AN: So this story is a commissioned piece, funded through donations on my discord server. I was going to wait to release the whole thing at once. But after some nice people left some favorable reviews for me on Scales of Trust (My original work on RoyalRoad) I went ahead and posted the first chapter. It may be quite some time before I return to this one, as I'm working on 'Fighting Fate', 'The Semnian Incident', 'Scales of Trust', 'A House Divided: Book I' and 'Who Endures: Book II' Oh and the 'improvements' to the original God Rising (with fan supported artwork, also posted on Royal Road). Suffice it to say, I'm busy. If you'd like to know how you can support these projects for your entertainment, please don't hesitate to ask. :)
...Twenty Years after the Trial of Neia Baraja...*
"This will be fun." Tzin'kan's mouth fell open when they went over the border between their Devor Empire and the Minotaur Kingdom. "We get a nice fresh meal, and a bit of exercise to go with it. I hope they put up a fight this time." The massive liger let out a rough laugh from his open maw.
"My Lord…" The hyenaman remarked with a yelpish voice, and raised his long snout to sniff the air, "something feels off, we should proceed with caution.
The liger lord closed his mouth and stared down at the hyenaman with contempt. "You're joking? They're only minotaurs. We've been eating them for centuries. What can cattle do?"
The hyenaman lowered his face deferentially. "Twenty years ago, a cousin of mine never returned from 'the fort'. They found only a red handprint on wood facing the entrance, deep wounds, and ashes scattered with the dead. And in the last five years, my lord, these cows have fought back. Some of our harvesters have not returned…"
The liger lord snarled, but waved it off with one hand high over the hyenaman's head. "Nothing, fools die, fierce beasts could have taken them, or they went off orders and died doing something stupid. It is true, we can't rule out a few fights, but even if that were so, they're isolated incidents. Nothing of note."
The hyenaman fell to prostration at one further contradiction, his head down to the dirt in his last attempt at disagreement. "Great Lord, I implore you, think of the riots, last year's harvesters had to put down prisoner riots among the captives, the minotaurs have been passive cattle, but every minotaur in black has fought to the death, and every successful harvester has reported more of them than the years before."
His act gave the ligerman lord pause. 'Few of my followers would go to the dirt argument.' He ran his hand through his thick white mane and looked into the distance. He could see the village of minotaurs already fleeing in a long line from the village, they were rushing northeast.
"Tli'krown." Tzin'kan groused reluctantly without looking over his shoulder, and the sound of great gray and black feathers fluttered behind him a moment later. The eagleman's massive beak opened to speak.
"My lord." He answered and bobbed his head forward, bowing in the manner of his race.
Tzin'kan pointed ahead. "The villagers offer a tempting target, but Grat'ma here believes something is wrong. Fly. Give us your view. Perhaps it is strange that they flee northwest instead of just 'west'. And they're not running toward Last Home either." A doubtful growl emerged from his throat and a faint chill ran up the ligerman's spine that he could not shake.
The memory of the dead fort was not raised in idleness. 'We never did figure that one out.' It turned his heart dark to think of the failure, and it was not for nothing that Grat'ma mentioned it. 'If I ever find out who blotted it out, then I'll stop hearing about it every time some mystery occurs.' He snorted at the distracting thought while Tli'krown's powerful wings beat hard and loud, and grew softer as he ascended into the air and flew farther and farther away.
Tzin'kan waited, the eagleman became a dot against the blue sky, taking a long, sweeping curve over the distant figures, behind the ligerman lord, his three hundred harvesters were stamping their feet and letting out random war cries while they watched the prey flee. Catmen, bearmen, pandamen, hyenamen, and a handful of golden lionmen. Only Grat'ma seemed to be truly 'on edge' the way he shifted his foot in the dirt rather than all but clawing at it eager to chase prey. His face was up again, erect as his hunched race could be. But instead of eyeing the prey, he was looking around as if for an ambush. Jaw clenched instead of salivating like the rest.
Tzin'kan felt his sense of hesitation grow while the distant dot became larger with Tli'krown's return. The eagleman scout landed so gracefully with his clawed feet that he barely raised a puff of dust before he bowed with a forward low thrust of his head. His wings folded in at the chest. "My Lord, there is another party in the line of retreat used by the village."
"An army?" Tzin'kan asked, briefly shutting his jaw tight. 'If it is an army, well even an army of mere cattle can still stampede. Still, you're the emperor's own cousin… how do you retreat from cattle and go home with any pride?'
