[M/R] Eternum: Blood of the Gods

[Aureyon]

Branjaskr, The Free South – Village

Syf remained there, on the wall of the old house, frozen in what could only be described as shock. She hadn't expected him to react as he did to her advances, many in her old home knew that she was rather provocative when she wanted to be, but of course, this was not her home, and there was demon blood in the prince. She knew that she had made a mistake, but she would not follow him; she had caused enough emotional, and sexual, turmoil within him.

Instead, she turned and slowly walked through the village around her, feeling the stares of its inhabitants as they looked at the exotic woman. This was not her home, and she did not feel as though she belonged here, so maybe it would be best if she left Branjaskr, and the South itself. She had heard from the varying people in the village that there was a place to the North called the Imperium. Perhaps she could go there, and she nodded to herself, as her course had been decided; she would leave the south.

As her mind had been made up, she made her way to the local stables, and bargained with the Nord watching over the horses housed there, and she ended up having to give away the necklace clasped around her neck. It was of the purest silver, inlaid with a crest unrecognizable to even Syf, and a beautiful tear-drop sapphire sat centered on the piece, hiding the crest within it's oceanic color.

Having bartered for the horse, she began to prepare for her departure, only looking once back to the castle in which she had stayed for a short while.

Kalle kept running, he couldn’t stop, mustn’t stop. The temptation to vice was so powerful. People looked to their second prince with respect…but also confusion. Why was he running? Fleeing? Was there some connection to the ever distant purple light?

This deeper inspecting of his actions was lost while he dodged the simple village people who were struck still in awe of the unknown. To Kalle, noting was more important than escaping Bransjaskr in fear of what he might do to any of his people.

Syf’s lips still burned against his. His fear of corrupting her pumped his legs to greater speeds.

“OPEN THE GATE!” he yelled at a distance, the men at post did so without question. Speeding through nothing but snow, forest, and the purple light could be seen. In flight, he moved through the woodlands, feet stepping through deep snow, the conditions he was used to his entire life.

‘Zahneri!’ he mind kept crying her name. His need for her was everything now. There was no ability to think of the repercussions, only the fight against madness.

Branjaskr, The Free South – Nearby Woodlands

And in the dense forest, she appeared before the prince…her mocha colored body on display, as always. Her four bat wings fluttered. Sexually charged, angular features remained still and passionless.

“ZAHNERI HELP ME!” Kalle begged, sweating and psyche breaking. None of his breathing exercises were going to save him now.

“You tried to control it, now it controls you” Kalle grasped her, unable to appreciate her wisdom. But his hands could feel the softness of her unusual skin…his ears, the sexuality forever locked in her voice…his eyes, the curves of her nearly nude body.

“I NEED YOU” black coils brutishly meshed against the Demon’s horns and hair. Still charging forward, he pushed her up against a tree, arms grappling around her dipped waist and the succubus, one who has seen him from birth to manhood, returned the affection….the lust. Zahneri fed of his desperation. Pinned against the tree she gave him what he wanted…but eyes scanned the area.

Zahneri always thought of the family’s safety…

With a black smoke, the two of them vanished from the forest…

Branjaskr, The Free South – Village

Upon realizing that Syf really didn't know her way to the North, she turned her attention to the sky as it lit up with a brilliant and purple streak. But, something was off with the light, it wasn't natural, it couldn't be; her gut told her this much.

Turning her attention from the sky, she looked now, to the people of Branjaskr. She had to find her way out of here, and quickly, it was clear that not all was right. So, searching for one who knew the way, became the priority in her mind. She found herself in what appeared to be, a marketplace in Branjaskr Village, and she strode up to an elderly man, attempting to provoke an answer from him regarding the way from Branjaskr to the Imperium.

After waiting a few moments, it was clear to her, that she wasn't going to get an answer from him. So, she strode away from him calmly, with only a slight hint of irritation at being ignored. Nevertheless she continued her search, trying to get an answer from one of the people in the village, but it appeared that their attention was invested in the purple streak in the sky.

A few times she thought about just giving up, and navigating the treacherous and icy south by herself; at least until she found one person, who didn't seem as invested in the purple streak as the others. It seemed this would be her most logical choice, in finding one who could answer her question.

“Excuse me, sir. Can you tell me how one would get to the North, from here? I've never been anywhere aside from the wastes just outside the walls, and I know that I will get lost, or worse, if I can't find a safe path through to the North.”

The man was sitting skinning animals; he seemed to be a leatherworker by trade. He held a judgmental gaze to the white haired woman.

“What business do you have with the North?” he spat in the snow, skinning more of the gray wolf. The look on his aging face was one of disgust.

"I don't belong in the South." Syf said simply, not willing to go into great detail, or explain herself to this man. It did not matter her reasons for wanting to go North, it only mattered that she get there before things got worse here. It was one thing to piss people off, and them be angry with you, but Syf had already been attacked one, and the threat of another loomed just on the horizon for her. It wasn't safe for her in Branjaskr, anymore.

It was during these times that she wondered where her mother was, and why she wasn't answering her prayers. Have I wronged you in some way, Mother? Have I disappointed you to the extent that you no longer feel love for me, your daughter?, these thoughts often ran through her mind, but she could not show weakness, not in this place.

She turned her attention, and thoughts, back to the man in front of her awaiting an answer from him. His skinning blade stopped and he looked up to her, his face a flashing mix of pity and confusion.

"Go to the North then, eh? Betray Odin's blood? You'll find nothing but hardship in those lands, they'll rule over you like a dog to his master" he leaned over to look more closely at her. Syf could see the man's opinion of her intelligence: she just didn't get it. He was cutting through her naivete sharply.

That was the end of her asking nicely. The arrogance of the Southerners had finally managed to break her outer shell, and she drew back her hand, and shot it forward, knocking the arrogant man on his arse, and she knelt down to him, as his nose began to pour blood.

"Do not presume to judge me, mortal man. I am the daughter of a God, and I will not be demeaned and judged by a pathetic excuse for a man, such as yourself. It is not why I was born, nor why I have survived as long as I have. In my time, it was rude of a woman to speak out of turn, but it was far worse for a man to think a woman as being unintelligent. Smart men know that for every powerful man, there is a wise woman to lead him down his path.", She turned from the man, refusing to look back at him, and left him laying on the ground, as she made her way back to the stables.

"I don't need directions, I am a demi-god, and I shall find my way to the Imperium." she said to herself as she got in the saddle and began a slow trot through the streets towards the front gates of Branjaskr. Kalle had been pushed to the back of her mind, so at to prevent her from having second thoughts; it was clear that she was not welcome here, by even the populace. Perhaps she would received a better welcome by the Imperium.

Her journey was abruptly stopped by guardsmen. Villagers that were once staring at the purple light were now looking at her with worry and confusion. Why did this odd woman randomly assault their leatherworker? The gates were not going to open for her.

Uninhibited by Syf’s appearance, sex, or lineage, several guards detained her. Pointed at her were several broadswords, and axes. She was dismounted and her hands had been tied behind her.

Branjaskr, The Free South – Odinsen Castle, Basement

Plowing Zahneri was boggling Kalle’s mind. The pleasure and the rush of taking her thrilled him to continue. The demonic duo making sounds into the isolated darkness deep beneath the castle. The succubus yanked him by the back of his head and stared deep into his eyes, Kalle pushed as if intending to break her. Kalle was in the highest ecstasy, guilt, and shame gone.

Over the edge he screamed, demonic nails were digging into his back, shredding through the thick furs he wore. With a heave the second prince slowed down until he was breathing heavily and his knees wobbled from under him.

Zahneri felt the stone scrape against her wings and back while he slowly fell to the floor, sliding with him. In her nearly thirty years of existence she now just lost her virginity, as the family’s succubus she was only used for murder it seemed…

Kalle pulled from her, ice blue eyes wide. Oh Gods…he just did that? The open wounds in his back failed to compare to the emotional tragedy his returning senses were giving him.

“No…” he whimpered and crawled aside, away from her. In his hands he bawled. Dismissively, his lover pushed thick waves of black hair from her face.

Zahneri disregarded his crying, using the wall to help get herself back to her hoof feet. The magical rocky armor began to grow from her furred ankles and swirl up her body, black silk grew from the rock at her upper arm and draped down to the ground.

“Where are you going? You’re not going to tell mother are you!?” his shame shined.

“I have lose ends to tie up” speaking of murder… she was gone, dark cloud nearly invisible in the shady basement.

Kalle raised a hand in protest…pointlessly. Syf...

Branjaskr, The Free South – Village, Jail

Regardless of the resistance she provided, they were able to outman her and take her to a brick building near the castle’s own walls. In the long and narrow structure, there were tall black bars that were buried deep into the masonry in the ground and the ceiling. These created many small square sections to house prisoners.

Both men and women were in the squares, however, not intermingled. The prisoners looked at her with a tame curiosity before she was thrown in her own small square and the door locked behind her.

“We don’t know where you hail from fröken. There is no honor or respect in attacking an unarmed man” The guard ignored any rebuttal she may have and walked off.

While in this cage she had little time to reflect before her senses began to tell her of a demon’s close proximity. In a sudden loss of sight she lost sense of herself or whereabouts.

The Free South - Expansive Ocean

In less than a second she found herself in the middle of ice cold oceanic water. Her body was struggling to hold herself above the surface in her godly given armor. Intelligence told her she would only live for several moments in this water before the cold killed her...

But there seemed to be no way out, only various jagged glaciers surrounded her, the rest was endless ocean water.

The demon woman must have left her out here to die; Syf’s brain ran to the conclusion quickly.

Syf lost her breath as she hit the water, and she eyed her surroundings, attempting to find a way to survive, this seemingly impossible situation. However, as she eyed the glaciers, an idea formed in her head, and she drew the dagger hidden in her armor, and the spear hidden beneath her white cloak. The spear was about the size of the dagger, with the tip sticking out from the handle. If Syf were to press a button on the handle, it would shoot to its full length, but that was not what Syf needed it for.

Instead, she swam stiffly towards the nearest glacier and jabbed her dagger and spear into the ice wall of the glacier, before climbing the wall by penetrating the ice sheet with her dagger and spear in a repetitive motion until she reached the top. Upon reaching the top, she shivered and tore her cloak from her back, feeling the icy wind race across her skin.

Wind! That was the key, Syf said to herself as she began to fracture the large glacier until it fell apart, once again, her body plunging into the cold water. She lost her dagger to the depths of the ocean, but held a firm grip on her cloak and spear. She surfaced, and found a remaining piece of ice, just big enough to support her weight, and she climbed on top, and lay there for a moment, catching her breath.

Her hair was frozen to her armor, and it made moving her neck...difficult. However, she had one last thing to do, before she would be ready to conserve her heat and strength. With a mighty heave, she jabbed her spear, now in full length, into the glacier-boat, and began to fasten her cloak on the spear, creating a sail that caught in the icy wind and moved through the icy waters at a considerable rate.

"Damned demons..." Syf stated angrily to the wind. Syf’s ingenuity was buying her much more time and a drastic increase in survivability. But unless she could find a way to get out of the cold she would surely perish sooner than nightfall. Drinkable water was the next thing her critical mind could think of.

Her unusual mode of transportation took advantage of the strong ocean winds , but the demon seems to have left her completely stranded, in all directions only glaciers and salt water could be seen.

Near to Syf however, the water began to churn - something was rising from the depths. The frozen water did not seem to bother whatever it was, or else it had grown immune to its damned temperature. From the depths came a huge tubular metal machination, groaning as it began to float above sea. The whole thing was black, as if covered in oil, and it created an aggressive growling noise - the noise of engines.

From the top of the metal beast came the sound of metal hitting metal, until a panel seemed to flip up from the ship. Three...men, all carrying weaponry unknown to Syf rose out of the machine, followed by a man wielding a Shortsword with a flintlock rifle in his hand. "Es ist eine Frau!" One of the first men to leave the vehicle yelled.

"Ja! Was sollten wir tun?" One of the other men said, before the peculiarly dressed man turned to them both, and in a rather crude statement barked:

"Bring 'er aboard. I'm sure Blackbeard would love to see this...smells like a Demi-God to me..."

[Setsa]

Ech Zilidar - Throne Room

Jornak had arrived at the council meeting just in time to hear the protests of the Imperium representatives, and intrigued, he remained hidden from the observances of those within, to hear out the rest of what was being said. It wasn't that he was afraid to intrude upon the meeting, for it was they, who called for him, it was that he was interested in the protest of the Namorians and a few of the dwarves, who held close to the traditions and laws of the dwarven people.

His breath caught when he heard the Princess Nesara offer herself as Queen to him, and this only meant that his name had been thrown in for the title of King, and the replacement for Vagrund. Jornak had never been that close to Vagrund, but he had a healthy respect for the dwarven leader, though sometimes he believed that Vagrund's past, led to the Namorian's having a stronger influence on dwarven matters. He scoffed inwardly at this thought, and shook it from his head, refusing to dishonor the late king's name with such thoughts.

After the discussion had died down, Jornak deemed it time to make his presence known to those assembled; and he did exactly that...

“Lords...Princess”, he bowed slightly before walking up to the table, his armor rent with dents and scrapes from the battle raging outside the throne room. He deliberately chose to ignore the presence of the Imperium diplomats, or whatever the hells they called themselves. Jornak tolerated them, but he did not have to give them his respect, they were a greedy people, and believed their arm to be long enough to control all. It made sense why the south rebelled, Jornak thought to himself.

“I have been listening, unseen, to the conversations being thrown around this throne room, while MY people are out there, dying. I will gladly take the mantle of King, if it will give our people a new hope, and drive to live..” he turned his eyes to the princess, “..And, I will take the Princess' hand in marriage.”

Jornak, now having said what he needed to say in regards to his people and the matter of kingship, turned to the Imperium diplomats.

“I will hear no talk of fleeing from my city, by an Imperium coward."

"Don't you dare presume to call me a coward, general!" praetor Graccus spat, half rising from his chair. "My men fought and died at Azulfa and Lun Garath, the same as yours!"

"Your cities are not falling to hordes upon hordes of grey-skins. I will not ask for Imperium permission on the matters of my people, and while I respect the power of the Imperium, I will not be a pawn for it to control. Dun Moriga is home to the dwarves, favored by the very ground you walk upon, birthed in the fires of Vulcan, and made with hearts of the purest of stones. My people will survive to see Dun Moriga reclaimed.” Jornak finished, his proud eyes showing the fury that echoed in his words.

"You forget your place, general." Graccus said, his tone dangerous.

"No, praetor, you forget yours." senator Agrippa interrupted sternly. He put a hand on the garrison commander's arm. "Sit down."

Graccus jerked his arm away but he complied, returning to his seat with his eyes narrowed suspiciously at Agrippa.

Lord Argam and the elders heard the responses, and Nesara gave a nod to Jornak before sitting back down in her seat. "Then let us take it to a vote of council. For Jornak to wed Princess Nesara, and by meeting our ancient laws to be our new King."

There were 9 elders, Nesara, Graccus and Agrippa in seat. Lord Argam slowly stood up for the second time of recent, reaching out to take hold of Jornak Iron-Beard's forearm for stability. "A show of hands then, for this dwarf to rightfully be our King in which he shall lead us."

Slowly the elder dwarf took a look up and down Jornak before raising his hand, and others raised their own giving their vote. Five so far but it had to be majority, some looking to Nesara to see if she would hold true to her word. The Princess raised her own hand, six now...followed by the blonde bearded elder and another. Senator Agrippa looked along the table appraisingly and added his own hand, while Graccus kept his stubbornly on the table. But whether Graccus and Agrippa voted in agreement or not by then didn't matter. Majority had already won; the council's decision decided as Agram gave a confirming nod before sitting back down.

Motioning over a dwarf that was at stand by to provide comforts to them, Argam whispered in his ear for him to hurry and inform others to begin preparations right away. A small bow was given in acknowledgement, before the messenger hurried out of the throne room by the grand door. "Then the funeral of King Vagrund and the wedding and crowning of our new King shall be tonight. There is I'm afraid no time to waste."

Nesara spoke now, as the decision of her future was made. "If you do not wish to flee, I wouldn't ask for such. This is a means only to regroup and strengthen as one in Tu Zenita Duksal as you ... My Lord, have not just Dun Moriga's safety to worry about." Standing once again she looked long into Jordak's eyes before continuing "I can get EVERYONE" the last word had been given a firm tone for emphasis. "There in haste; if preparations are made to be ready to depart soon as the ceremonies are done. Lord Jordak, the more time you can give us the better to see the journey through. They by now will suspect everyone to be hiding at the Anvil... is there a way to funnel them in and set a trap to greet the invading orcs?"

Jornak listened, and watched, in silence as he was made the new king by the Council. It appeared the only thing left to assure his kingship would take effect, would be to marry the Afragian princess, and attend his coronation. Jornak could not see the wisdom, in military terms, in a decision such as that, but it was not his place to challenge the Law, nor change his peoples' traditions.

"My lady, I respect your words, and I hear them as a dwarf would hear the stone calling. However, the safety of my people must come before my pride. You will lead our people through the tunnels, to Tu Zenita Duskal. I, and a single legion of dwarves will hold off the Orc Invaders as you get the people in the tunnels." Jornak stated evenly. His voice was threaded with the concern for his people, but also the respect for the Princess, soon to be Queen, before him.

"Aye, we will give the orcs a surprise they will long remember..." Jornak finished, his eyes alight with the glow of the various gems within the throne room, "We will overload Vulcan's Anvil, and light the city on fire."

With decisions made and time of the essence, the council disbanded to get to work. Nesara, after standing up from her seat, walked around to stand before Jordak. He was just a few inches shorter than herself; his head reached just above the Lady's chin. In the softness that was her movements, the princess curtsied before the soon to be King. "My Lord, know that you have my up most confidence and respect. I shall arrange with the Lords to get the people to the tunnel before the funeral rites.... Be safe."

Jornak nodded to Nesara, and bowed slightly himself. He turned to the door, and began to make his way out, before turning back and speaking evenly with a resignation of defeat echoing his words like a man resigned to death.

