CHAPTER 14

Shirku looked at the creatures that had captured him. His neck hurt from where the short human had lifted him, but he reserved his fear for the one that the Master had sent them to get. His red features, black eyes and small horns invoked fear in him. Too much power lay hidden within him, power he did not want to seem to use. Shirku looked at the remains of his compatriots, their body parts and corpses littering the ground around him. The most fearsome sight was the slain Frik'uu, her throat torn out. It was not the most fearsome because her wounds were worst, but the worst since she had always seemed so invulnerable. The witchdoctor was too powerful to be killed by any but one of the Masters.

The one that looked like the Masters came up to Shirku, joining up with, and speaking to the short human but Shirku could not understand their words. The one that looked like a Master turned to Shirku, his voice changing as he spoke the language of the Masters.

"What are you doing here? Who, and what, are you?" Jeria's voice came through to Shirku. He spoke the tongue of the fiends, though it was unfamiliar on his tongue, only learned in the last few years so he could speak to the enemy when the need arose, a not uncommon skill amongst the Outwalkers. The strange fact being that it often served as a common tongue when otherwise communication was not possible.

"Master, forgive me. The other Master gave the orders. I will serve you well, I did not mean to offend you!" Shirku peered at the Master, fear in his eyes. If this Master shared the personalities of the other Masters, his life would be very painful before it let him die, quickly if the Master was being merciful.

"Master, we were sent by the Master in the Palace, He whose word is law, to fetch you to his side. Master in the Palace said to bring you but said we must slay your companions. Master, I am Shirku, warrior and faithful servant to the Masters. Why, Master, I have even danced with Khiss to summon forth your brethren!"

Jeria looked at the creature, confusion reigning, the answers not making as much sense as he would have liked. He leaned over to Mekior and whispered in his ear. "You understand what he's talking about? You know the tongue do you not?"

I understand all too well, the stories of the summoned ones make a lot more sense now. Some native creature has summoned them here. The story of this strange creature is all too believable, but I can hardly explain that to Jeria without revealing myself! Mekior whispered back to Jeria, "I assume that the Master in the Palace is none other than Kirest. As to the rest, I have no idea what he is talking about."

Jeria turned back to the creature, his face stern, his hands wrapped around the haft of his axe. "Speak clearly Shirku, what are you, and who is Khiss?"

Shirku looked at the Master; he did not understand why the Master asked these things. I am but a simple warrior, I live to serve not to question. "Master, I am one of those that have been named the Devil-Kin, the Horn Peak Kobolds. Khiss is our master shaman, the one with the greatest power to summon your brethren! On his own, he can even summon some of those that would lead, though he still needs others to dance with him when one of the mighty is to be called." Proudly Shirku looked straight at Jeria. "I have been chosen to learn the sacred tongue of the Masters and to dance with Khiss, to be there when the mighty are called. Perhaps one day I, too, may be called Shaman."

Jeria looked at the kobold in horror. There were a few kobolds in the city, their appearance tended to vary from tribe to tribe, their dragon blood prone to causing mutations and thus making them the most diverse of races. Now that he knew what to look for, it was obvious the creature was a kobold, though its mutations were far more pronounced than any it had seen before. Devil-Kin? Are these kobolds the reason for three thousand years of misery, for the subjugation of our entire world? Are these the devil-kin that the prophecy of Gerogh names? Kobolds, so innocuous and ignored by all as worthless vermin of no consequence?

Gyv came up to where Mekior and Jeria stood.

"Anything useful from this piece of dirt?" She looked down with disgust at the creature that sat in the dirt, its face turned towards Jeria in a mixture of fear, awe and bewilderment.

"Yeah, our favourite half-fiend seems to have a worshipper in our kobold friend over here." Mekior's voice was flippant, but Gyv caught the undercurrent, the sense that something was wrong.

"Come on lover, what gives? What dirty little secrets has our friend here let you in on?" Gyv looked at Mekior, wondering at the bitterness he seemed to be showing.

"They weren't sent by Hiron. The stakes have been increased, Kirest sent them. On top of it, it seems that our current troubles are down to these little bastards. They seem to have been responsible for summoning the fiends. I wonder if they were the ones responsible for Kirest's original summons to our world?"

