Aygu made little attempt to break the line once the initial charge split past the minimal defenses of the Muave Palace's outer walls. At the time of his respite to rip the metallic pin of a stolen Vascan grenade, the man's ears had already fallen deaf to the sounds of his kin being peeled back by the Vascan's only weapon that could turn back the 10-to-1 odds the rebels boasted. "Dhira's light"; An entirely unholy weapon of mass destruction that was not fully understood by the scientists who wielded it nor the priests who brought it from the Old World.
The sound of wails and lungs sputtering out splurts of misplaced blood took over without the warlord being truly aware of the real threat. Ebony-scaled appendages reached deep into the minds of all that entered the inner walls of the Vascan's fortress. The barriers themselves echoed the screams of those who tried to enter within seconds, causing many to flee headfirst into oncoming bombardment from Vascan reinforcement.
Aygu saw the filmy fog that coated the siege for only a few moments before feeling the hard crack of his son slamming into his side which sent him careening into a half-ruined merchant stall. Just as Aygu went to strike his son for the disobedience of his word and for putting him off his path the young man began to writhe with agony, his eyes bulging with fear and pulsing red veins. "FATHER!"
The mud-colored eyes of Aygu's beloved son popped from the socket without another second, the words barely escaping his agape mouth. The black tundra of death took him. Each escaping gasp from the young warrior's ripping lungs and raving mind made him more feral. Each struggling second against the onslaught of near-invisible black ink that plagued the grounds they meant to storm only forced more agony into both the young boy's psyche and body.
The mist also quickly took hold of the warlord's every thought without any warning, the stall he had crashed into morphed into the tentacled cups of the Kraken that took him from his mother as a boy. All his thoughts became consumed in the ever-locking weave of the salty ocean's grasp on his body from decades ago.
Aygu made extreme efforts since losing his biological family to push them to the back burner of the furnace that blazed behind his brown eyes, but now; He could not escape the cracking beaked maw of the once-believed mythical beast that left extremely real scars all over his body.
The stench of burning flesh and the clangor of battle faded into the background as Aygu's world narrowed to the horrifying sight before him. His son, Au'te, lay convulsing on the ground, eyes jutting grotesquely from their sockets clearer than any pseudo scene.
The boy's final, choked gasp tore through Aygu's heart like a serrated blade as he violently spasmed limp.
Aygu's mind reeled. Saltwater once again filled his lungs, choking him, dragging him down into the depths of memory he'd fought so hard to suppress in the dark waters of western Buriti shores known as Black-Water Bay.
Through the haze of panic and remembered grief, a small part of Aygu's battle-hardened mind clung to rationality. This was no natural phenomenon, it reeked of dark Vascan sorcery, Aygu hurriedly reasoned. With monumental exertion, he forced himself to focus on the burning present, on the cool metal of his blade against his palm as he tore into his own flesh.
"Illusions," he growled through gritted teeth. "Nothing but tricks and shadows! I will not stop until every last Vascan is buried!"Gripping his sword tightly, Aygu stumbled forward.
The mist swirled around him, conjuring phantoms of past horrors; the faces of those he'd brutally obliterated almost daily, the burning villages he'd left in his simmering wake. But with each step, his resolve hardened further. He'd come too far to even slightly falter now.
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As he neared the Mauve Palace's inner dense workings, a woman's scream pierced through the racket of explosions outside. It came from high above, from a tower that seemed to shimmer and waver in the strange light of the Blood Moon. Something about that cry struck a chord in Aygu. It wasn't terror or pain he heard, but defiance.
Without fully understanding why, Aygu found himself veering from his intended path to the king's chambers. He scaled the tower, the black mist thinning as he climbed higher. When he reached the top, he found himself face to face with a sight that momentarily stunned him.
A woman stood there, her head shaved, her body emaciated but her eyes blazing with an inner fire. She was grappling with... something unholy. A figure that seemed to shift and change even as Aygu observed, sometimes appearing human, sometimes monstrous.
"Who are you?" Aygu demanded, his blade at the ready.
The woman's eyes locked onto his. "Bala," she rasped. "Sister to Queen Marna. Help me... please." Her voice was wavering, showing her continued struggle against the spirit.
Aygu paused. This was not part of his plan. Every instinct honed over years of warfare screamed at him to turn back, to complete his mission. And yet. He paused.
In that moment of indecision, the shifting figure lunged at Bala. Without thinking, Aygu intercepted, his blade slicing through what felt like the smoke of a campfire. The creature, if it could be called that, let out an inhuman shriek and recoiled like a bat.
"We need to leave," Aygu said, grabbing Bala's arm. "Now." As they descended the tower, the sounds of battle grew much louder. But something had changed. The triumphant cries Aygu had expected from his warriors were instead shouts of confusion and retreat.
They emerged into complete and utter chaos. The black mist had dissipated, revealing a scene of slaughter. But it wasn't Vascan bodies that littered the ground; it was Aygu's own men.
Advancing through the streets were score upon score of Vascan soldiers, their crimson armor gleaming, their automatic weapons, unlike anything Aygu had ever seen. "How?" he muttered, stunned. "We outnumbered them ten to one."
Bala's grip on his arm tightened. "The king," she said, her voice bitter. "He's made... pacts. With things that should not be--" Bala wanted to tell him of her own connected spirit, to spill her heart about the true cause of the flood of Vecine. Fear overtook the urge suddenly as a soldier seemed to spot them.
Aygu's mind dashed to make any means of escape. His carefully laid plans were in tatters. His son was dead. Now, impossibly, his forces were being routed. At that moment, standing amidst the ruins of his ambitions, a realization struck him with the force of a hammer blow.
This cycle of violence, of revenge and counter-revenge --it would never end. Not like this. Not with more bloodshed. "Come," he expressed to Bala, his voice hoarse. "We need to get out of here--The gods have chewed us and spat us back to the soil."
As they fled through the burning streets, dodging pockets of fighting and avoiding the strange, shimmering distortions in the air that made Aygu's head swim with terror, Bala spoke in hurried whispers. She told him of the king's madness, of dark rituals and forbidden knowledge that pervaded the Vascan court. Of a power that could twist minds and reshape reality itself if not handled properly.
"He must be stopped," she insisted. "But not like this. Not with armies and blades."
Aygu said nothing, but his mind was awhirl with new possibilities. Perhaps... perhaps there was another way. A way that didn't involve feeding the endless hunger of war and death that he had missed among the churning sands of Buriti.
They reached the city's edge as dawn began to break. Behind them, the sounds of battle were fading, replaced by the eerie quiet of the aftermath. Aygu looked back at the smoking ruins of the palace one last time, then down at the obsidian blade in his hand--the blade that had taken so many lives.
With a grunt, he cast it aside.
"Where will you go?" Bala asked, her eyes searching his face. She feared he would strike her, having been only raised in the Old World courts and mistreated by Emporer H. Vasca.
Aygu met her gaze steadily. "Wherever I must," he replied. "To find a better way. To break this cycle, once and for all--My son Au would want me to bring honor and peace to our clan."
As they set off into the desert, the rising sun at their backs, Aygu felt something he hadn't experienced in years – hope. The road ahead would be long and fraught with danger. But for the first time in memory, he walked not towards destruction, but towards the possibility of something new.
The butcher's blade had been set aside. Now, perhaps, a builder's tools could be taken up in its place.