Sigil: City of Doors

Memories came and faded like waves upon a beach. Nazzir lay within the great wall of the city of the dead. His eyes still barely functioned as he watched the dusty landscape outside the city. It had been eons since the day he had rejected the deals offered to him by the Solar sent by his god and then scoffed at the temptations of a devil. It had not seemed so bad to waste into nothing after the failure of a life he had lived. He didnÂ’t want to exist anymore. The real torture was how long it was taking to sink in the wall and fade.

His minds eye was his last strong sense now. Deep in the wall he lay. The bottom was a small drop away and the top was beyond his degenerated vision now.

His life flitted through his mind, each memory that passed became weaker and weaker until some had faded completely. Only the strongest remained now. Only the memories that had truly defined him. Sadness and despair. He remembered himself in bright white and gold armour stood within a mosque. He remembered men and women possessed by demons, children too. He remembered what they had to do to cleanse them. NazzirÂ’s body squirmed in the wall. He felt his jelly like flesh split and merge more with that of those around him as their soft bones pushed and scraped into each other. A hand pushed up through his neck from another and came out of his mouth. He watched as the fingers gripped at the face of another, a woman. Nazzir wondered if she had been beautiful once. The thought slipped into a memory of his wife.

NazzirÂ’s tears flowed from his pale white eyes and merged with the ectoplasm of the great wall. His god had forsaken him and his family and so in death he forsook his god. It was no good repenting now but somewhere inside he wished maybe he had taken the DevilÂ’s offer. This was no slap in the face for his god, he didnÂ’t even remember his gods name anymore and he expected his god knew not his name either.

He felt inside him the head of another sliding deep inside his rib cage from below, pushing weak memories of what were once organs out through the spaces between his ribs. It mattered not anymore. He stared at the womanÂ’s face as the hand that had reached out of his mouth pushed into hers and drove down through her throat, now only an arm between them. She looked back at him, faded and pale eyes full of despair.

Eons passed and time went on. Nothing mattered anymore. They were just waiting to fade.

Time went by, perhaps moments, perhaps hundreds of years. Nazzir was not capable of keeping track now. His face was merged with another and boney finger like protrusions erupted up put of the back of her half of the face like strange horns. In his chest a mouth gawped and gnawed at other bodies consuming them into him and making him fat and bloated like a sack full of other souls body parts. His legs were not his own any more and one of his arms had been enveloped back inside of him. The only remaining limb was his left arm which was twisted under his neck and freely jutted out of the wall into the air like a sorrowful tree branch made of ectoplasmic bone as the muscle dripped from it like leaves falling from a tree.

Nazzir remembered playing with his little son in the garden of their house. He remembered the time his son jumped from a tree and he caught him before rolling around wrestling with the little boy. His mind flitted and jumped to a darker memory, the same boy wild eyed and foaming at the mouth as he bit on his own tongue. Possessed by the demons he had spent his life fighting for his order.

He remembered an angel in the mosque exorcising the demons from the possessed. The horror of it all. How his child died in the process and finding his wife dead after committing suicide.

A memory came to him of looking himself in the mirror. He remembered himself, what he had looked like. Pale blue skin and eyes. Soft golden hair. He remembered now he had been of celestial blood. His people all were. His face contorted around what was left of his eye in the great wall in what would have been a smile receiving a disturbed look from the other half of the face he was merging with. The woman he was crushed next to.

Her eyes looked out over the Fugue and she groaned, the arm of the other that resided in NazzirÂ’s stomach still bent and twisted through their throats.

NazzirÂ’s eye looked out into the sky and saw the bat like forms coming towards them. He thought he felt his heart beat. A sensation he had not felt for thousands of years but soon he realised it was the beating of huge wings bearing down upon them.

The great form pounded down into the wall, terrible and huge, balors came and thrust their talons deep into the mass of bodies. As they ripped the wall apart battle broke out. Golems made from bodies like those in the wall came running towards the balors. Some dropped down from above onto Balors as they landed on the wall.

All manner of chaos erupted confusing Nazzir and he soon felt himself falling. Around him body parts fell and tortured pieced of others fell apart falling and then something huge and powerful came past at speed, itÂ’s shadow first and then a massive hand hit him and took him up and away high into the whirling skies.

Demons flew by protecting the Balors as they escaped.

The Balor wasted no time and flew at incredible speed towards a floating crystal ring in the sky. Words and incantations came from his deep booming throat and the portal erupted in flames opening and allowing the creature to pass through along with others.

