Chapter 88: Heretic

Just as dawn broke, and the heavy star-iron doors of Onyx Hall groaned loudly as they were pushed open from the outside. The workers inside the cavernous forge paused their hammering.

THUD. CRASH.

A massive, scaled wasteland beast stalked into the entry hall. It was a predatory mount, all muscle and thick hide. Sitting atop it was a towering female Troglodyte.

She carried thick battle scars across her gray skin and rested a massive, jagged axe-hammer on her shoulder. Behind her, a hundred more female Troglodyte warriors rode in on identical beasts. They were an expeditionary hunting party finally returning home.

The leader dismounted, her heavy boots cracking against the stone floor. Her energetic, wild eyes swept across Onyx Hall. The forges were burning hot, but the population was wrong. There were far fewer Troglodytes here than when she had left. She assumed the main horde was out on a massive raid.

She had absolutely no idea they were dead.

A worker Troglodyte hurried forward, bowing his head respectfully to the returning warrior.

“Where is the Warlord?” her loud, booming voice echoed over the crackling furnaces. “Where is Gorak?”

“Greetings, Commander,” the worker replied nervously. “Gorak is not present here. He went down to the Bastion.”

She narrowed her eyes. “What is a Bastion?”

“It is a new city settlement a few kilometers down,” the worker explained quickly. “It is ruled by Kobolds.”

The leader scoffed. The idea of frail Kobolds ruling anything, let alone a city where the they resided, was completely absurd to her. She didn’t wait to hear another word. She turned her back on the worker, vaulted back onto her beast, and barked a command for her warband to stay put and rest.

She kicked her mount into a sprint, charging back out into the ash-covered plains entirely alone.

The beast covered the few kilometers quickly. As she approached the sprawling, fortified walls of the Bastion, she pulled back on the reins. From a ridge overlooking the outer training yards, her eyes locked onto a familiar, yet somewhat different hulking figure in bone-plated armor.

It was Gorak. And he was currently locked in combat with a mutated, metallic Kobold wielding a rusted scythe.

Iron-Scale swung the heavy blade. Gorak deflected the strike with his gauntlet, the impact sending sparks flying across the dirt. To the Troglodyte leader, this was not a sparring match. This was a mutated Kobold trying to kill her Warlord.

She roared. She dug her heels into her mount’s flanks, sending the beast charging down the ridge at a terrifying speed. The swamp-mud kicked up behind her as she breached the perimeter of the training yard.

Iron-Scale raised his scythe for another strike.

The female Troglodyte didn’t even wait for her beast to stop. She vaulted off the saddle, launching herself through the air. She raised her heavy axe-hammer high above her head, aiming a lethal, crushing blow right at the metallic Kobold’s skull.

A star-iron gauntlet slammed into the haft of her weapon.

The impact sent a shockwave through her arms. She hit the dirt, sliding backward on her boots. She looked up, completely bewildered.

Gorak stood between her and the Kobold. The Warlord had intercepted her attack, catching the shaft of her axe-hammer with a single hand.

“What are you doing?” Gorak grated, his voice a low, dangerous rumble.

The leader blinked, her aggressive energy faltering. She looked from Gorak to the unbothered metallic Kobold behind him.

“I… I came to help,” she stammered, entirely confused.

Iron-Scale stepped back from the blocked attack. He opened his clawed hand, letting the heavy star-iron broadsword he had been testing fall to the ground.

It hit the packed dirt with a heavy thud.

“Heavy blades are not for me,” the Inquisitor hissed, completely unbothered by the sudden ambush. “If you want to train against heavy swords, Warlord, find someone who actually knows how to use them.”

The female Troglodyte lowered her axe-hammer, staring at the metallic Kobold in pure disbelief. She turned her wild eyes back to the Warlord.

“What is going on here?” she demanded. “Why are you playing in the dirt with this lizard instead of putting it in chains?”

Gorak released her weapon and crossed his massive, bone-plated arms. “We fought a war against them. And Onyx Hall lost.”

The commotion in the training yard had already drawn a massive audience. The Troglodyte soldiers who were running drills paused their formations to watch the standoff. Mutated Kobolds climbed up the wooden barricades to get a better look at the intruder. Slippery Grey-fins and bulky Mud-skippers emerged from the nearby swamp-water trenches, their wide eyes locked on the sudden confrontation.

The female leader looked around at the mixed crowd. She let out a harsh, barking laugh.

“Impossible,” she spat. “A fortress of Troglodytes losing to a mud-camp of Kobolds? You are lying. ”

“They did not fight alone,” Gorak corrected her, his voice a low rumble that carried across the silent yard. “A God fights for them. A God who slaughtered the Guardian of the swamps.”

“What?” she asked with a confused look on her face. “The Pale Doom is dead? The Guardian of the swamps, who has been an enemy of us Troglodytes for centuries was slain? Unbelievable!”

Gorak raised his heavy gauntlet and pointed toward the center of the Bastion.

The female leader followed his gaze. Her laugh died in her throat. Towering over the settlement was the grand temple, constructed directly into the hollowed-out skull of the colossal Hydra. Massive, bleached hydra-bone pillars supported the architecture, and shimmering, impenetrable scales reinforced the walls. The sheer size of the beast’s remains proved the Warlord was telling the absolute truth.

“I have accepted their God,” Gorak told her, leaving no room for argument. “Onyx Hall belongs to Him now. We walk the path of His faith. Every strike I make, and every weapon forged in our halls, is done on His orders.”

The yard remained dead quiet as the female warrior stared at the monstrous temple, her grip tightening on her axe-hammer as she processed the reality of her new world.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep