Galgador, Drorman’s peak, Dagger household

“You think it went well?” Kal Morphis asked, his legs crossed, his back surrounded by a slur of towering book-cases, golden-crested books of magic

“It went quickly; which is what I asked,” Helten Fang responded.

“Quickly doesn’t automatically correspond to well, Helten,” Del Spine, son of Siegfried Spine, responded, his fingers twirling the rim of his goblet, eyeing one of the female servants.

Helten’s face, as if not already plagued by annoyance, twisted, and he turned to his son-in-law, “Just because your married to one of my pitiful daughters doesn’t mean you can talk back to me.”

Kal coughed awkwardly, and spoke with a hushed tone, “Family feuds are done now- permanently. We have resorted to our apex plan, which seems to have succeeded terrifically. More so that one of my spies reported to me that even the Princess herself got involved.

Del’s eyebrow rose at that. “Amber? Your spy must be blind. I am confident she has interest in the son of Howard.”

“Interest?” Kal scoffed. “It must be as faked as the friendship between the king and Lord Fang.”

“The relationship between our foolish king and the father of a bastard may be as truthful as a virgin’s kiss, but it doesn’t change the fact it has since then deteriorated and warped after influence of the Knightshood. That is no concern of mine.”

A shocked silence in the room. Helten continued, “After the degradation of the Fang family, I’m sure the Princess must’ve realised her role to play in this ordeal; although I am not sure who influenced her to commit such an act. Possibly her father, possibly a gilded one from the Knightshood. All that matters is that another pawn has joined, another stepping point.”

“Understandable, but what is the next stage?” Del asked.

“Simple. We eliminate their manor, and dethrone Howard and his foreign wife, the dreaded bitch.” A new voice, a woman’s, who had entered the large room escorted by two guards.

“Who’s this?” Morphis nodded to her.

Helten, acknowledging her presence with a mere nod addressed it formally, in a nice choice of words, “Mistress Ekma, head of the Jalas family, under leadership of the Spine.”

“My Lord,” she bowed towards Del, who her oath was pledged to.

She was a beautiful looking woman, the sharp-fox faced kind, with purple lustrous eyes, like a mixture of gooey honey and soft, thick and beautifully intricate gold. A smooth lump of it all, dangerously combined in a potent mixture, with that sharp tongue of hers, and those long eyelashes. Black locks of hair, almost midnight black, fell down below her shoulders. Her eyes traced over to Kal, who instinctively looked away, as if momentarily afraid his presence was inferior. They glazed over to Helten now, who sat cross-legged, his whole posture lazy, fluid as if he had not just undertook one of history’s biggest overthrows. She met his stare. He returned. He did not falter, in fact he leaned forward, eyes digging into her like blades.

She hesitated, her mental clockwork ticking, continuously, endlessly. Then she smiled, “As Lord Del knows, a privately funded militia needs to move without discrepancies, and be ambiguous.”

“I take it this is why you didn’t want your coup done with my troops under leadership Azal?” Morphis turned to Helten.

He shrugged, “Better to have mercenaries that don’t give the King a hint. Although I’m more than sure the weakness of their Empire will be eradicated.”

“The soldiers I used, the Morser, they are honour-bound. Good men to rely. They leave no magical evidence, and by now, are already transporting this Fang bastard.” She glanced at Kal as if to say, not you, the other one.

“Our priority is to seize Kal’s brother, and destabilise their armed forces.” She continued, leaning against a bookcase, her guards moving back to join others outside the door.

“The guards, whatever’s left, at our household are disgraceful. We will have fourty-two on duty tonight.” Morphis said.

“Exactly?” Del seemed suspicious.

“I counted myself.”

“A traitor has to be confident in his shrewdness, Darling,” Ekma said softly, a thin smile across her face.

Morphis twitched at that, and he gripped the rests of his chair.

“What of my part of the ordeal?” Morphis asked, his true colours permeating the room.

“His ordeal?” Ekma asked.

