Akhustal Palebane opened her eyes to the soothing chirps of the lizards and the warm light of the morning sun leaking through her window. Well, not really; the Stragman people still made their home in the dark, cavernous, sunlight-deficient confines of Hoxoni in the south of the Stragman forest. But in her mind, those warming rays of light and familiar sounds were as real as the glow of the glowmoss by her bedside. For the first time in seasons, Akhustal felt content. She smiled as she stretched. Today was sure to be a very special day.
The guards offered a firm salute as Akhustal strode into the Stragman government headquarters some minutes later. Making her way through the various hallways toward her personal chambers with a confident smile on her face, nodding to the array of government functionaries saluting or bowing as she passed, she arrived in perhaps the best mood of her life and gave the door a hearty tug.
To her befuddlement, it refused to open.
“Tepin?” she called, pounding on the door several times with her oversized balled-up hands. Not once in her life had this door ever been locked when she’d arrived. Tepin always unlocked it when she arrived, which was generally well before Akhustal bothered to wake up. “Tepin, are you in there?”
There came no answer.
Akhustal gave a mental shrug. This whole situation struck her as rather strange, but she wasn’t about to let a locked door ruin her day. Not today. With a single swing of her club, she bashed the lock into pieces and pulled the freshly remodeled door open.
The room inside stood undisturbed, everything as it had been left the day before. Nobody could be found inside.
“Tepin?” she called again anyway. What was going on? Though weak, the Shell basically never missed a day, and on the incredibly rare occasions that she did, she always made sure to arrange a temporary replacement. For her to not only be absent but also to fail to find a substitute would simply be annoying on any other day. For it to happen today, however, left a strangely ominous feeling in her gut. Tepin was a Shell, so wouldn’t she want to be present for today’s events more than anything? Akhustal told herself that it had to be just a meaningless coincidence, but the feeling wouldn’t go away. Furrowing her brow, Akhustal left her chambers and headed down the hallway to the office of General Stonefist-hono, the head of Stragma’s Intelligence apparatus and another notorious early-riser.
“Have you seen Tepin?” Akhustal asked as she barged into his room, interrupting some sort of briefing. All the assembled Stragmans stared up at her in confusion for a moment, caught off-guard by her sudden forceful arrival, before jumping to their feet and saluting their leader.
“Is something the matter?” the general asked.
“Yeah, Tepin’s missing,” Akhustal grumbled. “She wasn’t around when I arrived.”
“Strange, I have not seen her this morning either,” Stonefist-hono replied, rubbing his chin. He looked around at the assembled intelligence officers. “Have any of you seen the Shell anywhere this morning?”
They hadn’t.
“Have you sent somebody to her home?” the general suggested. “You know how frail she is. Perhaps something happened unexpectedly.”
“Normally Tepin would be the one handling that,” Akhustal griped. Still, General Stonefist-hono had a good point. Marching back out, she headed back towards the building’s entrance and grabbed two of the guards outside. Once they’d gotten over the shock of her massive mitts grabbing them by the shoulders from behind, she ordered them to go retrieve Tepin from her home, wherever that was. She was sure they would be able to figure it out.
Patting herself on the back for a job well done, Akhustal decided to head out. Normally, she’d need Tepin to give her the day’s agenda, but today there was only one thing that really mattered. A skip in her step, she headed into the caves, making her way deeper and deeper into the city.
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The massive cage swayed as it moved, the pulley system bringing it ever so slowly closer. Akhustal tapped her foot as she waited for the cell to arrive at the edge of the Chasm.
“Make it go faster!” she growled at the Shells as they turned the large, heavy gears installed to power the system.
The Shells shared a look, seemingly arguing with each other silently. One of them seemed to slump silently, having apparently lost.
“Please forgive us, Chos,” the Shell said while looking at her feet. “We must be cautious. Too much force might cause the stone above to break under the strain.”
Akhustal scowled. This was an unexpected first: a Shell was talking back to her. Yes, his tone was reverent and respectful, and he gave a legitimate reason, but he was still a Shell refusing a command from a superior—the Chos herself, no less! Such a thing would have been unthinkable even a year ago, but Shells had grown bolder in the last season. It was all the fault of the man in the cage far above them. If he hadn’t shown up...
If he hadn’t shown up, she would have lost hope. That was the truth that she had trouble admitting to herself but which, in the end, she could no longer deny. Had Rudra never come into her life, her days would have been much simpler and easier, but they’d also be without hope. Her husband would be gone for good and she’d be horribly, terribly alone. But now that was about to change!
A loud clamor back by the entrance to the Chasm’s cave broke her from her thoughts, and she turned to find the two guards she’d sent to fetch Tepin emerging from the tunnel. Both seemed nearly out of wind as if they’d sprinted through the city without stopping. Yet for some reason, they were alone.
“Where is she?” the Chos demanded to know.
