‘Run away!’ Crusch Lulu was ashamed that this was her first thought, it was a shame that she was sure she would have for the rest of her life. She knew intuitively within a mere second what she ‘should’ have thought. ‘Save the children! Protect the tribe! Get the elders out! Fight back!’

But when the toadmen raid hit the fishers and as they burst up from the water, immediately skewering two lizardmen through the chest before her eyes, blood splattering into the air like the spray of the swamp water from which the toadmen emerged. No, none of the thoughts she should have had, came to mind. Only, ‘Run away!’ The toadmen were larger than the lizardmen, half again as tall and broad on average. They were not always stronger, but with their slick and slippery dark green bodies, they were hard to come to grips with.

Simply put, they were hard to fight even at equal or greater strength, their powerful legs allowed them to leap great heights and they had better weapons as well, long javelins they got by trading with Baharuth Empire humans in their part of the swamp.

‘So why are they here?!’ Crusch Lulu wondered and with the alarming thought in her head, she cast her first spell. [Fireball]. A gout of roaring flame sprang to life in the air and rushed over the swamp water where, by the purest chance, it caught a pocket of gas and a mighty explosion rocked the trees and made the frogmen hesitate.

There were many, she saw now. ‘So many…’ Another impossibility in her mind. ‘Frogmen have villages not much larger than mine… how can this be?!’

The sound of ‘ribbit ribbit’, the chortling laughter and the sound of splashing water at her back while she ran away from the shore and through the gate of her village that didn’t draw closer. The frogmen’s hatred of fire and their brief belief that she had extraordinary magic would not buy her much time. “Run!” Crusch shouted, finding her courage to say what her instincts should have made her say immediately. “Run away! Get the children! Get everyone out! A frogman army!” she shouted and two large lizardmen began to force the gate closed. ‘It won’t buy much time, moments only…’ She watched it close and readied her next spell, when the line of burning gas that briefly made the frogmen stop, died down or was extinguished by their own mages, they would be on her village’s heels.

Splashing lizardmen feet and tails went to and fro, word spread immediately and warriors gathered at the far gate, ready to make a stand while the rest began to flee. ‘How could there be an army? I’ve never seen so many frogmen before…’ Crusch felt her blood run like ice and her heart race, her pale white tail slapped at the swamp water, when she saw a frogman holding a long spear leap into the air. [Magic Arrow]! She shouted and the frog’s gut was pierced before it could throw.

It fell back, then howled in pain. Crush rushed to the top of the wooden wall when consternation and noise entirely unexpected came from the other side. Beyond the flames stood… so many frogmen, like they threatened to drown the water itself with their bodies. Their large, oversized heads and faint uptilt to their mouths bulged with every heavy breath.

But one stood out, broader than any three lizardmen, and taller than any two standing on one another’s heads, ‘A frogman Lord…’ Crusch realized in dismay.

“You… you are the one who killed that one, aren’t you?! -ribbit” It bellowed at her and held a large orichalcum trident, it pointed to the burning corpse of the frogman that had fallen back into the fires, it wasn’t wailing or calling for help at all, it was a roasting corpse.

By instinct, Crusch nodded.

“He was my brother, I am Heketi! Frogmother! I ‘was’ only going to conquer you Lizardmen… but to kill my brother so that he would burn in flame?! No! You’ve signed the death warrant for all your people! The lizardmen are going to be destroyed down to the last of your young! The swamp is ours! You have no place in it now! -Ribbit!”

Crusch could think of nothing to say, the frogmen magic casters were already moving up to deal with the fire, ‘It’s only pure luck that they think they’re dealing with magic of mine and not just burning gas… that will buy me some time, but they’ll figure it out…’ She stared across the flames that divided the two of them and rising her arm, she pointed at her rival with one claw out. “I am Crusch Lulu of the Red Eye Tribe, and you have made an enemy today… we will meet again!” She declared with boldness she didn’t really feel, then hopped back down and hissed at the two lizardmen who waited below, “Go!”

They raced away to where the little band of warriors waited, and collectively abandoned their home.

“Where are we supposed to go from here…” The one to ask her that wasn’t the only one with that question on their mind when they were out of sight of the village. Thankfully they couldn’t hear the sound of the plunder happening, all their things, their meager possessions, falling into the hands of the frogmen invaders. But they knew that was happening even if they couldn’t see it.

The question… Crusch Lulu didn’t have a ready answer for, the shame of her initial fear still gripped her heart, and that fear faded not even a little bit when she beheld the massive Heketi, or the sheer size of the opposition which threatened the Red Eye tribe. As they continued splashing through the waters beside the great lake however, just putting distance between themselves and the army, an idea did come to mind.

“She promised to destroy ‘all’ lizardmen. I think that means we should visit our neighbors… search for allies. We’ll go to the Green Claws… they’re the closest one to us.” Crusch said, and taking her place at the front of her tribe, she guided them as best she could, hoping against hope that they would listen to her.

Zaryusu was wading through the water of his fish farm, the warm water lapped at his body and the mud seeped between his scaled toes, his tail batted about within the water itself and scattered the fish away from himself.

