Parabellum dispatched messages to the zeraph clans nearly two weeks after they had made landfall. Things were not going smoothly. As Sarin predicted, the dragon worshippers were leery of them. They had seen the phantasm that drew Shrike to the fortress but immediately suspected that Zhu was not a true long. Thus, they refused to head to Parabellum as Zhu had suggested and demanded to meet on neutral grounds instead.

This compromise would have been a lot more reasonable if the climate wasn't so harsh, and the lands weren’t teeming with insane technology-hating fanatics that could turn into rabid gothic horrors.

Many of the synths were offended that a bunch of quote-on-quote savages had the gall to dictate terms, but Zhu appeased them by arguing that, ‘as the more sophisticated and advanced society the onus was on them to show their inferiors what proper conduct looked like’.

Of course, he could have easily just told them to shut up and pound sand, but Zhu figured he owed it to Sarin to try a more diplomatic approach.

“My people are not savages!” Shrike growled in zostian as she layered up.

“I never called them that.” Zhu paused and scratched his chin. “Wait no, I think I did.” Another pause. “Yeah, I definitely did.” Shrike’s glare only broadened his grin. The young woman had quickly come out of her shell after she agreed to be his official squire, or, as he preferred to call her, his unofficial back scratcher. He had missed having somebody call him a cunt to his face. Having the fiery redhead by his side almost made up for the time she had seen every significant embarrassing detail of his life.

“Eh, I throw out that word a lot cause I like the way it sounds. Honesty, I’d say that every civilization that ever existed was barbaric in some way.”

“Well, my people will not be inclined to ally with you if you keep insulting them.”

“Pfft, whatever happened to sticks and stones? Everybody should be insulted at least five times a day. People would probably take themselves less seriously.” When Shrike continued to stare at him with her arms crossed, Zhu just scooped her up and placed her on the base of Flufflepuffle’s neck. “You sure you don’t want to hop in the kangaroo pouch? We’re talking a nearly twenty-foot fall if you slip off.”

“I’d rather crack my head open than sit in that thing,” she said flatly.

“Eh, suit yourself, but I am feeding you to Captain Crunch if you turn into a brain-damaged retard.”

“If I am going to end up in someone’s feeding bowel, at least make it Pathogen’s.”

“Sorry, she’s allergic to gingers.”

Human mercenaries mounted on tenontosaurus zamburaks and ostrich-like beishanlongs made up the bulk of the accompanying war band. A pair of formidable quillgores marched at the very front and back of the column. The shantus and jumbos trotting within the center of the formation served as mobile artillery, and a dozen tropeogueras provided aerial support.

Beisha

“How come we didn’t take one of your kasais or tarrasques?” Shrike asked to prevent Zhu from yammering about whatever random thought popped into his head.

“Not a good idea to bring a bunch of giant carnivores to a peace meeting. My beasts are well trained, but they haven’t gotten to eat as much as they liked, so better safe than sorry, right?” Shrike blanched at the thought of a giant dinosaur scarfing down a zeraph. She banished the disturbing images from her mind and turned her head towards the quillgore. “That thing eats plants?” she asked, staring at its formidable horns and hooked beak skeptically.

Quillgore

“Usually,” the ceratopsian's draconic rider chuckled darkly. “Meat is not good for them, but they enjoy the taste. Something to keep in mind if dealing with your kind proves too much of a hassle.”

Shrike’s dagger-like glare was a pair of bread knives compared to the blades gleaming within Sarin’s golden eyes. Dargoth, feeling the intensity of her stare on the back of his head, cringed.

“You are here to help nurture positive relations with the zeraphs. If putting on a friendly face is beyond your means, perhaps you should return to Parabellum.”

Dargoth bared his teeth. “I will fulfill my mission! I was simply making sure the savage knows her place.”

Shrike opened her mouth to say something but thought better of it. She growled when Zhu gave her an approving pat on the head. Out of all the synths, Dargoth was the one most likely to betray him. Zhu doubted the pseudo dragon would outright stab him in the back, but he wouldn’t be surprised if the warmonger was guilty of subtly undermining him.

“Will you stop that?” Shrike growled when Zhu continued to play with her hair.

“No, keep acting natural, archduke,” a voice resonated in his head. “We are being observed.” Zhu resisted the urge to look back. He glanced at his tooth bracelet instead.

“Who and how many?”

“Two groups of luddites positioned within the trees on our ten and two. It’s hard to say how many humans there are, but Sarin thinks there are between twenty and thirty furry elephants amongst them.”

“Elephants?”

Dargoth clicked his teeth. “They are surprisingly stealthy, but they could use some pointers from a saboteur. Sarin recommends we pretend we don’t see them to entice an attack. Your orders?”

