Vacant Throne

The apophis was… long. Really long. About as long as a freight train…

Though given that freight trains could have a variable number of cars, that probably wasn’t a very good descriptor. Regardless, it was far larger than Alyssa would have expected after hearing Rokien’s statement about it being able to fit into a hut. Yet it wouldn’t reach even a quarter of the distance from the monster camp to the city as Brakkt had suggested. It did seem longer than the shed skin, though a bit smaller in width and height. Perhaps the skin had expanded a bit after or during the shedding process.

The shed skin hadn’t been a very good indicator of what the apophis actually looked like. Yes, the shape had been roughly the same. A long tube, essentially, as snakes were wont to be. The head of the shed skin hadn’t looked anything like the head of a real snake. It had been the section most destroyed by the shedding process. Probably because the actual snake had to move through it to get out of its own skin.

Given that this was a magical world and that this was a monster, Alyssa had expected something exotic in the coloration of the apophis. Fanciful neon colors or something. Save for the eyes, which were almost nuclear green speckled with darker hazel, the apophis had relatively… dull colors. Earthy tones. It was predominantly brown with some dark forest green pattern along its back. The pattern wasn’t anything regular. It looked as if some giant hand had dripped a dark green liquid all along its spine, letting the liquid drip down the sides at random spots. Its belly did have a bit brighter green color in a regular diamond pattern, but Alyssa could only see that up at the front of the snake where it was still reared up in the air, ready to strike.

At least, she thought it was ready to strike. With Fractal Lock keeping it frozen in time, it was a bit hard to tell. It could have just been looking at them, or it could have been preparing to greet them. She wouldn’t know for a good twelve hours. Theoretically, she could Desecrate Spells, but if she did so, she might do some serious damage to the apophis in the process. She didn’t want to kill it. Even if it had been attacking her, it was probably only because she had been following after it, chasing it down.

Probably the only reason it hadn’t killed them right away had been the presence of the draken and Fela. Seeing monsters might have confused it. Because it had definitely been poised to crush them all, but it had hesitated long enough for Fela to notice it and for Alyssa to lock it into place.

“Still can’t believe it got so close without me noticing,” Fela said, voice in a normal volume. She had ended the Tineye spell, citing a growing headache. The bandanna was still on her head, but she had pulled her ears out, making her look like she was just wearing it for the fun of it.

At the moment, her head was craned back completely to stare at the apophis’ head.

“You said something was coming.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think it was that close.” Fela shook her head, looking to Alyssa. “I mean, I could hear something and feel it in the ground, but…”

“You hadn’t used that spell before. It probably sounded like it was right on top of you, but you were mentally adjusting that to being far away, but then it… wasn’t. I’m more surprised the draken didn’t notice.”

“I’m not. The apophis was actually really quiet, especially with everything else that was going on. I really only felt it through the ground. And I don’t think I would have been that sensitive to the trembling ground without the spell.”

Alyssa raised an eyebrow. She wasn’t surprised that she hadn’t noticed anything. She was human with human senses. Draken must rely more on their sense of smell than their hearing. Now that she thought about it, she wasn’t at all sure how good their hearing actually was. Did lizards in general have good hearing? She honestly didn’t know.

“What about the minotaur?” They had some time until the apophis came out of stasis. Nothing bad would happen to it for a while. Unless a moderately high ranked arcanist happened along, nothing could happen to it. Might as well use that time for something. “Is the scent strong enough to follow from here?”

“Oh yeah. Real close. I think our minotaur was riding on the snake thing until recently. Hard to say exactly though. Your spell is kind of messing with everything about the snake, but the air around it is still the same.”

“Alright. Lead the way.”

They took off once more. Fela started out directing the draken as she had before encountering the apophis, but that only lasted for a few minutes. The draken started following her directions before she actually voiced them. Catching on to that, Fela’s directions became more and more sparse. The scent must have gotten strong enough that they had no problem following it on their own.

In the distance, near the apophis’ tail, they found the subject of their search.

“Lueta? Lueta?”

