The Vandyrian Atlas is finally starting to come online. This wing of the project is massive by design, and it will continue to grow for years as we add new regions, maps, and features you can use directly in your own tabletop campaigns and roleplay adventures.
We’re beginning with Zhuru, the vast and scarred heart-continent of Vandyrus. Over time, you’ll see its fractured realms come into focus through high-resolution maps, regional breakdowns, and long-form essays that dig into its kingdoms, border wars, trade routes, and haunted ruins. As each new area of Zhuru is detailed, it will be woven directly into both the Atlas and the Codex, so you can zoom from a continent-wide view down into a single city, coastline, or battlefield and then straight into the lore behind it.
The Atlas and the Codex are built to work together, but they stand on their own just fine. The Codex uses the Atlas for regional context, while the Atlas regularly quotes and links back into Codex entries for deeper lore. As you explore the map, you’ll be able to move seamlessly into history, cultures, and myth; as you read the Codex, you’ll be able to jump straight back out into the wider world and see where it all lives.
All of this is part of the long-term push toward the Unity-powered version of the Codex. What you’re seeing now is the groundwork: a living atlas and a structured lore archive, side by side, built to give you the clearest possible view into the world of Vandyrus.
Izhura stands as a battered but enduring wedge of territory carved out of the chaos and competition that defines central Zhuru. Unlike the realms that rise and fall with seasonal tides or the city-states that vanish into mud and memory, Izhura endures, neither the most powerful nor the most desperate, but a constant presence where so many others have flickered out.
On a map, the realm is a long, crooked lance of grassland and border, reaching north toward the thick, haunted forests of Yir, sloping south until it meets the restless surf of the Craterian Sea.
It is surrounded on all sides by realms that are either richer, wilder, or more dangerous—Yir’s uplands and poison woods to the north, the mires and uncertain loyalties of Gunran to the east, the crowded guild-dominated coast of Elder Ruselon to the south, and the rough dog-lands of Bantos to the west. The horse folk of Izhura have survived not by outshining their neighbors, but by learning the virtues of patience, adaptation, and, when the time comes, sudden, blinding action.
For outsiders, Izhura often blurs into a single patch of green, a corridor between more exotic realms. But for those who live on its soil, the land is divided into three major territories, each shaped by history, climate, and proximity to other powers: Uyarin, Vessara, and Elleas.
These divisions are not just political—they are environmental, cultural, and psychological, with boundaries that run deeper than any border stone or old decree. The grassland spine that links them is both a blessing and a curse. It binds the realm together, but it also exposes it: armies, caravans, raiders, and rumor all travel the same broad corridors.
Zhuru is not merely a continent but a scar across the center of Vandyrus, a land defined by fracture, memory, and the unending contest between predation and endurance. Its surface, vast and wild, is a collage of grasslands, deserts, shattered cities, tainted rivers, and haunted highlands—the living record of every cataclysm that has scoured the planet since the age before written memory. Here, the myth of civilization is always provisional. Kingdoms rise, bleed, and collapse into dust, each era layering its own ruin over the last.
The north and east are carved by the territories of Yir, a vast and ancient upland raised by forces long lost to time—mist‑shrouded plateaus and drowned forests perched impossibly high above the plains, haunted by sharp‑beaked bird clans and spirits older than any living tribe. Konara, a realm of brooding woods and forgotten shrines. Gunran, a prehistoric mire where the land sinks into warm, primordial swamp, birthing traders, raiders, and scavengers hardened by humidity, hunger, and the slow rot of the wetlands. Izhura sprawls across the wild high plains, ruled by barbarian horsefolk famed for their stamina and pride, their matron‑lords trailing veiled caravans and rumors of orgiastic feasts.
In the west, Bantos is a crossroads of riotous celebrations and tangled kin‑lines—a land where rut, barter, and blood feud set the rhythm of the seasons. At the heart of Zhuru lies the Yorozh Basin, a wind‑flattened expanse once dreamt of as the cradle of empire, now reduced to a graveyard of grass, bone, and ambition. Here, the sun‑blasted remains of Kartonga sprawl—a land of ruins and skeletal forests watched over by wolf packs and scavenger‑birds that outlive every banner. To the south and west, the Rakwi hills rise: deep valleys harboring clans who trust neither outsider nor kin for longer than a season, and where the old oaths are traded and broken by dusk.
Across these contested landscapes, the cervine kingdoms maintain their proud, antlered dynasties—holding their own councils and rites, colder in temperament than their equine rivals but no less driven by the lures of trade, war, and desire. Beyond the great plain, elk and red‑deer lords brood along the forest fringes, dreaming of a day when their lineage will eclipse the horsefolk, but for now, power is ceded only as far as survival demands.
