The Imminent Siege of Azragoth – Chapter 30

*Scene 01* – 12:26 (Taking the Mountain)

Taking the Mountain turned out to be more of a challenge than I realized.

Even though there was a literal direction for where we were headed to, it was also, as Mattox indicated, a  broader mindset and attitude one should adopt for the intended journey.  A determined pre-commitment to face the obstacles before you attempt to surmount them.  Like Caleb of old, in the Ancient Text’s account, there were giant Anakim living in the mountains that were given to him as his possession.  He was then an 85 year-old-man. Fourscore and five, as he says.  The term “score” is equivalent to twenty years.  So, fourscore would be 4 times 20, which would be 80, plus five additional years would bring the total to 85.

When we were mounted up on our horses, some of my travelers ask me what Mattox had said to me, and I told them simply, that he’d advised me to ‘take the mountain’.  Begglar nodded sagely, understand the concept, but I could tell that it was lost on some of my other younger companions, so as we rode along, I told them the story of Caleb and the ten spies, and of Joshua, the successor to Moses.  How in their progress toward the Promised Land of Canaan, both Joshua and he had been faithful witnesses, while the others had been fearful and doubtful, giving a negative report that caused the Israelites to spend forty more years in the Wilderness of Sin, before finally be allow to reach their destination.

“Forty YEARS?!” Miray exclaimed.  “We’re going to be here for…forty years,” she followed the outburst in an amazed whisper, holding her head in her hands, causing the others to giggle a little at her shocked reaction, but I am sure several of the others may have internally winced at that too.

A nervous question came from Will, who had spoken little over the last few days.  “What does that story have to do with us?  You’re kidding us, right?”

“Well, let me tell you the rest of the story,” I offered, trying to redeem the dire note struck with the low point of the tale, and turning it around.  “Taking the mountain, was not in the first account, but in the follow-up to it.  Though there was a delay of…forty years…that is not the end of it.  There is a principle to it.  A concept that has to do with attitude, but also the amazing way Caleb was preserved for what followed.  Sometimes interruptions come into our intended journey, but we mistake ourselves if we give up and think that the interruption means there is no hope for the continuance.  This is a lesson I’ve had to learn the hard way.  I thought my time in these Mid-World lands was done when I left it the first time, but when a calling is given by The One, it is only He that can determine when that journey ends.  He sees all outcomes, and works even in the delays between the start and the finish.  Only when He declares, ‘It is finished’ is it actually finished.  If the outcome is promised by The One, then you can rely on it.”

The others were quiet on that statement, considering the import of what I had stated, but I noticed Maeven’s reaction, riding ahead of me as she visibly stiffened, and then almost turned, but then shifted forward again, seeming to ponder what I had said in some very personal way.

Allow her to courtesy of privacy, I continued as if I had not noticed.  “Now considering also that while he was the approximate age of some of our grandfathers, he still had it going on.  I imagine Caleb had some ‘guns’ on him.  The strength of a man in his youth.  But more impressive than that was his moxy.  Not mojo, Moxy.  Okay, Spunk, for your younger ones out there.  Caleb had a level of confidence in the promise of His Lord, that made him defiant in the face of threat, determined in the teeth of defeat, and wholly and completely trusting in the value of a promise given, because of the pristine character and goodness of the One who promised it.  The Ancient Text says:

“114 You are my refuge and my shield; your word is my source of hope.” [Psalm 119:114 NLT]

“That essentially is what the concept of ‘taking the mountain’ means, if you think about it as a concept.”

One of the young men, who I had noticed seemed to have a sort of military bearing about him, with a crew cut hairstyle, and a well-kept stubbled shadow of a beard, spoke up.  “An attitude adjustment,” he said casually, nodding.  “A willingness to forge ahead, because your chief commands it.”

“Basically, yeah,” I affirmed him, careful not to give him a reason to think that I thought of myself as a commanding officer.  I knew there were other inferences that might be going through my team’s minds, since they came to this moment not as natives of this Mid-World, and I quietly pondered how they might be processing these ideas from their own personal otherworld viewpoints.  My own thoughts drifted back to the place from which I’d come here, evaluating the implications of Caleb’s story as well.  I’d had my own painful memories of a Caleb’s ‘blind faith’ and his tragic loss in this Mid-World, but the Caleb of the Ancient Text’s account vied for its own place in my thinking and attitudes.  It struck me that even though both Caleb and Joshua had made their declarations in faith rightly, the other spies had made wrong decisions and impacted the timeline on their entrance to the promised land, but it did not thwart The One’s faithfulness to bring their eventual journey to a miraculously preserved and successful ending.  The faithful did not let the obstacle of time sway them, and they were preserved because of that enduring confidence in The One’s promises.

I well knew that in the Surface World, promises made are too often akin to bounced checks.  They have no backing.  They are used as currency for people to get what they want in the most immediate fashion possible, but tragically the one giving in trust to the promisor can easily lose everything if what is given in trade is purchased with a questionable currency that has no backing.  Commerce and fair trade depend upon mutuality of trust.  Caleb had no doubt of the backing of his promissory note, and he was ready to put his life on the line to cash it in.  An eighty-five-year-old man, dauntless before a mountain of giant half-men.  Not only that, but he took ownership claim, not only to conquer those in the mountain, but to rule it afterward, and populate it with his family and their generations to come.  To take the mountain, he was also putting not only himself on the line, but his family as well.  All his poker chips were on the table, so to speak and he was betting the farm.  He knew he had been dealt the winning hand.  To some, that would seem risky, but he was confident of his backer.  In his mind, it was no gamble to place complete faith and trust in the “promises”, the currency, of his Lord and God.  But that kind of confidence was not just an abandonment of reason to blind faith.  Caleb was a confident spirited lad when he and Joshua were first sent into the land of giants to spy it out for Moses and the rest of the Hebrews, encamped on the outer desert perimeter of The Promised Land.

They were literally within sight of the land flowing with milk and honey, that God had promised them on their miraculous flight from Egypt, through towering walls of water of the Red Sea, and following a pillar of cloud by day and a column of fire by night.  They were watered by a dry rock, they were fed by manna from heaven, and every promise made to them was being fulfilled before their very eyes.  They fought battles being displaced nomads with the armies of established cities and conquered along the way, but when they go to the edge of the whole purpose for their journey, they hesitated, stopped short of claiming it, and decided not to trust in the One who had called them and delivered them miraculously this far.  Caleb, like his people, had a faith born of firsthand experience.  Yet, some of his fellow kinsmen, having shared in the same experiences, still lived imprisoned by their own fear and distrust.  Though the promised land was before them, and they survived a miraculous journey overshadowed by the power and guidance of the One who promised them good, they distrusted Him because they saw and feared the giants in the land of the promise.  They forgot their history, they abandoned their trust and faith, and instead chose fear, trusting in their own strength without considering the promise of their backing.  This is why John the Revelator reminds us of yet another title of the One.

“11 And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him [was] called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.” [Revelation 19:11 KJV]

One point that few people acknowledge in that very affirmation statement, is that righteousness does require judgment, but it also requires the might to back it up, and yes even to the point of making war if required.

Isn’t it amazing that the very Prince of Peace must sometimes resort to war to effect righteousness?  I’ll bet that will come as quite a shock to those who advocate for pacifism and appeasement with evil regimes of this world when they piously and sanctimoniously are forced to wrap their heads around the fact that Christ Himself counts righteousness as a cause worth fighting for.  But that should not come as a surprise to any soldier, or military personnel, or police officer or judge who witnesses the human stain of sin and corruption and fight against its surfeiting current every day.  Evil must be resisted for a sane and safe society to flourish.

There is a battle going on for the minds of mankind, and it takes many shapes and forms to distract and confuse them, to cause them to place their hopes and trust in human panaceas that have no backing.  Histories are forgotten, and in some cases re-written by pernicious minds so deceived by their own faith in modern falsehoods they cannot abide by any other perspective that does not join their conclusions.  These are an unteachable people, unwitting acolytes of an ancient and invisible enemy that seeks their enslavement and ultimate destruction.  That enemy’s agents have been at work since the beginning of time in all of the created worlds seeking to unmake all that the Master has made but unable to touch the eternal.  Save for one thing.  He must cause mankind to forget who they were created to be, to forget the historical record of their miraculous deliverance through time and how they were spared destruction by the One.  For he knows that if a generation can be made to forget their past, then they will have no hope for their future and no will to resist his ultimate rule.  They will be snuffed out, like a candle in the wind.  Already, they were smoldering embers, with a faint white-gray ribbon of smoke unraveling into the sky, signifying their dying surrender.  A white flag harbinger of retreat.  The essential point of my calling and my mission was to cause these few that I led into the Mid-World to come back to themselves and remember.  To see again that promises made by the One are promises kept.  That every launched ship of dreams that carry their hopes into the storms of life on the high seas, always have a safe and protected home harbor to return to.  There are no sea-faring men, no matter how full of bravado and wanderlust they may claim to be, that do not find comfort in the memory of their home port when maelstroms threaten to swamp their vessel and swallow them into the cold, dark depths of the beckoning, and unforgiving sea.

It was with these thoughts in mind that we gathered together around the supplies wagon, and climbed up on our geared traveling mounts, and followed Maeven as she led us onward through the winding forested trails down the slopes and away from the hidden city of Azragoth, where we knew we had friends and allies who might possibly be in danger due to the approach of the Protectorate squads still hunting and pursuing us.

*Scene 02* – 11:48 (The Trail Runs Cold)

Aridam had no idea how long he had been passed out from the trauma and loss of blood due to the trees that had fallen on him and his crew of Xarmnian Protectorate.  They had run into a prepared trap set by the fugitives they had been pursuing, but these could be no ordinary fugitives.  They had to have had help from those Lehi raiders and the network of underground resistance to the Xarmnian crown and his expansion efforts.  Most of his men and several of the horses had been swept over the edge of the cut roadway down a scree slope and dropped to their deaths below.  He had survived only because one of the fallen, pre-cut trees had angled across the road and caught its limbs in one of the rooted trees that rose sharply up the incline at the roadway’s precipitous edge.  His arm had been badly crushed and his bone shattered.  His mount was buried under the bulk of the tree trunk and branches somewhere below. The wagon and its attendant riders were nowhere to be seen, and it was as if they had just vanished off the wooded roadway disappearing like a mist among the cliff climbing trees.

With bloodshot eyes he scanned the dirt roadway looking for any sign that at least some of his men had survived or a horse had been spared that he might catch and continue his pursuit.  He vaguely remembered shivering through a passing night and finding himself sopping wet by morning dew and drifting fogs.  He had suffered through a delirium with ghostly sounds of the wood and its myriad creatures.  Now his mind began to clarify, and he experienced a raging thirst.  If he could just make it down to the roadway, and to the bridge where the upper valley stream ran through a notch and fell away down a rocky face toward the lower valleys and plains, he might be able to slake that thirst.  His tourniquet that he had tightened was black with blood. His blood, but he had clamped down his arteries enough that he no longer perceived any additional blood loss.  His mangled hand and arm were a pale bluish color, and he dreaded with might come of his wounds.  He felt a relieved numbness, and he hoped it might serve to allow him to shift and crawl out from the branches that had pinned him.

Painfully, he stretched and managed to climb over the limbs and slip and scoot himself downward until he tumbled to the hard packed ground.  He almost passed out a few times but took rests when he felt his vision swim and blur.  Over towards the hillside slope, he spotted one of the horses, a stallion who had scratches on its flank, but was still capable of carrying a rider.  Its reins had been caught in one of the tree limbs, and Aridam limped towards the animal, trying to calm it enough to somehow climb up onto its back.  The stallion pulled back on the reins and Aridam could see that the bridle and bit were askew.  Evidently, the animal had struggled repeatedly to get free of the branches, but to no avail.  Aridam approached the creature with his good hand raised, letting his mangled arm and hand dangle at his side.  Getting into the horse’s saddle would be difficult one-handed, but, if for nothing else, Aridam was glad to at least have one sole companion even if he had to walk the descent road down to the rendezvous point.  The beast moved forward, sensing that he was about to be freed.

