Fear’s Union

The Coming of the Age of Ku

By James Hockley

Copyright 2016 James Hockley

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The lands of Mandari Society

1 | Anticipation

SHE WAS BORED, but she shouldn’t have been.  It was so frustrating.  She chewed her lip harder and felt a scrap of skin come away.  It disgusted her, but she swallowed the debris which now slid about her mouth.  What else was there to do?  She turned her attention to the curious situation that they found themselves in.  This dreary mountainside was the last place she had expected to end up.

Everything within the range of her vision was grey, lacking any semblance of stimulation.  The sky was an endless sheet of slate, reaching from east to west and north to south.  The various mineral shades of the mountains may at least be forgiven, but even the river far below had a flat sheen to it.  What little shrubbery that survived up here existed in an ashen state, and even the current incumbents of the pass wore grey uniforms.  Twenty-one years of life, thirteen years of intensive training, and this was the result.  Her restlessness caused her to rock back and forth.

“What are we waiting for?”

Her loyal friend stirred from a daydream and looked to Anejo.  There was a distinct lack of purpose in the gaze she offered.

“I’m sorry?”

It was not worth pushing further; it never was when Xen’s mind wandered like this.  Anejo went to bite the nail of her longest finger, but the gauze mask got in the way, so she slapped her hand down in frustration.  She hated this state of anticipative restlessness, and forced her mind to concentrate on menial things.  It would not be a successful venture.

There were over a hundred mandahoi scattered about the high mountain pass.  Most were young, like she was, on the verge of tasting first action, but few appeared to reflect her eager spirit.  Most were reclined casually, wiling away the early morning in casual indifference.  A few lids were even closed, a shocking disregard for the attention this situation deserved, and one pair of eyes betrayed a stunning sense of terror.  How Aran had ever progressed this far, only Rhanna knew, but Anejo could not pity him now; something was looming.  Just a handful amongst them, the experienced caste leaders of the party, were alert, but what were they expecting?  That was the question that rankled.

She stood suddenly, drawing looks from around the group; she didn’t care.  She had a knack for noteworthy actions, or at least actions that differentiated her.  Perhaps it was because she was born into the ruling family of Ahan, but she had an inkling it was actually because she was a woman.  That annoyed her, and she felt her cheeks flush.  It was time for confrontation.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to speak to Keles.”

Xen was stunned from her dreamy state, and she jumped to her feet.  Keles, their illustrious leader, was just four years Anejo’s senior, but an ocean of experience separated them.  Anejo respected the man, she really did, but there was a tension between them that always seemed to dominate.  Maybe it was because she was a Jinq, but she suspected it was because of her sex.  She bit her lip and felt sharp pain as her oral dexterity failed.  No matter.

She turned to her friend, the only other female member of the Mandahoi Order, and was amused to see her brushing down and straightening her uniform.  It was a wonder these two companions were amiable at all, so different were their personalities.  Twenty-one years of friendship was a strong foundation, though.  Xen offered the obvious warning.

“Don’t go pissing Keles off.”

Their leader stood alone some distance up the mountain path.  He was the most respected mandahoi for two hundred years, and he was their direct superior.  In a Mandahoi system based on order and logic, nothing good could come from agitating his displeasure.  Anejo, though, had always swum upstream.

“Would I?”

As she approached, he looked cautious and contemplative, but he immediately broke from his thoughts and turned to Anejo.  She breathed in, sucking a healthy lungful of air as she continued.  Her right hand fidgeted with the cuticles, and her left hand flexed and tightened around the grip of the katana at her waist.  It was a fine weapon, a benefit of her illustrious birth, and she was keen to use it in anger.  She stepped along the stony pass with purpose.

“Anejo, don’t do this.”

Xen had come too; such a faithful friend.  Anejo turned her head briefly, grinning from behind the mask.  In but a moment she had reached her target, and her attention switched.  She spoke with just the correct amount of antagonism.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, sir, but what exactly are we doing?”

He did not look impressed, and the swelling of his wide chest suggested he was about to explode.  The words radiated as a hiss from the mask in the likeness of a bear; his favoured caste.  He was not best pleased.

“Excuse me?”

It was time to blow this situation open.  She could not take this boredom any longer, even despite the pleading touches from her best friend.

“Well, sir, are you going to lead us like the soldiers we are, or are you going to let us die of boredom, right here?”

The antagonism worked, but she wasn’t surprised.  It was a particular skill of hers.

________

By the will of the gods – all seven of them – it was hard being her friend sometimes.  Xen shied away as the provocative outburst tickled their leader from his restful state.  He seemed to expand, like a cobra before it bites.  She drew her attention from the conflict.

As she looked down to her uniform, she noticed the creases and the grimy marks of repeated use.  She tried smoothing the rough disturbance in the grey material, but it would not give.  The grime was too stubborn, and she wondered when they would return to civility.  Her hair must be a wreck by now.

“And from what position of authority do you speak so boldly?”

Xen’s momentary lapse was cut short as Keles responded.  The voice was low, controlled, but there was anger behind it.  She put her hand on Anejo’s arm once more, but the suggestion was shunned.  Her friend ploughed on.

“Let’s say, for now, that I speak as a member of the Jinq family.”

If anything about Anejo usurped her boldness, it was her cunning.  Her status as member of the ruling family of Ahan opened many doors, but this would be a stubborn lock.

“Tell me why you think I should respond?”

Xen looked to Keles, and noticed the almost pleading countenance.  He wanted this argument less than anyone, but Anejo was as stubborn as the stains on her uniform.  It was then that Keles actually looked at her, and any semblance of logic was stripped away.  She blushed, and recoiled timidly from the gaze.  She ripped his clothes away with her eyes, relishing the ordered ripples of his muscular physique, and the potency of his private areas.  She watched his eyes as her own clothes fell from her, and the excitement which showed in him bubbled in her too.  Glorious Mother, he was amazing; she could not keep her hands off—

This is not the place!  She shook her head to clear the fantasy, and found herself back where she’d been; a bland and stony path in a grey and rocky valley.  This was not the life for her.

“Because, I think there is something afoot, and I think you do too.  We gain nothing from waiting.”

That seemed to strike a nerve, and Keles partially subsided.  Perhaps Anejo was right?  Annoyingly, she usually was.  Before a response could be offered, the situation was made less comfortable still.  A second antagonist entered the fray.

“What is it you suspect, Anejo?”

Xen gawped at the newcomer, shocked by his proximity.  He was Kato, the Axis, a legend even when lined against the greatest in Mandahoi history; and yet the man was no mandahoi.  The feats associated with this oddity were beyond the realms of belief, and yet here he was, stood beside her, breathing lightly.  These shivering facts would have overwhelmed her had it not been for the sobering effect of the man’s presence: he was unfathomably plain to look upon.  The greatest question, though, was why such a legend would be here in the first place?  It just didn’t make sense, and even Anejo failed to discern the logic.

“This is not your place, Kato.”  Their leader sounded even less happy.

“No, I am not here to trump your authority.  I am merely curious as to the nature of Anejo’s thoughts.”

Keles, the Mandahoi commander, was vast; a great cliff of a man with shoulders that could span a river and legs that could support a house.  Only the placement of Mother Bright prevented him from casting a shadow upon his antagonists, and Xen thought that he might break into fury at the slip of a tongue.  The Axis, though, was rigid in his objection; it was almost as if he was one string shy of a working lute, and couldn’t comprehend the danger of the situation.  Anejo too defied their leader, but her eyes were momentarily drawn to Kato in astonishment.  Her interruption seemed to be temporarily forgotten, but Keles was not about to entertain either intrusion.

“Both of you can go.  This is my design, and I will get us moving when I deem it appropriate.  Now, leave me.”

His eyes lingered on Xen as he turned, and she felt her face flush once more.  Anejo huffed in frustration and then shook her head in disapproval when she saw Xen’s heated cheeks.  Of course her friend knew of the secret affair, but it didn’t mean she liked it.

Xen readied herself to return to a state of relaxation upon the boulder they’d left just moments before, but before she even moved, the mountain pass turned to chaos.  Her life as a soldier began, and she shivered with discontent.  This was not the life for her.

________

Anejo’s display had been outrageous, and Aran found himself marvelling at her confidence.  Oh how he wished to be that bold; but no, he was craven.  It was not his fault.

As tension swept through the ranks, Aran felt the darker side of him bubble with intent.  It was like a warm alter-ego; a second being; a split personality.  It was not a welcome trait.  The other half was wrestling him for control, and its intent seemed only cruel.  Aran did not want to concede, he did not want to be that ... thing.  He had succumbed only once before, and now he was a soldier, but that was enough.  The demonic side of him must stay locked away.

