In the Shadow of Xiangmen I

Ancient Xiangmen stretched into the sky, its branches and leaves spreading to the horizon, its trunk a pillar of the world, dwarfing all but the mightiest mountain. Silent were the townships of the root hills and the plains. The farms stood empty, the workshops silent. Manors and hovels alike were empty.

They came. After years of gathering wrath, they came.

From the east came the hound lords, a great mass of riders with no bits or bridles, a mass of beasts, a mass of restlessness and dissatisfaction. At their head was a silver hound of three tails, its fur burning with the light of the moon, its eyes as suns. His tread shook the earth, splintered trees, and flattened hills. His howl shook the sky and was joined by ten thousand of his kin.

From the south came the widows and widowers, orphans and grieving parents, the broken, the forgotten, the disdained. They came from the ruined land, and their ruin gave them strength. Soldiers and craftsmen, philosophers and clerks, priests and merchants all marched, their song a primal howl, achingly human. They called the masters of the world to account, and for the very first time, their cries did not vanish into the uncaring void for with them walked titans, wrought of the fury which was born ‘neath the cruel master’s boot.

From the west came no host, only a darkness, a mist, a shadow. It coiled among the ancient trees, cloying and gray. The strains of zithers and the piping of flutes were the only sign of the wayward scions of the Labyrinth.

Stolen story; please report.