Where had that wagon gone? he wondered, as he unwound the horse’s reins from the angled limb.  The bridge was about two hundred eighty or so yards further under the shadow of overarching branches and trees, more densely clustered along the edge of the stream that ran beneath it.  He could hear the tantalizing gurgle of the water as it passed under the bridge and rushed towards the edge of a cluster of eroded and channeled boulders before pouring down the grade over a two-hundred-foot drop.  Grabbing the tether, he led the horse down the roadway, anticipating the cool rush of the cleansing water down his parched throat.

He cast his eyes along the hard-packed earth and the stallion nickered and clopped along beside him.  There was nowhere else that the wagon could have gone but ahead.  One shoulder climbed steeply up to the tree-crowned edge of the highland country, while the other stippled with trees and crags fell downward.  Though a day or so had passed, Aridam could still see the wagon ruts of the wheels and the hoof prints of the passage of several horses.  Because of the fallen trees, this road would be unusable until men came along with saws and haulers to clear the area that had felled him and his company.

At last, he reached the front of the bridge and could hear the roar of the water below but saw no easy way down to its banks.  The water had exposed the tangled roots of large cypress trees that soared and towered above like grey barked sentinels forever nourished by its long, soothing drink.  The bridge was narrow and had a wooden planked riser joining its stone and masonry span, with another wooden planked tread on the opposite side coming back down onto the continuing road into the trees.  He led the horse up onto the bridge and looked over, longingly watching the water pass several feet below him.  If he were to fall in, the current would serve to carry him to the similar fate of his men, whose bodies had been broken and shattered on the scree rock fields below the cliff’s edge, only his would be rinsed and flushed into the lower rivers to be consumed piecemeal by the fish that swam in those streams.  Perhaps, he thought to himself, the opposite bank might offer him a way down to the river’s edge.  But a closer scan of it appeared to offer no better opportunity.  He led the horse across the top and down the planked side on the far end and suddenly noticed something odd.

There was a stone pediment joining the lip of the opposite ramp, but none on the leading ramp that he had crossed on the road behind him.  He moved over to the corner of the bridge and saw that a rock wall had been mortared and extended downward under the bridge forming a wall stretching out partially into the water.  Crossing further onto the road he noticed that where he had expected the wagon ruts to continue, they did not.  At the end of the stone pediment, the wagon ruts and the fresh horse tracks had vanished, almost as if they had somehow been plucked off the bridge by some massive flying raptor and were taken aloft into the clouds.

Aridam spun around searching for the missing tracks and traces and moved further down the road to see if the hard-packed ground of the roadway had merely masked them somehow, but still there was no sign.  Old passages would be worn away and washed clean by the fogs and dews, but those they had pursued would not have had time to fade.  How long had he been unconscious? he wondered again.  But no.  It would take weeks for the traces to fade, and what about those leading up to the bridge…

He spun back, leading the horse to cross the stone bridge once more.  Surely, he had missed something.  Some clue that would reveal how these crafty rebels had evaded pursuers time and again along this road, before setting off their wooded death trap.

Those in pursuit would not realize the absence of the trail going cold if they did not carefully examine the ground before and the ground following the bridge itself, and their own horses’ tracks would occlude the trail as they followed their quarry.

Something was wrong here.  Something that he was missing.  He scanned the canopy above, looking for some kind of winch or counterweighted boom arm that could have lifted the horse and wagons and swung them over into a hidden platform or concealed upper road, but could spot nothing out of the ordinary.  The wind sighed in the upper treetops, brushing aside millions of applauding leaves.

Pine needles fell from the towering pine branches that stood sentry behind the ranks of waterside cypress twisted into the banks of the stream.  The rippling, frothy waters hissed and seemed to taunt him to risk venturing into the rooted tangles for a cool drink.  With his useless arm and hand, he knew he dared not risk it, for navigating those roots would be difficult enough with two hands and arms to brace himself from slipping into the water and being carried away.  No. There had to be something to do with the bridge ramp itself, he decided.  Perhaps…

He examined the front stone rails of the bridge, looking for something, he did not know what, that could unravel this mystery.  Some latch release or lever that might just…

Suddenly he saw it.  Down by the base of the stone, partially obscured by long grass.  A raised symbol carved in bas relief.  A crude symbol of a fish.  Homage to Dagon, the fish deity worshipped by the Skorlithians? he wondered.  But no.  This was different.  It was formed by two arced lines.

Aridam lowered himself to one knee, drawing the horse he led a little closer to himself as he needed the slack in the reins to be able to touch the symbol and feel if there were some mechanism to it that might reveal more.

He had seen this image before, but his mind buzzed with a dull ache that was returning to his mangled arm, beginning to demand his full attention.  He had no leverage with which he might push the symbol, but he tried anyway, grunting with the effort.  Something was wrong about the image.  It seemed…to be point the wrong way.  He put his thumb below the groove where the tail of the fish was and his other fingers—ring, middle and little pinkie—over the top of the curved dorsal side and twisted the image so that the bas relief lines turned towards the lower falls, finding that the image did indeed move.  He heard a grinding noise and a quiet, buried ratcheting sound just barely audible above the roar of the stream.  He gaped as the lower wooden ramp at the front of the bridge shift back a few inches and then tilted downward, revealing a dark tunnel on the other side of the stream, with a shallow stone path, just barely an inch or two below the surface of the stream.  Stone gravel revealed rut marks from the recent passage of what could only have been a wagon that had passed not over the bridge…but under it.

Aridam’s eyes widened in amazement at first but then lowered and lidded themselves into a squint and scowl as he realized how cleverly his quarry had so easily fooled them.  He tightened his fist as he rose up shakily onto his feet, feeling another wave of dizziness pass over him followed by sharp throbbing pain.  The stone railing of the bridge was about a foot thick with fitted stones and he calculated that he might just use it to mount his horse.

After a few failing and painful attempts, he managed to at last fall across the horse’s saddle and work his other leg over the animal’s rump to finally sit himself aright.  His vision swam and dark spots threatened to shade him back into oblivion, but he forced himself to bite back at the pain in his arm and shoulder, working the leather strap into his mouth and clenching on it with his teeth while his feet searched for and finally found the stirrups.

The horse stamped and feinted away from the dark slanted opening beneath the raised ramp.  Aridam kicked the horse’s flanks forcing him in mincing steps downward onto the shallow stone bed and across the stream into the black chuted tunnel below the other bank into the darkness.  The ramp on the bridge lowered behind them, somehow triggered to descend back into its seated seam by a pressure plate release that returned it to its normal usage.

*Scene 03* – 17:24 (Stopping Short)

Coming back into the woods of Kilrane, Grum-Blud had to shield his eyes, and struggled to hang on to the shaggy mane of Mowgrai, the manticore he rode.  He had a hard time dodging branches and brush as the manticore seemed to effortlessly bound and weave through dense forest, never once considering that they had to give a thought to the squatty, man-frog thing, perched precariously on its back.  Grum-Blud cursed as foliage raked him.  Fists clenching the mane, he spent much of his time ducking and furtively looking over his shoulder at the poised and bouncing black tipped spike telson on its segmented tail, fearful that at any moment it could so easily stab him in the back.  Whether intentional or not, he was not ready to be shish-kabobbed by this thoughtless, and reckless stinger-equipped, lion creature.  There was no sense trying to give these beasts any direction because, what little he knew of them, it was generally understood that manticores were not big on speech and one wondered how they could be made to form their growling low rumbling words around so many teeth. Even to Grum-Blud’s mind, these monsters were disturbing, and he decided that he had much rather be carted and flung about by the beautiful siren creatures that spend too much time in the company of these large feral big cats.  He wondered that they could be even called Half-men, for all he could tell of their having any human-like features was in the creature’s disturbing face.  Half-men, he expected, should have the human form dominating the upper portions of the creature, and its animal-lion, leopard or panther portions occupying the lower ends of the creature.  But these beasts had a disturbing third of an insectile propensity expressed as a menacing, articulated scorpion tail, with a deadly black barb on the tip.  The manticore’s face was human in part, except for its ability to hyper-extend its lower jaw and unveil a triple row set of jagged teeth.

Their heads were hoary, heavily bearded, as if their facial hair made up for the mane of fur that would have grown had they remained a lion of legend. Their visage was fierce, their skin dark and reddened like tough leather or blackened with the dried glut of blood from so many kills.  Their eyes clouded and vacillated between human awareness and animal aloofness, subjected only to instinct and primal desires.  Their animal fur varied between the typical leonine beige-tan, the black velvet of a panther and the spotted patches of a leopard.

At some point, Grum-Blud quit twisting and trying to see where these beasts were going, and just buried his face in the sweaty, oily mane of Mowgrai. Trying not to think too much more about getting accidently skewered.  It was enough that he managed to keep from flopping off that ferocious cat, and faceplanting into a mossy tree trunk.  Cats, whether big or small, were clearly never intended to be ridden.

He knew he should be happy.  The Pan had accepted his gamble and given him these manticores.  If he had guessed right, there were about fourteen or fifteen of them.  Clearly a formidable pack.

Grum-Blud had mulled over the problem of the black walls to the old city.  One would think scaling the inner walls of this old town might be easy enough.  And one would be wrong in thinking so.  The black coating smelled and resisted all growth of any kind.  No vines protruded from the mortar lines, not even a mushroom cap or blanket of moistened moss could be seen anywhere along its surface.  Kudzu, a most hearty plant, curled away from it and any creeper vine extending to touch it was yellowed and dried and crumbled to powder between the fingers.  Without a ladder to lean against the top of the wall, there would be no way to get over it, except to get enmired in its black coating by attempting to scale it with hammered spikes.  Not an attempt one could hope to achieve with any degree of stealth or secrecy.  Black gaping murder holes lined the top, just two to three feet shy of the upper battlement.  No doubt the means by which the thick, sticky substance had been poured down to thoroughly coat its outer face.  One might hope to snag the claw end of a rope and grappling hook within these gaps, but it would be quite a trick to do so and not a feat in which he was confident he could pull off even on the best of days.  A rock mound ramp might be attempted, but not under the watchful eyes of those manning the bastions and battlements.  No, The Pan’s creatures were more adept at this kind of assault, and he had known this as soon as he saw them in that meadow meeting with The Pan.

Now to bring it all about, and to relocate that numbskull Shelberd, who had no doubt continued his induced slumber, attended by the two asses that needed to be repeatedly smacked to amount to anything worthwhile at all.  With his new ferocious retinue, however, the odds of succeeding in his present mission stood a far better chance than his prior traveling companions could contribute to his prior ventures.  As so it was with some degree of optimism that Grum-Blud viewed his prospects of leading this forthcoming assault upon the Kingdom of Xarm’s most decimating defeat resulting in fatal contagion of the former king’s preferred heirs and a decades long quarantine, that prevented vengeful reprisal and the taking of spoils.  He would be rectifying a blight in the annuals of Xarmnian history, and for such, he expected to be doubly rewarded, both by service to The Pan and by lavish praise of his human sovereign, and the recognition of the value of trolls in service to the crown.  He might even garner some grudging acknowledgements from Captain Jehazah.

If Captain Jahazah the Crusher were here, he would be pleased, Grum-Blud decided.  Once the attack was complete, Grum-Blud’s name would be venerated in Xarmnian legends and songs.  His name would bring terror and give him power among the masses and might even give him a place of his own at the tables and in the meetings of the High Xarmnian Council.  And one day, he might be asked to lead a company into the mountains and, at last, rid the Mid-World of their traitorous brothers, the Capitalians, living so smugly on the other side of The Great Wall.  They would tear it down, stone by stone.  Crushing each piece with hammers until they formed a gravel road between the two lands.  And once it was down, they would pillage and plunder their arrogance into cowed and mewling submission.  Begging for little scraps to be left to feed their families.  One day.  One day soon.

