Authors: Gareth K Pengelly
Further he strode, leaving the feeling of latent eldritch power behind him, till he came to a thick oak door, which he wrenched open, feeling the blast of cold night air caressing his skin as it blew in with a sigh.
Closing the door behind him, he walked out onto the high, stone bridge that connected the Seers’ Tower with his own, the blasting gusts of coastal wind trying their damndest to topple him, but they might as well have been blowing at a mountain for all the effect they had on his muscled frame.
Halfway across the bridge, he stopped, his hands on the cold, stone bannister as he looked out upon his Kingdom with eyes that saw beyond the usual wavelengths of light.
On one side of him, the city-fortress of Pen-Merethia lay spread out before him, many hundreds of feet below, the winking of lights and faint, faint calls in the night signalling a city that bustled, vibrant and alive, even after dark, the commerce of the night thriving in a city that prided itself on the pleasures of the flesh.
With a smile, the Barbarian King focused his senses, spying on his subjects as they went about their nocturnal activities, oblivious to the unnatural green eyes that watched from afar.
There, to the left, a quarter of a mile distant on the citadel walls; a lady of the night bartering with an on-duty guard for a few short minutes of illicit pleasure to break the monotony of guarding an impregnable fortress.
Just to the right of centre, nine-hundred yards, not too far from the city gates; through an open window he spied a group of youths, faces blackened with soot from working the forges of the city’s weapons district, lying drooling and insensate in the flickering light of a dying oil-lamp, spread-eagled across a scattering of cushions and blankets. A discarded pipe lay on the floor, a glaring clue to their condition. He narrowed his eyes, focusing harder on the caked remnants that lay unburnt in the bowl of the device; opium, imported from afar and carried by cart from the Merchant Coast. Pure, not cut with powdered rock as so often it was.
The King nodded appreciatively; the lads must have spent a considerable portion of their meagre earnings in pursuit of their stupor.
A cry of help that would have gone unnoticed by lesser ears drew his attention to a small alleyway off a market place just under a half mile distant; a merchant, reasonably wealthy by the looks of his robes and hat, had obviously made the mistake of venturing into the poor quarter in search of a drink and some female company. They were wont to do that, those who thought themselves wealthy and high of station, venturing into the less well-off areas late of a night, thinking themselves thrill-seekers for mingling with the unwashed masses.
It was not their hygiene that so concerned this particular merchant, rather the sharp blades of his assailants that glinted in the light of the moons, as they stabbed him repeatedly, before running off into the night with his coin-purse, leaving him to die, cold and alone, in the gutter.
The thought crossed the King’s mind momentarily that he could maybe help this poor fellow; he could be there in an instant, take him to an apothecary in another. No sooner had the idea crossed his mind than he quashed it with a wry smile. Were he to go about helping every dreg of society that should get himself in trouble, then he would get nothing done. Besides, he didn’t care if some poor fool got himself stabbed for his own misadventures.
Long ago had he resolved to stop caring about people; his pretty words of earlier a mere mask, for his manipulation of the masses served only to make life easier for himself, the pursuit of an immortality of decadence and living in the moment his only real passion.
The people were united for it served his purpose, allowing him to keep control on everything, ruling with an iron fist, taking what he wanted, when he wanted.
He turned, away from the city, looking out from the oth
er side of the bridge to the coast not far beyond, spying the rising crags of the Isle of Storms that rose, jagged and threatening from the choppy black sea.
Soon, after the posturing and ceremony of the Beacon was all over and done with, he would venture further beyond, having grown almost bored of his current lands. Fresh pleasures lay beyond those waves, further even than he could see with his incredible eyes.
He chastised himself, momentarily, for the Beacon was more than just pomp; it was the idea of the Seeress, and nothing she ever suggested was mere vanity, everything having a purpose, her every action geared towards furthering his power and, by extension, her own. The Beacon would further unite his people, building their patriotism to a rising climax, at which point he would unleash them in a wave of bloodthirsty Clansmen upon unsuspecting peoples from across the sea.
He nodded to himself, turned and continued across the bridge, entering the tower that served as his own personal wing of the keep.
The corridors here were luxuriant, the floor covered in carpets, thick and warm, the colour of spilt blood. Tapestries hung from the walls in the torchlight, depicting his myriad victories over the years.
He walked, slowly, taking in once again, as he had for a century, the scope of his power, the scale of his realm, before passing into the antechamber of his quarters.
Here, sheathed in a stone plinth, his swords rested, slumbering.
He surveyed the weapons, warmly, as though gazing upon old friends, his eyes taking in the flickering torchlight that rebounded, trapped within the facets of the translucent obsidian
Glaives, whose blades would never dull, whose intricate hilts would never lose their lustre.
Dexter, the right hand sword, its blade
long, coming to a point like an apothecary’s knife, six feet in length and weighted perfectly for stabbing his foes. Dexter had tasted the hearts of many a foe.
Sinister, the left hand sword, shorter, stubbier, its blade thicker like that of a butcher’s cleaver, the weight more on the blade to make easier the crushing and dismemberment of those foolish enough to be in his way.