The entire body of Tli'krown shook violently in the negative. "No, My Lord." Piercing yellow eyes with black pupils peered from the base of a large hooked beak. "It appears to be a merchant caravan, and there are escorts, escorts in black armor."
"How many?" Tzin'kan asked, his large clawed hand turning up and coming out as if to accept an offering about to be placed in his palm.
"A hundred armed minotaurs. The rest, unarmored and lightly armed. Fifty more of those." Tli'krown's beak fell open in a laugh, and the dread slowly rising in Tzin'kan faded away.
He looked at the retreating line of the village, and into the distant west that they must surely have felt held safety. His jaw fell open and a deep, dread laugh swelled up that spread through his ranks. "Cattle want to hide behind cattle, and armed cattle want to die a little slower in their armor? Alright, let's oblige them!" Tzin'kan pointed toward the line of retreat.
"Go on, catmen, play!" He shouted. "The rest, slower, with me!" The panthermen in their ranks let out the panther scream, a warcry of hunger. Their dark midnight fur shone bright, reflected in the bright light of the youthful day. The catmen ate up ground quickly, and the cries of villagers fearing that they would be caught up to, reached the ears of the harvesters.
Then the cats slowed down… giving ground and distance to the fleeing minotaur elderly, pregnant cows, and those bearing some small young with them. The catmen screamed their warcry, then sped up again, driving the hooves of the minotaurs to pick up their pace again.
Then another slowdown from the harvesters, and more warcries.
Tzin'kan's sharp eyes began to fill him in on what the eagleman saw, dots began to grow when ground began to shrink in earnest. 'I wonder if the merchants will run, or send their guards to fight, who will use the other as a shield against us?' Tzin'kan chuckled and his large pink tongue swept out on the run and licked around the lips of his white maw. 'Fools, we'll take them all, there are no shields, only meals.'
Finally he had a clear sight of the merchant wagons ahead. But they didn't seem to be getting farther away. Tzin'kan''s large yellow eyes narrowed with suspicion. 'They're prey, why aren't they running? Are they stupid? Are they unable to run? What is this?' He wondered, while only a long stone's throw distance away, the last of the villagers reached the wagons, and the minotaurs in black began to line up in front of the wagons with massive round shields on the ground at their sides.
"Looks like they want to die together… everybody gets one arm for themselves alone! First one to them, gets one whole body!" Tzin'kan shouted to his harvesters, and their line began to spread out.
Mu'Ulm saw the line of harvesters approach, no sooner than the last elderly and pregnant minotaur was behind the wagons, than he gave the order. "Form! UP!" He bellowed.
"Behind you are minotaurs! Beside you are minotaurs! In front of you are the ones who want to fucking eat you! Today, they are our prey! They ate your fathers! They ate your mothers! They ate your children, your sons, your sisters, brothers, and daughters! Today, they feast only on their own blood! Today, we kill them all!"
He let out a minotaur warcry, a long, deep bellow and stepped in front center of the line. The cry was echoed and reached the beastmen harvesters. The defiant battle whooping gave the beastmen pause to hear it. "Remember this! You can fight back! And you! Can! WIN! Draw the cross!" From behind their backs, the minotaurs drew out the magicine crossbows of the Dark Dwarves, and cocked them back. A loud and uniform click spoke of the synchronicity of their actions, and a hundred runic enchanted bolts were loaded all at once.
"One shot! Then follow me with your axes!" Mu'Ulm shouted and scoured the beastmen line, searching for his target. He found it, the white liger, the biggest of the lot. "On my signal!" He shouted again, and raised his ax high over his head. Easily the largest minotaur by a head and a half, in white armor and bearing a white ax, they couldn't miss him.
'Come and get it, you sonofabitch.' Mu'Ulm growled and felt his fur stand on end with anticipation… but not an ounce of fear. The liger's eyes, Mu'Ulm could feel them on himself. 'I'm not the only one who found my target.' He chuckled deeply, the mutual bloodlust that came off of each was so focused that Mu'Ulm felt certain they understood one another.
The beastmen picked up speed, their line was wider, meant to go around the minotaurs. Ideal to surround prey. 'So predictable.' He snorted hard, rage began to build. Bloodlust. Deathlust. His heart raced, but he felt nothing but preternatural calm as the noise drew closer.
The pounding of grassy earth beneath the heavy beastmen harvesters grew louder.
"Hold!" Mu'Ulm shouted, his fingers tensed around the white ax. The memory returned of his time with Kiril's angel. 'Do you have a plan?' He'd asked, and her answer remained with him to the present, 'Yes, hit them with the edge until they stop moving.' He barely contained his laughter at the memory of his old friend.
