CHAPTER III: In The Empire's Service

This chapter is narrated by Lord Somnour, a Paladin serving the Selentine Emperor.

The battle had gotten off to a particularly rotten start.

Although I am technically a Paladin, I’m really not much of a soldier. More of a dealmaker, an entrepreneur of sorts. I bring the message of Imperial power to a wanting populace; I’m the one who spells out to the leaders of all the vile races of Etheria how they will be governed, how their money will fill Enmouth’s coffers, how hard the Emperor’s boot will have to press on their collective throats.

Not that it always has to press particularly hard, mind you. Some folks go along quite willingly, like the Minotaurs and the Dark Elves. Others had not been so fortunate: the Agarian Knights had to be soundly beaten into submission in a series of skirmishes, while the Wood Elves had practically been driven extinct. So furious was the Emperor’s wrath that their ancestral home of Silvermyr had been put to the torch, with the last survivors fleeing across the Maudlin Sea to Solhaven and the Isle of Dawn.

And it was in the still-recovering forests of Silvermyr that I found myself that balmy summer day, waiting with a small band of Dark Elf sorcerers, assassins, archers and Minotaurs that were somehow going to ambush and beat a legion of High Elves. The Tundra Elves, led by someone called Melmanath, had marched south from Ehlahriel to proclaim the independence of Lunarion and the Northern Shores from Enmouth. Reacting confusedly when informed that the Emperor dismissed their claim as “prattle,” Melmanath had retreated to a camp in the burned woods west of Theira to regroup and reassess the situation.

Of course, the Emperor was not going to let something like this pass. That’s where I came in. We’d made it past the High Elf sentries, and were crouched behind some fallen husks of trees trying to figure out how best to approach the superior force when the Minotaurs arrived. I had been unable to wake them earlier that morning due to the considerable amounts of Dwarven ale they’d consumed the night before, so I’d left them behind, figuring we’d be better off without them. I hadn’t taken into account the tracking skills of the Blackhoofs.

The shaman, Grelgar, came riding in through the underbrush on his griffon, making a terrific noise. However, this racket was barely noticeable when compared to the thunderous reverberations made by Great Vulgron’s hooves.

The Emperor had crowned Vulgron King of Silvermyr after the Wood Elves had been thrown out. He was about twelve feet tall, and although he was neither terribly bright (even for a Minotaur) nor a very experienced warrior, he more than made up for it with his sheer size and brawn, which might have come in handy if he hadn’t possessed all the stealth of a Kobold jester farting as he did a headstand.

“Well done. They’ll have spotted us for certain, now,” I said to Grelgar.

“Thank you, Lord Somnour,” the Minotaur replied, unaware or unfazed by my sarcasm.

But Vulgron didn’t even stop to chat. He just strode right past us toward the Elven camp.

“Er, where does His Eminence think he’s going?” I asked Grelgar, jerking a thumb in the behemoth’s direction.

“Why, taking the fight to the enemy, of course. His Highness King Vulgron was wondering the same of you: what are you doing sitting here, when you should be fighting?” Grelgar asked me, quizzical.

“Well, you see, that’s not exactly how battles work, not if you want to win them anyway-“

“Hah! We Minotaurs know ‘how battles work,’ puny human. Let us show you! Come on, Dahoul!” he barked at the griffon, and it carried him into the fray.

By now, the Elves, which had been laconically cleaning their shields by the morning campfire, had noticed the massive Minotaur clomping directly at them. A sharp order was given by their captain, and four Iceguards came at Vulgron with their spears; I thought I heard Great Vulgron laugh before he swung his axe, decapitating one, maiming two and leaving the last one to run for his life, his spear in pieces.

“Oh, Gods. Here we go,” I muttered and gave the signal to attack.

“Attack? With what?” asked a Duimenwood assassin, one of the small band I had with me.

“I don’t know; improvise!”

The assassin sighed, gestured, and the Dark Elves dropped effortlessly into formation, assassins on the wings, while the sorcerers and archers covered from the rear. They began their advance.

Meanwhile, the High Elven guard captain must have realized alternate tactics were required. He dropped to the ground and gave a hand signal. Camouflage in the form of dead tree branches were swept aside to reveal two Elven Manticores, brilliantly engineered siege weapons crafted by the Longbowmen of Cielos. Basically 24 spring mechanisms on wheels, the Manticores fired devastatingly powerful hails of foot-long silverwood arrows into an enemy line, or, in this case, into a single enemy.

