Cold-Blooded, Cold Minds, Cold Waters, And Those of Cold Places - Anna von Hohenzollern Interlude
Concurrent With Spikes, Horns, and Stone 18
Ordinarily, many diplomatic meetings involved rich furnishings. A secure and sumptuously decorated room within a castle or mansion, likely with some grand table which stretched a good distance and had master crafted chairs aplenty if the meeting was for many participants at once or a smaller and more intimate table with but two chairs if it was but between two individuals. Sometimes with meals and drink supplied by the host, or bought in part and parcel by all attending. Sometimes with servants, sometimes with slaves. More clandestine meetings, even, that took place in the shadows or a cave or the forests with naught by a single campfire and some tents to provide shelter and warmth, were possible. But even in those most lean of meetings, there was some form of accommodation. A log. A rock. Something.
Anna von Hohenzollern sat on the ground, her legs crossed and hands in her lap, and expression and countenance cold and expressionless.
The ground itself was a sandy dirt. Not too bad for traction and movement, but not the best possible either. It also happened to be completely dyed red with blood. A lot of blood. So much blood that whole of the arena's grounds looked covered in striations and gradients of it, some portions as red as fresh blood while others were darker red rust. An amount that was, at best estimates, a blistering number of entire lake's worth spilled over the course of an approximate estimate of more than four thousand years. At nearest estimates, the arena itself had been constructed early in the overall buildup upon the mobile island that was known as the
Fortress of Eternal Torture. It was not the largest of the Arks created during the event explained to the Master Engineer by the elves known as 'The Sundering'. But neither was it one of the smallest. As an Ark aligned with the city of Clar Karond, it had also a major temple complex on it belonging to the Goddess known as Anath Raema, the Savage Huntress. Which, in turn, meant that the greatest exhibitions and events thrown in the two arenas of the Ark quite often involved strange and powerful beasts. Which, in turn, meant a truly prodigious amount of blood spilled in the Savage Huntress' name. Not in Khaine's name, that was the other arena. But the arena charmingly named
Slaughterer's Glory was not where Anna was currently sitting. Though both had the grounds well dyed with blood, and both had hideous obstacles with spikes and hooks and all sorts of horrid things placed along the walls and at certain points in the grounds, and both had vast stands which stretched higher and thicker than any building in Wulfenburg to the point that it could have served as a fortress itself, there were some differences. The statues of Anath Raema stood more prominently than Khaine here, though Khaine was also strongly represented. There had been different denizens locked into the dungeons to languish in before being thrown into gladiatorial combat.
And in this case, some of the denizens had remained behind, claiming a small place for themselves that provided some relative safety now that the locks were no longer present.
"I have been told that you have a request," she declared flatly.
Across from the Princess of Ostland and also sitting plainly on the ground was a creature scarcely ever seen by anyone in the Empire outside of wild, outlandish tales, scrawled pictures, or mad ramblings. Some called them the Jungle-Daemons, or Lizard-Daemons, or a divergent sort of beastmen. These people were not gifted with Witch Sight, the divinely granted senses of certain priests, or a particular kind of intelligence. As Anna had learned well, there were those who could become supposedly renowned scholars in the Empire and beyond, considered brilliant and knowledgeable, who could be remarkably stupid and incorrect about things. For instance, she had read more than a few tomes produced by Imperial scholars and so-called learned men who denied the existence of skaven entirely, and yet in Tilea the opposite was true. Especially in Miragliano and Tobaro. Considering that the Old World had been steadily drip feeding treasure seekers and starry-eyed colonists to Lustria for a few centuries now, one would think that more concrete knowledge would be known about the Lizardmen who's cities and sacred places they kept trying to plunder. But then, perhaps now, something more could be learned. Ignorance was a sword and shield at times, and though there was the very occasional instance of Lizardmen trading with the colonists, there were far more tales of them slaughtering the interlopers in their lands or letting them go with no real precisely known rhyme or reason.