"Hold!" He felt his grip tighten involuntarily as the distance was halved. He heard hands over wooden stocks shifting uncomfortably.
The distance was one third. "Aim!" Mu'Ulm shouted and a hundred magicine crossbows were raised to a minotaur's chest height.
Mu'Ulm could see the confusion on beastmen faces, their laughable uncertainty and incomprehension at what they were seeing.
"Loose!" Mu'Ulm shouted, and lowered the white ax down in front of him and light blazed with the noisy twang of crossbows launching runnic bolts. Projectiles flew from a hundred stocks. When they hit, they ripped into bodies of catmen, bearmen, hyenamen, and anything else in their path. Limbs were severed, holes were torn through guts, throats, and heads. And scores of beastmen fell entirely, ripping their center apart. The sound of falling bodies and screams filled the air, the beastmen who survived to watch their fellows fall, hesitated.
"Charge!" Mu'Ulm shouted, "Give them horns and axes!" And into that hesitation swept the thunderous hooves of an armored minotaur charge. As the crossbows were dropped and shields picked up.
Thunder raged beneath the earth and minotaur heads lowered, bodies stooped, and the great behemoths charged into remnants of the beastmen center. Mu'Ulm rushed forward with a minotaur warcry on his lips and blood in his eyes.
"Kill! Them! All!" He roared and swept his ax into the face of the first catman he reached, the white ax of Kiril's blessing ripped through the head and came out the other side of the skull with no more resistance than if he'd been presented with butter. The body flopped dead to the ground, but he was already beyond it as he sought his one target. Another, far too close, he smashed in the face with his shield. He towered over the hyenaman he'd struck, its snout crumpled and its jaw shattered into pieces. 'Never bite into us again you fucking dog!' He snarled in his own mind and spun around to sever a leg with his ax before moving forward again, leaving the living dead to bewail his fate and clutch at the stump.
On the horns of the minotaurs were thin leather pouches that were tightly secured at the joining of the head and horn. From the brown leather coverings protruded poisoned barbs, tiny spikes that ripped into flesh to make already terrible wounds, worse. They ripped into their enemies with these horns, and ripped grievous holes in even the thick bodies of the bearmen who dared contest the charge. The shouts and cries of combat and chaos surrounded the air, but with the beastmen center ripped to shreds, their intended encirclement became just two wings easily surrounded in turn. The shields were used to deadly effect, creating a charging wall of minotaur brethren, and when the charge ended and combat closed, they moved in a deadly dance. Bashing with their painted shields before swinging their large double headed one handed axes.
Out of the corner of his eye, Mu'Ulm saw two minotaurs gore a giant bearman, it fell onto its back, cried out in pain, and minotaur hooves stomped all over its body before axes finished off the flailing beast. Mu'Ulm's target was only a stone's kick away, a rage filled liger was roaring with fury after opening up a smaller minotaur's throat.
Mu'Ulm adjusted his direction, letting his warcry reach the massive beastman, a creature as tall as himself and much broader. The white ax leveled at him. "Get over here in the dirt where you belong, pussycat!" Mu'Ulm taunted the liger, and the ligerman roared again, turning his bellowing to the sky before charging toward Mu'Ulm with claws outstretched.
'Go on, go on, strike with that ax you pathetic cow! Taunt me while you can, I'll stop it with my claws and tear you apart! I'll rip out your heart before your eyes and eat it while you watch!' Tzin'kan thought as he closed the distance between them.
The minotaur champion seemed nonplussed charging at him with equal speed, it was almost respectable. The ax went up, Tzin'kan threw his long claws up. He waited for the ax to connect, drawing his other arm back to thrust forward into the pathetic armor in front of him.
His claws connected with the edge of the ax, and his yellow eyes widened with horror… as they were severed down to stumps. The ax passed through them like they were not even there. The horror intensified when he looked down and saw his other arm lying in the dirt cut off at an angle by the ax that his left hand's claws had failed to stop.
The pain hit. Tzin'kan fell to his knees and clutched at the wound, the roar of pain was worse than his warcry, the ax went up again. 'This is it? This is how the cousin of the emperor dies? Trampled on by cows?! COWS?!' His mind screamed at him, his pride breaking through his pain and defiance filling his eyes as his maw clenched shut, gritted against the pain.
