The next morning we departed from the temple.
Fogrim had been busy. He'd collected together food and other supplies salvaged from the remains of the previous expedition's camp. There was enough to get us back safely to the cultists' fortress, and we had refilled water from puddles inside the catacombs.
"Are you ready to face the Chthonian?" Fogrim asked, testing a large wooden shield he had found, against his spear. "I trust you will see to it that there is no screaming?" he glanced at Onska.
The girl was kneeling at the cave entrance, looking out over the sand. I had tied a large pack over her back. A rope leash hung from her throat, down between her breasts. Her head scanned this way and that, watching for the monster.
"There will be none of that," I said, polishing my sword with a rag.
I noticed a tiny movement on the ground. It was an iridescent, blue-black beetle climbing into a crack. It pressed itself against a whole family of other beetles.
"I have an idea," I plucked the bug out. It wriggled and clawed as I dropped it on a large rock. With a piton, I ground it into a glittering blue paste. One by one, I added the rest.
"What are you doing?" Fogrim looked down with a mix of surprise and interest. "Is this some delicacy of your depraved people?"
"I have an idea. We know that the creature worships Tsathoggua. Let's make a little gesture."
"It would not do to draw attention to ourselves, Gerard." Fogrim crossed his arms.
"Nothing it'll notice unless it already decided to come after us."
"Whatever you're doing, hurry up," He walked out of the temple entrance and onto the sand.
"Slave," I snapped my fingers.
Onska ran over to me and knelt.
"This will protect you," I dabbed my finger into the blue paste. She stared into my eyes as I traced my finger across her forehead and made the mark of Tsathoggua.
"You will be safe now," I made the mark on my forearm as well.
"Thank you, Master!" She nodded, smiling.
"Provided you do not scream. Master Fogrim would prefer you gagged. I don't need to gag you, do I, Slave?"
"No, Master. I will be silent as a mouse in the night."
"Good."
We set out across the sand, two men and a leashed pack girl. Behind us, we left a snow angel-sized symbol of the demon god.
The Chthonian did not appear.
***
"Our friend is patient," said Fogrim, shielding his eyes against the midday sun as he looked up. "Maybe he will attack come darkness?"
I looked up at the circling Teratorn. Even high up as it was, it looked massive. It felt like being stalked by a plane.
"At least it's just the one," I replied. "Let's try and get to those ruins," I pointed to a sandy haze in the distance. "He won't want to dive at us in the middle of a sandstorm."
"Would that I had my bow and I would welcome his attempt," Fogrim cracked his knuckles. "I crave fresh meat."
"So does he, and he doesn't need a bow. Keep moving."
We carried on towards the haze. Instead of resolving into ruins, though, it became thicker - and larger. There were no winds, so it could not have been a sandstorm. So what was it?
"He is leaving," said Fogrim. He looked up, his head tracking the beast.
Sure enough, the Teratorn had abandoned us and was heading back into the deeps of the ruins.
"Why would the master of the skies leave its prey?" he asked.
"May be found easier prey."
Fogrims did not seem to think so.
"We should be careful," he frowned at the mysterious sandstorm. "I do not like the look of that. It is unnatural, Gerard."
"Agreed. Let's take a detour and-"
I felt the woosh of an arrow flying right past my face.
Eight men burst out of the ruins surrounding us, howling and cheering. They had the dark skins of Darfuri, but there the resemblance ended. Their arms, chests, and faces were marked with white body paint. Each had the mark of Yog cut into their foreheads and cheeks. They howled at us like wolves, waving shields of stretched animal hide. Each warrior had a compound bow over their backs made from horn and polished bone. Their quivers were filled with arrows tipped with gleaming, flaked obsidian. They carried long spears tipped with black, serrated iron.
"Mazgar!" Fogrim gritted his teeth so hard they ground. He squared his shoulders and raised his shield as another arrow struck it. Onska screamed and dropped to the ground, kneeling with her head to the sand.
