“Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius.”

(Kill them all, for the Lord knows them that are His.)

― Arnaud Amalric, Abbot of Citeaux (apocryphal)

Chapter 9: The Battle of Dalat (Part III)

Dalat was one of the many wonders of the Grazing Lands. A great, free-standing arch of carved diorite, it stood tall and proud amid a field of shattered statues. Like the last survivor of some war of golems, casting a long and hungry shadow across the veldt.

Even from a distance, the barren plain was a sight to inspire awe or dread. Within two miles of the arch, nothing grew: The ground, sterile as clay, was littered with the broken heads of the ruined sculptures.

There was no sense of proportion to their sizes, no common meter. Some were as small as the circle thumb and forefinger makes, while others were as large as wagon-wheels. No-one alive knew who had carved the faces in so many contrasting scales, or why each and every statue had been decapitated.

It was just one of those things, I guess. Across other worlds, I’d run into plenty of one-off miracles and oddities that wouldn’t - couldn’t - be fully explained. Most of the time, the locals would simply shrug, accepting them for what they were, and go on with their lives.

For that was the way things had always been, and it held no particular wonder for them.

But Dalat was the first step on the path to Adrijanopolj. It marked the end of the Grazing Lands, and the beginning of the Desolation of Qadarnai. Beyond that lay the fever-swamps of the Great Mire, then the brief reprieve of Pahaar Shahar, the Unsleeping City.

If you made it past all that, the rest was comparatively simple.

I didn’t think much of the place, at the time. It was simply a name on a map, a marker en route to our destination. The cult-priests of the Horned God assured me that the shortest path to the Platinum Spire lay through Dalat. Their divinations had confirmed that it was a most propitious route, one laden with the weight of destiny.

They were right, of course. Just not in the way they expected.

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I’ll be blunt: I’ve never been much of a leader.

The main reason for it, I think, was a general lack of interest when it came to being in charge. There’s something reassuring about having someone else give the orders, to tell you where to go and what to do. It allows you to pretend that there’s a greater plan, that someone knows what they’re doing.

In my old job, I was simply a cog in the corporate machine. I had people I reported to, and staff who were firmly under me - There was a surety, a clarity, to it which I found refreshing. Makes things a lot simpler, you know?

I’ve heard it bandied about that Asians, especially the Chinese, are inherently conformist and submissive to authority. That’s nonsense: It’s down to the individual’s capacity for initiative and willingness to assert oneself, I’ve found. Those who want to lead will inevitably find ways to place themselves in positions of leadership. Those who don’t will forever remain followers of those who do.

Case in point: As Marquis Éighir’s guest, I was pretty much a prisoner in all but name. I was mostly oblivious as to anything outside his estate, because Arcadia was a horrible, awful place where only the Gentry could travel unmolested.

The Everforest was filled with all kinds of unspeakable terrors, like it’d been purpose-made to devour mortals - In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was. I don’t think I’d have made it more than a day before I was dragged back by his huntsmen, or (more likely) murdered in some unspeakable way by one of the many denizens lying in wait.

More, after the massacre at the village - the first time I’d ever killed anyone - I knew I could hardly expect a warm welcome from the human slaves who scratched out a desultory existence amid the choking greenery.

Technically, they were ‘serfs’, but why mince words? The Gentry held absolute power over them, in every sense of the word, and I’d aligned myself with their oppressors. Not that I had a choice, mind you: I had to play along if I wanted to keep my skin in one piece, and so I had.

Even though it’d meant betraying them all.

Sometimes, it can be an awful shock to learn what kind of man you really are.

In my case, it was more of a dull, half-cohered realization. A sort of Oh, so that’s how it is, I guess that doesn’t horrify you so much as leave you moderately bummed.

Anyway, that had led to my first fight with another thresholder - Oneira, whose gun I still carried with me - the first woman I’d ever killed.

Two milestones. That’s a lot of firsts, for one world.

Technically, she was the second woman I’d killed…But while I’d sealed Elise’s fate by spilling the beans of her plot to the Marquis, I hadn’t had to do the dirty work.

I’d beat Oneira to death. Blow after hammering blow, delivered with all the desperate strength I could muster, high on terror and adrenaline. Trying to keep that wicked sword from gouging away my stone-hard flesh, as shreds of her flesh and blood clung to the knuckles of my gauntlets.

The very same gauntlets I wear now, as a matter of fact.

I’m not proud of that. Really.

But if I valued my pride over my life, my corpse would be rotting in some gutter somewhere.

There's no prize for second place, in our line of work.

Kill, or so the saying goes, or be killed.

Isn't that always the way?

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On Caldera, I’d been taken in by the sorcerers and will-workers of the Cabal of the Wrack. More than the rudimentary magic I bore with me, more than my gauntlets and (looted) gun and sword, it was the prospect of escaping damnation that had captivated them.

I’d been an honored guest, lavished with gifts and luxury, in return for being poked and prodded and generally a subject of much debate. I’d been offered the chance to learn their magic, to commune with the shadowy tutelary-demons that hovered (a constant, steady reminder of the pact they’d struck) at each sorcerer’s shoulder…

I was tempted - so terribly, terribly tempted - but I’d refused. It’d promised tremendous power, but the prospect of burning in Hell forever had been too much.

Not as an abstraction, mind you, but actual, literal Hell.

For in Caldera, Hell - or rather, Hells, for there were seemingly an infinite number of them - was a place. Becoming a sorcerer meant an eternity of torment, of violation, at the hands of ever-hungry, ever-spiteful and endlessly, maliciously inventive demons.

They’d respected my polite refusal, but it was clear they’d thought less of me after that.

You have to understand, most sorcerers came from humble backgrounds. Sure, they put on airs, but they were not to the manor born, as the saying goes. Given the swords-and-sorcery, Bronze Age brutality of Caldera, the chosen few who had the talent for magic - the ones who had the capacity to make an infernal pact - inevitably took it.

It may seem insane to you. But think about it - I mean, really think about it.

Take your average sickly, illiterate and dirt-poor peasant, who lives in squalor and whose state religion revolves around repeated condemnation for his human nature. He resents his life, toiling away in the dirt at the behest of his betters, with only the prospect of a pauper’s grave in his not-so-distant future.

Then, like me, he gets the Dream. An offer from Vuk’ruluk the three-eyed, snake-headed Eater-of-Wisdom. While the details may vary, the content is always the same: Nigh-limitless power, in exchange for an eternity trapped beyond Creation’s light.

It’s not a stretch to see why this hypothetical peasant, so miserable in life, driven by greed, hunger, lust and not-unjustified spite, would agree. More, the demons keep their word: Rather than being limited to the feeble body his parents and the cruel Gods cursed him with, he now wields - instinctively - flesh-rending, stone-shattering sorcery.

Imagine the sheer excitement he’d feel, in torching his overlord’s fields, casting down his temple’s statues. Scything down dozens of warriors with rays of hellfire, tearing through them like their bodies were made of wet clay, and their armor, straw.

The rush of power would be unimaginable. He’d have the time of a dozen lifetimes, and finally - finally - reap the revenge for his circumstances he’d dreamt of for so long. Sure, our lucky peasant would eventually be killed by some bold, clever hero, or perish from a stray arrow (assuming his hoggish indulgences didn’t kill him first) and then spend the remainder of existence boiling in liquid filth…But for a short time, he would indeed have it all.

The question you may be asking is: Is it worth it?

No. The consequences are infinitely worse than simple suicide.

But is it understandable? Absolutely.

There are millions, millions of short-sighted or power-hungry people on Earth who would jump at the chance. As you may have guessed, the mindset of the average warlock on Caldera was almost identical to the average modern school-shooter. The total lack of care for the very real consequences was near-identical.

The only thing that keeps most people from devil-worship is that devil-worship doesn't work. Not on my Earth, at any rate.

So I turned the offer down.

My opponent, however, didn’t.

As you may have guessed, he beat my ass. It wasn’t anything resembling a fair fight: I was more than half-dead, my blood boiling with the venom of demon scorpions, before I managed to crawl through the portal meant for him.