A total of thirteen arrows from the Manticores actually hit Vulgron, who howled in pain. The others stopped short of the Dark Elven line for the most part, but a stray arrow did go farther than anticipated, boring straight through the skull of one of the assassins, killing him instantly.

Vulgron flew into a rage and proceeded to cut one of the Manticores into splinters. The sorcerer to my immediate left spoke an incantation, and the air around him warped into pillars of blazing fire that roared across the fifteen feet between the High Elves and us. The captain screamed as his helmet melted and fused into his face, while the other Manticore snapped and crackled, consumed by the flames.

The assassins proceeded to loot the corpses, while Grelgar tended to Vulgron’s wounds. The archers took up positions on both sides of the trail leading to the camp, ostensibly to guard against further attacks, but mostly just to relax; one of them even lit a pipe. The sorcerers just stood there, chanting softly in Elvish. They gave me the creeps, to be honest.

Then everything got confusing. The surviving Iceguard reappeared at the edge of the clearing, accompanied by three particularly tall and slender Elves in platinum armour, while one of the assassins let out a wild scream: he’d been gored by a Unicorn, of all things, coming out of the forest like a torrent of white.

Vulgron snapped to his feet and charged at the Elves. I opened my mouth to issue an order to the archers before noticing the insignia on the Elven helmets. “Be careful, Vulgron, those Elves aren’t…” I called out, but it was too late. Nine ghostly arrows flew from the Moonguards’ bows in a matter of seconds, each one striking Vulgron in the face; he went down with a groan and crash of trees.

“…Iceguards,” I finished uselessly. The sorcerers were dead in another few seconds, corpses vanishing in puffs of ash and flame as the arrows punctured their robes. The last assassin managed to get his blade into the Unicorn’s neck before it trampled him to death. It limped off into the woods to die. Grelgar’s griffon, Dahoul, took off into the morning sky, and they made it about fifty feet before they were felled by one of the Moonguards. Grelgar screamed as he fell with Dahoul’s corpse into the treeline, only to be cut off sharply when his neck broke on a rock.

And me? I fled, back to the campsite, back to my Naga. For the past weeks, I’d been keeping one of the snake women with me, teaching me spells, charms and healing magic. Her real name was utterly impossible to pronounce, so I had taken to calling her Convalia, after the patron saint of armour and webbing from the old Selentine canon.

I rushed into my tent. Convalia had her back to me as she stood by a low table, her scaly hands evidently preparing some ritual.

“Convalia, pack your things. We are in deep trouble, and I mean to flee as fast as is humanly possible,” I said, tearing off my platinum helm and wiping thick sweat from my brow.

“Yes, I know. The Elves of the North have put the fear of their Gods into you.”

Still she did not turn. As I examined her ‘ritual’ more closely, it seemed there was a small animal on the table. A live one. A bird… only its belly had been split open and its intestines lay carefully uncoiled in a circle around its body.

“What in gods’ name are you doing?” I asked. Convalia responded by lifting the still-chirping bird and placing it on my head. The intestines she laid across my forehead like an amulet; I was too disturbed or frightened to be bothered by the fact that they were unsettlingly warm and sticky on my skin.

Convalia spoke, and a terrible whip cracked through my brain. It gave every indication that it should hurt like the Seven Hells, but somehow it did not. There was no pain, only the indication that there should be pain, and massive amounts of it. Instinctively, I raised my hands to my head and was mildly surprised to find a strangely contoured stone on top of it. I realized it was the bird, completely petrified.

“My stars,” I mumbled weakly.

“Go now. Fight the Elves. Fight them and win,” Convalia said.

I tore out of the tent, invincible in mind and fact. Two of the Moonguards were not fifteen feet from the tent, striding purposefully toward it, and saw me instantly. I charged, sword in hand.

An arrow flew from one of their bows. It struck me in the chest, being perfectly aimed to puncture my heart, but instead it splintered, shattered as if it was being peeled apart. My Orcish sword swung of its own accord and caught the Moonguard in his upper left arm. It went through the arm and into his chest, and he screamed a strained scream before he died, arm flopping uselessly on the ground as blood welled out of it.

I tried to catch the other Moonguard with a kick, but he blocked it easily, swinging a drawn arrow at my face. The tip grazed my cheek hard enough to draw blood, but the arrow snapped in half from the force of the impact. He drew a dagger in his right hand and lunged at my throat.

