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Bog's WorldAltogether elsewhere | ||||||
A year in Immorean. But earlier... - KamilataKamilata paused. The trail was not too hard to follow, not many marks wilted foliage as they moved. He counted two of them though, one whose touch was death and another whose footfalls through the forest were much lighter. He examined a rare footprint. He thought back to that night at the Orgoth death-shrine when they had recovered Forgileill. This too was the footprint of an Iosian warrior whose miasma sickened all about him. He crested a rise and looked over the vista before him. He could see the winding cut of the valleys as they worked their way tirelessly through the forest. The forest sang to him. He listened to the birds and sensed in some way the timeless rhythm of life continuing as it should beneath the trees. The sun shone on his face and he ate and rested. Something of a backwater by the standards of Cyngar and other more prosperous Iron Kingdoms, Ord has a long, rugged coastline, and many of its citizens live near the water's edge and make their living off the sea. Much of its interior is complete wilderness, ranged over at will by both travellers and its more feral inhabitants. Crossing over a rocky ridge two thousand feet above the level of the river had put him in front of his quarry. Now those he hunted approached. Black clad shadowy shapes of elves flitted through the trees. He hailed them, catching the pair of quarrels reflexively shot in his direction. Casually, he tossed them towards the feet of those who had shot at him. He made no move to take up his spear. Four Iosians regarded him with porcelain faces. “You are witch-hunters.” They paused, unsure if it was a statement or a question. They looked at the bearded man in his gorax hide armour. “You are no mage, nor soldier nor druid.” Kamilata expected this, elves were never straightforward. There were two females, Eiryss and Caelyth and two male elves, Fes Elyssar and Sarlos. Although he not know their names at that time. “You hunt.” Kamilata was about to say “…the likes of Lafe Marlow.” But he stopped himself. He didn’t want to give them cause to spend any longer with him, quite the opposite, in fact. “You also hunt ?” Eiryss, who appeared to be their leader.
The elf bowed her head to him nodding to the crossbowmen to recover their quarrels, she broke into a gentle loping run, without a backward glance at Kamilata. There was nothing else to say, no more that could be done. Sarlos, recovering a quarrel, met his gaze. Doubtless poets would say that he saw his death in Kamilata’s eyes. Kamilata saw the Sythyss that Thranduil had pinned to the scenery with Tud’s taiken. Tight-lipped, Sarlos made off after his fellow mage hunters. They headed south, faster than before. Avoiding the cities of Tarna and Five Fingers, he made his way into a forested area known as the Olgunholt. He intended to avoid The Warrens (IKWG 311) and continue westwards. A gang from The Warrens followed and captured him. Curiously, although clapped in irons, he was left in his armour and well fed. His spear, his gift from Kaya, was kept nearby. There then followed a nightmare journey of over a month, in a cage with a cloth cover over it. First by wagon, into a city and then craned onto a sailing ship. A mid sea transfer to a larger vessel and eventual landfall, followed by a long hot, noisy and somewhat smelly journey by cart (from Quayside to prison ?) uphill. When the cloth is removed he is in a large room with Scharde slave masters. They inform him that he is to be a gladiatorial combatant, destined to die providing popular entertainment for the masses. He is put in a cell. Winning combats in pits and arenas, he is moved to a bigger cell. Sometimes he fights with others and sometimes he is instructed to wear other costumes and use other weapons. Despite some grievous injuries, he does not die. He is given an Ordic girl, Cathor Olyando, to do with as he will. From her he learns that he is in Blackwater, a large port in the nightmare kingdom of Cyrx. The jagged, foreboding coastline of Scharde hints at the realm's true nature– it is a land even more dark and treacherous than it appears. Its inhabitants are fell; evil trollkin, beastly ogrun, evil Men, savage gobbers, and warped half-breeds. Dwarves and elves are all but unknown in Cryx, except perhaps as cowering slaves in the obsidian palaces of the wealthy, or as expensive livestock at the waterfront markets. The inhabitants of the blighted land all live in fear under the shadow of their ruler, an ancient dragon named Toruk. The Lord of Wyrms, as he is known on the mainland, has utterly dominated his territory for centuries. His