Page 1 of 5 123 ... LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 42

Thread: [M/R] Eternum: Rise of Kronos

  1. #1
    The Big Meme
    Death of Korzan's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2011
    Location
    Bedford, Bedfordshire (Uni) / Wickford, Essex
    Favourite Roleplay Genres
    Fantasy; Science Fiction; Superheroes; Coming-of-Age; Supernatural Drama.
    Age
    27
    Posts
    5,060
    Mentioned
    57 Post(s)
    Rep Power
    216

    Default [M/R] Eternum: Rise of Kronos

    The Southern Wastes

    Snow fell delicately through the air, flickering and falling gently, landing upon the ground to join the rest of its brethren who were slowly freezing and forming an almost singular shape and formation. Tree stumps freshly felled stood as a testament to the ingenuity of sapient life against the barbarism of nature. The Winter Gods were silent - their breeze being little more than a stifled cry against the shifting powers of their continent. The air shook and wept with the cries of hundreds of thousands - there was no room for the breeze to manoeuvre, therefore it became obsolete, and non-existent.

    The ground shuddered as the mass of the Dark Elf army thudded against the ground, the force making up the largest military contingent that Eternum had ever seen. The delicate snow was pounded into submission by the trampling feet of Trolls and Giants - the trolls standing at at least 20 feet tall and at most 70 feet, with the giants pushing 30 feet within their largest ranks - shoving the huge Orc Siege-works forwards – the machinations shaped like gigantic crude metal Crossbows, each with a spindle fixed to its backside covered in one long, spiralling barbed chain connected to a loaded harpoon-like bolt which was alone at least 25 feet long and tipped with a menacing point - through the icy wasteland that covered almost all of the huge Southern Super-Continent. Alongside the huge siege weaponry marched the rows and lines of the Orc packs, each wearing crude yet efficient Orcish armour, every rank stinking like burnt hair and filth. Some of the Orc commanders – riding ahead upon steeds formed of pure blackness, floating formlessly as if forged of gas – held pale, Southern men and women upon barbed chain leads, dragging the slaves along as their monstrous mounts breathed unnaturally into the quiet winds. Between gaps in the Orc lines walked large Anequines, with 8 sharp legs pounding against the soft snow as they were herded alongside the orc lines, venom dripping from the Horse-like spider beasts. The creatures screamed out, joining the cacophony that already came from the terribly massive force.

    Alongside the Orcs walked Beowulf’s men, trudging through the snow – the weather of the Southern Continent being familiar, if not slightly colder than to what they were used to on Earth. Their leader walked among his troops unlike the Orcish Warchief – who had opted to take a place alongside the Dark Elf King and the commander of the unified army – and shouted out marching commands to his men and women, who spent most of their time avoiding the hungry gazes of the filthy humanoids that lined their ranks. The Germanic troops were in fewer number and stock than the Orcs – though their blades were sharper, and their ability in combat possibly greater or at least far more organised. Each pale-skinned member of Beowulf’s army didn’t blink as they watched the rest of the army march alongside them, their eyes flooded with Set’s all-consuming darkness – the black fog swirling and shifting, signifying the Demon Lord’s power over the Mortals of Earth. The Orc’s eyes were devoid of the shimmering darkness – though their ranks didn’t need to be controlled by the King of Darkness.

    Behind the Germanic forces and the Orc forces walked the Dark Elves – graceful and brutal in nature, with blades that could cut through the greatest armour. The Elves of Svartalfheimr were elegant in comparison to the Germanic people, and were glorious when placed next to the grotesque Orcs - their armour shimmering with the colour of the Arks, black with golden webbed veins of liquid metal, constantly shimmering and shifting from within the confines of the Dark-Elven craftsmanship. Each Elf looked relatively similar, with crisp white hair - capable of hiding itself within the ever-growing expanse of Southern snow - adorning itself upon the heads of each soldier, their faces being chiselled and unnaturally perfect, with large 8 inch ears flicking outwards and upwards before ending with a neat point.

    Ahead of the huge Dark Elf lines walked Chaaru, the robbed blade Hate - now devoid of the demonic possession that once filled it during its time within the hands of another warrior - sat at his waist, the mad Elven Warrior of Old Eden once more joined with his people and their ideals - forced by the hand of Set, being the only Dark Elf with the swirling blackness of Set's control. Armour covered his arms, legs and lower torso, though his chest was exposed, revealing the Mark left upon him during his fateful encounter with Hothian, darkness seeping from the mark through the Cannibal's veins, poisoning him with Set's will to dominate and to darken all things.

    The sun was shrouded from view over the Army as they marched, blocking out Ra's all seeing eyes through the sorcery of the Elven King, Dozral. In the centre of the Dark-Elves - as they marched across the soft, vapid snow - stood a large sloping stone formation, standing around 30 feet above the moving Dark Elves and formed almost entirely of Rock and ice - though compact snow from years before managed to find itself within the mix, dredged up from the recesses of the flat snowfield by whatever had forged the formation. The King stood at the peak of the rocks and ice-boulders, watching over the army moving towards their final destination. Dozral looked up into the sky and smirked at the large orange streak of light shining through the softly falling snow like a beacon, the Ark still glimmering. Overhead came the sound of a deep resonating rumble as the Earthborn Genetic ship - its crew having since been 'swayed' to the King's understanding and beliefs - flew past, its steel exterior reflecting what little light had managed to breach the smog that Dozral had formed.

    Alongside the Dark-Elf ruler walked the leader of the Orc packs - their leader, responsible for keeping the army and Siege-Works functional -, cresting at the top of the formation beside Dozral. Lifting up a large bone horn to his lips, the Orc-Lord Kromar blew into it - scraps of meat still hanging off of the disgusting instrument as its barbaric chorus echoed across the army, being heard across the land - reaching Branjaskr despite its distance away. Across within the Orc ranks a small contingent of Drummer Trolls began to pound their fists against crude Orcish leather drums - formed from the skin of those who died defending Dun Moriga, Dwarves and Men alike - joining the monstrous sound of the horn. The Orcs began to chant loudly, their guttural language being carried towards the city of the Southerners as they pounded their fists against their chests; spears and feet stomped against the ground caused the Earth to shake further, becoming one with the mess of noise that was now including the roaring and bellowing of the Drummer trolls. The intimidating war-chants and Orcish drumming stretched across the land, reaching small towns that hadn't yet evacuated to Branjaskr and to the Capital and seat of Southern power itself. The Northern invasion force felt the air around them shift and reverb with the distant yet clear sounds of the army, making faces flush and blood feel thick.

    Turning to the Orc-Lord, the King frowned slightly. "Bring me the Stone of Kurosavi." Kromar smiled, revealing his gapped mouth, missing multiple teeth and almost half of his bottom lip. "A Conqueror needs a steed - bring me it so I may forge my Royal Beast." The Orc bowed and marched down the formation, shoving past the Dark-Elves who got in his way as he disappeared into the ranks.

    Dozral grinned before lifting his sword and crying out, the smog above the army growing darker as his forces joined him in the action – lifting their blades in nigh on worship of the son of Set, their King, as they marched towards what was to be the beginning of the end, and the end of all things.

    The Valley of the Sun, Afragia

    The sun glowered down upon the sand, blowing around with the wind against the two rocky walls that adorned the entrance to the valley. The pathway into the holy place sloped downwards, two thick walls of rock gaining height as the walkway dropped lower and lower from the surface and further into the valley. The blue sky rolled overhead, silent and kind - there was no thunder to crack the sky with its noise and fury and there was no torrent of buffeting winds to form dust devils to scourge the area of vegetation and life.

    All was peaceful.

    Above one of the high rock walls, close to the entrance of The Valley of the Sun leaned a robed figure, looking over the edge of the cliffside towards five figures - all of different size and stature - that walked down the path and ever deeper into the quiet solitude of the valley. Running its nails harshly along the rock - the long, sharp edges scratching up dust and dirt - the figure quickly stood up, ignorant of the slightly falling debris as it trickled down the wall and landed on the floor with a slight yet noticeable crack - the sandstone chunk breaking upon its landing.

    Walking across the top of the rock-wall - the surface coated in a thick layer of the Afragian sand - the figure stepped into a pockmark that lay upon the rock, dug in like a small circular trench. Lifting up a small walking stick - gnarled and ancient, windswept until it held the colour of bone - the figure smashed in upon the ground of the pockmark, he loud resonating noise tolling like a bell as it struck the rock. With a grinding, grating noise the stone seemed to shift and change, forming into a stairwell leading directly into the rocks.

    Turning back one last time, the figure pulled its robes closer as they billowed in the wind before walking down the steps and into the darkness.
    Last edited by Kicks; 05-12-2016 at 05:42 AM.

  2. #2
    PREACH FORGIVE ME PLEASE I BEG OF YOU!
    Minkasha's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Location
    In a world I struggle to understand.
    Age
    31
    Posts
    11,885
    Mentioned
    46 Post(s)
    Rep Power
    316

    Default

    Branjaskr, The Free South


    Flickering between two places, two periods of time, two women.

    Never trust the Gods. Never trust Demons…

    The ebony Demoness rode above him, dulled through expansive miles and glass the purple light gleamed off her sweaty figure. Hands flowed down the sharp dip of the waist.

    His hands had shook, the paper crackling in his grasp, disbelief in her death.

    ‘…Never hold either to your heart or your spirit, my son. The Gods will ignore and the Demons will destroy…

    The Southern leader felt the rapid waves of force, a succession of up and down. Lust seeped from her staring eyes. There was the boy who desired his mother, the man who desired this woman.

    Kalle was held hostage between the past and the present. How had he seen her, bloody and sprawled over the vanity. The image did not go away, the cocking pleasure at his hips.

    …There is only one thing that deserves devotion…

    Black haired Southerner held his gaze at the moving soft figured stomach. The dead gaze of his mother looking back from inside himself.

    …Family. Family are you Gods. You must worship them, protect them because I damned them. I can never achieve forgiveness. I have ruined them…

    A bloomed frustration, the petals taking shape in Kalle’s tears slipping down his bloodied cheeks. The wounds clawed down his chest, the tight, wet heat gripping him wholly.

    He wished he could have been held in her arms one last time.

    …You make me so proud, you can choose a different path than I have…

    The Demoness moaned, leaning forward and pressing her hands into the marred flesh of his torso. The open cuts decorated her dark skinned fingers. Red paint to reflect flame of the fireplace and the haunting, inescapable purple shining in the north.

    His mother and father both taken by slashes across the neck.

    …Keep the demon woman away…

    Kalle had no firm hold in his mind, his hands betraying him. Cradling the hips, guiding them upon him again and again. Hot breath, half naked and the castle’s cold being warded by the aura of him and her. A Jarl who was lost between two women, one in his mind, one in his tingling eyes.

    …She is your servant, but she will ruin you. Keep away from her. Family, remember them, fight for them…

    A rushing beating chest, rolling over her, he dominated. A replay of the stone wall now on the fur of the skinned bear. Slammed into her was his rage, his guilt, his shame, and his mourning. He was harsh, his hands were holding her down. The Odinsen dabbled in desire, and its inverse, yet they took him to the same path. Inside her he struck, inside her came all his ever piling struggles and worries.

    The empowering euphoria forced his mother’s words to hush and for Zahneri’s befalling stare to feel elsewhere. The Demonic biology pounded inside of him, reveling in his pleasure. ‘I shouldn’t have’. The Demoness unsheathed what had wanted to remain.

    Kalle Odinsen, the Jarl, pulled from Zahneri, holding himself the at end of his bed. ‘I shouldn’t have'.

    A pause existed, growing between them. He was huddled away and she used her bloody fingers to scoop out the Jarl’s internal struggles manifested as white mucus for her to savor. It was a salty, energizing, aphrodisiac that only pulled on her Demonic nature. Webbed between finger tips and falling from digit by digit, gravity’s influence on the clear coated substance. Her piercing eyes watched, a prey trying to escape before being taken in and suckled down.

    The horned woman’s soft moans had the leader of the Southern people shake. Tearfully he searched the floor for his pride, the circlet laying aside and behind Zahneri’s sitting body. Their eyes held contact, her having been able to captivate them to look even as they did not wish to. He felt fetal and weak, the eternal winter’s cold creeping through the fading increased body heat. His clothes had been ripped apart, the remains could not keep him comfortable or sheltered from her sight.

    “You are the Jarl, act like it” Zahneri killed the silence, standing. Kalle scrambled on hands and knees for the circlet. It was unscathed, pure. Dried blood on his lips cracked apart with their pursing. From the bed the Succubus watched the Jarl redress himself, the old bits thrown on the floor. A leg slowly crossed and dipped over the other, hoof to rock. The weepy man would not accept his weakness nor his true heritage. She would have to break him again.

    Kalle left his room with a harsh pull upon the well-crafted handle, bundled in new furs and wiping the caked on blood from his face, leaving only the small gash at his lips. Stomping through his castle, his mind shifted from pleasure, to emptiness, to being dropped back into duties he must uphold. No guard kept post, his steps echoed through the lonely floors. His people were worn, could he continue trying to recreate the plans? Another woman to come into his mind, but this one he did not let take grip of his thoughts. Her white haired, amethyst eyed beauty, a fleeting thought.

    Showing himself out of the arched, double wooden doors of the castle’s entrance, he returned to the eternal winter. The cold stung at his lips’ wound, and the moonlight shot off from the snow to make Brajaskr lighter than it should have been. His ending tears crystalized while he roamed. In the castle’s gates he walked slowly, stomping down on snow amassed higher than mid-calf. Few were tending to the snow’s mass, only rising inch by inch. The people’s hands could only achieve so much. The wintery crunching sounds a humbling reminder for the new leader.

    Sheltered by cross sections of wood, walled by ashlar stone and tended to by a stableman were the reindeers. The Jarl walked under the coach gate entrance of the stable, traveling down the wide barrel vaulted, well-traveled hallway. The smell of manure and foliage entered with the ice cold air in his nostrils, scents he had known since a child.

    The Jarl did not manage to speak, he kept his distance, and let the weary Southerner sleeping on the ground simply be. The hooves of his mount clanked and he rushed to the castle gate’s doors. A tug on the reins halted his travel beast and he stared. The Jarl already burdened by the stinging cuts that ran down the front and back of his torso. Charging, he shot through the warded doors to spasm in pain that gave remembrance to what blood ran through him. The fire made him break out into a sweat that stung his new wounds.

    Allowed to sit in his thoughts and his pain, the reindeer trotted slowly through Branjaskr. It was eerily empty, not a single soul to crowed the rows between longhouses. Wall mounted torches burned out hours ago, a darkened capital. Everyone was inside, sore, broken, used. As the Jarl, Kalle had to be aware of this. Know the sacrifices his people were enduring. They were honorable, their actions reflected so much of what he admired.

    The hooves of the mount clanked up the stonework steps lining Branjaskr’s main gate. Atop he looked out, the layers of snow coming down upon layers, burying everything, blanketing the trees. Kalle lost himself into that nighttime intimacy between him and nature. To scan over the details of winter scenery gave his mind a distancing peace from the thoughts and sensations he did not wish to relive.

    But from the distance came a jarring and terror ridden noise, a disturbance to the peaceful image his ice blue gaze could see. His ears picked up the heaving trumpeting roar of a violent demise. It was crude, and vile, sending his reindeer into a tensing panic. The sinking feeling struck his gut, but he narrowed his eyes. The sound pushed past him, going into the dead asleep capital. It did not matter if unconscious ear caught the message or not, for Kalle understood very clearly.

    He prayed to Odin, against the judgments of his mother. The Jarl of the Free South was only a man facing a seemingly unstoppable force. He prayed to Odin for the sake of his people.

    They were coming.

    **

    She often joked that the Southern snow and ice were a part of their blood but tonight was particularly too cold. A cold that took into the skin, the muscle and deep into the bones. The cold wanted the body to surrender. Swirling through everything, this bitter cold swept everyone, testing their wills. Kia’s body ached.

    This cold was exhaustion. Bundled under furs and quilts and hearing the cackles of large flame telling her to return back to slumber. It was the lullaby she had heard since she was a little girl, the burning of wood, but it wasn’t alone. Her being sought for the same, yet the mind continued to spin. The Landswoman, the leader of the Southern forces had the responsibility of tactically using every fighter to the best of their ability for the greatest fight since their liberation. Maybe it was a fight even greater if the beast mistress dared to think so.