"Lady Nesara, I ask that you gather as much of our culture and history as you can. We have to preserve the histories, it is a vital part of dwarven heritage, as you well know. It should not perish in a fire.... Be safe, until we meet again", he finished before turning and exiting the throne room to the madness outside.

"I will assist." senator Agrippa offered, rising from his seat. He looked slightly amused as Graccus sketched a curt bow and swept out of the room - after all, Nesara's plan to evacuate the city had been essentially the same as the praetor's, just couched in terms that were more palatable to the council. Shrewd manoeuvring.

"Well played, princess." he said, inclining his head once the two of them were alone on their way to the libraries in the east wing of the palace. "Although, have you considered how this will look to our dear emperor Claudius? A joining of forces is to be expected in times like these, but a marriage pact between the two provinces? That is somewhat more binding. A united East would be far more powerful...the emperor might interpret this as an attempt to set up your own empire. And the emperor has a rather strict policy on rebellion."

Agrippa pushed the gold-chased door in front of them open, and held it open for Nesara to step through.

"Who knows, maybe it's time for Afragia and Dun Moriga to have a greater say in imperial affairs? But the emperor will need assurances. As I said in the council, I have vouched for your loyalty before, and I would be happy to do so again. Until then, we might want to keep general..." The senator caught himself with a smile. "King Jornak and the praetor off each others' throats."

The senator bowed again as they reached the Hall of Records.

"Just the advice of your humble servant, my lady."

* * * * * *

Upon arriving at Vulcan's Anvil, Jornak saw that the army was there, and prepared, as he had commanded.

"Get the civilians prepared, and prepare yourselves. We are to evacuate the city for Tu Zenita Duskal, and there we will make our stand against the grey-skins. I need a legion of dwarves to remain behind and aid me in the task of overloading the Anvil", at mention of overloading the anvil, murmurs ran through the dwarves assembled before him. The anvil was the pride of the dwarves in Ech Zilidar, and to blow it up, meant that the city was truly believed to be lost.

"Prepare yourselves, for the Coronation of a new king tonight, and a new Queen shall rise." Jornak finished before entering into the mighty forges of the dwarves and setting all furnaces to overload at the press of a button. One dwarf would stay behind and light the anvils, and the city on fire. This should, if achieved, cause mass confusion and a screen of smoke to cover the evacuation of the city.

As much pleasantries exchanged as could be afforded for the time being. Nesara did as Jornak asked, going into the Hall of Records where such history was at most times well guarded. Now however the Princess hurried after having a few measurements taken for alterations on a gown. Accompanied by a hand full of guards along with the head historian with a wagon to hold everything, she spent as much time as she could afford helping them gather the most important scrolls, tomes, and ancients written texts. She left all but one guard there to continue the work and see to its protection, as she was needed elsewhere.

Checking on the progress of the evacuation with the elders who offered to lend a hand, Nesara noticed the wagons surrounded by soldiers heading to the Anvil. Carrying whatever was needed for Jornak's plan to take back young and elderly citizens to the entryway of the tunnels.

"My Lady..." Lord Argam addressed her with a small bow of his head as she promptly did the same. "It's time you prepare now, we have done all that we can here..." A hand rested on her own in reassurance as a smile formed on his aged face.

"Yes, yes you're right...off shall we be then."

Accompanying the elder back to the palace so that he might gather any last remaining things of his own while she was escorted back to her chambers, Nesara was greeted by the seamstress and a few ladies, who had with them the dress and jewels that were gifted by the council. "Your highness.." the seamstress said before motioning her to the waiting bath. Nesara nodded in understanding, thanking them all with her honey sweet voice before her bare feet stepped into the waters.

Jornak was retrieved from the battlefield, after ensuring that all civilians were making their way to the tunnels, or the coronation area. He would trust that Nesara had done as he asked, and retrieved the most vital of his peoples' history and culture. The Hall of Records held the names of every family to ever rise, or fall, from power, and many more important and vital pieces that would ensure their ancient laws were preserved, and now it had to be cleared of anything of importance.

Jornak arrived within the throne room, to don the armor of the King; a brilliant golden armor, inlaid with very intricate runes that told the story of kings past, and a mighty crown was placed upon his head, inlaid with a single onyx that resembled the honor that all kings must have to rule, and ensure the safety of Dun Moriga, and now Afragia.

Jornak had devised a plan that would ensure that both places had a ruler at equal times, and he would bring this idea to Nesara after they reached Tu Zenita Duskal. Meanwhile, he had a funeral to attend, and then a wedding.

* * * * * *

So the procession began that evening, to where King Vagrund's final resting place was. To the stone tombs of the Kings. The Elder Dwarven Lords lead in front, to be followed by Jornak, a few soldiers, Nesara, and other officials. Though the entire city would normally follow suit, they instead sat in wait at the tunnels except for a handful in the coronation hall, that was decorated simply for the occasion. Torches lighted their way held by soldiers who were on edge. Watching every shadow, weary of every corner they passed with one hand on the hilt of their weapons at the ready. Nesara was covered in a rich dark blue cloak from head to toe to hide her appearance and give her humble respect to the fallen King. Those even with the cloak, glimmers of light reflected off the jewels that rested around her neck. Giving only the slightest hint of what she wore.

Deep into the Kings' Tombs, each stone coffin that rested in separate small rooms were decorated elegantly. Some with precious jewels, some with golden scrolled letters of prayers embedded into the stone itself... Each one a true masterpiece. The small procession walked into one room newly occupied, circling around the tomb that was made years ago and laid only a few feet beside the late Queen who had died of a fierce illness before her time. Lord Argam looked up to Nesara to give a very slight nod with his soft eyes.

The Princess stepped forward, to stand at the head of the stone coffin. Taking a small pause before she began to speak in their native tongue, the prayers of the fallen. Asking that Vulcan would welcome King Vargund with open arms. So that he may fight for the god and rejoin his wife in the afterlife. As she was instructed earlier, the woman would begin to say the names of the Kings past. Starting with the very first, and ending with King Vargund minutes later as the lineage was long indeed.

As the Lady Nesara finished her reciting of the traditional burial prayer, and naming of the kings of Old, Jornak strode before the stone coffin, encasing Vagrund, and he spoke in his natural tongue,

"We now return your body to Eternum, your essence to the forges of Vulcan, and your heart to the stone"

As he finished his brief statement, he took the torch that a guard held, and tilted the fire towards the golden statue, inlaid with various gems and jewels, and instantly the statue caught afire. There were no words as the statue slowly melted, forming a golden sheet that encased the dead king forever in his tomb. As the ceremony concluded, Jornak approached Nesara, and spoke briefly

"I believe it is time to attend our Wedding, and then we must leave. There is not much time left before the Anvil implodes upon itself"

Watching the statue melt into a gold sheet over the coffin, Nesara was reminded of the other reason why they were all together. "Yes...and so we shall." Looking to the Elders as the procession took their leave, Nesara walked once more behind Jordak with soldiers keeping them apart for the last remaining minutes.

At the coronation hall within the palace awaited a few dwarves who wished to attend and hurry after, along with Senator Agrippa, although Praetor Graccus remained with his troops as they marshalled to join the retreat from Ech Zilidar. All the elders were present. As it was the elder council who chose their King, it would be them to perform the ceremony. The procession taking a pause at the doorway, where the Princess*had her cloak removed by a sweet Lady who had helped her prepare earlier that day. The lady kept firm hold to the fabric to put it back on as soon as needed. The gown Nesara wore was of a light blush red that flattered her figure where it counted, thanks to the seamstress. The long sleeves that fell off the shoulders were adorned with small slivers of jewels within the fabric itself, which served to sparkle in the torchlight. The skirt portion that caressed her legs was loose enough for the long ride ahead. The gold necklace gifted to her by the elders from the royal jewels was made*by the finest touch and skill; a soft red teardrop gem at the center rested against her skin just below where her collarbones met. Diamond earrings helped compliment it, and her gold band around her head that served as her traveling crown was removed for the time being, representing the transition that was taking place.

Walking to the right side of the soon to be King, she nodded to the elders to proceed. Only a kind flute player was present to perform a melody as the couple walked down the hall to the stone pedestal at the end, holding the white gold chalice that contained sacred wine that was only drank for such occasions deemed worthy.

As the two made their way to the end of the long aisle, Jornak kept his eyes forward, and his back straight, as was the tradition of every dwarf male upon his wedding day. He would not lay his eyes upon the bride until the moment when he committed his love for his woman, unto the stone. As the two neared the end of the aisle, and stopped just short of the end, and awaited the flutist to finish his song. Upon the finishing of the song, he spoke.

"I commit my heart to the woman standing beside me. I commit our love in the name of Vulcan, and I commit my eyes to only my woman." he finished as he turned his eyes to the Lady Nesara, with a slight hint of sadness hiding within them, nearly undetectable.

Standing before the elder Lord Argam, eyes solely on the kind dwarf, the Princess spoke after Jornak, her voice soft and sweet like a melody. Yet her demeanor was of duty, honor, and what must be done. "I commit my heart to my dwarf. I commit our love in the name of Vulcan and of Ra, and I commit my eyes to only he who stands beside me now."

Lord Argam read from a scroll, the only one that wasn't currently in the wagon with the rest. "I speak now unto the Gods of Eternum. That they bless these two here today who have exchanged vows. Vows that shall never be broken, like the stone from which all dwarf hearts were made from. May the gods guide them along the path that both Jornak and Nesara share. May they bless the two with strong, healthy children that will carry their bloodlines."

Motioning to a soldier who carried a small stone box with runes of love and prosperity to come forth, then another that held a set of crowns that had been blessed earlier, the elder removed the lid of the box to extract two gold rings. Both had a small, round, red gemstone embedded in the band itself. Handing one to each, he motioned them to place the ring on the other. Nesara turned to face the dwarf, sliding the ring on his finger as she spoke. "As so it shall be, with my heart, body, and mind."
She looked into his eyes as each word was spoken.

"And so it shall be, by the will of Vulcan", Jornak finished as he placed the ring given to him on the Lady Nesara's finger. He kissed her hand, before letting it go, and turned to those assembled, where both crowns of gold were placed upon their heads.

"Now I am pleased to announce to you all. King Jornak and Queen Nesara, hail to the rulers of our lands!" Argam said as the crowd gave their praise to promptly bow before the couple. Jornak took the hand of the woman, and proceeded down the aisle.

"We must leave the city, my Lady. It is no longer safe, we have remained too long, and with little defenses upon the walls, the orcs will soon be upon us. The anvil is set to explode within the next few minutes.", he stated with a slightly desperate tone to his voice. If they didn't make it from the city before the Anvil exploded, they would be caught in a fire that even Jornak himself couldn't withstand.

Already hearing the booming noise of the approaching army Nesara hurried beside her King. "Yes...the others will take a separate way that's been secured to the tunnels..they should arrive near our time." Hurrying out of the palace to where soldiers on horses waited with steeds for the two, she could hear the soldiers urging them to hurry faster, forcing her to hike up the dress to run faster with ease. One soldier jumped down to stand beside her steed, hands cupping to provide a step up for his Queen.

Dress flowing behind her as she ran, the Queen muttered a quick thanks to the soldier, placing her foot in his laced hands to be boosted up. Though before she could be handed the reins to the stallion, a sound erupted from the palace gates in their sight.

"No....."

* * * * * *

Grim faced and advancing on foot at the head of the Namorian column, tribune Varinius snapped up his left hand in a signal to halt. The column had reached a fork in the tunnel, where the wide trader's road continued round and the narrower passage continued down into Ech Zilidar itself. The plan was for the main force to take the trader's road, come out to the northeast of the city, and outflank whatever was attacking it, while a smaller force consisting mainly of Agron's dwarf volunteers headed down the smaller tunnel. But that wasn't the reason Varinius had stopped. A great grinding and squealing of metal came from beyond the gate guarding the smaller tunnel, and a moment later the iron door swung open to admit a knot of men bearing torches. They were Namorian legionaries, their blue shields marked with the bull's head of the legio Ferrata.

"Mars' teeth!" one of them exclaimed when he saw that the mirror-lit tunnel ahead of him was packed wall to wall with armed soldiers. "What are you doing here?"

"Saving your arses." Varinius answered curtly. "What's going on down there?"

"We're getting the civilians out. The greyskins are overrunning the city."

"Hold up." Varinius snapped back. "What are greyskins?"

The other man shrugged helplessly. "Demons, monsters, we don't know. But there's hundreds of thousands of them, and they're all bearing down on Ech."

Varinius swore aloud. "What about the other cities?"

"They're all gone. Azulfa, Lun Garath...they're all gone."

"Who's still alive? Who's in charge?"

"Praetor Graccus is still alive, and some of the 6th, though there's little enough left of the Moriga legion after Azulfa. King Jornak's commanding the dwarfs."

"Jornak?" Varinius said, unfamiliar with the name, "What happened to Vagrund?"

"He's dead. Went after some traitors in the catacombs and something ambushed him."

"We'll deal with traitors later. What about this Jornak?"

"He married that Afragian princess just this evening and now he's commanding the rearguard while we shepherd the civilians out."

"He did?" Varinius said, and then unexpectedly he laughed. "Bugger me, I know people get tired of marriage, but I wouldn't think he'd be looking for a way out that quickly! Alright, get those civvies up here. We'll keep the route clear and see if we can't take some pressure off this hero Jornak."

"Aye, sir." the Ferrata legionary nodded uncertainly, and joined the others in running back down the tunnel to inform whoever they had been opening the way for.

"Centurion!" Varinius barked, "Hold here, keep anything that's not a human or a dwarf out of the main tunnel. You! Head back through the ranks and clear some fucking space for the refugee column. And inform the dux! Agron, you and your boys are with me!"

* * * * * *

Jornak heard the roars of the Orcs before they reached the palace gates, and just about the time that they broke through the gates, a massive explosion rocked the city. A shock wave of warm air and heat pervaded the tunnels and surrounding areas of Ech Zilidar; the aroma of fire thick, and the scent of burning flesh spreading quickly. The orcs had not expected such an explosion, and Jornak took advantage of their disarray to command the few warriors present.

"To battle dwarves, in the name of Vulcan! We must provide cover for the Queen to get to our people!" He roared and turned to his Queen, "Go, my lady. Get to the citizens and ensure the army guards the rear. We will hold them here." he didn't give a second thought before charging into the front lines of the Orcs, as the city outside of the palace began to burn.

Whether for ill, or for better, it would be decided today.

As the battle joined, Jornak saw a commontion run through the rear ranks of the orc column. As the greyskins pressed down the street, something slammed into them from the side road of Smith's Way. All Jornak could see at this distance was blue cloaks and curved tower shields, but the greyskins were reeling back as they tried to respond to the counterattack. The ones immediately fighting Jornak's defenders didn't even notice until the pressure of the ranks behind them vanished, but then they were hacked down as they turned to look, or else thrown to the ground by the greater weight of the dwarf line, where they were swiftly butchered.

The orcs scrambled back to avoid being encircled, some diving through the doors and windows of abandoned buildings to the sides of the road. They were quickly pursued by the newcomers, who turned out to be cleanshaven dwarfs in Namorian armour, and a number of taller human legionaries.

"Halt!" a centurion roared as the blue-cloaked reinforcements began to pursue the retreating orcs. "Reform!"

A craggy faced Namorian with a tribune's plume on his helmet picked out Jornak across the plaza by his golden armour, and began to fight his way through the last few orcs towards him. He battered down a greyskin's shield with repeated blows of his gladius until the orc lost his footing, and left him to be stabbed through the neck by the two legionaries flanking him.

"Come on, you mad bastard!" Varinius shouted to Jornak, apparently unaware that he was addressing the new king of the dwarven realm. In the distance, the orcs were already howling and snarling as they regrouped for a second attack. "Are you so keen to make your queen a widow on her first night?"

"Watch your tongue Imperial." was all Jornak said in response to Varinius, before commanding the forces assembled to get through to the tunnels. Jornak hated fleeing from a fight, but the smoke that shielded their retreat was a godsend, as he could hear the orcs howling in frustration at the loss of their prey.

"Come now, Imperial. We are on our way to the Afragian capital of Tu Zenita Duskal, and there we will prepare for a counter attack, or defense, whichever is in our favor." he stated whilst running towards the tunnels, and upon reaching the tunnels with Legion in tow, he stopped.

They would be safe until Tu Zenita Duskal, Vulcan willing...

Gathering the reins, the two soldiers would remount their own horses. The woman only taking a pause to look down at Jornak. "Hurry yourself, Great Dwarf King" she would remark before racing off to the tunnels. The smoke made it hard to see as it began to cover the streets under the thundering hooves.

Though as planned, the trio of riders would make it to those crowded into the tunnels. Nesara and the two others riding up to the head, surprised the metal doors were already opened. But viewed this for the time being as a reaction from the explosion they certainly would have heard. Taking back her cloak, the crowned woman would pull the reins of her stallion to turn him around. "We move to Tu Zenita Duskal, we will move quickly through the night. Until we break to the surface, hold your heads high, for we are alive."

Looking down the tunnel she would nod to the soldiers, to her people. Before urging her steed back around and to begin moving quickly at a trot down the tunnel, through the gateway. She had to lead them out, lead them as she was raised to do with her own people since birth until she took her own throne. And now, now her throne just expanded. Silently she prayed to the Gods for their guidance as they moved.

Their intended destinations hours away she would constantly ride up and down the tunnel to assure everyone's well being. Having been informed soon as the entire group began moving as one that her reinforcements had arrived just in the nick of time. Which meant they were lead by Marcius, he was able to make it after all. Thank the gods as it seemed their blessings already started to come down upon them. Reaching the rear of the movement; Nesara would turn back around and head back up. Offering an apple she had just received by a soldier; to a pair young ones who were frightened and clung to their parents.

