Chapters:

Exordium

Exordium

I, Tonio of the tribe Inoki, third of his name, swear to the gods of the Old and New Ways that what I speak to you is the truth.

"How have you dawned?" Jutar asked in the moments be​fore I saw the arrow rip through his chest. "The cold air kept me awake," I replied, then I saw it and I noticed blood pooling around his feet on the snowy trail.

In that moment I realized we were under attack but I could not see from who, only what they used against us. I assumed they were from Amaruk'iraw, that was the nearest town, or Llaqtahualco, the only other part of the ancient Orqontinsuyu empire that still exists, I assumed it was one of the Twin Brothers of the North, it had to have been, but they must've been massively strong, their spears were flying as far as 500 to 600 feet, uphill. The land they were on was inaccessible without the proper climbing equipment, and I know of no man who could make it there while carrying a quiver or spears, especially not those big unwieldy bows they use in Amaruk'iraw.

All I could hear was the whir as they flew by overhead.

I stumbled across the snow, dragging Jutar's body with me, leaving a trail of red to mix with the clean white ground. At some point I remember I shouted for the kalku to come look at him and heal him, I think I was already in cover. The brujos cast some sort of shield over the area while we hid in the bushes on the other side of the hill, just out of reach from the arrows.

They lasted so long it looked and sounded like rain.

When it finally ended it looked like brown grass, there were so many wooden shafts stuck in the ground.

We were all too scared to leave the protection of the brujos shield magic, when we finally did it was silence, there was no movement, no wind, no nothing.

I looked around the cliff-side where I thought the spears were coming from and still nothing.

The scouting party bickered among themselves about whether we should try to find the source, that was when I realized that out scouting chief was dead and that I was in command.

I rallied a few soldiers and one of the brujo to go down the face of the mountain and see if we could find out what attacked us, the rest of the party was to stay behind and make camp in whatever cave they could find shelter.

It was a slow hard climb down the cliff but mostly uneventful,

Once we reached the bottom we started to find tracks from no animal I've ever seen before.

It had a long slender foot with three toes on the front and one on the back, all of the toes look like they had a claw or a talon of some sort.

They had clearly been there a while, made camp. There were some embers in their fire and it seemed like they hurried out of there once they unleashed what they had for us.

Some of the men had an argument down at the bottom about whether we should go back to camp with this information, but we hadn't at all done what we set out to do so we were setting on.

The tracks scattered about the camp a bit and then led down and around the cliff and eventually towards the entrance to a small cavern.

I can understand why they were afraid, but still, it sickened me the way they tried to flee from the very idea of entering the cave. We set a torch using the embers from their fire and set forth to kill whatever ambushed us.

As soon as we set foot into the cave the stench was overwhelming, like rotting and death mixed with the sickly sweet smell of incense. It was impossible to move in the cave, the surface below was so uneven.

I was the first to notice the sounds, they seemed to be coming from beneath us, it sounded like some sort of chant or chanting, if I didn't know better I'd swear I was sitting in one of the old ceremonies my great mother used to take me to.

The further into the cavern we went, the harder it was to move and the louder the chanting grew, it was in some language I've never heard before, it began to mix with the sound of water dripping and the occasional screams of what sounded like a pig.

When we got to the end of the main cavern there was a series of tunnels that led down below, a series of runes above them seemed to mark where each one went. The first looked like some sort of man dressed in armor, but he was a serpent, a serpent-man. The second was a circle with what looked like the a symbol for fire above it, and the last one was a skull.

We chose the middle room, the only one of the three that was lit, and the one from which the sounds were coming from. I keep going over that choice in my head, but even I'm not sure it was the one that doomed us all.

At the end of the tunnel we saw a group of serpent-men dressed in luscious fine robes and feathers of multiple colors. They hovered above some sort of stone altar on which it looked like they had sacrificed one of their captives, one of our brothers. I couldn't see who it was, it was way too dark.

We saw them for only a moment before they noticed us and fled into the tunnels behind them. Then I heard another sound, metal dragging against the rock, I knew it was the movement of soldiers as soon as I heard it.

"Retreat!" I shouted at the top of my lungs but it was too late, the room was filled with the sound of arrows.

They had to have taken out the torchbearer early because it was impossible to see what we were even fighting, there was no way to form a line or fight back, it was chaos. At some point they lit their arrows aflame and the whole cavern caught fire soon after, the last of my men went down to the explosion immediately and I saw it.

Below us, what we were standing on, the uneven surface was nothing but the remains of whoever else had foolishly stumbled into there before us.

The last thing I remember seeing were feathers. Something hit me in the shoulder and I was out.

Two suns later I awoke somewhere downstream where your men found me, the great Audience of the Teozcaltia. My arms, my hand, and one of my legs had been burned off, but at least I made it out. I thank the Gods of both the Old and New ways that I made it out of there.

Too many good souls were not as blessed.