Before I had time to worry much over it, however, sapphire light played over the Elf’s hand, turning it to stone. The Moonguard stared at his hand, shocked. I used the distraction to loosen my sword from the dead Elf’s chest and disembowel the other one. As he began to die slowly, I turned and found Convalia behind me. I realized she had cast the spell that petrified his hand.

“Interesting trick,” I said, panting from the exertion.

“Sssomeday, I will hssshow it to you. Where are the othersss?” she asked, hissing her sibilants exaggeratedly. A side effect of battle, perhaps?

“Down there, past the trail,” a deep voice said.

We whirled to find an archer there, one of ours. The pipe-smoking one. He stood on top of a small hill, leaning on his bow.

“Well, where the hells have you been?” I barked, irate.

“Hiding,” he said, lighting his pipe.

“Fair enough,” I replied, sheathing my sword.

“That’s quite a sword,” Pipe-Smoker said, toking his pipe and waving his match unlit.

“Yes,” I said, gloved hand playing over the cut on my cheek. “Got it off an Orc I used to know. Dreadful fellow.”

"I take it the sword was not a gift."

"No... I recall he was... somewhat reluctant to part with it."

“Last time I saw a sword like that, it was being used to much the same purpose. It belongs in a Tundra Elf’s torso.”

“Look, this is all very interesting, but what are we going to do about those Moonguards? There are three of us and Providence knows how many of them… I say we run. We make for the garrison at Theira, gather reinforcements, come back and kill them all.”

“That’s all well and good, but how are we to know they don’t have allies in Theira?” Pipe-Smoker said. “The Theiran Knights have always been allies of the High Elves in the Orcish jihads. They will be much more inclined to help them than us.”

“Yesss. Essspecially when helping them meansss killing the three of usss, while helping usss meansss taking up armsss against Moonguardsss,” Convalia explained.

I could no longer restrain my curiosity. “Why are you hissing like that?”

“The hsssmell of blood. I can’t… hssstop it.” She sounded almost embarrassed.

“Right. Erm…” I began.

“The battle,” Pipe-Smoker offered.

“Yes. The battle. How are we going to fight them? We can’t very well run for it; the Emperor would have my head on a pike.”

“I hthink… I hmay hhave a plan,” Convalia panted, and I realized she was staring at the cut on my cheek, her tongue flicking out of her mouth to smell it.

***

“In honour of… Ferador the hunter, who… rode faster than the arrows that chased him, but turned… willingly into the fire and… burned with his home,” Pipe-Smoker read aloud. The engraving looked fairly recent, and rather crude, but the shrine, which was obviously of pre-Imperial design, was much older, and clearly not Elven in origin.

It stood about eight feet tall, with four columns supporting a domed roof over a perfectly cut, ten-foot wide stone ring around a seemingly bottomless pit that fell straight into the earth. A single lit torch hung over the pit, suspended by four linked chains tying it to the columns.

I looked around the clearing. “But who buried him? Didn’t all the Elves leave?”

“I did,” a familiar voice said from behind me. Pipe-Smoker raised his bow at the being that emerged from the pit: a Naga, just like Convalia, but slimmer, lighter, more alert somehow.

“And who might you be?” I asked, signalling Pipe-Smoker to relax.

“A… sssister of Couatl. A sssimple ssservant, ssspreading warmth to those in the cold. Light to those in the dark. Even…” she coiled forward gingerly “… life to those who are dead.”

“Are you… some kind of necromancer?” Pipe-Smoker asked.

“No. The dead do not die to be raised. But the spirit does not stand to be forgotten, either.”

“So in other words… you sit here all day thinking about a dead Elf, so he won’t be forgotten,” I said, noticing Convalia had remained strangely silent throughout the whole exchange.

“Vigil must be kept. Couatl’s strength does not lie with his living believers alone.”

“Let me get this straight,” Pipe-Smoker cut in. “You’re trying to convert a dead person.”

“Is that so hard to fathom? The living do not require an afterlife. The needs of the dead are… more immediate.”

I rolled my eyes surreptitiously before addressing Convalia. “This is the ‘help’ you spoke of?”

“Yesss…” Convalia hissed, her eyes on the other Naga as she slithered forth. The two of them exchanged some sort of greeting, followed by simultaneous hissing that ranged in intensity from a barely audible whisper to sharp, whip-like sounds that stung the ears; it took me a moment to realize they were conversing.

“Do you think this is what their plays are like?” Pipe-Smoker whispered in my ear.

