The cannibal soared through the horizon, beating its ashen wings. Man, beast, and construct were prey to the whims of the world. Beneath the twilight sky, the darkest light was born. In the heat of depravity, the messiah comes forth. Within the luscious forests, the mad priest awakens. And in the unknown, the artisan paints his final masterpiece.
* the Blind Emperor
A weathered hand the color of earth reached towards the dimming horizon. Standing alone on a dune, a lone man took in the last rays of daylight. Soaking in it, basking in it, embracing it. With only the light as a witness, they spoke a promise of fealty and blood.
Then, as the blue sun retreated and dusk settled, the suddenly lonely man forlornly pulled back their hand. Onyx eyes alight with mourning, they walked back to their dwelling, uncaring of the squirming offerings at his side. Casually he flicked an orange streak at one of the offering's pyres.
Screams and curses filled the air.
Well used to the prophet's eccentrics, a massive man with a similar complexion and a flame-like branding on his forehead approached him. “Priest, the foreign interloper wishes to speak with you,” he said with a bowed head, knowing better than to stare into the fiery eyes of God’s most fervent believer.
Inwardly suppressing his survival instincts, the large man tried to not shiver under the gaze of the prophet. After a few tense seconds, he could sense a pleased smile.
“This must be a blessing of the lord!”, a mouth full of sparkling teeth grinned jovially. Clasping his hands, the priest gave a short prayer.
A scoff interrupted him.
It echoed around the temporary settlement, the warriors present knowing better to speak and even the burning sacrifices scared silent. All felt the increasingly scalding heat and boiling rage emitting from the priest still in the middle of prayer.
Wordlessly and with onyx eyes burning orange, the priest turned to one of the sacrifices on the pyres. Red-hot orange gazed into steely blue. A greying olive-skinned woman dressed in the regal robes yet torn robes of the Aaira fearlessly stared back. Her robes were a rich blue with a blood-soaked golden sash adorning her waist and a translucent veil fluttering in the wind in tatters Her enchanted rings, earrings, and necklaces were long stripped from her, but the pride of her caste remained.
Veins visible throbbing and heart roaring, it took all the priest had not to incinerate the heretic where she stood.
Calm yourself. You cannot guarantee the safety of the followers if you give yourself to the fire.
Clenching his teeth tight enough to crush stone, the priest willingly lowered the heat in the surroundings. With a measure of calm regained, he regained his smile. It did not reach his dimmed yet still alight eyes.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Woman, who are you to question god?” he demanded.
The contempt in the heretics' eyes nearly made him lose it.
“Is this what you forgotten dung beetles consider holy?” an aged yet firm voice asked.
Not giving the priest a chance to speak, she pressed forward, growing more furious with every word. “As we speak, the believers in that hideous demon you lot call almighty burn innocent men, women, and children for offerings. Young men from battle come back to ravaged homes, only ashes for parents and lovers. In the past, women have had their families killed in front of their eyes and have been raped to produce you. Children have left orphans and grow unprotected.”
Filled with anger, the Aaira woman cursed her killers. “May your souls be tortured in the worm pits, your loins pulverized by the hammers of the Sentries, and your issues born deaf and blind.” She finished by spitting at the priest's feet.
Wordlessly, the branded man signaled his men to run for the hills and immediately broke into a run himself. He urged his enhanced feet to run faster and faster.
The priest would soon deliver judgment and judgment was blind.
Pushed past restrained, the priest's hair and eyes fiercely glowed orange. With a booming voice that shook the world, he spoke the words of fealty and blood.
“The sun is life, and I am but one ray of light” the defiant woman sensed death, and closed her eyes to embrace it.
“By its command, I shall vanquish the night” the sacrifices fought against their bindings in a useless attempt to escape.
“And to the night, I am its final fight“ Hearing the priest nearing the end of his verses, the men pushed themselves to the brink to outrun his fiery sentencing.
Above the priest and in the sky, a massive ring of light appeared. Effortlessly, the priest raised his right hand.
He pulled it downwards and the world erupted in heat.
(...)
He enjoyed death. The quietness. The peacefulness. The release from his guilt and anguish. Only in the cold embrace of nothingness did he feel alive.
Thus his revivals were the source of his eternal scorn.
A broken neck painfully set itself. Slashed wrists mended. Drowned lungs released their contents.
YOU SHALL LIVE
God decreed this, and reluctant or not he was compelled to follow.
But he would be damned by Atoma if he didn’t try.
And so he did, time and time again. His blade was dyed red, his spear dulled by the bones it sundered, and his shield dented from the heads bashed. He wore no armor and welcomed permanent death in the heat of Horei.
He was denied.
A wind blade sent his head flying, the earth came alive to crush him, and magma rained down from the heavens to smite him. Yet he came back. He always came back.
Dimly, he could feel the air gushing around his ears and the thundering of a storm. His compatriots were fighting, dying, and most importantly living. Some for a lover left home, others for the babes waiting for mother or father, and all to live. Unlike him, every victory was cherished, and every death was sacred. For death for them meant the end.
"For me, it is but a fact of life," he thought. With no passion in his eyes and a still heart, he unsheathed his khopesh from its sheath of sinew uncaring for the scream it produced. Then he lopped off a head, side-stepped an axe, and searched again on the battlefield for his end.
Misery was his world.