Scaleless Rebels

  No one could remember exactly when slavery began under the Aj'Snaga, for it was lost in the folds of the centuries. The lords of the underground cities and the ash fortresses ruled with an iron fist, convinced of their own racial superiority, and regarded every other race as mud to be trampled. Men, elves, gnomes, and dwarves were dragged in chains to their cities, reduced to beasts of burden. Among them was Izlafeth, a dwarf of the Geld lineage, torn from his father's mines and the ancient songs of his people: relegated to the cold walls of a school in the city of Catus, where he was forced to teach rhetoric and philosophy to the Aj'Snaga scions.   But right there, within those same walls of oppression, the spark was born.   Izlafeth observed, learned, and in silence cultivated an idea: that strength lay not in whips, but in words. He saw how the young Aj'Snaga nobles were arrogant and blind, unable to see the humanity of those they called slaves. And every time a chained comrade was beaten, every time a child died of starvation, Izlafeth vowed to himself that it would not end this way.   The turning point came in Catus, a city of towers blackened by the smoke of the forges. There, the slaves were so numerous that they outnumbered the free population. Izlafeth spoke to them in secret nights, using the gift of his voice as an invisible weapon. "Chains are not steel," he said, "they are fears forged in our hearts. If we break those, nothing can hold us back."   And so the flame blazed.   One night, armed with hammers, hoes, and kitchen knives, the slaves revolted. The Aj'Snaga guards were overwhelmed by the wrath of tens of thousands of oppressed people. The city of Catus burned like a torch, and not a single Aj'Snaga survived the massacre. Chains were broken, warehouses looted, and for the first time the slaves tasted freedom.   But freedom always comes at a price.   News of the massacre spread quickly. The Aj'Snaga kingdom could not tolerate the rebellion and sent an army to crush it. Izlafeth knew he could not win in open battle, but it was then that he encountered Taeris, a former warrior elf slave turned gladiator. Taeris forged the rebels into a makeshift army, and together they led the march south, hoping to reach the ports of the Sea of Mists and embark for the elven lands.   It was near the city of Vupji that the rebels faced their first real obstacle: a regular force from the kingdom. Thousands of soldiers marched in formation, armed with spears and shields bearing the "Head of Madusa," the symbol of the Aj'Snaga oppressors, led by officers sworn to shed rivers of rebels blood. But the rebels, though lacking discipline, possessed the fire of desperation and the military genius of Taeris.   Izlafeth led them with her voice, haranguing the crowd of slaves before battle. "You are no longer servants! You are no longer prey! You are the thunder that shakes the night, the hammer that shatters tyranny!"   The din of the Battle of Vupji echoed for days. The rebels used ambushes, fires, and traps, turning the narrow roads and surrounding woods into a death trap. Against all odds, the Aj'Snaga army was repelled: their lines broken, their banners trampled in the mud.   But victory immediately brought with it the most awful of news.   An entire Aj'Snaga legion, ten times the number of their previous foe, was already on the march. Their masters' vengeance was coming, and the rebels had neither the time nor the strength to sustain another direct clash. So, in the night that followed, they began a desperate flight.   Izlafeth and Taeris led tens of thousands of men, women, and children through the wild forests west of Vupji. It was a terrible march: pouring rain, knee-deep mud, and the constant wail of war horns signaling the legion's pursuit. Many fell exhausted, others preferred to brave the beast-infested woods rather than return in chains.   The Aj'Snaga gave no respite. Patrols of riders on battle reptiles attempted to block the paths, and fires were set to force the fugitives into the swamps. But Izlafeth, with his voice, kept hope alive. When spirits wavered, he stood on a rock, and his words were like a flame in the darkness: "Every step you take is a step toward a free future! Every breath you take is an affront to our masters!"   The Rebels will remember that escape as the "March of Shadows." It wasn't a retreat: it was an exodus, an entire people racing against time. Mothers clutched their newborns to their breasts, the old were supported by the young, and even the wounded dragged themselves along, guided only by the charisma of the unyielding dwarf.   