Day 2: Early Morning, Hill-top Defensive Wall
The Mazgar attack achieved total surprise.
I scaled a hill with Akingin and his scouts to find it abandoned; barrels of pitch neatly lined up along the defensive wall. Ballistae were installed at intervals and aimed outwards at the desert.
We looked down from the wall at the fortress city - smoke rising into the dawn sky showed the advance of War Priest Mong’s legion. Alarm bells sounded across the city over the unending braying of Mazgar war horns.
From up on the hill, I could see how Mong had split the legion into three groups. One went East the second West, both keeping the hill-walls of the fortress against one flank. The third part of the legion moving through the center. That, I was told, was Mong’s force. From up on the hill the three forces looked small, almost puny. The cultist warriors outnumbered them five to one at least. If the cultists managed to rally the fortress would become our deathtrap.
“Get those barrels open!” Akingin yelled, “And turn the ballistae around, on the city!”
As I ran I bumped a small table, knocking over a bowl of still-steaming soup. I joined several braves heaving at a ballista, teeth gritted, as they swung it around. The ballista was like a Roman scorpion - a crossbow-like device, but these were about twice the size of a man. A Mazgar climbed it and jumped up and down till its tip aimed down at the city.
Alongside us, three men carried a barrel between them, its lid smashed open. Black pitch sloshed out leaving gleaming puddles on the flagstones.
“Come,” A Mazgar motioned to me, his Low Common heavily-accented. “Fire.”
I stepped away from the ballista as several men loaded it with a iron-tipped bolt. The bolt was as tall as I was. They then slathered its end in pitch and set it alight. The pitch burned slow, settling heavily into the dry, porous wood of the bolt’s shaft. The loaders worked the weapon’s crank, twisted ropes pulled the metal crossbar back further than I thought could be possible.
Perhaps too excited, the same man who had jumped up on down on the weapon, pulled the firing lever.
His fellows went tumbling in a pile as the ballista snapped back, heavy chains at its base clanking as they held the weapon from jumping off the wall. The burning bolt shot off like a rocket, disappearing into the tents, huts, and rickety towers below.
“By Yog, that’s how its done!” Akingin roared. “Get all these firing! Aim all the way at the back; don’t give them any peace before Mong reaches them!”
The men cheered. Another ballista was readied and fired. Then a third. The scouts fell into squads, each man with role in the process. A massed volley went out, and then another sooner after. We saw smoke rising up in the distance from our handiwork.
“Will we remain here?” I asked Akingin.
“No. But first, I must see if any defenders come back to stop us bombarding it. Only if these fen are safe will I take the others down into the city. You should go now, though. If the fighting reaches the Temple of Tsathoggua before you go, it will be too dangerous to make attempt.” he called out and three young braves came running. Their arms, chests, and faces were marked with white body paint. They carrried shields of stretched animal hide long spears tipped with black, serrated iron. “They will go with you, Friend. Go, and get your woman! Haran Mazgar! Haran Yog!”
I saluted him in the Mazgar style, and left.
***
Day 2: Mid-Morning, Temple of Tsathoggua
“Move! By the Mi-Go, move you dogs!”
We threw ourselves against an adobe building as six guards on horseback, cloaks flapping behind them, galloped past down the road. Across from us, a ragged human bucket chain was trying to put out a growing fire on a wattle-and-daub hut - a ballista bolt protruded out its flaming side. A old man at the end of the chain called out: his tone even, steady, calming against the storm. A second ballista bolt took off his head. The bucket chain collapsed, people fleeing, screaming.
We stepped back into street. My escorts wore ragged clothes and bloodied leather armor and shields, taken right off men who’d stood against us. Hidden under their disguises were blow darts and serrated knives. The braves had washed their facepaint away at donkey’s drinking trough - the donkey ignored them politely till one lit a rope dipped in pitch and tied it to its tail. It took off braying in one direction, stampeding through a line of tents and setting them alight. Poor bastard. We went the other way.
