((Here’s a portion of the prologue to something I’ve been working on, called A Myth of the Mengods. I’m trying to do my best to introduce the reader to the universe in which the story takes place, as well as portray the formation of an important union which will kickstart the main plot. This union is not featured in this portion, though I may update this thread to finish the prologue soon. See how well you can pick up on the general overview of the world/this particular region, and let me know if I should be more descriptive or less descriptive. Tell me what you’d like to know and what you find rather boring or redundant to be described.))
Kingdom of Goro, Realm of Vashni
Year 3568 in the Era of Worship, 5th of Apru
“By the deities of the sky! What feral creatures are these!?”
By the time the poor soldier uttered his last words, his stomach had already been ripped asunder by the Goroni savage. Doklater’Alim, in truth, had not known the boy long, though he had been neither a bother nor a burden in their now four-day march south, and perhaps that was the best he could ask for. As a Nassakni soldier, his brotherly bonds to his fellow warriors would have been forged in battle, and he had hardly enough time to speak in his first. As both the young soldier’s Divine King and commanding general, Doklater’Alim supposed it was a shame he hadn’t the time to join him for drink and tale-telling, though it seemed that was an opportunity which had come and gone; drinking was harder with your belly strewn about the rocks like red-jellied cobras.
On the other hand, considering he had evoked in his final moments the Torem’Hetni, the damnable sky deities, it was very possible the boy’s mind was too vapid to discuss anything of interest at all.
The monster-made-human responsible for his death was a twisted and demented beast, bloodstained pox and flea ridden skin clinging helplessly to angular bones, obviously having seen torments of their own in the past. Fingers missing, replaced instead with roughly made bronze claws jammed and implanted grotesquely where his digits should have been, he had cut his way through the meat of the young would-be-warrior before he could raise his mace, adding the boy’s blood and gore to the patchy mess on his crazed face. His good eye, the one which had not yet been burned out of his head, barely blinked, and his mangled mouth stretched back, baring his sharpened teeth and emitting a terrible hiss of joy. Like most Goroni in this horrid countryside of the Kingdom of Goro, he was obviously not one for speech. Perhaps his tongue or throat had already been ravaged to nothing.
The bunch that had followed the monster from behind the rocky outcropping looked no more inviting. Most wore bones on their body, invariably of man or beast. Those who wore skull masks, however, all retrieved their wears from the bodies of men. The group of human predators was equal parts male and female, though it mattered not; either would gladly rip you open and feast upon your innards while you slowly slipped away. All an animalistic lot, their skin was filthy and pockmarked with sores and open wounds. These wounds were most likely inflicted by their own tribesmen; Goroni were both sadistic and masochistic and craved the spread and absorption of pain and torture. Their lean physiques were stooped and, despite their wounds and injuries, they moved with the hungry speed and agility that could only be fostered by madness. They were hardly armored besides their decorative bones, though they were all armed whether it was with crude stone hatchets or daggers or with bronze-tipped spears and more dreadfully horrific metallic implants.
There were about twelve of them, but it hardly mattered as the Divine King of War and Battle brought his great warmace down upon the first offender’s head. The cretin’s ambush had taken the young soldier by surprise and had brought upon his men the first death in their push south. Doklater’Alim meant to avenge his death in glorious battle. As the wretch’s head exploded and the rest of his tribe licked their lips in obvious arousal of the bloody spectacle, Doklater’Alim turned his head to the side.
“These men are monsters,” he yelled, his voice echoing inside the metal cocoon which was his khumenkhar iron armor. “But there are plenty more hiding behind the rocks all the way down south so you’d best get used to killing them!”
He spoke even as the rest of that feral brood swarmed forth, no more than a dozen or so, but their unsettling appearance and indifference to pain or harm was enough to touch even the great warrior king’s confidence. They were quick and agile in a manner uncharacteristic with their level of malnourishment, and the manner in which they occasionally scampered forward on all fours like creatures from the pits of the hellish depths was disturbing. They were outnumbered; Doklater’Alim had with him three-hundred men (his lieutenants Roshur vash’Rasham and Antyam vash’Nepal led similarly-sized forces south along the eastern and western coasts of the peninsula). But who could say where the other Goroni surely hid among the scattered boulders and rocks and stony hills. In his bones, throughout his core, Doklater’Alim hoped they would jump from the stones and attack here and now. Otherwise the battle would be over too quickly and he would have just whet his appetite on this small gathering of wretches.
He did not doubt he was the only one who hoped for this. Most in the battalion he now led through Goro towards the city of Shkrorgal, located at the southernmost tip of the peninsula, had never set foot beyond Gilkak’s Wall and now found themselves in unfamiliar territory and a peculiar barren landscape. They had been lulled into a false sense of security in the past few days when all they knew of this horrid kingdom was the mostly fertile north, occupied by Nassakni; tended to and protected by their countrymen. There was yet soil there, farms and crops, and the three Nassakni fortresses built in the region, further assurances against Goroni seeping through Gilkak’s Wall and into the mainland of Shamashek, provided a measure of comfort and security in what the men had been told was a violent and unforgiving place.
Just as the Kingdom of Nassak fostered strong soldiers and warriors, the peninsular land of the Kingdom of Goro made all who called it their birthplace feel sadistic, cruel, twisted, and violent; Goro was after all known as the Kingdom of Brutality and Depravity. And how it lived up to its name! Goro jutted south into the ocean from the southeastern corner of Shamashek and, along with Nassak and Moreti, was a kingdom of the Realm of Vashni. With a palette of color reserved mostly to sickly gray-greens, the land here was made of barren salted rock and crag, loose stone and heavy boulder. Above, the sky undulated and churned with a fury; while the Realm of Vashni held no patron deity with the Divine King of War and Battle acting as an effective mortal protector, the turbulent and electrified storms ever present above Goro solidified the chaotic storm deity Rakaazak as a more-or-less permanent malefactor. Violent winds, unyielding rain, and unpredictable lighting was known to strike at any time, flooding some areas and washing poor souls in others out to sea so the vengeful Sea Witch could fill their lungs with her poisoned seawater.
Doklater’Alim had hardly ever ventured more than forty miles south of the wall which separated this depraved place from the mainland in his 400-year regency. The Divine King of War and Battle had intervened in wars, violent uprisings, and terrible clashes between feral clans of Mono’Kargani, Disciples of Pain, which caused even the most blood-crazed “civilized” Goroni to cringe in horror. These were matters, however, that the great warrior king dealt with in the northernmost portion of the madmen’s territory, where the land was not as dreadfully unforgiving and home and countrymen could be found just east of Gilkak’s Wall. It was in the Goroni north where Doklater’Alim’s occupying force of 1,500 men was stationed; 500 men for each of the three Nassakni-defended fortresses which stood as strong bulwarks along the road north toward Gilkak’s Wall. What happened any further south was none of the Divine King of War and Battle’s concern, unless a new Divine Regent of Brutality and Depravity had been created and needed to be imprisoned. His duty to the men of Shamashek and the deities of the sky, as far as Goro was concerned, was to halt the madness of the crazed natives from seeping into the mainland. He had served as an unwavering warden, standing resolute in his oath to contain the Goroni to their peninsula, for four centuries.
Now, he marched with his men to undo this for which he once stood. But first, however, there was blood to be spilled.
One savage, a woman with ratty oily hair and a jagged scar from her left missing breast to her navel, leapt from all fours and clamped her teeth down hard on Doklater’Alim’s armored right wrist, the hand it was connected to still clutching that bloody iron mace. Shattering her teeth, she whimpered—whether in pleasure or pain the Divine King could not tell—but remained attached to the large warrior’s armor husk, scrabbling with all limbs against his body madly. Doklater’Alim effortlessly grabbed her head with his free hand, pried her away, and swung her hard at the ground like a club, wrecking her body against the sharp uncaring stones. The feral bunch, those who remained alive, halted, though they still hungrily licked their lips. They now knew that these were not easy prey, and yet lacked the full sense of sanity to break and flee. Perhaps it was fear that another tribe of Mono’Kargani would steal their quarry if they abandoned their hunt, or maybe it was the thought that perhaps they would not get another chance to feed for much longer. More likely, they simply lacked the ability to fear.
But the Nassakni soldiers were still human, and now they raised their weapons: their spears, their clubs, their maces, their sickle swords, their bows and arrows. Those who had shields readied them in anticipation of attack from unseen forces, and those who were equipped with black khumenkhar iron armor, as opposed to the very formerly standard iron, bronze, or leather, struggled to ready themselves against a possible onslaught. Doklater’Alim raised his left hand. Hold.
“Savages of the Goroni countryside!” he called out in his deep resonating tone. “Reveal yourselves to me as you will! Face me, and see if my metal body can be made to bleed!”
Slowly, yet eerily noiselessly and smoothly, heads began to pop up from the stones. Faces revealed themselves; savage faces, cruel and bludgeoned faces, bloody faces, hungry faces. Weapons appeared; spears, crude cudgels, slingshots, makeshift metal claws. There were hundreds hidden among these rocks. And to add to this battle’s potential, every single tribe here was the mortal enemy of the other. Now, here was the clash Doklater’Alim, the Divine King of War and Battle, had been pining for since they entered the kingdom. For it was only among the clang of metal, the struggle of combat, and the cries of war that he felt truly alive.