***

The five sat around the campfire, Shirku sat with them, bound and gagged, unable to move or speak.

"What are we going to do with him?" Sister Egrit voiced the concern of the entire group, though D'Fir still slept, the healing potion he had taken forcing the deep slumber upon him.

Mekior shrugged and tested the edge of his sword. "I don't think the answer is too difficult. We can't leave an enemy behind us, nor can we take him with us. The solution is obvious, and we have two axes that would be perfect to use in beheading him."

Sister Egrit looked at him in shock, then at the other two. "Surely you cannot agree with him! Would you slay a helpless captive because it is inconvenient to do otherwise? I am a servant of the Void, I cannot countenance such measures!"

Jeria shuffled his feet and remained silent. Gyv looked straight at Sister Egrit, "Maybe in your isolation, in your tower cut off by both the physical and the arcane from the rest of the world, you can afford to be merciful. For the rest of us the reality is simple, do what is expedient to survive. Forget that, and whole cities fall. The mercy shown by the city of Weald Hall towards me was enough of a wedge to lead Hiron to them. The mercy of Weald Hall a wedge that led to the death of my husband, the enslavement of my children and the destruction of one of the oldest safe houses of the House of Souls. The people of Weald hall should have been less trusting, less merciful. It would have been better if they had left me to die, or given me the mercy of a quick, clean death. "

Jeria looked at her in horror. Never before had he heard her express her past in these terms. Sometime in the years since he had last seen her, guilt from her control under Hiron had crystallised into hatred for the city that had shown her mercy and had saved her instead of leaving her to die in the wilderness. Jeria chose to remain silent, agreeing with Gyv's reasoning if not with her allocation of blame.

Gyv walked over to the bound prisoner, her sword drawn, eyes hard. Mekior looked away, as did Jeria. Sister Egrit watched in horror as Gyv closed on the bound and helpless prisoner. Shirku sensed what was happening and shuffled into a sitting position, moving his eyes to meet those of Gyv.

If the eye contact concerned Gyv, she gave no indication of it, though perhaps she felt something as, with her foot Gyv, turned the kobold to look away. A deft, agile movement, a quick strike of her sword, resulted in a swift, merciful cut through Shirku's neck, and his copper-filled green blood flowed in a river upon the stone floor.

***

The five rested for what remained of the day and the night that followed, and then moved on the following morning. They travelled in silence, a strange reversal in the relationship between Sister Egrit and D'Fir occurring. The three from Weald Hall comfortable with their dispatch of the prisoner, Sister Egrit, and D'Fir, once he had awoken, horrified at the act. D'Fir had railed at the three, ranting about their lack of honour, about the dishonour invoked by the arbitrary execution of a defeated and bound prisoner. D’Fir cursed them, calling on the Forge Father to witness, and judge, their dishonourable actions.

Four more days passed before they came to the passage in which Jeria had first met the Emissary. The group set up camp, the five determined to wait for the Emissary. Jeria had been told to return, that his presence would summon the Emissary, but no mention had been made of how long it would be before they would be contacted.

Days passed and the tension in the group created many incidents of frustration, argument and confrontation. It was never great enough to break out into outright hostilities, but the group was definitively divided into two camps; Jeria, Mekior and Gyv on one side, Sister Egrit and D'Fir on the other. They welcomed the break in their daily routine when it finally came, especially since the arrival was not hostile, but the long awaited arrival of the Emissary.

"Welcome. We've been waiting for you." Jeria looked at the devil, his irritation at his late arrival evident.

"Patience, son-of-Hiron; I have been delayed. Our mutual enemy seems to have a better spy network than my master believed. It seems that he is aware that the Lord of the Eighth moves against him, and that you are our chosen conduit to the people of this place. I did not want to lead his forces here, so I took an indirect and less efficient way to get here." The Emissary finished his speech and bowed to the others that had stood up as he had arrived.

"I take it you others represent the other free cities, and that your presence indicates we are to have an alliance?" He paused and laughed. "Not my place to inquire actually, Sechariab will have my head if I delay any longer in bringing you to him."