If Jahazah failed to acknowledge his contributions or dared in any way to take a credit for his glory of this raid, perhaps someday, he too might be served in pieces on a plate in the great counsel dining hall.  And Grum-Blud would savor that taste of revenge as well.  Jahazah had beaten him with a rod for allowing the escape of the traitor Corimanth, to get out of the city, and it had taken Grum-Blud weeks to no longer feel the sting of the bruises across his back and to ride upon a small horse without help and wincing in pain with every jostling step.  Grum-Blud vowed that he would never allow himself to be beaten in such a way ever again.  If beating were to be meted out, he would be the one holding the end of the rod, and not the one receiving its blows.  But tonight the taste of blood would soon be in the air. And he wondered to himself, what an Azragothian might taste like.

It wasn’t long before Mowgrai slowed and began a crouched pace, signifying that he and the other manticores had picked up on a scent that commanded their interests.  And, Grum-Blud realized–stirred their hunger as well.  They slowed and lowered their telson barbs.  The muscles on Mowgrai’s back rippled beneath his seated position, and they circled through the brush silently, crouching as if to pounce once they tightened their hunters circle around their scented quarry.

Sensing things were about to go very wrong, Grum-Blud spoke above the rumbling growl emanating from the big cats, as their ears flattened and their hoary heads waggled, and their jaws extended unsheathing large upper and lower canines and incisors.  Their quasi-human-cat nostrils flared, and their yellow eyes squinted with savage excitement.

Just ahead, at the base of a large tree, sat the two onocentaurs glaring up at a frightened Shelberd who clung to an upper branch out of reach of the two gawkers just below.  The trio were oblivious to their stalkers’ presence and were about to get a rude awakening to the fact of their imminent peril.

Grum-Blud twisted the hanks of mane he had held onto, to steady himself through the rough journey upon this cat monster’s back and roared in protest.  “NO! No, no, no, no! These clowns are with me.  They might look tasty, but there is far better fare a little further.”

Startled, Brem and Bray turned towards the sound of Grum-Blud’s voice but could only see his head barely peeking out over the surrounding brush.  Shelberd bellowed, “Is that you, Grum?!  Get me down from here!  Who tucked me up in this blasted tree?  I ain’t no bird or squirrel, and I ain’t got claws to get down from here.”

“Shut up, you idiot!” Grum-Blud barked back, “or these things with me will surely get you down from there for a quick bite.”

Still mystified and oblivious, Shelberd squawked back, “Well that’s just fine with me, ’cause I am almighty hungry too.  It’s about time you got back with lunch.  I’m starving.”

“You’re about to be on the menu, if you don’t keep your gob shut!”

A guttural rumble rose from the body and erupted through the throat of the manticore, Grum-Blud rode upon.

“We eat!” Mowgrai said, and the other beasts echoed in a roundly consensual affirmation.

Grum-Blud had raised himself up, still gripping Mowgrai’s mane to stand on the beast’s bunched and muscular leonine shoulders, trying to take charge of the situation.  “No eat!” he barked, half cursing himself for reducing his language skills down to the assumed level of these bestial confusions of lion and insect.

One of the other manticores off to his left hidden in the brush muttered audibly, “Hmmph!  Eat!”

“NO EAT!” Grum insisted, stamping in frustration, barely catching a rushing movement behind him, heralded by a rush of crackling leaves.  There was that barbarous tail, poised and curled threateningly behind him, and he flinched and ducked just in time to avoid its black spear-point from plunging into him like a meat fork.  The movement threw Grum-Blud off balance and his arms pinwheeled as he tipped and tumbled, falling into a bush.

Quickly he emerged, leaves caught in his beard, but with his knife drawn and he scramble into the shallow clearing around the tree in which Shelberd was perched and gawking, and the two onocentaurs shivered and gaped as the manticores emerged, crouching behind Grum-Blud in a tightly coiled and threatening slow crawl, their talons digging into the forest growth.  Two topped a fallen, moss-covered log.  One pushed through low lying brush, its poised tail following its forward movements like a shark fin.  Mowgrai, sprang up and over a buried bolder, standing on its top like a monstrous statue, proud and resolute.

Brem cowered and whimpered.  Bray backed into the tree trunk and mewled, as if startled by its solid form, glancing back to be sure it was not also one of the hungry pack closing in around them.

Shelberd, seeing all that was transpiring below, suddenly said, “I think I’ll stay up here…just a bit longer.”

Grum-Blud ground his teeth.  Mowgrai had barely spoken to him during the course of their erratic travel through the fields and weaving journey into the climbing forest of Kilrane.  He was unsure of what weight The Pan’s prior orders to protect him carried in the minds of these hybrid monsters, and what natural wild instinct might override those orders.

“Are you mad?!!!” Brem’s voice carried both incredulity and censure. “You brought manticores here?!”

Grum-Blud winced and ground his teeth harder, champing and searching for a scathing reply, but finding none.

Bray chimed in, “Manties are killing machines.  Without an authority present, there ain’t much a body might do to curb their natural…urges.”

Grum-Blud held his knife up as a pathetic threat against the manticores closing in around them, the beasts own puncturing barb raised in a threat posture.  He sputtered, “Tha-tha PAN said for them to protect me. To make sure I returned to him unharmed so I could help him use the gift I left with him.”

“And you believed him?!” Brem groaned.  “What assurances did you get about our safety when you were negotiating these arrangements, trolly?!”

Trolly.  Grum-Blud hated the derogatory epithet, and would’ve smacked Brem if he’d been within reach and the snarling manticores weren’t back them up into a tighter circle around the tree trunk.  Bray did not like the pause, so he pressed, “Yeah, what did he say about us?”

“He only asked how useful you two were,” Grum-Blud growled.

Bray shot Brem a nervous look and Brem returned the same, as if the cast furtive glances were an invisible tennis match of volleyed nervous expressions, served and returned between them.

Brem cleared his throat, and asked in a more pensive manner, “An-And pray tell, what did you tell him?”

“Well, you’ll be of no use to me carrying my travel packs, if you get eaten so I will see what I can do.  But I wonder, aren’t these beasties of your kind?  I mean.  You both serve The Pan’s kingdom.”

Brem muttered, “Families don’t always get on, if that’s what y’mean.  The Pan may be our shared king, but we have strained relationships, same as any other.  Nymphs and Harpies hate each other.  Bad blood between ‘em.  Bad history, too.”

Grum-Blud shrugged and said, “I’ll see what I can do, but you’ll owe me, understand?”

Bray responded, “S’not like we got a lotta choices.”

Grum-Blud move forward slowly lowering his drawn knife, sheathing it, and raising his hands in a placating manner, cautiously stepping towards the open wreath of bared fangs and poised, raised telsons.

“Now boys, let’s think this thing through.  The Pan gave you all an order, and he won’t be too pleased if you go chomping us up before the real feast is set for you.  Me and these…,” he gestured with his thumb, back at the huddling onocentaurs and his fellow troll perched above.  “These others are part of a team, see.  I need them for a job and they need me as well.  You eat us and you will spoil your dinner.”

Mowgrai snarled, “Hungry.  No talk.  Eat, then talk.”

Grum-Blud felt sweat rising on his forehead, and his chubby palms began to perspire.

“Now-now-now-now, think a minute.  What usually happens to your Half-men kind when The Pan hears you’ve disobeyed an order clearly given?”

The circle of manticores did not answer right away, but seemed to be working through the consequences of what Grum-Blud had implied, and their tense posture seemed to weaken a bit.  Finally, Mowgrai answered, “No eat you.  Pan say nothing about fat pigeon in tree or the puddle horse and midget pony.”

Grum heard both the onocentaurs grumble about the unfavorable titles given them by Mowgrai, and he heard Shelberd snort above him reacting to being called a fat pigeon.

“But he did say I was to lead you to your feasting, and that I had found favor with him, so you would not want me giving him a bad report, would you?”

The manticores mulled this over and grumbled among themselves.  “Hungry,” he’d heard said many times in their guttural dialogue, but finally they seemed to agree.

Mowgrai finally nodded and turned back towards Grum-Blud lowering his poised tail a bit, conceding the point, so to speak.  “We wait,” he said, “but for short.”

Grum-Blud was not sure what the manticore meant by ‘for short.’  And he could only hope to assume it meant time.  Height was not a trait either he, Shelberd or the two onocentaurs could claim.

*Scene 04* – 11:44 (Switchback)

We rode further downward on a switchback trail cut and camouflaged beneath the lower forested canopy.  I watched as Maeven rode up to the end of a trailway, pushed against certain branches on the trees there and areas once hedged about by bushes swung inward revealing a continuation of the trail not previously seen in the shaded light.  Time and time again, certain trailheads that seemed to terminate were uncloaked by this method of hidden cantilevers and pivoting shrubs, and I wondered at how Maeven was able to remember them all.

Above and behind us, at some degree of distance, we begin to hear furtive movements in the brush.  Rustling noises that were caused by unknown creatures moving with some degree of speed through the forest underbrush.  Grunts and guttural growls were interspersed within these noises, and we were gripped with a fear that the Xarmnian Cerberi were once again on the scent of our trail with the Protectorate Guards close behind.

Maeven and I both paused to listen, attempting to quiet the others growing more noticeably uncertain and afraid.  A few circled their horses as if wanting to flee back to the safety of the caves beneath Azragoth, but I bid them hold their peace and keep still.

“They’re coming.  They’re going to find us and kill us.  We should have never left Azragoth.”

Maeven interjected, “Be still.  Let us hear for a moment.”

After a bit, I turned to Maeven, “Are you hearing what I’m hearing?”

“Yep.  They’re moving away from us.  Not toward us.”

I turned to the two riders whose actions showed that they were wanting to go back.

“If you ride back that way, number one, you’ll never find the hidden route we took to get down here, so you’re sure to get lost.  And number two, you will be riding right into the creatures making those noises above us.”

I cleared my throat and eyed them each for a moment, letting the implications of my two-point arguments sink in before I put the question to them.

“So, what’s it going to be?”

They each took hold of their reins and turned their horses back into the line, not saying a word, yet not having to.  Their actions spoke for them.

Maeven looked at them and then at me.  I saw the conflict in her eyes, and I knew what she was thinking.  She wanted to turn back, but for very different reasons.

I gave her a half-smile, nodding and acknowledging her struggle.

“They’ll be alright.  Whatever is coming against them should be pitied if I know Mattox as well as my memory serves.”

She gave me a grateful smile, but I could still see that worry lingered within her.  She turned and pressed on, leading us further downward until we crossed a shallow creek bed, and turned to follow its winding course towards the lower plains and the lake country.  It would be a fair ride yet, and we were making rather slow progress since we were not free to travel upon the open roads along a more direct route.  Whatever threatening forces were rushing upward toward the old city of Azragoth had a nasty surprise awaiting them.  The black tongue of the city was waiting to spring forth and deluge those threats with rotting disease and death.  Considering that we were still on a slope below the city, though several thousands of feet away, such horrible filth would run beyond the ranks of the enemies and pour through the forests and dry streams below.  If we were caught in its path, Azragoth’s destructive defenses would deal out death to us as well.  That is why we had to make haste to get off the mountain as soon as safety might permit us too.  Any further delay would cause the Azragothians delays in being able to use their city’s secret weapon, and those delays could risk their lives as well.  They would wait for us to reach the lower plain and send up a signal fire so that those in the city would be alerted when we were in the clear.  Having known Nem and Ezra and Corimanth but a little time while sheltering in their city, I was fully confident that they were honorable men who wished us no harm.  They had entrusted Maeven to my charge.  Corimanth sincerely loved his sister, nephew, and brother-in-law, so I feared no threat from him as well.  And even though there had been some tension and bad blood between Mattox and me, I had no doubt that he had become a changed man, and I could not believe that he would willingly send us to our death.  He most certainly would have before, but not now.  The difference in him was profound enough to cause one to wonder at the transformative power of The One who had called us here.  But time was precious and we did not have much of it left.

