Then Abner called to Joab, and said, Shall the sword devour for ever? knowest thou not that it will be bitterness in the latter end? how long shall it be then, ere thou bid the people return from following their brethren?
― 2 Samuel 2:26
Chapter 10: The Battle of Dalat (Part IV)
All told, the apostate army numbered over five hundred strong. Just reaching Dalat had claimed dozens, and more than a score had fled in the face of Tauruskhan’s wrath…But enough remained.
More than enough.
The largest contingent, of course, hailed from the Jarrow. Close to sixty heavily-armed Jarrow cavalry, veterans all, had survived the harrowing journey. Harnak Kul, their iron-souled leader, had been pitiless in his appraisal. He’d held them together, more through sheer willpower than anything else, and as such had suffered the least casualties.
Still, he’d lost nearly a third of his force. Some had fallen behind, lost forever in the twilight ways. Others had been preyed upon by the hideous predators that lurked within the shadowy paths, seized and devoured by things beyond the sight of the Gods.
Most had simply died, when their souls - or those of their steeds - withered away to nothing. Those who lost their horses were dead men walking, doomed to stagger on until darkness and silence swallowed them.
It was pure survival. A steed burdened by two riders meant two men, not one, would fall.
Don’t get me wrong. Harnak Kul wasn’t a sadist or a cold, ego-driven pragmatist. If he were, he’d never have earned the Clan of Kings’ unwavering loyalty.
From what I knew, he cared deeply for his men. His force included all but his youngest sons - For he would never have asked his tribe to sacrifice what he wouldn’t.
His youngest sons…And Rarga Kul, left at the Firepeaks to uphold the lie of his father’s presence.
Supposedly, it was penance for his defeat. But Rarga was Harnak’s favorite son, and a shamed life was better than a godless death.
Later, I would learn that Harnak Kul was the first to take the brand of damnation. Some tales said he wielded the iron himself, but I find that hard to believe.
Or maybe not.
Maybe that was what it took to be chieftain.
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In some ways, we were lucky.
Yes, there were thirteen of us, facing off against more than four hundred men. The enemy held the high ground, and the advantage of sheer numbers. They’d lost so many just getting here, but hundreds remained-
And every one of the rebels knew that they had to win.
At any cost.
They had cast themselves from Tauruskhan’s embrace, condemned their souls to eternal exile from the Grazing Lands. They’d turned their backs on their own God…And you better believe that He was pissed at them.
That was incredibly motivating, as you can imagine.
If they failed here, if they faltered, only damnation awaited them. It was a sundering, a shattering of everything they’d ever known - All the rules were out of the window, and it was victory or a fate literally worse than death.
Quarsh, Dhalani, Kythri, Jyamak, Adaar, Volzum, Twilight Veil, Jarrow…It no longer mattered. All the old rivalries, the feuds, had been cast aside. They were united, now as never before, welded into a single army through their shared fate.
Win or die. Nothing else mattered.
On any other world, that would’ve been enough. No matter how well we fought, no matter how many we killed, our charge would - eventually - run out of momentum and space. We would be wrestled over and dragged down, man and horse alike, then hacked to death with sharpened iron blades.
But the Ursh needed me alive.
They couldn’t just kill me - Well, they could have, but it would have defeated the point of the whole thing. If the rebel army wanted to seize Tauruskhan’s own power, I had to be taken alive.
There was a protocol for such things, you see. Without the proper rites, spilling my blood merely meant that His invested power would be lost. The God would be down a champion, yes…But then they would have nothing to bargain with. No way to forestall His wrath.
Trust me, no one holds a grudge like a god. If Tauruskhan had been thwarted, He would have vented His rage the only way He knew: Through the utter obliteration of His enemies.
It wasn’t even a question of practicality, but principle. The loyal tribes would have scoured their heretic kin from the face of Phosphiach, with all of His might behind them.
It didn’t matter that He’d only have been bleeding Himself dry. Metaphorically speaking, if His eyes were knives, He’d have yanked them out and hurled them at the apostates.
Tauruskhan was just that kind of God.
So, they couldn’t kill me. Not in open battle, at least.
But those limitations? They didn’t apply to me.
At long last, I was free to go to town on them. To rip, tear and rend.
To slaughter, with blade, bullet and fist.
Some might consider that unsporting, but I’m certainly not complaining, mind you. After all, it was my ass on the line. Every little bit helped.
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And then, of course, there were the realities of life on Phosphiach to consider.
As I’ve said, the gods loved leaving relics lying around. Swords, shields, spears…If it could take a blow or deliver one, it was good enough for any one of the myriad gods. Each one, however, required the imbuer to surrender a portion of His immortal power - And gods, more than anyone else, were loathe to yield even a fraction of their essence.
Tauruskhan was no exception. But in His aspect as the Horned Conqueror, He was a god of warriors…And it’s a pretty lousy god who can’t gird His followers for battle.
Like the countless other martial deities that ruled over the sphere of warfare, the Divine Chief had come to a compromise. When violence beckoned, when the God called upon them to take up arms, the men of the Twenty-Six Tribes rode into battle with the priests of the Bull-God’s cult at their side.
This wasn’t just ritual or superstition, or even moral support. Their sigil-marked weapons, passed down from father to son, could be roused by the blessings of the witch-priests. It charged them, infusing blades, bludgeons and arrows with divine power, made them strike straight and true.
Like the dread Reversi of Rastuvia, or Vairocana’s slayer-saints, those of Tulgar’s blood bore the weapons of eternity.
So long as the Custodians of the Divine Horns willed it, of course.
The merciless arithmetic made itself known, and quickly. The clans that kept the faith, that worshipped Tauruskhan in word and deed, thrived. Those that did not…Well, you can guess what happened to them.
This was why the Grazing Lands had never been conquered. A God is always strongest on His own turf - His blessings surge, while invaders' power fades. There is power in the very rock of the Bull-God’s fane, held deep under the foundations.
Power enough, perhaps, for thirteen men to overcome an army?
One way or another, we were about to find out.
The thing was, the heretic host lacked that. No priest of Tauruskhan would ever have backed them, for it His will they deferred to above all things. In a world where the Gods were real, tangible entities, there was no room for ambiguity in doctrine.
You served your patron in all things, or not at all.
Even if one did, wielding a God’s power against His champion is like throwing gasoline on an inferno - It only makes things worse.
Immeasurably worse.
The Twilight Veil had their dark magics, but hauling more than five hundred men and their mounts through the shadowed ways had drained them dry. A fortunate thing, too: If they were anywhere near Shahmat’s calibre, dealing with them would’ve been a nightmare.
And so, the apostates rode to war, armed with nothing but dead iron and bronze. Blinded to the invisible world, they had only the strength of their arms and hardened sinews to rely on.
Meanwhile, we had the God on our side.
It was, at best, a silver lining in a very, very dark cloud. Make no mistake, we were desperately outnumbered, facing odds of more than thirty-to-one.
“Too many!” Rodo shouted, before the wind snatched his words away. “Too damn many!”
“I know!” Braze Jai laughed, for his doom was clear as day. His spider-totem blazed with jeweled light, silent lightning crawling over his god-marked mail.
“-But what the Hell.”
