The Grandmaster of Sarthas - Chapter 26

Story by Ceberune on SoFurry

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#5 of The Grandmaster of Sarthas

A taste of Sarthian Justice, shown with brutal efficiency. But what secrets does the Grand Master hide?


The wolf surveyed his position. His breath blowing through his nostrils and condensing in the cold pre-dawn air. The two main sharp shooter positions were already in place, the others were setting up. The vanguards were set, prepared to charge forth silently or loudly as required. Traps were laid and skirmishers hidden and ready to do their grim work. He signaled into the woods and out stepped Bomani, in his full armor and ready for war. He stepped into camp challenged by several guards, and with a smirk he roared his challenge. As expected, Bsani from all over the camp began to move towards the challenge. Thirty seconds later, Ceberune gave another signal. The Vanguard moved forward as quietly as a heavily armed and armored unit can to take their first objective. He smiled as many foolish to attempt resistance fell to both Vanguard troops and well placed sharpshooter nests. Once they had a good forward momentum, he signaled a third time as ten individuals rose up from hiding around the wolf and gathered around him, to move as one towards their own objective. Bomani smiled as he spied the wolf and his unit begin to move as he braced for the first challengers to begin to attack him, Bianca stepped out from her camouflage and loosed bolts of her deadly electricity into the foolishly gathering bsani warriors. Once the crackling thunder of Bianca's magic echoed through the camp, the vanguard roared in challenge, the bsani in the camp now thoroughly confused as the vanguard secured their objective quickly and bunkered down. Chaos then began to break out in earnest as the camp suddenly realized that there was now a Vangaurd unit fortifying itself within the camp bounds. The wolf spotted a signal from one of the vanguard and nodded, quietly sneaking up behind one of the nervous guards before running him through with his wakizashi. Once the guard was confirmed neutralized, he signaled the unit with him and they began to escort the young slaves out of camp and to their rally point. The wolf nodded to the unit sergeant who took command and quickly moved the children out of the camp, leaving the young wolf lord to fend for himself. Bianca and Bomani were easily holding their own between magic, might and two supporting sharpshooter positions. He began to make his way toward the vanguard positions as he came under attack. He smiled when he spotted his attacker, a female amarok, using paired knives. He dodged her attempted sneak attack and parried the follow ups before he set himself for a proper fight. "I am going to kill you cur." She said dangerously. The wolf sighed, his eye flashing blue as he spoke one of the elemental tongues before he sheathed his blades. Bianca heard the female and winced. "Bomani...I do believe that Ceberune will be providing an example shortly." She said, the tiger's ears fold back against his skull and he winced. "Was the word used?" He asked as he continued fighting. "It was..." she said as the earth beneath them began to quake. The tiger then grappled his current opponent and pointed to the battle that would soon be taking place. The vanguard began to pull back and join skirmish teams in containment actions as sporadic fighting continued. Most fighting had stopped as the camp alpha now faced off against the lord of the land. "You are dead male...I am faster, stronger, better trained. You have no chance..." He interrupted her. "Then let me enlighten you as to how very wrong you are..." he said, moving faster than she thought possible. She tried to react, but felt two fingers touch her sternum before her brain could force movement in her limbs. Before she could brace herself, the blow she was expecting never followed it, but she was most certainly airborne. As she flew through the air with velocity as the wolf's eye glowed a familiar blue, stone gauntlets forming around his arms as he stomped about in what seemed a random pattern on the ground. The earth shook from each impact heeding a master's call as it prepared to do as it was asked. The female was able to recover and landed without too much damage as she stood up and shook herself off, some twenty five feet from the now stationary male. His stance shifted from the slow and steady earth to that of the void, balanced, versatile. The female looked around and picked up her knives growling as she began to charge. "This is not going to end well..." Bianca quipped as she loosed another round of lightning on those bsani still foolish enough to approach her. Bomani strained a moment before audible bone snaps were heard as he release the lifeless body of his opponent. "What isn't?" he asked turning just in time to see The wolf spring into action. "Oh hells..." Bomani said as the impact of his first blow seemed to give the camp another quake as the female doubled over. The gut punch landing right in her solar plexus. She gasped for breath as the knives fell from her paws. Ceberune turned to her, stomping the ground again. As she painfully began to stand again the wolf spoke a word of teralingua, triggering a spire of stone to shoot up beneath the female, impaling her neatly through the soft tissue of her muzzle, through her tongue and palate, neatly cleaving her nasal passage in two and extending a good inch from the top of her muzzle. The female stood staring at the sharp rock needle,too shocked to do much else besides whimper in pain. Ceberune now spoke in an authoritative voice to those still alive in the camp. "My name is Ceberune Onyxclaw. Grandmaster of the Elements and Lord of the land upon which you trespass. By order and contract, I sentence all those still living to death for the crime of selling underage