“It is,” Helten started, a grimace on his face, “it is what I promised him. You and your family of North Clou Drou, you will have a partial claim to the Fang household after its current family has been eradicated. But it will be a coalition.”

“A cooperated rule? Are you jesting?” Morphis said, slightly more than agitated.

“Must I repeat myself?” Helten said with a threatening voice. “You are blood-related to the North rebels. Be glad I give you this much.”

“And after Helten is charged?” Del asked, a look of dread spreading across his face.

“We contact the Elite Judge Maximus, and make him fortify the treason of the Fang family under word of the Holy Order,” Morphis spewed his words, in an awkard way, as if he was hesitating.

A savage grin spread across Helten’s face, “And then we go to the Knightshood, and let them take Howard’s daughter.”

*

The Conglomerate, Iron Isles, Fields of Nort

The darkness of the fields was enveloping, like an embrace from death. A subtle nuance, left free to permeate the rolling expanse of grass-plains without the envy of penetrating light through the clouds.

Through this darkness, through the depths of the hills, across the shambled, dirt path rode the royal line of fifty-or-so, clothed in drapes similar to the blackness of the sky, the Wildfangs they rode in similar coats.

Out front, beyond the carriages led by Maws, was the golden allegiance, the fabrication of whatever loyal scraps the wasteland could spew out. A congregation of the powerful few, to rule over the many weak; a ruler fit to overpower the mongrels of the rock-deserts.

“No longer does the stretches of the field encompass the Conglomerate,” Dreadd, the Steelrealm captain pointed out.

Gorr remained silent at that, his Wildfang muttering in low growls instead. It was true though, since the corruption that came with the fall of the Antecedents, the grassland of the Conglomerate, especially the outer nations of Dermus and Mercus quickly warped to rocky-wasteland, the last few pieces of land fighting a losing battle. It was only a matter of time before it collapsed in on itself. Irondune, the most eastern country was the last place of prosperity, and Gorr intended to keep it at that.

“Bell, send word of the Godhand’s arrival at the outer reaches of Heaven, let my brother know I have arrived,” Gorr spoke as if he was constantly at his wit’s end, his grey hair a symbol of his quick to end nerve.

“A-are you sure my excellence, rumours announce that his machinations lie somewhere north with the savages of the Expanse, he~”

He interrupted her, “Send. My. Word.”

Bell shifted at this, her Wildfang whimpering too, and she nodded quickly, before fluttering into the darkness ahead, the pools of light her torch emitted slowly fading into obscurity.

“Enemies to the north: the Karatis islanders, enemies to the east, the giants, the Galgorians in the west. What do you plan to do?”

“I plan to exterminate them,” Gorr grumbled in response.

“Exterminate them how my excellence? Your title of Godhand does not stretch far enough to gather influence or allegiance outside the Conglomerate.”

“My title as the Godhand, Dreadd is enough to justify means of allegiance with the Lunam in the Greater Forest. Their dark magic will vanquish my opponents, if needs be by assassination. The Galgorians rely on legacy only, their days of supremacy under leadership of Aegon is done. They sit on fat nobles and disgraced bastard lineage.”

Dreadd stopped at that, his dark mane fluttering in the icy-wind, thick eyebrows arched in a brooding manner. “And of the northmen? The rebels to the Gals?”

Gorr scoffed, “Savages, no better than the tribes in the east, I will not return my brother’s eagerness to cooperate with the barbarians.”

“But my excellency! That’s the best fucking chance we have at~” Dreadd’s outbreak was ceased, his rapid stream of tough words strangled out of him by an impossible force. He spluttered and coughed, his face straining, cheeks going red. An invisible force gripped him.

He screamed in silence whilst Gorr rode silently on.

Something shimmered then, like a pale flash of illuminance in the sparse sprawl of trees to the convoy’s left. Gorr heard a couple soldiers behind mumble something, a few speaking slightly louder. There was a rough crackling of leaves, as if a massive wildfire had been set loose.

