Lukotor the Wise had bartered his decades for this hour.

Toiling beneath the mercurial attentions of his master, he’d remained by her side until he’d reaped enough of her knowledge to abandon her. Departing deep in the night, the old woman’s wet cackle had long followed him into the dark.

He’d gathered power. Slipping through icy northern seas to the volcanic isle of Eldvioi, he’d stolen an ember from its dreaded pyromancers. Mastering its fire magics, he used that to wrest the Vessel of Altak-Tur from a djinni sultan, and spent years listening to its maddening whispers. At last, it bowed to him, and he learned to hear others’ thoughts hissing from its depths.

Armed with the might of flame and magic to pierce the mind, he’d returned to his homeland of Garumna. Decades had passed since last he’d gazed upon its mountains, mists and vast meadows.

Lukotor worked to build a reputation as a wise man, earning his moniker and the trust of an ambitious tribal king, Avernix the Blood-Bearded. At first he merely read the state of the elements, advising on favourable days for raiding, but soon began to hiss grander ideas of conquest into the young sovereign’s ear. With the monarch’s ambitions stoked, Lukotor revealed the most guarded secrets from the minds of his enemies using the prized Vessel of Altak-Tur. So thus ignited Avernix’s triumphs, and the conquered were readily sacrificed to his tribal demons, which Lukotor fed until they were fatted with power.

The wizard’s foul magics guided the army from one victory to the next. Their raiders swelled into a horde whose smoke stained the skies black. Bronze helms and spearpoints glinted behind shield-walls painted with the faces of their demons. Fur-wrapped feet quaked the earth to the boom of drums and the timbre of war-song.

Stone, wood, flesh and even golden crowns were ground in the bronze teeth of Avernix’s ravenous horde. They consumed the ripened fields of wheat, barley and spelt, and stole and enslaved all that could be taken. In trade, they left only fire and death to boil away the late autumn chill. At last, all who could challenge Avernix’s rule lay broken or fled. He had gained over-lordship of all mountainous Garumna.

As for Lukotor, his power was at its peak and his allies readied.

The hour of his reward had come.

Avernix’s war-camp unfurled before the Forest of Giants, their campfires numerous and wide-spread. A legion of colossal trees filled the western sky before them: brooding mountains of wood and craggy, black bark. Each trunk grew ten paces broad and ten times that in height, their twisted branches reaching up to claw at the stars.

Their sword-sized leaves had long wilted and fallen to the withered grass beneath, the ancient boughs above strangling precious sunlight. Even the launching towers of the Cymorillian dragon princes would have been dwarfed in their presence, and vines thicker than men’s waists hung between their naked limbs like the webs of a demon-spider.

The ancient canopy teemed with avian life. Crows as large as dogs and ravens greater still. Bristling vultures bent like old men and creatures at once reptile and raptor, with bright feathers over iridescent scale and beaks filled with pointed teeth.

Other things drove unease into the warriors, though. In the shadow of the ancient sentinels - long enough to fall over the entire encampment - they recalled childhood tales told by crackling fireside. Tales of things that dwelt in the darkened bowers within, emerging to feast on human flesh. Tales of things with gnarled hands, curving horns and perverse, unending hungers.

Tales of ogres.

Even the horde’s hulking war-mastodons - draped in heavy bronze chain and armed with tusks that shattered shields - were but timid mice near the grasping tree roots. Their great bodies steamed as they herded together, grumbling and shifting their weights with wide ears waving nervously.

Brave the warriors were, but the wolf cannot help but turn craven before the saber-toothed tiger. Yet in the midst of the camp, the horde brewed their own evils.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

A deep drum thrummed and a tower of flame writhed above a bonfire belching a column of inky smoke. Depraved symbols scarred the earth encircling it and wild dancers capered around them, clad only in the hides of albino does. They chanted guttural incantations in the vile tongue of demons, which pierced mortal ears. Grasped in bony hands, they waved fatty torches rendered from an unspeakable source in supplication.

The column of foul smoke pulsed with their monstrous invitation, and maddening shapes began to shimmer within. They twisted in time with the dancers’ movements.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

The drum grew in tempo; the dance more frantic.

A voice like the cracking of ice cried above the din. “Three who Dwell in Ash!”

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The shapes in the smoke paused.

“We come with sacrifice for your dread blessing!”

Lukotor the Wise stepped forth, his bone talismans rattling on his vulture-feathered cape. Unnaturally towering and cadaverous, age had bent him little, but withered what little girth he’d had in youth. His great height was akin to a corpse stretched on the rack, and eyes that were pools of darkness swam above a crooked nose. Iron-grey hair fell down to the shoulders, braided in the sparkling jewels of dead souls. Between twisted hands and talon-like nails, he bore a viridian jar of clay, scrawled with symbols akin to those marring the earth.

A vile whispering dripped from its depths.

“Bring the offering.” The wizard waved a clawed hand, and two sweltering Illian eunuchs shuffled forth with heads bowed. Their backs were scarred from the cruelties of the whip.