To the east, Varduun marks the dry‑rotted borderlands—parched grass and cracked land, haunted by hyena clans whose laughter is as much threat as warning. Old strongholds crumble in the sun, and every traveler is measured first by the weight of their purse, then by their nerve. This is not a land for the soft or the lucky. It is a proving ground for the desperate and the ruthless, where every promise lasts only until the next betrayal, and even the wind carries the rumor of violence.
Beyond the last fever‑swamp and the ragged edges of the southern grasslands rise the ivory kingdoms of the elephants—a living wall north of Panjar, the infamous sea‑delta. Their caravans bring ivory, gold, and wisdom to the southern courts, and their wrath—when roused—is slow, absolute, and catastrophic.
Panjar itself is a collection of bloodthirsty, disciplined sea‑kingdoms whose mastery of naval warfare and piracy holds the rest of Zhuru hostage. Here, violence is calculated, never random; raids are planned, vengeance is codified, and the line between commerce and war is thinner than a razor. Panjari fleets sweep the Panjarian Ocean and straits, controlling trade, collecting tribute, and launching campaigns that keep the continent’s softer interiors in check. Their discipline is legendary; their cruelty, a point of pride. And to the far south, across the restless water, the jungles and hidden strongholds of Djandar glimmer—sometimes as an ally, more often as a lurking threat, their power never spoken of lightly by any who traffic along the coast.
Each of these regions—Yir, Konara, Bantos, Izhura, Gunran, Varduun, Yorozh, Kartonga, Rakwi, Panjar, and Djandar—is a nation unto itself: at war, in alliance, or in ancient feud with its neighbors, yet all bound by the great wound that is Zhuru.
Beneath all this, Zhuru is a graveyard of ambitions. Every tribe, every city, every would‑be dynasty carries the scars of the Cataclysm—craters still smoking, ruins that refuse to be swallowed by grass or mire, legends of lost empires whispered only in the low tongue of slaves and exiles.
War is not a chapter here but a drumbeat; rut and conquest, feast and betrayal, all are recurring acts in a theater that never ends. Even the most beautiful rites—the fertility feasts, the public couplings, the displays of power—are always set against a backdrop of hunger, rivalry, and old wounds reopened.
To survive in Zhuru is to accept that every strength is provisional, every alliance temporary, every lover a potential traitor. The land gives nothing for free. But for those who endure—wolf mercenary, horse matron, hyena usurper, lion prince—there is no greater prize than to outlast, to outwit, to claim one more season of power in the oldest, greatest contest that Vandyrus has ever known.
“Tokotahn, the wizard-city of the Tiger Highlands, was a hidden gem of the emerald-spired kingdoms: decadent, luxuriant, and cruel. A curated paradise of temple-monasteries and cloud-bridging causeways that had withstood more than one Sundering and several shakings of the world. Its longhalls housed alchemical craft-mills and meaderies. Silk merchants fattened along the polished walkways. It was an ancient city. Respected. Heralded. And full of death and treason.”
Tafu Tahn, apprentice to Induzh Rai of the Obsidian Court—the great and most-feared conjurer of the district—now stepped lightly over the old tiger’s corpse. Face-down in his study, choked on poisoned rice.
A “peasant’s trick”.
Fitting.
He had called her peasant when she failed. Peasant when she did well. Peasant when she poured his drink or bit her lip beneath his gaze. When his noble hand slid down her back toward her ass, it was always with that same smug disdain. But he had not touched her. He knew his limits.
Now, he was dead. She sneered.
Death by rice.
How common.
She had coveted his library for years. That would be her first act—taking it. He had grown too arrogant in his isolation, boasting in recent months that he was the last of his order, the sole living master of Tokotahn’s fading magical lineage. Now she was the last. And everything he thought would die with him? Would not. She stole his key and spat on the back of his rotting head.
He had lifted her out of the gutters, yes. Taught her magic. But at the price of her name, her pride, her flesh. She had paid it. She had taken the pain. And now she took his place. The library was silent when she opened it. Silent and hers. And of course, the very first thing she did was the one thing he had forbidden. Never open the emerald case. Never touch the glass. Never disturb the volumes within. She opened it. The glass chimed like a bell. The air grew tight. She reached for the golden-bound volume he had once pointed out to her, long ago, when she was too young and scared to feign disinterest.
“And mind you, young one,” his cruel voice echoed in memory, biting like a curse. “Should you ever think yourself clever—some thieving little peasant whore—this book, The Curses and Death-Traps of Most Barbarous Yorozh, will be your end. The book itself—and all its kind—have sworn that my magic dies with me. Should you try… they will see to it.”
She grinned.
And picked it up.
Damned.
She did not even have time to scream. The pages shredded in her hands—turning to sand, light, and wind—and a golden portal yawned open, dragging her forward in a burst of light and fury. She hit cracked stone and heat. The scream burst out of her just as the portal closed…
Severing her feet at the ankles. Pain ripped through her like fire and ice braided together. She screamed again—but bit off the tip of her own tongue in the panic. Blood sprayed from her mouth. She tried to crawl, but her nerves would not obey. Her limbs twitched, dumb with shock, her thoughts shattered like glass. Her body went cold even as the sand baked her raw.