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The plan, if you could call it that, was simple.
Amid the field of headless statues, one stood out amongst the rest. Fully fifty feet tall, it was a beheaded giant, surrounded by a half-dozen of its lesser kin. Time and the scouring winds had eroded their features to almost nothing, but enough remained to suggest shapes.
A king, surrounded by wise counselors.
A warlord and his loyal companions.
A father and his many sons.
Some statues had toppled over the centuries, leaving holes in their rough circle. But hey, it was the best defense we could hope for.
On the open plain, we'd be swarmed and slaughtered. The great host would close around us like a throttling fist, with the outriders playing the fingers. They would hit us from the flanks, filling us with arrows and javelins at short-range.
But in the shadow of these stone giants, maybe - just maybe - a few could hold off many.
For a bit, anyway.
That was our hope: To drag them down with us, to turn a swift victory into a dirty, bloody brawl. To ensure that they paid a high price in blood, sweat and tears for our lives.
To make them suffer for their blasphemy against the God.
We just had to get through a few hundred enraged tribesmen first.
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The enemy surged towards us. Fanning across the slopes, riding hard.
Their war-cries rifled the air, the thunder of hooves so loud I could no longer hear the ominous rumble. It was like riding headlong into an avalanche or a damnation-swarm of locusts, less an opposing army and more a force of nature.
Like doom itself, rushing to swallow us whole.
There was a frenzy to the approaching host, a mad anticipation of imminent violence. I could see individual warleaders whooping and howling, urging their lancers on, racing to be the first ones into the fight.
The ground blurred past, beneath my destrier’s hooves. The roar of the approaching host was deafening, now: They were four hundred horse-lengths away, three-fifty, three hundred and closing…
At a hundred, their wicked saddle-bows would unleash death.
Every warrior of Tulgar’s line knew this instinctively. It was etched in their blood, as sacred as any holy writ.
That was the range at which they would strike.
The recurve bows favored by the Twenty-Six Tribes could send an arrow over three hundred meters, but were only considered accurate at two hundred. Any target further than that was, in the opinion of most suldes, a waste of arrows.
But they could draw and loose upwards, so their shafts would come screaming down from an almost vertical angle. The smooth-pulling bows, crafted to be fired from horseback, made this possible from the saddle.
At this range, hitting a fast-moving target was a question of luck rather than skill. Quantity, however, had a quality of its own.
We rode close, in wedge formation. A blade, plunging into the enemy’s line.
I led from the front, at the tip of the spear. Five men flanked me - Ganazzar at my side, Zisithras roaring defiance as he raised our banner high. Kalich’s bone horn blared the charge, the razor-tip of his ivory lance gleaming like a lost star.
Nilquit rode behind me, at the heart of our formation. He bore no weapon, just the burning censer of his office: A polished human skull on silver chains, red smoke streaming from empty eye-sockets and fleshless mouth.
The sacred incense swirled around us, not away. It perfumed the air with Tauruskhan’s own musk, the bitter reek of a god-auroch’s killing rage. It clung to me like a mantle, drawn into my lungs with every breath.
The witch-priest was chanting, howling his prayers into the thundering wind. Calling on the spirits of the air and the hero-ghosts of long-dead ancestors. Imploring them to come forth and extinguish the idolators, to devastate the traitors to Tulgar’s blood.
I felt a prickle on my skin that was more than the scouring dust, more than the ozone-heavy crackle of the storm. It was a surge, one that began at the base of my spine, pulsing down through my limbs like hot oil-
Two hundred horse-lengths, now.
I could see the apostate riders drawing back their bows, readying to fire. In seconds, we would be within range - In mere moments, black-fletched arrows would thatch the sky.
But I fired first.
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The Furstenburg lit up. Twin barrels vanished in a glare of muzzle-flash, bright and staccato: I’d selected rapid-fire, waiting until this moment, where no round would be wasted.
There were simply too many of them to miss.
Shots blurred away, the hissing discharge of the pulse rifle rising like a scream. I rose in the saddle, gun braced against my shoulder, holding it steady as it juddered in my hands - For I was firing high over my racing steed, the destrier’s neck stretched out before me, and I did not want to shoot my own mount in the head.
Too high.
The first volley seared over the barbarian horsemen, passing above them in a hail of fiery bolts. It drove some forward, made others duck and curse - I saw a horse tumble over, utterly unnerved, crushing its rider under its rolling back.
The black wave of cavalry swept over them without slowing, the screams of man and steed lost in the mad rush as they vanished beneath an avalanche of pounding hooves.
Sloppy, I thought, jaw locked, teeth clenched.
Fucking do it right-
I dragged my aim down, and the torrent of burning shots tore into the oncoming foe.
The effect was abrupt and immediate. Armor shattered: shields broke. Flashes, sparks and sharp cracks split the air, as energy rounds punched through brass plate, through iron scales, through lamellar and hardened leather.
Through meat and brain and bone.
Blood sprayed. The flashing, flickering cone of fire scythed through the onrushing riders, with a sound like bells being crushed in an industrial press. The outgoing blur of fire chewed into them - chewed through them - pink mist scattering as the raging blitz of shots ripped them apart.
The Furstenburg’s barrel barely climbed. The weapon fired so smoothly, I had all the time in the world to observe. To see men and horses cut apart, atomizing in puffs of red drizzle, pulped beyond any semblance of articulacy.
It was hideous.
It was appalling.
It was, in a way, beautiful.
Somewhere, there were screams. Terrible, wrenching howls of soul-sick pain. The wails of men and the shrieks of horses, the latter somehow worse than the former. Inarticulate cries of agony, of terror - For this was a new horror, unknown to Phosphiach’s countless battlefields, as inexplicable as it was ruinous.
The flash-flicker of pulse fire lit up the world, bathing everything in a surreal brilliance. It even underlit the broken stone of the great arch far above us, invisible hands of annihilation demolishing the front line in a welter of carnage.
A thick brume of atomized blood-mist boiled off the destruction, into the howling winds. I could smell it, taste it, as red filled my vision.
Copper on my tongue. Charred meat, at the back of my throat.
It was then, and only then, that I realized what Tauruskhan had been feasting on in His cave. The forbidden savor of the meat He loved, too sweet and too soft to be beef. I’d gorged myself, then - Eaten my fill of the God’s own banquet.
Because I hadn’t known, not then.
The memory made me nauseous, even as I wrenched my attention back to the here and now. I held the trigger-stud down, sweeping the Furstenburg’s blazing muzzle back and forth, the taste of roasted human flesh blotting out all else.
Over the thunder of my pulse, the pounding of my blood, I willed the cone of fire to not just stay down or stay on target, but to go through the apostate horsemen.
To make them dead, now and forever.
Sand and dirt fountained up, statues shattering beneath the sledgehammer impacts. Sprays of black stone scythed through the air in lethal flechettes: I saw riders drop, tearing at their armor, clawing at the splinters that had found their mark.
Shredded, men and beasts tumbled apart, rupturing like overripe fruit. They burst and burned, split open and gutted, ruined by the screaming shots I’d poured into them.
They came on, all the same.
The charge had a force of its own, like a tide that couldn’t be dammed. The enemy rode across its own dead and dying, stampeding on through the storm of shots.
