"Giznat could serve Great Mistress better with more treasure," he answered after a moment. "Tribe want more gold. If Giznat bring tribe more gold, then tribe know Giznat great leader. Listen to Giznat more. Serve Great Mistress better," he finished this last with a smile on his face, the wide mouth gaping open to reveal small, sharp fangs.
"Indeed," was all she answered, gazing down upon the goblin chief and his two hapless companions. She moved back to the throne and sat down, thinking. Behind her, she could sense the hulking forms of the broad-chested ogres that served as her own personal bodyguards. As always, they lurked in the shadows like statues. With one signal, the hag knew that she could put an end to the disgusting creatures before her. However, the goblins did have their uses, and she rarely enjoyed moving with undue haste.
Within the span of a few heartbeats, she had made her decision.
She stood once again.
"I have decided," she said as regally as she could muster, "to grant you your desire, Giznat."
The goblin chief looked at her with a gleam in its cold yellow eyes. She could sense the anticipation running through its tiny body.
"For your service," the hag continued, "you will receive exactly what you deserve."
She clapped her monstrous, blue-skinned hands together and spoke a single word into the vast chamber. Waves of amber energy emanated from the hag's clasped hands, surrounding the goblin chief. Giznat began to gibber mindlessly, shrieking out his fear. Behind him, his two companions watched as the amber energy passed through Giznat's skin, forming a hardened shell. The goblin chief stopped shrieking and turned to run. His lithe form seemed ungainly, however. He stumbled once then stopped, frozen in mid run. The amber shell faded completely, revealing smooth gray stone.
"You," the hag called out to one of the remaining goblins. "What is your name?"
The goblin stared at her for a moment, before answering. "Ha-Hazbik, Great Mistress," it stammered.
"Well, Hazbik," the hag said, approaching the still-prostrate goblin, "I suggest you run along to the tribe and tell the shaman he needs to pick a new chief."
Hazbik stumbled to his feet and bowed low, nearly tumbling back down to the ground. "Hazbik goes, Mistress," he replied then grabbed the remaining goblin. After a few moments of fumbling, the two creatures managed to make their way to the door.
"Oh and Hazbik," the hag called after them, "see to it that you remove this statue." She pointed to the transformed Giznat. "Please send it to your new chief as my way of… honoring him."
The hag didn't wait for Hazbik's reply but turned back to the throne and dismissed her ogre bodyguards with a wave of her hand. Killing the goblin chief had eased her tension somewhat, but she still wasn't satisfied. She was tired of lurking in shadows like the villain in a bad children's tale, tired of hiding in the ruins of an ancient keep, plotting and planning.
It was time to strike.
She sent a mental summons to the priestess who served as her lieutenant and walked toward the back of the vaulted chamber. There, hidden in the dirt and crumbling mortar, stood a simple circle scribed in dried blood. She stepped into the gruesome circle and spoke a single word before disappearing in a flare of purple light.
The wind's mournful wailing echoed in the vast, empty chamber.
Yulda sat in the confines of her spartan room, waiting for Durakh's arrival. She had removed the spell of seeming she had cast on herself moments after the teleportation circle delivered her here. Now she sat amidst the broken remains of once-fine furniture and the tatters of sumptuous bedding, grateful to be wearing her own skin once again. Though her spell had only been illusory, she felt far more comfortable without any such glamour. Illusion had its uses-after all, wearing the form of an annis hag made it far easier to command her growing army of monsters-but she still preferred her true form. Walking around for too long under the distorting effects of an illusion spell felt like wearing clothes that were ill fitting and confining. She always felt a moment of relief when the spell faded. Even as a master of her lore, she wrestled with the small fear at the base of her spine that the illusion would somehow end up permanent.
Yulda chuckled at her foolishness as she gathered the length of a black robe around her and surveyed the parchment laid out on the rickety desk before her. The broad, confident strokes of the cartographer stood out in the light of her room, and the witch could clearly see the path her army would take as it began to challenge the wychlaran for dominion over Rashemen. She and the priestess Durakh had spent several months crafting and birthing their plans. The forces at her command slumbered restlessly in the dungeons and caverns beneath the citadel, and each day she stayed their hand made it more difficult to control them.
Her army couldn't win in open rebellion. She found that fact as deeply frustrating as it was true. The Iron Lord and his damned warlords controlled too many forces eager to shed their blood in defense of Rashemen, so she hunkered down within the ruins of Citadel Rashemar, biding her time, consolidating her power, and waiting for the right moment to unveil her strength.
That moment had finally come.
The secret, of course, was not to focus on the martial power of the Iron Lord. He and his band of thick-headed louts would find plenty of humiliation at her hands. It was the combined might of both the wychlaran and the vremyonni that posed the single biggest threat to her plans. The only way to defeat them, Yulda knew, was to separate them-to cause a division where there had never been any before.
She thought of the Old One, wasting away in her mountain demesne, and smiled. The old fool had not revealed a single secret to her, yet she had forced him to give her something far more precious-the very essence of his power. Using forbidden lore taken from the heart of the abyss, she had managed to forge a link to the core of the vremyonni's being. Even now, the wizard's power flowed through her, a slow wave of energy that surged, crested, and surged again, supplementing her own arcane strength and fueling her spells with eldritch might.
By attacking and overpowering him, the witch had broken a bond forged centuries ago. That would certainly have an effect on the arcane protectors of Rashemen. Already she could feel their spells of divination and their oracular gifts searching the land for her. They pressed against the mystic screens both she and Durakh had erected to conceal their location-pressed but did not penetrate.
And would not penetrate so long as the vremyonni and the wychlaran were not working in concert. Beneath their combined power, not even Yulda's own heightened gifts could deceive them.
A loud knock from behind the thick stone door of the chamber brought her attention to the present.
"Chaul," she heard a husky, feminine voice say from the hallway beyond. "Are you there?"
Yulda moved aside the thick rolls of parchment and picked up a clear crystal about the size of an egg sitting on the corner of the desk. She blew on it once, and as her breath touched the crystal, its surface shimmered with milky incandescence. The light from the crystal soon faded, leaving the image of a shadowy stone hallway and a single figure standing before a door.
Durakh.
Voluminous folds of earth-brown robes covered the broad expanse of the figure's shoulders and back but hung open in the front to reveal a suit of unmarred jet-black plate mail and plate leggings. Yulda could see that the priestess's left hand still touched the haft of her mace as she stood before the door. Red runes spilled down its length, pulsating hotly in the darkness of the hallway. A thick metal bracer with four wicked-looking metal claws covered the length of Durakh's other hand, from her wrist to beyond her fingertips.