When I was a younger man, I prepared my fingers to battle. My hands for war. I was a revenger raised to deliver mankind from their oppressors. Now, I’m an older man, in the twilight of my life. This is my will. My testimony. A tale told by an old man. Will you honor me by listening to my tale? Will you honor me by not following my path of the transgressor?
As a child, I heard tales of good and evil. To be wary of the wiles of the devil, but I hadn’t seen what the face of evil looked like until I was a man grown. I have seen his face and the desolation he has wrought. A creature with only an animal’s courage and an animal's heart. The kind of creature knew nothing of the sanctity of human life and values, nor was it tempered by the light of civilization. Hazael, the Storm Lord, thought he would make the nations of the earth tremble with the roar of his horde. Haughty enough to command the powers of lightning in the storm. A true harbinger of destruction and calamity. But he only woke the wrath of God, and I was His instrument to execute his wrath. It was the day that my legend was born. It was the day I died.
From the north, an army of seventy strong was on the march, carrying bows and lances and deemed the strongest warriors of their clans. They drove their wagons and horses, faceless under gold masks and hidden by their lacquer armor. They moved haltingly in the light like machines as they marched. In sync and perfection. They thirsted for plunder. Eagerly awaiting to divide the spoils of conquest.
They marched on the sands of the desert wastes and into the snow-covered mountains to the west. They made their camp for the evening. Three men were around a campfire. and one rose to his feet and squatted down to stoke the fire.
“Look at the sky,” Jack said, tending the fire. The skies were streaked with gray clouds, banishing the moon, and thunder was heard miles throughout. “It’s going to be one hell of a storm.”
“Yeah? No shit,” Aaron spat. “It’s going to slow us down by at least a week.”
“Why are you so eager, Aaron?” Joseph said. “You’ve already arranged your funeral?”
“Wise ass. You, of all people, should know what this means to me.” Aaron said, a quiet fury crept into his voice. “If I prove my valor on the battlefield, it will prove the valor of my clan. I can set right the follies of my forefathers.” Aaron felt the shield’s weight on his back and saw his reflection of the flames from the fires from his speartip. “This is my claim. My reason for being here.”
“Right,” Joseph said.
“What’s your purpose for being here?” Jack asked.
“Me? I’m here for the money, and that’s all,” he said. “Unlike soldier boy here, I don’t feign to hold much higher principles.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Aaron demanded
“Nothing.”
“We’re fighters. Warriors. There’s a nobility in war. I dread the day when its nobility is called into question and it's over.”
“They said those who live by the sword shall perish by the sword.” A voice called from the outer dark, and he emerged to the lights of the campfire. He wore a thick, long, hooded black coat lined with wolf’s fur. A curved longsword in its scabbard held in his red sash. He hid his hands in the loose sleeves of the coat as he approached the fire.
The three men rose to their feet and brandished their spears. The man held his hands out. “I’m a traveler,” he said calmly.
“We can see that,” Jack said, pointing the spear at the man. He approached the man slowly and took possession of his sword. “We’re going hold onto this, ‘traveler.’ It’s for your protection.”
“Sure.” The traveler squatted and warmed his hands near the fire. “I heard you spoke of war,” he said. “Whatever your object may be, you’re executing the vision of a conqueror onto a foreign land. There’ll be a reckoning of fire and brimstone if you continue to carry on this vision of a madman.”
The three men glance at one another. Aaron approached the traveler slowly and pointed the tip of his spear at the face of the traveler. “What’s your name? And state your reason for being here.”
“I don’t have a name.” The traveler brandished three knives from his sleeves and hurled them at Aaron, Jack, and Joseph. They sank to the floor, darkness began to take them, and their blood stained the snow. The traveler rose to his feet and recovered his longsword. As he proceeds forward, a weak hand grasps his ankle, and the traveler bends down and turns the dying man onto his back. The traveler held the hand of Aaron as he lay dying. He drew in his last breath and his eyes went sightless. The traveler closed them. “May your death serve a greater purpose,” the Traveler said solemnly.
The Traveler saw torchlights coming down the mountain to the camp. He patiently waited for them.
The soldiers stumbled upon the dead bodies and the Traveler. He coolly sat on the log with his head down and brandishing his sword. The man looked up at them and through his hazel eyes stared the eyes of vengeance, glittering with venom.
“Who are you? What have you done?” a soldier demanded as he pointed his spear at the Traveler. The others began to encircle the Traveler’s flank.