We were nearing the temple. I didn’t know what we’d find there but it was in the opposite direction of the fighting. While there was chaos among the noncombatants, the soldiers though had kept discipline. Columns of troops marched passed us towards the fight, spears held high, Mi-Go icons hanging from banners. Rushing ahead of them were fanatics - armed with knives, clubs, and stones. They chanted and howled, hungry to prove themselves to their watching gods. I watched one dragging himself along the ground, his leg broken. He gritted away the pain, declared his faith, and dragged himself onwards.
What chance did we have against madness?
Refugees, more than anything our side was doing, were what slowed the enemy down. Crossing our path ahead of us was a stream of people pressed chest to back, yelling and wailing. Closest to us was a middle-aged man pushing a cart. He had only one shoe on, his hair was wild. Atop his cart were a pile of crushed clothes, a clay icon of a Mi-Go, and a small, wooden, chest. I wondered if they were not just his treasured, but also his only possessions.
Behind him, a tall, blue-eyed, brunette girl wrapped in a shawl stepped out and ran past him. She tried to squeeze back into the stream further up, but angry shouts met her instead. She tried going back but her earlier place was gone. She looked up and down the human stream and started weeping.
“By the Mi-Go!” she cried. “Will someone help me?”
“Clear a path!” I called out, holding up my sword. “Clear a path for your warriors!”
Some in the crowd regarded me, eyes uncertain. No one moved. The tall girl moved though, head down. Her features were elegant and the shawl hugged graceful shoulders and curves.
“Move!” One of my Mazgar bodyguards grabbed a man and pushed him to the ground. “Move!”
People cried out as two of the bodyguards starting grabbing and shoving people out of the way. The third went to the man with the cart, pushed him away, and took his wooden box.
“Give that back! No!” the man struggled against the barbarian.
The Mazgar dashed the box against the ground. It split open; gold and silver coins spilled out. Refugees rushed out of the press, scrabbling in the dirt for whatever they could take.
“Madam, come,” I gestured to the brunette.
She looked at me, eyes wide. Then she rushed up and stood against me.
I walked her back into the stream, my arm around her shoulders. I felt the warmth and the softness of her body as she moved - just a few, thin, fabrics separated her from me.
“Thank you, Brother!” she took my hand. It was soft, her fingers long, warm.
“Behind the temple there is another road,” I said, “It goes through a half-reclaimed area, but there is a path. You will make better progress going that way.”
“Thank you again,” she pressed against me as we hit the center of the stream. The smell of sweat, piss, and fear in the crowd, was overwhelming. I tried not to think what would happen if there was a sudden panic. “I cannot thank you enough, you are a generous Warrior!”
She didn’t mean ‘generous.’ The word that she wanted, ‘kindness,’ didn’t quite exist in Low Common, not the way I knew it. The Hyperborean word for it was not flattering.
“You don’t owe me anything,” I held my arm out in front of her, like a shield. “Just, make it out of here, alright? If you are captured, you will be enslaved. Of this I am certain.”
“Yes!”
She left us once we cleared the streaming refugees. My Mazgar bodyguards watched her go.
“She will look excellent, painted with slave marks and kneeling naked in the sand,” whispered one. He was taller man with a scar through his left eyebrow. “We will take her. We will take them all. Tonight she will moaning under a master!”
I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the girl. Falling slave was one thing, but being a civilian trapped in a war, was quite another. Another part of me though, was elated. She would indeed make a lovely slave.
“Come!” Scar Brow clapped me on the back and laughed. “Let’s get your slave!”
***
We came upon the Temple of Tsathoggua.
There were no worshipers about. The little, rickety stalls that sold offerings were abandoned, some stocked with flowers and clay icons for the morning’s business. Standing at the top of the steps leading to the temple entrances, were 30 spearmen arranged in three rows of 10.
