Flashback End Times

[Razkar]

1st Day of Spring, 512AV
Midday
The Pottery Stands

Taloba trembled.

Her people screamed as the skies curdled, shook and pulsed like the inside of a demon's womb.

An agonized choir of bass moans drowned out everything save the crashing of masonry as whole herds of Tskanna's went from docile beast to raging monsters in mere ticks.

Stamping, rearing animals weighing tons broke free from bronze chains as if they were made of candle tallow and ran down thoroughfares, shaking the ground to bad that catacombs under them were destroyed merely by the vibrations. Dozens were crushed under them uncaring, terrified feet and the Trading Square became a madhouse of shrieking, terrified voices all pressing to flee.

At the northern wall, a rain of screaming males and females tumbled from the fortifications. Wailing and sobbing at the darkness that engulfed them - and, the survivors would discover, would never end - they flailed at the ancient stones and each other, many stumbling right off the edge, falling down and down and dying in the dark.

On the southern wall a male who had been scarred my Dhani and Yukmen and screamed his hate into their dying faces felt his legs collapse under him. Spear and shield tumbled from his hands and he gripped the stones as if without them he would be swallowed by the very ground.

Based on what he was seeing at that moment, it seemed possible.

"Goddess help us..."

Lit by the kaleidoscope sky - burgundy and purple and turquoise and jet black, no rhyme or reason, just endless waves of rolling djed infecting cloud and wind - the Killing Ground beyond the walls, hacked clean and low, was now writhing into life. For a horrible moment the sentry thought a vast army of Earth Demons were emerging from their birthing-graves, but instead swathes of trees and vines erupted from the grass. Foliage that would take years, decades to grow bulged skyward within moments before his eyes, scratching at the tortured skies, seeping into the stones, marching up the walls-

"Tis the end! The End Times! As Myri-"

CRACK!

The sentry whirled as the hysterical voice was cut short by a sharp, vicious nap of knuckles across flesh and bone. His spinning, tearful vision was refocused in a blink: he saw the cluster of warrior, weapons raised as if they could slash or stab the sky and the rumbling city with them; a woman on the ground, hand to her bruised cheek, another standing over her...

Glowering. Merciless. Unafraid amid the chaos, firm as rock and very, very unimpressed.

Jakai of the Patient Shadows, right-hand of the legendary Kreesha.

"Cease your whining, female! Is this how you would greet disaster?! With tears and empty hysterics?!"

"B-But the-the sky, y-you know-"

"I know-" Jakai took a dangerous step forward, voice louder as a crowd huddled closer to her, taking strength from her certainty "-that for centuries we have defended Sacred Taloba. The Ancient Enemy, the Earth Demons, barbarian hordes and monsters from the darkest corners of the hells, all have broken upon our walls and weapons. Did we accomplish that by whining of the apocalypse?!"

She whirled on the crowd now, ignoring the hellish sky painting her features like a demon's.

"No! We endured! And we shall endure again! Remember your training, all of you! Crisis is upon us! Start spreading the word: the tskanna are to be pacified and, if necessary, killed. The guard at the gate is to be reinforced immediately. I want roving patrols throughout the city doubled and I want a fresh Claw on the north wall! You?!"

The sentry nearly flinched as he finger swung to him, as threatening to his frightened mind at that moment as a spear would have been.

"Back to the Garrison! Rouse the army and tell them Jakai of the Patient Shadows orders them to reinforce the walls, restore order and begin tending to the wounded!"

"My-Myri has fors-saken us! She-"

CRACK! CRACK!

With a snarl of anger Jakai front- and back-handed the half-mad female into submission, so hard that even seasoned warriors at her back flinched in sympathy. It was so... strange, seeing her so vicious. Always she the ice to Kreesha's ever-raging fires: temperate and moderate and calming. But now she seemed to mirror her... "comrade's" ferocity, but her words were so sure, so certain and without doubt that the sentry felt his legs return to life just at hearing them.

