After banishing the unnamed deity of his ancient foes, Stoic learned Rokuano's next move from Taingaha: summon a massive ship of indeterminate antiquity and origin to launch a great campaign against the haergiothans, starting with Arc Royal.
The far end of the Devipanat-designed tunnel ended with a landing flanked by two doors. The landing was atop stone stairs that descended to the roofless inward-angled walls of a hexagonal pillbox or sally-port. Through the two doors were narrow chambers with generous, almost naive arrow slits overlooking the approach to the fortification as well as the inside currently occupied by the Coal Hounds and the Horitirahu (and a giant).
Klasky classified these portals as 'small windows, superficially inclined to defense', and between them and how the corridor had no doglegs between the stairs and the doors to these very chambers, concluded these of Stoic's ancient enemies had no business in the 'existence' business. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
He kept this vigil since in the small hours of the morning Taingaha told his warriors to 'make new friends' with the 'heargs' and followed after Stoic, by then gone several hours. Under the light of a brass candle-lantern he turned loose observations into a web of related datis of the orcs, their military and civic disposition, and what was going on around the islands regarding apparent abyssal activity. His gaze periodically jumped from a traveler's notebook any decent officer kept and a traveling-pen particularly competent officers kept to the hillside and the masoned stone under the mounds and fir trees, eventually seeing movement among them. He twisted the cap back on the pen, cradled it in his notebook, and shoved it into his outer shirt.
Klasky never saw Stoic out of his armor until last night, and seeing him sprinting up the slope, he came to understand how unsettlingly different undead--even those with intact minds--move. His liege moved in the slightly-delayed, exaggerated jerkiness of someone in heavy plate armor, as if he needed to devote a fraction of his attention to how his body moved.
Stoic sprinted at a speed that gave Klasky, a man in better shape than most, pause; and he did not realize the undead was not stopping until he was practically past the entrance.
THE PALE MERCENARIES and green warriors (and a grey giant) warmed food and wine as they waited. The haergiothans' ingenuity for improvised creature-comforts were a subject the orc warriors proved eager students for: the former lifted several of the pillbox flagstones and dug further, creating small firepits that baffled smoke and concentrated the heat over their metal pots, and the orcs quickly realized they just became disciples of the sort of fieldcraft that trimmed the rough edges off campaigns.
The huddled fighters quieted at the glimpse of Stoic sprinting past the doorless arch, then the commotion coming from the watch post above them, haergiothan and orc alike turning their heads as Stepan Klasky practically rolled down the steps and ran out the arched entrance, kick-flipping his shield into his hands as he passed them. The fighters looked at one another--and scrambled to their feet in pursuit. Lofty paused just as he rose, spun around, and grabbed his backpack full of Stoic's armor and his anvil-on-a-stick warhammer, hucking both over his shoulders and barking as his forehead met the arch on the way out. When the orc warriors were roused to follow, Taingaha casually stepped into the threshold, fresh and in-breath and no worse for the trip back.
THE ORCS CAMPED near the ridgeline and rose at dawn to scout the far side--the taboo side--in search of the escaped humans. Hemp-clad youngsters socially shoved in that direction to die or earn their place with the warriors, they walked silently. That spirits inhabited this area was clear to them, but in the woods untouched whatsoever by orcs, they doubted the spirits were of the vengeful, bloody sort. Ostensibly they searched for the humans and giant, but for now that consideration laid far back in their minds.
Until one of them braced his taiaha in one hand and with the other pointed out the figure sprinting up the hill. The figure approached without slowing down and they formed a loose line to stop him, their haka more improvised formality of gesturing and shouting than anything.
Their astonishment that who approached them was the dead man Rokuano dispatched was brushed aside as the corpse brushed their leader aside, continuing to the crest unslowed. The leader brings his conch to his mouth to signal the other search parties--and sees the undead stuffing it into the folds of the belted plaid. He looks behind him at another noise and pushes everyone off the clearing as several dozen humans and a giant are chasing after the undead. The leader puffs out some air and flaps his hands on his legs.