“Yes, but I’d imagine their plays probably have a lot more violence and animal intestines in them.”

The Dark Elf eyed me quizzically. “Human plays don’t have intestines in them?”

***

“The Naga’s name turned out to be Gronkara, and she agreed to join us, provided we made a sizable donation of crystals to the shrine, which she disappeared into the pit with, only to return shortly wearing a Ssrathi warrior’s headdress and gauntlets.

“And together we made a formidable team; the Elves were all dead in a matter of hours, including, lamentably, the pipe-smoking archer. If Melmanath was among those who died, I never saw him… in fact, I don’t even know if he was a ‘he’ at all. Did you meet him yourself? I mean her? I mean… do you know?”

“No,” said the Emperor, gazing north out of a tower window. Beyond the smoke and bustle of Enmouth and its ship-choked harbor lay the indigo expanse of Selentine Bay. Every being in sight of the window was the willing or unwilling servant of the man in front of me: a sobering thought. But the Emperor’s gaze seemed fixed on something more intangible than the masses of the city.

“No,” he repeated, clearly lost in some private reverie. He did that a lot.

“Well… what would you like me to do?”

“Do?” he turned, stepping over to me. He eyed me carefully, and then, to my surprise, placed a firm hand on my shoulder. “You have done well. The Elves were killed by Nagai, Minotaurs and Dark Elves, and the blame is unlikely to be placed on the Empire.”

“But… my emperor, I thought it was common knowledge that we have allies among all three races. Surely they’ll suspect?”

“Do not be so sure. Silvermyr is a dangerous place now. The death of a few Moonguards who decided to stick around there too long is not only commonplace, but could actually be helpful to us. It ought to convince Ehlariel and Lunarion not to send any more of their meddlers down here, for one” he said, ambling over to the wine cabinet of the rather sparsely decorated suite. The Emperor was not a man of vulgar tastes, and away from prying eyes, in private meeting rooms such as this, there was no reason to maintain the appearance of affluence that seemed so necessary in his public palaces.

“But what of the reports of the Ice Queen’s death? And that your daughter is riding north to Ehlariel?”

The Emperor poured himself a glass of wine. Knowing I’d refuse him anyway, he did not offer me a glass.

“My daughter… is not your concern. What is far more important, is that if this is true, and she has abandoned her post at Al-Diraq, then Melkor lies at the mercy of the Darosian tribes, or even the Ssrathi, if they should make it across the Ruby Strait. We need to send an envoy.” The Emperor sipped his wine. “You.”

“Me, my emperor? And why send an envoy to Melkor? Didn’t we spend a year or two booting him out of Diraq?”

“Precisely why we need to offer him our hand in friendship now…. in fact, no, wait,” the Emperor said, setting his glass down and blinking rapidly as the gears of his mind turned. “Sail to the west, and camp somewhere in the Ap’Il, or even the Diraqine mountains. Wait until you see the smoke and sand from a battle, then ride out and offer your assistance to Melkor.”

The Emperor turned to me. “Make it seem as though you happened by. Make every attempt you can to gain his trust, and be completely loyal.” He stared into space, hands clasped behind his robe. “And honest.”

“Except about the part where you ordered me to be there in the first place, I take it?”

Again he turned to me. “Yes, obviously, except for that part. And be on the lookout for Grendel, will you?”

“The turncoat serpent? What’s he doing there?”

“One of my spies in his retinue sent word that he’d sailed over the Ruby, tracing some ancient weapon to Daros. If you run into him, remind him who he works for, will you? Gently, but firmly.”

“My pleasure, Lord Emperor.”

***

I leaned against a turret on the castle battlements, producing the dead pipe smoker’s pipe from under my cloak. I packed it with a mild Sirian and lit, watching the sun set on the ocean.

“It went well, my lord?” Convalia slithered to my side, deferent as always.

“Yes. The Emperor has a new mission for us. We sail tomorrow for Diraq… tell me, what do you know of Grendel, the serpent lord in the employ of the Emperor?”

Convalia’s tongue darted in and out of her mouth, and I thought I detected a remarkably human hint of disdain in her voice when she spoke. “I knew him as a young warrior in the Iriki’s service. Quiet and observant, but arrogant as a god when he spoke.”

“And where do his loyalties lie, do you think?”

“Where they are most conveniently placed, my lord.”

I chuckled. A lizard after my own heart, it seemed.

“Tell me more.”