Alyssa heard the voice well before she actually saw the minotaur. He clearly had the same voice as his brother, the same low timbre. Had she not been expecting to find Rokien’s brother after finding that axe, she would have thought that he had somehow made his way out here.

“Lueta?” Rokien’s brother called again.

His name was… Worrik, if Alyssa remembered correctly. They weren’t anywhere near Lueta, the apophis. It must have been around earlier, but it had clearly been traveling inside the little canals of the marshland. There were no real tracks otherwise. Either that or it had a way of disguising how it was traveling. Something Alyssa found extremely unlikely given its size.

Upon actually spotting the minotaur, it didn’t take long to discover just why he kept calling for Lueta. He was tall. Much taller than Alyssa were she off Izsha’s back, but not nearly so large as Rokien. He had the same bovine head, but his eyes were hidden by a scrap of cloth. A blindfold.

Rokien hadn’t mentioned his brother being blind. It must have been a recent development.

Apart from his blindness, he didn’t seem to be in poor condition. With the rough body of a human—though quite a bit larger and far more muscular, Alyssa felt like she could accurately tell his condition. He wore what looked like a brown tank top, though it was far more likely to have been a full shirt of some sort. The shoulders looked torn rather than designed that way. In fact, looking closer, the blindfold may have come from shirt. He did have a few scars covering his bare arms, but they looked older. There wasn’t any blood on his clothes either.

“Worrik?” Alyssa tried, hoping that she was getting the name correct.

The minotaur jumped a good five feet into the air, turning toward Alyssa as he did so. Though the turn wasn’t perfect. He was facing a bit too far to one side. Though he didn’t stay facing one direction. His head swung from side to side as if trying to see where the sound had come from. His cow-like ears were wiggling like crazy. Trembling? The trembles didn’t stop there. His hands were shaking slightly. Even his legs didn’t look steady.

“W-Who’s there?” he asked, voice shaking about as much as his hands were. “Lueta? Wha-What did you do to Lueta?”

“I’m a friend of Rokien,” Alyssa said, hoping that a familiar name would help to calm him. She felt a bit guilty about startling him like that. Being blind, especially if he was used to sight until very recently, it had to be terrifying to be approached out in the middle of nowhere. Doubly so if he knew that he and the apophis had been followed out here.

According to Tenebrael, there was a large cave somewhere out here. The exact location had been too hard to communicate. The apophis had turned it into a lair recently while trying to decide on a course of action. Today, they might have been out hunting for food. A snake the size of the apophis probably required quite a bit of sustenance.

The incident with the dead bounty hunters had been a scouting journey, trying to get a grasp of what was going on with the other monsters and the humans. According to Tenebrael, again. Though Alyssa wouldn’t be surprised to find out that Tenebrael had only given her the cliff notes and not bothered with the full story.

However, her comment did not seem to have the intended effect. The minotaur stiffened, back going ridged. “H-How do you know that name?”

“Well, he told us. And he told us your name too, Worrik. We’re here to—”

“There is a human among you,” he said, smelling the air in a great snort. “My brother would never have told a human his name.”

Alyssa pressed her lips together. At the moment, she was ignoring the latter half of what Worrik had said, focusing on the first part. He… smelled me? Did cows have a good sense of smell? Was that a monster thing? Did everything have a better sense of smell than humans did? In a world like this, she wondered why humans had evolved the same as they had on Earth. It seemed as if some enhanced senses would have helped them to compete with the monsters around. As it was, it was a wonder that some of the monsters hadn’t risen as the dominant species. Like hellhounds, for instance. Perhaps there was some factor that Alyssa was missing. Hellhounds, for all she knew, might have minuscule birth rates compared to humans.

“Your brother came to humans for help,” Alyssa said, focusing back on Worrik’s actual concern. “So far, he has received the help that he needs. As have others that were run out of their home. Fezzik, Iona, Adelheid, Hersh… I can name about half the monsters in the camp, all of whom are being well taken care of. Or, to be more accurate, they are taking care of themselves, just using the humans in the city as protection. Some are even working alongside the humans. Fezzik is helping to guard the city against demons. A few others are assisting guards as well in various capacities. Gremlins are running all around in the markets, working as carpenters, cooks, and even various smiths.