But before the ax could connect, eagle claws filled his vision. Tli'krown's eagle cries were like a shriek of outrage from the heavens as a scion of the divine was endangered by the unthinkable. The claws desperately clove against the minotaur champion, scratching at the shield, with only a single lucky strike darkening fur with the cow's own blood. "Flee! Flee my Lord!" Tli'krown's hopeless high pitched bird cry reached the cousin of the emperor, and Tzin'kan tried to rise to take the advice.
"Stupid bird!" Mu'Ulm snorted as he felt the stinging tearing of claws into the hide of his arm at a lucky strike beyond the shield. It flapped and screamed and clawed with wild, pointless desperation. He shielded his eyes for a moment, and then brought the shield close to his body, and 'bashed'. The claws snapped, and the bird cried out in pain, flailing with broken limbs. The axe went up, and bit into the eagleman's side. Mu'Ulm dropped the shield from his arm, reached up, and took the broken taloned leg, and swung the eagleman down to the ground. "Just die!" He shouted, and began swinging the eagleman like a club, beating the beastman against the ground like the grass had enraged him.
He didn't let go, not even when the eagleman ceased to struggle. "Flee, My Lord! Fly! Fly!" he cried out through his pain filled, limp body.
Mu'Ulm watched the beaten Ligerman try to follow that advice, and then gave chase after giving the wounded beastman a tiny head start, a tiny shred of hope.
'This can't be it!' Tzin'kan screamed inside his head, he roared and raged at his fate and called to the gods. 'Save the scion of the noble house of the Devor Empire! Gods of the sky, sun, and abyss! You must answer me! Am I not of your bloodline?!' He prayed longingly to the gods of the temples, until the thought was cut off when he felt the horn pierce his back, ripping into his flesh, the head of his pursuer bucked up, and his entire body was sent flying.
Mu'Ulm whirled around, sliding a few feet and spinning to face his fallen foe. The white liger was now a mix of red blood and dirt brown, a royal mess and nothing more. He pawed at the ground with one hoof, and gestured away from them, toward the carts. The liger instinctively looked where Mu'Ulm pointed. Beastmen were not standing alive… anywhere. Minotaurs were casually walking amongst the wounded, axes rose and fell, cutting off screams.
Tzin'kan saw Grat'ma's bloody body crawling away from where he'd fallen, barely alive, missing a leg the hyenaman's eyes were glassed over and his jaw was shattered. A minotaur approached casually. The ax went up, and Grat'ma's body was severed in two, the ax buried itself into the earth and the killer stretched up casually like it was a mere summer stroll in a garden.
"What are you…?! What are you?!" Tzin'kan shouted when he wrenched his eyes away from the impossible hellscape of his harvester's destruction. He was barely up to his knees when the minotaur champion severed his other arm.
Mu'Ulm laughed as the liger's catlike cry of pain met the open sky. He then swung the eagleman that he still held onto, and began to beat the ligerman with the limp, bruised, broken, bloody body as if it were a club, and not a beastman, in his dark fur covered hand. The eagleman wasn't speaking anymore, but out of the corner of his eye, Mu'Ulm saw faint signs of breathing.
He wordlessly reached down to the fallen liger and took a handful of white mane in hand. He yanked the commander up, and stared into yellow eyes, with eyes turned red with deathlust.
His ax then rested on the bloody remnants of the liger's shoulder and looking down his long nose, he chose to answer. "We are the followers of His Majesty. The god of justice, the bones of Kiril, the one god, who came to us through his prophet, the dark savior. She of the red hand, god's scourge."
Tzin'kan raised his head, passing beyond pain as death creeped up on his bleeding body. He felt the blade of the ax splitting the proud white mane. "You have no idea what you've done…" He spat blood out, and most of it trickled down his fur, only a tiny gob reached far enough to turn the grass red.
"I am… I am the emperor's cousin. In my wake…" He hacked up blood and forced the words out, "In my wake, my cousin will send armies. You think it will matter, if they can't find me? He'll send armies… armies…"
Mu'Ulm's heavy laugh hit Tzin'kan with a hint of dismay that cut through the dying embers of his mind.
"I won't hide it. I'll send your head to the emperor as an invitation. Let them come. Let them come, and Kiril's wrath will fall on you all." Mu'Ulm laughed, spun on one hoof, and severed the head of the liger from the massive body.
It spun through the air as the corpse tumbled backward, and rolled back the way it had come, until it came to rest so that it's now dead eyes were staring into the eyes of the eagleman that tried so desperately to save him. The eagleman's eyes opened faintly at the disturbance, and then cried out in a desperate, wail like caw.