"The Goddess-Queen would never desert us. Never in a millenia has she, nor will she." Her eyes snapped up to the sentry pounding down the stairs, then kicking up dust. "Male?!"

Razkar stopped in a minor hurricane of skidding dirt and turned.

"... don't look up."

"Yes, Mistress!"

He ran through the screaming city.

[Tinnok]

"KOHL WE NEED YOU!"

The cry went up from Amadja one of the head workers in the Tskanna yards. even now when the yards were all but empty, completely decimated by giant grey green feet he could still here the trumpets in town. But there was a reason Kohl of the Sinking Stone had not left with the others in a mad and perhaps vain attempt to calm the rampaging Tskanna.

And one of the reasons was fighting his grip even now. Suki was little, littler than she should have been for her age, and one of Kohl's personal charges in the yards due to her constant need for care. Now the little calf was braying and wailing, feet kicking and stomping, demanding to go after her mother and aunts and cousins wherever they had gone. Kohl had rounded up most all of the infants, who were just as likely to be trampled by the adults as anything, and Suki was the last one. The male didn't know much, but if the giant beasts had to be put down, the yards would need the young ones alive and not smashed into the dirt of the trading square. It was even now when everything was so uncertain, when screams from Tskanna and Myrian alike filled the squares, warriors brought low by fear of what they couldn't comprehend, that Kohl seemed more like a calm rock amidst a running river, for he was a sinking stone, and would nestle upon the bottom of all waters, no matter how torrid or swift running.

He grabbed the little cow's ears, yanking it until she cried out in pain and slapped her rump, dragging the little one across the yard and kicking open the gate in which he shoved the little one in and pulled it tightly closed as other little feet scampered towards the entrance, tiny trunks waving in anxious fear.

"Caiyha will look after you little ones, it will all be right again, just not yet." He said. He made sure their water trough was full, and there was straw and other dried greens aplenty just in case they were left for longer than one might want, then the lanky male turned and sprinted for the entrance.

Dark tanned arms pumped as he followed the utter destruction of the Tskannas. Amadja was beside a downed cow, her large tusks moving upward and downward, heaving with exertion. Arrows to the legs had felled her early on upon her charge. It pained Kohl in his chest to see their charges filled with Myrian fletched arrows, but it could not be said that the Tskanna trainers didn't know how to deal with a rampaging heard of the normally docile beasts. Even now a milky white drink to ease the cow's pain was being poured into her strangely curved mouth.

"Kohl, there are too many of them and not enough of us." Amadja stroked the cow's trunk fondly, and Kohl was already surveying the roads. Saplings crushed, three buildings nearby completely demolished, dust billowing up around them. He heard a cry much too high in pitch to be a Tskanna trumpet and realized the Riamm's in the pet stalls were surely enraged as well, but his mind was not focused on them, or most of the Tskanna for that matter.

"Tyl...." He said. Amadja blanched as if the thought hadn't even occurred to her. Tyl was a monster of a bull Tskanna, two large pairs of tusks jutting out, the first of which brushed the ground if he walked the right way, usually when sulking about not getting this treat or being denied a female. Even his simply aesthetic third pair of tusks were larger than Kohl had ever seen. He was the best hauler, digger, a hard worker, but prone to bouts of moodiness and roughness with his trainers even when there was no call for it. And this strange storm would certainly give the bull call...more than enough.

"He'll trample everything in sight, he'll..."

Kohl held up a hand. "The darts, the traps?"

"They're there, they're out and everyone is setting them up even now."

"Then we'll stop him, all of them, one way or another."

"There aren't enough people..."

"Enough chatter, we're wasting time."

And with that the male was off, too fast to catch that glare. It wasn't often you got to upset the status quo and get away with it, and it made Kohl's lips quork for a moment before the weight of it all sank back upon his shoulders, feet pounding upon the ground as he charged through the wreck that was Taloba.

