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Echos of Juena

Second Retreat

Foreword:

Before the second retreat, what it meant to be human had changed drastically. No man was untouched by Blessed Juena. Whether fur, feather, scale or wyrd humanity had changed forever.

These stories come from just before or during the second retreat. The second retreat was not one of flight, but surrender. In the first retreat, men fled farm village and castle before the oncoming dusk. During the second retreat men became beast and turned on one another; only a handful survived fled back across the jade sea to the dying lands.

None of these stories may be taken as truth for they all come second third or even tenth hand. Some from children who survived the event, some from loved ones, some from ruins uncovered generations later. Each story however false contains a grain of truth and should not be forgotten.

Elqua and Val

By Haberna Skikk

Pronunciation guide:

Val is Vale.

Elqua is El`kah.

Quo is Ko.

Quonai is Ko nigh.

Ureeme is Uremmay.

1

Val was a mage of great kindness and standing. For three centuries he ruled the southern reaches of Quonai. Back in that age, during the 1573rdgeneration of the advance and its dusk. He was a healer who called upon the powers of nature, sun, star, moon and stone. There was no ailment he could not cure, no mystery he could not unravel. He had even cured himself of old age and lived forever as a man of forty and three.

In that age Quonai was still a lush and verdant jungle. It was rife with wide rivers, deep marshes and tall ancient trees that would turn any axe which tried to fell them. The city of Ureeme sat at the heart of this domain upon the river Quo. Once the city had been built upon the river's banks, but time ate at the banks until only the city remained, half submerged. Building upon building they continued to expand with great waterways instead of roads. It was some times called the Fifteen cities, each stacked upon one another and submerged.

In his two hundredth year a mother came to Val, fearful and confused. The child in her arms was more beast than man though this was not uncommon in those days. She had been harvesting deep in the jungle when a River Wyvern set upon her to make her his wife. For three years she had been entrapped in his watery cave and bared him nine children, eight boys and finally a girl. The ninth was Elqua, a child of smooth skin soft black hair and serpent eyes. Appearances were quite deceiving however and the child showed such kinship to the wyrd that even her mother recognized it.

It was that child, barely three months who enthralled the wyvern and allowed her mother to escape. For three years the mother tried to live a normal life and forget the prior years, forget the rape, forget the filth, forget the other children she had borne and lost. She raised Elqua to be a fine and proper human; she was bright eyed, cheerful, and even spoke kind words with a demure smile. Almost the mother had forgot, almost, until one day.

She had awoken to a soft chirping, not a bird but something more sinister. Curled up on the foot of her bed was a basilisk, a creature with venom that would harden a man like stone. It's lizard head rest upon the mother's legs and it peered up at her with violet eyes while making that strange chirping. She had frozen as stiff as if bitten, but the beast made no aggressive move. Inch by inch she slid her way from her cot of straw and found the house filled with beasts. Some were innocuous, little more than animals with a hint of the touch; others were not so kindly.

None laid tooth claw or sting upon her however as she trembled through the rooms. And there, in the kitchen she found her daughter, petting a jungle cat the size of a horse. Her mother of course, being a kind and gentle woman, fainted dead away.

When she came to the beasts had gone and both mother and child were unharmed, "Please Val, please care for my daughter. I know not what to do, I fear she may some day be consumed by the beasts she enthralls."

Val of course thought it unlikely, though his curiosity got the best of him and so he agreed. He took the child as apprentice and taught her to heal, to distil herbs, even a few tricks of spell to ward her against harm. In truth he studied her, explored her abilities and learned many of the secrets now lost to us. He named her Warg and she was but the first of many.

2

Shortly past Elqua's thirteenth birthday she flowered. Val did not know what to expect, but what he found shocked even him. The tower was filled with a strange scent, it tickled at the nose and sent a fire to even his ancient loins that drove him mad. Yet he was old and his self control held him fast as he sought out its source. Perhaps a spell to attack him, or another foul beast coming to the city to steal his people.

He found her in the courtyard below the tower on her hands and knees. Many beasts of wing and claw, fur and scale surrounded her as they tended... but every one of them was male and she compelled them to breed her. Val could only watch for a time as his ward moaned and thrashed in pleasure, a beast of a hound atop of her, foaming slobber running down its jowls to land upon her back. He rutted her violently and she matched him thrust for thrust, hungry for his seed. Below her the leavings of many beasts already pooled, reeking of musk and filth.

Val put an end to it with a strike of his staff upon the stone. The wind whipped up about him, the sky turned dark and thunder rolled across the heavens. He showered the entire city in a torrent of freezing rain, driving the scent from the air and cooling the heat of every beast within a mile. She still hungered though, even after the animals had gone. Her eyes seemed to glow with an inner fire as they set upon the old mage.

