Briggs turned away, and started marching back towards the lines. “All troops are to drop all non-essential food and supplies. Start spinning up Disks for rapid withdrawal and pull out as the troops are ready. I want everyone heading for Hebian-to and encamped there before nightfall. All Aun troops are to assemble and await further orders from Aun Gluchuta.
“We’re done fighting here, soldiers. Move out and leave them to their grief and the price they paid for honor and loyalty to those that did not deserve it.”
The Mick had tagged along because he was incorrigible and decided to. He leaned over to Kris and I, and whispered under his breath, “How fast do ye think we could get word o’ what the virindi did t’ the Hea clans in the Direlands?”
I just glanced at Princess Kristie, who had a thoughtful expression. “I think the Aun and the Hea between them can come up with something suitably scathing and scornful, don’t you think?” Kris postulated.
“Aye, simple barbarian savages that they be. I’m sure they have no way to convey the magnitude of this betrayal to their kin.”
===========
Weeks later…
Hea Kurugus did not look well, but he still looked better than he had after The Betrayal.
It was mostly the workload. As the most senior and powerful surviving chieftain, the decisions that had to be made ultimately fell at his feet and hands… hands and feet that, he had to admit to himself, were looking more and more alien by the day, as if he was trapped in the cage of his own body.
He had only made the trek to the Overlord’s Fortress once, as distant as it was, and there was precious little he needed to do with the haughty and arrogant clans that inhabited the Dires, with all of its dangerous inhabitants. His job had been to oversee and raise the next generation, not engage in glorious battle with the powerful creatures of the Direlands… and serve at the beck and call of their cloaked and floating masters.
Still, he made his way to the gates of the Fortress without much incident, the magic of the Isparians dropping him literally a mile from the gates, with the Hea sentries about having absolutely no idea of how he’d gotten so close without being seen, especially coming from a soft lowland clan as he did.
Still, he wore a chieftain’s markings, and even though the least of them were more than his match in battle, respect had to be given for his seniority. Although they were arrogant and somewhat disdainful, it was the lowland chieftains who sent them their new recruits and young warriors to be turned into proper warriors. Treating them with disrespect was to dry up the pool of new warriors and tribute that came from to the fortress from afar, as well as irking those warriors who hadn’t forgotten where they came from.
They let him in with only mildly disparaging looks, seeing that he brought little with him and was doubtless coming to beg some favor from the Overlord.
It was said the lowland clans were being pressed back by the returned Isparians, a humiliating event that only indicated how soft they had become. While asking for reinforcements to drive the soft-skinned monkeys back to whatever holes they’d crawled out from was certainly within their rights, the price in tribute that would come from it was going to basically wipe out this one’s clan in the asking.
If they could not fight, their kin would be absorbed into a clan that could and would do so to defend its own!
Hea Kurugus largely ignored them and their scornful gazes, knowing what they thought, and not caring a whit about it. Some even knew who he was, and how he had quietly turned from the martial path to showing more respect for their old traditions, from the times before the cloaked masters and when their chosen had overthrown their elders with the power of the new ways.
He still knew the path, and it was fairly apparent just by the guards standing about on the approach. In older times, Isparian adventurers had often breached the gates and walls of this place, slaughtering their way through the guards, much to the dismay and disgrace of the proud Hea.
But those days were long past, and if the guards chose to think it was because it was of fear of their own prowess, well, their delusions would only last until they died, Hea Kurugus thought.
The Overlord was named Arantah, and was the oldest and most experienced of those favored by the Virindi two full generations ago. He had led the way in toppling his elders, transforming his tribe into their current quasi-Isparian forms, and had embarked on a path of conquest and war at the instruction of his masters that had only dimmed, not faded.
There was still conflicts to fight, with the undead and shades and olthoi and burun and other things, even some of the rival tribes who had grown strong and attempted to organize themselves.
The Overlord was over seven feet tall, massively muscled and wielding a great two-handed blade of much fame, perhaps the most powerful Weapon of Lightning in all these lands. Rumors had it that it had been burned out by the Fall, much like so many other magical Weapons, but the virindi had quickly replaced his symbol of power, and it was on display as Hea Kurugus was announced into the Overlord’s Hall with cold formality.
His worn condition and downcast expression were open and obvious, further indicators of his lack of strength, and the keen-eyed members of the Overlord’s Court instantly picked up on them. The more arrogant fought to hide their snickers, knowing what was coming, and wondering how badly this lowlander would pay to receive the boons of the Overlord’s warriors.
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“Hea Kurugus. Your name is known to me,” the grim voice of the Overlord rumbled out, staring down at the long chieftain, who had no allies in this hall. “Speak! What brings you before the throne of your Overlord at this time? Have your battles with the Isparians not been to your satisfaction?” was the almost mocking provocation.
“I bring a gift from the women of the clans of the East to the court of the Overlord, my liege,” Hea Kurugus bowed to the enthroned tumerok, covering a mounting aversion to the very sight of what should not be a Hea at all. Arantah was one of the very first of them to be transformed by the virindi, the one who had forced so many others into the same fate.