“I… don’t know if you can see us. We’re a human, a hellhound, and three draken.”

“It’s true,” Fela chimed in. “You can trust these humans. This one saved me from torture at the hands of other humans. She’s… really strong,” she said with no small amount of awe in her voice as she looked over to Alyssa.

For her part, Alyssa decided to ignore the hellhound’s adulations. She still didn’t know exactly what the imprinting Kasita mentioned was all about. She wasn’t even sure that Kasita knew.

“Lueta. What… What happened to Lueta? What did you do with Lueta?”

“Lueta is fine. The apophis is just… frozen in time for a bit? Twelve hours to be exact. It will be completely unharmed when the spell ends. Though it might be confused about the sky turning dark and all of us disappearing.”

If the apophis hadn’t been about to attack, Alyssa felt a little bad. Confused might be putting it lightly. She hoped that they could gain some trust with the apophis. Worrik might be able to help with that if they could convince him that they were being honest. Still, using a spell on the apophis had to have hurt their first impressions.

Sighing, and wishing that Kasita were here to help with relations instead of keeping an eye on the Yora guys, Alyssa made a small gesture toward Fela. The hellhound understood almost immediately. Spring in her hindquarters, she jumped from Dasca’s back and landed on the ground. It was a hard landing. Hard enough to make Worrik jump again.

“What—”

“Look,” Fela said as she bounded up to him, clearly not choosing her words carefully. She clasped both paws around his hand, gripping hard enough that he couldn’t escape, but not enough to harm him. “See? Furry paws? I’m a monster. And look at this!” She took his hand and pressed it up against her wrist for a moment before moving it up to her neck. His hands were quite a bit larger than she was. Fela was strong, but she was the size of a regular human. If he so chose, Worrik could easily crush her throat. “No chains,” Fela said, oblivious to the possible danger. “You better believe us now.”

Her tone of voice was hardly the reassuring tone that Alyssa would have liked, but not everyone could have Kasita’s tact, she supposed. Though it wasn’t like Alyssa could claim that she was much better.

Worrik quickly pulled his hands back to himself the second Fela let go. As he did so, Alyssa let her own hands drop to her sides, glad she hadn’t needed to burn another Fractal Lock to keep Fela safe.

But, despite the harsh words, Fela apparently had the right idea. Worrik mostly calmed down. The tension in his arms and shoulders remained, but he did warm up to a conversation. Alyssa did her best to fully explain the situation. As much as she knew, anyway. From when Rokien and his group of monsters arrived at the city all the way up to when she set out looking for them. She made sure to mention as many names as possible when referring to the other monsters, hoping that her familiarity with them would help set Worrik even further at ease.

For a while, she didn’t ask any questions, not wanting to frighten him off by seeming like an interrogator. But any time he did speak up during her explanation, she let him talk as much as possible. He didn’t usually talk for long, but it let Alyssa learn a few things. For one, minotaurs apparently didn’t eat meat much at all despite Worrik being a hunter. It had just been his job at the farm they lived on. It made Alyssa wish that she still had some granola bars left. But those had been gone for months. Most of the supplies she had brought with her were dried meat. Grains and vegetables just weren’t that great of supplies for short trips like the one she was on. Though she did have a small roll of plain bread. Mostly just for some variety.

Digging that out of her pack, she offered it to Worrik. With him having been out and about ever since his community had been destroyed, he probably hadn’t even had bread in recent weeks.

Though he seemed wary, Worrik ate the roll after a few cautious sniffs.

Lots of nose usage among the monsters today, Alyssa noted with some amusement. Her amusement vanished when she heard a few muffled sobs coming from Worrik. Even though he still had that blindfold covering his eyes, small streams of water ran down his bovine cheeks, wetting his face. Alyssa tensed up immediately, fearing that something had been wrong with the bread.