The situation changed, and Aran contracted within himself as he saw the first rider hurtle about the stony corner, sending scree skittering into the river far below.  Panic showed on the man’s face – a panic that was reflected in Aran.  The reason for this fear became clear just a fraction later, and the demon within Aran started to claw viciously at him.  He had to swallow to contain it.

Three further horsemen charged about the bend, and their demeanour was rather more aggressive.  They had weapons held high, and they screamed their threats as they gave chase.  The sounds echoed about the valley and reached Aran’s ears just as a look of shock was mirrored in the pursuing horsemen.  They had clearly not been expecting to find a hundred mandahoi blocking their path, and they were not offered much time to reflect.

It was in a stunning instant that the caste leaders strung their short-bows and let fly.  The accuracy was without parallel, and the three horsemen grunted as they succumbed to sudden convulsive ends.  The danger was instantly over, and Aran exhaled deeply.  His demon receded into the depths of his mind once more.  Sanity was restored.

A frenzy followed as Mandahoi seniors vaulted up the road to secure the situation.  The fleeing rider was eased from his horse, and even to Aran it was clear he was not long for the world.  Keles quizzed the dying man as Anejo buzzed about the periphery while every other student stood dumbstruck a hundred strides down the path.  It was when Keles laid the head of the man gently to the ground, and looked up with horror in his eyes, that the gravity of the situation hit.  His spoken orders wafted, like they moved through honey.

“Nazalia has been assailed.  We leave immediately.”

Aran witnessed the man who claimed to be Kato disappear in the direction of Nazalia, and he was suddenly very conscious that the danger was far from over.  Soon he would be asked to demonstrate his reluctant learning, and his alter-ego purred in anticipation.  Aran touched a patch of rough skin at his left shoulder blade, contoured and smooth through the material of the uniform.  Touching that deformation was a soothing action, and as he was ushered to his feet, he was grateful for the familiarity.  He would need to be strong, and he felt anything but.

It was not a long journey to the devastated town of Nazalia, and each step towards that place stirred the darkness further.  He found himself shivering, half because of the cold and half with fear, but fear of what?  Was it fear for what they would unveil in the mountain town?  Or was it what lurked within that scared him?  No, it was neither.  It was his paradox: he wanted to be a soldier, he truly did, but he could not succeed in that space without conceding to his anger, an anger that stirred the darkness.  But the more the demon grew, the more that he regressed, and so he could not concede.  He simply could not concede.  The potential of that thing was horrifying.

The scene before him was also horrifying.  They had arrived at the devastated town, and Aran was part of a ten strong group perched at the boundary.  Nazalia was dying, its soul being ripped away by rampant invaders.  Aran wanted to cry, but the darker side of him only sniggered.  What would Anejo think if she could see his thoughts?  He wanted to hide himself, but luckily he didn’t need to – he could blend spectacularly into the background.  Anejo sensibly ignored him.

What a mighty soldier he made!  The enemy must be quaking at his insignificance.  It shamed him to be like this, but rather this than a victim of the carnage in town.  Their fate was impossibly worse still, at least for the moment.  He hunkered down and hoped the horror would pass him by.

________

This was not how it was supposed to be.  Any semblance of chivalrous bravado was swept from Anejo’s thoughts, only to be replaced with something wholly alien in her privileged existence.  It sat in her throat, hot and phlegm-ridden, and it radiated through her body and charged her muscles.  She twitched with anticipation, perfectly still but poised for violent activity.  This was anger of the purest kind, utter hatred for the revolting scene before her, and she could barely control it.  Control it, though, she just about did.

Anejo watched the young citizen of Nazalia sobbing as she was roughly handled by her captors, but they were not the panicked and desperate cries of what is to come.  They were shamed and horrified moans of what has already come to pass.  She could barely be fifteen summers, but she was over a barrel, her dress hitched up and her legs splayed like a common whore.  Blood was just discernible in the flickering light offered by the burning town beyond, but that did not deter her aggressors.  The fourth was preparing himself for his own dose of cruel pleasure.  Anejo wanted to see him die.

“You are to lead this group; is that clear?”

The disturbance almost tipped her out of her tense state, but she retained her self-control and turned to look upon the face of her esteemed commander.  His cautious wait for perfection was not complementing the hatred that coursed through Anejo, and she saw his eyes flicker to the scene and back again without so much as a nudge of emotion.  But this was not the time for conflict with allies; the enemy was numerous enough.  She nodded her assent.

“Good.  You will use bows until a caste master ushers you out.  Wait for the command, and only loose when the signal reaches its zenith.”  Anejo nodded again, but was conscious of her screwed up face, a trickle of blood dribbling down the inside of her mouth where she had been chewing once more.  Keles seemed to ignore any implication of the contorted expression, and offered mild support instead.  “Good luck.”

Was that wilful ignorance or misplaced trust?  No matter.

She was left to her simmering fury, but before she could return to the scene of horror, she caught sight of Xen, clear discomfort on her face.  She knew what she intended and felt a pang of guilt for the situation that would be left to her close companions, but now was not the time.  She turned, and the apologetic sensation disappeared instantly to be replaced with a fresh wave of nauseous anger.  She scraped at a fingernail and then prepared for battle.

She held her short bow ready, evidence of her false intent if nothing else.  Her arm ached with the effort of resistance, but relent she did not.  The tip of the arrow was perfectly angled, targeting the throat of the man who still fumbled with his breeches, but there was a light breeze and it would make the shot tough.  Her eyes streamed from effort and from disgust, and as the flaming arrow streaked into the sky, she saw it through blurred vision.  A sharp gust feathered her cheek as she released, and the four aggressors stumbled in shock at the onslaught.  Her life as a soldier began.

Her own missile missed, taken as it was by the wind and deposited harmlessly to the right of the assembly.  Others had more luck, and the invader who had his chainmail hoisted about his middle slumped forward with a grey fletched arrow protruding from his round belly.  The young woman screamed harder as she was smothered by the dying body, but in a moment she was free and ran down the alley as her skirts tumbled to conceal her violated modesty.  Anejo had saved her first life, but it didn’t even register.

The other three had rallied against the flight of the arrows, and now concealed themselves behind wooden shields.  Her fellow apprentices continued to loose, but she was more than just a stock; she was a mandahoi.  As she moved effortlessly over the rocky landscape, she let her emotions fuel a rabid cry.  The first opponent showed genuine shock at the feminine pitch as her immaculate weapons cleaved through defences and tore at flesh.  This slight only served to fuel the anger further, and she surged on with gender injustice fanning the flames.  Control was now utterly beyond her, and a life that she had dreamed of came into violent being.  It was not as she expected.

2 | Trials Unforeseen

THE SOUNDS OF BATTLE PRESSED IN ON HER, freezing Xen to near stillness.  Even hidden in the rabbit-warren of Nazalia’s streets, the proximity of mortal danger was terrifying; but it was the weight of responsibility which really unsettled her.  It was simply overwhelming.  Damn Anejo and her recklessness.

She prayed that the Brother was close at hand.

Xen had jumped into the street, an impulsive reaction to cowardice, but her eight fellow apprentices construed her movements as authoritative.  She was now their leader, the strong-willed director, but as fear squeezed her, she felt anything but.  She was as scared as they were.

The street was miserable; a filthy place of overflowing drainage and general detritus.  Xen made her way nervously, the others some distance behind, concealed by the shadows.  Her senses were alert, relaying constant messages, but her will was weak and the only objective she truly sought was escape.  There was no easy way out of this.

Something plucked at her gut and she firmed her stance, coiling the fear tight in the pit of her stomach.  She attempted to convey false authority, but her effort was lacking and a devilish looking man jumped from the shadows, axe dropping fast.  Panic struck, and she swung her blade to parry, but as steel struck jarringly against steel, she yelped.

“Is that the cry of a woman, is it?”

He spoke with thickness that mirrored his size.  The appearance of the man was hard, like he lived in the constant grip of danger, and had formed robust protection, both physical and mental, against it.  He was alert, and betrayed anger that she assumed would be used to drive him in battle, but there was also greed there; wanton desire and impurity.  He smiled grimly, revealing a half set of browned teeth.  As Xen slunk away, he growled.

“I’m gonna teach you how a woman should behave, bitch.”

What a comic statement.  Her foe clearly wasn’t smart, but this did little to bolster her spirit.  As he approached, she backed nervously away.

“Come help me!"

None of her companions responded, and why would they?  They were safe.  A tear escaped, and her assailant laughed.