CHAPTER II: Death, Change

This chapter is narrated by Miranda Blake, the daughter of the Selentine Emperor and the Elvish Ice Queen.

My mother loved my father until the day she died, though I daresay he did not care much for her, living or dead.

At least that’s what they’d said. And as I stood in Kree’Af’Ak, staring out over the Ab’Il Mountains and the well-travelled Diraqine Road, I felt my hatred for the man weighing against my grudging respect for him. He has made an Empire mightier than any Selentine one of old, not carving it with the sword or blazing it with the righteous torch of another crusade, but by diplomacy.

That is, in itself, the diplomatic way of putting it. He has achieved it through coercion, extortion, brigandry and bullying. My mother was Ice Queen of Ehlariel; in order to seal his alliance with the Elves of the North, my father seduced her and had her crown him consort.

I was born to royalty, and had been for a brief period a beacon of peace between Enmouth and Ehlariel. I had travelled my father’s Empire from the Plains of Ar in the north to the jungles of Keshan in the south, and it was there that I had decided to make my home when I was nineteen years of age. I had found friends among the coastal towns of New Selentia, and a Master Mage, Villon, who had taught me the secrets of Ice Magic.

My mother and my father did not approve of my habits, and had placed many a spy into my entourage; I had them all killed. My father turned Master Villon against me; I had his corpse sent to Enmouth as three vats of powdered ice. My father had given up after that, but my mother insisted on sending messengers, begging me to return to Ehlariel and help quell the unrest there.

I refused, but could not refuse a decidedly more forceful request from my father to assume command of the Diraqine garrison after its previous owner was burned alive in a Dwarven assault. So I had travelled across half Etheria to the vast city of Al-Diraq, its turrets and minarets walling me off from the world. I am only twenty-three, but already I am forgetting my mother ever existed.

And now I hear she is dead, victim of some horrific plot. Apparently, a Scorpion Lord named Mordred arrived in Ehlariel weeks ago, claiming that Enmouth had fallen to a combined assault of Ssrathi and Scorpionmen, and that the Elves were free of Imperial tyranny forever.

Only it hadn’t. And they weren’t.

The Elven messenger, a Moonguard of the not-so-distinguished Kyrin line, was taking tea with me in the highest battlements of Kree’Af’Ak Fortress. It is a recent addition to the defenses of Al-Diraq, built by my father after his negotiations with the Dwarves of Khazdhul finally failed with the rather spectacular demise of General Quaspel, who’d returned to the city after being tricked into eating a chaos bomb. The giant stone edifice had been constructed mostly by Diraqine barbarians, more of my father’s new allies, and was specifically designed to counter Dwarven war machines.

“How could such a deception be possible?” snarled Condor, the towering Minotaur shaman of the Blackhoof tribe. They were my escorts, courtesy of my father, who had insisted on having me protected; I was, after all, vital to his tenuous peace with the Elves. I had found that Minotaurs were stronger, more ruthless and, most importantly, more stupid and therefore less prone to betrayal than the local barbarians, and had indulged my father on this one point.

“My dear boy: when you are three weeks away from a place by the fastest steed available, you could be told that King Inarion himself had risen from the grave there and you’d have to take the fellow on faith,” Kyrin said snidely to the Minotaur.

“Don’t antagonize him, Moonguard. He’s liable to snap your head off just for looking at him wrong,” I said, turning my head from the view. “And besides, he has a point. This… Mordred is a Scorpion Lord, not a breed known for speaking truths.”

“Milady, it is easy to bear false tidings to those who would gladly believe them. Our people have sought freedom from the Emperor for twenty-three years; they would not fast refuse an opportunity to claim that freedom.”

I strode across the tower terrace to the eastern balustrade, where I observed the continuing work on the Diraqine wall. When finished, it was to reach all the way to the beaches of the Corollos Sea, but the sizable gap in it that marked General Quaspel’s ‘grave’ would set construction back quite a bit.

Kyrin was right. If the news my mother had been sending down was to be believed, the High Elves had been itching for a fight for years. Mordred had just given them an excuse. My mother's loyalty to my father had been the only thing keeping the Elven Kingdoms erupting into full-blown rebellion.

“And then what happened?” I asked, pouring wine into one of the cups the thrall had brought up. The flagon had Diraqine glyphs embossed onto its label, illegible to me, but it had a fine nose, so I took my chances.

