“Barbarian bitch thinks she will be boss of the city and destroy it? My ass. The Damned Returned is the real problem."   Ilnua thinks to herself. "Eehava could take either out, if she saw the point. Of course they are just Ghenua ghosts then, not gone. The tribes and clans of the city only have a few individuals worth a shit.  I need other tools to pull the tooth. What resources? What do these idiots know? Nothing about city rules and Human ways.”

Ilnua is a stocky, even fat creature. Short for her kind, she is barely 6 foot tall. Light brown coat with dark brown spots in rosettes, dark muzzle frosted with grey and dark brown mane flecked with grey  - making her more salt and chocolate. Pinched eyes above a wide snout and rounded solid features.  Her wide ears are tall above her mane and ringed, as are her fingers. She wears her mane plaited  in a long braid, past her shoulders today, a red robe with a yellow flower pattern covering her thick frame. The short triangle of a tail exiting  via a small slit in the dress.  Ioehni and Ba’Yeduk had wasted no time after the Clan house.  HER house. She growled at the thought. Ilnua had built this herself.  They had demanded to go to the Camp in the Undercity. Dark cavern with traditional tents and a largely lawless area ruled by various Bosses. And they sent word within days, calling  every Ghenid of every clan down to inform them of their place in the plans to pillage and destroy the city.  Within the week they had the traditionalists and the haters of the Humans, Fae, Centaurs, Octnon and Bahku in  and with them. These they promoted as their underlings. The weak with more chains on them than they owned on others bowed and obeyed.  Watched by Shadows who owed loyalty to the Ghost Grandmothers, bound by the Chains in their lives and in their afterlives in the underworld.

For other races of the world the afterlife was rumor, promise, or threat but a thing they did not know directly. Not so the Ghenid. Neghenu, their great mother and Demon Queen gave life to the first grandmothers of the first clans and she bound their ghosts with her Chains that linked them together in life and death. And the First Grandmothers, the S’ua, had learned the ritual of word, motion and will that marked others and things to you forever. Ghenid come of age and are linked to a ghostly ancestor, mothers and grandmothers compelled by the strongest chains to dead Great Grandmothers who send their favored, to watch and serve mostly the Grandmothers of the Underworld.  The Shadow may be bribed with offerings and gifts to enrich their tombs and give them status amongst the Dead. For Ghenid, the afterlife lives every night in that ghostly presence of their Shadow. In the whispered voices only heard between Shadow and their living familiar. Ghenids know in stomach and bone what awaits them after death.  But the Shadows can not stand the daylight and flee back to the dark of the Land of the Dead. Daylight was the best time for plots amongst Ghenids. Ilnua pledges her Clan to Ba’Yeduk, but she will have the ears of any who actually do anything on their commands before checking with her. She will have to renew the Aedoteerua - the Soul Chains on all under her. 

She has hers in the body of the city, the lawyers for most of the monsters as the humans and others will not serve them, a few it in the Watch. A Tribune to represent the Black Horse - a Nightmare hell horse party, a political party she had created to represent the Bugbears, Ghenids, Kobolds, Minotaurs and other monstrous type residents of the city. Supporters who were bought or sympathetic or profit from things being a certain way.  There were things in the city of Incaras. demons, spirits of the world, wakened and active, Undead vampires, and even mercenaries of otherworldly predatory natures. Idiot barbarians had no clue of some of the powers in the the city. Things they couldn’t even imagine. Ilnua knew some from probing and running across things in her clandestine and other dealings, and because she had her talent. The minds of others glow in her awareness, a scent in the room.  She can chase the scent to feelings and fleeting thoughts, or images.  She has learned by long practice to ask the questions that bring words and images that she lifts from the minds of others. She smells the lies and sees the truths and never gives a clue of it unless it serves her. Like the Ghenid and their Shadow, she can hear and whisper words in the mind without speaking aloud. She has encountered a few others with this, but they have all learned to mask their thoughts and cloud the readings of others.

Of the  Ghenid of the city, most look to obey. A few have rebelled against Ba’Yeduk - refusing, several even fled the city - as if they could escape the Chains and compulsion of Mothers and grandmother’s ghosts wills transmitted by the twisting of the chains on mind and stomach. Some hide rage and resistance, not so much against the plan but because it will steal from them the power, wealth and influence they hold.  Ilnua has heard of something unique and different.  Every Ghenid dreams of escaping the chains on them and building their dominion and crypt for themselves.  Someone has found an escape. By denial of everything Ghenid and submitting to human dominion. She snaps for a slave. “Get me Yeghi!”  

Yeghi is thin, a grandniece in yellow brown fur with the rosette spotting of her Clan. Orange and yellow eyes and barely mature. Her mane tied, greased to stand up in plumes and dyed deep green. She wears leather jacket and pants, and lace up boots made for the short foot and long heel of digitgrade Ghenid legs. And always a few weapons. Ilnua licks a finger and makes her mark on her grandniece while reciting the Rite of the Chain.  That formality complete she moves to her instructions.