The Lizardman in front of Anna was what was specifically known as a skink, a small thin creature with its tail having been viciously sawed off at some point in the past and its head crest torn off. The skink wasn't nearly so brawny as the enormous 'kroxigors' who waited a short distance away, staring at her without blinking, nor the slightly smaller but more dexterous saurus who were also staring at her without blinking. Some of them, at least. Others of the hundred saurus were staring at the Greatswords behind her, the stands, and the skies, all of them utterly still and unblinking as they watched for any and all possible threats. All of the Lizardmen were tremendously scarred, to an extent that those with the emotions to care about it declared it wanton butchery that had been done to them. In some cases, it appeared that they had been partially flayed, then allowed to heal, and then flayed again. The skink, in particular, had thick ropes of scar tissue all about its head and wrists. Though none of them, when they had been found at least, had anything to wear or wield in their defense, that did not seem to overly distress them. They now had weapons captured from the gladiatorial armory, though admittedly the Druchii weaponry was clearly not something designed for these hulking reptilian figures. The skink wielded none of it, and yet was quite possibly more dangerous than any of the other Lizardmen present, for Anna could see the crackling energies surrounding it through her witch sight. It was powerful in the Winds of Magic. Stronger than her, perhaps, but so far it had neglected to use its strange magic save to protect itself and to kill Druchii. To be sure, many had been shocked when it had spoken in clipped and chittering Reikspiel, but when those requests were simply for their arms and equipment to be returned to them, it had not been elected to be of any harm to acquiesce.
After all, Nordland and the Eonir had already sent most of their forces home with boats full of treasure hauled out of Druchii Tors and mansions spread across the Ark.
Though it did help that the skink, apparently, could literally sense some of that which was most desired back. A handful of men and women had found themselves most disappointed that the spoils they had thought they could secret away had been found out as a result. Simple human greed nearly causing bloodshed as the Lizardmen grew more distressed would have, according to her mental models of herself before the change, caused Anna to have to bludgeon a few people to death. In this case, it was merely a good number of lashings with no supplemental healing allowed save for what their own bodies provided them. After that, only the most stalwart and uncompromising troops were let onto the Ark, the others kept busy by corralling the rescued slaves and keeping watch over the shellshocked Druchii themselves. Yes, they had tried to surrender directly and solely to the Eonir, but in a number of cases it just wasn't possible.
That was a matter that was going to require some further debate, especially once Magnus returned from the Middle Mountains.
"Yes," Biq'qpop'a the skink priest chittered at her.
Everything it had requested was not found, unfortunately. Not because they were being secretly looted and stolen by a few unscrupulous humans, but because evidently they had been broken apart for study by the Druchii. The priest had led Stephan, Naraiel, and Anna towards the Tor of Darkness, evidently the place of residence and power for Druchii sorceresses on Arks that were not aligned with Ghrond proper. Some of their equipment was shattered into fragments. Some of it was salvageable, but the result essentially had the skink priest clearly wearing what was only half of what was supposed to be its raiment. Not that it had deigned to explain the meanings of everything, but now it once more had magically empowered golden gauntlets hanging around its wrists, as well as a staff studded with black stone spikes around the head. The headpiece that they had found in the Tor of Darkness was clearly meant for the skink, but the moment that Biq'qpop'a had seen it, it had chittered in what Anna assumed might have been disappointment and dismissed it entirely. Likely because whatever the sorceresses of the Tor had done to it had utterly drained it of its magic, breaking whatever enchantment was there permanently.
So now Anna had a mixture of crown and helmet made of solid gold and studded with large gemstones sitting in one of her personal chests, heavy enough to crush a child to death.
"Speak it," she said, blinking only once.
"Sustenance," it answered back.
In tandem, skink and engineer inhaled to fill their lungs for air, both cold and unfeeling minds focusing.
"What kind?"
"Meat preferred. Rot unacceptable."
"Any non-meats?"
"Fruits. Vegetables. Base grasses and leaves unacceptable."
"Understood. The Ark's stores are emptied."
"Understood. We do not wish to leave current location at this time."