“We could not find her,” the one guard admitted, gasping to catch his breath. “She was not at her home, and those living nearby claimed they had not seen her since the early evening the night before.”
“What? Then where did she run off to?”
“Please forgive us, Chos. We don’t know!”
“Impossible! You incompetent fools!” she barked. Glancing back, she found the cage only seconds away from touching down onto solid ground nearby. “Stay here. I’ll deal with you two in a moment.”
With a snarl, she whirled back around and marched towards the cage before suddenly halting in utter shock. The side with bars was facing away from her, the cell having rotated during its travels, so she could not see inside. But already her sharp nose had picked up a scent, one that she was amply familiar with: the scent of blood.
Ripping a glowmoss stick from the hands of a nearby Shell, she raced around to the side with the bars and door. There she came to a complete stop, her mind unable to process what she saw in the glow of the mosslight. Large splotches of dried blood stained the cell floor. The glowmoss that had covered the ceiling just the day before was gone, now only a dead, ashen husk of its former self. And deep in the gloom, sitting back against the far wall, were too many people. One too many, to be precise.
Some part of the Chos noticed the large man and his alarming condition. With a bloodstained cloth wrapped around his head and eye, along with another around his large arm, he instantly reminded her of the walking wounded she would see after every battle with the Drayhadans. The sight sent a shiver of fear down her spine as the implications of Rudra’s premature death flashed through her mind.
But most of Akhustal Palebane’s attention focused not on the man but rather on the limp, lifeless figure on his lap. Though the face was turned away, she would recognize that wilted silver tail and that silver hair and those triangular ears anywhere. She’d found Tepin, somehow in the one place she couldn’t be.
“What is this?!” she hissed. Quickly she pulled out the cell key and yanked the door ajar, boundless rage coursing through her veins. She was here! With him! What was she doing in the cell? How had she even gotten inside?
Akhustal’s grip on her club tightened as her vision tunneled in on the back of her assistant’s head. How dare Tepin backstab her like this?! That woman knew just how much of a thorn in Akhustal’s side that man had been! Yet here she was, going behind Akhustal’s back to secretly meet with him! If the purpose of Tepin’s actions was to anger the Chos as much as possible, it had worked grandly.
Fury-fueled murderous thoughts rampaged through the Chos’s mind. Akhustal’s first instinct was to swing her club down upon them both—she’d done so before, back when Rudra had first refused her, smashing him through several walls with a single arc of her weapon—but the man was far too important for her to risk anything. Not now, when she was so close to getting Caprakan back by her side. She paused, and in that moment of hesitation, the elven prince’s lecture two days before bubbled up inside her mind. She’d almost done exactly what he’d accused her of doing and let her anger drive her actions. Even now, the urge to strike them both down blazed inside her, screaming at her to act. Yet she suddenly found that, now that she recognized it, that urge no longer had the same hold upon her as before.
“What are you doing here, Tepin?” the Chos snarled.
“Don’t bother. She’s out cold,” Rudra replied softly.
“I don’t care. Wake her up,” the Chos ordered.
“I’ve tried. She won’t come to,” he replied. Gently, Rudra turned Tepin around, revealing the comatose woman’s blank, non-responsive face and blood-soaked front. Akhustal’s eyes went wide at the sight of the blade-shaped holes in her top. They went right over where the small woman’s heart would be.
“Guards! Get in here!” Akhustal roared. Quickly, the seven guards in the cavern rushed into the cell as fast as they could. They assembled in a small mass to her right, looking about and at her with confused glances.
“Take her from here and lock her away in the most secure cell we have,” she commanded.
As the guards warily advanced on Rudra, the large man scowled and wrapped up the minuscule woman on his lap with his arms in a protective embrace.
“Give her,” she ordered. “Now. Don’t make this any worse than it already is.”
“No,” Rudra responded with defiance in his eyes.
“I want her out of his arms this instant,” a seething Akhustal commanded the hesitant guards. A ruthless grin grew on her face as an idea hit her. “Use your weapons. Cut her into pieces if need be. He can always just bring her back.”
“Don’t you dare!” Rudra warned, glaring between her and the surrounding guards as they pulled out an assortment of blades.
“Or what?” she smirked back. “You can’t protect her from all seven of them at once. Or will you finally find the courage to fight?”
As the Shell glared about, she saw an anger in his gaze that she had never seen in him since his arrival, but that anger soon gave way to resignation. Rudra’s shoulders slumped and he let out a defeated sigh. “Promise you won’t hurt her,” he bargained.
“You’re in no position to make demands,” she replied.
“If you hurt her, then I will never revive your husband,” he stated resolutely. “Even if that means I die. You will never see him again.”
A spike of pure fury lanced through her soul, but Akhustal held herself back, if only barely. “Very well. Hand her over and she will not be harmed,” she agreed after a moment. Akhustal hadn’t planned on hurting Tepin anyway, not before she had wrung every last drop of information out of the diminutive woman. And after that... well, who could say what the future held?