“What on hell’s realm?”

He heard a shout far back, like a declaration of war.

A tree snap, cracking splinters of wood echoing through that empty valley.

And then, “Giant!”

The warning did not save them, the giant lunged through the opening of trees, smashing three- no four, entire trunks to smithereens, a shower of splinters raining down and it roared, a fast moving shape in the darkness.

It was hard to see, Gorr couldn’t see more than a few meters in front of him. His invisible grip on Dreadd regressed, and time seemed to slam to a halt, as a cacophony of screams shuddered through the night. The giant pushed forward, swinging brutish hands like battle axes through the main part of the convoy, smashing carriages, swiping apart Wildfangs like mere pups. Within thirty seconds over twenty were dead.

Gorr, eyes wide open swore under his breadth, and spun round on his Wildfang, its teeth bared, and rushed back round the convoy. He shouted back, “Dreadd, take the Maw, use it! Use the fucking thing!”

Another bellow from the giant. Two Wildfangs howled, leaping forwards, digging into the thing’s ankle. A flurry of arrows whizzed overhead, slamming into the beast, but most bounced off its chest plate. Chestplate signalled it was a tribesman, from the Expanse. Quickly, the giant was surrounded by Wildfangs, who tore at his legs, like their ravenous wolf cousins, except almost five times larger. It grumbled, and slammed its foot down, sending guts splattering over a dazed soldier.

“Form the wall! Form it!” He heard a commander shout, and the remaining soldiers lifted up shields in a curved line of two, the ones at the back raising their shields upwards. They slowly shifted back, but their line was quickly broken as the giant picked up a soldier by his leg, and swung him over twenty meters into the terrified line.

Gorr, riding full speed on his Wildfang slowly stood up, the fast winds threatening to throw him over as he maintained his balance on the saddle. He unsheathed an axe, a fine piece of smiting weaponry, and wore a snarl, rapidly approached from behind.

He leapt of the wolf’s back, a metal flurry erupting from the axe’s edge, like metallic fire, smashing into the back of the giant’s knee, piercing its thick skin, blood spurting everywhere, painting the ground.

It’s entire body shuddered, as it dropped to one knee. A well-aimed throw got a spear jammed into it’s right eye, before it could gain its bearings. A good-dozen soldiers started to enclose it before one turned around.

“Move!”

Gorr, laying on the ground dazed from his aerial attack watched the Maw bound into the giant headfirst, both heading onto the ground. The horns of the Maw were massive, the length of two men, strong enough to pierce metal. And it did: straight through the chestplate, into the skin of the beast. As both fell, the Maw’s tail whipped round, like a snake, and coiled itself round the giant’s body, constricting.

The giant, its screams like an animal being butchered, died in the night, leaving the scraps of men heaving in silence, their eyes still fogged from fear.

*

The halls of his brother’s ‘lair’ always imposed a visage of tyrannical fortitude. Massive hallways of strong rock, layers, upon layers underground, the smallest section over ground. The massive courtyards, tens of kilometres across of barren, stretched beyond the eye can see. Speculation had asked for confirmation on its usage. But as most of the Ironthrawl family, his brother had remained silent, not avoiding, but probably not caring enough.

The journey here was perilous, the casualties immeasurable, many of his escort consisted of close friends who swore allegiance long before Gorr became Godhand. But now, under the guise of relations, he travelled halfway across the land, to appease to his weaker Lord brother. Despicable in the eyes of his followers.

“Murs of the metals. You bring these fowlers to the lands of the metal gods? You appease no one,” one of the soldiers at the massive mechanical gates said with a voice deeper than even Gorr’s father. He was the largest man Gorr had ever seen; then again, everyone who surrounded his brother seemed to exceed psychical limitations. Gorr was over six foot, yet this man- this beast in copper and iron metallic suit- was more than two heads taller. On his back an axe, but in his hands… the thing in his hands is what would always surprise not only the men of his envoy, but the entire Conglomerate.