Nazzir writhed in agony as flame and pain ripped over what was left of him and the others he was fused with. They were in the abyss now emerging a great portal archway onto to top of a great black granite citadel.

The balor arched through the air and back down around to land in a huge door like window on the tower. As he landed inside he hurled the handfuls of souls down onto the floor and marched on into the citadel.

Nazzir lie there for a moment gathering himself. He was half a face with parts of the womanÂ’s still stuck to his own, he was a body with parts of another inside and he had remnants of an arm.

He clawed at the ground and gawped at the gothic surroundings trying to pull himself along but it wasnÂ’t working.

Some Devils came by and dragged him by his arm to the edge of the hall they were in and pushed his remains into a stone box. As they did so they jabbed down with poles and hit him with hammers breaking anything that didnÂ’t fit until he was within. Nazzir felt a burning all around him as runes lit up inside the box and began to infuse him with dark energies. Inside he felt everything that was once him melting away and dissolving into something that crawled like maggots. It was terrible and evil and there was nothing he could do to stop what was happening.

Nazzir collapsed from stone tub out onto cold floor once more. Around him were others, strange slug like blobs with tortured human faces drawn down the fronts of them. Dretches and other lesser demons danced around them pulling them about and having fun with the unformed demons. They slowly began to sort them into groups depending on traits but then a large snake bodied woman with six arms slithered up and slapped Nazzir from the cattle. “What is thisss one!” She exclaimed. “It is tainted, look at the eyes, celestial blood holds it’s mind in order. Dispose of it.”

A babau chuckled with amusement at the fun they would have disposing of the soul and began to bat Nazzir across the hall before rolling him down steps to a lower level of the tower.

“Prey to your god angel blood so they may see your demise!” It cackled as other babau gathered around, licking their long teeth and flexing their claws.

As they began to tear the larval form apart a deep rumble echoed through the tower. The babauÂ’s paused and looked upwards. Again the boom came several times and then a flood of demons poured down from the above level. There was a crisp smell like ozone and then the room erupted with negative energies and purple lightening bolts, tearing into the demons.

Bodies flew and erinyes charged in slicing the demons apart with their swords. The boom came again and the roof began to crack. The erinyes chased the demons as they fled further below and Nazzir looked around assessing his options. He had little more than instinct. Any kind of clear thought had been taken from him. He crawled up over the dismembered body of a babau and began to try and get what he could of the creature into his mouth to consume it. He found the process easy and ate the whole thing down before moving onto another dead demon. Next he found one still living but in no condition to fight. The dretch beat at him with handless arms. ItÂ’s legs also severed by an erinyes blade it could not escape. Nazzir consumed it too. It was satisfying so he kept going.

At this point the roof of the chamber collapsed and in fell the balor and a pit fiend. The two fought furiously for moments, the battle was nearing its end and Nazzir became crushed beneath the pit fiend amongst large chunks of rubble as the Balor hurled it down and raised up above it, straddling the devil with itÂ’s legs and holding in itÂ’s hands a huge sword which it plunged down through the pit fiendÂ’s chest and into the ground beneath. Devil blood drenched the larval soul and drowned him beneath the fight. Other devils entered the chamber and attacked the balor. Cornugons, erinyes and various abishai all closed in on the demon.

It beat them one by one but took wounds in the process until it came to choke the last erinyes and lifted her up tearing her apart in his hands. The Pit fiend made his last stand and picked up a cornugonÂ’s chains whipping them out around the BalorÂ’s neck and pulling him down. Where he held it and pulled the chains deeper and deeper through itÂ’s thick muscular neck. Fire tore from the balorÂ’s chest and out of the severed wind pipe signalling itÂ’s death and then followed a mighty explosion that sent the rest of the tower above falling off down into the courtyard below.

A serene silence came moments after, unusual for the abyss. There was no sound of battle anymore and no sound of movement anywhere for a few moments.

The larvae crawled out from beneath the pit fiend. As it started to munch upon more wasted bodies the fiendÂ’s eyes opened a crack and looked over. ItÂ’s body scorched and burned and half of the balorÂ’s great blade remained in itÂ’s broken chest.

A deep voice rumbled from the fiend.

“If one of us returns from battle, we have won this day.” The devil sighed knowing he didn’t have much time. “Come little one and drink upon the blood of one of Asmodeus’s children.”