It was Anejo who sparked her from her paralysis, speaking from Xen’s memory.  Her friend was ever frustrated by the ‘unwarranted constraint’ of gender, and spent her entire life trying to prove it was no disadvantage, driving her in perpetual over-achievement.  Xen allowed these thoughts to rile her, to stir displeasure, and ever so subtly she felt the fear morphing elegantly into anger, an emotion she could use.  She smoothed her uniform, and this triggered a laugh.

As she contained the anger, placing it carefully in a mental box, ease seemed to spread forth.  She felt as though she was exercising, just another day of relentless repetition, and her path was suddenly clear.  It all happened so naturally.

He attacked; a cumbersome strike designed to overpower.  Despite its crude execution, it was effective, and would have bowled Xen clean over, but it failed because she stepped deftly aside.  As her opponent’s heavy weapon swept past, she used her shoulder to unsettle him.  He stumbled and fell into stagnant waste, spitting and cursing as he climbed to his feet with mud caking his face.  It was Xen’s turn to laugh.

“You little bitch.” He liked that word.

Anger flared in her, but it was contained, registering in her consciousness, but not altering it.  This was the core skill of the mandahoi, a mental control of remarkable capacity, and as the man lunged, Xen reacted impulsively, parrying the blow so that his weight shifted.  As he stumbled past, attempting to regain his balance, Xen slid her second weapon silkily into his lower stomach.  It struck a satisfying resistance.

He grunted in frustration, not registering the steel which speared him, but as Xen pulled back, she could see the colour drain from his face.  He stumbled as the blood flowed, clutching his belly and falling to his knees.  He spoke through gritted teeth.

“You will pay for this, bitch.”

Her mental control failed, and anger erupted – like a shock of light.  It seemed to take an eternity for his body to slump to the path.

The fury receded, and fear engulfed her as the horror of her actions settled.  Blood was bubbling from the man’s gaping throat, and as Xen fell to her own knees, she realised she was covered in the red of her victim’s destruction.  That would never wash out.

She wept openly, feeling the warm tears against the cold of her cheeks, and as her fellow apprentices crept from the shadows, she snapped.

“Why didn’t you help?”

None of them responded.  Xen still felt nothing like the authority she had been afforded, and she cursed Anejo for her hasty charge.  She rocked onto her feet, sheathing her weapons without cleaning them, and then turned to her small troop. There were only seven.

“Where’s Aran?”

The others looked at each other in mock bewilderment.  Xen was certain he’d made the journey to town, but he was missing now, and she cursed.  He was the ultimate coward, and she had a strong urge to abandon him, but if anyone was less suited to warfare than herself, it was Aran.

“Bloody craven.”

The curse was muttered under her breath, but she was certain the others heard.  As she retraced her steps, she managed to coil the fear away as the sounds of battle hammered from without.  This was not the life for her.

________

He was terrified, but of course he was.  He was always terrified.

A scream reverberated through the town, the signature of butchery.  Aran was safe down here, but this was still a place full of frights; not least the ones that never left him.  He rubbed the patch of skin at his shoulder, recognising the change in relief.  It was familiar, and he complimented it with mumbled words.

“... Kunati will rise again.”

He mouthed the last line of the poem that brought him such comfort.  It was unfamiliar to anyone he dared recite it to, but he knew that it was buried in a forgotten past; a past when perhaps he had existence.  He wrapped his hands about himself, stroking the comfort of his shoulder, singing his song.

“... Kunati will rise—“

“ARAN!”

By god, someone had come for him!  By all the gods who did, and more likely didn’t, care about him, someone had come to take him from this place!  Was it Anejo?  Yes, it must be, she was the only one to care, or was care too strong?  It must be her.

He climbed from his haunches, revealing himself to the dank street.  The barrels that formed his shield were poorly maintained, broken and leaking, but they served as a cloak.  He stepped from his concealment, and his demon purred as a consequence.  He could control it, he was sure he could, and he breathed in deeply before speaking out.

“Anejo?”

Silence; had he imagined it?  He stood for a moment, heart beating and his darkness on the cusp of agitation.  He was desperate for a response, desperate to hear Anejo’s voice, but when it finally came, it wasn’t Anejo’s.

“Where are you?”

He rubbed his shoulder, wrapping his arms around his body, as if that could keep the terror locked inside.  The voice was Xen’s, and she sounded angry.  She always seemed to sound angry; at least she did around him.  Did he really want her to find him?  Too late, he had spoken out.

“There, get the little shit!”

There were two of them, running through the filth towards him.  They looked terrifying, dark clothed, dark haired, evil eyes, and meaty weapons poised.  One of them was tall and sleek, a cruel edge to him, and the other maintained an almighty beard which disguised his face.  Both had murderous intentions, and why wouldn’t they?  It wasn’t every day you got to kill a mandahoi.  Prize indeed.

Aran ripped his mandibles free, horrified at how unfamiliar the weapons felt.  As he unfurled himself, he feared the darkness might escape, and he heaved involuntarily.  His aggressors growled in response, and he succumbed to a knee.  What a gallant showing.

“Get him!”

Beardy came fast, hacking down with a length of iron.  It was crude, but it was way beyond Aran’s capacity.  His mandible jumped from his hand, and as he swung his other arm in desperation, he slipped face first to the floor.  This was his moment, and it was almost over already.  The darkness threatened to crack right out of him.

“Kunati will rise again ...”

His eyes were dragged up as his second weapon was kicked violently from his hand, bruising his knuckle.  Beardy stood over him, and Skinny was just beside, pleased with the opportunity.  They obviously saw Aran as a trophy; how wrong they were.

The horror clawed within, desperate to escape and to wreak its havoc, but Aran resisted.  He’d always held it back ... except once.  Now was not the time though, never again.  He would rather die.

“Who wants to kill him?”

A nod between the men; it appeared beardy had the honour.  The great length of iron went up, Aran rubbed his shoulder, and then all seemed to go dark.  A silhouette swept before Mother, someone roared, and a short length of polished steel erupted from the taut body of Beardy.  His eyes glassed over, his muscles relaxed, and then he was falling to the ground.  Skinny was shocked, stunned by the sudden momentum, but his confusion was soon remedied.  He received the same length of steel through his stomach.

“Get up will you!  You’re a disgrace.”

That hurt, but it was clearly true.  He clambered to his feet as Skinny hit the ground.  Xen pulled her weapon free and turned stony eyed to Aran.

“In the name of our dear departed Father, you are a mandahoi!  Start acting like one.”

The horror within him calmed, receding to the pit of his stomach.  With its disappearance returned Aran’s sense of control, and he managed a pitiful response.

“I’m sorry.”  He rubbed his shoulder and mouthed his poem.  This was not the life for him.

________

Immaculate skill was only part of the Mandahoi armoury; and the lesser part too.  Any well-trained sap could wield the katana with near equalling skill.  It was the mind that set the mandahoi apart.

Relentless logic and brutal single-mindedness were part of the formula, but there were so many other components: expert interpretation of the senses; the ability to manage and repress emotions; and an unparalleled link between thought and action.  These were but a few.  The universe of the Mandahoi mental landscape was a complex one indeed.

Keles was a master of all these things.

A soldier of unparalleled capability, he was the marvel of a dozen generations.  His ability to marry speed and skill with strategy rendered him terrible in combat, and he now applied his craft in the mountain town of Nazalia.  Few even among the mother organisation of the Mahan could compare to Keles at his best, but he was painfully aware that one among them did hold even greater renown.  Kato was a legend in his lifetime, and for the first time in many, Keles had a point to prove.  It was almost a shame that the reality of the man seemed a mere shadow of his reputation.

The enemy were massing about a fountain at the heart of the town square.  What was left of the place was an open cobbled patch surrounded by pyrotechnic shells, but the flames did not worry Keles.  He approached the enemy with an ease that could only grow from a lifetime of achievement.  They were cowering, like a wounded deer before its final desperate sortie, but wounded creatures were dangerous propositions.  Desperation was not to be baulked at.

He strolled in their direction, his feet searching the slippery cobbles for the surest footing.  His blades were stowed, and he walked with a swagger that would unnerve the most stubborn enemy.  As he went, he cracked his knuckles, revelling in the sharp control the habit betrayed.  That, too, caused the enemy to shiver as a single entity, and he smiled.

A disturbance swept over him, and his attention was drawn.  From a dark alley plunged a man in desperate flight, and the reason was soon obvious.  Behind him stalked a grey fiend with unrelenting purpose and a barely concealed mood of disdain.  It was not long before the chase was up, and an immaculate length of steel punctured through flesh to render the engagement fulfilled.  Keles went to intervene before she did herself harm.

