Under Alune

The Way Across

Latyurik was just about to give up when he found the druid Brambelhein. For three days he had searched while the sun was up, sniffing out orc tracks, following where they lead. Were it not for his force of conviction, he might have fled back to Wolfhelm at the first sight of their numbers crammed between the ragged shelves. Latyurik would sneer as he padded softly around the enemy, making mental note of their places. He would return to claim them, he promised himself.

Passing over and between the plateaus was easy in the day. The orcs above the ravines and jagged splits milled about aimlessly or lay lazily in the sun. The crude rope bridges they had built allowed him to pass easily over their swarming numbers.

At night, Latyurik would find a place to rest then hunted for fresh meat. Yet, when he found prey and laid claim to it, he could not halt himself from tearing it to pieces; so bad was this urge that scarcely two bites would remain to him. Latyurik would growl to drown the sound of his empty stomach and seek further nourishment.

Thus the fourth evening came, and Latyurik was hardly able to hide his excitement when he saw the tangled brambles and thick overgrowth of the bush-keep. He waited patiently as the sun set, thinking only of how glorious his return would be. All the while he waited, gobold-kin stomped through the trees and over the rope bridges. Forge flames leaped and danced as the gobold-kin bent their will and cunning to the manufacturing of weapons and war machines.

Soon their numbers dwindled to singular stragglers. Latyurik saw his chance to explore, but quickly realized that there were no bridges to lead him across the split between his plateau and that of the brambelhein. Down in the ravine the gobold smiths and their chained-slaves continued with their work. Latyurik eyed the farther mesa from every angle trying to find out how the gobold-kin gained entrance and egress. For the majority of the evening, that was all he could do.

Not too far to the north was Theyeark's dump, from which came an extremely detestable odor, as well as a filmy brook flowing lazily around the mountain's foothills and down into the Split-way. Some of it landed upon a lower shelf, forming a tiny stinking pond with oily, filthy edges. This shelf, and its pond, jutted out from the brambelhein's massive mesa. At the very first, Latyurik contemplated taking the chance and leaping into the far waters to climb the rest of the way, but decided that it just wasn't worth it.

Latyurik howled to Alune after a handful of hours had passed. He transformed into coyote-form and sat staring up at Ehma'zanue, begging for her insight.

"Alune," he whimpered, "show to me the way"

And as always he stared at the moon until his eyes watered and blurred. His rapt focus set the image of the moon shivering in his sight. Finally he had a notion.

-Seek ye the near clearing. You shall find thence a path to lead you.-

"What shall I find there?"

-What occurs beneath Alune.-

"I come for glory, not for sight seeing!"

-And the more to my glory it shall be. The elders will be over-joyed to see that I have practiced patience and wisdom.-

"I shall be their eyes, as Alune is to us. The eyes of Alune."

-and her hands we shall soon be. All truth and wisdom ours.-

"Like unto a judge of the High order; Truth and wisdom and a hand to end the lives of the wicked."

Latyurik thought of little else then, so went to find the clearing. After a short search, he found it a bit north of the brambelhein. There were a large number of trolls there as well as the blackish-green form of a marsh-ogre. It stood over fifteen feet high, rife with muscle, and hairless. For the moment it was wrapped in chains, which were in turn held taut by the trolls. Besides these, there were also some smaller gobolds tied to carts.

The earth here was very soft and rank- No doubt the waters from the city dump spread much further than the falling brook. The trees were sickly by appearance, twisted trunks and small tufts of irregular foliage.

Latyurik crept carefully around the clearing, making sure that he was moving as far downwind as possible from the gobold-kin. He followed the trampled earth southward between the unhealthy trees to the edge of the plateau. Here there was another waste-spring with its foul waters spilling onto a lower shelf, this one of crumbling mud. Here and there were swarms of mud-pixies who giggled, as they pulled clumps of earth from the plateau and let them fall.

Latyurik peered over the edge to find a host of ogres chained below. They stood tall, perhaps twenty feet high and tried vainly to catch the pixes who dropped mud onto them from above. They wrestled and groaned, frustrated by their captivity in the pits.

"I'm here..." Latyurik waited, and not even a minute had passed before he had an answer.

A wind barge sounded above, stomping through the air on its array of industrial jet-fans. It flew low over the brambelhein, and just then something large and winged dropped from it and dipped into the wretched trees. The barge itself continued on north of Latyurik, coming to land in the clearing.

Afraid that he would be spotted, Latyurik hid himself behind a tree trunk and waited to see what would happen next. After a while he could hear a large mass of people making their way toward the ogre-pit. They broke through the verdure, and to Latyurik's surprise, they all were human- or appeared so.

'Wait and see,' he thought to himself, stuffing down his excitement. As he studied the humans, he realized his first impression may have been the wrong one. Plain to be seen was the fact that the humans were divided into two types, prisoners and overseers. The former grouping were begging and pleading, wringing their hands with worry in their heavy shackles. These were either wretched intransigents by example of knotted hair and filthy dress, or of a slightly higher caste. Latyurik assumed they had been brought from somewhere in the city of Theyeark, most likely from the Lows area.

The captors, however were a more curious bunch. Though they all wore different clothes, all of their features were the same from nose to skin color. These same-faced humans approached the ogre pit without fear or cautious downward glance. They just stood and waited while one of their number fished a horn out of his coat-pocket.

When it gave the horn-blast, the ogres below lifted thick wooden planks high above their heads to make a bridge. The humans pushed or pleaded their way across. Latyurik followed them, as soon as the last of them had stepped off of the bridge. Behind and below him, the ogres were groaning and releasing their heavy burdens to the ground. Latyurik had hardly enough time to tread the span before their bridge was no more.

