Vox Machina: Stories Untold by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Worlds
Published: 2025-03-04T00:00:00+00:00

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Not even the outlying farmsteads escaped the dragon onslaught. As the Herd closes in on the city, their boots crunch shards of ice underfoot. The fields stink and sizzle where great swaths of acid have cut through the wheat and potato crop. Looks like at least one of the beasts did a spite loop as a final fuck you on its way out, flinging bile in ever-widening arcs.

Gonna be lean times ahead for Westruun. If they make it through this at all.

Behind them, the sun skims the tops of the Bramblewood’s black trees. They walk beneath a sky blushing red in their wake. Like a bashful maid—or an open wound. Either fits. This city’s about to be their bitch, whether or not it knows it yet.

The air fairly crackles with excitement, like the tickle on your tongue when you breathe in a coming storm. Greenbeard was right. His Herd is hungry. They’ve been hungry too godsdamned long, and by all the gods known and unknown, they’re ready to feast. Their faces are marked with pitch and paint. They hoot and holler as they march. Bang the butts of their swords and spears against their shields. The stoneborn set up the old battle chant in the guttural giant tongue.

“Spread out,” Kevdak growls.

The bulk of his men break away to either side, as they planned. Headed to the north and south. Ten stoneborn, including Greenbeard, stay with Kevdak as he continues forward.

Straight shot, as the crow flies, from the twisted edge of the Bramblewood to Westruun’s smoking walls brings them to the great western gate. Something called the Scholar Ward lies just beyond, he’s learned. Home of fancy book learning and smart folk. Too bad their big brains couldn’t save them from dragon-bile and falling rocks, huh?

People scatter out of their way, squealing like stuck pigs, as they come to the gate. Bleeding, hobbling, pissing themselves. Clutching their brats and salvaged geegaws. Some of the men lunge at them for fun, snarl and snap their teeth to see them shriek. Kevdak doesn’t stop them.

Let the vermin fear them. Let them flee.

The city lies before them. Every bit as fucked as the scouts described, smoke and rubble and sunset washing over it all. He halts right on the threshold. Takes in the sight of the battered buildings, the bodies, the long cobbled street. Hears the cries of alarm and the crackling flames.

Then he brings his fists together.

And this time, he doesn’t hold back.

The hammer boom of the Titanstone Knuckles coming together deafens the whole world. Lightning and thunder, rolled into one. The power roils through his veins and electrifies them. He drinks it all up and demands more.

And more comes. Kevdak’s shadow, red sun at his back, unfolds along the road into the city as he goes from eight feet tall to ten, eleven, twelve. He feels his bones crack and lengthen, his muscles tear and re-form. The pain is the best thing he’s ever felt. He luxuriates in it, letting the fire-ant itch eating along his limbs sink deep enough that it awakens that old ancestral rage.

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