The Wanagi

Word count: 5692
Status: Complete; part of "Twisted Plains"

    The two rulers' movements intertwined, playing within the light of the flames. Lord Jadek’s maroon gaze caught sight of something flitting haphazardly overhead. Jadek yanked himself and Lady Uana out of the fire and harm’s way. The yutie nosedived and crashed onto the platform. The smell of roasting meat permeated the air.
    Fruit juice, the only non-alcoholic liquid on hand, doused the fire, much to the children’s distress.  The charred yutie would be added to the feast tables, though.  It was no small bird; this one was as long as a child.  A messenger’s cylinder was attached to its left leg.  Its mind must have been muddled by exhaustion.
    A gold knight of Kesvia presented Lady Uana, the Queen of Kesvia, with the singed crumpled paper.  She tilted it towards Jadek Ecmir, the Lord of Kalisk, so they could both read.

    Uana pulled Jadek aside, out of earshot of the general public.  “It seems we must become friends faster than we thought, Lord Jadek.  Gylia is within your borders.  Shall Kesvia march with you?”  For this being the first time he met her,  Jadek could see why she was queen.  She got to the point.
    “I request your help.  We must ride, Lady Uana.  I cannot allow demons in my country.  The window of time for the Harvest ceremony is gone.  We suit up for war.  You do have a decent army or militias this far out in the country, yes?”
    “Of course.”  Uana strode to the blackened spot where the fire had burned.  The knights moved off the dais. “People of Kesvia and citizens of Kalisk:  This day, the first Koniiday of the month of Krist, 1768: the first day in history that the Harvest ceremony dance was interrupted.” She raised the note for all to see.  “We have a sign from the creator, the Seeder of Nations!  This is not an omen.  Tis a holy war we must fight!  Spirit’s Providence has overtaken Gylia to the southeast.  The Crimson Army we fight!”
    Men and women, sober and drunk, cheered for the strong, shining Lady.  They spat upon mention of the other realm.  Jadek reluctantly praised her for steering the situation away from disaster.  The last thing people wanted to hear was that their god didn’t give a damn about the ceremony.
    For a human female, Uana sure knew how to boil a man’s bloodlust.  Jadek drew Uana back to the edge of the dais.  “I have a thousand men waiting a few miles to the east.  I’ll send a messenger back to Kalisk to rally my army.  They will engage the demons first, and then we come from the west.”  He shoved his scaly fist into the palm of the other.  “And clamp them between us.”  When Uana agreed, he clasped her hands before he pivoted on his heel and made for his tent to prepare.

After thirty-seven days of marching south thirty miles per day, a grueling pace, the enormous trees of Old Grove dwindled to normal size, then to grass, then shifting sands.  The soldiers removed their metal exoskeletons, stripping down to their leathers.  The sun drew sweat from the men’s bodies as they slogged to the Ocean Dock Inn.
    There was no ocean, neither was there a dock.  As they crested the final dune, every gemstone embedded in the white marble of the Church of Twenty-One glimmered in the purpling sky.  The village, the only one mapped in the Serrated Desert, occupied the series of caverns beneath the Church.  The leaders’ Head Servants made reservations.  The human innkeeper and his wife stuttered.  “Her Ladyship of Kesvia and the Lord of Kalisk are here?” Only so much cleaning could be done since sand always found a way in.
    After all was in order, the innkeeper and staff came out to personally greet the royal party.  Jadek thanked him for what was available and that the inn had use of the army's food supply if need be.  The welcoming party bowed frantically and showed them to their mats.
    Later that night, Lord Jadek found himself swaggering up clay inclines flanked by Gina the Head Maid, the wife of his Head Servant, and a score of soldiers.  As the party drifted around to the front of the Church, it did not take long for the freezing desert night to seep into Jadek.  His blood congealed in his veins, one of the downfalls of having Iaché blood.  Lizards can’t take the cold.
    Gina stepped up and took his right arm as if they were on an evening stroll.  Her warmth bled into him, bringing him back up to speed.
    “Thank you,” Jadek said, blessed to have such a competent woman, a Sidhe at that, in his service.