[Minkasha]

Branjaskr, The Free South – Odinsen Castle, Basement

Kalle sat up against the wall, pants still down at his ankles, his searing back feeling the soothing coolness of the basement walls. He crossed a line he should never have….was there redemption for this? To copulate with a demon…his vision focused on where he did the deed. Blood and some of his soil stained the ground. Past all his sense of guilt was a worry…did he…hurt her?

He buckled up his furs and began to leave, it was clear Zahneri was not going to return no matter how much he called out to her.

The demon just killed Syf. The poor woman didn’t even understand where she was, or the world. She was confused…he couldn’t protect her. Zahneri was estranged family, but he hated her. Tears streamed from his eyes.

Branjaskr, The Free South – Odinsen Castle

A thorough search of the village did not produce Hella’s middle brother. And the beam of purple light even gave her a sense of fear, one she could see in the villagers. Kalle always kept himself at a distance from the rest of the family, but he was needed now.

“Damn it” Jóhann grit his teeth. “We will get Karla…he’ll show up eventually” Karla…her younger sister, she was just as distant…but rarely left her own room. Hella and Maxwell followed the eldest wordlessly to Karla’s room. Their ears began to pick up sounds; the three could tell what they were.

They walked into her room; Nea was still sleeping peacefully, past all the loud moaning and screaming…Maxwell’s ears perked up. Was that Åge? Blazing past his sister and brother, he ran to Karla’s washroom only to see his sister being defiled by him. But truly, Karla was dominating the house slave. Maxwell’s eyes shot wide.

“GET OFF HIM!” With a dash he yanked Karla off him and looked down at Åge, his eyes looked so crazed. Karla only laughed while she laid on the ground, from her back were two large signs of her Zenita blood: bat wings. And they shared similarity to that of Zahneri… “No… Åge! Åge!” he had to pin him, the young man was acting like a beast, clawing in Karla’s direction.

“So she is just like us” Hella stepped in and looked at her winged sister. Maxwell’s screams for Åge’s self-control awoke Nea and now she began to cry. Jóhann sighed at the state of the family and held her, staying in the bedroom.

“Åge, please…please snap out of this!” he kept shaking him but he was so far gone. “Sister!” Hella must have some answers! “You do this all the time! He’ll be okay! Right!...RIGH!?” Karla was curled up against a side wall.

“Only if she-” her head gestured to Karla “wills it…but he’ll remember…he’s seen too much” Maxwell held the shaking Åge close.

“No! No he hasn’t! He’ll be quiet and he’ll tell no one! HE’ll TELL NO ONE!” He glared at Karla, he couldn’t help but cry in fear. “MAKE HIM STOP!” Karla only continued to shiver, her hands holding her head “I SAID MAKE IT STOP! GIVE ÅGE BACK! LET HIM GO-LET HIM GO-LET HIM-GO…” He kept screaming it but his damn sister wasn’t responding.

“Stop it Maxwell!” Hella cut him off sharply. “It’s too late” Ominously, his ears could hear hooves clicking against the masonry. Desperately, Maxwell dragged Åge to the most distant wall. Zahneri was slowly walking to the two, hoof alluringly crossing hoof, this was standard procedure.

“No….” with each step his crying intensified “Nooo please!....PLEASE! NO PLEASE!” nothing stopped the Elder Succubus; Maxwell’s throat could feel the scratches of overuse. “I LOVE HIM NO! STOP ZAHNERI!” he tried to command while her hand began to reach down to touch manic Åge. The teenager tried slapping the hand away but it broke his grasp and the sacrifice broke free, making a dash for Karla. The Elder Succubus’ other hand grazed his arm…and they were gone.

“No… NO! NONONONONONONONO!” Maxwell squabbled in a destructive mess at where Åge once stood.

Jóhann walked in, Nea being held close, he looked firmly at his little brother. He was a noisy disaster.

“Do not fall in love” he simply advised him.

“SHUT UP! I HATE YOU KARLA!” hiding his eyes with the groove of his bent arm, he shoved past his siblings and out the room. It got significantly quieter with each of his passing steps…only Karla’s whimpering was audible.

The other siblings looked at her with pity. The wings vanished in clouds of smoke.

“We need mother” Hella whispered through pouty lips.

Branjaskr, The Free South – Odinsen Castle, The Lady Jarl’s Bedchambers

Else had remained on her bed for some time, not sure how much had truly passed. As reflective as she wished to be, it was near impossible with the odds so stacked against her.

Summoned, Zahneri appeared, looking out her window. Else’s eye kept gazing at the ceiling, her mind unable to intake any new stimulus.

The crackles of the burning fire filled the room’s silence.

“Zahneri…how can I gain power?” her voice was soft. “Without Gods?…without Demon Lords?”

“Your children” Else leaned up on the bed, hair falling down, elbows propping her.

“What?” Lady Jarl Else was about to strike out the notion.

“Your children are powerful” the Elder Succubus turned her head to look at her mistress. “Their magic is even stronger than mine…I sense it”

“I will not risk my children”

“They would not be. Their power would be simply, a conduit” At this, the leader of the Free South sat up.

“For what?”

“Conjuration” The Lady Jarl sat up.

“Of what?” her voice menacingly probed.

“Of demons my mistress” Else stopped speaking, working her way off the bed slowly…she looked down at the crown.

“…To summon anything would still force me back to the Demon Lords”

“No my mistress. Not summon. Create: of their own magic and will only”

The mother looked at her shocked.

“My children are capable of this?”

“It is in their blood: The blood of Odin will bestow life to their creations. The blood of Zenita will help make the vessels”

“Their…heritage is truly a …freighting…freeing, one” her eyes looked to the fireplace. Could her children truly create life? “What would it require?”

“Sacrifices…ones that have been laid with and seeded” Else pursed her lips; she shook her head, blonde hair and earrings shaking.

“Why have you never told me this before?” she walked up to the window..and her eyes narrowed.

“You never asked for power from me, my mistress”

“What is that?” she pointed, there was a purple light in the far distance.

“I do not know” The Lady Jarl could feel an ominous fear in her heart when she looked at it.

“Investigate it” she commanded, walking to her vanity to fix her hair.

Purple Light, The Free South

Zahneri studied the far purple ray of light before she vanished from the Odinsen Castle. Appearing miles in the sky, her black wings flapped slowly and her penetrating eyes observed the beam and the surrounding environment.

The ground below her was covered in snow, the wind whipped at the beam but nothing happened, it continued to pulsate in the air with such destructive fervor that all around it seemed lifeless compared to its demonic grandeur. This was a feeling that Zahneri had grown up with - this was a feeling that Zahneri's very realm - Tartarus - conveyed.

Down below, by the beam moved a huge camp, full of humanoids in metal armor. An aura of darkness seemed to shade them from Zahneri, but she could feel herself their influence and power and this seemed to startle the Elder Succubus- she had not felt such blackness since she was within the Demonic plains, a very particular plain. Her eyes blinked as she watched the Beam as a herald of new sounds echoed through it, sounding very much like drops of water hitting a larger body of the same liquid. From the purple beam - which was pulsating from an anvil like object - came groups of people rushing through. They wore different clothes and held different weapons to the others, though they came through. Within minutes hundreds of men and women flooded through, until at the end, two very tall men carrying a single smaller and beaten humanoid arrived.

This humanoid was wearing beautiful armour and held a very particular sword. His hair was long and brown whilst his ears were pointed and ended in a star shaped pattern. One of the dark armoured humanoids marched up to the beaten man and looked at him, before placing his hand on his head. A surge of darkness ran up the armoured man's arm and into the other's head, before they both stood in unison. As they stood, the once beaten man slowly turned his head towards the location of Zahneri, as if he could sense her.

Within the Elder Succubus' mind, a voice of almighty strength and power filled her mind as darkness began to fill the air around her like ink.

"Come now...child of mine sister; come and join us."

‘How could he…?’ the Elder Succubus never experienced this feeling before. She was to be the one in control. Sharp eyes glared down to the man to get a more detailed look before she teleported to Else’s bedchambers…afraid.

Branjaskr, The Free South – Odinsen Castle, The Lady Jarl’s Bedchambers

The voice in Zahneri's head laughed as she disappeared, growing fainter and fainter as she materialized within Else's chambers. "You will die soon...oh yes...you will all fall to me."

“What was it?” Else asked, her pleated hair now tied around her head, her beautiful reflection about to be complete with the crown.

“My mistress…” there was a hesitation in the Elder Succubus’ voice that Else never heard before, she turned to face her immediately. “An army is gathering”

“Not the North?” the Elder Succubus shook her head.

“Of Tartartus”

“…how?”

“They are coming from the purple light. And they are not Human my mistress. There is at least one magic user, he discovered me quickly” Else was stiff. Was this Set coming for her children? Her people? The crown sat on the vanity, waiting to be worn. She looked to her reflection the mirror, silent.

“Are you certain of this?”

“I sensed it” Judging from the distance of the light…this encroaching dark force could be on Branjaskr’s door step within a week.

“How many of my children would be required for your ritual?”

“Hella and Jóhann would be sufficient. Their magic the most powerful and honed”

“And they WILL NOT be harmed?” her lips moved slowly.

“No my mistress” The Lady Jarl grabbed the crown, and placed it upon herself. The ice blue gems intensified the color of her eyes.

“Gather them within the hour” she stood firm. With a week to prepare, there was much she could accomplish. They separated: The Lady Jarl by her bedchamber door, the Elder Succubus by her magic.

“Summon the Housecarl and Landswoman” she told a slave firmly, her walk bold. Word of the purple light had begun to move through the castle.

Branjaskr, The Free South – Odinsen Castle

Hella stayed with Karla to help her and watch Nea. Jóhann’s initiative to get the family together to face the unknown, possible danger, failed. Walking in the direction of his mother’s room, his body could only tense. Memories of his father flooded him, particularly him as a small boy running to his father’s chambers ready for another day’s combat training.

“Mother…? Mother!” He tried to stop her powerful stride.

“Elskede?” She said endearing. “Why are you here?”

“There is a purple li-” She raised a finger to him.

“I’m handling it. I will need to speak to you and Hella soon. Expect her” with that, she turned.

“Mother” her gorgeous face turned to her son, questioning.

“Karla is like us” he heavily accented. He could see his mother’s eyes moving in thought.

“Taken care of?”

“Yes, Hella is with her” she nodded and walked off.

Jóhann stood in the hallway nerved, unable to turn the corner and see the bedchamber door he had visited so many times in his youth.

Branjaskr, The Free South – Odinsen Castle, Throne Room

The two most powerful military forces of the Free South were kneeling before the Lady Jarl. She sat, leg crossed, upon the huge, fur lined, cushioned, stone throne.

On the left was Housecarl Yngve of Odinsen, the personal bodyguard and muscle of the family. A grizzly, toned man in his 60s who had fought alongside Korzan to help create the Free South. At a height of 6’8’’, the weapons master was a beast of a man: short gray beard, a gray ponytail, square head, broad shoulders, with stern, heavy features that were accentuated by three bear claw scars moving down his right eye showed him to be this.

Korzan himself appointed this man to this position of power, and has since then helped teach new generations of the Free South how to fight…making the band of villages filled with powerful warriors, his teachings have passed down to new teachers...men and women alike. Else and the Housecarl were close friends while Korzan reigned…but much has changed since then. He has spent much of the last year continuing his teaching, having near to no contact with the family he was in charge of protecting.

On the right was Landswoman Kia, the leader of the those who have sworn military oath to House Oidensen. Being in her 40s she still had some youthful shine about her. Voluminous blonde coils were a knock out, brows arcing and eyes fierce. But it was her permanently broken nose that changed her from being drooled over by her subordinates, to being respected and to some, feared. Her time was spent speaking of the Hurtug’s of each village, ensuring safety. Her height was a proud 5’10’’, was of a strong build, and her skill with a broadsword was one to not be denied, nor her aim with a bow. Her skill in beast-mastery granted her many fierce companions.

“No doubt you have seen the…light” they stood to engage their fair ruler.

“Yes, Lady Jarl…it puts me on edge” Housecarl Yngve grumbled. Landswoman Kia nodded in agreement.

“Then we share suspicions of danger. With the Imperium already heading toward us, I will not take any risks. We need to fortify Branjaskr as quickly as possible. I feel the enemy may be on us sooner than we think. I want this done within a week’s time”

“Extra archers will be posted on the walls and castle towers. Catapults will be lined on the walls” Landswoman Kia guaranteed.

“And prepare the oils and suitable arrows” Else honed in on her “I want nothing held back”

“Yes Lady Jarl”

“Housecarl Yungve” he grunted, a nod of his head.

“Work with Landswoman Kia to ensure each villager is armed”

“Easy task Lady Jarl, most already have blade”

“I want any repairs of our defensive structures to begin immediately. You’re dismissed Housecarl Yngve of Odinsen” The warrior kneeled in respect and set out to do his tasks.

“By the end of the week I want the wolf packs ready for attack. Send a scout to investigate the light”

“Yes Lady Jarl” she kneeled again.

“You are dismissed” Landswoman Kia left.

Branjaskr was preparing for war.

Branjaskr, The Free South – Odinsen Castle, Else’s Secret Basement Chamber

Else saw her two eldest children be brought in through Zahneri’s magic, the Elder Succubus stood away from them and waited quietly. They turned to their mother, expectedly.

“We are going to be attacked soon” her fingers interlaced at her waist. “The purple light-” the children’s anxiety built “is some connection to a force from Tartarus, Zahneri has sensed it. She has been next to the light” Jóhann turned his head to look at her, but the Elder Succubus remained sensual and still as usual.

“They also have magic…” she looked down, and rubbed her forehead. “Whoever they are, they can be here by week’s time” Hella licked her lips nervously, her mouth feeling dry.

“How we can help?” she offered to her powerful mother.

“The two of you…my children, have a power that can help us…” Else now walked around the room, her silks dragged on the ground. Her face creased with stress. “Zahneri says you can gain us new allies”

“She’s trained us to summon succubi…” The Lady Jarl shook her head her daughter.

“No, allies with no ties to Zenita, only to us. I do not want you to ever use that magic. Those demons' true master will always be Zenita.” They looked to her mother confused. “Through ritual, you…can create our own minions” Their eyes shot wide. The implications of such power.

“Oooooo” Jóhann’s lips puckered while he smoothly sounded his interest.

“How?” Hella’s desire for control motivated her down the rabbit hole. Else took a long pause…waiting before she crossed a threshold she never thought she would.

“Zahneri will guide you through it…” she looked to loyal demonic minion. Her shoes clicked until she stood next to the Elder Succubus. “Use Coldbloods” her voice was stern, and the Lady Jarl then left the room. Hella and Jóhann wondered why Coldbloods were needed, the most vile of society, rapists, murders, repeating offenders of the highest crimes. Coldbloods were exiled to glacier villages, enduring the harshest of colds, their faces branded so that they may never return to civilization, or warmth.

Their demonic teacher and protector disappeared; they stood still in the dark room waiting. Several minutes passed and she returned; two grungy men and a woman dropped their hands from her. Pointing to the ground Zahneri gave command.

“Etch the runes” her nails cuts into their wrists and the three seduced people moved to the middle of the room to use their life force as ink. Their synergy was quickly making a circle, smaller, unintelligible symbols were starting to be drawn, splatter decorating the ground. The Odinsens’ excitement and wonder began to rise.

When the intricate symbols were completed, Zahneri looked to the Odinsens. The three love slaves stood perfectly still.

They stared at Zahneri and she only continued to hold the stare…until Jóhann understood.

“We are supposed to plough them I believe sister” the Elder Succubus nodded, he took his hand and cupped the face one of the men. He was not attractive, he sighed. “We all must make sacrifices…” he jested before putting his lips against the glazed over man’s.

Branjaskr, The Free South – Village, Courage Point

By the castle, there rests a hill top that is elevated over the village of Branjaskr. It was naturally dynamic with sound and echoes the speaker’s words down onto the thousands of people who can look up from below. This was the point where Korzan declared Branjaskr liberated by his people, this was the place Else announced the death of her beloved husband and the taking of the crown…and now she stood here again.

Far below her the proud people of the Free South kept their focus on her, dazzled by their graceful leader: the woman who bore the beautiful children of Korzan and continue Odin’s lineage. Her ability to pick up where her husband left off had now become a symbol of pride for the people.

“People of Branjaskr!” her voice boomed down to them, thousands of people were able to unanimously become silent. “By passing days the Imperium comes closer to our lands. And before us” Lady Jarl Else pointed to the purple light “is the unknown. An unknown light that attempts to challenge our bravery. And the Imperium attempts to challenge our strength! Again we, the people of the FREE SOUTH are called to show our challengers just what we can do. Again, we are called to show our challengers just how powerful FREEDOOM is and AGAIN, we will show our challengers the power of a fighting force of men and women who value their humble homes over greedy conquest! It has only been US who can endure the snow and the ice. THIS. IS. OUR. HOME!” The people began to roar.

On the floor, Jóhann and Hella finished the deed, the Coldbloods held smiles on their disconnected faces. The Elder Succubus handed over an athame, their throats and wrists were cut…the bodily fluids pooling in the circle.

The Odinsens intertwined hands, forming a circle above the filth.

“semen facit vitam”

They chanted, taking the demon’s lead. The old language taping into their magical power.

“ODIN WILL SEE THE STRENGTH OF HIS POWER, HE IS WITH US BOTH SPIRIT AND BLOOD!” The people applauded, pride and courage filled them.

Their palms were cut deeply, dripping its reagents into the magic.

“sanguinem facit vitam”

The circle began to glow bright red. Brother and sister focused the energy from their loins to course through them, activating their fullest power.

“WE WILL PICK UP OUR AXES, OUR SWORDS, AND OUR BOWS AND WE WILL HAVE VICTORY!” Thousands of mouths turned into thunder.

“VITA! VITA! VITA! VITA! SED VIVICARE!”

The concoction of fluid and cooling corpses began to become difficult to see under a red haze of mist that began to rise. The siblings fell to their knees, drained of energy.

The Lady Jarl stood among her people confidently; they would fight whatever challenges that came, man or god.

