Lord
Balliwick rode out into the early morning sun, taking his knights as fast as he
could down through the pass and away from the Orbiverdi. He hated them and they
haunted his dreams.
Once they had ridden out into the plains of
Eddorre the weather improved considerably. It became much warmer and the
vegetation changed to lush sub-tropical savannah, completely unlike the dry
grasslands around Ortia or the pastures and conifers on the plateaus and slopes
surrounding Monurbis.
The road here was wide and well kept – with
mileposts which had until recently been occupied by the Tlaxacans. For a long
time, however, they moved forward seeing only ruins of the military
fortifications and a few slovenly camps within which, they guessed, the kinaam had been housed. The signs of torture and mistreatment were
everywhere: dungeons, torture chambers
and open flogging areas. For most of the knights this was a terrible shock, and
many of them felt physically sick, but Balliwick seemed unconcerned. His only
interest appeared to be in getting as far ahead as possible in as quick a time
as they could.
They travelled on for three days, through
thicker and thicker broadleaved forests and with the temperature climbing.
Winding its way through this jungle, however, was a constant, very wide, road;
broad enough to carry an army to Monurbis to the north and to Huatalacan to the
south. There was growing confidence
among the knights that this road would allow them to get deep into enemy lands
and make large territorial gains.
This
feeling of optimism, however, was eroded by the behaviour of their temporary leader.
He watched his men at all times, examining them in alarming detail, inspecting
the way that they rode and how they held themselves. He also asked detailed
questions of many of his more senior officers relating to their formations and
fighting tactics. He would often end such conversations with a cold smile. He
seemed more like an assessor than a leader. The morale of the raiding party
fell as they got further away from Monurbis, to the point where they all
dreaded having to speak to Balliwick at all.
On the morning of the fourth day, now within
less than a day’s ride of Huatalacan, Balliwick summoned his captains. He told
them that this was as far as he wanted them to go, but that he would ride on a
little further to assess the city’s defences himself. There was no dissent – everyone was very
happy to see him go. He left orders for them to wait for him, apparently
indefinitely, it seemed, if necessary, and then he rode off, alone, full of
restless energy.
Once they had stopped they began to feel the
strangeness of the place – three days ride into Tlaxaca and all alone. They had
difficulty cutting through the tangled mass of vegetation either side of the
road and eventually gave up on making a proper camp. Instead, they stayed on
the road and built huge fires out of whatever they could savage from the surrounding
forests. Then the monsoon rains came and everywhere the mud grew and enveloped
them. They would have turned around and gone straight home, except that the
rain was too torrential to ride through and that behind and in front of them
were their two leaders, who both terrified them.
***
Balliwick
rode into the more open area in front of Whitecloak’s city, through several
more abandoned kinaam camps, but then into areas that still had signs of
habitation. But he saw no-one; it was clear that most of the inhabitants of the
area had defected, fled or died in battle.
Balliwick spurred his mount on to the outskirts of the city, where there
were occasional groups of bedraggled humans in white robes wandering around
aimlessly. They moved away from him as he rode near and in any case he ignored
them.
Huatalacan was a sprawling open city, full of
white pyramidal temples and sprawling single-storey barracks. There was no sign
of any functions in the city beyond worship and war. Seven wide roads led from
the periphery and converged on Whitecloak’s great stepped pyramid temple. Balliwick made his way along the westernmost
of these roads until he reached the central area. Someone was waiting for him –
a tall man dressed in a red robe. He was sitting on the bottom step of the
temple, all alone. He stood up as Balliwick approached.
‘Lord Kratos, I am the Uchbenoi Redcloak’s
envoy’ he said, bowing very low. His Ethian was good but his accent was very
strong.
Kratos leant forward, sneered and then
slapped the envoy across the face.
‘I am no Lord; I am pure Power, I am total Will,
I need no demesne. Do not address me so again’
‘Kratos, of course’ said the envoy, hastily,
rubbing his face, ‘I intended no slight’
‘Next
time I will annihilate you – I have no compunction about destroying lives’
‘Of course, mighty Kratos; that is how it
should be. Destruction is often purifying’
Kratos shook his head and took a step
backwards, almost as if he were planning to turn round and walk away.
‘I have no interest in hearing your pathetic justifications
of catharsis, envoy; they neither interest nor concern me’
‘Of course’ said the envoy, apparently
unmoved, ‘let us then get down to business’
‘I have brought the army for the ambush’
declared Kratos, ‘are you ready?’
The envoy considered this question and then
answered slowly.