“I’m a messenger,” he said in an excruciating calm voice, “and I am here to deliver you the due rewards of your deeds.”
The Traveler’s blade whirled at a speed beyond what the human eye could decipher. Years of experience concentrated in the movement of his sword and body, mowing down six spearmen unawares. Blood and bones spattered, turning the ground from snow white to dark red. Then there came a chilly noise, not of a battle cry or a curse, but a bloodcurdling howl that echoed throughout the night. Reverberating throughout the mountain ravine. And the alarm was sound. The heathen rage and the Traveler took a deep breath and readied his blade. He dashed up the mountain pass and towards his fated clash with the Storm Lord.
The Traveler stood before the Storm Lord’s legion of troopers. Clad in armor from a foreign land, inherited from their ancestors whose bones are very dust. Faceless, anonymous under their helms, and armed with bows and lances and shields. He stood alone. The Traveler readied his battle stance and held his blade high with a two-handed grip. Sweat dripped off his brow. His hands trembled and his breathing was heavy and quickened.
No, he thought. The Traveler reaffirmed his grip—steady your heart. Clear your mind. Don’t give into fear. I will not die. Not today. I will see my duty fulfilled. And as a warrior, he told himself, there’s no road left but the one that leads to the end.
An archer shot his arrow from his bow at the Traveler. He caught it in mid-flight and snapped the arrow shaft in two. Swift as the wind, the Traveler dashed and beheaded the first warrior he saw. Taking on this many men is suicide but one by one they will fall to me. My blows must be targeted and quick. Any misstep I'll be dead.
A lance jabbed out, the Traveler deflected the blow and thrust his blade into the soldier’s heart. He sank to his knees, screaming as everything he had ever known swirled into darkness. He writhed in agony as he lay dying on the face of the ground. Another soldier moved in, making a heavy two-handed overhand swing. The Traveler evaded and riposted. The attacker lay headless. He pressed his assault, faster with every stroke, deadlier and quicker than the last. Always attacking, moving in. The bodies were strewn along the stony path like victims of a natural disaster.
Sword against sword, metal screeching on metal. The Traveler smashed through their lines, dashing them into pieces. He was the whirlwind mowed down the herd of his accursed foes; he was an east wind to pluck them from the face of the earth and to cast asunder the encroaching storm. Indeed, he was one of the strongest swordsmen under the heavens.
As each man was cut down, the Traveler’s vision was blurred, the men became enshadowed and dark like mud effigies and the Traveler’s blade whirled and hitting bone and blood and bits of skulls plastered over the rocks and the mountain pass.
One soldier hoisted his sword above his head, poised for a downward arc. He hesitated. The Traveler enshadowed, covered in blood of his slain comrades, his eyes were white and blinding, and full of determination. He was prepared to die, the soldier realized, and I wasn’t. I wasn’t ready to fight the devil himself. The Traveler threw a knife and it lodged deep in his throat, and he sank to the ground, dead.
And another raised his shield to parry. I want to go home. The Traveler shattered his shield, his sword cleaved into his shoulder.
They keep coming and I continue to cut them down. These anonymous lives, some were engaged, some had children or pets, families. Filled with dreams and great ambition or they born alone. My body is so heavy. I’m so tired, so spent, an aching sack of muscle. Why am I doing this? Why am I here? I must be insane. He noticed the banner of the Storm Lord; a cloudburst on a black field. Right. I’m coming for you.
***
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Hazael, the Storm Lord, son of Cyrus, was a heavy-set man, barrel-chested and broad-shouldered. His dark hair was braided and flowed down to his back. His beard was sharp and pointed like a razor. He was in his tent, reading a book with his concubine on his arm.
“What are you reading, beloved?” she asked quietly.
“A history of these lands and its people.”
“Oh. How boring, it couldn’t have been poetry or something romantic,” she said, feigning disappointment in her voice. She leaned closer to his arm.
Hazael smiled warmly. “Perhaps another time,” he said, returning to read his book. “What a fascinating people. A mighty people bound by honor and justice. I will offer them peace. To surrender with dignity.”
“Not unlike us?”
“Not unlike us.”
His concubine looked at Hazael kindly and studied him. “My beloved, I’ve always wondered why you were discontent with your station. You are a prince, a hero among your people.”
Hazael rubbed his chin thoughtfully and looked into her deep brown eyes. “I wasn't suited for councils and record keeping,” he said, “my brothers are well sufficient for the task. I knew my position in history wouldn’t be determined by such activities but by my own will, forged by iron and blood. And on the day my men swore their swords to me, to shed their blood with me, they became my true brothers. They will be remembered for their deeds and they shall dwell forever in the annals of heroes.”