slaves to the schools and to various other customers. Run, and die tired. Fight and die in vain. Cooperate and die quick and painlessly." He proclaimed. He then turned his eye balefully to the camp leader. "The only exception is you..." he said, giving the signal to withdraw from the camp. As his forces began to secure what they could and fall back the wolf spoke so that only the profusely sweating and trapped female could hear him. "Your doom will be of an epic scale. The matriarchy must be reminded what happens when they meddle in the affairs of a Grandmaster." He smiled with malice. "And you made the monumental mistake of calling me a cur..." He smiled evilly now. "Normally I would do as my sensei and his previous students would. Imprison you, impregnate you, and then send you back home to remind your queen who penetrates who." He said with some amusement. "I suppose you are fortunate that I am still not able to mate, much less breed just yet, and that is not likely to change in the foreseeable future, but as my forces vacate and I prepare to sink your camp into the ground, I have some time to interrogate you..." he said as he spoke a few words of Teralingua as the spire impaling her muzzle shrank back into the ground under foot. The female quickly cradled her muzzle and moved to staunch the flow of blood through the gaping wounds as the wolf spoke. "Who do you work for?" he asked icily. She looked and him and spat out blood instead of answering him. "I see you were not properly trained in courtly behavior, but that is off topic. Answer my question." He said then spoke another word of the earth tongue, a spike of stone shooting up just behind her heel and angling up to punch cleanly through her leg. She gave out a muffled howl of pain and tried to move away. She was pinned as another spike shot through her other leg at the same angle. "My patience will last much longer than your blood supply female. I know he is watching us, right now, from his airship. He is debating if he wants to bombard the camp, kill you, hope to kill me and as many of yours and my forces as possible. An honorable commander will hold his fire, thinking to get his revenge personally later. The criminal would open fire without a second thought, heedless of the consequences later. The General would see far more, including the fact that these woods are druid protected. If he opened fire his ship would not survive the trip to the coast." He said with a smile. "Which do you think he is?" he said with a smirk. She became nervous as the wolf stood there. Then he spoke another word of teralingua and stone spikes shot up and went straight through the females paws. "Now.....who do you work for?" The female snarled with adrenalin fueled rage, which just prompted another smirk. "Your rage is understandable...beaten and held fast by a male of your own race. A shame the satisfaction will not last long." He said as he shouted a word of the earth tongue, causing Bianca and Bomani to fall back out of the camp faster as the ground began to rumble. Seconds later, the only ground left in camp were the patches holding the Grandmaster and his prisoner. The rest of the camp was nothing more than a hole in the ground. The female watched as her camp simply disappeared from view. Everything she had worked for swallowed into the grip of the cold earth as the male in front of her smiled. Screams echoed from the crater as many of her forces fell to their deaths; the wolf spoke one last time that she could hear him properly. "Your fate will be merciful compared to the fate of the rest of your forces female. As your recovery team moves through here trying to find out what happened, they will see your corpse impaled as it is with one difference." He said, speaking a single syllable of the earth tongue as one last spire of earth peierced her sternum and emerged from her back, missing her spine just enough so that she would feel every bit of pain visited upon her before she died. "And when they try to talk to you through their borderline necromantic rituals they will be in for a huge surprise." He said drawing a rune on her chest in her own blood. "Because the necro hunters will get here first, they will see the scene I have left, they will trap you and all the corpses high enough in the ground to be raised. When the fire storm dies down I will be here, waving at what remains of your body as your soul leaves for the planes." As life left her body the wolf whispered in her ear on last thing before the earth rushed back to fill in the space it had vacated. "I am your doom and the doom of all you hold dear female. Remember that into your next life." He said as he marched out of the clearing with purpose, leaving the now lifeless body in its impaled state. "I think that may have been a bit much Ceberune...." Said Bianca with some trepidation. The wolf looked grim. "A baseline must be established when punishment is set. In politics, as in business, there is a price for all things. With this act I hope to have set the price for my harm too high for the matriarchy to be willing to pay." Bianca sighed. "That is not what I meant wolf...the torture...you enjoyed it....." "You did dragon's student." Bomani added. The wolf sighed. "We all have our dark secrets. Our little monsters we keep bottled away until we need it. If the monster is not fed, it becomes hungry, waiting for the right moment to escape and feed on reality. My monster is a bit more...voracious than most. It is satisfied for now. Sated on the meal I allowed it to gorge itself upon. If the Fortunes look upon me favorably, it will remain so for a long time. If not, you will find out why Helenka stayed away from me for three months back in school." He said simply as he began to trudge to the rally point to hear casualty reports and organize their return back to the Estate. Bianca and Bomani looked at each other worriedly then turned to follow him.