“ Yeghi, go to Negheru’s priestess Ba’yeduk, in the undercity. Tell her I have found traitors to her, the grandmothers and even to Neghenu. They have gone to Humans to break the chains.”   The young female bows “Yes, S’Oang Ilnua!”  Ilnua smiles. She will set the barbarians to fight the humans before their invasion plans are ready. Somehow the Church of Lyr, the church of Man, has broken the Chains on one and their leader wants to steal away Ghenid. Rumors have started about converting to the Church, obeying the humans and following their Sun God demon with no more Chains.  The Church hates the faerie as mockeries of humans, and hate the monster races as enemies of human dominion.  "But they hate us less than the fae." she says to herself.  It is another tool she will use.  The Priestess can’t refuse the insult to the Demon Queen and the Grandmothers back to the S’ua. Ilnua chuckles to herself. Let them eat ashes.

The great Ba’yaduk is too busy with her plots. Instead it is the leader of a third rate clan of traditionalists that comes. A thin old female in dark leather over orange-brown fur marked with narrow black bands, white mixed in the thin dark muzzle, the mask around her eyes and in the mane. Her face is always pinched like she smells something nasty.  “Mnu! The priestess spares you for this small thing!”

Mnu fixes the fat matriarch with a cold glare of red- eyes shot through with yellow streaks. “Decadent and soft city dwellers will do well to take our example. Tell me what you have learned.” 

Ilnua reached out her talent. “There is rumor that the Church of Lyr will take Ghenid who convert, leaving the body and hosts of Neghenu to follow their Sun demon and obey human rule. Several scum are rumored to have taken the offer and their Chains banished.” 

The thin old female spat on the floor, images of crypts of abandoned treasure, captives and livestock flickering in her mind. “They break the chains of their mothers?” 

“So it is said.”Ilnua replied. 

Mnu thought “And the chains to their possessions.  When they die, wandering homeless, lost and alone in the underworld.”  She imagines Ghenid doing as they please, unbound or controlled by chains. Relish and revulsion, thinking of vengance and slaying prevented by Shadows and Chains delivering sure knowledge to Grandmothers. Every failing. Every slight. Mnu squeeled “This can not be allowed to steal Ghenid souls!” 

Ilnua looked intently at the older female, smiling on the inside. “We should send a message. A letter to tell them how they wrong us!” 

Mnu roars “You stupid sow! A letter?  We will kill the priests and the ones they have turned. We will burn the human church!”

Ilnua drops her ears and eyes to the floor. Laughing in her imagination. “But they may retaliate against us!”

Mnu imagines blazing fires and packs of her clan pillaging the city, slaying White cloak city guard and any who resist. Binding captives  with the Chains and then killing them to fill the pens of their crypts with servants and slaves. She imagines the praise of the Priestess and the Hnanue S'Cra-Oang, Ioehni - the haunting ghost of an ancient War-Queen that now inhabits the body of a cub of 2 years and looks out through eyes that see and know more than they should. “Let them! We will bring blood and battle as our Goddess and the S’ua demand by their voice the Hnanue!  You will get the names and clans of the betrayers and cowards!” 

“I serve the Priestess and the Cra’Oang!” replied Ilnua bowing.

The information would take little. Watchers at the church to see who entered and left and when. Followers. The street children were good for that and she had connections from her years in the street gangs. 

Within a week Mnu had her information. She took action, striking at the converted or making Clans prove loyalty by killing the scum who denied their kind. One priest killed, before there were guards. Now a bounty on the head of the female that had started it - one who had gone to the city Watch and become an officer and rejected the ways of her people.  Calling the City Watch her Clan. Ilnua considered. Watch has it’s uses. Law and order, on leash and at command. That one could have been useful. Maybe still.

The elves have a variety of games of strategy, move and counter plotted in advance until the opponent is trapped and falls. Ilnua likes these games.  Another few nights and report comes in that a band had tried taking the scum apostate Watch Officer and her human friends, and been killed or taken under arrest.  This delighted Ilnua, but she expressed regret to Mnu. 

The other city Matriarch, Eehava wondered at Ba’Yeduk’s plan and strategy.  As did Ilnua.  The few hundred Ghenid in the city might cause damage, but never overthrow it.  Eehava was an unrivaled fighter, training and binding any she could and setting them out as guards, trackers and arena fighters. She visited Ilnua’s rooms, casually leaning against the door - a tall, dark muzzled, square featured female with dark golden brown fur and narrow bands of black. She was old, should be nearly 60, but looked 40 and had barely aged in the past 20 years, even after a late set of cubs who now are full adults. She could block Ilnua’s talent, but showed no added magical skills. “The country cousins know what they have bitten?” Her voice is typical of Ghenid, somewhat whiney sounding and high pitched, like a rusty gate hinge. 

 Ilnua shakes her head negative. 

