Five Years ago.

North West of The Great Forest.

The Mud Lands.

Glittering in the hot sun, the young boy’s blue scaly skin dripped with sweat as he tilled away at the muddy ground. Glancing back with his yellow eyes, his old grandfather was following closely with a basket, dropping potato roots into the tilled ground.

“Come now Zen, no slacking.” His grandfather said, gesturing with his webbed hand to continue.

Groaning, Zen glanced at his surroundings. Miles and miles of muddy land being worked by dozens of his people, a small people but one with many names. Fishmen, Aquans, but what they called themselves, was Mer.

“This, is my future…” Zen mumbled to himself under his breath, continuing to work the land but standing far behind the work of many others in farms nearby.

“The future is not written, Zen. You were born on this mud, so you work this mud, because it is thanks to this mud that we’re all still alive. The Root river is your home, but you see it as your chains.” His grandfather said, continuing to follow behind him. A short stout old man with rough green scales, the same round fins on the sides of his head and the same long frills for hair as his grandson.

Zen groaned, “Papa, again, what?” Zen asked, shaking his head, the young boy not following his elder’s words.

The old Mer chuckled as he opened his scrawny mouth to speak once more, when a sound reached through the mud fields. The ground shuddering as the sound of a marching warband approached them.

“Again? They’re two cycles early!” A man groaned from a neighbouring field as all flowed out of the fields and towards a stone bridge, a muddy river running beneath it and beyond a village grown along large fungal growths. Wood and stone worked around the massive looming mushrooms.

“Pap, why would they come so early?” Zen asked his grandfather, whilst helping him back to the village.

The old Mer’s eyes focused on the horizon, as the sound of beasts of burden trudging through the mud and mushrooms came closer. Reaching the village centre just in time to see a small battalion of Ghoul soldiers standing at attention whilst the Mer villages crowded before them.

“Chieftain,” One Ghoul growled, sliding off his armoured Direwolf mount and crashing onto the muddy ground with a splash. A goliath of a man with wrinkled up undead skin and hollow black eyes, armoured with chain and fine cloth. The Ghoul turned to the villages and growled once again, “Chieftain, bring us your efforts.”

With a solemn sigh, Zen’s grandfather let go and stepped forth, the crowd breaking to let him through. Coming to stand one fourth of the Ghoul’s height, the old Mer glanced up at the burly creature. “You are early, sir. But we have your share ready.” Turning to a group of larger Mer, the chieftain nodded to them and disgruntledly they walked away.

Returning later with three carriages filled with root vegetables and mushrooms, they pulled them over to the ghoul party, the soldiers taking over of the food then.

But when the Mer turned to walk off, the Ghouls held them, their captain moving over to look the large Mers over. Grunting with a crooked smile, “We will also require, conscription. These will do, and fifthy others. We will pick, your strongest, man and woman.” He said, gesturing to his men who then began marching through the crowd in squads of twenty, pushing through and grabbing hold of any that fit their requirements.

Gasps and confusion filled the villagers as the old chieftain also glanced about in despair, “But sirs…We need our strong neighbours, we old folk and the children cannot keep the farms going alone!”

“Hm,” the Ghoul captain turned to glare down at the old Mer. “This,” a hiss following out with his words, “Is for our kingdom’s safety. You, are expected to continue with the same value of shares. You worked these lands, when no one else could. The Lords, believe and trust in you.”

Kneeling down to face the old chieftain, black spittle dripped out of the Ghoul’s jagged toothed mouth. “Would you let down the Lords? Who generously gave you this land?”

Despair setting in, the chieftain’s gaze dropped to the ground. “No sir, we live to serve the Lords.”

The ghoul chuckled cruelly, standing up he gestured for his men to drag in the chosen Mer to their caravans. “The Lords, accept your generous contribution, Root Village.” He said, before turning away.

“Wait!” A young voice then shouted from the crushed crowd, as a boy pushed through to the front. Suddenly bumping into the massive Ghoul captain and coming to a pale-faced pause.

Growling, the captain turned to Zen, “What’s this, pipsqueak?”