"Understood. Sustenance may still be acquired."
"Understood. How may we acquire?"
"Trade."
"Exchange?"
"Correct."
"What to exchange?"
"Gold acceptable, knowledge preferred."
"Arms and armor unacceptable."
"Understood."
"Ornamentation loss acceptable."
"Understood. Knowledge unacceptable?"
"…subject matter depends."
"Elaborate."
"Cannot. Ask. Answer will reveal."
"Very well."
Both paused, blinking and thinking. The initial questionings had been simple enough, who and what they were. They were opposed to the Druchii. Opposed to Chaos. Opposed to greenskins. All answers that put paid to silencing a number of previous assumptions made by Imperial scholars that managed to get themselves published, as well as a handful of priests and Witch Hunters. Knowledge of their weaponry and armor was sacrosanct, save for the name being 'obsinite' as a material, and magic being obviously inherent in some of the gauntlets and swords and necklaces that the Lizardmen had been allowed to reclaim. What they had been doing up until their capture, their specific places of origin in Lustria, and more were all information that was considered forbidden, even to their rescuers. Frankly, the fact that the creature spoke Reikspiel at all was either a bit of Ranald's influence upon the world or for all that could be surmised, the inscrutable works of the Lizardmen's Gods.
"Location of original capture?"
"Home."
Lustria, then. Further elaboration would not be given.
"Captured originally by Druchii?"
"Correct."
"The same Druchii we fought together against?"
"No. Captured by boasting Druchii, self-identified as Lokhir Fellheart. Different aquatic bastion. Traded to current location."
"Purpose?"
"Trophy. Entertainment. Prestige."
"Understood. Apologies."
"Unneeded. The Druchii will be corrected in time."
"Understood. You self-identified as a priest during initial conversation."
"Correct."
"Priest of what?"
"Priest to guide, to command, to interpret will of the masters."
"Masters?"
"Knowledge unacceptable for trading – will prefer starvation instead."
"Understood. Priest identified as worshipper of Gods. Gods likely unknown to us. Knowledge requested."
"Knowledge unacceptable for trading –,"
Anna held up a hand, cutting the skink off and making it blink a few times rapidly.
"No in-depth knowledge requested. No temples. No rites. No secrets. Merely names. Shallow scrapings at depths."
Biq'qpop'a did not answer for ten entire minutes. Anna and the skink both did not move for the same length of time, save for blinking on the part of the former. Both breathed, on occasion. The Greatswords behind her, those still standing at the main entrance into the arena, shifted about uneasily with too-loud squeaks of metal and chainmail. The saurus warriors, all one hundred of them, did not move at all save for breathing so slightly and minutely that their chests did not even expand or contract. Neither did they blink, becoming living statues. The kroxigors beyond them were more mobile, shifting back and forth, sometimes on all four limbs, sometimes two, often whipping their heads back around to make sure that Biq'qpop'a was still there and unharmed. Anna and the skink priest did not look away from each other either. There was no point. There was no discomfort mentally or emotionally to be had. Though it could not be precisely known as to how long a skink could remain motionless, the behavior already displayed by the other Lizardmen implied that they were capable of going utterly still for considerable periods of time, beyond the limits possible by mundane human bodies. As it was, however, Anna was still yet capable of dismissing any current soreness or itch as beneath noticing.
"Tepok."
Anna's gaze did not sharpen, soften, or focus in.
She merely listened.
"Feathered serpent. Air. Sacred places. Inscrutable. Purple."
Anna nodded as she glanced at the purple streaks that dominated the otherwise blue skink's scales.
"Chotec. Sun. Itzl. Beasts. Quetzl. Protector and Warrior. Tzunki. Water. Uxmac. Messenger. Sotek. Deliverer. War and serpents. Destroyer of skaven."
Then the skink went silent.
"Skaven?" Anna prompted.
"Yes," the skink priest hissed, a thread of anger found amidst its cold voice, something not even displayed towards the Druchii who had so tormented and mutilated it.
"Skaven are a foe to the Lizardmen?"
"Correct."
"Understood. Skaven are a threat in Lustria."
"…yes. Invaders. Virulent, often."
"Pestilens," she concluded, which made the skink blink now.
"You are aware of Clan Pestilens?"
"Correct. We have fought skaven before. Skaven nearly killed the Empire once. Skaven nearly slew me once. I have killed many."
Biq'qpop'a gave the slightest of nods.
"This is good."
"Yes."
Then the silence returned for another few minutes.
"There are other Old Ones," Anna concluded. "More knowledge not sharable at this time."
"Correct."
"Understood. Payment is sufficient. Elaborate on sustenance required."
Then it was just a matter of rattling numbers off and comparing prices.
There was no need for goodbyes, just as there had been no need for greetings.
============================================================
"SO I SAID, 'THAT'S NOT MY MOTHER, THAT'S ME SISTER!'"
An explosion of laughter from hundreds of throats erupted outwards and filled the beach encampment. Some would find it a bit grotesque to camp out amidst the shattered rubble and filthy sands that were still being cleaned of Druchii gore and offal several weeks after the Battle of Salkalten had come to an end. Even with the absolutely disturbing advance of what had looked like a rapidly moving forest a week ago, which ended up being a literal army's worth of dryads, tree-kin, and treemen from Laurelorn there to pick up their payment for aiding in the stunning successes in Nordland, there remained much left behind. Whole rivers of blood gone dry and sticky and now flaky and rusty. Fingers and red-drenched chips of ribs, tens of thousands of broken teeth blasted out of skulls, the now obliterated and forcibly carved inward shoreline that had once been the entire docking district of Salkalten was not a place for the faint of heart.
A good thing, then, that the dwarfs of Norsca who had survived their imprisonment had no such thing amongst them.
It had been quite a shock to discover them, and yet there had been little time during the scouring of the Ark itself to question them too much about the matter. They, as well as those dwarfs who were nominally of the Karaz Ankor, had taken up arms readily upon being rescued, or in the cases of some of the latter, taken up arms for the first time in their lives. A horror, in truth, for Arthur von Hohenzollern to discover. He was a priest of Morr, the God of the Dead, and yet so too was there a responsibility to the living to ensure that they did not reach the grave unduly and, more importantly, that they died without desecration. For all of that, many of those dwarf slaves that were not of Norsca might as well have been the same walking dead that Arthur himself had struck down in the past. Even now, in these hastily raised tents and roughly cleared land which served as a shelter for them all, the delineation was clear. The Norse dwarfs had been fierce and filled with bloodlust during the battle, and now that it was over, despite the fact that some of them had been forcibly shaved by the cruel Druchii, and otherwise mutilated, they now mostly drank and made merry after the stocks of the Naval Throng of Barak Varr had been broken open to celebrate their survival.
The same was not true of the other dwarfs.
"A marvel, indeed," King Grundadrakk said over an enormous tankard of ale, still a bit disbelieving after all this time. "To think I would see them myself, in the flesh!"
"Would that we could have saved more," Arthur sighed over his own tankard.
King and priest sat together on the rock that had once been part of the sea walls designed by Barak Varr itself. In fact, if Arthur didn't mistake himself, he was actually sitting on half of one of the great runes that had been engraved into the surface. While the King's royal hammerers were present and at the ready, the king himself had left behind much of his kingly armor and arms, though of course that largely meant he was wearing chain and leather rather than fully ensconced in lobster plate. A salt and pepper beard was looped around the dwarf's belt, and though his face was clearly well weathered from the salt and spray of the sea for long periods of time, he was without a doubt one of the larger dwarfs that the priest of Morr had ever met. Not to mention in width, a not-inconsiderable gut hanging over his belt beneath his beard, while his crown hung heavy on his brow over clear sighted dark brown eyes. Arthur, by contrast, was dressed wholly as representative of his station in the Cult of Morr, and not as one of its warriors. His somber black robes made for quite a contrast from the gleaming and glittering gold and silver worn by the dwarfs immediately around him. Around them, the Norse dwarfs caroused, or at least most of them, drinking to an extent that had already made a few of the Barak Varr dwarfs a little uneasy.
