The Caverns of Kronos

The Battle of the Wilton Bowl - Part 2

     They soon found themselves surrounded by sweaty, foul smelling humanoids of all kinds and had to push their way through them to reach the front of the crowd where Shragnaz was waiting excitedly by the ruined city gates. Two other priests of Skorvos were with him. A small goblin, his green skin clashing horribly with his blood red robes, and a slightly larger humanoid who seemed to be half sholog and half hobgoblin. They were hopping up and down eagerly and almost bursting with excitement, like teenage girls about to meet their favourite pop star, and Drake looked nervously up at the cloudless blue sky above them. If a wyvern rider flies over now, he thought, we’re finished.

     Then he heard the approaching sound of marching feet and realised that Fangrap’s army was drawing near. Soon he could see them. A column of shologs and humans marching four abreast, flanked on either side by smaller columns of goblins, hobgoblins and buglins. They were all marching perfectly in step, the smaller humanoids taking three steps for every two taken by the shologs and humans, and Drake heard Shragnaz muttering enviously. “Now why can’t I get my boys to march like that?”

     Half way along the column was Fangrap himself, carried in a luxurious velvet and gold palanquin by four huge ogres, their fangs polished ivory white and shining brightly in the dying rays of the yellow sun. Striding alongside the litter were a dozen strange hooded figures, their entire bodies hidden by ground length black robes. They seemed to be almost gliding, as if they were hovering an inch or two above the ground or being pulled along on invisible trolleys, and there was something vaguely unsettling about the outlines of their bodies beneath the robes. Drake’s flesh crawled at the sight of them, and his hand crept instinctively towards the hilt of his sword, but Shragnaz gave him a warning glance and he made himself fold his arms and stand calmly. A single aggressive act now, no matter how minor, would be the end of him. No doubt of that at all.

     The front of the column stopped at the city gates and the four priests walked along the length of it to Fangrap’s palanquin, the three priests of Skorvos needing all their willpower to prevent themselves from running to their idol and Drake needing an equally great amount of willpower to stop himself running in the opposite direction. Reaching the palanquin, they stood patiently while Fangrap filed his nails and buffed them against the perfect red velvet of his robes. He continued doing this for several moments, ignoring the priests who were trembling variously from excitement and terror, and it was a full two minutes before he deigned to notice them, whereupon he stood up to look imperiously down on them like a King among his subjects.

     He was human. A huge human. Larger than Drake, larger even than Resalintas. At least six foot six tall and almost as wide across the shoulders with biceps the size of a large man’s thighs. Standing on the palanquin he towered eight feet above them, staring down his distinguished roman nose at them as if they were something he’d have to be careful not to step in. The three priests of Skorvos threw themselves to the ground, groveling at his feet as he dismounted, but Drake remained standing and met his gaze with as much dignity and composure as he could manage.

     Drake was well over six feet tall, and was accustomed to towering over everyone around him, but the man in front of him now made him feel as small and puny as Resalintas had during the first few years of his training. He wore a neatly trimmed beard and a fussy little moustache that had been waxed to make the ends come to sharp, upward angled points. It should have made him look comical, but his eyes burned with such malevolence and forceful personality that his facial hair became as fearsome as the bared teeth of a wolf.

     He raised his perfectly manicured hands to remove his viciously spiked helmet, and Drake saw that his grey tinted black hair, instead of being cut brutally short, as most human worshippers of the war Gods wore it, was long enough to curl and form locks that he arranged into place with a comb that he produced from his breast pocket, looking at himself in a mirror held by a sholog manservant as he did so. The metal parts of his helmet, his chain mail armour and the hilt of his sword were polished to a brilliant sheen. His blood red robes looked freshly laundered, and the leather straps and belts crossing his powerful body had a flexibility and suppleness that could only come from daily rubbing with oil.