[Razkar]

Taloba quaked under his feet, and roared, and writhed, and it came in waves. Every step he took was at a dead run: any less and his feet might realize the ground they depended on was less than stable. Razkar rounded another corner, spear and shield held tight to his sides, careening past another group dragging chains, carrying spears-

The tskanna. They're already going after them.

Another blast of pure, terrified outrage trumpeted into the air, accompanied by tremors as massive feet stomped angrily... and closer. Razkar finally stopped and saw a lumbering beast with... Goddess, with blood on its feet circling over and over, a score of Myrians like ants brandishing spears, shouting, getting its attention, re-directing it, keeping its focus off-

-the chains being thrown around its legs, or its neck, another team of straining males and females in each end, pulling-

Razkar staggered when two knees the size of his torso crashed down to the street, and it wasn't all physical. Was this truly the End Times? The placid and gentle beasts that Caiyha had gifted them, that had served them loyally for generations... now they were raging, frothing, only the whites visible in their tiny eye sockets, bellowing blood and terror and anger-

-until a screaming female darted forward, arm thrusting, form excellent-

-buried it in the roof of the beast's open mouth. It thrashed and struggled but it was the throes of death, not a second wind, stilling... stilling...

The young male, mouth agape, eyes threatening to water again, lowered his eyes and a prayer for Caiyha sprang from his lips without thought. This was madness. All of it.

Focus, boy! The message! The Garrison! You must-

A deeper roar that was far more than bass exploded from behind him. He knew it was a male before his head even whipped around, but still... when he saw it...

"... Goddess..."

Tyl had arrived, and roared his displeasure at so fine and fertile a female destroyed in his presence. Houses shook to their bottom stones as he began to charge, tusks like trees swinging, battering through walls, feet crashing down over and over until Razkar threw himself aside-

-body bounced even as it lay prostate, unwilling to stand before such a furious force of nature-

-then the screaming started.

A ball of ice formed in his chest within the space of one, horrified gasp. Males and females shrieked at his back, dying on their feet while he hid on his belly. With shaking hands Razkar dragged himself upright, daring to turn... and saw Tyl laying waste to his Brothers and Sisters, standing over the still-warm body of the female, claws streaked with scarlet, whirling and whirling and so huge and grizzled that no distract could move him.

It has to be you. Do it! Do it now and run, damnit!

He hated using spears: they simply weren't his weapon. He hadn't trained in them, rarely carried them... just when on guard duty. For the look of it, apparently. Gladius and hand ax were at his hip, as always, but the weapon Razkar had to hand, in that moment...?

Well, make it good, then.

He did his best. The male raised the spear and reversed his grip on it, drew it back over his shoulder... left arm raised horizontal, using it to aim like his instructor's always said... tried to still the tremor in his arm for the throw, but Goddess, a target that big, who needed to-

Now!

-and as the long, bronze spear tip quavered over Tyl's broad flank he hurled it, throwing his shoulders, his torso, his whole body into the throw, arm exploding and perhaps even disjointed from the effort. The spear wobbled through the air like an overweight arrow and-

-Tyl screamed as it buried into his side. Not deep, but enough to bring that fast, tusked head swinging around to Razkar, tiny and inscrutable eyes regarding him with fury-

-letting loose a bellow that Razkar would swear for years after knocked him down by sheer sound alone. And from there he scrambled back, watching, terrified as Tyl began to charge again-

-saw the glitter at his legs, the chain thrown across his path by the rallied Myrians, given precious sicks to prepare. He remembered ho it glittered evilly under the mad day-night sky. A dozen females and males strained and gritted their teeth at either end, pulling the chain up sharply-

-and Tyl stumbled, snorted, kept marching, over a score of strong, able Myrian dragged along like children-

-but with their heels dug in, screaming prayers and oaths and curses until-

-that great and noble head struck the street in a cloud of dust. For a moment Razkar couldn't see it, coughing and squinting and blinded, swaying finally to his feet, hands on his weapons...

