The Scorpion of Shan'Gai Chah [closed]

[Naunet]

"Right, but, I've never met the guy," Thal felt like he should just reiterate that. Sure, he could kinda sorta understand someone who had once known him wanting to... re-kill him. As unhappy as that made him feel. But some random beastman? Tilting his head back, he swung his tail in vexation. "Man, whatever. I'm so tired of this. Starting to think I should've never left that forest."

[Twinflame]

"Then you should never have left. The desert does not pity those who feel remorse." Baoht Zuqqa Roh gave the child of Man one final glare. "If your only breath is to complain, then save it. I do not like meat that whines too loudly."

[Naunet]

Blue eyes rolled behind the mask with a muttered, "Fine, whatever." He would follow the hunter in silence afterwards.

[Twinflame]

The upper highways were hard and unpleasant, even for the Amal'jaa. Baoht Zuqqa Roh did not walk them for his comfort, however. They moved more quickly than the low, easy roads of men would have allowed. They bypassed the thick sands of the lowlands quickly. The settlement of the Ala Mihgo refugees was a vague blur through air that shook like water, and no other home of men entered into their sights. It was as though the desert existed only for the Amal'jaa, as it should, and this desert was silent.

 

They would have to pass through the lowlands to get to Zanr'ak. It was a long time before they came into view, but then the migrating sands were before them like a river cutting through the land. Baoht Zuqqa Roh stopped without descending, looking across the chasm to the home of the Amal'jaa. "Are you a hunter, child of Man?"

[Naunet]

Thal looked up but was slow to break his silence, instead peering past the Amal'jaa to stare out across seemingly endless dunes. He felt like he might get lost in them, but that prospect strangely didn't scare him. Finally he spoke the the beastman's question, in a tone far more somber than his usual, "Yeah. I am." He didn't know how he knew this, but it felt true.

[Twinflame]

Baoht Zuqqa Roh chuckled. "I suppose, though, I will have to give you move than a scent to go off of, won't I?" He stomped one foot and roared, summoning his drakes. They weren't far off, and one was next to him very quickly. He crouched down next it and removed a bundle of cloth from a pouch on his side, opening it and holding it beneath the drakes nose. "Do not worry, however. I have a plan."

[Naunet]

Tearing his eyes from the sands, Thal squinted at the drakes and the object in the beastman's hands. "I didn't think you'd care about comforting me." How sweet, he almost added in jest, but for once wisely held his tongue, more than aware of how powerful this hunter was. Turning from the momentarily, he sought out a small stand of rocks a few fulms back the way they'd come and gently set K'aijeen down behind them. "Okay, kiddo, you just rest up here."

 

He didn't let himself wait for a response before straightening back towards the Amal'jaa.

[Twinflame]

K'aijeen shivered where she was. She made a small, useless sound, that might have been a protest.

 

Baoht Zuqqa Roh watched his Drake eat something from the cloth he'd protest, and then he put the bundle away. He huffed and growled at the drake, and it made a low, hungry sound in response before leaving toward Zunr'ak. When the other two arrived, he fed them from a different bundle, growling out them in kind before they took off as well. Then he rose and turned to look towards Zunr'ak as though he could watched whatever it was that they were doing. "We wait until my drakes return. It may take some time."

[Naunet]

Thal quirked one brow, which could not be seen, but the ear that followed the expression could. "O...kay. Any more elaboration?" He kept near K'aijeen for the moment, hoping his presence would at least comfort her and knowing he couldn't really do much else. Swinging his weight from one foot to another, he crossed his arms. "I mean, this is a great view and all, but if you've got a plan, I'd love to hear about it."

[Twinflame]

"Why would I elaborate?" Baoht Zuqqa Roh looked down on the child of Man, his expression a glare. "My plan will work. You will not like it. You will do it anyway. Provided my patience with your whining does not wear thin before my drakes return."

[Naunet]

Rolling his eyes unseen, Thal bit back a quip that maybe it would be more honorable if this hunter killed his enemy on his own, instead of asking some wimpy Child of Man to do it for him. But that probably wouldn't end well. "Mkay, then," he muttered, ducking his head to rub at the back of his neck. He breathed deep, the gesture accompanied by a faint whistle of escaping air through his chest, and spent some time picking apart the loose scents of the sands around them. In a space so open, he felt like his senses had expanded to fill the space.

[Twinflame]

Baoht Zuqqa Roh turned to glare out over the sands, watching the sun work its way downward. He was patient, as a hunter needed to be, even though this would ultimately not be his hunt. The child of Man claimed to be a hunter, but Baoht Zuqqa Roh doubted that his people hunted in a way that an Amal'jaa would recognize as hunting.

