The Trial: Journey's End
Written by: AtheistBasementDragon
Edited by: The Usual Gang of Drunken Perverted Idiots
Chapter 28: Highway of Tears
...Menowa...
Nua was overjoyed, the workers she'd hired were every bit as good as Mu'Sula had promised, in two days time, they'd torn down the entire set of buildings and laid the full foundations for the replacements.
On the evening of the second day, Nua was moved by an impulse she couldn't resist. "I'm buying tonight's meal for you all, just stay here when you're done, and I'll make sure I stuff you like a turkey."
"What's a turkey?" A minotaur asked.
"Big bird, you kill it, shove things up its ass after you gut it, cook it, eat it, and relax." Nua said bluntly, "Popular food in hell." Her words were clipped and blunt, which they seemed to favor, but she drew some funny looks when she remarked on it being popular in hell.
She waved away the questions before they began to come at her, "I'll explain later, besides, the story has a happy ending, and that always makes a meal better."
They accepted this and returned to work, while she herself went out and left them to the task. Finding food proved harder than she expected. It was one thing to buy for one's self, it was another to buy for a large group. "Sorry, I only get small shipments in, if I sell it all to you, I won't have any to sell to my other customers tomorrow, and then they'll stop coming after that. I won't destroy my business for one sale." The answer came from more than one merchant, until she had a moment of inspiration that made her slap her forehead and her eyes go wide.
She entered the next shop, the shelves were all but bare of food, the bins where grains of various types were held, were almost entirely empty, not completely, but they were low. Her observation of the street showed that there weren't that many buyers out and about, so what she saw reflected very small shipments. She tilted her head back and looked up at a minotaur who had clearly seen better days.
She was crisscrossed with scars and walked with a limp, though she had thick muscles, she moved sluggishly as if she'd been ill and not fully recovered, her eyes were listless, and her small horns that marked her as much a female as her breasts, seemed dulled and had chipped in a number of places. In spite of her evident 'decline' she responded when Nua approached.
"I've seen you. You're the elf doing all the construction across the square near the pavilion." The minotaur woman said in a banal tone that told Nua she didn't really care.
"Yes... I want to buy some food for my laborers. They've worked hard and I want to provide them with a little... bonus." Nua said as she looked around, the wooden planks and beams within the small shop had seen better days, there wasn't much to it that wouldn't be blown away in a stiff breeze. The others hadn't been much better off.
The merchant woman snorted and huffed, "I can't sell to that many..." She began and Nua raised her hands up and down to get the woman to stop.
"No, no, I don't want you to drain your stock. Just let me buy for three. Two for workers, and one for yourself, you're invited as well." She said hastily.
That had the minotaur woman's attention. "You're going to pay me to eat my own stock?"
"That's right, for this evening at least, and I'll tell you what, if you'll carry that offer to all the others who sell food around here, and have it brought over along with the things necessary for cooking... I'll throw in an extra copper for every one of your merchant friends you get to attend, in addition to paying you all for your stock." Nua said, and reaching into her pouch, she withdrew ten silvers. "Use this as you need, and keep the change, I'm no merchant, I'll have to trust you to get a good deal."
The dull and listless eyes locked on the coins like they were water in a desert and she was dying of thirst. "It will be done."
Nua smiled as warmly as she could, "I know." She said, and she was not being generous, she had well learned to watch the eyes for that sense of the opportunist snatching at a chance.
So she was unsurprised when an hour later, there were a dozen minotaurs headed over the nearly empty square, bearing large packs on their backs, carrying pots, and so on.
They didn't need to be told to use the broken and torn up wood to improvise a preparation spot, and as if they'd done it before, they established an impromptu cooking and eating area while the workers wrapped up for the day.
As if the timing were ordained by the unliving god, the workers wrapped up only minutes before the first helpings were prepared. Huge pots were being stirred and bread was being laid out, the sweet savory scent of meat carried over the workers as they set their tools down, and began to line up. At first there was jostling, and for a moment it seemed a fight might break out, but Nua saw the potential breakdown of order and snapped out...
"None of that!" She clapped her hands together authoritatively, "The will of god is that all stand equal in the mess, all will get an equal portion! All will eat, but the line is first come and first serve."