Zahneri dragged her masters away to the edge of the room and watched, the sacrifices impossible to see past the light and mist.

With a quickened thought that her husband had once stood at this very spot, she left.

Branjaskr, The Free South – Village

While the populace had their morale restored by mother, Kalle could only stare at the wall where Syf had left her mark: the interwoven cracks that spanned through the stone…all caused by one rock toss. By a woman half crazed, and frozen because she was nearly naked in the snow.

Kalle took off his glove and reached out to touch the cracks, his fingers appreciating each weak point. Though he was left confused by Syf, she was an amazing person, with a mysticism about her.

“I’m sorry Syf…” He had only known her for two days, he had grown to care for her. Another person swallowed by the family secret.

Branjaskr, The Free South – Odinsen Castle, Else’s Secret Basement Chamber

The two naturally gifted demonologists looked at the mist, it continued to evoke more and more curiosity and wonder.

Zahneri however, only leered at the mist…waiting for it to produce kin. The first sounds came from the red smoky haze, a young man’s screams. His first breath a cry of climax, splotched with the blood of the missing dead. Instantly the Elder Succubus could feel that whatever was in the mist was not an incubus and she quickly walked to it, to subdue it.

He, whatever it was, only continue to cry out loudly in pleasure and in life, Zahneri’s hand expertly dived into the mist for his neck. The Odinsens could see the hints of wings sticking out of the mist, what had they made?

The two demons exchanged sounds: Zahneri, a teeth bearing, hissing down at it with ferocity, the undefined male, gasping whimpers.

“WHO ARE THEY!?” she craned his view of the male to the Odinsens.

“MASTERS!” he cried, she slammed it into the ground.

“Good…” Bent over, she looked to the masters “I would ask you leave, things did not go as intended” They nodded, admittedly freaked by their power and their imagination of what the mystery creature could be.

Branjaskr, The Free South – Odinsen Castle, Family Dining Room

It was dinner time. Else already sat in her chair, as per usual, her children had not arrived yet.

With closed eyes, she breathed in deeply, slowly, to collect herself from today’s events. Then the door cracked open.

Maxwell walked in; his eyes seemed to be permanently puffy and red. Else looked at him with quiet confusion. He looked distraught. In a surprising twist: the eldest two appeared next, but rather than the usual cocky looks they had, both looked…worried. They sat down quietly. Kalle walked in, but his usual disciplined walk was slouched, eyes detached…lost.

And then Karla walked in, Nea in arm…much like Maxwell her eyes seemed forever tragic. Out of the entire room, only Nea seemed mildly joyful, even her happiness was dampened. The energy of the room was suffocating.

The Odinsen family sat in silence, honoring Korzan…Else studied all her children, unaware of the hints of stress on her own face. Plates of lamb, and greens with bowls of pig soup were distributed by Selma. This used to be Åge’s chore: Maxwell started to weep at the table, breaking the silence, face in his hands.

Karla glared at her mother. “I hate you” Else stared at her wide eyed, her children have never said this to her before. Selma was politely not reacting to the unfolding tension.

“Will you excuse us Selma?”

“Of course Lady Jarl” it was just the family in the small room. Only Maxwell’s crying continued. The other family members, weakly ate their meals…the respectful time of silence of their father, not yet over. Mother held her young son’s hand, gaining it after a small shoulder rub. Though her youth still hid his face, her eyes turned back to Karla who would not stop judging her with bold blue diamonds.

Then time was up for Korazn, Else raised a brow to her second daughter.

“Do not speak to me like that” Defiantly, Karla spoke again.

“I hat-”

“I HATE YOU! YOU SHOULD HAVE JUST TOLD MOTHER LIKE I DID, YOU ARE THE REASON HE’S DEAD! DEAD, DEAD, DEAD! I LOVED HIM AND YOU KILLED HIM!” Else’s hand was nearly crushed in the grasp of her young son. Past his tears she could see a face she learned very well. Its contortions of pain and sorrow: it was the face she saw in the mirror the night of her Husband’s death. Else knew his heart to be true. “YOU THINK YOU ARE BETTER THAN US! YOU ARE JUST LIKE US YOU BI-”

“MAXWELL ODINSEN!” all sound stopped, Kalle was the calmest…as if he wasn’t in the room…ordinary bites of his food. The platinum blonde teen looked to his mother. “Go to your room”

“B-b-b-but!” he was becoming incoherent.

“NOW.” Maxwell stood up from his chair. “Take Nea with you, you haven’t spoken to your baby sister in some time” he walk around Else, gently picked up Nea and left the room with a slam of the door. The eldest looked at Mother. “Hella, bring his food to his room. Jóhann, Nea’s” they had left the room with the dishes.

“You are a sna-”

“You are weak, skatten min” Karla looked down, ashamed. “And a coward for avoiding the truth. We are family, and you are no better, and no worse than the rest of your siblings” Kalle finished eating, he left without word. Karla’s tears fell into her food. “I sacrificed everything so that you may live”

“I DON’T WANT TO BE ALIVE! I WANT DEATH!”

‘..dead or alive their souls are damned none the less…’ Set’s voice filled Else’ mind.

“No child, no you do not” the words quivered out of the Lady Jarl with shaky confidence. Karla shook her head, earrings and full hair flailed.

“You always know what is best” she bit before standing and leaving without permission, her food half completed.

Lady Jarl Else Odinsen of the Free South, sat alone for the first time, after over thirty years. She fell back into her chair; there were too many firsts today. The winds of change were coming, her gut could feel it painfully.

Branjaskr, The Free South – Odinsen Castle, Else’s Secret Basement Chamber

Zahneri’s nails were held into the other demon’s throat. Without blinking, without movement she stared down at him. His body and features were youthful; she could see the hint of incubus blood in their sexual presentation. But the predominate aesthetic was open, fresh…too human. Delving deep into her senses she tried to pinpoint just what this raven winged young blood was. He was not kin, he was something new. Something mixed with Odin divinity.

Brown eyes were locked, the demons studying each other. The male knew to be the lesser. His talon feet scrapped against the stone loudly, he shifted uncomfortably. The pressure was on him.

Zahneri’s ritual failed. This new creation was weak.

“Who are you” she demanded.

“I…do not know…”

Another long moment of staring.

“You are Oerin, eternal servant of the Odinsen family” and it was so.

Branjaskr, The Free South – Odinsen Castle, Jóhann's Bedchambers

Jóhann and Hella had whisked away to do their usual, it kept them comfortable and entertained. More importantly, it kept them distracted from the events unfolding around them, each playing with two concubines.

Karla needed release...there was a limit she could take, after all these years...it was broken. She knocked on the door.

"Who is it!?" Jóhann sounded frustrated.

"Karla..." there was a silence.

"What do you want?"

"May I come in?"

"You know what we do in here, right?"

"Yes"

"Come in" she entered, the scents of sexual fluids instantly hitting her. The family was disgusting. But her eldest brother and sister had what she needed...craved. The door was shut gently behind her, there on the wide bed were the six nude and aroused bodies of her siblings and their long term...company.

"I wish to join you" Hella raised a brow "I...can't take it anymore..." Hella curved a finger under the chin of a male concubine.

"Isn't she beautiful?"

"Very...you all are...she's so innocent" Hella kissed him and giggled.

"She isn't" a tease. Jóhann waved her closer to the bed with a bandaged hand. Standing at the foot Karla's eyes looked around at all the flesh, heart starting to race.

"It helps kill the edge" Jóhann cooed, easing her in. She undid her dress, allowing it to fall to the floor and got on the bed.

"I think this one likes you sister" Hella smiled. "Give him a try first"

[Aureyon]

Tu Zenita Duskal, Afragia

Sometimes people are cursed with disease and poverty, and sometimes they are blessed with health and riches. Juno, it seemed, had been dealt the lesser of the two hands by fate, and while she was not one to contemplate the will of the Gods, she wasn’t ready to die. She had too much to live for, and her children could not be left without a parent to guide them, so she chose to fight the will of the Gods and seek her own salvation.

Leaving her children behind was the hardest thing she had done, and it was not something she chose to do lightly. But, if she didn’t try to find the heart of the fungi in Tartarus, she would be nothing more than a broken husk for her children to look after until the disease managed to eat away everything that she was, or could ever be.

So, here she was, in Afragia, having walked countless leagues already to get to this point; her body was aching. She could feel the disease eating away her skin, it felt as though blades were being driven in her arms and then pulled towards her shoulder. It took all the strength that her womanly body could muster not to show weakness, or pain.

Instead she looked to the sky and prayed.

“Hera, help me to be strong, Aphrodite help me to keep my promise to my children, Diana give me the ability to hunt my prey as you would, and Athena, give me the wisdom to find my way to Tartarus”

It was true, that she felt as though the gods had abandoned her, and doomed her to feel the ravages of this disease, but it did not mean that she did not worship them all the same. In truth, she was still a woman of the gods, her home decorated with the the statuettes of the Goddess’ she had just prayed to. They were the four main gods of her household, and it was to them she looked now.

She turned her eyes back to her path, and passed into Tu Zenita Duskal, before collapsing to the ground, her legs losing all energy that she had.

An Afragian man helped her to her feet, and gave her a walking stick, allowing her to continue on her path, and she thanked him with a handful of coins; before turning away and continuing on down her path towards the Throne of Afragia. She would see the Princess Nesara, and plead for her aid in the discovering of the path to the Underworld.

Little did she know, she was about to fall into a world of troubles, that she had no business being in. She will soon find herself praying for her very life to be spared.

[Minkasha]

Branjaskr, The Free South – Odinsen Castle, Maxwell’s Bedchambers

Max spent all night looking at the falling snow…something he did frequently. It brought him peace, at times he used to share this joy with Åge…but now it was just him and the falling snow again. Mother came in the night, held him and took Nea…but in truth, he found the alone time far worse.

His heart had struggled for a dominate emotion: the hatred for his sister, or the mourning of his lover. The darkness past the wide glass window only helped him imagine the black smoke that enveloped and swallowed Åge…he actually never knew what Zahneri did with the bodies. He just knew that when she took them, they were gone, and that was that.

…And that was that…at least, it was for the rest of his family. But by the damn gods did it hurt. It was just him and the snow again…

Did Åge suffer? Why did Karla do this? Why did she lie, and hurt when Kalle taught them how to be stronger? Maxwell laid on his side in his bed, staring at his hands. Touch…love…warmth…taken by greedy sexual desire. Karla thought she was the best of them, she was the worst.

She even knew he loved him.

There was a knock on the door.

“Max…” It was Kalle, the one truly strongest of the siblings: The one who showed the rest that their blood didn’t dominate them.

“…yes…?”

“Can I come in?”

“…yes” He was glad to not be alone again.

Kalle crept in, closing the door behind him quietly, looking down on the bed he saw Maxwell just lying there, near lifeless. Kalle knew he wasn’t the only one in pain, though he had little idea of Max’s pains. He sat at the side of the bed and rubbed his little brother’s shoulder. Kalle learned more of his brother’s suffering when he rolled over: he looked ragged, weary, tired of crying.

“Brother…” Maxwell said weakly, Kalle brought him close and hugged him, rubbing the back of his head fondly. Maxwell may not know it, but he was now the only sibling in the family whose sexual exploits haven’t caused the death of someone. Kalle was a symbol for Max, he knew this…and it was up to him and Zahneri to keep the truth a secret.

“I’m here for you Max”

Branjaskr, The Free South – Odinsen Castle, Else’s Secret Basement Chamber

Zahneri once again circled Oerin, her eyes never gave way. What had the magic created? Oerin’s eyes kept following the succubus every time she walked through his field of vision. His facial expression was a nervous one. The succubus didn’t appreciate the fact he had one. How could she ensure it would be submissive if she didn’t know what it was?

“I will introduce you to your head mistress soon…” she now stopped in front of him, leering. Oerin only looked at her with eyes of confusion. “Her word is your reason for existence” she stilled her tongue. Oerin nodded, a state of normality returning to his both chiseled and pretty features. “You will do as she says, without question…have the slightest hesitation and I’ll teach you submission”

Oerin swallowed hard, Zahneri appreciated his fear past her stone face. If he was going to be an emotional creature, those emotions must be bent in the Odinsen’s favor. The magic used to create him should keep him eternally loyal, but feeling was a factor she did not like added into the equation.

Content for the moment, Zahneri vanished. Oerin stayed still in the dark room.

Branjaskr, The Free South – Odinsen Castle, The Lady Jarl’s Bedchambers

Branjaskr was in a furry of movement, arming itself and making the preparations commanded by the Lady Jarl. Else knew that she could trust the oversight of her Housecarl and Landswoman. With what unfolded last night at the dinner table, it was imperative she reach out to her family. There looked to be the real threat of division, and sadly, her children had no one else that would be able to accept them truly…they must stay united because they are truly the only source of unconditional love past the Lady Jarl’s own heart.

The image of Odin’s beautiful, blessed, grandchildren could change so…quickly. Else smiled down to Nea, moving the doll replica of her that Karla had sewn together years ago. In Nea’s small hands was a larger sewn doll of Kozan, the handsome blond hero. Attached to top of his head was a sewn replica of the crown.

“I am the hero!” Nea made him walk up and strike down a large sewn bear.

“My hero!” Mother made her doll jump for joy with a smile. Her other hand wrapped around the shoulders of her youngest child. “Oh no! Another monster!” Nea’s other hand had a lion leaping for Else, of course Korzan stood defiantly before the evil creature. With great arm swing the lion was put down in one hit! “Kjære! You did it!” Nea giggled, the two dolls were about to hug when Zahneri appeared. Else pulled away her doll from Korzan’s open arms. “Yes?”

The Lady Jarl had not heard word of yesterday’s magic…something that had been tickling her mind and spirit with worry.

“He is ready”

“It was a success?”

“Not as I thought it would be, mistress” Else raised a brow, and stood with Nea on her hip.

“Have Kalle watch her, and bring back Jóhann and Hella” the succubus nodded. After twenty seven years of being around the demon, she was used to her handling her children and after a kiss, gave Nea to Zahneri with the toys. Nea accepted Zahneri with happiness, the little girl actually like Zahneir, loved to play with her very different textured black hair. Instantly, they were gone.

Branjaskr, The Free South – Odinsen Castle, Maxwell’s Bedchambers

Kalle heard the laughs of Nea and turned his head to see her and the succubus. Maxwell and Kalle, for their individual reasons, both looked away from Zahneri.

“Your mother requests you to watch Nea” Kalle nodded, arms outstretched for her. To look at the succubus brought him to a dark place of anger and guilt. There were things he wanted to say to her, but not in front of his siblings. Nea was set in his lap and she group hugged her brothers.

Zahneri vanished once more. Feeling Max crying into his shoulder, his gaze was held low and solemn.

Kalle couldn’t stop staring at the Korzan doll.

Branjaskr, The Free South – Odinsen Castle, Jóhann’s Bedchambers

Karla felt filthy…the stains on her, the way she saw her siblings in a new light, and the deepest intimacies she revealed of her last night.

But, she could live in peace now, sadly. Her body not tearing at her, it was quiet, calm…and now she could never let go of this. She NEEDED to keep this, chastity was worse than death. The concubines and her siblings were sleeping, in middle of two concubines she looked around, dare she risk moving? She’d never shared a bed with anyone before…let alone six others.

The question of bedroom etiquette didn’t have to stay in her mind for long, Zahneri intervened.
“Jóhann, Hella” it roused them. Jóhann took in a deep, waking breath.

“Hey you” he said flirtatiously. Zahneri remained as unresponsive as ever.

“Your mother summons you two”

“Alright, alright” he slugged off the arm of a cuddled concubine. “Come on sister” Clothed, they left in a cloud of black smoke. Karla was left alone with the concubines; she eyeballed all of them nervously.

Branjaskr, The Free South – Odinsen Castle, The Lady Jarl’s Bedchambers

The demon conjurers and succubus stood before Else, she turned to Zahneri after eyeing the bandages on her children’s hands. Her face held the question.
“It requires blood mistress”

“What was the result?” The eldest siblings looked to her too, excited, afraid…curious.

“I shall get him mistress” poof….poof: now in the middle stood the toned young man. Else looked to him with wide eyes, seeing his large black feather wings, her vision then moved to the feet: talons. The raven was a well-known symbol of Odin.

“What is he?” her voice distant, deep in thought. However, her children looked him and up and down with satisfaction.

“He’s beautiful” Hella rejoiced at the result, her blue eyes unable to stop looking at his tan skin. Oerin looked at each two that stood before him, the man was grinning at him, the woman looking him up and down. They were the ones he saw at the start of his existence.

“I do not know mistress, he is something that has not existed before”

“Face me” a woman behind him commanded, Oerin followed.

“Your head mistress” The succubus continued to mold his submission. Else held back a gasp, this raven demon looked so young, just barely a young man. Guilt struck her heart. What had she made?

“What is your name?”

“Oerin” Zahneri waited a moment, noticing he said no more, slashed him across his prominent nose and cheek. Small drips of blood escaped from the cuts.

“Mistress” she corrected, Else raised a hand to hold Zahneri’s actions.

“Oerin, mistress” he said now, a hint of a sad look to his bleeding face.

“Zahneri” Else glared at her “No”

“As you wish mistress” Else grabbed a cloth and began to dab it on his wound. Their eyes locked.

“He is a weak creation mistress” Else could see so much of Maxwell in him. Oerin felt a hand grasp his triceps.

“He feels strong to me” Hella giggled, the Lady Jarl snatched her wrist. While she loved her dearly, there was a limit on her patience of Hella’s previsions. Hella met eyes with her mother, caught off guard.

“He is too young, you will not touch him” The Lady Jarl held her authoritative face until Hella broke eye contract.

“Yes mother” she fell back to her brother. This young man was to be a demon, but the Lady Jarl couldn’t help but see the humanity about him.

“You are to serve the Odinsens, Oerin” her voice was gentle, cloth dirtied with a little blood. He nodded silently. “But I have…a special request for you. Something I want you to hold with the highest priority”

“Yes mistress?” Oerin’s loyalties and respect building for the gentle mistress. A bold, well-shaped brow rose, waiting for his command.

