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[i] I am reckless what I do
To spite the world.[/i]
- The Murderer, Macbeth
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A new day was breaking behind the city, its jagged skyline shadowed by the rising sun. [i]Ozgad's Folly[/i] the place was called now, after the pirate king Ozgad One-Hand, who had made an ill considered last stand here six score years ago against the marauding orcs and beastkin of the Gorelord. The Folly was not this place's original name, nor was serving as a port to desperate pirates and lowlifes its original purpose, but few things in the vast desolation of Nagath were called now by the same titles they wore in the days of their glory, or served the same uses.

He sat back in the saddle and fixed a battered pipe in the corner of his mouth, lighting it as he surveyed the mudplains and marshland around the city. A few small villages- if that word could be used for collections of huts on stilts- could be made out in the faint dawn light, home no doubt to toadfolk and crab-farmers, eeking out an existence in the salt swamps, under the dubious protection of the pirates they helped to feed.

His gaan-lizard shuddered beneath him, letting out a cantankerous snort, signaling its displeasure at the fetid atmosphere, so different from the dry heat of the ashlands they had spent weeks traversing. 

His hand absently clutched at the small leather pouch hanging around his neck. Something within squelched wetly as he grasped it. He closed his eyes. He could almost hear Them now, a barely-audible whisper just below the surface of things.

He gave his mount a sharp kick and it plodded forward more briskly, towards the silhouetted skyline. His eyes fluttered open again. It was ironic, he supposed, that years of toil and planning would come to fruition in 
this squalid backwater. But it mattered little. 

From humble beginnings could come great things. Even gods.