Tim Marquitz - Dawn of War

Sultae felt as though her blood boiled, her pustulant skin flush. Her ears rang in the silence as she wiped the sweat from her brow and looked to her brethren. Their eyes were black pits that reflected none of their suffering. Solemn-faced, they milled about under the cruel sway of sickness.

They waited only to die.

Treated little better than beasts, they had been ushered from their homes and herded to the end of the realm, far from all they knew and loved. They wallowed in the contagion that blistered their flesh and turned their tears into black ooze that seeped in rivulets over their narrow cheeks. Sultae felt the heat of her fury even over the fever that gnawed at her.

Left to rot in the wilderness, she could find no compassion for her fellow sufferers. They had accepted their fate without question and had crawled off to end their days without complaint, as though their lives had no meaning.

Not Sultae.

She had lived too long to give her life away so easily. For her people to have demanded such a sacrifice, just so they might live comfortable, free of the plague that ravaged her body, was too much. They had made no true effort to find a cure, a means to bring the plague to an end. Rather, they sent away the inflicted in a desperate bid to save themselves. It was nothing more than cowardice, a lifetime of trust and honor dashed in but a moment of fear.

Sultae would not suffer such indignity.

She cast one last look behind and turned away in disgust. Her legs trembled and she felt weak, but she started off toward the trees with purpose in her steps. If she were to die, she would do so on her own terms. She would not wait for death to steal upon her, but would stride out before it and force it to give chase.

She would not go before the Goddess upon her knees.

Arrin stared at the black plumes of smoke that spiraled into the dawn sky. He drew in a breath and smelled bitter ash on the wind. The sounds of battle raging in the distance, he checked his blade and strode toward the hillock that blocked the view of the valley below. He knew what he would see.

War had come to Ahreele.

He dropped low as he reached the apex of the hill and looked out over the battlefield. An unconscious snarl curled his lip when he saw the wolfen Grol swarming over the shattered walls of Fhenahr, the capital city of Fhen. His instincts screamed at him to join the fray, but he eased his hand from his pommel. His knuckles sang out in rigid defiance as reality struck home. Only death awaited him on the field below.

What he saw there wasn’t truly a battle. It was a rout.

Streamers of glistening red energy streaked from golden staffs wielded by a small gathering of Grol clustered near the back ranks. Arrin’s eyes narrowed against the glare as the bolts seared through the air to smash into the depths of the city. His heart leapt as explosions rang out. Tongues of fire licked upward at the impacts. The screams of the dying were a dull murmur buried beneath the victorious shouts of the Grol.

Savage like the wolves they resembled, the Grol were every bit as much a predator. Their reddish eyes glimmered over elongated snouts, which were filled with jagged shards of yellowed teeth. Arrin swore he could see their grim smiles from where he crouched. They ran upright, though just barely. Hunched into feral missiles, they barreled through the panicked streets of the capital, seeking warm flesh.

Carnivores all, to be killed outright by the Grol was a small mercy. It was the survivors who’d suffer most. Eaten a mouthful at a time, the meat ripped fresh from the bone, the prisoners would be kept alive to feed the ravening horde. By dint of their defeat, the people of Fhenahr had been relegated to the status of cattle. Herded together into pitiful lines and dragged along behind the war machine, their deaths would linger on for months. The end would come at slowly on the sharpened edges of Grol fangs.

Coldness settled in Arrin’s gut as remembrances of Grol atrocities flickered through his mind. He’d seen their brand of savagery too often in his twenty years in the field. He would never forget, nor could he ever forgive, their merciless brutality. They were savage beasts to be put down, nothing more.

The Grol preyed upon the weak, preferring the thrill of the chase to the difficulties of the siege or uncertainties of the open field. They raided neighboring countries with a chaotic randomness that bypassed all but the most determined attempts at defense.

To the Grol, meat was meat. They made no distinction between animal and man. Worse still, they made none between man and woman, young and old, bathing their snouts in the warm entrails of a child as readily as they would its mother. They left no living spirit behind, only the remnant carcasses of their victims, strewn about like so much detritus.

But in all his time behind the sword, Arrin had never seen them muster a force so large. The sea of Grol, which flung itself at the walls of Fhenahr, was the thing of nightmares. This was no simple raid. They had come to destroy; to conquer.

The strange force that left the walls in charred and shattered heaps only added to the burgeoning uncertainty he felt gnawing at his confidence. Though he’d never seen such a raw display of power, he knew without hesitation what it was: magic.

His hand stroked the silvery collar nestled about his neck. Its curious symbols, raised against the polished steel, prickled the tips of his fingers as they slid over them. A gentle vibration ran through it at his touch. He felt there was a connection there, between the ancient power of the relic he wore and the Grol’s newfound might.

In hopes of proving it, though he knew there could be no doubt, he cast his eyes once more toward the huddled knot of Grol and tried to catch a glimpse of the staves they bore, but was too late. They had ceased casting their bolts and had drifted off toward the demolished walls to join in the bloodbath, which was thankfully out of sight.

Deep in its death throes, Fhenahr was already lost.

Fury trembled at his hands as Arrin crept from the rise. He could watch no longer. His breath caught in his lungs as he drifted toward the sheltering tree line that marked the forest behind him. Empowered by a force not seen in Ahreele since well before his days began, Arrin knew the Grol would not stop at the borders of Fhen. He knew their appetite. It would not be assuaged solely by the defeat of the Fhen.

He pictured Lathah, shattered and raped as Fhenahr, and he felt sick. Thoughts of Malya tore at his heart. He could imagine her standing over her father’s bed, raging, her small fists raised in futile defiance as Lathah’s walls came tumbling down. Bile settled in the back of his throat as he contemplated what such savages would do were they to breach the Lathahn barriers. His thoughts were awash in blood and gore.

Arrin swallowed hard and cast his sight toward the imposing wall of the Fortress Mountains to the west. His eyes followed the spiny chain north toward the land of his birth, and the truth of what he must do settled over him. He had to warn his people. He had to warn Malya. He could do nothing less.

Despite it having been fifteen years since his boots last tasted the soil of his motherland, he knew he had no choice. He had to go home. Once Fhen crumbled, there was no doubt the Grol would set their sights upon the enemy that had long defied them: the people of Lathah.

The massive rows of fortifications that had kept his people safe for hundreds of years would be their undoing. Confident in their defenses, the Lathahns would simply hunker down and wait for the beasts to spend themselves and slink away with their tails tucked, as they had always done. Never once imagining the Grol capable of piercing the layer of walls that defended the city, they would give no thought to retreat until it was too late. They would be like yolk in an egg, Grol snouts gorging once the shell cracked wide.