It was what his brother called a ‘rifle’. A projectile weapon beyond conception- supposedly.

Dreadd looked up through bloodied hair. Even he, the first to defend his Godhand, had no effort to stand up against this beast. Other guards nearby, behind that gate, looked onwards, smug looks on their faces. The men behind Gorr dragged themselves like lost gods.

“I am the rightful Godhand of Irondune, and the Conglomerate. Me- my men too- are exhausted. But do not think for a moment that your suit of armour will protect you from me,” Gorr growled in a low voice. Magical prowess was a dictator in this world, no matter where you lived, the most valued magician would always prosper. Gorr knew of this too well, his brother too.

The guard looked at Gorr, then Dreadd, and then turned to look between the bars of the gate, at fellow soldiers who were equally disturbed.

“Widen the wretched things.”

Walking through, into the lair, giant stone statues of men stood, holding their swords downwards. Since younglings, his brother valued the legacy of the Stone Timorians, strong mortal men, who didn’t rely on magic to rule and defend the earliest tribes of humans on Luthadel. It’s said they were the true defendants of the world, former relics, reworks of their prior Lords of Timore: who dismissed as evil because of their creations by the banished god Daidric.

But these were all legends, of course. The Timorians, like his brother, were mortals, who came to the realisation- or more like the ignorance- to avoid magic, and rely on physical prowess or skill to rule. A nice concept, but a blissful dream.

Cogs built into the wall; mechanical forms of shifting poles, coursing through the underworks of stone walls. Steam would regularly pump out from protruding pipes. The entire damned place ran on the same mechanised heresy his brother so much loved. Dark, blackish liquids flowed through transparent panels in the floor, thick like oil, but fluid like water, like tar. He knew it was the energy that fuelled his automatons- these dreaded monsters made of metal, metal and coal, exhaling steam.

Gorr, Dreadd and twelve men, the last few who could stand- the rest in casts and thatch beddings like babes- entered the hallway of Ironthrawl history. Large statues of past family members, mothers, aunts, grandmothers, even stretching beyond that. Lastly, near the massive leather-padded oak doors, the statue of father on the right, mother on the left. Tall tyrants as it were, possibly not human, but gargantuan beasts of the night, in their cloaks of fire, and their hair blacker than night. Gorr slowed by his father, his stone eyes watching him pass.

“Father…” Gorr began under his breadth. But the air escaped his lung, as a rumbling groan filled the halls, the wooden doors hissing as they opened free from human touch. Light rippled the borders of the metal, steam hissing, cogs whirring beneath the transparent floor panels.

“Ah,” the small man beside the throne let out an involuntary mutter, and glanced towards the entering men. His robes of white indicated his political neutrality, advisor to the Lord beside him, who sat in a fur gown far too large for a man. On the balconies that wrapped round the high points of the hall were crossbow men, more than two dozen, their eyes watching with an unresistable urge to shoot.

Beside the Lord were enormous, metallic pots, pots with the face of bears, teeth bared, eyes wild and crazy. The top of their heads were exposed, bowls of coal there.

And at his brothers feet, a Warbear, the biggest animal Gorr had seen in his forty years. It’s ice-white fur smothered only by golden armour, crested with horns of black, and tints of pearly silver. It’s head perched up at Gorr’s arrival, and its mouth formed into a snarl, black lips exposing teeth the size of daggers.

“Brother,” Gorr began.

The flames atop the metal bear heads exploded, bursting five meters high, taller than two men, crackling and thundering in anger, their eyes illuminated red.

“Do not!” The Lord boomed, his voice like thunder. “Do not, come into my province, and whisper words of ‘brother’ towards me,” he growled.

Gorr scowled, glancing at the men behind him, hands hovering over swords.

“Tell your men to drop their weapons,” the Lord rose his hand in a dismissive way.

They looked at Gorr in fear. He nodded. It was the clattering of swords and daggers on the ground which started the Lord to speak.

“You have come here, not to speak in terms of relations, I suppose,” his voice was deep, like the epitome of darkness.

“I have come here to ensure that the Lord Thoron of the rock lands will not choose to claim land of the Irondune, as I expand outwards to the Karatis islands.”

The advisor looked around with wide eyes, and whispered something to Thoron. His face darkened.

“What happened to your men?” He waved a hand at the few left.

“M-monsters of the dark,” Dreadd said quietly beside Gorr.

“A giant; not a wild one, not a rogue, a tribesman.”

The Lord’s audience shifted, the various soldiers around shocked.

“It killed over half of us in less than a minute; a massive fucker, at least fifteen meters tall, hands big enough to crush a Wildfang.”

“How’d you kill the beast?” Thoron asked.

“The Maw did.”

Lord Thoron chuckled, “The Maw? You still use such barbaric beasts? Pathetic.”

“We use what we have,” Gorr said through grit teeth.

“So you’re saying the tribes from the Expanse have sent their soldiers of the night to attack us? Before you made movement towards the Karatis islands, they’ve already sent their forces?”

“I am saying that the war has already started.”

Gorr was angry. He knew it was nonsense, blasphemy for the Godhand to come and appease some Lord, but he knew his brother was stubborn, and powerful. He couldn’t risk an attack from behind. Yet here he was, appeasing the same vile man he called brother.

“You ask for aid, for my word of peace, yet you so easily foiled my attempts of allegiance with the northmen of Clou Drou?”

“They are the ones responsible for Aegon! They’re not to be trusted!” Gorr spouted in refusal.

The Warbear stood now, eyes petulant, a snarl with drool posed at the Godhand. Anger bubbled through Thoron, Gorr could see, but he laid a calm hand on the bear’s head.

“You….” He started, barely unable to control his anger, “You attempted to kill the leader, Morphis Kal, on our meeting of peace. You tried to frame me. Do you honestly think, such treachery is forgivable?!”

“It was my duty as Godhand!” Gorr spat.

“The duty of Godhand is to lead Irondune to victory, not to cower in cowardice from the potential of facing untrusty allies. You’re a disgrace.”

Silence at that.

Gorr chuckled, his brows arched in confusion. He was getting delusional, he could feel the fatigue stretched across his body. To his side Dreadd was barely conscious, whispering and chuckling to himself.

“You think you can rule the Conglomerate? You think you can control the Lunam, or possess the power to fight of the Galgorians? You have nothing- you are nothing~”

“I will defeat the Galgorians,” Thoron started, “and I will destroy my enemies. Not with my men, but with my army of metal gods, beasts forged from machinery. But I cannot do that when a weak coward is in control of the country’s taxation or their people.”

Gorr’s eyes opened at that. “What?”

“You heard me. It’s like you said, the war has arrived. But this war will not be won by you.”

Gorr paled in confusion, his fingers stretching, a spell already on his lips.

“It will be won by me.”

He rose his hand, and the arrows were let loose.

*

35 years ago

The forest was darker now, the high Pines, topped with blankets of ice white, frost climbing down the trunks of the giants, sprawling across the ground in frozen masses. The snow stretched beyond the tree frontier, out onto the large sheet of ice that consumed the twisting snake of the lake, spreading small cracks outwards.

Thoron stepped on a stick, a crunch louder than thunder in the silence of the forest. A flock of Wintercrows escaped into the fading light, cawing and screeching in a cacophonous stretch. Snow fluttered down from the shaking branches above.

“Damnit brother!” Gorr cursed grabbing a tight hold of Thoron, pulling him back roughly. “How many times have I told you acting foolishly will end in me having a dead younger brother?”

Thoron looked up, into those startled, wide-eyed greyness that consumed his brother’s eyes, “S…sorry,” he trailed off quietly.

Gorr shook his head, calming his grip, and looked sideways outside the treeline, where the path of the Whiteback deer sprinted off, laid in the snow.