Seeing shadows, phantoms twirl and scuttle in the cloud. Hacking. Stabbing. Some vast and formless thing below them undulated and... begged... moaned... was still...

He was just scared. Chased from his wits by... evil wyrd. It had to be. Goddess, what has happened?!

Razkar ran on, tears stinging his eyes, and found Kreesha herself already mustering a Fang.

[Tinnok]

Krisha of the Tempered Steel was in the yard, black eyes gazing out to see the smoke and dust rising in the City of Bones. Her first thoughts went out to her children. Her eldest were far afield upon the coast, her youngest safely tucking in the longhouses...Rarik could be anywhere patrolling and Tinnok was out defending the blockade around Zinrah.

That made her mind pause. Was this happening only in Taloba? Perhaps it stretched outward, perhaps it was the doing of those miserable Dhani, perhaps what was happening here was only the tip...

And then she thought of Kohl, every trumpet wracking her mind. He was a stupid stubborn male, prone to bouts of foolish bravery, and she knew just what he was dong during this crisis...throwing himself into the middle of it. Despite the thought it made her tanned lips twitch slightly before her mind clamped back down to the present.

Kreesha was assembling her forces. Krisha would not be joining them, her skills more valuable in a forge than on the field, but in her hands lay many fine weapons as she chucked dented, dusty, and dull edges, scoffing at them and chastising the group.

Each blade that fell to the ground came with an insult. "If your skill with that gladius looks anything like it's warped hilt we're doomed."

"Did you buy that from a Charoda?"

"Are you relying on your father to wash your weapon for you, boy?"

Everyone was restless, Krisha no different. When she was finished doling out her stores Kreesha gave a respectful nod and the older blacksmith stepped to the side just in time for a weary looking male to charge through the front gates with words clearly hanging off the edge of his tongue.

Something seemed familiar about this male, Krisha thought, but she couldn't place her finger on it.

oocSorry this one's not as fun!

[Razkar]

Training: that was the key to it. The whole point of it, in fact. Shutting down your emotional responses, your mammalian brain's instinctive reaction to horror and fear, and replacing it with cold efficiency. Such an ability took years, but with every Myrian passing through the Training Yards, it spread through the populace of Taloba like a lightning bolt, infusing everyone with purpose.

Do not panic. Regain control. Put down your enemy and retake your city.

Everywhere Razkar passed, he saw the shock wearing off and some semblance of calm being restored to his people. It seemed like every street echoed with the dying roars of Tskanna's, or their enraged snorts as Myrians scaled them like ants with chains and ropes, hog-tied them until their madness subsided. Staggering, sobbing Myrians wandered blind and were rounded by by their fellows, shepherded to benches and given aid.

Razkar noted with pride that even they were settling down. They didn't know what was happening, or why, but they'd absorbed one of the main rules of Taloba: hysteria solved nothing. When in doubt, maintain and await further orders. Even as the sky roiled and turned in on itself in a riot of color, Taloba was quieting... but the sky stretched much farther than the city of bones.

He skidded into the courtyard outside the Barracks and Kreesha snapped a hand out to him before he'd even slowed down-

"You! Report!"

Razkar snapped off a salute and his tongue started running by itself, mind ignoring the fact that Holy Myri he was talking to General Kreesha!

"S-South Wall is secure, General! I saw Tskanna b-being subdued and killed, f-fangs are mustering, civilians a-are remaining under contr-"

"There are no civilians today, male," Kreesha cut him off shortly, inspecting her escort's weaponry even as she responded, "Kresha? How much longer for those arrows?"

"Nearly finished, mistress."

"Nearly is not what I need!" Kreesha growled back, every inch the personality Razkar had heard from the stories and gossip. "We should be moving out, and we are not, because we need arrows!"

Taloba was shuddering around them all and yet Razkar was suddenly cocking his head and studying the armorer more closely. "Kresha"? A relative? No, it was an "ah" sound, not an "ee", and... there was something... familiar.

