Pononga

By Jay Erickson

As the Mandragora Umbraticum attempts to eradicate the ancient Pononga warrior in preparation for a more Easternized, trade-friendly government, Stormwind finds himself unexpectedly nominated as accuser and investigator of the corruption within the Pononga themselves. Placed at the center of a struggle between two eras and two worlds, he has only his own sense of honor to guide him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jay Erickson
• Release date: Sep 2, 2016
• ISBN: 9781942958024

Jay Erickson

JAY ERICKSON grew up in Midwestern USA before joining the United States Air Force at the age of nineteen as an aircraft mechanic. During his active tour, he earned two degrees in Computer Applications and Aerospace Maintenance. In 2001, he separated from active service and became an Air Force Reservist. Since that time, he has held a variety of jobs from working at a casino, to crane operation, to masonry. Even with a myriad of different careers, though, writing has been his primary interest and hobby since high school. As an avid reader, he has always held a deep love for Fantasy and Science Fiction. So it was a natural fit for his writing. Now he's taking that hobby one step further by publishing the novella, BLOOD WIZARD CHRONICLES: STORMWIND for others to read. Mr. Erickson resides in Northwest Indiana with his wife and two children.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Prelude

The Battle of Kobapeeli

Bereft

Hinge

Jun’s Favor

Crime Scene

Entrant

Surfaced Emotions

Body of Evidence

Accuser and Assassin

Gentarō’s Decree

Unfavorable

Lakeside

Alraune Plans

Honor Runs Deep

Onus Lifted

Whispers in Stone

Stones Reveal

Betrayer

Jadesteel

Fleet

No Longer Required

They Call Her Dame

Imperium Falls

Shifting Waters

Cellars Revisited

The Last Stand

Daylight

Epilogue

Bonus Content:

Map

Names and Terms

About the Author

PRELUDE

Water lapped lazily against the two bodies lying at the shoreline. Thick dark stringers of congealing blood extended from wounds in their bodies like the contorted tentacles of an octopus.

People from all around were beginning to gather, whispering to one another about the foreigner. About what the pākehā had just done.

Stormwind looked down at his ornate rapier, the twin lightning bolts dripping with crimson cruor. He looked over to her, her indigo eyes wide in horror.

What have you done? she whispered.

I… I had to my lady, he said back to her.

Murderer! a voice screamed from somewhere behind him. Honorless vermin! another joined in.

Stormwind reached out and grabbed her hand. They ran…

THE BATTLE OF KOBAPEELI

Ember and ash danced across the air, making little pirouettes as it sailed by on invisible currents. Flickers of orange were the only sources of light visible through the blackness of dense smoke. The fields of reed were afire and the rolling flames and intense heat were pushing them ever closer to the bridge over Kobapeeli.

The Dark Elf looked up through the haze of fire and pallor to where he thought the moon to be above. Aside from the burning fields and black smoke, the night favored his enemies. The clouds were so profuse, and the skies so overcast, that even the moon and stars refused to show themselves. He grunted his displeasure at how even nature was against them.

Ash drifted and covered his dark brethren, turning them the same color as their adversaries the Kiritea, a massive clan of pale skinned, round-eared humans who worshiped a single god.

He looked at his painted warriors and grunted once more. There was nowhere for them to go now. They were at the end of the line. Only death waited beyond, on the ancient edifice that stood over the massive river Kobapeeli. Far below the bridge, strong deep waters could swallow any Elf whole. It was over for the Dakhym peoples.

Their warrior-goddess walked up beside him as he viewed his kin beyond. We cannot surrender hope yet, she said quietly beside him, reading the obvious look on his face.

He looked over to the woman who had done the impossible with their people. She had united the clans for their survival. Singh, the Lioness. If not for her, their skirmishing, independent, and warlike ways would have let the kiritea overwhelm them before they could have even tried to rally a defense. Singh had seen the pale tides shift against them. She had warned them all in enough time that a few clans had survived. Her leadership had kept them all alive over the past five winters of fighting. She had become their dame, their mother, their goddess. She was their Matriarch now.

How can we not? he found himself asking her. We have been pushed back so far from our lands by the sea. We are so few now, less than ten thousand of us remain. Now death awaits us all on that bridge. I am no coward, but I fear the beyond.

The dark Elf watched as Singh’s personal servant walked up beside her, his back hunched slightly from the weight of service to the woman over the last few winters, from tending to her armor, sword, and spear. He wore little more than tattered robes, now grey from the constant miasma of ash that poured on them from the burning fields of fire. The Dark Elf felt his nose crinkle in disgust at the sight of the slave.

The Pononga.