“Praise the Iron gods it left a track,” Gorr sighed, and the two crept out into the wide open.

“It’s tracks…it’s tracks are massive, bro,” Thoron whispered, looking at the hoof tracks which were nearly as big as his head.

Gorr chuckled quietly, adjusting the longbow in his hands, “Yeah, big game equals big food. Enough for an entire feast at father’s tonight.”

“I’m sure uncle Rob could eat the entire beast by himself,” Thoron laughed, a squeaky little one, and rather at the joke about their fat uncle, Gorr laughed at the ridiculous laughing.

They traversed the path of the river, upstream before it was frozen, climbing up the side of the gentle mountain-bottom. They followed the tracks that split into the entwining tree branches, the trail getting less and less pronounced as the deer’s panic softened and it calmed. Just after hallway following the tracks, Thoron couldn’t even trace the physical imprints on the snow, yet his older brother was easily able to identify the discrepancies in the magical traces the deer left behind. He didn’t even look down at the ground once to confirm if he was following the correct trail; he just moved, fluid within the path of the underbrush.

Thoron tripped more than once, each time Gorr stopping to help him up.

“Sorry,” he would whisper, face red and hot in shame. His brother would nod each time.

They came to an opening, on the far right, nestled between two massive Grentwoods, a small cave opening, fragmented stalagmites around its opening. It stank, around there it did. Like rancid corpses.

But there in the opening, more than a man tall was the deer, a female- no horns, luckily- grazing at some frost-bitten weeds. Its black eyes were scanning as it ate, surveying the outcrops of trees. But Gorr pushed Thoron’s little, inquisitive head down, rolling his eyes, fingers tight around the shaft of his bow.

He knocked an arrow and turned to Thoron, “Do it.”

Thoron did, slightly panicked- seeing the desperation in his brother’s eyes- scrambled for a parched piece of paper with his numb fingers, whispering out the sprawled script of magic. As he did so, he slid his thumb over the shaft of the arrow, and as he did so, heavy magical essence painting the wood in a shimmering light.

“One hit with this, and you finish it with the blade,” Gorr started, hushed and quick, “Its not your first hunt, brother. But this is your biggest- but it’s the same vital as always.” He stopped to tap on the side of his neck, left of the jugular vein.

Thoron must’ve nodded about twenty times like a rapid fire crossbow, and Gorr grinned.

He knocked it again, this time glowing with purple, ambient energy, shutting an eye and exhaling deeply. He confirmed one last time, looking at Thoron, who crouched with a wicked curved knife in his hand. At least twelve inches long.

He mouthed,

Three

Thoron lifted slightly from his knee.

Two

He started to lift up now, legs beginning to push up.

One

On one he lept out. He lept out to early, only two seconds early, but still too early.

The deer turned, eyes wide, and it screeched, a tremendous noise. Gorr bit his tongue, and released the arrow.

It boomed forwards, a powerful shockwave rippling behind it, exploding the snow around the opening. It moved fast, too fast for Gorr’s eyes to track. It slammed into the Whiteback deer, but not its jugular, rather just below it, the bridge between lower neck and shoulder. Thoron was already on it; but much too early, at the stage when the beast was most ravenous, bucking, jumping and kicking.

Down there, thrashing with the shaking deer in the snow frightened Thoron. He couldn’t see anything. There was too much snow, splattering everywhere, in his eyes, on his face. The deer reared, blood spurting out, and it slammed the arrow into Thoron, snapping it in half, a slice in his upper chest. His arms tightened round its neck, knife just catching it below the eye. It shook more, trhashing wilder.

And then something moved. Hidden by the massive shape of the deer in front, atop him. But he heard it move, and then a terrible crunch, the deer above him suddenly still, dangling from its neck. Dazed, he looked up at the Wildfang, black fur, green eyes, snarling with the animal in its jowl. It tossed the deer aside, right on top of Thoron, leering in.

