The Skink craftsmen arrived that very afternoon, only hours after the battle had ended.
They had set out from New Tlanxla under Tekuna’s personal command.
The Skink Priest rode at the head of the column on a Cold One.
Behind him stretched a long procession of Skink craftsmen carrying tools, ropes, and bundles of equipment.
Two newly recruited cohorts of Saurus Spearmen followed at the rear as escorts.
They traveled north along the route Kroq-Gar’s army had taken.
There was no need to scout the way.
Crusher had already left them a trail.
The enormous footprints of the Stegadon formed a perfect series of markers, each depression as wide as a washbasin and spaced at almost identical intervals.
It was like a marching map stamped directly into the earth.
When Tekuna entered the city, Kroq-Gar was standing beside the massive bronze cannon, scraping Chaos runes from its surface with his claws.
He had already been at it for two hours.
A third of the runes were gone.
The Chaos symbols had been carved deep into the bronze, and traces of dark green energy still clung to the grooves.
Every time Kroq-Gar scraped one away, the residue evaporated into a thin wisp of black smoke.
“My lord.”
Tekuna dismounted from his Cold One.
He looked at the half-scraped runes on the cannon.
Then he looked at Kroq-Gar’s hands.
His claws were covered in bronze shavings, and a small fragment of a Chaos rune was still lodged between two of his fingers.
Tekuna swallowed.
“You should let the craftsmen handle this.”
“The craftsmen don’t recognize these runes,” Kroq-Gar replied without stopping.
“Scrape away the wrong one and the cannon might explode.”
Tekuna thought about that.
It made sense.
So he stopped arguing.
Instead, he turned and surveyed the captured city.
The walls were made of stone.
Although they were still covered in patches of gray-white fungal growth, the fungus was already withering away.
With the power of Chaos receding, it had lost the source of energy that sustained it.
Whole sheets of it were drying, cracking, and peeling from the walls.
Crusher had smashed the main gate beyond repair, so the entrance had temporarily been barricaded with logs and broken stone.
The pyramid in the center of the plaza was still smoking.
But the smoke was no longer black.
It was a pale, almost translucent white.
Pure psychic vapor.
When the Skink craftsmen had first opened the pyramid’s underground chamber, a surge of psychic energy sealed away for untold centuries had erupted from within.
The blast had knocked the first two Skinks off their feet.
“There’s something beneath the pyramid,” Tekuna said.
“Possibly a geomantic nexus left behind from the age of the Old Ones.
We need to inspect it carefully.
If it really is part of the geomantic web, we may be able to reactivate it.”
“Handle it.”
Kroq-Gar finally stepped away from the bronze cannon and shook the metal filings from his claws.
“You’re responsible for rebuilding this city.
Follow the same standard as New Tlanxla.
Two Skink Spawning Pools.
Two Saurus Barracks.
One Cold One enclosure.
One weapons forge.”
He glanced around the city.
“Use local stone.
Tear down every Chaos structure.
Clean the stone before reusing it.”
“The fungus on the walls?”
“Scrape it all off.
Carve purification runes into the stone.”
“And the black pyramid?”
“Keep it.”
Kroq-Gar paused.
“But destroy the eight-pointed star at the summit.
Replace it with the symbol of Sotek.”
He thought for another moment.
“Cover the entire pyramid in purification runes.
Inside and out.
Once you’re finished, wash the whole structure with psychic solution.”
Tekuna pulled a sheet of bark paper from beneath his cloak and began taking notes.
The charcoal stick moved rapidly between his claws.
His golden eyes flicked back and forth between the paper and the city walls.
Halfway through writing, he suddenly looked up.
“My lord, what shall we call this city?”
Kroq-Gar looked beyond the walls.
The rainforest canopy rolled beneath the sunlight like a vast green sea.
This city was larger than any he had captured before.
It had stone walls.
A pyramid.
A central plaza.
Barracks large enough to house more than a thousand soldiers.
Its old name had been steeped in Chaos for far too long.
