Chapter 19: Dying Embers

Chapter 19: Dying Embers

Krulm’venor was disgusted by its circumstances, but that was nothing new. That was the first emotion it felt each evening, as it flared to life when the Burning Skulls added fuel to their cookfires and lit the bonfires at their shrines. During the day, when it was slowly reduced to embers, it lacked the awareness to contemplate such things. Each evening it was born again, though, which meant that it had to remember how far it had fallen all over again.

Krulm’venor, once the scourge of the under realm. Stone burner. Sacker of Ghen’tal and Mournden. Once, dozens were fed to the fire each day, so it could feast on their flesh and mana, but now it lorded over a handful of goblins. That there were less than two hundred of the buggers only added salt to the wound.Ñ00v€l--ß1n hosted the premiere release of this chapter.

How a dwarven demigod had fallen so far that instead of inhabiting the forge fires of a dozen cities, it dwelled only in the campfires of a single tribe of greenskins, it couldn’t quite recall. The further back that the flickering fire spirit tried to think, the hazier things got until there was nothing but dark smoke and bitter disappointment.

The goblins wouldn’t have been enough to support it now if they weren’t so bloodthirsty and didn’t dwell in the shadow of a dead volcano. Krulm’venor seemed to recall that it had been forced to flee something in the dark when its last fortress monastery had fallen and that it had chosen the volcano as a place to be reborn, like a phoenix from the ashes it had planned to detonate it and use the eruption to ignite the nearby forest on fire in a conflagration that was truly worthy of its majesty. It had lacked the strength, though. Over time, it had withered away until its pride had atrophied so much that the idea of being a war god to a vicious army of goblins hadn’t seemed like a terrible idea.

It surveyed its shrinking kingdom and knew it had erred mightily, though. Perhaps it might have been different if it had been an orc warband full of rage or even hobgoblins with their crude sense of discipline. Goblins simply weren’t cut out for greater things. As it was, recently, the Burning Skulls had stopped expanding. No matter how much power he poured into their shamans, they could barely hold back the resurgent Black Teeth. All of a sudden, its tribe suddenly seemed to lack the strength to match such an insignificant tribe like that to the West. Yet, it was still nowhere near strong enough to brave the plains to the east and the humans they would almost certainly find there.

It was maddening.

The spirit would have withdrawn its power from the incompetent bastards entirely if that wouldn’t have spelled its inevitable doom. Without blood and fire, it was doomed to fade into the background until even it forgot it had ever existed. Even if it was a fruitless struggle, the fallen god would cling to life in the same tenacious way that the goblins did when they ripped each other to pieces for scraps of territory.

It tore its gaze away from the goblins' filthy warren and took to the sky to survey its kingdom. Today, not even the beauty of its gold could mollify it. Once, that had been its focus: to conquer enough land to bring slaves back to mine it, but it had never materialized. Now it served as an unwelcome reminder of better days.

The nighttime hillside wasn’t much better, though. Only a year or two ago, it had two dozen fires burning for it. Now the spirit had to settle for less than half a dozen cookfires and a few torches. It was pathetic. How could the shamans that claimed to worship it even expect to have enough mana to sling their bolts and blasts around if they would not pay homage to the fearsome Krulm’venor and his terrible hunger.

In a battle of savages, they were monsters. The Burning Skulls tried to fight at first, but what was supposed to have been a simple ambush had reversed now. Instead of being a quick bit of sport followed by a snack, it was a bloodbath that was quickly becoming a rout.

The claustrophobic battlefield dominated by shadows and dense foliage that was much too wet to burn played to all the Black Teeth’s strengths and all the Burning Skulls’ weaknesses. It was almost like they’d planned it that way.

That was impossible, of course. None of the other goblin tribes in the area had a patron spirit, or magic for that matter, which only made the moment that much more humiliating for Krulm’venor. Its strongest Warband was getting their faces bashed in, and it was all due to dumb luck.

The Burning Skulls broke before the fourth body fell, bleeding into the muck. Even though they outnumbered their enemy, they could feel the danger radiating off the warband leader and the core of his warriors. The only thing they had which could stand up to that sort of violence was the fire. So, they broke and ran back towards their shamans. It was a desperate flight, both because of the fear of the enemy they ran from, as well as the fact that some of the Burning Skulls closest to them would inevitably be burned alive in the crossfire.

That was fine with Krulm’venor. Either way, it tasted flesh and the screams of agony it craved. It was practically drooling for the climactic conclusion when those black-toothed bastards burst out of the tall grass only to face a wall of fire. They might have bloodied its nose, but they would pay a heavy price for the privilege.

At least that’s what it thought, but when the first Burning Skulls burst out of the wall of cattails and could finally see their shamans again, that view changed everything. Krulm’venor warned the shamans quickly enough for them to turn and see what was bearing down on them, but by then, it was too late to summon fire or to run in fear. No matter how fast they ran, they would never outrun the dog riders bearing down on them.

Dog Eater cavalry and Black Teeth berserkers working together? It didn’t make any sense to the spirit, but that’s precisely what was happening. The fire spirit had fought enough real wars with soldiers wearing fire-forged armor and wielding its steel and its flames to know this was an ambush. It was a classic pincer move, and it was almost as ashamed that it had been caught unawares as it was angry that it was losing so many of its warriors.

This was a trap that had already been sprung, and it could see that there would be no survivors. Krulm’venor accepted that. What it could not accept was being outwitted by a goblin chieftain or the idea that two different tribes had suddenly started working together. This had something to do with those strange yellow skulls.

It was sure of that much.