“Watch over and protect my youngest son, Maxwell” her heart pained, the memory of holding him in his agony, new. “Can you do this?”

“Yes mistress” Else pulled away with a small smile, her home evolving into a den of demons…but if it would keep her children safe…She walked around him to look to her children and the family succubus.

“Can this ritual be done again?” all looked to Zahneri.

“Yes, though I can no longer guarantee the results mistress. I was mistaken” Else glanced back at Oerin, studying the Odin markers of his body.

“I want to do it again” Hella looked firmly at her mother. Jóhann nodded, and Else did following his.

“Zahneri, assist them to do the ritual as many times as they wish. But if any creation even has the hint of disobedience, end them. And if the ritual becomes a danger to my children, you are to stop it above all else”

“Yes my mistress”

“And, you are to only use Coldbloods” they were damned already.

“Yes mistress”

“Any other…” Else looked to Oerin’s open face “servants are to meet me as soon as possible”

“Let’s get into it, I’m curious to see what happens next” Jóhann’s words triggered the vanishing act of the three conjurers. Else stood in front of the raven demon, she was no longer naïve in the ways of the demonic.

“Are you able to teleport?”

“No mistress”

“Can you conceal yourself?”

“Yes mistress”

“Then do so and follow me” in a cloud of black smoke, he reemerged a raven on the ground. The Lady Jarl took note of Oerin’s ability, it could prove useful later. She walked from her room, Oerin perched himself on her shoulder, she looked to the raven with a raise brow, but continued none-the-less.

Branjaskr, The Free South – Odinsen Castle, Maxwell’s Bedchambers

Maxwell had been left again, Kalle having to take care of Nea. As alone as he felt, he had no desire to leave his bedroom, so many memories and moments he longed for in here. Hands running over his sheets, there was history here. Something he wanted to cling on to.

Another knock of the door.

“Come in” Maxwell tossed it with little energy.

“My son” he looked up to see his mother and…a raven on her shoulder.

“Mother…?” he stared at the raven with confusion, she sat on the side of the bed.

“Maxwell, I see now the loneliness I have caused you…” she left the slave’s name unsaid. Maxwell shook his head. Else’s express was morose and grave.

“No, it’s Karla’s fault…she knew the rules” weary eyes continued to stare at the raven. “Why is there a bird on your shoulder mother?”

“Zahneri and your eldest have been helping us gain new allies; the purple light is a danger son. This is someone who will protect you” Maxwell raised a brow concerned. Oerin flew off the Lady Jarl’s shoulder and to the end of the bed. Black smoke concealed him until he stood before the two in his true form.

Maxwell stared at him wide eyed, his eyes not sure where to look…he had the same covering as Zahneri, but in his case it hardly cupped his genitals. It was an uncomfortable time to blush, he looked away.

“Hi…”

“Hello master”

“Just call me Max”

“Max” Else gave a small smile, this pairing felt best: Maxwell would have company and her eldest children would not try to have their way with the youthful spawn. Her own feelings wouldn’t allow her to see this new demon as emotionless as Zahneri…Oerin seemed entirely different.

“Oerin will keep you safe” she leaned forward to kiss Maxwell’s forehead. “I ask you be careful. Danger is coming” she was foreboding, and he looked up at her with worry. “I love you Maxwell”

“I love you mother” another kiss on his forehead before she left.

“Oerin…” he turned to his new protector, the strange wings not being the thing to catch or hold his eye.

“Yes Max?”

“Can you….turn into a bird again?” in a could of smoke it was done, Maxwell sighed. “Thanks” the bird sat on the end of his bed, it cawed.

Branjaskr, The Free South – Odinsen Castle, Else’s Secret Basement Chamber

Past another haze of red smoke the newly exhausted Odinsen siblings could hear a feminine and divine cry of ecstasy. It was enough to get both of them thinking of the deed again. Zahneri pinned whatever may be hidden in the mist, however she could already see a soft glow in the red cloud. What she sensed was much more to her liking, something with the power to control, this was her definition of power. However, in the mysterious female was a strong connection to the divine.

White feathered wings flapped out of the red mist, and it began to dissipate. The siblings looked at the revealed woman with wide eyes. She was truly breathtaking; all about here seemed positive and graceful.

Thick waves of golden brown hair spilled past her nude shoulders. Divine almond eyes looked up to the succubus. In every way Zahneri was overtly erotic, this new creation was elegant, and mesmerizing in her own right.

The succubus kept her focus harsh on the white winged woman. Her senses telling her that this spawn would not be as difficult to ensure discipline. She craned the woman’s head, the line of diamonds embedded in her hair whipped about.

“Who are they?” the creation looked to Jóhann and Hella. Hella was blinking rapidly, her brother drooled a little.

“She’s mine” Hella claimed.

“No…I made her too…”

“Masters” the female spawn answered.

“Good” the succubus was pleased.

“Share?” Hella offered.

“With pleasure” Zahneri forced eye contact with the woman in her clutch.

“You are Alya, eternal servant of the Odinsen family”

“Yes” Alya took her charge easy enough.

“Quick, let’s show mother” Jóhann suggested, feeling suddenly revitalized in Alya’s presence. Hella greedily agreed.

Branjaskr, The Free South – Odinsen Castle, The Lady Jarl’s Bedchambers

Else had waited patiently in her room to ensure she could be available once the new spawn was made. When they appeared, she stood and looked at the new ‘demon’ shocked.

“This…was what was made?” she gestured to the glowing and twinkling Alya. To look at her and her beautiful wings made her think of the swans that flew overhead the day she married Korzan in the Odin’s grotto nearby. A shock of emotional pain crossed her in remembrance.

“Yes mistress. Do not be fooled, she is a demon” Zahneri pointed to Else. “Your head mistress”

“What is your name?” more and more the Lady Jarl was amazed and disturbed by the results. They were random, awe inspiring, and not what she expected considering how they come to be. Odin’s dominion over nature could never truly be mastered or replicated it seemed.

“Alya, mistress” The Lady Jarl nodded. Jóhann couldn’t wait any longer and grabbed the deceiving demon’s arm. She was clearly old enough.

“I believe we’ll take this one” he stated with arrogance. Again, the Lady Jarl came into cull their sexual destruction.

“Alya will be watching over Nea” Else stamped on the eldest children’s hopes. Both showed faces of brooding disappointment. “We create these allies to assist us for the upcoming dangers, not to be your sexual play things” Both children remained silent. Alya was released. The leader of the Free South had a mother’s intuition that Alya was naturally suited for the task. “Alya, your charge is to watch my youngest daughter Nea, a child, can you do this?”

Alya smiled. “It would be an honor and pleasure mistress” Else gave a questioning glance to Zahneri, she too nodded. Trust was gained.

“Take her Zahneri” the darkness consumed both and they were gone. Her children still held the sad looks, their faces reminded her of youths who were unable to get a toy they desired. “Bandage your hands children and rest” she kissed both of their foreheads and they left dragging their feet out the door.

“Maybe the next one sister” Jóhann held out hope.

The Free South

A scout riding large reindeer was charging towards the purple light. She was a day’s journey out.

[Azazeal849]

SOUTHERN OCEAN

"Captain!" one of the lookouts suddenly called, pointing.

Captain Marius of the Delphina, one of the swift triremes ranging ahead of the main Namorian fleet, turned from his post to follow the lookout's gaze. He pulled his woolen cloak closer about him as he crossed the deck - as the fleet moved south, tacking against the current westerly wind, it was getting rapidly colder.

Staring out over the frigid sea, Marius initially thought that his lookout was pointing at the cluster of icebergs that drifted like frozen pearls through the wind-whipped ocean. They were bobbing between the Delphina and its sister scout ship Ulcisca, too far away to pose a danger to either vessel. Marius snorted and clapped the young lookout on the shoulder.

"They're bigger under the water, lad, but they don't stretch that far."

"No sir," the lookout insisted, "A sail. Look!"

Marius looked again, now thinking that the boy must have mistaken a cloud on the horizon, but his irritation died as he finally saw what the boy was getting at.

"Run out the oars," he called to his first officer, "And bring us in closer to that thing!"

A few minutes later, a rope was cast off the Delphina's starboard side, and the strange object was hauled closer. It was a small sheet of ice, presumably sheared from one of the many bergs that broke away from the southern glaciers - by itself it was unremarkable, but someone had thrust a spear and a dagger into the ice, and secured a sodden white cloak to it that was clearly meant to be a sail. Two of the braver and more nimble sailors climbed down to retrieve the effects, while other men crowded the edge of the deck to look.

"Well," the first officer grunted as he hefted the spear. It was a strange weapon - all metal, and segmented into parts that were slightly different thicknesses, as if it were designed to retract into itself like the collapsable dwarven spy-glasses that Namorian soldiers and sailors so prized. "A weird sort of weapon, but it looks like whoever owned it got washed overboard."

"What in the 12 hells would he have been doing this far out?" Marius asked.

"Fishing boat?" the officer suggested, "Shipwrecked?"

Marius squinted at the grey horizon to their south. The skies were relatively clear and had been for the last few days, making a storm unlikely. Still, a ship might have crashed into an iceberg or suffered some other misfortune.

"We're still a few days from the coast." he mused aloud. "A long way to come out fishing. Though Neptune knows how long this has been out here - it might have drifted."

"In any case," the first officer said with a smirk, "One less southern bastard to fight when we get there."

"Shall we signal the fleet, sir?" another officer asked. Off to either side, the Delphina's fellow scout ships had seen Marius change direction and were waving signal flags to ask what it was he had seen.

Marius grunted as the bitingly cold wind picked up again, and blew on his hands to warm them before returning them to the safety of the inside of his cloak. "No. Admiral Cossinius wants to hear about the coast and southern warships, not some poor bastard's makeshift life raft. Signal Ulcisca and Draccona that all's well and return us to station."

* * * * * *

NEW GIZA

As the evening shadows stretched over the city of New Giza, the native Afragians shuffled furtively about the streets, closing shops and bolting doors. The Egyptians had let the population of the occupied city live, but for how long was anyone's guess. The only people allowed out of the city gates were the field workers, and then only under guard. The Egyptians opened their gates to traders, refugees and wounded soldiers, but they rarely seemed to let them leave again. The atmosphere in the lower city was tense and fearful, and the dark-skinned Afragians always averted their eyes whenever a troop of general Shaanar's soldiers or vizier Isets Anubites came jangling down the road in their bronze armour. Suriyana was uneasy. What would happen to these people if their mission succeeded? If the imperium made peace with the new Egyptian pharoah, then presumably they would be allowed to keep their conquered territories, and all the new slaves they had made.

And that wasn't the only thing about their mission that struck her as wrong either. What did Ra think at their shady efforts at regime change, among a group who seemed to worship him just as fervently as the Afragians did. When Suriyana had approached Anne with her doubts, after the latter's successful meeting with Ahsha, the earthborn priestess had repeated many of the same words she had told the Egyptian high priest. Ovidius and Suriyana didn't want a war between the imperium and the Egyptians, and the Egyptians didn't want a civil war - which was more than likely if the leadership challenge between the three aspiring pharoahs went on for much longer.

But would Ra approve of this? Suriyana asked herself again. Yes, he must do. We're trying to stop any bloodshed among both his groups of children. Aren't we?

"Where are we going?" she asked aloud to Ovidius, wanting something to take her mind off the wider implications of what they were doing.

"A really shit tavern." Ovidius answered. Clad in a simple black tunic, the spy was winding his way carefully between the sun-bleached mudbrick buildings, glancing back often to make sure that Suriyana was only a step or two behind him.

"Why a really shit one?" Suriyana asked him.

"Because the high-and-mighty occupiers will know better than to go there."

They scouted out half a dozen inns without success before they found what they were looking for, in a narrow street nestled in the shadow of the city's northern wall. The street outside the door was festooned with empty barrels and broken scraps of wood, and a greasy, unpleasant smell drifted out from the poorly-lit windows. Ovidius ducked through the door first, pushing aside the split wood with his other hand resting on his knife belt. Suriyana followed, and found herself in a low-ceilinged dining room where dark skinned Afragians crammed onto long benches and groped at the passing waitresses. A few looked up as Ovidius and Suriyana entered, but soon turned away again. The two spies had had more sense than to wear their affiliation with the priesthoods openly - Suriyana wore a simple linen kalasiri belted with a twist of cord, the slave tattoo on her wrist covered by a cheap copper clasp. Ovidius, like her, had tucked his patron god's amulet inside his clothes - hidden unless he needed it to avert a confrontation - and he was hardly the only person in the tavern who was openly armed. Qia'bul, who had been shadowing them through the streets by flitting from roof to roof, found a perch on the window sill and curled unnoticed into the corner.

The whole tavern reeked of cheap wine and unwashed bodies. Most of the patrons were wiry labourers, but a knot of men whose scars marked them out as former soldiers had been given a respectful berth at one end of the hall. They carried only bronze daggers - theiir sword scabbards were empty, but the soldiers still wore them stubbornly. City guards, Suriyana guessed, disarmed after the occupation. It was towards that group that Ovidius immediately headed.

"I'm telling you," one of the soldiers was saying as he dug a thick finger into the table for emphasis. "There's a war coming." He spoke in Namorian, which led Suriyana to revise her earlier guess to the disarmed soldiers being former auxilaries, or even members of the legio Afragia. And even though they must have known that the Egyptians spoke the imperium's lingua franca, they were being careful to avoid eavesdropping by some of the common Afragians who did not. It was clear enough that they didn't want to be informed on.

"You'd best hope not." said one of the other soldiers. His swarthy, prematurely lined complexion suggested that he might have grown up in the milder climate west of Dun Moriga before being darkened by the Afragian sun, and his accent confirmed that he wasn't simply one of the paler-skinned Afragians of the undercities. "There's what, half a legion and a few thousand Afragians guarding Tu Zenita Duksal? And you saw them when they took the city. These bastards don't stay dead."

"Last I heard from the traders," the first soldier insisted, "The 18th had won a battle at Hercine and were on the march back east. I'm telling you, there's a war coming."

"And who will you be fighting for?" Ovidius asked them pointedly in the same language.

The silence that descended over the table was as sudden and as cold as a Southern frost. All around the table, hands drifted towards daggers.

"Who's asking?" the first soldier growled.

Ovidius took a coin he had palmed and flipped it down onto the table, where it bounced before landing with the emperor's profile facing up at the circle of soldiers. "Mighty Galen." he answered nonchalantly.

The second, sun-weathered soldier began to examine the coin eagerly, but his companions were more guarded.

"Imperial currency, eh?" the first soldier asked. "Who are you?"

"Someone who would rather not see a war." Ovidius responded, and untucked the jackal amulet from inside his tunic for the soldiers to see. "But like I said, if one were to come, which side would you be on?"

The amulet had drawn reactions of relief mixed with confusion from the soldiers. With the notable exception of Iset and her hellspawn soldiers, the stern servants of Anubis were neutral in political matters. They served justice and balance, albeit by highly variable means. But not all of the Afragians were put at ease.

"He's one of Iset's people." one of them said warningly, his dagger hissing halfway out of its sheath and glinting menacingly in the candle light.

"If he was, he wouldn't be carrying Namorian coins." another pointed out. "The Egyptians are swapping them all out for their own currency, trying to acclimatise us all." He spat on the sandy floor of the tavern.

Ovidius let them talk, staring at them levelly. Silence sometimes yielded more than words.

"We fight for who pays us." the soldier with the swarthy face said at last. He was still turning Ovidius' coin over in his hands. "Ahmeni here might talk about the imperium marching back over here to kick off a liberation, but the only fight here in the foreseeable future is going to be between those three damn pharoahs."

Ovidius chewed his cheek by way of agreement. "And which one do you think will win?"

"Who cares?" put in a fourth Afragian bluntly. He glowered at his companions from beneath a heavy brow. "We never asked for any of these Egyptians, even if they do like to sing and dance about how we worship the same gods. And whether Mighty Galen gets his ass in gear with a counter-invasion or not, a soldier has to eat, same as the rest of 'em. I don't care if the three pharoahs kill each others' immortal asses until the end of time - Korzan's balls, I don't even care if they keep us penned up in the city and we never see the imperium again, as long as they keep compensating us a living wage."

There was a mutter of agreement from the other soliders - all except the first man, Ahmeni, who clenched his jaw and shook his head. He clearly still believed in a Namorian counterattack. Ovidius however seemed satisfied.

"Quite so." he nodded, and produced the rest of the coin pouch that had been tucked into his belt. He tossed it into the centre of the table, and Namorian silver spilled out between the clay cups. "An advance payment, gentlemen. For your time in agreeing to meet up again sometime soon. Perhaps tomorrow? Somewhere more upmarket?"

Suriyana was just beginning to relax a little, when she noticed a man at the next table get up, flick a coin towards the bar, and slip out through the tavern door. Ovidius noticed it too, and although the spy's expression didn't change, he turned on his heel towards the door.

"One second." he murmured to Suriyana. "See if you can't arrange a meeting point with these guys tomorrow afternoon."

"Aulus..." Suriyana began, her usual self-assured exterior faltering. But Ovidius was already gone.

"So what about you, sweetheart?" the sun-tanned soldier asked her before she could follow. "You one of Anubis' chosen as well?"

Rallying, Suriyana managed to regain some of her sardonic humour, and picked an answer that she thought would amuse them. "No. I just keep his bed warm."

The tanned soldier smirked. Ovidius' coins had already disappeared under the table, but the tanned soldier had palmed several as his share. He held them up towards Suriyana, making a fan of them with a deft twist of his thumb. "You know, sweetheart, I'm a fair bit richer than I was half an hour ago."

"You'll need to be richer than that." Suriyana said, matching his smirk with a lop-sided smile. "Which you will be, maybe, if you meet us in the market tomorrow after the Hathor ceremony."