    Gina jerked her face up to look at him, almost slicing his shoulder with her horns.
    “You have my permission to speak.  Or do you happen to be mute?”  
    She nodded.  
    “Oh.”  No wonder they had not chatted while she had cleaned his chambers.
    They party gazed at the finely carved front doors depicting the War that had engulfed the continent not quite three thousands years ago.  It was colder inside, despite the braziers set at regular intervals along the walls of the low-ceilinged lobby.  The soldiers remained at the entrance to the second hall on the left.  Gina seemed like she was going to wait too, but the Lord’s arm stayed entwined with hers.
    The Lord and maid passed through the archway and into the Desire Hall dedicated to Empress Fleurette, the first Sidhe created by the Seeder of Nations.  Jadek, who was not religious, felt that he should still pay homage to the woman who sired his mother’s people.  A statue of the voluptuous Empress stood tall at the far end in front of a blazing brazier.  Rows of wine-colored pillows lined the walkway.  The pair picked a row at random and knelt on the pillows.  They bent over, like servants.  Their foreheads touched the frigid marble between the triangle formed by their fingers.  Silently, they prayed.
    Jadek grew bored, tapped Gina on the shoulder, and left.  And then he saw her.  Her angled topaz eyes met his.  His breath stopped when a pleasant feeling poked his heart.  She glared, then broke contact as she followed an Obsidian Elf and a Human into the Strength Spoke reserved for the Dwarves’ Empress.  She was no purebred.  Her physical features varied too much.  The flames played on her sun-tanned skin.  She was lean and lithe but still muscular.  The sharpness of her face was bird-like.  He could feel a simmering temper, much like how his was always ready to boil.
    “You and the woman you take for yours will be happy in your life together.  She is a creature with an unquenchable flame burning in her belly.  She is a being of mixed blood…a halfbreed.”  That was what the Elree fortuneteller had told him at the Harvest ceremony as her brown paw traced patterns across his palm and its scaly backside.  She had described the Wanagi,  an old legend of his father’s people.  It was a being that could turn the world into a sea of bubbling magma if she so chose.  She was living justice.  After hearing so many bedtime stories about her and her reign, he was dead set on having her.
    Too excited to visit the Iaché Empress, and reluctant to venture into the hall after the woman, Jadek took Gina’s arm and exited the Church.  “I want to know more about her,” he whispered in her ear.  Gina looked like a devil with those purple horns and that devious smile.
    Early the next morning, Mendoza the Head Servant served Jadek fried yutie eggs, half a loaf of bread, and juice.  Gina beamed and handed him a slip of paper.  “Zorander Sulthlare from the message is in an audience with Her Ladyship, Lord,” the slip said.  Jadek scarfed down the meal and crashed the audience.
    A long-haired male was already deep in explanation.  Uana motioned for a chair to be placed beside her for Jadek.  He plopped in the basket seat and regarded the red-haired woman he was sure was the Wanagi.  Again she assessed him but watched the speaker instead, disinterested in the Iaché Lord.  Jadek pried his eyes from her sharp face and tried to listen to the man, who he now identified as a hornless Sidhe.  The Lord could feel the sexual waves wafting from him, a natural trait of Sidhe.
    “...As far as we know, there are no other survivors.  We fled when we could hold no longer.  We put as much distance between us and Gylia as possible.  My novices and I arrived here late last night. I’m thankful that you heeded my message, Your Ladyship.  And I’m surprised to learn that Lord Jadek Ecmir was also present.”  Zorander Sulthlare bowed his head.  “Are we to leave at once?”  
    Looking to Jadek, who acquiesced to her decision, Uana halted the march for a week.  Tired men fell in battle.  The audience ended and Jadek seized his chance as the woman turned to follow Zorander.
    “Excuse me.  What might your name be?”  Jadek held out an orange-backed hand.  
The red-haired woman’s eyes hardened.  Her Iaché temper was forefront.  
    “Kariotic Gladomin, my Lord.”  She dipped her head.  