A minotaur approached her with a bowl of stew and held it out to her... her stomach rumbled loudly, but her eyes turned a shade of gold as she looked down from the box on which she was standing and shook her head decisively. "No." She said powerfully and pointed to the line. "Give it to the next one in line. I go last, not first."
Setting the example, she was met with rumblings of respect, and she watched as her workforce slowly inched forward.
Silence dominated, and Nua saw the opportunity in front of her, "How about a story to pass the time?" She proposed, "Every meal is made better with a good story to go with it!" Her face fairly glowed with excitement, ears twitched and turned toward her at the promise of a story.
"Let me tell you about the time hell itself caught fire and burned down... a story of what happens when nightmare meets nightmare, and births a demon so filled with rage that hell itself was turned to a ruin. Our story begins in a place called 'Wenmark...'
So Nua spoke, telling the story as she had heard of it, one of courage, conviction, desperation, longing, hope, love, and final vengeance brought by the skeletal hand of the unliving god whose will forged a weapon out of a human soul. 'All those classes on storytelling really did pay off.' She thought to herself as she paused to drink water, the line snaked forward without disruption or a word as the story was told from first arrival, to the final end of the nightmare and the terrible dawn that came from it.
Not an ear turned away, and through it all, Nua made references to the faith, to the generous will of the divine whose sense of responsibility for his subjects made him the greatest of all kings, the greatest of all gods. She put all she had into the story, and by the time it was done, she felt very tired, but satisfied. 'Ahhh, a good story is like good sex, leaves you happy and satisfied, but always wanting more.' She let herself laugh within her heart, and briefly thought of the happier times with Aalon, and wondered how he was.
"Another!" Someone called out. Nua sat on the box she'd been standing on and held up her bread and wagged it at the speaker.
"At least let me take a bite of bread before I get started." Nua said with a roll of her eyes.
A few minutes later, she was obliging, but interspersed throughout the story of the Grand Matriarch's deception that let her easily destroy the Theocracy's greatest host, she answered questions about the faith that had brought so many different races together, and she also spoke of her purpose.
"We are Kiril's people, why do we need another god?" One of them asked her bluntly.
"Well, he's not doing all that well by you, is he?" Nua asked pointedly, "It seems to me that if a god is good for anything, it ought to be doing something, or at least helping solve a problem, but from what I learned before I got here, your kingdom used to be more than twice as big as it was. And worse, the ones who took that land over the last two hundred years, regularly come over the border to kill and eat your people. Seems to me that Kiril is being negligent. Why work for a god that doesn't work for his people?" She asked, a hint of bitterness in her voice as she recalled the uselessness of the elven religion's beliefs, a religion she barely remembered any longer.
She went on, "I follow a god that breaks chains, that raises armies, that creates change, he is a river to his people, and I am but a tributary to his greatness, and bearing it to you. Look at the coins you now carry, whose face is on it? Look at your bowls, the money that put food in there was given to me directly by my god, who made right over a century of wrong in a single gesture. Now his largesse is carried to you also. The service I render to god, I render through my service to you and all around me. In turn, the great undead King renders service to his followers, granting them justice, strength, knowledge, arms of impossible power, and raises armies the likes of which the world has never seen, to utterly destroy those who would destroy his people. That is the god I serve. When was the last time Kiril did anything?"
She took one last bite of bread after wiping it around the bowl on her lap, and silence ruled for a few minutes before a merchant said, "I'd actually like to know more."
If anyone disagreed, well they chose not to leave, the only movement was when somebody would rise to refill their bowl with stew or grab more bread, and they seated themselves again to listen as Nua took out the book compiled by the demon of the west.
...East of Last Home...
They ran over ground like wind over water, unimpeded as they rushed ever closer, they paused at a few locations for Mu'Ulm to get his bearings, and for him to take a moment to remember things and places long shoved down into the recesses of his memory, and the sun continued to creep across the sky.
Without the need to rest their horses however, the going was swift, what should have taken days, took only hours, and eventually Neia found herself standing on a great, wide road. Hardly a marvel of engineering, to her critical General's eye, it was in fact, crude. Only a little higher than the ground around it, it was nothing but hard packed earth. "Alright, a quick break, then we move on." Neia said as she stopped her horse.
