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Nametag:rook
OBSIDIAN AND EBONY
The Shores of the Dead lay upon the Gray Sea. And are no
place for a lady.
Luckily, for Red Sonja, she was no lady.
The battle had not gone well. For either side. The dead lay
in piles where shield walls had crumbled and in small clumps
where men had broken and ran.
The cities of Obsidian and Ebony, both ruled by wizard kings,
had shattered their armies, one upon the other, until only a
single knot of them remained... alive.
A dozen battle weary men bloody and fresh scarred from the
onslaught, and in their center a lone towering red headed
woman equally bloody.
But though outnumbered and surrounded and being the sole
survivor of the city of Ebony's army, the blood that covered
her body, unlike those of the men around her, was not her
own.
They moved wary in a steel ring about her; for at her feet
the piles of dead were greater than anywhere else upon the
battle field.
Breathes, heavy from bloody toil and exertion, hissed between
their parted wolfish jaws as they danced unwittingly in a
circle about her; half hunched with shields and spears and
swords and axes raised. Having hit an invisible wall of her
sword arm's length.
The slim slender broadsword matted with fresh gore still
flashed its dazzling point inches before their cautious eyes.
And the syrupy squelch of eviscerated innards of their fallen
brothers in arms clung and threatened to topple their sturdy
measured tread.
Like a dry brook receiving suddenly the distant rains fall
whose rivulets increasing to a heady flood strike a lone
large boulder and find themselves rolling around it;
encircling it, but unable to dominate it and burry it, for
the flood at it's full can not burry and conquer it's great
strength of opposition. So too did the men obliviously to the
fact silently move in a slow circle about the immediate reach
of this red headed death.
There comes a time in battle where the minds of men are not
the same as they were before it or after it;
were the thoughts and rational though liquid clear and
logical are still somehow rootless of any aspect of common
sense.
Had they lunged as one, so would have died the great
swordswoman Red Sonja that day upon the red stained fields
betwixt Obsidian and Ebony. But no they came at her in
thrusts of individual minds lost to the pull of battle.
Athenae into Ares.
Still each man saw his neighbor and took advantage of his
strike to strike his own blow as she was distracted by the
other. So the blows came like a heard of frightened horses
who hit not as one force in a calvary charge but as a rapid
pattering of a wall of hail.
And so died the tatters of the army of Obsidian in the span
of a heartbeat for such was her skill and speed that her
dancing blade and lithe body sliced them down in a whirling
arc of seeming single motion that not a blade or blow of
theirs touched her nearly naked form.
She stood panting for some time. She had killed almost a
hundred men that day perhaps more. But she could see little
point in it now that the day was over and she remained the
only survivor.
She looked about her at the carnage. She gazed upon the
gentle roll of the hills as they fell down to the angry
spewing Gray Sea. The lines of bodies that seemed almost to
inertly flow there like tributaries and the muddy red streams
that did flow there as well as puddle deeply and congeal upon
the churned up ground.
Red Sonja sheathed her bloody sword and stepped away from the
pile of corpses she had laid low with death's borrowed touch.
All about her youthful slim busty body the dead lay and she
spurned the visage of horrors turning her booted feet as
rapidly as possible in her exhausted state back to the
borders of Ebony.
She had signed on as a mercenary in Ebony's army. But this
war was over. Both armies being dead. Though she was certain
the opposing wizard kings would not see it that way. If there
were any other city even remotely nearby she would have
headed toward it. But she was at the edge of the map. And the
short apish men of Obsidian and Ebony were all that passed
for humanity at the Gray Sea's expanse.
They are called The Shores of the Dead because of the
numerous ruins of a long dead civilization that dot it. What
these builders may have looked like is impossible to say.
Though their ruins speak of a once highly advanced culture.
They left no statues or carvings or images in stone.
Only the towering fluted walls of their awe inspiring ruins.
Whose size hinted at giants.
