[center][h1]Embers pt 2[/h1][/center] For the first time in his life, people were really listening to him. “They say that the war is over, that our enemies no longer fear us, and they say it as if it is some kind of victory. Because all that matters to them is surviving, eching out a meager existence in the shadows of the gods. Well I will not be satisfied with mere survival! There is so much more in this world than meek subsistence if we could just reach out and grasp it. Yes. the war is over. Enemies no longer stand guard, their eyes having turned to distant horizons. Should we sit here and thank the gods for the mercy of no longer having to watch our backs while we scrape in the dirt for scraps? I say no! It they're fools enough to turn their backs on us, so we should size the opportunity and strike them down!” The boy of the Dragon’s Jaw tribe stood atop a pile of charred logs brandishing a dragon bone knife for enfasis as he spoke before the assembled crowd. While their elders had gossiped and argued the younger generations had come together and formed a temporary community under their noses. Partially this was for their own protection, treatment of the young varied widely among the Jotunder as they had started to be a factor only after the survivors of the final crossing had split up, but it was also partly for simple camaraderie. The younger members of the boy’s tribe had found out about this while their leaders had been investigating the great gamp and had been invited along to a meeting set up to welcome new arrivals into the community. It had begun as introductions, but with the argument with Garna’Tenth still fresh in his mind it hadn’t been long before the boy convinced some of the others to let him speak to the assembly. Most of what he was saying wasn’t anything new, nor did he have as much clout as others who had spoken, but when he spoke others found something in his words was like fire. Passion and anger allowed to run wild and free as he spoke to the fears and frustrations of their lots in life, all backed up with a righteous zeal few could muster in this age of doused flames. Even those who had heard him speak before, the half grown of his tribe and a few young full grown like Ayr’Sala (who was sat down only a short ways away), where swept up by his words. “This is not a time to stand idle, or to run back to our barren lands like meek Jackolopes. We are Jutundere! We are fire! And it’s time we what's rightfully ours!” he shouted, pumping a fist into the air. A deafening wordless roar met his proclamation from the assembled Jutundere. The boy let it wash over him as he recovered his breath. Just as his words had set their hearts aflame, so to did their wordless response have his blood racing through his veins. He felt so alive! Yet among the clamor his ears suddenly picked out a dreadful familiar sound that set his heart racing in a far less exhilarated fashion. “BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOY!” Young eyes searched for the source of the call. It was not hard to find. Stomping through the crowd, 3 times as tall as most of its members, came a fuming Garna’Tenth. The crowd he had riled up parted like the sea before her for fear of being crushed underfoot. “I was willing to tolerate your foolishness before, but you’ve crossed the river boy!” her voice boomed across the crowd like thunder “Because this, this recklessness liable to get us all killed.” she stopped before him, before glancing at the crowd “To fight against nature is to choose to die, either the storms your idiocy calls down on our heads or someone will stop you before you get us all killed.” before turning back to the Boy “do the san thing boy. Let go of this dream and come home before you get hurt” “I’m not going back to your graveyard of a desert! You might feel at home in that corpse pile you old wretch, but I refuse to live and die in that gods forsaken place!” “You don’t know what your saying boy.” Garna’Tenth replied sternly, a hand reached out and grabbed his arm to drag him back to camp. “The rest of you” she began to address the gathered children once more, thinking he wasn't going to resist. She learned she was wrong from a sharp pain in her hand as the boy plunged the knife into it. Garna’Tenth roared in pain as she let go of his arm, which was bleeding slightly as well because the blade had gone straight through. The boy was not cowed by his self inflicted injury and instead rushed her legs with his knife, sinking the dragon's fang into her thigh. “Enough!” she screamed, sweating down at him with a blow fast and hard enough to pulverize half the bones in his body. The boy was saved from obliteration by the quiet Ayr’Sala lunged forward with a calm “no” to put her arm in the way of her strike. The limb was ruined, but so were many of Garna’s fingers The boy started away from her leg, avoiding a blow that had already been blocked, but Garna was not offered any respite as Ayr’Sala struck with her uninjured arm, punching the elder Giant in the chest. The blow caused her to stumble back, and then the wound in her leg caused her to fall. Half -grown scrambled out of the way as the titan fell to the dirt. After a few moments of shock she tried to rise, but with one hand stabbed, the other was broken in a dozen places and a leg bleeding heavily she failed, slumping to the ground in defeat. After the brief burst of violence stunned silence reigned. “Thank you.