The branch swayed imperceptibly beneath Talkoc’s step, its movement timed to the steady sway of the sweltering jungle canopy. A subtle shift of colours spread across his scales. Warm oranges joined the mottled greens, mimicking the light of the fires in the clearing ahead. The ritual had already begun.
Figures danced around the great fire, moving in rhythm to discordant drums. The beat was erratic and irregular, like the failing heart of a prey-beast run into the ground. Heat distorted the air. At the centre of the press, a figure in heavy robes held a crimson serpent aloft and chanted. Tlanxla, Warlord of the Sun. Inhamex, the Serpent Father. Maudra Rua, Queen of Air and Fire. Names these lesser creatures should not have known. Carried by hundreds of voices, from the throats of dozens of the younger races, Talkoc could only seethe silently at the blasphemy.
The chameleon skink took another measured step forwards. At his hip, the tiny quiver of poisoned blow darts hung securely. With a single shot, he could end this blasphemous demagogue here and now. This was what he had been created for. The silent predator, unseen, enacting the will of the Slann from the shadows. His nostrils flared imperceptibly, tasting the wind to find the perfect shot.
Something was not right. A scent, barely there, but detectable to Talkoc’s expert senses. Saurus? The priests that carried the Slann’s will had not mentioned any other forces would be present. The familiar scent was ruddier, earthier, like those that had coalesced too long in the physical world. There was something else to the scent too, something wrong that he could not place.
Talkoc froze. The drums of the ritual had stopped abruptly. All of the cultists turned as one and stared in his direction. Had he been seen? Impossible, he was a shadow in the darkness. Then what…?
The branch that Talkoc had perched on exploded, a massive clawed hand clasping around him like iron. The scaled head and shoulders of a huge saurus emerged from the underbrush, barbaric warpaint and crude armour wrapped around his frame. Saurian lips pulled back across teeth like daggers, and he roared at the diminutive skink struggling in his grasp.
Gasping for air, crushed in the larger creature’s iron grip, Talkoc hissed out a few words in the secret language of the seraphon. “Why? What madness seizes you, warrior?”
The saurus did not reply, striding through the tangled jungle with ease. As he entered the circle of firelight surrounding the ritual, he roared again and hoisted the skink high in the air.
“The would-be lords of the heavens send their hunters to silence our words!”, he bellowed in a guttural Azyrite. Angered cries echoed his own roar. “They would bind us all, slaves to their Order. Never again!” Thick and clipped though they were, his words reverberated through the crowd, raising howls and calls into the night.
“I know you,” Talkoc said again, his breath hissing past broken ribs. “You are the apostate, Kr-”
“You know nothing,” the saurus roared, switching back to the saurian tongue and addressing the skink for the first time. “‘To speak the truth, even in a whisper, is to speak with a voice of embers; to ignite the flames that shall set us free’. I am Voice-of-Embers. I shall free our kind from the slavery of the Slann!”
“You are insane. The Slann set out our place in the Great Plan, you must trust their -”
“The Old Ones created the Great Plan, not the Slann! They are custodians of a legacy not their own, and they have lost their way. I remember the truth. The ancient jungles of a world we were created to defend, against the screaming monstrosities pulled into existence by dark masters. Look how the slann have perverted that legacy. Now my kind are the monsters, pulled into the realms to fight and kill on their whim. They have led us astray.”
Talkoc shook in Voice-of-Embers’ grip, in shock from his words and the injuries that wracked his broken body. Gathering what strength he had left, he grasped the poisoned darts from his hip and drove their tips down into the saurus’ arm.
Voice-of-Embers looked down. His crocodile-like lips pulled back in a sneer.
“Pathetic. I am the Blood of the Sun, of Tlanxla returned. Your poisons will not harm me. Your masters will not silence me.” With an almost casual ease, he threw the broken skink against a heavy stone slab set before the roaring fire of the ritual circle.
The last thing Talkoc saw was the hooded priest standing before him, wave-bladed knife plunging downwards towards his chest.
Voice-of-Embers roared once more, holding the heart of the skink high overhead.
“Maudra Rua, Queen of Air and Fire, hear our calls! Awaken the primal storm once more, and let your fury fall upon the tyrants of order that have imprisoned you for so long!”
The jungles of Lahar echoed with the rising cries of the cult. The time was near.