“Mordred blazed the way east to Ylarie, or at least pretended to do so. He fought Pell’s Red Orcs on the tundra, and told us he’d killed Pell himself in a swordfight by Wyvern’s Cove. We forged him an Iceblade for his trouble, and told him to wait there while we sailed to Lunarion for reinforcements for the march south to Ar. Your mother was hesitant at first, but her advisers assured her that the army would march to Enmouth as a show of strength to assert our independence. Nothing more. There was to be no bloodshed. We met with Mordred, and he concurred.”

“We? You were there, personally?” I asked, and sipped my wine. Fiery, but good.

“I was present at his arrival, and at his initiation to the Third Circle by his ‘Mages.’” Kyrin shot me a disgusted look. “He told us he wanted his ‘new Elven brothers to impart the wisdom of ages upon him, to aid in his ascension,’ or some such nonsense. It came to light later that his chosen Sphere of Magic was Poison, and the ‘Mages’ were really Liches.” I thought I felt the Moonguard shudder.

“And I was also present for the voyage south,” Kyrin continued. “We were about to leave port at Galadir when the monster rode into the town on lizard-back, demanding-“

“Lizard?” I asked, surprised. “Mordred rode a dinosaur?”

“Y-yes… didn’t I mention that? His soldiers were Snakemen.”

This was news indeed. “Snakemen?” Condor thundered, aghast. “Serving Scorpions?”

“Rebels, from the Keshani resistance, no doubt. War makes strange bedfellows,” I mumbled into my cup before taking another sip. “Still, they’re an awfully long way from home, and it does bear closer investigation. Continue.”

Kyrin obeyed. “Yes, Lady Blake. When Mordred arrived, he-“

“Please,” I interrupted. “Do not call me that. Milady, or Miranda, will do fine.”

“Yes, Lady Miranda. As I was saying, Mordred demanded he be put on board the Silver Sunrise with your mother. He said he wanted very much to meet the Moon King, and thank him for his chance to serve. He said he deserved as much, after all the Orcs he’d killed for Elvenkind.

“It was a strange request, as he’d be putting himself at great risk; as you know, the Silver Sunrise is often attacked by the Dark Elves who prowl the Koramanok Strait. Needless to say, we were attacked when we attempted to land on Lunarion, and most of Mordred’s troops were slaughtered by the Dark Elves while your mother and my men watched from her cabin. Mordred himself disappeared into the woods, and I prepared my men to fight through the Dark Elven line.

“Before we could move, however, the wood beneath my feet began to crack and splinter as the deck came apart all around us. My men fell below decks through the fractured wood, and I bore witness to the monster himself smashing through the bulkhead with that huge Doomshield of his; he’d cast some sort of spell, poisoning the ship, if you could believe it.”

Kyrin swallowed, and met my eyes.

“Mordred ran your mother through with the Iceblade she’d presented to him mere days earlier. I saw the life bleed out of her myself, before the beast grabbed her remains and bolted straight through the window of her cabin, plunging into the sea. The ship had sustained damage, but by no means a catastrophic amount. We sailed home to Ehlariel, and I rode south to bear you the news.”

His voice trembled at the last part, and he fell to his knee, eyes averted to mask his sorrow.

“My life was your mother’s while she had hers, and I would give it fivefold to reclaim her soul. Thereby, I pledge myself to you as her rightful heir to the Ice Crown, and await your judgement of my fate.”

I couldn’t help myself; I actually smirked.

I took a sip of wine. “Arise, Moonguard. Your piety is second only to your loyalty to the throne, but know that I seek no crown.”

Kyrin looked up. I was aware of Condor, taking everything in with stoic solemnity. “Milady?”

“Doubtless there is some Ice Priestess or noblewoman willing to arise to the throne is my stead, no? All will not be lost at my refusal.”

“But Milady, if you abdicate-“

“Silence!” My hand whipped out and caught him across the lip hard enough to draw blood. “I cannot abdicate what I never assumed. Your problems are your own, Kyrin. I may have been my mother’s daughter, but I am also my father’s. My place is here.” Condor snuffled and licked his lips at the sight and smell of blood, and uncrossed his arms.

But Kyrin continued, albeit nervously, his eyes darting to Condor. “But Milady, there is unrest. The death of the Ice Queen is no small matter of succession. If Ehlariel is not unified under strong leadership, we could be risking civil war between factions loyal to your father and those supporting independence. And Mordred left a tribe of Snakemen on the Ylaric border; who knows whom they will fight for. Add to all that the threat of the Dark Elves regrouping in the Koramanok… well, it all adds up to a situation I am certain your father would want resolved.” The young Moonguard made a persuasive argument, I had to admit.