“Massacring a bunch of guys would be a weird way to begin a diplomatic mission.”

“I believe the zeraphs consider these luddites their sworn enemies. Bringing their heads on pikes may make them more amicable to us.”

“I am not opposed to making allies with these elephants too. I wanna try speaking with them. See how radical they really are.”

Zhu didn’t wait for the warmonger’s reply. “Defensive formation!” he cried out. The tentos formed a loose ring around the others. Once the dinosaurs were in position, they kneeled, allowing their riders to operate the swivel guns mounted on their backs more effectively.

Zhu stepped outside the defensive circle and waved in the ambusher's general direction.

“Howdy neighbors! Names Zhulong. I live in that big ass fortress that plopped down recently. Heard you guys have some problems with us. Instead of chucking spears and arrows at each other, how about we discuss the issue like gentlemen?”

For several minutes, the luddites remained in their hiding spots. Eventually, the trees parted, revealing thirty large shaggy pachyderms. Nearly a hundred smaller figures were scattered amongst the herd.

“Huh. That’s a lot more than I thought there would be,” Zhu muttered to himself. “Okay, do any of you speak zostian?”

A worn elephant matriarch stepped forward.

“Fool, how can we possibly entertain peace when you are not even aware of the atrocities your kind committed against us?”

“Well, I won’t know until you tell me, so quit pouting and say your piece.”

“My ability to speak your kind’s foul tongue is one of the many scars you despicable dragons left on my kind! They forced their despicable language and practices onto us and called it uplift! They destroyed our homes and called it progress! They killed and enslaved all that dared to resist, and when we thought you had already taken everything from us, you defiled these lands!” Her large, frost-bitten ears flared out as she continued her furious rant. “Look at this disgusting coat of hair that shrouds my body! We had to beg Shiagaur to alter our bodies just so we could survive this hellscape!”

Her enraged gaze moved towards his troops. “You wish to negotiate? Fine! Here are our terms—surrender your head and your slaves can keep their wretched lives!”

“No,” Sarin replied.

The matriarch glared at the winged lamia. “Then you will all die! We will shatter your limbs and add your bones to Shiagaur’s sacred fossil beds!”

Zhu clacked his jaws. “All right. At least we know where we stand. I am going to go ahead and chill out in the middle of those giant armored dinosaurs. Feel free to send an ambassador to my fortress after you try and fail to get through them.” The luddites jeered when he slipped between a pair of shantus.

Shantu

“Why are you trying to negotiate with those barbarians?” Shrike seethed.

Zhu shrugged. “I always liked elephants. It’d be a shame to kill them when they all died out on Ear—” he caught himself when he noticed Sarin paying rapt attention. “Uh, I like elephants.”

“I concur with Shrike’s judgment.” Sarin stated coolly as she conjured a greatbow and quiver of arrows. “These luddites have declared their hostile intent and have little to offer us. We should eliminate them with extreme prejudice.”

“Why not just kill them for the sake of killing?” a dark-skinned mercenary named Bludd asked. “Can’t remember the last time I had elephant steaks.” His fellow humans cheered.

A neander beside him chuckled lustily. “Well, not let’s not get too keen on bloodshed, lads. I think I see a few women there.” He licked his lips. “Never fucked a green gal before.”

“I ain’t fucking a neanderthal!” a man with a burnt face growled.

“Yeah, we’ve already got enough mongrel half breeds!” another pale human jeered. The neanders in the party glared at the man but said nothing.

“We’re not taking captives!” Dargoth snarled. He glanced at Zhu. “Unless the archduke says otherwise, of course.”

Zhu's tail rattled as he let out a weak laugh. “Wouldn’t recommend it, boys. Those ladies look like the type that bite! Fire a volley or two and let the rest limp back to wherever they came from.”

The luddites tried to stir themselves into a frenzy. The dobuwana stomped their feet in rhythm whilst the neanderthals beat their chests and screamed. It took quite some time for the luddites to muster the courage to engage. Their first move was to pepper Zhu’s force with obsidian-tipped atlatl darts. The jumbos and shantus absorbed the hail of projectiles with nary a scratch. The cold climate enabled them to wear incredibly thick gambesons and caparisons without fear of overheating. Nothing short of light artillery fire could have penetrated their textile armor.

“Should we return fire, cap’n?” a zobaka sniper crouching within a shantu howdah asked.

“No,” Sarin answered. “Gunners hold fire until the elephants get within fifteen yards.”

“Shouldn’t you be the one taking command?” Shrike whispered to Zhu. The pseudowyrm just shrugged. When he created Sarin, he designed her to be more interdependent than her previous iterations. Her earlier predecessors would inevitably sacrifice themselves to save him. Those loyal acts only inconvenienced him, given that he could respawn and they didn’t. Sprinkling a bit of selfishness into their personality dramatically increased the lifespans of Sarins Thirteen through Fifteen. When it was all just a game, there hadn't been any noticeable drawbacks to their altered personality. He hoped that was still the case.