“Anejo!”

She turned on him with rabid insanity in her eyes.  It was clear that any regard for the ordered Mandahoi process was obsolete.  For a moment he thought she might strike, such was her intensity, but he had seen this before.  Damn it, even he had let his emotions free in the earliest of days.  He cracked his knuckles and spoke with authority.

“Calm yourself.”

For a moment she seemed to snarl, looking truly fiendish as she squatted over her victim, blood dripping from her weapons and pattering on the cobbles.  But at his command, she morphed into the frightened young woman she truly was.  She wept.

Exactly the reason women should not be permitted as mandahoi.  He thought of Xen, and hated himself for it.  Absent Father, please let her be safe.

He placed a hand about Anejo’s shoulder, leading her away, desperate to enquire after Xen but not permitting himself.  To her credit, Anejo was quickly restored and managed a heavy but regular breathing pattern.  It was evident that the realities of war had struck hard, but she was strong-minded, there was no denying that.  He only needed to turn her thoughts to purpose, and she would no doubt be challenging his authority in an instant.  He cracked the joint of his neck as he offered direction.

“Come, shall we finish this?”

All animosity seemed to be forgotten, and Anejo looked primed to obey; that was a rarity.  Only then did Keles recognise the approaching form at the edge of his vision, and he felt acid in his throat.  If Anejo was awkward, then this man was infuriating.  He was nothing like the legend he purported to be, and Keles did not want to allow his disappointment to fester.  He would ignore it instead.

“Are you ready?”

She nodded, but as she did, Kato interjected; damned timing that was.

“Excellent work.  Your students are most adept.  It doesn’t look like you needed us at all.”

The gift was too great.  “I was about to say the same.”

"Ahh, but we have only just begun, have we not?"

The legend stared with an intenseness that Keles had not seen before, but the irritation did not waver.

“Once we have the square secure, then we can certainly call this victory.  Do you disagree?”

Kato sighed, as if in disappointment.  Keles felt his heart skip a beat, a rare emotional affliction, and he was about to react when a rolling thunder declared itself.  Rain started, light at first but quickly increasing in intensity.  Keles stated the obvious.

“We’re in for a storm.”

“You think it thunder?”

There was something different about the bumbling man, a surety that had not previously been there.  The plain gauze mask covering Kato’s jaw did little to conceal his facial reactions, and Keles saw the serious concern.  This unnerved him.

“Yes of course.”

“If that was thunder, Master Keles, then where was the lightning?”

A heavy feeling settled in the pit of the stomach, a distinctly unfamiliar and unpleasant sensation.  It was uncertainty, and Keles did not like its intrusion.  It was soon usurped as a second eruption rolled through the mountains, clearer this time with an obvious source.  As Keles witnessed two monstrosities rising into the sky, the uncertainty melted into dread.

“Dragons.”

He found himself recoiling despite their distance, crouching as if to seek invisibility.  The dragons were vast, over thirty strides long with writhing snake-like bodies.  They were smoky grey, but their underside held a hint of orange that could have been reflected firelight.  Keles's mind was panicked, desperately seeking out a course of action, but he was lost, and felt vulnerable.  No training had instructed him on this eventuality.

It was only when Kato spoke that Keles realised the other was still standing in open defiance.  The legend spoke with a calmness that to Keles's ears seemed totally out of keeping with the bumbling personality of before.  He shuddered at the words.

“They are sendeté; not dragons.  Semantics I know, but a thing is not worth stating unless it is correct.”

Keles felt sick as the horror inside him mingled with something that may have been forging itself into awe.  Kato and his student walked casually left of Friendly as Keles watched with cold confusion in his heart; his doubts over the Axis were being washed away by the steadily increasing rainfall, and he still had no plan.  That he couldn’t help thinking of Xen only made things worse.  He tried to crack his knuckles, but annoyingly, they adopted a silent and lubricated state.

3 | Awe

THE MADNESS SUBSIDED, becoming little more than a dim ache.  Cold reason had been restored, but the ordered logic of her mind was unsettled by the exceptional circumstances.  The dragons dominated, making frequent attacks upon the town, but they were also being drawn regularly north, intrigued by the endeavours of Kato and his pupil who were scaling a face of sheer stone.  The arrogance of the move was bewildering.

Anejo was crouched at the edge of the square with Faculty Blasetté, who was, today at least, acting as subjugate to Keles, the younger caste master.  Keles himself remained in the open, defying the dragons and working his sword-craft on an enemy still huddled around the fountain.  The forays were generally unsuccessful since the enemy was safely stowed behind a collective shell of shields, but such obstacles did not dilute Keles’s enthusiasm.  He was certainly determined.

Urgency flashed, an intuitive sensation dragging at her gut, and her attention was drawn to a group of five aggressors erupting from a dark street.  Keles had not seen them, and she knew she must intervene.  So she did.

Anejo was moving before Blasetté had a chance to restrain her.  She accelerated across the square, soaked afresh as she went.  The five men did not notice initially, but as Keles became aware and turned upon his assailants, two of the five diverted their attentions to Anejo.

Arrows darted past, making a subtle patter as they carved their way through the sodden air.  Anejo was conscious of the missiles and of how close they were, but as she lofted her blades, ready for engagement, she was pleased to note one arrow thump purposefully into an oncoming torso.  He fell mechanically to the ground, life torn clean away.

Her challenge was now singular, and it was almost easy.  The training of the mandahoi was notorious, and it yielded soldiers of impeccable skill and craft.  Her opponent, by contrast, wielded his sword like an axe, marrying its weight with his own bulk.  She moved to counter with precise poise, her blades sensitive to the tiniest of commands.  There was something surgical about her movement, a delicacy to the strokes as she swept past her opponent like a dancer.  The blades themselves were superb pieces, edged to a razor finish, of the finest northern steel, and as she deflected the weighty onslaught, her swords sung with the joy of work.  It was only a matter of time before she elegantly side-stepped an approach, and sliced effortlessly through the defences of her opponent, opening his body into a bloody mess.

The pain shot immediately through her.

She held onto her weapons in desperation as she was flung through the air.  Her side was ripped to shreds as she slid to a halt, but once still, she rolled deftly onto her back, swords raised to challenge whoever had assaulted her.  What she saw was enough to break down the steely resolve, rendering her meek as an infant.  It seemed that God had come to pass judgment.

The dragon landed and was settled over her, one front and two rear legs supporting the weight of the gargantuan body.  Its wings were spread wide, casting an ominous shadow over the slick ground.  There was malice in the beast’s eyes, cruel intent spilling across its face as it bared its teeth in a murderous grin.  The other front claw was raised casually, poised to strike at the tip of a heartbeat.  Anejo was the object of that intent, and she could do little but stare up in mute horror.

Terror consumed her, rendering her body independent from her rapidly working mind.  She could feel her back slowly revealing its agony, but the pain was of little consequence when death hovered over her.  She could see Keles in the periphery of her vision, disbelief on his face and a clear lack of perceived options in his inactivity.  It dawned on Anejo that this situation was of her own design; it was for her alone to solve, no other’s problem.  It was her game of life and death, one of the thrills that had drawn her to the soldier’s path, and something in her revelled at the prospect.  Her stubborn streak wrapped itself around the petrifying fear.

The claw started its descent, the beast’s grin widening as the scaly foot accelerated towards Anejo’s destruction.  She looked on in silent rebellion, allowing urgency to consume as her body fell back within her power.  She felt her fingertips twitch at a command, a tiny reflex which eased a mountain of anxiety, and in that moment her focus was restored.  The claw continued with increasing force, and it was in a fraction that Anejo planned the path of her fate and reacted accordingly.

The foot slammed into the ground, slapping water into the air and sending tremors through the courtyard, but Anejo was not beneath it.  She rolled immaculately from her paralysis, and as the sendeté’s face twitched with confusion, she forced steel through the scaly flesh of the foot.  The dragon screamed.

It was a cry that reverberated with the age of a hundred millennia.  It was a cry so ancient that the very fabric of the world shivered at its outburst: a fundamental balance had been challenged, and Anejo was the antagonist.  As the beast darted upwards, clawing at its impaled foot, Anejo felt the pain blossom across her body, and she fell to her knees.  When Keles came over, he was not wearing a face of reluctant acceptance, or even quiet respect; his face betrayed genuine astonishment.  As Anejo’s beaten torso throbbed with rising pain, she managed a barely perceptible smile.  It wasn’t everyday she earned the respect she deserved.  It was just a shame it hurt so much when she got it.