Horses ran on, riderless. Some dragged their dead riders after them, their limp corpses ploughing furrows in the blood-soaked dirt. Men had been torn down, disemboweled, thrown by their wounded steeds, but their brothers-in-damnation merely spurred forward faster.
Heads down. Weapons in their fists. Riding to beat the devil.
Praying to the God they’d defied, so that howling Death would pass them by.
It was then, right then, that I knew we were well and truly fucked.
We needed to smash the momentum out of the enemy host, before the mass could reach us. To cut their legs out from under them, to sow their serried ranks with fire and terror.
It was our best hope. Our only hope, really.
Even with the God, this would be a descent into disaster. An adventure into catastrophe, a nightmare come to life. For there was no way, none at all, that thirteen men could ever hope to defeat half a thousand.
The very idea of it…Does it sound insane to you? It does to me. For every casualty, for every man blasted apart by the Furstenburg, there were two more men behind to take his place, and die in turn, and be replaced by four.
But we were committed, now.
And the only way out was through.
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The Daughters of Dhalani were an anomaly among the Twenty-Six Tribes. Half a century ago, the Red-Faced Plague ravaged their ranks, wiping out nearly every male. Seven out of eight of their menfolk fell to the disease, leaving devastation in its wake.
Women, curiously, were immune. Whatever contagion had subjected their men to feverish, convulsing deaths - faces marked with the Plague’s distinctive rash, even as their bodies writhed in bone-snapping agony - utterly failed to touch them. Only the women were left unmarked, as the seed of the contagion withered and died within them.
The virulent nature of the plague defied study, but the response of the other clans had been ruthlessly practical. For more than two decades, the Dhalani had been outcasts: Any man even suspected to be of their bloodline was killed on sight, his corpse consigned to the flames to ensure that no trace of disease lingered.
They’d survived, somehow. Shunned by all, the once-populous tribe shrank to almost nothing. In order to survive, they’d adapted, playing the hand fortune had dealt them.
On the veldt, there was no taboo against female warriors. Great Tauruskhan was silent on the matter, mostly because He didn’t particularly care. The exacting standards required, as well as the exigencies of life in the saddle, weeded out all but the strongest and most determined.
And so, the tribe of Dhalani had become the Daughters of Dhalani, as hard-bitten as any of their kin. They rode into battle on robust ponies, relying on exacting skill and wind-swift speed over strength. Shrouded beneath death-masks of crimson mirewood, echoing the agonized features of the plague-dead, they fought like hellions, with a death-defying fury that knew no fear.
Such was necessary, in order to prove their worth to the other clans. They labored under a shroud of suspicion, for - broadly speaking - there had always been something scandalous about the Daughters of Dhalani, after their rebirth. It wasn’t uncommon for warriors to whisper of the dark and awful rites they supposedly conducted, pondering the fates levied upon the remaining men of their clan.
There was a rumor, a recurring rumor, that the Daughters had forged an infernal pact with some bloody-handed, man-hating goddess. In return for their complete submission, so the story went, the women of Clan Dhalani had - blasphemously - found a way to reproduce amongst themselves, overturning all that was natural.
I can tell you that was probably bullshit, though. According to Praya, the Daughters of Dhalani simply took in outcasts from other tribes to bolster their ranks: Women fleeing abuse, persecution, unwanted marriages, or any of the countless miseries of tribal life on the steppe.
They took in men too, most likely. Those willing to brave the rumors, and who didn’t chafe under the unique structure imposed by necessity.
Regardless, like the Twilight Veil, the Dhalani were only nominally of Tulgar’s blood. Their numbers were never very high, despite their best efforts. Only a direct injunction against their further persecution, laid down by High Priest Praya himself, had prevented their extinction.
And that, I think, was why they’d rebelled. It was their own hope of reversing their dismal fortunes, to ensure their survival for at least another generation to come.
The Dhalani contingent, the largest after the Jarrow, represented a substantial portion of their main battle-line: Their best horse-archers and lancers, arrayed in the full panoply of war. It was, more than likely, the first time in a generation that they’d numbered themselves amongst a host as great as this one - And now, more than ever, they were driven to prove themselves.
The red-masked horsewomen rode ahead of the others, shrieking like banshees as they raced on. There was no pause to their headlong rush, no regard for their own survival. They knew they were riding headlong into the very jaws of death, but the clan’s need eclipsed their own.
In the name of Dhalani, they would fight. They would kill for the living, and kill for the dead.
They took the full brunt of my pulse rifle’s energy reservoir, hailing rounds pummeling their line with shuddering impacts. Rapid-fire shots tore apart woman and beast in abrupt detonations, riddling their ranks with showers of blood and meat.
Nothing stopped it. Not their shields, not their armor, not the talismans of ancestors long-dead. Even the sacred mirewood masks, emblems of all they’d endured, shattered under the volley like lightning-struck trees.
As gunfire ripped into them, riders and steeds alike stumbled and sprawled, screaming. They had been ready for the worst of Phosphiach’s terrors, but not this: This merciless, relentless punishment, disjointing and disarticulating.
I can only imagine the horror of the moment, as comrades, kin and lovers were shredded - Not just killed, but pulped, so utterly destroyed that nothing remained to inter. Each shot tore great bites from heads, limbs and chests, leaving only scorched craters in their wake.
Here one second. Gone the next.
The rest of the heretic host went through them. Some had the presence of mind or the skill to avoid the tangled knot of the dead and dying. Others simply rode over the Daughters, heedless of their screams, trampling many beneath their hobnails.
They couldn’t stop, not now, for slowing meant suffering the same fate.
And so the front of the onrushing line rolled over the limp and wet bodies of the fallen, crushing them to an oozing pulp. Hooves slipped on the compressed corpses, struggling for purchase. I saw mounted riders topple into the thrashing slick, even as the luckier or level-headed swerved wide around the welter of blood and flailing limbs.
All of this, in seconds. The exact time it took to drain my pulse rifle’s charge packs.
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The Daughters of Dhalani never recovered from the losses sustained at Dalat. The appalling carnage would mark the few survivors for the rest of their days, the way a scar marred flesh.
It wasn’t just the blood and horror, or the deaths of so many seasoned warriors in hideous succession. Their conception of the future, of the shape tomorrow might take, was comprehensively smashed out of them - Not just by Munzer Arms’ most famous product, but by a great and terrible treachery yet to come.
For them, Dalat was the beginning of the end. When the first blows of the clan wars were struck, when the Twenty-Six Tribes turned on each other in fratricidal fury, their much-reduced tribe was an easy target.
Without the God’s protection, the old taboos no longer held true. Even the threat of the Red-Face Plague would do little to dissuade the maddened, the bloodthirsty and the ambitious.
In Tauruskhan’s absence, there would be no shortage of all three, each fighting to make the Grazing Lands their own. Like the sorcerers of the Twilight Veil, the Dhalani would tread the slow path to annihilation, until the track of their history went no further.
In that, at least, they would not be alone.
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At a hundred and thirty horse-lengths, the Furstenburg stuttered dry, chiming repeatedly on charge out. The alert shrilled in my ears, as I pulled the rifle tight to my chest, heat sinks glowing dull red.
