The village came in sight, nestled at the base of two hills and surrounded by a small river that tumbled down from the mountains, through the hills at the base of the mountain range, and eventually made its way through the Plains of Blood to the ocean. Two weeks of walking the World Roads had taken Fraker thousands of miles, bypassed mountain ranges and an ocean, as well as avoided towns and kingdoms, making a journey of thirteen months, almost a year, into a simple twenty-day walk. Still, the World Roads were dangerous, full of creatures from the wars that had wracked the Six Worlds throughout history, from the Elder God War to the Lich King War - created by the will of maddened beings of cosmic power, warped by the wills of powerful combatants as well as altered by the unrestrained magics wielded by mortals. The basket was slightly scorched, Fraker's hair was matted with blood and dried sweat, and he had several puckered scars on his biceps and forearms that had not had a chance to fade away entirely. His heavy pack was torn on the left hand side and repaired by a lacing of rawhide, his pants were patched in a couple of places, and a rough bandage was wrapped around his head, covering his right eye, the flesh above and below the bandage bright red and blistered.

Buildings had been melded with the surrounding terrain and foliage, complimenting and enhancing the natural look of the terrain to improve the whole. Crystalline windows flashed rainbow hues that made Fraker squint his eyes, birds sang from aviaries carefully woven of branches and vines - nourished and guided to grow a certain way - and just as carefully woven magic, and the people moved about the village languorously, on errands that Fraker just shrugged and forgot about.

As he staggered into the town with the basket, he looked around, his eyes sweeping over the artfully crafted runes formed of magic, living foliage and precious metals. He kept a confused look on his face, even though his bloodshot eye paused for a second on each rune before sweeping on, then staggered toward one of the buildings, stopping next to one of the beings walking down the street.

Tall, noble, with aquiline features and a patrician nose, delicately upswept ears that came to a point with serrated indentations along the back and long earlobes, clad in a robe of delicately embroidered shimmersilk and decked out in expensive jewelry that glittered in the sunlight with every movement. The skin was almost bronze in color, with topaz eyes and a mouth pursed in disapproval as Fraker staggered up and the stench of unwashed body, alcohol and rotting blood wafted over the figure.

"Whiskey" Fraker croaked in the most common Trade Tongue, accented with the harsh glottal stops of the Stygian Wave War Tongue. "Food and whiskey."

The elfan's attempt to look down his nose at Fraker failed since the man was more than three feet taller than him, but the disdain in his voice could peel paint as he replied in High Elvish: "There's a stable for animals like yourself right over there, although the world would be better off if you just tied a large rock around your neck and threw yourself into the Azure River."

Fraker pantomimed shoveling food into his mouth, not bothering with any of the trade languages and going with a basic movement that even the village idiot would be able to understand. His bloodshot eyes bored into the elven man's glowing topaz ones, and the elfan felt a lot of his arrogance drain out of him.

He had been born over six centuries ago, coming to maturity before the Lich King War where humans had rose up and thrown off the yoke of the Lich King Council, which had held the entire Six Worlds in their undying fists. He had grown up in a Hiem, protected by the magics of the Elven King who ruled over the Hiem, and had fled with many others when the Stygian Wave had marched through, putting everything that lived to the sword. He was used to looking in human eyes and seeing their fleeting lives, over before he had finished reading one of the Great Works, but the sole red and brown orb that stared down at him made him feel like the one who would be gone in the blink of an eye. The heavily scarred face, the barbaric tattoos, the massive axe at the human's hip, all of them combined to make the elf feel as if he was only into his first few decades.

The elfan pointed at the building next to the one that the man had been heading toward, and felt something like relief as the man nodded politely and staggered toward the inn. He stood there for a moment, shaking for reasons he didn't understand, until it finally dawned on him who he had been face to face with.

Fraker the Axe himself had arrived in the village!

The elfan lifted up the hem of his robe and hurried his sandaled feet toward the house of the Maire in order to tell the village leader that Fraker the Axe had arrived, and could be the solution to their problem.

* * * * *

Fraker was busy popping garlic roasted potatoes that had been smothered in sour cream, wild onions, crumbled baked pig fat and thick rich naka butter one after another into his mouth, chewing them up and swallowing them down. An empty platter sat in front of him, the deviled eggs missing completely, the bones of the suckling pig were tossed carelessly in a bowl that had held trout stew, and the bowl of potatoes was nearly empty. Four bottles of elven whiskey lay scattered about the table, with Fraker using the fifth to wash down the potato before grabbing another.