________

There was no other way to say it: they were beaten.  Anejo’s heroics had faded into the near past, and there was only despair remaining.  Keles flexed his fingers in that specifically angular way, but still nothing.  No click, no resistance; nothing.  It was a curious thing that his comforting habit ceased in times of nervousness, and it was even more curious that he’d never recognised this before.  And yet it also wasn’t strange in the slightest.  He’d never been scared before, so how could he know?

A suffocating roar stretched through the town, transforming friend and foe alike into trembling wrecks.  The beast swept overhead, its orange belly brazen in the dull light, suppressing the masses below.  Keles arced his shoulders, but still there was only silence.  His right hand resorted to gripping and releasing the hilt of his paw.  Damn useless weapon that was against these flying brutes.

His senses fluttered, and this too was a source of embarrassment.  Nothing about Keles ever fluttered: he pounded, dominated, shouted.  He was a shell of his former self, reduced as such by the twin incarnation of the Mandari god, Rhanna.  The religious implications of seeking the destruction – albeit rather forlornly – of the beasts was at the very back of his mind.  He would deal with the disapproving Ranji priests later.  His first priority was not dying.

And yet Kato had called them sendeté.  Did that mean anything?  Probably not; the man was an idiot.

The mythology of the Axis had failed to materialise in spectacular fashion.  The legend and his pupil had ventured north, scaling, rather arrogantly, a sheer face of stone, and achieving little more than a diversion in the attention of the beasts.  It may be more than Keles himself had achieved, but it was not the stuff of stories.  And yet somehow, in an impossibly discernible way, just the presence of the man made the whole affair darker.  What did the Axis know?

“Sir.”

So that was why his senses had been bubbling; if his day wasn’t miserable enough.

“What is it?”  He did not even bother to look, and continued to massage his useless weapon.  Anejo spoke with her usual vigour.

“I’ve had a thought—”

“Congratulations.”  Probably a little on the harsh side, but his mood was foul.  “What have you been thinking, sage honour?”

That would annoy her, but he didn’t care.  His frustration at a lack of options had shortened his temperament.  Anejo wound him up, so it was his time to retaliate.

“Please don’t call me—“

Genuine panic consumed him, and he grabbed hold of the young woman, pulling her heavily to the ground.  The orange belly swept over, low enough to reach out and touch.  The breath of the thing lingered, ancient and putrid, and it screamed in frustration.  The beasts may have the mandahoi pinned in their hiding places, but they were not dextrous enough to pick out their victims; a small reason for contentment.

He looked to Anejo and saw pain in her eyes; or agony.  He eased her up, remembering where the dragon had swiped at her, and felt guilty.  He was a caste master; he should be beyond emotions.  He thought of Xen.

“I’m sorry; I am frustrated.”

She seemed to shrug off his rudeness, and spoke her piece.  She always did.

“It seems to me, sir, that this is a well considered trap.  I think this entire circumstance was designed.”

Silence; nothing more than that.  Keles spoke through clenched teeth.

“A trap?”

“Well, perhaps a detour.  These dragons are here to keep us occupied, and they’re perfect for the job.  We’re stuck in a trap, sir, and we need to break out.”

Infuriating was not a big enough word.  He could not even look at her.

“Your words are duly noted.  Now, please return to the fringes and get some rest.  You have suffered—“

“What do you think?”

He snapped.

“Of course it is a trap, and we have become embroiled right in it!  Your analysis is extremely profound, but it is also useless when stated after the event.”  He turned on her, and she looked shocked at the outburst; a fair response in hindsight.  This young woman had done more direct damage to the monsters than every other mandahoi in total.  She deserved some respect.  “I’m sorry.  You didn’t deserve that, but unless you have a way out of this nightmare, your words are weightless.”

He looked around, noting the locations of his caste masters and his numerous students; all well concealed and all utterly useless.  They were stuck, and Keles had no inkling as to what the purpose of the trap could be.  Kato’s presence had an even darker feel to it, but this conundrum was beyond even the illustrious figure of the legend, let alone the bumbling reality.  Keles looked left of, and noted the now sole figure scaling the face of stone in futility.  Was this the night that a legend died?

“Something will turn up, sir.  We’re mandahoi, and we’ll find a way.”

Not out of this we won’t.  “Your optimism is misplaced.  What we need is a miracle, a bloody god given miracle.”

Their attention was very suddenly torn left of, and Keles watched on as his miracle was granted upon them.

________

The wind whistled around him, clawing as he continued to climb.  The rock was slippery and each grip was precarious, but there was no let-up.  Kato continued to climb with the same resolve that had served him all his life.

It had taken the sendeté a while to realise what was happening, but they had a good idea now and were making satisfying detours from the shattered town below.  Their roaring was the only thing Kato heard above the shrieking gale, but it was not his sense of hearing that he relied upon.  It was the mysterious sixth sense the Mahan called ima.  He grabbed an out-hanging rock and catapulted himself up the sheer face of stone.

The sendeté sensed the vulnerability and attacked.

Kato’s mind was a blissful peace in a storm of chaos.  At the edge of his consciousness, just outside the comprehensible grasp, he could sense the maelstrom of his repressed emotions; the humanity that was forced from him long ago.  What was left was pure emotionless logic.  Gone was the pre-tense of bumbling simpleton; gone was the outward show of social mediocrity; there was no reason to play human now.  This was where Kato thrived, what he was crafted for, and as panic settled on the mortals below, Kato slowly unfurled the phenomenon that lay within.

His mind buzzed, a sweep of perception unwinding in his majestically calm mind.  The sendeté were swooping up the cliff in an awesome disrespect of gravity.  They were attacking single-file, covering the space in mere heartbeats.  As Kato reacted to his senses, he heard the pained scream of Jilas below.  His apprentice was lost.

Kato gracefully slid himself out of death’s jaws, and the sendeté streaked past with a stink carrying on the still turbulent air.  Kato extended his right arm, grabbing hard stone with precarious purchase, and was moving again before he had even settled.  He was unrelenting.

The sound of Jilas screaming as the two monsters played mercilessly with him caused the peripheral cauldron to boil harder, flickering into the edge of comprehension and then melting away before Kato could grab them; ghosts at the edge of his mind.  He had battled the sensation all his adult life, fighting to grab a fragment of the humanity that was conditioned out of him, but always failing.  Here and now, he let the humanity bubble away without interfering.  He had spent two years with Jilas, offering every day to nurture the young talent, but now that his pupil was dropping to a messy end in this bleak mountain town, Kato felt nothing.  He was dead to emotion and continued to climb as the sendeté screeched in triumph.

His senses bubbled with activity once more, a frenzy of signals blossoming as ima came alive.  He found himself obeying the one thing he truly trusted, and conscious disbelief fell across him for the most fleeting of moments; he found his hands loosening, and his legs kicking from the wall.

He did not fight the action, did not challenge the deep subconscious guidance, but confusion lay there as he watched the scant security fall away.  His mind buzzed with the spectral visage of two winged beasts tearing up the mountain, and suddenly recognition triggered in his conscious facets.  He was immediately calm.

They were approaching in a pincer, denying the route of escape he had last used.  Ima had reacted to this and triggered him to carry out the action the beasts would least expect; he was falling.  He felt gravity clawing, felt the weight of his own body dragging him into a reverse spin as he began the long drop.  The wind whipped, pulling him randomly about, but the force of falling was greater and his trajectory took him further through the loop.

It was when he was dropping head first that he angled his chin, turning his vision to the ground, dizzyingly far below.  He spotted his two assailants, one to his left and the other coming straight up from below.  The face that greeted him was of pure evil.

The beast was flying with its back to the stone, its wings extended in an elegant formation.  Tiny movements of the spiny arms changed the structure of the wing and pushed the sendeté through a delicately managed flight pattern.  The action was instinct, the beast’s eyes remaining focussed firmly on Kato, but as the Mahan legend looked down upon the threat, he felt nothing but simple clarity.  He was pleased to feel the firmness of his swords as he reached for them.

The sendeté recognised the casualness with which Kato revealed the long ghostly weapons, and its grim smile faded as the metal glinted in the fleeting sunlight.  Just moments earlier the beast wore a look of dirty pleasure on its snout, but Kato’s calm activity unsettled the ancient creature and a shadow of panic swept over it.  The sound of scaly hide crashing against stone mingled with a whimpering cry, and the beast writhed madly as it struggled to change its path.  But the reaction was late, and Kato was too close.  It was with blissful ease that he completed the turn, extended his arms, and dug two spectral blades deep into the body of the floundering beast.

The roar that went up must surely have been heard right through the mountains.