Only then, writhing, bleeding out, did she realize how damned she was.
I cannot tell you where she landed in Yorozh—because no king, no clan, no mapmaker, and no living war-shaman sane enough to speak has ever charted that place. Yorozh is not a desert.
It is a curse.
In the elder Izhanian tongue, Yorozh means “Place Host to the God of Death.” And so, once again, it had been used.
Weeks later, in the quiet study of Induzh Rai—now reeking of mold and flybuzz—the ministers of the Obsidian Court finally arrived to investigate his silence.
They found his corpse. Cold. Familiar.
And beneath the emerald-glass case in the high library, they found nothing missing…
The girl ran through the frost-bitten woods, her limbs a blur against the whitening dusk. Behind her, the trees rose like the ribs of some colossal carcass, each one rimed in blue ice, each one echoing her passage with the hollow, brittle music of the cold.
Above, the sky was a vast bruise—darkening, deepening—and through it drifted the faint glow of the departing airship, already no larger than a drifting coal in the distance. Its engines were fading, the last tremor of living sound swallowed by the wind. She stumbled, fell, and the snow accepted her with the indifference of the dead.
For a moment she tried to rise, but her body no longer obeyed its own commands. Her lungs burned; her breath burst in clouds that froze before they fell.
Around her stretched the desolation of Londorai—an endless continent of cold, cruelty, and silence. No light but the auroral pulse of the storm-sky. No warmth but the fever of panic still thrumming in her chest.
The airship was gone now, sliding toward the horizon like a memory being erased. She watched until even its vapor trail was lost among the clouds.
Then she bowed her head.
Her sobs came without sound.
The frost took them too.
She pressed her muzzle into the snow, trembling beneath the gaze of a world that did not care whether she lived or died.
–
Londorai was vast and without mercy. The wind carried no scent of rescue, no echo of clan or kin. Only the deep, endless cold, and the promise of teeth. Above her, the aurora shivered once—green fire on a frozen sea—then vanished into night.
At 14, It was her first year in the guild without her sire. He would never have let them lift from the ice without her aboard. But he was gone now, and the others had already weighed her worth and found it light.
She had complained it was harsh, that the cold bit too deep, that the beasts came too close at night. They had laughed. Now the shares were six instead of seven.
They would speak of her softly, perhaps once, in the warmth of the galley, then let the silence swallow her name as the wind had swallowed her cries.
The airship would reach the southern cities in a week—if the storms did not tear its hull apart first.
The lion’s mane was a dark banner, soaked with brine and sweat, when the shadow of the sky-reptile fell across him. His broadsword flashed once, twice, and with a roar of effort he hewed the tip from the pterodactyl’s beak. Black ichor fountained, but the wound only enraged the monster. Its talons closed around his torso, crushing his ribs like kindling, and with a wet crack his arm was snapped in three places. Splinters of white bone jutted through skin and fur as he screamed, his blade tumbling from his grasp into the abyss below.
The creature hauled him aloft, wings beating like storm-sails. Half-mad from agony, the barbarian reached up with his good hand, plunging his claws into the wet orb of its eye. With a feral snarl he crushed it to pulp. The pterodactyl shrieked, spasmed, and dipped too low—skimming the steel-dark surface of the sea. In its thrashing, his ruined arm tore loose, flesh and sinew parting with a sickening rip. He fell into the waves howling, the salt water boiling red around him.
But the ocean had its own hungers. From beneath, jaws vast as a canyon clamped down. A mosasaur, titan of the deeps, took both man and beast in its maw. The pterodactyl vanished in a single gulp, while the lion was raked across razored teeth, his legs severed clean at the knees. He burst back to the surface, a wreck of a warrior, bellowing through froth and blood as his own armor dragged him down. A buckle caught on the leviathan’s scale; he was tethered to his devourer, drowning by inches.
Then the sea itself split apart. Tentacles thicker than oak masts coiled upward, latching onto the mosasaur with obscene strength. The deep gave voice to its oldest horror—the kraken had come. Its beak, monstrous and unholy, yawned open wider than a fortress gate. The sea boiled as titan fought titan, and amid the clash of gods the lion was nothing more than garnish.
He managed one last scream, bubbles streaking from his lips, before the tendrils wrapped him in their cold embrace. Armor, flesh, and broken bones alike were rolled into the titanic jaws. A lion, a lizard, and a sky-thing all vanished together into the black maw of the abyss—an offering swallowed whole by the blind hunger of the deep.
Krothuum was a scar of stone and dust on the southern grasslands of Zhuru. Its walls were low, cracked things, more a mark of pride than a bulwark, and the gates gaped like broken teeth. Smoke clung above the city, not the holy incense of temples but the choking reek of coal-pits and forges, of fat burning on anvils, of oil dumped into the gutters.