The elves that had been in the inn when Fraker had entered were long gone, the stench of human sweat, unwashed human body and rotting blood having driven the delicate race out of the inn within moments. When the door opened to admit a quartet of richly clothed eflan in robes, Fraker dropped one hand down to rest on the butt of his axe and popped another potato in his mouth with the other.

"Be thou Fraker of the Bloody Axe, the Herald of Carnage, Stygian Lord, Disfavored Son, Iron Lord and He Who Cannot Be Bound?" one asked in an old Trade Tongue, gliding forward in such a way that made it seem as if his feet did not move him forward beneath the hem of his robe.

"That's usually what people say right before they scream and run away, only not so fancy and without the rest of the garbage," Fraker answered in Stygian Wave accented Trade, after taking another long pull of the bottle of whiskey. He ignored the shocked looks as the elves around him flinched back from the obvious sounds of the language of the armies of the Blossom of Death. "Save the speeches, what do you want?"

"Our town is besieged by forces most foul..." the elfan began, but stopped when Fraker gave out a tired sounding groan and shook his head before reaching for another potato.

"Let me guess, you have no idea why, but a creature or group of creatures has been attacking your people, despoiling your crops, and in general making your lives miserable," Fraker grumbled around a mouthful of potato, still apparently ignorant of the flinching of the surrounding elves as the accents of the tongue spoken by the armies that had subjugated the Six Worlds was spoken in their home. "Now that I'm here, you want me to grab up my axe, don my armor and go rushing off to save you, right?"

The elves withdrew for a moment, murmuring to one another in High Elvish, arguing over what to tell Fraker and what to withhold. Their town was under attack by a kobold horde that seemed to grow larger with every attack. The kobolds had sent a half dozen of their number into the elven village and waited, jabbering in their "primitive tongue" until the elves ignored them long enough they went away. Then they began stealing livestock and putting them in pens near their shabby and shoddy village until the elves could send their warriors to liberate the animals, followed by marking the doors of outlying farmhouses, then most recently by burning fields or killing and despoiling the livestock. They agreed not to tell Fraker that the horde numbered in the hundreds of the raptor-like creatures, all of them carrying steel weapons and wearing armor, as well as not telling him about the strange markings they had left on doors, outbuildings, boulders, massacred livestock, and carved into trees around the village.

Fraker had managed to polish off the last of the potatoes when the elves came gliding back, looking serene as they waited until Fraker finished pulling down the dregs of the last bottle of whiskey.

"We are under attack by a horde of kobolds, they have been steadily encroaching on..." the leader, wearing the most jewelry and the best tailored clothing made of the finest cloth with the best embroidering, started but came to a halt when Fraker held up one huge hand.

"Right. You want me to go out and stop them before they gather the numbers to overwhelm you," Fraker interrupted. "They're toward the mountains, and they've started burning your crops and slaughtering your animals, then ruining the meat." The elves began to draw away again, murmuring to one another about how of course Fraker knew what was going on; Eternals were not like other mortals, even elves.

The massive hero stood up, rolling his neck so that it popped like a man stomping on an armload of branches. "I'll go take care of it."

* * * * *

Fraker staggered toward the base of the granite cliff, dragging his axe with one hand so it carved a furrow in the rich soil of the rolling hills at the base of the mountains, and carrying the basket with the other. He had stopped to examine the prints in the sand of the lake and seen that the kobolds seemed to come from the south and so he had headed in that direction. He had seen the carefully tended streppleberry, blackberry and raspberry bushes and knew he was getting close, even though he hadn't heard any rustling in the bushes or the chirping of any Peepers. Once in a while the Peeper in his belt-pouch gave out a trilling cry, and then seemed mournful when it wasn't answered.

As he approached the forest, he slowed down, seeing marks left here and there that pointed at a tribe up ahead. Markings told that they grew food, tended to flocks of animals, have surplus to sell and had iron. He took in each of those in turn, nodding to himself, as he approached the forest and saw the heavy undergrowth that surrounded them. The ferns gathered around the trees ahead of him were thick and heavy, almost up to Fraker's waist, and Fraker knew that he was being watched as he approached the trees and undergrowth.

