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Description
Illustration by sohighlydubious

The huge lizard man's face was no more expressive than that of a stone idol. but he bared his rows of sharp teeth in something like a grin when his warriors displayed the rewards of their sucessful river ambush. Six large rafts , piled high with dried fish, wooden barrels of preseved meat and dried fish! Starvation, never far enough away from the hunter-gatherer lizard tribe, could be kept at bay for a while.

And best of all, cask after cask of the rice spirit the frogs made so well. There would be a feast tonight , a celebration!

"Look at what the frogs gave us" his chief warband leader had said, laughing. "They fled like cowards when they saw us on the riverbanks, lept into the water! Weaklings!"

"Weaklings" agreed the lizard chief "But what can you expect from honorless ones who let their women fight for them!" The two lizard warriors, big and stocky, tough leathery green skin with massive clawed hands, laughed.

Yes, weaklings the chief thought Easy enough to take what they grew and made, contemptible farmers and their monkey slaves! We will take their big villages we hear of , that Inquanok they are so proud of, as easily as we took these river rafts. And those who do not warm our beds or who we do not feast upon we will drive into the sea where they came from! He remembered the rumors and the first sightings of the frogs, and then a few cautious raids into their lands - and then the emissary who came to the village, who came claiming to represent a great and powerful distant country, the "Realm of Great Dagon", and who offered peace, and trade, and an alliance. He had laughed and spat full in her insolent face, the frog bitch, that Inarraa of theirs!

"We need no alliances!" he had told this Inarraa "We are the People and we take what we want! And we will forebear from making a meal of you and your party, so that you can return to your frog cities and farms and tell them that we will come for you all, in our good time!"

The frog woman had wiped his spittle from her face, bowed, said "As you wish, honored chieftain." and took her leave.

But he remembered the frog woman's smooth scaly body and he smiled again as he thought of how he would wipe that superior look from her flat face, of her struggling and screaming in his arms as he taught her a true female's place! And after sweet love, then the sharp blade put to her tender flesh, then the feasting! What is yours will be ours.

The celebrations that night, the plentiful food, the potent rice wine, the exultant feel of an easy victory - all this was the finest thing that even the oldest among them had ever seen before in their village. It was only later that night, when the chief felt his limbs become numb and heavy, when he saw his brave warriors begin to cough up blood and fall to the ground in convulsions, that he realized that something was terribly wrong.

The next morning, the village was silent, except for the buzzing of clouds of flies. A group of scavenger birds took flight from the corpse they were tearing at as Lieutenant Inarraa rose silently from the river and entered the dead village. She was followed by other seafolk armed with crossbows and spears, hard-eyed women wearing the black armbands of the special troops of the Second Main Directorate. The seafolk troopers spread out, following silentorders relayed by hand signals.

Lieutenant Inarraa walked over to where the chieftain was lying face up surrounded by the sprawled bodies of his warriors and his people. The poison had done it's work well and they were dead , already beginning to bloat and stink in the hot sun, but, looking closely, Inarraa saw that the chieftain was not quite dead yet. Inarraa smiled and crouched over him, looking into his open, staring eyes. The chieftain did not respond, paralyzed by the tasteless, odorless plant extract that had been liberally applied to the food and drink on the rafts. He had lain awake all night, unable to move, in great agony, many of his bones splintered by muscle contractions. He could not close his eyes, could not look away as Inarraa stared down at him.

"Honorable chieftain" Inarraa said, in a normal conversational tone of voice, knowing he could hear her "Not very honorable of us I suppose, but you see, we have no time for you, not with the damned Commonwealth at our throats in the north. No time to indulge you at all."

"You had your chance, honorable chieftain, and you chose badly, very badly indeed." She cleared her throat, and spat full in his frozen face. She stood up then, still smiling, and put the heel of one big clawed, webbed foot on his throat.

"Farewell, honorable chieftain. Perhaps we'll meet again in Hell" she said, as she bore down, ignoring the desperate little gurgling noises he was making as she slowly crushed his windpipe.

The last thing he ever saw was her big webbed foot, cutting him off forever from the sun and the blue sky above him, before a deeper darkness mercifully overtook him at last.

A nomadic band of primitive lizard people - vicious raiders and blood-stained cannibal savages has the good fortune, as they see it, to encounter weaker folk, who inhabit the settled lands of the Realm of Great Dagon. With optimism born of ignorance, the lizards regard the seafolk as easy prey, ripe for looting, their potential victims seemingly preoccupied by a great war in the distant northlands.

But civilization has it's own special savagry, and the lizardfolk,fierce and cruel as they are, have never come across the likes before of smiling, cold-eyed seafolk officer Lieutenant Inarraa nor anything like the sinister Second Main Directorate, the Realm's military intelligence service. The Second Main Directorate is an institution that never forgets nor forgives And grim Inaraa always pays back a debt.

This is another war story, another glimpse into the military career of Lieutenent Inarraa - who we know as present day Amphy the Amphibian Girl who fought for her embattled country in a war that took place millions of years ago, before recorded human history, in lands long ago sunk beneathe waves, a war we humans forgot, but Amphy still bitterly remembers.

This story was inspired by sohighlydubious' fine illustration . . and is one answer to the question of what woulxd happen if his lizards came up against my seafolk. The two unfortunate elf girls in the picture might consider themselves well avenged, if the dead take any comfort in vengeance at all.