A reluctant Rudra handed Tepin’s limp form to the nearest guard and the group filed out of the cell. Akhustal followed. While her plans for Rudra and the war still hung over both their heads, she needed to reassess the situation.
As Rudra’s cell began to lift off the ground, Akhustal stared into Rudra’s eyes, unblinking. “I’ll be back,” she stated to him, her words sounding much more like a warning than reassurance.
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Sitting in her chambers, Akhustal was struck by just how quiet and lifeless they felt now. Tepin had never been one to make much noise, but just her presence had been enough to lend a little life to the place. The Chos had never really realized the importance of that small contribution until now that it was gone. Though filled with furniture and hunting trophies, her chambers somehow felt empty.
Her mood foul, Akhustal brought her club down upon a nearby chair with a frustrated snarl, crushing it and sending splinters flying everywhere. Letting off steam like that usually made her feel better, but the five destroyed pieces of furniture littering the room indicated that this time was different. Even now, several hours since the incident in the cell, anger still poured through her veins unabated.
For some reason, Akhustal found that she was taking this whole thing far more personally than she would have thought. At first, she’d believed her rage to be a consequence of Tepin’s complete disrespect for her orders as the Chos. Indeed, the Shell spitting on her authority did contribute to it to some degree. But now, hours removed and still seething, Akhustal realized that there was more to it. This was personal. This was somebody she’d trusted wholeheartedly going behind her back to join with her second-most-hated enemy.
Akhustal wondered if this was what it felt like to be cheated on. The feeling of having her trust violated left her feeling dirty and abused, and it just made her angrier by the second. No amount of smashing would calm that down any time soon. No, what she needed weren’t more things to destroy. What she needed were answers. That was why she’d ordered General Stonefist-hono to get to the bottom of this whole affair. All she had to do was wait, though that had proved far harder than expected.
Luckily for her, she didn’t need to wait much longer. A quarter of an hour later, the General of Intelligence entered her chambers. The man gave a side-eyed glance to the wreckage strewn across the floor but wisely chose not to comment on it.
“Finished already?” she wondered. “I thought you said you would need several days.”
The general let out a cough. “Our investigation is ongoing, Chos,” he respectfully replied, a strange hint of anxious, worried energy in his voice. “However, our preliminary conclusions are alarming enough that I believed you needed to hear them as soon as possible.”
Akhustal frowned. General Stonefist-hono was a very thorough and cautious man who never liked to give his assessment to anything before he’d inspected every single detail. This didn’t bode well. She solemnly nodded to the man and sat down in the closest still-intact chair.
“Have you figured out how she got into the cell?” she asked.
“While the exact method is still unknown, we’ve managed to narrow the possibilities down. The wruelit interrogations of the guards stationed at the Chasm entrance have completed, and we have cleared all of the guards of suspicion of bribery or treachery, as we have confirmed that none of them saw Tepin Silverfall even once yesterday. It seems safe to say that Silverfall did not get into the Chasm’s cavern through the tunnel.”
“But that’s the only way in or out,” Akhustal objected.
“Indeed. We have people checking the cavern for any hidden or new openings, but so far we have found nothing. At this point, I doubt we will find anything. There is a much more likely third possibility: a third party. Somebody with an ability to travel unseen and infiltrate locations that should be impenetrable.”
“Really? I’ve never heard of such an ability.”
“Nor have I,” the general admitted. “But strange powers have appeared before. There are likely many things that people can do that we have never known. Regardless, my theory is not just idle speculation; there is too much circumstantial evidence pointing to at least one more person being in the cell last night.”
“Oh?”
“Between the blood and the burned glowmoss and the injuries on Kapadia, it is obvious that a fight had occurred in that cell last night. You likely know the two people in question better than almost anybody. Would either of them attack each other?”
Akhustal let out a dismissive snort. “Not a chance. Tepin is too weak and Rudra is too stubborn.”
“So there must have been more people there last night, including somebody who took Silverfall inside the cell. And then a battle of sorts occurred, and in the end they abandoned Tepin inside.”
“There were stab holes in her top,” Akhustal added, her mind whirring with new thoughts. “Somebody wanted her dead.”
“Somebody likely tried to kill them both, judging by their wounds,” the general agreed.
“So where is this person, then?”
“We’re not sure. If they can move about as I suspect, then they will be incredibly hard to hunt down. Or they may already be dead. There is too much blood inside that cage to come from just the two of them.”
Akhustal let out another snort. “You aren’t seriously suggesting that those two...”
Stonefist-hono shrugged. “Stranger things have happened.”
“But there was no body in there. If somebody died in that cage, then the body should still... the Chasm!”