Even thinking of speaking that name aloud made something instinctive stir within him, as if the very sound might awaken whatever corruption still lingered inside the stones.
His scales tightened slightly.
An ancient warning.
Kroq-Gar remained silent for a moment.
Then he spoke.
“Golden Tower.”
Tekuna lowered his head and wrote the name onto the bark paper.
When he finished, he looked at the words again.
His golden eyes slowly shifted toward the pyramid.
Golden Tower.
The obsidian fragments that had not yet been removed from the structure really did gleam with a dark golden sheen beneath the sunlight.
Almost as if something else lay hidden deep within the stone.
“Your will shall be done.”
The Skink craftsmen began working that same afternoon.
Their first task was clearing the fungus from the city walls.
Without Chaos energy sustaining it, the gray-white growth had become dry and brittle.
A simple scrape with a stone blade caused it to crumble.
Large sheets peeled away like dried bark, falling to the base of the walls and forming pale heaps.
The craftsmen shoveled the debris into baskets and carried it outside the city for burning.
Before setting the piles alight, several elderly craftsmen carved temporary purification runes into the baskets.
Tiny symbols.
No larger than a claw tip.
The burning fungus released a foul stench, something like melting resin and scorched hide, but the wind quickly carried it away.
Every eight-pointed-star banner was torn down from the walls.
They were piled in the center of the plaza and burned.
The banners writhed and shrieked in the flames.
Tekuna explained that it was merely the last remnants of Chaos energy escaping.
The fire burned for a long time before finally dying.
The ashes were shoveled into an iron chest.
Three layers of iron chains were wrapped around it.
Purification runes were carved into every chain.
The shattered main gate remained temporarily blocked with stone and timber.
The southeastern corner of the city was chosen for the Cold One enclosure.
The walls there provided shelter from the wind.
The ground was slightly lower and naturally collected rainwater.
It was also far enough from the forge.
The Skink craftsmen dismantled a half-collapsed Chaos barracks and transported the salvaged stone to the southeastern corner.
Halfway through construction, Tekuna added another requirement.
For every three stones used in the enclosure, one could be salvaged from the old Chaos structure.
But every salvaged stone first had to have an inch of its outer surface chipped away.
Then it had to be soaked in psychic solution.
Only after that could it be used.
The extra process cost the craftsmen another full day.
Tekuna refused to compromise.
The weapons forge was built near the western gate.
Its location followed the same layout used in the First City and New Tlanxla.
The city’s original armory had been transformed by Chaos into some kind of sacrificial chamber.
Chaos runes covered the floor.
The craftsmen tore up every stone slab.
They smashed the corrupted flooring into pieces.
Then they laid entirely new stone.
The gaps between the slabs were filled with a mixture of lime and psychic solution.
Once dry, the floor gave off a faint blue glow.
The first Skink Spawning Pool was discovered by accident while the underground chambers beneath the pyramid were being cleared.
The geomantic nexus beneath the structure really was a relic of the Old Ones.
Several conduits had broken.
But the main structure remained intact.
The Skink craftsmen worked for hours repairing the damaged psychic conduits.
The moment the final connection was restored, the ancient runes at the bottom of the pool began lighting up one by one.
Light spread across the floor.
Then climbed the walls.
Then reached the ceiling.
The entire underground chamber began to glow.
An elderly Skink craftsman crouched beside the pool.
He didn’t move.
His golden eyes reflected the ancient light covering the walls.
For a moment, it was almost as though he were seeing a day from thousands of years ago.
A time when this city still belonged to the Lizardmen.
A time when new life emerged from these spawning pools every day.
For the next five days, Kroq-Gar did not remain in the city.
He led his army in a campaign to purge the surrounding Chaos strongholds.
Three smaller encampments lay near Golden Tower.
Their locations had been extracted from a captured Chaos Warrior.
The creature had been gravely wounded.
As the Chaos corruption receded from its body, a tiny fragment of its original consciousness briefly returned.
It managed to mutter a broken list of place names.
Then, before coughing up its final mouthful of black blood, it revealed the general directions of all three camps.
