Chapter 434: The Scavengers

The warband stood in a loose circle, their new weapons gleaming in the morning light, and they looked so different now, I thought that this might be what they once looked like, filled with purpose before war dragged despair over them... and all that hope and new purpose firmly rested on my shoulders.

Any other person would feel strained by holding the hopes of nine individuals on their shoulders. As for me, I barely felt the weight, not when I had seen the world end a hundred times. After a while, you become numb to this sort of thing... there was just too much.

I did not think about where I found myself, or the wonders of being thrown thousands of years into the past. The only thing on my mind was the path towards sovereignty. I wondered when I became like this... a man who only saw the path in front of him and nothing else.

They moved without question, breaking down tents and gathering supplies with the efficiency of soldiers who had done this a thousand times before. I watched them work, memorizing all of their actions. No knowledge was wasted, and when I was not dying, every moment would be spent learning.

While they packed, I turned my attention to the horses. I had not paid them much attention before, but now that I was looking closely, I noticed something strange.

Under the fur, their skin was not flesh. It was scaled, like a reptile’s, and the scales glimmered faintly in the morning light. Their legs were thicker than a normal horse’s, and their hooves were not hooves at all, but something closer to claws.

These were not horses. Not entirely, anyway.

I walked up to the one the Shade had brought for me and ran my hand along its flank. The fur was coarse, but beneath it, I could feel the hard scales. The animal did not flinch at my touch. It simply turned its head and looked at me with eyes that were too intelligent for a mere beast.

I patted it on its head, and the beast gently brought its head down and bit me on the hand, as if to tell me not to pet it in that manner. Then I saw something change in its eyes as the expected softness in its mouth was not present.

Adamantium gave me all the appearance of flesh, but that changed when pressure was added to my skin, which automatically caused it to harden. The beast began exerting more force with its teeth while peering at me, and I smiled and watched it becoming more frustrated.

For me, its bite was sort of ticklish.

A shadow fell to my left and I turned to see Ogg staring at my hand inside the mouth of the beast with fascination. Gently removing my hand from the mouth of the beast, I patted it again on the head, leading to an annoyed snort, and glanced at Ogg. "What are they?" I asked.

"They are called Drakespawn. They have the blood of dragons inside them. They can run for days without tiring, and they can survive on almost nothing."

He patted his own mount on the neck. "They are also fiercely loyal, and will not abandon their riders, even in the face of death. I see you are bonding with yours well... strange, they are usually proud creatures that require months of careful nurturing to open up to a new individual."

I smiled at the beast, perhaps it was a result of my title, Heavenly Beast Tamer, that made this possible, or my soul, but I was not one to deliberate on a thing for long when answers would be naturally revealed in time.

I nodded, filing the information away. This world was so different from the one I had left behind. So many creatures that I had never seen, so many wonders that I had never known.

I mounted the Drakespawn with ease, drawing a look of disbelief from Ogg and the rest of the warband who had been quietly watching our interactions. The Drakespawn shifted beneath me, testing my weight. Then it settled, and I knew that it had accepted me.

∞

We rode south, toward the ruins of Serrath.

When we were in the stretch of mountain range that I now knew was Dorrik’s domain, everything was relatively peaceful, except for the lack of animals or even insects.

This was odd but it could just be a matter of preference, but as we left the mountain range behind, the landscape began to change, rapidly turning into a wasteland.

Burned forests, shattered mountains, rivers that had run dry or turned to mud. The war had touched everything, and nothing had been left unscarred. I had seen devastation before, and it never failed to sadden me that everything I was looking at had once been pristine for perhaps millions of years, and it only took moments to end it all.

A part of me was thankful that there were no bodies, and then I wondered why that was the case.

We rode in silence for the most part. The warband was lost in their own thoughts, and I was lost in mine.

I thought about the vision I had seen when Ruggah told his story... the headless commander, the field of bodies, the black birds circling overhead. I needed to know if it was true.

∞

We had been riding for perhaps three hours and covering more distance than I had anticipated, when Ruggah raised his hand, signaling for us to stop.

I had already seen what Ruggah was just noticing a while back, but I had not warned them because I wanted to understand the abilities of those who were coming on this journey with me.

It was a column of riders, perhaps fifty strong, moving across the plain ahead of us. They were not moving with any particular urgency, as if they were searching.

"Hunters," Thurrim growled, before spitting to the side. "They are looking for survivors... and bodies. Fucking scavengers."

I glanced at Thurrim before I looked back at the riders. They were a mix of races, humans, orcs, and things that I did not have names for, maybe gnolls or goblins. Their armor was a patchwork of different styles, as though they had scavenged it from the dead. Their weapons were crude but I could see that they were effective tools of slaughter, and they had not seen us yet.

Ruggah turned to me, his single eye burning with a cold fire. "What are your orders?"

I considered for a moment. A part of me wanted to just leave these small groups of mortals behind, since they were meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but the warband with me still needed to be honed, and I could not throw them into great conflicts without understanding their battle prowess, and before it was all done, blood would flow like rivers.

"Engage them," I said. "But I will not participate. This is your fight."

Ruggah nodded, and I saw something in his eye that might have been gratitude. He turned to his warband.

"You heard him. We take them all. No survivors."

The warband moved as one.