“Precisely. It hasn’t been easy to find anybody willing and capable to descend into the Chasm, but we’re working on it. Since it’s such a treacherous climb, and given that there’s nothing of value down there, it seems that nobody has bothered to go down in generations. I believe we will find the people we need soon though. We’ll know if there’s a body down there within a few days.”
“Well done,” Akhustal said with a nod of approval. “I want these people hunted down with everything you have. Somebody with that sort of capability cannot be allowed to move about unchecked under our watch.”
“Of course, Chos,” the general agreed. He fidgeted for a moment, seemingly nervous about something. After a moment, he spoke again. “That wasn’t the reason I came to you so early, however.”
“Today has been long enough already,” the Chos grumbled. “Just get to the point.”
“Very well...” the man gulped. He took a breath before speaking again. “It is my belief that Tepin Silverfall is in league with the Hidden Fang.”
The words stunned Akhustal for a moment, leaving her speechless. Perhaps sensing her state, General Stonefist-hono continued.
“Along with the two Shells, we also found a wruelit inside the cell, which seems to be the same animal that Kapadia requested as a pet shortly after his arrival. More so, small crumbs of wruelit food were found inside Silverfall’s clothes. This suggests to me that she was taking care of the creature. However, I doubt she would just take the thing with her to visit Kapadia for no reason. This meeting was obviously an important one, given what happened. A wruelit would be an unnecessary distraction. Which means that she brought it because she was asked to. Which means that there has been a line of communication between Kapadia and Silverfall already. Perhaps she had even visited him before.”
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“What are you trying to say?” Akhustal asked, a strange mix of confusion and dread welling up inside her.
“What I am saying is that I do not believe that Silverfall simply tracked down these people and convinced them to take her to Kapadia last night. The evidence points to the idea that they have been working together for much longer than that. Once I realized this, I began to see other events in a new light. Do you remember the murder of General Burningbriar-hono?”
“Who could forget?” Akhustal replied as her mind leapt back to five years prior, when General Burningbriar-hono, one of the top generals in the nation, had been unmasked as a Shell abuser. The woman would take male Shells and use her superior strength and position to force them into unwilling sexual activities for her own private entertainment. Akhustal had been shocked at the time; Burningbriar-hono had always been publicly outspoken as a supporter of Shells and their treatment.
Shell abuse was a crime just as much as any other. The general had been found guilty and locked away for a sentence of ten years. However, just days later, with guards just paces away, she’d been killed in her cell in the middle of the night. Nobody knew how the culprit had gotten in or out. Once news of the murder came out, the Hidden Fang had claimed responsibility for the act, saying that it was retribution for the lives she’d ruined.
“Over the past ten years, there have been seven murders where nobody has been able to figure out how the murderer entered or exited the scene,” Stonefist-hono reminded her. “I looked up the files again to make sure. All seven of them had in some way harmed Shells. The Hidden Fang claimed credit for three of them.” He leaned forward, his eyes gleaming intently. “I believe it is highly likely that the Hidden Fang possess somebody capable of getting into Kapadia’s cell, and likely capable of bringing people with them. And if Silverfall has made use of them more than once, then she must have ties with them.”
“But if she was one of them, then...” Akhustal’s voice trailed off as the deeper meaning of his words struck home.
“Exactly. Why has it been so hard to hunt those bastards down? So difficult that you demoted the last two generals for failing to do exactly that? Why is it that our sting operations always seem to fail, as if they know about our plans before they happen? Being able to move unfettered about the city helps, but that wouldn’t save an entire organization. No, the reason they have survived for so long is that they had somebody on the inside. Her. Tepin Silverfall.”
With a furious cry, Akhustal stood up and turned around, smashing her massive club down upon the chair she’d been sitting upon just a moment before.
“That fucking bitch!” she howled as wood chips and stuffing flew through the air. She turned towards a nearby table and swung again, sending it flying against a wall in bits and pieces. “She played us! She played me!”
The Chos’s rampage continued as she proceeded to systematically destroy nearly every object in the room, as well as parts of the room itself, the absolute mess she was making not even crossing her mind. All she could think about was how Tepin always seemed even more tired and weary than usual the morning after a trap for the Hidden Fang failed, or how she attended all the intelligence meetings to take notes, or how her predecessor, a Blou the Chos genuinely liked, had died in a tragic fluke accident all those years ago. She’d been so blind, all this time. It had all been right there if she’d just wanted to see it.
“FUCK!” she roared out, loud enough to be heard over the din of her room’s demolition. The ground trembled as she unleashed every ounce of rage that had built up inside her over the course of this trying day.
Moments later, Akhustal stood surrounded by debris, her massive chest rising and falling as she huffed out the last of her fury. Not a single item, outside of General Stonefist-hono, had been spared her wrath.
“Um...” a small voice chimed in from behind her, by the door.
“WHAT?!” she snarled, whirling on the voice to find a young guard who immediately cowed under her stare.
“I-I’m uh... here t-to report as ordered that the... um... t-the prisoner is awake,” the guard squeaked out before quickly retreating behind the door frame and out of the room.