"Welcome," Mu'Ulm said gravely, "to the Highway of Tears." He got down off his horse with some effort, and reached down and touched the earth with reverence, crouching there and turning his head toward the forest just beyond the open ground on which they stood.
"As I said, once we cross into those trees, we enter Devor territory. The place where foolish little bulls played foolish little games, until finally the Devor ended up winning the game permanently. He slowly stood up, lost in thought, Neia was not sure he even spoke to her, or simply spoke. "I won't say that nobody ever comes back but… nobody comes back the same.
Neia's face was, to his eyes, seemingly suddenly incredibly soft, gentle even, her knuckles turned white as she held the horse.
"Why do they call this the Highway of Tears?" She asked with a sinking feeling as she recalled his story.
"Because... it has become a custom for those who lost loved ones to the Devor, to come to this road and walk up and down to mourn and bewail the loss for seven days. Most no longer have the courage to cross over the border, either because they fear for themselves, or the retribution of the Devor that might fall on everyone else. So... they walk, they wail, they cry out to Kiril to send his angel to choose one worthy of elevation, to restore our people."
"You...?" Neia asked as he looked away, into the deep wood.
He nodded, "The earliest, I have a vague memory of sitting atop my father's shoulders, lowing and crying to the forest... a face, only vague in my mind now, someone I liked, maybe loved in the way little ones do. A feeling of sadness I didn't understand, someone taken away... doesn't matter now. Whoever they were, they're long dead if they're lucky. I visited here several more times, until there was nobody left worth mourning. I came here for my friends, and by now... I doubt there is anyone of the old place left, though I know the village is still there."
He bent down and picked up a stray rock and threw it into the woods, the stone embedded itself deep into the trunk of a tree. The trunk shook and a few leaves fluttered down. Neia took out her water skin and drank deeply from it, then tossed it to Mu'Ulm, he caught it easily and drank what was left, and threw it back to her, empty.
"Thanks." He said bluntly.
She nodded and put it away.
"Funny, I was half expecting words of comfort or something," the minotaur added.
Neia shook her head, "I'm not all that great at that stuff. My wife is, my friends are, but what can I tell you? I'm no good at that. I walked away from the ruins of a life myself, and built a new one atop the bones of my enemies. I know more about revenge than forgiveness. The only comfort I can give you in this is... I'm going to kill them all. Every one of the raiders who crossed the border today."
"That will do as a beginning." Mu'Ulm said gruffly.
Neia looked out into the woods as Mu'Ulm went back to his horse and clumsily got on. "How far down that road till we get to the fort?"
"A day or two by normal means, but we'll be there before sunset on these things." He patted the neck of the undead horse with considerable appreciation.
"Then... alright, if you want to go... you can go." Neia said hesitantly.
"Excuse me?" Mu'Ulm asked, his head and body snapping erect, affronted.
"I said... you can go. Listen, I don't know how many there are out there, or what they can do. You took risks enough just bringing me here." Neia turned her blood crusted face to him and said bluntly, "I don't have the right to ask you to risk your life any further."
"I told you... I am your minotaur." Mu'Ulm said bluntly and crossed his tree trunk like arms over his chest, "Talk like that again, and I'll kick you off that Kiril-damned monster you're riding."
Neia looked at him and cracked a weary smile. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to insult you. But... Tens of thousands have died following my orders, I didn't want to throw someone else's life away if I didn't have to."
Mu'Ulm's eyes went half shut as he glared at her. "I have never in my life, run from a fight. Least of all when there is a good chance for victory, and even less than that when outfitted in equipment that would make Kiril himself shiver with envy."
"Wow, less than 'least', that's very little indeed." Neia said snarkily, and he glared at her.
"You'd know much about 'little'." He said as he towered over her.
Neia groaned, "I swear, if I hear one more joke about my height, I'm moving in with the fucking dwarves."
"And I will buy them all step ladders." Mu'Ulm responded with a twinkle in his eye as the mood turned and Neia broke out in a laugh.
"Fair enough, there can't be that many of them, a hundred or two, and the two of us, armed with the element of surprise... I'd say they're outnumbered." Neia said boldly, "Alright, that's enough of a break, let's get going." She spurred her horse on and Mu'Ulm clung for dear life to the undead horse again.
