The wyrm was an unusual sight in the lands of man. Once, these strange and majestic creatures held an empire unto themselves. That was before the dwarves came and nearly drove them to extinction. The wyrm would see its revenge delivered hot, and no sooner than they were conquered by the dwarves did their subjugators soon find the ships of men on their horizon.
“Excuse me, sir.” The voice of a passerby carried into the tent that caused the naked kaern to spin around with lock pick stuck in his hair. “Can I bend your ear?”
The proprietor, still clad in his crushed velvet attire, waved to the two visitors to his tent. He recognized the more slender of the two men, but her disheveled friend was unknown to him. Nonetheless, the dapper zookeeper was eager to make not one, but two sales for the first time this month.
“Oh, good sir,” said the man out front, “you’ve returned! I’m glad you found my humble abode all right.”
“No issues there,” Korine said. “If it wasn’t for the flock of galls above I never would’ve found the place at all.”
“Ah, well there’s that,” the zookeeper conceded with a stiff bow, “but if I let the birds inside for free then I’d have to let in everyone. Now wouldn’t I?”
He arose with a grin stretched from ear to ear, proud of himself, his establishment, and geared up to make a sale. He was about to wave his two customers on through when a burly slave meandered over to join them.
“What’s going on here?” asked a drunken Axel Thorogard, shifting from side to side on his approach.
“I was just about to show your owners some of the rarer sights in Amor,” the man said, “and if you’re a lucky slave you might get to come with them—.”
A loud crash rang out inside the tent that caught the attention of all those outside. The zookeeper spun around to enter his tent, but found a menacing Axel blocking the path. By the time he pushed past the dwarf to the door flap it was already too late and he found the cause of the commotion step out before he could step in.
“You filthy slave!” the zookeeper shouted at a partially disrobed Finley Mudbottom. “What’re you doing in my tent?”
Before the disoriented kaern could respond, several iridescent spheres poked through the entrance flap. The wisps swirled in the air around Finley, thankful for their salvation, but none too eager to get close enough for a quick footed beast tamer to catch.
The zookeeper was flabbergasted at the sight of his prized possessions getting away and he threw himself about in attempt to get them back. He would’ve gotten one or two if it hadn’t been for the thundering roar soon after he began.
The wings of a great predator burst through the tent of the Rahgul Zoo and took the zookeeper to the ground. He tried his best to protect himself, but his fleshy forearms proved to be of little worth against the fleeted wyrm’s clipped, yet still dangerous talons.
The proprietor laid on the ground a bloody mess, his assaulter now five stories high in the sky, and the man who caused it all before him with hands raised in apparent innocence. It was at that time a dozen of Finley’s kaernish brethren decided to make their escape. They massed around their savior, bounded over their zookeeper, and head in every direction available.
“Does someone want to tell me,” asked Axel, his head spinning at the sight of all these kaerns, “what in the wild lands is going on here?”
“We’re getting out of here,” Korine said as she grabbed hold of the dwarf’s knapsack. “That is what’s happening.”
One by one the villagers of Rahgul began to take notice of what transpired at their local zoo and soon the group of four found themselves in a mad dash through the streets.
“What about the horses?” Axel asked, huffing and puffing in his weighted armor and belly full of mead. “We need to get the horses!”
“Forget the horses,” Korine said.
“Forget the horses?” Axel balked at the absurdity of the request. “Is the woman mad?”
The villagers were following, torches in their hands nearly as fast as the curses found their tongues. The gate guards were there, the hostesses at the tavern, and even the child pickpockets that ran through streets when they arrived. Everyone turned up to see the show.
“Go back for the horses if you want, old friend,” said Dashe, wide set grin etched on his face, “but have fun avoiding the mob that’s coming for us.”
“I don’t like this,” Axel grumbled. “Not one bit.”
In every kingdom, in every town, the group of four found a way to stir the masses to a cause. Unfortunately, that cause usually swayed towards violence, and the group would find themselves in a situation not entirely different than what happened tonight. That didn’t make it any easier for their venerable leader to understand.
“Just once,” she groused, “it would be nice to sleep in a warm bed.”
The group ran north, up the South Halls, until not a soul could be seen in their wake. They ran until Axel Thorogard broke down and fell on his hands and knees in despair. He was out of breath, dry heaving, and humiliated from this public display of weakness. He tried to make excuses for himself several times until he began to spew his undigested mead all over the ground.
“The only thing worse than this damned headache,” Axel said as he wiped the froth from his grizzled mouth, “is the thought of having to shave my back hair for that blasted kaern again. The last time I felt like a newly born gutter dwarf.”
It felt good for the group to laugh, even if that laughter came at the expense of their dwarven companion. None needed it more than the young beastkind, for the first time in his life devoid of anything to say. He watched as his people were subjected to the worst mankind had to offer, friends that refused to lend aid until refusal was no longer an option, and a populace that cared only about human troubles.