Between them hung a comely Olubrian boy bound to a birch trunk, shrouded in white, gagged, and painted with symbols too foul to name. The sun-and-stars symbol of the sky cult, hung despoiled around his neck. His eyes rolled with panic, and he struggled so desperately against his bonds that the cords had stained red. The eunuchs placed him before the flame, then quickly shuffled from the circle.

Lukotor smiled widely, revealing a tangle of rotted teeth. “Flesh to fill your bellies,” he offered to the smoke. “Blood to wet your tongues. A soul of mortal-kind to bolster your power.” He bowed so low that his bejewelled braids brushed the earth. “Protect us and gird our warriors against the dark ahead. Confuse watching eyes so that we may pass through yonder wood. Grant us this boon, and our gratitude will be a hundred sacrifices.”

All paused, still as held breath.

Smoke thickened and the heat of the fire ebbed away.

The fumes grew darker, like water when something foul bubbled in its deep. Three vast silhouettes formed in the column. One mountainous. One lean. The last squamous. Light recoiled from their vile presence, and their auras held an ancient, primeval terror.

The boy shrieked into the gag, trying to pull away, and his clenching teeth tore his tongue. Smoke began to issue from him, and his body paled as something too precious was drawn from it. His form lessened, becoming wan and more translucent with every breath as more of it ebbed away in smoke. His bonds and gag fell, and a wail echoed through the air even as his essence was drawn into the column.

For a moment, a brighter spot floated in the smog.

Then the silhouettes were upon it.

The screams stopped.

Flame flared, drew itself inward, then winked out. Only cool and dark lay in its wake.

“The blessing is granted!” Lukotor crowed in triumph. “Tomorrow we shall walk amongst the forest under the protection of the Three that Dwell in Ash!” he turned, and behind him spread the force of Avernix: tall, iron-thewed men and women in bronze scale and animal hide. Their eyes shone with fervour. “Fear not beasts! Fear not the brutish ogres or the dead’s futile wrath!” He clawed the air, snatching some imaginary thing in his grip. “We shall soon clutch the Egg of Gergorix, and demons and gods will cower before us! We will call forth an age where our will is law!” he cried out, and their answer roared through the night.

He gave them a pleased look.

“Remember who those warriors belong to, Lukotor,” a deep voice rumbled by Lukotor’s shoulder, startling the old wizard.

King Avernix had approached him with the silence of a lynx; an unnerving feat for a man his size. The fire-haired conqueror only rose to the towering old man’s jaw, but he was twice his weight in iron-hard thews. A newly forged crown of over-lordship lay comfortably on his brow, and his beard seemed to bristle in its beaten golden clasps. He wore a wry smile. “You’ve gotten attached.”

“Overlord!” Lukotor started to give a low bow, but a strong hand caught his shoulder.

The sovereign waved wearily. “Even to me, you do not bow to the earth like a grovelling slave.”

Lukotor dipped his head instead. “You are kind, overlord.”

“I have gratitude,” Avernix corrected. “Were it not for Lukotor, I would still be raiding Heban farmsteads for pigs and goats.”

“You forged farm-raiders into an army, overlord. They are your sword.”

“I may be their smith, but you are the flame that made them malleable.”

“Your words are kind tonight, overlord.”

Avernix glanced to the smouldering embers of the sacrifice. “They are realistic. Soft words weaken a warrior’s arm, but what is real is real.” He looked to the trees. “So, at last you have come to the end of your quest.”

“So fate has decreed.” Lukotor looked upon the forest wall of verdant titans, his gaze trying to penetrate its ominous depths. “When I have the egg in hand, I will show as much gratitude as Overlord Avernix the Blood-Bearded. I will raise a hand to the skies and make rain so your crops never wither. I will destroy all armies that oppose you-”

“Not all,” Avernix chuckled. “I would not have my warriors and I growing fat and bored.”

Lukotor grinned. “I’ll see to sparing you a few then, overlord, and I shall bear more gifts. Your throne will be adorned in Yamaputran rubies, you will be served by slaves whose bloodlines draw from kings. Your sons will have Cymorillian princesses, Vestulai champions, nymph-maids from the Olubrian wetlands-”

Avernix threw his head back, shaking the night with tremendous mirth. “Leave some for yourself, Lukotor!”

The wizard’s grin was tight. “My pleasures will be more…exotic in nature.”

“Wizards,” the conqueror snorted and shook his head. “Always grasping. I say, cold liquor, a good fight, hot meat and hotter women are enough for any man. And that’s what we’ll have tonight.” He gestured to the feast tent. “We have whole aurochs roasting in butter, wine and salt, and the slaves have been set to cooling Skjernan mead and spicing it with Heban rosewater.” He smiled. “Agisil and Eppon are busy selecting tonight's entertainment from the captives. Eppon has two strong Vestulai mercenaries, freshly caught yesterday: we shall make them dance for us!”

The wizard chuckled politely. “I am sure the twins will choose well.”

Avernix’s grin turned foxlike. “The Vestulai guarded a wizardress from the City of Glass. Perhaps she’ll be more to your tastes!”

“Then say no more! Now, it’s a celebration!”

The two men’s laughter rose into the night.