‘My lord still does not fully understand the
nature of this ambush. You promised him mighty weapons from the air, weapons
that will render us inviolable’
‘I can call creatures from the Outer Void,
ones far more powerful, fell and durable than any that Skiophos has seen
before; ones that cannot be defeated by wood and brute strength’
‘So you have said’ murmured the envoy, ‘but
it is not clear why you have not given your gift already, so that we might be
more ready for the struggle’
Kratos laughed and clapped his hand together
like a little child about to see a pantomime.
‘Because I wish to present my benison at the
most opportune moment, when it will act as a reminder of my endless power to
destroy’ said Kratos, his wide eyes shining unnaturally brightly , ‘I wish
their entrance to be a great coup, a moment to be remembered throughout the
worlds’
The envoy sat back on the step. His eyes
narrowed as he searched for suitable words in a language that he had not fully
mastered.
‘I still do not fully understand you, great
Kratos’ he said, quietly and uncertainly.
Kratos began to jump up and down slightly, a
restless energy powering through him. He looked round wildly and the envoy was
distracted by the movement.
‘Have you seen something that concerns you?’
asked the envoy, feeling suddenly very cold.
‘No, not all – I was looking for someone to
slaughter…’ murmured Kratos, almost as aside,
‘but, never mind, it can wait… what were you saying?’
‘I still
do not understand the nature of the conflict…’ whispered the envoy.
‘The
two flames will meet and clash and your flame will burn so much the stronger
when my gift is given! The defeat of the worthless barbarians will be total and
forever’
The envoy tried to piece together the meaning
of this strange figurative language.
‘So, you will give us the Outer Void weapons’
he stumbled on, ‘during the ambush?’
Kratos folded his arms and his face broke
into a gentler, more controlled, smile. He nodded, moved forward, and patted
the envoy on the head.
‘Yes, that is absolutely right’ he said, ‘at
last you have understood! I hope that you will be able to pass that message on
to your master – he will be greatly pleased’
‘I am sure he will’ said the envoy, with a
note of puzzlement
‘So,’ said Kratos, simply, ‘we will begin the
destruction of northern humanity, as I have said’
The envoy hesitated, still unsure of exactly
what Kratos meant.
‘But aren’t you human and from the north?’ he
whispered, regretting his comment immediately.
Kratos laughed loudly and smiled in immense
self-satisfaction.
‘A human, I?
Well, possibly not – many have wondered if I am becoming a god…’
‘Are you?’ asked the envoy, even more softly
‘Only in so far as I shall be immortal…’
declared Kratos, his voice rising in harshness and volume ‘and that, by my
actions, I shall irrevocably change our reality…’
He switched suddenly to his native language,
Rhylic, which he knew that the envoy did not understand. By now he was
declaiming to the universe.
‘I shall be known as Kratos – the destroyer.
And through the millennia all will remember that I, through my own strength
alone, annihilated a world…’
The envoy bowed his head, too terrified to
respond to these clanging incomprehensible words. For a moment he was certain
that he would be killed.
Kratos turned around as if to return to his
horse, for him the conversation was over. Then something caught his eye. One of
the acolytes of Whitecloak was hobbling along towards the pyramid staring up
distractedly at his master’s temple. He
was dressed in dirty rags where once his spotless robes had been.
‘There’s one!’ said Kratos, brightly,
reverting back to Ethian.
He pointed his finger at the acolyte and
shouted ‘Sipia!’ The acolyte gave out
a weak sound, like a combination of a sob and a cry. He fell to the ground. As
he hit the floor his body began to wither progressively, like a corpse that had
lain in the earth for weeks, then months and then years. When all that was left
was splintering skull and bones a little whirlwind formed over the body. Kratos
opened his mouth and breathed in deeply, sucking the wind into his lungs and
savouring the essence of life.
‘That is good’ he roared, ‘it has been so long!’
He turned back to the envoy but the he had already
started running, faster than he ever had before, round the edge of the
pyramid. Kratos laughed again, delighted
to see how much he had terrified such a powerful messenger.
‘Seven days’ he yelled, ‘the barbarian will arrive
in seven days, here in front of the western gates of the city…’
Kratos returned to his horse, patted it on
the flanks and mounted it. He felt so renewed and he was fully prepared for the
future. Power was everything and now nothing need stand in his way; and how
delightful to be at the fulcrum of power – able to push fate one way or another
according to his will. He rode off in the highest spirits.
A vulture circled high above the stepped
pyramid; she could smell death but she was puzzled by the shape she saw below –
a dead body without flesh, skin or marrow.
She did not bother to dive to inspect the corpse, but stayed
circling. She sensed that it would be
fine to wait – very soon there would be proper human meat to feed on.
No comments:
Post a Comment