“You didn’t warn them?”

 “Oh, of course I did Eehava!” 

“But you let them keep the wind to their back, so they only smell their own asses.” Eehava laughed.

"Would I do such a thing?" replied Ilnua.

Eehava chuckled. 

“You could just kill them.”

Eehva just looked at her.  

“Yes, I know. It would just delay and not solve the problem. The same reason I can't just turn it over to tribunes and politicians.”

“You will think of something.”

The Special Investigators of the Watch came to ask questions. Asking about the attack on the heretic Ghenid in the watch. Who commanded it? She told them there had not been a command, only expressed displeasure - so the attack was over eager individuals. The Watch were suspicious. They said the arrested had claimed a bounty was offered. They were not fools. That morning in the garden she had noted something off. It took a while to figure out that one of the crows hopping along the roof had no glow in her mind. Shielded. No simple crow. When they came she probed, seeking the shielded, following the images in their minds.  They sought an edge. One of them was a  Bahku male that smelled of Crua. Ilnua suggested they might convince Eehava as a wager prize in a duel.  The Bahku jumped on that and demanded a duel against Eehava for her testimony.  Eehava would never turn down a duel. She had tested him in a sparring match, and won. Of course. Eehava was a mighty  fighter that few could stand against, when she wanted to be.  Ilnua considered options. She would invoke a subtle war using the city laws to worry at Ba’Yeduk.  Infuriate the Priestess and her minions. She would take this tool of the Watch as allies against her enemies. Snapping for a slave she commanded “Parchment and a pen! Get me Yeghi!”

The young female enters while her S’Oang is writing. The voice speaks in her mind in the matriarch’s voice, making a chill run up her back. “Take the parchment but deliver this, to Niara - urchins to the Kobold bar to pick up and deliver for Sleepy. Use the street whispers.”   Ilnua’s real voice in the ears,  high pitched but delivered in huffing breathes. “ I have instructions, for  Luevhua to petition the magistrates. She will know which, to hear our claim of Family, Clan and Guild over all the Ghenid of the city. The dominant  claim of grandmothers under our traditions. Most certainly that we may punish or kill those who offend the Clan and are disobedient.  Like the scum in the watch and that bitch officer who has also gone to the Church of Man and recruited others to their twisted Sun demon and Human rule. I will go by litter to speak with her later and she is to expect me in the early evening, before I go to the baths”   

Mnu padded quietly into the room. Snug dark leather over orange-brown fur, her narrow black bands and dark muzzle, mask and mane mixed with white hairs. A thin old female, with a sneer on her narrow face as she saw Ilnua laying on a daybed, periodically nibbling fruits as she writes. The fat female carefully tracing out the letters with finer control than most Ghenid. She finishes writing, shaking out a sprinkle of powder over the page. Rolling it and pouring the loose material back in the jar, before rolling the page tighter and sealing it with wax and a ring. She then hands it to the young female waiting, who leaves with haste.  

Ears held up against a desire to flatten them. “Mnu, what do you want?” 

 “I am the Cra-Oang’s eye. What are you doing?”  says Mnu, her nose thrust forward.

Demurely, eyes down Ilnua replies. “Business.” 

“Soft, city dweller things. The demon queen demands strength!”  Mnu sneers.

“The great mother wants Apa, the cunning to take and hold a thing.” 

A derisive huff.  “It takes just strength and hunger. Your soft times are ending and others will rise.”  

Ilnua snorts. “Maybe. We will see.” 

 “Ready your clan to serve Ba’yeduk’s plan.”  

Ilnua smiled, the lower jaw dropped, teeth showing, and just the tips of her upper fangs exposed. “My weapons are always ready.” 

Now it was Mnu’s turn to snort. “Words are weak against steel, fatty.”   

Ilnua’s face was expressionless, watching from half lidded eyes as Mnu turned and left. Ilnua gave herself a moment imagining the Bloodhide Whalacra clan female pinned to the wall with daggers in arms, shoulders, flanks and legs. She snapped at the slave. “Bring me a red wine.”

Raised in the city, in the gangs, Ilnua knew scrapping and fighting. Striking when eyes were not watching. Connections and allies and trades. She had traded on young lusts for Chains on males - Ghenid, human and others. Making rounds to bind them tight. Sometimes it was even good for her and she’d return for her own pleasures.  Learning the value of things, what nonghenids who owed favors or sought favor could do, what different offers met what desires. The young males, especially humans, could be hooked with “free” sex.  She had learned of other powers than force of arms:  seduction and compulsion. From the elven board games - distraction and subtlety fully in the open. Watch this hand while the other moves for position. Laws and the other forces of the city. She played as weaker than she was. She had seen daughters trained as lawyers. She had made the Clans a guild, an official body with place and influence in the city. Ilnua was authority under the laws and rules of the city. Things these stupid wild tribal barbarians didn't understand and couldn't use. But she could. Did and would.

She would also need to find out more of the Returned's plan.