    He kept himself from grinning in delight.  Her voice was exquisite!  Not quite rough, but certainly not used to court talk.  To exist this close to her had his blood searing various parts of him.  When he took a step closer, the Obsidian Elf from last night grabbed her hand.
    “Come, pixie!  Let us enjoy the hot spring before practice.  Excuse us, Lord.”  He inclined his head, a rude motion.  Jadek labeled the cheeky elf as an enemy.  
    For the rest of the week, Gina found ways to get Kariotic alone or as near to him as possible.  One night, the maid purposely rearranged the seating arrangements to seat them side by side at dinner.
    Jadek and Uana, equals in rank, sat at the head of the meandering line of platters.  The guests of honor sat to the Lord’s left, a gesture of thanks for sending word of the ambush.  The lineup would have been Lead Trainer Zorander, Ell, and then Kariotic, the female.  All took notice of Kariotic sitting directly next to Jadek.  All seemed more interested in the meal.
    Kariotic sat on her knees, her back rod straight.  She too only had eyes for the food.
    “Kariotic Gladomin, I take it that you were a novice at the Training Facility?”  He flicked a small sphere of grain in the air.  His forked tongue darted to seize it.
    “Yes, Lord.  Though I still train under Zor.  Ander.”  
    Jadek’s tongue split the second ball of rice.  He had heard the fondness of a nickname. “Oh?  What division were you anticipating to join?”
    “That is still being decided as of yet, my Lord,” Zorander said.  “She favors hand-to-hand combat as well as swordplay, but I’m afraid she lacks experience to make such a decision.”  Without the characteristic horns, he passed for a very attractive human.  
    “I see.  Have you continued training here?”  He continued after the pair nodded.  “Then I would like to witness a session or two.  I have yet to assess the training in the southern part of my country.”  Lord Jadek knew that neither could refuse his request.
    He attended all of the sparring matches.  Rods of anger and jealousy shot through him when Zorander and Ell struck Kariotic with practice blades or offered her a hand.  Today Zorander pointed his two-handed broadsword at Kariotic.  She held a scimitar in her left hand and a two-bladed weapon strapped to her wrist.  The Lord gripped the armrest when she charged first.
    Today’s lesson was about stamina, and it became clear that Kariotic had not been listening.  She burnt herself out after a couple minutes.  Several darkening bruises were her reward for being unable to defeat her teacher.  Zorander ended the session, but Jadek called him back.
    “I would like to try my hand against you.”
    “My Lord.”  Most soldiers would have flapped their lips, stunned.
    Mendoza brought him his skillfully crafted longsword.  Zorander assumed his wide stance as Jadek raised his left hand and pointed his sword.  The hornless Sidhe sprang first, aiming for Jadek's scaled torso.  The Lord spun away, not bothering to deflect.  Zorander planted his broadsword in the rock, using it as a pivot to face his opponent again.
    Soon both began to acquire bruises as their reflexes slowed.  Jadek felt Kariotic’s eyes studying his form, making mental notes.  But he was growing bored of this impasse.  He brought his left hand up again and whispered something in his slithery tongue.
    A burst of flame thrust the Lead Trainer across the solid rock.  He did not move.
    “Zor!”  Kariotic was by his side before anyone else.  Her calloused hands ran from his sweat drenched forehead to the blackened armor of his chest.  When the gray eyes flicked open, Kariotic stood and moved to address the Lord.
    Ell beat her to him.  “Magic!  You can’t use magic!  A coward’s trick.”  Ell's lips, barely a few inches from Jadek's, arched back to reveal rather distinct canines.  
    “A trick, elf?  I am a sorcerer as well as a swordsman.  I use the talents I’m born with.”  He turned his back on him and offered a hand to the man still struggling to sit up.  “Lead Trainer Sulthlare.  Train my soldiers along with your two.”
    Day after day, hundreds of pairs practiced in unused caverns under Zorander's watchful eye.  His sternum ached in time with his heartbeat.  Zor was still miffed about losing to a sorcerer, but at least the Lord acknowledged his prowess in battle.
    The men had worked hard enough.  He called for a twenty minute break.

