FLESH FUR AND ALABASTER BONE : 000 : PROLOGUE
#1 of FLESH FUR AND ALABASTER BONE
Our world has crumbled to dust. Humanity has risen from the ashes of the Old Age, but lay ripped in two, caught in an endless cycle of war that breeds hate that breeds war.
Ginuvians began this cycle, seeking to rid this new world of the Beastmen who call themselves Anshelm-- their origins steeped in misery as much as mystery.
After thousands of years of war between these two powers, a new religious leader for the Ginuvian Union takes the mantle and shapes an unprecedented armistice with the Anshelmic Alliance, shaping the precarious Respite Era of 1609.
As a century of peace goes undisturbed, however, external powers work in secret to begin the cycle anew.
Caught at the center of a crumbling peace and the perversion of religion, Ansuz Frey finds himself alone in the unforgiving northern lands of Folkvang, a simple phrase pushing him deeper into the north: The Sunken Banks. It calls, soothes, and instills a belief that will unravel thousands of years of lies to uncover a truth where in the end all will die, or peace may find kin and kind of all forms most beautiful.
Death sometimes opens many doors, at the cost one.
War drums filled the air of the craggy shoreline and misty fields of the Neck with their slow, pulsed, paced, beat.
The beating drums made Targus' taupe-and-auburn fur bristle, more than the sticky sea breeze that slicked his fur and carried the stench of Ginuvia in from the southeast; the enemy marched closer in their slow, pulsed, paced, steps.
The battle had pushed the frontlines of the war eastward over the boglands of the Necks--a crushing defeat for the humans, surely, but, as time has proven in its eternal procession to Targus, the Maethi may face respite, but its cyclical ebb and flow is as ever steady as the beating of a heart or the tidal pull of Luna above. The Anshelmic Alliance will inevitably falter and retreat as the rallying Ginuvian horde pushed northwest yet again, and like a beating heart, blood follows the slow, pulsed, paced, beat.
Targus growled, a fanged grin drawing tight over his armour-clad snout as he trembled with anticipation. With green eyes the size of saucers, Targus' body kept rhythm to the beat of the drums-- or was it his heart?
--didn't matter, he thought, as sound and pulse danced and merged into a singular sensation of flesh and mind, drowning him in elation and algid satisfaction.
His muscles rippled and shuddered pleasurably over the leather hilt of his sword, heaving a steaming sigh and listening to the moans and gasps of the enrapturing ecstasy of his kinfolk.
"Fjaudar ek undjera!" the commander shouted in warspeak somewhere in the distance.
Targus and his kin laughed, howled, and roared in answer. He shuddered with glee and turned to meet the gazes of his brothers and sisters. Anshelm of all spirits stood side-by-side, their swords drawn and at the ready. His eyes fell on a young tiger-deer from squad six-- Ferjal. His wild amber eyes twinkled like the golden cuffs in his antlers; his striped fur steamed and quivered.
Ferjal grinned and nodded to Targus with gritted fangs-- his striped tail lashing about as he moved to the beating of his heart, and drums of the battalion-- all of them caught in what may be their last moment of bliss on this plane.
Targus' mist-filled world coiled and writhed, alive and breathing through patterns of fractals and sharp dazzling hues. Everything--everyone felt connected at that moment, even death.
He smacked tongue to fang, longing to feel rotting earth under his fingers-- to taste the spilled wine of carved flesh and watch alabaster bone flitter to dust.
"Ten coins says Treyvant dies first," a woman at the rear jeered with a growling chuckle, "who's calling it?"--Akuma the lioness, Targus surmised.
"twenty on Targus--look at him, he's panicked!"
"That's bloodlust, Ferjal, he's on some good shit-- hey Karmond, what's he on? I want summa dat!" another voice replied.
"--Quit your fucking yapping or we all die and no one gets a bet!" Targus roared.
They all laughed as if possessed by the Resting himself.
The Southern Ginuvian frontline appeared over a hill, glittering in the thickening mist like inlaid jewels with their silver armour and gold on sapphire tabards; a twelve-spoked wheel billowed on the standards above their heads.
The war drums hastened in response.
"yes....Yes!" another of his kin shouted!
"Targus--ya good?"
Targus laughed.
A salty gust carried in the fog haunting the shoreline.