He reached over weakly to the larvae and picked him up to his chest. His other hand tore the blade shard out and through the eruption of blood he drove the larvae down inside of him to feed upon his dying heart.

His last breath he whispered in a more mortal voice. “We were angels once.”

And then the Pit fiend died staring up into the burning skies of the abyss, his body shrinking and becoming more humanoid almost resembling the angel he once was long ago.

Within his stomach a dark shape writhed and turned. Dark limbs clawed at the skin and pushed upwards until it tore the flesh and from within slopped out a dark and menacing body. Dark chitinous blue/grey and covered in slime left from his slug like form. NazzirÂ’s head was like a human skull with no ears and from itÂ’s back jutted two short blunt horns still coated in soft skin.

The devil rose up and looked down upon itÂ’s dead father and the carnage around him. He reached out and stretched his new muscles and limbs. A feeling he had not felt for thousands of years. He stretched back his lips and gnashed his teeth before stretching his angular jaw, the muscles and tendons cracking and lengthening as it did so. Across the devils back barbs erupted and began to lengthen. The skin over itÂ’s short dumpy horns on itÂ’s head split and the horns pushed back and lengthened to full size and slowly the soft shiny form became defined and spikey. A dark and menacing barbed devil.

“We were angels once.” Whispered Nazzir to the corpse beside him with a smirk upon his face. He reached down and picked up the cornugon’s chains the Pit fiend had used to strangle the balor, before wrapping them around his body and climbing up the broken wall around the edge of the tower to look down below. Nothing remained alive here.

In the distance there were dead devils laying on a road away from the citadel. It must be that way they were trying to retreat. The barbed devil leapt from the tower and fell to the ground below before sprinting off in that direction. There would not be much time. He was clear again with thought and conciousness unfettered by decay but memories were all but gone, the concept of memory almost a memory now.

He ran the hot dirty road trying to remember his name. NazÂ… NazÂ…. somethingÂ…

In a forest of dead stone trees and petrified humans of some ilk, Naz finally reached the paths end. There was nothing around to speak of and nothing of interest. Where had the devils come from? He peered around for some time until he spotted a cave up the mountainside beyond. He looked to the sky and watched some bat like forms gathering far above. HeÂ’d best get in the cave in any case. If whatever those things up there were spotted him heÂ’d be a goner for sure.

The rocky mountain side was no trouble for him in his current form and he bounded up the rocks with taloned feet and light steps until he was at the cave entrance.

Inside was dark and dusty. He could only see a few feet ahead through the dirty air.

Naz sniffed then edged inside. A sound echoed from further in like the rattle of a snakes tail. Naz gripped the chain end and whipped his arm once over his head shaking the weapon loose.

He edged in looking around with unholy dark eyes. Something moved and flitted in the dark. A hiss, a scraping of claw on stone. He readied himself and then from the dark bolted a demon of shadow.

It lashed out at him and knocked him to the ground. Quickly the Barbed devil whipped his chain out around the demons arm and ripped it back again.

A black oily blood of shadow splattered across the devils feet and he sat there laughing. The demon was not impressed and hissed before bolting in for another attack. For some reason Naz felt like this was completely natural to him. It was familiar, perhaps something from his past lifeÂ… but he could not remember. Wildly he whipped the chains around and took the shadow demons legs with them and then positioned himself behind it looping the chain and putting it around the neck of the demon like the pit fiend had done to the balor.

He wedged his knew into the shadowÂ’s back and pulled out sideways whilst trying to push it down. The creature was hard to feel and virtually impossible to see in this cave but Naz had it bound and gagged.

Slowly the demon stopped resisting and eventually it dropped to the ground and faded.

Killing demons felt good, not just satisfying but empowering. Naz felt bigger and stronger for it. He licked the chains and sneered to himself.

He kneeled down and looked about the floor of the cave for foot prints. There were many but a distinct number of them came from a certain direction. He made a guess that where the Baatezu army had come from. He hoped he was right or this would be very bad for him walking into a big cave full of TanarÂ’ri.

As he descended further his fears became true as he found himself peering down over a ledge into a cave full of glabrezu all gathered around a large silver pentagram on the floor. They were performing some kind of ceremony and after a time the pentagram began to glow with blue light. It was then that a pillar of darkness rose from inside and the glabrezu began to march through the portal into what was likely somewhere in the nine hells.

Naz crawled down into the now empty cave and crept towards the portal. He waited some moments before examining the pentagram. When he touched it, it burned his fingers and made him leap back in agony.