"You're all that's left Master." She whispered to him, and crawled forward on hands and knees. Her body arched, lifting her naked rear in to the air and she moaned a sweet reedy moan, then collapsed at his feet. For two days he nursed her back to health, she ran a fever as the touch of Juena from so many beasts tore at her soul, she had to be purged of everything not her lest she be lost and turned feral chimera.

When she came too again her mind was clear and her young body purified. He had even stilled the spawn in her womb, lest it's touch claim her as it grew. Once again she returned to the sweet girl he had known for ten years.

Upon the following year the heat came again, but this time he was prepared and locked her in the dungeon, far away from the beasts of the jungle river and air. He set wards to cleanse the air of her bestial stink and tried to soothe her writhing body as she lay bound to a stone bench. Still however the fire in her veins burned hotter, refusing to leave her so long as she bared no child.

A week passed and the girl he had known was gone, in her place was a feral creature of lust and hunger. Twice she tried to bite him as he fed her, until he was forced to place a horse's bit between her teeth. Between her legs a swamp of musk flowed continuously and her sex was swollen and red. Her body hungered so greatly and nothing he did would end the desire within her.

At the end he knew of only one thing to do. Her body was growing frail as the fire burned her from core outward, her eyes were seeing yet never saw him as her friend and mentor. Her mind he feared would be lost for good, but had to try. He took her as the young man he had once been and she reached to him with every bit of her. Her swampy depths swallowed his penis and drank from him desperately. Together they made love, beast child and old man, until at last her desperate hunger dragged his seed from him to stain her womb.

As the dribble of semen cooled upon her thigh, the fire in her was quenched and she fell asleep in his arms. Once more she was the sweet girl he had known, once more she dreamed peaceful dreams. Within her belly he felt the spark of life, and this time he could not bring himself to still it.

3

Forty years they lived together, loved together and learned together. For forty years Val was the happiest he had ever been. Elqua bore him thirty children, each like her, each able to call the wild to heel. For a time they believed they could tame the lands, bring an era of peace and prosperity. A single warg could render an entire forest harmless. Yet it was not to be.

Every time Elqua delved in to the mind of her beasts she became a little less human. Each time she was found staring sightlessly out her tower window, she came back knowing him a little less. She was forty three when she turned feral, when she became the Witch Warg of Quonai. Their children took less time than she to drift in to the wilds; he liked to think it was the love they shared that let Elqua stay as long as she had.

For a time there was calm, for a while peace and prosperity continued even after the wargs abandoned Ureeme. To his thanks, the wargs could not control a human mind, the will was too strong and it just left the warg with a headache. Yet only two years later the city was struck by a wave of violence. Beasts from the night stole women and children and murdered any who resisted. Val fought back as best he could, but he was one man and when he fell from exhaustion they came to claim even more.

At last he began to hunt, twelve he was said to have slain, his own children. They all died writhing in pain and with them their enthralled beasts let loose a cacophony of sorrow before turning to frenzied violence. Those captured were never seen again, either eaten, raped, or torn to shreds with the death of their masters.

Val mourned each loss, every one of his citizens. He knew nearly all of them by name for generations; children he had cured of colic, mumps, pox and more; mothers he had helped ease in to birth; fathers he had set bones and stitched wounds for after many hunts. Once he had been known as Val the good, Val the kind, Val the healer; now he was Val the fool who had sired the 1574th generation.

She came ten years later at the crack of dawn, the scent of her lust on the wind alerted him first, before he arrived. She came with a serpent coiled about her waist and clinging to her back, plunging its tail in to her oozing sex. Her body burned with lust and her eyes burned with hunger as he saw her from his tower, "Val." She howled, her voice carried magically upon the wind, "I come for your seed!"

The young she had born to beasts were pathetic beasts, mere echos of her true wargs and those of lesser humans were weaklings who could command no more than a dozen beasts at a time. A few of the second generation had power enough, but a third generation would be useless. Her womb was changed by Juena's touch, full of eggs ready to be fertilized. Where before she had born but one a year, this year she would birth hundreds.

Lightning crackled in the sky as she brought the storm with her. She had learned much from him through the years, how to call the storm, how to cure disease, how to halt her own aging and even how to purge the touch from the soul. She had learned something else in that time, something no other before had.

He met her upon the bridge at the entrance to the city. It was an ancient stone arch, set after the sinking of the tenth city, "Elqua." He said softly between crackles of thunder, "Why do you fight? Why do you kill? I taught you better than this my love..."

"Indeed you were as a father to me once, then husband for many years after." She told him with a twisted smile and a nod to her head. Her hips jerked in time to the pulsating of the serpent tail; it held her heat at bay, long enough to do what she needed done.

"So why?" He begged.

Her eyes seemed to cloud a moment and he was sure she remembered the joy they had found together, but the cloud passed and the fire raged hotter, "Why not?" She asked then lashed out at the old man. Not with words, not with magic, not with fists stones arrows or bolts. She lashed out with her mind and captured that powerful ember of potential, that nearly three hundred year old mind of such goodness, kindness, and learning.