Neia seemed to be keeping her eyes straight ahead, but in reality she was scanning the way left and right. The trees were impressive, far from being like the tall trees of her home, these were very wide, with long thick branches that spread into one another, creating a large canopy of thick green leaves beyond the road on either side. It was easy to picture small children playing within, but... not much else was going to get through there.
Finally the road curved, and she heard the reason why, a creek ran beside it. She slowed down and took out her waterskin, then dismounted. "Keep watch." Neia said calmly as she slid down the small embankment and dunked the mouth of the waterskin into the water, it was crystal clear, fresh, and cool. When her skin was filled, she drank, then refilled it, and drank again, then refilled it, and turned about to toss it to Mu'Ulm. He threw it back, she refilled it in silence again as he kept an eye out, scanning around them, until at last he was done drinking and she topped it off one more time before she got back up onto the road.
"Wait..." She hesitated as she looked more closely at the trees.
"What?" Mu'Ulm asked and clenched his jaw tight as if expecting a warning.
"The trees... they're all... connected?" Neia asked as she saw that the branches were indeed, not just touching, they were fused as if they'd grown together.
"Yeah, this is the Evertree. This whole forest is one piece, Kiril knows where it began, but it's been growing like this for longer than my race has had a kingdom. That's why we call it the 'Evertree'. Deep within there somewhere, there's ruins of an elf kingdom that went extinct centuries ago. Nobody knows how, some calamity. I've never seen them, but my grandfather's great grandfather heard stories about playing among the ruins from his own grandfather. Some say they made the tree like this, to hide what was left of them after some disaster nearly destroyed everything. Take that for what it's worth." Mu'Ulm shrugged it off passively.
"That will be a sight to see." Neia remarked in return.
"None but the Devor have been here for over two hundred years." Mu'Ulm said to her.
As she spurred her horse forward slowly, she looked at him with dark eyes, and said again in a voice not her own, "It will be a sight to see."
Her fist went up and grabbed the pendant that hung from her neck and squeezed it as tightly as she shut her eyes. "Gah... fuck that hurts..."
Mu'Ulm spurred his horse closer to her, "Are you alright?" He asked sincerely.
"Just... no, yes." She said, and then explained the cause of her absence, and the purpose of the pendant she now wore.
"It... it seems to keep the worst at bay, fuck knows what might have happened to me after the battle without this little charm, but while it stops the worst... the smaller moments are like small fish that can get through a large net." She blinked away tears from her eyes until the pain was gone.
"Kiril's Angel was said to have the power of prophecy... if this becomes widely known among my people..." Mu'Ulm said as he stared at her with a reverential awe that she hadn't known he was capable of.
Neia slapped one hand over her chest, "I'm not 'Kiril's Angel', I am just 'Neia' just 'me'. Nothing more, nothing less."
Mu'Ulm rode beside her in silence for a time, "You're kind of stupid, you know that?" He said finally.
"Do you want to be the one to get kicked off the horse?" She asked only half in seriousness.
"You made 'me' kneel and surrender. You broke the way our prison worked in days, I don't know all the details of what happened before you came here, but Raymond stayed with us for a few days, I got to know him a bit, he told me about some of what happened. From where I'm sitting, sure you lost control but..." he shrugged it off, "If you want a clean war, play a board game. Anything else, a lot of people die. That's just how it is, you fought a dirty war, dirtier. Probably kept a lot of your own people alive. Seems to me, you don't think much of the value of their lives if you're that worried about 'how' you kept them alive. So... yeah, you're kind of stupid, aren't you?"
Neia didn't answer immediately, but when she did, it was with a gentle, "Yeah, I guess I am... but still... some things, you don't get to just walk away from, whether it is necessary, accidental, or intended."
Mu'Ulm gave his usual dismissive shrug and looked up at the sky to track the sun. "We should be coming out of the woods soon, the fort is close by there."
"Good." Neia replied coldly as her mind set itself to the task.
"The plan?" He asked.
"We kill them all and take your people home." Neia said as if 'he' were the idiot.
"OK, how?" Mu'Ulm asked dryly.
Neia held up her sword and pointed to it with a deadpan expression. "See the sharp parts on our weapons? We hit them with those until they stop moving."
"I can do that." Mu'Ulm said and drew the white ax at his side, he felt the power surge through him, and his eyes turned red as long restrained wrath began to build, for the ones who destroyed his life.