The city lived on steel and mockery. Every forge was a rival, every hammer-strike a jeer against the smith across the alley. Hyenas laughed at each other across the streets, the cackling rolling through Krothuum like thunder. It was a city that thrived on humiliation — and where shame was remembered longer than blood spilled.
Into this dust-choked maze strode a she-wolf of the northern tribes, black of pelt, broad of shoulder, and proud of stride. Her amber eyes burned beneath the sweat-clumped locks of her mane, and her arms — thick with the sinew of war — bore scars that spoke of raids across mountains and the razing of caravans. She was not soft like the courtesans of Zarnack, nor sly like the thieves of Kansubar. She was barbarian stock: raw, bold, made for the clash of steel and the bite of blood.
Yet for all her strength, she had come to Krothuum weakened — stripped not of her coin, but of her sword.
It had been promised ready at dawn. She had paid for it with gold and a raided caravan’s worth of loot. A northern blade, reforged in the hyena-smith’s coals, tempered for the blood-feast she intended to unleash when she crossed the straits toward Drael. But dawn had passed, then noon, then dusk, and now the day waned while her temper flared.
She shoved her way through the market, scattering fox-hawkers and goat-wives alike, until she came to the forge of Rathgur the Smith — a thick-shouldered hyena with soot-blackened fur, known for his laugh and his treachery in equal measure. His rivals claimed he spent more time mocking than hammering, yet he never lacked for customers. For in Krothuum, the louder a smith’s laughter, the more certain folk seemed that his steel would not bend.
The wolf planted her hands on his counter, claws clattering against the iron-rimmed wood. “Where is my blade?” she snarled. “You swore it would be ready. You swore it with oath and coin both.”
Rathgur did not look up at once. He worked the bellows, smoke curling around his muzzle. Only when the forge flared red did he glance at her — a slow, toothy grin spreading across his muzzle. “Not here,” he said. His voice was rough, each word dripping with the slothful amusement of one who knows he holds power. “Perhaps you misplaced it.”
“Misplaced?” Her voice was a growl, low and trembling. “You think me a pup, hyena? You think I forget where I lay my steel?”
He shrugged, the grin never leaving his muzzle. “Perhaps you forget many things. Where you leave your weapons. Where you leave your coin. Where you leave your legs, after drink and whoring.”
The forge-hands laughed. A cruel, barking chorus. The wolf’s claws dug into the wood, carving furrows. Pride swelled in her chest, mingling with desperation. Her sword was not just iron — it was her name, her survival, her right to stride as a warrior. Without it, she was no more than a lost bitch wandering a city of jackals.
And in that desperate moment, her tongue betrayed her.
“Who,” she spat, her voice sharp enough to cut the smoke, “do I have to rutt with to find my sword!?”
The words hung in the air like a curse. The forge fell silent, save for the crackle of coals. Hyena ears pricked. Jaws spread in grins. Then the laughter came — harsh, howling, rolling through the smithy until it seemed the very walls shook with it.
Rathgur’s eyes gleamed. “Ah,” he said, drawing the word like a blade across her pride. “So that is the bargain you offer.”
The wolf’s face burned beneath her dark fur. She opened her mouth to curse him, to call him heathen, thief, and crook — but the laughter was already binding her, wrapping her in mockery. In Krothuum, a word spoken in desperation was as binding as an oath.
And Rathgur, hyena that he was, would not let it pass.
The headboard rattled like a war drum, a cracked plank nailed crooked against the stone wall of Rathgur’s forge-room. Every thrust set it hammering, every laugh of his made it echo louder. The noise carried through the thin walls into the market beyond, so that all of Krothuum’s dust-choked streets could hear the she-wolf’s shame.
Her claws dug splinters into the board, her amber eyes squeezed shut as sweat matted the fur at her temples. She cursed through clenched teeth, the words breaking apart into gasps and sharp yelps as the hyena’s bulk drove against her. His cock was thick, cruel, stretching her in ways that were no pleasure, only pain. He knew it, and he reveled in it.
“Bitch,” Rathgur snarled, punctuating the word with a slap across her haunch, the crack of palm to fur echoing like a blacksmith’s strike. “You thought you’d strut in here, north-blood, tossing your pride like coin. You thought you could mock me, eh? Tell me where my steel lies? Ha!”
His laughter rolled like thunder. His paw closed on her tail, yanking it back as he drove himself deeper, forcing a cry from her throat that no curse could hide. She trembled with fury, with helplessness, with the gnawing ache that each thrust drove into her belly.
“Curse you!” she spat, though it came out broken, half a whimper, half a growl. “Curse you, hyena cur! Heathen crook—”
Her voice snapped into a squeal as his thumb shoved rudely into her tailhole, pressing past clenched muscle. Her whole body jolted, shame burning hotter than the coals outside. He barked laughter, the cruel, barking kind that only hyenas could muster, and it shook the rafters.