If not for the state-of-the-art medical faculties on Unity, I would have died a slow, agonizing death. Fortunately, their doctors managed to stabilize me, long enough to undergo catalyst enhancement.

Still, it was a close-run thing. As close to dying as I’d ever care to get.

If there’s anything to take away from all that, it’s this: Taking initiative might suck, but it’s nowhere near as bad as lethal poisoning.

Too niche, you say? Well, you’ll be surprised by how often it comes up.

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Only a fool travels alone on the veldt.

At a glance, the Grazing Lands might seem tranquil. Welcoming, even, with nothing but the rustling of long grasses and the distant caws of the birds circling overhead.

In truth, it’s more of a sea. Endless, ever-changing, and utterly inimical to unprepared life. An unwary or luckless man could drown in it, swallowed up forever by all that green - His death unnoticed, unremarked, except for the rukhs swarming to feed.

We rode for twelve days and twelve nights. Twelve days’ worth of riding, of nothingness in all directions. Nothing but the grinding monotony of grass and sky, as we crossed from the lands of the Tribe-that-was-not-a-Tribe into the plains that waited beyond.

For someone like me, weaned on immediate gratification, it was a form of torture. Riding a horse is an endeavor that requires the fullness of your attention. Even with Oloin’s spell-worked reins, your focus had to be both on your mount and the way ahead at all times.

If your attention wandered, you could find yourself utterly lost, or running headfirst into an ambush. If your horse was wounded, well…Then you were well and truly fucked, if you didn’t have a remount.

Trying to cross the Grazing Lands on foot was suicide, and an especially prolonged and nasty form of it. The predators that lurked in the long grass loved lonely travelers, and the raider-bands were much the same: Out here, the plains swallowed everything, eventually.

If your throat was slit, your body dumped in a shallow grave - scratched out by your own hands, most likely - it could be years before any trace of you was ever found.

Technically speaking, these were the lands of the Ahtzira. One of Tulgar’s less-notable descendants, they hadn’t even made it to the final eight. Far from prosperous, they’d focused on defending their herds above all else, and had made it through the Summertime War with little gains, but a minimum of losses.

We saw their scouts three times. Once on the third day, then again on the fifth and sixth. Identifiable by their polished wolf-skull pommels and plumed cantles, they watched us from a distance, not daring to close. After all, we were a large, well-armed warband riding beneath the God’s own banner, and a confrontation would’ve been more trouble than it was worth.

Honestly, I’d have welcomed a meeting, even a fight, just for the novelty. There was little to look forward to, other than sunset or the occasional birds that hung in the daylight air. The compass from the Ivory Vault led us true - I found myself checking it every hour, just to make sure we were heading in the right direction.

It was hard, sometimes, to believe that our success depended on something so small. The route recommended to us by the Bull-God’s cult was a little-known one: Praya had suggested, and I’d agreed, that we were best served by stealth until stealth lost all meaning. Better to keep a low profile, to go unknown and anonymous, while we could…For the moment it was made clear what I was, well, we’d have problems.

As Oloin had said: I had a huge target painted on my back. Given the chance, anyone with designs on divine power would be tempted to take a swing.

I hadn’t told the High Priest about the old Godbinder, but I think Praya had some idea what had gone down. He made no comment, however - I suppose he knew that recriminations were pointless.

I’d fucked up: The question was what we could do about it.

For a start, I’d left as soon as I could. Rodo and Nilquit had worked overtime, getting things in order with commendable speed. I supposed that being on a mission from the God helped: We had access to the full resources of the priesthood, and Rodo knew exactly what we needed.

Still, the expense of it, to get all our ducks in a row on such short notice-

But that was the least of our problems.

“Not all are pleased by the God’s decision,” Praya had warned, his weathered face lit by the ghostly glow of the sacred fire. “There is…unrest amongst the tribes. Some have argued for a more measured response, others have expressed their misgivings: The blood of Tulgar is unsettled. There are…murmurings.”

“I know,” I said, and he’d raised a thick eyebrow. “-I’ve sensed it, too.”

Not everyone was happy with the way things had played out. More importantly, however, now that this was actually happening - now that Tauruskhan’s ascension was nigh - it was beginning to sink in that the God would be leaving them.

For good.

Honestly, I would’ve been surprised if they hadn’t caught on.

“You think they’ll try something?” I asked, and Praya looked almost offended.

“To raise a hand against the Horned Conqueror’s chosen is to be made apostate,” he said, in that magnificent pillar-of-patriarchal-strength voice he had. “Cursed are those who strike against the God’s own, doomed to wander the howling dark forever! Such are the very principles of the Faith!”

“Fair enough,” I said. “But…?”

He’d stared into the flames, for a long time.

“Some would say…Even that sacrifice would be worthwhile. That a God is too precious a thing to be free. A God should be safely in a cage. Pacified, brought to heel.”

A pause.

“The first step to accomplishing such a thing would be…”

“Leverage,” I finished for him, looking down at my hands. Thinking, for a moment, of what a centuries-old way of life meant to the Twenty-Six Tribes.

What they might be willing to do, in order to preserve it.

I let my hands drop, to my sides.

“-It’s a good thing that He was generous in His gifts, then.”

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It wasn’t invisibility, not quite.

Sure, I could feel Tauruskhan’s blessing, when it was in effect. Like a chill breeze, cold and light as snowflakes on my shoulders, back and scalp. But I was still present, could still be seen…If anyone cared enough to check.

Rather, it was more that I no longer merited notice. None saw me: I passed like a ghost, alone and anonymous, untouched by the activity that stirred within the great encampment.

I walked past my own guards, set by the priesthood. Out from the hollow mountain, into the pre-dawn gloom. Past the flames of torch-pillars, rippling in the wind, the cages of hot coals that held the embers for tomorrow’s cookfires.

Countless eyes watched the ground I covered, but no-one thought it worthy of comment that the God’s champion was leaving before the culmination of the feast. Their focus was elsewhere - Distracted by the haze of sleep, thoughts of the day’s revels, half-forgotten aches and pains.

The sky was a blur of mauve darkness, broken by the warm glow of approaching daylight. The moons, like distant fangs of fire-lit bone, were sinking to their setting places.

For a moment, they looked - almost - like great horns.

It would be a dawn like any other, as the sun rose above the Grazing Lands.

But I preferred to think that it was an auspicious daybreak. A fortunate omen.

As they say: Well begun is half done.

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I’d sent my warband ahead, two or three at a time, so their absence wouldn’t be missed. All twelve of them had gathered, standing in the shadow of the Firepeaks.

Zisithras, the standard-bearer. Kalich, the horn-blower. Sabet and his twin, Maka the Younger. Vorth, whose great bow could pierce two men with a single arrow.

Braze Jai, gripping the lok totem that was his most prized possession.

Layak, the dreamer. Uclid and Mowynk, just barely old enough to shave.

Rodo, the grizzled veteran, old enough to be their father twice-over.

Nilquit, the priest.

Ganazzar, my right hand and de facto second-in-command.

In the weird, twitching light that came before dawn, they looked like a proper band of villains. The hardest bastards you’d ever seen, ready for anything Phosphiach could throw at them. I felt the humming eagerness in the air, their horses snorting, pawing the ground with fidgety energy.

Wordlessly, Ganazzar handed my destrier’s bridle to me. Silently, I nodded my thanks.

I’d had the beginnings of a speech prepared, but the cold stole all words from me. As my gaze swept across those pale faces - expectant, nervous, stern, knowing - I felt an abrupt dizziness course through me.

Like I was teetering at the edge of a cliff, this close to plunging over the edge.

Oh my God, I thought, with sudden, nauseous clarity.

And I’m supposed to lead them-

I crushed those feelings down, into a small ball. Buried them deep, too deep to ever see the light of day again. Told myself that I was everything the band saw me as: Strong. Powerful. A man amongst men.

Invincible.

I drew a deep breath, as I swung myself up and into the saddle. Raised my left hand, fingers splayed, as I took the reins with my right.

“Let’s ride,” I said, my words smoking in the freezing air, and a smile ignited on Ganazzar’s craggy face.