Kresha... Kresh-Ah... wasn't that Tinnok's m-

"Want something, male?"

"N-No, mistress! Ah... you... don't happen to-"

"Male?!"

Razkar straightened like something shoved an iron spike up his spine and fixed his gaze just over Kreesha's shoulder. The old warrior rolled her eyes and sighed. Juveniles. Always taking things so seriously at the wrong times.

"For Myri's sake, stop it. Just listen. The army is mobilizing. Once the city is secure, and we're halfway to that, we will be prepared to move out at a tick's notice, as soon as we have our orders."

"Yes, mistress!"

"Until then, we solidify, tend to the wounded, guard the walls and gate and-"

Twins roars roiled and boiled like the eruption of a volcano above them, around them, choking off all other sound for precious, stunned ticks. It rumbled and shook and for an awful moment Razkar thought they had an earthquake to contend with... but no... it... cracked. Like thunder, only from the mouths of beasts huge and ferocious and... enraged.

Betrayed.

All eyes turned to The Palace, where Myri's great tigers vented their Mistress' fury unto the evil sky.

[Tinnok]

Krisha started, fingers curling around a sword at her belt at the roars. They spoke of the fury of Gods, and perhaps that's what all of this was. The world was discontent and the felines could sense it more acutely than Myrians with their dull senses and dim wits. It made her think again to the barricade. Was this the source? Could Siku, that pathetic under goddess be powerful enough to set the City of Bones upon its head?

No, surely if the Dhani were so potent they would have made a move sooner than now, not watch their numbers dwindle year to year, but what then was this madness that circled them like a vise, closing tighter and tighter?

----

A blur raced through the underbrush, paws pummeling the earth with great intent. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. She didn't know the word in Myrian, though Uleka of the Sinking Stone had spoken to her great tiger of everything, but she knew the absence of her rider now, like the prick of a Dhani weapon. Uleka was gone, her faint scent had clung to the empty clothes that had fluttered onto the ground, but she was not there, and even Lonae's potent nostrils could detect where she was gone. The few that weren't pure bloods curled up in pain, vomiting up food and blood, moaning like pitiful cubs. She was not interested in them, that did not smell pure, she was interested in Uleka, and Uleka was gone. Gone. Gone. Gone.

So she ran, ran back to the place she remembered, warm and dry when she had only been a cub, passed from rough hands to rougher ones as she had grown. No face stayed with her long, a Myrian technique to prevent bonding until a suitable warrior was found for a tiger. It was a lonely life, even playing with other tigers was kept to minimal levels, as they were often separated into different fangs in the end. Uleka's scent lingered in Lonae's nostrils as she ran. She knew the way home, and her muscles nearly locked up at the pace she was going. It was all so wrong, and all of them were gone, gone. She had to tell the other tigers, they would know what to do, they would bring the pure one's back to guard against the ugly snakes.

They had to.

[Razkar]

Bells dragged to days and though the roiling sky calmed, a thick and nervous stagnation settled over the City of Bones.

Maintain. Keep watch. Tend to the wounded, make safe the city and wait for orders from the Council and Blessed Myri.

Simple. The problem was there were no orders. As much as the warriors nervously pestered their Fang Leaders, or civilians queried the soldiers that marched and patrolled and set up endless checkpoints in and around the city, there was no news. There was no new; just the same as the day before.

And the jungle reaches ever higher.

"Any higher and we'll have to hack the vines from the parapet..."

Razkar's eyes slid to his partner on the west wall, but he hadn't the stomach to reprimand him... or perhaps it was because Varopa was right. The Killing Field that ringed Taloba, giving the archers and lookouts on the walls an unblemished view of any approach, had vanished. Shrubs and trees and vines and everything in-between and beyond had overwhelmed, swallowed, ruined it. Now he could hear the endless cacophony of curses and twanging machetes on wood and vine as an army of Myrians waged war on their new enemy, seeking to burn and slash this (literal) eyesore from the walls.