 

K'aijeen remained stationary for a long time, with her arms crossed over her face. After some time in silence, after the sun crawled downward, she lifted her arms awkwardly to look under them. Thal was still present. The Amal'jaa was making him wait. The presence of the massive, dark being caused her to remain silent and still. She was afraid to move so much as her tail, though it did lift and fall once. Her throat seemed to have been ruined anew, though she knew the problem was more complicated than that. Pierced lungs, broken skull. She felt like a pile of balanced stones that was falling apart. She couldn't even yell at Thal, though she could feel some distant anger at him for agreeing to the Amal'jaa's conditions.

 

A drake returned, dragging something indescribably pungent. It stand of Miqo'te and hellfire, blood and sweat and death and wicked magic. In application, it was just a burlap robe, but it seemed to have been torn fresh from the body of whomever had been wearing it. Baoht Zuqqa Roh growled at the drake when it appeared, and the animal approached him. The Amal'jaa snatched the robe from the drakes teeth and then turned towards the child of Man. "The so-called hunters of Forgotten Springs make good pets, once tempered. The fire of Lord Ifrit trains them so that they work for us and fight for us. They wear this."He tossed the robe towards Thal. "Put it on. You already smell of drakes and Amal'jaa blood. None will question your presence in Zanr'ak. You may even find weapons and arm yourself once within."

[Naunet]

He caught the cloth, but not without twisting his face behind the mask in a look of distaste. "Eugh, what died and... uh, on second thought, nevermind." His ears shifted, and the short fur along his tail prickled up; it wasn't hard to imagine how the drake had obtained such an item. The thought of wearing it was almost as unpleasant, but there didn't seem to be many other options. And it made a sick kind of sense, if he thought about it.

 

"Just a hunter's cloak," he muttered to himself has he shook the sturdy cloth out and hastily pulled it around him. It had a hood, which he fidgeted with before pulling it up over his head. Who knew how well these people recognized their "pets". Turning towards Baoht Zuqqa Roh, he lifted both arms out to either side of him in a shrug. "Alright, then. Off I go?"

[Twinflame]

Baoht Zuqqa Roh pitched his head back and let out a roar. In response, the drake at his feet turned and ran once more towards Zunr'ak. The Amal'jaa dropped his glare to Thal. "My other drakes hunt Shan'Gai Chah. Now, that one does as well. Follow him to your quarry. Seek the one they attack. That will be how you know Shan'Gai Chah, whom you must slay. Do not fail."

[Naunet]

"Ugh, that--gah, hey, wait!" Leaning forward on his toes, Thal hesitated long enough to cast a glance over his shoulder towards K'aijeen. She wouldn't be able to see the apologetic look he gave her, though, and he quickly turned back. The drake was already a good distance away, moving between a number of cliffs, and he let out a curse before springing after it. No time to think about this more. He ran after and hoped that the Amal'jaa had a habit of leaving weapons conveniently unattended.

[Twinflame]

The drake hunted through Zanr'ak in a more-or-less straight line. The roads curved around ramps and cliffs, ironworks and sites of unholy ritual where the power of Ifrit burned as a palpable volcanic breath. Zanr'ak was a city of tempered Aml'jaa and their sand drakes. From time to time, a Miqo'te in a linen robe could be seen, seemingly at work. They were not caged or shackled. They did not have to be. But they were slaves nonetheless.

 

As the drake moved towards the eastern part of Zanr'ak, the sun began to fall below the horizon, and the great crags through shadows over one another. They rushed into a premature night, the fires of Ifrit lighting up dirt and stone. The air grew hotter the further west they went. The drake moved undeterred, untiring, towards a deep crag where a pair of Amal'jaa idled. They took notice of the drake as it approached, and though it did not acknowledge them and in fact looked like it was about to slip past them into the crag, one of them jammed a great metal spear through its neck.

 

As the drake writhed and made hideous sounds, The Mal'jaa that had skewered it lifted it for the other to see. "Is it the same as the other two?"

 

"The Scorpion's drake." The second guard huffed, shifting unpleasantly. "The Roh will kill us when he finds out we're killing his drakes, but what are we supposed to do? Just let them attack the Chah?"

 

"This is no accident. Baoht knows that Shan'Gai Chah is to be tempered tonight." Lifting the drake on his spear as it still squirmed, he cast it into a dark corner where the corpses of two more waited. "The Rho has four drakes, so watch for the other and don't let it into the crag. If Baoht Zuqqa Roh does not come to challenge the Chah himself, then I say he is too weak a being to hold a grudge against us."