"Thank you Alune," he whispered, then quickly followed the humans across the stinking marsh.

Latyurik went as far as caution allowed then stopped beside a copse of brittle-looking trees. In the near distance was a growth of brush that could only be the druid's brambelhein. His heart raced to see it, but couldn't get close enough for the same-faced guards stood in his path.

He stole from the copse, and followed the procession. Within a tangle of cat-tails and marsh grass he watched as the prisoners were lead one-by-one past a mature Wyvern. The wyvern itself sat on a pair of powerful legs. Its thick leathery wings drooped into the mire. The person standing next to it with one hand lying comfortably on the its slick scales could only the druid himself. Latyurik stifled a growl from passing his lips.

The druid said something then pointed to a prisoner, a rotund man in a ragged blue-jean suit. The wyvern lashed out and snapped up the man in one wide-mouthed bite. The prisoners screamed and fought, but the guards calmed them with little effort.

Latyurik stole closer during the commotion. Beneath a twisted tree trunk he listened, now able to hear the voices.

"Where is Privolret?" the Druidyer was asking a small winged creature in his right hand. Latyurik could not hear the pixie's response.

"Darlaune did what?" the druid exclaimed. He sloshed through the mire with preternatural ease. and came unwittingly close to Latyurik. "I see, here stands Skurul. Proof enough."

Latyurik saw the druid smirk ever so slightly, then quickly replace this with a scowl of absolute anger. The druidyer whipped about and stomped off toward the brambelhein before Latyurik could make a decision on whether or not to attack him. The coyote-shifter shrank deeper into his hiding place.

"Get these ones planted," the Druid said as he reached the verge of the great bush. "You can go to your whims once you have finished."

After the druid disappeared into the brambelhein, the captors lead the prisoners through another grouping of trees on out of sight. Curious, Latyurik went to see what it was that they were doing.

So through the trees he went but stopped abruptly. There was a clearing in the marshland there as far as he could see, patrolled heavily by trolls, and populated with an odd crop. Latyurik sniffed once, confused by the odd things planted there, for most of the clearing seemed to be filled with strange stones of various colors. Some of them were moving about in the muck, creating great clouds of bubbles all around. As Latyurik watched, the captors began beating the prisoners mercilessly. Meanwhile, trolls dug deep into the mire.

Their reward was a single, but awfully huge, bite of each prisoner. The humans' cries of pain were almost as loud as those of panic. Several were able to break free of their guards only to be chased down and devoured messily by the troll patrol. Those who were beaten and bitten were lifted up roughly by the neck and plunged feet-first into the mud. In the end, all that projected above the water were the prisoner's nose and eyes and crown.

A large bubble floated to the surface nearby Latyurik then burst. Surprised, the shifter slipped into the mire and found himself hampered by the pliant earth. A head/stone close-by shivered and a hand broke the surface of the stinking waters. A troll stomped and splashed over and pulled from the muck an ork. The troll shook the ork violently then threw it carelessly. The ork landed next to Latyurik and immediately yelled;

"Lookee what! Fresh meat!"

"Fresh meat?" asked the troll and soon all of them were sloshing closer.

The ork lifted Latyurik from the sucking mud. He was immediately in warform, tearing the ork apart.

He charged at the trolls and forced his way through their numbers. Running at full pace, past rows and rows of submerged humans, he suddenly found himself trapped against a wall of the brambelhein.

The trolls gave swift chase, and whooped so loud that Latyurik feared that all gobori in the area would soon be upon him. He ran along the brush-wall until he came to a pair of sentry trolls. He grinned around muzzle full of razor-sharp teeth and pounced.

---

Aeisha frowned deeply at Hunter but had to admit that he was right. It would be foolish for them to go across until they had found a sure way of return, for though Hunter could theoretically fly over the trench with her in fox form held tightly in his claws, they could not be sure of Keysean's condition. They would have to be careful if they wanted to escape afterward.

"You three should go check out the wind-barge, see what's going on with that. It has no doubt stopped in a clearing on the mountains I saw a bit earlier. Looked large enough to be a dock of sorts," Hunter was saying, "I will see what I can find to help us across."

"We'll go with you," said Viyku, beginning to move his wings for the first time since he'd revealed them.

"No! no... I will be ok flying alone. You two should make sure that Aeisha stays safe." Hunter was eying her in a way that emphasized to her caution, and more-so, self control.

"If you say so," said Viyku who did not want to start any more trouble.

"Just listen out for me." Hunter spread his winged-arms wide and took to the air. By the time he was comfortably aloft, he was again an eagle.

To a Hunter, flying was the essence of motion. His wings felt more steady than any legs he'd ever walked on. So to be aloft was pure joy. Adding to the glory of completing a worthwhile mission, the eagle-shifter had never felt in greater spirits. All of the shifters in his clan were given the name of Hunter or Huntress at birth. In order to gain an individual name, a 'Hunter' or 'huntress' had to stand out above the rest.

Hunter was elated as he dipped low over the brambelhein. He would surely earn his name this day. War was so convenient at times... He shook this thought violently out of his head. That was no way for a worried friend to think.

He was mulling all of this over when he noticed movement in the brambelhein below. The thick bush had a single, ill concealed hole near one end. Through it, he could see someone sitting patiently on a heath. He circled around the get a second look and decided that it had to be a young woman- Darlaune. He thought at first of getting the others, but without a way for them to get across they were of no help to him. Hunter decided he should confirm Keysean's location before the others arrived, and flew around the brambelhein to find a way in.