The cleanup after the Battle for Noran had been messy. The funeral pyres for the slain Horde were still smoldering, and would continue to do so for some time to come. The smoke and stench fouled the otherwise pristine air somewhat, but a stiff breeze had been blowing most of the time, scattering the smell out to sea.
The wounded among the Virgos and Borials had been tended to, and the dead buried with honor. All in all, Virgo and Borial losses had been very light, while the Horde losses had been complete. After the Horde siege towers had been destroyed, their entire war plan had crumbled. Benton would never have believed such an outcome was possible if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes. Perhaps the Borial gods were responsible somehow.
But the Virgos had suffered one very significant and demoralizing setback: Their captain, Stephen Maruu had been lost. Strangely, no body had been found. Jonathan Lataro had assumed command of the Virgos. Also missing was Dweezle. Maybe someone had mistaken him for a Horde, which he so closely resembled.
The war ships that had brought the Horde army to Noran had been captured easily, since the Horde had left only a token force behind to guard them. Their blood-red sails had been torn down and burned, then replaced with clean, white sails. Black pennants gave way to the colorful Borial standard.
Now, a fortnight and three days after that terrible battle, on a bright and sunny morning in mid-April, the refreshed Virgos and Borials set sail for the land of the their enemy. Even though the Horde had been defeated at Noran, they would come again eventually, and they still held dominion over the Aody. They must be defeated once and for all, and the source of their evil destroyed. With that goal in mind, the Virgos had brought along as many of the canister bombs as they could salvage. The bombs had nearly proved to be the end of Noran. Likely, they would be as effective against the Horde.
The ships landed on the bleak shores of the Horde lands. The allies began their inland march toward the land of their sworn enemy. What sort of reception would they find?
As Benton topped the last ridge and got his first glimpse at the heart of Horde domination, he froze in his tracks at the sight and just stood rooted with his mouth hanging open. He was chilled to the bone. As the rest of the tired Virgos marched over the ridge one by one, they had the same reaction. They stood staring, horrified. Some had tears in their eyes, even the Marines; the sight before them was so drear and dispiriting.
The land was broken and ruined; all life had left it. When the Horde had come millennia ago and brought their corruption with them, the land must surely have resisted them, but in the end the land had lost. All had become ruin and death.
The only living thing left seemed to be the nauseating green muck that covered everything. It covered the ground, it coated the rocks, it pervaded the noisome rivulets that meandered this putrid place. Even the glowering clouds in the sky seemed dripping with the stuff, and perhaps they were. If the Virgos hadn't brought their own water, they would have been dead from thirst within a few days, or sooner from having drunk the water here.
Where life had given way in the land below, chaos now ruled unchallenged. The land seemed torn and shattered, as if a giant's hands had wadded it up into a ball and then tried unsuccessfully to flatten it out again. Ancient lava eruptions oozed between highlands; the smooth roundness of the hardened magma seemed almost biological in origin. In stark contrast, the severe edges of the crags and valleys of the highlands gave the appearance of having been carved and sliced by an enormous blade.
But underneath everything else, under all the slime and chaotic upheaval, the land looked like it had been burned. Burned until the very stones grew soft and turned to glass. At some point in the distant past, the land here must have suffered a holocaust of apocalyptic proportions.
Benton's eyes followed the widest of the old lava rivers. It flowed from near where he stood toward the base of one of the knife-carved plateaus. This plateau was a little different from the others however. Its top was relatively flat, and served as the foundation for the Horde capital city of Stonefist.
There it was at last! The end of their journey and their only hope of returning themselves to the Virgo, if they could but prevail in the battle that was to come.
Stonefist resembled the surrounding topography to the point that it wasn't immediately obvious that you were looking at an artifact instead of a natural formation. Its walls bulged and sloughed in an almost organic way in some parts, while in other sections they were perfectly straight. The towers and turrets of the fortress were slender and razor sharp, etched with the same chisel that had carved the surrounding cliffs. No gate was evident from this distance. There were no pennants flapping overhead, but flames flickered in the slits in the towers.
Benton could not have imagined a more evil-looking place. The effect of the place was entirely unnatural and twisted. There was nothing wholesome here; only evil remained. Evil flourished here! He shivered despite himself.
But then his errant gaze looked past the stygian city and came to rest on what lay beyond in the mist-shrouded distance. His senses recoiled in terror. Every revulsion he had just felt about Stonefist and the land of the Horde was focused and seemed to emanate from this one object.
He could barely stand to look at it, but in the haze beyond Stonefist there stood a mountain. Tall and narrow it loomed; a megalithic overlord frowning down in hatred on all it could see. Every last hair on the back of Benton's neck was bristling. He suddenly had the strange sensation that the evil mountain could see him, and it took all his willpower not to run back the way he had come, screaming insanity. Then he knew that the true resolution to their predicament lay not at Stonefist, but rather there.
Jonathan Lataro had recovered enough to resume the march toward Stonefist. As he passed, Benton heard him saying to his wife, "I think we should head for the old lava flow. There might be some lava tubes we can rest in and use as a base."