A cold dread settled in; it was going to end in hand-to-hand.
Driving my steed with my knees, I fumbled the energy-packs free. There was no time to stow them, not now. I’d never had to reload on horseback before, and with the destrier jolting along it was hard to manage.
I dropped the first pack, cursing as the second slipped through my fingers. A full cell slithered away, lost for good, before I finally locked a fresh one in place. I freed another from the loops of my harness, teeth gritted as I rammed it home-
The telltale lights flickered. One green, one yellow: Something had gone wrong. I shook the pulse rifle, slapped the stock, trying to get the pack to settle.
All I got was a sullen click.
In my growing panic, I had the vague, half-formed idea of blowing on it, like a malfunctioning cartridge. But the horse bucked beneath me, hooves scuffing against the dirt, and it was all I could do to hang on for dear life.
What do you want from me? I thought. The enemy was scant seconds away, and I couldn’t get the fucking thing to wor-
“Shields up!” Ganazzar bellowed, his voice made brassy by his helm. “Shields up, now!”
One hundred horse lengths.
Too late, I heard the twang of a hundred bows - more - firing in unison. Again, as the second rank fired over the first.
Arrows chopped the air. I ducked, instinctively, but the first one hit my pauldron with a painful thwack. It rocked me back in the saddle, as I clawed for Tulgar’s shield-
For one moment, the sky was thatched with black-fletched arrows. Iron-tipped darts fell like rain: I heard them glance from shields and god-warded armor, spinning away from the war-harnesses of our steeds.
Rodo grunted, as a broadhead sliced his thigh. The breath whooshed from Layak’s lungs as a near-miss whizzed past, so close it grazed his helmet. The rough fletching scratched his cheek and eye - He jerked his head back, overbalancing, and only his white-knuckled grip kept him atop his mount.
It wasn’t enough. It wouldn’t be anywhere near enough.
A sulde of the Arkades was racing in, the rest of his warband right beside him. They had already nocked their next flight of arrows, charging them with enough force to split stone.
I had a blurred glimpse of bowstrings drawn back, torsos bent to loose again-
They fired, just as I raised Last Breath. I heard the grinding cracks of the heavy arrows spitting through the air, saw a constellation of glittering points rushing towards me, impossibly fast…
The wind blew hard, very hard. Like a rushing squall, a surging gust that made our banner snap on its pole. Arrows tumbled away, like leaves caught in a gale - Brushed off-mark before they could land, the churned soil bristling with embedded shafts.
Seeds of death, sown by war. The only crop that Dalat would ever see.
“In Tulgar’s name!” I shouted, hoarse. The effort ravaged my scraped-raw throat, but the others took up the cry. The horned shield grew warm in my hands, a tingling charge pulsing through the rough-hewn wood.
The bitter spirit within Last Breath was stirring, and - bound to serve its bearer - it raised the storm.
A wall of wind blasted forth, at our backs. It swept the milling dust before us, like the bow-wave of a hurricane. Vapor swirled around us, like streamers or a shroud’s trailing sleeves, plucking at us with ghostly fingers as we plunged on.
The enemy faltered. Not just because they’d failed to hit us, but because it was Tulgar’s shield, the legendary aegis of the Father-of-Tribes. They’d all heard the tales, but to see it coming at them, driving right toward them like this…
-That kind of thing can make a man wonder whether he’s on the right side.
It was a split-second’s hesitation, but it was all we needed. Behind me, shields rattled down, bows creaking as they were drawn, even as Nilquit’s keening prayers rose to a crescendo-
“Loose!” Vorth shouted, breaking his long silence. He rode without a hand on the reins, a clutch of five arrows gripped between the fingers of the hand that held his great bow. He’d spurned all defense, trusting in the God - in me - to protect him: Nocked, he let fly with his gold-chased warbow, as soon as the first target spilled out of the roiling haze.
Eight arrows spat forth, from our ragged line. Nilquit bore no weapon: Zisithras and Kalich had their hands full, while Ganazzar favored the Jarrow blade over all others. I had Last Breath raised, the Furstenburg on my lap, and the gale would only last for as long as I held the shield aloft.
The others did pretty well, considering.
Marked with god-runes, the arrows blurred across the narrow distance. They flew so fast they became lines of lethal blood-light, too brilliant for the eye to behold. This wasn’t just a metaphor: What the red-burning arrows struck, they cleaved.
Shafts tore through unblessed armor in searing bursts of arc-welder flame, cutting through iron helms and leather targes with contemptuous ease. Some shots overpenetrated, bearing enough force to slay two men at once.
I saw a bull-masked sulde buckle and fall, clawing at the ragged hole in his throat. His standard-bearer was hit thrice - right eye, chest, stomach - and crumpled without a sound, their banner tumbling from his slack hand.
His fellow riders kept firing, salvo after salvo of arrows hissing from their double-curved bows. Missiles hailed down on us, but Last Breath swept every shot away-
And that made them targets.
One man lost half his head, as the God’s wrath tore through his skull. The warrior next to him tried - too late - to wheel his snorting steed aside, a heartbeat before two shafts cut clean through his pitch-blackened plate.
Transfixed, he clattered off his horse, still trying to hold his guts in. For one awful moment, he continued to move - limbs twitching, like a half-crushed spider - before his stricken beast collapsed atop him.
Layak whooped as he made his first kill, then his second. His fierce, wide-set eyes narrowed in concentration as he rode on, nearly chest-to-chest with Vorth. Their fire rate was astonishingly rapid, dispensing death without hesitation or pity: Between them, they slew six men in as many seconds, like some infernal machine made for slaughter.
Fucking hell, I thought, Tulgar’s shield clamped in my fist. We might just pull this off-
We were barely thirty horse-lengths from the front line, now. Riding hard, the men of the warband fired at will, as fast as they could draw. Last Breath’s storm had dismayed our attackers, the enemy’s outriders and skirmishers parting before our charge - But the shield’s protection wasn’t absolute.
Enough shots, and something would get through.
Opportunistic shafts flitted at us, as we swept past. Something thumped me in the back, right between the shoulder-blades: It hurt, but Vukyelt’s armor held, acid-etched runes shimmering with icy light.
Uclid swore, as an arrow shattered his bow in his hands. He drew his lance instead, razor-tip aimed forward as he couched it in the stabbing grip. The youth’s face was painted with gore, lips peeled back from his teeth in an animal’s snarl.
I couldn’t tell whose blood it was.
I didn’t even know when he’d taken a hit.
Eyes frantic with battle-madness, Uclid looked murderous and desperately scared all at once. He needed to kill, craved it, more than he wanted to live - If only because it meant he would no longer be afraid.
I knew how he felt. My hands felt very cold, though sweat stung my eyes. The view through my visor felt impossibly claustrophobic, my breath hissing through my teeth. The metal boss of Tulgar’s shield was beginning to glow with heat, beginning to smolder, waves of nerve pain racing up my arm.
There’s always a cost, see. Nothing comes without a price, not even the magic of the Gods. Praya had warned me about this - Last Breath’s potent defense was paid-for by the wielder’s own suffering.
More than anything, the bound spirit craved its pound of flesh.