Finally, after days of marching, the forests opened before the vast marshes surrounding Cothussiph, the port city of Aj'Snaga. Hundreds of kilometers still separated them from its walls, black and menacing, protected by garrisons and traps. But for them, it was the last barrier separating them from the sea, the last obstacle on the path to freedom.   And there, in the muddy marshes, their pursuers caught up with them.   The Aj'Snaga legion could not allow the rebels to escape, and closed in around them. But Izlafeth did not tremble. He raised his staff, its broken chains hanging like a banner, and shouted: "If this is the place of our end, let it also be the place where the Aj'Snaga learn to fear their slaves!"   Just when the refugee was organizing to made their last stand, a handful of battle-hardened slaves, most of them Aporoi, gladiator slaves, decided to sacrifice themselves and be chased by the soldiers into the heart of the swamp, a cursed place infested with monsters. Thanks to their sacrifice, Izlafeth and the other fugitives managed to evade the soldiers and flee into hiding.   The swamps before Cothussiph were a hell of black water, mud, and mists that hid monstrous creatures. Every step could be their last, yet it was there that Izlafeth and the rebels had been forced to take refuge, pursued like beasts by the Aj'Snaga legion.   For days they moved through canals, swamps, and submerged forests, their feet bruised and their bodies exhausted. The Aj'Snaga soldiers, well-armored and accustomed to the discipline of marching, soon discovered that this swamp could not be tamed. Armor sank into the mud, heavy war reptiles broke their legs or sank into quicksands, swamp insects brought fevers that even the priests could not stop.   It was then that desperation turned to miracle.   Izlafeth was leading the rebels along a seemingly pointless path when he spied some broken towers emerging from the mist. The roots of ancient trees had enveloped them, but they were still standing, beyond a high walls, stand an entire city buried by the swamp and forgotten by time. A ghost city.   No one knew its name. Some called it Nysarith, "the City of Silence." Others claimed it was a city of the Ancients, from the times before the rise of the new gods, swallowed up centuries earlier by the swamp. Whatever its origins, for the rebels it was like a promised land. The streets were deserted, but the buildings offered shelter, the wells still provided drinkable water, and beneath the collapsed temples lay catacombs where thousands of fugitives could hide.   Meanwhile, the Aj'Snaga legion was lost in the swamp. Convinced that the rebels before them was the mass of the fugitives, they marched relentlessly, but every day they lost men: devoured by amphibious beasts, swallowed by the mud, or killed by fever. When they finally discovered that they had been pursuing a small group of warriors, now reduced to a few dozen, and would never be able to flush out the remaining rebel slaves, they were forced to retreat behind the walls of Cothussiph.   The rebels, strengthened by their hidden city, no longer needed to flee. They weren't enough to besiege Cothussiph, but they were too numerous and too entrenched in the swamp for the soldiers to eliminate them. Every day, small groups emerged from Nysarith, ambushing patrols, burning warehouses, cutting supply lines. The swamp had become their ally, their shield.   Meanwhile, within the city walls, General Myklos and the other Aj'Snaga commanders stood guard, helpless. Every attempt to advance had turned into a death march. Every Aj'Snaga soldier who set foot in the black waters knew that it was not the rebel army they had to fear, but the swamp itself.   And so, time stood still.   The rebel slaves now lived in a city uncharted by any map, nourished by hunting and fishing, guided by the words of Izlafeth and the discipline of Taeris. The worn-out legion entrenched itself in Cothussiph, defending the city from the ghosts that moved through the mists.   And even today, as the Aj'Snaga kingdom prepares for new wars and Queen Arafdalia summons her armies to distant horizons, an endless conflict continues in the swamps of Cothussiph: a people of former slaves who have found a new homeland in freedom, and an army that cannot break them.   A stalemate, yes... but also a promise.   Because every day the rebels grow stronger, and every night the broken chains toll like war bells.   The legend of the **City of Silence** grows, and with it the fear that one day, from those swamps, will emerge not a people in flight... but an army of free peoples.