"Haran Mazgar!" they chanted, one man beating his shield with a rattle made from human finger bones. "Haran Mazgar! Haran Yog!"
Two of the younger warriors stepped forward, grinning. The other men cheered as the two regarded us like fatted prey.
I drew my sword.
One hefted his spear and charged me, screaming. I threw myself to the side, but not before his vicious blade nicked the side of my arm. It tore through like white fire.
He tried to yank it back, but I caught the shaft and held it aside. He made the mistake of struggling to free it. I stepped into his guard, brought up my sword arm, and stabbed him through the chest. His eyes became wide, stricken.
The cheers turned into angry shouting. I twisted the blade, pressed my boot against his chest, and kicked him free. Flesh ripped like paper and blood sprayed. The man fell to the ground, screaming and clutching at his chest. Onska stared at him as he bled to death in front of her.
Fogrim and the other attacker clashed. There was the Clack! Clack! Clack! As they used their spears like two-handed fighting staffs. The Mazgar suddenly swung at Fogrim, overbalancing. Fogrim sidestepped and brought his spear shaft down on the Mazgar's head. There was a loud crack as the skull caved in.
The other six men roared and advanced, shields held at the ready and spears leveled at us.
"This is it!" I went back to back with Fogrim. "Let's kill as many as we can!"
"Ha! We will kill them all!"
We heard someone bellowing further away, behind us. All the Mazgar stopped and looked to the new entrant. I risked a look: approaching was a six-foot-five giant with the pelt of a saber-tooth hanging off his shoulders. There were red tattoos on his chest and arms, and white ash around his eyes.
The Mazgar warriors held their position and gave us dark looks. One yelled a protest at the giant. He snarled back, and the grumbler looked away. The giant shoved past their circle of spears.
"Gerard of Stone," the Mazgar trader-spy grinned, baring his dagger-like teeth. "You have at last come quite to these lands. I thought you had lost nerve after our meeting in Ebugal."
"Who are you really, and what are your people doing here?" I did not lower my sword.
"You never asked my name. I am Akingin, and all words I have spoken with you, are true ones," he motioned for me to lower my blade. "We are raiders. All of Darfur is our hunting ground!"
"We will salt your fields!" Fogrim growled, "we will dig up the skulls of your ancestors and smash them! Your daughters we will work in our mines by day and our beds by night, never to see the sun again!"
The spearmen pricked up their ears at his words. One asked Akingin a question. Akingin replied, miming Fogrim's energy. The spearmen laughed. Some even lowered their spears. They looked at Fogrim with what seemed a mix of amusement, contempt, and pity.
"You didn't answer my question. Why are you here?"
"To deal with a threat to our power in these lands. The Servants of Yarth-Tanophk."
Behind him, the sandstorm seemed to grow larger.
"Ha!" Fogrim scoffed. "You and your pack of barking hyenas best turn and run then. Perhaps the Giant Vultures will spare you if you all stay close together, and hold your spears like the spines of a sea urchin! There are thousands of cultists here. It will take an army to destroy them!"
"Good," Akingin pointed to the sandstorm, "because we brought one."
***
Dusk settled over the desert as I made my way through the emerging Mazgar camp.
It had been laid out in an exact, square grid. Its lines were pathways, each exactly 18 feet across. They divided up the camp into blocks 90 feet, square.
The outermost squares were for the infantry. I watched men break into teams, one producing tent poles from his pack. Another, unrolling a black tent sheet and shaking it out. The air was filled with the hammering of tent pegs into hard-packed earth. Someone hit his thumb and swore. A group of older warriors scoffed at a younger one, laughing cruelly while the younger man fumed in silence. I heard a thudding - a man shoved past me running, waving a woolen kilt over his head. Roaring after him came another, completely naked. The men around me laughed and hooted at the prankster and his victim. Onska stared a little too long at the naked runner's body.
She looked about - and the Mazgar infantrymen looked back. One licked his lips. Another grabbed his groin through his kilt. The slave quickly looked down and moved in close behind me.