"You saved more than none," the King grumped at him, shaking his head and then mournfully glancing out of the tent itself to gaze upon the mighty yet broken fleet of Barak Varr.
Even now, hundreds of dwarfs clung to the sides and filled their innards, working day and night to try and repair the damage that the fleet had taken on its rapid pace journey from their home. Arthur was no engineer himself, but he had heard Anna loudly and flatly declare upon seeing the smoke pouring from a vast amount of wounds on those ships that it was going to be 'a bitch and a half to get those things back out into the water anytime soon'. The King himself had not been nearly so eloquent or curt about it, either. Cursing the skaven that had wounded the ships thus for quite a long time. The only salve to that, to the fact that they had arrived long after the Druchii had disappeared, after the fighting was well and truly done even including the last holdouts, was that they had apparently killed a truly prodigious amount of skaven on the way. Enough to cross out a massive amount of Grudges out from Barak Varr's book, and once the information could be conferred, from the Dammaz Kron itself later. They had offered their aid nonetheless, in what manners they could. For now that meant helping clear the beach, and to provide aid in supplies to many of the rescued slaves. Even the elven ones, though that had taken a bit of work.
"Still," Arthur shook his head. "Is there no way to convince them?"
"You should know better," King Grundadrakk shook his head. "They made their chose, to erase their great shames."
The shame of being broken.
The shame of giving up hope for so long that they even managed to birth children onto the Ark who had never known mountains save for sights in the distance when the Ark was docked on a shoreline.
Yes, Arthur understood the shame that had compelled the vast majority of those dwarfs who had been kidnapped, sold, stolen, or otherwise disappeared on their travels around the Old World and beyond to end up on the
Eternal Fortress of Torture. Why they had shaved their heads, picked up the razors they had once shaved their master's with to slit throats, why they had jammed candelabras into the eye sockets of the masters they served as slaves, had wept and slain and died themselves. But that didn't make it better, that they were leaving behind a small handful of terrified dwarfs clinging to what little their parents had been able to impart on them of their people. The newfound slayers, even now, did not join in on the celebrations. They refused to sleep beneath the tents, or even with the walls and ceilings and roofs of the buildings in Salkalten that had been offered, or even the ships of Barak Varr.
They lay, shivering and filled with so much self-loathing that it was palpable in the air around them, upon the beach until the morning to then rise up and once more beg Arthur or Anna to grant them proper weapons that they might find glorious dooms and soon.
"Their children, though," Arthur glanced up at the weary storm in the King's eyes. "Will you take them? There are those back in Wulfenburg that could help raise them, but…,"
"But they deserve to see the mountains of their ancestors," Grundadrakk nodded grimly, drinking deeply of his mug until it was empty and left froth across his beard. "In truth, I would prefer they did not even go to Barak Varr. After the ordeals of their entire existence up until this point, they deserve nothing less than to be raised in the Everpeak itself."
"But that's unlikely at the moment," Arthur muttered, and the King nodded.
"Aye," the King grunted, gesturing for his mug to be refilled.
"I hardly even thought that dwarfs would ever even exist in Norsca," Arthur prompted instead from the grim topic, glancing towards the decidedly non-grim Norse dwarfs, at least in the majority.
They, too, had not had some of their number prove immune to the compulsion to abandon all things in the name of death and doom, hating their enslavement and whatever culpability they might have had in it to the point of shaving their heads and taking up arms themselves. But not all. Not even close. Perhaps only a fifth of the so-called Norse Dwarfs had fallen to that darkness of the mind and spirit.
"You should know, Hohenzollern, that us dwarfs ranged the world far before your kind did," Grundadrakk said with a rough laugh. "Though I admit, their kind has fallen in and out of communication with the Karaz Ankor more than once."
"So they were speaking truthfully," Arthur whistled quietly. "That they do not heed the commands of the High King?"
