Kobels had rebuilt the tower to be so vast as to accomodate even large beasts. Everything to them looked gigantic, the ceiling easily twice as high as usual.
So it was in stark contrast with the pestilence floating in the hall, the stench of savages by the dozens in that stagnant air. The large space made their numbers look so few.
Most of them looked idle, wandering the floors or huddling around, using the tables to sleep. That had them nervous, packing by tribe, defiant. They harassed each other, beat each other, pursued the weak into the corners where two fawns fed on a wérén.
A pestilence heavy with iron.
Not much else had changed but the filth: the furniture was still in place, the ornaments, the shields. Shuttered windows let thin strips of light into the rooms.
Wild eyes lurked among the shades.
"Where is Etelet?!" The chief ordered a captive.
That one fled quickly before he had finished, only to get caught by others and brought down. He wailed under the hits. But still, no one had answered.
Their fighters, however, were assembling at the basement's entrance. That massive door, shut like most others, was being unlocked. Their clamors were alerting those behind it and clamors answered them, just as distraught.
Something so primal and yet, to Tunu so familiar.
When they approached that crowd of fighters again fretted. They would not defy the scaled legend. But they feared giving way and so a brief standoff happened.
"Out." Came a voice from below.
Etelet emerged.
The shaman, the young kobel looked tired. He had not slept, he had not eaten, he probably had not drinked much either. That fatigue, in turn, had him shaky.
"It's you." He noticed them. "Good."
"Sorry for intruding." The chief tried. "Is everything alright here?"
"Yes. Almost." And the shaman frowned. "It's too early. I'm not quite done."
"We just wanted to check on you. And on the other kobels, have you seen them? This place... it reeks."
"They get nervous." The young kobel noted with a somber voice. "When they are kept inside for too long. Something snaps in them."
While they discussed, Etelet's eyes had fallen squarely on Tunu.
Because the scaled kobel, now that the door was open, could also perceive the basement.
And the basement, too, had been rebuilt to be vast and wide. It remained, however, the same damp, dark cave of rough stone with mostly stores and a large area full of chains.
What had been Savae's lair had become the shaman's habitat. Tables and pots, herbs spread all over along with cauldrons. Scrolls, he thought, scrolls of paper turning to mold. And bodies. Corpses left to the maggots.
"The kobels are in the basement." Tunu stated.
He didn't even know how to feel. He wanted to believe his horns were deceiving him.
But Etelet gestured for his servants to bring the bodies up, into the hall.
And while waiting for them to arrive he himself walked to a table, sat on it, legs crossed, his tail swinging with impatience.
"What is it we want?" He asked the chief, he asked his friend. "What made us raid, what made us hold the mountain? What had us feed, what took us here?!"
"Scales." The chief answered. "The way of the wyvern."
"That way had been closed to us for generations. We were damned to stand this fur! You thought feeding would solve that but you all knew, we all knew that was a lie. You know it, right? It was always going to be a dead end."
The three of them answered nothing to that.
In truth they all felt the same anger. Savae most of all would have silenced him there and then had it not been for Tunu. Tunu had simply chosen not to listen. So that left the chief and the chief, too used to this, simply waited.
So the first bodies appeared.
A kobel, then another. All of them, every single one left with Etelet had been tortured. Flesh open, rotting for those already a couple days old.
But it didn't matter. It didn't matter because a couple of them had scales.
There, on their arms, on the shoulders, patches of smooth scales covered their skin. A patch on the face, under the swollen eye. Crimson scales that shimmered in the feeble rays of light.
"Only you," the shaman told Tunu, "only you can grow scales by feeding. It's your heart. It is unique to you. You all knew that."
Savae had stepped back, in disgust.
But Tunu, to the contrary, crouched before one of the two bodies to touch the scales, to caress them. They were real. That touch felt exactly like his own, back when they hadn't hardened.
"You have done it." He marveled.
"Yes. Well, not yet. Just a bit more. Just a little bit more. And then scales, horns, even wings, all of it. All of it!" He suddenly burst, before calming down. "It will all be yours."
"It's incredible! Kreil, look at this! Real scales!"
Tunu was trying to hold back his tears, but to no avail.
In truth he too, at some point, had just given up. He too had thought that dream impossible, to see his tribe follow him in glory. Because their shaman was right: they all knew. All along, all of them, they had known too well for so long now that it had been pointless.
Only for that forbidden dream to become real, right in front of him. To be able to touch it. His heart was filling with disgust. His mind drowned in happiness.
He got up, dropped the corpse he had held to approach his friend on the table.
"How can we ever reward you?! How can we... anything! Ask for anything! It is yours! I will make sure you get it, I will..."
"Kobels."
The shaman had looked at him but his gaze was looking past, to a distant point visible to no one else. His tone expressed no joy, only a slight, vicious trepidation.
"I need more kobels to finish my work."
"No." The chief answered, gobsmacked. "No, you are not killing more of our own. No, I won't let you."
"Why?"
The young kobel turned his head to him, looking almost annoyed. But again, he didn't even seem to see the chief. He was almost talking to himself.
"Would you rather see savages bear wyvern blood?" He chuckled. "Would you prefer we remain hairy and powerless? Tell me to stop, and I will stop. We free the wyvern. And you can all keep feeding all you want."
"This is the tribe!" The chief screamed, finger pointed to the corpses. "This is our blood! You! You are killing us!"
"What about you, Tunu?" The young kobel asked, almost amused. "Should we give up on scales, should I stop?"
He saw his friend silent and got a nervous laugh. Then it burst. A maniacal laugh. The three of them, the most powerful of the tribe, were just standing there speechless.
None of them could bring themselves to say it. Not even Savae, because as disgusted as she was by it all she didn't care one bit for the fate of others. All she hated was the idea of owing her power not from her own blood but sorcery.
So not one would tell him to stop.
And it had him laughing so hard! Like a bad joke. A joke few were privy on. Slowly that laugh spread among the savages around. Slowly the whole hall erupted in mad laughter. The fawns, the wulvers, the wéréns, they were laughing their guts out.
The two black fawns at Etelet's side, with their collars on, were laughing on command.