His victim flailed wildly, desperately arcing away from the face of stone, but Kato clung on.  As the sendeté screamed in agony, desperate to extricate the mahan from its body, Kato plotted its doom, and even allowed himself to consider how he would tackle the second problem.  He eased one blade from dragon flesh, allowing fiery orange blood to flow freely, and started to scale his prey like a climber on a living mountain.  He moved towards the vulnerable head as ima commanded, the bones of a plan forming in his silent and emotionless mind.

The legend continued to escalate.

4 | Roguery Revealed

EVERYONE WAS LOOKING TO THE SKIES, but she wasn’t.  Everyone watched the miracle unfurl, marvelling at the impossibility of Kato, wondering how the stories fell short of the truth.  They all watched as Kato dispatched the first, spearing its head mid-flight, before leaping majestically and shackling the other in his awesome grip. Xen ignored all of this.  She had eyes for only one.

He was as startled as the rest, staring wonderingly to the brightening skies, arms by his side, mouth clearly agape.  His profile was stunning, turning Xen’s brow moist, flushing her cheeks, warming her centre.  She smoothed her uniform as she watched, but she dreamed of unhindered nudity.  She had never seen him so glorious, and she couldn’t break herself from her reverie.  She didn’t want to in any case.

It was a double noise, two separate sources, one common goal.  The sound was not familiar, but she was a mandahoi and she recognised the intent.  Her eyes were drawn, angered at the interruption to her glassy fantasy, but the dream was quickly forgotten.  An opportunistic crossbowman had cocked his weapon, and he now took aim.  The target: Keles.

The mists of hell descended, and control was instantly surrendered.  She leapt, not a care for her security.  Her weapons scraped from their housing, still damp with blood, hungry for more.  She screamed, furious, desperate for intervention, but as the bolt fizzed towards Keles, she knew it was too late.  She saw him drop from the corner of her vision, and anger so bright filled her that she continued aggressively on.  Tears filled her eyes, but she did not need her sight.  She needed nothing but revenge.

She hurtled into their midst, her weapons writhing in a skilled dance; the training flowed naturally through her.  The enemy was well protected, huddled behind a wall of interlocking shields, but the impact of Xen’s attack prised open a small gap, and without a thought, she was forcing herself deeper into that wound.  Enemies lay dead and dying at her feet.

She swiped right, her short weapon biting steel as the enemy rallied.  The jarring impact expelled the last of the madness, and with it came sadness of the deepest kind.  This was not the life for her.  Any life without Keles was not her own.

Light faded as the enemy closed menacingly about.  She was surrounded, but she didn’t care.  What was the point of it all?  Keles was gone, and go therefore must she; they were two halves of a whole.  She lowered her weapons and let moistness flood her cheeks.

The enemy laughed, a deep multi-faceted cackle that rumbled through the private shell; the laugh of a hundred foul intents.  A set of white teeth flashed as she followed a malevolent snarl.  The commander was about to make his introductions.

“You appear to have stumbled into our hive.  I hope you can stomach a sting or two.”  Xen laughed.

It was not even that funny, just weird.  It was the frustration that she laughed at, the fact that her moments of intimate mourning for her lover would be reduced to this.  Comedy turned to anger, and determination came with it; like a faithful friend.  Xen thought of Anejo.  What would she do?  It was obvious really.

“You must be the queen?”

He was not easily provoked.

The queen shuffled forward, a pillar of light illuminating his face.  He looked hard and unforgiving, a man driven by the thrill of destruction, a man with little in his life other than destruction.  He had a surprised look, as if he was not expecting a woman’s voice, but it soon melted.

“A woman!  Alive or dead, you will offer much amusement for my colony.  They have been deprived of female attentions for such a long time.”

He sounded grotesque, barely human in his guttural slurring.  His bees sniggered, and Xen could feel tension in the crowded space.  Now was the time to strike, while they were still amused.  A tear bubbled up and she thought of Keles.  What would she do without him?  She desperately wanted to see him, and that drove her on.

She struck quickly, a rapid thrust that jabbed at the queen's face.  He was surprised, struggling to react, but from the shadows, a shield was thrown out, and Xen’s onslaught was immediately halted.  She cursed under her breath as she struggled to extract her mandible from wood, but before she succeeded, she felt a sharp sensation vault up her right leg.  She turned and found a short blade retreating from where it had punctured her thigh.

“Damn!”

The cry encouraged the hive into a flurry.  She was stung a number of times in quick succession, cruel prods just deep enough to pierce skin and muscle, not deep enough to do serious harm.  Energy was dissipating as her grey uniform turned a rich black from the wounds.  She felt dizzy, stumbling on the cobbles as she struggled to maintain cohesion, and as she looked through swimming vision, she saw the commander just a hand’s width from her face.  He eased forward so they were cheek to cheek, like intimate lovers, and hissed into her ear.

“I think you’ll enjoy my sting best, my little flower.”

She could feel vile hands all over her body, groping and massaging.  She sensed the commander readying himself, and through tear streaked eyes, she saw filthy excitement in his face.  She still held one mandible, the second weapon discarded in her fitful attempts at retaliation, and she turned it about so that it pointed hard into her stomach.  She spat at the commander, watching with hazy satisfaction as phlegm ran over his grimy eye.

“I will never give you the pleasure.”  That was Keles’s privilege alone.

She was a fluttering beat from forcing her stomach forward, and the blade in the opposite direction, but somehow, for no conscious reason, she hesitated.  It was as a dark veil started descending that her entire world turned to chaos.  Everything changed.

Light erupted from somewhere, everywhere, saturating her tear-stained vision.  The group of soldiers seemed to melt away, rattled by some unknown interference.  A crashing noise came from her right, and she found her mouth was full of dust.  The sudden invasion of her senses had lifted the veil, and she sniffed hard, using her left sleeve to wipe her tears away.  She took in the sight before her, and then she fell forwards, onto her blade, out of shock, exhaustion, and lack of blood.  She braced herself for the crack of bone on stone, and the last thing her mind offered was a fleeting memory of Keles.  It was incredibly realistic.

________

He came as close to frantic as he’d ever been.  He was beating down on the shell manically, trying to break the resolve of those within, but it was in vain.  It was all very well having the finest swordsmanship in Ahan, but against a structure of solid wood and leather, these methods would always be useless.  Fear again welled inside him, encouraged by the cries that broke from the enemy formation, and it was with mingled horror and exhilaration that his world was utterly rocked.

Anejo, of course, alerted him to the approach, and Keles looked on with disgust as he contemplated the consequences; there was nothing he could do to prevent it.  He pulled back, cringing at the guttural moans of the perishing beast that echoed across the square.  Kato was sat astride the dragon, his weapon embedded at the base of its head so that he could use pain to control the descent; he was guiding the dying sendeté towards the fountain in the centre of the town; towards Xen.  Keles could do nothing but breathe, and put his hope in a miracle; another one.

The beast hit the ground with an almighty tremor.  The whole square seemed to shake, a visible shudder at the impact, and as Keles steadied himself, he noticed cracks in the enemy’s shell.  He wanted to charge, to prise open the defences and rescue her, but logic gripped him, and he watched the sendeté continue with awful momentum towards the formation.  It struck with a sickening crunch, and continued on mercilessly.  Those who were fortunate of the enemy fled in terror; those who were less charmed were killed instantly; and those who were least lucky of all were injured beyond recovery, but left with their senses.

The fountain, which had been the hub of the enemy formation, was obliterated by the dragon’s mass, and the stone structure crumbled into a cloud of dust.  Fiery blood stained the damp cobbles where the beast had passed, and bodies lay strewn everywhere.  The enemy that dissipated were being hunted mercilessly by the mandahoi, and the victory that seemed so utterly impossible now accelerated into being.  Keles, though, was not concerned for victory.  He looked around desperately for the lost mandahoi.

He spotted her on her knees, surrounded by dying bodies, with her short-blade readied just over her belly.  She was wavering and could fall either way.  She could fall on her blade even, without the will.  Her body started to tip forward.

He leapt toward her, slipping in the blood of eviscerated victims, and rounding a slick of internal organs.  He arrived with fortunate timing, skidding to his knees, and catching Xen before the steel slid into her.  He eased the weapon away from her stomach, and tried to comfort her as best he could manage.  She moaned in response, and whether conscious or not, it was a small comfort; she was living at least.

Her body was covered in dark stains, evidence of the assault she had endured.  She was losing a lot of blood, and Keles ripped cloth from his own uniform to stem the bleeding where it was worst.  She reacted to the pressure upon the wounds, her face scrunching up in suppressed pain, and this Keles took to be another good sign; she was responsive.