I spurred my mount forward until I was alongside Maeven.

“We need to get out of here soon and light the signal fire.”

“I know,” she looked straightforward, not turning to me, “It is not that far now.  I wish we didn’t have to take the riverbed, but the supply wagon couldn’t have been brought down any other way.”

“If we have to, we may need to abandon it and find some other way to forage for what we need along the way.”

“Brian,” she paused, calling me by my true first name, and I felt there was something in that verbal gesture that carried meaning, though I could not discern what.  She continued, “…I know these parts, and I know what we are going into.  Remember, that my last years here were spent in marauding raids, and supply runs for the resistance.  I am not the same little wilting flower girl you remember when you and Begglar first knew me.  I’ve seen the gathering of the armies, and the Xarmnian reach even in these rural lands far from its capitol.  People are frightened, harassed, slaughtered or even worse.

“Worse?”

“Forced to witness atrocities, degrading mockery, and the abuse of their innocents.  The human heart, for all of the bestial wildness that The Pan and his Half-men creatures are reported to be, is far darker, and wilder still.  With the Half-men, it is mere animal violence, but with the Xarmnians there is an evil expression that goes beyond savagery.  We will not be at liberty to range far enough into the wilds for a hunting or foraging party to be of much use.  We will need to stay together.  Knowing the whereabouts of each other at all times…IF we are to survive.  We will need to be ready for surprise attacks at a moment’s notice and coordinate our fighting styles and patterns so that we serve a common objective to route the enemy and not let them divide us, even if some of us fall or succumb to their tactics.  I’m not sure your followers are ready to deal with that…or cope with it when the violence comes to them.”

I pondered her words, knowing that she was speaking from firsthand experience, rather than conjecture, and it saddened me for her.  In that moment, I gained a little more insight into what might have toughened Maeven in the intervening years since I saw her last, and why she carried a seeming detached aloofness even now.  Witnessing atrocity and warfare forces one to develop means of coping with the emotional impact of those painful experiences, just to survive the dark passages through them.  You something more than human will had sustained her, but she still maintained a guarded reserve.  A reserve that was necessary to function as she had being The Storm Hawk.

I glanced back, noting Begglar handling the tracer reins and leading his team of horses and wagon through each of the narrow switchback paths that Maeven had temporarily opened, and then closed behind us, allowing the brush to sweep away segments of our trail.

“Do you think we should have just let that wagon and gone on horseback?  It seems like it could slow us down if we need to evade followers.”

Maeven shook her head, “No. There is no swift way through Kilrane since the roads have been taken over by forest growth, and we are too low to use the high roads.  Besides, we will need these supplies to convince others to barter with us, even if they are reluctant to.”

“Do you think we won’t seem conspicuous in doing so?  I mean, will the Mid-Worlders be willing to deal with us, knowing that we are outsiders?”

Maeven sniffed, “Hunger is a great motivator.  Xarmnian Overwatch have plundered the towns they have subdued.  Those townsfolk are fearful, but they realize they must find ways to still subsist, even under Xarmnian oppression.  They are desperate for provisions, since they no longer own their own farms and fields, or livestock.  If they see we have something they need, they are more apt to provide what meager help they can for us in return for putting at least one or two more meals on their tables.  Besides, we will have to rely on those foodstuffs to get us through lean times when the game is scarce and the wild-growing edible vegetation is spartan or out of season.  Right now, what this wagon carries is crucial to our survival as well.  I only wish the rainy season might have made the riverbed ahead softer with more silt than rock.”

“Your points are well made, Maeven,” I paused and then added, “Storm Hawk.”

She dipped her head in deference to her reputational title, and I saw the edges of a smile play about her lips.  It felt like an acknowledgement of gratitude for my show of respect for her valued input slightly moistening her eyes.  Her reserve was still there, but it had thinned a bit, at that moment of vulnerability.

I knew this was hard for her.  And I knew what courage she was demonstrating to be willing to leave her surrogate family in Azragoth on the cusp of an imminent attack to follow and help me lead our company into an uncertain future.

It took us, roughly, 45 minutes to an hour or more to finally emerge from the riverbed and reach the edge of a clearing below the foothills of Azragoth.  Once there, we quickly used flint to tinder a firebrand made from a sheaf of straw and soot polished wood, that kept it from quickly burning down the shaft.  Maeven spurred her steed, brandishing the torch held high above and behind her so that the ash and loosening pieces of straw would not fall and ignite in her hair or in her horse’s tail as she rode back and forth across the green field.

From the angle of the lower field, we would not be able to see the walls of Azragoth, covered as it was by the forests, but we should see an acknowledgment firelight, gleaming through the forest canopy.

Unbeknownst to us, the siege of Azragoth had already commenced long before we emerged from the forests below it, and shortly after Mattox had left us to return back into the caverns below the city.  And the counterforce, the Azragothians had to employ to repel the threat had nothing to do with what was stored within the other walls of the city, but what had been coursing through a V-shaped groove cut along the top of the inner walls separating the old dead city from its living and still-strongly-beating defiant heart.

*Scene 05* – 16:16 (The Sordid History of Xarm) – Part 1 “Sins of the Father”

Corimanth and Sage, the Xarmnian scribe, watched the woods carefully from atop the battlement wall of the inner city of Azragoth, scanning for movement.  Mattox, The Eagle, and his retinue were returning in preparation for whatever was coming.  The Xarmnian Protectorate had been observed throughout the evening, searching for and clearing portions of the old woodland road, but had finally abandoned the task when they inadvertently discover the presence of the highroad above them, spanning the root ridges of the mountain rise to the highland shelf lands.

Watcher scouts had reported the discovery but knew that the Xarmnians would have to back track on the highroad to learn where it ran low enough to allow their horses to ascend to it.  That delay would give Azragoth a few more hours to prepare for what might follow.  However, news of the delay was short-lived, for reports came back to the city of another hostile incursion into Kilrane, by creatures more imminently dangerous than their human counterparts.  Bestial amalgamations of both lion and insect.  Denizens under the rule of fearsome Half-man known as The Pan.

“Twenty years, it’s been,” Corimanth muttered.  “Twenty years since the black plague that took my parents and brought the cessation of direct hostilities to this once prosperous city.  And now look at us.  Rebuilding, training troops, conducting raids to cover a desperate liberation effort, that may or may not ever succeed.  And here we are now, hiding here all those years behind a blind of dense woods and carefully seeded tales of hauntings to finally be discovered once again.”

Sage nodded, commiserating.  “It would have come to this sooner or later.  Of the few things the Xarmnian royalty are known for, holding unending grudges is no doubt their second greatest weakness.”

“Second greatest?” Corimanth snorted.  “What holds the title to their first?”

“It is rather obvious, is it not?” Sage muttered, “Thirst for power and control.  That has been the bane of their existence from the beginning.  Did you not hear the whispered tales during your time in Xarm City?”

“Only rumors,” Corimanth sniffed.  “Palace guards were severely warned not to reveal or speak of the goings on in the palace.  The Son of Xarm was… vindictive, and paranoid.  Hyper suspicious of anyone whom he might think could not keep a tight reign on their own tongue.  He had his own guards under watch and followed.  Spies ready to out anyone whom they did not like.”

“And yet, the rumors somehow made it out into the city whisperers,” Sage observed and was quiet a moment, and then added.  “But the Protectorate are here because of me.”

Corimanth turned and stared at him.  “What do you mean they are here because of you?!  They followed O’Brian and the others here.  What did you have to do with that?”

Sage looked at Corimanth sadly.  “They came to Begglar’s Inn because they tracked us there.  O’Brian and the others showed up shortly after we arrived.  The Protectorate only assumed we went with them.”

Corimanth shook his head, “I don’t get it.  I have never known The Protectorate to pursue someone this far from Xarm City.  They had limited resources and are badly in need of fighting men.  Why would they expend so much time coming after you?”

“It is because of what I know about them.  This present group was not the only troop of hunters sent after us.  This was the second team.  The first should have caught us.  Would have caught us if it weren’t for what happened to them when that tannin showed up in that wheat field and took them out.”

“What at you saying?”

“That the Hand of Providence has been all through this experience.  Every intention of evil and violence coming from these enemies has turned out to be a resulting good.  You know the verse from the Stone codex?”

“Stone codex?”

“It’s what we in the King’s Press called the words engraved upon what you folks are calling The Marker Stone.  Forbidden text in Xarm, but we had special access to parts of it.  Parts we confiscated and ultimately cobbled back together.  The Son of Xarm forbade anyone from reading it on penalty of hanging.  But forbidding anything naturally raises curiosity.  The mind still seeks truth.  Even if it has to wade into the forbidden.  Even if…its dealers…must traffic in lies.  And we scribes were incurably…curious.  And there were a few of us who contrived to make a full copy we transcribed from the parts we secretly were able to get a hold of before they were cast into flames.  It is what I gave to Erza.  He read from it to us all, remember?”

“And that is why the Son of Xarm is bent on your being caught and killed?”

“Partly.  I don’t think he ever found out about my copy of the Stone Codex, but there is a particular reason he goes by the title, rather than his given name, and it is partly to do with why he hates the Codex, because it threatens to out the circumstances surrounding his birth.  Circumstances which my father knew and told me about, before they killed him.”

“Tell me.” Corimanth said, now very interested.

“My father was a palace scribe.  I should say, The Chief Palace scribe to the royal family, serving King Xarm.”

Corimanth nodded.  “Yes?”

“As such, he kept my existence a secret for he well knew the wrath of the king, and of his vicious obsessions.”

“Go on,” Corimanth urged.

“I was born with a gift.  A special kind of gift, unusual…rare…but dangerous to someone like the Son of Xarm.”

“And that is…?”

“My memory.  Everything I read, everything I see and hear,” he pointed to his head. “Stays up here.  I seem to be unable to forget.  My mind files it away and I can remember exactly what I witnessed and reproduce it…in writing with a precision that has yet to fail.  It is a skill every scribe aspires to perfect, but…I acquired it naturally.  Taking dictation from an impatient king who barely give you time to write down what was just said, makes it very valuable.  My father discovered my ability, and warned me to keep it to myself, for it would not be well received in Xarmni.”

“Why would that be?”

“Because when you live in a kingdom predicated on lies and channeled information to fit an approved narrative, the truth and an accurate memory becomes a threat to the controlled order.  People will discern the gaps, and may keep silent for a time, but they will eventually cease to believe what they are told.  And when that happens…”  Sage brought his hands together in a clap, clenched his fists together, and simulated a breaking by twisting them down and apart.

Corimanth understood all too well.  Order breaks down as soon as fear of the subject weakens to the point of despair.  Betrayal kills trust.

“And your job was…?” Corimanth probed.

“To perpetuate the lies.  To provide the false narrative mixed with just enough truth that the story seemed to be true.  And to do that, we needed to know as much of the truth as possible to know where there might be gaps to curb the public’s perception towards the lies.  To reframe the perspective.”

“And you were employed to do this?”

Sage sighed, feeling disgusted with himself, remembering how long he had endured and been complicit in the royal schemes.  “Employed, yes.  You must understand that Xarmnians are given no choice in what they will be.  We are monitored in training and then assigned a profession based on our aptitudes or the current need in our controlled society.  Given my natural ability, it was inevitable that I would end up as a palace scribe, and be ‘employed’ as such, and ordered into the rules of this profession.  Rules set by the royals who funded us.  Rules to reflect the wishes and reputation of our…patronage.  Choice is a luxury not afforded to a Xarmnian subject, mister Corimanth.  I endured in my role for as long as I could.

“But I could not stomach it when the narrative came out about the elixirs produced by the royal apothecaries.  They wanted us to promote those as a cure for the strange condition that was affecting our youth.  Our city was once crowded but was being winnowed out mysteriously as our young ones became more and more hostile to their natural parents and siblings.  Teenagers joined gangs.  Several went missing, but the authorities did nothing other than take down grievances and make empty promises to distraught parents wondering what had befallen their offspring.”

