Chapter 36: Big Game

Chapter 36: Big Game

The darkness didn’t pay much attention to the tribe's transplanted lizard men for months, because it had more important matters to deal with. So, it missed how much they struggled at first in the unfamiliar territory that was the high valleys of the Woden Spine mountains, but even with those hardships, they were hardy creatures that still managed to thrive. At least, they did once their wanderings led them to find a series of hot springs and sulfurous vents that would help them survive the winter without going into hibernation.

Even with that advantage though, building a new camp and erecting a new totem to their dark god was a process that took months, not weeks. The first creature they carved into that pole was an ogre that ruled the nearby swamp. It claimed the lives of two lizard warriors, and injured several more so badly that they would have perished too if the Lich had not shown them its favor and blessed them with a deathless strength that made it all but impossible for disease or blood loss to claim them while their bodies knitted themselves back together.

Most of the lizard men did their best to resist the darkness that offered itself so freely to them in those moments of mortality, in the way that the goblins never did. Not Tsson’vek though, that hunter embraced it, and the anger that came with it. This interested the swamp on several levels. Ñøv€l--ß1n hosted the premiere release of this chapter.

In the past the lizard men had been so alien that it had only been able to touch their minds with great difficulty while they slept in a place of power. Their minds had become no easier to read in the decades since that first summer, but the darkness’ power had doubled several times since then. Until now, it had observed their habits, and even some of their religious ceremonies, but it had never gotten so deeply inside their head to find out an individual name. It didn’t even know that individuals had names until that moment.

What it did understand was the base desire he found lurking inside that primitive mind. Behind the sluggish thoughts and the black and white vision that saw less than a fragment of the world that the Lich could see, it found a deep throbbing hunger. Tsson’vek hungered for food and mates, he hungered for power, but most of all for dominance. The goblin mind wanted to devour the world for the thrill of killing and bloodshed, but lizard men, or at least this lizard man had a desire to possess and control the lands that would fulfill its other needs more than it desired the killing that would take place to ensure it was successful.

It was an interesting juxtaposition that left the darkness somewhere between the two viewpoints. It needed to murder the living to feast on their souls, but it wanted all the lands it could see as well due to the primal covetousness that its dark heart of gold inspired. The payments of its little lording was helping with that of course, but no matter how much he paid, it would never truly be enough for the Lich. One day it would rule over the entire world, and nothing would stop it.

Of course, not all the flesh would be worth preserving, and the bones would be moved into the beetle vat until they were entirely flensed. Even though the rest of the process took weeks, the final step took only hours. A living body could be devoured down to the bones in less than a day, but a thoroughly butchered corpse took far less time. It was only after all that was done that the entire skeleton would be submerged into molten bronze, and then rebuilt a layer at a time until it wasn’t just an unstoppable juggernaut, but an undying one as well.

The Lich didn’t need to be involved with any of this of course. That was why it had created its fleshcrafters to run its abattoirs. They handled all the mundane tasks like this one. Creating a war zombie was nothing special. The Lich had amassed dozens like this in the vaults where they awaited use. In the ogre's case, the only thing that was special was the specimen, not the technique. That was why it built all of its most skilled necromantic chirurgeons with the souls of doctors and healers. Their souls might twist and rebel at being forced to do such grisly work, but they had a talent that was impossible for almost anyone else to match.

It certainly didn’t hurt that their own bodies were modified to make them even better at these tasks. Their necks were longer and more prehensile than any living man, and their arms each had an extra set of joints. The only way that one might tell one from another was the number of eyes and fingers each had. Five eyes was the least number of eyes a servant could have in a role like this to get the proper depth perception of course, but some of the newest ones had almost twice that. Fingers though - fingers were purely a function of skill. Not counting the four armed lovers that still labored here in the depths, its first chirugeon only had 13 fingers, some of which ended in fine clamps and blades, but the famed doctor Zumassen who had disappeared one spring on a voyage down river - he had 19 fingers, and though he might wail and gnash his teeth at his current fate, that grief and horror never stopped him from making perfect cuts every time.

That was why he was assisting the Lich and his library on the most delicate of tasks: the forging of a human spine. Each vertebra was invested with a single human soul that had died violently due to fire. The pieces were cast in bronze before they were carved into perfect shape, and fitted together. It was only after the runes of binding had been carved into them, and they had been gilded so that they would never tarnish, that ligaments of thin wire had been attached and woven together into patterns that were a nightmarish mockery of real muscles. The webs of steel had one important advantage over preserved tissue though: they were entirely fireproof.

If all went well this would function as the prototype for its own new vessel, but more testing was required first. This project was less than a quarter done, the Lich would leave it to its minions once it had completed the most critical steps. It was even more critical than the cyclopian skull that was being formed from steel at the forges even now. The skull would merely house the thing that powered this terrible body. It was the spine that was the leash that would bind the automaton to its will. The Lich had learned much in the year since he’d bound the river dragon to its swamp dragon in a match that was truly made in hell. Even as strong as that creation was, the Oroza had threatened to crack it on several occasions already, necessitating further upgrades. She was simply too strong and defiant to be tamed, just like the river that shared her name.

That was even more true now that worship of her was resurgent. Gone were the temples to the languid serpent or the verdant lady though. Now the people focused on the raging tide, or worse, the hag of the delta or the crone of the tide waters. Where once the stories of her were about how she brought life and washed away evil with her purifying waters, now they were about the terrible gifts she would grant to those who sacrificed to her. The people of the area still believed that river would give them what they needed, but in the back of their mind they understood that someone would have to pay for that bounty.

It was almost a pity that the energy from all those sacrifices, and the power from all those prayers was stolen from her as soon as she received them. Instead, it was channeled to her captor, making it ever stronger while she writhed and withered, just like her namesake at the turning of the seasons.