Even with Tauruskhan’s power coursing through me, it hurt. I could feel my arm going numb as the shield whined and shivered, the air fizzing with distortion. Another volley of arrows tore at us, just barely swept aside.
At this range, there was only so much the wind could do. Our protection was failing, but if it could last just long enough-
“Blades!” Ganazzar roared, digging in his heels. Braze Jai and Kalich were either side of me, their war-lances drawn and lowered. I had no lance - never bothered to learn - wind and mane whipping against me as I fought with the Furstenburg.
The damned thing must have jammed. Head down, arm aching, I focused all my attention on trying to get it working. It was better than thinking about what was coming next.
For the main body of the enemy host was bearing down on us, already horrifyingly close. I could pick out individual faces across their line: Snarling, screaming, grinning open-mouthed as they surged to meet us.
Come on, I thought, reslotting the power-cell. Come on-
Both lights flickered green. The rifle hummed to life, and I barely had time to lift it before the first wave crashed into us.
----------------------------------------
Impact.
It’s a small word, but it describes a lot.
There was a series of bruising impacts and heavy thwacks, men hurled from saddles. Kalich speared a rebel tribesman right off his steed with his lowered lance, black arterial blood fanning back in an abstract spatter.
A lance-tip drove at me, and Braze Jai knocked it aside with his shield-edge. He smashed the flat of his own into the rider’s helmet, hard enough to dent it.
There was a crunch, and the Volzum tribesman fell sideways. His horse staggered, unbalanced, shed its rider and galloped on.
Maka died.
His wrackwhip was in his hand, and it hissed like a serpent as it swept through the air. Charged with the Bull-God’s might, the three-headed weapon was a true terror: The first man who closed with him died near-instantly, split nearly in half by a single slicing whipcrack.
The second took the lash across the face, and died clutching at his splintered skull. I heard Maka’s war-whoop as he circled his wicked weapon, riding free-
An arrow caught him right in the mouth. Shattered teeth sprayed, his eyes bugging out in utter astonishment. Maka gagged on the shaft, choked on his own blood - Then toppled forward, thrashing, a gurgling shriek boiling up from the ruins of his throat.
He was, mercifully, dead before he hit the ground.
My blood ran cold. I hadn’t known him, not really, but he’d seen something in me that was worthy of his service.
He’d died for me, and I knew he wouldn’t be the last.
Sabet screamed his twin’s name. He spurred his horse forward as his brother’s corpse slumped out of the saddle, riding headlong into the fight like a man possessed.
Tears of rage streaming down his face, he struck again and again, with merciless and lacerating power. The venom-dripping heads of his wrackwhip sliced limbs from torsos, sheared flesh like butter - But he’d left himself open, and cried out as a sword-edge sliced him across the ribs.
He’d have died there, but by then I was already firing. Pulse bolts ripped into the press: No auto-fire this time, just short bursts. I hit one, two, three Jyamak reavers before they could close, the Furstenburg’s weight braced against my shoulder.
The last hit a horse in the forelimb, and the crippled beast wailed as it toppled. Even amid the clamor, it was an awful sound, long and full of agony. I fired again, shots throwing up grit from the ground, and a spray of violet fire silenced it forever.
It was Ganazzar who carved a path to him, thundering in before Sabet could be cut off. His great steed slammed forward, the half-giant’s sword swinging so fast it blurred. An Adaar rider, bear-fur across his shoulders, hacked at him with an axe - But Ganazzar’s blow splintered the haft, and cleaved clean through him without stopping.
The Man-Killer didn’t slow. He smashed a man down with the Jarrow blade, slew another with a ripping side-slash of the fork-tipped sword, then drove the entire length of it through a third. Right through, I mean: I distinctly saw the blade punch out from the poor bastard’s back.
Wailing, the dying warrior clutched at him, lifted clean off his horse. Ganazzar smashed his face in with a head-butt, wrenching the blade out of the sagging body. He got the sword up just in time to meet a sweeping blow from a maul, as the intercepting rider’s steed collided with his.
For one frenzied moment, both men were locked. Their steeds bit and kicked at each other, the Kythri champion letting out a gurgling roar. His faceless helm showed only a mouthful of yellowed teeth, spittle flecking his lips as the maul sang down-
Kalich shouted something. He hurled his lance, and the hammer-wielder toppled, speared clean through the spine. Before Kalich could drag his second lance from his saddle-boot, a big Volzum rider caught him across the shoulder with an axe.
His armor saved him, scales scattering from the blow. Blood gushed down Kalich’s arm, a yell of pain clawing from his throat - I twisted in the saddle, and shot the Volzum axeman before he could swing again.
We were surrounded, now. The world was swirling chaos, filled with plunging steeds and flailing men. Bodies littered the trampled earth, riderless horses fleeing past like phantoms in the swirling dust.
If not for Oloin’s bridle, my mount would have been foaming and stamping with panic. In truth, I felt like panicking and screaming too.
How many-
Figures swirled around me, men shouting and horses braying. Something struck me with a dull blow, side-on, and my mount staggered. I fired into the mayhem, and someone squealed with inhuman anguish. As the burning shots stitched through the struggling, thrashing mass, something exploded, ash and sparks rising like fireflies from a brilliant crescent of flame.
How many are there-
I’d lost count of the number we’d killed, in the first frantic moments of the fight. It was all a whirling blur of violence and motion, of the absolute certainty that the entire world was trying to kill you. I shot at movement, shot at anyone I didn’t recognize - The God must have guided my hand, for it was a minor miracle that I hadn’t hit any of the warband by accident.
Or maybe the odds were just that bad.
At some point, Ganazzar and Sabet had gathered in. There was a dark, spreading stain on Sabet’s side, and he hunched over in the saddle as he rode on. Ganazzar’s black plate was spattered with gore, the affixed prayer-strips drenched in it.
Only the Jarrow sword was pristine, shining bright as a mirror despite the sheer number of men he’d smashed it through. In his hands, it seemed to almost swing itself: I saw him rise in the saddle, rearing up like some vengeful leviathan, swinging it two-handed into a horned rider who had the misfortune of getting in his way.
Split asunder, broken rings raining from his shredded mail, his opponent actually lofted up from the saddle. What remained of the wretch thumped down in a death-heap, still squirting blood from his cleaved body.
But from the corner of my eye, I saw a group of Quarsh horsemen turning on the corpse-strewn plain, riding down towards us. Through the dust and broken light, their blue silks and silver mail looked black.
For one frozen moment, I thought Death itself - In a profusion of bodies - was sweeping in to claim us.
“Ride clear!” Braze Jai shouted, stabbing out with the broken end of his lance. He gouged it to make one last impale, before he let the weapon go. His target fell screaming, clutching at the ruin of his face: He spilled to the earth, his wails following us as we pounded on.
“Ride clear, sulde!”
A hurled javelin whistled past, missing by a hand’s-breadth. Jai swore copiously at the near-miss, blistering the air with curses. His warrior’s braid swayed, as he drew his sword - His shield gouged by repeated impacts, scraped down to bare wood, as he glared fiercely about him.
Where? I wanted to say. Ride where?
I had no idea, none at all, where the others were.