He heard heavy footprints approaching his pavilion and pulled the tent flap open. The soldier was battered, bruised, and bleeding. “Sir, sir, he’s coming!” he said, quaking in fear, his hands shaking.
“What? Who?”
“I…I don’t know. He’s been tearing us apart like a beast. He’s a monster… a devil.” The soldier coughed up blood and sank to the ground. Two daggers were in his back.
Hazael turned to his lover. “Take my horse and return home. Do it now.”
Without hesitation, she quickly threw on a coat and sped through the back exit of the tent. She looked back at her lover, “I’ll see you soon, beloved,” she said. He nodded to her.
Hazael readied himself. His armor was made of iron and reinforced steel plate, dinted and scarred from old blows from lances and mace and hints of old blood from men he slain in faraway lands. He grabbed his quarterstaff from his mantle above the firepit and went outside to confront this monster. The Traveler was covered in blood and grime with his sword in his hand, huffing and puffing. He readied himself in a tight and ironclad stance.
The clouds swirled and bound together like dark tendrils as streaks of lightning powered them. Hazael stretched his hand and drew on the lighting in the storm, converting it into raw power that surged throughout his body, turning his gray-green eyes to white light. and a pure color of energy engulfed his entire hulking frame.
“My god,” the traveler said, in awe and astonishment. “What the hell are you?!”
“Your death!” Hazael the Storm Lord conjured a thunderbolt in his hand and hurled it at the Traveler. As it struck the ground near his feet, the Traveler was thrown into a nearby rock face. He spat out blood as his whole body trembled from the blast, rendering his sword arm unsteady.
What is he? This thought chilled him to the very bone. The Traveler wiped the blood from his mouth with his left hand and rose to his feet. He slowly paced the Storm Lord’s right flank, picking up his speed as he moved in closer. Suddenly he dashed, flashing his sword in a sweeping and wide flourish in a steel blur.
High, low, overhand, Hazael deflected them with his staff. Left, right, backslash, he left a deep gash in his inner thigh, forced the Storm Lord a few paces back.
Their speed was immense, to the naked eye, they faded in and out of existence.
A duel to the death that would fit to decide the fates of the great empires on earth.
The Storm Lord bounded off his backfoot, spun, and struck at the Traveler’s blade so hard sparks flew off. His second blow held the full force of his weight that the Traveler could scarcely block as he staggered back from the sheer power behind it.
The third strike buckled the Traveler’s knees, as the fourth strike the Traveler left him stunned. The final strike came as a powerful overhead attack that would have cleaved the Traveler’s skull in two. The Traveler quickly rolled out of the way and lurched to his feet. His eyes locked on the Storm Lord, unable to tear his gaze from the enigma that stood before him.
Godlike and inexorable. Every stride a strike, every strike a stride, the earth quakes under his boots, and every strike more thunderous than the last. The Traveler was reeling.
His strength, his speed. It’s unreal. Every swing of my sword. Every parry. Every riposte. Takes more and more from me. My arms are heavy, and my legs are lead. I have to see this to the end, otherwise, no one else will.
He seized the Traveler by his throat and forced him to his knees. The Traveler peered into his white gaze. The presence of death was written in his pupilless eyes. He could not look away. “Impressive,” he said, his voice, preternaturally deep, “You’re the first man to withstand me for this long. Surrender.”
“Surrender?” he said, his voice strained from the Storm Lord’s iron grip.
“Yes. Accept your defeat with dignity.” He let the Traveler go and stretched his hand, and began to swell and surge with the raw power he stole from the heavens. “Or die pitiably like a dog.”
“I choose death!”
The Traveler cut off Hazael’s hand. He screamed. A flash of blue light struck the mountaintop, and the Traveler flew back and was knocked out. When he woke, he saw a smoking crater where the Storm Lord stood last. He walked to the crater and saw an abomination of flesh and metal twisted and smoldered on a blackened mast that was once a human body. The Traveler paced back. His knees buckled and he fell on his back to the ground. It began to downpour, thundering.
He took places I had never been before. The closest thing to death. I’m alive. My heart is beating. My blood singing. The rain on my chest is a baptism, I’m born again, he said as he drifted off into unconsciousness.