    Kariotic thought of the past couple of days as the yellow globe in the sky approached its zenith.  She was concerned about Zorander’s chest, but he refused to share that pain with her.  The hornless Sidhe nursed his pride on his own.  She respected him for that, but the rejection still hurt.  
    “That stupid lizard and his blasted magic.”  Her thoughts never strayed far from him either.  Kariotic entertained the idea of severing that twisting tongue of his when Jadek lowered himself onto the sand beside her.  His dark red eyes observed her with a strange intensity.  It did not give him license to talk to her.
    “What do you want?”  Her fingers twitched toward the sheath on her hip; it was empty.
     “Hear me out.  I know what you are.  And I—”
    “Oh!  And don’t you think everyone I encounter knows what I am?”  
    Jadek did not admonish her lack of respect, enjoying the slip of temper.  “—myself am a halfbreed.”   He shocked her into silence.  He took the opportunity to tell her about his parentage.  
    He was of a dual bloodline.  Jadek’s father was an Iaché, a race of humanoid lizards that lived in a volcanic land to the northeast, hence his scales that withstood heat.  His mother was Sidhe, a most beautiful woman, despite the lilac-colored horns atop her head.  He got everything else from her, except his maroon eyes and tremendous temper.
    As Jadek questioned her, she reluctantly told him her story.  “I ran away from the Mountains.  I was verbally, and more often, physically abused by the villagers and my family.  They were disgusted by my blood.  I mean, why is it my fault that my ancestors screwed around indiscriminately?”

    Kariotic’s companions, Ell and Zorander, noticed her budding relationship with the lizard-like Lord as they packed up to march to Gylia.  Ell bristled with jealously.  Zorander only watched the exchanges between the two.  Lord Jadek resembled a zealot who had finally glimpsed the goddess he worshipped.  He certainly did not want to make enemies with a powerful man unnecessarily.
    At night, the Lord’s tent was pitched near the trio’s to ensure a goodnight chat before bed.  On one of these desert nights well after off-duty soldiers had curled up in heavy blankets, Jadek asked Kariotic if she knew the legend of the Wanagi.
    “The wah-what?  Is that some kind of snake?”  Her yellow eyes glowed in the moonlight, like an animal’s. Another hint towards her mixed heritage.
    “No.  It’s a tale my father used to tell me when he tucked me in the black earth every night.  Would you like to hear it?”  
    Kariotic nodded, eyebrow rising at the idea of willingly sleeping in dirt.  The Lord gave her a sharp-toothed smile.  She was an inexperienced nineteen-year-old to his forty-two years of life.  
    Jadek prepared his best story-telling voice.  A female of mixed blood walks the earth as any other creature the Seeder of Nations made.  When she takes another creature as hers and experiences a formidable emotion, the fiery spirit of the other realm bubbling in her belly will unchain the beast within.  The form she was born in melts away.  The Wanagi is reborn from the body.
    She will resemble a wyvern, but she’ll be the grandest of all.  Her body will be dressed in many scales of tan.  Her wings will span many house lengths.  Her gaze will be of the deepest topaz.  The Wanagi’s mane will shame the red of the setting sun.  She will be living justice.  
    None, rich or poor, will escape her wrath if she sees unforgivable sins tucked in the recesses of their souls.  The Tie she keeps after discarding her original body is to the creature she pledged her life.  That creature alone avoids her judgment.  From then on, only the Wanagi shall rule Twisted Plains.  And it will be glorious.
    Kariotic hugged her legs.  Her mid-thigh length dress was encrusted with sand as was her short, unkempt hair.  He reveled in her nearness.  The night air froze his blood as well as the fear of her outright hating the story.
    “Hmm.  It’s kind of dark, don’t you think?  Not knowing that she’s basically a god that’s destined to rule all?  And she’ll forget her family and friends.  Except her Tie.  Well, I wouldn’t mind forgetting my family myself,” Kariotic said.
    “I…never thought of it that way.  But I wouldn’t mind being her lover,” Jadek said, following the planes and curves of her profile.  Kariotic jerked to face him; something inside her reacted to his subtle purr.  Jadek shifted closer, excited by the fierce tug on his soul as well.