Sister Egrit stepped forward, her eyes glowing, a faint blue nimbus shining around her orbs. She stared at the Emissary, her enhanced sight piercing his illusions. To her regret, her normal benign, soft look changed to one of horror, the image before her one she would not have wanted to contemplate.

"You like what you see, Sister?" The Emissary's voice was mocking, his eyes a mimicked display of her ethereal glow. "You have more enchantments upon yourself than I have seen on any single individual for over a century. What do you hide, Sister?"

Jeria watched the two, as did D'Fir and Mekior while Gyv stepped forward to go between the two, but nervous to come between two such powerful individuals.

"Enough!" D'Fir's voice rang out, loud, commanding. "If we are to be allies, we need a modicum of cordiality between us all or Kirest's work is done before we start. I'm guilty of bringing danger and enemies down on us, and only the foresight of the Forge Father in guiding his priests to include powerful healing draughts within our packs brought all of us here."

Fiend and mage stared at each other, their intense gazes locked. With an almost audible snap, they broke their eye contact. The Emissary spoke, his words soft and almost placating in a tone of address that many would have assumed impossible for a fiend.

"Our Dwarven friend is correct. Let there be peace, Sister, though it is not in the nature of either of our kinds to cooperate with each other." A sardonic laugh at the confused look of the other two and he continued on, "She has told you, hasn't she? She is not what she seems. But then, there are others amongst you that harbour their own secrets and it is not my place to reveal anything. I am just here to take you to my Master."

"And how do you propose to do that, fiend? Surely you are as concerned about leading Kirest to your Master as you were about leading him here?" Sister Egrit's voice was cold, the peace between her and the fiend fragile.

"Why, Sister, for one of your might the answer should be obvious. This area is open and unwarded, my Master's domain is heavily warded and immune to spying eyes, even those of Kirest."

Sister Egrit nodded. "Take us there then. It is best if it were done fast, there is no need to bring trouble upon ourselves by waiting too long."

***

The room was as Jeria remembered it, though instead of only two chairs, six chairs stood before the massive hearth, each with its own side table. It was easy to see which chair was destined for which individual. For Jeria, the chair was high-backed, more majestic than the others, a decanter of ice water beside it. Mekior's chair depicted scenes of armour clad heroes battling and defeating fiends, a crystal decanter filled with a clear red liquid, a matching crystal glass beside it. Gyv's place was a chair similar to Mekior's, the pictures those of the woods and open skies, her decanter filled with a light green liquid.

D'Fir looked at suspiciously at the chair destined for himself, a stone throne like affair with a carved crown above his head when he leant back, on the side table was massive pitcher of beer, a thick foamy head upon it and a tankard with silver and gold trimmings forming the pattern of the Forge Father's symbol upon it. The chair for Sister Egrit confused the others, though it its message seemed to be one she understood and caused her face to redden. A tall, thin, reed like affair, its back shaped like a mountain rising into a cloud, a tiny vial of some golden liquid next to a cup the size of a thimble.

"I am surprised your kind could get hold of that vial. It must have cost you a few favours!" Sister Egrit's voice was low, her fury barely contained. Not so D'Fir's anger, which burst forth from him, his voice loud and strident.

"How dare you! A replica of the high throne! What do you try to imply? That I should challenge my father or my brother, for the throne? You dare too much!"

The Emissary simply smiled. "My Master simply wanted you all to feel at home, nothing more is implied than those thoughts you might harbour within. As for that vial, my Master has had occasion over the years to trade and bargain with many people. It is amazing what you can get, and accumulate, over time." He broke into a broad smile and bowed low. "Here he is, Secheriab, from the court of the Lord of the Eighth, Duke of the Fire Marshes and General of the twelve legions of Arcane Flame."

The names meant nothing to most of them, but Sister Egrit started. "You?" She turned, facing Secheriab who had just entered, "You have come here? The Lord of the Eighth has sent you to lead this counter-revolution?"

"Good day my dear, it is wonderful to see you. I am obviously known to you and, though you are new to me, I am happy to greet you all, to make welcome all my guests. I apologise if any slight was offered, none was intended." He came forward, taking a seat and a drink from the glass of water at his side. "Please sit, all of you, there is much to discuss, and I hope that this is the first of many times that we will sit, drink and eat together."