He stopped ten paces from the ferns, dragging the axe around and leaning on it. Long moments passed before a large raptor-like lizard came slowly out of the ferns, linked steel rings fashioned into a large coat covering it, a long knife strapped to each forearm, and a spear in its hands. Fraker could tell by the markings that it was a male, a big one to boot, mottled green with bronze streaks above the eyes, and the human was surprised that the tribe was willing to allow the male out of the dens without an escort. The hero knew that the male should have been escorted by at least three females, based on his size, his coloring and his patterning. The fact that he was wearing armor, carrying weapons and unescorted meant that the elven village was days or even mere hours from being overrun.

The kobold hissed and chattered like a boiling copper teapot with a loose lid. Fraker stood and listened for a long moment, watching the kobold's body language. It kept tapping its feet, showing it was very upset, agitated or excited. The ears being laid flat against the reptilian skull, the tail end slapping and how the head was pulled back on the long thick neck told Fraker that the kobold was furiously angry.

"I am Fraker the Axe," the human rumbled. The kobold nodded, gulping, then dropped down until his neck and body was on the ground, the underside of his jaw pressed against the grass, his arms and legs spread out and his tail flat against the grass. The kobold watched nervously as Fraker hefted his axe, causing the kobold to flinch slightly and close its eyes. After a moment it opened one of them, staring at the massive Eternal that stood above it as Fraker hung the axe on his belt.

Fraker slowly set down the basket, undoing the leather straps on top of the basket and lifting the lid. The Peepers were ducked down, their little heads lifting up slowly after several seconds, looking out of the basket nervously. The prone kobold's eyes opened wide and it made a soft sound of longing and hope.

"Go on, toward the ferns, they're waiting," Fraker told them, and the Peepers swarmed out of the basket and toward the ferns. There was a chorus of high toned trills as smaller kobolds burst from the ferns, hopping forward to each scoop up a Peeper in gathered hands. They held the Peepers close, crooning to them almost sadly, but a tone of hope could be heard in the chorus. The females touched them, softly, almost reverently, and tears rolled down from their eyes as they stared at the little Peepers that they held so unexpectedly. Fraker could feel their grief and joy from where he stood a dozen yards away.

Two Peepers remained in the basket, the bronze and the silver, both of whom were hunched down and trembling. They were frightened, knowing that their coloring meant that most tribes would stomp on them to kill them, that they were feared as bad omens, but they longed to join their fellows that they had come so far with. They began keening sadly with loss and longing, tiny tears rolling from their eyes and down their necks.

"My Step-Mother has sent you two gifts. They will make sure the Peepers stay safe, will strengthen your tribe once they grow, and help protect you once they reach maturity," Fraker said, reaching down and scooping the bronze and silver, one in each hand. The prostrate kobold jumped up and looked into each hand, sniffing, then drummed his feet, hissed and clattered, and stared at Fraker.

"Yes, my Step-Mother knows that these colors are feared, but they have felt her touch in their eggs, heard her sing songs and have known my presence," Fraker told it. The kobold looked nervous, despite Fraker's reassurances, but did not try to step on them as Fraker set the two Peepers down and they ran toward the ferns.

"I am here about the attacks on the village of the People of the Mother," Fraker told the kobold. "Why have you decided to feast upon the flesh of the People of the Mother? What could I, as a servant of my Step-Mother, do that would make you stop before war comes to their dens?"

The kobold hissed and clattered, his tail beginning to thump and his ears flaring out again. Behind him the female kobolds had withdrawn into the ferns, clutching the Peepers to themselves closely and crooning to them. One female, small and withered with iron nails driven into her eyes but somehow able to see all the same, was crouched down and petting the bronze and silver Peepers with long fingernails, murmuring to them. Her skull mounted staff was laying beside her, nearly forgotten, and she had pulled off the fierce looking iron mask she had been wearing when she had burst from the ferns at the sight of the bronze and silver Peepers. Fraker listened closely to the War Chief in front of him, Franker's shoulders swelling and veins appearing on his forehead as the kobold kept talking. The kobold drew back, feeling and smelling Fraker's rage, and only continued after Fraker urged him too.

The amulet of Lorshani the Bitch Queen, Goddess of Carnage, Slaughter and Destruction, began to glow softly beneath Fraker's shirt.