    She flailed in the unknown waters she had stumbled into.  Somehow tousled black hair tangled with her curly red mop.  Kariotic discovered her calloused hands in that scrap too.  His hooked nose poked her cheek, but not unpleasantly so.  Most surprising of all were the lips firmly pressed against hers, seeking some kind of confirmation.  And she found herself giving it when her mouth opened and his tongue entered.
    Ell and Zorander had witnessed the couple’s kiss.  Ell hefted his long-toothed chainsaw, his weapon of choice, but Zor wrestled him into the sand before the elf could yank the chain.  A fine pin lodged itself in his breast when Kariotic leaned forward rather than away.  He was not simply losing his star pupil, but the only woman he liked to banter with.
    The war party left the Serrated Desert behind within a month.  They waded through an estuary riddled with high sandbars since the log bridge washed away.  Then they crawled over the red tail of the Velvet Mountains, which marked the border between Kesvia and Kalisk.
    Jadek and Kariotic's relationship began to shimmer like an oasis in a windswept desert.  The couple brought their infatuation into the light of day.  A soldier might see their hands brushing on purpose more than on accident.  Or Zorander found their heads close together, whispering about who knows what.  Kariotic’s fascination with the lizard pushed her companions away.
    Ell resented it.  “Damn you, pixie!  What do you see in that lizard that you don’t see in me, or even Zor?”
    “A future!” Kariotic whispered.  “You and Zor are warriors.  You thrive on war.  Maybe I would rather entertain the ideas of having a family, while you men bring down the continent,” Kariotic said.  
    The black-skinned elf made no comment.
    The army was now in the darkening woods, a hundred or so miles northwest of their destination, the Training Facility of Gylia.  The  Lord Jadek and Lady Uana were fine tuning war plans over maps and charts of the area, leaving Kariotic unattended.
    Zorander’s methods proved worse than Ell’s.  Zorander strolled towards Kariotic, his boots softly snapping hidden twigs.  She was wary.  Battle-hardened men never sauntered about; they always controlled their movements. Her heart leapt anyway, but not in fear.  
    Kariotic was not prepared for the world to turn upside down or for the pauldron that attempted to puncture her hip bone.  He had never manhandled her outside of combat training.  She growled, her lips peeling back from her bared teeth.  The red-head refused to scream, because she knew that he would take pleasure from it.  Zorander had a morbid sense of humor.
    He dumped the woman on her sleeping mat, most likely bruising her tailbone.  
    “Sticks and stones, man!”  She rubbed her backside.
    Zorander lowered himself to his mat a few feet away.  The dim interior of the tent created an eerie light for his fuming, hurt gray eyes.  Her heart did another stunt, and there was a tug, quite like what she felt for Jadek.  Kariotic only dealt with his anger during practice. He only showed his displeasure with the flat of his blade, not glaring at her like this brooding man in front of her.
    The Sidhe placed a fist to the side of his mouth.  His unbound hair flowed to lie on the mat.  He murmured into the dimness.  “Kari.  I have to tell you that I lo— ”Zor interrupted himself.  “Why him?”
    “Why who?”  The thought zapped through her brain.  “Would you clods stop it.   What’ve you got against Jadek?”  Kariotic refused to let Zorander comment.  “He teaches me about how to deal with my blood.  You and Ell only care for the craft of war!”
    She stood over her seated trainer, a clear lack of respect for his rank.  “You said, 'I’m afraid she lacks experience to make such a decision as of yet.'  Well, I’ve come to a decision!  I feel that Jadek would make a better master.”  She stopped a few notches below a shriek.
    Somehow she was sprawled on her back.  Her head lolled to the side and she glimpsed a red skid mark on the edge of a wrist guard.  Her chin ached.  Kariotic’s head rolled back to the ceiling where her eyes met the battered look on the Sidhe’s face before it was gone.  She sat up as he held the flap of the tent.  
    “You can’t sow in lava,” Zorander said, his eyes burning.