They carried wooden shields and wore studded, leather armor. Most wore helmets of iron or bronze. Each carried a long spear and had a short sword at their sides. They held perfect formation: none of the panic in the city seemed to touch them. At their front stood a man with a white cloak over his armor. He carried no spear, but instead a heavy, two-handed, Shemite, socketed bronze axe, a design made for cleaving armor. He glared at us as we reached the temple and began ascending it steps.
"Be off with you, Soldier!" He snapped, "that is, if you are a soldier. What is with your ramble? If you are looters, speak your last words well, dog."
Scar Brow gave me a quick look. I patted his arm.
"Look at all, you pretty, pretty soldier boys!” I spat. “Even when battle comes, you get in the way."
"You slave’s shit stain!" The soldiers face turned red. "Why I-"
"I am not a soldier, I am a captain of a search band. We’re dogs and shit stains indeed! Your time, while safe inside these walls while I have faced true horrors, has not dulled your keen soldiers mind! Let us pass now. I am under urgent orders from Stikken."
"Stikken? I have not heard of him."
"And I assure you, he has not heard of you," I reached the top of the stairs.
"What is your business here!" his eyes went from me, to my fellows, and back to me. The Mazgar radiated menace in waves. "My orders were that none may enter the temple."
"My orders are to enter," I replied, unshouldering my pack and reaching inside. "Here," I pulled out one of the silvery discs I had found at the base camp destroyed by the Cthonian, "I am to secure these tablets inside the temple, for their safety."
"That is not a tablet!" He interrupted.
"Not to the eyes of an idiot, no. The mad Runa priest who lives alone in the ruins can read them. Would you like to tell him that he is wrong? He could do with some protection. Out there, all on his own in a little house without so much is a gate. I'd be happy to recommend you and your men for-"
"You may pass," he gave an order and his men stepped aside making a pathway for us.
"The blessings of the Mi-Go upon you," I grinned and put away the disc. We walked through their ranks and entered one of the long tunnels that took us into the Temple of Tsathoggua.
“How did you know to say all that?” asked Scar Brow.
“Good product knowledge and a passion for selling.”
***
Inside, there was more chaos. The walls echoed with the yelling of men, the cracking of whips, and the shrieks of slave girls. Cultists rushed up and down the stone cut stairs. A large man puffed past me, his robes thick with sweat. He held a bag to his chest, stuffed to the brim with scrolls. One fell as he brushed past me, rolling down the stairs. He cursed, looked back at it for a long moment, then put his head down and carried on, sandalled feet slapping against the steps.
Down a flight of steps was revealed a floor held up by black, granite pillars. Tables had been laid out across it in a grid pattern, well lit by braziers placed at intervals. Scholars ran between the tables, plucking up pinned fragments of parchment, clay potsherds, and cracked tablets. I wondered if they realized what was to have been their life's work could now cost them their lives.
Of course they did. Some dropped their tools and ran, not just for the stairs but down towards unmarked, dark tunnels. Others stole sawdust from each other, shoving artifacts into crates. A few kept working, calmly transcribing even as the world around them ended.
We kept descending. Once we go to about halfway down, there were far fewer people. Some parties of armed guards rushed past us, off to secure some senior cultist or precious tome. We passed a bewildered, old man, kneeling in front of an alcove shrine. The effigy inside it was a bronze-wire Mi-Go, but his prayers were to Yog.
We passed the entrance to the proscribed tunnel I had hidden Perfect Feet and the other slave girls in. I hoped they had not been found. I thought of Perfect Feet: her long, slender arms and legs, the long shock of dark, luxurious hair. Such a magnificent, submissive beauty! I could not countenance her being found and taken away by the Mazgar.
We passed beyond and headed down deeper, ever deeper, to the bottom of the temple. The heat from the lava pool below pressed against us. It was dry heat with a chemical tang that stuck in the back of the throat and burned. Soon we saw no one else. We passed barricaded entrances, and tunnels leading into utter darkness. The steps were cracked with heat and dust was heaped in drifts against the walls.