Kroq-Gar destroyed them all within three days.
The first camp was hidden inside a grove of dead mangroves.
The trees had not died naturally.
Black, tumor-like growths covered their trunks.
The mud around their roots had been corrupted into a dark purple sludge.
Around two hundred Chaos cultists occupied the camp.
No Chaos Warriors.
No Chaos Spawn.
Kroq-Gar charged in alone.
It took him half an hour to crush everything in sight that was still moving.
The Cold One Riders surrounded the perimeter and intercepted anything that tried to escape.
As the Cold Ones pursued their prey through the dead forest, their claws crushed small Chaos creatures crawling between the tangled roots.
The mounts stomped the soft-bodied things into pulp.
Then they snorted and wiped their mouths against the ground in disgust.
The second camp had been established inside an abandoned quarry.
The Chaos cultists had transformed the excavation pit into a sacrificial ground.
Bones covered the bottom.
Most belonged to animals.
Some were human.
Kroq-Gar didn’t enter the pit.
Instead, he had Crusher stand at the edge.
Then he ordered the Stegadon to push an entire collapsed section of the quarry wall into the excavation.
The slab of rock crashed into the pit with a sound like distant thunder.
The sacrificial ground disappeared beneath it.
So did the Chaos cultists inside.
Afterward, Kroq-Gar ordered his soldiers to lay two layers of stone slabs over the buried pit.
Purification runes were carved into every slab.
The third camp was the smallest.
Only a few dozen Chaos cultists occupied it.
They had hidden inside a natural cavern.
Kroq-Gar blocked the cave’s only entrance.
Then he ordered the Skinks to throw in bundles of dried grass soaked in psychic solution.
When the grass was ignited, it didn’t produce ordinary smoke.
Instead, pale blue vapor poured through the cavern.
Psychic vapor.
To ordinary settlements, psychic energy could be a source of power.
To creatures corrupted by Chaos, it was poison.
The Chaos cultists came rushing out of the cave.
They ran directly into the spear wall of the Saurus Warriors.
One after another, they were impaled at the entrance.
The last creature to emerge was a mutated cultist covered from head to toe in writhing tentacles.
It somehow twisted past every spear thrust.
It almost reached the rainforest.
Crusher stepped on it.
What remained was a dark stain pressed deep into the earth.
By the evening of the third day, all three camps had been destroyed.
Kroq-Gar’s psychic energy capacity increased by another thousand.
[Psychic Energy: 3720/4000]
Kroq-Gar stood among the ruins of the final camp.
He flicked the black blood from the blade of the Hand of the Gods.
The droplets began evaporating before they even reached the ground.
The spearhead remained as bright as snow.
Kroq-Gar raised his head and looked toward the edge of the rainforest.
Once again, he measured the distances in his mind.
Two days to the south lay the First City and New Tlanxla.
Here stood Golden Tower.
His third city.
The three settlements connected inside his mind.
A line.
A defensive chain stretching from the depths of the rainforest toward its northern frontier.
Every city had walls.
Every city had spawning pools.
Every city had barracks.
Every city was alive and functioning.
Every wall had soldiers standing watch.
Now he had three cities.
Kroq-Gar turned and led his army back toward Golden Tower.
Along the way, a messenger from the Cold One Skirmishers arrived.
Several Skinks were hurrying toward them.
Their leader was a scout.
One of the scouts Kroq-Gar had sent toward the Whitewater River.
They had returned.
Kroq-Gar quickened his pace.
He reached Golden Tower that evening.
Most of the fungus had already been removed from the walls, revealing the gray stone beneath.
A temporary gate had been installed.
Not iron.
Black ironwood.
Just as thick and heavy as the gate of New Tlanxla.
Above it was the carving of a coiled serpent.
The carving was still damp.
Tekuna had only just finished it.
When he saw Kroq-Gar enter the city, the Skink Priest hurried down from the walls.
A gray-scaled Skink followed behind him.
The scout captain.
He had grown noticeably thinner since his departure.
Dried mud covered his scales.