“We ride, brothers!” he rumbled, as he touched his heels to his steed’s sides. His horse - nineteen hands high, black as charcoal - whinnied in answer, clattering down the slope as dust scudded from its great hooves.

Something about that. Something about that simple, primal gesture…It put all my doubts, all my fears, at rest. I felt the invisible, oppressive weight of expectation lift from my shoulders, as I urged my mount forward.

“For Tauruskhan!” I shouted, and - thank God - my voice came out strong and unwavering.

“For Tulgar!” came the answer, from a dozen throats.

Cheers and whoops rose from behind me, as we rode into the rising day. Kalich blew a loud, discordant flourish on his horn, as Zisithras raised the God’s standard high. Maka, his voice rusty from last night’s drinking, began to sing a war-song, one his twin bawled out in full-throated chorus.

It was a moment of unity I would remember for the rest of my life.

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Each night, we stopped for a few hours, to rest and tend to our mounts. Riding by darkness - unless we absolutely had to - was folly, and there was only so much oil for our lamps.

There was no wood, and our kindling was to be saved for later. Instead, while the older men excavated a firepit, the younger men would search for dead scrub, with Nilquit waiting in the wings to ignite the fire with a brief prayer to the Horned Conqueror.

It was by such means that the Bull-God’s priesthood kept their grip on the psyche of the Twenty-Six Tribes. Ritual, tradition and the ever-constant reminder that the God provided. It felt like social engineering to me, but only because I’d been raised outside the circle of the faith.

From within, I’d never have thought that anything was amiss.

Beyond the circle of the firelight, the darkness was absolute, and I mean absolute. Just pitch blackness, on all sides, as we gathered - huddled, really - round the weak, yellow flames of the fire.

I don’t think I truly appreciated how alone we were, how utterly isolated from all but the most rudimentary form of civilization: It made your blood run cold, if you dwelt on it for too long.

The horses were never far away, for no sensible man of the tribes would sleep further than six strides away from his mount. In case of calamity or an ambush, even more than seizing weapons or ensuring that one was clad, the first and most sensible instinct was to get astride one’s steed and ride like all the devils in all the Hells were on your heels.

If you think that’s an overreaction (I did, but I was smart enough not to say so), you’re not cut out for life in the Grazing Lands. Natural selection had sorted people into two categories, the quick and the dead, and it took caution and a keen sense for danger to ensure that one stayed in the former.

But mere survival wasn’t enough to sustain one’s mind. Constant vigilance wore even the sharpest man down, like the remorseless grating of stone-on-stone. Even the most hard-bitten warrior of the tribes needed distraction, a reprieve from his own endlessly circling thoughts.

I know I did.

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Whenever night fell, after what passed for dinner - Salted meat, heavily-watered wine, greens (usually leeks, or something like it), farls of hard-baked travelers’ bread from my pouch - the men would talk idly. Reminisce, about times past, about places far from this one.

They were necessarily thrifty with it, for their experiences were (generally speaking) in much the same vein. Interesting to hear, certainly, but not much to contemplate when you had a full day’s ride ahead, and hours to be spent mostly in your own head.

That was why we’d brought Nilquit along, incidentally. The Cult had an extensive oral tradition, and the young priest was, among other things, an accomplished storyteller.

He held in his mind an incredible five hundred and thirty-six discrete sagas, as well as the tricks of oratory and noetic techniques required to relate them to their fullest effect. They’d been drummed into him through remorseless and unstinting effort, a regime of merciless training that I couldn’t imagine enduring.

You may think - and I certainly did - that even a well like that would run dry eventually. After all, it was only a matter of time before one heard them all. But the Iron Hoof’s priesthood was more subtle than I thought: For when Nilquit spoke his verses, he told each tale from a different angle than one might expect, veering away from the orthodox.

All had heard the tale of Tulgar’s feats at the Battle of Saurum, when he’d given himself over to the Horned Conqueror one final time. I’d even seen it - part of it, anyway - through the God’s own eyes. But few would expect the same event to be recounted from the perspective of a Gorigracian spearman, lost in the maelstrom of war, striving only to survive.

It wasn’t about sympathy. All of these accounts had an objective: A moral, if you would.

To educate, to illuminate, or (at the very least) to bestir thought.

To promote the virtues of analysis and evaluation, so that one could (like a philosopher pondering a koan) make a judgement, and be enlightened by it.

Isn’t that interesting? This world was utterly alien, utterly divorced from Earth, warped by the presence of very real, very tangible Gods…And this was a culture that recognized the value of critical thinking, even if they couldn’t put it into words.

As Nilquit told it, the Battle of Saurum had been eminently winnable by the Gorigracians. Even after Tulgar’s final rampage, even with the arrows of the Twenty-Six Tribes raining down like hail, the legions held the advantage in men and training. If they’d stood their ground, trusted their shields and long spears, victory would have been theirs-

But instead, they’d crumbled. As they’d broken, men fleeing before the pounding hooves of tribal cavalry, Koran Son-of-Jarrow had seized the moment - a final, desperate surge of effort - and taken their General’s head with his preposterously unwieldy sword.

The very same sword Ganazzar now carried, as a matter of fact.

The big bastard was the only one of us with the strength to swing it and the skill to wield it well. He seemed to loom even larger in the reflection from its blade - Taller, darker, stronger, as if all of the Man-killer’s most violent qualities had been somehow distilled into pure lethality.

Or maybe I was just getting my hopes up.

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I’d made sure that my warband, among other things, had their pick of weapons from the Ivory Vault. It’d taken the last of my influence with Praya, I don’t doubt, but I’d impressed upon him the necessity of making sure.

After all, if there ever was a time to put the Cult’s vast store of relics to use, it was now.

As such, each rider of the dozen bore the arms of some storied hero, or revered ancestor. If nothing else, it was exceedingly good for morale: Personally, I was expecting a rather more tangible benefit.

For when - not if - it came to a fight, I wanted to make sure everyone could pull their weight. Not just any fight, mind you - I’d been disquieted by my vision of the winged, golden man, and (even then) I knew it was going to take all I had to bring him down.

If the warband could keep him distracted, long enough for me to get in a lucky shot or two…Well, let’s just say I fancied my odds a lot more.

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Of course, sometimes the familiar failed to satisfy.

It was Mowynk who posed the question. There was an innocence about him, an indefatigable curiosity that made him look even younger than he actually was. My overriding impression of him was someone perpetually searching for what lay beyond the horizon, and then the horizon after that.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

He’d sworn loyalty with the eagerness of someone who considered himself, personally, invulnerable. Watching me the entire time, with his big, yearning eyes - Like he saw, in me, the kind of man he wanted to be.

More fool him.

One night, when Nilquit’s recital had come to an end, he hadn’t been able to resist. The priest knew his audience: He’d been telling the tale of Khalat the Wanderer, who’d ridden all the way to the stars and back on a great, winged steed.

As the legend went, Khalat had left the Grazing Lands as a callow youth, returning to the People as a mighty warrior clad in moonsilver. His bride, whose hair blazed with the fires of distant suns, was just the cherry on top of the sundae. The parts which detailed, graphically, exactly how he’d seduced her were greeted with roaring enthusiasm: No small thing, you’d appreciate, given the cold nights and the long trek ahead.

“To see such things,” Mowynk said, staring into the flickering flames of the firepit. His dreamy look was accentuated by the heavy piercing in his lower lip, as he stabbed idly at the turf with his short knife.

His gaze went to me, with unselfconscious earnestness.

“They say you’ve traveled far, sulde…from lands beyond Phospiach, no less. The sights you must have beheld - The adventures you must’ve had…”

Stab, stab, went his knife, poking holes in the dirt.

“-I can only imagine the stories you’ve collected along the way. Come, tell us - What have your eyes seen? What dangers have you faced?”

A general murmur of agreement rose from the others. For they were curious, too, about the kind of man I was. Oh, they knew I must have had some mettle to make it this far - But the Summertime War was one thing. The long odyssey to the Adrijanopolj was something else entirely.

In a way, it would be the most significant undertaking of their lives.