It was strange seeing such sexual aggression from Hyperborean men. Free women walked this world's streets unafraid - passing men with slave girls kneeling chained at their feet.
Slave girls. That's what was missing!
"Slave," said a smiling man. He walked up to me; two others stood looking hopeful behind him. They had hieroglyphic scar patterns on their chests. Later I would learn these were kill counts. "Slave," he spoke Low Hyperborean like a man half-remembering a class he'd not taken seriously. "For silver?"
Onska's eyes became wide. She looked at me, concerned.
"Sorry buddy. Where are the slave girls?"
"No slaves," he shook his head. He said something to the other two. They seemed to sink in spirits. "Fight, then slaves!"
"Fair enough."
This seemed to support what Akingin had said. These were not raiders, killing, and stealing as they went. This was an army, marching with speed and abroad for a single purpose. That they could trespass in this way rammed home for me just how large and empty the Darfuri Empire really was.
I passed the infantry tents and went to the edge of the camp. Men wearing saber-tooth pelts barked orders to teams carrying sharpened wooden stakes. A man tripped and stumbled, and his whole team dropped their stake. A pelt-leader yelled a stream of disturbing sounds, and the men looked down. He finished with spitting at the fallen man and kicking sand in the face. The man winced and got to his feet. The team tried again and carried the stake safely to the emerging palisade wall.
The sharpened stakes were embedded facing outwards. Teams of men stood just beyond them, digging ditches. Standing watch was a thin, wiry man with a grey beard set with ivory beads. He had white ash around his eyes, daubed on his bare chest. At his side was a club made from a notched thigh bone with a studded head of dull iron.
"You have come to lend aid, Foreigner?" he said in (perfect) Low Hyperborean.
"I just wanted to look around. Is that alright?"
"Of course," he gestured. "See how the warriors of Mong work together. They must do this every night. See the Archer, there," he pointed to a star, starting to peek through the growing dusk. "Once it rises to the Second House, they must be finished. Otherwise, I will make their commanders will go hungry, and their men will have half-rations tonight."
They didn't have much time left.
"I think you will not be popular with the warriors of Mong tonight."
"Ha! Bunch of slave-born dogs!" he opened a leaf-wrapped pack of jerky and gave me some. It had a bitter, salty taste. "They fear my scolding more than any hunger. They will finish before the Archer rises."
"You're a tough boss. I'm Gerard."
"Well met Gerard, I am Ammad, Shark Master of Mong," he pointed to the scar outline of a Dunkleosteus armored fish on his chest. "This is an army on campaign. Order is all. When a band of braves take to canoes at night, to win blood scars and return with stolen grain and naked girls, they need heart, speed, daring! And they will win: the breeding huts of Mazgari are filled beauties such as yours," he pointed to Onska. "But then, the priest king's legions come. Few in number, they gather on our beaches. Their only sounds are barking officers, braying horns, and the march of their feet as one beast! Rrump! Rrump! Rrump!" he mimed a march. "Then, our bands leave the villages, wearing their trophies and cheering their heroes. Some will bring the bones of their ancestors. Others come covered in ash, blessed by the priests. They form a horde so great that the Invader cannot sleep at night for all the noise!" he paused a moment, his eyes far away. "And the next day, he sweeps them all away. Our villages are burned, and the wells filled. The fields are salted, and our children burned and eaten for Yog. The Darfuri take our daughters and put them to their plows and dairies. For a generation, the lake's beaches are quiet, and there is no raiding."
Cheering broke out among the men. The Yelling Commander slapped the Stake Dropper on the back. I looked to the defensive wall and the ditches - they were all ready. In the early evening sky, the Archer was only just entering the Second House.
"This year will be very different," said Ammad.
"You speak with a Darfuri highlands accent; were you - are you - a Darfuri?"
He laughed.
"No, but I have lived among them as a spy. Ten years with the Red Panthers legion at Eibon."
"Years?"
"I learned well from them well. Behold, this is a Mazgar legion! There are others like it in Mazgari."
