The Fall to Power (4 page)

             
Shrieks of terror, wailings of doom, filled the back ranks of the Steppes army as missile troops clambered over each other, fighting, clawing, in desperate bid to flee.

             
The stranger from the North dropped his hands and whatever force had paused the missiles’ momentum disappeared in an instant, the arrows and bolts hurtling down out of the sky as though the episode had never happened, the only difference now their direction of flight.

             
Over five hundred archers and crossbowmen died in the next few seconds, skewered and slain by their own hand.

             
With a roar of fury the Savaran reared their steeds, kicking them into a galloping charge that shook the very ground and tore the grass from the earth in great flying clods, swinging their scimitars high above their streaming topknots as they bore down on their foe.

             
The warrior raised his hands once more, the jet-black yet strangely translucent blades embedded in the earth on either side of him rising, as if by some unseen hand, till they hovered by his sides, blades pointing towards the charging cavalry.

At a whispered word they flew, unerring and nearly invisible, till they collided with the lead warriors, piercing them like spears through fish, and continuing through the rest of the column in an arrow-straight line, rending armour, flesh, bone alike; warriors and horses dismembered and blown apart like dry wood crushed underfoot.

The charge faltered at the carnage, the warriors slowing and circling him, torn between attacking or fleeing before this terrifying sorcery, but it was too late; the fearsome blades returned to his hands, like well-trained hunting-hounds, and the stranger lunged to the attack.

   Those Savaran with sense turned their steeds in a vain attempt at escape, but were cut down mercilessly, the strangers’ speed far beyond that of any mere creature of flesh and blood. The twin blades, now hefted in his mighty arms, struck out, left and right, smashing riders from their mounts, tearing limbs from sockets in great sprays of gore, the sickening sound of torn ligaments and cries of pain sending a chill of cold, heavy dread through the stomachs of the waiting infantry.

Finally, after long moments of blurred combat, the warrior strode slowly, patiently from the ring of dead horsemen and their fallen steeds. None had been spared. None had escaped the laughably one-sided slaughter.

He marched at a steady pace, his breathing easy, as though he’d just been out for a morning stroll, the great, black swords reflecting the sunlight as they hung from muscled arms spattered in blood.

He stopped, a hundred paces from the ranks of Clansmen assembled before him, raising his eyes, spying the Barbarian King on the wall. He planted his swords once more and opened his mouth to speak, his voice powerful, deep, sonorous, carrying with ease across the plains to the city-walls, so that the King and all his gathered troops could hear his proclamation.

“Raga!” He spat the name into the air as if he couldn’t bear the foul taste of it in his mouth any longer than necessary. The Barbarian King’s eyes widened in recognition of the voice.

“Come down and face me in single-combat.” He spread his arms to encompass the infantry gathered before him, the front ranks flinching out of reflex response, fully expecting black-tipped death to come racing their way. “Face your fate with honour and your men shall live.”

On any other day, the situation would have seemed absurd; a single man, unarmed but for a pair of swords, holding an entire army of thousands to ransom. But the carnage on the plain behind him spoke otherwise.

As one, the eyes of the army turned to look behind them at the figure that stood on the walls, his cloak and topknot flapping in the breeze, his twin scimitars buckled, as they had been for years, at his hilt.

The silence was palpable as the two stared at each other, the King and the stranger, now revealed to be old nemeses, drawn together for the third time by the fickle winds of fate.

Long moments passed, before, to the relief and surprise of all, the King nodded, his face impassive.

“I agree to your terms. Await me.”

He turned and disappeared behind the wall.

Five minutes passed before, finally, the front gates of the Barbarian City creaked open and the King strode out to meet his challenger, unhurried as he covered the hundred yards, before stopping ten paces from his rival. He looked up, having to crane his neck to meet the eyes of the towering warrior from the North, before nodding and smiling, his confidence ever infuriating.

“So it
is
you. You’ve changed once again, primitive. You never cease to surprise me.”

             
“You’ve changed too, slaver. You’ve gotten older. Fatter.”

             
Raga chuckled.

             
“This is how you intend to kill me? With insults?”

             
The giant warrior growled, low and menacing, the ground shaking with the unnatural bass of the sound, several nearby warriors stumbling back in fright.

             
“No.” He tilted his head slightly, his twin black swords launching high into the air to land point down in the grass a hundred paces behind. “I intend to kill you with my bare hands.”

             
Raga grinned, victory in his eyes.

             
“Foolish, primitive. Very foolish!”

             
Like lightning he drew his scimitars, lunging forwards to strike his adversary.

             
The giant stood there, bewildered, for the thin, bronze swords would surely snap like dry twigs against his muscled form, but before they could impact, the blades caught light with a strange and eldritch fire that tortured the air; the fire of harnessed spirits.

             
In a blur, the warrior dove backwards out of the way, the very tips of the curved blades scoring lines of flame across his chest, the skin puckering and withering beneath their unnatural touch. The giant back flipped to a safe distance in a show of agility that belied his mass, landing with a thud on his feet, before rising to his full height, the wounds already healing over as the King charged again, not letting up in his assault.