Finley Mudbottom was less than a second class citizen, less than a slave or the elves that traipsed the wilds. He was dead weight, barely worth the clothes upon his back. He knew this; his friends knew this, but not a one of them said a word. They were all equal within the group. What else did one need?
The beasts of Rahgul Zoo didn’t have the sort of luck afforded to their savior, and while Finley rested in relative safety, the freed captives now began a journey from which they might never return. The lucky kaern gave those beastkind a chance, now it was up to them to make of it what they could.
Those sad creatures might survive the mad dash from Rahgul. They might perish in the night. But they would be free while they did so, one last time.
* * * *
For nearly a hundred miles the two on horseback had followed. These men had waited atop a mighty tower, watched as they were robbed blind, but never acted as they trailed behind them in the night.
“They intend to sell the blood stone,” said the man clad in black robes. “We cannot allow that to happen.”
“It will happen,” his cohort returned, “because I have gone ahead and made sure that the transaction will take place.”
Despite being on horseback, the man towered over his compatriot in black, but where his partner had chosen to cloak himself to the world, this man kept his face revealed for the world to witness. It wasn’t by choice or sense of style. It was by reason of heat and the fact that this man could only produce sweat from half the pores on his body.
Across his body ran burns, from his face to his fingers, which would’ve taken a lesser man. This wasn’t any ordinary man, as the group of four would soon learn. This was the man nightmares were made from. He wouldn’t stop until he had what he wanted, and what he wanted was revolution.
“Much rests on these decisions, master,” said the cloaked horse rider. “I needn’t remind you that the cycle began the moment the stone filled by the bloody touch. If we don’t recover it soon, we will be at a loss when the lands of man burn.”
“You worry too much,” the burned man said, his eyes locked on the small fire in the distance, where the group of four camped in blissful ignorance. “There won’t be a del
ay. They head straight for Slaven and then both the prize and the man of historic blood will be ours for the taking.”
The burned man halted his speech when he noticed that the fire’s light was out. His targets were once more on the move, always onward until the troubles of their plunder were behind them. Their troubles were, in fact, behind them, but they wouldn’t be for long.
“Besides,” he continued as he ushered his horse forward, “our headmaster has no intentions of acting until the time is right, regardless of whether the stone is in our possession or not. The lands of man will burn, my brother, of that I can assure you, and they won’t be snuffed out until all of their crying calls are for us and our order.”
The men in black head into the dark forest, assured in their purpose and their cause, unseen figures that aimed to shape the pillars of man and all that the human race stood for, but perhaps the scariest part of these men was they could do just that in time. Their secret order worked tirelessly over the cycles, cultivated strong relationships within the empire, and saw the weaker ties crumble into the Siren Seas. There, in the sunken shadows, these men could work on what needed to be done, and what needed to be done was of great importance to all the races of Amor.
Chapter Eight
Shadow Brokers
Gregory Blackman
Unwelcome Guest
Every ashen street Simeon Lyon walked brought the same sad, lonely people to stir about. This wasn’t the isle he left. When his ship left port this was the grandest city in the world, the crown jewel of the kingdoms of man.
There wasn’t a socialite in the empire that didn’t aspire to reach these historic shores, ample amounts of gold in pocket and looking to experience all the isle had to offer. Not a knight worth his weighted plate that didn’t dream of winning some maiden over in an ashen tournament. Everyone of note was here, or at least they used to be.
Now Simeon’s people were an exhausted and shameful lot who kept out of the light they could be noticed in. He passed some of the city’s shadier citizens, and while each of their gazes stayed locked on him, he never faltered in his tireless march onward. In the hidden alleys that lined each block he passed there were dwarven slaves. Sometimes he would catch an elf in their midst, but their beaten and malnourished frames proved hard for the prince to look upon.
Once, this isle belonged to the elves and their laborious dwarves. Two vast empires that reigned over more land, for more cycles, than those that now replaced them. Then came the Age of Fire and it all came to a crashing halt. After the dust settled and man grew strong in the northern lands of Amoria Minor they braved the oceans. Much of mankind was lost, but still they managed to overwhelm the weakened armies of the dwarves and elves. That was thousands of cycles ago and not a day had passed that they forgot what had been taken. Mankind, on the other hand, would take much and ask for more than they could give.
“Have ye got some change for a poor soul?”
Simeon stopped in mid stride, unsure where the voice came from until he looked to where he already had tread. It was one of the isle’s homeless. This particular homeless person was marked by the harsh passage of time, from his wrinkled face to the varicose veins that protruded all over his nearly bare skin and shrunken limbs. Simeon wanted to tell the man not a chance and be on his way, but an uneasy heart saw the prince supplant that decision.
“Tell you what,” the prince said as his hand inched into his coin purse. “Answer me one question with utmost sincerity and you shall have what you seek.”
The beggar shot Simeon a bewildered glance, but the prospect of coin wasn’t easy to come by in the isle, and so he perked up in attempt to appease his potential benefactor, and asked, “What do ye wish to know? I ain’t promising nothin’ mind ye, but I’ll answer yer question as best I can.”