As he walked past, he trailed his fingers along the cool material, feeling the weapons stir, but he bade them remain asleep. There will be other wars, he told them. There will be blood. But it is night-time. Rest.
He left the antechamber, making to brush aside the velvet curtain that led to his room, but stopped, sniffing gently.
A perfume, light, floral, heady, applied with oil upon freshly washed skin.
He pushed his way gently into his chamber.
The servant girl who had first poured his wine earlier that evening stood there, bare-footed on the warm carpet, wriggling it between her toes as though unused to the feel of comfort, and he smiled slightly as he remembered the amused glint of blue eyes as he’d left the Great Hall.
She stood, naked but for a silk robe wrapped about her lithe form, her milky skin soft and smooth in the dim light from the oil-lamp on the bedside table. She seemed tiny, doll-like in front of the four-posted bed that dominated the centre of the chamber, its proportions suited to fit a god-king.
He could feel the disgust with herself, yet also her longing. Her eyes were averted, looking to the carpet rather than him. She was trembling.
He spoke to her, his tones quiet, gentle, as one would speak chancing upon a delicate fawn in a forest clearing that might bolt at any second.
“You don’t need to be here, if you would rather not be,” he told her, sincerely. “I know you hate me.”
Silence for a few moments, then the serving girl dragged her eyes from the floor, summoning the courage to look deep into his green eyes, war raging within her soul until finally one side won.
She let the robe drop to the floor in a ruffling of slippery fabric, revealing the pale and slender curves beneath.
The King smiled. He always gave them the choice.
But
, in the end, it was really no choice at all.
Chapter Two
:
The warrior descended from the North, where the red glow touched the heavens and, from that day on, nothing would ever be the same again.
The curious crowds gathered about him from the villages that lay nestled in the deep, dark forests of the Hills, youths running here and there to tell people of the giant with his twin swords.
The warrior was bare-chested, his only clothes the charred hide about his waist and the fresh bear-skin across his shoulders. He spoke to no-one, stopping neither for food nor rest, as he left the mountains, crossing the Plains, heading South towards the Steppes and the Barbarian City.
At one point, a passing raiding party of twenty Savaran crossed his path, unsheathing their weapons at the approaching giant with his strange, crystalline swords, demanding to know his business.
The sole survivor was allowed to flee on his horse, wide-eyed with terror as he galloped at full-tilt to the Barbarian City to deliver the warrior’s warning to the Barbarian King.
I am coming for you.
Word spread through the villages of the stranger’s power and his intention to attack the Barbarian King. Soon, the crowds grew, until it seemed the whole population of the Hills and the Plains followed the colossus as he strode ever southward, keeping a safe distance, setting camp of a night, speeding to catch up in the morning after he’d invariably marched on.
Another party of Steppes Barbarians, this time fifty, journeyed North to meet him, the King himself not deigning to meet his challenge, sending a high-ranking Marzban in his stead.
Only the Marzban escaped this time, sent packing, tied backwards to his horse, his urine-stained undergarments bare for the world to witness his humiliation.
Again, the message was delivered to the Barbarian King.
I am coming for you.
***
It was on the dawn of the fourteenth day of the warrior’s march that he beheld the Barbarian City rising high on the Steppes, the Yow running before it, the coast at its back.
After ten long years he had returned to claim the fate that had been promised him.
The armies of the Barbarian King were arrayed against him on the plain before the city, ten thousand strong; mounted Savaran, Clansmen warriors on foot, axe-wielding berserkers and score upon score of archers wielding both long- and crossbow.
At their rear, safe atop the walls of the city, the Barbarian King himself watched with interest as the battle unfolded, playing with his long, greying moustache, his keen eyes unreadable as they looked out from his scarred and pockmarked face.
The warrior from the North raised his hand, bidding his followers from the Plains and Hills to remain on the hillside behind him, before striding down to meet his enemies.
As per Steppes tradition, each Clan sent forth a champion, warriors of renown amongst a warrior race, each skilled, strong, brave and unbeaten, each wielding a weapon gifted to them as they lay in their cot, each groomed by masters of the killing arts to be slayers of men.
A dozen such warriors ranged out to meet the stranger before the army, each, in turn, seeking his blood, seeking to claim his head – and the honour of victory – in the name of their respective clans.
Each, in turn, was cut down like a child.
Even as the last champion fell to the dust, the Steppes generals signalled the archers to attack, the morning sun blocked out, the plain cast into shadow, as the sky filled with innumerable barbed arrows and metal bolts that descended like a cloud of locusts towards the waiting warrior.
Slowly, and with care, the giant stuck his swords, point down in the dirt, before raising his hands to the sky.
The incoming missiles stopped.
They didn’t smash and fall, no, not as if they’d hit an invisible wall suddenly erected in the sky. No; they simply stopped, all momentum arrested – nay,
paused
– hanging motionless in the bright morning sky.
As the onlookers on both sides watched on in rapt awe, the warrior twisted his fingers, the blood of the Barbarian archers running cold as the arrows and bolts copied the motion, turning slowly, inevitably, till they pointed back the way they’d come.