             
Arcs of bronze wove a web of flame about the giant as he dodged left, right, ducking, weaving, not letting the fire touch him.

             
The King danced about, feet moving with a fluid grace through the dusty grass, seeking an opening in his foe’s defences, a smile of supreme confidence on his lips, the knowledge of sure victory in his eyes.

             
“Your size,” he snarled. “Your power. Whatever changes you go through each time we meet; none of it matters. I will always win.”

             
Suddenly, the giant warrior stood straight, leaving his defensive crouch, just as the King charged in with a flourishing sweep that brought both blades down in a double killing blow.

             
The man from the North raised his hands, catching both blades in his palms, halting their descent with a jarring impact, the flames roaring in protest as they sought to burn his flesh.

             
The King pulled and heaved with all his considerable bulk in an effort to free his swords, before stopping, slowly realising that the big man was smiling.

             
He had been toying with him.

             
With a tortured shriek of metal, the giant snapped the swords, the bound spirits fleeing in an explosion of flame and metal shrapnel that blasted the King onto his backside but peppered harmlessly off the giant who stood, looming, smiling, over his fallen rival, his smoking hands already healing from the magical burns.

             
“Your confidence always annoyed me, Raga. It is time to show you that it’s misplaced.”

             
“Misplaced?”

             
Incredibly, the prone King smiled, then began to laugh, despite the blood that trickled from his lips and the fresh burns that glowed red and angry on his already scarred face.

             
A twang of cords under tension, like that of a crossbow, only magnified ten-fold. The warrior looked up, to the gate, just in time to see the giant ballista hurl a bolt the length of a man, streaking towards him with impeccable aim and impossible speed. The huge missile, designed for penetrating walls and siege towers, covered the distance in an instant, the shadow passing over the laughing monarch as it raced to end the giant’s life.

             
The warrior from the North raised an eyebrow as his mind calculated impact speed, the tensile strength of his skin, the density of the metal arrow-head that loomed larger and larger.

             
A smile appeared across his face.

             
Worth it.

             
He took a step forward towards the approaching ballista bolt, the air rippling about him as he moved, stretching his hands out in front and bracing.

             
Impact.

             
The warrior disappeared in a cloud of dust as the shockwave from the collision rippled out in a wave that rocked the closest onlookers backwards on their feet.

             
The dust cleared. Groans of disbelief and terror echoed about the army.

             
The man still stood, now twenty feet further back, deep gouges in the ground where the missile had forced his braced feet back through the dry earth. The very tip of the missile, the sharp point of metal, protruded from the back of one of the giant’s outstretched hands, the crimson blood dripping to the floor with a pat-pat-pat. But it had gone no further.

             
With a grunt, he wrenched the missile free with his other hand.

             
Wielding the thick, six foot arrow like a spear, he loomed over the Barbarian King, who gazed up, finally, in eyes-wide terror at the invincibility of his life-long foe. Of the inevitability of his fate.

             
“Misplaced.”

             
He stabbed down, impaling the King to the ground with a stake that as much bludgeoned as it did pierce, the point of it firmly lodged three feet into the hard ground.

And so ended Raga of the Clan Two-Scimitars.

The noise of rippling fabric and the clanking of weapons rippled outward through the army, as the warrior rose to his full height and looked about him.

The Clansmen of the Steppes surrounded him in a vast tide of humanity, each and every man kneeling, head bowed in deference to their new master.

The giant nodded, satisfied, then approached one of the generals, a stocky and grizzled veteran with a plumed horses-mane of a topknot that trailed, streaked with grey, down his shoulders. The man looked up with barely disguised fear as the gargantuan warrior strode towards him.

“You there, rise.”

The general did as he commanded.

“What is your name?”

The man looked flummoxed, taking a moment to regain his composure.

“Bhajeer. It’s Bhajeer, my King.”

The warrior from the North nodded.

“Bhajeer, tell me; where does Raga’s new pet sorcerer live?”

              The general’s eyes flicked over to the shattered remnants of the ensorcelled weapons before replying.

             
“She can usually be found in the Temple of the Ancestors, sire.”

             
“She…?”

             
“Yes, my King.”

             
The towering King looked thoughtful, before turning back to the soldier.

             
“General, have your men return to barracks. There is no more fighting to be had today.”

             
The smaller man gestured up to the hilltops at the other end of the plain.

             
“What do we do about them?”

             
The King turned, gazing up to the cheering rabble of followers that had trailed him the last weeks.

             
“Send them home, general.”

             
“Very good, sire.”

***

The streets were quiet as the new King walked through his city, though his keen senses told him that he was being watched by fearful citizens that hid behind every door, every window, every backstreet alley.

             
He turned a corner, entering the Slave Market, his lip turning up into a snarl as hazy half-memories of distant, long-lost faces flickered in front of his mind’s eye. The centre stage was empty today, the bustling crowds absent, lonely silence filling the abandoned arena. He stroked his hand over the wooden post from which the auctioned slaves were tethered.