"You mention Mong - is that a tribe, or a king?"
"He is a War Priest. You would call him a temple high priest. Each of our temples has many villages that send it offerings. When Yog demands blood, then they send braves instead."
"Are you sure it's alright you telling me all this? I don't even have a minder. You people aren't going to kill me when this is done, right?"
Ammad laughed.
"Akingin said to let you: he wants you to understand how we are different from the Darfuri - and therein, why you should help us."
"You won't get any help from me while my friend is held prisoner."
"That is for his own safety. He will be freed tonight when you are both brought before Mong. Mong will decide what to do with you. Make good offer, and see you and your friend both spared."
"No. If you want my help, you're the ones who have to make an offer."
"Akingin wants your help," said Ammad. "Mong does not. If you do not convince him, he will have you killed and eaten."
***
Dusk turned to evening. Pairs of mounted guards with skull-cracker maces at their belts patrolled the pathways. Campfires were lit outside the rows of black infantry tents. At one, a man offered me a clay bowl filled with steaming stew. It was boiled yams, onions, and a suspiciously fatty meat I didn't want to think about. They let Onska lick their bowls clean.
Deeper in the camp, I passed the cavalry tents; they were circled around hay bales and water troughs. A Mazgar brushed a spotted, grey horse and fed it fruit from his palm. Another lead a horse to an anvil where a man was hammering a bent horseshoe back into shape. They gave me cold looks as I passed.
At the edge of the cavalry area were two yurts. Two spearmen stood guard outside one. They stepped aside to let me pass.
"Did you enjoy your sightseeing?"
Reed mats covered the floor of the yurt. On one side was a clay water jar and cup. A bowl of stew was beside it, untouched. On the other were Fogrim's pack and weapons (you disarm a Hyperborean at your peril). Fogrim was pacing up and down.
"It is a big camp," I closed the tent flap behind me. Onska knelt. "I estimate eighty horsemen and four hundred spearmen who are also armed with bows. And three woolly mammoths."
"Barbarians," he waved away the numbers. "A horde of wild animals playing at being men."
"A horde that makes a fortified camp every night, and uses Darfuri infantry tactics. Their commanders are veterans from your own legions."
His eyes nearly fell out his head.
"Impossible! No son of this land would betray us to these ape-fucking brutes!"
"Then you don't know people," I took his cup and poured myself a drink. "Or how much your peoples are alike."
"What!"
"Your ancestors were raiders from across Lake Eibon. So are they. They have the same facial features and skin tones as Darfuri highlanders. You both worship Yog. Your priests can raise zealot warbands. It is very clear Fogrim that the Mazgar are what the Darfuri were like when your tribes first destroyed Aymund and settled here."
"You do not know of what you speak," he looked away, arms folded, fuming. "That is your nature. To look upon something for but an hour, and then speak of it as if you know more than those who have known it their whole lives!"
"Tell me I'm wrong."
"You're wrong."
"Tell me why I'm wrong."
He shook his head, staring at the yurt wall.
"There is nothing to say. You would not listen; you have made up your mind."
"I'm the one who's made up his mind?"
"What you say insults me!" he turned and jabbed his finger at me like a sword. "You insult my father, his grandfather, and all my ancestors! I took you to be a brother, I gave you Layla to breed, and this is what you say!"
"I'm sorry I've upset you, Fogrim - but this isn't about me."
"No, it's not!" he spat. "None of this is about you! It's about my son and about my people, both of which are threatened by invaders from abroad! I do not need you telling me that I am somehow related to these mongrels!"
There was a polite cough, and the tent flap opened. A bald man stood there, white ash covering his head and face. On his chest was a tattoo of Yog. His kilt was made from stitched-together human skins. He motioned for both of us to follow.
"What now?" Fogrim scoffed at him. "Are you going to sacrifice us?"
The priest gave him a hard look, then stepped back out of the yurt.
"I think we're meeting Mong now," I stood.
"Who is Mong?"
"Right now? Maybe the most important man on the planet."