Description
Illustration by sohighlydubious

The huge lizard man's face was no more expressive than that of a stone idol. but he bared his rows of sharp teeth in something like a grin when his warriors displayed the rewards of their sucessful river ambush. Six large rafts , piled high with dried fish, wooden barrels of preseved meat and dried fish! Starvation, never far enough away from the hunter-gatherer lizard tribe, could be kept at bay for a while.

And best of all, cask after cask of the rice spirit the frogs made so well. There would be a feast tonight , a celebration!

"Look at what the frogs gave us" his chief warband leader had said, laughing. "They fled like cowards when they saw us on the riverbanks, lept into the water! Weaklings!"

"Weaklings" agreed the lizard chief "But what can you expect from honorless ones who let their women fight for them!" The two lizard warriors, big and stocky, tough leathery green skin with massive clawed hands, laughed.

Yes, weaklings the chief thought Easy enough to take what they grew and made, contemptible farmers and their monkey slaves! We will take their big villages we hear of , that Inquanok they are so proud of, as easily as we took these river rafts. And those who do not warm our beds or who we do not feast upon we will drive into the sea where they came from! He remembered the rumors and the first sightings of the frogs, and then a few cautious raids into their lands - and then the emissary who came to the village, who came claiming to represent a great and powerful distant country, the "Realm of Great Dagon", and who offered peace, and trade, and an alliance. He had laughed and spat full in her insolent face, the frog bitch, that Inarraa of theirs!

"We need no alliances!" he had told this Inarraa "We are the People and we take what we want! And we will forebear from making a meal of you and your party, so that you can return to your frog cities and farms and tell them that we will come for you all, in our good time!"

The frog woman had wiped his spittle from her face, bowed, said "As you wish, honored chieftain." and took her leave.

But he remembered the frog woman's smooth scaly body and he smiled again as he thought of how he would wipe that superior look from her flat face, of her struggling and screaming in his arms as he taught her a true female's place! And after sweet love, then the sharp blade put to her tender flesh, then the feasting! What is yours will be ours.

The celebrations that night, the plentiful food, the potent rice wine, the exultant feel of an easy victory - all this was the finest thing that even the oldest among them had ever seen before in their village. It was only later that night, when the chief felt his limbs become numb and heavy, when he saw his brave warriors begin to cough up blood and fall to the ground in convulsions, that he realized that something was terribly wrong.

The next morning, the village was silent, except for the buzzing of clouds of flies. A group of scavenger birds took flight from the corpse they were tearing at as Lieutenant Inarraa rose silently from the river and entered the dead village. She was followed by other seafolk armed with crossbows and spears, hard-eyed women wearing the black armbands of the special troops of the Second Main Directorate. The seafolk troopers spread out, following silentorders relayed by hand signals.

Lieutenant Inarraa walked over to where the chieftain was lying face up surrounded by the sprawled bodies of his warriors and his people. The poison had done it's work well and they were dead , already beginning to bloat and stink in the hot sun, but, looking closely, Inarraa saw that the chieftain was not quite dead yet. Inarraa smiled and crouched over him, looking into his open, staring eyes. The chieftain did not respond, paralyzed by the tasteless, odorless plant extract that had been liberally applied to the food and drink on the rafts. He had lain awake all night, unable to move, in great agony, many of his bones splintered by muscle contractions. He could not close his eyes, could not look away as Inarraa stared down at him.

"Honorable chieftain" Inarraa said, in a normal conversational tone of voice, knowing he could hear her "Not very honorable of us I suppose, but you see, we have no time for you, not with the damned Commonwealth at our throats in the north. No time to indulge you at all."

"You had your chance, honorable chieftain, and you chose badly, very badly indeed." She cleared her throat, and spat full in his frozen face. She stood up then, still smiling, and put the heel of one big clawed, webbed foot on his throat.

"Farewell, honorable chieftain. Perhaps we'll meet again in Hell" she said, as she bore down, ignoring the desperate little gurgling noises he was making as she slowly crushed his windpipe.

The last thing he ever saw was her big webbed foot, cutting him off forever from the sun and the blue sky above him, before a deeper darkness mercifully overtook him at last.

A nomadic band of primitive lizard people - vicious raiders and blood-stained cannibal savages has the good fortune, as they see it, to encounter weaker folk, who inhabit the settled lands of the Realm of Great Dagon. With optimism born of ignorance, the lizards regard the seafolk as easy prey, ripe for looting, their potential victims seemingly preoccupied by a great war in the distant northlands.

But civilization has it's own special savagry, and the lizardfolk,fierce and cruel as they are, have never come across the likes before of smiling, cold-eyed seafolk officer Lieutenant Inarraa nor anything like the sinister Second Main Directorate, the Realm's military intelligence service. The Second Main Directorate is an institution that never forgets nor forgives And grim Inaraa always pays back a debt.

This is another war story, another glimpse into the military career of Lieutenent Inarraa - who we know as present day Amphy the Amphibian Girl who fought for her embattled country in a war that took place millions of years ago, before recorded human history, in lands long ago sunk beneathe waves, a war we humans forgot, but Amphy still bitterly remembers.

This story was inspired by sohighlydubious' fine illustration . . and is one answer to the question of what woulxd happen if his lizards came up against my seafolk. The two unfortunate elf girls in the picture might consider themselves well avenged, if the dead take any comfort in vengeance at all.