Unlikely Partners

Although Rolf had never seen a Stakor until now, he had collected a wealth of information about these beast-men from Shaman Nush's songs ever since he was a little boy.

Like her late mother Thungo, Nush, was the keeper of many acknowledges. Every-night, she sat down by the camp fire, surrounded by children and adults alike as she sang the ancient songs of the tundra. She sang Bok's First Landing, the divide of man and barbarians, the city in the sky where the dragons still slept and many many more.

In one of those songs, Bok the first man, had fought against a Stakor champion for a hundred and eight days and a hundred and eight nights but neither side could claim victory. So the two heroes dropped their weapons and signed a truce. To honor their pact, the two joined forces and used their mighty power to carve a line to mark each side's border. The line was said to be the Zama River that divided the Tundra in half. From there, the barbarians settlement scattered around the west bank of the mighty river while the Skators build a single settlement for all of them to share. Over time, the Stakor settlement grew and became what was known today as Stakorvgrad.

It blew Rolf's mind to think that a city that was so large that it could accommodate nearly half million rat men. Although Nush conceded that she had never been to Stakorvgrad, she believed that it was a forsaken place where crime and diseases multiplied and festered. Nush cautioned the young barbarians to stay away from the rat city; as the matter of fact, she believed that no barbarian should have crossed the Zama River from the outset.

Rolf's interest in the Stakors were not only due to his adolescent curiosity, but also because of a matter that was close to his heart: his origin. If Kram's story held at least half the truth, the land of Stakors across the Zama River was where he came from and where he might belonged.

In his teenage daydreams, he often fantasized that he was not a captive of the Stakors, but rather their child, and that the Stakors had looked after him and loved him like real parents. Nush had said that even wolves could nourish human babes, so it wasn't entirely impossible that he was raised lovingly by the Stakors.

Both Kram and Nush had warned Rolf about the Stakor's vicious and egotistical nature, but that couldn't stop Rolf from dreaming of escaping Kram's custody and to be reunited with his rat-parents. At the very least, Rolf had wagered, the Stakors wouldn't call him stupid name such as "rat-boy", since everyone was half rat and half men.

However, when Rolf final saw the rat men's hideous forms and smelled their appalling stench, Rolf thought better of going out of his hiding to embrace his rodent brethren.

From their bizarre appearance to the way their beady eyes shifted with malice, everything about these beast-men was unwholesome and repulsive.

Rolf noticed that these rat-men were covered with strange wounds all over their bodies. They had bandaged themselves in strips of blood-stained rags, with frayed ends that hang loosely. Yellow and green puss oozed out from the wounds that were not dressed with bandages. The hair on their legs and back were matted and had formed layers of clumps that were glued together by yellow fluids.

Their dented and bloodied armors were mostly made out of rusty metal plats that were linked with leather strips or chains. An assortment of cheap materials were used to construct their crud weapons: bones, stones, wood plants, and pig irons.

Through the screen of smokes, Rolf could see a few jail wagons on a path that led to the country road. In those wagons were frightened man and women that huddled together in tears. Rolf wagered that those must be the villagers.

The drivers of those wagons were humans dressed in red robes with golden trim along the hem. An emblem was pressed on to the back of the jail carts: a steel gauntlet on a field of white.

Such unlikely partners, Rolf thought to himself; never once had he thought that human would work side by side with Skators.

Rolf wasn't sure what to do or what to think of it. Parts of him wanted to charge out and save those villagers but the other half of him reasoned that there were no benefits in doing so and urged him to simply wait out the commotions. Even as Rolf contemplated his options, he hard voices coming from the center of the village where the smoke was thick as if a scribe had tipped an ink pot.

"I've told you not to waste the specimens! Look what you have done!" A man spoke furiously.

"Axtlutl has his-sss own ways. S-sss-top making noise-sss, human. Axtlutl is-sss annoyed." Another voice hissed. It wasn't entirely human. There were wet croaks in the throat and heavy lisps at the end of every word.

Rolf looked toward the voice but the speakers were behind impenetrable smokes. A gust of wind came up and blow some of the smoke away, revealing one of the speakers. It was a man dressed in the same red robe as the wagon drivers. The other speaker was still invisible, but the smoke had thinned enough so that Rolf would tell a vague outline of a Stakor. Judging by the shadow it cast on the smoke screen, this Stakor was much larger than the rest. Perhaps it was the pack leader.

"I will tell master what you have done! We were suppose to bring back at least fifty live-specimens, but now you have ruined half of them." The man said hotly as he waved his hands in frustration.

"Master knows-ss Axtlutl, Master understands-ss Axtlutl. Axtlutl had to kill, rats-ss are hungry. Humans-ss go now. Axtlutl will feas-ss-t." The lisping voice continued.

The word "feast" seemed to have unnerved the man. His face hardened and eyes shifted uneasily. He managed to gave the Stakor a accusatory stare before he turned around and shouted an order at the drivers.

Even after the humans had left with the jail wagons, the leader of the Stakor didn't came into Rolf's view. Rolf heard him barked an order at the near by Stakors who ran off immediately in excitement. A swell of squeaks and and squeals rose at every corner of the village and a few moments later, all Stakors came to the village center, and each carried a dead human body with them.

The thick smoke concealed half of the Stakors from Rolf's view, but he heard the leader tutted and then uttered a wet click of the tongue. The other Stakors suddenly dropped their victims to the ground in unison.

Rolf heard a wince, he squinted his eyes to find the source of voice amidst the current of smokes and then he noticed a body on the ground moved a little. It was a girl, she looked same age as Orisha.