Conquest Of The Fallen: Dark Dominions

"I control the gold trades from here to Skoatl. The routes of merchants. The silk bend. The treasures of Torchwood. Even to Rocasus. Why would I ever unite with you. . .uh, Rebel Lord is it? What do you bring me that I haven't got. Unlike that greying ale-guzzer in Caer Mullhen, I still have a few more years before I am expendable to my camp." Grone the Grievous interrupted the Vestal to his House who was acting as a herald.

"You are in the presence of—"

"That will be enough, Natalya." Grone has butted a few seconds ago, then just later listing on what and whom he controlled in the Badlands.

Right now, he waited on a reply from Israfel.

The troop of visitors were sat on a vibrant Florentia rug that was soft as redfields and smelled of sprigs. Rafel sat cross-legged in front of Grone's Viking lion throne—made of gold silk, gilded wood, and real gold. His samurais in their horrid Oni masks sat around him, their grips curled around their long Katanas; they didn't drop their hawk eyes one bit from the tattooed blondes flanking Grone's throne.

"His daughters I'm guessing." Rafel was granted an earful from Cora who leaned in to whisper from behind. He counted about nine of the striking gold-haired sunshines before he really, really needed to look away. In a place of his perv brain where no one could hear, he thought, 'Holy crackers! If I had daughters like that, I'd wanna fuck them too.'

"Hello?!" Grone waved in front of Rafel's face. "Is Rebel Lord deaf?" He had a cringe accent to his smug face Rafel didn't like. In addition to being a 10ft Goliath, Grone was also blonder than a blind sun. His full braid, like spun hay rolled in one of the glorious summers they got at the Capital, hung down his back as he sat on the throne.

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The pelt of a leopard was the only thing on his shoulders. Underneath, great slabs of muscle and a very healthy abdominal girth showed. Grone the Grievous looked like a man who could eat a fuckin' hog whole.

"Sire, you are yet to speak?" Damnameneus put in Rafel's ear. He was closest to Rafel on the Ottoman, no doubt stolen, rug.

Rafel cleared his throat then and found his voice.

"You ask, Lord Grone: what does this person bring to the table?" Rafel leaned in, the yellows of his eyes starker than the fucking gold of the meeting tent where Grone had received them after their abrupt and momentous collision in the camp's open square. He continued, looking directly into the eyes of the leonine Skullrider.

"First, let me tell you a few things about you, Lord Grone. When you spotted me in the square, I could read a few things off your face without needing to use my [Intuition]—and I have a pretty good class level. Number one: you thought, who's this bold Ginger to fucking strut into my fucking base?!"

"Hahahaha!" Grone laughed a big chowder laugh.

"I'm not done, Lord Grone. Secondly, your humble impression of me didn't change even after, as I'm sure you've heard, the stories of my [Divine] lineage. You didn't think me any more prolific or awesome knowing I come from Lucifer's loins. At this juncture, I must admit, for me; this is nice to witness. Not many men don't immediately turn kiss-asses at the mere mention of my Aunt's name.

They quake even. But not you. I like it. Thirdly, as you brought us into your tent and the presence of your House, you mused within that I was too young a man to be the face of a Rebellion... much less a rebellion that would rise against the reign of the Morningstar. An uprising of a kind not seen since the days of the Ellyrian march.

To these assumptions of yours, Lord Grone, I will tell you this: I am only as young as the desert. And only my kind—the demons abhorred can know a whisper of the time I have endured. I'll give you a brief insight: I own a [Kronos Bubble]."

Everyone in the gilded somber innards of the tent gasped. But Rafel was not done.

"You, Lord Grone, even in your vast dominion of the Badlands, are emperor to a smidge on the Continent. A crust on the map. Though you have a wealth of gold—robbed off finer hands to last your daughters and their children, respectfully, you are still nothing more than a glorified miner."

Rafel had to pause for his words to sink in. Grone the Goliath had stopped laughing; he looked more grievous at the moment, scratching his beard and trying not to show to his desert council and hot blonde daughters that Rafel's words had struck a nerve. A real fucking nerve!

"—and sooner or later, the Titans at the Empire are going to come for blood. My Aunt merely amuses herself with your imagined independence. They laugh about you guys thinking you're wasteland kings or something in their recess and fucking spa. Lilith doesn't give a shite about you guys because she doesn't really need to; she can walk in here and take this place from your hands...like that!"

Rafel slashed his fingers in a click. "She took the fucking Capital of the entire Empire. The greatest city of the Continent. Do you really think a couple of thieves with test-drive machines stand a chance? At her fury? Don't kind yourself! And trust me on this, her fury is coming. Without even knowing it, you have made an enemy of her: you let me hide out in your territory.

And trust me when I tell you this, my Aunt has no fucking enemies. Know why? They're all fucking dead.

With the Dowager, you either kiss the ring, or the flame. Before I murdered that mad cunt, the King-for-a-Year, I was housed by a school of magic in Corynthia. You know what my Auntie did to that place, yeah?" He scoffed for effect.

"She brainwashed its fucking headmistress and razed our Citadel to rubble. That place had stood for two millennia—until the arrival of Lilith. Tell me, Lord Grone, how long has this base stood?"