The neanderthals continued to pelt them with darts with little to show for it. When they ran out of ammunition, they traded worried glances and returned to their allies’ sides.

“You ready to talk now that you’ve run out of toothpicks?” Zhu jeered.

The matriarch howled out a string of curses in reply.

The luddites may have rejected the olive branch Zhu offered them, but they were still not eager to press into melee. As Dirge had asserted a few cycles ago, few of the luddites had ever fought a true battle. Most of the conflicts that took place in the Fringe were short skirmishers that inflicted few casualties. These experiences did little to prepare them against the terrors of assaulting a solid formation.

“Jumbos, force them to commit to melee,” Sarin ordered when their enemies continued to dawdle.

“Huh?” one of the dull-witted dinosaurs grunted.

“Throw rocks at them,” Zhu clarified.

“Oh. Ok.” The jumbo looked down at one of his beloved boulders. “Bye-bye bouldy.”

Once the giant saurians said their farewells to their beloved boulders, they hurled the twenty-pound stones at the most densely packed group of neanderthals. Their accuracy was terrible, but the one that hit made strawberry jam out of a woman that failed to get out of the way.

“You sure you guys want this fight?” Zhu called out.

The matriarch threw a rock in his direction.

Realizing they had to go on the offensive, the dobuwanas trumpeted and advanced. Encouraged by the awe-inspiring sight, the neanderthals charged behind them.

“Swivel gunners aim for the infantry. Wall gunners target the elephants, disable their legs if possible,” Sarin commanded as the luddites closed in.

Dargoth scowled at the uncohesive mob. “Pathetic.” He plucked a great arrow from his quiver and eagerly waited for them to get within the killing zone.

Several mercenaries twitched nervously as the tide of green bodies converged on them, but refrained from squeezing their triggers until the command rang out.

“Fire!”

Battle cries turned into screams.

Chunks of flesh and bone went flying as hundreds of lead pellets plowed into the mob of neanderthals. One man that got especially close had his face blown off. Only his lower jaw remained affixed to his neck when he flopped to the ground.

Bits of case shot tagged several dobuwanas, but most of the elephants had the foresight to give their allies a healthy amount of space. Subsequently, their anti-trampling measures saved them from the worst of the sprays. Not that it mattered. Agonized trumpets rang out when huge lead balls shattered their kneecaps.

In an instant, the luddite horde had been laid low. Those that were still ambulatory fled for their lives.

“Shall we run down the survivors?” Bludd asked. He and the other beisha riders grinned at the fleeing neanderthals wolfishly.

Zhulong stared at the carnage. He watched a grievously wounded woman crawl towards a mangled man. She grabbed his hand and sobbed into his chest.

“Looks like we’ve already killed or crippled all the elephants. Let the neanderthals that can still run go. They aren’t worth the effort. Let them tell their friends what happened here. Put the ones that can’t move out of their misery.”

Evidently, his followers decided to loosely interpret Zhu’s order, for terrible suffering awaited those slated for dispatch. The mercenaries hopped off their tentos and descended on the neanderthals like vultures. They pried ornate clubs from still warm hands and bickered over beautiful jade daggers.

Dargoth observed their petty squabbles with contempt. “Pah trinkets!” The warmonger pulled out a carchadin dagger and closed in on the matriarch. Her forelegs had been skewered by great arrows, but she remained standing.

“I won’t go down easily, you filthy dragon!” Dargoth, unable to understand her hollow declaration, casually waved several dinosaurs over.

“Hold it down.”

A shantu rammed the matriarch’s flank. As she toppled onto her side, the hadrosaur reared up and slammed its forelegs down on her hips. Whilst the shantu continued to apply weight to her shattered pelvis, a pair of jumbos grabbed her forelegs and spread them apart. Licking his fangs, Dargoth approached the immobilized matriarch's chest and got to work. The matriarch tried to maintain a stoic facade but, in the end, she died screaming.

Shrike grimaced and looked away. “Do they have to do that while they are still alive?”

A giant horned head entered her field of vision. “Heart stones lose half of their potency if they are removed from a dead body.” Sarin informed her matter-of-factly. She stared at Zhu as she spoke. “Are you alright, creator?”

Zhu glanced in her direction. “Yeah. Why?”

“You seem rather subdued.”

“Just wondering if we are going to be late.

“I will send a tropeoguera to inform the zeraphs of this unexpected delay. I am sure they’ll understand.” She smiled as she watched a tropeoguera scoop up a severed arm. The hand seemed to wave its last farewell as the pterosaur shifted it around and swallowed it whole.