Even the stonework, regressed: the walls became rough-cut and the steps uneven. Crude hieroglyphics appeared, some stretching down across several floors. We passed galleries of standing stones raised by humans for no reasons I could guess that. That is, if they were raised by humans, at all.
"You are taking us into the Underworld!" Scar Brow gripped my shoulder. "You will not find your woman here, except perhaps her cracked and burned bones!"
"Such optimism,” I shook him off. “There, do you see those lights?" I pointed to a row of flickering fires another four floors down. "That has to be the place. Every dark-haired slave girl these bastard's could lay their hands on."
We made our way down to the to the fires. I had expected we'd find just another old tunnel or cave entrance marked by some flaming torches. Instead, we came upon a landing of large, black marble that shined an unnerving, oily green. It was lit by four braziers, each about twice the height of a man. They were patterned with deep cuts and geometric shapes that stung between my eyes. The more I looked at them, the more I got a feeling I was being watched.
Facing the landing were a pair of immense black doors banded in dark metal. Standing in front of them were six men in white robes. At their sides were curved, kopesh blades. Their skins were as white as paper, their hair, a deep red. They glared at us with eyes of deepest purple.
"What are you doing here?" Asked one, stepping forward. He wore a black iron circlet on his head from which hung iron nose and cheek guards. "None should be down here. Return to the battle."
"We are on urgent business," I scowled and crossed my arms. "Stand aside and let us pass."
The Runa guards did not budge.
"Who sent you?" Asked Iron Helmet.
"We've been sent by Stikken, we have a valuable tablet that needs to be-"
"Kill them!" He barked.
Bronze flashed as the Runa drew their blades and charged us, roaring.
The Mazgar Braves, as cool as Caesar's legionaries, pulled out their blow pipes, took careful aim, and fired.
Two Runa were hit in the first volley. One grunted, clawing at his neck. His eyes grew wide and he began screaming, falling to his knees and clawing at his throat with both hands. With bloodied fingers he grabbed his dropped sword by the blade and shoved it into his own throat.
The second man was hit in the shoulder. He dug at the dart, howling, before scratching all over himself, ripping off his robe. Another Runa tried to hold him but he tore free, ran to the edge of the landing, and jumped down to the lava pit far below.
The second volley killed a third man, but then a thrown kopesh struck a Mazgar in the eye, cutting into his skull. I brought my sword up to parry as the Runa crashed into us.
Iron Helmet had come at me. He was wiry, quick on his feet, young. I jerked back once, twice, as his kopesh whooshed just short of my throat. His blade went low to strike at my groin but I sidestepped, and smashed him in the face with the rim of my shield. He staggered back, nose broken, stunned. I knocked his sword arm aside and stabbed him through the throat. His purple eyes seemed surprised, as if he thought an insect had killed him.
Scar Brow cried out as a Runa brought his sword up across the man's arm; blood spraying out. The Runa laughed and pressed forward, but Scar Brow dropped, kicked the man off balance, and stabbed him in the gut as he fell.
Scar Brow’s arm still spraying blood, he grabbed the fallen Runa by the hair and forced his head. The Mazgar drew a barbed dagger, snarled, and used it to tear out the Runa’s eyes, one by one. He then kicked the screaming man aside, sat cross-legged, and tried to staunch his bleeding.
The other surviving Mazgar held his own against the last Runa. I brought my broadsword down on the Runa’s head, crushing it skull like an egg. I cannot begin to tell you how satisfying that was.
We ran to Scar Brow.
"Get your friend back to the surface," I said to the other Mazgar. "You have aided me no end, but I will go on my own from here."
"Are all your kind this weak?" Said Scar Brow, fastening a tourniquet above his cut. The second Mazgar helped him bind the wound. Red seeped through the bandage but he wasn’t bleeding to death anymore. Scar Brow stood, keeping his arm against his side. He picked up a kopesh and hefted with his good arm.
“Shall we enter, Weakling?”