“Please, Milady. Your father has need of you. Your people have need of you.” His eyes finally met mine again; they were blue, like my mother’s. “Ehlariel has need of you.”

I looked away. A storm was brewing in the distance, dark clouds unfolding across the eastern sky, and the thralls working on the wall gathered their tools and ran for cover. The wind was picking up fast, and storms here were lethal. Minotaur slave drivers barked at them to hurry to their hovels; a dead slave was, after all, a useless slave. Thunder rolled, and I turned my head to look at Kyrin, his lip bleeding softly.

“All right. You will come with me to Ehlariel, and we will set things right.”

CHAPTER I: Snakes and their Bodies

This chapter is narrated by Grendel, a Ssrathi warrior in the employ of the Selentine Emperor.

I strode through the jungle as my people died by fire.

What pathetic weaklings they were, their fortresses crumbling under a mighty Imperial fist that had been crushing them for the better part of a century. One could feel their extinction in the air as Zandorn’s temples and ziggurats burned. I could smell it as I strode through his village, my priests not far behind me.

I paused to admire one of my warriors disarming one of Zandorn’s with the shaft of his axe before landing a lethal blow with the blade. Zandorn’s warrior crumpled into the undergrowth, clutching his wound. My warrior looked up, caught my eye, his axe glistening with reptilian blood as he prepared to deal his final, diseboweling blow.

“Lord Grendel?” the snakeman sissed.

“No,” I spoke. “Let him rot. I want him to bear witness to his body being claimed by the jungle. Throw him to beasts and birds of prey, like his people. Their lives were beastly and devoid of pity, and being dead, let birds on them take pity.”

I loathed my race. Beastly, primitive lot. When I am Iriki, I will make something of Kalpaxotl. A repository of knowledge, perhaps, or a bastion of civilization in the south, with bold explorers venturing forth into the unexplored jungles of Keshan that lay further south.

But for now, here I was in New Selentia, cleaning up troublemakers like Zandorn and his rebellious rabble. I had fought him earlier today, on the steps of the overgrown altar that lay to the east. He’d been a slithery, wheedling sort, green paint smeared over his scales, the colour of the resistance to Imperial rule here in Keshan.

“Traitor,” he’d breathed at me, brandishing a crude, wicked-looking weapon, half-scythe and half-sceptre. “You would murder your own people? And for what? So Enmouth can grow fat from Keshan’s riches?”

“You fool. Keshan is murdered long since. You war and die for a corpse that no longer draws breath. My Emperor, on the other hand, is very much alive. Once Keshan submits to me, I will carve out of its corpse a new kingdom worthy of its name.” I had drawn my sword.

Zandorn had come at me with a wide, sweeping blow aimed at my abdomen. I had easily deflected it, but misjudged his intent: it was not to cut or pierce, but rather use the sheer power and strength of his weapon to overpower me. The strike had reverberated through to my teeth, and I had lost my footing, knocked prone onto the vine-covered steps of the altar, my sword coming to a rest yards away.

“Thus die all traitors,” he’d mewled, grinning. He’d discarded the weapon and drawn a curved emerald dagger, an elven lifestealer.

“Not today, they don’t.” I’d clutched the hilt of the weapon concealed under my wide giant’s belt, and swung it reverse-handed, lifting my feet up as the belt-strap snapped. The golden sickle caught Zandorn behind his right knee and lopped the leg clean off. The lichelord had toppled, screeching in pain.

A glint of recognition had come to his eyes as I stood over him. He’d gestured to my weapon.

“That’s the Aklys of Couatl,” he’d whimpered. “It’s a gift from the Sun God himself. You’ve no right to that.”

I had acquired the Aklys from a Black Naga I’d killed weeks ago. Legend told that it was indeed a gift given by Couatl to his most loyal followers, in the days he still walked Etheria. “Hurnt. I suppose you’re right. Jexdar!”

My loyal Naga priestess had emerged from the bushes where she’d been watching the duel from, its outcome never really in doubt. “Yes, Serpent Lord?”

“Have this melted down for gold. Perhaps a more practical weapon can be purchased for the crowns.”

Jexdar had dutifully retrieved the Aklys and slithered away, while Zandorn squealed in horror. “That is an heirloom, a priceless artifact!”