“I, too, wish to hear of such things,” Vorth said, without preamble. Caught off-guard, I blinked: He’d said little, over the past week or so, and actually hearing his voice was something of a surprise.

I’d unrolled my mat on the smoky side of the fire, to give myself a measure of solitude while the others ate. It was only fair: After all, I needed to keep one eye on the Furstenburg’s energy packs, which I’d - carefully, very carefully - slid into the flames.

I’d lost my hand-cranked charger, along with other sundries, back on Calaria. I missed it, dearly, but it wasn’t my only recourse. Exposing each pack’s thermal receptor to heat in a fire was a crude but effective method of recharging. Unfortunately, it shortened the life of the power-packs badly, something I’d resigned myself to.

After all I’d been through, it was a minor miracle that they still worked.

I glanced from face to illuminated face, gauging their interest. Layak was nodding, even as he gnawed at a heel of bread: Sitting cross-legged nearby, Sabet was much the same, an eyebrow raised at this new diversion.

I looked to Rodo, who gave a slightly sheepish shrug, though a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. In the end, that was what decided me - I set down my drinking-bowl and stood, brushing crumbs from my lap.

What the hell, I thought.

Why not indeed?

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Confession may be good for the soul, but it can definitely be hazardous to one’s prospects. Especially if you’re giving account to a dozen warrior tribesmen, whose respect you need if you’re going to make it through things in one piece.

I’ve been through a lot. I’ve done things - shitty, despicable things - that I’m not particularly proud of. If nothing else, I’ve always been grateful that my family, my parents back on Earth, will never know what I’ve been up to.

I’m not sure I could look my father in the eye.

Still, I’m only human. It’s only natural to want to unburden oneself, to share what you know. In a way, it’s somewhat narcissistic - Because you’re not telling it for their benefit, not really.

You’re telling it for your own sake, to remind yourself that all those things really did happen.

That, despite everything, you’re still here.

Still standing, through it all.

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The question was: What would I tell them?

The thing about telling a story is that it has a momentum, a life, of its own. You can twist things, you can leave things out…But then the inconsistencies will, at some point, catch up with you. By then, all internal coherence is probably lost, and you end up with a tangled mess that makes no sense.

As you may have guessed, the men of the Twenty-Six Tribes had a nose for bullshit. It would take a better liar than me to pull the wool over their eyes, and the mere attempt to do so would have marked me as unmanly, unworthy of loyalty.

It makes a kind of sense, I suppose. At this level of civilization, where life and death were balanced on the edge of a knife, you had to know you could trust someone.

I could have told them about my fourth world, Dolor. About how all flights off-world had become an impossibility, thanks to the void-storm that had raged for nearly a hundred years. How the mining colonies, prospectors and penal laborers, cut off from the rest of the galaxy, had become a nation in their own right.

All fueled, of course, by the great Synth mines.

Synth, the miracle mineral. Press it hard enough against any other material, and it took on the precise properties of that material - All the way to the molecule level. That was what made it so breathtakingly valuable, enough to hollow out that god-forsaken planet like an apple.

Locked in a perpetual ice-age, the surface of Dolor was nigh-uninhabitable. The inhabitants lived in underground cities, built around the precious few geothermal hotspots that could sustain life.

It wasn’t like they had a choice, really. Venture too far from the cities, and a freezing death awaited.

It was a precarious existence, and perhaps all the wilder for it. Most people lived each day like it was their last, and you could raise all kinds of hell provided you had the Synth. Dolor might’ve been a rough-and-ready mining town compared to the civilized comforts of the greater galaxy (which I never saw), but it wasn’t without its pleasures.

Even in this backwater, the Commonwealth’s technology was at least five hundred years ahead of Earth’s. You had full-contact virtual reality, flying cars - ‘lifters’, as they called them, in the local slang - a variety of fascinating intoxicants to put up your nose and in your veins, Viralith augmetics that (if you could pay) were miles better than the limbs you were born with, nanocrystals capable of storing hundreds of terabytes worth of data…

And, of course, guns.

For everything that died on Dolor re-animated, doomed to degenerate - Slowly, agonizingly - from the almost-life of high-frequency undeath to the shambling, lurching low-freq horrors that roamed the freezing surface in vast numbers. Eternally searching for raw, screaming meat, the only thing that could hold their degeneration at bay.

Guns helped even the odds.

----------------------------------------

Of course, the tribesmen would never have understood. Not because they were stupid, mind you, but because the base of knowledge needed to bridge the gap simply wasn’t there. There was simply no common ground, no shared framework of concepts or experiences that could allow them to understand the intricacies of a far-flung, technologically-advanced civilization.

The very words they used were anchored in a world so different from ours that they couldn't have comprehended what I was trying to convey. Not without a lifetime of context and education that was, quite simply, outside their reach.

Give the wisest men in Rome a flashlight, and ask them how it works. They’d never figure it out, not in a hundred years.

Instead, I told them about the time I’d spent with the Ihulian Horde, and the sacking of the House of the Brother. How - sweating, scared out of my mind - I’d crawled through the gloom with a double-score of wild-eyed fanatics, as we wormed our way through the tiny, too-narrow passage beneath the pitted battlements of the temple-monastery.

The whole time, we could feel the gaze of the Vigilants - Rastuvia’s own hand-picked sentinels - searching for us, with insect patience. If Oloin hadn’t shrouded us in shadow, we would’ve been sitting ducks, utterly exposed to their inhuman scrutiny.

Whatever he did, it was enough to turn those hunting eyes away, to blind them to our presence, until we’d emerged in the sprawling tomb-complex that lay beneath the fortress. The followers of the Golden General interred their dead in glory, in anticipation of the day the faithful would rise to march beneath His eternal banner.

Until then, they awaited His call to arms. Imagine the sight: The dead in their serried ranks, standing rigidly at attention. Bony fingers gripping the shafts of bronzed spears, fleshless faces concealed behind silver war-masks.

The faint stench of ancient rot, hanging in the air. Decay on display, in all its myriad forms.

It was eerie as shit, and I don’t mind saying so. A silent malevolence hung in the air like a miasma, marking us as interlopers. If you listened - really listened - you could almost hear the voices of the dead, at the very edge of perception. Whispering in their eternal unrest, unwilling to succumb to oblivion.

I don’t know what kind of afterlife awaited the followers of the Brother, but it didn’t seem like a particularly enjoyable one. They must’ve had their reasons, surely: I can’t imagine why anyone would consider that a reward, otherwise.

If not for the old Godbinder, they’d have taken out their pent-up frustrations on us. You could feel it - Something in the air, like the sense of gathering charge before a lightning strike. Covered in dust and muck from where we’d dug our way in, Oloin led the way, muttering the orisons and ritual prayers needed to appease the dead.

I remember the tap-tap-tap of his staff keeping time with his atonal chanting, as we hurried after him in dark, deadly files. Jostling each other to stay close, because no-one wanted to be left amongst the whispering dead.

Every breath felt achingly loud, rasping painfully in my throat as I fumbled with the waterproof shroud encasing my pulse rifle. It was the biggest gun we had in our arsenal, and if things got violent, I intended to shoot first and damn the consequences.

As it turned out, I didn’t need to.

The reavers and shadow-killers of the Horde knew exactly what they were doing. As soon as we emerged from the black maw of the crypt, they spilled through the corridors and up the stairwells, moving with silent purpose.

Each time their paths crossed with the startled sentries, the slick sounds of metal punching into flesh soon followed. Pitch-darkened knives would rise and fall in abrupt frenzies of violence, to the gagging, muted cries of men having their throats slit.

All the while, I stumbled along after them, wondering what the hell I’d gotten myself into. I was no good at this game of hide-and-go-backstab, and knowing that there were hundreds of Rastuvia’s temple-soldiers lying in wait didn’t help my nerves.

“Leave it to them, boy,” Oloin had rasped, taking a swig from his battered flask. He’d wiped his mouth, his hands shaking from the sheer fatigue of his recitation. “Your part in this comes later, never-you-fear.”