For a few frantic heartbeats, it felt like we were the only survivors, cast adrift amid a sea of heaving bodies and lightless black statues. But then the wind picked up and the dust thinned, driven clear for a moment…
And above the close-packed fight, I glimpsed Tauruskhan’s standard.
It waved wildly, the banner flapping, as an enemy rider crashed over for no reason that I could see. Adaar riders mobbed around it, like wolves on a bear, trying to ring the other half of our desperately embattled warband. Trying to pull them down, down to a dust-choked death.
Because they thought I was there.
Because they thought I fought beneath it, rather than here.
----------------------------------------
Another man, a smarter man, might’ve done something insidious or cunning. They could have made for a momentary distraction, I suppose. If we’d left them behind, we might - might - have bought ourselves a few more precious seconds of life.
But my blood was up. I’d seen Maka die, and it felt right to make someone pay for that. For once, Tauruskhan and I were in complete agreement.
We both really wanted to give those fuckers something to remember us by.
Like Uclid, I’d gone from desperately afraid to desperately angry. The terror of the first charge was gone, snuffed out by the simple necessity of survival. There was a bitter taste of quinine in my mouth, as the anger within spiked: Images of easy and total carnage were rolling into my mind, and I let them come.
I drew a deep breath. Drew the God’s burning promises into my blood, my hands shaking as I swapped cells, switching mostly-empty for almost-full.
I’d been firing near-continuously for the past five minutes of hell, and I honestly didn’t know how much longer the barrel would last. The Furstenburg was made for Dolor’s freezing temperatures, not the heat and dust of Phosphiach, and I was pretty sure I was pushing it harder than I had for months.
Not that I had a choice.
Fuck it, I thought, and pointed.
“Go,” I rasped, through swollen lips and ravaged throat. Kalich, listing in his saddle, followed the gesture and blanched. He was spattering blood with every movement he made, face gone grey with pain, but he saw my intent and nodded anyway.
Lance in his good hand, steering his charger with his knees, he blew a great blast on his horn. As the sound rolled into echoes, I spurred hard towards the waving banner - Riding through the madness, knowing only that the others would fall in line.
They did. Every one of them.
Behind us, the hunting Quarsh veered to pursue.
----------------------------------------
Somehow, Zisithras still had hold of the standard. He’d lost his helm, a great and awful gash carved across his scalp, but he kept the banner high as his foaming steed pelted on. Divine power had invested it - had invested him - to a degree I’d never seen before: It writhed with tendrils of corposant, the sun-and-horns alight with a crimson blaze.
There was absolutely nothing natural about that smokeless fire. An awful heat that radiated from it, mingling with the stench of molten brass and burning bone. Like creation’s own shadow, a pitch-black, half-real shape loomed above it: A great, horned head, with eyes like burning embers, glaring down on Tulgar’s errant children.
Small wonder they fled. I’d have shit myself too, if I was facing that.
Was it the God’s work, or just Nilquit’s? Maybe a bit of both, really. I couldn’t tell, as the young priest jolted along behind the dubious cover of Rodo’s raised shield. His already-pale face had gone as white as paper, censer swaying on its chain - Hands shaking as if palsied, his lips moved in silent prayers, too exhausted to shout.
Swathed in a flickering halo of sickly light, Nilquit looked hollowed-out, frailer than ever. He was channeling a truly staggering amount of divine power, and Tauruskhan’s essence was devouring him from within.
He looked like a man lost in a desert without food or water, bones stark against dust-smeared skin. Looking at him, it was a wonder Nilquit could still stay in the saddle, let alone ride.
But the witch-priest made every moment of his suffering count.
Vorth, Uclid, Layak and even Mowynk….All were charged with the God’s own strength. They fought with ferocious courage, battling beyond themselves. Fuming with sick light, their weapons cut a swathe through their opponents, scything them down like wheat.
You have to understand: The force imparted by each blow was surreal, even absurd. Mowynk was armed with a flanged raken mace - a simple weapon, little more than a sturdy club ridged with brass - and he swung it without wind-up or concern for balance, as frantic as a boy with a stick.
Compared to the axes and sickle-bladed swords of the reavers thronging around him, it was a crude thing, almost quaint. But each time he connected, there was a sharp, plosive bang like a grenade exploding. Heads and limbs pulped beneath the impossible impacts, blasted away in an instant - It left craters in armor, hurling aside those it didn’t pulverize.
If you think that’s impressive, imagine what Vorth was doing. His archery was a fluid model of perfection, his fingers a blur as he drew and fired, drew and fired without pause. Every shot left his bow in a lurid spit of killing light, bright as a shooting star.
Where they struck, proud Kythri riders and their steeds crumpled like they’d been poleaxed. Cut down by the hail of crimson death, they crashed over with the boneless sprawl of orphaned puppets.
There was no defense, no hope of escape. Each dart struck like Tauruskhan’s own hate, claiming two or even an astonishing three at a time. Those who didn’t die outright were left thrashing, writhing in agonies both profound and transcendent at once as smoke rose from their thrashing forms-
For the life of me, I couldn’t understand what was happening to them. Not at first.
Not until I realized they were melting.
It was an act of extraordinary spite, made more so by the sheer amount of power it must have taken. The Iron Hoof’s eye was upon us, and He was making a point. Unable to smite those who had defied Him directly, our warband had become the medium for the Horned Conqueror’s message.
The message being: No-one fucks with Me and lives.
The Kythri tried to flank Vorth, to hit him where his lethal bowmanship couldn’t hope to reach them. A lifetime of war, however, had girded him for just such an eventuality. He knew how to turn in the saddle as he rode, to shoot arrows in passing to either side, or even to the rear.
Vorth’s hard-trained gelding needed no spurs or even rein control. It freed his hands up, let him put the Supreme Herdsman’s gift to full use.
Which he did, with glee.
In the words of the tale-tellers: The slaughter was great.
He was smiling, through it all. Like a child, whose fondest dream had come true. I could see the joy in him, his pride at doing the God’s work. His delight, at the chance to punish the Iron Hoof’s foes.
It would have been appalling, if he wasn’t on our side.
If I had to pick one moment, one image, to capture the essence of my time on Phosphiach, it would be that. A man made more-than-human by the caprice of the gods, finding fulfilment in doing their will.
Slaying those he once called kin, without pity or remorse.
Hell of a place, Phosphiach.
Is it any wonder people don't exactly line up to visit?
----------------------------------------
Somewhere, somewhere impossibly distant yet close, a great war-drum was beating. I could feel the seismic pulse of it deep in my chest, as we tore forward. I stood in the stirrups as my destrier gained speed, one hand to the reins, the other aiming the Furstenburg.
The Adaar surrounding the standard heard the hooves drumming the sterile earth, and turned. I heard their cries of alarm and surprise, glimpsed the flash of their weapons-
Pulse rounds tore across the distance. The shots smacked a tribesman off his horse, another killing a mount stone-dead. The beast collapsed, before the rider could jump free - It rolled and crushed his leg, pinning him as he howled in miserable and forlorn pain.
I glimpsed at least three hits, though the burst had been six or eight in the trigger-pull.
That’s what firing from the hip gets you. Your accuracy goes to shit.