Outside, the forge-hands and passersby heard everything. The rhythm of the rattling board, the hyena’s laughter, the wolf’s strangled cries. Krothuum thrived on spectacle, and today’s spectacle was the barbarian bitch who had demanded her sword. Already wagers were whispered, jokes flung back and forth — who would finish first, her pride or his seed.
She wanted to scream, to thrash, to claw his throat open. Yet the grip on her tail, the weight of his body, the cruel shove of his cock left her pinned and trembling. Her bosom pressed against the splintered board, her thighs shook with the strain of holding herself up. She tried to spit venom, to call him filth, to swear vengeance — but every word was broken by gasps and yelps.
And worst of all, she could feel her pride crumbling with each thrust. Not arousal — never that — but the bitter, soul-deep regret of a warrior undone. She thought of her sword, her steel, her lifeblood. Without it she was nothing in this city. Without it she could not walk the caravan roads, could not raid, could not fight. Without it she had no power.
And so she endured. Teeth grit, eyes burning, heart pounding not with lust but with rage and shame. She endured, even as his thumb worked cruelly in her tailhole, even as his palm cracked against her flank again and again, even as he laughed like a jackal feasting.
“North-blood bitch,” he jeered, his breath hot against her ear. “Regretting your adventures now, eh? Regretting your big mouth? You’ll think twice before you wag your tongue in Krothuum again.”
His thrusts grew harder, faster, each one shaking the board, each one driving her claws deeper into splinters. Her tail jerked in his grip, her body jolted against his weight. She tried to curse him one last time, but it broke into a strangled yelp as he shoved himself deep and spilled into her, the hot flood of seed sealing her shame.
He laughed again, louder than ever, the sound rolling out into the street so all could hear. He slapped her haunch once more, as if to mark her, then pulled free. She collapsed against the rattling board, chest heaving, bosom slick with sweat, fury and shame burning her amber eyes.
And still he laughed.
“On your feet, bitch,” Rathgur said, buckling his belt as if nothing had happened. “I’ll show you your precious sword.”
Her breath hissed through her teeth, her pride torn raw. Yet she dragged herself up, tail low, fury trembling in every limb. She needed her sword. She needed it more than she needed her pride.
And so she followed him, half-dressed, into the daylight of Krothuum, where the crowd was already gathering, already laughing, already hungry for the next stroke of her humiliation.
The forge-door creaked wide, and daylight cut across the soot and smoke. The she-wolf staggered into the street behind Rathgur, her mane damp with sweat, her chest heaving. Her fur clung to her body where his seed still dripped, her tail limp, her pride raw. She had not bothered to dress, only clutched her loin-wrap against her hips as if to guard what little modesty she had left.
But modesty was nothing in Krothuum. The laughter had already spread.
Hyenas lined the alleys, forge-hands leaned from doorways, merchants paused mid-bargain to jeer. Even the mongrels and half-breeds of the market were grinning, for nothing in Krothuum drew a crowd faster than shame. They had heard the board rattle, the wolf squeal, the hyena laugh — and now they saw the proof stumble into the dust.
“Show me,” she hissed, dragging Rathgur by the arm. Her claws dug into his soot-stained hide. “Show me my blade, you bastard! Now!”
The hyena only grinned wider, throwing a look to the crowd. His laughter was louder than the forge-bellows. “Aye, I’ll show you. But perhaps you’ll wish I hadn’t.”
He turned, slow as a priest delivering judgment, and lifted a paw to point across the street.
There, standing smug in the doorway of his own smithy, was his rival — a thick-armed hyena of equal girth, holding a longsword aloft in one hand. The wolf’s longsword.
“There you are, wench!” the rival bellowed, his voice carrying over the dust and din. “Your sword’s been ready for hours! And here you are — fucking around like a common whore while I waited!”
The crowd roared. Hyenas doubled over, their laughter sharp as knives. A pair of foxes howled and slapped each other’s backs. Even the slaves hauling coal grinned as they trudged past.
The wolf’s face burned hot beneath her fur. She wanted to scream, to deny, to kill. Instead, she turned on Rathgur and struck him hard across the back with the flat of her paw. The blow cracked like a whip, but he only threw his head back and howled with laughter.
Her rage boiled over. She charged across the street, snatched her sword from the rival’s paw, and lifted it high. Its weight steadied her, its steel cooled her trembling. At last she felt whole again — at last she felt like herself.
She spun back, amber eyes blazing, and stormed toward Rathgur’s forge with murder written in every stride. The crowd parted, eager to see blood, eager to see the story end in violence. She raised her blade, teeth bared, ready to carve his head from his shoulders—
—when the heavy door slammed in her face.
The clang of iron bolts drove home her defeat. Behind the shuttered timbers came Rathgur’s laughter, louder than ever, echoing through the alleys like a curse.