He was right. We made it as far as the gatehouse, before the alarm had been well and truly raised. By then, there was no time for subtlety, no time for anything but speed and overwhelming force: I’d slow-rolled two grenades down the air-shafts, flinching back as the night erupted into fire and death.

Even with my hands clamped over my ears, even with a wall between me and the fusion burst, the noise had been deafening.

The stench of charred flesh had been worse.

I’d gagged on it, nausea clawing at the back of my throat. Flash-blinded, I’d struggled to my feet, doing my best not to puke.

Thinking, the whole time: What the fuck have I done?

“I’ve got you, lad-” Oloin had said, trying to pull me to my feet. A futile effort, really - I weighed twice what he did, and he was lucky he didn’t throw his back out in the process. Blinking the spots away, I’d somehow convinced him to stay behind me, as I staggered towards the fighting…

That was what counted, you see. Getting the gate open, so the rest of the Horde could pour in. After that, it was just a matter of bloody, brutal effort - Men hacking and slashing and bludgeoning, grunting obscenities as they butchered each other.

By the time the defenders were forced back from the ramparts, the flagstones were slick with blood. With the Reversi, they might’ve held out for longer…But by then, I’d made it within range, and even their god-forged armor wasn’t much good against Munzer Arms’ finest export.

The rest of it, well, you already know.

----------------------------------------

The warband loved the story. It was, after all, a thumpingly good one, full of skullduggery, derring-do and good ol’ ultraviolence. The plunder didn’t hurt, either: When I unfurled Lord-Prophet Vukyelt’s armor, shook it out so they could admire the intricate runes acid-etched on every one of the lamellar scales, their eyes positively lit up.

The younger men made appreciative sounds, not-so-secretly glad they were riding with someone who’d been there, done that, and walked away in one piece.

Mowynk vowed, right there and then, that he’d never rest until he returned his tribe with a treasure at least as good. Layak, caught up in the moment, swore much the same thing. As did Uclid - Not because he really thought he had a chance, but to show willing.

That was cause for celebration, a good excuse for a round of toasts and general fellowship all round. Even Vorth - taciturn, close-mouthed Vorth - allowed that it’d been quite the accomplishment, though he’d have (of course) found a way to do better.

It was Nilquit, however, who cut closest to the meat of things.

“This ‘Oloin’,” he mused, furrowing his brow. The name sat oddly in Nilquit’s mouth, like it tasted of falsehood.

“...He brought you to the Graven Star, did he not?”

At my nod, the cult-priest went on.

"He knew much, it seems. Where did he go, after your parting?”

I shrugged.

“Who knows?” I said, shortly. “-I didn’t ask.”

To his credit, Nilquit didn’t probe. He merely folded his hands on his lap, staring into the heart of the flames. In the twitching light, the script inked on his face seemed to squirm, to shift, writing itself anew.

What he was looking for, I had no idea.

Truth, perhaps.

----------------------------------------

Four days later, we found the first bodies.

Death was not uncommon, on the plains. The Grazing Lands, in their own way, could be every bit as deadly as Caldera’s sun-blasted deserts or Dolor’s freezing wastelands. Now and again, one could find lonely cairns or post-tombs: Little more than piled-up stones, draped with prayer-fragments and incense bowls.

Sometimes, they would be crowned with a pennant marking the clan of the deceased, left to flutter in the breeze like a lonely wing. This was the bare minimum required to placate the dead, to ensure that their souls would hurry on to the embrace of the Horned Conqueror - Like an arrow released from a bow, the priests said, but I was reminded more of a moth to flame.

There were four of them, left to lie where they’d fallen, settled in the positions they would spend the rest of eternity in. Sabet, ranging ahead with his brother, was the first to discover them.

The twins had come across the corpses quite by accident, which was especially dismaying: There had been no sign of passage, no tracks that indicated how they’d got here.

It was as if the dead men and their horses had materialized from nothing, or had been deposited from a great height. The ever-ravenous scavengers had shunned their remains, wizened and desiccated as if drained of all essential juices - Something about the shrunken, dried-out husks made my skin crawl, as I made sure to give them a wide berth.

“What killed them?” I asked, careful not to touch the withered dead. Nilquit had chanted a ward against spiritual pollution, but I had rather more earthly concerns. Science had never been my forte, but I could imagine a myriad of horrors.

Radiation, poison, some kind of fast-acting plague…Take your pick. If there was one thing I’d learned from all this, it was that there was no shortage of ways to die.

“I know not, sulde,” the witch-priest said, his hands dusted with sacred chalk. He looked uneasy, out of his depth - Like he was only now realizing that all his learning hadn’t prepared him for something like this.

“If I had to hazard a guess - These men walked the ways of twilight, between light and dark, where only shadows are known.”

“What does that mean?”

Nilquit frowned, fussing with his medicine-bag. He was rattled, and badly: It showed in his every action, jerky and twitchy where they’d been carefully composed.

"The short version, or the long one?"

"-The one where I understand what you mean."

He looked me in the eye.

“These men have travelled a…long way. Through a place with no food, no life-giving water, and their essence - carried across their backs, the way one might carry a corpse - suffered horribly.”

I frowned. “You’re saying…They died of starvation?”

“Yes, sulde. But it was their souls that withered away. Their bodies could only follow.”

So it was magic, then. My mouth worked, as I chewed that over. I had only the faintest idea what he meant, but it was the implications that troubled me. I knew enough that something deep, dark and thoroughly fucked-up had happened here…I just didn’t know what.

Rodo, with less to lose than the others, had taken it upon himself to go through the saddlebags and wargear of the fallen. There was little sentiment on the veldt: As long as the proper rites were observed, there was no taboo against looting the dead. It was frowned upon to dig up a cairn, but the belongings of the unburied were apparently fair game.

Or maybe he just didn’t care.

When Rodo returned, his deeply-lined face was troubled. He had a handful of trophy rings, stripped from the dead men. With a grunt, he threw one to me, and I caught the iron bangle out of the air.

“Quarsh,” he said, by way of explanation. Tossed me another. “-Kythri.”

A third. “Adaar.”

Minor tribes, all of them. They’d been knocked out of the running in the first few weeks, with little to show for their efforts. None had ranked amongst the top eight, their champions notably absent from the great assembly at the Firepeaks.

Zisithras frowned at that, resting the banner against his shoulder. The wind stirred the prayer-strips tied to the shaft, making them flutter like streamers in the breeze.

“Far from home,” he said, sounding uneasy. “What were they doing here?”

“Raiding the Ahtzira, maybe?” I suggested, as I turned the trophy rings over in my hands. There was an unpleasant, slimy feel to the metal, like a faint patina of oil. Feeling vaguely soiled, I tossed them to the ground, wiping my hands on my leggings.

My flag-bearer chuckled, at that.

“Not likely, sulde,” he said, scratching his stubbled chin. “To ride here, from their lands…” Zisithras spread his hands, as if trying to illustrate the distances involved.

“Few would make the attempt. Richer pickings, closer to home-”

“Well, they had plenty of company,” I said, nudging a withered horse-carcass with my boot. I immediately regretted it: The thing’s flesh was flaking away, like ash, crumbling beneath the slightest touch. “Best guesses, anyone?”

There was the unpleasant scrape of iron on bone. Mowynk had got his knife out: Greatly daring, he’d knelt to examine one of the bodies, frowning as he probed away. Nilquit, leaning over his shoulder, let out a soft hiss - When I turned back, he’d peeled the corpse’s flesh away from his forehead, revealing a rune branded into the front of the skull.

The sight of it drew an oath from Mowynk. The young warrior scrambled back, flinging down his dagger like it’d gone red-hot. All color had drained from Nilquit’s face, one hand clamped to the front of his mouth as if stifling nausea.

“What?” I said. “What is it?”

It took the witch-priest a moment to reply, swallowing down his gorge.

“These men,” he said, thickly. Trying not to gag. “These men were marked as - Ursh.”

At my incomprehension, he tried again.

“Damned, sulde. These men were damned.”

----------------------------------------

In a world filled with Gods, damnation - or perhaps excommunication, I suppose - was a fate worse than death. With the fate of the Twenty-Six Tribes so closely tied to the cult of the Supreme Herdsman, one of the greatest punishments they could inflict was being cast out from His sight.