The smile fell off her face like a mask as she walked out of the tavern. Qia'bul peeped and fluttered onto her shoulder, the bird familiar's warm weight providing her with a bit of much-needed comfort. She found Ovidius in a dark alleyway two streets down, as she knew she would. The man who had sneaked out of the tavern lay at his feet, his cloak tangled around him and soaked with blood. It looked black in what little moonlight penetrated down into the alleyway.

"This isn't right." she told Ovidius straight away, even as she fought down the queasy feeling in her stomach. "We're supposed to be doing this for Ra. He wouldn't approve of this."

Ovidius turned to look at her, his eyes dark beneath his hood. His handsome face was resigned.

"No," he corrected her, "We're doing this for mistress Lycinia and the imperium. Iset and Shanaar are bending the laws of their patron gods for their own advantage. Are we any different?"

"Isis chose you." SUriyana said earnestly.

"Then she already knows what kind of man I am." Ovidius sighed as he kicked the body of the would-be informer off the road, leaving a streak of black on the sand. He began to check his own clothing for stains. "And so do you. You serve Ra, but so does that earthborn Anne, and she came up with half of this plan. Even a god of light casts shadows. Come on. We can't stay here."

Suriyana chewed her tongue as they hurried away. It was Ovidius that broke the silence as they slowed their pace and walked back into the lamp-lit plaza near the temple of Ra.

"If you want to know how empires are really saved, Suri." he whispered to her regretfully, "It's shit like this."

* * * * * *

EMOR

"Seppia Julia Octavi?" the toga-clad official at the door questioned, fixing Seppia with an intense stare.

Seppia nodded impatiently. It had taken her days to get this audience with the emperor. Galen Claudius had grown cagey about audiences lately, and even appeals to him while he was presiding over the senate floor were a battle to get. She had stood before the emperor once before, with her cousin Lycinia, and that had been in the emperor's own palace. Seppia didn't like to remember telling the story of the demons at the mages' guild, who had so nearly killed her son. Remembering Lycinia's calm, confident face now that her ashes lay in a mausoleum alongside her children's was only a little less painful.

In a way, the motivation for her audience hadn't changed. Once again she was worried for the life of her son, and now for her husband too. Seppia knew that Gaius wanted to see their mutual cousin avenged just as much as she did, but right now Gaius Octavius seemed to be his own worst enemy. She had managed to slap some sense into him that if magic was needed to catch the killers, then petitioning the emperor to exempt them from the ban was the most rational course of action.

The official at the foot of the senate steps glanced at the limestone sundial in front of him, and motioned her forward. "The emperor and the senate will hear you next."

Seppia climbed the marble steps of the senate, which stood in dazzling, light-reflecting contrast to the lesser brick buildings across the Plaza Optimus. The bustle of the plaza and the chuckling splash of the fountains outside faded away as she stepped through into the building, muted by the huge double doors that rumbled closed behind her. The sounds of the plaza were replaced by the rising and falling of voices as she crossed the hall into the semi-circular council chamber. The marble busts of past emperors frowned down on her from either side as she walked. The swell of voices ahead of her suddenly subsided, though she couldn't see why because her view into the senate chamber itself was blocked by the gaggle of petitioners and spectators who stood at the other end of the entrance hall.

"Seppia!" a young woman's voice called out softly from amongst the crowd, and Seppia turned towards it to see her friend Julia sidestepping out of the crowd towards her. Julia Vespania Agrippi was the youngest of Seppia and Lycinia's mutual friends, and she had convinced her husband - centurion Marcus Agrippa of the 2nd legion - to lend his troops to their investigation of the mages' guild. Fresh-faced at 16, she had threaded opals through her dark hair and donned a matching blue dress for her trip to the senate.

Julia took Seppia by the hand and guided her to the front of the crowd, where a pair of indigo-cloaked praetorians controlled access to the senate floor. The floor itself was currently occupied by a trio of sleek Hercinian cat-men, clad in robes made from ostentatious gold cloth. The men and women of the senate were arrayed above them in their tiered semicircles, their purple-striped togas of office rippling as they sipped drinks, fanned themselves and adjusted their positions for comfort on the cushioned benches. Seppia saw the emperor himself sitting in a partitioned box at the centre of the first tier, flanked by four praetorians. Galen Hippocrates Claudius was an old man, running to fat, but his authority was evident in his dark eyes as he frowned down at the cat-men. In spite of his controlled bearing, he seemed tense. He looks even more stressed than last time I saw him.

"What are you doing here?" Seppia whispered to Julia as she looked up at the emperor.

"I'm listening." Julia whispered back, pointing surreptitiously towards the three Hercinians. "I was hoping I could catch one of the cat-men on the way out and get them to take a message back to my brother."

Julia's family were unusually widely dispersed across Eternum. Her brother Quintus was a soldier in the 7th Rapax legion, or at least he had been - the Greek invasion had decimated Hercine's two garrison legions. Dux Marcius had led the counterattack, but with new threats to face back east, he had been unable to gather much information on the fate of specific legionaries before departing again. Seppia could understand her young friend's concern.

Julia also had family out in Afragia, where the situation was even more confused: her marital uncle Lucius was serving as ambassador to the Afragian court, waiting out a certain amount of resentment in the senate after the earthborn alliance he had encouraged the emperor to broker had turned sour. Devoted to her husband, Julia wouldn't say a word against his uncle despite the scandal. Seppia couldn't judge; as the wife and mother of two members of the always distrusted - and now formally outlawed - mages' guild, she was no stranger to scandal herself. She followed Julia's gaze towards the Hercinian ambassadors in their elaborate robes.

"The cat-men might not respond well to running errands." Seppia cautioned her friend. The Hercinians were notoriously arrogant.

Julia adjusted the hair around her temples, taking care not to smudge the powder she had used to conceal the adolescent shine on her face. "No," she admitted as she motioned to a body slave, who handed her a leather purse. "But they always respond well to money."

Seppia turned her eyes back to the cat-men as one of them began to speak, his deep growl of a voice coloured by a rolling Hercinian accent.

"Governor Castus is demanding that we fund the reconstruction!" he snarled at the assembled senators, "But he can't do his job of controlling the bandits. Everywhere's chaos after the war. We've managed to restore the trade columns, but they're losing thousands worth of goods to brigands on the road! And the crocolykes are the worst - just a week ago some of those reptilian scum burned down one of my establishments!"

"Crocolykes?" the emperor spoke, leaning forward in his throne, "What is this?"

The Hercinian looked up at emperor Claudius, blinked nervously, and reined in the vehemence of his language. "Crocolyke activists, my imperator. Inspired by that orange fiend from Zamibia, Zhnegra."

"The cats don't seem to have much gratitude for the people who came to their rescue..." Julia muttered to Seppia.

It had been the unexpected intervention of Zhnegra's rebel army that had turned the tide during the siege of Hercinia. Dux Marcius had granted the rebels clemency and promises of citizenship, and now the other crocolykes still oppressed in Hercine province were evidently wondering why they couldn't have the same.

"The crocolykes are your slaves, are they not?" the emperor was saying. His frown deepened into a scowl. "Are you telling me you can't control your own slaves?"

"Imperator!" one of the senators hailed the emperor, standing up as she spoke. "The solution to both problems is obvious. Governor Castus needs more men to keep the peace."

"Governor Castus needs a competent replacement." a senator from the opposite side of the chamber scoffed. "He's no administrator, he's only a tribune. Surely when dux Marcius gave him the position he didn't intend for it to be permanent!"

The emperor waved his hand irritably for silence. "We hardly have a ready supply of governors, let alone fresh troops! Or had you all forgotten that we are at war?"

"If they had any sense," Julia whispered, leaning closer to Seppia, "They would let the crocolykes join the garrison. More men for peacekeeping, and some suitable reward for the crocolykes."

"I can see at least two problems with that." Seppia murmured back. "Firstly, giving crocolykes swords...and then telling them to police their own people? Secondly, what would you offer them? They wouldn't settle for anything less than citizenship, and the cat-men would go ballistic over that."

Julia looked put out. "They're not as savage as you think, you know. My brother told me about a crocolyke who had taught himself the Hercinian accountancy system and started up his own bank for the slaves."

Seppia resisted the urge to shake her head at her friend, thinking that she'd believe that when she saw it. One thing was clear, at least: order was far from settled in Hercine, despite the immortal threat having been resolved.

"It is in all our interests that the trade routes between Hercine and Namor get moving again." the emperor was saying to the Hercinian ambassadors. "We will consider your situation and take appropriate action."

The fur on the back of the Hercinian ambassador's head bristled upwards at the curt dismissal, but his ears flattened as he met the emperor's eyes, and he gave an exaggerated bow before retreating from the floor. His two fellow traders followed.

"If we didn't need them for the labour," Seppia heard the cat-man mutter as he padded off the floor, tail switching beneath the loose folds of his robes. "I would have all of the filthy reptiles culled."

Although she was no champion of crocolyke rights, Seppia couldn't resist biting the inside of her cheek. It was the Hercinians fault more than the crocolykes - after the Corvus revolts, the emperors of Namor had at least figured out that not kicking a slave so much made it less likely to bite you. Not only had the cat-men missed that lesson, they had let a whole population of crocolykes escape into the Zamibian swamps, where they had been periodically causing trouble ever since. Seppia reckoned that most of the problems in and around Hercine - from rebellions to bandits to the stir caused by the orange crocolyke from those self same swamps - could ultimately be traced back to that. The recent immortal invasion had merely upset the balance.

"Seppia, daughter of the Julii clan, partner to Gaius of the family Octavius." an administrator suddenly announced, bringing Seppia back to the present. Hercine was very far away compared to her own immediate problems.

"Good luck!" Julia whispered, squeezing Seppia's arm as she hurried away to accost the Hercinian ambassadors.

As the praetorians waved her forward, Seppia stepped down onto the tiled senate floor, slightly hesitantly. The emperor's harassed expression showed that he had clearly had enough of the Hercinian cat-men, and he certainly didn't look in the mood to be granting favours that contravened his own proclamations from less than a month ago. She had to try though. All the same, she wasn't the confident speaker that Lycinia had been, and she coughed to clear her throat before she looked up towards the emperor and his senators.

"Ave imperator." she began. "The law you recently passed says that magic can not be practiced in Emor without your express permission. I'm here to ask that permission for my husband."

There was a ripple of murmurs from the senators, but the emperor silenced them with an angry swipe of his hand. He leaned forward in his chair to look down at Seppia.

"Why?" he asked simply, his face inscrutable.

Seppia had prepared her answer, but she still had to moisten her dry lips before she spoke. "Last time I spoke to you, your majesty, I had just nearly lost my son. But last month my cousin dux Marcius lost his entire family. We still haven't found the murderers. Let my husband use his magic to bring them to justice."

The senate murmured again, and Seppia couldn't tell whether it was in agreement or opposition. Decius Marcius was the hero of the west, and his wife had saved Emor from the Romans - her murder had greatly angered the Emorian nobility. But after demons had been unleashed at the mages' guild, anti-magic sentiment in Emor was at an all time high. She looked to emperor Galen Claudius for an answer.

For a long moment the emperor's face was a stern mask, and then he said one word which made Seppia's stomach drop. "No."

Seppia felt her heart beating faster. She opened her mouth, trying to find the right words to protest.

"The reason you nearly lost your son," the emperor said, "Was because of the treachery of mages like your husband. It could only have been the treachery of mages like your husband that let these murderers get out of Emor unseen. I won't hear of it. Not even from a family as honoured as yours."

The old man slowly levered himself to his feet, addressing the senate.

"This is still the Namorian imperium. The murderers will be found and punished, just as the traitors of the mages' guild were punished, and just as the ones who are causing trouble in Hercine will be punished." He turned his imperious gaze on Seppia. "Your husband is a Namorian citizen - if he wishes to help then he may, but no magic! The ones who robbed us of one of Emor's best and brightest will be brought to justice, but by Namorian law!"

The senate erupted with a wave of applause. Angry, hurt and now afraid, Seppia hugged her arms and wondered what she was going to tell her husband.

The huge doors that opened into the council chamber suddenly bashed open, with one huge tall silhouette standing in the way of the sun. Some of the Namorians cried out in surprise, and others clutched at amulets as they thought that one of the gods was walking among them. A brush of warm air filled the chamber, followed by the sound of heavy boots hitting the floor. As the figure approached, it was noticeable that he was not a nimbus-wreathed god after all, but he was still clearly not of this world. He stood at over 8 feet tall, with heavy, almost liquid-looking metal armour covering his body. In his hand was a large weapon that would have contradicted even the scientific knowledge of the greatest dwarven battle-craftsman. As the figure walked forward, his helmet drifted off his body, revealing chiseled features, short hair cut closely to his head and piercing green eyes - filling his skull with mystery...yet so many answers.

Guards drew their swords and stepped forward, though the soldier didn't acknowledge them. He merely seemed to beckon them on with his eyes, as if to say: Come to me if you want, you shall meet only death.

"Emperor." He spoke - his voice full of raw brutality, drifting through the air in its most primal form. "I bring questions from the United Nations of Earth, questions that I need answering."

For a second, the emperor stood as frozen as his guards and senators. Then he found his authority, and his voice.

"Out!" he roared, making fierce slices with his hands towards the tiered senators. "Everyone! Now!"

There was only a moment's silence before senators, spectators and petitioners all began to scramble as one for the exits. Seppia was swept along in the crush, and her last sight of the senate floor was the emperor and the earthborn staring at each other coldly, more like enemies than allies.

[Azazeal849]

(OOC - White text is mine, gold is Fires', cyan is Setsa's, and green is DoK's)

GREAT WESTERN TUNNEL, DUN MORIGA

Nesara had been reunited with Jornak after the latter had extricated his rearguard from the city, and at the urging of the overly-mouthy tribune Varinius they found themselves halting in one of the tunnels many hubs while the Namorian commanders hurried to meet them.

The pause to wait for everyone to arrive was met with mixed emotions from the dwarves. Some were grateful for the rest, however short it might be, while others were anxious to keep moving until they reached the capitol of Afragia. For Nesara, it allowed a moment to check on a few soldiers that had rejoined them who were wounded. The wounds were not serious for the most part, having been tended well enough. The woman, the Queen, gave each of them the will of hope and pride, for what they had done and for the future. The soldiers would need such to keep moving onward. Whatever the Namorian reinforcements had been planning, the actual situation in Ech Zilidar had clearly changed it. Blue-cloaked legionaries with the Fulminata thunderbolt on their shields held their posts uncertainly, guarding the many branching tunnels from the Great Western, while the Dun Morigan population streamed past them in a seemingly endless tide.

A clatter of hooves against the stone of the tunnel floor announced Decius Marcius as the press of legionaries parted to let him through.

"Princess?" he said in surprise as he recognised Nesara. He reined in his horse, dismounted and pulled off his plumed helmet, his bodyguard Varrius and his second in command tribune Cassius falling into step behind him. "We had no word from you since your letter."

For Nesara, the face of Marcius was a great thing to see. It had been a long while, with only one initial letter of communication between the two.

"Marcius, a pleasure to see you again." Rejoining senator Agrippa on horseback, she rode up alongside Jornak who had by then been presented with his own horse.

"If you will forgive me, general," Agrippa put in, "Who are they?"

The grey-haired senator had stuck close to Nesara during the evacuation, and he seemed strangely unmoved by the timely arrival of the imperial reinforcements. The source of his question were the other figures who had ridden up behind Marcius. Two wore bronze armour and tall, T-visored helmets; another was a woman with the symbol of Aphordite embossed on her shield in strips of bronze; and the last was a stern-faced man whose armour almost matched Marcius', except for the fact that his cloak and crest were a striking, unorthodox red. Strangest of all was an amber-skinned crocolyke, loping along beside the horses with a great mace clutched in his clawed hands.

"Allies." Marcius answered the senator, curtly, before turning back to the Dun Morigan royals who had arrived with Varinius and gun-captain Agron. "Your highness," he said, nodding to Nesara, and then to Jornak. "Jornak Rex, I need to know the situation. What we're facing, and what state your own forces are in."

"My husband can answer such." said Nesara, "As he has rallied the troops at the anvil while I dealt with the Elder Council of Lords."

Jornak placed his right arm over his heart and bowed slightly, which was something this Imperial would likely never see again. Although, in Jornak's eyes, this Imperial seemed to have a greater backbone and far less political agendas than did the cowardly Agrippa. Jornak had a firm distrust of the two imperials that had taken part in the naming of the new king of Dun Moriga. One was hot headed, and the other was too silent, both of which would warrant a closer eye by the King.

"Marcius, is it?" he asked. "We are few in number, but we dwarves are a stout and strong-willed folk. If it be a fight you are looking for, look but behind and you will find that which you seek. These grey skins attacked my city, and hunted my people like animals, and I will see them dead. We have but four legions of the Ech Zilidar military, and a single unit of royal guards. The Imperial legion has taken casualties, but they are still alive as well, and we have a few battalions of the city militia." Jornak paused and looked behind him, at the burning city of Ech Zilidar.

"I have only recently come into Kingship, and everything has been hastened, so forgive me if I am unable to give you an accurate estimation of the number." Jornak spoke, his voice layered in shame at the loss of his city, and at his inability to know the status of his own army.

"Understandable." tribune Cassius said, chewing the inside of his cheek as he watched the semi-organised refugee column stream past them.

"And how many of these grey-skins?" Marcius asked, his expression stony.

"A hundred thousand, possibly more." praetor Graccus answered. The garrison commander was standing to one side near Varinius and Agron. Although Agron had raised his arm respectfully towards Jornak when the new king approached, Graccus' focus was on his fellow Namorians. "And some of them are three times the size of a man. They have siege engines, and artillery too. They've broken every city in Dun Moriga, one by one."

"A hundred thousand?" Marcius repeated. His voice was level, but his left hand went to the hilt of his sword, touching the iron to avert the ill luck of the revelation.

"They outnumber us two to one." Cassius said grimly, adding Jornak's count to their allied army and coming up with a number that still barely exceeded 50,000. "But," he added, glancing at the silent red-crest and his two bronze-armoured companions. "We do have the immortals."

