The crazed dwarf charged in with blood shot eyes, heavy hammer raised high over his head. The weapon dropped like the thunder of the gods only to slam into the ground where it’s intended target had simply side-stepped as if the short man moved in slow motion. Before he could pivot the weapon around to follow the green skinned orc he’d attacked, the creature sunk its own weapon into his neck. The last thing the short man felt was his weapon slipping from his fingers as his world tilted sideways before going dark.
Kurbazz the Ruthless stared down at the maniacal dwarf as his head fell to the side, flopping, comically held to its body by a thin flap of skin and muscle. With a kick to its chest, he wrenched his sword free of the mad things collar bone. He turned away to continue directing the evolving battle as the little man’s body slumped lifelessly to the ground.
Looking towards the mountain where the short men dwelled, he saw more than a dozen emerge from their caves, haggard and dirty. With a silent wave he called several of his arms men to his side and began charging the new enemy only a couple dozen meters away.
“We came too close, brother!” Galbad spat as they ran side by side.
He gave the taller orc a dark look before leaping high into the air, aiming for the leading blood mountain dwarf with outstretched legs. With a heavy thud he slammed his three-hundred-pound muscular frame into his intended victim before he could react. The dwarf toppled backwards only to have the orcs weight crush his chest, piercing his lungs with his own broken ribs. The orc rolled away, far more gracefully than his bulk would suggest was possible, rising from the ground in an upward off-hand swing that caught another small dwarf’s leg, removing it just above the knee. The dwarf’s scream was cut short as Kurbazz’s brother caught up to him and quickly struck his blade across its throat.
In the span of a few heartbeats his unit caught up with him and added to the chaos of violent murder. Maddened dwarf blood painted the rocks and grass red as he and his Orc brethren slaughtered the tactless creatures as fast as they could throw themselves on their swords. The battle was so one sided that he thought back on the argument he and his brother had previously in the morning. The one that prompted him to speak out of turn while in the middle of a fight.
His people were generally nomadic. Rarely setting up somewhere for more than a single growing season. If that. They’re wandering of the ever-changing land was driven by a desire to establish a permanent stronghold. The tribe only numbered a scant few thousand. And more than half of those were young or old. Too young. Too old.
He settled into a trance-like battle meditation as he and his brothers slaughtered the never-ending stream of blood crazed dwarfs that poured from their cave. Because of their numbers they couldn’t claim a stable territory of their own. Larger, more malicious factions of disparate people would roll his people in a standard fight. And they were barely tolerated by the less violent groups due to their intrinsic nomadic nature.
For a time, they had occupied the Goshan Plain where Cedric the Pure was defeated by forces ordered by the Ebon Lord to remove his light from the world. That was thousands of years ago, by the telling of the Elders that they passed on from generation to generation. Details of that battle were scant, and the only remains of the forces that clashed there were the giant, monolithic, statues of the long dead heroes that failed to spread their purifying light amongst the living of their time.
Over time, the Plain had become a Valley as the Bulwarks Teeth grew, or as occasionally happened here, were transplanted from other worlds to the south, and the Heartsworn Forest to the north. The Heartsworn was a great name he thought, for an unassuming forest, though considering the murderous feline assassins that now called it home, he felt that it was due for a name change.
The Elders called him into their tent the night before and told him they’d had a vision. They were to head West, through the Alcabra Pass, to locate a being that may be their salvation. Their visions were never very clear, and rarely had any consistency. They were generally treated as suggestions, subtle guides and portents of what may become. This time, they were all in agreeance, the vision was clear.
A new Stitching was about to begin, and with-it would-be people that could upset the balance of the land, or in their opinions, restore balance to the Stitch. And they had impressed upon him that they needed to be the first to make contact, to properly guide them in the ways of their new world. They left the doing to him.