The pononga were nothing more than slaves to the higher members of the clans. A sub-class, lowest of the low, the pononga were clanless, either won from battles of destroyed clans, or purchased as exiles from their previous clan for despicable acts. These men had no ties to their past, no clan to call home, and no reason to be alive. Their only purpose in their miserable existence was to serve their master, or die for them.

He despised the pononga.

I have no answers that will quell your fears, Gensai, she said, drawing his attention back to her. I can only say that if we hope to survive as a species that we must cross that bridge. Moreover, I intend to do just that. I will not die this day cowering like a terrified house cat, painted pale like those that have warred with us for the last five winters. I will fight like a lioness protecting her children from the hunters that seek to place them on pikes for their so called ‘god’!

A cheer rose up around her as she spoke.

"Some say we have been pushed west to these mountains by the colorless round ears. I say that it is here that we have been guided! For are we not creatures of the stone? Do we not hear its soft song singing to us when our fingers brush against its surface? Do we not feel its strength in the soles of our feet? Can you not feel the power of these primal goliaths deep in our hearts, where they touch our souls?

This is where we belong! she yelled. As one with the rising peaks of granite and slate. We are surrounded by our strength, not our weakness! They think they have defeated us. They think that we are trapped, held off from the mountains by the Jasian Purists of the West and pursued by the kiritea of the East. They think that today we fall as a species. I say they are wrong. This is where we stop the kiritea from hounding our backs. We take this bridge! And we show those pale devils that we Dark Elves will not die!

Again, the Dakhym roared in approval. Gensai looked around in astonishment. How her words, so simple, had lifted their hearts, and lightened the fear they felt within them.

Singh raised her spear high into the air and screamed in rage. Over the scorched fields her voice could be heard ringing to all those behind her. She charged towards the bridge with her servant in tow.

Gensai screamed too, caught up in the power of the moment. As a swarm of ashen creatures, they surged forth in a great wave towards the bridge.

The thick ash and black smoke cleared from his eyes as they broke free of the flaming tract. Ahead of them he found the massive formations of stone stabbing high into starless night sky. Looming beasts, tall and imposing, cast their weight over him like a lumbering shadow, but he was not afraid of them, for he followed his Matriarch.

He watched as she charged fearlessly forward, her spear waving above her head. Her white hair billowed behind her, trailing the dusty remnants of ash like a long banner. Still she roared in defiance, her voice so strong that it carried over the torrential waters churning in the chasm ahead of them. Then it came into sight.

Kobapeeli…

The bridge.

As wide as twenty Elves abreast, the ancient stone structure had stood for over three millennia, from a time where all recorded history had been lost. The megalithic construct had cracks in over a hundred places, and the shaped stone had long lost the square cut precision it had once had. Worn by wind and erosion, many of the blocks were nothing more than rounded rubble piled upon each other. The sheer weight of the ages bearing down on it held it together.

Ancient monoliths stood on the corners of the four thousand foot long overpass. Each statue had at one time been representative of a man, but time and wind had worn it away to nothing more than odd shaped mounds that little resembled whom it might have been. In addition, underneath those towering monstrosities, were the humans. The men that stood upon the structure waiting for the charging horde of Dark Elves seemed unafraid that the stone conduit would ever betray them.

They were Purists.

Devoted humans sworn to their god the Maker, these crusaders had chosen to side against the Dakhym with the kiritea of the East. Now they held the bridge, the bridge that would spell the Dark Elves’ freedom, or their doom.

Behind the line of Purist steel, Gensai could see the massive bodies of war engines. Trebuchets. Their long arms stretched and released massive stones into the air. Gensai watched as the boulders cut through the smoke-laden sky and descended towards the charging ranks of Elves.

The stones crashed down with devastating effects, rending deep lines through the flesh and blood Dakhym. Screams of pain and agony assailed his ears, shaking his resolve.

Keep moving! Singh yelled nearby him. Do not let their machinations unhinge our purpose! We must survive!

Rocks rained down around them, but still they rushed forward to the awaiting Purists. They believed their faith in their god would protect them from the blasphemous Dark Elves. They believe their siege engines would shatter their morale and destroy the Elves. Were it not for Singh, they may have.

Her courage drove them forward like a pike into the very heart of the Purist line. Her spear flashed and clanged against the platemail of the heavily armored warriors, finding holes in the thick metal skin and rending flesh and bone from the holy knights. At her side was her servant, wildly swinging his club to protect his master.

They pounded into the ranks of Purists like a hammer against an anvil. The dark Elven warriors outmanned them almost two to one, yet the weaponry and armor was superior to the ragtag weaponry of the Elves.

