each was promised their freedom if they could slay one of the acolyte initiates. But it would not matter—none of them were expected to survive.
The real danger of the course was the unexpected: shurikens hurled by the undead acolyte, or a bolt of arcane lightning, or a fireball hurled by Absinthium. Someone would be culled tonight, the mage was sure of it.
Steeling himself, the first initiate locked eyes with his target and taunted him. The orc bellowed and ran
headlong into combat. Noticing movement in his peripheral, the initiate sidestepped the orc and rolled under a shuriken as it lodged in the barricade behind him. The orc hurtled a wooden obstacle and brought his sword to bear.
Blocking the blow, the human used the shaft-like moto of his kama to prevent a death-blow and hooked the orc’s abdomen with his second hand-held kama. The blade ripped upward and split the creature open as if it were a paper lantern. The orc momentarily shrieked as it quickly vacated black blood and pink viscera upon the ground.
Proudly, the initiate stood, smeared with the blood of his enemy, and prepared to leave the battlefield, his task complete. A rogue orc burst out of the shadows and engaged the surprised initiate who thought he had free access to the battles-edge. The new fight attracted the attention of the necromantic sentinels who created dangerous distractions. One of the undead warriors hurled a caisson into the fray; neither man nor orc gave the spiked box any heed until it detonated, blasting away flesh with shrapnel and charring the victims’ bodies with eldritch fire.
Only twenty-two potentials now remained. Absinthium smiled as he flung lightning blasts towards his agile students. Wynn would take over training this new brood in his absence. Absinthium had already informed him that he would be leaving for Jand’s Capital City in the morning to install its new ruler. These students would quickly learn, or else they would die.
***
Rashnir and Zeh-Ahbe’ walked together while looking for dried firewood. It had become their habit. Their group had made camp near a grove of trees at the crest of a hilltop. Another group of their people remained nearby, practicing their roles and learning their acting parts for a performance written by one of the Grinden believers named Haisauce.
“So, what do you think,” Zeh-Ahbe’ asked his friend. “Do you think that the people of Ninda will respond like we hope? You should be the expert; you’re from this country, aren’t you?”
“Well, kinda, but not really,” Rashnir replied. “I wouldn’t really say this was ever my home. I would more likely say that I put some time in here. I have no idea where I was born or who I was born to; I was orphaned, twice.
“Most of my young life was spent as a servant in a farming district pretty much straight over there.” Rashnir pointed eastward to the Nil-Ma farmlands. “I assume that nothing remains there; the Narsh Barbarians came in and razed the entire place. It was pretty much just a fertile delta, one of the smallest districts but most profitable; I’ve heard it was because Nil-Ma had some demonic reliquary that helped his crops grow and made his animals breed more quickly. The problem was that Mallow, the heir of Nil-Ma who founded it, was a colossal idiot and a jerk. He stepped on a lot of toes in the parliament and sealed his own fate.
“Mallow made enemies on the council, but also screwed up his only long-standing alliances with the farm districts of Teed and Rivalf, the two districts just across the rivers that bordered his land. Both Teed and Rivalf’s controlling heirs were women; he tried to seduce them both at the same time. After a couple of years playing his game, Mallow’s secret got out and the two ladies realized what he’d done.
“Of course, rather than fight over him, neither wanted him at all, anymore. In fact, neither wanted him alive even, so they combined efforts and legitimized their contract with the Narsh Barbarians.”
Zeh-Ahbe’ nodded gravely. “Have you ever been back?”
“No, but I’ve skirted its borders on my travels. Everything was burned, fields, settlements, everything. If there was some kind of reliquary, maybe it was destroyed and that’s why everything still remains so barren.”
“I can relate to your story,” Zeh-Ahbe’ said. “My people have no real homeland. Wherever we lay our heads is home to us. The Kil-yaw’ have an unforgiving caste system. It saw maybe four or five minor switches or elevations of clans in all of its thousands of years. We had only a minor part, as a lower clan, in the decisions of where we would go next.”
“Yeah,” Rashnir said. “That’s very similar to the typical Nindan. They live in a caste system as well. At the top of the system are the Lords—the heirs to the farm, they own the lands and the crops and pretty much everything; along with the Lords are different businessmen and corporations. Really the only difference is that the corporations don’t own the land they work on and don’t have a personal voice in the Parliament, but they can certainly influence the Lords’ politics in very persuasive ways.
“Both the corporations and the Lords oversee the men and women of their land which includes both freemen and slaves. The freemen can lease land from the local Lord or work in the employ of a corporation or even try and form their own types of enterprise... unless the Lord or a more powerful corporation stops it. Freemen are able to choose their own type of future, and even own slaves or indenture servants to them, like anyone else above them, but they have to pay their duties, taxes, and manage their finances well to avoid becoming indentured themselves.