NEARER THE DEEP harbor, the coastal settlement, and the orcs' ships, search parties gave way to patrols. One such patrol was closest the military crest of the circular slope around the harbor, on the road leading from there back up to Komru-kakurainga. "War party approaching!" the hefty orc in charge of the patrol told his men, hand around ear. "I can hear the tread of the big one!" His men craned their heads to affirm in ones and twos. Pairs are sent to check the underbrush to either said of the road.
They see a figure round the corner; by the pace and gait, someone sprinting pall-mall. The orcs form up in a line. They swear oaths as they notice the twin pinpricks of blue light from the undead they saw Rokuano kill, presently stuffing a signal horn into his waist-folds; they swear more oaths as the sprinting undead is unslowed by the long distance. The patrol leader orders them into a chevron to surround him.
Once Stoic is within the chevron, they try to close around him. He runs directly into the leader, grabs at his neck, strikes him in the face with a huge gauntlet on a stick, sending the leader to the ground.
"DISMISSED, SOLDIER." the undead barks in Orcish as he resumes his sprint downhill. Stoic glances at the signal whistle plucked from his victim's neck and joins it to the other signaling bric-a-brac taken to keep the element of surprise. The men notice too late the giant at the head of the undead's war party a bowshot behind him and gaining speed; they give respect to the better party [!] and politely stand aside while a few are tending to their leader's face.
The trees gave way to a grassy copse overlooking the bay, and featuring a house-shrine to the orc goddess of hearths where the path began one of several switchbacks down the incline to the bay. It was encircled by the jagged arms of two ridges, one of which he stood on about halfway; the island's other major settlement hugged the narrow space between the ridge and the water. He also gazed on the ship Taingaha told him Rokuano was summoning.
Piercing the sky from the black depths was a grey whale-like thing that dwarfed wood-hulled boats and whales alike. It seemed to be frozen in the middle of breaching like the animals it resembled, but even from this far away he saw the water around it betrayed the slow rise out of the depths. A contemporary man might be fazed by the sight, but Stoic came from a different time and the sight put him right in his element.
Damn the switchbacks, he leapt off the path headlong into the brush, and then the trees, both shaken with his incensed rush and did little to baffle his undead shouting.
The settlement came into focus when he crossed the grassy patches of the hillside. Three rows of buildings following the curve of the water on one side and the ridgeline on the other, the path between the rows was paved, and the center of the middle row featured a multistory longhouse.
Passing through another copse, he saw the piled-stone wharfs and the variety of watercraft, some built for skulking the islands for game, others built for crossing open water—for a search of more gristly game.
As Stoic passed into the last breadth of trees, he gazed a large raised stone platform at the far end of the settlement, the small crowd gathered at the stairs to it, and the men performing a haka atop it—and the unmistakable bulk of Rokuano at the front of that troupe.
UP FROM THE beach a girl hefted a fish trap of her own design--and a weightily successful one at that--musing how good a dowry the ingenuity would make when she nigh jumped free of her bones as a prolonged ursine rattle and a heavy dead bough erupted from the other side of the path. Out treaded Stoic, rude with loose twigs and leaves he swatted off with oaths that curdled sensibilities while crossing the wide path. He offered her something and she took what had to be the world's most hideous mace as he emptied the contents of his belted plaid onto the top of the fish-laden trap: two conchs, a brass horn, a bull's horn, and finally two signal whistles he draped around her head. The undead took back his weapon and stomped towards the settlement, pointing at anyone and everyone and issuing the chieftain hoary challenges liberally garnished with foul language. She looked on as the draugr sent scurrying every orc engaged in the preparatory choring before a raid; then saw a giant and several dozen haergiothans heaving air trying to close the distance.
Stoic was still a stone's throw from the nearest building in the third row away from the shore. Dwellings, by the looks of the orcs choring about with a purpose. The evergreens and birch were absent this close to the beach; high grasses and berry bushes ringed the houses where the ground was relatively flat. He walked with a purpose towards the buildings; getting closer proved Taingaha correct: the place looked filled with every orc in existence for the activity of massing for a once-in-a-century raid.
Klasky and the rest finally caught up a short spell behind Stoic. They ran the switchbacks down the incline to the shore, aided by Lofty's unsettling giant god, but as Stoic walked, they made the distance.