He fell to his knees, his body near lifeless. Every appendage went numb as the fire within him raged. He tried to fight, tried to resist her will, but never before had he fought such a battle across the reaches of his own mind. Within minutes he had lost and could only watch as his body and thoughts were thralled to his lover.

She took him there on the stone bridge, mounting his cock as beasts and warg rushed past in to the city. His seed spilled and she drank it in to her egg heavy womb, then commanded him to his feet and marched him through his once beautiful home. Every house was torn open, every man slain, every woman raped and screaming in the streets. So many lives cut short, so many lives spoiled. Whether maid or crone; all women met the same fate, bearing young for the beasts. Whether boy warrior or bent old man; all met the same fate, as food and sport. All but Val.

In his tower he lived, surrounded by beasts on all sides, little more than a beast himself. His body she kept for its seed, potent and possessing great power. He sired many children on beast, human, and warg alike. Every day he mated from dawn till dusk, until his body was drained and only the force of Elqua's magic brought life to his shriveled manhood.

His mind though, his mind was quarry ever hunted. He darted this way and that through his own thoughts, ever watching what was done outside, but trying to survive his mental prison. If he gave up, there would never be another chance at freedom, she would consume his mind until it was as spent as his cock. His body slept though his mind never did, fleeing through dream, fighting off the ever closing prison of her will. Awake it was the same, only the dream was a nightmare provided by his own eyes and ears.

4

Years had passed and the city had turned to ruin. Every hovel was a brothel where human's laid with beast. His tower stood strong and would for eons to come, yet day by day buildings sank, crumbled, or toppled in to the River Quo. Val still fought and Elqua grew weary. Thousands had been born to her womb by then, hundreds of eggs at a time. The tower courtyard had become a nest from which her brood spread to the eight corners of Quonai. In time there were more Warg's than beasts and they spread farther, in to neighboring countries and claimed them as their own.

It was during one of Elqua's layings that Val broke free. His captor's concentration had waned as of late and now, as she gave birth to another clutch of beasts, he tore free of her bonds and ripped himself from the tower. The crash of thunder that followed his escape sundered the tower in the middle; with it came a shower of ancient stone, magically hardened so that it would last a thousand generations. It took the courtyard out with another thunder, and there the eggs drowned in the River Quo.

In rage, fear, pain and anguish at her loss, Elqua chased after her once Master. Another clap of thunder shook the city as she followed and more buildings tumbled in to the rushing depths to join the first fourteen cities. Through jungle they raced, thunderous claps shattering trees and stone. A bluff that overlooked the river for thousands of years, shuddered and collapsed as first He than She used it for perch. Many estuaries were diverted, the face of Quonai changed forever in their rage.

At last Elqua cornered him, trapping his teleportation before he winked away again. She screamed at him, wordless, mindless. She was as feral as the second time she went in to heat, unseeing, unfeeling. Lightning struck Val and he guided it aside, only singed by the flare of superheated gas. The earth split and tried to swallow him, he danced upon the wind to avoid the sundering gullet of stone.

He had awoken a beast he had only met in her worst moments, echos of the Wyvern that had sired her yet driven by the instinct of her mother's blood. He understood her in that moment of rage, she wanted only what was best for her children. His blood was strongest, he sired the most powerful and wisest. She was just a mother desperate to save her babies from the coming dusk.

"I will end your suffering, Elqua." He whispered to the wind and began to gather the sun to him. Twilight became day as energy radiated from his frame. His heart burst with fire, yet he lived on, his mind was seared from thought to memory, but his purpose was pure and simple. He landed a single foot upon the shattered stone of his once proud tower and she followed. Her magic scored him, cut away at a leg, an arm, a lung; still he stood and gathered the sun in to himself. Tears upon his cheeks evaporated then burned like solar flares, his breath came in spouts of plasma.

"I love you." He whispered with fire, and for but a moment he saw recognition in her eyes.

"Val?" She asked, then was no more.

A rolling torus of energy spread outward from where once Val stood. His body vaporized along with everything around him. The ragged peak of the tower melted and ran like candle wax and the forest for a hundred miles in every direction burst in to flame. Below the River Quo ignited, the very water itself adding fuel to Val's fire.

All that stood when he was done, was the ruble of a city, melted to glass and inset in to a single solitary pillar at the center of the blast. Beyond was nothing more than a glassed crater with pockets of bubbling stone, frozen mid froth. Echos of life froze in place and sank, cast to ash and hardened in stone and glass; sentinels until the world came to an end. All rivers dried up and found new paths, avoiding the purified stone of Quonai. For centuries to come, no living thing set foot there for fear of the curse, even animal and beast dared not tread upon the glass crater.

It was a monument, a memory etched in the bones of the earth for all time. Here lies Val the good, fool of Quonai who began the second retreat. Of Elqua there was nothing but ash blown on the wind though her children thrived in kingdom and country from sun sea in the south to the night wastes in the north.