“ The boy whispered to Ayr who was nursing her broken arm. “Should have stepped in long ago.” she muttered back “But... now what?” The boy looked past the fallen Garna’Tenth who seemed to be resigned to whatever fate she might now receive, out over the shocked faces of the crowd and saw the rest of his tribe, who had followed after their unofficial leader’s blazing trial but had been given pause by her conflict with the youngsters and subsequent fall. That wouldn’t last long. “I know what we have to do,” he told her, before stepping back up to the burnt husks he had spoken from before. “You saw how they tried to silence me with threats and then violence! Because they fear us! Because they know we can surpass them!” he roared, blood still oozing from his arm wound. “It’s not enough to cower in fear, they need to drag us down with them, because if we do what should be done we prove that they are truly cowards! The Giant’s bath lies unguarded, the skies clear of storms! Now is the time to strike! To take the serpent’s mountain! Follow me, brothers and sisters, before our decaying elders gather and try to crush this opportunity to surpass their failure!” With words said and a course laid all that was left to take the first step. The Boy turned away from the woman he had crippled and marched north through the crowd, Ayr’Sala at his side. Towards the gateway of Shengshi the pair went and, drawn like moths to his flame, many of the Jutundar followed. [hr] To many. They were like angry flies, buzzing, swarming, biting. “Run! Run for your lives!” They did. She fell, poorly healed wounds making escape as impossible as fighting . But just like last time, this was not the end. [hr] The first step had been taken. Now they had to take the second. The gathered Jotunder who had followed the Boy who spoke with fire north stood before the jungle’s edge. Oh they had passed trees sure enough as the desert slowly bloomed to life, but here, between Qiangshan mountains and the Taipang river and stretching just in between them and their destination the jungle truly began. The flock of Gardners gathered in its branches like soldiers on a wall made that abundantly clear. They themselves were not so frightening, even as the tiny feathered friends sang and heckled them in an alien tongue. Instead what they feared was what they represented, for they had come around the same time as the Squalls. If they were still here where the squalls here too, lurking in the forest to ambush any who broke the unspoken truce. Knowing that his army had already been hemorrhaging devotes as they had second thoughts the Boy knew that to delay here would only make it worse. Out of the line of Jutuner he marched, testing the waters. Ayr’Sala went with him, the full grown following just a step behind him. Since they had fought Garna’Tenth together she now rarely left his side. He was in charge here, but her presence at his side, her still working arm always on the hilt of a blade, gave his words a weight he suspected they would not have otherwise had, particularly with the full-grown who had come. Younger ones like her. Older ones with regrets. Most of his army were still half grown however. The boy who spoke with fire aggressively left out the ‘only’ others might have used in that thought. They approached the shrieking hord, bombarded with meaningless calls until suddenly one was not. “Go away!” called a voice in their tongue. It came from a parrot, yet sounded like a full-grown Jutunder, one in pain and afraid. For a moment the boy’s confidence surged before others started copying the call exactly and he realized it was not they who were hurt and afraid. It was a Jutunder, probably long dead, who’s cries they had heard and now mocked him with. “Go away! Go away!” they cried “You burn! You burn!” “We stop. We stop” Each call was mimicking a different Giant, the same voice in a thousand mouths. He stopped a few steps away from the line in the sand drawn by the gardeners “We are here for the mountain!” he called back, unsure if they would understand. “You burn! We stop!” they cawed back, chopping different mimicries together that were joined by a shower of nut shells, twigs and rotten fruits hurled from the forest’s edge Ayr’Sala’s large arm was moved in the way, protecting him from much of the barrage as the giant herself toughed it out. “You move or you burn!” he yelled, trying his hand at threats instead.. “You Burn! We replace! Many us. Few you!” they screamed defiantly. Or most did. “They burn we replace?” some cawed “They burn. We die?” “We want work not die!” “They burn work!” “We replace work!” The boy watched as the assault slowed and rather than retaliate against his threat, the birds began arguing among themselves. He picked up one thing among the shouting. The desire to work. Maybe he could sway these enemies like he had his own people? “You fight us, we burn you, you don’t work. We break forest, you replace forest, you work. Good?” he tried, and when that failed to get picked up he tried it more