"Aye," Grundadrakk growled this time, shaking his head as he looked at them. "A bold thing, but who, indeed, would speak against their respect towards the Ancestor Gods? None of the more sane, none of the more wise," he chuffed. "Still though…," his rough grin turned into a craggy frown. "You have heard their tales, have you not?"
Arthur sighed, and glanced north – far north, across the Sea of Claws.
"I have. We knew, long ago, that the Norscans had turned inward into their lands. But we never could have imagined
that…"
A so-called Emperor of Chaos. Multiple Norse dwarf holds brought down, broken into, and destroyed. A massive war going on for what must be many decades now.
"Would that we had maintained better lines of communication after the Grudgebearer re-established contact in his quest to become High King," Grundadrakk shook his head, an angry look on his face. "And now, as the Everpeak trembles, so too does Kraka Drak, surely."
Even if they refused to accept the rule of the High King over them, they were still dwarfs, after all. Arthur could more than understand that. The Empire and Bretonnia were both races of men, and neither would truly prefer that the other fell to greenskins or skaven or Chaos.
"And the tribe that aids them?" Arthur asked, "Have you ever heard of such a thing?"
"Never in my life, or any my forebears," Grundadrakk immediately prompted. "Norscans giving up the Dark Gods? Who ever heard of such a thing!?"
"It's been known to happen, individually, but never on a scale such as they describe," Arthur looked down into his mug, bewildered, before throwing it back down his throat.
"They swore oaths on Grungni, Grimnir, and Valaya besides," Grundadrakk drank some of his mug. "So it must be true. Still, what a sight to see. Though I doubt we'll know the result for some time."
There were no ships to take, after all. And with Kislev amidst its own self-made hellstorm, travelling by land was also out. There was nothing they could do. Nothing at all. And besides which, they all had oaths and duties which compelled them home, to the Everpeak, to the Empire, to other concerns that were far more southerly than Norsca. But it did not mean it didn't stick in the craw of anyone who had heard the tales of the Norscan dwarfs. To know that the Norscans had rallied up again under a powerful Chaos Lord, one who was now working to shatter the existences of the Norse dwarfs entirely, to grind out a Norscan tribe turned against him and the Dark Gods as well. Something that no one would possibly be able to go and investigate, especially with the news that was starting to come in from around the Empire.
"They can't even try to head home themselves," Grundadrakk eventually said, glancing at Arthur. "I hear that they've sworn oaths of debt to the ones who rescued them from their cages and killed their captors."
"Ah, yes," Arthur clucked his tongue. "Uncle Urgdug doesn't know exactly what he's supposed to do with that. They've been enslaved for more than a decade, they're in no condition to go haring off into battle just yet. But they can't simply abandon the oaths they made, the debts they've claimed, either."
"There's only one thing for it," Grundadrakk shrugged. "He, and you, and the others of Ostland, must keep them alive long enough for them to discharge those oaths and debts."
Arthur snorted.
"That chance may come sooner than they might think."
A glint appeared in the King's eye.
"Oh?"
"We've gotten news from the south, the east…," Arthur gestured vaguely towards the rest of the Empire in the vast middle distance. "Beastmen are starting to appear, here and there, in larger bands. Ostland is not immune to that threat. And meanwhile, Salkalten is trying to house all those rescued from the Ark, those that did not return to Nordland with Stephan and Naraiel. We are beginning to be stretched, ever so slightly."
"Hmmm….," Grundadrakk mused. "We failed to aid Ostland in its time of need," he noted.
"King Grundadrakk, there's no need-," Arthur immediately tried to say before a thick dwarf finger was thrust in his face.
"We swore an oath, and to fulfil an oath besides, to aid the savior of the High King," Grundadrakk declared, fire in his eyes. "We could not fight alongside you at sea, but make no mistake, my throng can fight just as well on land!"
Arthur exhaled slowly.
"I'm going to need to send Magnus a letter."
"Use that elgi tart on her flying buzzard, then, but Barak Varr makes ready for war once more!"