buccaneers terrorise the western coasts of Cygnar and Ord. Toruk's ego knows no bounds and he forces his minions to worship him as a god, the Dragonfather, forbidding all other religions in the land of Cryx. His captors promise to replace Cathor with another girl as soon as she is pregnant. The stable to which they both belong is the possession of one Darragh Wrathe, but he is an absentee owner, and all seem quite relieved about that. Kamilata spoke to her about dignity and self-respect. She told him that her continued survival depended on her perceived willingness to act on her owner’s wishes, showing him her barely healed back where she’d been flogged for resisting the advances of her pirate master. One of Thranduil’s speeches came to mind then, about the reed bending to weather the storm, rather than breaking. Kamilata spends his time trying to reassure Cathor and build her mental and emotional defences up again after three months of hell as a pirate’s slave. After three months he thinks he is making progress, which is fortunate, as he leaves his cell that morning, it is the last time he sees her. For the last fortnight his fights have become more and more frequent. One every four or five days he used to regard as busy, but now he seemed to be fighting everyday. Then one day, after a life or death struggle against a trollkin pugilist in the morning, he was taken out in the afternoon to fight a gorax. Using his ability to calm animals, he managed to get the hungry gorax to relax. Unsatisfied, the fight organisers removed it, wounded it, set it on fire and waited for three minutes before letting it back into the arena. Slaying it would be an act of mercy, if it could be done. Following the fight, weak with loss of blood, he is taken to see an ‘important visitor’. The VIP turns out to be Koldde Darkmane, a Satyx pirate. She has been watching Kamilata fight for a week, indeed, she turns out to be the reason that his fights have been getting closer together. Kamilata tries to resist but is totally beguiled. He cannot take his eyes off her when she is around. The way she moves, the tilt of her face, the way she struts. Kamilata’s heart beats like thunder in his chest as she glances at him, his mouth dries as he thinks of each tempting glimpse of flesh afforded by her entirely un-marital costume. Desperately clinging to the memory of the strong Kaya and the fragile Cathor Olyando, he tried not to think about his new owner. But every time he closed his eyes, she was there. Koldde Darkmane occupies his dreams as much as she fills his every waking moment. She has him taken to her dwellings on one of the islands near the White Shark Reef archipelago, within sight of Hell’s Hook. There he fights lethal combats for her entertainment, against men, trollkin and trolls. He would also fight distinctly one sided non-lethal combats against Koldde. He would always start out trying to slay her, he was just never able to and there was something about her that stayed his hand every time. Her appetite for all forms of entertainment kept her entire household running headlong in an effort to satisfy her cruelly physical predilections. She would disappear for weeks at a time, returning with stolen goods, riches from the mainland. Increasingly amongst this were items from Cygnar’s war effort. Rifles, blasting powder, armour. All destined to be sold on by the Pirate Princess of White Shark Reef in the markets of Blackwater. Occasionally he would be shackled in her ‘throne room’ to watch as she selected a prisoner to use and kill. She told him directly that on the occasion that she found someone who was better than he was, that it would be his neck broken next. He tried to look away but he couldn’t. Each time it happened he had to watch as she flaunted herself in front of him, made love to another man and then killed him. He was haunted by it, his resting mind tortured itself over and over by re-playing the images again and again. Always resting on some previously unseen detail. The memory of her fingers lightly following the curve of her buttocks, her tongue flicking over her lips, her hair falling across a breast. Try as he might, Kamilata could not get Koldde Darkmane out of his mind. Kaya and Cathor Olyando turned into a laughing and scornful Koldde Darkmane if ever he tried to think of either of them. From his gilded cage he sees other black ships arrive. Other Satyx arrive. Along with their leader, the Pirate Queen Skarre. The black fleet loads up with reanimated dead Cygnaran soldiers, now off to invade their homeland for the Dragonfather. Koldde visited him again before the black fleet sailed. Once more he tried to resist her allure but could not. The coy smile she gave him