Index:
Episode 1 - The League of Iron assembles
Episode 3 - Legacy of the Veil Breakers
Episode 7 - Home is where the hearth is
Episode 8 - Last of the Old Ones
Episode 12 - Mistress of Flesh
Episode 15 - March of the parasites
Episode 16 - Shadows in the Fog
Fields of rye.
Pregnant with bales of greenish hay, long strips of fertile soil were dotted by blankets of thick snow. Tiny crooks of water swiveled inside grassy irrigation canals, chirping birds and lazy rats resting inside the thick wickers growing along their banks. They had their bellies full of grain, flesh, and ripe fruit; small stashes of food which the naïve slaves often hid there, with vain hopes that their masters wouldn't catch them.
Carrion birds slept the blissful slumber of those who knew not what hunger is. The bones of unruly, slow to work, or those slaves foolish enough to steal food, dangled from old, wooden gibbets. One per each fifty strides along the irrigation canal, these were erected here so the carrion eaters could reach with only a short flutter of their wings.
Nothing else but barracks, farm fields, and slave huts surrounded the imposting city of Zhul. A marvel of forced labor and stolen engineering, the Thulm were fully reliant on slaves for their every foodstuff. Huge loafs of black bread the staple of the invader's diet, cattle was primarily raised to feed the monstrous six-legged horses of war and their noblesse riders.
Chill winter wind, this oft vicious in nature Areal, stomped across the muddy fields and smothered tiny fires made of forest buffalo dung. He danced across slowly freezing soil, uncaring, and unwilling to notice a gaggle of mere mortals toiling below. Dressed in painstakingly stitched together clothes made of discarded rags and old grain sacks, the barefoot slaves stocked barrels of ripe fruit and bags of rye in a tall barn.
Their masters' whips cracking over head, back, and stumbling legs, with painful, raspy breaths, they battled with their cargo. For the past month, those among them who could still work hard, they offloaded wheelbarrows full of grain, one after the other, all day and long into nightfall. The women and children who had miraculously survived a gauntlet of abuse, satisfying the Raiders every carnal desire, they now pickled fruit and vegetable for the winter in large, wooden barrels.
Food, there was so much food stored in this one barn alone! Enough, they knew, for their slave detail to feast upon and last them throughout the entire winter. This year, even the newly captured understood that'll be a hungry and painful one since more than half of them, plus many of their guards had been taken the days before.
There were terrible rumors jumping from slave camp to slave camp, as was often the case. Fear and confusion spread across half the city, bits of information slipping past the lips of scared guards or derived from the angry shouts of their Overseers. A mysterious threat had reared its spectral head, many dozens of Thulm warriors lay slain, and, if that was not enough, the corpse-walkers had all but vanished into obscurity.
Rearmed, many of the older Thulm warriors were to join their younger kin and fight Alkiorn. Others, given better weapons and armor, their task was to manage the slaves and by all means ensure that large wagons reach the front. The slaves' friends and relatives did not expect their kin to ever come back.
Thulm warhorses were always hungry...
There was this lingering murk in the far distance, where their fellows were marched at early morn. The slaves who'd just painstakingly closed shut the barn doors after storing every bale, sack of grain, and barrel full of fruit, noticed a couple of cloaked silhouettes walking slowly out of the fog. They'd heard a mighty rumble echo across the muddy fields an hour ago, one that did not phase their few Thulm guards at the slightest. Whatever this was, a rider in full armor galloped by, ensuring them that the cargo was being moved and the slave workers, obedient.
Long since that rider had been swallowed by the streets of Zhul did these newcomers came into view. Three, each taller than the other, they appeared to be armed, armored, and, initially, the browbeaten onlookers assumed them Thulm. Yet, what was their surprise, when the three walked even closer, brazenly revealing their Alkiornian origins!
A spearwoman of Arkan Kin blood, a Neldaeiri knight, and an axe wielding Elf, this group which appeared almost phantasmal-like, stood tall and unflinching in the eyes of the slave guards. With no thoughts of hiding their approach they strode near and in full view of everyone, immediately surrounded by the dozen in number Thulm.
“Oey, curs, yer whacked in da 'eads or what?!” - Snickered the main guard, crossbow aimed at the ten elbows tall and heavily armored knightly warrior.
While two of his underlings pointed their bows at the woman and the elf, an assortments of forged from red-steel swords, axes, maces, and spears awaited their turn to sing a song most bloody.
Twelve against three, however the slaves looked at this soon-to-be-bloody affair, the odds weren't in their people's favor. What was the means these warriors used to sneak past Thulm raiding parties on the front, patrols, and slave guards, the slaves had not the slightest idea. Yet, those who survived more than one season here – they knew that no one who dared resist the masters lived to boast about it.
The bones of the brave were reforged into armaments and armor to conquer and oppress the weak, for this was the Thulm's way.
“My kin,” - the elf addressed an elven slave, fully ignoring the Thulm and their weapons - “might you direct us towards the nearest village?”
“Aye,” - nodded the knight - “we need to have a little chat, my fellows.”
“A talk about uprisings and on a full belly, if I might add.” - Announced the hauntingly beautiful Arkan kin woman, hands resting on her spear, whose tip appeared to be gently glittering.
The guards rumbled and they cackled, more than a few tears of joy in their smiling eyes.
“Soft 'eaded simpletons, 'twas who dey are, lads!” - Noted the head guard, and motioned with his armed crossbow - “Now, drop dem weapons.”
“And why should we do that?” - The elf inquired, resting his long-shafted axe upon his broad, armored shoulders.
“Cos' I command ya to do so.” - Snickered the slave guard boss, and unleashed a loud whistle - “An' cos' in a few breaths, ye be surrounded by 'undreds of Raiders.”