simply, like he was one of them “Not fight them. They burn forest! We replace! We work!” “They burn, then we work!” cried one, simplifying his call even furthur “They burn! We work!” he cried with it, and then more joined in. “They burn! We work!” “They burn! We work!” “They burn! We work!” The calling joined together, no longer aimed at him or each other but simply as a proclamation. Then, suddenly, the birds took off, scattering to the trees not in his direct path where they landed to watch and wait. He wasn’t entirely sure why this worked, the thought process he had just manipulated utterly alien to him,but it had. The way was open. He stepped over the threshold and into the jungle as their enemies scattered before him. The faithful followed the boy who’s words where fire and the skies remained clear of storms. [hr] The sting of the lash. The cold splash of water. The ceaseless drudgery of moving stone. How her old wounds and older bones ached. The threat of more pain and death the only thing driving her to continue this pointless task. [hr] With a final hack of his blade the Boy broke through the other side of the twisted jungle and found himself facing a wall of stone. The distant sound of waterfalls could be heard, in between the crash and crunch of his army following in his wake, carving and smashing a path through the jungle. It took Ayr’Sala a hundred or so heartbeats to rejoin his side. “Apologies for the delay. Jungle’s even more of a pain in the ass for us full-grown.” she muttered, before glancing behind her. The path they had cleared was being cleared further even as they watched. The black gardeners landing on fallen trees and other plant caracas, causing them to rapidly begin to rot. The rest of the flock followed as well, stalking them from the trees while staying out of range of the odd tossed stone or branch. “What do they want? I hate how they are just stalking us.” asked one of the other half-grown. The other boy looked as worn down as they all did by the trip, but like all who had come this far there was no way he was turning back now. “You burn. We replace. You burn. We replace” went the caws “We’ll deal with that later. We have a mountain to claim.” The boy said before calling out louder “Acend my brothers and sisters! Victory is within our grasp.” before starting up the mountain. Hand over foot they climbed the steep, almost clifflike at times side of the rocky outcrop. Where the young had had it easier blazing a path through the jungle here the full-grown shined, long strides carrying them and strong hand pulling them upwards. Despite being few they gave aid to their younger comrades, stopping their own climbs to help them get up trickier parts. Despite having Ayr’Sala at his side the whole time the Boy refused any help, recklessly scrambling up the side of the cliff. As he climbed his legend grew till at last he pulled himself atop the Giants bath. The first of his kind to surmount the taunting peak of the river serpent. Others joined him. Ayr’Sala a few moments after, then dozens , then hundreds of his kin all stood with him and saw what they had claimed. Before them was the lake where the freshwaters of the continent bubbled up unendingly. It was also a gateway, or so the story went, though as a people who had no concept for even a regular gate what that meant was hazy at best. Still. They had done it. A prize once denied had now been claimed. It was cause for riotous celebration. Chants and singing filled the air. Crude wineskins filled with cactus juice where cracked open and strange fruits and meats taken during their trek through the jungle where consumed. Embraces and proclamations were shared. Several got it into their heads to that it would be a good idea to pee in the lake water in order to insult Shengshi. As the party died down the boy found himself alone with Ayr’Sala. “So now what?”she asked quietly. It wasn't an accusation, the boy knew, but a warning that others would soon be asking the same “We’ll...” he began, only to find that the path ahead was no longer clear as it had felt before. “We’ll do what? We can’t stay here, the serpent rides though too often. Do we go back?” she asked. The boy’s hand went to an often ignored amulet dangling on a string around his neck. It was a dragon’s head, carved of bone, with its mouth stretched open wide in a roar. The symbol of the dragon’s jaw tribe that he’d had since his birth. Even after what they’d done to Garna’Tenth he hadn’t thought to get rid of it. “No. We can never go back. Not to them.” he grasped the symbol and ripped from his neck before hurling it into the dragon’s head into the giant's bath. “But we can go back with new of our victory. We’ve proved its possible to leave the desert.” “Brothers and Sisters!” he began to grab the attention of his kin, just as the Giant’s bath accepted his offering of a dragon’s head. Most of the gathered had grown bored of the lake itself, and for their own safety had gathered back near the clife side of the bath’s lip. As a result the gateway formed behind him, water streaming up to form an arch across the sky and replacing near half of it with sights of an unending realm of rivers. At the gasps from his assembled followers he glanced behind