"Mister Lofty," Klasky said, tugging on the former's belt. He looked up and saw the dragon blood jasper mask looking down. "Rokuano's likely kitted to bear, and our man is walking in wearing a kilt." Lofty looked up, looked around, and shrugged off his cauldron-sized backpack into Klasky's hands. He stuck his anvil-on-a-stick inside and stirred it around.
"Oh great Korrohl, Lord of Jotunn!" The various plates in the backpack began to move around. "Do something awesome!" He dropped the hammer, grabbed the backpack, and flung the contents towards Stoic.
The armor flew out, at first by inertia, and then by divine magic. The plates alit on Stoic like a gathering of dark grey seagulls. Stoic looked down, saw dents extracted by invisible force, leather stitching back together. His horned helm rolled forward between his legs, the deep rent in the cheek guard popping back to normal. He picked it up by one horn and set it meaningfully on his head, glancing back at the giant.
"Stoic. What is that?" Klasky asked, pointing to the… well, the tHiNgY held over his shoulder.
"A part of myself, yet not part of myself. Left behind, but only after I left these islands behind." Stoic held the weapon up over his head for everyone to see. "The preserved, transmuted, gauntleted arm of Rolegt the frost giant, who killed my ancestor Terse, in turn avenged by his son Curt, who took the frost giant's arm as a weapon and his daughter Hiljainen as his wife." The giant gasped aghast.
"…What the actual Hell, old boy?" Stoic barked a laugh; so did a brief image of Rolegt, arms crossed, over him--the same image they saw the shadow of before, a hulking mass with a fur mantle and horned spangenhelm. One hand bore the same studded gauntlet as the grisly long-mace across Stoic's shoulder. The draugr turned and moved into the settlement with a purpose.
Flush with the influence of the immortal Tyrant, every step radiated wrath at these upstarts who dismissed him twice now. Orcs going to and fro saw him and backed away; even those looking away felt an urging--they turned, froze, dropped what they carried. The draugr in his loud metal armor, tall and imposing enough even for the orcs, barked oaths of treachery, cowardice, and disgrace on the tribe of legendary Watitiru and his children, Tauripa the Red Witch and Murokai Champion-and-Peacemaker.
He knew Rokuano's reputation waned after five years of hesitant inactivity and purging any rivals mentioning the former point. He intuited word that a party of haergiothian humans infiltrating their islands gave the chieftain some much-needed kindling to raid humans again instead of languishing on islands surrounded by submarine demons. The scene before him illustrated that Rokuano presently seized a once-in-an-age opportunity: word percolated throughout the islands that the undead half-human bastard of Tauripa the Red Witch, who was also the bane of Murokai (who was also Murkai's nephew, that must have surprised them!), who exiled them to these islands, confronted and succumbed to Rokuano--who must have been the select of their gods.
If Stoic the Tyrant were in Rokuano's place, he'd make to invade the mainland and re-establish their territory. By the looks of the flinty-colored hulk stabbing out the bay, the chieftain planned exactly that.
The row of various stone and wood buildings between the two wide paths must have had the main longhouse at its center, because orc men were trying to interdict Stoic. With the Tyrant, he barely noticed them; hardly noticed Rolegt's arm arcing around sending most to the ground and some flying.
Lofty was beside Klasky at the fore of the Hounds, for no other reason than polite sentiment for a giant in the business of being in the thick of it--and thankfully they went unmolested as all eyes were on the corpse returned for round two. About eighteen feet behind Stoic, he saw what everyone else but the draugr noticed: his arm moved as if possessed, ironically while swinging a grisly mace made from a giant's arm, and as the weapon moved about, a glimpse of a spectral hulk swinging a fist tracked with the mace.
As Stoic crossed in front of the main longhouse, five orcs, clearly a cut above the ones just tossed aside, emerged from the dwelling. As they formed a chevron on the steps for a quick display, Stoic turned his head to size them up over the growing commotion. Their leader wore bonafide metal armor protecting his torso and limbs, while his four men wore leather and hide. What caught Stoic's attention was the very military style of their attire--exquisite patterns of black, red, and white; but they wore shirts and trousers and actual boots instead of the flax skirts and wool kilts the other Orakareha sported, and none of them wore any jewelry, decoration, or adornment--their armor was not simple, but practical. They flexed with taiahas bearing metal tips and blades.