Slowly the light began to flicker and the darkness fade, so Naz took a leap in desperation and dived through the portal.

Splosh! He landed deep in swamp water. In the distance the last glabrezu in a marching line peered back at the portal closing behind them. It eyed the water for a moment then turned and carried on following its brethren.

Naz poked his head out of the swamp water and peered around. He slowly began to half swim, half climb, through the muck and follow the demons. Wherever they were heading it must be to fight devils and so he would follow and join in the fight when the numbers were right.

Stealthily he edged his way on keeping them in sight and bobbing back into the swamp if any turned to look his way.

His body seemed accustomed to the harsh acidity of the water here and resilient to the poisonous air. He felt at home here and re invigorated by the predictability of decay that surrounded him. It was almost likeÂ… like something he couldnÂ’t quite remember but had been familiar to him for such a long time.

Somewhere in the deep swamps of Minauros the Glabrezu army came to a halt. As they gathered near a small mount. The Glabrezu began to summon large numbers of vrock and dretch bulking up their numbers heavily. Naz watched in amazement as they prepared a massive counter invasion of the one that had lead to his creation. He had to do something to get word to the devils residing within the mount.

He snuck around a wide perimeter of the demonic army keeping them always in the distance and himself deep in the swamp until he was in sight of a spinagon standing near a cave entrance.

Naz stared hard at the spinagon for some time worried to approach but the spinagon looked right at him despite his hiding. He had somehow established a telepathic link with the other devil who whispered infernal words of curiosity back into his mind. Naz was not so adept at controlling the ability yet and just thought hard of the army gathering in the distance over the other side of the mount.

The spinagon quickly disappeared inside the mount and moments later re-emerged and gestured him to follow inside.

Naz knew it was for the best and quickly swam to the mount and climbed up to join the spinagon. Across the muddy banks of the mount the muddy cave entrances began to be torn in and closed by other devils, mostly the dogai.

Inside the spinagon hurtled down a muddy tube into the depths of the mount and further down under the swamp itself. Naz did his best to keep up and finally they came to a large cave filled with devils and evil spirits and a huge malbranche devil who was crafting devils from the evil souls wandering about.

The malbranche turned and looked at the barbed devil with curiosity. “You have saved us an embarrassing defeat little one.” The devil nodded with satisfaction and then gestured Naz to come over to him.

The lesser devil obeyed and approached his superior. He knelt and bowed his head modestly. “I did what I could, given the circumstances.” The malbranche raised his hand to silence the barbed devil.

“Hush. I need not explanations, your mind is like an unwarded book, young and fresh. You are less formed and complete than some of the lemurs I craft and yet here you stand as a barbed devil. You have had an advantageous start.”

The malbranche examined NazÂ’s thoughts for a moment seeing the battle at the citadel and the death of the pit fiend but in the return of a devil a success and a saviour now from the ambush they would have received.

You have done well and I would have you in our legions but your blood is tainted from the great one RazÂ’istophalesÂ’ChokÂ’Sil of the IstaalÂ’Achrates line. A blood line born from the wounds of Asmodeus himself. Your master is dead but he has brothers and they will know of you and your being here. You will join them when they arrive above with their children to fight the army outside and earn your place amongst them.

I will send you now before we ward this place.

The malbranch drew Naz over to the circle of rune and lines drawn onto a flat round dias of rock and gestured for him to stand upon it. “Read the words upon the circle and you will ascend to the swamp once more. Naz’Ra’Chok’Sil.”

Naz looked down blankly. He paused looking at the infernal language fro a moment but then as the malbranch connected with him telepathically and showed him of their language written he began to see what it said and began to chant the words infernal until he was wreathed in a red light. Suddenly sucked upwards he found himself bursting from the swampy water again and looking head on at the army of TanarÂ’ri ahead.

The entire army stared at him for a moment and Naz simply stared back in terror. He considered his chances of trying to wade away as being futile but then saw in the sky behind the army who were all looking his way a hoard of flying devils. A pit fiend and many cornugons all swooping in from above through the acrid clouds. The demons realised and turned around to the sound of wing beats but it was all too late and the horned devils pounded down into the swamp wrapping the vrock, dretch and glabrezu demons all up in chains and sundering their limps with slashes of their talons. Whipping tails with deadly poisonous stings thrust into the demons. Combat was brutal and efficient and the army barely had time to even gather a concept of organisation. The final Devil to land was the pit fiend who did so with a thundering splash sending out waves in all directions in the shallow swamps acidic water.