    Shuffling to roll away, it stirred two of her companions. One on the wooden headboard adorned in white feathers lightly decorated in dipped dark tips fluttered his wings and bobbed his nodule head in the sudden awakening. Per, the winter owl clutched its talons to the wood, triangular patterned holes set in across the rim of the headboard, the marks of passing years. The other, a woman with brown locks at length just past her ears, and the classic Southern blue eyes honed in with tenderness. Her left hand’s ring finger was banded by a ring of silver, the heat of skin and the cold of metal sliding down Kia’s nude upper arm.

    “Liv, go back to sleep” the Landswoman spoke up, the others sleeping in their own beds within the longhouse far too gone, taken by the deep cold. Liv knew too what was on her mind. It must have been obvious, the same thoughts from the night before, and the night before, etcetera.

    “Leave those thoughts for the morning” The woman’s voice whispered through Kia’s blonde locks that spilled across fur layers. Kia would not speak, the distance growing between her and her wife was palpable now. The stress, the challenge of having to be Branjaskur’s defender eating away the woman she fell in love with. “You have to” 'If only for the sake of us' Liv’s mind swirling with unease.

    Kia stared at the stone walls, a question of their security. How strong could the foundations hold? The rapid flapping of Per’s wings as zipping jagged shadows caught her eye. One of her wolves curled at the bed’s sighed in its sleep, a huff of air.

    “I do not think I can” Their Southern Queen had turned blade on herself. Was it only death and disaster that she saw? What was it that she had seen the marching catalyst of things worse than punishment in the underworld?

    Something penetrated the foundations of their longhouse, a sound. It was a whisper compared to the burning comforts and snoring companionship. A whisper of brutality, a horn Kia came to realize. The hand that had been stroking her skin held tight, the flesh turning clammy with the passing seconds of the whispery battle cry. The wolves growled, low and the winter owl hooted, nature understood.

    “I do not think I can”
    Thank you MayhemsCurse <3


    Spoiler: Memorable Quotes 

  3. #3
    Member
    Aureyon's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    North Carolina
    Favourite Roleplay Genres
    Mature and Fantasy.
    Age
    29
    Posts
    4,067
    Mentioned
    0 Post(s)
    Rep Power
    421

    Default

    Tu Zenita Duskal

    “I don’t give a damn about those imperial bastards. They can send what they will against me, but I will destroy their grasp in the East!” the sound of splintered wood echoed through the silence, followed by a clinking of iron, almost resembling the strike of a hammer on an anvil as the King of the Eastern Empire (as he liked to call it) shifted his position to one of defiance and anger.

    “Those damned southerners had it right from the beginning, they fought for their freedom and won it. It took a long time, but it happened, and they have gotten along well without the influence of those imperial dogs!” his words were as sharp as a newly forged blade, and as hot as fresh magma.

    “My King, we cannot hope to stand against them. The Nords knew their terrain, and the North underestimated them. They will not repeat their mistakes as they did in the South.” An unnamed dwarven council member spoke in opposition to his kings words.

    “That is where you are wrong Dane,” anger-filled eyes turned towards the dwarf who had just spoken, “They will make the same mistake with us. It has always been this way, throughout all of history. A greater power will always underestimate the lesser power, and that is why they will fall. It may not be today, or in a thousand years, but their way of life will fall – collapse in on itself as though it were a structurally fragile mine, effortlessly and cataclysmically.”

    The dwarf, Dane, would only stare at his king with no emotion gracing his features, eyes as blank as stone and face as plain as a statue.

    “This meeting is over,” Jornak stated as he stood and left the room, no doubt his ‘advisors’ would stay and talk amongst themselves of his arrogance, and his pride – how he will be the downfall of his culture and people. But, they did not understand, they couldn’t. They were still in shock and denial over the loss of their civilization, the collapse of all that they knew, and their exodus to Afragia.

    So enveloped in his thoughts as he was, that Jornak that he failed to notice the figures in the shadows, watching him with guarded expressions, and a silent aura of danger around them, “King Iron-beard, you must be more aware of your surroundings.”, the figure of a cartel commander stepped out of the shadows and into the light, where he could be seen by the only other person in the room – his employer.

    Eyes narrowed in cautiousness as he paused in his steps and turned towards the voice that had spoken to him, “Perhaps I should, but if it happens to be my time to die, I will not do so without a fight that will be told in the annals of history for thousands of years.”

    “As you say.” The dwarf responded with a tone that reflected the look of irritation on his face. “I have been instructed to inform you that we will need a written letter detailing our immunity to your law as you had previously agreed upon in your initial meeting with my leader.”

    “Yes, yes. You will have your damned letter in due time, I have other matters to attend to now, so it will have to wait until a later time.” He replied as equally irritated as the other shadowed dwarf.

    “Very well, I will relay your words to my leader. Do not betray us Iron-beard, you may not like what follows,” this last sentence was left with a hidden threat and promise, as he the cartel dwarf faded into the shadows and seemingly disappeared.

    “Gods be damned.” He muttered as he continued on his way through the halls of the palace, headed towards the throne room to continue his duties, “What have I gotten myself into?”
    Set by Naraness
    Spoiler: Extra Information 

  4. #4
    The Replicant
    Azazeal849's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2011
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    7,608
    Mentioned
    84 Post(s)
    Rep Power
    470

    Default

    EMOR, THE IMPERIAL CAPITAL

    The sun was rising red and portentous, but the late autumn warmth did not penetrate down into the mausoleum that stood just off the highway leading out from Emor's western gate. A thin beam of sunlight shafted down from the open door, casting the long shadow of the guard standing outside across the marble steps, and providing just enough illumination to navigate the narrow corridor beyond. A man stood alone in the corridor, not tall but solidly built, accentuated by the segmented lorica that encircled his chest and curved in overlapping plates over his shoulders. The man's shoulders were broad but slightly slumped, as if they had grown used to bearing a heavy weight. A mess of striated burn scars on his chest were just visible, creeping up above the silk scarf which padded his neck against the chafing of his armour. The man's face was bowed - early middle aged but weatherbeaten and prematurely lined, and now streaked with tears.

    Decius Marcius raised his right hand, the fingers slightly stiff and awkward as he brushed them across the funeral urns that had been enshrined in the newest alcoves. Marble plaques, still sharp and unblemished, were fixed to the wall beneath the urns. One was a short eulogy outlining the achievements of a brave, shrewd and passionate woman. The other three were little more than names, only emphasising the fact of how long before their time they had been taken. Marcius had been leading his army on the other side of the empire when his family had been murdered, and he had been marching on Dun Moriga when they had been buried. Only now, when there was nothing left to address but cold ash, could he finally mourn them.

    The murderers had never been caught, denying Marcius justice, but he no longer had the luxury of pursuing personal vengeance. Recent events had seen to that. The Venusian messenger Elisavet had been right, as she had about so many other things, that he had a more important duty. Marcius dropped his hand to the hilt of the golden Tooth of Mars that hung at his waist. Watch over me, Lycinia. I will make you and the children proud. I will make the gods proud.

    Marcius opened his eyes at last, and his tired, grieving visage became one of power - hard dark eyes and a hooked aquiline nose above a mouth that was drawn down and set to purpose.

    Marcius had deliberately chosen to make his loss public to his troops immediately before announcing his intentions for the future of Emor. That way, the men would see that the loss had not affected him, rather than having that same loss detract from his perceived fitness to rule. Playing politics with his family's death felt wrong in the extreme, but Marcius did not have the luxury of confiding that truth. Elisavet he could have articulated his true thoughts to - but Elisavet was no longer here. The champion of Venus had her own demons to fight; alone, even though Marcius would have wanted it otherwise.

    Shrugging back his indigo cloak, Marcius straightened his shoulders and stepped back out into the sunlight. The high clouds that lay in lines above the eastern horizon were stained bloody by the rising sun. Marcius surveyed the ranks of men standing to attention along the highroad in front of him, as his silent bodyguard Varrius peeled away from the mausoleum doorway to follow him. Picking out the stony-faced prefect Lucullus at the front of the ranked legionaries, Marcius fixed his third in command with an intense stare.

    "Bring the emperor."

    * * * * * *

    "Twelve hells!" Marcius heard one of the horsemen murmur as they rode out to approach him. "That's Marcius with them!"

    They might well stare, Marcius thought. He had never thought to be looking up at his beloved home city as he was now - at the head of an army that included three legions, Crocolykes and immortal Greek earthborn; while ahead of him the city stood poised as if for a siege, blue-clad soldiers watching uncertainly from the walls with their bows at half draw. At the front of the party cantering into the space between the city and the waiting allied army, Marcius recognised legatus Commodus of the 1st legion. Among his bodyguards and staff officers was a praetorian commander, distinct in his sun-patterned breastplate and plumed helmet. The praetorian's expression was venomous, though Commodus seemed more appalled than anything else as he reined his horse to a stop. The commander of the Imperator legion sat with brows knitted and mouth slightly open as he looked from commanders Sertorius and Agrippa riding behind Marcius, to the Greek leader Hercules in his threatening T-visored helmet, to the orange-skinned Zhnegra who stood almost as tall as the horses, and finally back to Marcius himself.

    "Marcius..." the 1st legion legatus began. His gaze lingered on the hammer-and-sun medallion still hanging round Marcius' neck; his symbol of the emperor's authority in the eastern provinces. "Marcius...in the gods' name, what the fuck are you doing?"

    "I'm preventing a civil war." Marcius answered. Without flinching, he wrapped his clumsy right hand around the sword of Mars and dragged it out into the sunlight for all to see. The golden sword caught the morning light, colours sliding like oil across its wide blade. "By the personal and divine authority of Mars, I am declaring myself dictator of the Namorian imperium. In this capacity, I am ordering the 1st legion to return to their barracks and allow me access to the capital."

    "Dictator?" the praetorian commander all but spat. "Emor has an emperor, and it's not you!"

    Marcius surreptitiously bit his tongue, and calmly motioned with his free hand. Ovidius, his family's grim-faced spy, led a white horse forward from the lines of soldiers. Sitting uneasily atop it was an old, obese man in a soiled toga, already streaked with sweat in the morning heat. The man's fat hands were tied to the saddle in front of him. Marcius would have spared him the humiliation, but unbound the former emperor had tried to claw out the eyes of anyone who came near him. Galen Claudius' eyes were sullen, murderous.

    "Galen Hippocrates Claudius is no longer of sound mind." Marcius went on in a stentorian voice. "As such, he will be returned to his palace, where he will remain under house arrest. The senate will be reinstated, and all decrees of treachery against the 2nd and 3rd legions will be rescinded."

    "Praetorian!" the emperor interrupted suddenly, spit flying from his snarling lips. "Kill these traitors! All of them! Right now!"

    Nobody moved - not even the praetorian, although his furious gaze flicked resentfully between the emperor and Marcius. Ovidius gave the rope that bound the emperor's hands a warning jerk.

    "I don't want to fight you, Commodus." Marcius told the commander of the 1st legion. The dux's face was solemn. "Too much Namorian blood has been spilled already. Help me put the empire back together before we lose any more."

    The retinue of Emorian ambassadors looked to Commodus. Commodus looked to the emperor, sweating and quaking with rage, and then to Marcius, still as a statue with his aquiline gaze focused back at him. Marcius had dropped his arm back to his side, but the Sword of Mars still glittered in his scarred hand.

    Very slowly, Commodus brought his right arm up to his left shoulder, and then extended his palm towards Marcius.

    "Ave imperator."

    * * * * * *

    THE VALLEY OF THE SUN, AFRAGIA

    The figure quickly stood up, ignorant of the slightly falling debris as it trickled down the wall and landed on the floor of the gorge with a slight yet noticeable crack.

    The closest of the five figures turned towards the noise, violently. The cloak that kept the sun off his silvered scale armour billowed around his shoulders as he spun round. He turned a square, pugnacious face down towards the chips of sandstone, which had broken upon landing, and then up the sheer side of the gorge. The man cuffed away his dark hair and shaded his eyes as he squinted upwards, trying to pick out the top of the cliff against the high sun. His other hand rested on the hilt of a long cavalry spatha.

    "What's the matter, Salvius?" asked one of his companions - a petite woman in loose travelling clothes. Sandy-skinned where the man was olive, and soft-featured where he was battered by sun and long-healed wounds, she halted the horse she had been leading and stroked the beast's nose as it whickered in agitation.

    "Either I'm jumping at shadows." replied centurion Varro Salvius, "Or someone's up there watching us." He reached into the horse's saddlebag and pulled out a Namorian galea helm with a wide neck guard and hinged cheek-pieces. He had disconnected the crest attachment and its transverse plume of indigo-dyed horsehair, but his rank was still evident in the quality of his armour, greaves and weapons.

    The woman nodded, and her doe eyes instantly hardened into a wary, steely gaze as she followed Salvius' lead in scanning the tops of the gorge for threats.

    A second young woman, dark-skinned with long wavy hair, stepped forward to join them, and the first woman glanced back at her.

    "Suriyana, can you see anything?"

    Before the young woman could respond, something small and birdlike flitted up from its perch on her bare shoulder and zoomed away towards the top of the cliff. In a blur of red and blue, the little bird familiar zipped in tight circles around the ground where the cloaked figure had stood, but the stairway it had opened had already disappeared. The familiar blinked its beady eyes, chirruped in consternation, and dived back into the ravine to where the three travellers were waiting.

    "Did he see anything?" Salvius asked.

    "I'm not sure." Suriyana said, frowning as the familiar continued to flit back and forth.

    The sandy-skinned woman ducked behind the horse, and there was a harsh cry as she re-emerged with a gold-plumed desert eagle on her arm.

    "Watch over us." she whispered to the bird of prey, kissing it lightly on the head before loosing it to swoop down the narrow gorge. The eagle fanned its wings, caught the updraft being channelled down the gorge by the sandstone walls, and soared upwards to take up a hovering overwatch above the group.

    "We're still too vulnerable in this gorge." Salvius growled. "Gabriel! Numiera!"

    That last was to the final two members of their group - a tall man in ragged robes, whose face was hidden behind a cracked porcelain mask, and a skinny girl with unkempt black hair. She could only have passed as human at a careless glance; two blood-red horns jutted out of her tangled hair - one of them broken - and her pupils were red slits. Despite her unearthly appearance, the robed man was talking to her in a calm, respectful voice. At Salvius' shout he looked up towards the centurion, even though there were no eyeholes in his damaged mask.

    "Keep close to us." the sandy-skinned woman advised them, beckoning the two closer. "Ra guards those who guard themselves, and I believe that we might not be alone down here."
    Last edited by Azazeal849; 06-23-2015 at 09:43 PM.
    Spoiler: My RP links 

    PM me for novelised versions of any of my RPs, or ones that I have participated in. Set by the awesome Karma.


  5. #5
    The Replicant
    Azazeal849's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2011
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    7,608
    Mentioned
    84 Post(s)
    Rep Power
    470

    Default

    EDGE OF THE COMBROGIAN FOREST

    Creeping silently forward, Gaius Octavius worked his way towards the Avengers' camp. He had had to detour some distance upstream to cross the river in silence, but now once again he had the soft glow of his enemy's campfire in his sights. The flickering light glinted across his dark eyes, briefly illuminating a face that had once been handsome. Now, it was gaunt from the repeated trials that had hollowed him out piece by piece. The mages' guild taught that one could not take the dark path without consequence, and Gaius had trodden a darker path than most. Cast into a nest of vipers, he had outplayed them all, but had himself been outplayed by an even greater evil.

    The price was there for all to see, in the sharp points of blackened bone that now protruded from his temples. A gift of power from the twelfth demon lord - and a mark of ownership. Nothing Gaius himself could now do would stop Kronos, and the demon lord had left him with just enough freedom to taunt him with the fact. But there was some good that Gaius Octavius could still do, and that was to avenge his cousin Marcius' family by repaying their murderers in kind. He flexed his right hand, a ball of lambent flame beginning to well around his fingertips.