Every day, it grew back. It took nearly a full Tiger working for twelve hours to carve and incinerate a path out from the city, then cover the ashes and cleaved ground with stones to stop the vines growing back. And they were still lining it, hacking, slashing... without anything else to do.

"We'll deal with that when it happens."

"I didn't say he wouldn't," Varopa said back sharply, but Razkar wasn't rising to it, "Just tired of petching looking at it."

"Not going to make it go away, is it?"

"How can you still be so calm? It's been three days, and we've heard nothing-"

"Hurry up and wait, soldier." Razkar said back smoothly, eyes still not wavering from their well-worn route, panning back and forth over their stretch of turgid and newborn jungle. "One of the oldest rules in the book."

"The jungle turns on us, hundreds go blind, the tskannas go mad-"

"I was there." Razkar said, voice now low and warning. "I know what happened."

"Then why not do something?"

"We are. Our duty, which is to protect Taloba and follow orders. Now shut up and do it. That's an order, by the way."

He could feel his partner wanted to continue his griping, but age hath privilege in the Taloba Army. If you had more of it, you got to dictate... and Razkar didn't want the younger male hitting so close to the bone. In truth his own soul twisted and bit at itself in uncertainty, at the silence, the... nothing. It was like the world had vanished beyond Taloba, and the soul of the city had been muted within-

Enough. Follow your own damn advice for once and just stand the... post?

Something flickered through the undergrowth; something big. Just as Razkar's brows knotted a roar of sheer feline power blasted from the jungle, followed by another, then another-

A choir of tigers echoing off each other like vibrations in a cave, until it sounded like an army of them was circling the city. Immediately every sentry was alert; bows were notched, weapons raised. The Tiger beyond the wall - probably now regretting the grisly irony of their formation's name - bunched closer in anticipation, just as they'd been trained.

For all the good it would do. If treacherous Caiyha truly was hurling an army of tigers at them, how long could they last? Razkar knew even as he looked down that the Gate was already being readied, dooming the hundreds outside if they were overrun.

Taloba could not fall. It was a physical impossibility. It could be assailed and tormented and shaken, but never fall. Its people would not allow it.

Then there was commotion. Shouting. Curses, voices raised with shock and surprise and-

"... what in Myri's name...?"

-a figure pelting from the Gate, running headlong across the fresh stones, Gate guards trying to catch up even as the Myrian Tigers flanking it leaped after the fleeing Myrian.

But he wasn't fleeing. He was, in his own mind, reinforcing. More than that, in fact: he was stopping a terrible mistake he knew his people would make, if he was not there to ensure the two forces about to crash into each other were forewarned.

"What's he doing?"

"I don't know." Razkar said lowly, leaning closer and trying to make out the tattoos on the male's back. "But... I think I know him."

Varopa's eyebrows shot up in surprise as his gaze flickered briefly from the running, shouting man with his windmilling arms to his partner, and then back to the strange and tedium-relieving sight.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah... I think his name's... Kohl."

[Tinnok]

Waiting was not something Myrians did well, and Kohl of the Sinking Stone, was no exception. He worried day and night over Ajiliah, a large female Tskanna that had been injured in the stampede, but not killed. She had been pregnant beforehand, but a spear and the roughness of her fall had seen fit to take the calf from her. Kohl needed no gift from Caiyha to feel the mother's pain, both physical and mental. She barely ate or drank, and though she sometimes had the strength to stand, she had no the willpower for such a thing. They had removed the dead calf before sewing back up her leathery hide, but Kohl sensed she was still carrying the little one's death with her.

Now it was possible her wounds were bleeding internally and she might not make it, and the trainer and caretaker was with Ajiliah day and night, applying cool water and mud to her back head and trunk, and constantly touching her trunk. Regardless of whether she wanted the contact or not she needed it, as all Tskanna did. They were social creatures, and did not fare well whent set with lonliness and solitude.