“And what was happening?  To the children, I mean?”

“Those old enough to be pre-adults were actually imprisoned and forced to consume the elixirs produced by the apothecaries.”

“And what did that do to them?” Corimanth asked, sensing where this was leading.

“They were transformed into weapons of war, initially…”

“Weapons of war?!”

Sage held the sides of his face with his hands to keep them from nervously flitting about, “They…they were transformed.  And eventually became trolls.”

“And you exposed this, did you?”

“I tried.  Believe me.  And that is what got me…noticed.  My editor reported me.  I should have exposed it sooner, but I wasn’t sure of it, until I came upon one of the inner chambers in the palace.  A place of high walls and iron doors.  Scratches and scrabbled marks and grooves all along the inside courtyard.  Cages and boxes, where the brutes were kept and incubated.”

“And this is why the Son of Xarm is intent on having you killed?  Why he would send his goons after you?”

“It’s more personal than that,” Sage responded.  “He fears what I learned about him, in particular.  He is not, in fact, a son of the High Queen.”

“What?!”

Sage raised his hand to stop Corimanth, “…but he is, in fact, a son of Xarm.”

“A bastard then?!” Corimanth marveled.

“In a manner of speaking, yes and no,” Sage answered cryptically.

“What do you mean, yes and no?!” Corimanth responded confused.

“He is the product of incest.  And because of that, he bears the given name that shamed not only him, but his sire.  And the Stone codex bears a similar story of just such an incident of incest, perpetrated by the daughters of Lot.  The eldest daughter, in particular, gave her incestual child the name Moab.  A name that had a particular meaning that the King was not aware of at the boy’s birth, since he had abandoned the pilgrimages to the site of the mystic Stone as had once been their annual familial custom before the falling out between the kingdoms of Xarmni and Capitalia, and the lesser Ammonite and Skorlithian kingdoms.”

Corimanth was stunned.  “So that is why the man, Moab, chooses to affirm his throne rights by adopting the odd title.”

“Exactly,” Sage affirmed, “and why he hates The Stone that revealed to his sire the mockery of his name’s meaning.  King Xarm was enraged when he found out what his daughter had done, and he took it out on the child by alienating him and denying what was secretly known.  The royals had publicly claimed the boy was the Queen’s child, all the while hiding the dark secret of his getting.  The King carried the regret, but he would not easily bear his daughter’s humiliation, even though he deserved it.  They had initially hidden the princess during the term of her incestual pregnancy.”

Corimanth leaned against the crenelated top wall, bracing himself with his hands, staring out into the shadowy woods.  “And I thought my family had problems.”

Sage leaned forward, continuing.  “It wasn’t lust that drove him to it.  It was his pride and desperation for power.  As I stated before, the royal family’s greatest weakness.  King Xarm had been obsessed with siring a male heir to succeed him, and at that point The Queen had only given him four daughters.  When their fourth daughter was born, he became insolent and volatile, and she began to refuse him, thinking that she could induce him to rethink his approach to her.  They argued and fought all the time.  He blamed her somehow for the resulting genders, and she rebuffed him, suggesting that he enjoin with one of the palace wenches and see if he could get any better results.  He was infuriated.  The Queen asked Xarm why he did not consider the value of his daughters.  Were they not strong, shrewd, and proud?  Did they not show signs that they would be strong and beautiful women to make him proud?  Xarm was said to have replied that women would lose their loyalty to their father as soon as they were married.  That the men they married would rule them, greater than their father, for they would follow their heart over their head.  That for a woman their heart prevailed over duty.  But a man would lead his wife, and command his troops and marshal his subjects, over the influence of his wife.  Sons would have more of a sense of duty, and respect for their father, while a daughter might love her father, she could not go to war and threaten those who offer her father an impertinence or disrespect.  That while a daughter might be employed to join two kingdoms in an alliance, that one would be foolish to think that the husband would not rule his wife, unless he was a weak man or a fool.  The other brothers and uncles who fathered sons, often did not produce strong princes’, and he was determined to sire a male that would shame them all and raise him to be a warrior king worthy of his throne.  The field of princes were contemptible specimens.  Weak willed, anemic, pale-faced fops, who inspired no confidence in their future leadership when they succeed their father’s throne.  What rankled him most was that he believed their fathers secretly laughed at his inability to produce a suitable heir, even while disregarding their own foolish and pathetic progeny.  Whether true or not, he perceived it that way.  And it stoked his anger and frustration.

“So much that he raped his own daughter?!” Corimanth asked.

Sage sighed, “I’m not defending him.  What he did was indefensible.  I’m just telling you what happened.  My father was present the night one of their arguments took its worst turn.  Their arguments had become so heated that both the King and Queen forgot that there were other witnesses present during their tirades.  They simply did not acknowledge them even being in the room quietly attending to their duties, trying to act as if they heard and saw nothing.  They no longer closed doors on their arguments, even though they shouted loudly at each other, enough to be clearly heard through a closed door.

*Scene 05* – 25:08 (The Sordid History of Xarm) – Part 2 “Barbarous Bloodlines”

“My father reported that the king said, “If you don’t start producing me a male heir, I will start seeding other fields!”  The queen turned, her eyes flaring, nostrils quivering.  “I’m sure you’ll find enough palace whores to do that!  There are quite enough that would love to find a seat at your gilded table.”  The king grew dangerously quiet, but the Queen did not notice, having turned her back on him.  He walked into the corridor, shaking with rage as she stared out the window.  He was just about to leave when she finally turned, moving behind him to the doorway saying, “Go ahead!” She sniffed, “Mix your blood with mongrels!  What do I care?!” punctuating her derision by slamming her bedroom door.

““Mongrels!” Xarm growled, slamming his fists on the walls.  His face was red, his neck jaws worked unconsciously, grinding and gritting his teeth, his eyes shown with a dangerous light.  His attendants followed cautiously at a distance as he strode aggressively through the halls.  “Why should I be denied?  Am I not the sovereign of this place?!  A king’s command bears life and death, merely in the mood I choose.  I should tear her apart.  Run her through with a long spear.  Mount her naked on a pike on the overlook hill beyond the city!  I will get male heirs from her loins.  She cannot resist me for long.  I will work on her dotage.  I’ll not seed my line among fallow fields like a commoner.  I’ll not take the used goods of whoredom, who use their beds to make their living for scraps and morsels!”  A sinister thought came into Xarm’s mind, causing him to smile wickedly, despite his displeasure.  “Perhaps, I do have other options to get me a male heir that do not require me to seek produce from a foreign field!  Do I not also have daughters that already bear the mixed blood of that she heifer and my own?  Will not the oldest serve my need, if the queen will not?!  Is she not fair and becoming fertile, enough to serve her father and her king’s desire?”  He laughed wickedly, thinking only of how it might shame the Queen.  “That should shatter the queen’s stubborn spine!  If she will not bend to me, then her thought of me using her own daughters will reshape her proud rod to serve as the bow for my royal arrows.  I’ll get me an heir yet!  She will yield, or her own daughters will produce what she cannot!”

“My father appealed to him, trying to dissuade him, but was thrust aside, for the man could no longer be reasoned with.

“That night the king took his eldest daughter to bed rather than going to the queen’s chambers and did what the king’s demands could not.  When the Queen learned of it, she was horrified.  She did not speak and stayed within her chambers for weeks, weeping.  When the daughter was found to be pregnant, the queen wept no more and finally came to King Xarm with her head bowed in shame, her spirit broken.  Her pain burrowed into her, beyond the reach or help of tears. She quietly approached the king as he sat in his throne room.  She asked that the attendants leave the room, so she could speak privately to the king.  The king dismissed half of the attendants but refused to send away his own personal guards or my father.

“Once the doors were closed, the queen tentatively approached and bowed before him.  “You’ve won,” she whispered quietly, her eyes downcast.  Xarm glared at her from atop his dais, still seated, “What?!  Speak up!  Am I, now, to come down from this throne to incline my head to you?!  Say what you will.  Loud enough to reach my ears.  I will not lower myself to you as I am still your master!  Do you not know I could have had you spitted and roasted for a king’s feast and had everyone serving the palace get a taste of your flesh?!”

“The queen’s jaws tightened, her head still bowed, but she knew better than to speak back, when the king was in such a state.  She knew that the king had the capacity to make good on his threat.  His command had been threatened by her defiance, and she finally realized that this man would not be resisted as had other men.  She was now truly afraid of him.  Not only for herself but for her own children whom she loved and doted on.  The outrage done to her eldest daughter, she entirely blamed on herself.  She had not even countenanced that Xarm might go that far.  She had thought he would indeed find solace in a whore to service his passion, and that with that relief he might lessen his desire of her.  That may have worked for other monarch’s as she had heard done in other courts, but they did not know the pride of such a man as Xarm.  Xarm considered himself superior to other rulers.  He expected contrition and respect.  He demanded it.  She knew he wanted her specifically.  That he had admired her proud stance, her poise, her strong body, the clarity of her skin, the power of her muscled and lean form, and her flowing mane of golden hair.  She had been called a beauty beyond compare.  She knew that the king lusted after her, and wanted her to produce a powerful progeny, and an enviable royal line.  She believed in his own way, he loved her, or at least within the capacity he had for being able to love another being.  She had thought by making his passion increase by denying him, he would come to appreciate her more than simply being the means for his desire to build a royal lineage.

“So then, the Queen and King Xarm reached an agreement, coming to terms and mutual understanding.  Xarm would get his heirs, one way or the other, and the Queen would do her part to protect her younger daughters from suffering the same indignity suffered by the oldest.  Surprisingly, Xarm acknowledged, he had acted impulsively.  He knew that, and he regretted what he, in his anger, had done to his own daughter.  Their father-daughter relationship would never be the same.  He had betrayed her trust by violating her for his own use.  He took no pleasure in doing what he had done.  He could no longer look at his daughter in the eyes without seeing her fear and pain.  Rather than lingering upon those thoughts, and heaping more shame upon himself, his mind turned to utilitarian matters.  He knew he could no longer use her as brokerage to enjoin and augment his fortunes with another kingdom by giving her away in marriage.  A discovery that she had been taken before and was no longer a virgin would create a scandal and the monarch who married her would become an enemy and a thorn in his side, rather than an ally.  The threat of discovery was a liability.  He had not considered the longer-term consequences of his impulsive actions.  He vowed that he would no longer lose control of himself due to rage.  If the Queen kept her word, he would not need to carry out his threat to molest his younger daughters to sire a son.”

“When the Queen left his chamber, the king tore his hair and beat himself about the head.  My father stood silent, careful not to interfere with his self-torment.  “Why does she affect me so?!  How could I have…?!  I never planned to harm the girls, but she gets me so upset, and I say things and do things…UH!!!  But she can’t know.  She must be taught whose authority prevails in this kingdom!  Say nothing to the Queen of this!

“The disgusting act had painfully impressed upon her that he was capable of getting his way, by whatever extreme means he deemed necessary.  But there was a sadness in it as well.  His wife would yield to him out of coercion and fear and no longer give herself to him out of her own desire.  He had lost trust with her, because of his heavy-handedness.  His rash actions had compromised more than he could foresee.  This realization both frustrated and angered him.  A cold despair clouded his countenance.  A numbing that turned something within himself, causing his more tender emotions to burrow into the hardening enclosure that had once been his heart.  How could he look at his other daughters without seeing their fear of him, knowing what he had done to their older sister.  How could he hold them and spin them around, in natural fatherly delight, as their laughter and simple joys warmed his heart, seeing them learn and reflect the beauty of their mother, and the traces of his own imprint on their faces and growing build.  Could he ever delight in their innocence as he once had?  No.  Innocence had been lost.  And he had recklessly killed it.  And he loathed himself for it.  The dagger of his own actions drove deeper into his mind and heart.  An icy fist closed up the flesh behind it.  His royal line had been compromised and spoiled, and he and his woman partners in blame for it.  As these thoughts bore into him, he fell further into despair, and cold, murderous thoughts found an alleyway into the backstreets of his mind.  He could and might have to eventually do away with all his daughters.  It was a dark thought, but one that seemed to claw into his brain and refused to be casually dismissed.  A barnacle that bore into his schemes for further consideration.  A way to mitigate the damage already done.  He would have to see.  Would his queen indeed bear his sons?  Would his daughter?  Would she keep her word?  He so wanted a son from her.  If the boy had half of his mother’s qualities, blended with his, the lad would be a powerful and impressive man when he grew up.  Fit to follow in his stead and continue his line.  Perhaps the boy would bring back honor to his family.  An honor that the boy must not know was ever in doubt.  His responsibilities would be great, and he must be taught to have a strong enough constitution to bear the weight of it.  He would teach the boy not to lose control of himself to anger.  Anger must be controlled and channeled.  Curbed into cunning and sharpened into consideration of its long-term consequences.  Anger must be restrained, but hidden, for it could bring risk, and might be considered a weakness and vulnerability if not restrained.