The wolf froze, sword in hand, fury quaking in her chest. The crowd laughed on. Some mocked her with barks, others with obscene gestures. None offered pity.
For this was Krothuum, dustiest of Varduun’s cities. Here, humiliation was currency, shame was spectacle, and the tale of the black she-wolf who rutted away her pride would be told in taverns from Gorzanth’s barracks to Zarnack’s brothels.
She clenched her sword until her knuckles ached, then turned away, vowing vengeance. But vengeance is long in coming, and laughter travels fast.
During the destructive and costly campaign through the northern Roedon territories, the imperial host of Zhuru came into direct conflict with the snow leopard peoples—native to the high valleys and glacier-fed passes.
These leopards, though scattered and loosely bound by clan and oath, proved more than capable of resisting the organized military formations of the empire. Blood was matched for blood. In time, the defenders not only held their ground but pressed back in key sectors.
Facing a grinding stalemate, Volko Khan—white wolf of the elder Zhurian dynasties—resorted to employing local mercenaries.Often drawn from exile bands or lowborn outlanders, these fighters were used with reckless cruelty, their lives spent cheaply to “catch and hold enemy arrows,” as one report noted. This policy, while expedient in theory, was strategically flawed. It fostered resentment, encouraged disorder, and betrayed a fundamental misunderstanding of the cultures he sought to dominate. Wasteful. Arrogant. Shortsighted.
Volko was already a despot in his own homeland—reviled, politically cornered, and denied broader legitimacy by rival courts. He had not come to Roedon in conquest, but rather in voluntary exile, having fled the shifting alliances of Zhuru’s central provinces. His campaign was not a march of imperial expansion but an attempt to supplant peoples, to build a new order from the bones of the north.
And so the wolves of Vulsa—disciplined, fierce, and obedient—bled out under his banners. Not for home. Not for duty. But for the arrogance of a soured dynast drunk on exile and borrowed war…
…With one exception.
I
Tantos and Lozh, warrior-grey wolves of Vulsa, lay dying beneath the forest boughs.
Lozh writhed, still breathing—barely. His body had been nailed to the forest floor: arrows through his chest, neck, knee, and groin. He fought to stay calm. He did not want his master, still bleeding out nearby, to cross into Zarhanda hearing the wailing of a sniveling pupil. But still—he called out.
“Master…” Lozh spat blood. “We can’t lose. Not like this.”
No answer.
“Ka’s blood, this hurts!” he hissed.
Tantos didn’t speak. He was pinned to a tree by fewer arrows, but two were through the lungs, and one was deep in the heart. Every breath came wet.
Then he shifted—slow, painful—turning his bloodied muzzle toward the misty wood.
“Boy,” he growled through the rattle in his throat. “Where be your brother Thahn? Or have we lost him to rumor, too?” Lozh whimpered. He looked around the clearing, dazed, breath shallow. “He’s… he’s not here.”
A long silence.
Then Tantos began to laugh. Grim. Dry. Cold with Vulsan knowing. The kind of laugh that has already seen the end and accepts it. “Why are you laughing?” Lozh gasped. “Master—we’re dying.” “Aye,” barked the old wolf, coughing blood down his chest. “But he lives.”
They died there, beneath the shadowed green of the Roedon woods.
Their hearts ceased.
Their lungs emptied.
But the great bird-serpent lord, Ka, god of death, it’s said, had to pause before collecting their lights—for their laughter echoed too long. It stayed in the trees, in the blood-soaked moss, in the arrows that still trembled in bark and bone.
And far from that place, a third figure ran north. Not with fear. But with guile, and vengeance, and a mind already stripped of all civilization or barbarism. A wolf with nothing left to lose—except the chance to do something audacious. Something ruefully transgressive to the thrones of the Western Highlands.
II
The fortress of Dengan loomed high in the forested crags where the steppe gave way to the broken coast. Perched between frost-slick ridgelines and groves of old bamboo, it squatted like a wolf at rest—timbered jaws wide, torchlight flickering in its teeth. Walls of dark pine and charred stone formed its spine. Arrow slits glowed. Smoke curled from the chimneys of the great hall.
Within, the daughter of Volko Khan moved like an ornament between rooms. White silk. Thin anklets. Surrounded by guards. Her laughter was light but hollow, guarded by six in each wing, all of them nervous from the morning’s slaughter. They whispered of ghosts. Of vengeance. Of a grey bastard with white hair.
The banners above the main tower barely moved. The frost had frozen them stiff.
From above, one could trace the keep’s order: the outer garden with its knotwood trails, the map-room near the east flank, the hollowed belly of the assembly hall, the narrow armory tucked beside it. Then the training ring, strewn with hay and broken shields. The meadhall, still lit from below. A private chamber beyond. And near the far corner—almost hidden from the inner court—a side door, half-covered by a fallen lintel beam. That door shook.