But there was only so much one could do, especially a male such as he, and finally Amadja got sick of his moping and kicked him out of the yards to get some rest.

But Kohl received no rest. Krisha had returned to Tempered Steel lands, in case they were as overgrown as the area around the city gates. She would tend to the clan, and he would do his duty as a caretaker here.

Instead of rest, or caretaking, however, Kohl grabbed up a machete and joined the endless crews of able bodies hacking away at the brush around the city. It seemed wrong cutting so viciously upon the plants, yet that simple space in which they seemed to cover so swiftly was gravely important to their scouts upon the wall.

Kohl wasn't precisely sure what distance he was from the wall when he heard the furious roar. It wasn't a battle cry, nor territorial, it was weary and filled with pain, like a wounded animal at the end of its leash, much like what the Tskanna had sounded like whent he Storm hit.

"Kohl what are you doing?!"

As arrows were trained, machetes held at the ready and dark eyes steeling themselves for the next trial, Kohl skipped and ran, and tripped over vines, leaves, and creeping roots. He knew desperation when he heard it, for it clawed at his own heart listening to the pained moans of Tskanna brought down and injured for no reason he could see or hear, and he wanted no more of it, not for any creature.

---

Her fur was matted and caked with sweat and lather from never stopping. Her eyes were wild, half starved, thirsty, and exhausted. As like to rip out the first throat she saw, Lonae lunged out of the brush and nearly landed on top of the man standing arms apart in front of her. She snarled, the ridged hairs upon her back standing on end as the little man stared her down. His eyes met hers, a challenge, and a massive paw swiped at him, but she was near death, and he dodged her.

The next growl caught in her throat, and her body stumbled forward.

---

You did not embrace a tiger, yet she was too tired to fight the hand he thrust through her fur, pinching the nape of her neck, lowering his own gaze. She was the stronger, the dominant, even now over Kohl, for he knew his place. She hissed, but even that was half hearted, and the male rotated his head.

"Water now, and fetch the Witch!"

OOC :

Was thinking she might come in handy

[Razkar]

"Gods... shit..."

Hardly an utterance worthy of a Green Priestess, but at this point, Brynja was far past caring. The Myrian surrounded her and her grove were still reeling psychologically from the chaos caused by the storm, but for the majority of them, it was just that: all in the mind. Several hundred had been blinded, true, but aside from the fear and trembling, the rest had recovered.

Not so for one thrice-marked by Caiyha. Every tree that shuddered as djed coursed through it, every bug and beast that was violated by sightless tendrils of wyrd, every fresh, heaving vine that ripped through the ground and tore towards Syna, scattering butterflies through the air, parrots following them fast.

Brynja felt all of it. More importantly, she would have to live with it.

The Witch wiped her lips with a shaking hand and got back to her feet. The need to purge herself was getting better, but when "better" was defined as "only throwing up every other hour", it was hardly a picnic. But she wasn't going to retire yet. Everywhere she looked, she saw Caiyha's bounty in pain. Halos of butterflies fluttered by her, still pleading with her, and she reassured every one.

You don't deserve this, my friends. She would not want you to be like this, but...

Yes. Quite a question for her to answer, wasn't it? Brynja knew with iron-shod certainty that Caiyha wasn't behind this disaster. For all their savagery and aggression, the Green Goddess loved the Myrians, for they respected and revered both her and her domain. It must have been some... outside influence. Whether or not it was deliberate, however, was another-

"Ooof!" She staggered as a fat, furry weight crashed down on her shoulders, but knew within a tick what caused it. Especially when "it" licked her ear. "Damnit, Tualang?!"

Brown eyes swimming in gentle confusion blinked at her a few times and then nuzzled her, somewhere between protective and frightened. Her anger melted in the face of it and she stroked her beloved pet's scratchy fur. Tua didn't understand, either. None of them did.