He laid her tenderly on the ground, moving delicately to place her head in a position of relative comfort.  Once contented, he stood and screamed desperately for his finest physician.

“Blasetté!”

The duelling master looked up, almost oblivious to his long slender weapon that remained safely ensconced through the heart of his victim.  He nodded in acknowledgment, removed the weapon with grim ease before wiping it on the crumpling opponent, and then rushed over.  Keles tried to retain a look of concerned authority rather than panicked fear.  He suspected that he failed.

“What is it?”

“Xen; she has been badly injured.  She’s lost a lot of blood.”

Blasetté looked down at her, wincing at the stains on her uniform, but getting quickly to work.

“Dear Solemnity, how did this happen?”

“She was brave.”  That was probably a lie.  “Will she be okay?”

Blasetté nodded, and then pulled a bottle of spirit and a roll of bandage from his belt.  Keles watched on for a moment, yearning for the surety of a definitive answer, but Blasetté was not obliging.

“Get out of here.”

Keles sucked up his uncertainty, forcing his mind from Xen, and tore himself back to the issue at hand.  Victory may have been earned by extraordinary means, but he still wanted answers.  As his eyes settled on the industrious form of Kato, an undeniable sense of awe blossomed and he had a sense of wanting to be close to the man.  Then he saw Anejo hurtling purposefully in the same direction, and the awe morphed into ... something else.  She had done great things this day, but he could still not trust her.  He went to intervene before she could stir any more mischief.

________

Chaos had come, but with it arrived a sense of order.  That order was still very much in the making, but Anejo could not wait.  Something lay very uncomfortably in the pit of her stomach.  She wanted desperately to enquire after Xen, but enough attention was being offered that way.  She went to find Kato.

She arrived just as he was slicing clean through the throat of his victim, and her heart fluttered at the brutality.  The man’s gullet gaped like a wide mouth, cut from ear to ear, and blood flowed freely down his chest.  He would be answering no more questions.

“What are you doing?”

She was shocked at the treatment, but as Kato stood, she recognised.  Her stomach boiled, and she retched as she quickly averted her eyes.  The lower half of the deceased was totally destroyed, a devastated mass of tissue and pulp.  She was just able to make out the sharp fragments of proud bone, but mostly it was a red obliterated mess.  Kato stated the obvious.

“It was a kindness.”

She glanced back cautiously before turning violently away.  Only when the nausea had subsided did she notice Kato staring intently in her direction.  Keles had just arrived at her shoulder, but the legend spoke first.

“You had suspicions, Anejo.  Can you elaborate on the detail?”

The tone was completely out of keeping with the dragon violating potent of moments before.  She had to snap herself out of her stunned silence, but she was not quick enough; her unwanted conscience spoke for her.

“This is my conflict—“

“Please Keles, this is not the time.”

The slight was harsh ... and satisfying.  Kato seemed to want to listen to her, to her and not the Mandahoi marvel.  She struggled to form her words, but her emotions ran hot and they finally erupted.

“I always knew that we were here for a reason, though I question from where the impetus came.”  At this Keles looked rightfully sheepish; he had followed where Kato had led.  “The question was why a hundred mandahoi would be herded thus.  I suspect it was a diversion, though for what, I confess that I do not know.”  She scraped at her cuticles, eyeing Kato’s features eagerly.  Keles twitched beside her, rolling his shoulders and achieving that frustrating click.  It was like a stand-off, her versus her superior, and Kato was the judge.  What a judge to have.

“The true target is Altunia.”

She basked in the light of glory, but the victory was sour, and she felt herself heave.  Altunia.  Home.

“This cannot be.  Altunia is defended—“

Anejo stopped listening to the beleaguered pleas of her superior.  Everything she knew settled into place, and she was certain that Kato was right.  The whole country had been duped, and her home was now at risk.  She came to her senses, and watched as the Axis strode purposefully across the sodden cobbles of the square.  He had a plan, and she was inclined to be involved.  She chewed her lower lip and ran after him.

“You think there is still time, don’t you?”  Kato spun about, and may have even had pride edging his gaze.

“If we ride hard, yes.  If we can get to the High Councillor in time, the threat may be averted.”

The High Councillor, Anejo’s grandfather: hope fluttered into a tangible concept, and she felt purpose flowing.  She looked towards Keles, noting his resigned impression, and then returned her attention to Kato.  Her inquisitive streak was burning hot, and she knew she had to go with this strange man.  He had little hope of convincing her grandfather with such thin evidence, but if Anejo were to join him, then perhaps...

“Let me come with you.  I can help you convince my grandfather.”

He cocked his head quizzically, clearly confused.  “You think he will not heed my advice?”

She closed her eyes in disbelief. She had seen wondrous things by this oddity, but to witness him so oblivious to the social isolation he commanded within her country was strangely out of keeping.  She was surprised to see genuine interest burning in his eyes, but decided haste must take precedent.

“You must trust me.”

5 | By Dark Means

THE OCEAN WAS LIKE A GENTLY RIPPLED SHEET OF GLASS, the waves casually muscling up to the hull of the Mithras.  The sky above was as clear as the sea below, and thick with an intricate structure of celestial decoration.  All five moons were proud and full, and even ancient Father of Fortune – the Departed – held a prominent if ghostly presence.  To anyone with moral acts in their soul, it would have been a bad omen, but General Kantal of the Delfinian army, was the mischief maker this night.  He failed to suppress a smile as his mischief sailed steadily into being.

Reports came to him before he set sail twelve nights earlier, but more had turned up since; birds arrived on an almost daily basis.  The gulls were remarkable creatures, and Kantal had never imagined they could offer such value, but out here, isolated, they were a lifeline.  His plan was unravelling perfectly.

The Mikaetans descended upon the valley of Aperta in numbers not witnessed for a generation, and left of the Finder, the Gorfinians were pushing through the forest of Los. To the right of, Ahan was well and truly tied up in knots, concerned for a large Delfinian force meandering its way along the defensive might of Lebenthé.  Kantal allowed himself a fitful chuckle as he contemplated his devilish genius.  While Ahan was being drawn to the three gates that it so valued, he was sailing to the soft underbelly, carried elegantly by stealth and subterfuge.  He would strike them where it hurt most, the Mind of Ahan, and they would not know until it was too late.

Nazalia was a last moment stroke of genius.  He had always worried that the Mandahoi would not be entirely absorbed in the border scuffles, but the presence of two sendeté was the perfect way to tie up surplus resource.  They had cost a fortune, almost as much as the bribe that was sailing with him now, but the sendeté were worth every gold stallion he had paid; they would wreak havoc for days to come.  Kantal’s wonderment was broken only by sudden commotion.

The cry came from the main mast, the voice breaking from just below the top-gallant sail.  The object of Kantal’s mischief had evidently surged into view.

“Land afore.”

The Mithras burst into life, and the sailors slipped smoothly into action.  They scurried up the ratlines like a swarm, seeking out the highest point from which to confirm the claim.  Moments later the night air was filled with the soft whispers of ‘aye’.  Gods Kantal hated sailors and their ridiculous self constructed dialogue, but out here, at the mercy of the punishing ocean, he had to concede to their superior skills.

It took the general an age to make out the sight of land with his own eyes.  As far as he could tell the entire horizon was a single smooth black line, but as the ship marched on, he finally noted tiny black prominences: the Pillars of Samal.  That was Kantal’s gate to Altunia, the back door that would cost a small fortune to prise open, but when his devilish scheme succeeded, he would regret spending none of his king’s money; Ahan would fall, and the fee would be repaid a thousand times.  A warming sensation spread through him as he slipped into his plentiful daydream, and his world suddenly turned to chaos.

Blinding light filled the bow of the ship, and Kantal’s dark-adapted eyes were dazzled by the flash, colourful lights swimming across his vision.  But he did not recoil: he had been expecting this.

A fizzing sound reached his ears as a heavy fog entombed the front of the ship.  A threatening glow remained visible within the darkening mist, and as the cloud slowly dissipated into the almost windless air, the crew grew nervous.  A fight was threatening to break out.

“Calm yourselves, there is nothing to fear.”

He listened on as his orders were translated and rolled out through the ranks.  A visible ease settled upon the sailors, but weapons were not lowered.  The intrusion was still concealed in the mist, but as the glowing light faded, a shadowy outline became identifiable; they had a guest.  Kantal shook the last dregs of shock from his vision, and approached with cavalier ease.

“Is such a ridiculous spectacle really required?  A simple knock would have sufficed.”