“T-Take me! I-Instead of…” Zen glanced at the Mers being taken, “Vern, he should stay, at least please! Take me instead!”

The Ghoul’s one good brow raised, as he glanced between the absolutely massive shark-like Mer that was Vern, and this scrawny eel.

“Only…Only Vern can keep the bandits away! Please, we need Vern! The village needs Vern!” Zen begged, “I’m strong too! Take me please instead!”

A chuckle began, escaping the captain’s cruel crooked smile before bellowing out into a laugh. Suddenly pausing cold, as the Ghoul turned to glare down at the boy. “You say you’re strong, no? You can work the land then, if you’re strong. You can keep the bandits away then, if you’re strong. You stay, he comes.” The captain said, turning back to his men and beginning to walk away.

Zen was not done, as fury rose in the young boy’s eyes, he rushed at the Ghoul. The mud beneath his feet rose, water rising out of it and pushing him higher than the Ghoul itself. Fangs bared as he gripped his tool tightly, raising it over his head.

When the Ghoul paused in his steps, his hand rushing to his side as a blade then flashed the sun’s light off its gleaming sharp edge. Slashing right through the farming hoe’s pole and cutting deep into Zen’s chest, the boy screamed as he fell into the mud bleeding and shuddering from the pain.

“You dare.” The Ghoul growled, as the crowd gasped and begged.

“Please, he’s just a child!” The chieftain shouted, attempting to rush to his grandson’s side, only to fall forward into the mud, having to watch as the Ghoul Captain crouched down and grabbed Zen by his left fin before raising him six feet off the ground.

“You’d strike, at our Lord’s chosen. You’d strike, at the hand that feeds you.” Zen breathed deep breaths, grasping for life as his muddy chest dripped with blood, his eyes at the brink of rolling into the back of his head. The Ghoul Captain held his sword to the boy’s throat, holding him up for all to see. “An example must be made.”

The villagers screamed in pleas, as the captured Mer also struggled against their captors to stop him.

As the Ghoul captain’s curved blade pushed into Zen’s slick throat, a rise in the air’s pressure befell the Ghoul, pausing him frozen.

A presence filled the village square, as looming two entire feet over the Ghoul captain, was Vern’s impressive figure. Smooth white and blue skin tensing with muscle, as long rows of shark teeth bared themselves, the Mer’s pitch black eyes glaring down at the Ghoul as his hand clenched their sword arm.

Suddenly crossbows were loaded and aimed at the villagers, dozens of soldiers ready to barrage into the unarmed farmers.

“Do you think, this wise?” The Ghoul captain asked, still giving his back to Vern.

“Let him go, and we come without complaint, without argument or struggle. You don’t wish to go to your masters empty handed, do you?” Vern warned.

The Ghoul captain chuckled, “This walking fish shit, disrespected me.”

“Yes, an example right?” Vern said, as he then let go of the Ghoul’s arm and took a step back, before kneeling down on both legs. “Please, I am the village’s strongest. Make me the example, they will not disrespect you ever again if you do. My life, is yours.”

A wicked smile grew over the Ghoul’s face as he dropped Zen to the ground, turning to stand face to face with the kneeling Vern.

Vern’s gaze though did not meet his, instead his beady blackeyes gazed down at Zen as he held onto consciousness.

“V-Vern?” Zen croaked out, gazing up at him.

“Worry not slick, it will be over fast.” Vern replied, giving him a toothy smile, “Do me a favour slick, my twins, look after them you got me?” The shark-man said, turning to search for two small figures, but not seeing them in the crowd a sigh of relief left his jaws. “Maybe it is better they don’t see.” He whispered to himself.

The Ghoul captain laughed, “Big man, I will honour you with the courtesy of not taking your life. The Lords need you alive after all…” He hissed, walking around Vern and coming to stand beside him. “Remind me, corporal. Which part of a fish shit, is their most sensitive and prized appendage?”

Another much smaller ghoul chuckled from the firing squad, holding his hand up and at the ready to give the order, “The fin, sir. And for his kind, the size of it, is a matter of pride.”