    Without warning, a sharp pain lanced through Gaius' head, sharply enough to make him stumble. He bit back a scream and clapped his free hand to his face, feeling like a white-hot poker had just been stabbed through his left eye.

    "Now now, Gaius." the dark, evil voice of the King of Demons echoed loudly and thickly within his mind. "For a man who preaches himself such ideals of justice, your soul is pitch - or at least...it shall be."

    There was a stifled echo of laughter, as if it had originated from miles away and had echoed its way towards Gaius from across the war-torn land.


    Gaius gritted his teeth, feeling a phantom taste of copper and salt on his tongue. "What do you want?"

    "I would not have you kill these...filthy mortals yet, slave." the beast cooed. "There are three accompanying your prey who had no part to play in the deaths of your blood. The nymph-spawn in particular. It is important that you do not kill this one, as she is your only route to the sun." Kronos snorted in what sounded like frustration at his reliance on Gaius, hissing under his breath; a deep resonating noise that made Gaius' blood curdle. "I will leave you with knowledge - utter the words and disguise yourself as a child of Apollo. Join them Gaius - and then kill them all."

    Gaius didn't even attempt to argue, even though the hatred boiling up inside him was enough to burn him from the inside out. Clenching his trembling fingers into a fist, he snuffed out the nascent fireball and instead pulled back his hood, whispering the words of a spell of illusion. The gaunt, horned visage blurred and rippled like water, reforming into the strong, cleanshaven features of a blonde youth.

    So Kronos needs this one, does he? I weep for her already.

    Gaius craned his neck to one side, to dispel the last echoes of the pain in his skull, and thus masked he stepped away from the cover of the trees and began to walk openly towards the Avengers' camp. He could hear the growing whispers of two men, and from his time spent in Branjaskr, he could tell that they were of Southern heritage. One was tall, solidly built and blonde, his hair and beard as wild as the ancestral stereotypes. He was sitting close to a thinner, dark-haired man with a cunning, aristocratic face, dressed in silks. They kept themselves distracted by keeping eyes on the wavering campfire. Gaius could feel magic bleeding off the second man in waves - just as Northern mages struggled to channel their spells in the magic-starved South, so too did Southern mages have trouble adjusting to the stronger aether winds of the northern continent. He knew their faces, even though he had never met them. Scrying the imprints left in the ether at the burnt-out Marcius villa, he had watched them storm the building and butcher the house slaves. Gaius wondered which of them had killed Lycinia and her children, and felt his anger rising again. His hand closed around his pocket, feeling the hard, jagged edges of the blonde man's axe shard. He still carried it, even after all this time. Revenge remained even when all else was stripped away.

    There should be three...and three others accompanying them, Kronos said. Where are they?

    The sound of two arrows being loosed pierced the darkness, one after the other. As his eyes adjusted, Gaius spotted a man with long black hair and a redhead woman of Southerner blood, dirtied like the rest of them, both holding hunting bows. The two archers must have had the guidance of the divine, because they were shooting into the darkness beyond the flame's limited reach. The redheaded archer fired a third shot, as two more women picked their way out of the trees and into the firelight. One was eating a rabbit raw, and the other was clothed in something that looked like bark, her eyes continuing to dart around as if she were lost as she sat down an introverted distance from the others. Seeing the nervous woman and her odd, organic attire, Gaius had a feeling that he had found Kronos' chosen.

    Constantly glancing around as she was, the nervous woman was the first of the group to spot him. Gaius halted. The woman would not take her eyes off him as she stood from the ground, dressed in the armour of woodland magic. The expression marked on her face was one of awe.

    "I know you, in some way." she said naively.


    Now that Gaius stood closer to the bark-clad woman, he could feel the magic of the gods resonating from her as well. He managed to cloak his face in a smile.

    "And well you might." he told the woman gently. "Apollo has seen you. And it is his wish that you be protected."

    At the sound of their voices the other vagabonds around the campfire had leapt to their feet, and the two archers spun round with their bows held ready. The glamour spell might have hidden his true features, but Gaius couldn't completely hide his surprise when he recognised the taller, dark-haired bowman as none other than Zar Stormwraith - the demigod who had aided Marcius in Hercine, and whom he had briefly met during Marcius' return to Emor. The elfin archer's piercing eyes were fixed on Gaius, warily.

    "Zar Stormwraith, son of Artemis." Gaius addressed him. "My father has seen you too."

    Zar didn't break his gaze, though the arrow notched to his bow lowered, just a fraction.

    "Korzan's Avengers." Gaius said, sweeping his gaze over the red-haired woman who stood next to Zar and on to the two men by the fire. Oh yes, the gods know I've seen you.

    Gaius frowned as he came to the last member of the group, the third woman who had now dropped her rabbit and was growling low in her throat - more lupine than human. He could sense magic upon this one too, but it was different - not channelled, like the mage, and yet not quite innate like the bark-clad woman. If Gaius didn't know a better word for it, he would have termed it an infection. Like me, perhaps? he wondered without humour.

    "But he hasn't seen you." he finished, cocking his head slightly as he focused on the predatory woman. Her dark brown hair was blowing slightly with the wind - softly gushing over the woman's head. Growling towards Gaius and fixing him with both of her bright amber eyes, the woman took a few steps backwards towards Kronos' chosen..

    "What is your name?" Gaius asked her.

    "Mirella." the woman snarled, her mouth creasing up with belligerence, her two eyes never blinking or moving from Gaius. "I don't suppose your father has looked upon me."

    "Apollo sees much." Gaius responded, keeping his voice level. "But he doesn't see everything. If he did he would have seen what was coming sooner."

    "And what is coming, exactly?" Zar interjected.

    "Death." Gaius said solemnly. "The twelfth demon Lord has broken his chains. Nemesis is with him, and Odin and Thanatos are his prisoners. That's why the immortals have been released. That's why demons walk the surface of Eternum. The demon lords have an army - even now it's marching on Branjaskr in the Southern continent."

    Gaius could not deny a certain sadistic pleasure at the reactions of the three Southerners, but it was towards Zar that his attention was focused. The demi-god's presence was an opportunity, and he was going to take it. I can't fight Kronos...but you still can.

    "You must find Decius Marcius." he told Zar, holding out his hands beseechingly. "Warn him of what is coming. And tell him that Apollo suspects that the emperor Claudius has fallen victim to demon magic. You are the gods' best hope, Stormwraith. They beg you this task."

    "You're lying to us, son of Apollo." Mirella squinted her eyes in both suspicion and morbid curiosity towards Gaius, his body still shrouded by the incredibly strong illusion over him. "The chains that bind Kronos are unbreakable - he has been there for longer than any being has drawn breath upon this world."

    "So we all thought." Gaius replied, with a grim expression that he did not have to feign. "Perhaps Nemesis helped to free him, or perhaps the demon lord has played us all for fools. However it happened, the signs are clear."

    Gaius turned to point with his gloved hand at the roiling spear of light that shone above the Combrogian forest, putting the stars to flight.

    "Those beams of light are portals, allowing the demon lord to gather his forces at their staging point in the South. If they destroy Branjaskr, the only thing standing between them and the northern continent is praetor Maximus' army. And he may not be able to cut them off from using the portals to return."

    The woman who had been standing before him finally found the courage to speak again.

    "What is your name? The name Apollo meant something to me when I knew nothing." She took a pause, looking so hopefully into his falsely presented eyes. "Your name could help me understand...more."


    "Yes, son of Apollo." Zar spoke out, his voice rough yet serene - a true man of the enchanted woodlands of Combrogia. "Tell us your name, tell us about yourself."

    "My mother named me Gaius." Gaius told her, forcing himself to smile. So trusting - she doesn't deserve Kronos' attention.

    "That's a Namorian name." Zar noted.

    "She was of Accerae." Gaius nodded, naming a farming town in southern Namor that he knew to have been sacked several months ago. The bandits were everywhere since the Immortal War had eroded the imperium's ability to keep the peace. "She died when the raiders came. I only lived because of my father's help. He protected me and gave me this mission."

    He went silent for a few moments, before looking back at the bark-clad woman. The woman's eyes had turned to the lupine female with easily read uncertainty.

    "That mission was to warn Stormwraith," Gaius finished. "And to protect you."
    Spoiler: My RP links 

    PM me for novelised versions of any of my RPs, or ones that I have participated in. Set by the awesome Karma.


  6. #6
    The Replicant
    Azazeal849's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2011
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    7,608
    Mentioned
    84 Post(s)
    Rep Power
    470

    Default

    THE NERUBIAN CITY

    Mira was in her private quarters, pacing back and forth around a large, bone-forged table that stood approximately two metres in length and one high. On it sat a map of the tunnels below Dun Moriga, etched in charcoal upon old leather. Many of the tunnels were not featured on any dwarven or Namorian map. The grey-skinned broodmother's hands were behind her back, her head bowed in thought. Those thoughts were nervous; concerning what would happen in the coming meeting, or what could happen. This was the fate of her people that she had to think about. She didn't want any of them to die if she could help it, but the reputation her kind had was wicked by nature. Then again, anything humans didn't understand was considered along the lines of freakish and potentially evil by its very nature. That said, the Frok'trine and the other broods had not helped matters by feeding on the dwarfs.

    "Mother Mira," Baalin spoke out loudly and affimitively as he strode into the room, rattling slightly in the bone armour that covered him from head to heel. "The preperations are being made for the conference with the Namorians. I have assembled some of our best-mannered warriors and court necromancers."

    "That is fine, Baalin." Mira said softly, still pacing.

    "Something troubles you, mother Mira?" Baalin said, his left hand resting atop the hilt of his blade.

    "Many things trouble us all Baalin, but why is it that you ask?" Mira came to a halt and looked up towards the ceiling. A rusty chandelier salvaged from an abandoned dwarf hold dangled there, covered in spider's silk. The flames that guttered from its holders held an unnatural blue tint.

    "Well, mother Mira," Baalin said hesitantly, knowing how the broodmother felt about all of this. "I haven't seen you this nervous since the dwarven purges."

    "It has been so long that our people have suffered, Baalin. I just don't know if I'm doing the right thing." Mira hugged her bare arms as she turned around, slowly walking back towards the table to study the map once again. "If I go to Ech Zilidar as asked, who's to say it isn't a trap of some sort? What if I get many of my people slaughtered due to their distrust?"

    Baalin couldn't help but feel a little frustrated at her words. "We will never know, mother Mira, but we do know that we can't survive like this. The children on the streets are talking about your deal with the surface world, and it is true some are wondering if you have lost your mind, but they also know that things can't continue on as they are. You're doing what you can, which is more than many others have done - especially those bastard dwarves."

    Mira bent over slightly, her hands placed flat on the table either side of the etching of Ech Zilidar. "The dwarves are bastards, but we will need their trust, even if our initial deal is with the Namorians. If we are to survive, we need to make sure this deal goes smoothly, but I will not give in to every demand. I will show my leadership, and show them that our race is not just some regular subserviant race. We are pround of who we are, and they will not make us fools." She looked up. "Which is why I called you and Rash'vir to this place... but where is the old man?"

    Baalin snickered, and replied, "You know how he is, mother Mira. His old bones ache, and it takes him a while to get moving to places."

    No sooner had Baalin ended his sentence, then the doors opened up with a loud screech.

    "I heard that by the way. My bones may ache, but my ears as still sharp." Rash'vir said to both of them as the doors swung back into place with a heavy thud. "I have assembled the high Readers as requested. Their mounts also have been assembled in a timely manner. May I also say young one that you should pray to the gods at this time?"

    "Later," Mira said. "For if they have not heard my pleas yet, then doing it now would serve no better purpose."

    The broodmother began to gather up her equipment in preparation to move out.

    "Hades and Gaia... preserve us..." she murmured as she led the the way out of the doors. She wondered what the surface dwellers would make of it when they learned that she prayed to some of the same gods that they did.

    * * * * * *

    ECH ZILIDAR

    "Tie that off, you stupid bastards! Do you want to see that cannon go flying arse-first off the fucking rampart?"

    Titus Varinius gave the offending soldier a shove for emphasis and strode away cursing as the legionary team scrambled to attach the cannon's restraining ropes to the iron rings that had been secured to the battlements for just such a purpose. The only dwarfs left in Ech Zilidar were Fulminata gunners who had been wounded during the seige, and so there were precious few experts to give the legionaries a crash course in gun operation. Having served alongside the Dun Morigans as the imperium's garrison, the Ferrata and Moriga soldiers probably knew more about cannons than Varinius did - but even Varinius knew that the things recoiled when fired, and that could be a problem when said cannons were mounted atop a bastion wall.

    With all the dwarfs evacuated to Tu Zenita Duskal, the former capital of Ech Zilidar was now a glorified army camp for the Namorian garrison and legate Septim's Roman legions. But now Septim was about to march on Duskal to challenge king Jornak's separatist intentions, effectively declaring war on Afragia, the remaining legionaries in Ech could focus less on making the damaged parts of the city habitable again, and more on making it defensible. Their primary concern was the plaza on Varon's Causeway, where the damn anvil that the greyskins had planted was still vomiting its abominable amber light up into the cavern's light shafts. The portal might be closed for now, but a simple cordon of legionaries would be nothing like enough if the greyskins decided to return in force. To that end, Varinius and Graccus had set about re-engineering the plaza; reinforcing the inner faces of the curtain wall with new battlements, reversing many of the cannons on the walls to point back into the city towards the plaza, and turning the plaza itself into a killing field. The paving stones had been ripped up and the stone beneath was being mined down into a series of ditches, each festooned with inward-pointing spikes scavenged from the many greyskin weapons left behind after the siege. Varinius took a grim pleasure in the irony. Beyond the ditches a new ring wall was being built from which more cannons could volley grapeshot, and teams of legionaries were hard at work stacking barrels of pitch near the outermost, complete ditches. Even the forty-foot monstrosities that had accompanied the greyskin army might think twice about wading through a river of fire to get to their assailants.

    Varinius didn't need to inspect the work personally, but it took his mind off the imminent meeting with broodmother Mira and her Nerubian emissaries. Their aid in the current shit-storm was tempting, though he was still unsure how praetor Graccus was going to react to the macabre soldiers the Nerubians employed - not to mention their other demands.

    "Tribune." a courier from the outer walls said as if on cue, snapping his heels together and extending his right arm in salute. "The emissaries are here."

    Varinius merely grunted acknowledgement, offering the soldier a brief nod as he turned and began to climb down from the rampart.

    Now we'll see.

    By the time Varinius had saddled his horse, a low rumbling of footsteps could be heard from beyond the battered walls. He rode out through the half-repaired gates alongside praetor Graccus and a small colour party, to see a small army spreading out across the cavern before Ech Zilidar. Varinius estimated only a few hundred of them, but more kept following from the tunnels that pockmarked the cavern. There were grey-skinned Nerubians in bone-mould armour, emaciated Necromancers, and with them were hundreds of creatures that were arachnid in nature.

    "Mars' teeth!" Varinius heard praetor Graccus spit in horror. "Are these supposed to be our new allies, Varinius?" Varinius had told him of the macabre troops that the Nerubians fielded, but evidently his description had not prepared the praetor for the real thing.

    "They are." he told the praetor levelly.


    Many of the arachnids were the size of horses, but there were a few that were even more gargantuan in size. They ranged from red-brown to shiny black in colour, with bulbous round abdomens, and their legs were furred with fine hair. Strapped over them were pieces of bone armour, mimicking the infantry. The largest of the beasts looked as if though they could tear down buildings with ease, as well as hold their own against other gargantuan beasts the would oppose them. Just as well, Varinius thought, If the orcs come back with the same homunculi they were using last time.

    Varinius saw male and female Nerubians among the haphazard army, each individual with their own unique armour. Some had more armour than others, though it was unclear if this was based on what they had been able to scavenge or a conscious choice as to what they could fight best in. Their sizes ranged from 6 to 7 feet in stature - taller than the Namorian legionaries, and all with pale, grey skin. Varinius reflected on the fact, and chuckled.

    "What's so funny?" Graccus asked, his face still drawn down in a deep frown as he surveyed the approaching army.

    "I was just thinking that we're going to need to think up a better epithet than grey skins, so we don't confuse the demons with these bastards."


