Blood and Scales

Chapter 1 – The Ambush

Scant traces of moonlight managed to make their way through the gnarled branches of the swamp. Vestiges of the recent rain storm dripping from the moss covered vines all around the armored men. There were currently 30 of them, though they had set out as 60, a few weeks ago. At least that’s what she had been told.

Aelia somehow didn’t believe General Cornelius. Why her father would send 60 men into the southern territory just to catch her was beyond Aelia’s understanding. She knew that as one of only a handful of Vanardis women in the city of Antipolis, she was special. Her species didn’t reproduce as often as the livestock races and women were even rarer. Since they were rare, Vanardis women were both valued and treated as a commodity.

Aelia shivered as a freezing drop of water ran down her spine. The manacles chafed around her wrist, and burned from the cold night air. She was chained at the wrists so they were only three inches apart, but her legs were chained such that she could take a full stride without hitting the ends of them, but not so much that she could run. These were attached to her waist by a metal belt, chains also ran from the belt suspended tautly between the two men who escorted her. Around her mouth was a solid metal mask , with only slits so she could breathe.

They traveled at night because in this world, their skin burned under the light of the sun. The world that they had come from this wasn’t the case. Only the longest lived species of this world, Wirmbold they called it, could remember the world they originally came from. Aelia and her family were the oldest save the powerful beings the people of this world called gods. She was nearly to her 235th birthday, her father claimed he was over a thousand, though even he admits he stopped keeping track centuries ago.

Wait, she thought, what was that sound.

She seemed to be the only one to notice it, as shortly after she stopped she was dragged forward by the chains. With the low murmur between the nervous soldiers, the creaking of their armor, and the squelching of their boots in mud, it was a miracle she could hear anything. She still kept an eye out, though with how close all the foliage was around her, she couldn’t see more than a dozen feet in any direction.

As she looked towards the grim man to her left, she was horrified as without warning or sound, his head was simply gone. His body sank to its knees before flopping into the mud. She was yanked to the left by his weight, and so was the man on the other side of her, which was the only thing that saved him, as a flash of metal went just past his neck.

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“Ambush!” the man who had fallen screamed at the top of his lungs as he tried to pull himself up, and his sword out.

What followed was chaos unlike anything Aelia had ever experienced, all around her men rushed to surround her shields raised. Never in her life had she been afraid of the dark, but in this moment with something coming out of the darkness that she couldn’t see, she understood what it might be like for the people her family hunted.

Her mind was frozen in fear, but finally she snapped out of it. Escape. She had to escape. This one thought preoccupying her mind, she dropped down onto her knees and started crawling towards the guard that had been slain, only to come up short, as the chain attached to the other guard was pulled taut.

Looking back she saw that the chain was not up where it should have been if he were still standing. She had no idea how loud she had been when she swore to herself, because the battle raging around her was deafening. She sat down, digging her heels into the mud, and grabbing the chain, did her best to drag the man’s body, allowing her to inch herself closer to the key. To freedom.

After what seemed like an eternity, she was finally able to just barely reach the man. She searched through the leather pouches covering his body but came up empty. Looking around she was terrified to realize that there were only five men still up and fighting. How had they been so thoroughly defeated?

She closed her eyes and prayed under her breath, as she turned the man’s headless body over. Opening her eyes, she saw a flash of metal in the moonlight, and her eyes filled with tears at the sight of a ring of keys.

Her hands shook as she tried each key in turn on the lock around her foot. Practically sobbing as the ring around her left foot sprung open. She was trying to find the keyhole on her right foot, when the body of one of the soldiers fell on top of her causing the keys to fly out of her hand.

She heaved the man off of her, mud covering her eyes just as she squeezed them shut. She did her best to wipe the mud off of her face, but with the mask in the way of her mouth, she groaned and breathed through her nose as best she could. When she could finally see again, she grabbed the keys.

That was when they came out. Seeming to simply melt from the darkness. Nearly a dozen bipedal figures began mercilessly dispatching the few men still alive on the ground. Then they saw her, kneeling next to the guard she was chained to, her hands slippery with his blood, desperately trying to use the key to unlock the mask from her face.

Before Aelia stood three Lizigoths, bipedal lizard people, each about seven feet tall, dressed in mud covered tunics and trousers which barely hid the mind-boggling musculature of the men. Each one held a razor sharp curved blade in their hands, dripping with the blood of her slaughtered clansmen.

“We warned you interlopers about coming into our land before,” the biggest of them snarled, “Now every one of you blood suckers will pay the price.”

The shining curved blade rapidly approached her naked throat, and Aelia knew without a shadow of a doubt that this was the end.