“Are you alright?” Alyssa asked, standing from the wooden log that Izsha had dragged over for her to sit on—the islands in the marsh were still quite wet, too wet to comfortably sit on

“You got this from Carmilla, didn’t you?” he asked, still choked up. “I haven’t had bread like this in so long. I… I didn’t believe you. But this…”

Alyssa pulled up short, not having a proper answer to that. She didn’t know anyone by that name, though judging by the fact that Worrik was bringing it up, it was probably someone from the monster camp. She had gotten the bread in the town market. Maybe the shop had a monster working at it? Or maybe it was just similar enough to something he was used to that he thought he recognized it.

“I’m sorry,” he said after another moment. “I’m a mess. My brother would be ashamed.”

“I doubt that. He would be happy to know that you’re alright. Though…” Alyssa’s eyes flicked up to his blindfold. She wanted to ask about the incident still, but there probably wasn’t all that much point in asking. She had already pieced together most everything that had happened with the bounty hunters. All she was really missing was a motive, though she had several good guesses for that subject. For now, what she really wanted to know involved Worrik himself. “It is fine if you don’t want to answer, if the subject is uncomfortable, but can you tell me what happened to your eyes?”

Rokien hadn’t mentioned his brother being blind. And based on her earlier assumption that it was a recent incident, Rokien probably didn’t know.

It might be none of her business. But if it had been humans that did it—especially if it had been the bounty hunters—she felt that it might be good to hear about it sooner rather than later.

To her surprise, Worrik didn’t stop and hesitate for a moment. He just nodded his head and started talking.

“Lueta and I were out on a long hunting trip. They usually take a few weeks. Lueta usually eats a good half of what we catch.”

Alyssa nodded. Given the size of the apophis, that sounded perfectly reasonable.

“It was a good hunt. Lueta kills the animals and then I sling them over her back. Roping them together, I can keep them from falling off as we make our way back to the village. But this time, when we got back…”

This time he did trail off. He just sat, head down and breathing slowly.

“The village was empty?” Alyssa tried after a few long minutes of no response.

“Empty?” He shook his head. “Destroyed. There were… bodies. Fire still burning. Smoke covering the entire place… I… I rushed off, leaving Lueta, I went home to try to find my brother. But he wasn’t there. There were… humans there. Lueta made it to me in time to save me, but…” One hand went up to touch his blindfold. It stayed there for a minute, almost as if he were trying to decide whether or not to remove it. Eventually, he let his hand drop back into his lap with the blindfold still in place.

So it had been part of the original attack. Alyssa had to wonder if the humans had deliberately waited until Lueta was out of the village before attacking. They might have had a way to deal with her. At the same time, it was probably far easier to force the monsters out with Lueta gone. Although most had recovered, there were a few monsters that were still physically injured from that time. The worst of whom was one poor insectoid that was missing its wings. That was basically like missing both legs as far as it was concerned.

She didn’t know how many had been psychologically impacted by it. Most seemed to be fine, more or less. Especially the younger gremlins who she tended to have a decent amount of interaction with. But some had to be hurting. And Alyssa highly doubted that there were therapists on this world, let alone in the monster camp.

“About Lueta,” Alyssa said, hoping the change in subject wasn’t too obvious. “It will still be a few hours before she gets back to normal, but do you think you might help keep her from trying to kill us before we can explain everything? Just a familiar voice would help out a lot.”

“My brother… Rokien. Can I not see him?”

Fela opened her mouth. Alyssa just knew that she was going to say something about the way Worrik phrased that and smacked her before she could say anything. “We can, but not until Lueta gets back to normal. Leaving it frozen out in the marsh would surely be confusing and alarming.”

“Lueta is a decent tracker. She can follow us wherever we go.”

That’s what worries me. “Better to not have a giant apophis rushing toward the human city without someone nearby. Especially if she thinks that you were captured by humans. That’s bound to end poorly for someone, human or monster. As soon as we get everything straightened out, we’ll head straight to him. Does that sound alright.”

“He’s really alive, right?”

“Yes. Yes he is.”