“The lowest caste has two classes: slaves and indentured servants. Slavery is usually a permanent designation; they are the property of their owners and can be sold or transferred as such. Should one be purchased and set free, the burden is on them to prove their freedom and to retain the proper paperwork as proof. For an indentured servant, the burden is on the owner to hold the paperwork. Usually, once the servant has paid off the debts against him he is freed, but they too often end up in the same situation unless they bank enough money up to enable them to strike out as a freeman.”
“So then, our plan,” Zeh-Ahbe’ continued, “How effective can it be?”
“Well, how effective was the spoken Word for your people?”
Zeh-Ahbe’ pondered it for a second. “It was fully effective on our lowest caste, it made the next lowest clan give it pause for thought, and the powerful clans dismissed it outright.”
“Right,” Rashnir said, “The most powerful men and women blind themselves to many things. Even when confronted with truth and real power, they hold too tightly to things they perceive as real power to grasp ahold of anything else.”
“But this idea, it is different than a simple spoken message. I think that it is really going to be effective.”
“I think so too. The whole concept just kind of dawned on me. Everyone loves entertainment. In Jand, before Harmarty rose to the throne, his father sanctioned an afternoon break for everyone and even hired the players. It greatly helped the morale of the middle and lower classes in Capital City. Part of that whole break was an open forum for entertainers and an acting troop regularly put on shows during that time. The people loved it, but Harmarty shut it down; an open forum for free expression seemed too dangerous for someone as eccentric as he was.
“So, how are we coming on the play, anyway?”
“Almost ready,” Zeh-Ahbe’ said. “Most people have their parts memorized and they rehearse it even as we travel.”
“Good,” said Rashnir. “It won’t be long before we actually have a chance to present our tale to a group. We will start at one of the small farmsteads closest to a district border. We will be far from any kind of repercussions from the district Lord, should there be any discontent… we are close enough to Jand that our enemies may have influence in the area.”
Rashnir paused and looked skyward. Zeh-Ahbe’ saw it too. A carrier falcon descended towards their position: one of the Regal Red Tails purchased by their elf friend.
The creature obediently perched nearby and Rashnir retrieved the message. He and his friend clutched their armloads of firewood and brought the bird back to their camp to read the message there.
***
grr’Shaalg and tyr-aPt finished their gluttonous meal and kicked the messy bone fragments and osseous material into a heap at the edge of grr’Shaalg’s quarters. He would find a new servant later to remove whatever remained.
Holding up a vial of faintly glowing liquid, grr’Shaalg captivated his brother with his flair for the dramatic. He swirled the liquid aro
und in the corked flask, drawing tyr-aPt’s complete attention. The contents seemed to sparkle and glow; it flowed and swished like a medium viscosity liquid but it seemed to fizz as it did so, sparkling and popping like tinder sparks. Truly, it was a whole new element.
[Is that it, brother?] tyr-aPt asked.
[Actually, it is not. This,] grr’Shaalg said, [this is the dominant power behind phase two of my master scheme; it is the mystical nawchash. This is what will remove any barrier in my path to greatness. Of course, I’ve needed much of it to create the elixir for the first stage.]
[Then on to phase one.]
[Yes, I agree.] grr’Shaalg pocketed the glowing container. He pulled out another cylindrical glass phial. This liquid looked more like swamp water. Dull, dark, and murky its hue paled slight green in color. [This is it.]
[You have the capability to mass-produce this stuff?]
[Oh yes,] grr’Shaalg said. [You needn’t worry. It’s already happening. In fact, I have already chosen my recruits to carry out my plan.]
[And how is it that you are so good at putting your schemes into action without ever leaving a trail to link it to you?] tyr-aPt phrased the question as flattery. He was curious as to the plan and its implementation, but he knew better than to question his brother or say anything that might be viewed as a lack of faith. tyr-aPt the goblin king was smart enough to know that even he could be replaced.
[Simple, really,] he replied. [Some creatures, even some of us goblins, have this foreign concept implanted within us that makes us value the lives of specific friends and family members. Luckily, I was born without this wretched impulse.] tyr-aPt knew exactly what he was talking about; grr’Shaalg had personally arranged for the death of all of their other litter-mates and even his own sow and sire, tyr-aPt had personally assisted him in many of those plans.
grr’Shaalg continued, [Those who are going to be the carriers have received guarantees that the lives of their children will be spared, even rewarded. After delivery, they will drink an entire flask of this serum. They won’t make it more than four days before they break down, themselves.]
The Kakos Realm Collection Page 59