Klasky saw the leader approach with the practiced speed of a warrior unconcerned with intimidating an opponent. His first swing met Stoic's upturned pauldron with a ring that overcame the din for an instant, his second swing from the other side, Stoic blocked with his mace. He tried to stab at Stoic's neck with the tip, and the draugr stepped back. The leader roared a smile.
And Stoic swung once he had space. A swipe arcing down, everyone paused when they clearly saw the spectral image of a giant punching downward, it's fist exactly where the mace head was in its flight. One of the four was halfway down the short stairs when he saw this and froze. Stoic walked up to him booming something in a very dated dialect of orcish and grabbed the man's neck.
As he lifted the warrior off the ground, everyone noticed the image of the giant standing over Stoic, and not for a brief glimpse. The image also picked up the warrior--both seemed to do so as one!--and they threw him into the front of the longhouse above.
The three remaining ran for it.
STOIC MADE THE road closer to the water. Here he saw longhouses for aquaphilic families and storehouses for their craft, all built on stone wharfs sharing space with boathouses where smaller vessels hung like bats among stone and wood pylons and larger boats suspended in their moorings as mastiffs lurk in doghouses. He looked ahead and saw activity atop the stone platform, and the three soldierly-attired warriors running up the stairs. He followed after them at a slow pace--and sped up until he was sprinting like his armor was not even there.
On his approach, he saw Rokuano jump off the stone. Time froze for Stoic when he saw the beast in armor that made his own look drab and crude.
All over his body he wore metal, artfully tarnished to a handsome bronze ember, patterned after the attire typical of the Orakareha. Like the men of his personal cadre, he wore boots, trousers, and a shirt more like a human soldier from the mainland--something the undead guessed they acquired in their more-recent raids. His weapon for the ritual was a taiaha, albeit a huge one--the thing was practically a polearm, but most the length an imposing bladed flat.
But the armor! It was of a design wholly their own; plates protecting the shoulders and thighs magnificently like the carved wood totems with and a wide plate around the abdomen that probably depicted an ancestor and told a story; from these main pieces other, smaller plates extended out to cover most of Rokuano's body. Stoic checked his pace in jealous awe of Rokuano's performed magnificence.
So he punched the little bastard.
Rokuano had his taiaha ready over his shoulder and smiled midair before seeing a pre-image of Stoic right in front of him and flinching at the clap of air; Stoic moved faster than physically possible and connected with the chieftain, delivering a punch with the hand that held the giant-mace and sending him flying into a tidepool in a cloud of dust, sand, and surf, and Stoic kept sprinting into the cloud. A closed fist jumped out and connected with Stoic's faceplate, tumbling his vision and balance and sending him back with a stagger.
Rokuano emerged from the cloud swinging and Stoic parrying, both trying to out-roar one another as they gimballed towards the steps and established their timing. Klasky was about to loose his men, one hand on Lofty's forearm ready to give the signal, when--the cracks of guns. The ground between the war parties sprayed dirt and dust, and a sudden clamor of cheering and cries from their left.
A wide, deep creek meandered the edge of the settlement and met the harbor next to the stairs the draugr and the chieftain moved up as they fought. The creek was suddenly full of canoes, the canoes full of orcs. They pointed hefty-looking clubs at the two parties and made faces to match the shouting; at the head of the first canoe stood the chief of the Horitirahu. Gone was his long cloak, he wore a wide girdle with a heavy protective plate around his abdomen, the same material as Rokuano's armor and even more ornately chased; a kilt draped around his thighs. Stepan finally realized what weapons they bore--not ornate metal-shod clubs of curious design; the alien weaponry they wielded were firearms of advanced design.
Taingaha did not wait for his canoe to make land; he jumped off and approached the parties while his men disembarked and trudged ashore. His usually placid expression melted like snow over a wrath complimentary of the tattoos on his face, flexing with muscles complimentary of the tattoos covering his chest and arms, gun held upright. "He taua!" he cried to the warriors before him, then to the skies. "He! Taua!" Warriors caught up, some whooping, others repeating their leader's words, and some reciting other verses of a war-song.