The captain chuckled, as he raised his sword up into the raise, making a show of the bloody blade before suddenly slicing down at an angle. His sword chopped down, digging half into Vern’s back fin before stopping. Vern screamed in agony, as the crowd grew quiet and cold.

As Zen watched on from below, the blood splashing onto his face as the Ghoul then put his weight onto the weapon, cutting deeper and deeper. Gruesomely and slowly, until the fin fell to the ground with a splash.

The bloodshot eyes of Vern shakily looking back down at him.

As the Ghoul captain laughed and chuckled, cleaning his sword off Vern’s clothes before sheathing it and picking the fin up. Parading it around, before taking a bloody bite out of it. Loudly munching and crunching down on the meat, before spitting it out at Vern’s face.

“Return to your post conscript!” The Ghoul captain screamed into Vern’s ear, still chuckling to himself as the large Mer struggled to stand and walked back to his other companions.

Turning to the young Zen then, the Ghoul smirked at the sight of his wide eyes frozen in shock. Throwing the fin down onto his still bleeding chest, “See that, boy? That fin there, is worth more than you. That man, is worth more than you. Learn your place, twerp, or life will teach it to you through me.” The captain, whispered to him before turning to shout at the villagers. “Get back to work!” Turning away, the militia began moving out as he did.

Leaving Zen there on the bloody muddy ground, as many a villager rushed to his side. Many a hand taking hold of the boy as they lifted him out of the muck, raising him and carrying him to the Chieftain.

His grandfather was being helped up by two others, as the boy was brought to him. Quickly and frantically he checked the boy’s pulse and life-signs. “He breaths, he lives. But the wounds will remain. Oh my boy, my foolish boy.” The old Mer cried, caressing Zen’s cheek as the boy’s eyes streamed with tears as well. His hand rising to grasp his grandfather’s frail webbed fingers.

“Our people…I will not let us starve. I will not let them…” He coughed, his grasps for breath turning to a long inhale of air. “I will not let them, push us around.”

“Oh my boy, but what can we do? No, no your fate is not here with us. Your parents knew it, even at their last breaths. It was their hope for you to find a life away from the mud river. We will find a way child, we always have. But when you’re strong and hale, you must go find your way.”

“The pirates, pap, they come every five years.” Zen croaked, as he pushed away all the hands and they let him down, allowing him to stand on his own. “The land. I will work. The crops, I will carry. The village, I will hold on my shoulders, for as long as I must till they are wide enough…Till they are wide enough to fit the hole they left us with.”

“My son’s son…” The chieftain shook his head, when Zen took both of his hands into his.

Zen gazed into his grandfather’s eyes, then turned to look at all the other gazes, set upon him. The despair, the fear and anger, he embraced each one and held it in his mind.

As he closed his eyes, taking in a long deep breath.

Zen did not wait for his wound to heal, as tonic and bandages covered his chest he worked the fields. Tilling the land night and day, not an hour wasted. He worked the land as he ate, he worked the land as he grieved, he worked the land as he starved.

Day after day, week after week. Zen worked the land till he collapsed, the other villagers having to carry him back to his bed, only to see him working the land once more the next light.

Zen carried half his weight in crops when before he lazed and barely did. Day after day, till he carried his own full weight, week after week till he could carry double.

Month after month, till he could carry triple.

When the sun boiled him, when the moon loomed over him, be it storm, draught or sickness, Zen worked the land relentlessly.

Year after year, and five years later, it was a dry cloudless day.

The mud river flowed slowly, eventually meeting with two other rivers before reaching the shore and then the open seas.

On the horizon, sails were carried onward by the wind, black and green seven of them approached the shoreline. Ships of worked wood and metal, they made landing onto the dry sand merely hours away from the village.

Two sets of eyes gazed through the brush, two young shark-like Mer. Seeing the pirates make landing, and watching the mixture of Lizardmen, Weremen and Humans, they rushed off. Quick on their feet, the two little ones ran for two hours without pause, beginning to shout and scream when they reached home.

“Bandits! The bandits are coming!” The little ones shouted, alerting all the adults who rushed out of the fields and armed themselves.

