Method

{{Fiction
 * author=Andrew Getting;
 * hasSetting=Larisnar
 * storyBody====The VoTaurr Plains. One year ago.===

Already, the day's heat seared the morning dew into steam. All about the savannah, animals lurked in the shadows of tall grass. Even the lions slept now, content to prey in the cooler hours of dusk. That night, hyenas would tear at the carcasses of those who tempt the sun's wrath.

"I do so hope I'm not bothering you, Mekk'iah," the little nothrog's voice dripped as I circled a thorny bush. "Your people said I'd find you here."

I spun to my left, side-stepping him. "We have nothing to discuss, Rreg'jen. For now, my place is with my people."

"It's been months," he says, as though the passage of time was somehow foreign to my people. "Krun demands his report."

"Krun is Lord of Baraxton, but not of the nothrog legions, much less the world beyond." I raised my left arm forcefully, but fell to my knees all the same. "I serve him, but I must do so freely. If he compels me to act out of turn, it is his own doom, not mine." I snorted quietly. "And we did not fail."

A shadow flitted to my side. I dared not glance downward. The training was everything. "Don't threaten him, Mekk'iah. You're the one who failed at Four Points, not him. Now I find you here, fighting your own shadow. You‘re not exactly frightening me."

"Vas kal co..." I began, then swung my head around sharply, cutting off the spell. The magic burned within me, vengeance for an incomplete invocation. Through bloodied teeth, I spoke. "It is no threat, Rreg'jen, and the shadow I fight is more a threat than any you'll ever know."

Rreg'jen stepped directly before me as I rose from the burning earth. "No excuses, Mekk'iah. You failed. I'm to return with either your explanation or your head."

"No," I answered, then rolled to my right as I let my left arm fall limp to my side. "You will return with neither. If Krun leaves my people to ourselves, in a year's time we will strike a blow to our enemies, and arm him with a weapon unlike any Larisnar has ever seen before." I tumbled again, and my right hand fell to the pommel of my sword. "You'll want to move in a few moments."

"And why should he believe you?" Rreg'jen grunted, ignoring my warning.

"If I am wrong, then someone else will come for my head, and I'll have little warning who. In the meantime, consider my words more carefully when you awaken." I drew my blade, and leveled it just to Rreg'jen's right. "An ex por!" A shimmering wave of energy struck a patch of grass, suddenly stilled despite a breeze from the east.

"You missed m..." Rreg'jen began, cut off by the force of my right fist. I paused over him. "Kal vas tym!" I whispered, and slashed my blade through the air. My morning ritual over, I sighed, and looked from my shadow to the sun. I had taken too long, again, and time would only align itself with me for so long.

Baraxton. Three months ago.
They wrapped themselves in furs against the winter cold, and yet I could hear their words as I stood in silence among the throng. Krun had left the temple doors open, nominally to welcome all who would serve him, but in truth to freeze out those whom he had already found wanting. Representatives of the favored legions - Sceth's, Tekat's, and of course, his own - all had come and gone already. The rest of us had packed ourselves in, and stood beneath the blood-splattered banners of the Viper and the Scarab, totems hated only slightly more than Spider's, if the bitter mumblings of the others held portents.

"Monster."

"Half-breed."

"Beef for the spit."

Their jibes were blunt and ignorant. Soon, they would know better.

If Krun cared for the pomp and ritual of his new position, he took pains to hide such shallowness of soul. His voice remained even and controlled as he spoke, and invited each legion in turn to pay him a tribute of power. Krun wore only the standard leather straps of his people, yet he did not shiver. He simply sat on his throne, on his dais, and polished his sword with an old tapestry as others spoke.

The hours passed no faster for my people. KoVarth stood, his head and shoulders slouched in respect, but his nostrils flared steam as he listened to the crude and whispered taunts of Krun's other supplicants. His eyes rolled wildly as he gripped the polished wood box in his left hand. His horns bobbed softly just over the heads of the nothrogs around him.

"Beast."

"Failure."

"Feed you to our warhounds, but they‘d spit you back up."

KoVarth reached to the box with his free hand, but a gentle snort from me warned him against it. Our time was nearly at hand.