[Naunet]

The Amal'jaa hunter had been correct when he'd told Thal the disguise would let him pass unnoticed. Still, it had been difficult to walk through the stronghold of Ifrit's children as though he belonged. The roars from the beastmen and their drakes as they went about their tasks left him jumpy, and as he skirted around the occasional clusters of tempered miqo'te and hyur, he prayed silently they wouldn't look his way, confident they would see right through the disguise and recognize him as not one of their own. At least he had managed to find a weapon early on and now hid the black metal barb beneath his stolen robe.

 

The kid better appreciate him after this. He didn't think about what he might do if it turned out Baoht Zuqqa Roh was lying in his promise.

 

When the drake he followed approached a pair of Amal'jaa who loomed in front of a massive gate. When the spear went through its neck, Thal froze, and when it screeched and thrashed, he skittered behind a close rock. There he listened to the growling voices and silently cursed. If he could barely take on one Amal'jaa, what hope did he have in succeeding to cross two? None. Ears laying flat, he shifted behind the rock and thought hard.

 

Perhaps he could simply walk past if he behaved as a tempered going about his work? A grimace behind his mask tossed that idea. If it didn't work, he'd find himself skewered just like the drake, and though it wouldn't kill him, it would definitely blow his cover. Leaning his back against the stone, Thal inched towards one side and peered around and up along the cliffs that lined the gate. Perhaps he could sneak past another way...?

[Twinflame]

A blast of heat rushed on a wind from the southeast, the breath of some fresh volcano yawning as it emerged. It came with a distant cracking of stone, but the sound was so natural to the is place that only one of the two Amal'jaa noticed it. The observant one lifted his dark head, looking first at the sky and then at the other. He reached out and struck his companion in the shoulder, "The Bowl of Embers has opened. You get the Chah. I'll fetch the sacrifice." Before waiting for his answer, the Amal'jaa turned to walk south, towards the shadows. The one who had not noticed before glanced around for a few confused moments before rolling his large tail and responding in a wordless huff, spinning to head into the crag and disappearing there.

[Naunet]

For a moment, Thal remained frozen behind his rock. "Convenient," he muttered low under his breath. Though he thought it also might mean he had less time than he'd like. After a few moments, he crept from behind the rock to sidle towards the gate. When nothing immediately impaled him, he continued at a more hurried - though hopefully not too obvious - pace, keeping to one wall. His bare feet moved with a natural silence across the packed sand, and soon he crossed through the gate.

 

Now, though, he found himself a new challenge. The Amal'jaa tasked with retrieving the Chah moved ahead of him, and the crag was too narrow to pass unnoticed. Blue eyes narrowed to slits in the shadows of his mask as adrenaline directed his thoughts efficiently towards staying alive. Or, at least, animated.

 

Well, it was just one Amal'jaa. And the spike he'd found was very sharp and nasty looking. If he took him by surprise, perhaps...

 

Not allowing any more time wasted on thinking it through, Thal slipped the weapon free from his robe and hastened his silent steps along the rocks. When he was only a short distance behind the guard, a worry flashed that maybe this wasn't the best idea. Then he was in the air and driving the metal barb into the beastman's back.

[Twinflame]

It was perhaps lucky for Thal that the less observant of the two Amal'jaa was the one that had barred his path. This one had dragged his claws around the wall as he'd walked, and he had not listened to Thal's footsteps even as he heard them. When the spike pierced his back, sliding between his scales and into his flesh, the Amal'jaa pitched forward and landed on his face in the dirt. He was, however, still an Amal'jaa, and even with one lung pierced he let out a feral shout that echoed down the hallway in both directions. His tail and claws writhed then, much like the sand drake had when it had been impaled.

[Naunet]

Thal found himself crouched on the back of the Amal'jaa when the beastman began to flail. Ears pressing back at the roar, he struggled to maintain both balance and grip before levering his weapon down in one direction, with every ounce of strength he could muster. He tried to ignore the sick crack of bone and scale and organ as the metal spike tore upward through the thrashing Amal'jaa's chest.

[Twinflame]

The Amal'jaa increased his complaints as Thal drove upward on the spike, but only a few more seconds passed before the beastman grew weak. His roars became ragged coughs and his claws pulled weakly at the dirt. After that, he would be still, and the aether in his body -- the mana resonating from the conflict between two living beings -- would be surrendered into the land around them. At least, the aether would have been surrendered, if not for an intervening magic...