Now it was the three's turn to exchange looks and smiles.
“Who,” - the knight made one tiny step forth, hand resting on the pommel of his longsword - “might I ask, were you calling, and with such an insouciant smirk nonetheless?”
“Indeed, a most useless act.” - the elf bolstered his companion's words - “for there are none who'd answer thy call for aid.”
“Even if thy sentry was alive, she'd find none alive in that barracks over there.” - Said the Arkan kin as she canted her head, blowing an odd flock of hair in a most adorable manner, one which temporarily obscured her vision.
The cheer which these Thulm guards shared not a few breaths earlier became a bit lessened with each word that the three Alkiornians uttered. Obnoxious, yes, yet no fools, they knew full well that the general direction these three came from was where the nearest barracks stood tall. However, that building stationed a garrison thirty strong and they assumed the three were bluffing.
Wincing, the head guard changed his aim from the upper breastplate to the knight's visor and, just to be extra sure his sentry head him, whistled again. Though not the reply he'd expected, an answer came and instantly so. With a gentle flutter of white feathers did the Ranger arrow perforate his temple and the Thulm inelegantly tumbled down, quite dead.
Wasting not a single breath, the Alkiornians sprang into action, assaulting those who were in their immediate reach. Before the tired eyes of the enslaved, the three warriors fought and with such vigor, that in but few counted breaths, three more guards lost their lives. Those who had them in their aim, attempted to let loose their arrows, only to gargle, three white-feathered Dwarven projectiles sticking out of their necks.
Past their prime the Thulm warriors were, yet, no matter how many silvery threads adorned their heads, they could still fight. Those who were left standing attacked, skillfully keeping their distance so the Ranger would not dare shoot out of concern for his companions.
He dared.
More arrows flew and impaled legs or raised weapon holding arms. Wounded, the Thulm nevertheless kept fighting, hoping that cavalry troop stationed in the nearby barracks would come to their aid. Yet, even if these cavalrymen were still warm and breathing, they'd arrive way too late for comfort.
Before ten breaths passed, all those who raised arms against the Four, lay dead in their feet. Few were slain by the elf, whose axe cleaved limbs and splintered helmeted heads with practiced ease. A number of blades found his armored body, yet failed to inflict anything but a few painful bruises.
In his stead, the knight put not the longsword to work but dagger and gauntleted fist. With measured moves, practiced and improved on the bloody battlefield, he proceeded to snap necks, shatter skulls, and perforate necks. More Thulm joined their fellows bleeding on the muddy ground, some still gargling, others breathing their last.
The Arkan kin, instead of employing her sorcerous might, stabbed, slashed, and tripped a few of the guards with her spear. Training herself beyond the levels what her people deemed normal, she used the Thulm's momentum and it was them who literally impaled themselves to death.
Emerging from a not-so-distant ditch bow in hand, their Dwarven companion approached the massacre, and he lugged a guard's lantern in his other hand. Confused and terrified, the slaves looked upon their kin undecided of what to do with their newly-found freedom. Hither was Zhul, its population many thousands of hungry for death Thulm.
“Good fellows,” - began the elf, as he wiped hair, brains, and bits of meat from his axe - “if I was thee, I'd open that barn and grab everything I could carry.”
“For sure!” - smiled the knight, as he sheathed the dagger he'd just killed a number of Thulm with in a sheath tied to his elven friend's armored leg - “Proceed to that gathering of little huts, as I avow my rebellious intent.”
“I would do well to drizzle all that oil all over them bales of hay, then light this barn on fire.” - Grumbled the Dwarven Ranger, and walked past a number of slaves, who, after hearing all of this, began quivering like blades of grass on the wind.
“But... the soldiers... they'll see!” - Said one of the slaves, and pointed at the tall city walls in the near distance.
By now, those who had just closed the barnyard doors shut had opened them wide, and were beginning to drag foodstuffs out. More of the slaves helped them, as if all of their torturous toil till now was erased by magick.
“Very true,” - the Arkan kin replied, and shouldered her spear, as her companions placed a couple of smaller sacks of grain on each end of the shaft - “but this is exactly what we want.”
“Because by the time they ride here, we be in, and yee be long gone!” - the Ranger explained their plan, splattering a huge bale of hay with oil from the lamp, as the knight shouldered a big barrel full of pickled veggies.
The Dwarf proceeded to light a longish piece of cloth on fire with his flint, picked not one but two huge sacks of grain, and urged the still stunned slaves to follow, as the barn door gradually began to catch on fire.
“Do not forget their arms and armor, my kin!” - The elven priest reminded, and saw his kin don the bloodied gambesons, chain mails, and pick up all weapons.
Stupid the browbeaten slaves were not. Even those of them, broken by whip and toil still had enough of their Alkiorn spirit left, therefore they did not loiter about. Foodstuffs on their shoulders, they guided the Four to the nearby slave homes. Just before they would run into the distant countryside, their liberators gave them more, and wise instructions.
The ex-slaves were to ambush more of the small farms nearby, free more of their kin, and burn all foodstuffs they couldn't carry. Thus, benefiting from an ever-growing chaos, they were to vanish into the distant hills, where they'd hide with all the stolen provisions. In their stead, the Four promised to do something which they claimed would literally set Zhul on fire.
Wasting not a single breath, the Four shrouded themselves in their cloaks and, dashed with swift steps towards the city. As stuffed their faces with food and ran pretty much in the opposite direction, the newly-liberated slaves thought not of the distant future.
They might free more of their kin or die trying, yet that was not important. What was important, was the fact that the winter in these lands was quite fierce. Those left without provision would suffer a fate worse than death, and right now, most of Zhul's foodstuffs were out here, being gathered and stored in barns by their fellow slaves...
***
Dear reader, if you liked this story, you might enjoy my published work.