His brother, his true brother, all Orcs were brothers in battle when needed, had argued to go by the Heartsworn. As Chief, he opted for the Bulwark’s Teeth. Both had benefits, as well as problems. Going too close to the Heartsworn would incur the wrath of the Ki’itari. Ninja felines with the ability to go completely invisible that had a proclivity for stealing children. Alternatively, the Bulwark’s Teeth were the home of the crazed Blood Dwarves that attacked and murdered any thing that came too close to their caves.
He chose the Dwarves as opposed to facing the child stealing ninjas.
He was deep in his trance, mechanically murdering said dwarves when the warhorn sounded at the entrance to the pass. At the same time as the horn sounded, he watched his true brother, Galbad, slay what seemed to be the final bastard dwarf.
“I prefer an enemy we can see, and one that doesn’t think. Let’s head back to the caravan.”
Galbad flicked the blood from his blade before sheathing it when another sounding of the horn turned their attention. A moment later the noon sky briefly darkened before exploding in a cascade of brilliant-colored ribbons. All of his warriors stared at the display for a moment before he finally spoke.
“It’s time, let’s hurry back. Destiny awaits.” He urged his people forward, pausing to make sure all had come through the battle more or less unscathed, then followed beside his true brother.
“So, it seems. For Glory!” He shouted the last.
“For HONOR!” The warriors called back.
Kurbazz remained silent as his mind wandered to what new trials this Stitching would bring.
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
Analise stared at her instruments with rapt attention, barely conscious of the much taller avian type woman working behind her. She shifted her goggles over her eyes and flipped through several filters as she analyzed the data presented on the screen before her. She could have the device display the data for all the different measurements she was taking on different screens, but the technology was scarce, and she could create the same effect with the goggles that rarely left her head. Even when she slept. She sniffed, suddenly self-conscious, or her clothes it seemed.
“Yes, Mistress Analise, you haven’t showered in several days.” Kortova, the bird woman, said from her own workstation, which she just noticed seemed to have moved further across the room in the recent days.
“Uh... heheh… I promise, once I’ve analyzed these readings, I’ll go straight to the bath house! But I swear, I’m…”
“Yes, yes. ‘I’m this close to predicting the next Stitching’” Kortova says while making a wild flourish with her feathered hands, “I do understand the eccentricities of those obsessed with their science. Though I would encourage you to take more care of yourself. I’ve left you a sandwich on the table. If you get it now the bread might not be too dry.”
Analise lifted her goggles, doing her best not to peak at the line on her screen that only occasionally jumped a single millimeter or two, barely registering any response from the dishes and antennae that it was attached to.
She pushed off her desk with a sigh, sliding back in her wheeled chair in defeat, “I suppose I’ll eat, then go get cleaned up af…”
She stopped when Kortova suddenly strode past her in a rush, pressing taloned hands against the desk.
“Wha…?” She began to ask before going silent, staring up at the main screen. The line that had barely moved for the last few weeks was now slowly beginning to spike in random patterns. The machine automatically zoomed back the scale when the readout spiked even more frantically. Her eyes widened in realization as she pounced on the keyboard in front of her and began tapping in harried commands.
“WHERE!?” She barked at Kortova who’d already crossed the room to her workstation and was similarly tapping commands into her machine as quickly as she could.
“Uh… I think I’ve got it! If this is correct, then…. the Alcabra Pass!”
“WE DID IT! WE DID IT!” The little blue goblin woman ran to her assistant and fiercely hugged her leg, who in turn looked conflicted, as Analise truly hadn’t washed in almost a week, yet what they were trying to do was momentous in the land of the Stitch. If they could accurately predict when and where a new land would emerge into the existing fabric of their reality, it would be a great boon for the Imperium, and even greater for the ones who discovered and patented the method to such a discovery. After all, new worlds in the Stitch brought new wealth.
The Mad Wizard Sustag stood atop the highest known mountain shouting profanities at the sky as it slowly opened, massive kilometers long slivers of the new world and its people being forcefully shoved into his current reality. All would be placed as the Gods willed it, sometimes the current landscape would be torn apart, and the new one shoved into place. Or, a new mountain would be placed on top of existing infrastructure, or beside it, or even completely swapped into the originating existence. During one stitching, an entire city was drowned by a new ocean being transplanted along with all its wonderful, amazing, and horrendous beasts.