[Naunet]

Thal staggered as though struck, stumbling half off the body, one hand still gripping the weapon. He'd felt the aether in the air, as surely as he used to feel aether in the plants throughout the Shroud, but it didn't remain there. It hit him like a blow to the face, warming the mask against his features and sinking into his skin before running like water down his spine and outward to each limb. His tail shivered and lashed. He flexed his fingers, feeling a strength in them that he didn't recall knowing. The aether that had fled from the Amal'jaa vibrated under his skin and pulled him upright, and then as soon as it had come, it was absorbed.

 

In its wake, Thal stood wide-eyed and feeling more rejuvenated than he had in years, despite the gash across his chest. He let out a long breath through his nose and, almost absent-mindedly, yanked the barb out from the dead guard. "So that's the old man's trick," he muttered in half disbelief, and stifled a shudder at the disconcerting thought that followed. "... Guess it'll be useful for this," he added lowly to the corpse.

 

Stepping around it, Thal glanced back the way he'd come through the crag, suddenly anxious that the Amal'jaa's cries might bring others. He saw nothing immediately, but that didn't mean they weren't coming. Turning quickly, he broke into a run down the crag, keeping to one wall and gripping the barb at the ready.

[Twinflame]

At the far end of the crag was the room where Shan'Gai Chah was waiting to be called to the Bowl of Embers for tempering. Ifrit's fire would burn inside of him, making him strong, rigid, powerful. The taste he'd been given so far had been in loan, the same way he'd been loaned that hunter, Baoht Suqqa Roh. But now, one of those two loans seemed to be failing him. The lesser of the two.

 

When the roar of pain came from the crag, the Chah's attendent, a black-scaled Amal'jaa priest, turned to glare down the dark tunnel. "I would not have thought he would go this far."

 

Shan'Gai Chah shifted in the shadows of the dais in the middle of the room. The igneous platform he stood on roiled with ted lines that just barely illuminated his movements. He liked it. The platform was hot, as though someone had plucked out Azeyma's pupil and buried it underground. It made sense. The eye of Azeyma was white uninterrupted, the same as a blind man's eye. "Don't pretend you didn't know he was unstable. I know I'm not surprised that an Amal'jaa with his reputation has turned homicidal?" He listened to the screams in the hall fade. "Is that him dying, do you think?"

 

"Oh, no." The priest replied. "The Scorpion we gave you might not be the most loyal, but he is formidable. The watchers have fallen." Turning away from the dais and towards a well lit hallway, the priest made his way out of the room. "I will go to the tempering. Follow once you have taken care of your Roh, Shan'Gai Chah."

 

So Ifrit would give him two gifts -- the heat of fire and the service of a hunter -- and make him set one against the other? That was fine. He had no qualms about killing Amal'jaa, and he had no question that he would be able to. Shan'Gai Chah walked to the edge of the dais and dropped down into the red light of the room, his boots stirring up volcanic dust as he landed. He stretched his arms over his head to pull his red steel spear from his back, white armor clicking against leather straps over red cloth, and as he brought it in front of him, the vicious spikes on either end clicked into place. He smiled at that. It was neat.

 

He brushed at his face and dropped into a fighting stance in front of the hallway, his blue eyes squinting through the veil of fire-red hair into the darkness. His tail shivered behind him in anticipation of a good fight. His ears stood on end to listen to the approach of the Roh. Something didn't smell right. His head still hurt, his senses still easily confused, but even in this volcanic stink something didn't smell right. He wished K'zhumi had been able to do more about his concussion , but he would have to deal with that. At least the hellfire fused his shattered humeri, the internal burn so dull now it was nearly imperceptible. Shang'Gai Chah, in his own mind still calling himself K'ile Tia, waited for Baoht Zuqqa Roh to show himself.

[Naunet]

His legs moved with a sure swiftness they'd never before had, limbs emboldened by the rush of aether from the dead Amal'jaa behind him. He kept his silence as he ran, though, footsteps as light as he could manage, and shook his head to let the hood of his robe fall back from his ears so he could better make use of their sense. They swiveled as he ran, and he breathed deep through his nose to take in the scents around him.

 

A red glow coalesced at the terminus of the shadowed crag. It throbbed ahead with an almost palpable heat, growing larger as he neared where the gap opened. There could be no hesitating or planning now, he thought to himself tensely. If Shang'Gai Chah was still there, it was almost certain he already knew of Thal's approach. Securing his grip on the black spear, pulling it back slightly in preparation, he lengthened his strides, testing the limits of the aether that surged through him.

 

He burst from the shadows in silence and leapt for the first figure his senses fell upon without fully processing the sight of it.