“King Xarm did indeed go on to father sons.  His oldest daughter also bore him a son when she was only sixteen years of age.  His younger daughters were fourteen, twelve, and eight at the time their strange brother was born.  The queen maintained the illusion that she was the mother of the child, and the oldest daughter was kept in seclusion during her pregnancy and lived in one of the high towers, and was fed, dressed and kept out of sight by the servants.  She would walk the high circular stairs to exercise, but she was always watched by servants to keep her from falling or hurting the child she carried to term.  Her absence at the king’s table was explained with a cover story, stating that she was visiting one of her mother’s relatives in a neighboring kingdom that was stationed in the high mountains of the imposing Walls of Stone range.  And that she would return within a year’s time.

“The Queen did not have to keep up her ruse of a false pregnancy for long, for soon she became pregnant within a month, following her resumption of intimate relations with her husband.  The child of her daughter would be born within weeks of the Queen’s due date.  There was consideration that the timing might be close enough to claim that the Queen had borne the king twins.  Both children were male, much to the Queen’s distress.  She wondered what may come if their ruse was ever exposed.  They did have to employ their dark assassins on a few occasions to quell the talk, but the strange deaths did not fully quiet the whispers. Instead, they deepened suspicions, seeming to affirm the veracity of the fallen who had leaked the rumors.  One of those assassinated was a chamber maid.  Another was a palace guard.  Another served as cook, and yet another was a seamstress.  Each had whispered about the strange goings on but had been overheard.  One of those assassinated had been the father of a young boy, who would later grow up to be one of the city scribes, employed by the palace to write news stories that the palace had vetted and approved.  That man was my father.”

“I’m sorry, Sage.  I did not know all this,” Corimanth commiserated.  “You were made an orphan, same as I.”

Sage nodded, staring out into the woods once more, before saying, “There’s more to it.  And more to why the Xarmnians came to Azragoth in the first place.”

Corminath sighed, trying to steel himself for more revelations that would ultimately connect to his own loss with the sordid history of the family and legacy of Xarm.  “Go on,” he said at last.

Sage rubbed his face, and cleared his throat.  “Years would pass.  The kingdom of Xarm would grow much stronger and begin to acquire more lands and townships and receive tribute in supplies, food, craftworks, precious stones and metals, from each town they forcibly annexed.  Two of King Xarm’s daughters had purportedly been assassinated by clans that were resistant to Xarm’s overreach and hostile acquisition.  The daughters had seemed strong-willed and rebelled against their father, and some suspected that Xarm had them killed, blamed their deaths conveniently on his adversaries to justify sending his army out to conquer those who had dared attack his daughters.  The eldest daughter had mysteriously vanished, and the King had sent one of his best trackers after her.  Reportedly, she had fled and last been seen trekking into the far eastern highlands and may have reached the coastal lands of the outer sea.  The tracker returned to the palace, but nothing further was known of whether he had located her or not.  No one questioned him, and the King did not seem particularly concerned.  There was rumored that there had been a falling out of favor over his eldest son, and that it was somehow related to his sister, the eldest daughter that had gone missing.  He had been angry, but unwilling to leave the palace, for he had grown comfortable in his privileged position.  He went by a name given by the queen, but he was rumored to have another name that his sister called him, that annoyed her father.  The youngest of the four daughters had been betrothed to a prince in the upper northern region of the long chain lake of Cascale.  The prince was the only son of an aging king of Rabbath.  The king and his son were the only remaining royals of their line, for their queen and the prince’s mother had died.  Xarm’s youngest daughter, hated her father, but was willing to go along with the marriage to the prince of Rabbath whom she did have an affection for.  When they married, Xarm had hoped to overtake that kingdom through his daughter, but the prince and the Xarm princess rebutted him, and renamed their province after their son that was born shortly after their marriage.  Their son, they named Ben-Ammi, and their people they called Ammonites.  This name annoyed Xarm, for some unknown reason, as did the secret name given to his oldest son by his eldest daughter.  Xarm vowed that if his son were ever to go by that name in public or in private, he would disown him and turn his three brothers against him.  The eldest son then knew that the disturbing secret he had heard from his sister was true.

“His affectionate name of Moab revealed much more than he knew.  It meant “son of my father” in an ancient tongue.  A name which had puzzled him.  And made him wonder about why his father might resent the appellation.  But if his sister were truly his mother as she secretly claimed, then it made sense why Xarm seemed to favor his twin, if twin he even was, over him.  He had become jealous of his father’s dotage and preference of his brother and brothers, while singling him out for less than desirable duties.  The queen had died five years after his youngest brother was born, right as the youngest daughter got married to the newly crowned king of Amon.  Some say she fell from the upper balcony.  And some say she jumped.  The least charitable observation was that she was pushed.

Sage paused, gathering his thoughts, letting the silence permeate the moment, as both he and Corimanth listened to the sounds of distant movements in the deep woods.  Movements they both suspected were not those of their own men.  After the pause, and the noises ceased, Sage continued.

“For a time, King Xarm slipped into a depression, mourning the queen’s loss.  When his eldest daughter and Moab’s suspected “mother” disappeared, the king slipped into an even darker mood.  When the tracker returned to Xarm city the king gathered his sons together and told them of his youngest daughter’s refusal to act as a proxy for Xarmnian interest.  He meant to punish her by punishing her new husband and his subjects.  His distant relatives were suspicious of Xarm’s intentions and tended to lean more favorably in the direction of Capitalia.  Xarm planned to go to war and take down the remaining lands that refused an open alliance with him and had refused to give their daughters in marriage to his sons.  Xarm was aware that his boys were libertines and had no qualms with them frequenting prostitutes, and he did not forbid their drinking, so long as they kept themselves away from any of the meats prepared by the apothecaries, and herbalists.  He warned them to temper their appetites, and not to let them control them to the point of obsession.  If he caught one of his sons drunk or exposed, he assured them that they would face severe consequences for disobedience.  He had trained them in warcraft and strategies from their youth, but also in the rigors of discipline and the ways in which an adversary might exploit a weakness in them.  He cautioned them to control their anger and use it, storing it up for a time when viciousness could be called for to fuel passion and achieve a victory.

“Xarm knew if he were to openly prepare for war, those he viewed as potential targets would most certainly appeal to Capitalia for aid, and he might not be able to defend his armies against adversaries coming at him from all sides.  Eventually the war Xarm had planned for came, and as predicted, Capitalia launched an offensive driving Xarm and his armies ahead, attempting to cut them off from returning back to their fortified mountain and stone citadel.  Capitalia and the other threatened cities formed an alliance and brought forth their Builder stones that they had employed to build their capitals and citadels.  The rolled massive stones from the mountaintops crushing those men passing through the valleys.  Mountains shook, and quaked, as the assaults continued, boxing the Xarmnians in and forcing them to retreat back to their city to gather their own Builder Stone and return the deadly attack.  The other armies and Capitalians followed them in pursuit, driving them back to Xarm city, where the Xarmnians lost many soldiers not able to reach the safety of the massive gates, before a rain of boulders pummeled them, and broke up the ground leading up to the massive walls.  Capitalia commanders taunted the humiliated Xarmnians, and Xarm lost one of his sons, the faux twin of his eldest, in that assault.  Only three remained.  The youngest Xarmnian prince and the eldest.  Xarm was grief-stricken and vowed revenge on Capitalia and those other provinces that had sought Capitalia’s aid.  Xarm had underestimated Capitalia’s strength and responsiveness.  Capitalia threatened to bring down the mountain that stood just beyond Xarm City on Xarm’s head if they did not relinquish and end their assault and incursions in the other sovereign cities and kingdoms.  Xarm, humiliated, grudgingly agreed.  Capitalia then rode a victorious campaign throughout the eastern lands, publicizing their victory over Xarm and his sons, carrying the signed concessions and surrendered lands to each and every township throughout the east and into the highlands all the way to the coastlands.

“This very city, this Azragoth, an old town and ancient city even back then, and it was fortified and its older structures buried and built up to form a new citadel along the edge of the highland shelf leading to the uplands.  Its forested front was cleared, and its timbers used to build and add on to the city, with stone edifices and large stone walls surrounding its stepped and concentric ringed streets.  Azragoth became a commercial center and a strong and strategic outpost financed by both Capitalian wealth and the bounty of those townships freed of their obligations to Xarmni.

“Over time the citadel of Azragoth prospered, and it stood as a reminder that Xarm’s power had been put into check by a resounding Capitalian and other lands victory.  Mysterious lights began to show up and appear in the fronting forest, around the city and these lights were thought to be signs of guardians that lived in the forest of Kilrane and further protected both the woods and the city of Azragoth from its enemies, both human and otherwise.  There was some long-forgotten mystery about the older city of Azragoth that had once been the ruins of the old walls that were covered and built over it.  Deep cavities beneath the rock were found, but most had been filled up with stone, rubble and the ancient remains of petrified woods that had fallen from a separation and subduction of the land that had once been the edge of the upland cliffs.

*Scene 05* – 25:36 (The Sordid History of Xarm) – Part 3 “Emissaries of War”

Sage turned to Corimanth.  “You know, I was not surprised when O’Brian and the other outworlders showed up here in Azragoth, though Begglar hid us from them when they first arrived at the Inn.  Whenever the outworlders arrive, historically it is on the precipice of a major event that shakes up our Mid-World.  It has always been the case, as far back as I can discern from the ancient annuals of our world.  Their arrival is portentous and serves as a bad omen in the Xarmnian mind.  The Son of Xarm knew this, for his family was impacted by their arrival.  They always seem to come in answer to the mysterious Stone that has been the bane of the Xarmnian royalty.”

“The Marker Stone seems to be underlying all of this, hasn’t it?” Corimanth speculated.

“To the Xarmnian mind we were trained to believe it is an implement of an enemy, while ironically living in a city constructed using one of its stones.  We enjoy the benefits of its influence, while rejecting the nature of the power and influence of The One behind it.  Our neglect has led all who are indifferent toward ruination.  That is why I believe it is important to rethink the intentions of the Stone quests, and why outworlders keep getting drawn back here to carry out their mission.  The Stone is for evil an omen of judgement and coming death, but for those who accept its meaning and messages it can mean a path towards life and restoration.  I believe in that, and the Stone Codex has given me and my family hope.  The outworlders are here for a good reason, and I hope their mission succeeds.”

“Tell me about that,” Corimanth probed, “for my sister and her family have gone with them this time.”

“I cannot tell you what will happen, but I can tell you of the past dealings in reference to my former King and his progeny.”

“Then tell me of that then,” Corimanth said.  “We’ve nothing to do here but wait and watch the woods.  Might as well hear the rest of it.”