“On the contrary, I believe it will fetch a handsome price indeed in the markets of New Selentia,” I’d said, retrieving my plaguesword from a thicket and positioning it above Zandorn’s throat.

“But it’s... part of our history… part of Keshan’s history,” he’d begged pathetically.

“Keshan is history,” I’d said. “And so are you.”

His head had rolled down the steps of the altar as blood gurgled from his throat, staining my boots.

But that was hours ago. Now my words finally seemed true. His followers screamed in agony as my priests lined them up against the walls of their pyramids, burning them alive with their incantations and staffs. My dinosaurs feasted on the flesh of Zandorn’s warriors and workers while they were still living, writhing noiselessly after their throats had been ripped out. Blood seeped into a jungle already dark with it, congealed over years of savage warfare and slaughter. Nothing remained. Everything was consumed.

Later, it was dusk amongst the ruins. I sat by the fire with my three most trusted priests. Zandorn’s weapon lay before us, the flames making its already organic form seem alive, its surface virulent.

“It is a claw from a frost dragon, a particularly old one, if I’m not mistaken,” said Luhoul, an acolyte from the eastern mountains.

“A weapon not often seen here, much less in the hands of a Ssrathi,” said the loyal Jexdar, who had fought Zandorn and the Black Nagai with me.

“So barbaric and crude… do the humans of the Empire use such weapons?” spoke Yinfur, a fertile young Naga priestess fascinated with the weapon. Jexdar and Luhoul had of late been grooming her to receive me. Her scent was intoxicating, and she would soon bear my eggs.

“Not the servants of the Empire, certainly,” I said.

“Theirans?” Luhoul speculated.

“Hardly,” I countered, staring into the black jungle. “This is the work of their cousins to the west.”

“The Darosi?” Jexdar said. “I was taught they were nothing but spear-throwing savages cowing beneath the might of the Diraqine Empire.”

“Oh no,” I said, grinning at the priestess’s naivete. “You’ll find they carve impressive blades.

“You do not think this was obtained in Keshan,” Luhoul said flatly.

“No. I do not,” I said. “Zandorn’s warriors and allies dared not breach the Emperor’s quarantine. His soldiers patrol the roads, and his Minotaurs and Orcs roam the jungle in the outskirts by the dozens.”

“It’s true,” Yinfur agreed. “My sisters and I ran into an Orcish patrol on route here through the western jungle. The Orcs are crude and violent. We feared for our chastity.”

Luhoul and I sissed in laughter, but inwardly I seethed at the thought of Orcish rabble violating my Nagai. If I had been present, I would have killed them outright. It was a mistake on the Emperor’s part to trust them for his lands.

“In any case, I believe the rebels have allies in the lands to the west, who are providing them with weapons and warriors. Our war here is getting us nowhere… as much as it would please me to do so, we simply cannot slaughter every snakeman on the continent who will not heed the Emperor’s edict. We must go to Daros, and secure the allegiance of its tribes. Without allies, the Ssrathi resistance will wither and die.” I looked to the west, across the scrying pool by the encampment, where the last embers of dusk were receding briskly behind the jungled horizon.

“Killing the snake by cutting off its body,” Luhoul said. “Are you certain the Emperor would approve of this?”

“On Keshan, I speak for the Emperor,” I stated firmly. Luhoul must learn his place. “As for snakes and their bodies, I often find that the blow which severs the body, also severs the head. One way or the other, Keshan will be mine.”

“You mean the Emperor’s,” Luhoul said, eyeing me through the flames.

“Of course,” I said. Yinfur graciously excused herself with a gesture, a gesture Jexdar mirrored before slithering off in the direction of her altar, while the younger priestess slipped off her tunic and crawled into the moonlit scrying pool.

“Understand: my priests will not serve yet another in a long line of bloodthirsty would-be Iriki, seeking power and prestige. We will not let high-sighted tyranny range on till each snake drops by lottery. We seek permanent allegiance with the Emperor; we seek peace and stability.”

Luhoul’s spiel was worth noting, but it was, as humans often said, academic. The nature of Keshan’s rule once the rebellion was crushed was a matter for future consideration.

“Naturally,” I said curtly to the snakepriest before standing and strolling in the direction of the pool, of Yinfur.

Luhoul could do little but stare after me as I descended the stone steps into the pool, washing black lizard blood and blue Imperial war paint off my scales and sinking into Yinfur’s hungry, pliant embrace.