His men behind him wore belted plaids of Orakareha patterns, but in the Sidonan style; that they all dressed exactly the same was not lost on Klasky. Unlike their chief, they held their firearms drawn on the two parties. He also noticed every one of the rifles were exactly alike.
"I forbid mass bloodshed while two contenders fight!" the chief shouted. "Individuals may challenge one another!" His men affirmed this authority by wheeling their weapons around where they held them on the heavy ends and loudly flexing their vocal cords and faces. Lofty's step forward was curtailed by the chief grasping his club like his men and pointing it at the giant. "You would start a bloodbath! Stay unless challenged!"
"So everyone else just calls out one another like children!?" Lofty contested as Klasky held him back with his shield; the chief did not answer.
"The leaders are in sole combat!" Taingaha said, speaking to the giant but directing his mug at Rokuano's cadre. "Men must enter sole combat! A contest of mens' skill--the lone warrior's dedication to his craft!"
"And if we're all dead by the time one of them falls?" Klasky asked out loud.
"Then the two big men better finish soon!" Taingaha retorted, to the exultation of his men. He pointed his head towards the stone platform.
A SQUARE STONE wharf two stories in height, and large enough men could practice the shotput in each corner and not touch the center. It was clearly meant for the utilitarian purpose of boarding the ancient craft in the center of the bay--orcs would have built it sticking into the bay like a diamond, yet this was built as a square, one whole side having the stairs that the three parties stood before and which the contenders fought their way up.
Against the backdrop of the immense metal object sticking out of the center of the harbor, Stoic and Rokuano matched blow for blow; the undead's heavy armor resisting the chieftain's lighter weapon, while the chieftain in his lighter armor was just fast enough not to be caught terribly by the undead's heavy mace.
At last their feet met the level surface of the wharf, and the contenders unleashed the warrior's arts; the taiaha's ends shooting forward like moths, only to for the spinning mace and armor plates to block them like a thick window. A normal duel was unsettlingly silent to those unversed in violence, yet the seasoned warriors at the foot of the steps were unsettled--by the increasing din as each piled greater strength into every next blow before an attempt at a singular decisive strike, and by oaths pushed between grunts as the strikes were frustrated. But both learned from their last encounter, and both interrupted praxis with guile: Rokuano arcing a foot to kick out the draugr's legs, Stoic punching to tumble the chieftain's balance; both half-connecting and sent reeling a pace--both open to bloody decision.
The warriors and soldiers started when a low thrum erupted from the contenders as both used something not wholly mundane: instead of closing the opening, their bodies jumped in space. The chieftain thrusted with his taiaha underhand and the undead ending a swing with the mace in one hand over his head. Both seemingly skipped space and were now nearer two far corners, their backs turned. "Like before," Rokuano spat, "Stoic is so quick to use witchcraft!" The contenders faced one another and paced a closing arc. "Un-content to test martial skill alone, afraid to admit he lacks orc vitality, even for those touched by gods and magic!" Trauma to his chest and shoulder did not bother the chieftain much, he paid the blood no mind. "Every talent and mote of fortune laid bare, each scrutinized to find the strongest orc--the haergiothans' so-called Ubermensch! Only the best in our chiefs! Would Tauripa's bastard know that!?"
Stoic's pace faltered and the draugr braced his weapon head-down (or is it hand?) where he stood, his side stained with ectoplasm where Rokuano connected. The chieftain smiled--and frowned at the vapor that surrounded the undead.
"Spare the half-hearted appeal to orc honor. The more power you acquired, the higher the stakes and the more you threw it aside for expediency. The other tribes noticed, and you wound up putting down any who protested or challenged--with the very same disregard for decorum. The battlefield determines the resources you use, not honor, not sentiment, not ego. Tidy performativeness comes second to victory. We fight the exact same way, save one difference: you deny it, even to yourself, forever ignorant why and forever troubled by your lapses. I own it, embrace it, never apologize for it, for I know why we fight like this." Where he held his mace like a walking-stick the vapor--a different blue than the draugr's--resolved into an arm thrust to the ground, and Rokuano's mind paused at this sight and his foe's assertion.