How odd then that these ruins so complex and vast should now
be home to the most primitive men in all the lands. Brutish,
low brow, heavy eye ridge, gorilla faced, with squat apish
bodies, and short stunted legs. The men of both Obsidian and
Ebony were ugly, smelly, and dull witted at best, and like
their gorilla look-a-likes of the distant equatorial jungles
boasting three inch yawn inducing peckers.
So it went without saying that since her stumbling upon these
two city states beyond the edge of any known map Red Sonja
had not been able to quell her youthful vigorous thirst for
championship in any and all regards. To put it bluntly not
only was she bored but she was horny as a pack of all male
goats stranded upon a spit of shoal.
The wizard kings who ruled them were banished black priests
of Thoth. They had arrived and found the ruins and the ape
men and after a bitter falling out between one another they
had split the ape men into two tribes and now were rabid
insane to slaughter the other.
This would undoubtably not take long. For the ape men seemed
to have no woman living in their number and no one seemed to
have the faintest idea how they had survived long enough to
be 'civilized' and enslaved by the two wizards.
With the bulk of the ape men now laying dead upon the battle
field this left only a few dozen remaining to each wizard and
a handful of shipwrecked pirates.
She was horny enough to willingly fuck pirates right now. But
unfortunately they were in the Obsidian camp.
The pirates were why she was here. They had taken and
captured the merchant ship she was traveling on and before
much else could happen a massive storm had blown them off
course and eventually wrecked upon the Shores of the Dead.
There she took the chance to escape as everyone was
struggling ashore and she ended up in a group of Ebony ape
men and they ended up in a group of Obsidian ape men. Thus
the current split of allegiance and location.
She had been rather surprised the pirates had not been forced
to join in the large scale battle. And wondered if they had
already met a deadly fate.
Red Sonja reached Ebony before nightfall as both city-states
were along the Gray Sea coastline and built in two of the
larger ancient ruins being thus only a few miles apart from
each other.
A no-man's land of smaller ruins filled up the space between
them and the tired, battle sore, thirsty and hungry, teen was
happy that the loud and fierce battle had apparently driven
the foul creatures of the smaller ruins into their holes for
the time being.
She was able to stagger back to the well fortified ruins of
Ebony having sensibly plucked both battle standards and
brought them slung somewhat sagging on her shoulders back
with her unmolested by monsters.
Thus both victor and vanquished she returned to the jutting
ruined citadel of Ebony.
As she had guessed the wizard king of Ebony couldn't care
less that his entire ape man army lay dead as long as his
brother wizard had fared no better.
She received a far more cordial welcome than she expected and
after a short speech of thanks by the wizard king was ushered
through the now quiet and empty halls to a board of salted
meat and questionable ale and bath and bed.
She was summoned, far sooner than she cared, from her groggy
bed by one of the few remaining ape men; who seemed to have
no notice or care of his hundreds of missing brethren.
She arrived in the throne room of the wizard king of Ebony
hopping on one foot as she pulled on her boot. She wore her
scale mail bikini, now sparkling no doubt after the
industrious efforts of some surviving ape man as she had
slept, her boots, and gloves, and harness and sword, also
well polished and cleaned, and little else.
Thus she arrived as she had been brought before him upon her
first visit, and thus outfitted as she had fought on his
bequest, and thus as she had been equipped when she had
staggered back the day before baring both banners. Still,
though he had seen her in no other garb and she being the
only apparent woman in all the land, the wizard king seemed
to take some moments to recognize her, as he had on all those
other previous occasions.
They were the wizard kings of Obsidian and Ebony to her; it
was how he introduced themselves and apparently referred to
themselves and if they had any other names they had not
divulge them to her and she had not cared enough to ask about
them.
She was a mercenary in his army in that she had chosen that
over the sole alternative of instant beheading. She was now
his entire army in that she alone had survived the massive
supposedly decisive battle.
Mercenary bespoke payment in some kind and other than her
life and the bare means to keep it; such as food and water
and lodgings, there had been none and there seemed no hint
that there ever would be any.