    Kariotic laid back down for a bit, her palm pressed firmly to the small nick.  Never had he lost his temper.  Not with anyone.  She remembered repeated his cryptic statement, it a few times.  She was no good at deciphering.
    Her favorite voice infiltrated her thoughts.  Kariotic leapt through the flap of the tent and tackled Jadek.  He kissed her.  Jadek cupped her chin, noticing the small wound.  
    “What this?” he said. His playfulness was replaced by simmering temper.
    Kari grasped for a lie.  “While I was resting, I transcended the barrier between imagination and reality.  I was in bloody battle and a demon threw a rock in my face.  I was too slow to dodge.  I must have scratched myself in my sleep.”  Her laughter rang a bit hollow.

    Lord Jadek's and Lady Uana's combined forces arrived in Gylia more than two months after setting off for war.  All beheld the remnants of the Training Facility.  Gray lines hovering near the sun drew their eyes down to the gnarled hands of charred wood that reached out to them.  A few flames still burned at their feet.  The barracks, what was left of them, rested in a dusty basin.  
    Demons fought the army of Kalisk who had arrived first.  Plenty of bodies were already strewn across the practice fields.  The sun dried the carrion into jerky.  Oh, the faint crackling of flames and bestial cries of savages!  The swaying rustles of the trees and thousands of muffled footfalls filled the forest.  The Lord and Lady brandished swords, signaling the charge.  The clamp smashed closed.
    He thought he glimpsed the Wanagi gurgling in her eyes as she unsheathed her weapons and ran into battle.  Jadek had wanted Kariotic to remain behind, but the bloodlust sang the lullabies of fallen friends and ruined chances to her.  Was it almost time for the birth?  Jadek could do nothing more than kill these invaders as he waited.  He hoped he lived to see her again.
    Zorander and Ell had flanked Kariotic into battle, but she waded into the fray so as to avoid them.  A man-bear’s sword grated against Kariotic’s crossed blades with a screech.  She shoved away and dodged to the side, aiming at its torso.  He turned aside all her attempts at a quick deathblow with a flick of his wrists.  His jaws dripped as he eyed her hiked up armor-plated dress.  “Like you are going to get anything from me.” She spat and traded strikes with it.
    And then its chest erupted in a geyser of tar, spraying down her front.  Zorander withdrew his massive broadsword and grinned evilly.  Arrows thudded into him and glanced off his pauldrons into the creases of his back plates, puncturing pale flesh.  He fell to his knees with a curse, his single braid falling over his shoulder.
    “Zor!”  Kariotic dropped her weapons and gathered him in her arms.
    “This… unexpected.   Kari.  I lo—”
    “Don’t speak, you fool!  I’ll…I’ll get you back to where it’s safe.”  
    Zorander shook his head sadly as she moved to drag him.  He was too heavy.  He gave her a closed-lipped smile as his eyes forgot how to focus.  She stared at his face.  “He just passed out, that’s all.  The enemy wouldn’t bother him.  They'd think he’s dead.”  Kariotic tried to believe those lies, but the animalistic keening ripping from her throat to shreds proved more.  “ZOOOOOOOOOR!”
    She cried for Zorander as much as for the mounting pain writhing in her abdomen.  Her widened topaz eyes discarded tears as her brain discarded sanity.  Her master… her friend… Zor was dead.  Many things in her gut splintered.  Something expanded, displacing her parts and taking over.  Kariotic crumpled next to Zorander.
    By now, demons and soldiers took notice of the unhinged female, each taking advantage of those not paying attention.  The Lord, on the opposite side of the battlefield, heard the screech of horror and loss.  Jadek sprinted towards it, avoiding enemies lunging for his vitals.  He had to witness the Wanagi.  Be there for Kariotic.  The screech shifted to pain.
    Jadek found her curled up next to Zorander’s shot up corpse, her body racked with spasms.  He knelt and cradled her, kissing her blackened, blood-drenched forehead.  He thought the black gunk was just demon blood, but he peeled a piece of skin from his lip.  The Lord saw The whiteness of her skull drained the color drained from his face.  She was rotting before his eyes.