He screamed, and the Wildfang’s mouth dived in. If Thoron had not raised his hand, it would’ve been his face that was ripped off. Instead, it tore into his forearm, like hundreds of daggers, its head moving and shaking roughly- he screamed and screamed, seeing flesh tore off, blood spilling everywhere.

It released its grip, black lips painted red, and then reared back to attack his face. And then Gorr tackled it, magical energy exploding from the collision.

Thoron’s mind dipped in and out of consciousness then, sobbing quietly, the threshold of pain he had, broken. His head lopped to the side, and with blacked vision, he gazed at his brother punching with enflamed hands, and the wolf biting and snarling in response.

When Thoron next woke up, it was in his brother’s arms. At first glance he thought Gorr was sobbing uncontrollably, but rather, it was blood dripping down from a bloodied eye, his face in ruins, hair so bloodied no trace of its original colour was left. They both leant across the trunk of a tree, the dead body of the wolf sprawled across the ground, mutilated.

Gorr grinned in-between tears of pain, “We didn’t even manage to get the deer.”

*

Present

“Lord? Lord?” The faded voice of his advisor collected itself into reality.

Thoron rubbed his temple and looked down at the dwarfish man, “W…What?”

“I…” he started, licking his lips as if he had just eaten, “I understand what has just occurred is extremely difficult but~”

Thoron’s fist curled. “I killed my brother, Sneglar. I killed my last relative.” His eyes stung.

“Y-you have to understand it was for the good of this country, it~”

Thoron snapped, a vicious snarl across his face and he picked up the meek man by his neck, strangling him, eyes wild.

“Was it worth it?!”

“There,” he gasped in between quick breaths, “there are always sacrifices.”

Thoron said nothing, but tightened his grip. Soldiers around on the catwalk were startled.

“People…people will die on the road to victory, my Lord,” he whispered, eyes starting to roll back.

Sneglar dropped to the ground rasping and wheezing. Standing up like some sort of undead, he coughed, “The various lords of Irondune and the Conglomerate, it is our duty to convert them.”

Thoron adjusted his collar and started walking down the catwalk, the breeze of the massive carven blowing into him, “Converting a collection of different nations is difficult. Especially after the legacy… the legacy he left.”

“Doing it yourself is useless, my Lord. Something bigger is required.”

Involuntarily, they both glanced towards the side, over the railing, into the massive pit of darkness where it stood.

“No. Not yet.”

Sneglar chuckled stroking his beard, “No not that. A notion. One with a message.”

“Get to the point, lecher.”

“A Crusade. Mobilise the forces of our country and the ones beyond for the good of imperialism.”

Thoron recollected his thoughts. Travelling to each, individual Lord of the Conglomerate- and then the dreaded Woodthicket- to tell them that the ex Godhand was executed by his brother for land would not convince anybody. The runt advisor suggested a Crusade, not begging on the power of deceased Gods, but the true Gods, the machine and metal ones.

“Order the act. A three-year conquest Sneglar. No purging, just order and stability. Contact the three Lords of Irondune first, get the Timorians, the Sacred gunslingers, tell them to obtain their armies of gold. Go; go!”

Left in the silence of his cavern, with only the few trailing footsteps of soldiers to break it. He took a deep breadth.

And clicked his fingers. One by one, across the entire space, great pots of fire lit themselves, sparks erupting, flames bursting meters high, lighting entire walls at a time. In those pools of light, behind the wooden thatches of support columns and platforms where abandoned tools sat, was where it stood. He glanced up, craning his neck. It stood taller than anything he had ever seen; gargantuan, a goliath of unparalleled magnitude, its shadow could be cast across half the sea. Three legs, a tripod, each leg a mechanical marvel on its own, coils of electrical copper lining in between sheets of dark steel bigger than entire cathedrals. On top, supporting chimneys that spouted steam, was the head of the beast, such intracity, such detail that one would not deny if reality spouted ‘heresy!’.

But he stood in front of it, in front of his creation. His weapon.

And the thing that startled him? It wasn’t even his main fighting force.