An albino, shivering despite layers of bearskin, stepped forward. "Kaltik, of the Ibis." A quiet chuckle died with Krun's level gaze; the Ibis, by rumor, had birthed only albino children for two generations, and yet found even the simplest cantrips remained beyond most their number.

Had the rest of Krun's audience of hundreds considered more deeply, they would have known just how low they were in Krun's esteem, that Hechun had called the Ibis first.

Kaltik limped forward, his right arm and leg obviously twisted against themselves even under the furs. He slumped in Krun's general direction, then bore his teeth. "Most gracious Master Krun," the warped albino slurped, "I come before you bearing a power thought beyond the scope of the nothrog races. We of the Ibis have-"

"This is my court, Kaltik," Krun calmly interrupted. "And it obeys my rules. You are here to impress your services to me, not to show off for the other legions. Show me how the Ibis can be of use, or else Hechun may remind Ibis of Red Wolf‘s hunger."

Kaltik nodded mutely, then coughed. "Of course. I warn you, Master Krun, that Ibis alone has given me this power." I quietly wondered whether Ibis had shared this mysterious craft with others whom Kaltik had slain in jealousy, and then Kaltik waved his crippled arm in an arc. Above us, Scarab's banner caught fire.

Most of the nothrogs did not panic, and merely shoved others away as the flames lit up. The albinos, however, frothed and spat, and shrieked wordlessly. Hechun had fallen to a runner's stance before Krun grabbed the summoner by the ear. Hechun's magic choked the air from the burning flag, but the massed supplicants still roiled like the earth at an elven bone yard.

The shrill clang of stone on steel drew their attention. "Be quiet. All of you," Krun warned. With a measured tug, he heaved his sword from the shattered marble step of the dais to his right. "You. Ibis," he said, leveling the tip of his blade at Kaltik's head. "I've seen better magic from a drunken halfwit."

"Krun," Hechun spoke up, as he gave voice to what had panicked the assembled shamans and druids, "he used no magic."

"Just so, Master Krun," Kaltik spat. "Ibis has shown me a power of mind."

Krun considered for a moment. "Like the Deverenians and the elves? How long did it take you to learn such talents? How quickly could you share them?"

"Ibis taught me well, master, and I can do more besides. In a few months, your daughter could steal men's minds away." Kaltik prattled on, as Krun nodded and the albinos sweated in the frigid room.

"Sanct vas wis," I whispered as Kaltik answered. I held out my hand to KoVarth, who opened the box. I pulled the iron wand from its depths, and aimed.

It was as though an entire storm's worth of thunder had broken in a moment, with Kaltik's head at its center. The body stood there for a measure, then buckled under itself.

Krun grabbed his polishing tapestry and wiped the fine red mist from his face. "The weapon is fine, Mekk'iah, but I would have preferred the Ibis' as well."

"No, Krun, you would not. Kaltik mistook his sickness for strength, and I corrected his error," I hang my shoulders and head to Krun, then present him the wand. "As I told Rreg'jen, we did not fail at Four Points. Though we did not claim the temples as we had hoped, we found a power far greater than the slave-mind or the prophecy." Krun turned the metal over in his hands as he studied its every curve and dark stain.

"We call it black sand."

The Misearean Wastes. One week ago.
"Report," I spoke, welcoming the cool night breeze on my snout.

"Arkon is in position," Rreg'jen began. "Our scouts inside Miseris proper report that the Dominar has compromised most of the previous nothrog legionnaires, either through corruption or by spreading propaganda that Krun was responsible for Hate's death."

"Such flight of fancy," I grumble softly. "You don't think Arkon is ready for such labors."

"Krun believes so," Rreg'jen answered. "If he's not, I could always step in."

"You will do no such thing," I intoned. "The Elite Krun Guard must stand on its own, independent of Hate's survivors. You know this."

Rreg'jen shrugged. "Then that know-nothing pigfarmer lives or dies without me. The Krun Guard's not elite yet."

"Arkon will learn, Rreg'jen. Krun trusts my counsel." I gaze up to the stars, the pyres of those who had died facing an unfathomable foe. "What of your other mission?"

"I found them," Rreg'jen acknowledged. "All four of them. Luthlarius, Deverenian Denska, the Sarakian Wastes, and Baraxton. Even have maps to their last locations. What do you want these people for?"

"I do not," I corrected him. "I need them, the better to broker a proper bargain." }}