To be an army of one is to be a dog's ass fart; for either is
the value of the other.
So she was certain she had not been a mercenary then or now,
and she was certain that she was not a part of an army being
as that army other than her was dead.
So Red Sonja wondered as she stood before the wizard king of
Ebony in his magnificent, if sparse, towering walled citadel;
what exactly was it he now wanted from her and as such who
was it he now saw her as being?
"This one is full of titles and little substance," the red
headed teen muttered to herself. "All men who are of such
need to be readily avoided... Or done away with." She
fingered her hilt and froze for the wizard had begun to speak
and a half dozen ape men had entered the room baring trays of
food and she was hungry.
"Not more than a few miles from here lie the bodies of over
five hundred ape men. And in the ruins near which they fought
and died lie the Black Skull."
Red Sonja stuffed her mouth, having learned how to eat
standing up over the past few years, and actually listened to
the wizard more than she even pretended to, as she had been
so very bored having been housed for so many weeks in the
company of sexless mute ape men.
"This skull has the power to raise up all those fallen
warriors and compel them to fight upon the side of its owner.
Even as we speak my winged spies tell me that foul brother of
mine has sent a horde of pirates after it! I shall send you.
Leave at once and fetch it to me! Succeed and you shall rule
these lands as my queen drinking deep in its bounty. Fail me
and I shall flay you alive and write dirty limericks upon
your tanned hide."
Red Sonja moved rapidly out of the fortified ruins of the
Ebony citadel which made up its entire holdings and lands.
She was clouded by a dozen large ravens, no doubt the 'spies'
the wizard king had alluded to in his speech of reward and
punishment.
She was spurned on by neither that promise of reward or
threat of failure but at the notion of finding herself on the
receiving end of the march of a horde undead ape men.
She needed to get in possession of that skull before the
pirates did and then she needed to make sure neither of the
wizard kings got it or anyone who might be stupid enough to
use it. In fact she suddenly realized she needed to destroy
the damned thing!
But even as she raced to the battle field and the vague
location of the ruins in question housing the Black Skull;
the plucky red head was already trying to fathom her escape.
For destroying the skull would no doubt rain down the wraith
of two wizards and all their minions upon her young teenage
head.
As far as she could tell the only ship that she had seen was
the pirate vessel which had gutted its self on the rocks. The
only other means back to more familiar lands was across what
was supposed to be an uncrossable desert. The two brother
wizards had made their way through it, but apparently they
had 'magical help'? What ever that had been.
She knew about the desert from the wizard king of Ebony since
he felt compelled to inform her how isolated and imprisoned
she was against any kind of escape when she had chose his
army over a headsman's axe.
She was beginning to think more kindly about that headsman
axe.
When she had first arrived at the city state of Ebony its
lone citadel halls had been packed full of ape men. This had
not been conducive to any kind of wandering around and
searching for some means of long distance escape. But now,
thanks to the suicidal battle, the place was nearly empty.
She had hoped to have the time to begin a serious search of
the ruins, but the threat the Black Skull took precedence.
She would have to deal with it first. Unfortunately if she
dealt with it in the manor in which was currently planning,
i.e., destroying it; there would be no time to search
anywhere as two very pissed off wizards and anyone serving
them would be hot on her sexy ass.
The battle had started amongst the ruins cresting several low
hills. It had splintered and ended at the rocky beaches of
the Gray Sea.
The bodies of over five hundred ageless ape men lay dead
under a bristling ocean of tens of thousands of screeching
feeding birds.
Movement through here was problematic to say the least. And
all forms of stealth impossible. Both for her and the pirates
as they both kicked up clouds of furious feathered burglar
alarms as they approached the ruins from the beach.
The hills hid each other from one another but the whale spout
of birds bushing up into the air screaming bloody murder
pinpointed their mutual locations and speed. The pirates
would get there first!
The battle had been fought closer to Ebony than Obsidian but
the pirates had left almost as soon as the battle was over so
they had a head start on her of several hours.