Simeon didn’t have to think long. He didn’t have to think very hard. There was one thing he wanted to hear since he arrived and one thing only.
“Give me your honest opinion of the high king,” Simeon said.
“I’ll… I’ll get in trouble with the guards.”
“You won’t,” Simeon said.
“I don’t want to go back to the dungeons.”
“Whisper it then,” said Simeon with a roll of his eyes, “if that’s what you must do.”
The dirty man glanced quickly to his left, and then his right, before he summoned the courage, and said, “The high king can sit on a lycanthrope’s knob and spin ‘round and ‘round for all I care. Screw him and his whole family!”
The man threw his hand over his mouth when he caught himself shouting in the street. His words could’ve well landed him in the dungeons had they fallen upon any law-abiding civilian. Luckily, for the beggar, there weren’t any of those people to be found.
A wide set grin stretched across the face of the youngest prince. The man earned his money. There was no doubt about that, so he pulled out a few coppers, some silvers, and even a gold coin and dropped them into the cupped hands of the beggar. Even before the man had the chance to count his coin, Simeon decided there was nothing left he could learn, and he left to continue his walkabout of the ashen isle.
“Yer much, much too kind,” said the bum to his departed benefactor. “These ‘ill feed me, clothe me, and put a roof over my head for months. Aw, hell, who am I kiddin’? He ain’t here no more. These ‘ill get me good and drunk.”
Simeon passed some more citizens in the streets, dirty folk, such as the kind he saw pass by earlier. He caught their gaze upon him once more, and in the glint of one of their eyes, he swore he saw the same man before. That thought was soon affirmed when the shuffled feet of another could be heard behind him.
He pulled the short sword from his waist and turned to defend himself against the coming assault. His blade wasn’t much. Nor were the skills with which he wielded it. Luckily, this lot weren’t any better off and the prince found himself amply equipped to handle them. That’s what he believed. No sooner had Simeon avoided the threat in front of him did another from behind step into the fray.
“Give us yer coin!” the man from behind shouted as he thrust in the prince’s direction. “We’ll be taking all of it!”
“Are you kidding, man?” Simeon asked. He narrowly avoided the attack from the rear, but instead of reply with steely touch, Simeon looked back at the robbers with a puzzled stare. “You want my silver? You might’ve thought about asking me that before you took a swipe at my midsection!”
Some of the men looked to one another, unsure how to respond, but eventually one of them stepped forward, and asked, “So… are you gonna give us yer coin, or what?”
“No!” Simeon put his blade to use and took several swipes in their many directions, but they were many. This would get ugly, and it would get ugly fast. “I might not be able to take all of you, but I’ll handle you until the guards come around the corner. I can guarantee that much.”
“Oh,” said one of the assailants, “can ya? Can ya guarantee that? ‘Cause there isn’t any guards coming around these parts anytime soon. Haven’t for cycles, and that I can guarantee you.”
Simeon wanted to put on his bravest face, but when five men with weapons charged him he knew the battle was already lost. He dodged a few of their swords, got a thrust in or two, but in the end there wasn’t much he could do against the overwhelming odds.
When it appeared Simeon would be the newest corpse on the ashen streets, a clashing of blades from the rear caught the attention of the bandits and, one by one, they turned from the prince to the new threat in their midst.
“Scurry away, vermin!” shouted the barbaric man, a flurry of red hair and bloodied steel. “Flee while you’ve still got the legs to run your lilywhite asses back down the street!”
Simeon recognized the voice of his burly savior. It was the guttural voice of Mantas Varg, one of the scariest men Simeon knew as a wide-eyed youth and marshal of the ashen court. One could tell from his freckled complexion and aversion to sunlight that he was a
man who hailed from the distant lands of Wyrmos, a land that took its dire name from the race it enslaved. Despite his less than noble upbringing, Mantas set upon a hard life, a life he never once shunned. He was strong, wise, and faultless in his convictions. Once the oak tree of a man arrived on the isle there was little that could be done to stop his ascension to power, birthright be damned.
Mantas hacked at the men from the front. Simeon struck from the rear. Soon all five of the muggers had felt the wrath of a blade, or two, and lay slumped on the ground in a pool of their collective blood.
“By the four pillars, man,” said Simeon with his short sword dangling at his waist. “What are you doing here?”
“The same thing as you,” answered Mantas as he looked to those recently departed from the isle, “it would seem.”
The marshal radiated confidence and ferocity, from his pearlescent plated armor to his beard of molten lava that poured down his neck. Simeon found that he no longer feared the marshal, though the sight of the five bodies at his feet, he probably should have. If someone on the isle wanted him dead this would be the man to send.
“You know what I mean,” said Simeon, his brow furled. “One doesn’t come to the ashen slums unless they’re either lost or foolhardy. Since I, alone, fall under those categories I must ask one more time. What are you doing here?”
The marshal gave a discontented sigh as he sheathed his broadsword, and said, “The spymaster sent me. There’s much to discuss and we can no longer afford to let you lurk in the shadows.”
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