You see, every man of the tribes was assured of his place in eternity. There was some disagreement over exactly what that place was, but the idea was that someone who heeded the word of Tauruskhan, who fought to defend kith and home, could expect a blissful post-mortem existence.

A reward for a life well-lived, as they say.

Even if you were a liar, a cheat, a blood-drunk manic and an abuser of cattle - Well, there was still a place for you. It might not be a good one, but there was comfort in knowing that all was arranged. Knowing what to expect took a lot of the terror out of death.

Being Ursh meant you forfeited all that. It was a sentence that could only be handed down by a chieftain of the twenty-six tribes, and only in the most dire circumstances.

You were branded, all the way into the bone - How they did it without marring the skin over it, I never found it - marked as forever anathema in Tauruskhan’s sight…Then cast out, stripped of all surety.

No afterlife for your soul.

Just a descent into utter oblivion, condemned to the howling darkness forever.

They weren’t just saying that, too. Being excommunicated meant becoming a blind spot in the eyes of the God and His Court. The lesser spirits and totems of the veldt would actively ignore you, refusing to give succor or aid, or deign to answer your entreaties or prayers. As long as you remained in the Grazing Lands, you would be alone - As utterly alone as a mortal would be, without the whispers of the invisible world to guide you.

So that was a pretty fucked-up thing to do to someone. Given the rarity of such a sentence, having four men (hailing from different tribes, no less) condemned to the same fate…I didn’t need to be a priest to see that it was a bad omen.

----------------------------------------

That night, the mood around the campfire was dark. A silence hung in the air, broken only by the crackle of the flames.

Dalat loomed near, but I’d called an early halt, all the same. I had a sense that trouble was around the corner, and I wanted to make sure we would be well-rested.

And so, we readied ourselves for what was to come.

Riding in full armor is a special kind of hell. You couldn’t keep that up, not for days on end - It wasn’t just the discomfort, the sense of constriction, but the added burden to one’s mount. Even the hardy men of the Twenty-Six Tribes, born to the saddle, rarely did it.

But when battle was imminent, out came the hauberks of lamellar armor, the coats of scales, the pauldrons and gorget chased with precious metals and scripture. And, most strikingly of all, the great black-tipped feather-cloaks, made to billow like wings when a rider set himself to the charge.

For every reasonably successful tribesman, it was a point of pride to maintain a full suite of wargear. Valor in battle was the swiftest way to gain the God’s favor, even if - especially if - that meant one’s death.

Water was boiled in the communal pot, and passed around for shaving. Heads, cheeks, chins, everything, with painstaking care, to ensure that Tauruskhan would know His own.

I’d always kept myself clean-shaven, but it was startling to see the others without mustache or beard. They looked younger, almost civilized, stripped of the dirt, grease and blood I’d come to associate with Phosphiach - I nearly had trouble recognizing them, as Nilquit inspected each man’s face for signs of stubble.

Bows were re-strung, lances sharpened to razor-points. Blades were re-edged, armor cleaned, polished and re-finished. Ganazzar had an especially impressive suit of bronze plate, built for his more-than-human proportions, and it took him laborious hours to affix the prayer-strips in place.

When he was done, Nilquit swung a censer of burning incense across his completed panoply, wafting sacred smoke over breastplate and pauldrons alike. The heavy, smoky musk of it made me cough: Uneasily, it reminded me of the Bull-God’s sanctum, a thick, earthy smell like some huge animal’s musk.

My preparations were rather more secular. Back on Dolor, I’d invested in a thoroughly modern suit of semi-powered body-armor, but like most of my arsenal, it hadn’t survived the final conflagration of Cradle.

Still, I had kept the ballistic helmet. The guidance electronics were long-dead, but it was a fully-enclosed thing, complete with visor, proofed against the scrabbling fingers and teeth of the frozen dead.

Fleetingly, I wondered how well it’d do against a god-blessed arrow. I hoped I never had to find out.

I’d been offered a wide variety of weapons, but I’d scorned that all in favor of the Fursterburg. I had a score of charge-packs for it - Two in the rifle, six in my belt, six more strapped across my body in the loops and pouches of an increasingly-battered harness, the rest stowed away for another time.

At full capacity, each pack held enough power for (roughly) eighty shots…But they’d seen hard use and general rough handling, and I wasn’t sure how much juice I’d get out of each one.

There was, of course, no way to tell.

I had poor, forsaken Gilead’s tetza, swarming across my skin. Last Breath, the shield’s weight still unfamiliar on my arm.

My gauntlets of black jade, made to crush stone and men alike.

My pouch full of spintriae, bulging at the seams like a miser’s purse.

I had the post-human science of Unity in every cell of my form, catalyst running in my blood. Making my body swell with strength, even as it hollowed me out from within.

And there was Oneira’s gun, of course. For absolute last-ditch use only.

If I had to use it, we were really screwed.

In the end, it was Layak who broke the silence. He looked a little green around the gills, and had been restless all night. He’d been chewing distractedly on a strip of dakkag - a kind of jerky, with herbs and berries beaten into dried sections of beef - before he decided to pop the question.

“What,” he asked, trying not to look too anxious. Trying not to look afraid.

“-What is war like?”

Now, Layak had seen his share of raids before. Sure, death was a possibility, but a more common fate for the defeated was a beating, a humiliating imprisonment, and ultimately being traded for ransom.

He’d never been in a fight where death wasn’t just a risk, but the entire point of the endeavour.

I looked around.

At Zisithras, patiently repairing the banner, tutting to himself as he mended the rips with tough twine, colored thread, and long needles.

At Ganazzar, carefully working Koran’s sword with a whetstone, though it was flakes of stone rather than metal that were shaved away.

At Rodo, whose watery blue eyes had seen far, far too much. He met my gaze, caught my question, and nodded - Just once.

Horrible, I wanted to say.

Imagine your worst nightmare. Then, scream as loud as you can.

“Glorious,” I said. “What else could it be?”

----------------------------------------

When dawn came, in the cold, almost green light of the daybreak, we rose and rode away into the grass.

Towards Dalat.

Towards the bloodletting to come.

Call it providence, premonition or even just a gut-feeling: Somehow, we knew what was going to happen. There was, I think, a sense of inevitability to it all - A deep-seated knowledge that we had been fortunate so far, and that it couldn’t hope to last.

Or perhaps we had known, all along, that the God would demand His pound of flesh.

That none of us would leave the Grazing Lands unchanged.

----------------------------------------

It actually took two more days of riding. Can you believe that?

I remember almost nothing after that last night. Even now, it’s a blank space in my memory. An interlude, maybe: The calm before the storm.

It was no reprieve, believe me. Just two hard days of following the God’s own banner, hanging limp before us like a corpse on the gallows.

By day, we moved at a steady trot. By night, a slow plod.

Some of the men slept upright in their saddles, heads nodding. Their horses moved on, all the same, drawn by herd instinct to follow the group.

It didn’t rain, but thunder grumbled in the distance. Like a storm was building, somewhere, ready to break.

We’d long since left the Ahtzira behind. All the while, their scouts had kept their distance. They’d made no attempt to approach, merely watched, warily, as we made our way across their lands.

I had a nasty feeling that they knew more than they let on, that we had been marked, somehow. Why, I couldn't begin to guess.

I could have forced the issue, but trying to give chase on the wide-open steppe is generally a losing proposition. We could have run them down, but the effort would have been more trouble than it was worth.

Besides, we were already expecting trouble. The only question was what kind.

----------------------------------------

At last, the veldt gave way to barren ground. There was no gradual faltering of the grass, as it gave way to gravel, dust and scrub. The Grazing Lands didn’t end so much as vanish, the border between lush fertility and barren sandstone plateau as sharp as the cut made by a ritual knife.

To either side rose great escarpments, ramping into the hazy distances. Countless statues dotted the sterile desert like silent sentinels, their headless diorite forms canted at angles that were never quite true.

Before us, the great arch of Dalat cleaved the horizon, like a bridge between the realm of gods and men. It rose unsupported, roots planted firmly in the earth, rising above the uneasy ruins like Time’s own shadow.