The Mancer's played their part, Targus thought as he watched the grey curtains tumble in unnaturally over the sandbanks and ragged hills, sweeping over the grey-green fields and crashing like a wave against the northern treeline and cliff side. The blues and golds of the enemy halted in the distance, then vanished.
Targus turned to the commander sitting on horseback atop a hill behind them, hazy with distance and ready to flee. His hand raised, trembling.
Targus snapped his head forward and dug his hind legs into the soft grass; he swapped sword from hand to maw, dropping to all fours with palms to ground, back straight, legs bent, tail raised.
He listened, waited.
"Helda au fram!" the Commander's voice cracked.
Targus lunged, soaring and breaking formation.
A roar of cheers, shouts and cries swelled at his tail, weaving in and out and about as the sticky wind buffeted over his ears and stroked his silken auburn fur to cool the flesh beneath.
He touched down in the blinding fog, pushed through, kicked, soared--again and again-- gaining speed and momentum.
The war drums pounded at his chest with each wet breath that drove him deeper and farther west into the abyssal quagmire of soon-to-be broken meat.
Faster, faster! he ordered, kicking and stretching his hands farther as the maddened war cries turned to a whisper, until only breath, heart, and wind echoed in his head, compounding over the creaks and groans of leather. The sound of his armour rubbing against itself made it difficult to listen for the enemy's banging and clanging steel suits, but the miasma of reeking and petulant precorpses grew stiff, tight at his throat.
North now... Targus turned and slowed to a trot, overcome by the stench of sea and human. He undid the buckles and straps of the armor with a hand and shed it in his wake, then stopped, listening.
Seagulls cried by the distant shore at his back, the crashing waves rolling in wisps and sighs as fragile as the beating wings of a passing bird. The roaring sound of his kin closed in from the distance.
Targus' ears twitched, his whiskers feeling a resonance in the air of steel polishing steel.
Northeast! Targus' muscles cried in pleasure as he bolted faster than ever, closing in on the distant treeline and rocky outcrops to his left.
Targus caught sight of gold on sapphire tabards against the treeline. He salivated and flanked the disembodied blues of his prey and closed in from the rear; the glittering masses of Ginuvian steel faded in like apparitions, their backs to Targus.
He heard the fear in their quivering breaths as they moved slowly through the enemy fog.
One of them turned.
Targus kicked off the ground, swapping sword from maw to hand, and swung with a resounding symphonic crash. The meat beneath sputtered as a squelching scream crescendoed and faded, the steel armour turning to paper beneath the blade.
"Enemy a-" Targus crushed cry and throat of another with his hand, caressing, coaxing, and easing life from the soldier-- a popping, gurgling mess. He watched the life within the meat and marrow slip. the eyes rolled back and the wet flesh sack crumpled to the ground on release.
An insatiable hunger grew for more.
Dozens, maybe hundreds of soldiers turned. Confusion, shock, and fear rippled on weary and dirty faces as they broke stride, raising their weapons as cries of "enemy at the rear," encircled Targus. He roared with laughter, tossing his reddened sword and brushing his hands off.
Targus raised his head and hands to the sky above, feeling, searching.
The fog surrounding him whitened into snow and fell; the grass gathered hoarfrost. Targus' eyes smouldered, flickering alight like raging embers consuming emeralds.
"Mancer!" a woman's voice cracked, followed by more as bodies backed, and tumbled away, their feet freezing in place "Mancer!"
Targus clapped his hands and brought them down to his chest as soldiers tripped, clambered, and spilled over one another, frozen to the ground and piling into a mess of prayers and cries as the cold consumed them .
He pulled his hands apart.
A pulse of white plasma grew and burst in an instant, boiling away snow and hoarfrost in visible waves as the grass beneath smoked and charred.
The soldiers thawed and collapsed, screaming as their blood and armour boiled away, the vibrant blues and golds of Holy GInuvia a cinder.
Screams climbed to a chorus, faltered, then wilted away until all that remained was the soft sizzling of charred flesh, and the crackling of alabaster bone on burning grass. The fog tumbled back in and turned to rain, steaming on contact with the pools of steel and remains.
Targus panted, listening and waiting as he heard the distant sound of war breaking through at his left, far in the distance.
Then he breathed in, choking the flames and cooling the dead as he swayed, collapsing to the scorched earth, exhaling, and grinning.
The pulsed, paced, beat of his chest slowed, as the world slipped from his eyes.