    Some of the Nerubians rode as calvalry, mounted on the enlarged arachnids. Both soldiers and mounts were dressed up in skeletal armour. Smaller arachnids weaved around them, forming a significant part of the army, though most of them only came to waist height if not smaller. The beasts and their grey-skinned counterparts skittered across the cracked stone as they made their way towards the city, and Varinius recognised Mira, Rash'vir, and Baalin in the lead. They rode in side by side, looking upon the area, making sure that there was nothing that would potentially ambush them. Broodmother Mira had a pair of war hatchets slung across her back, and she wore contoured bone armour instead of the spider silk that Varinius remembered from their first meeting.

    As the three leaders reached the Namorian delegation, the rest of the army fell back a short distance, on guard for anything that might happen. Varinius could not blame them, given the number of wary, hostile and outright fearful legionaries who had thronged to man the walls as the army approached. Broodmother Mira sat tall and straight as she surveyed the half-repaired walls of Ech Zilidar. The amber beam of the ark speared up threateningly above the city.

    "Sorry about the view." Varinius said dryly, turning his own head to look at the damage that had been left in the wake of the orc attack. "We're working on it."


    "I was told that we would have a meeting today." Mira said. Her spider mount shifted, moving its legs as it got a feel for the uneven ground, and several of the Namorian mounts whinnied and shied away. "So which one of you will I be meeting with, hmm?"

    "That would be me." praetor Graccus said warily. He was still frowning.

    "Broodmother Mira." Varinius said. "Meet praetor Numerius Graccus, Namorian governor of Dun Moriga." The tribune shifted in his saddle, stretching his back. "Shall we take this inside? Doing a whole round of talks from horseback isn't going to do much for anybody's mood."


    Mira smiled at Varinius, with an impressed look. Her mount was still, but swayed from side to side a little.

    "Very well then..." she replied. Determined in what she wanted to accomplish, she turned to the praetor. "Shall I call you Graccus? If so then I'll gladly follow you in, as long as I can keep these two by my side...and Rash'vir may want a few of his court to accompany him."

    Graccus, looking equal parts tense and resigned, turned his frowning gaze onto Rash'vir, as if trying to assess how much of a threat the withered Nerubian in his ragged cloak and bone armour presented. After a moment, he grunted, "Very well."

    The Namorian delegation turned their horses in a clatter of hooves, and Mira, Rash'vir and Baalin followed them through the battered gatehouse of the once-great city. Slabs of crumbled rock still lay in the tunnels between the seven gates, and several Ferrata legionaries were still working to clear them. Most of them stopped what they were doing and stared as the Nerubians came riding in. When they saw Mira atop her gargantuan cave spider, several touched their iron sword hilts, and one openly spat on the ground.
    Mira and Baalin didn't like the way that the surface people stared at them, as if they were some kind of evil freaks. Rash'vir didn't seem mind too much at all though. The aged necromancer appeared almost at home, waving to the citizens with his half-toothed smile and a dry rasp of laughter. Rash'vir loved what he was surrounded by. It was as if many things had remained the same with the Namorians since before he took his leave. That was a long time ago of course, but he couldn't help but be filled with joy.

    "Smile and wave, mother Mira." he said. "These may very well be your allies before long."

    Mira was following closely behind Graccus, staying right on his tail as she continued to look at the rubble. She did smile, but she did not wave. "The pleasantries will come soon enough...we still haven't made allies yet. I'm also wondering why you are opening up to these people like you are."

    "You know, this place took quite a beating from the savages." Baalin said. "It's actually saddening to see such a great city fall in such a way...though not every empire lasts forever."

    "No empire does." Varinius said with grim humour as he rode up from behind the emissaries to join their conversation. "But that's no excuse to stop trying."

    His horse sidestepped skittishly away from the Baalin's spider mount, but the tribune deftly controlled it.


    "So Graccus," Baalin yelled, loud enough so the Namorian praetor could hear. "Exactly how far did the savages press into the lands?"

    Graccus turned in his saddle, scowled, and pointed. "Exactly that far."

    The Nerubians followed his gaze down Varon's causeway, where the beginnings of a wall were taking shape to cordon off the plaza beyond. The plaza had been dug up in deep furrows and planted with hundreds of iron stakes and calthrops, but a small area in the centre remained paved, and atop the intact stones sat a glowing anvil which seemed to be the source of the amber beam.

    "They seemed less interested in taking the city than heading through that portal." Varinius explained, as the procession halted outside the relatively intact structure of the dwarven royal palace. Legionaries stripped to their tunics were moving to and fro, making repairs and transporting building materials.

    Graccus and Varinius dismounted, and the men who stepped forward to take their horses looked uncertainly at Mira and her companions.

    "I assume they won't eat the horses if we leave them alone out here?" Varinius asked, ignoring the hesitant grooms. He leaned in to look at Baalin's spider more closely, with a kind of fearlessly morbid curiosity. The shiny black domes of the spider's eyes reflected his face like huge pearls of obsidian.


    "Eat the horses? You think of us as poor masters for our calvalry?" Baalin said. The spider looked back at Varinius as it stepped back and squatted down to let Baalin off. The other spiders did the same; first Rash'vir's, then Mira's.

    "Do your horses spook easily?" Baalin asked as he walked up to Varinius, "Or are they tame?"

    "Depends on the animal." Varinius grunted. "Ideally we'd have every cavalryman mounted on a mean bastard that knew how to bite and kick and dance away from people trying to hamstring it, but we can't afford to war-train every animal. Especially when we have to start scraping around to replace losses. Give the beasts some credit though. I doubt they're used to seeing giant fuck-off cave spiders."

    He turned to look at Baalin's mount again, which had drawn in its mandibles and gone perfectly still, as if resting.

    "I'd love to know how you go about training those things. Though personally I've always liked fighting with both feet on the ground."

    Praetor Graccus was looking at the spiders with a kind of restrained revulsion, watching as Rash'vir climbed down from the back of this with an apparent lack of concern, and even patted the giant spider's head.
    Rash'vir was looking about, stretching out his back with it sounding like he was crushing gravel.

    The necromancer let out a moan as he said, "Say there young ones, do they still make the fine meads and teas like in the old days? I could go for a few you know."

    "We have wine laid out." praetor Graccus said, slightly wrong-footed.

    Varinius snapped his fingers at one of the grooms. "You! Go raid the stores and dig out some dwarven mead. Tea too if you can find it."


    Rash'vir fell into step with Varinius and Graccus, followed by a curious Mira. To Mira, these parts were strange. Though Ech Zilidar was half rubble, it held a connection for her that she had not expected. It could have been the familiarity of the mountain they allows burrowed under, but in spite of this, the place just felt oddly...bad. Maybe that was due to the fact that she could still see evidence of dwarfs everywhere. They were gone but their unsettling aura remained. Mira walked faster and caught up with Rash'vir and Baalin.

    The delegations settled down in the former throne room, gathering round the onyx table that now dominated the centre of the room in the absence of the dwarf king's emerald throne. Mirror shafts channelled light down into the hall, which refracted from the pink sapphires that had been set along the walls in between stern oil paintings of Dun Moriga's previous rulers. The fires below the fur-strewn floor had been set burning well in advance, but they still struggled to warm the large chamber.

    Graccus bade the Nerubians sit with a gesture of his hand, and took a seat at the head of the table. Goblets and carafes of water and wine were already laid out, and soon the groom from outside reappeared with a skin of honeyed beer in each hand.

    "So." praetor Graccus began, clasping his hands and frowning over the top of them - first at Varinius, and then at the Nerubians. "I understand that you are offering us an army in return for the right to resettle Lun Garath."


    Mira and her group took their positions, trying to get comfortable in their seats. Rash'vir took one of the goblets provided and took a small sip. Satisfied with what he had been provided, he sat the cup down and looked upon Mira. The Broodmother was wearing a frown, knowing that this meeting would be time consuming, but worth the cause.

    "Indeed," she answered Graccus, her arms casually resting upon the arms of the seat that had once belonged to Lord Duro. "But I'm also here to clear things up about the relationships of our races."

    "Relationships." Graccus repeated stonily, raising his eyebrows.

    Mira turned to Baalin, who sat tall with both of his hands upon the table, looking upon everyone in the room.

    "I agree with the mother." the Nerubian warrior said. "Too long have our people had the stains of the past plastered upon our being. And so, we will come to agreements for not only the resettlement, but also our rights as a race of the upper worlds."

    Graccus turned narrowed eyes towards Varinius, who was simply listening with one fist pressed thoughtfully against his cheek. He had known of course that the Nerubians desired some measure of political standing in the imperium, but they had yet to find out exactly what. Graccus rested his elbows on the onyx table and laced his fingers.

    "And what rights would these be, exactly?" he asked the Nerubians cautiously.


    Rash'vir then opened up and said "Ah yes, the rights. I'm sure we can come to an agreement on some points, but to disagree will also be looked upon. We're not just going to give you an army for a city and call it a day, that would just be foolish on both our parts, wouldn't you say Namorian?" Rash'vir stroked his long grey beard and nodded to Baalin. "Baalin, Mira and I both agree that you should go first, as we discussed on the way up here."

    "Very well." Baalin stated. "So it seems that though we seek nothing more than to help you help us, we need to come up with some sort of...understanding about our relationship with the dwarves. We understand we are settling one of their cities, but even if we didn't, that wouldn't have changed the way they see us - and moreover, the way they act towards us. We seek to end this hostility once and for all, for you are their allies. They will not listen to us, but crush us as the animals they see us as. What can you do for us Namorian?"

    Varinius cracked an amused smile behind his fist, while Graccus looked at ease for the first time.

    "Well, orator." the praetor replied, "I can give you the relatively solid assurance that the dwarfs will do as they are told."

    "There has been something of an incident, head guardian." Varinius explained to Baalin. "King Jornak and his queen Nesara took dwarvish pride a step too far and decided they wanted to start their own empire. Legate Septim is leaving tomorrow to bring them to heel, after which they'll bloody well accept whatever conditions we agree here today."


    * * * * * *

    EMOR

    At first, Marcius had not felt at ease issuing his orders from the emperor's second palace overlooking the northern wall of Emor. Granted, to make the senate hall his military headquarters would have been undiplomatic, and to use the emperor's main palace where the ark still stood would have been suicidal. It was strange though, to stand at the war room table where Galen Claudius had once stood. He felt uneasy - though not as uneasy as he would have been had the guards standing sentinel around the room been the emperor's praetorians rather than his own Fulminata. Marcius had wasted no time in dividing the praetoriani up into small units and dispersing them all over the imperium - ostensibly to reinforce the crumbling garrisons and combat the bandits to the south and west. Whoever had come up with the saying about keeping their enemies close had not had many enemies.

    "And send men to take those bloody crosses on the cliff down." Marcius told the junior tribune who was busily scribbling down his orders. "Disseminate an official posthumous pardon and have the bodies burned - decently. And take the crosses outside the guild down too. We'll need the mages' expertise to study the arks."

    The true nature of the arks was still not common knowledge within Emor. Marcius had demanded his men's silence on pain of death to keep it so. Some of the senators worried that remaining in the capital when the orcs might flood back through at any moment was to invite disaster. But the inevitable panic and the sheer impracticality of moving and rehousing a million people made any other action impossible. Marcius' first act as dictator had been to address the city, to announce emperor Claudius' abdication and his own ascension by the authority of the sword of Mars. The shining, iridescent blade and Marcius' own pedigree as a war hero had had the desired effect. The crowds had roared and cheered, patricians and plebians alike, and Marcius had been unable to stop a small part of himself from despising every one of them for it. Despite his trust in Elisavet and the gods, forcibly taking the throne he had spent a lifetime serving still felt like a betrayal.

    Taking the empire in order to save it. Marcius mused. It was a truism that, at the end of the day, naked force was the only authority that mattered - but Marcius was uncomfortably aware that he was setting a dangerous precedent. The next few weeks would be crucial - if he could not navigate the coming storm, Emor would collapse in upon itself before he could even muster a defence against the real enemy.

    He did not stand completely alone - Marcus Agrippa was with him, with his uncle Lucius and senator Aemelia standing as the senate's observers on his war council. Marcus Agrippa was, like Marcius himself, dressed in his simple military tunic, while Aemilia and the elder Agrippa wore the purple-striped laticlave of their senatorial rank. Marcius father Galius and his cousin Seppia stood at the meeting to represent the nobles, and to provide valuable moral support. Zhnegra for the crocolykes and Hercules for the Greeks were conspicuous by their absence - the former already on his way to Hercine with Marcus Agrippa's wife to try and avert another war, and the latter marching his immortal soldiers towards the earthborn camp that had begun to take shape right outside Emor only a few days ago. Marcius had never enjoyed the disparity of power between the imperium and the earthborn, and now that he had a credible challenge to the earthborn's superior technology he intended to display it, even if he had ordered Hercules to simply invite their supposed allies to talk. Marcius was unsure if he would ever completely trust the mocking, taciturn Hercules, but the Greek leader had been true to his word so far, as had the other allies that providence had brought to Marcius' side.

    "What about the ark in Combrogia?" Marcus Agrippa queried, frowning. The 2nd legion's brevet commander was lined and grey-flecked before his time, and the frown deepened the existing furrows in his tanned brow.

    "We'll send Commodus and the 1st legion to reinforce the picket we left there." Marcius replied, studying the map that was spread on the table before him with carved iron weights holding down the edges. "Mages to study it and engineers to fortify it. And if we can, I want the forest reclaimed from any of Beowulf's bastards who didn't go through the ark. If the Druada will allow it, I want to see the Combrogi back in their homes and not dying in tents outside the city walls."

    Marcus Agrippa nodded. The Combrogi trailed behind him and his rebel legions, but they had no desire to remain refugees. Moreover, it was not safe for them to remain in Emor - public opinion to them was still hostile. Emperor Claudius had signed the decree to solve Emor's refugee problem with enforced slavery, but more than a few nobles and plebians would have agreed with the decision.

    "We will deploy the 18th across Namor to bring the bandits to heel." Marcius went on. "And the 2nd and 3rd to clear Hercine and the main trade routes. Our soldiers can't fight if we can't feed them, and for that we need our heartlands secure."

    The recent catastrophes across Namor, Combrogia and Hercine had led to a breakdown of order, and brigands had boiled up from the edges of every province to fill the vacuum. Along the trade routes especially, they seemed to be a law unto themselves - extorting tribute out of the few caravans still brave enough to travel. Some were organised criminal groups, some were local garrisons turned traitor in the chaos, and some were no doubt desperate men whose homes had been burned in the brief war with the Greeks and Romans. Marcius did not have the luxury of seeking justice for them from his new allies. He needed the immortals to fight the demons, and Emor needed the bread that the bandits were stealing. And so a few desperate men would die.

    "And the demons?" Seppia spoke up, slightly hesitantly. "We can stop them from coming back here, but what else will they be doing while they marshal in the South?"

    Marcius turned to look at his cousin. She looked weary and drawn, her eyes shadowed beneath her concealing makeup and her arms pale as she hugged her elbows. She had not been the same since her husband Gaius had disappeared, seemingly abandoning his wife and son to try and avert the greater disaster in the South. Still, she had done more than her part to save Emor - rallying the nobles against a war with the senate faction, passing on the vital news of where the demon army was mustering, and helping Agrippa and Ovidius to locate and apprehend the emperor. Were it not for his cousin's efforts, Marcius might well not be standing here - at least not with his hands so clean of blood.

    "The demon army is praetor Maximus' problem for the moment." Marcius told her gravely. "Even if he had a way to send our army south tomorrow, we would only find ashes when we returned. We need to stabilise Emor first. But as soon as that's done, we will find a way."

    His right hand dropped to curl stiffly around the hilt of Mars' sword. It seemed a far more powerful talisman than the simple iron of his Namorian blade, and for that he was thankful.

    "What are the senate's plans for getting the capital back on its feet?" Marcius asked, turning his attention to senatora Aemelia and the elder Agrippa. Marcius had taken advantage of the senate's confidence to let him make the decisions on military matters, though he recognised the logic of seeking council on more civic problems. Unlike Galen Claudius, Marcius did not believe that the authority to run every aspect of the empire automatically gave him the ability.