Sage stared off, gathering his thoughts once more and continued.  “When a party of outworlders began making forays into the Mid-World, Xarm had once again called his remaining three sons together and plotted out how he would slowly regain control over the towns he had lost in the former defeat.  Capitalia had not returned to the eastern lands in many years, thinking that their defeat of Xarmni had left a lasting impression and had put an end to his designs to amass power.  Xarm had no daughter to offer to any of the other princes.  His sons were growing older, and less appealing to the daughters of the other kingdoms.  The Pan and his Half-Men creatures were becoming bolder, making incursions and threatening the livestock and produce of the labors and farms of men.  Xarm thought to use The Pan’s provocations against the other kingdoms to his advantage and see if he could form an alliance with the strange creature and his nightmarish brood.  He sent emissaries to seek out The Pan, but they never returned.  Frustrated, Xarm sent larger and for defended groups out, but only a few of the emissaries returned having barely escaped the clutches of the vicious creature.  From the report, he understood that The Pan seemed to have a particular animus towards humankind, even though they appeared to be half-human themselves.  The Pan wanted to rid The Mid-World of all of its humankind and take back lands it claimed were stolen from it by interlopers and squatters.  It particularly wanted the lands and woods of Kilrane, which fronted the citadel of Azragoth.  Xarm was not sure how to approach The Pan for further information about its desire for Kilrane, but he was pleased with the thought that Kilrane might be used as a bargaining chip to intrigue The Pan into an alliance between their two kingdoms.  If he could launch a surprise assault on Azragoth, which his spies told him had grown and become complacent in its own protection, he could also secure Kilrane and offer both to The Pan and its minions.  It was a good plan, and it certainly would come as a surprise.  Capitalia did not seem to care too much about the citadel they had helped to establish.  They were preoccupied with their own growth in their region beyond their wall.  Xarm’s wife’s family had grown lax in their commitments since his wife had died, and Xarm had suffered such a resounding defeat.  He could no longer trust them to alert him if Capitalia decided to return, but there were others who might.  Ammon still grudgingly acknowledged that Xarmni had not entirely lost its ability to fight, intimidate and make life difficult for the eastern lands.  His daughter, though resentful, knew all too well how far her father might go if he became desperate enough to do something rash.  Xarm devised a new strategy that would not so easily bring the Capitalian armies back to their eastern shores of Lake Cascale.  He organized smaller bands of marauders, and men of the upper mountains who were rugged and coarse enough to get the jobs done, if they were handsomely paid to do so.  These he commissioned to be his Protectorate who would form a protection racket to oppress the smaller towns into renewing their tribute to the Xarmnian crown, and he would have a team of those he deemed an Overwatch to intercept any message or appeal that might be made to seek further interference from his old enemies and Capitalia.  These he operated and coordinated for years, little by little taking over lands and communities in strategic places, until he could gain a fighting force so strong no threat from Capitalian could ever shift the balance again.  Eventually he would subdue and capture the kingdoms and lands of his relatives and gain control over their Builder Stones and build an empire that would subsume and consume the entire Mid-World.  He had sent spies over the mountains of the Walls of Stone, hoping to undermine and assassinate the Capitalian rulers, but could not send a force there, for the Walls of Stone range were the tallest and most formidable and forbidding mountains in the whole of the Mid-World.  The Pan, if alliance could be achieved, might have enough creatures capable of a devasting invasion, but he had yet to secure The Pan’s cooperation in anything.  That was until the mysterious band of priests arrived, seeking an audience with him.  They claimed they had access to mysterious black, otherworldly waters that had the power to transform one creature into another.  They brought in a young lad and in the king’s presence, forced him to drink a black liquid that would achieve the effect.  The lad was then placed within a cage and kept in a sealed courtyard within the palace so that the king could observe the process.  He was told that the boy would become impressionable and would imprint upon the king’s voice to do whatever the king commanded, once the transformation was complete.  For a day the youth slept, but in the evening of the second day, the boy began to screech, and his bones seemed to twist in odd contortions and his limbs shrunk into thick limbs, like a tree trunk.  The shape-shifting continued, until the malformed boy grew very still.  The king was given the duty of speaking, so that the boy creature could hear him and imprint upon him as its ultimate authority.  The priest told the king that after the quieting, would then come a time of intense pain, that would further transform the boy into the other creature, and that this phase was called its Grauplin phase, and it would be at it most dangerous.  That the creature would possess the strength of ten men and its violent nature, driven by its raging at the painful transformation, would allow it to kill and maim, any warrior who stood in its way.  The Grauplin phase would last for one week and then the creature would achieve its final form as a squat and sturdy creature that would continue to serve him but have certain qualities that were almost magical in nature.  The creature would follow their commands and could be useful to him as spies.  This intrigued Xarm and he realized that they may be the final key to reaching The Pan with his proposition.  He gave the strange itinerant priests a secret King’s commission to prepare more of this special transformative elixir and become the city’s apothecaries and herbalists.  He would use these servile creatures as go-betweens, to entice The Pan to grant his vassals an audience, seeing that their representatives were not solely comprised of humans.  The plan worked.  By the time Xarm was ready to make his proposal, he had six creatures in his service, and was planning to have a lot more, in time to be taken out with his armies, when the time came.  The creatures in their Grauplin phase were fascinating to watch.  He had never seen such violence.  These creatures would come as a devastating and demoralizing surprise to any other opponent foolish enough to field an army against them, when they were set loose on a field of battle.  The Xarmnians merely had to release a hatch on a Grauplin’s box, and the monsters would come charging out in a nightmarish force, killing and ripping their way through stunned frontline soldiers.  The Xarmnians would then merely follow their creature’s destructive path, backing up the slaughter with blades, spears and arrows, until their opponents either turned in flight or lay in pile of broken carnage across the battlefield.

“King Xarm did send another emissary team to try to meet with The Pan, only this time, they included some of the troll creatures in their company, backed up with Grawplins being brought in boxes at a distance, should The Pan and his creatures decide not to treat with them.  The Pan was intrigued when he saw the trolls and ignored the Xarmnian humans and would only speak to the troll creatures.  It was then that the trolls in the company realized their importance in service to the Xarmnian king and conveyed the kings greeting and proposal to The Pan.  The Pan considered the offer and were intrigued but challenged their human king to make good on his claim to be able to acquire both the woods of Kilrane and subdue the city of Azragoth for himself.  If the King could achieve this, then The Pan may accept the human Kings proposed alliance.  The group returned to give their report to Xarm, who was pleased with the potential success of the mission and praised the trolls for their service.

“He then launched his campaign to take the citadel of Azragoth, and almost succeeded, but was fatally wounded by a band of the outworlders who claimed they were on a mission to seek the lost crown stones and service to The Marker Stone.  The other son of Xarm, the youngest also died in pursuit of the group of outworlder as they fled into the mountains in the Zefat range.  The eldest son took command of the Xarmnian army and was determined to complete his father’s mission to conquer Azragoth.  As his father lay dying, hearing that the younger son had been killed in his pursuit of the outworlder up the mountain, now looked to his oldest, bastard son, to carry on the rulership and his line.  The son was resentful of all that had been kept from him and doubted himself but promised him to do whatever it took to bring both Azragoth and eventually Capitalia to its knees.  The Son of Xarm was then declared the successor to the King’s throne and coronated in the field as the king died.  He turned to Azragoth and sent a party of soldiers in, seeing that the gates remained open.  He marshaled the troops and bivouacked them in the parade field, getting ready to lay siege to the city.  It was shortly thereafter that the city fell under sickness and plage and the Xarmnians were forced to quit the field and declare the area under quarantine, forbidding any of the surrounding towns to trade there or do business with Azragoth, should any of its inhabitants survive.  The Son of Xarm then rode onto the roads through the forests of Kilrane, hoping to salvage something of his father’s plan.  There he and his men encountered wood sirens, curious to see if the humans had achieved their boasted goals, Seeing the men unguarded they lured them deeper into the forests where they enticed them with sensual pleasures, intoxicating them with their special golden pollens that served as aphrodisiacs.  The Son of Xarm figured his men might need a little diversion to lift their morale after being defeated by a plague-stricken city and not fully achieving their goal to conquer and capture it.  Then the sirens turned on them, attacking them and revealing their true sinister intentions.  The Son of Xarm alone was spared, but had tasted and imbibed the golden pollen intoxicant, which gave him a rush of adrenaline and temporary heightened senses.  The sirens granted him a measure of their pollen but warned him not to tell what happened there, if they let him go.

“How did you find this out?” Corimanth asked, incredulously.

“The Son of Xarm often got drunk after that encounter.  He could not sleep and wanted someone to watch over him while he slept.  He had terrible dream of the “wood women”, as he called them.  One night he confessed all of it to me.  But when he finally fell asleep and sobered up, he did not remember that he’d told me anything.  For my own sake, I said nothing, and he never mentioned it again.”

“So, what did he do immediately after that?  How did he account for his missing men?” Corimanth asked.

“Account?  A King accounts for nothing.  He merely caught up with the other members of his subjects who were bearing his father’s funeral pyre back to the city of Xarm.  He was not questioned, and no one dared ask him what had become of the other soldiers he had led into Kilrane.  He returned to Xarm City where his father was kept in state to allow his subject to pay their respects.  He had many secrets to keep and many promises that held him to his duties to avenge and carry out his father’s wishes.  When his father was buried and his brother’s body was recovered at the base of one of the Zefat mountains, haven fallen and lodged in a rocky crevice, his brothers body was laid to rest next to that of his, father, mother, two sisters, and his other two brothers who had been killed and buried on the battlefield under tons of rock.  When he entered the treasury to bring forth the Builder Stone that had been kept there since the founding and completion of the stone capitol city, he discovered that the Stone had become immovable and had slowly crushed the marble pedestal it had been kept upon.  He knew if they could not move that infernal stone, that it could not be used in battle against the other Builder Stones kept by his extended family and their kingdoms.  He knew that he had to curtail the aggressive war campaign that his father hoped for, because Grawplins notwithstanding, he would have the same trouble fighting the Capitalians if they produced and carried their Builder Stones into battle, while his was locked in immobility in his own treasury.  He had hoped his spies in the kingdoms might provide him with some answers about the state and usability of their own Builder Stones.  Had they also been mysteriously affected, as his was, and rendered useless, if they could not be prevailed upon to move and wield them once again as they did before with such deadly violence?  Slowly over time, much to his chagrin, he learned that somehow those stones were exhibiting the same condition of immobilization as had affected their stone and within the same timeframe.  Something had bewitched them.  Some new form of sorcery.  He needed answers and he wanted them as soon as possible.  His frustration eventually led his thoughts back to the Ancient Marker Stone where the Builder Stones had once been found.  He thought if perhaps that stone might be destroyed, it could in theory release these Builder Stones from their present condition.  He would mount an expedition to the far highlands, avoiding the quarantined ruins of Azragoth and come up through the high road that wound up the mesa and onto the highland plateau.  There they would attempt to destroy the old stone pillar and break the spell holding their stones of power.  Then they might again be used to counter an attack by Capitalians and the relative kingdoms who would not bend to his will.  In the meantime, his Protectorate bands would weaken and intimidate the surrounding communities, subjugating them so that they could not assist those kingdoms he planned to topple.  His men would instill fear in them and leave a military presence there to keep those residents in line.  When he discovered that The Marker Stone could not be destroyed, marred, or defaced, he was frustrated in the extreme and vowed to find answers as to why that might be the case.  He brought people from the surrounding towns and demanded that they provide him with everything they knew about the old Marker Stone and its legends.  The words on The Marker Stone moved mysteriously and seemed to mock him and condemn him for his arrogance, further enraging him.  He swore to bathe that stone in the blood of those who believed in its hopeful words and stamp out the cult of its followers still holding to the promise of a future king and a new kingdom that would supplant all rulers in the Mid-World lands.  All knees would bow before this new King, and all would give Him honor.  In the meantime, those persons called from the outworld would continue to enter into the Mid-World to complete the tasks The Marker Stone had charged them with: to recover and restore the Stones of Virtue to the mysterious crown belonging to this once and future king.  The legend enraged the Son of Xarm, for it represented a threat to his father’s desires and his legacy.  He swore to annihilate and eradicate the Marker Stone’s followers and put down the threat once and for all.  Any outworlders found were to be reported back to him, to be questioned and executed.  High bounties were placed on their heads and any information leading to the whereabouts and capture of an outworlder would be rewarded handsomely.  When that proved not to work, the Son of Xarm moved further into the highlands, residing at their local stables and livery established in a parallel valley leading to the descent road.  He chanced upon an Inn located on a hill just south of the village of Crowe, and met with his command there, finding the facility quaint but adequate for his future needs and that of his trusted leaders.  Using that as a base of operations, the Son of Xarm then required that the people in the surrounding towns be force-marched up to the Marker Stone and disavow its message and its hope.  Those who refused were executed, beheaded, and their jaws removed from their skulls.  Their bodies were burned to ash, and their skulls were boiled until no flesh remained on them.  Their blood was cast on The Stone, and their skulls were piled up to be mounted on a wall erected around it, to entomb The Stone so that no pilgrimage could be made to its prominent sight on the highland hill, overlooking the lower mountains, valleys and plains.  Local laborers were employed to complete the entombment and the Son of Xarm returned down the adjoining road that passes through the villages and the small community of Crowe.  He commissioned an Inn Keeper, not knowing that very man was your brother-in-law, and a wanted fugitive from Xarmnian justice, to manage the workers and provide periodic reports to the Protectorate patrols on the progress of the work crews, and their field production of the local granary located on a large escarpment hillock.  The precious metals used for currency were confiscated and ordered to be recast in his image, for monetary use.  Any coinage not reflecting the new sovereign’s imprimatur, was to be sent to the Xarmnian capital to be melted and reminted for the common use.  All monetary tributes, that were not commercial goods or livestock, were to be paid fully or in supplement using the appropriate coinage.  After that, the Son of Xarm returned to his stone city and was not seen outside of it for years to come.  His Protectorate became a scourge in the land, and a few years later, a small band of horsemen suddenly emerged to resist these brutes and provide secret relief to the suffering communities.  These bands were led by someone known only as The Storm Hawk and became something of a local hero in the minds of the townspeople who resented Xarmnian oppression.