That checked the whole court, who were not sure they had heard correctly. Certainly he bore no packages, and the bags and packs from before the Fall, which could hold inordinate amounts of material, no longer had that ability. Indeed, he was carrying scarcely more than the minimum a hunter would take for a daily tour of their traps and hunting routes.
“A… gift, you say.” The Overlord looked him over once, seeing nothing that would indicate anything of substance. “You have come a long way to deliver a gift, Hea Kurugus.”
“The women were most insistent that it be delivered to the court of the Overlord,” he responded with a shrug there every male recognized. If the women insisted, well, they insisted, and it was not wise to invoke their ire. Better to run across half the island on a fool’s errand then to dare the wrath of all the females of the tribe, yes?
“I see.” A partial smile indicated his amusement at the thought of such travails, and the chieftain’s obedient compliance to those basically only useful for breeding. “And what have they sent you to deliver to me?”
Hea Kurugus reached into the pouch at his side and pulled out the rolled scroll there. It was of Isparian design, of paper and not hide. It instantly caught their attention as he unrolled it, and a single square unfolded above it, fine details upon it, circling slowly there in the courtroom.
“Interesting, but I fail to see…” the Overlord began, when Kurugus abruptly tore the Scroll in two.
There was only a shimmer, and the gift was towering before them for all to see.
It was a tapestry, a grand and gorgeous thing of women’s work, and the eyes of all of the Hea widened to see it. While the virindi cared not for the traditional crafts of their people, creating such tapestries was still considered high art by the Hea, things to immortalize one’s deeds and feats forever, showing the history and greatness of the objects of the weaving.
They were all on their feet, eyes going to where the story the tapestry was telling would begin automatically, reading what was there, what had happened…
And they read what had become of the Hea of Osteth, the lowlands of the east.
Of the spears of the Isparians, coming in tight formations, chasing the Hea before them. Camp after camp overcome and destroyed, hunters who never returned, the symbols of their true deaths bright and poignant as their bloodlines ended.
Forced back across Osteth, to the fortress taken from the humans a generation ago, defended by the last of Summoned armies, while the virindi worked to generate a Portal allowing them to flee. The armored armies of the Isparians waited without, and dark clouds burning with a silver lining began to rain lightning like silver spears down upon them.
A whole wall of the fortress vanished! The Overlord’s court hissed to see it!
And then the Isparians turned and retreated, instead of attacking, and foul darkness writhed and spun at the heart of Dryreach!
Death welled in the center of the clans!
Hea shamans and chieftains rose up against the robed masters in horror and bravery!
Silver spears rained down from Heaven, but the ritual of the masters concluded!
Demonic claws seized everything and pulled it all into darkness!
And what was left was a featureless crater, where the hearts of the Hea in the east had once been! Not a single Isparian had been killed!
The death symbols of clan after clan of Hea, hundreds, thousands of them, lit up and gone forever, decorated the trim of the tapestry, immortalizing those gone forever, sacrificed by the masters who, impaled by six silver spears fallen from heaven, had still sacrificed and killed them all for nothing!
They were choking gasps and calls from several members of the court who had come from the east, pointing out the symbols of their own kin among those wiped and gone forever. Brothers, fathers, cousins, even some sons-!
Some fool shouted that this was all a lie, that it had to be, but nobody even bothered to shout the idiot down.
This was women’s work, it shone in the magic upon it, the heart and feelings of mothers, daughters, sisters grieving for their mates and children and parents, striking at the heart of what it meant to be Hea. There was no warrior who could commission such a thing for falsehoods, lest the lies it was based upon show right through with the scorn of the women weaving it.
Everything this showed was the truth.
And the keen-eyed noted that, there at the end, the armies of the Isparians had walked away, and the green forms of their cousins, the Aun, waited with food and blankets.
With them were the symbols of the old Totems of Audetanga, Volkama, and Tanae… and Hea with the forms of tonk, not of tumeroks!
“Kurugus!” Arantah thundered, staring at this work, the tale of treachery pointing a clawed tonk finger straight at his masters. The disdain and the scorn of the females shone from it, spitting and hissing, like his own mother was clawing at them in hate and spite!
But of the lowland chieftain there was no sign, nor any indication of how he had left.
Arantah stared at the work showing the true nature of his masters, and his eyes fell on two of the Clan Totems embroidered about the edge of the magnificent work.
They had been soft and cared nothing for the glory of war, but they still had been his sons, their mates, his grandchildren…
He knew his masters could not be allowed to see and understand this, or it would be destroyed as the poison it was. Likewise, he knew he could not destroy it, or half his court would rise in rebellion against him right now, and the Hea tear themselves apart.
“Bring it to the third assembly court. Conceal this from the masters,” he ordered curtly, and if the calls and rumblings of the warriors flocking here fell only slightly, they did fall. “Ensure all see and understand this, and know our true status in the eyes of the atual arutoa.”
The very fact he used an old tonk description for the cloaked masters silenced all of them. Careful word was passed, making certain no virindi was on the path, and the floating tapestry carefully ushered from the court to a long-unused side assembly hall with both no traffic and more space than his court.
Hea Arantah, the Tumerok Overlord, sat back on his throne and contemplated on the course he had taken his people on, the uncaring emotionless nature of his masters, and the scorn and disgust of the females of his people.
His masters would probably not like where the women were leading him...