It hacked down several unfooted tanarÂ’ri with itÂ’s claws and bit off heads whilst gesturing spells and conjurations at the demons trying to flee.

Naz charged in to join the battle whipping out his chains and catching a Vrock by the throat from behind whilst a cornugon did the same from the opposite side. The cornugonÂ’s menacing grin lengthened and he gestured to the vrock whilst nodding to Naz.

The barbed devil ran in and beat aside the slashed from the vrock's claws. He took advantage as the cornugon yanked the vrock backwards making it loose footing and causing the spikes of his chain to sink deep into itÂ’s flesh. Naz grappled the creatures beak like face and tore itÂ’s head apart into two halves before ramming his spikey arm down the demons open neck. He tore from itÂ’s chest the still beating black and twisted heart of the creature and tossed it to the impressed cornugon who watched on as the barbed devil charged on to help take down a glabrezu another was fighting.

After the battle and as the devils finished the last survivors the pit fiendÂ’s shadow cast over Naz from behind. The barbed devil turned and almost looked up for a moment but quickly became aware he should kneel and show humility.

The pit fiend announced. “ I am Lamoura’Chok’Sil of the Istaal’Achrates and I sense in you my brothers taint. The malbranche below makes me aware he has been defeated in the battle to destroy the citadel these tanar’ri have been using to launch attacks on us here. You are all that remains of his army?”

Naz nodded still looking downwards.

“Did he pass any last message upon his death? Any wish. Lie to me and I shall know of your deception!”

Naz turned his head and looked up carefully saying his creatorÂ’s last words.
“He said… We were angels once.”

The Pit fiend turned away for a moment and laughed. “Indeed we were.” Suddenly the Devil fell silent and turned suddenly sweeping Naz’s legs with his great tail. Cornugons grabbed his arms and legs and his tail and held him aloft in front of their master.

LamouraÂ’ChokÂ’Sil raised up his tail from between his legs and thrust itÂ’s tip down the barbed devils throat. Naz squirmed and writhed in agony as something passed from the tail and down into his gut.

Almost instantly the cornugons dropped him back into the water and left him to sink down to the muds below squirming and holding his belly as what passed through him began to eat into his bones and sinew changing him into something new.

“Be aware, I do own you. I hope you understand this.

When you are ready, come find us.” Chanted the pit fiend in a deep bellowing voice as the army of cornugons launched with him into the skies of Minauros and flew away.

In the dark waters of the swamp a body twisted and from a spiny back lengthened great arm like protrusions covered in hooks and with web like fans between the spines. The devils body swelled and lengthened as he became something new, a Cornugon.

The horned devil opened his eyes under the acrid waters and looked about in the red haze of toothed worms, fiendish eels and crawling diabolic fish like creatures. Some tried to gnaw at him but his spiny skin became harder and tougher and armoured beyond their ability to harm.

Inside his wings he wrapped himself like a cocoon now and lay as a spikey and webbed pod. The body within changed and grew squirming with pain as more and more spines burst through his skin and thickened into horns and claws across his body.

Time passed but the passing of time was all this soul had known.

Finally came a disturbance. Footsteps beat over his hiding place. Like waking from a long sleep the Cornugon came to clarity and remembered, was aware of what he was and his purpose. He tensed his back and stretched his chest reaching out with his arms and with a loud crack his cocoon of wings split open.

From the water the body rose up, dropping from his frame large clots of weeds and roots that had wrapped around him. A few rusted chain links dropped around him left from his weapon.

Naz looked out over the swamp and watched a half dozen humanoids clambering towards a small mound with a small army of dogai hot in pursuit.

He flicked out his large wings and shook them clean, glistening with a deep dark greyness in the eerie green mists of Minauros.

Naz beat his wings and clambered around on the swamp surface falling all over the place and then finally he got some air and with one final thump from his long clawed feet he beat off and up, before heading after the commotion further ahead.

He saw a portal and he saw the humanoids disappear within, he saw the dogai chasing towards it. They were too slow and were not going to make it but he could. As he swooped above them he quickly pointed himself at the watery image of a city beyond and drew his wings back tight making himself like an arrow before bursting through onto cobbled streets, skidding and sliding in a puddle of swamp gunk across the road between the recently emerged party. He lay on his back flying away from them maintaining momentum with a few whips of his tail and then rolled onto his front and clambered off on all fours down an alleyway opposite. Yells and shouts followed but the cornugon had a head start and was away. He circled buildings and clambered up walls hopping across rooftops and batting his wings taking him over the great bazaar. On the roof of what looked like an old and gothic church he settled and looked around in desperation.