A guard braced against the side door, breath fogging the timber, both arms straining to keep the hinges shut. He could not scream. A knife had already punched into his throat. A wet, gargled plea leaked from him as the blade drew back, then drove in again—opening him from shoulder to jaw. Blood spattered the lintel. His body slid down the frame.
Something massive pressed through the gap: a grey-furred arm, slick with ash and blood. The hand clamped around another guard’s neck before he could draw. Bones cracked. The smaller wolf’s eyes bulged; he clawed at the wrist, snapping his own fingers against the iron grip.
Two more guards came running—one shouting as he stabbed at the invader’s arm. His dagger found purchase once, sank into the forearm, and twisted—but the arm did not release. It only tightened. The sound that followed was wet and final.
Then came the sword.
It didn’t merely breach the door—it split it. The broadsword punched through the upper planks, through the lock, through the ribcage of the third guard in a single violent shove. The blade withdrew with a howl of tearing wood, then swept down—shearing the handle, bolt, and hinge clean off before the door itself caved inward. A splintered shard caught one wolf across the eye; he went down shrieking, pawing at his face. The other slipped in his own blood and fell back, tail curling under him in terror. A Massive grey wolf entered. White haired, amber-eyed, fangs gleaming white.
The Vulsan ‘s massive shadow filled the doorway, shoulders heaving, breath steaming in ragged bursts. His eyes caught the firelight like hellfire imprisoned in a dark and rueful forge. He stepped over the crawling guard, yanked his knife from the corpse’s flank, and without slowing, crushed the survivor’s skull beneath his heel. Bone gave way with a muted pop.
The body twitched once, then stilled.
The chamber reeked of pine smoke and blood. Somewhere deeper in the keep, a voice cried alarm.
The Vulsan slayer rolled his shoulders, flicked the gore from his sword, and moved on. He did not halt.
Two more surged from the shadows, blades drawn. The first overextended; the figure moved like smoke, slashing once—clean at the elbow—and caught the falling sword mid-air. The second had time to shout. The Grey slayer turned not on him, but on the brazier.
One swing.
Ash exploded in the guard’s face. Fire bloomed in his beard and hair. He screamed as he stumbled backward and fell over the balcony rail, vanishing in a hiss of flame and bone. The others rushed him.
“Where is your Khan?” the Vulsan snarled, voice dry as bark. Steel flashed. Another guard burst through the side door and took a sword to the gut before he could speak. Then silence. Stepping over the bodies, he began to climb.
The upper paths were narrower, ringed with lattice railings and brittle ivy. He moved quickly now—up toward the raised garden—but two more stood in his way: a grey wolf, young and keen-eyed, and a Londorian brute with heavy shoulders and brown pelt. Both trained. Both armed.
The three met in a flurry of sparks. Steel rang. The grey wolf struck low. The Invader parried, turned him with a shove—straight into the Londorian’s rising thrust. The brown wolf faltered. Too slow. The Vulsan twisted the blade from his hands, drove it up beneath his chin, and left him twitching against the wall. Now seen in full light, the intruding Vulsan slayer’s fur was thick with gore. His chest rose like a bellows. His eyes took in the keep like prey yet to be bled.
He kicked in the next door. A guard sat playing cards. His head came off before he could look up. Another at the table rose to draw. Too late. The gut spilled hot across the board. Dice clattered in blood. The Grey-wolf slayer took the larger blade from the second one’s corpse. A heavier sword—lion-forged, still warm from use. He slid the new dagger into his belt.
The next door shattered. Inside, a snow leopard slave girl lay gasping beneath a mounted guard, her face turned from the wall, legs pinned. She whimpered. Her arms bore bruises. Neck rings. Gold bangles. The male looked back—snarling.
The feral grip of the Vulsan slayer pulled him off mid-thrust, jammed his own sword through the bastard’s mouth, and nailed his skull to the back of the chamber door. The leopard stared in shock as the blood ran. She sat up, naked, shivering, fur matted, paint smeared from her cheeks. When The Slayer stepped forward, she flinched.
He raised his sword—then knelt. One stroke. The chain fell free from her collar. He opened the door and held it. For a long moment, she didn’t move. Then she looked into his face. Saw what had been done. Saw the bodies. She gasped, once. Nodded. Then ran barefoot down the corridor. As she vanished, she pointed—up the stair—and her eyes thanked him.
The slayer climbed. The top floor was quiet. A corridor of red paper lamps and polished wood. No guards. No sound. He kicked the final door wide. The Khan’s daughter sat inside. Not Frightened. Not hiding.
She looked up—and lit with a mischeivious joy. She crossed the chamber in three steps, silk fluttering behind her. She didn’t ask How he had escaped. She didn’t ask what had happened outside. She kissed him. He did not kiss back.