"What the hell is this sorcery?" the chieftain plainly asked, centering his wits with a few spins of his taiaha. The cloud surrounding the undead took on the shape of a huge figure, knelt with his right arm thrust to the ground--the skeletal mace and its gauntleted hand. Stoic hefted the weapon in both hands, and the image crouched, ready to charge, it's hand in the same spot as the mace-head. The contenders resumed their circling.
"We both fight mercilessly like frost giants of old--for we both descend from one."
The chieftain froze. And laughed as if he finally got a joke, in good humor--layered over depths of malice.
"Me! Descended from three different devils!" He closed the distance, and their collisions resumed. "The giant ice-devil of the ancient Great Land!" They checked one another with their hafts, pushing with the centers of their weapons, vying to knock one another back enough for a lethal hit. "The Red Witch who spawned our downfall!" Rokuano tried kicking Stoic's feet out again, the draugr blocked with his mace and struck the chieftain in the face with his fist. "And you! The Pale Tyrant who exiled us to these islands!" the orc barked back through gritted teeth. The air clapped from a superhuman, supernatural kick that sent Stoic flying back.
"I'll finish this calling myself! Stay down and forgotten, husk!" Rokuano ran for the edge. Stoic pursued him regardless of his foe's scheme, and stopped just short of following the upstart off the ledge.
With the rising cyclopean hulk dominating the bay behind him, the chieftain stood on the head of an aggressively-colored manta ray the breadth of a house, holding reigns to a harness webbed over the creature's body. As it rose over the platform, everyone saw vortices of water under each fin, the source of its lift. The creature raked a fin across the edge of the platform where Stoic braced; seeing the blades of water chip and gouge the stone, Stoic made to roll away--
"Power doesn't travel, boy!" the Tyrant told him. Stoic crouched, shielding with his arm. He felt the overwhelming presence of the Tyrant more than the hundreds of cuts from the manta's spinning hydrokinetic wings. As the shadow of the creature and the water passed, he heard a cheer from Rokuano's cadre and the orc himself laughing. He gritted his teeth at the indignity and stood up; the watery blades having left nothing more than scratched plates and superficial cuts venting ectoplasmic vapor. Rokuano's and his cadre's exultation died and were replaced with his men's--and several of the Horitirahu, Stoic noted.
Rokuano tugging the reigns, giant manta flexed its fins together, focused the vortices, and charged upwards. "Try stopping me from down there, corpse!" His cadre cheered, and a younger member stepped forward, eyeing Klasky's men--eyeing one of his youngest soldiers. "Lo, husk! One of mine slays one of yours! A sample of every haergiothan's fate!"
The boy dropped his shield and stepped forward with his sword. Klasky tried to tell him to switch his grip, fight two-handed, but it was too late--the two warriors were already engaged, and the haergiothian struggled to get his point between him and the orc. Rokuano's man wheeled his taiaha around faster than a young man trained in line formation discipline could manage one-on-one--three wide arcs broke the boy's rhythm and his neck met the taiaha's pointed tip in a fatal eruption of blood.
Stepan Klasky's ears rang, and he could not remember the steps he took between the parties, nor how he did so with a buckler and his sword. His vision swam and his helmet felt sized for a child, sliding it off to tumble behind him. He felt the strain he put on his jaw bending it down, and the strain on his diaphragm and lungs pushing them up; but could not hear his own scream. He stood as a spectator in his own body, as if listening to a play outside the theater. The last thing his rational voice told him was it might have been the scars on his face that unsettled the orc most before his enraged voice drowned out all other thought.
The orc stepped forward--also in metal plates like the ones who met with Stoic in front of the longhouse--and they batted aside each other's blows. Klasky felt something strike his face, his shoulder, but he lunged his sword and hooked the orc's taiaha with the hilt. He threw a hook with his shield-arm and the slender rim of the buckler met the orc's temple. As the orc pulled back he unhooked his sword and drew it across his opponent's jaw, then thrust it into his ribs. Then his body moved for the next green thing he could see through the shifting tide of colors.