"We won't give up Dun Moriga without a fight." Marcius nodded, although his eyes showed less enthusiasm as he followed his tribune's gaze.

"With due respect, general." Graccus warned. "We already fought - at Lun Garath, at Azulfa, and here. And we lost. The most sensible course, now we've got your army to cover us, is to lead the refugees up the Great Western and head west towards Combrogia. That way, if the fucking grey-skins follow us, at least we'll be fighting them above ground."

"The king and queen," senator Agrippa put in quietly, "Have already agreed to make for Tu Zenita Duksal. The head of the civilian column is already moving through Vulcan's heart in that direction."

Graccus squinted at Agrippa suspiciously. "Hiding behind walls isn't the answer." he said acidly. "In case you failed to notice, it didn't work the last three times."

"All the same, the senator's right." tribune Varinius offered. "It'd be a hell of job to turn the column round now - in the tunnels, and with these grey bastards snapping at our heels."

"Where are they now?" Marcius asked.

"Crawling all over Ech. Jornak Rex blowing up the Anvil will keep them confused for a while, but they could easiy break out into the tunnel network - much quicker than we could deploy our whole army into the caverns to make a rearguard. Even then there's enough tunnels for them to loop round and harry the column all the way to Zenita."

"Then we counterattack." Marcius said decisively. "We came here to fight, and even if we can't retake Ech we need to fix these grey-skins in place long enough to give the column a head start."

"It'll take us some time to funnel our whole army down into the city, sir." Varinius opined. "We caught the grey-skins by surprise once; we won't have that next time."

"I've been to Ech before." Marcius said. "Down in the streets they can't bring numbers to bear on us."

The dux sounded confident, but he must have known that coordinating his own legion in the narrow streets would be no easy task. Units could outrun each other, get bogged down, get outflanked.

"We'll need a reference point." Varinius said, sensing that very problem.

"Varon's causeway." Marcius said, naming a primary street that ran north to south roughly half way into Ech Zilidar. "We fight our way to there and hold."

"They can throw men at us all day." Cassius said confidently. Graccus looked at the young tribune as if he had gone insane, but didn't say anything.

"They can try." Marcius growled, turning to look at the two men with T-visored helmets. "Hercules, if your men follow the main tunnel of the Great Western, they'll come out on the enemy's northern flank. I trust they will be able to handle things from there."

The shorter of the two Greeks, ever stoic, simply smirked behind his helmet. Marcius' intended plan was simple - the Namorians were the anvil, holding the orcs in place and drawing more of them in. Hercules' troops, a steamroller of long pikes, would be the hammer. If the dux felt reservations about entrusting the vital second phase of his plan to the immortals, he didn't dare let it show.

"Legate." Marcius added to the red-crested officer on his other side - a tall, tanned man with iron-hard eyes. "Your legions will support mine."

Satisfied with the turn of events, Jornak had a fire of expectation and battle-readiness dancing in his eyes. He turned away from the assembled peoples, and spoke directly to his wife, the Lady Nesara.

"My Queen, I ask that you refrain from joining this battle. The refugees will need your guidance to ensure their safety in these tunnels, I will leave the royal guard with you, though i hope you will never have the need to call them to battle." His fiery eyes fell upon Graccus and then turned to Marcius in a single bound. "The dwarves will enter the city first, and the Fulminata will follow behind, as support. We dwarves do not take kindly to invasion, and we will see that the Grey-skinned devils meet the edges of dwarven weaponry."

"As is your right." Marcius replied neutrally, while tribune Cassius nodded in agreement with the dwarf king.

Beside Nesara, senator Agrippa leaned to one side in his saddle to whisper in her ear. "Does he really respect our king's wishes?" he murmured, "Or is he just happy to let Dun Morigans die first instead of his own troops?"

"Princess." Marcius said, turning his dark eyes on Nesara and causing the senator to break off. "Regina." the dux corrected himself a moment later, "I have another question that concerns you personally. Were you able to meet my centurion Salvius on the eastern road? His mission might be vital to our campaign, and I would know any news you have on his progress."

* * * * * *

ECH ZILIDAR

Within the squirming Orc ranks, the trolls boisterously rolled forwards, their feet striking the paving of the streets with such power that they cracked under the weight of the huge greyskins. They roared as flecks of rocks tore their skin, creating little weeping cuts in their legs. These trolls were armoured heavily, yet did no carry any traditional weapons - instead within their arms were long logs of wood, crude but perfectly cut to proportion with the Trolls' dirty grey hands. The trolls spewed spittle everywhere as they roared out, the elephant-like noise audible even to those within the tunnels above. They carried something that looked very much like an anvil; it hummed with ancient power, emanating from a circular, orange disk upon the top surface. Veins of orange light pulsed with power all over the odd construct; it gave off a sinister aura to those who were near it.

The Trolls moved towards the furnace as their feet began to trample through fire - usually it would have burned their flesh from their bones, but the extent of the armour covering them slowed the process; still they roared in pain and disapproval. The fire flickered in their black eyes as they approached the centre of the exploded furnace before dropping the anvil-like object down on the floor. As they did so, it began to hum louder and louder, as if something within it was firing up and restarting.

Almost instantly, a beacon of orange light burst from the centre of the object - searing through the roof of the mountain and pulsating with energy. All within the cavern could feel it, as the terribly glorious beam of light reflected blindingly from the Orc armies pure black eyes.

[Aureyon]

Ech Zilidar; City Streets.

It was a long trek back to Ech Zilidar, and it was a solemn journey as the dwarves rallied behind the banner of their King. It was not tradition for the King to be on the front lines, but Jornak would see the grey skins fall beneath his axe, afterall he was not made king because of his good looks.

“Dwarves, today we will lose many of our brothers, from both the Dwarf Kingdoms and the Imperium. But, if we are to lose this battle, let us not die without bringing honor to Vulcan’s name. We are his children, We are his legacy. As long as a dwarf yet breathes, Dun Moriga will survive, as will our new allies in Afragia. Muster your strength, and your courage. For we descend into darkness, and some of us may not return to the light.

For Vulcan! For Dun Moriga! FOR ECH ZILIDAR!” Jornak finished, raising his war axe into the air, and leading a maddened dwarf army into the fray against the grey skins.

The dwarves managed to stun the orcs with their mighty battle cry that echoed across the city and tunnels surrounding them, appearing as if there were more dwarves joining the fray than there actually was.

Dwarven steel met grey skin steel, and the sound of battle erupted around them, Jornak had a messenger run to Marcius, asking him to flank them as they drew their attention from the device they were setting up in the heart of the anvil. If he could get to the anvil, he could destroy the device with is axe. It was an abomination, and it did not belong in Ech Zilidar, heart of the anvil.

Loosing a might cry, Jornak struck down two orcs with a single blow, taking a black shaft from an arrow into the shoulder. The wound was only a minor itch against the adrenaline and battle rage that was pumping through his veins and giving him a vision of red.

[Azazeal849]

ECH ZILIDAR

The city reeked of fire and death. The streets were choked with smoke haze, and the granite buildings echoed with a confusing milieu of screams, roars and the ring of steel against armour and shields. The Namorians, their blue scarves pulled up round their faces against the dust, added their own percussion - hob-nailed boots hammering against the paved roads as they advanced. Their swords were out; their signature pila left with the baggage train. This was close and dirty work. Butcher's work. As they marched they trampled over the bodies of dwarfs and greyskin orcs, their blood running into the grooves of the paving stones. The dead orcs were hunched, muscular creatures - all hairless grey skin and hooked black nails under their armour of bronze and leather. Their twisted bodies were distorted further by the furious slashes of dwarf weapons. The mutilations of the dead dwarfs were even more horrific, heads and shoulders split by gaping wounds and severed limbs lying several metres from their bodies.

Jornak's royal guard had spearheaded the attack, and as Varinius had predicted, it had been like kicking a hornet's nest. Deep, hollow warhorns sounded ahead and to either side as the enemy summoned more of their troops into the city, but the disorientating smoke was still buying them a little time. Of course, that same smoke also worked against the Namorians. There was only one tactic they could use, and that was to keep moving forward and killing anything they came across until they reached the waypoint of Varon's Causeway.

Varinius urged the leading century on, following the old market road that seemed to be leading straight towards an indistinct orange glow in the middle distance. It speared up past the intervening rooftops towards the shadowed ceiling of the cavern, too high and too regular to be fire. Varinius cursed under his breath. Through the row of buildings to his left, he heard the chink and thump of the red-crest Romans advancing down the parallel street. To his right men of the 4th century swarmed from house to house, looking for both the orcs and some sort of vantage point. Suddenly there was a rising wave of shouts and a violent crash, and the men on the roofs were shouting down to their comrades below.

"Halt!" Varinius roared. The houses to his right were a solid, impassable tenament block, but he knew that the legionaries in the street beyond had just engaged the enemy.

No sooner had he said it, a wall of dark shadows appeared across the road ahead. Black eyes shone like glass through the haze. Varinius saw spears and hooked falx blades, before the shining eyes fixed onto the blue line of legionaries ahead of them and the half-shrouded orcs let out a shrieking war-cry.

"MIRDAUTAS VRAS!"

Suddenly the wall of shadows was rushing at them, and then more orcs were boiling from the doors and roofs of the tenament block, some even hurling themselves out of windows into the street below. There was no time to even get a proper look at the creatures, only time to act.

"Attack!" Varinius and the unit centurion roared simultaneously.

Even to men stopped dead by shock and horror, the response to the command was instinctive. The ranked-up legionaries shouted defiance and surged forward to meet the charging greyskins. The two lines smashed into each other with a sound like the end of the world.

* * * * * *

Gun captain Agron swore violently as he drove his gladius up through the torso of the orc blocking the stairs, only kept from falling backwards by the hand of the man behind him shoving against his back. He shoved the orc instead and stumbled over its collapsing body up onto the first floor landing. Each house was now a private battleground, a handful of orcs and a handful of Namorians crushed close enough to smell each others' breath and sweat, with only a vague understanding of the more open battle in the streets outside. Agron and his dwarf auxillaries were near the front of the Namorian attack, but king Jornak and his own men had forged ahead without waiting.

Agron understood the mixed looks he got from Jornak's soldiers. He had made his choice - to shave his beard, to wear the Namorian armour and to swear loyalty to the emperor first and his own king second. But, gods be damned, he was still a Dun Morigan, and this was his city. As an artillery captain, Agron was more used to the stink of powder smoke than the awful abbatoir reek of close quarter combat, but he was so full of adrenaline and rage that the change hardly registered. The orcs had already sown this house with the stench of blood, piss and shit during the initial assault - on the landing a dwarf soldier lay dead with his half-reloaded musket under him, and beside him were two civilians, their arms and fingers hacked to pieces where they had tried to shield their faces.

Agron spat the most venemous curses that the multi-lingual imperium had to offer as a tall Combrogian legionary pushed past him into the next room, leading with his curved shield. There was an orc at the window, reloading a short composite bow that it had been firing down into the street below. It turned and panicked as the Namorians came barging in, and there was a thrum and a crack as a black arrow head stabbed through the inside surface of the first legionary's shield. The Combrogian used that same shield to bash the orc up against the wall, before ramming his gladius through its face.

Agron paused to stick his head through the small, square window and get his bearings. The snarling, struggling lines of Namorian and greyskin were almost directly beneath him, the packed ranks blending into a mass that made Jornak think of two bulls locking horns with each other - one blue, one grey. The crush actually helped the Namorians with their shorter swords, while the orcs had trouble making room for their longer spears and scythe-like polearms. A tide-line of corpses built up between the lines that neither side could easily cross, but this in turn gave the orcs space to use their weapons. When they did the results were horrific - the curved falx blades split armour and helmets, or hooked under shields to sever legs with a single jerk. One orc hacked a legionary almost in two through the shoulder, the man's shield simply peeling in half as it came up to stop the blow. The orc's own lack of a shield proved its undoing, and it was stabbed from both sides as it fought to free its blade from the man's breastbone.

Both sides were losing men, but neither could push the other back, and it only became harder as the tide line of mangled dead and sobbing wounded grew higher. It was the Namorians who stood to suffer from such a stalemate. Agron and his men had a plan to break the deadlock, but they needed to be deeper behind the front line.

"The wall!" the captain said, pointing. The houses on this street were one continuous joined block, but unlike the granite outer walls, the inner walls dividing the apartments were simple mudbrick. Using a blood-splashed table as a battering ram, they made short work of the nearest barrier. No sooner had they bulldozed a hole then a snarling orc appeared on the other side of it, the thrust of its barbed spear glancing off the steel rim of a legionary's shield. Agron personally hacked off the clawed hand holding the spear, and the legionary finished the job before clambering through with two more Fulminata following him. A fourth turned to guard the stairway.

"Come on!" Agron snarled to his own dwarfs, who were hurrying up behind him. They were artillery crews, and although there was no room for their cannons in these crowded streets, there were other tools of their trade that they could use. Several of the struggling dwarfs carried heavy packs of round black shrapnel shells, each one primed with a shortened fuze of powder-stuffed beech wood. It was inelegant, it was dangerous, and right now gun captain Agron didn't give a damn.

He lit the first shell personally, handing it to Damak who immediately tossed it through the window, down into the scrum of orcs pressing towards the deadlocked front-line just twenty metres up the street. A second shell followed, and a third was already in Agron's hand as the first one detonated. Two greyskins and pieces of several more were flung into the air in a macabre geyser, turning the smoke haze pink. A dozen more orcs around them stumbled, and then the second bomb threw a bloody cone of flesh and bone fragments into the air. The forward pressure of the orcs' charge vanished, as they reeled and sank down in tangled heaps. Agron laughed vindictively at the chaos.

"Burn, you bastards!"

"Watch out!" one of the legionaries warned. Even as the pressure on the Namorian front crumbled and the legionaries surged forward, some of the orcs were breaking towards the buildings rather than back up the street. "They're coming up!"

* * * * * *

Protector Varrius shoved Marcius roughly aside as a legionary was thrown from the apartment window above a blacksmith's, landing with a crash in the crowded street below. Belatedly looking up, Marcius saw a swirl of movement behind the window as the orc that had thrown him battled two more legionaries. Even higher, orcs leapt between the flat roofs and shoulder-charged into the Namorians trying to act as spotters for the men below.

The fight in the street was even more desperate - men stumbled as they instinctively tried not to trample their own dead and wounded. A centurion lost his footing and fell cursing, his shield pressed against his body as a roaring orc tried to batter through it. The centurion managed to free his gladius and hacked it round with a shout, cutting through the orc's ankle so that now both man and greyskin were on the ground. A Namorian soldier reached them first, putting his sword through the orc's spine.

Maintaining formation was difficult as the orcs hurled themselves at the Namorians. One tried to stab over the rim of a legionary's shield, but the man jerked his head back just in time and severed the orc's arm with a swipe of his gladius. Another orc managed to bat a legionary's shield clean out of his hand, and lunged forward to pierce the man's banded armour with a spear thrust. Eventually however, the Namorians were able to reform their battered line and push forward. The orcs fell back, vanishing into the smoke.

"Halt!" Marcius shouted as the cohort he was leading finally stumbled into the wide, open street of Varon's Causeway. The smoke was thicker here, and tongues of fire were still licking from the windows of some of the stone buildings.

"Rotate ranks!" Marcius ordered, gesturing with the sword in his left hand. His men - shields splintered, swords red, and eyes slitted against the dust haze, hurried to obey. "Send couriers along the line - I want to know where our men are and if the rest of the western district is secure!"

It had been a brutal fight, and that was just against the swarms of orcs who were spread out all over the city. There had been no sign of the giant trolls...yet. All the same, the twisting streets and stiff resistance had pushed Marcius' attack further to the north. They had temporarily lost contact with Septim's Romans, but now that he looked south Marcius saw that the red-crests were already at the Causeway, digging in to hold as he had ordered them to. Marcius might not trust the immortal Romans but there was no disputing that they had been brutally effective - sending the orcs reeling, and then fleeing in panic as the Roman dead reanimated before their eyes and rejoined the fight. Marcius could not see Septim himself among the red soldiers, but the last time he had seen the legate he had been leading from the front, driving ahead alongside his legion's golden eagle standard.

Marcius paused to accept a skin of water, and looked around at his attendant staff. All of his officers were stained with smoke and sweat, and one or two with blood, but Elisavet stood out as divinely untouched by the rigours of battle. Looking at the demigoddess made him recall what she had told him before the fight. You want to be without doubt? You want to continue to overcome your struggles? Just then, a dwarf in the livery of the Dun Morigan kingsguard came running through the legionaries towards him.

"Dux Marcius!" the messanger addressed him without preamble. "The greyskins have set up some unholy device in the ruins of Vulcan's Anvil. King Jornak is pushing towards it from the west, but he needs your men to flank it from the north."

Marcius looked south again, this time over the Roman soldiers and the granite buildings around them, and saw the faint glow of something orange scattering through the haze. It rose up and up towards the smoke-shrouded roof of the cavern, a fiery pillar of light that was all too familiar.

"An artefact?" one of Marcius' tribunes repeated the messenger. "Is that what caused the flash over Combrogia?"

"Something tells me we'll be seeing more of the earthborn." Marcius growled quietly, before raising his voice to a bark of command. "Vulcan's Anvil lies to the east of the Causeway. If there's a greyskin salient there, we need to remove it and shore up our flank before they counterattack in earnest. This holds true regardless of any sorcery the bastards are working down there. Praefectus Lucullus?"

"Sir?" the legion's craggy-faced third in command answered.

"Take charge of the defences here. First cohort will follow me south along the Causeway to attack Vulcan's Anvil from the north."

"Sir!"

Marcius turned to Elisavet. Whatever magic was creating that light, it seemed foolish not to have the gods' own magic on hand to advise and possibly counter it. "My lady, I would appreciate your presence."