But she growled—a low, wicked thing—and ran her hand up his chest. Her fingers found his bulge beneath the blood-wet sash. She bit her lip. Moaned, just barely.
No words passed.
None were needed.
III
The hooves of ten steeds thundered across the wide steppe, a storm of dust and fury beneath the blood-red sun.
At their head rode Volko Khan, lord of the horselands, his teeth clenched around a curse, sword bare and gleaming in the dusk. His face, scarred and cruel, was more wolf than male, and his left eye—seared milky by an old wound—blazed with a sick, unholy fire.
His mouth dripped red where the young bastard they now pursued had struck him, splitting lip and tooth alike. That wild-born grey dog. Volko spat blood and loosed a roar that made his own line recoil—horses shying, riders stiffening. Behind him, his nine sworn riders bent low in their saddles—black shapes who feared their master more than death itself.
They had been scouring the wastes since morning, chasing shadows across the dying grasslands. The trail belonged to one who should have died with his kind. For Volko had loosed the northern dogs—those grey-furred mercenaries, bred in cold and famine—to butcher his enemies. And butcher they did: cut down to the last, their carcasses left to rot beneath the sun.
But one had not fallen.
One had survived.
And worse than survival—he had laid hands upon the Khan’s own blood. Now, cresting the rise, they beheld a sight that drove Volko to bellowing madness.
Against the flaming disc of the sinking sun stood a lone figure—a grey-furred wolf, his mane of long white hair streaming in the wind. His chest heaved with the savage joy of a battle lived through. His laughter carried like a war-drum beat.
Before him sprawled the Khan’s daughter. Her slender frame trembled, silks in tatters, her maiden’s flush betrayed by the sweat upon her thighs. His haunches pounded into her. Mocking. Ejaculating. Usurping.
Even as the Khan’s roar split the heavens, the wolf pulled free with a wet, vulgar pop, slapping her round haunch with a barbarous hand. She arched beneath him, lips parted not in terror—but in the swoon of awakening.
He had spilled seed into her womb. The wet gleam of his doing mocked her father’s rage.
The mercenaries had died at arrow-flight behind him. A hundred corpses still bled into the dust. Yet this nameless wolf—this bastard survivor—had seized from the world a prize none had dared dream.
Volko’s riders shrieked and spurred. Their mounts foamed. But the wolf only laughed louder.
His balls swung as he ran, slapping against his thigh, leggings half-drawn with a mocking grin. His strength undiminished. His spirit ablaze.
Spurred on by confidence only granted to one who is alive when all others lie dead.
The wolf-lord’s daughter swooned, even as her father stood over her—aghast. The white sheen dripping from her thighs shamed him more than any blade ever could.
Without a word, without a glance, she mounted the spare horse they had brought. Its ivory tack caught the dying sun.
He watched his riders stumble, trample, and fail—utterly fail—to reach the grey bastard son of a whore before he vanished into the dark line of forest shadow.
The Roedon Blackwoods swallowed him whole. A moment passed. Then another.
The Khan’s men looked to their lord, terrified—for his gaze was a blade that cut flesh from bone.
Then—from the treeline—a final insult. Not laughter. Not the howl of triumph.
But words.
The bastard dared speak: “Let this be the last time you underestimate Thahn of Vulsa… you most regal and noble son-of-a-bitch.”
Then came the laughter. Deep. Resonant. As if the forest itself laughed with him—concealing him, honoring him, birthing him into legend.
Volko stood red-faced, lip split, helmet flung to the dust. He howled—a bloody, primal wail that sent crows shrieking from the sky.
And behind him, his favorite wife’s daughter—her body still raw from the wolf’s touch—smirked from her saddle, cheeks pink with the memory of conquest.
Epilogue
And so it was that Volko Khan’s realm ceased to be his own—not by siege, nor treaty, but by failure of measure. In seeking to dominate the northern reaches, he had failed to recognize the quiet erosion of power from within. By the time his riders reached the coast, the damage was done.
This bastard, rogue of the north that he was had shattered more than discipline. He had broken deals, undone alliances, and left the once-feared wolf-lord disgraced. The promised virgin, meant for the princely dowry of a key ally, had been defiled. Worse, she had not been taken—she had gone. Of her own will.
Among the dead left strewn across the keep were not only guards and gatemen, but the core of Volko’s inner circle. His vizier Yipan, his alchemist Vuzhul, his spymaster Zalfathang—all silenced. Of the guards who lay among them, Many were found in compromising death: cocks wet, dice still in hand, throats open. A quiet shame.
By the time Volko turned back toward his seat, the fortress of Dengan had become a ruin. Its gates left ajar. The black mountains whispered. Roedon watched. And all knew that he had been undone not by horde, nor empire,
but by a single grey Rogue who now ran free.
Next Time:
With blood on his hands and water up to his neck, Thahn escapes the grim, dark coasts of Vulsa, only to run afoul of bloodthirsty corsairs on the high seas.
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