While Rokuano was briefly distracted watching the parties challenge, he did not notice that Stoic was gone from the wharf.
THE MANTA'S ABRASIVE skin made its tail an easy climb. Stoic mounted the back of the creature with ease, pulling his ancestor's arm from the iron back-hoop once used for his caman in one motion as he fluidly moved for Rokuano with a panther’s lack of hesitation.
The parties below saw the great batoid bank forward, and Stoic leaping from the higher position, mace in both grips for a deadly overhand. Their gawking tipped the chieftain off, and he sidestepped with a guard of his taiaha, flexing his entire body like hefting a massive stone, to frustrate a strike that would have sent him into the water. Clinched together, a short applause of punches and each kicked the other away, Rokuano almost over the front of the ray, the creature banking forward at an even steeper angle as his master twisted the reins to keep from falling the dizzying height.
The steep pitch of the creature caught Stoic as he landed near its tail instead of falling off the back entirely; he grabbed the thick leather of the harness and stole a glance down a fall that would have been beyond even his faculties of healing; he saw dead orcs and Hounds littered around his captain lost in a berserk. Wrath radiated from his downcast faceport at the senseless death as he glared at his descendant. Lamenting the absence of his caman and the option of range, he schemed his next move.
The knowing glare in the chieftain's eyes and smile gave away the mutual understanding: Rokuano could not finish the calling--whatever it really was--while Stoic still menaced him, yet Stoic could do nothing to actually stop him altogether. As they stood off, the parties moved up the stairs of the wharf, wary of the Horitirahu following them with riles trained. As it drifted out to the bay, they saw the manta tilt in the other direction as Rokuano leapt, sending him airborne towards Stoic. The undead moved forward, and the men and orcs below wondered if they saw a great blue apparition move with him, pushing him along in the instant it took to stumble inside the chieftain's arc--not quite fast enough, Rokuano caught his foot on Stoic and fell, striking the manta at the base of its tail.
The sound made by the creature defied definition and eardrums. A near-subsonic note, a single ululation of the insensate wrath of beasts. As the men below reeled with their hands over their ears, they missed the giant manta's wild descent to the wharf and mass chaos ensued when the creature's psychically-held watery lift churned up razor-sharp shards as it collided, sending shrapnel, water, and warriors flying.
"I didn't know today was going to be special!" jested Taingaha with a generous hint of bravado. He and the others recovered, dusting themselves off, and his cheer faltered a mote: "Ho, Rokuano!" In fact, his attitude turned to impotent wrath: the chieftain was about to commit several dire transgressions--and then cement his absolute rule. "You do indeed cross a line with that!" He pointed the stock of his weapon to the edge of the wharf. A senseless Horitirahu lay prone, barely holding on to his rifle--which the chieftain was prying from the warrior, every move a furious jolt shot forward by the vacuum left by patience, every breath a slurred oath through clenched teeth.
For his part, Stoic reverted to his mother's type, his growl a continuous rattle as if clearing his throat--but continuous, for not needing oxygen he could simply hold a note indefinitely. The draugr even growled as Rokuano kicked him mid-recovery, the inhuman rumble erupting in enraged barks until all anyone heard was a fiery thunderclap--and ringing. Rokuano shoved the business end of the rifle through the faceport of Stoic's helmet and pulled the trigger, casting the sorcery of black powder in a blinding fireball and deafening burst.
Everyone present thought it was over--for an instant. Then a hand punched forward, then the other, to grab the rifle and shake it free of the smoky pale-blue cloud that surrounded Stoic Sternchild. He wrestled it about, his voice a furious continuous scream, and smashed the stock into Rokuano's jaw as he kicked the full-blood's feet out.
Moved by the contenders' voiced fury, everyone scrambled up to watch the dogfight. Gone was any shred of martial dignity or respect for ancestors or the majesty of two prime warriors in contest--all that remained was the beast's urging to kill like an animal to not die like one. The contenders rolled over one another, punching and gouging; Stoic's helmet rolled away, blown apart, and they saw under glowing ectoplasm the fleshy mess on one side of his face. He briefly stood up, kicking his opponent who kicked him back and recovered as well. Stoic tackled Rokuano and both went over the ledge as the giant manta stretched a sail-like fin over them. For an instant, the two groups of warriors forgot their own fighting and rushed to the ledge to crane their heads around the disgruntled batoid, still leaning against the wharf and apparently fuming; even a few of Taingaha's men followed perfunctorily to keep them in order.