I had to admit, it was one hell of a sight. I’d heard the stories, of course, but seeing it for myself like this…Unaccountably, I felt a chill. There was something uncanny about it, a sense that what I gazed upon was the work of inhuman hands-

And if I was impressed, imagine how the others felt.

Uclid and Layak were dumbstruck, their faces gone blank as they stared at the bisected horizon. Mowynk’s shoulders hitched as he rode, shaking as if in spasm: He must’ve been struck by a kind of vertigo, for he clutched his saddle’s pommel tight, swaying atop his mount like a man at the precipice of a cliff.

Nilquit wept. Silently, without making a sound, tears streaking down through the white ash he’d used to badge his face.

“Tauruskhan be praised,” he kept saying, over and over again. “Praised be!”

I’d never seen the witch-priest this overwrought before. Looking back, it shouldn’t have been a surprise - This was the furthest he’d ever been from the sacred Firepeaks, all he’d ever known.

To behold a vista like this, with his own eyes…

It must have been a revelation. His world, such as it was, had been rocked to its very foundations.

I knew how it felt. The disbelief, the awe, the all-consuming sense of something that was part-freedom, past-bewilderment…The knowledge that you were here, now, farther from home than you had ever been-

For moments like that, there are no words.

----------------------------------------

The God was kind, in His own way. We had almost an hour to enjoy the sight of the great plain, the upswelling of hope that came with the end - or a beginning - of a long trek.

We all felt it, in that moment. That the first stretch of our journey was over, and hey, it wasn’t so bad.

How bad could the next one be?

We were about to find out.

As we rode out towards the plateau, dust swirled above the slopes on either side. Overhead, the slowly-turning clouds were going dark, like blood blooming in water - A dark stain, like a wash of thunderheads, was bruising the distance, widening with every passing moment.

It all blended together into a kind of ominous murmuring, the feral grumbling of something laying in wait.

“Storm’s coming,” Kalich said, looking up at the sky. He’d cased his horn against the dust, carefully stowing it away - His expression uneasy, narrowing his eyes as he peered into the slowly-creeping dust storm. Already, it shrouded the surrounding hills in a swirling haze, like a veil had been drawn to obscure what lay beyond.

“We should find shelter-” I began. But even as I spoke, I knew something was wrong.

The dust-storm was coming on too fast, moving as if with purpose. Like it’d been summoned, like it’d been lying in wait for all this time.

Which meant-

This is a trap.

My head came up, as I seized my horse’s reins. I was about to give the order to wheel around, to break for the safety of the veldt…But even then, I knew we wouldn’t make it. We’d come too far, ridden headlong into the waiting jaws.

“Sulde!”

Zisithras’s urgent shout split the air. He pointed, the banner flapping overhead: I turned to look, my guts already cramping with dread-

For there was movement, in the filmy edges of the advancing dust storm. Before my eyes, it resolved into shapes, figures. A long line of horsemen, emerging from the banks of dust.

They were clad in full armor - Lamellar, scale, brass, war-masks and long-horned helms. All of it caked with pitch, as if they sought to shroud themselves in anonymity. Blades, spears and axe-hafts rested across their saddle-bows, lances and javelins gleaming in the curiously-dull light.

Swaying standards and totem-staves rose from the murk, worn and tattered from the shadowy paths they’d taken. The meanings of some eluded me, but the others…

Quarsh.

Kythri.

Adaar.

Twilight Veil.

I counted tens of men, then scores. Fifty, sixty, eighty, more, forming a ragged line atop the crest of the hills. A dozen different warbands, divided by feuds that ran back all the way to the time of Tulgar…

Gathered here and now, for a single grim purpose.

“God’s teeth,” Maka - or maybe Sabat - swore, his face gone as pale as milk. He had good reason: I counted at least a hundred tribal cavalry, ready to sweep down across the plain and rip us to pieces. Worse, with every breath, their numbers swelled further.

Somewhere around a hundred and fifty, I lost count. There were just too many of them, a seemingly-endless profusion of mounted lancers, emerging from the roiling haze, taking their place in the line.

They didn’t hurry. After all, they had all the time in the world.

The only reason why they weren’t already encircling us, riding hard to cut off our retreat, was because there was nowhere for us to run. We could never hope to outpace them, not like this - Trying to flee just meant a less dignified end.

“Sulde-” Braze Jai’s eyes flicked to me, his voice a dust-dry whisper. “We’re dead, aren’t we?”

I didn’t answer, though I suspected that we very much were. Instead, I unslung the pulse rifle from where it rode on my back, resting the Furstenburg across my knees. Carefully, so very carefully, I thumbed the safety switch, felt the weapon thrum as it came to life.

Tried to ignore how badly my hands were shaking, the sickly copper fear-taste in my mouth.

“So many,” Layak was saying, this close to gibbering, until Vorth growled at him to shut up. He knew the score, too: We all did. Even Mowynk, his jaw clenched tight to stop his teeth from chattering, one hand locked around his tulwar in a white-knuckled grip.

In the face of imminent death, Uclid’s voice was a tiny, embryonic thing. His Adam’s apple bobbed, eyes gone wide as he stared at the serried lines of the enemy - for enemies they no doubt were, now - as if trying to make sense of it all.

“What-” he blurted out, all at once. Outraged, almost, like he couldn’t believe any of this was happening.

“What do they want, sulde?”

I could have told him, not that it would have made any difference.

Praya’s worst fears had come spectacularly true. The Horned Conqueror had made His choice, and He had chosen to abandon His people. As it turned out, His people had something to say about that, too.

How long had they been planning this? All the way from the start of the Summertime War, most likely. The lesser tribes, those who had the most to lose from Tauruskhan’s absence, had never intended to honor His will.

They’d come together, a desperate conspiracy of the downtrodden, to save themselves in the only way they could.

Seize the God’s champion. Hold His own Hand hostage.

Renegotiate.

It was an audacious move, one that I would’ve applauded if I wasn’t on the receiving end. If they pulled it off, they’d have masterminded the coup of the century. Tauruskhan’s schemes for ascension would be well and truly scuppered, and at last, after generations of humiliation, they’d finally hold the upper hand.

The Twilight Veil had provided the sorceries necessary to move their forces swiftly and invisibly, never mind that dozens (or more, perhaps) had perished from the extremity. The tribal chieftains had marked their men - those willing to give everything to preserve their way of life - with the brand of exile, to hide them from the God’s eyes…

And while the Twenty-Six Tribes celebrated, hailing the arrival of Tauruskhan’s champion, they’d made their move. The trap had been set, and we’d blundered headlong into it.

There were only two things I couldn’t figure out.

Who told them the route we took? I’d had the good sense to keep it to myself, taking only Praya’s and Oloin’s council. The Bull-God’s cult, naturally, had their lips firmly sealed-

And then, like a dim bulb flickering to life…

Oloin, I thought. Fuck.

I really, really should’ve killed him. It would have been so easy - I could have crushed the old Godbinder like an ant. Wiped him away like a smear.

Damn me, I suppose. I’d spent too much time with Alistair and Eulisia: They’d made me soft, sentimental, and it’d come back to bite me in the ass.

Now, at last, the pieces were beginning to fall into place.

Just one question remained: Whose hand was behind this? I pondered that question, even as a great carnyx, an open-mouthed trumpet of weathered bronze, blew a long, sharp note.

The final standard - a truly massive auroch skull, transfixed by flaming horns - was hefted up, at the center of the line. The empty sockets seemed to glare down at us balefully, as the last of the rebel tribesmen rode in.

It was the sacred banner of the Jarrow. First amongst equals, the storm walkers, the bearers of the burning crown.

“Heretics,” Nilquit muttered, his face contorting in anguish. He raked his fingers through his hair, as if he meant to tear it out by the roots. “Defiers of the God! That the blood of Tulgar would fall to this…!”

I couldn’t help it. I laughed, then - A short, sharp bark of laughter, bleak as slow machine-gun fire. He turned, astonished, and that just made me laugh harder.

Who knew the Clan of Kings were sore losers?

