Festering meat was a scent that Zemos was well accustomed to, and so it was no large chore for him to conjure the illusion. He began by folding the dimensions of the scent from an area of effect, roughly five times the size of a human body, into a long string, which he sent along the path of the current canyon he was traversing. The line led into a spike trap he'd set, having taken much of the latter trial to dig it out, along with help from his trusty friend, Skeever, the waif that had taken to accompanying him here and there.
The Egg was not silent in all this busy work.
How like an eight-legs, to set such a trap.
Digging a hole, for beasts to take their final nap.
Along will come some meat soon, following the stench.
Then we will make a friend of it, it'll be a cinch.
How had the egg become so much more of a poet lately? Zemos noticed its rhyming scheme had increased by leaps and bounds since the earlier days in Yaralon, where it was spotty at best with its lyrical timing and meaning. Nevertheless, Zemos enjoyed the company in his head, although between the Egg and his familiar, it could get crowded in there at times.
Skeever at least had the virtue of being short of tongue, and soft of speech. Yet even she pestered Zemos during their waiting period, where they were perched upon a ledge, far above the spike trap. "How long will we have to wait? Perhaps I can draw some attention?"
Skeever offered most helpfully, but Zemos shook his head. Massibex were dangerous beasts, and he couldn't have his one useful companion falling prey to them. Not at least until he had a thrall to call his own again. "It will only be so long. I hear their baying on the wind."
Zemos had strung his thrall, Mervani's Daughter, to one of the larger spikes in the trap. This would serve to occupy the massibex's attention should it fail to die to the initial fall into the trap. Into the bargain, the thrall may be commanded to finish the beast, or facilitate its destruction to the point where Zemos can neatly finish it off with his magic. It was a good plan, not perfect, but perfection was a high bar to clear in the chaotic expanse of the Cut, out of Yaralon.
The massive dog could be heard approaching, as its snuffling and tramping footsteps rattled the pebbles in the dusty canyon. The snuffling echoed off of the walls of the canyon, Zemos could hear them, and could almost see its hot breath misting as it sniffed its way through the illusion-enhanced trail of rot. The dog didn't stop short of the trap, or even hesitate to follow the trail of rot past it, only to trip through the haphazard lattice of branches and leaves.
It fell into the pit, and was pierced, but bayed loudly as it hadn't proven fatal. The dog had survived the initial fall and now was wounded and yelping for its kin to come and give aid. The other dogs would likely close in on their location if it persisted in its yelping, so Zemos commanded Mervani's daughter to reach out with a small bone-carved knife to silence it.
To ensure precision, Zemos linked with his thrall, guiding its hand with his own skill. As the thrall leant forward with the knife in hand, it was almost as if she remembered what it was to have hands, her movements were so silky and precise. The dog drew breath to let out another bay of agony, but then the knife plunged into its voice box. A twist of the knife, and all that erupted from the dog's throat was a muffled gurgle, and the trickle of blood from the wound in its wind pipe.
Zemos using the linked thrall, tried to ensure that any path to escape was robbed of the beast, and grazed its legs with the arms of the thrall. He channeled his graft magics through her, enervating the tendons there in the legs, removing flesh and muscle to deprive it the strength needed to lift its bulky form from the spike trap.
The necromancer gingerly lowered himself from his canyon shelf, where he'd been hiding with Skeever. Skeever reached for him, fearful that he was taken by power madness of having enacted the death of such a large creature. But Zemos shook his head. The Egg thrummed in his mind, driving him to sadistic extremes of imagination, even so, but Zemos didn't want Skeever to worry, so he rebuked her attempts to bring him to heel.
He lowered himself from the canyon walls with some effort, and then dropped down carefully into the trap. He navigated the familiar wooden and bone spikes that lined the pit. There, he found the great beast, crippled and silenced, not yet bleeding out though. He hadn't a care for the creature's pain, and so mounted its neck and began coaxing the flesh and bone to grow from its cranium, forming a large frill of bone.
The massibex gurgled loudly as he continued with his profane ministrations, coaxing live bone, and when the bone grew beyond its potential for supporting the enervations, used bone-sculpting necromancy to harden the frill further, galvanizing it. He was forming a weapon, in real time, the thrall he really wanted for what he would need to traverse this canyon unchallenged by the beast's stalking kin.
The beast died in agony then, but not before letting a low rumble out of its throat. Although he'd severed its windpipe, this rumble was through its entire body, reverberating through the canyon on a subsonic frequency. In the distance, a howl answered the call, and a plodding feet of many massibex began converging on Zemos' position. He didn't waste time there, but drew his new thrall, animating it with every movement of its bones. He galvanized its limbs with bone sculpting, all while allowing it some autonomy to claw its way out of the pit with the anger of its early death.
Zemos emerged, only to find the massibex pack circling him. Forth came a large alpha, rumbling its challenge to the false dead king with its terrible bone-frill, bloodied with the combined artifice of graft and necromancy. Zemos drew his bone saber from his belt, and pointed it at the alpha by way of challenge, and goaded the thrall to charge forward, seizing the initiative. The frilled thrall dove forward, its head heavy with the unaccustomed weight of the frill. Nevertheless, its teeth found purchase in the alpha's flesh, and Zemos used that opening to siphon vitality from the creature, changing it into necrotic power to further strengthen his new thrall.
The Yithnai, while siphoning the energies of life from the massibex alpha, channeled some ether to turn the smell of rotting flesh, into tendrils of rolled perspective. These, he directed to flick at the noses of the beta massibexes, prompting them to turn on the alpha, as a piece of dead meat. He clamped down with the frilled false alpha's jaws on the massibex alpha, even as he yowled for aid.
Zemos twisted the voice of the massibex to make a whimpering intonation, signalling weakness. Canines were simple creatures, and particularly wild ones like these massibex, could be driven wild by the combination of rotting meat and whimpering of an alpha. So Zemos tried to get them to turn on their king.
The canyon, enchanted with all of these lies, turned in on its alpha massibex, as the pack descended upon him. Zemos withdrew, letting nature do what it did best, and the hierarchal cycle of the pack would sort itself out, in the aftermath. He drew toward the pit, and with some effort linked to Mervani's daughter, having her untie herself from the spikes, and then crawl out of the pit and climb atop the massibex. Skeever was not far behind, jumping onto the back of the massibex, as Zemos urged the giant beast to stalk off toward the North, toward Heaven's Fall Fortress. There, he would see what he could make of the so-called knights of the First Blade.
The canyon yawned in the grisly death of the alpha behind him, it would remember this story, carried on wings that would likely arrive at Heaven's Fall before Zemos himself did. He'd asserted himself, and had proven himself a potential asset to the First Blades. Yet even as he drove forward, the Egg reminded him of its presence, and latched on further to his psyche, teasing out rotten thoughts and corrupted impulses. He'd gotten what he wanted, a massive monster of a mount for the arrival at Heaven's Fall, and a conveyance through which he could make his way through the canyons. But at what cost?