"Ha!" said Lofty, with the best view around the huge beast. "Ha! Look, our man emerges!" he cried, putting his hands around Stanis and Petr beside him.
As the giant manta ray finally pushed off the wharf to get some water, they saw two dark shapes ascending the rubble caused by the great impact.
Up and out of the water climbed Stoic Sternchild, limping up the stone as plainly as stairs, holding Rokuano by the collar of his armor like the orc was a large bag. The seawater washed clean his face, and the mess was little more than a somewhat grisly flesh wound. Surrounded by his baying mercenaries, joined by many Horitirahu, the draugr dragged his unmoving opponent across the wharf back to the stairs, where waited a gathered crowd partitioned by a line of Taingaha's men. He crossed the stand of raised swords, shields, and helmets, seawater gurgling out of his mouth until his larynx was clear again and his feral rattling growl continued--in fact, it never stopped while he was submerged. As he crossed, he picked up Rokuano's great taiaha.
"What happened!?" demanded one of Rokuano's cadre over the din.
"Lord Sternchild's undead, he doesn't need air!" answered a Coal Hound carried along by the exited tumult.
"The old dog held your man in a rear naked choke 'till he ran out of air!" said Lofty, who held high the burst horned helmet with an immodest laugh. "I gave him that idea!"
Stoic dropped Rokuano just over the topmost stair, and everyone standing before the wharf saw their chieftain defeated. His growl never ended, and rose to a frightful pitch, holding out his free hand for Rolegt's arm to come flying to his grip, sending a ripple of starts through the crowd. Crossing his weapon and that taken from his foe over his head, his voice pealed a roar lasting far longer than any mortal could attempt, and when it died the air rang with the crowd's reciprocation.
First roared the Coal Hounds, alive save a handful; then the Horitirahu joined them, knowing the sentiments of their chief. The tribal allies of Taingaha cheered next, starting with their chiefs, the friends of Tangaha. Everyone roared, either in exalt or dismay.
Stoic's men would have overwhelmed Rokuano's cadre but for Taingaha motioning his Horitirahu forward, weapons pointed at the cadre--the haergiothians knew a mass arrest when he saw one, regardless of the culture. They passed that commotion to surround Lord Sternchild chanting his name, but he quickly beckoned them aside. Taingaha, flanked by his fellow chiefs beckoned by the fight, postured with one hand on his hip, his weapon over his head, his face another rictus. "Who stands before us, a fierce hairy orc flush with might!" he asked, lowering his weapon across his chest and grimacing.
The draugr braced himself with a fist on his hip, another on the end of the mace standing head-down, and let out a bellicose grunt. The chiefs stepped forward in interest. He stepped a foot back and tilted his mace forward. "The son of Tauripa the Red Witch! Nephew of Murokai! Grandson of Great Watitiru!" He matched the Horitirahu chief's pose: his frost giant ancestors transmuted arm held over his head. "Stoic l'Connacht Sternchild stands to awaken the Great Whale Ship of the Orakareha!" Stoic rhythmically pounded his mace and free hand against his chest, shoulders, thighs, while he moved around on his feet, the chiefs quickly following suit.
"A duel today concludes a fight long adjourned!
Ancient threads end, new threads begin!
A way forward charted through the past!
The promise of life through the dead!
Peace with enemies to make war!
A promise refused and offered again!"
Taingaha and Stoic alike were braced with their weapons held, faces contorted in fierce rictuses. "Stoic has Horitirahu rifles by his side!" the former declared. The remaining elders postured and shouted their assent with an assortment of short performances demonstrating the brawn they offered.
Klasky raised his right hand to his lord, and his men quickly joined in chanting 'hail!' Arms around one another's shoulders, they raised their free hands to their rhythm of the chant. Soon, everyone present who supported him; and those who did not acquired this salutation.