Aurex Tiber sat quietly in his study, thumbing through a worn copy of The History of Modern Warfare. His favorite passage detailed the transition from mage-led armies to the brutal reliance on sheer manpower during the Exodus Era—three hundred years ago, and still the standard of war today. It took him usually an hour to finish reading it, just the same amount of time flash cooking the last step in making harpy stew took. Any more time and you just burn all the magic out of the broth from the harpy's pneumatic bones.
In his prime, that book had traveled with him religiously, tucked under his arm across half the continent as he brought salvation to the secular tribes of the outer lands. He used to believe in it. In God's plan. In the glory of conquest. But now, when he closed his eyes, all he saw were hollow faces. Silent mouths. The saved, staring back at him.
God's divine plan came at a price for the devoted and an even higher one for the ones that were lost.
A sharp rap at the door pulled him from the ghosts of his glory days. It came again. Harder. The weapons hanging on the wall shuddered. A short sword he used in his earlier campaigns, one of his favorites, fell with a metallic clatter.
Aurex sighed and rose from his chair. The fireplace's warmth retreated from his back as he stooped to pick up his old friend. The initials A.T. were still clear on the hilt. Aurex Tiber. Though these days, he went by Rex. It was easier for the town but mostly for his new troops.
He was admiring the steel's edge when the door thudded under a heavy strike. A spear tip punched through the wood with a groan of splintering timber before retracting to the other side.
Aurex went to open the door. Another sigh escaped his mouth. "Shakti," Rex muttered. "How many times must I—", as soon as the door was unlocked it flew open before he could finish. Shakti's spear shot past his ear, thunking into the beam behind him. Rex didn't flinch.
'Steel blunts, and the monsters of the marsh do not sleep.' A line in the book he just put down. One of the reasons he kept returning to the passage, always a few pages short of being finished.
He hung the sword back on its peg.
Shakti stomped through the doorway, a hulking mass of cracked mud and moist tendons. Its tail thumped against the floor, dragging a crusted smear of drying clay.
"Damacon. Where?" it growled.
Aurex could hear the pot lid trembling behind him, as it decided to boil over—the harpy bone. A shame. It was nearly ready.
"Last I heard," Rex said, "it was heading toward the crossroads, just past the woods."
Shakti's body language shifted, rage simmering hotter.
It smashed a chair.
'I waited months for that wood to make that chair.'
Snapped a jug in half between its jaws.
'That was from the Titanium period. Only one of its kind.'
A gift from his first marriage.
Ground a set of iron tongs underfoot.
'Yes. Focus on the tongs.'
Debris littered the floor. Aurex shifted. Strategically placing himself between the trog and the hearth. Too many times, his dinner had been replaced with an acid-scrubbed floor and an empty belly.
Rex watched without concern. "If I'd known Damacon left without permission," Rex said, mild as ever, "I'd have stopped it.Looked like it was packed to the brim with harpy meat. Had your scouts with it too. Thought you'd given the order."
Shakti's nostrils flared. Rex smirked faintly. "I thought all the Trogs here were under your command, Shakti?", a clear jab to Shakti's authority.
The beast froze. Like a beast scenting a rival. That same old understanding hung in the air between them: Damacon was not fear-bound to Shakti like all the other Trogs. Never had been. Shakti was too proud to ever admit it. And no matter how many times Damacon swore loyalty, it always found ways to slip the leash.
Shakti turned. Its spear tip dragged across the floorboards, splinters scattering like brittle teeth.
"Your scouts come back in range yet?" Rex asked, keeping Shakti's focus on him instead of his furniture. "Damacon left with four of them. Shouldn't be hard to sniff out."
For a moment, Shakti stood motionless. Rex knew the signs. The creature was searching—reaching out to its kin through whatever strange tether that tied them together.
'Now.'
While the beast was distracted, Aurex slid one leg toward the stew. Slow. Careful. Too much movement and it would sense the change in heat, leaving him exposed..
'The monsters of the marsh do not sleep.'
He quickly brought the stew to a simmer with a flick of the pot lid and a nudge of firewood from his lunging leg. The firwood toppled over cleanly to the back of the fireplace.
Seconds passed. Then Shakti's head twitched once. It was back. Aurex stood there as if he never left. Pot lid held as if he was a shieldman at ease, intimating nonetheless. Neither of them took notice.
Rex raised a brow. "Anything?"
Shakti didn't speak. It had already run into three other trogs earlier, each carrying the same parchment, repeating the same message. Now, one scout was coming back. Fast. Too fast for something on foot.
Shakti considered leaving right then—meeting the messenger at the town edge. But it remembered: the message still needed clarification. A bitter burn rose in its throat. It stayed.
The creature gagged suddenly. Then vomited up a steaming pool of bile and half-digested meat onto Rex's woven rug. Acid hissed and ate away at the fibers, smoke curling toward the ceiling beams.
'Another rug gone.' In hindsight he blamed himself for pretending this was still a civilized life. Always giving into his fancies instead of being more practical with the type of guest he entertained. The stench of the bile almost made him lose his appetite. Harpy stew was one of his favorites; he kept reminding himself to fight the disgust he felt at the moment. 'The Lord made unto Man, Laws unto how he should guide his fellow creature to divine harmony.'
Shakti dug into the mess, tossing his lunch and breakfast chaotically before producing a dripping parchment. It shoved the soggy scrap into Rex's hand. "READ. Damacon ko'."
Rex took the foul thing between two fingers before hearing the sound of something falling into his stew.
'Steel blunts…' Rex in silent resignation turned his head to confirm his fear. A half-corroded troglodyte claw floated palm-up, Shakti's bile trailing like sickly tendrils through the stew.
The trog began to ingurgitate back its meals. It made sure not to miss a drop, then scampered after every splash of bile it had left behind. Before long it was right back in front of Aurex waiting to hear the message— its stench rank with stomach acid. He unfolded the parchment carefully. The ink had smeared, but the crude drawing was still clear: a vulgar sketch of one trog mounting another. Aurex never quite understood how the blind fiend was able to draw these 'notes'.
"Vile creatures," he muttered
The flames at the hearth cracked louder as the removed firewood grew in intensity.
Aurex was now the only thing between Shakti and it's dinner behind him.
"Move." The one gesture of kindness the troglodyte had offered all evening before Shakti honed in on the finished Trog stew.
He'd seen it kill for less.
Shakti gulped the stew down, snarling, every time it burned its mouth on the pot. After a few snarls it decided to just tip the whole thing into its throat, washing down the thick cords of rug that had been choking it the entire time.
Broth sloshed off its frame causing the flame to sizzle every time it was fed.
It clawed the leftover harpy bones from inside the pot, as it walked by Aurex before dropping the pot by the mayors feet. Shakti lazily chewed away at the last bone as it walked out the door.
"Come Rex" Shakti growled, spear butt resting over its tail as it walked away
Halfway through the meal—gnawing on a peculiar brass knob and choking back the fibrous remains of Aurex's rug—Shakti's nostrils flared.
It understood why the scout was traveling so fast.
Damacon's caravan.
Rex sighed. Again. 'Damacon, you better have a good explanation for my empty stomach.'
He crumpled the paper and tossed it into the fire before closing the door behind him as he left with Shakti. It curled and blackened instantly, joining the acrid smoke of ruined broth and wasted effort.