"I'm failing, aren't I?" She whispered, brow furrowed in anger instead of crying. Such weakness wasn't permitted in Taloba, and since the Svefra was one of the precious few barbarians truly adopted by the Children of Myri, she was determined to maintain that standard. "I'm trying, my friend. You know I am. But it is... so much to-"

Leaves and vines crashing apart, cursing and yelping as thorns ripping through a male's skin and within a tick the Svefra had dropped her pet, stepped in front of him to protect him and drew a pair of throwing knives from her belt, cocking them back-

-only to see a gawping, gasping, bleeding Razkar standing before her.

"Y... You are... the... the Witch?"

The female's face tightened just a little. Even after decades among a people who used that word more often with reverence than hatred, it still rankled with her. Brynja crossed her arms and cocked an eyebrow, making one of the wings tattooed across her tanned face flap slightly.

"What gave it away, male?"

This one clearly wasn't in a gaming mood, though, and Brynja's disdain vanished as he gasped out his words: "Tigers... Tigers are... back. Looks like from... from the Blockade. Witch, there's... there's dozens, we need-"

"Someone who can talk to them." Typically, Razkar had just forced the air back into his lungs when Brynja brushed past him, already running, calling over her shoulder. "Well, c'mon, you fool!"

"Ah, gods..."

He wheeled around on feet of lead and soon they were smacking down one after the other, weaving through the surreal mass of kudzu and gnarled branches, barely keeping up with the gold mane of hair that never got snagged, and never slowed down.

But he still did. He had to know what happened at-

++++++++++

The Blockade. Hardly befitting of its name, now, and they knew it.

Empty clothes and weapons without wielders. Retching, fetal half-breeds purging their guts onto the mud beneath the blood-red sky. That had been the prelude; the bread and soup before the main course.

Which turned out to be them... when they saw the centuries-abandoned village start to light up... with bisected eyes...

The Ancient Enemy was as confused as they, but their cold, cunning minds had assessed the situation faster. Whatever devastation the world was unleashing, they saw no effects on their kind... but on their enemies?

They'd come to watch. First a few, then dozens... then what seemed like all of Zinrah, arrayed in the ruins of the ancient settlement, waiting... waiting...

Until darkness fell and the only lights left were their eyes, watching without blinking. Then they started moving forwards. Spreading out like locusts, like plague, like-

Vengeance. The Children of Myri thought they knew hatred, but they had not been bottled up in dank, stinking tunnels for centuries. They hadn't been hunted and tortured and brutalized whenever they stepped into the jungle their kind had been forged in, that was theirs as much as it was the Myrians.

They knew nothing of hatred; the Dhani did. And now a whole city of them burst from their tunnels and trap doors and fell on the skeletal remains of an entire Tigress, now barely a hundred strong.

Vengeance. Justice. Joy. Praise hissed and howled at the skies for the great gift given to them by unknown gods.

[Tinnok]

It wasn't a clear tale, not in the way a Myrian soldier would tell to his commander, or even how a child might tell something to their doll. Desperate strange images, colors, and feelings flashed through the witch's mind as her hand combed through the great, but weary tigers' fur.

The sky was a broiling grey pit, and with it came darkness pain, and...she couldn't say death, death was not what the tiger showed her, but if not death then where had they gone? But that wasn't truly the problem, the problem was the unprotected barricade.

No sooner had the idea behind the message left the Svefra's lips before the orders began flying this way and that. Several of the fastest people upon the gates were sent, they needed a Tigress, replacements marching yesterday. Suddenly everyone had a purpose that didn't involve chopping down voracious foliage. Others guided the tigers back into the city, sometimes needing four or five people apiece to support the massive creatures. Everyone had a purpose, even the witch, whom went with the animals, and would have to repeat her message to the higher ups.

They were all gone. were the only words that mattered. The tigers cared not for the half breeds and Kelvics, for those were not their mounts. Were they right, were they all gone? And if so, where did that leave him?