The way to Maesa lies deep below the green shell of the earth. Down there, the magma roils in hidden currents. Where it cools, new rock is left… and where it burns brightest, nothing is left in its path.
Maesa is a creature of destruction and creation, fiery death and rebirth.
Highmax had been reborn, and now he sought death. Feet heavy, heart leaden, he begins the trek down below the earth. Above, he hears screams sounding. It comes from the Dining Hall, he knows, and the voice of Old Highmax mutters a tale from Old Necrothreat. How Th4DwArfY1 had been driven to violence against the Forumites, and nothing could stop his anger. Until Highmax had returned from a Quest beyond the walls of death and taught him anew the power of honour and hope.
Highmax ignores the voice and continues on his plodding trek to the red sea deep below. His grave, he knows, awaits him.
***
5th Slate
Th4DwArfY1 watched from the wooden palisade of Necrothreat as a steady stream of migrants moved towards the gates. The hope on their faces was disturbing, as it seemed that he should sympathise with it… but he could not, and as the gates heaved open and the first stepped into the blood-stained courtyard he saw the dawning horror and revulsion on their sunburnt faces. This was an emotion which he could understand.
The stream of migrants would go below the earth, and never be the same again.
24th Slate
He was right, he knew. Those migrants had been below the earth for nearly a month, and already they were indistinguishable from the tortured souls who had been there for years. New faces passed him often, each bearing streaks of blood and mud, each hollow and dejected. From far-flung rooms came the sound of howling and breaking doors. Only Apiks, the King, seemed untouched. His chainsaw shone in the dark, and his clothes were clean.
He had argued often with the Bone King in the last month. Apiks did not disapprove of his methods and tolerated Th4DwArfY1’s leadership of the common rabble. Someone had to do it, after all, while Apiks trained with weapon and mind.
But he was beginning to guess Th4DwArfY1’s aim, and that was not so well received. So long as he only guessed and did not know, all would be well... and Th4DwArfY1 knew better than most that all crowns must fall eventually.
25th Slate
Down below the earth, the stone was gleaming in the torchlight. Great statues crowded a carven floor, and the pillars were tall and strong.
Blood stained the floor, as it did everywhere else – but here it was particularly thick.
“Praise be to…” here, the words engraved deeply into the floor faded to illegibility. A farmer stood nearby, his face twisted in sorrow and despair. His name was Adil, and he had come to pray before the cleansing waters of Omer. To pray to the God that Was and clean himself of his many miseries.
His child had died; his wife was gone.
Adil had prayed long and with all the spirit he could muster. He knew the old tales, of course, of how Lord Lemonpie had touched the sick and healed them of their ills, his mouth full of the words of divinity. On his way in, he had ignored the claw-marks gouged deep into the stone of the entrance. Lemonpie would heal him, or his god would. This Adil had known.
But it had all been a lie.
Adil prayed and no one answered – he wept, and no healing waters comforted him. Instead, only the statues of Omer stared at him with mock sympathy, watched with a sneer behind their cobalt eyes.
Adil took one step, then another. He slipped on the blood of the floor, but he kept moving. He was weeping in earnest, now, his last hope torn from him like everything else.
Necrothreat, the place where dreams die, he thought, remembering the first hopeful steps his family had taken here. Then he reached towards Omer’s statue and, with a strength born of rage and despair, cast the god down at his feet.
As the stone crumbled, so too did the last of Adil’s humanity.
***
Highmax could almost taste his death.
He had spent the last month wandering lost and forlorn, a shade in the lower caverns. A haunting shape to terrify the beasts lurking in the depths. Death held the savour of forgotten memories, a chance to shirk the chains of responsibility thrown on him by those long gone.
After his long wanderings, he had finally found a clear path downwards. A path towards his death. It was at the very moment that he took his first steps down that he heard a sound. Unlike the cries of maddened Forumites which he had become accustomed to, this was a deep blast of primal rage, animalistic in its fury. He knew it instinctively, a knowledge which cut through the despondency gripping his heart. A werebeast was loose in Necrothreat once again.
There will be a new Highmax, but his name will not be Morul RopejumpsHighmax took another step downwards.
***
Adil did not know himself anymore. He was no longer a farmer. No more would he sow and reap for the people of Necrothreat. Now… now, he would harvest only a crop of blood. His family was dead, and this place had brought them to their end.
His fury fed that of the beast, and none could stand against him. He used his horn to smash down doors and threw peasants into the air. His teeth bit and tore and rent and killed. No military opposed him, for Th4DwArfY1 had only laughed as the number of dead increased.
Six. Seven. Eight. The thing which had once been Adil was looming over number nine, the ivory of his great horn shining as it fell with the force of a hundred warhammers, when something – impossibly, inconceivably! – something shone in front of his nose and deflected the blow. Sparks flew as the great horn scraped harmlessly against the wall before crashing to the floor.
Adil roared in unbridled fury and turned to meet his foe.
***
Highmax stood before the beast. He had not taken many steps before he had remembered. The Guardian of Necrothreat. Highmax the Blue. Highmax the Honourable.
He would never abandon Necrothreat, not so long as a weapon was to hand or an enemy within reach.
The Highmax who spoke to him… he was a tool of Armok. The true Highmax was no man’s tool, but fashioned for himself the fate he wanted. Highmax was Morul Ropejumps, and Morul Ropejumps would fight for her home.
As the Wererhinocerous charged, Highmax smiled a secret smile and spoke softly for himself alone.
He raised an axe and cut twice, swiftly and surely. It was no sword, but it seemed right. A new weapon for a new start. The cycle could be changed, and Highmax could write his own fate.
One stroke took off a great, gnarled leg at the knee. Highmax slid past and jabbed upwards, releasing a great gout of black blood. The wererhino struggled on, breathing heavily through flared nostrils.
The axe fell once more, and it was over.
Adil bled to death on the floor of Necrothreat, watering the stones of the place he had grown to hate.
There was much to hate, Highmax knew. But there was also much to defend.
Through the black coating of Were-blood, the blade of Highmax’s axe seemed to pulse once, softly, with a deep blue light.