Jackal Among Snakes

Sarikiz stared down at the four assembled elven gods. Then, in sudden motion, she lashed out fiercely and her foot descended on them with tremendous weight. Merata, Ghan, Ujin, and Gunlik and joined the strength of their projection to catch the attack.

“Stop it!” Argrave shouted out, stepping forth behind the gods. “If we wanted to fight, we wouldn’t have stopped to say ‘hi’ beforehand!”

Sarikiz looked at him, her golden dreads waving before her eyes as she half-crawled away from them. “Is refraining from a sneak attack doing me a courtesy?”

Anneliese stepped up with Argrave. “Even following that logic, you are being discourteous by attacking without provocation. It has been a thousand years, Sarikiz, and the cycle of judgment is here once again. Please, heed them.”

“A thousand…?” she said in disbelief, and then slowly settled onto her rear. “I’ve been… hah,” she laughed, shaking her head. “A millennium lost to me. Who are you two? You are not their kind—why do you speak for them?” Her radiant white eyes scanned them quickly.

Argrave looked over to the four. Ghan had collapsed to his knees from the blow, and Ujin helped him as Merata and Gunlik stood guard. Between Chiteng’s betrayal, Ghan’s injury, and the fact that he conversed with these people as… well, as people, the question about what was truly divine about divinity rose to his head. He supposed it wasn’t truly different from Heroes of Berendar, but at the same time it felt wholly so.

After a long while, Argrave answered, “They were a bit busy being kicked. That’s the only reason I spoke.”

“But we are here…” Ghan said hoarsely from his point of weakness. “We are here at his suggestion. We are here to end the last cycle. It’s the only way we can advance and fight this one, Sara.”

“Do not call me that any longer,” Sarikiz slammed her fist upon the ground with emotions still raw after a millennium. “Sara was a slave, and I am not.”

“It is just a name,” Ujin urged as she supported her husband. “The only name we knew you by.”

“That has always been the difference between you and I,” Sarikiz crossed her legs, and then placed her hands atop her knees. “You accept the name. I grow beyond it.”

As Argrave looked upon them, he felt a strange sense of déjà vu. They’re a family, he realized in his head. Might be a family as ruined as the Vasquers, but they’re a family. It’s like watching Orion and Elenore argue. Lord knows I’ve seen enough of that…

And as in all of their conversations, it seemed to be leading nowhere. That is, unless Argrave intervened.

“The two of you worked together to topple a tower. It collapsed. Why do you debate about the direction it fell, and what to do with the crumbling stones?” Argrave stepped between them, his glare giving neither leeway in this situation. “This divide between you came about for a simple reason. Sarikiz wanted to do away with the imperial structure of the empire. Ghan and his family wanted to preserve it. At the end of the day, it has dissolved completely. The empire is gone,” he finished loudly.

Perhaps his voice was small before the divine. But big or small, he was heard.

fought for the centaurs. You sought their freedom—their total freedom, unconstrained by any system

she narrowed

a little like you, Sarikiz. Erlebnis and Kirel Qircassia have teamed up to make a right mess of this continent. And me? I’m not content to let my people, let my wife’s people,

much you fabricate… but indeed, it was a dire struggle maintaining cohesion in our slave rebellion. A struggle that failed. A struggle that sent me into a sleep lasting one thousand years,”

Argrave pleaded, gesturing to the

to recreate the empire we toppled with a new regime. And as a result, our people moved on from us. Yours stayed true to you even in your long slumber. There is…” Ghan closed his eyes and sighed deeply. “There is a lesson in that. And that lesson

wash over her. Then, quietly, she responded, “…you have had a long while to

were the…!” Gunlik began, but Argrave held his hand up and

argue,” Argrave

rather bold to speak to you thusly. What has changed in my time absent? Are men

up with a sigh. “But nothing has changed, Sarikiz. Nothing at all. The world conspires against us.” His red eyes fell

He helped me… learn of

each other. He wanted an internecine struggle, that he might harvest all he pleased from the now-ancient elven

toyed with one of her

shook his head. “And it comes at the expense of Kirel Qircassia. He builds the would-be empire of this age. And once

asked… has your conviction wavered, Sarikiz?” Argrave asked once

flag one last time,

#####

were. His feet burst free of his shoes, polymorphing wider and flatter that he might run across

the sea. One, five, thirteen,

Dimocles said at once. “Doubtless you

do,” it confirmed. “We witnessed it through our

and with the dryads help, with the confines from the centaurs’ cavern…” he shook

she doing?” the emissary asked

approaching Kirel Qircassia. I suspect she’ll pose as an ambassador, but I’m certain she intends to sabotage the alliance somehow,” he said, looking around frantically. “I’m at a

might not notice the difference, every one of the emissaries retracted within themselves, communicating what he’d said to Erlebnis. Finally, five of them stepped forward.

The emissaries were incapable of using it, but he’d seen Onychinusa do