The Chos directed a grim smile towards her subordinate, who stared, dismayed, at the layers of rubble strewn across the floor. “What do you propose I do with her?” she asked.
“A public execution, of course,” the general immediately responded. “Show the Shells the cost of treason.”
“Hmmmmmmm... perhaps,” Akhustal mused. “But before that, I think it’s time that the two of us had a little chat.”
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Tepin Silverfall laid on her back on the cold stone floor, staring blankly up at the featureless ceiling above. The woman didn’t react to the Chos’s arrival, nor when Akhustal shooed away any prying eyes and ears so that the two of them could talk in private, even going so far as to move all the nearby prisoners elsewhere for a while. Only the slow rise and fall of her chest and the occasional blink told Akhustal that Tepin was alive at all.
“Just yesterday, I never would have believed that I would find my most straight-laced subordinate locked in a cell, and yet here you are in your second one in a single day,” Akhustal quipped.
Tepin didn’t respond.
“You were always so reliable. Whenever I needed a job done right, I knew that I could leave it to you and you never disappointed. I trusted you, Tepin. I believed in you.”
Still, no response came from the figure in the cell.
“Well?! Say something!” she snapped. “You think you’re better than me, don’t you, laughing behind my back as you used me for years!? I treated you as a friend and you treated me like a fool!”
“This isn’t about you and me,” Tepin finally replied, her voice flat and empty. Her head turned towards the Chos and she stared at Akhustal with cold, unfeeling eyes. “And for the record, despite what you might wish to believe, you have never, ever treated me as a friend.”
“You’re right, this isn’t about you and me, it’s about you and your betrayal!” Akhustal shot back. “How dare you lecture me after you betrayed your own people, you little worm!?”
“I betrayed my own people?” the Shell asked, seemingly unconcerned. “Who are these people I betrayed, I wonder? The Honos? The Flegs? The Blous?”
“All of them! You betrayed the entire nation!”
“Are not the Shells part of our nation as well? And yet you seem to consider working to better their lives to be treasonous. It’s almost like you and your kind never viewed us as Stragmans at all. In fact, until the strike, I bet you barely ever even realized we existed.”
Akhustal’s face twisted into a snarl. “You dare accuse me-”
“I do,” Tepin interrupted, her voice still calm and composed. “I accuse all of you. You and your generals and the other Honos and the Blous and the Flegs. All of you. You blind yourselves to the suffering and injustice because it’s simpler and easier to just turn away from the truth than to admit to its existence. My crime, it seems, is having eyes clear enough to see more than just what I wish to see.”
“Enough of this,” the Chos growled. “I wished to speak with you in private before General Stonefist-hono and his people got their hands on you out of gratitude for your years of service, but I see now that I was a fool to ever treat you with any sort of respect. You have a choice, Tepin. You can tell me who you took orders from in the Hidden Fang and how to find them, and I promise that your death will be swift, painless, and private. However, if General Stonefist-hono and his people need to wring that information from your skull—and I know that you know just how capable they are—then know that your death will be so horrible that even the Drayhadans will weep for you. What will it be?”
All the Shell did was let out a small, unconcerned yawn.
“You-!” the Chos growled, her hands clenching around her club’s large handle with all her might. She was the one with the power, the one standing outside the cell! So why did it feel like the prisoner on the other side of these bars had the upper hand? This was supposed to be the time when Akhustal could lord her power over Tepin and make the always-composed Shell squirm and beg for mercy!
“One small benefit to being as weak and sickly as I am is that threats of pain and death don’t mean much anymore,” Tepin remarked with a smug smirk. “I was supposed to die decades ago; I have already made my peace. If I must leave this world, I would much rather do so watching you try to strangle that absurd stick of yours as I take my secrets with me.”
Akhustal ground her teeth in anger at Tepin’s nonchalance. This woman was acting so infuriating, pushing every single one of the Chos’s buttons! It was almost like she wanted to die!
As the Chos glared daggers into the cell, she realized suddenly that she might have been more right than she’d thought. Nobody alive knew Akhustal better than Tepin did. Was the Shell truly trying to work her into a fit of rage, hoping that Akhustal would end her once and for all right now? It seemed so! But why?
Suddenly something in the Chos’s mind shifted, and everything about the whole situation fell into place. Before, this whole mess had felt like being lost in the densest areas of the Stragman forest, where vines and leaves grew so heavily and the mist was so thick that you could barely see your hand in front of your face. But now, it was as if the mist had vanished and the leave had parted, showing her a path all the way back home. She smiled.
“He cares about you, doesn’t he?” she said. Akhustal’s keen eyes picked up the subtle twitch of the Shell’s ears, and she seized on that like a predator around their prey’s throat.
“You know what? I changed my mind,” she said warmly. “You deserve to live a long, healthy life here in this cell. I wouldn’t want to distress those who care about your well-being, after all.”
