[b]Zivaria – Jawr, Zeven[/b]

Ariad stumbled as the soldier shoved her forward. Cuts and bruised blemished the pale skin of her arms and legs and her peasant clothes were torn and ragged. Tears wet her face and puffed her eyes. She was so very frightened. All she wanted was to go home. The girl wiped her eyes to get a clear view of what – who – stood before her.

Steps led to a high dais upon which a throne was set. It seemed to be worked from iron, and festooned with a dark green seaweed with leafy fronds. Depictions of a monstrous shark devouring men and beast alike engraved the backrest and featured again on the arms as bustlike shark heads, jaws wide open displaying rows of jagged metal teeth. A large figure sat down on it as Ariad looked and peered down at her through cloudy white eyes. It was not human.

The air caught in the girl’s throat at the terror of the situation and she sobbed again.

Another of his species stood in front of her and talked in an alien tongue to the one on the throne. As their conversation and Ariad’s weeping continued, she heard the jingle of metal on metal and saw through tear-soaked eyes the glimmer of silver. This seemed to interest the one on the dais and it uttered a word she understood. “Sil-ver.” The arr sound rolled out like the deep growl of one of the great wolves the goblins took to ride.

Their discussion ended after what seemed like hours to Ariad and the emissary stood to the side, exposing the girl to the leader’s gaze. She trembled and let out another wail.

“Do not cry, child,” a voice like steel on a grindstone rasped. “Tell me what I want and you shall be spared.”

It shocked Ariad to hear it speak in her language. She somehow found it in herself to stop crying and look up again at her captor. He – she guessed – was like a cross between two creatures: shark and elf. Its ears were long and pointed and features generally humanoid like an elf but the shape of its neck and scalp was elongated like a cat’s and facial features sharp. Its eyes held no colour, the pupils only slightly distinguishable by a circle of milky white. Ridges ran deep through the sections of visible ear and slitted either side of the neck like gills. Wait – they [i]were[/i] gills. Ariad hadn’t noticed them on the bodies of the ones that had brought her but as she wheeled around hysterically they had them too. [i]What in the names of the Horned Lord and Lady of Wind and Water are these monsters?[/i] she wondered.

“Now then,” the figurehead continued, ignoring her lack of response, “Where were the soldiers of your village when the Zivar raided it?”

Ariad looked back to the circumstances that had brought her here. It had been a normal day, she’d helped her mother bring in the catch and wash the cockles for the broth. Then those creatures had come – the Zivar, was it? – bursting in through their door and grabbing and hauling her off by the hair as she screamed and the village burned. She’d been thrown in a longboat, gagged and tied up with rope and left to shiver and cry quietly as the ship left the shores of her home. Many hours later, she’d been dragged up the winding steps of a hilly island and through blood-stained streets towards the castle she now lay in.

“I… I don’t know… The men were called to the court of Lord Taelyc. To arms.”

This seemed to interest the Zivar. “Tae-lyc? I know not this man. Who is he?”

“He is our lord… my lord, the saviour who led us from Ordov.”

“Hmm…” The shark-elf rumbled, stroking the underside of its chin with a webbed hand. “Ordov I know. Why does he call soldiers?”

“I… I don’t know.” Ariad burst again into fitful crying. “I… I don’t know, please believe me!”

He looked at her with an unreadable face through Ariad’s watery eyes. There was a painful pause as she cried and cried.

“It matters not. I, King Ga’ap, thank you for your aid. You are free to go.”

A rush of relief washed over Ariad as she floundered before the king. “Thank you… Oh, thank you, gracious king!” 

The King spoke again in the strange language to the soldier behind her, for escort. She turned just as his jaws clamped around her face, spraying her blood and tissue across the court floor.