The leather pouch at his waist bulged with its contents, producing the sharp clatter of small stones whenever he walked.
But his eyes remained bright.
He hurried to Kroq-Gar and delivered his entire report in a single breath.
They had found the Whitewater River.
Following it north had led them beyond the rainforest and onto the grasslands.
Harmstone stood on the northern bank of the river, ten li away from the water.
Exactly as the human hunters had described.
The town still existed.
But most of its population was gone.
The scouts had watched from outside for an entire day.
Only a handful of households showed signs of activity.
Several refugees had also arrived from farther north and taken shelter inside the town.
Fewer than fifty people remained in total.
More than half were women and children.
Half the farmland outside the town had been abandoned.
The other half had crops growing in it, but no one was tending them.
Flocks of birds had already torn through the fields.
And there was worse news.
An Elven army had surrounded a human city forty li to the north.
The scouts hadn’t approached the city itself.
But they had seen the Elven encampment from a distance.
White tents.
Blue banners.
Elven spears glittering beneath the sunlight.
They couldn’t determine whether the city was still under siege or had already fallen.
But they had seen one thing clearly.
Small groups of lightly equipped humans were fleeing south from the direction of the besieged city.
They avoided the roads.
They traveled through the wilderness.
Some passed Harmstone without even stopping.
They continued south.
Toward the rainforest.
Others remained outside the town.
They had gathered around an abandoned mill and gone no farther.
Kroq-Gar remained silent for a moment after hearing the report.
The Elves were besieging a city.
The human kingdom was at war with them.
Agriculture along the frontier was collapsing.
Refugees were fleeing toward the rainforest.
And Chaos was waiting inside the rainforest to catch them.
The hunters Kroq-Gar had rescued shortly after arriving in this world had merely been among the first.
If the Elves continued pushing south, more refugees would be driven into the rainforest.
Chaos would intercept them.
Turn them into cultists.
Use them as sacrifices.
Or transform them into something worse.
“My lord.”
Tekuna’s voice pulled him from his thoughts.
“Golden Tower still needs another ten days of reconstruction.
The second Spawning Pool isn’t finished.
The foundations for the barracks have only just been excavated.
Bringing the city’s defenses to full strength will take time.”
He paused.
“The garrison is currently only at half strength.
The craftsmen are still carving purification runes.”
Tekuna hesitated before continuing.
“But if the Elves continue advancing south, Chaos will intercept the refugees along the edge of the rainforest.”
“If the refugees scatter after entering the jungle, the resulting disorder will stretch our defensive line thin.
We won’t be able to concentrate our forces against Chaos.”
“And every remaining Chaos camp will grow faster as more refugees enter the rainforest.”
Kroq-Gar looked down at him.
The Skink Priest stared up at his lord.
His golden eyes gleamed faintly in the fading light.
Kroq-Gar listened to every word.
Tekuna’s assessment was correct.
“Do you have a construction schedule for the defenses?” Kroq-Gar asked.
Tekuna immediately pulled out another sheet of bark paper.
It was covered in dense writing.
Every construction project had been recorded.
The estimated completion date of the second Spawning Pool.
The time required to finish the first wall of each barracks.
The Cold One enclosure was already more than halfway complete.
The weapons forge had been lit.
Once the barracks were finished, the first newly recruited soldiers could begin joining the garrison.
Kroq-Gar studied the schedule.
Then folded it and handed it back.
“Reconstruction continues as planned.”
“Once the second Spawning Pool is finished, prioritize two new cohorts for the garrison.
Fill the gaps in the wall sentry rotations first.”
“Keep the first Spawning Pool active.”
“Once the second is ready, both pools operate simultaneously.”
“One cohort of Skink Javelins every day.”
Then Kroq-Gar glanced at the scout captain, who was still wiping mud from his snout.
“Go eat something.”
“After that, meet me at the map.”
“I want the exact positions of the Elven camp and the refugees marked.”
The scout captain gave a sharp hiss of acknowledgment.
Then turned and hurried toward the cooking fires.