A minotaur was already approaching to finish the dark feathered eagleman off. "Stop!" Mu'Ulm called out, "I want that one alive."
The minotaur shrugged and snatched the eagle by its beak, and dragged its limp, barely living, exhausted body back toward the caravan. Mu'Ulm casually picked up the white head of the dead ligerman and went to his soldiers. "Treat your wounds, kill the survivors other than this one, and… bring me the left thumbs of each of their dead."
The sound of light, meaty whacks pounded like the hooves of the minotaurs in the desperate head of Tli'krown.
The peasants and merchants were moving among the dead beastmen, scavenging what they could. "Put the thumbs in a sack, then bring me that and a healing potion." Mu'Ulm barked the order sharply, and he flipped the eagleman over onto its back.
The beastman groaned in pain, his feathered wings spread wide open.
The yellow eyes of the bird just stared up at him, empty and without care enough even to register fear.
Mu'Ulm stood over the beastman and waited. When the sack of thumbs was presented, he thrust the white head of the ligerman commander into the sack as well. "You're not going to die today, bird. I've got a job for you."
The eagleman shook his head. His feathers bristled.
Mu'Ulm chuckled, "This isn't an offer or a request. And you'll do it anyway, because… it's your only chance to kill us all."
The eagleman's yellow eyes slowly began to warm up, the head raised a finger's breadth from the ground.
"Good, I caught your interest." Mu'Ulm said smugly and held the sack up. "Take the head and thumbs back to your capital. Give them to your emperor, and tell the Devor that we are not their prey anymore. If he sends another of his pathetic warriors over our border, I will spend my days drinking wine from his skull after I burn down his palace and piss on the altar of your great gods."
Mu'Ulm then let his fingers fall open, and the sack fell onto the eagleman's chest, the beastman's beak fell open in dismay at the blasphemy and impossibility of what he was hearing.
"Our god has gifted us with weapons of the divine." Mu'Ulm held aloft the white ax, "Do you understand, birdbrain?" His mouth fell open and he huffed a pleasant laugh while feathers bristled in the dirt.
"Good." Mu'Ulm replied and he snatched up a rope, tied the sack tight, then secured it around the eagleman's neck. At that moment, a potion was delivered, and he dumped it crudely over an injured wing and more injured 'everything else'. The glow of magic from the purple potion was swift, and the feather began to move. When it faded, the bird was well and truly healed.
"Oh, and since you're going to be flying, well who cares how well you land? Can't have you stopping along the way, can we?" Mu'Ulm chuckled, and raising his hoof, the beak of the eagleman had only a moment to fall open in consternation before the hoof snapped down on the orange boney leg, snapping first one, then the other in two.
"Go. Fly! Fly bird, fly back home and tell your master!" Mu'Ulm shouted as the intact wings batted desperately at the air, sending him aloft and farther from the impossible.
Tli'krown felt the shouts at his back like they were the strange weapons of the minotaurs, piercing his heart and killing his courage like the metal rods had killed his comrades. 'Got to get home! Got to get to the capital! Got to tell them what is happening here!' He screamed inside his head and looked down below at the shrinking figures on the ground below. His eyes shut against the vision, compelled to turn away from the unthinkable and not daring to look at the way the dead were being defleshed until only skeletons remained. What they did with the bones, he could not bear to watch, he only flapped on… and on… and on, ignoring the pain in his legs that screamed at him all the way home. Sleep was beyond him, his yellow eyes once sharp and focused, now bleary, cracked, and red by the second night without pausing.
The safety of the Devor Empire ground beneath called out to him, the great tall trees of the Everforest's depths were like lovers' arms calling him to their embrace. Still he soared beneath blue sky, passing Devor villages, passing Devor towns. Passing the great Devor cities. The growling ache in his empty belly demanded he stop at the smell of blood and flesh. But he couldn't, even though his broken legs shouted at him to do just that.
'How could that have happened…?' The question came on a loop, and he found no answer, and no respite from the dread question, not until the great stone city, Tenochanti began to grow large in his dull and listless eyes.
He flapped his wings with desperation, four days of constant flight, held aloft only by his ability to glide and his fear of what dreams awaited him if he fell asleep, he began to angle down. A slow corkscrew pattern, a crude imitation of his normal grace, brought him down to a massive stone arch, where two large golems of green stone stood watch.
"Take me to the Emperor!" Tli'krown gasped out as he fell onto his side, unable to support himself for even a moment on his broken limbs. "I… disaster… dead… everyone… they're fighting back!" And then it all went black, as stone hands reached for him.
*The Trial: Journey's End