    Her screams halted and turned to drowning gurgles.  Something in her distended belly shifted beneath her flaking skin.  Jadek’s sheer terror froze his limbs.  He was unable to drop Kariotic's carcass.  A three-clawed wing, about a foot long, burst through in a spray of gore.  The brownish membrane of the wing was slid out, followed by a skinny arm of tan scales.  Jadek gasped, inches from the slow moving creature.  Was no else watching?
    A tail, a bit thicker than the other limbs, flopped out of the woman’s exposed gut.  It split further as a clawed foot scrambled for purchase on the slick skin, forcing Jadek to roll back into a sitting position.  Kariotic’s face was fixed in a mask of utter agony.  Her eyes widened into dark orange suns.  The creature, clearly female, shimmied her body from the corpse, the red mane along her spine dripping.   The other arm and wing glided out of the strained corpse.
    It took a few minutes for all combatants to halt their meaningless fights to witness this...birth.  And Jadek’s heart sank into his stomach, cooking in the acids.  This was the Wanagi?  It was no larger than the yutie that almost impaled Uana during the Harvest dance.  He shoved the husk off his lap.  It thudded into the pile of gore.  The Lord of Steel retrieved his sword, sheathed it, and strode away.  Let the soldiers deal with this damn war.  He had no personal stake in it anymore.
    Men shrieked as the ran from the loud squelches and cracking.  The Lord spun around.  His scales shone brightly against the pallid skin of his face.  The sickly looking creature covered in coagulating blood jerked in much the same way Kariotic had, except without the screams.  The little arms and legs broke in several places, extending the skin under the tan scales like barbed wire.  The segments grew and lengthened.   Muscles snaked around the protruding bones, bringing them into line.  The fools still present made way for her, scrambling over each other in panic.  
    Her back arched high into the air.  Her belly did not meet the bloody ground.  The Wanagi’s tail was large enough to smash a barn.  The Wanagi paused, flexed her back muscles, and dug her claws into the cracked earth.  
    Jadek stumbled into a rut in earth, probably the work of another sorcerer.  He gawked at the enormous being over the lip of the earth.  She was much too large to be housed in Kariotic's body now.
    All of the air and warriors within the Wanagi’s 540-foot wingspan ended up several hundred yards away.  Most collided into trees, dying on impact.  Others were lucky to have be far enough away to only be forced onto their backs.
    The great wyvern caught a delightful scent in the air.  It was nearby, somewhere.  The Wanagi caught sight of a little male cowering in a ditch.  She sniffed him.  He was almost swallowed by her nostril.  She determined the smell to be the pungent scent of urine.
    Not him.  She whipped around, her tail crushing any who had crept back to the scene.  The Wanagi continued to inhale the scent.  It was masculine.  It was familiar.  It was hers.
    Her claws, the width of a human head at their bases, flung dead bodies away, sifting for her Tie.  The Wanagi’s search lead her head to stretch back underneath her great stomach to her husk.  The male’s urine was on this too, but so was that smell.  She inhaled the earth and caught the intense aroma.  
    The scent!  It was another little male, but he was asleep.  The Wanagi gently nudged him with her snout, flipping him onto his face.  And then she noticed the sharpened rocks attached to twigs piercing his breast.  His silver shell smeared with blood.  
    The cry from the woman had been a shocking sound.  But this keening was on a whole new level caused all of the men to clutch their skulls as the sound ripped through their body, seeming to tearing at their souls.  Jadek didn't move to cover his ears.  This was what he had waited for.  Those great topaz eyes locked on him, brimming with emotion.
    And he learned that he was not the Tie.
    Maybe his ancestors had distorted the oral story over several centuries of retellings.  
    Maybe the Wanagi delivered her justice because her Tie no longer existed?
    The crunching from the Wanagi's maw sounded like ice splitting on a lake.  She swallowed and roared.  Fire erupted from her mouth, charring earth and corpses alike.  The Wanagi shoved off the ground, creating massive craters.  No one would safe from her rampage.  She would make the creatures pay for the loss her Tie.
    And it will be glorious.