There were stable zones where grand cities rose millennia ago, possibly the ancestors striking a fool’s bargain with indifferent gods, relinquishing the rights to their souls in the process.
“Won’t take my soul. NO! You WON’T! I FORBID IT! NO! NO! NO!” He cackled at the thought as an island nearly 200km square came plummeting down from one of the many kaleidoscopic tears in reality opening up above him. It struck the ground with far less force than one would expect, displacing a quiet hamlet of halfling farmers or some other such nonsensical race. Spoiler alert, they all died. They didn’t even try to clear the area so resigned to their fate they were.
More alternate world chaos of varying size, density, and composition descended across the world as he stared. While his eyes saw what was happening as two worlds were stitched together, sometimes violently, his mind reached out to every new thing that emerged from the aether of the unknown. While many thought there was randomness in the process, he knew otherwise. He’d been alive a long time, long enough to know some secrets the so called “Imperiums of Man” would not like any to know.
“Where? Where? WHERE?! WHERE ARE YOU LITTLE THING!? Little fleshy thing!?”
As he searched, new and strange things joined the cascade of random detritus falling from the sky. A steel bird with wings that didn’t move, and no mouth to speak of burped into existence before streaking off in a random direction only to collide with a slowly descending land mass, erupting into a descending ball of fire.
A ship, made of steel as well, clearly made for sailing the sea, spiraled rapidly into a jungle with not even a river nearby. It was big too, maybe the biggest seaworthy ship he’d ever seen. Unfortunately, it snapped in two when it struck the ground below, flinging multi-colored, oblong steel crates into the jungle around it. Someone would be along to search and loot it eventually. Not Sustag. No, he was in search of something else, something dangerous!
“No, no, not it. NOT IT! NOR YOU! NO!”
He spun frantically, glancing at a city of steel and glass that was slowly being guided down to displace a gentle valley. The process to remove it from its source was so severe that it had even ripped up what had once been a river or lake, the remaining water sloshing over the sides like a moving waterfall. It settled into place in such a way that several of the largest towering buildings collapsed in a dramatic display exploding glass and concrete.
As he stood transfixed by the stitching in progress, the final phase began. This is the part where the people of this wonderous new world began to emerge. Slowly they tumbled across the sky, gently carried on magical winds that even the old sage, the maddened and timeless wizard, knew little about. Oh, to know such secrets!
This was the event he was waiting for, the new beings would be placed, some already done so, within the strange tall buildings that accompanied some of the slivers already coming to rest below. Now the individuals, the lucky, or not so lucky, that were scooped up as the power of the Stitch waned in whatever existence it went to steal its fodder.
“Is it you? Or you? OR YOU!? No? Maybe? WHO KNOWS!?!?! I KNOW! THAT’S WHO! I KNOW!”
He ceased his ranting as his vision flared and zoomed in on a single figure just emerging from the celestial tear in the sky. With a flick of his hand, he cast the magic that would let him examine his quarry in detail. What he saw left him disappointed. The man in his mind’s eye didn’t appear particularly special. Descending from the rip inside an oddly shaped metal chariot, the man, as all that were transplanted from their original universe, was unconscious, oblivious to what was happening around him. He, nor the rest, seemed to wear any armor, and only a few carried blades or anything identifiable as a weapon. He examined him until he dipped below the tree line marking the location on his map.
“Yes. There you are. There you are. The Alcabra Pass. Hmm. So far. Still, I’ll see you soon little man.”
With his mania waning, the Wizard, staff in hand, began walking towards his destination without further to be said. Such was his way. As he began his descent down the mountain the Stitching began to recede. With a final burst of light far up in the night sky the jagged remains of some gray celestial body popped into existence.