Red Sonja had never been to Obsidian, nor met its wizard
king. But one could see each towering citadel from the
other, so she had seen it and could see it now. And from the
distant surface aspect they looked like twins to one another.
Jutting pointy fluted smoked glass walls rising straight up
hundreds of feet into the air. Looking all the world like an
armada of dark smooth cliffs that had become lost and
stranded upon a bleak and desolate shore.
The pirates posted a guard at the mouth of the ruins and this
guard kept the birds in an uproar by it's presence and so
died three men before they even knew she was upon them. Died
thus serving little to no point in their station.
For they neither stopped her nor set up a warning for those
in the ruins of her arrival.
She entered the ruins sword dripping blood. Almost at once
she found herself descending a large staircase which circled
a large oval pit. It spiraled down encircling the entire
oval's side wall twice before reaching the bottom. Thus
letting her get a good view of the whole ground floor.
The ground floor was a maze of half shattered large roof-less
rooms of purple black glass and winding hallways and stairs
leading up and down. The stairs leading up turned the tops of
the connected rooms walls into a walkway level all their own
and many rooms could only be entered by stairs that descended
from this wall walkway into the sealed off room.
The rooms were too barren of design to be anything other than
crypts. Along some of the walls thin niches of feeble low
bluish light shone. Slats of light rained in through large
cracks where the domed ceiling had collapsed. This and the
dozen or so torches of the pirates below were the only means
of light.
Red Sonja hesitated to light her hip lantern. Less the
pirates see her make her oblique descending circuit of the
inner wall. She would wait until she reached ground level
when the connected rooms forming their multilayer maze would
block her from ready sight.
In the meantime she desperately tried to memorize as much of
the complex layout of the base floors walled open top crypts
as she could manage from the staircase.
The crypts seemed to be connected together in irregular
shaped clumps. Perhaps based on family members being all
connected together?
In any case, these asymmetrical clumps of rooms meant that
each clump had its own raised wall walkway that allowed
access to only those open top clumps of that pod of crypts
and no others.
It would be easy to get lost in such a confusion of
accessible and inaccessible room groupings. What with the
unconnected rooms forming hallways between groupings.
Added to this was staircases obviously leading down to some
further subterranean level.
Coupled this with the fact that the crypt rooms themselves
were of varying sizes of right angled shape so that some of
the rooms could easily be mistaken for hallways instead of
rooms if one lost their focus; and the last circuit the red
headed teen passed on the wall was slower rather than faster
as dull confusion already wrapped her brain and tripped up
her feet.
She stopped dead on the last step of the staircase when the
booby-traps started going off. The screams of death
reverberated and echoed through the large domed structure.
The pirates came running. What was left of them. A cascading
set of booby traps following upon their heels. They had the
Black Skull; apparently the wizard king of Obsidian was a bit
more knowledgable than her guy.
Each man carrying the skull died and as he fell in bloody
bits or ash clouds or a green pile of slime, another pirate
would scoop up the skull and continue the pell-mell baton
race of death toward the staircase and escape.
The very last pirate fell at her feet, his back riddled with
poison darts, as she plucked the skull out of his hands
before he even hit the ground.
She stood there for a second. The domino effect seemed to
have stopped. No more traps going off. No more screaming,
burning, exploding, pirates.
The red headed teen turned nimbly and walked leisurely up the
stairs and back out of the ruins.
Night had descended and the birds for the most part had given
way to red eyed rats who scuttled a few feet away from her
and her freshly lit hip lantern.
The 'spies' were nowhere to be seen in the sky or the
skeletal branches of the lone trees scattered here or there.
She turned in the direction of Obsidian. She knew what Ebony
had to offer. It was time to get to know both players equally
and to make sure they now knew that a third one had joined
their war.
She arrived at the fortified gates of the Obsidian citadel at
day break. Having taken a three hour detour of hiding the
Black Skull in the wreckage of the pirate ship gutted upon
the rocks near the shore.