His finger claws worked with practiced deftness at the corner of a pole. It was now routine for him to do this since the project began. ‘I thought I knew fear when I was a traveler, I thought I knew fear during the war… I never knew what fear was till I became a fish farmer. Every night… I wonder what will be broken in the morning. Every day I have to worry that some beast might have devoured my stock and destroyed everything… war and the unknown are brief flashes of fear. This though, this is constant.’ He sighed and fixed the fraying cord that held the net secure.

Zaryusu then took up a small twig and began to check each little gap in the net by pressing the twig down, hoping each time to feel resistance so that he would know the net was intact. He rolled his eyes when he recalled how many times he’d screwed up by using his finger claw and snapping the line himself before coming up with the obvious solution of using a twig.

It was busy, busy work, and he was still alone in doing it.

‘At least my brother supports me.’ Zaryusu had that comforting thought just as he heard his brother’s voice at his back.

“Heyyyyy!” Zaryusu heard the voice at his back and looked over his shoulder, Shasuryu was waving at him, mouth open and tongue out.

‘He’s hungry.’ Zaryusu wanted to laugh about that, but he was focused on his work. He held up a hand behind him with one claw up, telling the chief to wait.

He then resumed checking the netting for gaps. The hardest part was checking the ones closest to the bottom, and ensuring there was no gap at the base that the fish could easily wiggle under.

For that, he had a number of wooden stakes pinning the net into the muck below so that the net was flush at the bottom, but… things could go wrong. The steady flowing water could change the lay of the bottom and create a gap where there was none before, or slowly work a stake loose from its position. The big posts every twenty paces could be easily checked and not easily removed. But the small stakes underwater? Those were harder! He swept his foot over them each time and pressed his weight down just to confirm their placement, and his brother waited patiently on shore.

Shasuryu watched his brother go about the work of the farm, and not for the first time admiration for the young lizardman, the bearer of Frost Pain, rose up in his breast. ‘If I were not chief, he should be.’ He thought to himself and watched the slow, steady way in which Zaryusu worked. Hole by hole, stake by stake, the Traveler made his way all around the circuit until he had returned to shore.

Zaryusu stepped up onto the moist ground and approached his brother, water dripped from his body and ran down the length of his tail to fall away at the tip, where his brown scales contrasted the green of his brother.

Shasuryu kept his eyes on the churning waters, “How are the fish coming?”

“Ahhh, brother… seeing is believing…” Zaryusu said, then wading into the water, his hand darted out and broke through the surface of the lake and yanked out a fish by the tail. It flopped around, dangling in his hand. Zaryusu’s mouth fell open from contented happiness. “Bigger! Bigger than what we get from wild harvests, and what’s more I’m selecting them for size. The ones who get the biggest, fastest, are the ones I’m leaving alone, the smaller ones I’m selecting for bait to lure beasts away from these.”

“How are you doing that?” Shasuryu asked, looking around the fish farm for some hint that he had overlooked.

Zaryusu pointed to a space farther away where a number of tree limbs hung over the water. “I hang ‘bait’ from those, it’s easy meat and so they avoid the farm, as it turns out, we can also lay ambushes for the beasts themselves that chase the bait, and draw extra meat from those.”

Shasuryu gave a slow nod of understanding, but looked disappointed when his brother dropped the wiggling fish back into the farm where it swam to what it thought of as safety.

“The fish by the way, are so fatty now that they melt in your mouth, they’re succulent and juicy down to the last scrap of themselves. I tried a few yesterday just as a test and… well, in another week or two, you’ll be the first I gift my harvest to!” Zaryusu said with enthusiasm and slapped his brother on his shoulder.

Shasuryu’s tail pounded the ground as it wagged with joy, the heavy thuds giving away his obvious happiness at the promise. “Nonsense, you did all this work yourself, all I did was-”

“Make it possible. I know you argued with the tribe over this, that more than once they wanted to just consume the fish before they were ready… this wouldn’t happen without you. Thank you.” Zaryusu said.

Any answer his brother might have given was cut off by the sudden noise of shouting lizardmen, and both brothers turned to face the sound of their villagers calling out for help.

Zaryusu and his brother rushed toward the noise, the farm forgotten as they came closer to the source of the chaos. “What is it?! What’s happening?!” Shasuryu bellowed.

“Red Eyes! It’s the Red Eye tribe! All of them!” Someone called out from atop the low wall.

“An attack?! Why?!” Shasuryu shouted the question nobody could have answered, then cast it aside, he stood towering over his fellow lizardmen and pointed toward the back gate, “Get the elders, our women, and our children back! Warriors form up! Gather weapons and put yourselves on the wall! Make ready for a fight!”

Rallied by their chieftain, Zaryusu retrieved Frost Pain, then rushed to the wall and took up a place at his side just above the double doored gate as the Red Eye tribe came closer… and the most beautiful lizard woman he’d ever seen stepped forward as the tribe came to a halt.

“Please! We need help! We didn’t come to fight!” She called out.

“So… brother? What do we do?” He asked of Shasuryu, who had no immediate answer.