    "Dictator." Aemelia bowed solemnly. Marcius had refused to let the senate address him by the imperial title of imperator. "For a start we'll move the refugees out of their disease-ridden camps and set them to paid work rebuilding the farms and houses. Namor, Hercine and Dun Moriga are all in need of skilled and unskilled labourers to repair the damage of the war."

    "Where are we funding this from?" Marcius queried. According to the city quaestor, the collapse of trade and taxation from the provinces had left the empire's treasury looking exceedingly thin.

    "Additional taxation." Aemilia replied. "To be levied from the nobles who did not support lady Seppia's petition."

    "It will come from all the nobles." Marcius overruled her. "I am not in the mood to start dividing the capital even more."

    "There will be some discontent among the patricians regardless, Decius." Galius Marcius cautioned, unafraid to address his son in personal terms even during a council meeting.

    "We could lessen the burden." Lucius Agrippa put in, the grey-haired ambassador rubbing his chin as he studied the map. "You recall queen Nesara's letter. 'My trust and kingdom are yours', she said. Surely then she will be willing to pay part of the cost, especially given her soft spot for the common man." He smiled indulgently, as if he found the sentiment quaint. "And as for Hercine, I would argue that defaulting on Namor's debts to the banking clans is meaningless now that the crocolykes have control. I say we might as well spend the money."

    "There are some problems we can't just spend our way out of." the younger Agrippa put in, his eyebrows drawn together in a frown. "Even after the countryside is clear of bandits, how long will it be before the farms start producing again? The price of bread is already too high, and it'll get higher before things return to normal. There will be riots in the streets of Emor unless we subsidise that as well."

    "Can we afford it?" Marcius asked.

    Senatora Aemilia put down the wax tablet she had been scribbling budget figures onto, and tapped the stylus against her chin. "I'm not sure, at least not for long."

    "What if we were to remove the import quotas on food?" Seppia suddenly put in. "That would get trade with Hercine flowing again, and it would bring the prices down. And it might be a useful bargaining chip with the crocolykes."

    Seppia blushed slightly as the others turned to look at her, but as he thought about it, Marcius saw the sense behind his cousin's words. Historically, the emperors had retained relatively aggressive import quotas on staple foods as a way of protecting Namor's own farms from competition - but, Marcius mused, that hardly applied when half of Namor's farms had been abandoned or looted by the bandits.

    Lucius Agrippa was the first to nod, offering Seppia a paternal smile. Aemilia tapped the edge of her tablet.

    "We could do it," she said. "If we raise the import tax to make up the difference."

    Marcius unfolded his arms and held out a hand towards Aemilia so that he could study her tablet of figures for himself. The bandits looting Namor's farms might be part of the problem, but since the crocolyke uprising there had been no trade coming out of Hercine at all.

    "A lot of this hinges on the negotiations with the crocolykes." he growled. Times were changing, but a lifetime of distrust did not break down easily.

    "It does." Marcus Agrippa agreed. "Have you given thought to Sertorius?"

    "What about him?" Marcius asked, looking up at the senior centurion.

    "You're sending him to Hercine, as the highest-ranking commander. I do not trust that man's ambitions."

    "He's going as a soldier." Marcius growled. "Not a governor. He has no authority beyond making Hercine's roads safe."

    "But he has already made it clear that he has his eye on Hercine's riches." Agrippa countered.

    "My nephew is right." Lucius Agrippa opined, nodding his craggy head. "I have heard quite a lot about Sertorius and his ambitions. If we are to keep him on our side, it would be wise to give him something. Just enough to keep him out of trouble."

    Marcius looked to senator Aemilia, who mirrored the elder Agrippa's nod. He folded his arms once more. "What do you suggest?"

    "Appoint a pair of prefects for Hercine, and make him one of them. Send them to mediate between the cat men and the crocolykes, to stop one side massacring the other. After our legions clear the province of bandits, it should generate some trust for him. He can have power - and, yes, riches - but he won't rule, and the other prefect will keep him in check.

    The elder Agrippa raised his bushy eyebrows at Marcius, questioningly. Marcius could see the former Afragian ambassador's unspoken suggestion plainly. The second prefect would have to be someone Marcius trusted - and currently high on that list was Agrippa's own nephew. Marcius looked at the younger Agrippa, who had pursed his lips at his uncle's suggestion. He exhaled down his nose. Unfortunately for him - and for Lucius Agrippa - Marcius had other actors that he needed to placate.

    "The Greek leader Hercules will be the second prefect." Marcius decreed. He knew that the Hercinians would be almost universally hostile towards their former conqueror, no matter how brief his rule had been. Nevertheless, he had promised the Greek leader representation in his chosen province, and if nothing else he was removed from the bitter politics between Hercinian and crocolyke. He turned to fix Marcus Agrippa with his dark, aquiline stare. "Centurion, I need you to remain in command of the 2nd legion. I'm formally elevating you to the rank of legatus."

    Marcus Agrippa blinked. He glanced at his uncle, who remained studiously neutral, and then raised his right arm in salute towards Marcius. "Thank you, dictator."

    Marcius returned the salute with a nod. If Sertorius was the threat he claimed, the dictator thought, then perhaps he should also appoint the younger Agrippa to dux Hesperia as well and give him overarching command of both his own and Sertorius' legion. But to elevate a junior officer above and beyond his contemporary would have been too great an insult for any Namorian legatus to tolerate.

    "Use your judgement, legatus." Marcius said at last. "If Sertorius is the threat that you think he is, then keep an eye on him."

    And on everyone else. he thought, as he turned back to the map; a map which did little justice to the knife edge that the imperium now balanced upon.

    * * * * * *

    TU ZENITA DUSKAL

    The dwarven king sat uneasily on his throne, the egyptian ambassador noted. The vast slab of carefully-cut emerald looked incongruous next to the sandstone columns and hieroglyph frescoes that dominated the rest of the Afragian audience chamber. Cagey and glowering, the red-haired king looked almost as out of place.

    The ambassador tossed his cloak over one shoulder and raised his pointed chin as he was called forward. Striding across the painted floor, he reflected on the subtle differences between the Afragian artwork and the paintings of his own lifetime - now several thousand years faded into the sands of Old Earth. Only the gods endured; everything else changed. The ambassador accepted this as an immutable truth, but events in the Afragian capital had been changing even faster than he was comfortable with.

    "King Jornak will hear you now." a young interpreter standing to the side of the throne announced, in the strangely-accented Coptic that the Afragians seemed to favour when they weren't speaking their Latin lingua franca.

    The ambassador flicked his painted eyes towards the interpreter, then back towards the glowering king. He bowed graciously.

    "The blessings of Ra and Isis fall upon you, mighty Jornak." he began. "And I thank you for your hospitality so far in this city which stands as a testament to the will of its people, and to your people who bled so nobly against the orc horde."

    He waited with his hands folded inside his robes while the interpreter translated his long-winded greeting.

    "I must confess," the ambassador went on, with an apologetic smile, "My remit from pharaoh Ahsha, may the sun never set on him, was to travel here to negotiate an alliance with the imperium against the orc threat. Yet upon arriving, I hear the streets talking not of the imperium but a new eastern empire, and that the orcs have disappeared. With all due respect to your exulted self, king Jornak, what exactly is pharaoh to make of that?"

    Jornak's eyes narrowed, looking down upon the Egyptian messenger with a glare worthy of a hundred year old king, tired and lonesome in his seat of high power. "Your Pharaoh is to make of it what he will - my people bled for those filthy greyskins to vanish without a trace."

    The King spat upon the floor, the spittle flecking into the air before landing back upon the ground, devoid of further animation. The ambassador tried hard not to wince as the Afragian boy at the king's side translated.

    "My cities sacked," Jornak went on, "And turned to rubble whilst their fleeting, foul feet ran from our might."

    The Dwarven King returned to his recline against the back of his seat, sighing and running his hand across his face and through his thick beard. He thought on the losses his people had suffered defending the strongholds of the Dun Morigan kingdom - notably the loss of the crystal city of Azulfa. Removing his hand from his tired face, the dwarf sighed again.

    "I have a question for you though, Egyptian." the King mused. "I hear talk of troops of Anubis in New Giza - tell me, are these rumours true? An army of Anubites loyal to a Pharaoh...well, it would be a dangerous weapon indeed."


    The Egyptian ambassador frowned at Jornak's translator as he finished, buying himself time to think. The jackal warriors had been risen alongside Anubis' chosen, the vizier Iset, and had retreated into isolation following her death. It remained to be seen if they considered Ra's son Ahsha to be worthy of their god's support.

    "What you have heard is correct, mighty Jornak." he said, choosing his words carefully. "Though ultimately the jackal warriors answer to the Weigher of Hearts."

    "And I take it that your Pharaoh Ahsha does not?" Jornak cooed, tapping his fingers lightly against the gemstone throne. "A shame - an army of Anubites would have been useful when the Imperium comes."

    The ambassador raised his thin eyebrows. "Ah, when the imperium comes, your magnificence?"

    "Yes," Jornak stood, striding down the few steps that led to his throne before walkin over to a table that sat in the corner of the throne room, pouring some Afragian wine into two crystalline goblets, the blue-stained liquid filling the clear, decorative glasses with surprising weight. "Did you not think that the Imperium would come? An Empire that swallows an entire continent is not an Empire willing to let its people make their own choices. Afragia answers me and I shall lead them into a new golden age...if that means I must march to war for my homeland once more, then so be it - battle is in all Dwarf hearts and it runs deep through the sands of Afragia." The shorter Dwarf lifted his goblet to his lips, carefully sipping on the liquid before passing the other one to the messenger.

    "Does war and courage run through the blood of your people, Egyptian?" The smaller man tilted his brow, smiling before taking another gulp of his drink.


    The Egyptian took a measured sip from the proffered wine. It was sweet, and slightly spicy.

    "Courage runs in our blood, yes." he replied. "But also pragmatism, and respect for the gods. Pharaoh has foreseen a great battle against the Orcs, and has decreed that we must set aside our differences in order to survive it."

    "Tell me messenger," the King chuckled slightly to himself, draining the remainder of the glass before refilling it once more, watching as the dark blue liquid filled the glass slowly, drizzling into the cup. "What else has Pharaoh Ahsha seen? Because the last time I saw Earthborn immortals was when I was fighting in Ech Zilidar, and the full force of the Imperium came down upon the orc horde."

    Jornak's face twisted grimly, his eyes boring into the ambassador's - as if to ask him the question of which side the Egyptian people had found themselves on.


    "Pharaoh knew of other immortals." the Egyptian said carefully. "But we were not aware that they had already resolved to fight together against the orcs. Surely this is good news?"

    "Maybe," Jornak muttered, traipsing slowly back to his throne with his goblet in hand, still sipping the liquid from it. "But a mortal army fighting an immortal army, well..." Jornak sat down, grunting as he did so - the ache of Dun Moriga still fresh in his bones. "You see why I think it would have been useful for those Anubites I have been hearing so much about. If it is an alliance with the Imperium you are looking for, you won't find it here." The King's eyes fluttered, looking down upon the messenger.

    The egyptian's eyes widened in surprise, and then narrowed.

    "What did you do to incur the Imperium's ire, mighty Jornak?"

    Jornak smiled at the messenger's compliment, swishing the blue Afragian wine within his goblet, looking at the blue lining that covered the inside of the goblet as he swirled the alcohol. "Our people decided that we would not be slaves to them any more." The Dwarven King muttered. "For too long have our people served in their army and in their wars - we have fought and shed blood for an Empire who took months to shed theirs for us."

    "Secession then." The Egyptian drained his cup, looking troubled. "What is your Afragian queen's view on this, my king? I cannot help but notice that she stands absent."

    "The Queen shares my views on this - that I can assure you." Jornak huffed, smiling warmly at the Egyptian messenger. "As many friends as she has within the Imperium or not - she wishes for our Kingdoms to be great again once more." The King shook his head, smiling still. "Underneath the Imperium's shadow? I don't think so."


    The Egyptian was silent for a long moment, then sketched a bow.

    "Pharaoh will hear your words, mighty Jornak. We require time to...consider the situation."

    "Excellent," Jornak remarked, clapping his hands together and chuckling heartily. "Our people could do well together, messenger." The Dwarf stood and walked down the steps, placing the cup upon the table where it had sat before running his hand across the smooth, chiselled Emerald that made up his gaudy throne.

    "Tell Pharaoh Ahsha that the Emperor of the East sends his blessings." The Dwarf smiled wryly, watching the Egyptian man intently.
    Last edited by Azazeal849; 05-18-2015 at 12:49 PM.
    Spoiler: My RP links 

    PM me for novelised versions of any of my RPs, or ones that I have participated in. Set by the awesome Karma.


  7. #7
    PREACH FORGIVE ME PLEASE I BEG OF YOU!
    Minkasha's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Location
    In a world I struggle to understand.
    Age
    31
    Posts
    11,885
    Mentioned
    46 Post(s)
    Rep Power
    316

    Default

    Branjaskr, The Free South


    Kalle stared three mounds of dirt. Standing near the castle gates these three mounds of dirt had been worked through ice earth to be ten men wide and twelve men tall, a feat done by shovel, strength, and unwavering endurance. These mounds of dirt in two days’ time had degenerated into unnatural, lumpy, hills of snow. The Odinsen leader kept eyes on the people’s work. Two days have passed; time he had allowed them to rest and recover and he watched the snow not conceal what had been worked so devoutly to be built, but reveal to him that what had been made were nothing more than unnatural, lumpy, hills of snow. He turned his head to look to his Landswoman, the snow fluffing off the hood of his fur lined cloak.

    Kia rolled her free shoulder, the other a perch for Per who looked around without such misery or exhaustion in his circular yellow eyes.

    “They could have been used to block suppressive fire, magic” she said with scrutiny “and blocked direct charges to the gates, our weakest point” They were useful but looked as inspiring as the burning pyre with the former Lady Jarl in its fires.

    “The labor is too great” Kalle spoke up, taking turn to leave from the stone walls. “There have to be other options” Syf had been able to imbue her divine ancestry into paste that was applied on the walls to reinforce them. She was an intellectual and a daughter of Nike. There had to be other options. With volition he left Branjaskr’s walls to come to the lush border of his grandfather’s Grotto. A blooming life making power in the endless winter. Kalle did not wish to proceed through the greenery boundary.

    He dismounted and clutched his chest, sliding down the hood of his cloak. Entering, snow dripped from his body onto the grass, the warmth making his winter clothes stuffy. The Jarl continued in, he studied the large colored flowers with a seemingly disgruntled expression. Truly he was in awe of his father’s divinity; his judgmental face was reserved for his presence in that divinity.

    His steps were kept loud, his leathers brushed across the leaves, all in graceless trumpeting to lure in the white haired strategist. Odinsen eyes caught glimpse of a face and he turned only to see the strange likeness etched in the bark of an old, thick tree. The bark’s imitation was uncanny, but was put out of his mind when he could see Syf herself in the clearing ahead of him. His steps did then draw her attention as she had looked away from the body of Kurosavi which quickly confused the Jarl. The undeniably elegant beauty that the Eldrani had was a strange to mortal men and women, but Kurosavi still kept this quality even in his illness. His paleness had not improved, and vines enveloped his docile body. Kalle wondered what had become of the Eldrani because surrounding him the grass was warped black, the water from the pond adjacent to him dyed a deep, clear blue, the rocks easily seen inside the water also warped black. The trees bordering the clearing warped, gnarled and irreversibly changed. He witnessed the blackened life feeling a religious stigma of what became of his grandfather’s lands.

    Syf broke him of his moving eye with a hand upon his face. He shivered at her woman’s touch and pulled his whole body back from hers.

    “I have debated if your coming here would be inevitable or not” She gave him that bright toothed smile “And I am glad it was” Amethyst eyes looked at him in a way that made him unable to look back. A loop of their past went through his mind.

    “My lady, I come…” He paused. “for council of your plans. They have done too much for too little” he stared at the meeting of green and black grass beside Syf’s armored feet.

    “You needn’t look down in shame. Speak to me as a Jarl would do so” He willed himself to meet her. “I am certain with you wearing the crown we may do more work to help your people” Kalle didn’t acknowledge her words with any of his own. His lips turned into a faint frown. Too much had to happen for the title to pass from mother to son.