Above and below he got looks from the denizens of Sigil. Moments passed and shouts came again. He looked to the skies and then turned on the spot launching again and swooping across roads and neighbourhoods into a darker and quieter part of sigilÂ’s great hive until he saw a large mass of spiked vines wrapped around what was once a building. Naz landed on the razorvines and climbed through them into the derelict within. Inside was thick trunks of razorvine torn through every wall, floor and ceiling. The Cornugon pushed his way through scraping his own horns and spines against those of the plant until he was deep within, in the dark, hidden from the world outside and safe from things with softer skin following him.

In his nest of thorns he sat and composed himself, contemplating his choices. Order must be brought to this chaos. He had to sort himself out and find his feet. He had to define himself and then he had to find Nessus.

Memories wandered through his head trying to find some kind of order. Some where his own from a life long ago, some from a life more recent and some were of others, of his lineage and the pit fiends who made him. He rested in the darkness letting it all come to him, forming his mind and forming the path he must take.

The Cornugon took his time and gained his centre in the middle of a new world, the city was dark now and he was in a position to start exploring.

He arose from his nest of thorns and clambered outside to stretch his wings and clean himself. It would take a measure of boldness to walk this town being what he is but from his perch he did see other fiends, abishai and erinyes passing around the city. He needed a station here to validate himself if challenged, he needed to find his way into law.

NazÂ’RaÂ’ChokÂ’SilÂ’s wings beat and he passed over the city in darkness glaring down with terrible red eyes. Gliding, listening to the thoughts and fears of those he passed over. The weak minded were beacons of hate, desire, greed, lechery and many other things in the night but then one place emanated something terrible to his telepathy. One building filled with tortured guilty souls and filled also with the malicious ones that punished them.



In front of the Mercykiller prison a dark fiend dropped down from the sky and planted himself before the gates. His bat like form, as a shadow, before the red death guards at the gate, his red eyes bearing down on them from within the darkness.

“Who goes there?” One yelled, startled by the suddenly unexpected arrival, as two more came hurried from inside the prison to back them up.

The Cornugon unfurled his wings and stepped forwards into the lamplight from above the gates. His body scaled and spiked and dark grey.

“Good evening kindred souls, tonight is a wonderful night for you have found Naz’Ra’Chok’Sil and I will accept your invitation to become a most skilled and valued member of your organisation.”

The guards looked at him for a moment before one spoke. “Invited? Who invited you?”

The Cornugon raised an arm with talon pointed and gestured at a young and trembling guard at the rear holding a halberd. “Why… himmmm…” His voice rumbled through them.

The guard at the rear began to stutter as if his weak will was broken and telepathically bullied, he succumbed to the words of the Cornugon in his mind.

“C..c..c….come inside!” The young Mercykiller covered his mouth suddenly and looked around at the other men in shock.

“What have you done berk!” Yelled another.

It was too late the Cornugon was invited and began to walk forth to enter their prison. One man lashed out at him with a blade but it glanced off the CornugonÂ’s armoured skin and was swatted away by his scaly talons and a glare that could rot ones soul.

Inside the prison entrance the Cornugon marched towards the front desk with all four guards on pursuit weapons out and unsure whether to move on the fiend or not.

“I would like to join your faction.” Naz’Ra’Chok’Sil announced to the prison registrar and casually bowed his horned head towards all those inside.






[Link: Mercykiller Faction Page]

The Cornugon watched as Cryxos linked the spiked byeshk chain links one after another. His hammer beat down knocking each link closed and when all were connected the chain was thrust back into the smouldering coals of the forge.

The fire reflected in the CornugonÂ’s eyes as he reached into the flames and drew the metal links out for the smith who worked on, hammering each link carefully into one strong sealed piece.

The last pieces, end pieces of intricate hook covered byeshk were attached to each end and forged closed.

Cryxos turned to the barrel of cold water putting his tongs into the water raising up a cloud of steam. He turned around to take the chains and put them in as well but the Cornugon had already wrapped the red glowing links around his neck and shoulders. He gave the blacksmith a nod and offered his debt to the mortal who would surely use such in time.