“W-what?” Tepin hissed, suddenly and unexpectedly flustered for the first time. Her eyes went wide in fear as she realized what Akhustal meant. “Don’t you dare!”
The oversized woman’s smile grew into a large, vicious grin. “Funny, he said the same thing.”
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The cell touched down on the cavern floor with a loud thump of finality. Humming a cheerful tune, Akhustal unlocked the cell door and stepped inside to find Rudra still sitting against the back wall.
“Rudra, my friend! Have you even moved once since I left this morning?” she laughed. “It’s important to stay active, even in a place like this. Hungry?” She held out a ripe kaharl fruit near his face.
Rudra looked up at her, confused by her drastic change in attitude. He eyed the fruit with suspicion, but eventually grabbed it and took a tentative bite, and then a second larger one.
With another chuckle, Akhustal clapped several times. A moment later, several people entered the cell behind her, carrying between them a stretcher of sorts. On that stretcher laid a withered and desiccated corpse. Without a word, they deposited the stretcher in front of the large Shell and left.
Akhustal stared at the man expectantly. “Well?” she asked when he didn’t move. “Get to it. Bring him back!”
Rudra looked at the mummified body at his feet, visibly unsure what was going on. “Who is this?” he asked, his mouth still half full of fruit.
“It’s my husband, Caprakan Bloodflower-hono, you idiot,” she replied. “Who else would it be? Now start doing that thing you do. I’ve waited long enough.”
Rudra swallowed.
“I haven’t agreed to anything yet,” the man objected after taking a moment to collect himself. “What about the terms we discussed yesterday? I want proof that you-”
“Oh, I’m not going to do any of that anymore,” Akhustal interjected. “I don’t need to. I have your lover.”
Rudra visibly paled at her words, though he quickly caught himself and tried to put up a false front of bravado. “You can’t make me-” he stubbornly began, but the Chos was having none of it.
“Oh I can do whatever I want,” she interrupted once more. “I’m the Chos. You made me forget that for a while, but that’s over with now.”
She crouched down onto the balls of her feet and stared at him with a glorious newfound fire in her eyes. “Here’s how it’s going to work from now on. You are going to give me everything I want—the return of my fallen army, the Shells fully cooperating again, all of it—and in exchange, Tepin gets to keep breathing. It’s that simple. Should you decide to make a fuss, then I invite you to imagine the slowest, most painful way to die. I assure you that what poor little Tepin will endure will be many times worse. It will be horrible. It will be agonizing. And when she eventually breaks, I will have her burned to ashes and scattered about the forest. You will never see her ever again, and you will get to live the rest of your life knowing that you sent her to her demise. I’m done playing around, Rudra. Is that understood?”
The Shell bit his lip as he seemed to wrack his brain for a way out of his situation.
“I know what you’re going to try,” the Chos said before he could speak again. “You’re going to try the same tactic you’ve always used and dig your heels in. You’re going to say that if I don’t release her, you won’t resurrect my husband or anybody else. That isn’t going to work this time, I’m afraid. You see, it turns out that Tepin is actually one of the most wanted and reviled criminals in Stragman history—one of the Hidden Fang, a group of terrorists hated by all who are not Shells. But I’m sure you already knew that, didn’t you?”
Akhustal smirked as her eyes caught the momentary twitch on Rudra’s face before he quickly covered it up. She kept going, putting on the pressure.
“Now, the streets are already buzzing with the news about you and her. I tried my best to keep it all under wraps—even locked up the witnesses—but word gets around, you know? But the public only knows that she was with you. They don’t know about who she really is... yet. Too many people know the truth; it’s going to get out eventually, and when it does, there’s going to be an uproar the likes of which none of us have ever seen. When they find out that she is alive and well inside a cell, instead of hanging in the public square where she belongs, they’re going to riot in the millions. They will hunt her down, drag her out of her cell, and carry out the justice they believe in.
“But they won’t be satisfied with that. Oh no. Poor Tepin is a Shell, and her treason will turn everybody’s anger on those like her. Tens or hundreds of thousands of Shells will die to their rage, and I will be powerless to stop them. Even many of my own troops will probably be a part of the riot, regardless of my orders. They’re all very angry about the strike and all of that, you know.
“There’s only one thing I can think of that will guarantee her safety: the people also learn that her continued survival is the key to them seeing their dead loved ones again. That is a price they will be willing to pay, and I can make sure that that news spreads as well when the inevitable happens.
“You don’t have a choice anymore, Rudra. Disobey me and she dies, either by my hand or the hands of the people. It’s that simple.”
The Shell looked lost, unable to find a way out of his predicament. The growing despair she saw on his face brought a perverse joy to Akhustal. It felt so good to finally have the upper hand.
“I want to see her. Every day,” Rudra finally responded. “Nobody harms her.”