    “The land is too ridged and the snow made it impossible to continue. We need something else”
    “You have been unable to make wooden platforms and form a conveying line up the platforms to build the dirt?” Kalle stared at her puzzled expression, his brows furrowed.

    “Yes…” The Jarl came to say awkwardly. Her mind was in many places, going at a speed he could never follow but there were things she must have been forgetting along the way. “The platforms would be burdened with snow and more time would have to be put into keeping them of use than making the…” Kalle fumbled, a thick leather boot to tap itself into the lively grass. “defenses.” Kalle continued to fumble while he watched Syf watching him. She laughed, a response Kalle felt was as misplaced as it was heart throbbing.

    “The use of fire would have kept the snow away, but I will produce an alternative that will be more accessible to your people” She paced in a circle, Kalle looking away from her to Kurosavi who had been motionless the entire time. He questioned the Eldrani’s life while a vine moved to hold to him even tighter. “A constructed barrier of wooden spikes surrounding the city should also be effective” She was deep in her thoughts, the Odinsen leader was witness to the thoughts speeding in her focused eyes. “The snow would be to your advantage as concealment” she turned to him and held eye contact. “I will write their construction and placement for you to follow”

    Kalle had known there to be other options.

    “Thank you, my lady” Syf hadn’t moved and his smile slowly slipped away.

    “I’m sorry for the tragedy you are experiencing” Kalle flinched “I can see it deep in your eyes my Jarl and it is painful for me to know your soul suffers” The ice blue eyed man kept his resolve but she stepped closer to him, her arms embracing him. Her armor pressed into his leathers and he was stiff, not fighting, not hugging. “I do know how loss feels and it is worse to feel it alone”
    Thank you MayhemsCurse <3


    Spoiler: Memorable Quotes 

  8. #8
    The Replicant
    Azazeal849's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2011
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    7,608
    Mentioned
    84 Post(s)
    Rep Power
    470

    Default

    THE ROAD TO HERCINE

    The days were growing shorter as autumn marched inexorably on towards winter, but Zhnegra and his honour guard of Crocolykes marched on tirelessly for some hours after dark. Julia Vespania Agrippi felt safe enough riding in amongst the heavily armed reptilians, even if she was beginning to get tired and saddlesore from the extended marches.

    The road to Hercine was not as she remembered it, even accounting for the newly golden leaves on the trees. One of the villages they passed was a burned out ruin, the ground seared in long black lines, and it didn't look like the work of bandits. Allegedly, the etheric maelstrom that had released the immortals had also spawned a dragon, until dux Marcius had brought it down somewhere east of Vigilatum. Julia didn't want to think about what kind of magic could summon such a powerful demon, so far from the gates of Tartarus.

    Many more houses along the western trade road were deserted, their crops standing unharvested and swaying in the wind. Some had been looted. Other hamlets were filled with brooding, saturnine villagers who vanished inside when the convoy approached, only to watch them suspiciously from behind the curtained windows. Julia couldn't help but notice the tense atmosphere, and she also couldn't help but notice that they had not passed a single trade caravan. The only cat-men she had seen were ragged refugees plodding along the road in the opposite direction. They paused only to bare their teeth at the approaching Crocolykes before bolting away towards the nearest cover.

    Looking around now, Julia could see that it wasn't just the war-strengthened bandits that the people they passed were scared of. With the crocolykes now in control of the region's capital, hating their former masters and eyeing the humans of Namor with wary suspicion, Julia couldn't help but wonder who might soon be oppressing who.

    She turned to look at Zhnegra. Cold muscles flexed under orange scales as the crocolyke walked alongside her with loping, relentless strides. Even on horseback, Julia was barely taller than him. Zhnegra's eyes, deep set and slit-pupiled, were fixed ahead; as if staring beyond the horizon to their destination, and seemingly shutting out the sullen faces that glared at them from the tumbledown homesteads. Julia opened her mouth to speak, and found her tongue dry. Despite championing the Crocolyke cause for a decade, she found herself oddly intimidated by their new leader. He had barely spoken a word since the delegation had parted company with the senate army. She mastered her hesitancy a moment later, and tossed a strand of her dark hair out of her eyes as she met Zhnegra's gaze.

    "What exactly are you planning to do when we get to Hercinia?" she asked the crocolyke chieftain.


    Zhnegra looked towards the Eternan woman with great, wizened regard, his eyes widening before narrowing once more as he studied her. He saw a dark-eyed young woman; pale olive, shiny-skinned, black haired. She was young even as humans judged such things, still trying to lose the scrawny look of adolescence, but she held her chin high. The crocolyke leader had initially been equal parts shocked and curious at the small Namorian noblewoman who had wished to accompany him and his honour guard to the province of Hercine - or, as the crocolykes had openly named them long ago, the Slave-Lands. Several of his brothers shared his bafflement, regarding Julia with nothing but curiosity since their departure from the ranks of Decius Marcius' legions.

    Still looking across at the woman, Zhnegra continued to take long strides over the landscape, his clawed feet pressing into the soil. It was slightly damp, wet from autumn rain fallen just days before. Zhnegra took a long sniff through his nose and breathed outwards, hissing from deep within his throat.

    "Our first job." he told Julia at length. "Will be to find the...Tul Vratoa."

    "The what?" Julia blinked.

    "It does not translate exactly." The crocolyke tongue was harsh, accompanied by the hissing and thudding of Zhnegra's reptilian voicebox. "It means something like...war king. There have been many great Tul Vratoa. It is likely they'll have chosen the strongest and most inspiring of their ranks to lead them."

    "I thought they chose you?" Julia asked, pushing her hair back behind her ear as the wind tugged it across her face.

    Zhnegra hmmed deeply, his mind shrouded within thought as he looked to the horizon. The sun shone in the cloudy sky, glimmering gloriously with the blessings of Ra. Closing his eyes as he marched, taking in the heat and light, the crocolyke's scaled lips parted in a smile at the woman's question. His maw twisted oddly to create the expression that was so easy for a human to make, so that the result was something almost wolfish.

    "That they did." he hissed politely as he looked towards the woman. "A Tul Vratoa can be elected at any time in times of war, however. These loyal warriors of mine, and those who have remained with Decius Marcius call me their War King. But the slaves? They did not pledge any allegiance to me - they will have chosen their own War King following their uprising against the Hercinians."

    Zhnegra sighed through large nostrils - the blast of expelled air causing the crocolyke's throat to rumble.

    "There is a War King for every crocolyke conflict. My family has been privileged with having two in the same generation of hatchlings - myself and my brother Fekoia."

    Julia tilted her head, intrigued by these hitherto-unknown insights into the lizard men's culture. She had thought herself knowledgeable on the crocolykes, but in truth she had only scratched the surface of their Hercinian way of life, which was different again from that of the crocolykes who lived free in the forbidden swamplands to the southwest of Combrogia. Their ways were mostly unknown to the imperium, for Namor and Hercine reacted aggressively to any crocolykes that strayed north of Zamibia, and the free crocolykes in turn did not suffer intruders to their swampland realm. For them to have gathered an army and marched to defend the empire rather than attack it was the last thing anyone had been expecting.

    "Where's your brother now?" Julia asked.


    "Dead." Zhnegra did not look up, though he was curt in his reply, maintaining his stare onwards towards the sun.

    Julia cringed slightly. "I'm sorry."

    "He decided to lead the rebellions in Hercinia," Zhnegra explained. "To inspire the enslaved ones and to free our people from the oppression of the Slavers. He charged straight for the Tul Vratoa of your people and he fell in battle to him. The slaves continued the fight but were crushed, and the jungle people retreated."

    Julia knew the war he was referring to. The third crocolyke rebellion had been inspired by an army sweeping north from Zamibia, and the emperor had sent the 11th and 18th legions to bar the road and stop the two forces of lizard men from linking up. After taking heavy losses from the Fulminata's dwarvish cannons, the Zamibian crocolykes had retreated into the thickly forested hills of southern Hercine. The Fulminata had then been forced to turn north to deal with the rebelling slaves now threatening Vigilatum, leaving praetor Maximus' Martis legion to pursue the Zamibians. After losing several small units piecemeal, Maximus had been forced to commit his entire legion to driving the Zamibians out. The Zamibians had waited for most of the legion to pass, and then ambushed their rearguard in an attempt to cut their line of supply. It had been a good plan, but the rearguard had held for longer than expected, allowing the main body of Maximus' troops to swing round and counterattack the crocolykes. Seeing the battle hanging in the balance, the crocolyke leader had hacked his way desperately towards Maximus, who had been surveying the battle from his command post. Everyone in Emor knew the story of how the crocolyke had cut his way through 2 centurions to reach the praetor, but how Maximus had fearlessly stood his ground, weaved around the crocolyke's charge and severed his spine with his return blow. After the ambush had been broken, the defeated crocolykes had fled back to Zamibia, leaving their slave brothers to be annihilated by the combined armies of Namor and Hercine. Praetor Maximus' victory had propelled him to supreme commander of the imperial armies, and won him the honour of commanding the southern invasion several years later.

    Julia had often wondered about the other side of the story, and none of them had ever recorded the name of the snarling giant whom Maximus had killed. Fekoia. And now she was being told that he had been her companion's brother. She rubbed her forearm, suddenly embarrassed.


    Zhnegra sighed, pausing for a moment. "Fekoia was strong beyond belief, inspiring as well - perhaps in better times the Chain-Breaker would have found him to be an ally, rather than an insurgent."

    The chain-breaker was Decius Marcius, and the crocolykes had taken to calling him that after he had granted Zhnegra's army a de facto pardon and future citizenship by accepting them as auxiliaries. Julia wondered though about Zhnegra's claim - in better times necessity might not have forced the Fulminata and the crocolykes together. Dux Marcius' historical prejudice against the crocolykes was well-known, and no doubt deep rooted. She decided not to dwell on the idea and instead simply nodded, her lips pursed in sympathy.

    "I have a brother too." she said. "In the Rapax legion. He was stationed out in Hercine but I haven't heard from him in months."


    "Let us hope that the enslaved ones' new War King is not the beast that the Hercinians enjoy painting us as, then." the crocolyke leader hissed, narrowing his eyes towards the view in the distance. Ahead of the marching party was another burned out house, with huge claw-marks pressing into the ground around it, made by something far larger than even the biggest crocolyke. This too was almost certainly the work of the slain dragon, but Zhnegra looked upon the marks with unexpected curtness, as if the draconian footprints were a familiarity to him.

    "What is he like?" he asked, his voice humming with a delicacy that was seldom heard from the raspy voices of the crocolykes. "Your hatch-mate, I mean."

    Julia relaxed slightly at the change of subject. "Quintus could make friends with anyone." she said with a reminiscent smile. "Very sure of himself. He was the life of the party and competitive as anything. He couldn't wait to join the legions."

    She paused, thinking.

    "Maybe not a leader like your brother, but he's a good man."


    The crocolyke War King laughed heartily to himself, smiling at the woman's remark. "Good men live longer than leaders, Namorian - my brother is testament to that. Odin and Sobek teach us that life comes with strength of both body and mind; my brother was strong of body, yes, but the sands showed us that strength was not all that would save our world."

    He took a moment to pause and smile his wolfish smile at the Namorian woman. He seemed to find her both interesting and amusing. Hopefully it was the former that applied to her desire to help mediate the crocolyke situation, and not the latter.

    "Do not worry about your hatch-mate. I am sure that he will be safe - there is always a place for the good of heart."

    The crocolyke paused, hissing out another long, growling breath.

    "Tell me. What is it that makes you so determined to help? To follow us to Hercinia?"

    Julia looked slightly embarrassed again. "Idealism." she said at last. "When I was 6, I was dragged along to a meeting at one of my father's mining establishments. I remember it was raining, and there was mud everywhere. I saw the slaves working down in the pit, up to their knees in it. They were mostly crocolykes; a few humans, a few Dun Morigans. They were all hunched over, dragging their feet. One of them stumbled and the slave driver hit him so hard that he fell against the rocks and cracked his head open. But he just got up and carried on, with blood streaming down his face. They didn't even have any clothes, just...mud and blood."

    The young Namorian's voice had gone quiet, and she was staring at the pommel of her saddle.

    "Slaves in Namor are supposed to have rights, but I didn't see any there in my father's mining pit. Most of the city slaves are humans and, okay, some of them do alright, but most of the ones on the mines and farms are crocolykes." She shook her head. "Mother always used to say that I had a stupidly inflexible idea of right and wrong. She said I was being unrealistically black and white. But I can't help getting frustrated at people who get so mixed up in the grey that they forget that white is supposed to be the ideal you aimed for...and that sometimes there genuinely is a better alternative that everyone else always seems to be too stupid to see."

    She was well aware that some of her peers thought that her husband would have done well to slap her ideas out of her. Anyone who knew her well enough knew that her mother had already tried that, and anyone who knew Marcus Agrippa knew that under his dutiful exterior he carried a surprisingly egalitarian worldview. He had made their meeting of minds clear by not objecting when Julia had promptly elevated all the slaves that had been gifted to them on their wedding day to the status of paid freedmen. Julia still remembered her father's mouth falling open, and the other nobles shaking their heads at the perceived insult.

    "You must make some enemies." Zhnegra observed.

    Julia snorted, her old confidence returning. "Yes, but I worked out a solution to that years ago. I just stopped caring about what people who aren't my friends think of me."

    A low rumbling sound emanated from Zhnegra's throat, and Julia realised that the crocolyke War King was laughing.


    * * * * * *

    THE VALLEY OF THE SUN

    The gorge wound on for longer than any of the group had expected, sloping steadily downward and narrowing as it went. Great sandstone pillars that bore the striated lines of wind erosion flanked the canyon, their shadows growing steadily longer as the day wore on. Eventually, as the sun sank and the wind moaning through the gorge took on a chill bite, they decided to call a halt. They had seen no sign of their destination, and nor had they seen any more evidence of the mysterious watcher, although Nesara's eagle continued to circle above them in the failing light.

    Gabriel was talking softly with Numiera in the shadow of a rocky outcrop, and Suriyana was digging for water to refill their bottles beneath the dried-up stream that ran through the gorge bed, which left Nesara and Salvius to set up the camp.

    "Can't say I like the location, regina." Salvius commented as he struck his flint into a pyramid of sticks he had salvaged from the dry, spindly trees that grew along the walls of the canyon. "Your eagle might be able to warn us, but we can't get out before anyone up there starts dropping rocks on our heads."

    "Ra has seen us safe together this far." Nesara replied, her dark eyes reflecting the glint of flame as the kindling caught. "Also, I wish that you would stop calling me regina. As I have said before, I am no queen out here - we stand as equals on this quest to steer Eternum through the storm towards a golden shore."

    "Apologies." Salvius said simply, in response to the Afragian royal's typically intricate cadence. "Nesara." Still unsure of this egalitarian relationship after a lifetime of structured hierarchy, he turned away from the now-crackling fire to pull a small pot and hanger frame from his saddlebag.

    "Come now." Nesara said, her eyes twinkling in amusement. "Let me show you that I am just like any other citizen. I know more than enough about your mission, and almost nothing about you as a person, even though we shared the road for several days before Dun Moriga. I confess that I am curious of the man that dux Marcius would entrust with such a mission."

    Salvius shrugged as he threw dried meat and chunks of edible cactus into the fire-blackened pot. "There's not so much to tell."

    "Come now." Nesara said again, a smile tugging at the corners of her dainty mouth. "Let us start with something simple. When did you decide to become a soldier?"

    That one was easy enough, Salvius reflected. "My father was in the legions. He'd often talk to me about duty and the honour of serving the emperor, and the things he saw out on the edges of the empire." He left out the parts his father had told him when his mother wasn't present - of exotic wines and exotic women in the brothels of Afragia and Hercine. Something told him that the playing of this game of being equals didn't stretch quite that far. He sat back against his saddlebag as the stew he was cooking began to bubble and spit. "My father lived just long enough to see me take the oath. He died right after I was posted to the Fulminata."

    "I'm sorry." Nesara said, her eyebrows knitting together. "What did he die of?"

    Salvius gave a grunt of mirthless laughter. "Too much bravery - and a Southerner's axe. Can't say the Southmen and I have particularly gotten on since."