“Twenty years passed.  Rumors of the outworlders continued presence in the Mid-World circulated, in hopes of receiving the promised rewards, but they never led to full capture.  Only seven of the known outworlders had been found and slaughtered at the base of their precious Marker Stone.  Martyrs to their cause, cruelly put down.  Rumors persisted but never panned out.  The outworlders were said to have come from the eastern coastlands, and a watch was put on that area to ride patrols.  After several years of fruitless vigilance, the Xarmnian monarch despair of ever catching those traitors who had led to the fatal wounding of his father and were responsible for the fatal plunge of his youngest brother to his death.  He could no longer supply troops on fruitless missions chasing rumors and ghosts.  He had to begin thinking once again of how he might entice The Pan into an agreement and an alliance.  Then he was approached by one of The Pan’s strange creatures, offering him a side bargain to assist with watching the coastlines, thereby freeing up some of his troops to be occupied with more pressing and important duties.  Their request was a strange one.  They wanted the human smithies of Xarm to fashion for them ankle collars with blades that could be used for battle in flight.  He agreed.  If he could not gain a commitment from The Pan directly, he might gain its cooperation through a side deal with his strange, winged subjects and their chief matron.  Harpies.  He had no use for Kilrane, and with the old city dying out under quarantine there was really nothing to stop him from brokering a deal for Kilrane with The Pan.  He agreed with the matron to keep their side deal secret from their dark master, if they would agree to make the renewed offer again on his behalf, with limits against any further taking of lands or woods in the upper highlands.  The Marker Stone haunted his thoughts.  He had done whatever he could to defame it, but its words needled into him, pricking him with some disturbing sense that it would one day prevail over him and be the cause of his ruination.  His true birth mother had for some reason made a trip to that Marker Stone, that much he was sure of, as he had learned from the Tracker his father had sent after her.  There was something about it important enough that she would risk her life leaving the safety of Xarm City and defying her father’s orders.  She knew something about the mysterious messages on the stone.  An ancient account of two sisters fleeing a burning city, and their incestual relationship with their father, when they despair of finding husbands.  Two names were given to those incest borne children.  One name belonged to his sister’s child who was still living, the other was the name that his birth mother had given him, that he was forbidden to use inside his father’s city.  Moab.  At last, he understood what had made his father so angry hearing those names.  The Marker Stone reminded him of his shame.

*Scene 05* – 10:33 (The Sordid History of Xarm) – Part 4 “Over A Barrel”

“And how do you know all this?” Corimanth asked.

“Because,” Sage responded, “This is where this history gets very personal.  So,…if I may, I will tell you as a historian, for as you can imagine a scribe must stay objective in a story. So, we were taught a technique to just think of ourselves as a character in a play and not as one of its principal actors…  ‘This young scribe, whose father had been silenced by the king’s dark assassins, grew up as these developments were happening, he was assigned to keep the King’s chronicles and eventually tasked to write cover stories about the city apothecaries, and their healing elixirs, placating rumors that those potions were being used to serve other purposes that suited the needs of the crown.

Sage went silent and seemed to be blinking back tears.

“Are you okay?” Corimanth asked.  “Yeah, it’s just hard going back…”

Sage sighed and shifted back into the memory.

“My father came to visit me one night heavy hearted and dejected.  I had never seen him so down.  He looked at me with such sad eyes, and said, “All I’ve done, I thought was simply to protect you, Sage.  And your mother and my grandchildren.  But I’ve been a coward and a fool.  I should never have stayed silent so long, but it is too late for me now.  They are on to me.  Your mother and I are too old to try and leave this city.  We would never survive on the open road.  The Protectorate would run us down in short order.  But you, son.  May have a chance at it,  There is a man in the King’s guard who I suspect is not a Xarmnian.  Be careful but be wise.  Make contact with him.  His name is Corimanth.  If there is a way to get you, Corinna and my grandchildren out of this city, he may be able to help you.  He is one of the treasury guards.  He has paid me a few kindnesses, and I have tried my best to keep suspicions away from him.  He may be leaving soon, and if so, see if he might take you all with him.  I’m sure he has some connections outside of the city, that may help, if he cannot.”

‘I started to protest, but my father grabbed my arm and said, “Promise me, when the time comes, you’ll do as I have asked.  Your mother and I are prepared for what may come sooner or later, but I cannot bear to think what would happen to you or your children, if the King ever found out about your connection to me.”  He then shuddered and put his hand to his head.  “I should not have come here.  They will wonder.  I must go now.”  And that was the last that I saw of him.’

Sage wrapped his arms around himself, shivered, swallowed.  “The trouble with a memory like mine is when I replay them, they are too vivid not to almost relive them.”  He turned saddened eyes to Corimanth and said, “I probably should have heeded my father’s advice and tried to leave sooner, but with his disappearance, I thought of staying for my mother’s sake.  Though she urged me to go.”

He was quiet a moment and then shifted back into his historical narrative.

“The scribe, which you now know to be me,…suspected that his father had been killed by a Silencer, when he overheard his parents whispering about the goings on in the palace concerning the king’s eldest daughter.  He could not confirm that this whispered rumor had been responsible for his father’s assassination, but he suspected it, and was only able to confirm it when his aging mother confessed her thoughts on her death bed.  He began to suspect more and more of the messaging and information given out by the palace censors and editors was being doctored and not revealing the whole truth for him to compile and write his articles.  Street children, orphans and runaways, were missing.  Few care, for the street children were considered a nuisance, often stealing to survive on the streets.  Merchants were annoyed and would not hesitate to turn one of the urchins over to the authorities if they ever were to catch or corner the young thieves.  Once the guards took them, they vanished, behind the palace gates.  Large barrels of what everyone had believed were sealed kegs of wine and beer were delivered through the palace gates but did not seem to be delivered to the deep wine cellars, or into the banquet halls or palace kitchens.  They were being carried into dungeons and holding yards, but the strangest part, which the young inquisitive scribe uncovered, was coming out of the back of the shops of the herbalists and apothecaries.  Some barrels were coming into the guarded gates of the city, being delivered from somewhere upriver, and from ships plying the waters of the fjord lake chain of Cascale.  The casks were coming from the uplands towards the eastern highlands.  Carted in wagons and delivered to Xarmnian ships in the lakeside ports downstream of the large fishing harbor of Skorlith.  The scribe could not tell what exactly was being delivered in the kegs, but it sure wasn’t wine or beer.  None of these shipments were tracked back to the wineries and vineyards in the valleys that were maintained by the Ammonites.

“My father’s words had been quietly and hesitantly delivered to my mother.  She had confessed that he had told her he’d witnessed the eldest daughter being spirited out of the palace from one of the back towers and being led to the pier at the Xarmni launch side.  She’d been rowed by skiff to a ship headed up Cascale to the north to be ferried across to the far shore to the western lands, where she had been reported to have been visiting her relatives in the high mountains near the Capitalian walls.  A Rabbathite man was posted there. Charged to watch for any Capitalian incursion from the far side of the wall.  That kingdom had been in an alliance with King Xarm, brokered by his marriage to the daughter of the king who ruled it.  Both were suspicious of the kingdom of Capitalia.  The enjoining of the two kingdoms solidified their cooperation in ensuring that Capitalians could not come in large forces across into the eastern lands without an alert. 

“There was something odd about the eldest daughter of Xarm, despite her being secretly living in the tower, rather than visiting her grandfather and mother’s relatives in the farther kingdom.  The young scribe’s father later realized why she looked different when she had departed.  Within days, a carefully shielded Xarmnian detail returned to Xarm City, carrying a small bundle.  His suspicions were confirmed, the elder princess had been pregnant, and the small bundle delivered back had been her child, hidden from notice for whatever reason. 

“The child had not been seen since returning to the castle, but a cook was ordered to prepare warm milk, such as would be used to feed a small infant.  Shortly, thereafter, the Queen delivered, and it was announced to the palace and the kingdom residents, both by herald and in the newspapers, that she had finally given the king a male heir.  Two male heirs.  Twins.  Though one seemed unusually larger than the other. 

“The scribe suspected that his father had discerned the cover-up, and had voiced his speculation to someone whom he should not have, leading to his untimely death. 

“So, when the odd circumstances arose surrounding the shipments of wooden kegs, he suspected the authorized cover story being used to extol the benefits of the elixirs of the city’s apothecaries was not delivering the whole story, but rather being used to give parents a confidence in the services of the apothecaries that was unwarranted, falsely praising their mysterious elixirs as a cure for a growing illness that seemed to be affecting some of the city’s children. 

“Digging into his secretive sources and study, he learned that the elixirs were a concoction that was brewed to a blackening glaze and poured over meat.  Meat that was being fed to the urchin and orphan children that were being taken from the streets.  Meat that brought forth strange transformations in those who partook of the treated food.  He was shocked when he realized the truth.  Xarmni had found a way to turn children into trolls.  That realization led to his own fear for his family.  He did not know what to do with that information.  Should he keep it to himself, to avoid a Silencer being sent after him?  Or did he have a duty to expose the operation and save the city’s children?

“My reading of the Stone’s codex helped solidify my choice in the matter, as that young scribe.  And that is when I met you, Corimanth.  You know the rest.”

Corimanth nodded and then suddenly raised his hand for silence.  Something was coming.  Some odd movements through the outer brush.  Disrupting the bushes, rustling through the fallen leaves, carrying what looked like curled posts with a hook or barb on the end of them.  Strange.  These posts were too thick to be halberds or poleaxes.  Large scythes, perhaps, he wondered.  Corimanth and Sage both gasped when they spotted one of the ‘pole’ bearers mount the broken gate of the outer dead city.

*Scene 06* – 00:00 (Taking the High Road)

Aridam joins Hadeon and the others on the upper road until they are confronted by Half-Men creatures and are forced to flee Kilrane.

*Scene 07* – 00:00 (Mysterious Waters)

Hanokh finds the source of the polluted waters.