Shattered Limbo

The smell carried on the wind long before anything else.   They knew it was likely- Shia’s own had warned such, that the crossing may become a target, and so the priests armed themselves and marched out through the snow, both tasks as best as they could given the lack of resources. The lack of time. The lack of preparedness.   Rotting, festering, decay on the wind that permeated through mask and goggles and scarf, the stench alone seeming to corrupt the pure white blanket across the world moreso than the blood of his followings being spilled upon it.   So many had hoped that the long held idea the Greedy One never crossed that frozen lake during the divine’s gatherings was a fact of law of the world, as much as gravity.   The skeletal serpent tore through easily, on putrid black smoke so much unlike that which clung to the other gods. Silent, yet in much the form as a typhoon in his force, those in the way simply… ceasing.   One could hardly call that death, the way their bodies were mangled so.   War horns droned and the crows sang their crooked tunes regardless as the battles raged. A wave of his twisted following put down one after the other, the bodies heaping upon the snow, theirs thankfully slightly more than those they took down with them, but this position could not be held forever. There was only so much ammo to be had, so much energy for constant fighting, and the vile serpent’s host seemed endless. No matter how skilled they themselves were, they did need to eat, to sleep, to rest eventually. No matter how many boons the pantheon had given, it was of little matter if they were simply swarmed and beaten by stick and rock until little more than a pulp before they could even be used.   Dragons brayed and hawed beyond the trees.   In such darkness, one could not tell if they were blood nor lunar, only that they tumbled through branches, taking whole trees with them in their fighting, their flames erupting like mighty geysers as they spun and crashed through the branches.   There was an insistent sound, like a banging on the world itself.   For too long it went ignored- It was just dragons fighting. Bodies falling. The thump of stones and trunks and heaves of snow shoved aside amidst the combat, surely. Surely it had little to do with how the Greedy One perched upon the cave, looking much too pleased as a tree fell, cascading and taking a caravan down.   The banging on the world refused to be ignored, growing more insistent. Another tree heard, even over the war horns. Each thump growing slightly more heard over gunshots and the crunch of snow beneath people’s feet as they moved forward until a putrid howl came from below like none had ever heard, based on the looks of those who stopped.   Many were cut down, in that moment, as the earth itself quaked.   Perhaps it was Lapi, striking out against Hilathu, a too hopeful thought but one of dread just the same. She had never been known for her care of mortal life, only stones and ores and how the world could be shaped like clay.   The whole of the forest seemed to quake and erupt, with more of those putrid clouds much like those of the serpent. Great stones bigger than houses coming down from where they were flung. People crushed beneath the debris, bodies unseen as soil roiled like a pot of water upon a flame-   Great talons.   Talons came from below, followed by a snout, the dirt expelled with such force from that thing’s nostrils it was like a volcano, and it howled.   The sound shook bones that already ached from the cold, rattling them as if they were glass and smaller ones felt like they broke just from the wave of it, drowning out the screams to a mere afterthought as that horrific thing twisted and writhed, taking the serpent between its jaws.   A tail, longer than a city block if one were to guess, slammed against one of the woodpecker’s trees and it became but a simple matchstick to break.   Even in darkness, one could tell when there was a shadow above and too quickly coming down.   It was hot.   It was humid.   Like seafoam washing over, and the sting upon the eyes like that of the sea’s waters as the air seemed to turn to fluid, choked by noxious gasses. It hung in the air like smoke but yet clung to everything, every coalescing droplet feeling like acid upon the skin.   Still that thing howled, whatever had happened to the serpent’s corpse unseen as breathing became harder.   It felt like drowning.   Drowning upon dry land, throat quivering and quaking as that horrific thing raged, snapping at anything and everything left alive, wailing and braying. Unmerciful as its limbs missed simply crushing those trapped below it, unable to be put down.   To take advantage, perhaps, a lunar swooped, and looked dead before it hit the ground, battle cries turning to choked gurgles and dying on its last breath.   Even as they’d taken their last, bodies growing cold as the snow still falling, eyes remained open and watched. A mountain made flesh simply thrashing and wailing. Those sounds almost a cry, could one call it one of sorrow?   Bodies that could not draw breath but yet refused the release- they were more than broken enough for it. It was no compliment, as the wolf’s own had said, to be suffered to live what would have killed lesser men.   Perhaps they were already-   No.   They knew.   Even as the flesh froze, forever twisted and mangled. Minds yet trapped, hollow eyes drying against the biting winds.   The God of Death considered how to proceed when they did not form a ghost, their essence flailing about but seeming nailed down- tethered somehow. Still and yet thrashing.   This was not as things were meant to be, they cried. They were meant to be dead, lives given in service of the gods, those who shaped the world and bent it to their wills. Molded them like clay just the same, forms so easily twisted into their grand visions, mere droplets of power to their kind greater than the world’s ocean to mortals.   Yet shi could do nothing of the sort to fix this, only silently tilt their skull at the curiosity.   A priest swallowed roughly, despite not needing to breathe herself. It was the same for the next corpse, and the next, and the many dozens after that. Not all were so poetic in their thoughts, so… devout.   Devouts of the gods slain by the hundreds by something new, and that damnable Hilathu somewhere unknown. If he had raised that beast once, what other plans and machinations still were yet to come to fruition? He was a patient fellow even if pitifully stupid in his plots and goals, willing to let them fester like a slow wound.   “Shia.”   Great. The Child of Desperation, ever nipping at shi’s hooves, demanding answers.   “What the hell happened here?!” He was always loud. So loud, so ignorant to the ways the fates twisted and writhed, almost like they were in pain, like burning reeds. Now he could not be blind to them, watching their shifting forms seem to break and snap like branches underfoot.   “Hilathu has been siphoning my magic, for centuries perhaps.”   Those words came hollow as any before them, simple.   No epitaph or title was worthy of that slimy, ignorant, prideful little-   “You didn’t notice?!” He brayed much like the long suffering dragons, crushed beneath trunks thicker around than even their mighty bodies, just as unable as anyone else caught between the plumes that once mortal’s feeble mind tried to put to word when beckoned. The whole of the field was crying out as much as he for answers, a racket bouncing off of the plates of the god’s skull.   “Return to the Defiant One. Now.”   Benjamen froze stark stiff, his protests silenced in his throat, dead before they could even rise.   At least one thing here managed to properly.