    "Have you ever been to the South?"

    Salvius huffed. "No. But sometimes they cross the southern ocean to raid the fringes of Combrogia. The Fulminata were stationed down there for a while, after everything went tits up with the first invasion. Sorry." he added as he belatedly caught himself at the mild oath.

    Nesara laughed. "Oh, by all means curse away. I am not so sheltered as to not expect such of soldiers." She shot the centurion a teasing grin. "Have you fought in many battles?"

    "I've killed Southerners, crocolykes and rebels up and down the continent." Salvius said in a matter-of-fact tone. "Not so many since I became dux Marcius' bodyguard, mind you. I like to think of that as a good thing though."

    "So you're a killer." Nesara probed, as she jabbed her spoon delicately into the pot to stir the broth.

    Salvius shrugged. "Is a gentle breeze a killer? No, but it can become a tornado."

    "You do your duty." Nesara said, nodding. "That I can empathise with. I feel like I have had to sacrifice much to do Ra's will these past months. First I had to leave my people to find an answer to the demons who were murdering them in the night. Then I had to marry Jornak of Ech Zilidar to secure the future of both our peoples. And now I have to leave them again to fulfil the task that Ra set me."

    The sandy-skinned queen seemed uneasy.

    "I can only pray that he is the leader that our peoples need." she went on carefully. "Though after he turned to thieves and cut-throats to secure our rule, I have my doubts. To be frank, I had hoped that Ra would have seen me pledged to someone better."

    Salvius was contemplating his answer when Nesara's gaze suddenly focused over his shoulder, and she leapt to her feet. Salvius himself immediately spun round, groping for his spatha. He saw a lambent ball of fire dancing down the gorge towards them, glinting red off the sandstone walls. It moved slowly, swaying and flickering in the air, and it took Salvius a moment to make out the figure standing behind it, their hands cupped around the fire as if it were a child's ball. The figure resolved itself into a woman in elaborate robes, with feathers pluming her arms like some bizarre avian hybrid. One of her eyes was an empty hole, ringed with the same soft feathers. The other regarded them with mocking amusement.

    Salvius thought they were in the presence of a demi-god until Suriyana leapt to her feet and shouted "Anne!" in alarm.

    "Don't worry Suri." the newcomer said, in the strangely-enunciated Namorian that the earthborn spoke. "I'm not here to drag you back, although I'll admit that having you as an apprentice would have been nice."

    "What are you doing here?" Suriyana asked, flat-footed. "What about the Egyptians?"

    Anne smirked. "Ahsha has things in hand now. My main goal has always been bringing the will of Ra back to earth. At first I thought that meeting Ra face to face was a pipe dream, but when Qia'bul shows me that you're here and there really is a portal to the underworld here? Why should I settle for second-hand knowledge?"
    Last edited by Azazeal849; 10-19-2015 at 07:37 AM.
    Spoiler: My RP links 

    PM me for novelised versions of any of my RPs, or ones that I have participated in. Set by the awesome Karma.


  9. #9
    The Big Meme
    Death of Korzan's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2011
    Location
    Bedford, Bedfordshire (Uni) / Wickford, Essex
    Favourite Roleplay Genres
    Fantasy; Science Fiction; Superheroes; Coming-of-Age; Supernatural Drama.
    Age
    27
    Posts
    5,060
    Mentioned
    57 Post(s)
    Rep Power
    216

    Default

    The Southern Encampment, The Southern Wastes


    Snow drifted slowly and tentatively through the air, stroking at the breeze of the Southern Kingdom before landing and grouping with its older, less pale brothers and sisters who had already fallen minutes, hours and days before. The nearby trees were all being cut down for firewood, the crude axes of Orcs hammering hard into the bark as they teemed away at the trunks of the old majestic greenery with a brutality that was seldom observed in other species – the Orcs were truly a clash of barbarism unto their own. The camp itself was huge, encompassing acres of land as it was re-setup so that those who – unlike the Orcs and Dark Elves – needed to sleep to regain their strength could do so, though this time the camp was joined with a small German contingent who had managed to make their way through the Ark of Noah upon its placement. Delegated alongside the Dark Elves the small group of 500 sat around cleaning guns and making sure that the snow didn’t damage the integrity of the few tanks that they had brought through the beam with them. The encampment itself was boomingly noisy, a large amount of it coming from the huge troll cages that sat to the West of the Orc’s delegated place in the camp – as they were segregated from the others unless they could speak, though speaking Orcs were few and far between, they understood well enough but languages other than their own slipped out of most Orc’s reaches – the huge creatures crying out, straining against the chains that held them or copulating noisily and disgustingly; occasionally one of the huge, towering beasts would manage to drag an Orc into the cage, though there were always replacements to take up the chains.

    Walking through the snow with buckled shoes at his feet and a mess of leather and dyed blue cloth clothing trod one of Blackbeard’s many crewmembers – though he served upon The Dainty Concubine, a fine ship originally made near Port-de-Paix and being gifted to the French Navy before being stolen from them by the first captain. The man sifted his feet through the snow, the touch of Set lingering in his eyes – blackening them with their clouds of uncomfortable, ink like darkness – and apparently leaving his skin too numb to feel the cold kiss of the south. Walking past the Germanic’s who lingered within their camp, the Pirate smiled mischievously as he was frowned upon by two massive Vikings, axes pressed to their palms as they towered over the man. Sidling to the left of them, the man continued on his way, whistling a tune to himself that he had heard long ago before his death and before the Underworld had swallowed him up, before turning left and walking down a small hill towards a lit fire. The fire-pit lingered mostly outside of the encampment - the flames joining many others that had been lit up needlessly for the comfort of the Tribal men, the Pirates and their German crewmates – and sat around it were a ring of people tossing around a screaming, naked, pale woman between them. She was currently upon the lap of one of the many German troops who lifted a bottle of Rum taken by one of the many Pirates from his ship – the naval force following the Army around the coast of the huge Icy continent in order to blockade the invading Northern Contingent and rid them of their supplies and food, if it were to be delivered – to his lips, laughing and exclaiming loudly in German as he looked upon the woman with one of his eyes – the other hidden beneath an eyepatch the man was jokingly wearing.

    “Who’s this then boys?” The approaching man laughed, taking a seat around the fire and leaning forward to grab at a piece of cooked meat. “Some Germanic slut?”

    “Do you think we’re fucking mental?” One of the other swashbucklers chuckled – he was the one whom the eyepatch belonged to, as he stared at the newcomer with only one eye and the other being closed around nothing, sparing them all the view of its chasm-like emptiness. “We don’t fancy losing our heads – nah,” The Pirate quickly pointed to the only member of the circle who seemed out of place, an Orc, who sat and stared at the others as he slowly lifted a bottle of thick, murky liquid to his lips – the Orcish drink sliding down his chin and painting the snow so red that it was hard to believe that it wasn’t just blood. The hulking beast looked up at the visiting pirate with his bright, unnervingly yellow eyes and wiped his dirtied face – the visage lacking both ears and the front of his nose, revealing only what lay underneath the mound, much like a skeleton - with an even dirtier hand. “He brought her over.”

    “I picked her up when my boys were done with her babes.” The Orc spluttered, his voice seeming unnatural and gravely as he attempted to speak.

    “Done with her ‘babes’?” The Pirate looked to the left at the others, who refused to meet his eyes as they drank from their small bottles of rum. The Orc looked forwards and stood up, body moving from left to right almost rhythmically as he tried to sound out what he wanted to.

    Smiling, the beast revealed its black, razor sharp teeth before chuckling throatily. “Human’s make for good eating,” The Pirate cringed, hand sliding down his side and towards his flintlock pistol and his cutlass. “They get a bit tough and wriggly when they get older though, makes it harder to bash their heads against the rocks.” Continuing to sway side to side, the Orc smiled as he saw the sickening look fill the eyes of the Pirate, who felt a great temptation to lower his hand and draw his Cutlass on the beast, though the yelling of the tearful, scared woman and the laughing of the bemused German soldier – who was spending more time wrapping his arms around the woman and groping at her than he was paying attention to the conversation – somehow deterred him from doing so. “We ran out of Dwarf a week or so ago,” The tall beast – standing at 7 foot at the very least, with crude armour and an equally grim longsword adorning him – hissed under his breath as he took in air and exhaled it, the monstrosities only needing to breathe in and out once every few minutes, before smiling again and taking his seat. “Don’t matter though, Humans are just as sweet when you get them young and juicy.” The beast took a swig from his container and began to chew on something in his mouth, though the Pirate didn’t even want to question what it was.

    “He brought the whore, we brought the alcohol and intelligent conversation, ain’t that right Hans?” The one eyed pirate turned to a significantly more inebriated soldier – his young face tarnished by the black of Set’s will also – and clapped him on the back, looking at the bandana that wrapped itself around his metal helmet comically.

    “Ja,” He drunkenly muttered before lifting his bottle of Rum to the air – almost dropping the glass out of his hand. “A toast, my new friends – to Set, and all the Southern Frau we could possibly want!” The men jeered loudly and collectively as the eye-patched wearing German man stood up and tugged the significantly smaller, enslaved woman away with him, leaving an open seat upon the logs around the fire to the dishevelled pirate. Picking up the bottle and reluctantly lifting it with the others – even being joined by the silent, brooding Orc – the newcomer looked up behind the circle where none of his companion’s eyes were focused, casting his eye upon one of the hulking Earthborn ‘Genetic’ soldiers as he walked past fully clad in armour, watching as the Southern Slave was dragged up the hill by the laughing German.

    ‘To Set, and all the Southern women we could want.’ The Pirate drank away his disgust and replaced it with the burning taste of liquor.


    ………………………….


    Gazing out across the encampment stood the Dark Elf King, his ever watchful, pitch coloured eyes glaring over the horde that he ruled mercilessly and without question. His tent was cold and dark, the lack of light being the work of his sorcerous presence, which seemingly sapped all of the light and joy that surrounded him. Around his large tent – which held a large table for battle plans and multiple other amenities afforded to the King – the Dark Elven soldiers flocked and moved from different tents and different areas, some of them marching down to the other members of the collective army and the rest simply moving to get food or weaponry – all of them were making themselves comfortable in the new location, a location that was largely like the one that they had camped at before; the Wastes had seldom differences in environment, the eternal winter made sure of that.

    As the King muttered to himself, he turned as the flaps to his tent opened up and ahead of him stood Chaaru, one of his more favourable foot soldiers. Despite the King’s need to destroy any semblance of the Devourer’s conscious mind and instil Set’s will into his form the old Dark Elf – who had at one time proclaimed that he was the last of his kind after the second and last war of Eden – had proven himself to be one of Dozral’s most valuable assets, serving to be an important pawn in the grand scheme of things. Within his hands sat two iron bars with a semi-circle shape at their tip, both encircling something that was angry, violent and black with rage and angst – a stone of magical potential just waiting to be exploited.

    “My King,” The broken Devourer bent the knee to the Dark Elf ruler, holding out the stone and the objects that encircled it. Lifting up his hand, Chaaru released the stone from his grasp and allowed it to float in mid-air, Dozral making sure that its destructive power didn’t stain the floor with its malevolence.

    “I thank you for bringing it to me.” The Dark Elf King smiling, bringing the object towards him and allowing it to hover above his hand, being careful not to touch the incredibly virulent stone’s seemingly polished sides, wary of its power. “The Stone of Kurosavi…” Dozral remarked, staring in near-wonder at the entrapped rage and fury. “They say that Alcamor stones were to be the last example of this great forbidden magic.” The King remarked, grossly proud at his manipulation, breaking and undoing of the great Kurosavi; his mind had been strong, far stronger than Chaaru’s – even though the Devourer was far older and less set in his mental state – and had been difficult to break, but Dozral was patient; the forests of his people had burned in the visions that Dozral had revealed to him, the world had been on fire and in the moments of Kurosavi’s great hurt and sadness the King had given him the blessings of Set, drawn his malevolence from him and instilled his will slowly but surely upon the Lord of the Forests – he had escaped with Blackbeard’s offering long ago, too soon and still too defiant to join Chaaru as a thrall, but he would never be the same again, Dozral was sure of that.

    Keeping the stone lifted with his mind, the Dark Elf King took a few deliberate steps past Chaaru before slowly pushing out of his tent, looking up into the sky and at the snow that fell, a few of the white flakes landing delicately and daintily against his equally pale skin. Closing his eyes to feel the aggressive power that lay just above his hands, Dozral pushed the stone further out into the sky, causing some of the Dark Elves to look across at their King – those that did not understand what was happening were wide eyed and curious, though those that did kneeled and began slowly chanting. The Stone was swallowed by a passing cloud a moment later, disappearing from view. The Dark Elf King did not lower his hand, and instead lifted his other one and began to join his men in chanting, looking towards the sky with his pitch black eyes. Chaaru remained silent, standing next to him as his hand twitched slightly, one of the few side effects of his destroyed conscious as his body continued to slightly resist Set’s imposing will. Hate sat at his side, forever devoid of the demonic presence that once inhabited its core, whispering sweet evils into the ears of those who wielded its force.

    As the chanting began to become louder and louder, the sky began to become blacker and blacker as the power from the stone leaked from its solid form and poisoned the air around it. The King grinned to himself as a horrific noise perforated the air, though he did not cease his chanting. The Dark Elves who were initially confused began to chant as well, the noise blocking out the general hustle bustle of the rest of the camp. The Trolls for once were silenced as they looked to the sky warily, some of them attempting to get out of the cage in fear, the Orcs too were confused and some scared, though the few Dark Elves that maintained the perimeter around the Orc camp made sure there were no deserters. The screeching noise came once more from the sky before the cloud was separated by two large, smoky and black wings, revealing a monstrosity that swooped down from the sky and landed upon the floor. The beast looked like a Raven, as large as a medium sized dragon, with dark feathers that ended in smoke that streamed off of its form and three heads that each clattered against each other; a set of razor sharp teeth filled each beak as they lashed at each other, biting aggressively in the general direction of the others heads; upon the floor its two huge, clawed feet were pressed into the snow, looking more like they belonged to a large, proud, black Dragon than what they were actually part of.

    The beast was reared upwards, its chest thrumming out proudly as its three heads looked into the sky. All of them screeched outwards towards the Dark Elves that surrounded them as the beast turned warily – a few of the Elves began to pull swords, but were stopped by the more knowledgeable of the circle. Taking a tentative step forwards, Dozral held out his hand as the Raven-like creature turned around, roaring at him with intense ferocity, flapping its wings and rearing up with territorial anger and fear as it struggled to decide what it was and what was happening to it – its existence beyond the Stone of Kurosavi likely terrifying it, as it the hatred and anger that had filled the stone was not used to having its own corporeal form. Taking a step forwards and sniffing the King with all three of its heads, the huge animal shied away slightly, mewling to itself and forming an odd noise with its throat before leaning forwards and allowing the King to run his hand across its beaks – each head snapping at the other as it lost the attention of the Dark Elf.

    Walking around its perimeter and carefully finding purchase upon the side of the animal, Dozral chanted slowly and quietly to calm the beast – which was seemingly less aggressive than it had been, though it snapped occasionally at any of the Elves that it deemed too close for comfort – as he pulled himself upwards and onto its back. Muttering a few words of Elvish to himself, Dozral watched as smoke poured from his hands and wrapped around the beasts neck – much like a lead – before becoming physical and allowing the King to wrap his fingers around the smoke-like tether. Pulling it backwards, the three-headed animal reared up once more, roaring outwards before flapping its wings and lifting itself off of the ground. Looking down upon the Dark Elves again, Dozral could almost feel the Beast’s temptation to swoop down and lift them in its claws before devouring them as he sat swaying upon the beast’s back. Smiling and pushing onto the back of the animal’s neck, the three-headed beast dove forwards and began to flap its wings as it began to fly upwards, rising and falling over the top of the camp with incredible speed.

    Dozral smiled to himself as he pulled upon the reins, enjoying his complete control over the now passive animal as it roared and screeched over the encampment, its black wings shrouding whatever light that was left in the day. ‘The Royal Beast has taken to me.’ He thought to himself as he looked confidently down upon his forces. ‘And with it, I shall take Eternum.’