as he was let out of his chains was enough to put him under her spell once more. That night left him as bruised and damaged as some of the gladiatorial fights he’d had in Blackwater. When she returned after three weeks, things were different. She did not sweep into his prison to slake her lust. Now satisfied that she was carrying his child, the enigmatic Koldde released him. She showed him vile blades forged by Black Ogrun, and magelock pistols with necromantic ammunition. And looted mechanical weapons from Cygnar. But knowing that he would take none of these gifts she just had him set ashore at Sandbottom Point, on the Cygnarian coast. Her parting shot to him was that should bear his daughter, the girl child would grow into another Satyx. Should the child be male, it would die before it drew it second breath and she would then seek Kamilata out and slay him. She gave him back the spear that Kaya had made for him. Making his way across the Wyrmwall Mountains he happened upon a Trollkin Kriel. Still troubled by the things he had done to survive whilst a gladiatorial slave, he sought out their Shaman confessed his sins. Karmic unloading, as Father Dumas might say. Not the same religion as the circle, but still one to which Kamilata thought he could relate in some way. A cathartic, soul-cleansing exercise was what he felt he needed. At least now Koldde Darkmane did not dominate every dream he had. For his part, Boddach Hillsinger, the Shaman, forgave him. Kamilata stayed with the Kriel for a while and with many of the Trollkin had discussions about cosmology. Shamen cast auguries, as they are wont to do. Hillsinger told him that he had arrived in Cean this time, a year before he had arrived the first time. Thus he had been existing in two places at once for a while. His other self would leave soon, obviously he had already returned. Kamilata told of his companions and more auguries were sought. It was established, with as much certainty as could be managed, that they would also convene at an appointed place at the appointed time, but only if Kamilata steered them. He journeyed then from Kriel to Kriel. What learned was that for centuries they have seen their sacred lands taken and their numbers diminished. Now the human nations have brought war to their last refuges in western Immoren. Banding together with their less civilised kin, the trollkin are on the warpath united with heavily armed trolls and the wild dire trolls. The Trollblood prepared to march to war to reclaim what had been theirs. Mighty chieftains rise to rally the trollkin. Among the kriels of the Thornwood Forest, Chief Madrack Ironhide had become an inspiration to his people. Chief Madrack is unstoppable in battle as an albino master of both sorcery and arms. His people have called to him, and he will defend them against all aggressors. Together with their mighty cousins the Trolls, they will rise up to claim what is rightfully theirs and shake the Iron Kingdoms with their war cries. The language to which Kamilata was exposed was certainly jingoistic. He didn’t want to still be there when it became bellicose. He made the last part of his journey with The trollkin shaman Hoarluk Doomshaper. Amongst his people, a walking legend who wades into battle with mad endurance, heedless of punishments inflicted by the weapons of his enemies. By lifelong effort and force of will, Hoarluk had gained mastery over full-blood trolls, including most particularly the formidable dire trolls, who listen to him as if he were kin. His emergence from the Gnarls would be a dire omen for all who oppose the Trollblood. The Dire Troll Maulers he gathered to him had bodies of thickened muscle and clawed hands nearly the size of a man, there are few creatures more awesome than the dire troll. When these monsters came from the forest in ancient days to stuff their fanged maws with screaming victims, it was proof to the primitive tribes of man that terror had flesh and walked among them. They bring tremendous raw power to the allied trollkin kriels. Hoarluk was content to have Kamilata’s company, it was only when trollkin[1] began joining them and eyeing him with suspicion that Kamilata felt it prudent to take his leave of Hoaruk and accelerate his return to Corvis. Moving then from the forest to the Black River, Kamilata hatched his plan. He wrote messages, in Flanne, so that there would no mistaking them, and when he arrived at Corvis, on the heels of Alexia’s undead army, he entrusted them to a pair of street urchins with descriptions of people to whom these things were to be delivered. Then he went to wait for the companions to meet him at a point south of the city.
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