The Purists stalwartly defended the bridge, giving very little ground to the dark tide of Elves. The Elves’ spears jabbed and clubs mashed but they had little effect against the better-equipped humans.

Still Dame Singh pushed forward, gaining a single step after another on the Purist lines. Dark Elves began to fall by the dozens, clutching severed limbs and mortal wounds. Blood slicked the ancient slate beneath their feet, soaking into the old stones around them.

Boulders continued to rain down behind them with a thunderous shaking. The bridge rumored beneath his feet with each impact of stone against earth. He could not hear the screams anymore behind him over the ringing of steel from the weapon and armor of the Purist before him. They encompassed everything in those bitter moments.

Then, before Gensai’s eyes, he witnessed a most horrific sight. An axe slipped through his Matriarch’s defenses, cleaving deep into her abdomen. A crimson geyser erupted from the wound as the axe ripped from her body, and he could suddenly hear the shocked grunt of pain as he watched his Matriarch topple to the ground. All fell still upon the battlefield, as the unified clans watched in dismay as their only hopes bled away on the elder stones beneath their feet.

A scream cut through the night air, a violent keen that wrenched the Dark Elf out of his inaction. The slave of Singh saw what had happened to his beloved master. Suddenly he fought with more savagery than Gensai had ever witnessed. In mere seconds the defending line of Purists were cut down, and more poured in across the bridge’s expanse. The pononga did not wait for them. He charged forward alone towards the wash of steel and iron. A certain death.

Yet to Gensai’s surprise, the slave’s reckless courage seemed to bolster his fellow Dakhym and they too charged to meet their superior enemy. He moved with the horde into the Purist lines.

From Gensai’s vantage, he could see the slave surrounded, fighting furiously against the humans with nothing but his club. Gensai watched as the Purists moved forward against the slave he had utter disdain for. Look out! he found himself yelling to the servant.

The pononga heard him. His eyes glinted towards the axe flashing down to bury itself in his skull. The pononga caught the head of the weapon on the top of his club, and then he lunged upwards with a speed that the Purist did not expect. The pononga used no weapon, but instead bit down like a wild animal upon the Purist’s neck.

He ripped backwards violently, taking the human’s throat with him. Blood, thick and red, jetted from the grotesque wound and across the pononga’s face and arms. He revelled in it, spitting out the wad of meat and wagging his tongue as the crimson mire drenched him.

The Purists, aghast at the Dark Elf’s barbarism, lunged at him, intent on striking him down. However, no weapon could find perch against the grief stricken servant. The pononga slammed his club against the shield of a Purist, shattering the handle of the axe buried in the club. Only the axe head remained, creating an oblong, crescent like blade atop the weapon.

The pononga used this modified club with devastating effect, bludgeoning and slicing deeply into the entrenched lines of Purists. There was something about watching a slave fight so hard for their Matriarch that bolstered the people in ways Gensai would not have thought possible. This nearly defeated race of Elves suddenly assaulted the Purist lines with renewed vigor.

The pononga kicked up a spear from a fallen warrior, and using the club in one hand, spear in the other, began a dance that no Purist could keep up. He cut a line through their numbers, Dark Elves in tow, pushing across the bridge. Then, before the Gensai knew it, all the Purists were gone, either dead under their feet or fleeing in terror at the rancor of the Dark Elves. Once more the pononga roared, as much in the revelry of victory as in the pain of the price.

With the Purists gone, slowly the pononga walked back to the fallen Matriarch. He fell to her prone form, tears flowing from his eyes. He picked up her body and held her in his arms as the Dakhym looked down on the duo in silence.

Gensai watched in pain and misery as a shaky hand came up to the servant’s face. Thin obsidian fingers wiped away the ashy coat upon the man’s dark skin. Hold this bridge for our kind, my Pononga, she said weakly. Wash this white from the black flesh of our people. Let them bathe in the waters surrounded by these stonewalls. Make these mountains a home for our people.

I will, he whispered.

She smiled weakly at him. Then I will be awaiting you on the other side, she said, Not as your master, but as your best friend. She fell still in his arms, her glassy eyes staring away to a world that only she saw.

The pononga closed her eyes and laid her gently on the ground. Slowly he stood up and looked at all the people around him. Dame Singh wishes us to make our home here, he said loudly to the Dark Elves. Then he turned towards Gensai, I want you to see it done.

Me? Gensai replied.

The pononga nodded, My dame has always had great respect for you Gensai, last of Clan Uthido. See that her wish is honored.

Gensai nodded at the pononga. I understand, he said.

When we win this war, we cannot go back to our old ways. Not completely. You must see to it. We need a Matriarch to guide us, to keep the clans from killing each other. We need a Singh, the pononga told Gensai, and the Dark Elf