In Dire Straits

There was a damn good reason they’d all been taught to fear and loathe fire.

To wild beasts, it was as a nuclear bomb, something barely controllable or containable, something that was almost... abominable. Alteron and Saboro had ever been arrogant nations that thought they could control anything, and to witness them coming together with no warning or explanation, that flame encased in crude torches and hovering about their heads...

He did what any devoted priest would do. He prayed, quiet and frenetic under his breath. He asked the spirits of Chinensis for mercy, Gigantea for cunning, Foetida for ferocity in the face of a terrible foe that had wounded them and come back to finish the job. He tried to return to their avatars, to warn and protect, a little bird bringing news of war, a pretty parrot reciting the words it had been taught. He called for help.

Let it be known that Oukoku-Kai went down snapping, that not all of them had abandoned their faith when the demons came knocking, that —

The denning area lay barren and unholy as any other landmark of any other woodland. A quiver ran through Tibet’s body. His teeth chattered anxiously. His stomach clenched and flushed him with nausea. If he’d a rosary around his neck, now might be the time he’d clutch it, but for an interruption that almost made him leap from his skin.

“Looking for your gods? ... Me too.”

An old black wolf, battered and black all over, tough as a frozen strap of horsehide, was emerging from the mouth of the polished cavern. His mane was wild, his eyes were wilder, and he was instantly familiar, even if the young women with him (encircling him?) were not.

Tibet braced himself, legs spread, tail against the ground, and named him with an enigmatic tongue.

“Crow.”

And company.

“Don’t you ever get sick from the smell of smoke?”

Literally. Metaphorically. It made Crow laugh a little.

”Pin him down, would you, loves?”

He was no fighter. He would never be a fighter. He had only his jaws and his faith and the fear of a mortal animal in peril. Tibet looked to Crow, studying him like the snake charmer studies the cobra. He could taste his own pulse. His tongue moved, his lips forming the words he’d say to the mad old wolf, words that might spare him the same noose they’d spared him years ago... and it didn’t matter.

Those words, that wasted breath, it all shriveled in his throat when one of the hostile and indistinct figures encircling him lunged at his vulnerable back. Herded like the caribou they ate, heckled and outgunned, Tibet swung his tail away from that disembodied mouth, whirled to contend with the other threat coming for his front — he tried to break into a run, was caught by the hind leg like a bird in a snare, dragged back and slammed into and pushed into the ground, his thrashes stirring up miniature hurricanes of sand and uprooted grass — gods, it happened so fast, time seemed to slow and still it took only moments for them to —

Hellion boy, high priest, Tibet slowed and then ceased his futile struggling. Hyperventilating breaths settled. Teeth stopped snapping. Legs stopped kicking. Lovely emerald eyes fluttered and then gently closed in acceptance. He laid there with his immediate pain and his distant memories, beneath the weight of two total strangers, and waited for the blow that would end his life. It happened to them all, one way or another. He’d said his prayers. He’d been a good servant. He’d done his very best. This was okay.

He was ready.

Saga, praise and worship, guide me now to heaven. Saga, forgive them. Forgive me.

Crow stepped forward, his head seeming to eclipse the sun at his back, bright eyes penetrating against his dark face. This was far from his first rodeo, this was not the first priest he’d had belly up, helpless, hopeless, bleeding, WEAK, and yet —

“Mia, dear. How would you like a little pet snake? An... engagement gift,” he crooned, indicating Sarissa here, “if you will.”

"No," keened Tibet, very quietly, beneath his breath. His pretty emeralds had popped back open upon hearing his sentence. His lipless mouth pulled back in a grimace of denial and dislike. His body wriggled faintly, as if despite his better judgment and input, all he wanted at a base, primal level was to get away.

This could not be happening. This was the dishonor to end all dishonors. Dying at the jaws of an enemy, fighting them to the last drop, was the ideal death for a beast of Oukoku-Kai, but this... to be enslaved just like a common heathen... an insult and a horror. Saga would be ashamed. Saga's not here, a buried part of him, the boy who'd been raised an anarchic survivor, murmured into his ear. Do your absent gods have sharper teeth than Crow, the black dragon? Than his wyrmling daughter? Than the bloody princess at her side?

Tibet lifted his head and knocked it back down against the ground in mute protest. It was that moment Sarissa chose to lean over and inflict her dreadful kiss upon him. The high priest winced, but managed to suppress the look of revulsion that might bring punishment. Above him, Crow was speaking again.

"I'm very perceptive," he answered Miasma in what was almost a little joke as he winked his milky blind eye in her direction. “Of course I mean it. I know this little snake, after all. His name is Tibet and he's quite familiar with this sort of predicament..." Crow planted a pale foot on the hellion's thrashing head and forced it back against the ground. His long nails played with the red tuft of fur at his nape, combed the fine hairs of his cheek, perversely gentle. "We're friends, aren't we? And friends tell friends... where their little gods are hiding..."

"They're not here," answered Tibet, gritting teeth as one nail strayed too close to his exposed eye. It was humiliating to be pinned and dominated, but not less than admitting the place he'd pledged his life and blood to was left so unprotected and abandoned. "I haven't seen them in --"

He paused abruptly, looking toward the underbrush nearby. Crow followed his wide gaze. That was all they had the time for before the foliage seemed suddenly to explode. Oukoku-Kai's death throes, wiping out all and any that they could before the final sleep. One of them -- a scrappy female, dark with eyes like cigarettes -- came barreling recklessly for Crow and managed to knock him away from Tibet. He snarled viciously, loud enough for the priest's ears to ring with the terrifying sound, and whirled with fearless immediacy to meet her advance.

Then another, the far more dangerous foe, a skilled jin who descended upon the girls like a fanged shadow. He gave no warning or quarter, and if Miasma and Sarissa did not react damn quick, they'd soon see their faces mauled, their eyes pulped, their jugulars spluttering life all over the valley sands...

Tibet turned instinctively to flee; his tracks were stopped by a ruthless order from his... his new master, as he exchanged blows with the she-wolf.

"Fight with me, fight or you'll regret it, I'll skin you alive, this valley is ours and you've got nowhere to run, FIGHT THEM --"

The hellion boy twitched, frozen in time for a crucial moment. The chains tightened around his neck.

Then he uttered a mournful cry and did as he was told.