“You are in no position to make demands,” Akhustal flatly retorted.
“I’m not going to agree to any of this if you could just kill her anyway without me knowing,” he said. “I want her brought to my cell every day for two hours, so I can know that she is still alright. If you do that, then...” Rudra sighed despondently. “Then I will do what you ask.”
“I will allow one hour, and nothing more,” Akhustal replied. “Enough talk. I’m done waiting. Bring him back.”
With another forlorn sigh, Rudra shifted onto his knees and leaned over her husband’s corpse. For several moments, nothing seemed to be happening. Just as she was about to open her mouth and express her outrage, the body transformed in an instant, going from a mummified corpse to living breathing flesh in a tiny fraction of a second. Caprakan’s eyes flew open and he let out a huge gasping breath, his limbs flailing about in wide-eyed panic.
In a flash, Akhustal scooped the smaller man up into her arms as he writhed, ignoring the sticky remains of the wrappings that still clung to his skin. Though he was alive, he was not the Caprakan than had left her for battle. His body remained emaciated, with fresh scars and wounds everywhere she looked. Tears began to fall from her eyes as she held her beloved to her chest.
“Shhhh!” she comforted her spouse. “It’s alright, Caprakan! You’re home now.”
Caprakan’s squirming quieted down. “Akhustal?” he breathed, his voice weak and nearly inaudible. “What... how? I don’t...”
“Shhhhhh... you’re safe now, my love. Nobody will hurt you anymore.”
“Akhustal... I...” he mumbled. Then, it was like the flame inside of him went out. He collapsed against her chest, unconscious but still breathing.
The Chos sniffed and turned back to Rudra, blinking her eyes to clear her vision as best she could. “Thank you,” she said before turning away and heading towards the door. “I will send you to take care of the others shortly, so be ready. There are many more people who deserve their family back. They have waited for far too long.”
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Tens of thousands of eyes stared up at Akhustal Palebane, Chos of Stragma, as she stood upon the podium. Millions more watched through the eyes of the Manys arrayed near the front of the massive crowd. It bothered many people to be under so many gazes, but not her. Not now. As she stared out at the countless faces looking back up at her, she couldn’t help but think of how much had changed over the country’s history, and how much more would soon be different.
The founders of Stragma had been little more than brigands and outcasts who’d fled into the forest simply because it was the only place their pursuers would not chase them. Their paltry population, more than anything else, had been what dictated such an isolationist policy. Over the next several millennia, as their population struggled to grow in the harsh, demanding environment, their interest and interaction with the outside world had been limited to a series of violent and deadly border wars with their Drayhadan neighbors.
Then, about nine hundred years ago, they’d reached a sort of population critical mass where they had enough strength to defend themselves against the dangers of their home more effectively, as well as dedicate more people to improving the living conditions of the citizenry. That, in turn, led to a rise in both birthrates and life expectancy, which only served to further strengthen the cycle until today, when Stragma was more than ten million strong.
It was during this centuries-long population boom that Stragman leadership had decided to finally inject themselves into the goings-on of the outside world. Given the mercurial, season-dependent nature of Stragman society, as well as the general difficulty the forest presented to outsiders, such interaction largely consisted of trading resources for goods that were hard to manufacture here. But there was one other thing that they’d been unable to avoid: a series of continent-wide agreements known in total as “the Begale Treaty of Eight Forty-four”.
All the other countries at the time had demanded that Stragma join the preexisting pact as part of the price of trade, and the Chos at the time had done so reluctantly. By doing so, they’d agreed to two items. First, they agreed to contribute to the manning and upkeep of Redwater Castle, the fortress built to protect against any possible invasion from the neighboring continent of Obura. Second, should Redwater Castle fall, they were to fight alongside the other nations of Nocend to push the invaders out.
The Stragman public knew little of this, especially the latter half. Being forced to sign the agreement against their wishes had made Stragma and the Chos at the time look weak, so it had largely been kept under wraps except to send a contingent of soldiers to Redwater Castle each year as a “cultural exchange and information gathering” mission. As far as the people were concerned, the problems of those not of the forest had no bearing on their lives.
That didn’t mean that the Stragmans didn’t honor their commitments—on the contrary; circumstances at the time of signing aside, an agreement was an agreement. Those who could not honor their agreements were weak. Akhustal had never felt more shame than that day when the time to honor the second half of the accords had finally come and Stragma had been unable to honor their commitment. Once she finished this speech, she would allow herself to feel some measure of redemption.
“People of Stragma,” she began, her voice amplified by several sound-specializing Observers, “I come before you tonight at a moment of crisis. Long ago, when our ancestors first fled to this forest, they decided, in their great wisdom, to remove themselves from the dealings of outsiders. Deep within the loving embrace of Ruresni, the plights and problems of those outside the trees were no longer their concern.”