him and saw what he had wrought. Thoughts ran through his mind lightning fast and suddenly he understood what none of his kind had ever truly grasped about the stories about gateways. Abstract concepts of spheres and the ways became them became concrete tangible things that they could interact with in that moment. Then he turned his gaze south. He had no use for this gateway, for its was surrounded by lethal waters and lead to only more of the same, but the one that dominated the horizon, still slowly spewing ash and magma even after its master had gone dormant, that he might well could use. “Brothers and Sisters” he began again while pointing his blade at the distant smoke “We are going home for the first time.” The Jutunder retreated from the gateway, leaving a trail of fires for the birds that flocked around them. [hr] The damned serpent. It was all his fault. All his fault! The slaver’s kin had carved his likeness in the stone and then the snake itself had come. She had seen it from afar, a tiny wretched thing. She swore she would burn this temple her kind had built in its name to the ground if it was the last thing that she did. [hr] In a hidden valley within the Qiangshan Mountains the Jutundar raiders presented their captured foes to their leader. Nebulites who’s once magnificent clothes and carried position indicated that at least some among them were of some standing back in their colony town. The enemy were forced to kneel before Sarvariun, the lord of flame, who sat on a throne of bone gold and iron. On one side lay a young fire dragon that he had raised from an egg which he had stolen from the depths of Múspelheim itself as a boy. On the other side his partner stood just a step behind his throne, clad in armor made for the shell of a terrifying curation and armed with a dozen obsidian blades and throwing clubs. Before them. in a broken mockery of their tongue a servant begged for them to aid his master. “Master was powerful in city. Many shiny things, many slaves. To you he give, if drive out usurper.” “You owned slaves?” “Mainly Ape things. You have them. Your people go free.” the translator insisted on behalf of his master. “You offer nothing I cannot take for myself” the Man who’s worlds would ignite the world said calmly from atop his throne of stolen trophies. “Please. We know things. Teach you our way. In Shengshi’s name I beg you too” the king flicked his hand and the pleading words were cut off by fire and screams as the fire dragon incinerated the nebulites. When it closed its mouth only blackened bones remained. “There will be no cooperation with the enemy! No surrender! No mercy! We serve no gods and instead bring death to all who those who worship the serpent of chains.” “Death the enemy!” came the response from his armies followed a raw, angry bloodthirsty chant of “Kill! Kill! Kill!” joined by the roars of young dragons. The Boy had come a long way in the last 10 years and yet this was only the beginning. [hr] Garna’Tenth’s awoke atop the world. She still had an oath of vengeance to keep. [hider= summary] The Jutunder Boy from the last embers post is speaking to a great assembly of youths about going back to war now that it looks like their enemies aren't paying attention. He gets the crowd riled up but then Garna’Tenth shows up and demands he shut up and come back to the tribe. They argue, she tries to force the issue and he attacks her. Ayr’Sala helps him and they knocked her to the ground. After realising he can’t ever go back he sets of north to conquer the giant’s bath. Ayr’Sala and an army of youths follow him due to his charisma. They army reaches the forests in the north and are confronted by Gemstone Gardeners who try to block their entrance. The boy convinces them to let them past because them burning down some of the forest gives them more work. The giant army arrives at the bath, climb it and then celebrate for a bit. The boy and Ayr’Sala realize they can’t say there lest shen evic them for squatting next time he sails past. The boy accidentally activates the gateway while throwing away a dragon head amulet connecting to the dragon’s jaw tribe he has abandoned. The Jutunder now actually understand why the gateway was an important thing to capture, and the boy realizes that mt Eldahverr must work similarly. The army leaves and burns some of the forest behind them. The gardeners are pleased. We jump ahead 10 years and find the boy has named himself Sarvariun after growing into a giant. He is a prophet, dragon tamer, is fond of older woman and is the leader of a large army that is raiding the Pygmy-Nebulite trade route. He incinerates a party of nebulites that fled from laurian’s coop and then declares a war to the death against all the mortals on the dragons foot who worship shengshi. Side by side with the boy’s ascension we witness in short form the fall of Garna’Tenth who survived being attacked by the future Sarvariun only to captured by Nebulites and enslaved. She is worked for 10 years until she finds out that the temple is dedicated to Shengshi. Then she leads a brief slave revolt that tries to burn it down, but is unsuccessful and is killed. She then wakes up in the sky bastion, her vengeance as of yet unfulfilled. [/hider]