Then we were into them, slamming headlong into the melee. In the last moment before impact, I held down the trigger, raking the Furstenburg back-and-forth. The three horses directly before me spasmed, faltering as they were shot-through, then careered into the choking dust.
I glimpsed roiling torsos and crushed riders, caught a glimpse of wide, desperate eyes as a man was trampled under my horse’s hooves, another flung away in a dash of red-
Dirt splashed up as the others drove into the press, blessed blades hacking. In that moment, there was no room for finesse, just the frantic brutality of the charge. The howling enemy was all around, close and lethal, like a pack of wolves.
I saw Kalich slash an Adaar lancer across the face, blinding him, in the heartbeat before he slammed headlong into two more. His frantic swordwork splashed blood up into the air as he shouted out, desperate for help.
I drove towards him, but an axe mowed at me, and I caught it on Last Breath. The impact jolted through my arm: Denied, the great cleaver rebounded, the axe-man’s thwarted shriek ringing in my ears as he reared back for another swing.
I tried to twist round, tried to swing at my attacker, but I’d already overshot. The rapid staccato shriek of the pulse rifle was inordinately distressing to men and horse alike - They shied away from the weapon’s rapid bark as much as the ripping shots.
I heard Braze Jai cursing as he stabbed overhand with his sword, the hiss of Sabet’s whip as it unzipped armor and men alike. Saw Ganazzar cutting through bull-helms with the heavy Jarrow sword, splashing blood up into the air.
But as the dust billowed around me and my mount, there was an eerie moment of tranquility. Somehow, I’d made it past: Locked, shapes struggled and fought, but no-one was actively trying to kill me.
For now, at least.
Even as I tried to corral my warhorse, tried to get my bearings, Rodo’s shout came from somewhere ahead. He was surrounded, his colt turning in frantic circles as he tried to shield Nilquit and himself at once. I counted at least seven men, jabbing with barbed spears and lances, one with a morning-star that he was whirling in vicious, expert arcs.
With a start, I glimpsed Uclid’s corpse - face still fixed in a mad mixture of smile and snarl - tangled with his dead gelding, a javelin embedded in his back. Dust had filmed his blue eyes, gazing unseeing into nothing: His rigid fingers gripped the hilt of his notched sword in a death-grip, his helm’s shattered remnants clinging to his skull like a crown of shards.
I hadn’t even seen him die.
----------------------------------------
Uclid had been an almost-silent presence at our campfire. He wasn’t naturally taciturn, like Vorth: Rather, he held his tongue so as not to betray his lack of experience. More than anything, I suppose, he wanted to prove his worth to himself as much as to any other.
From him, I had the prevailing impression of someone anxious to please, who feared being caught out. He was, I think, content to watch and learn from the men he took to be older and wiser.
If I didn’t know better, I’d have said he was shy. In some ways, Uclid had reminded me of myself - A shrinking violet, the kind of kid perpetually picked last for any team. Forever wondering how to take that last, all-important step forward.
I’d longed to bridge the gap between myself and others, back then. For May, it’d been effortless: She’d always been the personable one, the charismatic one, while I’d struggled to find my way. The gap between us had seemed so vast at the best of times, never mind that I was two years older than she was.
There was, of course, no cure for that other than the relentless erosion of time.
But Uclid would never get any older now, nor any wiser. In the end, his first battle had been his last.
I could only hope that it’d been everything he’d prayed for it to be.
----------------------------------------
I let go of the reins, bringing the Furstenburg up as I bore down on the Ursh. Their scale-mailed leader, head encased in a truly impressive helm crowned with great curling horns, heard me coming.
He turned, bellowing an order-
I shot him first.
The pulse rifle’s searing bolts sliced across the warlord, and blew out his chest in a spray of spalling metal. His horse came down with him, spear splintering beneath his thrashing steed. Slamming forward, I kept shooting, leaning into the gunfire, savaging the astonished men to either side of him before they could react.
Rodo let out a wordless roar of approval, and hurled his lance into the nearest rider’s chest. With desperate vigor, he scythed out his saddle-sword, the blade burning with bloody light as he rushed the Adaar. Charged with the God’s anger, it purred to itself as the old warrior hacked through a hand, sliced a throat, whirling round to cleave a helm and the skull within-
The brute with the ball-and-chain mace swung for him. I shouted, but it was too late: There was a crunch, a spray of red pulp, an abrupt chuff of escaping breath…
Rodo fell. He fell slack and boneless, slumping from his saddle with an untidy suddenness, limbs still twitching from the blow that had killed him. The merciless impact of the iron ball had smashed his skull to flinders, and it tore free in a whipping spray of sucking gore.
No, I thought. Son of a bitch, no-
I’d liked Rodo. There’d been something oddly endearing about the grizzled tribesman’s cheerful fatalism. To lose him right after we’d left the Grazing Lands, before he could see Adrijanopolj with his own eyes…It seemed like the worst of omens.
His killer was still howling with savage triumph when I shot him. My first two shots punched into his stomach, and would have been entirely sufficient - But I kept the trigger squeezed, the next three shots punching through his gorget and then the top of his head.
That was too much for the Adaar. They were fleeing en masse now, ditching shields and even weapons as they raced away. Only a few made it: I raked them with fire as their ponies scattered, emptying the rest of the magazine in their general direction.
A man wailed, briefly, as my shots chopped great gashes out of his back. His terrified mount galloped on, spattered by the blood streaming from his rupturing wounds. I hit the next one enough times to kill both rider and steed three or four times over, their heat-fused corpses toppling as one.
I speared the last one on the Furstenburg’s sights, pulled the trigger to rake him to pieces-
Nothing. Just the ping of the misfire tone. The barrel, so long punished, had succumbed to the inevitable at last. I couldn’t tell if it’d fused, or simply overheated: Either way, the cherry-red glow didn’t bode well.
I released the weapon to swing on its strap as Nilquit spurred his horse forward. Racked by the extremity of the battle, the witch-priest looked exhausted beyond words. His talismans and strings of bone-charms jangled, expression half-disbelieving as his gaze fixed on me.
“You yet live,” he rasped, lips cracked and bleeding from non-stop prayers. Tear-stains streaked his glyph-marked face, where the dust had made his eyes run. “All praises to the Iron Hoof, you still live-”
I couldn't bring myself to tell him how soon that might change.
----------------------------------------
Gigantic spectral horns rose up from the turmoil, out of the dust and smoke. For a moment, I thought it was some great beast from the veldt, some conjured devil that was almost upon us - But it was Zisithras, with Mowynk, Layak and Vorth protecting his flanks.
Together, they’d fought clear of the pack that had delayed them, trampling many beneath juddering hooves. Riderless, Kalich’s horse cantered after them, eyes wide and rolling as it shook with distress.
Another one gone.
“Sulde-” The sheer relief on Mowynk’s face was almost heartbreaking. He looked at me like I had all the answers, like I knew what came next.
“They harrowed Kalich to death, sulde,” he said, his voice hitching on the word. “Like devils, they were.”
Vorth merely grunted. A swinging cleaver had taken the little finger of his right hand entirely away, and blood was soaking through the linen wrap. Both his quivers were empty, his mighty bow silent at his side.
For his part, Zisithras clung to the standard like a drowning man to a lifeline. His head wound was worse than it looked - One eye fluttered, unfocused, and there was a sickly grey pallor to his high-boned features. He winced at each breath, as if the effort physically pained him: When he met my gaze, he merely shrugged, managing a wan smile.
“The God knows His own,” he said, simply.
I knew what he meant: Tauruskhan was with us, but it was becoming clear that the Great Horned One’s blessing might not be enough.
We’d torn into them. Torn through them, dealing out wholesale havoc. Scores of men had died, slaughtered by arrow, pulse-fire, lance and blades. I’d hoped - expected - their spirits to be diminished by such an event.
In that, I was badly wrong.
Sure, the frantic pace of combat had ebbed. The riders of the apostate host were reeling back like a spent breaker from the surf, leaving behind their wounded and dead.
But they weren’t fleeing, or even turning.
They were recoiling as one mass, to renew their fury.
With a distinct sinking feeling, I could guess who was responsible for that.
----------------------------------------
Even as the scouring winds swept across the lone and level stones, I could hear the war-horns of the Jarrow blowing, drawing in reinforcements. Harnak Kul, miserable bastard that he was, had sent forth the most expendable of his forces to face us.
The Jarrow contingent hadn’t moved. They were waiting for us to falter, to be worn down to nothing by the sheer number of Ursh horsemen. Then, and only then, would the Clan of Kings close in for the kill.
It was exactly the kind of thing I’d have done, in his position. That is, if I could’ve got that many people to follow me.
They didn’t hurry. They had all the time in the world, even as the rest of the warband rode in. Amid all the violence, it seemed a miracle that Sabet and Braze Jai were nearly untouched. Not so for Ganazzar - He’d taken the brunt of punishment, his bronze plate pitted and buckled from countless blows.
Their mounts were foundering, flanks lathered and heaving, Braze’s charger seemed so dreadfully bowed and hunched, limping from a spear-wound in its thigh. He kept trying to soothe it, patting its neck with a gloved hand, but I sensed that it’d borne him this far and no further.
The damn thing was, I couldn’t figure out how to win. It felt manifestly unfair, somehow: I had powers from half a dozen worlds, but simple attrition was going to kill me.
Sweat stung my eyes, as I spat to clear the bitter taste from my mouth. I wasn’t stupid enough to think that this was a reprieve - It was just a moment’s hiatus, part of the natural punctuation of en masse warfare.
Dimly, I knew that the enemy was circling, now. When the next rush came, it would come from all sides. And then, most likely, we would all die.
Or rather, the others would die first. My (eventual) death would be rather more prolonged, but every bit as final. If I was a spiteful sort, I’d have seriously contemplated saving a round for myself. Cheat them of their prize, at the bitter end of things.
Fuck that, I thought. The slow-burning ember of defiance, deep in my chest, flared a little brighter.
Fuck suicide. Never surrender.
In the distance, I could hear blades beating against shields. The sounds of hooves and voices and jingling armour, tattered standards whipping in the rising wind.
Shit, already? I thought, a cold dread slithering in my gut.
I’d thought there would be more time. Long enough, at least, for my racing mind to think of a way out of this deathtrap. But, as I stared across the blasted battlefield - Over the jumbled bodies, the silent statues - all I could think was:
-This is it.
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Dying had never seemed real to me, when I was younger. It’d seemed like something that happened to other people, a world away from my comfortable middle-class existence. Later, when the reality of my own mortality had sunk in, I’d thought there would be some meaning to it, some poetry.
Here lies Morgan, after a life well-lived, maybe. Something fatuous like that.
But after Caldera, after I’d nearly died for the first time, I’d realized that there was no final page to a life. No neat conclusion.
The ink simply gave out, and everything that came after was blank and desert-white.
Here lies Morgan Lim, kicked to death in some Bronze Age shithole, more like.
Fleetingly, I wondered what would come next. The pearly gates? Fire and brimstone? I hadn’t lived a good life, not really. I certainly wasn’t expecting Heaven. But if Hell awaited, no matter what, I had a feeling I’d spend the rest of eternity kicking myself for not taking the pact.
I wondered, vaguely, if my sister was still out there, somewhere. She’d always been the smart one, the driven one - Like our father, the self-made man. I’d been lazier, content to settle for mediocrity, to let the world drift by.
I’d always thought I would find her again, before the end. That at some point, amid the infinite vastness of the multiverse, our paths would cross again.
It would’ve been enough to know that she was alive. Alive, and - if she was truly fortunate - content with the life she’d chosen. For her, I knew, the portal had been a way out: An escape from unendurable shame.
I-
“They’re coming-!” There was a shrill edge to Layak’s words, as he stared blank-eyed at the approaching storm of men. He’d bitten his lip hard enough to draw blood, his hands tight on his horse’s reins. Clinging to them, like it was his only hold on reality.
The others stiffened, but I could see the dismay on their faces. I counted three- or four-score riders, advancing without haste. No prayers to the God, no war-shouts or battle-cries: Instead, the Ursh were chanting, steady and slow. Reciting the rhymes of aversion and warding, the ones meant to keep evil spirits away.
It was a formal renunciation of Tauruskhan’s influence, a refusal to acknowledge His divine authority. For, I suppose, he was a demon to them, now.
Every God is a demon to someone.
I tore my gaze away from the oncoming idolators. I’d reloaded the Fursteburg, for all the good it would do. If I’d pushed it too far, the best I could hope for was a misfire.
If I was really unlucky, it might just explode in my hands.
I drew myself to my full height. Wheeled my destrier around, to face the others.
I was scared, of course. Terrified, even. It felt like my heart was trying to claw itself out of my throat, and run like hell. But I had to push it down, make myself a rock - For if I couldn’t get them to follow me, couldn’t get them to join the headlong rush towards disaster, we were all fucked.
I couldn’t show fear, or doubt. I had to look like I knew what I was doing, that I was blessed with absolute certainty. To act like I was what they believed I was.
The ultimate warrior.
The Champion of Tauruskhan.
Tulgar the Invincible, reborn.
“Stand firm!” I roared, every word scraping my throat raw. “The God’s own Eye is upon us. We are His will made manifest, His vengeful blade! In His name, with His strength - We will triumph!”
Praya’s words, not mine. The High Priest had recited them countless times, to incite generations of tribesmen to war and worship. I drew on them, now, as the measure of life allotted to us shrank to nothing: As always, it was easier than finding my own.
I raised a fist, in a gesture older than civilization. The black jade of my gauntlet unfurled across it, dark and lightless as the stone on all sides. Heat coiled in my chest, as I swept my gaze across what remained of the warband, locking eyes with each one.
“Glory to Tauruskhan! Victory to the His faithful! Death to the idola-”
Lightning blasted the clouds, and thunder drowned out my words. The dust-choked air shimmered with storm-light, yellow and frosty, as forking traceries of energy lit up the vapor-clouds like veins.
I tasted the iron tang of blood in my mouth, as I turned. Even before I saw the electric discharge leaping from staves and fingertips, even before I saw the blasted standards swaying above the serried ranks, I knew what was coming.
The sorcerers of the Twilight Veil had joined the battle.
TO BE CONTINUED