* * * * * *

The streets of Ech Zilidar were not the ideal place for cavalry, but tribune Cassius had made them work for him. The south side of the city had been relatively clear of orcs, and the young tribune had taken advantage to sweep through the merchant district, keeping to the main streets and literally riding over the pockets of orcs in his way with a wall of horses. 4th cohort followed in his wake, clearing the side streets and the buildings of dazed survivors.

Cassius called a halt to the thundering attack when they reached Varon's Causeway, where they were confronted by the blinding pillar of light. Here, the smoke of the burning city was blowing away from them, drawn upwards by the cavern skylights. The mirrors that channelled sunlight down into the dwarven city were choked with soot, but the glow of the light pillar lit up the streets around Cassius like summer lightning. The pillar was the same warm orange as an Eternum sunset, but there was something sinister about it as it reflected off the grey stones of Ech Zilidar. This was hellfire light. The light of the apocalypse.

Orcs filled the plaza inside which Vulcan's Anvil had once stood, and only now did Cassius appreciate the scale of the greyskin army. Cohort after cohort of greyskins were marching up the wide thoroughfare that led from Ech Zilidar's western gate, and they had demolished the buildings to either side to make the road wider still. They filled it, wall to wall, as they advanced into the corona of the orange light. There were orcs, yes - each one nearly as tall as the wiry Combrogi - but now Cassius could see hulking, misshapen creatures three or four times as big, and monstrous arachnids with horse's heads skittering alongside. The combined tread of the army was thunderous. All of them were marching in serried ranks straight into the column of light, briefly silhouetted before vanishing into it, and they weren't reappearing.

"Mars' teeth!" the young tribune swore under his breath.

[CrumpetCannon]

The Afragian Coast

The surface of the water exploded with such immeasurable force that sea spray misted the faces of sailors before they even saw the waves that signalled the Leviathan's approach.

Sickly grey skin rose upwards like a monstrous pillar of decaying marble, the Beast's skin was scarred with hundreds of darker grey craters and scabs, the remnants of old battles decades past, they shared the space with the newer injuries of the current skirmish. Harpoons stuck out at odd angles and bobbed tragically on their axes as the Whale's momentum carried it upwards and away from the water surface, gaping bullet holes dotted the hide like blackheads, leaking unspeakable things and occasionally giving off some sort of smoke.
The Leviathan stood now, as if on it's great tail, which was still underwater, supporting the massive weight somehow. Sailors stood transfixed as they watched this display, exchanging glances without lowering their arms, the Whale remained still for less than a second, and then it twitched it's fins, each wider across than the length of the Aptitude.

Then, ever so slowly, it pitched backwards.

Clemente, driven by duty and honour and other such ultimately hopeless sentiments, sprang forward and cast his harpoon towards the Leviathan's hide as the sailors around him shouted and cried in alarm. The Whale fell terribly slowly.
The lone harpoon whistled towards the bulk, the side hook embedded beside the main barb cutting through the damp air and creating a misty contrail that corkscrewed neatly.
Just a second later the projectile was joined by others as sailors cast their own harpoons towards the Beast, following the example of their Admiral, soon the air was filled with the stench of whale hide and the encroaching mass of hundreds of barbed weapons.
Helicopters joined the fray, swooping dangerously close to the Leviathan to offload their own potent missiles, which interspersed with the flying harpoons and continued towards the hulking creature.

Finally, gunshots cracked and stuttered across the waves as riflemen emptied their barrels and helicopters utilised their massive payloads of high caliber machine gun ammunition. The whir of ammunition signalled the arrival of the harpoons and the missiles at the Leviathan's skin.

Fire erupted across the tattered skin of the forcefully humbled sea-dweller. The Leviathan's doom was spelled out in smoke trails and the sickening miasma of burnt flesh, the stench forced many ocean-hardened sailors to the edges of their respective ships to empty their stomachs in unison.

Next came the screech, it was a sound like no other, the deepest trenches and the lowest caverns beneath the ocean's surface came bellowing forth from the Leviathan's cracked and ruined maw, a long dormant fear of the mysteries of the ocean scrabbled and tore at the minds of all present, and many would later recall the terrible nature of the Creature's last exclamation. They would swear the shrieking, undulating dirge was a cry for help, what manner of immense being the Whale may have been calling upon for desperate aid is a mystery that none have tried to explore.

Nothing could stop the corpse's descent, not even the might of the combined British Royal Navy could hope to cease the last dying act of relentless attack.
What remained of the Leviathan crashed down into the near still surface, exposed bones and flayed chunks of flesh downing entire vessels, crewmen screamed and shouted their lamentations as their ships were torn asunder by the mere falling tissues of the truly monstrous creature, and those outside of the danger zone cried out for their lost comrades, uttering lines of prayer even as modern rescue vessels were deployed to search for any survivors among the damp flotsam and boat sized fillets of dark, effluvial whale meat bobbing sickly along.

Clemente rose on unsteady feet, gripping onto one of the masts for support as his prized ship rocked wildly. The Aptitude had been just outside the area of the Leviathan's final hurrah, and had avoided being crushed underneath it, but it could not escape the force of the waves that sprung up around the Creature's ruined frame as it collided with the surface with all the force of a hurricane. The aptitude had been sent rocketing away, grinding against other ships that had been subjected to the same punishment, and had lost a lot of paint and lacquer to the coarse hulls of other vessels.

A day's worth of repairable scratches. A small price to pay alongside the dozens of lives lost today.

The Admiral wanted nothing more than to retire to his cabin and drown in liquor as an alternative to drowning in the endless abyss in every direction, but he had duties to attend to, rescue operations to oversee, and the mending of frayed morales to see to for a start. For a start.

* * *

<"Admiral. Sir, are you alright?">

Crackling words drifted upwards to Clemente's ears -weary and sore from the Leviathan's death wails- with the kind of urgent laziness only modern, for want of a better word, machinery could pull off.
It was his radio, the only object that he carried on his person at all times that was not from his time period, it allowed for instant communication between officers and was, unfortunately enough, useful.

Technological advances that he had never asked for meant that he need only push one button and reply as if speaking to himself. It would take a while for Clemente to get used to the whole process.

"I'm here Fenchurch, as alright as anyone who almost had a whale dropped on them could be."

There was a silent pause as Fenchurch, almost a mile away in his own quarters, no doubt held the receiver away from his mouth to sigh in some mixture of relief and consternation.
The curious little machine crackled again.

<"And what of those who were unfortunate enough to have experienced the same treatment without the 'almost' part?>

The boat beneath him wobbled erratically and Clemente was forced to sit down upon a plastic panel that passed for a seat. The Admiral had chosen to aid the rescue efforts, and was presently aboard one of the small search and rescue vessels deployed by the larger metal battleships, the kind with orange life-rings and nylon ropes and engines and other such modern equipment that made the Admiral feel thoroughly out of place.

"They're being fished out of the water and given some sort of orange blanket."

<"It's a type of thermal towel, keeps them warm.">

"It looks rather comfy."

<"It's mostly concerned with saving their lives.">

"Naturally."

Clemente hooked the radio to his belt and threw a rope to a floating sailor, it had some sort of curious loop at the end, which the sailor fit himself into, allowing Clemente to safely tow him towards the boat. The whole process looked quite ridiculous. He stooped over the bulbous (inflated?) side of the vessel and hoisted the man upwards, sopping wet and dripping, onto the dark grey plastic of the boat's deck.
After draping one of the thermal blankets over his shoulders, Clemente sat opposite the sailor and started asking him questions that he had memorised by watching the seasoned search and rescue teams around him, they were mostly concerned with whether the rescued person could remember their name, state the country they were in, or whether they could feel their legs. That was an important one.

The questioning did not take long, and so Clemente found himself sitting idly with nothing to do while the crewman piloting the vessel manoeuvred it around a huge piece of stubborn whale blubber towards the next group of floating sailors in need of a blanket. He found himself regarding the sailor he had just rescued closely, taking note of his blue uniform, dark eyebrows and distinct abundance of arms.

"What manner of beast was that, Sir?"

Clemente had seen this man in the midst of the carnage, seen the whale shatter his ship on top of him, seen the wooden stake that was once a mast tear straight through his shoulder before dragging him below the waves to what he probably thought was his grave.

"A Leviathan. Old privateer's legend, a whale the size of an island and a bloodlust to match, horrid creature that struck from below and left no survivors."

The Admiral considered that last claim while gazing at the sailor before him, who had all his limbs intact along with his life.

"It seems you've proven those silly old tales wrong."

The sailor, still wet and visibly confused, reached into his pocket and quite appropriately fished out a crumpled mass of wet paper, judging from the markings along it and the strange grey-brown water that dripped from it, it had once been a packet of cigarettes.
Ever hospitable, the Admiral reached into his own pockets and retrieved a small metal tin and a compact wooden pipe, which he slipped into the sailor's mouth before he could protest.

"Try some of mine, it'll put to shame that dirty hash you and your cigarette sucking fellows call tobacco."

Clemente ignored the sailor's dumbly startled look and dropped some dark brown mound from the tin into the pipe bowl, lighting it with a match procured from a coat pocket.
Afraid of making the wrong move and offending his superior, the sailor sucked numbly on the pipe in his mouth, his shell shocked eyes never leaving Clemente's.

"It's... Good."

"It ought to be, that's fine stuff. You'd be lucky to find it anywhere but a proud little corner shop in Easternmost London."

"What brand is it?"

Clemente frowned.
"It's Benson and Dupont's."

The sailor smiled almost triumphantly around the pipe. He lifted the soggy mass of card.
"We smoke the same brand."

Clemente took the sorry little scrap of mashed card and inspected it closely, and there it was, clear as day, the little red and brown logo that depicted the tobacco brand that he and the sailor both smoked, centuries apart.
He leaned backwards and sighed, dropping the useless thing to the deck, where it squelched rather pathetically.

"Hm, this does make it taste a good deal better... Sir."

"Then why didn't you just smoke from a pipe in the first place?"

"Well, Sir, pipes kind of went out of fashion a couple hundred years ago, in my time at least."

The Admiral snorted, looking out towards his fleet.
"Well, you can keep it. You can bring it back into fashion."

The sailor raised both eyebrows, sitting up a little straighter.
"Are you sure, Sir, won't you miss it when you next need to smo-"
Clemente had reached into his coat once more and brought out a longer, much more professional looking pipe, and had already deposited it between his teeth, filling the bowl with a clump of Benson and Dupont's finest.

"It pays to have a spare." He said around the thing, "I carry at least three."

The sailor shrugged with his eyes, an impressive display, and filled his lungs with the cloying, aromatic smoke.
Both men exhaled, the inky product of their habits carried away in the warm sea mist before either man could see the intricate shapes the other had made.

* * *

It had been several hours since the Leviathan attack, and all the shipwrecked seamen had been rescued and put aboard other ships to rest or make themselves useful if they so desired. The battle was own and there had been no casualties, technically.

Clemente stood once again on the deck of the HMS Aptitude, this time at the wheel, which thanks to a gentle coastal current and the calm buffeting of the wind he rarely had to turn, it was a therapeutic duty, often dull, but distinctly pleasurable, and the Admiral, who aboard his ship carried the title Captain, used it as a window for rest and contemplation.

The whale had been monstrous, a creature of myth and old sailors' tales that Clemente himself had never actually believed in, brought to life by the suspicious and supernatural workings of this planet. That last word spat out from Clemente's mind like the name of a hated enemy.

As for how he had fished that clearly living sailor out of the water after seeing him die in the line of duty... Whatever dark presence brought them back to life on this accursed planet clearly wanted them to stay that way, for the time being at least.

What kind of twisted afterlife is this?

The cry of land came down from the Aptitude's crow nest, the Admiral and his ship had been leading the massive fleet, sailing a ways ahead towards land, it was no surprise that his crew would spot port first.

Clemente turned the wheel ever so gently, angling the ship into a gentle current towards land, which came into view minutes later as a wavy line on the immediate horizon, the heat radiating off the Afragian sands like the waves of the sea. The last few hours of travel in the Afragian waters had been palpably hot, and now it was only going to get hotter.

The crew cheered and upped the pace of their work, eager for landfall and the fresh water that awaited them at Sharktooth Bay. Clemente reached for his radio, letting Fenchurch know of the encroaching land.

"Get everyone ready for arrival, Fenchurch. Sharktooth Bay is in sight and becoming clearer by the minute."

<"Understood, I'll radio the base and let them know of our approach.">

Mere minutes later, they were close enough to make out the makeshift port that stood upon Sharktooth Bay, and could even spot tiny figures moving about amongst the wooden walls and towers there, making preparations for the fleet's arrival.

As the ships came into view on the horizon, a bell sounded out all around the encampment. Men came out from all of the buildings and flooded the area, looking upon the fleet as it returned - albeit missing ships. The HMS Aptitude lead them into port and as the ship docked itself ever so slowly, men flooded around the hull, unloading items and people from it's stocks. As the Captain of the ship came in sight a rugged man lumbered towards him before standing rigid and flicking his hand up to his forehead as a sign of respect. He dropped it startlingly fast.

"Sir, some of our redcoat boys found some natives on our journey - we thought perhaps they could give us a bit of you know...information on where we are." The man smiled, his brow and chest - which was uncovered in the heat - were laden with beads of sweat. "I figured you'd like to talk to them."

Clemente pondered this information, he had long since put away his pipe, and the sweet smell of dry land and all it's trappings had cleared his sinuses of the effulgent odour of the sea somewhat. He loved the open ocean dearly, but he cherished any return to solid ground, and besides, this wasn't the ocean he was comfortable with.

"Natives? Interesting. Yes, I would very much like to see them, if you could lead me to where they are being kept."

The Admiral fell in beside the man in his rugged garments and started walking, reading the man's gaze and slight movements to know where to go next. The ground -or rather sand beneath him was coarse and sunk down slightly with each step, it wasn't entirely dry land, but it would do for now. He found himself wondering just what natives of this place might look like, the land and sea shared characteristics with the Africa that he had spent some time sailing within during his youth, but was distinctly different in its own way.
Communicating with them would be different, he thought at first when considering them as foreign peoples, but then he had remembered the man's wording.

"I figured you'd like to talk to them."

I don't speak African, and I'd assume any Englishman here would know that much about me, these 'natives' must speak The Queen's English, or as close to the language as could be expected in this alien land.

Men hurried by them, going to and fro in their various duties. The camp was alive with activity, everyone doing their part without faltering despite the seemingly hopeless and never before documented situation; you could always trust the Britons to make the best of a bad situation, and being stranded in as strange a place as this was as bad as it got.

"A strange lot, were they, these natives?"

"Right weird lot." The rough man smiled, his London accent shining through the gaps in his teeth. "One of them was dressed in armour and everything - looked like he'd just come out of Rome, but he was clad in all blue. Another one of them had these weird horns in her head, she was creepy as my second ex wife was, probably more." The sand stroked at both of the figure's feet as they continued to wade through the shifting sands towards the dingy prison cells that lay at the very pits of Sharktooth Bay.

"Another one them had some weird feel about him, I can't really describe it. And another...well he just felt odd; kept hold of this weird scythe as well. Threw him in another cell so he didn't decide to go beserk and kill the others, you know?" The man puffed up his chest in front of the Captain, hoping he'd be impressed with his quick thinking in the situation.

The Admiral nodded absentmindedly as the man talked, his eyes fixed on the nearby cells where the natives no doubt lay.

"A man dressed in blue Roman armour? Horns? My word, man, it sounds like these people are no more natives to this land than we are."

This was strange, stranger than it had appeared at first glance, no, this was peculiar. He just barely caught what the man said about the next few figures, and that made his eyebrow rise further.

"He had a scythe and looked funny, so you threw him in a separate cell? Well, I commend your actions, sailor, but you make it sound as if you put him in the cell without taking the scythe away." Clemente threw his head back and laughed heartily, it went on for a second or two and then died very suddenly in his throat. "... You took the scythe off of him, yes?"

The man stood, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. "Uh..." He stammered as he looked hard at the ground. "Shit." The rugged man smashed open the door to the dirty and foul stockades, pointing his gun around the room as he looked upon the prisoners.

Sometimes stupidity among sailors was inevitable, and really, even officers had occasional days ridden with slip-ups and mistakes, it was all part of the job, but Clemente had never experienced such outright incompetence before.
And now the sailor had burst through the door and aimed his weapon about as if something had gone terribly wrong, now, something had indeed gone terribly wrong, but thanks to the man's brazen entry and complete lack of tact, the armed natives now knew that something had gone terribly wrong.

So they forgot to confiscate a weapon and that's awful, but if I'd walked in calmly and this fool had remained outside, we could make it look like we aren't currently sweating out of anxiety and terror, just heat.

The Admiral could have easily diffused the situation, made it seem like it was no big deal that one of them still had a deadly weapon, then it may look like he didn't care at all about the scythe and was clearly far too powerful to be worrying about sharp things being in the same room as him. But now the prisoners knew that the Navy knew that they had a weapon, and they knew that that was a massive mistake and that the red-coated people holding them weren't in any way competent or powerful.

This is just awful.

Clemente, faced with no other alternative, stepped into the dimly lit and dimly decorated and altogether dim shack, keeping a hand on his own pistol and hoping they prisoners wouldn't realise that both weapons were single shot firearms and that they therefore technically outnumbered their jailers.

"If you can hear me it means you're alive, and if you can understand me it means you speak English, and if you are alive and can speak English then there are no excuses for not hearing me say 'if you don't move a muscle you won't get shot'. I hope you speak English."

Just as the woefully inept sailor had said, there was an honest to God Roman, fully armoured and everything, with blue garments in place of red ones, not that such things mattered right now. There was the horned woman, who seemed distinctly small and out of place next to the legionnaire, building some sort of sandcastle. There were two other men, one of whom looked particularly shady and grasped a scythe just as the sailor had said, he sat in his own little barred alcove, which apparently qualified as a 'separate cell'.

"If by some stroke of luck or blind fortune one of you does speak English, or at least French, I want you to tell me where we are and what we are doing here, then you can tell me what you are doing here."

If he pulled this off, it may just save their illusion of being the slightest bit in control of the situation.