“However!” she continued, her voice rising in intensity. “There comes a time when the people outside the forest, in their arrogance, decide to reach into places they do not belong! We all know the tale of the Third Great Hunt eight hundred years ago, when the foolish Gustilian king sought control of the mountain forests in the north. Their army expected small bands of savages hiding in the trees. They never expected the entirety of Stragma, from every Fleg to every Hono, to fall upon them and send them running for their mothers!”
A round of cheers went up from the people at the mention of the Third Great Hunt, as well as a smattering of laughter at the silly Gustilians who thought they could even dream of winning a war amongst the trees.
“It is during these times of crisis that the world witnesses the true strength of this great nation! I stand before you now to tell you that it is time to show that strength once more! As some of you may know, the armies of the Ubran Empire have swept into our continent, wreaking havoc wherever they go! Gustil is no more, with those that still live now living under the Ubran heel! The grand armies of Eterium and Kutrad were destroyed, leaving the Ubrans free to conquer city after city! Now they lay siege to Crirada, the last bastion standing between them and half the continent!
Concerned murmurs sprung forth from the crowd. Akhustal gave the people an understanding smile and gestured for them to quiet down.
“I understand your confusion and your concern,” she assured them. “You’re probably thinking, ‘what do the fates of the Gustilians and the Eterians matter to us? The Ubrans would surely not be so foolish as to attack us, right?’ That is where you are wrong. People of Stragma, I have called you here today to announce that last night the cowardly Ubrans struck against us right here in our city!”
The concerned murmurs from before swelled into ones of shock and confusion. Unwilling to abandon her building momentum Akhustal continued over the din.
“All of you know of the one known as Rudra Kapadia. He is one of Stragma’s greatest treasures, capable of returning your loved ones to you, even from beyond the grave! Whether it be a loved one or a friend, or even yourself, all of you have been touched by his gifts these last few seasons! As long as he is with us, our armies will not falter, for we need not fear even death! The Ubrans know this, and so they sent their assassins to strike him down in the dead of night!”
A stunned silence settled over the crowd for a moment before the people almost simultaneously exploded in collective fury. Akhustal fought back a smile and raised her hands, telling the masses to settle down. Rudra was perhaps the most famous person in the country other than Akhustal herself. Though many people disliked his involvement in the mass actions of the Shell caste these last few seasons, none could deny the great boon he had provided them all since his arrival. The troops he’d brought back to life, as well as their families, felt especially strong in his favor. Such attitudes had been a large reason why she’d never been able to punish him more harshly for his meddling in their ways.
Stragma’s intelligence units had spent hours interrogating both Rudra and Tepin throughout the day. Though Tepin remained stubborn, Rudra had told them everything he knew without much hassle. He didn’t seem to know most of what Akhustal’s people wanted to know, but he did know that the man who’d attacked them last night had been Ubran. Not that it mattered; Akhustal would have claimed that the assassin was Ubran regardless of the man’s actual affiliation. There was no way to prove otherwise, after all.
“I am relieved to inform you that, though he was gravely injured in the fight, Rudra Kapadia still lives and is ready to resume his resurrections. He returned my own beloved, General Caprakan Bloodflower-hono, back to me just today! But though the Ubrans’ evil plans failed, they still showed their true intentions! They have already set their sights upon this forest, and there is no doubt that they will invade as soon as Crirada falls! Their actions show that they fear our might. I say to you that it is time to show them that their fear is justified!”
The anger of the crowd had nearly boiled over at this point, angry shouts merging into a dull rumble. They just needed a little more to push them over.
“My people!” Akhustal called out. “Should we allow the Ubrans to attack our people?!”
“NO!” countless voices answered.
“Should we allow their brazen arrogance to go unpunished?!”
“NO!” the voices cried.
“Then should we just sit back and wait for their armies to invade our lands, or should we fight with everything we have!?
“FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!”
She flashed the assembled people a feral grin.
“People of Stragma, you have made your voices heard!” she roared. “It is time that we show them what true might is! I, Akhustal Palebane, Chos of this great nation, hereby announce the Fourth Great Hunt upon the armies of the Ubran Empire!”
The crowd collectively gasped before erupting in a frenzy of patriotic cheers.
“WE ARE THE PEOPLE OF THE FOREST!” the Chos thundered. “WE ARE THE STRONG! WHO ARE WE?!”
“STRAGMA!” the assembled masses cried out, their bloodthirsty voices so loud that Akhustal momentarily feared they would bring the entire cave system down upon their heads.
“Prepare the city! We march in ten days!” she declared, then turned and left the podium to deafening hollers and chants of ‘Stragma!’ echoing through the caverns. As she reached the floor, Akhustal couldn’t help but smile. She had her beloved husband back, her people were unifying under one banner once more, and soon, they’d be able to pillage more than enough to offset all their losses the last few seasons. The path to this point had been fraught with frustration and pain, but in the end, it had been worth it. She’d finally gotten almost everything she'd wanted.