Ceasing to work the land, the village prepared.

Yet many noticed that day, not everyone was working the land.

Bringing the children into shelter, the village prepared with make-shift bows and spears, dreading the fight to come.

Unbeknownst to them, that it would not come.

Zen, had not been working the land that day.

Zen instead, sat with eyes closed at the very edge of the mudlands, where the three rivers met.

As the swarm of pirates scourged forth, the four dozen armed men paused at this odd sight.

Older, larger, Zen sat before them, unarmed.

The more adorned of the Lizardmen, and one of the larger ones, stepped forth. Unsheathing his cutlass and preparing his flintlock, “And who yer be there? Ye wee lone self, sitting in we way?”

When suddenly both of Zen’s eyes opened, a rough, burly voice leaving his mouth as he spoke, “Father was never wrong about time, you always come every five years, at the driest day of the cycle of sol. Thinking our people at their weakest.” Zen then began to stand, his previously lanky body now a bulging mass of pure muscle coming to be five whole feet taller than their largest man. Elongated strangely, both his legs, waist, chest and arms, even his neck, yet lanky he wasn’t any longer.

His piercing murky yellow eyes focused on the pirate captain, as he loomed over the paling Lizardman. His chest bare, as a cruel scar lay in full view for all.

“I shall give you a sole chance. Return to your ships, return to your oceans, and never come again.” Zen spoke with an underlying hiss to each word.

The pirates glanced at one another, and some did take a step back. Until, the captain began to laugh, and one by one all began to laugh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2uU6OJV65w

“Ye be one man-” The captain began to say, then finding himself dangling three feet off the ground, Zen’s left hand holding him by the head. “Ye shit!-” surprised, the captain took his shot. His flintlock flaring with flame as a pellet of iron blasted out of the barrel and into Zen’s chest.

The expression of each pirate, froze then, as their laughs fell deathly silent.

All stared in a sweaty paralysis, at the ball of iron sticking out of Zen’s left bicep, water swirling around it and holding it from even touching the Mer’s slick skin.

“Ye…Ye..Ye mons-” The captain began to say, as Zen arched his arm back, turning with his waist and took aim.

Then suddenly moving so quickly, no one had noticed their captain gone from Zen’s webbed hand. Until the sound of a wet squelching crash echoed in from behind them, then the sound of a second crash, as if a tree had fallen over.

But as many glanced back at their landing, the realization came quickly, their captain had become one with the ship.

“Then, you have chosen. By my hand, become the mud.” Zen solemnly said, as with keen movements and swift agility, he surged through the pirates. His hands spreading out like sickles, grasping bodies as if he was plucking carrots out of the ground. Bodies were flung left and right as many crashed with others.

Many a blade tried to meet his skin, but the water that covered his body rushed to block every single attack.

Until there were no more blades to strike at him.

The field of mud fell quiet, as bodies lay surrounding him, slowly sinking down into the muddy ground and disappearing beneath it, until merely a lone hand lay poking out.

Taking his left index finger, Zen pressed the hand down under.

Sighing with relief, Zen turned to return to his village, only to find himself face to face with a massive reptilian beast. Huffing and puffing wearily, the Draem’s eyes met his, and a brief moment of confusion went through them both.

A voice then reached Zen from above the Draem. “Those ships.” The feminine voice said, “You’re strong, but that was just a raiding party. If we help you…” A figure appeared walking up to the Draem’s head, as the beast then took a step back. The woman leapt off and landed before the Mer, who loomed several feet above her.

“If you help me?” Zen asked, tilting his head.

“If we help you, we’ll take those ships.” Erika said, her stoic gaze rising to meet Zen’s surprised eyes, as she held forth a hand.

Zen took hold of her hand. “I don’t need you.” He said then, suddenly flicking his arm upward and flinging her back with the same raw power he had flung the pirate. His gaze then rising to meet the many white-pale expressions that now riddled the back of the Draem as they followed the path of flight up, then down.

Splash

“Uh, Ahem, excuse us.” Gray hoarsely said, tapping Wytar’s neck then, the Draem rushed after its master.