She was ushered in by a lone ape man and saw only a
smattering of more before gaining access to the throne room.
It would seem the Obsidian wizard king had held back far
fewer ape men from the battle than his counterpart.
Perhaps he had known about the Black Skull before hand and
saw little difference in how many he lost as long as he got
the skull and they all rose to serve him again.
Or maybe his pirates had been an ace up his sleeve and he
placed more value upon them than the slow witted dull ape
men. If so, then it was obvious that the man had never spent
any significant time with a pirate before.
As she was noting the exact same composition and identical
layouts of both citadels the wizard king of Obsidian came
into the throne room and the red headed teen realized that it
wasn't just the two city states that were the same. Brothers
indeed! The two wizard's were identical twins!
Red Sonja began to explain how things were going to be from
now on or she was beginning to; when the wizard touched her
shoulder and in a flash of light they were instantly
teleported face to face with the wizard king of Ebony in his
own throne room.
The twin brothers did not seem much astonished by being face
to face nor showed any twinge of anger and in fact were quiet
cordial if not a touch deadpan in their meeting.
"She has hidden the Black Skull and wants to bargain safe
passage away from these lands, brother." Obsidian said.
"That might be interesting, brother." Ebony spoke. "What
lands where you thinking of sending her to, infernal,
demonic, perhaps the torture gardens of Seth?"
"Of course sending her anywhere means not having her here."
Obsidian sighed.
"But with the Skull we can have our armies back, again and
again." Ebony clicked his tongue in thought. "Or, she could
use the skull herself to raise them against us?!"
"Wait a minute!" Red Sonja had shaken the sparks free from
her eyes from the teleporation. "You two don't seem to be the
least bit angry with one another. Yet you are at war? What
was the cause of this war? Why were you fighting?"
"Boredom." Obsidian hissed.
"We were banished here for, well, let us say indiscretions by
our brethren." Ebony sighed, "imagine from all the riches of
the world. All the pleasures imaginable and then some. From
the highest learning and most intriguing study. Perpetually
surrounded by the most learned minds, and slaves of the most
intense beauty. To this dung heap. This barren wasteland."
"Banished and cursed," Obsidian plucked a dagger from out of
its sheath from under his robes and plunged it into his own
breast. "As long as one of us live. Both of us live.
Forever." He yanked out the dagger and tossed it on the floor
in disgust.
"Wait a minute," Red Sonja was having a little difficulty in
taking this all in, "how long have the two of you been
banished?"
"Almost a year now," Ebony sighed.
"Less than a year?! You're telling me that you grew so bored
that in less than a year you staged a mock war in which you
have slain almost all of the local inhabitants?!" Red Sonja
felt the red mist begin to descend before her gray flashing
eyes.
"You mean the ape men?" Obsidian frowned.
Ebony stepped forward before his brother snarling in tones
somewhat peevish, "what else are they good for? You can't
even torture them properly. They just lie there."
The sword leapt from her scabbard before she was even aware
of the fact and in the instant she had driven it straight
through both men's breasts up to the hilt. Both wizards cried
out. Ebony clutched at the hilt and his brother Obsidian
tried to raise his hands to his brother's back to push
himself off the long slender blade but both hearts had been
pierced simultaneously and both men died in seconds.
Red Sonja yanked free her sword and wiped the foul oily dark
blood upon the wizard's robes before sheathing it. She packed
provisions and with aid of the ape men she loaded them into
the lone surviving shore boat which, when she had hidden the
skull, she had surprisingly found still strapped in place
upon the pirate ship.
She left the skull and the ape men and with the Endless
Desert at her back and the Gray Sea before her she left the
Shores of the Dead and headed to the only vain hope she had;
the almost mythical floating city of The Black Oasis. A city
made out of the lashed together wreckage of a hundred ships
and home to the pirate king himself and his sea monster god.
With some good luck and a lot of bad, she might just reach
the fabled city alive.
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