    The Afragian Desert, Afragia


    The relentless heat of the desert pounded down upon the head of the very rugged and tired Kuronus Grey as he dragged his feet across the sand and even further away from the last evidence of civilisation he had been graced with. His murder of the Dwarvish King had meant his exile from their lands, and the only escape – after he had retrieved his clothing and weaponry, which was now all but torn up and blunted by the constant flurry of sand and stone that the environment had ‘gifted’ him – that had been afforded to the Lycan was within the largely uninhabited desert upon the surface of Afragia. The Afragian people had made their homes mainly below the surface, originally in ancient, abandoned Dwarven cities, though eventually they had formed architecture of their own design and had adopted the Dwarvish method of city-building rather well.

    The Lycanthrope had been observant during his time within the Desert, the vast expanse of sand hiding few things from the man. Though he was unsure of whether they were merely mirages or not, he has spied huge pulsating beams of light flickering towards the stars, bending through the atmosphere and stroking at the heavens. They were foreboding, so far away yet seemingly causing the ground to hum with power – Kuronus could feel it, his heightened senses feeling every shake within the ground, feeling the heartbeat of whatever the beams were. Dropping his hand to his waist with exhaustion, the incredibly sunburnt man fell to the floor and took a few deep breaths, the heat sapping his strength from him. Closing his eyes and attempting to ignore the glaring sun as it pounded upon him as if Ra were infuriated with the man, Kuronus lifted up a relatively large bottle of water and placed it to his lips, draining just enough of the clear liquid to wet his mouth and to energise him – the feeling of the water sliding down his throat almost tempting him to take another swig.

    After laying upon the ground for a few moments, the exhausted man pushed himself up, knowing the dangers of remaining stationary in the heat for too long – looking over to his left and spying one of the two tailed scorpions that were well known to lurk the surface of the desert looking over at him, the Lycan rolled the opposite way and stood, looking down at the arachnid before turning and climbing the sand-dune that he had rested against; the territorial animal hissed quietly – though Kuronus could hear it – before retreating back into the sand as the ex-soldier moved further away from it. Sighing and looking across at the rest of the sands that sat ahead of him, he took a few more steps further into the desert, not looking back towards the city that he had left behind.


    The Underworld


    The air was humid and filled with the smell of phosphorous and ash. The moans of the damned filled the area and constantly echoed out, creating a choir of lost souls all crying for a redemption that they would not be afforded. The ground was composed of completely black stone, mirroring the shadowy gloom that filled the sky, never shifting or changing - like some pale imitation of the real sky. The fields of asphodel filled the majority of the Underworld's surface, with the dead being able to see those they knew when they were alive and no more than that, all lost to the visage of those that they did not know. Through the centre of the fields flowed the River Styx, crashing down noisily and nigh-on obnoxiously from an unknown source before running through its banks like a serpent, chained to the ground and unable to rise. Within the middle of one of the River's largest meanders sat an island that was host to all of those who had been deemed worthy enough to live there - where legends like George and Patrick spent eternity 'living' like Kings for their services both for the Gods and against the 12 Demon Lords of Tartarus - where the River Styx fell into.

    As if the sun had just risen, so to did Nemesis' son. With a start, he jumped up from the floor and was instantly in position to fight, weapon in hand and ready to strike. Taking a few deep breaths of the sulphurous air, the young man turned around and looked at his surroundings. Shocked for a moment, the assassin reached down and touched at his chest, scowling with a cold, numb expression as he pushed his finger into one of the many entry wounds that sat upon his chest. As he did so, he began to remember his fate. Salvius and the rest of the group had left upon a ship as the battle had begun - the assassin had managed to keep his name from the man, though he was not quite sure that he would be able to recollect it himself - leaving revenge's son to follow them. The Pirates and Germans had come quickly however; the now-dead man could almost feel the lashing sting of the Cutlass as it had drove into his flesh, followed by the numbing pulse of the German gunfire upon his already mortally wounded form.

    Placing his weapon away as he realised his fate, the assassin looked curiously around him before peering over the cliff and down at the fields of asphodel beneath him, where the countless number of spirits swayed to and fro like the ocean that had lingered outside of his place of death, flowing backwards and forwards across the shore relentlessly. Taking a deep breath, the young man raised his hands to his head and grimaced. 'This isn't how it was supposed to happen.'

    There was a slight gust of wind flowing through the area, smelling empty and devoid of the rot that Nemesis' son thought should linger in the land of the dead. Taking a curious step forwards, the young man watched as arms and heads moved away from the wall, with eyes full of white fire, holding their hands outstretched to grab at the man, begging salvation. The assassin was unsure of their punishment, but he was not one to trifle with the power of Hades. Taking a few careful steps past the outreaching dead, the assassin watched as a blue-white light began to form ahead of him, as if pulling in light of the area into one concentrated zone. The light slowly but surely expanded to form a tall, bright figure standing ahead of him - for all intensive purposes, the assassin believed that he was looking at a spectre.

    "Why are you not judged, damned one?" The figure spoke, its voice ethereal and booming within Nemesis' son's head, though seemingly incorporeal and without real energy, as if it only existed within the assassin's mind. "Seth of god's blood, why are you not with the remainder of the damned."

    'Yes, that's right...' The assassin took a moment as memories flooded back to his 'damned' self. 'Seth...that's my name, the name my father gave me.' Memories of his father and his mother flowed back to him like a stream filling an empty creek, but there was only hatred towards his mother, burning, undesirable rage enough to poison a nation against itself. Shaking the thoughts from his head as they forced him to grit his teeth and bite the inside of his mouth, Seth took a step forward and squinted his eyes as he looked upon the spectre. The figured held no discerning features to his face, though his voice was definitely Eternun in nature, he held nothing on his person other than a spear-like weapon at his back, though its details too were difficult to make out with the composition of the figure's form.

    "I don't know...I died and woke up here." The assassin warily muttered, reaching down for his blade though relenting from wrapping his fingers around it's nimble pommel, unsure as to whether or not he would do any damage to such an incorporeal creature. "Who are you?"

    "If you woke here without judgement..." The Spirit seemed to think for a moment, pausing in thought as it maintained its stare upon the son of revenge. "Then Lord Hades must wish to speak with you...that must explain why I have been summoned from my sleep."

    "Your sleep?" Seth wasn't going to pretend that he knew anything of the dead's customs. He was as relatively learned man when he was younger, being one of the few men of societies upper echelons to retain some form of street etiquette - his short beginnings in the underworld had been nothing but uncomfortable so far, for he knew nothing of the 'livelihood' of the dead.

    "Yes, gifted to me by the Lord Hades, an eternity of sleep as a reward for my earned greatness." The spectre turned and began to walk down the sleeping hillside towards the lower end of the cliff-side - the slope forming some form of staircase, sans the stairs of course.

    "But I thought that those who achieved greatness went to Valhalla, between the wound of the Rainbow Snake and the break in the river." Seth queried. It was common knowledge that the River Styx had once been something much more. Whilst Ra and Apophis fought for centuries, Apophis' blood, drawn from the wounds of Ra's hammer, grew into a son, Styx - or as some knew it, the Rainbow Snake, due to its shockingly vibrant colour - who attempted to help his father defeat the King of Gods. Holding him down and tying him to the three worlds of the living, the dead and the demonic, Ra turned the newly born Snake-God into a river and has rode upon him since.

    "We have achieved greatness though." The white figure muttered, his voice still echoing through the very fibres of Seth's being, as if enlightening him with glorious intelligence at every word he 'spoke'. "And that is why we may choose, an eternity of drinking and eating and 'living' with the heroes of all times or an eternity to sleep and dream of days long passed."

    Taking a moment to digest the thought, the assassin followed the white figure. "You didn't tell me your name." The young man's poke, finished with mulling over the words of someone who - for all he knew - could have been dead for millennia. "Like, what do I call you? And where are we going."

    "I'm going to take you to Lord Hades and he shall give you light."

    "Light?" Seth muttered, questioning the sanity of the spirit.

    "Yes, he shall give you light within your mind where there was none - he shall show you the path he wishes for you to undertake." The ghost seemed to flutter with pride as he spoke of his lord, the cruel - or so most Namorian effigies or paintings portrayed him as - God seemingly giving far more to his 'subjects' than the living had anticipated. "I am White-Hand, you may call me this, though I do not remember my birth name."

    Looking around on the horizon for some form of castle or palace in which the God of the Dead would linger, Seth found none. Frowning before lowering his eyes towards the ground, the now-dead assassin muttered to himself before looking up towards White-Hand. "Where is your 'lord' then?"

    "We have a long march ahead of us, Seth of gods-blood." White-Hand didn't turn around, he merely continued to press forwards, walking down the sloping hillside and further down the cliff towards the blue-white masses that awaited him in the Fields of Asphodel. "The Underworld is infinite; I do hope that your parents has not forgotten you - else you may forget them whilst we are here."

    "Infinite..." The assassin took a moment to think, looking once more at the swaying crowds of the dead and the outstretched arms of the punished who made up the walls of the cavernous realm. Pressing his hand against his chest, the young man felt the bullet-holes and the stab wound that adorned him and sighed with discontent.

    "Let's hope this conversation's worth it then."
    Last edited by Death of Korzan; 06-24-2015 at 12:14 PM.

  10. #10
    The Replicant
    Azazeal849's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2011
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    7,608
    Mentioned
    84 Post(s)
    Rep Power
    470

    Default

    RYSSTAD VILLAGE, THE FREE SOUTH

    From the cover of the treeline, tribune Caeso Cassius looked down at the Southern village. His sharp, youthful features were softened by the stubble he was growing out to try and keep his face warm - a few short weeks ago he had been riding with the Fulminata legion at the tail end of the northern summer, but south of Eternum's equator the seasons were reversed, and the bitter Southern winter showed no signs of breaking. The pine trees were shrouded in snow, and the oaks were black and covered with glassy teeth, icicles snarling down from the bare branches. Cassius' breath made a frozen mist in the air as he looked down the forested hill slope with a grim expression. He did not know the name of the Southern village below, but it was burning.

    Not all of the Southern people had been able or willing to abandon their homes and flee for the safety of the capital, and they were paying for it now as the demon army ground steadily northward. The cleared ground to the south of the village showed where the attackers had burst out of the woods, and a knot of dead men still clutching their spears in the shadow of the southernmost houses showed where a few brave men had mustered a token defence. The longhouses that made up the village were on fire; the flames like a line of bright orange dancers, pirouetting one after the other before leaping upwards into black smoke. All around, the snow was glowing red. The oddly beautiful spectacle was counterpointed by scrambling and screaming from the village streets, as the attackers stormed in with torches and blades. Cassius recognised greyskin orcs, alongside leaping, corpse-white elves and fur-clad men with roiling black eyes. They were snatching the Southern civilians as they tried to flee the burning buildings, or else breaking through the doors and windows to drag them out.

    Cassius was familiar enough with the pattern - Kill the men first; they're the most likely to resist. Then you can do what you like with the women and children. The tribune felt anger and disgust welling up from his stomach and seeping through his body. Victory begat glory, and fear begat order, but savagery begat nothing but hatred. He had not suffered his own legion to rampage through Hercinia after defeating the immortal Greeks, and he was damned if he was going to sit and watch an enemy of the imperium do so here.

    Cassius tightened his mare's reins, and she snorted, pawing at the hard crust of snow that lay underfoot. "Forward." he snarled.

    The decurion mounted beside Cassius turned to look at him and raised an eyebrow. He was a middle-aged veteran, who like the other men around them wore the wolf emblem of the Martis legion instead of Cassius' own thunderbolt. He had an ascetic face, and eyes like chips of dirty ice.

    "The praetor's orders were not to engage, sir." he reminded Cassius coolly.

    "We won't." Cassius answered. "I just want them to see us. Bring us forward out of the trees."

    The signal horns rang out in a sharp blast, causing the demons milling below to freeze and look up in shock. Cassius' cavalry cantered forward out of the concealment of the forested hilltop, and paused to reform on the lip of the slope. Cassius raised his arm as if to signal the charge. The effect was immediate - the demons who had seen the sudden arrivals first dropped what they were doing and bolted for the safety of the rocky woodland that lay to the south of the village. Others saw what they were doing, then looked up at the hill and saw why, and ran after them. They fled, dropping prisoners, torches and looted goods as they ran. Some even threw away their weapons. With another signal, Cassius sent his turma of 30 horsemen streaming down the hill after them, but the uneven ground and the thick snow slowed the charge to the point that the demons' head start was enough to see them safe to the treeline.

    Cassius shouted an order, and the trumpets blasted again to bring the Namorian cavalry cantering to a halt. He would have liked nothing better than to ride the raiding party down and kill them all, but the thick woods to the south did not favour his horsemen, and he couldn't be sure how close the rest of the demon army was. And, as the decurion had curtly reminded him, he had orders. Do not engage. praetor Maximus had told him. He had obeyed the letter of the command, if not the spirit.

    Cassius wheeled his mare around and looked again at the bloody shambles that the demons had left in their wake. The Southern survivors were still stumbling about the village streets, openly wailing or calling out frantically for loved ones. A few recognised the Namorian soldiers for what they were and began to panic again. Cassius saw a child of perhaps ten years staring right at him as if he were Mors herself, too numb with terror to even move until his mother scooped him up and bundled him away.

    "Go!" Cassius shouted at the Southerners, not caring if they understood as he wheeled his mare around and began to canter back up the hill, his men following in his wake.

    * * * * * *

    NAMORIAN ARMY CAMP, 40 MILES NORTH OF BRANJASKR

    The tent flaps were closed tight, but the wind still howled and battered at the canvas, and it was sufficiently cold for both men to be wearing their thick cloaks even inside the relative comfort of the praetorium.

    "Eight weeks, you say?" praetor Maximus asked, his heavy eyebrows drawing together as he fixed the quartermaster with an intense stare.

    "Yes sir." quartermaster Matellus replied with a nod, placing the wax tablet down on the table for the dux meridium to inspect. Praetor Quintus Maximus was a mordant, imposing man with a palpable iron aura, and the quartermaster always found it oddly difficult to meet his steel-grey eyes.

    The facts were the facts, however. They had two months of provisions available, at standard rations, and although the supply ships were already on their way back north it was a more delicate balance than either Matellus or Maximus would have liked. From the amount of food they had looted from the coastal villages, it was clear that the frozen South was not made to support 90,000 soldiers. Matellus had always suspected that the strength of this invasion was political, not practical. They could have taken the South with three legions, and Mighty Galen had insisted on sending fifteen!

    Matellus wondered if the demon army closing in on the Southern capital from the opposite side was suffering from the same logistical headaches. Do demons even need to eat? He looked at praetor Maximus, but the general was unreadable as he skimmed Matellus' report and then placed the tablet carefully back on the table.

    "Very well, praefectus." he said by way of dismissal.

    Before Matellus could salute and retreat from the tent, the flap behind him opened, admitting a blast of frigid air and a young cavalry officer in tribune's stripes.

    "You wanted to see me, general?" Cassius asked as he snapped a salute. His face was studiously neutral.

    Maximus tapped his fingers on the ceremonial baton of the emperor's authority that lay on his table beside the tablets, maps and paperweights. In a hand like the praetor's, the short white staff almost took on the aspect of a sword. "I assume you know why you're here."

    "Yes sir." Cassius replied carefully. The young man stood ramrod straight.

    "You potentially gave away the radius of our scouting forces to the demon army," Maximus said in a low, steady voice. "To protect a rabble of Southerners."

    "With respect sir, those Southerners were civilians."

    "The Southerners don't have civilians, you fool!" Maximus thundered, his voice rising so abruptly that Matellus almost flinched even though the rebuke wasn't directed at him. "Every man, woman and child on this gods-forsaken continent will pick up a spear and try to put it through you if you give them half a chance!"

    Cassius was silent. Maximus snorted down his nose.

    "Consider yourself lucky that you've got an otherwise spotless career behind you. Now get out of my sight before I have you relieved of your command and executed for insubordination."
    Spoiler: My RP links 

    PM me for novelised versions of any of my RPs, or ones that I have participated in. Set by the awesome Karma.


Page 1 of 5 123 ... LastLast

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •