Location: The Easton-Weston Road
Time: 6th Age, 52 year, Summer
My hand cramps as I grip this celestial quill writing my Apocrypha in these so-called ‘modern’ times, dear reader. Yet the master, The Great Architect insists on the truth, even thought that truth is a bitter vintage when one has to admit to being a fool.
Let me take you back a year – to when some of the first cracks in my foundation were already forming in the ‘peaceful’ lands of the easet. I didn’t see them these problems, of course. I was too busy being a God, counting the rhythmic thud-hiss of my factories in Kra as if they were the heartbeats of the world, and the inevitable verisimilitude of my future victories.
Looking back through the lens of A’H’s Light, I see a rather problematic scene now, stripped of the tidy labels I might apply while writing about it now, yet with the benefit of hindsight nonetheless.
The Descendants
Picture this – two dwarves looking very much out of place as they trudged along the Easton-Weston road. Apparently they’d conquered their fear of The Deepening Dread – that creeping sickness that afflicted those Drokka who spent too long away from the safety of the mountains – the longer they stayed in the open air, beneath the vast, unyielding sky, the worse it became. Yet this pair were clearly on a mission. And they weren’t peasants, given their attire.
I had forgotten the sheer, stubborn vanity of the Drokka people. This pair just travel; they occupied the road, moving with the heavy, unyielding grace of high-born royals who expected the very horizon to bow.
Of equal height and build, they stood a deceptive four and a half feet tall—a stature that would lead a fool to underestimate the two hundred pounds of dense muscle and bone I knew were packed into every limb. Each had long, braided black hair that likely smelled of woodsmoke, and oiled, ring-wrapped black beards that reached their belts. Under those thick thickets of hair, their skin was a startling, subterranean white, centered by bulbous noses and large, jewel-like eyes that burned with a fierceness beneath deep, craggy brows.
Riding on ponies, they were draped in lengthy linen surcoats, and knee-high, heavy leather boots. Their garments were loose-fitting, billowing in the wind to hide the multiple layers of chain and quilted gambeson underneath. One was a pillar of midnight in his black silks, while the other moved like a clotting wound in shades of blood-red.
Both had walking staves of polished Ash wood strapped to their ponies, the staves gilded with silver plates that bore the embossed runes of their house. On their own backs, they carried shields made with seven layers of interlocking silver plates overlaid from the rims to the center, a construction meant to stop a thrusting spear-head like a twig. The one in red bore an oversized war-hammer that looked capable of leveling a gatehouse, along with a standard half-helm and a long-knife for the dirty work. Yet it was the one in black who would have caught my eye had I known about him at the time. His helmet was forged from a blackish, iron-like metal, crowned with a singular, two-inch spike that gave him the silhouette of a jagged mountain peak.
And then, there was the axe. My own heart—or the cold thing that passes for it—still skips a beat thinking about it. The axe’s grip was molded from wax-treated black leather, the iron haft decorated with silver plate and embossed with runes. But the head… the head was a beautiful nightmare. On one side, a massive, oversized blade; on the other, two cruelly curved four-inch barbs. It was a staggering homage to The Ghast – that magical battle axe I had given my pawn – the (in)famous Hacktor Derkillez – all those centuries ago when he used that weapon to begin The War of The Ghast. [Even writing about it now, is like seeing a ghost return to haunt me, a piece of my own dark history refashioned for a new generation of slaughter]
By their trappings I would have guessed they were Drokka of the Rhokki Pass—that much was clear from the jagged clan-marks branded into their leather pauldrons. While the centuries had eroded their kingdom, the blood of the Ghast-wielder might well have ran thick and hot in their veins and I could practically see the steam rising from their massive, hunched shoulders.
They rode ponies that looked a bit like mountain goats—sturdy, thick-legged beasts that could navigate a vertical scree-slope without breaking a sweat, but were perhaps a bit useless in their current flat terrain. Beside them ran a silver-furred monster, a Wolfhound that in former days signified a royal lineage. The beast had jaws that appeared capable of snapping a goblin’s femur like a dry twig. It moved with a silent, predatory gait that contrasted sharply with the heavy, rhythmic clink-clank of the riders’ gear moving in time with their mounts.
During the course of their journey, they eventually came to a point where the red dust of the Easton-Weston road met the first lush, emerald shadows of the Arbola Forest treeline. There the larger one who wore black, raised a massive, calloused hand, signaling a stop. He scanned the canopy afor with eyes that had spent too much time in the dark, squinting against the dappled light.
“Keep your eyes on the canopy, Brega,” the bigger dwarf grunted. His voice was a low-frequency rumble. He spat a thick glob of bile into the dust. “These woods smell of perfume and secrets. The Amorosi hide behind leaves because they lack the stomach for honest stone.”
The one named Brega who wore red adjusted the heavy leather straps of his breastplate, his brawny arms rippling with the effort. He looked like a slightly smaller mountain, perhaps a few decades younger than his brother.
“Let’s hope Amorosi of Arbola have what we need, Barkla,” Brega countered. “We wasted too much time in Regalis to learn they knew nothing.”
“At least that’s what they told us.” Barkla grunted, then called to the Wolf which was cantering away. “Git on back, Gruff.”
Brega patted the neck of his pony, which was shivering at the scent of elven magic in the air. “Information, brother. If Akka has fallen, we aren’t just looking for a legacy—we’re looking for a funeral shroud for our people. Father wouldn’t have sent us this far if the whispers weren’t turning into screams back home.”
“Father is old,” Barkla snapped, his hand tightening on the haft of that monstrous axe. “He remembers the glory of the Seven Kingdoms. He forgets that we are but three now, and two of those are starving. If the Valdermakken play their games with us, I’ll show them how a Drokka deals with a riddle. You will complete your quest!”
A God’s Indifference
“Barkla and Brega,” I whispered to the empty, cold air of my sanctum, tasting the names, as I wrote about them now. Their names were harsh, guttural sounds, fit for creatures that lived in the dirt. I watched the great silver hound sniffed at a mossy rock, his hackles rising.
I’d like to think I would have felt the weight of those names had I known about this pair at the time – for whenever the sons of the Rhokki Pass left their holes, it was because the world was about to tilt. But alas, I was a god with a mission back then – one far different than my current one – and even had I know about this pair, I’d probably have considered them as merely two more ants carrying a crumb across a very large table – a mess not worth my time.
And so, I probably would not have even listened to their talk of “the vault.” I wouldn’t have cared about their “starving holds.” Thus I never knew about them as they spurred their ponies forward towards the green maw of Arbola, heading to a destiny I was too blind to see.
Of Meat and the Bone
Before they reached the forest the sun dipped below the horizon, leaving a sky bruised with purples and sickly oranges, as if the heavens themselves were nursing a grudge. Rather than enter the unknown of Arbola, the Drokka made camp in the lee of a jagged limestone outcrop, just shy of Arbola’s shimmering edge.
The night was not silent. It was filled with the unsettling, wet sounds of Gruff tearing into a buck he’d pulled down in the gloaming. The silver wolfhound was a blur of efficiency, his muzzle crimson as he dragged the carcass toward the fire. He didn’t just eat; he shared, dropping a haunch at Barkla’s boots with a heavy, wet thud.
Barkla didn’t thank the beast. He simply drew his long-knife and began to carve, the fat sizzling over the modest flame. “Eat, Brega,” he grunted, the firelight catching the black spike of his helm. “We’ll need the strength of stone for what comes next. I can feel the eyes of the Skulz on the wind—those rotting wretches are crawling closer to the road every night.”
Although they didn’t see the zombies I’d released into the world ages past, still they felt their chill. The air grew thick with the scent of stagnant water and old graves, a subtle, rhythmic scratching against the stones just outside the fire’s reach. Thanks to me the undead were a constant, unseen pressure on the Flat Earth back into those days – a reminder that the world was slowly turning into a mausoleum of my design.
“I still don’t get it – we haven’t heard a word from the North in fifty years, Barkla,” Brega said, his blood-red surcoat looking black in the shadows. He idly traced the silver runes on his ash-wood staff. “Not a messenger, not a trade-caravan. Since the Last Great War, it’s as if the Akka mountains simply vanished from the map. Do you think we’ll find our brothers there, or just more silence?”
“You will find the…relic,” Barkla snapped, though his voice lacked its usual iron. “You have to. Father’s cough is sounding more like a death-rattle every morning, and the Seven Kingdoms… Hah. We call them seven to keep our pride, but you and I know the truth. Four are empty shells, ghost-halls filled with nothing but dust and starving orphans. The Derkka are breeding like maggots in the East, and Gwar is feeding them his own bile to keep them hungry. If you don’t bring the prize home to the Rhokki Pass, there won’t be a Drokka left to bury the dead.”
Brega looked toward the dark silhouette of the forest, thoughtful. “Did you know the old legends say that at one time The Blackwoods were so thick a goblin couldn’t crawl through that forest without losing his skin.”
“The Blackwood was burned six centuries ago,” Barkla muttered, his jewel-eyes reflecting the dying embers. “If it ever existed at all. It’s a graveyard of charcoal now. Like everything else on this miserable World Above.”
After dinner, the brothers’ voices rose as the argument they’d been nursing for a week finally boiled over.
“We should bypass it,” Barkla growled, gesturing toward the Arbola treeline with a grease-stained thumb. “The Valdermakken are vipers in silk. They’ll trap us in riddles while the world burns – just like Regalis. I saw we strike North, straight for Akka. Why beg for crumbs at a table where we aren’t welcome?”
“Because we are blind!” Brega hissed, leaning forward. “We don’t know the state of the North. We don’t know if the mountain passes are still open. The Amorosi scouts range further than our ponies could ever gallop. If we walk into Akka without knowing what took our brothers, whatever monster is currently wearing the Akka crown may well consume us too. Perhaps if you had not insulted the Regent of Regalis, we have kn—“
Barkla cold stare stopped his brother’s words. Instead of replying the black clad dwarf merely stared into the fire, his jaw set. He looked at his cruel axe and then at the darkness where he was sure the Skulz were surely gathering. Perhaps in his heart he knew Brega was right, but that only made the stone in his gut feel heavier.
“Fine,” Barkla finally conceded, the word sounding like a tooth being pulled. “We enter Arbola at dawn. But if they so much as look at me cross-eyed, I’ll remind them that a Drokka prince doesn’t need a map to find an Elven throat.”
Eventually the fire burned down to a heap of glowing, orange. Brega was keeping the second watch, while Barkla struggled through a fitful sleep with Gruff at his side. The ponies were hobbled nearby. And then it was that the silence of the woods was finally broken—not by the clumsy shuffling of the Skulz, but by a sound that wasn’t a sound at all. It was a pressure in the air, a subtle shift in the vibration of the night. Gruff rose instantly, his silver hackles rising like needles, a low, wet rumble vibrating in his throat.
Barkla’s hand closed around the wax-treated leather of his axe-haft before his eyes were even fully open. Brega was already upright, his silver-plated shield catching the last of the ember-light. Out of the ink-black shadows of the Arbola eaves, a dozen shapes materialized. They didn’t step out of the trees; they seemed to be exhaled by them. Tall, lithe, and shimmering in armor that looked like frozen moonlight, the Amorosi archers stood with nocked arrows, their aim as steady as the stars.
But it was the figure in the center that drew the attention of the brothers’ wary glares. He was diminutive, standing barely taller than the Drokka themselves, draped in robes of a shifting, iridescent grey that seemed to swallow the firelight. He looked fragile, almost academic, yet the way the tall warriors behind him held their breath suggested he was the most dangerous thing in the glade, especially as the faintest hint of two thin silver blades showed at his belt.
“You have brought much iron to a place that prefers whispers,” the small figure said, his voice carrying the weight of centuries. He didn’t look at their axes; he looked into their jewel-like eyes with a terrifying, calm scrutiny. “I am El-Janus, Azora Mysstro. If you seek the Council of the Amorosi, the forest will grant you an audience. Do not make her regret the hospitality.”
Brega was quick to reply, as he bowed in respect, “We come as royal envoys from Kon-Herr Drokka Hanbull, Lord of the Rhokki’s. I am Brega Derkillez and this is my brother Barkla. We seek news of the North, and we have the coin to pay for the truth.”
“If your tongues are too silver to give it for free.”Barkla grunted under his breath, before declaring loudly. “Lead the way, mysstro.”
The Apocrypha of Azazel 