Grone sat straighter in his lion throne. He adjusted the fur of his leopard hide too.

"You might have the mightiest force in vulture country, but the tyrants ruling Titans Landing have the Blackguard. They have Faeries in their Court. Demigods. Dragons. [A-Rank] Hellions from pits under that would chill your blood. If Lilith marches against the Bonelands, you all would wish for a desert to come back to. Now, I do not say all this to frighten you lot. That is the last thing I'll ever do.

But I only want to paint the picture of exactly were you are in the hierarchy of battle right now. To show you," Rafel looked around the tent, rising to his feet, "that you really have no other choice in the matter I bring here to you today." His gaze slid back to the large Skullrider on the throne of stolen gold.

"Lord Grone," said Rafel in a haunting voice, "your father was Khrogan the Mighty. He slayed great wyrms and mammoth-pedes in these lands. He was a desert hero. Your decision today, golden Skullrider depends on what you shall be remembered as. But this war is not just for a page in the Bards Book. It is also for the future." Rafel moved his eyes to the nine bombshell blondes flowing out from Grone's throne.

He dropped his voice: "if not for you, for them." He looked again to the aged council members of the base; "and them." He pointed to a group of little, goldenhaired kids playing with wooden figurines in a corner. "And them." Rafel said. "Do it for all your people. JOIN ME, SKULLRIDER. And we just might have a chance of taking on the gods of the Underworld—and actually winning."

Rafel turned to face those in the tent. His amber iris radiated from his own company, his gorgeous harem seated right in front him down across to the Vestal of House Grone shrouded in her moon garments in a shadowed corner. He said with unblinking eyes and a sure timber voice.

"I can't promise the war to be soft on us. But I can promise that in the aftermath, there'll be no need for Badlands anymore. You won't need to rob to feed. To cloth. To fuck." Chuckles erupted. But Rafel didn't stop. "You'd be able to turn a decent salary. To earn your gold. In a free world. A realm liberal to all species. And I mean [Mechas] too. If you wanna walk around as half-machines, you'd be accepted just as a Fae would.

Your Skullrider asked me what I promised. Well here it is, I promise Nirvana."

The [Map Magnificus] exploded once again in a burst of magic from the hands of Damnameneus. As at Caer Mullhen, those in the tent were granted the picture of utter paradise that the desert could be: a [virtual realm] of singing birds, roaming stags, fat fish, flowing brooks, and endless possibilities.

And this was all within reach.

As the [VR] world collapsed back in a splendor of rainbow light, Rafel turned back to the gild throne. He met Grone's leonine face squarely. "So what do you think, blondie?"

Everyone in the tent watched the mighty Skullrider lift all ten-foot bulk of himself and rise. He spat on his hand and stretched it out to Rafel.

"You are the first demon I've ever fucking liked."

Rafel spat and shook his hand. "I fucking like you too, barbarian."

"Hahahaha!" Grone's big laugh boomed again.

The silent Vestal slipped out from the shadows and blessed the condition of the First Triune Skullrider to unify with the others under a single banner. She called for Visha and Magvath, Char and Suldame, and The Martyr to bless the coming war. In not so many words, Grone the Grievous had agreed to march to fucking war.

Later in the evening, as they sipped from the froth of well-aged ale, Rafel was joined by Grone and his surrey of beautiful blonde daughters by a roaring bonfire. The dome of the [Hex Gate] shimmered above them but didn't block out the starlit night.

Joining them again was the quiet Vestal. Grone sat down with a huff.

His daughters—like always hugged him. It looked even more incestuous under the campfire orange light. "Have you met Natalya?" Grone introduced with a hypnotic blonde in his lap. "She our own personal Vestal. The Supreme Mother sent her here when a [Blood Rot] hit our children. She doctored us all back to health, but then decided to remain at base with us. Natalya is. . .how do you say? Uh..."

"Indispensable." One of the girls finished for her father.

"Yes. Haha! Indispensable." Grone laughed.

Rafel watched the woman everyone talked about sit quietly and roast meat on a stick. She still had her veils on, but sometimes in the last three hours she had exchanged it for a black one. Vestals took modesty to the extremes. No one disrespected them. Not even in the territory of madmen.

Rafel regarded Natalya for a bit more; under the widow's cowl, he could see she was very fetching.

Grone broke out a piece of a fowl's fat thigh, browned in the flames of the bonfire.

"We all just call her the Virgin of the Coldflame."

"Huh," Rafel nodded, "catchy."

"Yeah. I didn't come up with it." Grone muttered.

He snorted. "Oh, and my dad was a piece of shit."

Rafel met his eyes, and both men burst out in a very loud laughter share. Their rumbles carried off into the stars twinkling above the cool desert like purring of the machines sleeping in the dim. Rafel was still laughing when he noticed the soft glowing of a red organ under Natalya's black habit, in her chest.

Thump. Thump. Thump. It beat steadily.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

His laughs didn't fade. But he knew: the Vestal had a mechanical heart.

She was a [Mecha].

Coldflame, huh? Now he got it.