----------------------------------------

Right on cue, the forest of spearpoints and banners parted. The thick clot of horsemen shuffled aside, as Harnak Kul - sire of Rarga Kul - made himself known at last.

The Chieftain of the Jarrow was a stark figure, tall and straight-backed on his great black steed. In his gold and bronze wargear, he was cold and proud and magnificent as a Prince of Hell.

The flames flashed off the remains of the bull-headed crest on his shoulder plates, the holy emblem ritually shattered by a hammer’s blows.

“Morgan Hollow-Born!” came his voice, rising above the jangling of armor and the nervous snorts of horses. Even the moan of the desert wind seemed to still, as if Harnak’s presence was enough to silence it.

Hollow-Born. No land. No kin. No blood-ties.

It would have been insulting, if it wasn’t so accurate.

At my side, Ganazzar stirred, restlessly. I held a hand out, to quiet him - For some things had to be left to play out.

“You, and all who ride with you, are traitors to the Twenty-Six Tribes. The spirits of heroes long dead spit upon the infidel usurpers who befoul the Grazing Lands, and the false priests who give evil council.”

He paused, to let that sink in. Even from here, I could see the grim set to Harnak’s scarred features. He knew what was coming, how this had to end, and was bracing himself for what came next.

“I name you pretender, unfit to bear the God’s essence. I brand you blasphemer, defiler of Tauruskhan’s sacred name. May Tulgar, Father-of-Tribes, wither your hearts to ash. Your deaths shall feed our lives.”

Even Rodo and Kalich, veterans both, made a sharp intake of breath at that. Given what we were up against, I honestly couldn’t blame them.

In the looming silence, I spurred my destrier forward. Right next to Zisithras, the standard of the Bull-God fluttering upright in his thick hands.

“Cover your ears,” I ordered, keeping my voice carefully level.

He blinked at me, like a man awakening from a dream.

“Sulde?”

“Cover your ears,” I said, waiting - every nerve jangling with pent-up tension - as he fumbled the banner’s pole into the flag-keeper.

“Morgan!” My name burst from Mowynk’s lips, nearly a shout. Like he couldn’t hold himself back, not any longer. Facing death head-on, contemplating his very last moments on Phosphiach, Mowynk no longer cared about protocol.

“Morgan, what are you doing?”

I looked back at his pinched, pale face, as white as a priest’s war-paint. He was desperately trying to look brave, but he couldn’t fool his horse: Mowynk’s hands trembled on his gelding’s reins as it tossed its head, snorting.

Scenting his fear.

“Me?” I said, as my destrier trotted forward. Every instinct screamed at me to run, but I knew there was no point.

You can’t run from the inevitable.

“-I’m giving them God’s answer.”

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Sand crunched beneath my horse’s hooves, one slow step at a time. I can only imagine how it must have looked, to the waiting army. A single rider, drawing ahead of the others, riding with the faltering skill of an enthusiastic amateur.

So small, amid all that vastness. Could I really be the man they’d come all this way to capture? To hold beneath the knife, for the future of the Twenty-Six Tribes?

Well, I hadn’t come to show off my horsemanship, at any rate.

I had something rather more substantial in mind.

It takes a certain mindset, I’ve found, to use magic. Magic of any kind, really: You may be invoking the imperious authority of the Gentry, the sorcerous abstractions of Caldera’s twice-damned warlocks, or even the bone-chilling necromancies of Dolor - But will and word need to align before the fireworks can go off, in a certain particular way.

Thaumaturgy was no exception. You couldn’t just chant the words and make the gestures, to call upon a God’s power. You had to become the God, surrender part of yourself in imitation of Their essential and eternal essence.

Then, and only then, could you work miracles.

Certain things made it easier. Offerings, for one. Trained acolytes providing ritual and moral support. Insistent drumming.

The old standbys: Drugs, powders and generous drink, in the name of inducing the right frame of mind.

And, most important of all - Doing what the God would want you to do.

I had ridden away from the others for a reason. I could feel that something was building up, and if I didn’t get away, it was going into them.

A slow-burning rage coiled within me, as intense as it was familiar.

A father’s anger at His ungrateful children. Centuries of not-so-petty slights and never-forgotten trespasses, grievances swept under the rug in the name of harmony.

Long-buried resentments, coming to light at long last.

Why couldn't they obey? Why couldn't they follow My will?

Couldn't they see how crucial this was to Me? How much it meant?

Did they think I acted without purpose?

Did they truly believe they could escape My wrath?

I shut my eyes. Drew as deep a breath as I could.

And then-

I spoke with the God’s voice.

----------------------------------------

APOSTATES

The sound was directed away from me, but it nearly deafened me all the same. My ears rang from the force of it - For a moment, it felt like the ground itself was shaking.

I couldn’t even imagine what it must have sounded like, to the heretic army. Like the end of the world, maybe.

YOU COVET WHAT CANNOT BE YOURS

It was too vast to be called speech. The sound reverberated through the distant cliffs, as if all of the Grazing Lands shouted its fury.

DAMNED ARE THOSE WHO DEFY TAURUSKHAN

The great host recoiled, like a single body. Men convulsed, hands pressed to their skulls, faces contorted in anguish. Some bled from the ears or eyes, their armor and weapons rattling from the sheer shock.

ACCURSED IS THEIR SEED

Confusion erupted along the line. Horses toppled, kicking - Some dropped where they stood, paralyzed by the overwhelming sound. Their bodies just couldn’t process Tauruskhan’s rage, and simply shut down.

Like a light switch. On, then off.

COME, TRAITORS

The air itself vibrated, as if struck by blows. Gaps appeared in the line: A few of the tribesmen had broken ranks, utterly consumed by a nameless terror. They fled without looking back, casting off their new alliances as easily as their old ones.

Somehow, I don’t think they ever stopped running.

FACE GOD’S WRATH

Shouts and screams, oddly muted now, rang from the veils of swirling dust. Half-visible in the churning haze, riders pelted past, veering wide to show that they wanted no part of this.

But those were the rabble and the chaff, the late-comers and opportunists. The core of the patchwork horde wavered, but stood all the same. I saw men exchange panicked looks, struggling to calm their mounts, to regain their footing-

I’d shaken them. Victory, which had looked so certain before, was now in doubt.

In the thick, deafening silence that followed, a ragged cheer rose from my dozen. It seemed such a small thing, in the face of the horde - But here, now, the smallest things had taken on the greatest importance.

“The God rides with us!” Ganazzar bellowed, throwing his head back. He was glaring, wild-eyed, muscles bunching with maniac strength. Foam flecked his lips, as his steed reared: He raised the Jarrow blade high, clenched in his mailed fist.

“To war, brothers! FOR TULGAR! FOR TAURUSKHAN!”

Above, horns brayed. Harnak Kul roared an order of his own, inaudible amid all that chaos. It seemed like all the world was chaos - A din of voices and drums, sounding the attack. Even from here, I felt the distant rumble, hundreds of horses and men united in a single, surging charge…

“This is the last battle!” Nilquit shouted, rising in his saddle. His robes flapped in the wind, his arms spread like great wings. “The only battle! Fight, blessed ones! Fight now, as if this is your last stand - And it will not be so!”

My throat felt raw. Too raw for speech. I heard myself spitting bloody phlegm, gasping for breath. Mouth slobbering around the agony of my swollen throat, wanting to snarl and bite like an animal-

Lead by example.

I kicked my heels into the destrier’s sides, and drove my steed forward.

Forward, into the field of black stone.

Forward, into the uproar and the tumult.

Amazingly, they followed. Every one of them.

Kalich blew the charge, and the warband swept after me. Racing fast, Zisithras drew ahead of the others, the wind swooping through our banner. The swallowtails of the standard flowed out behind him, the sun-and-horns gleaming like defiance itself in the eerie light.

The flood of tribal cavalry spilled towards us, the crest of a solid wave of horned shadows. I heard their wailing battle-cries, their ululating roar as they came on.

The wet percussion of their horses’ hooves, like unending thunder.

We met in the shadow of Dalat, and the killing began.

TO BE CONTINUED