***
The Traveler dreamt an old dream and within the dream he stood on a high hill overlooked the rolling mountains and cliffs shrouded in a grey fog or mist and it seemed to stretched out indefinitely and he stood still in a deep and chilling equanimity. A burning visage of sword appeared before him and he gripped the sword’s hilt and fully took form and then he woke up.
The Traveler found himself in a stranger’s bed, and the heat from the fire soothed the warrior. The room lit yellow from the candle flames, and the air was warm. The sun shined over the mountain’s rim, and tranquility settled heaven and earth alike. He tried to move but it hurt to do so. His torso and foot were bandaged.
“Don’t move,” a woman said, as she wrung a cloth and wiped the Traveler’s brow. She was small and thin, her face was long and soft. She wore a dark green gown and a sleeveless tunic. Her auburn hair was tied in a bun. “You cracked some of your ribs and your foot is broken as well.”
“What were you doing up there?” he asked, as he rose upwards to the bedhead
“Promise me, you won’t tell anyone?” she said in a whisper.
“You have my word, miss…”
“Jamie. I was looting the dead soldiers, and I found you,” she said. “You would have frozen to death if I left you.”
“I’m in your debt. I don’t know how to repay you, Jamie.”
She looked at him kindly. “I can think of a few ways you can repay me,” she said, “but your name, sir?”
“I can’t give…” he paused for a moment, “My name’s Michael.”
She smiled warmly. Michael pulled himself upward and sat at the bed’s edge.
“You shouldn’t be moving at all! The pain will be too much.”
“I assure you, I’ll be fine.” He tried to rise on his feet, and he limped forward but collapsed. “Damnit,” he muttered under his breath. Michael shied away from Jamie’s green eyes, ashamed. Such a disgraceful display and above all in front of a woman
Jamie looked over at him kindly, she offered her a helping hand and Michael accepted.
“You’re stronger than you look.”
“Are you suggesting I’m weak, Michael?”
“No, of course not. I meant nothing by it.”
She smiled and assisted him to her bed. “You’re going to keep me in company for a few days.”
“I do not have much of a choice.”
“No you do not,” she moved right next to him, her leg pressed up against his. She noticed his hair was braided in long locks, the old scars on his chest and arms. “You've seen your share of hardship haven’t you?”
“I have.”
“What were you doing there? I saw next to something that words will fail on what I saw.”
Michael bowed his head, his eyes averted from her. “A monster that would have brought the world to its knees with his only choice was to surrender or die,” he said as he stared into the roaring fire. “I’m not sure what he was.”
Jamie wrapped a blanket around Michael. “I don’t know what you faced in the end. You’re alive.”
“Again, thank—”
“You owe me a debt, I tend to collect.” She leaned forward, her eyes gazed into his.
“What is it?”
She leaned closer to him. “For you and I to go fishing together. When you’re ready, meet me by the river bank.” Jamie grabbed a spear and opened the door, she took a moment. “Sure it’s a beautiful day. I’ll see you soon.” Jamie left the door open for him.
Michael rose to his feet and hobbled forward to her weapon’s rack. He used the spear to bear some of his weight, alleviating the shocks of agony as he took his steps outside. He followed the stony path.
He saw Jamie wading through the river ford. She aimed her spear carefully, steadily. She jabbed it into a steelhead trout, and blood flowed with the stream over the stones and around her ankles. She lifted the fish in the air. Polished and muscular and torsional, it flailed wildly on her speartip. Michael smiled.
Jamie noticed Michael slowly hobbling to her. She grinned wolfishly at him and it vanished as she heard low growling from the bushes.
The grizzly was hulking and ponderous and ambling, his rough fur ran across the thicket and he stood on his hind legs. He sniffed about with his long, scarred muzzle and he smelled blood and carrion in the wind. He turned his great head to Jamie and he paced slowly then faster, faster, FASTER! The world trembled as the grizzly charged to Jamie. She was stunned and bewildered, and screamed for her life.
Jamie closed her eyes, her legs refused her will to move. She heard a terrible and strange moan, blood spattered on her. She opened her eyes, Michael, breathless and without his bandages. He towered over the bear with a broken spear jutted into his neck, slain.
“Is my debt fulfilled?” He stretched his hand to her.
She accepted and clung to him tightly then pulled away quickly. “How? How was that possible?” she said in confusion.
“The will to act,” he said. “It's what moved me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s the source of my strength; the will to act, the will to power. It drives us to overcome great obstacles.”
“You’re not making sense, Michael.”
“I’m sorry. I have to go.”