Stepping out of the mist was a cloaked figure, a hood of such depth that the face was rendered darker than night itself.  The presence was assured, almost obscenely so, and the metallic clink of the movement betrayed weaponry and armour.  The advancing figure moved with ease, boots whispering over the wooden deck, and once Kantal had been reached, a gloved hand was extended in greeting.  Kantal took hold of the forearm in the polite manner, but the gesture remained cold.  The newcomer spoke with a rasping voice, thick with an awkward lisp that he had learned to decipher with time.  This was a man whom Kantal had grown to detest.

“You underestimate the power of theatrics, general.  I find that showmanship lends circumstance to my intention; a most useful outcome.”

Kantal’s dislike grew afresh, and he was rudely reacquainted with the basis of his hatred: the ‘Enabler’ was an unlikeable man.  He was, though, a useful man, and that fact alone made the relationship necessary.  Kantal would endure.

“Let us consider your wisdom in private, shall we?  I find myself a little chilly.”

With this, he released abruptly from the empty greeting, and made his way to the captain’s cabin, which he had commandeered.  His guest followed silently behind, like a ghost.

Kantal was permitted illumination in the quarters, a luxury that the rest of the ship had been wisely denied.  The wide windows at the rear of the cabin were boarded, protecting the Mithras from spying eyes, but within the office, Kantal had oil lamps burning.

The room itself was luxurious, gilded extravagantly.  There was a walled bed to the left, wide and comfortable with a down feather mattress pillaged from the pleasure isles of Cullin.  There was a broad desk dominating the centre of the room, a large map spread upon it, along with a plethora of tools that Kantal knew not how to use.  The desk itself had ornate legs, curved in the likeness of swans; very foreign.  The other side of the cabin was filled with expensive furniture and two heavily secured chests, which belonged to Kantal’s king; his bribe.  He eyed them nervously as he entered the room.

He sat behind the wide desk and found himself fingering the edging, avoiding the gaze of his guest who settled opposite.  The door to the quarters was closed behind the pair by a brute of a sergeant, and Kantal felt comfortable in the fact he was amongst friends.  If anyone should be nervous, it was his guest, but there was no sign of disquiet on his countenance. Kantal felt the familiar flutter in his stomach, an apparent consequence of audience with this freak.

Once the Enabler was sat stiffly in the cushioned seat, Kantal turned his gaze to the dark pit hiding the man’s face, and offered a broad smile.  He needed to gain the high ground, and he would achieve this through courtesy.

“Would you care for a drink Master, ah, Enabler?”

His guest’s hood was so deep that even in this brightly lit room the upper hemisphere of his face was utterly obscured.  The lower half was just discernible, and Kantal cringed at the sight.  The right side of the face was covered by a heavy iron mask, hard edged with a disturbingly formed pair of lips forged in the design.  The left-half of the hidden face remained un-masked, and the flesh of the jaw appeared to be a mottled mess of bristly skin and leathery patches; like a lizard.  Kantal shuddered at what might exist under the mask, and his dislike mingled with fear of the unfamiliar.

When the anomaly spoke, he did so with the lisp that appeared to be caused by the facial deformation.  His skin snapped and cracked as he forged the speech through cumbersome lips, and the words themselves seemed to be spoken around heavy breath.  They were suffocating.

“A glass of cool water would be adequate.  It is peculiar to be surrounded by water, but unable to quench one’s thirst.”

Kantal expected nothing less of this frugal character, but he decided to tease for entertainment’s sake.  It was all part of the delicate game of control he must master.

“Would you not prefer something stronger to celebrate our ...  arrangement?”

“You are well aware of my inclinations, general.  I would appreciate some consideration on your part.”

Kantal shrugged his shoulders, and made a point of pouring himself a large chalice of ruby-red wine before picking up a solid silver pitcher and pouring water into a wooden tumbler; small slights that he hoped would rankle.  The Enabler took the drink with a courteous nod, and seemed to ignore the intended offence.  With an edge of frustration, Kantal drank heavily, enjoying the rich and complex flavours as the wine rolled around the different parts of his mouth.  It left a fruity note on his palate, very pleasant indeed, but there was also smokiness that made him thirsty for more.  He considered it a very clever construct.

The devious side to Kantal’s nature was taking control as he reclined, and the unravelling success of his grand plan was stirring arrogance.  Here he had the Enabler, a man he deeply disliked, in a world where he was master and commander, and he consequently indulged.  The questions rolled off his tongue, like the sweet-tasting wine.

“What is the reason for such diligent concealment, my friend?  Are you a particular fan of Gorfinian fashion, or do you have something to hide?”

The Enabler took a casual sip, his lips cracking with the action.  He placed the wooden vessel sternly on the desk, and looked towards Kantal with what could only be construed as amusement.  His disfigured mouth curled at the edge.

“I think you’ll find that the origin of Gorfinian attire is hardly a consequence of fashion.  Have you ever broached that subject with a Gorfinian, face to face?”

Kantal squirmed: he had no business talking to Gorfinians at all if he had anything to do with it.  He felt his command of the meeting slip, and he knew he must retaliate.

“Then I suppose you have answered part of my question, but not all.  Why do you see the need to seek such concealment?”

The Enabler laughed, a bristly amusement rolling from the dark space under the hood.  He spoke with deep pitch.

“I believe I suggested earlier that the power of mystique is a wonderful thing.  I strongly suggest you consider what it could do for you.”

He was being mocked, but he could not quite see how.  That hurt, and he decided to attack with the only verbal tool he truly mastered: a subtle threat.

“A mystique may have some purpose, but I find an open personality is far more effective when breeding trust.  I don’t trust you, and I am therefore struggling to maintain faith in the outcomes I am seeking.  You will forgive me if I require further evidence before I am comfortable with our ...  ah ...  exchange.”

He let the statement linger, let the tangibility of its meaning sink in.  There was not the slightest change in expression on the visible face, but Kantal stayed silent nonetheless.  His guest obediently broke after another precise sip of water.

“My work, General Kantal, is to enable.  Do you understand what this means?”

Kantal leaned back and shrugged.  “By the Uncle’s wisdom, please do enlighten me.”

“Do you think that the work I carry out will always please everyone involved?  Do you believe that the events I facilitate are beneficial to all parties?” Kantal shook his head cautiously before the Enabler continued.  “Very wise.  Do you therefore suggest that my trade is the nurture of trust when certain parties will invariably be displeased with my activities?”

Kantal countered.  “And yet, surely the bond of trust is only necessary with those you represent—“

“No, that is not how these things work.  I am a facilitator, not a trickster.  I have others with whom the bonds of trust are forged.  I only enable what others seek.  That is all.”

Kantal scowled, recognising the intent of the words.  He was trapped.  “You dare to suggest that your employers do not always trust you?”

The Enabler reclined casually, and took another sip.  Kantal knew he had been outdone, even though he did not yet understand why.  The man’s response was as arrogant as it was true.

“I usually find that my client’s desire for facilitation is greater than their desire to trust my person.  My work is to feed off the greed of others, and greed often usurps more savoury faculties.  It is a most useful frailty.”

It was a frightening synthesis of the human condition, but it ran disturbingly close to the truth; Kantal could try to argue that he was not hungry for his victory over the Mandari of Ahan, but he would be lying.  He had yearned after that victory every moment of his adult life, ever since his definition.  It was what he was made for.  He was the Maul.

But the notion soured Kantal’s mood and evaporated any further impudence.  He sat back and supped on his wine, not now finding such delight in the drink.  His mood was about to depress further.

“If you are so desperate for evidence of my faithful delivery, then I will be happy to offer some up.  You have news of Nazalia?” Kantal nodded cautiously.  “And what is the outcome?  Have you snared yourself anything?”

Kantal sucked down a deep breath.  Nazalia had been his stroke of genius, his moment of brilliance, but he felt it slipping away.

“One hundred mandahoi have been embattled there.”  The Enabler stared back, and his dirty grin cracked even wider.  Kantal was ushered to press.  “Are you suggesting you have involvement?”

“General Kantal, do you really believe that one hundred mandahoi would roam about that desolate place without coercion?  You have too much faith in fortune.  I am the Lord of Chance, general.  Not you.”

He had not heard that one before.  “Lord of Chance – what ridiculous title is that?”

“It is my veiled name, and it is beyond your comprehension.”

Kantal chilled.  His world was crumbling around him, the bricks of his masterpiece revealing varying architects.  He had thought to compete with this mysterious freak, but his back was now well and truly bent.  Fortunately, the end was in sight and the Enabler pushed for the goal.

“You were saying something about the exchange.  I assume you are happy to proceed?”

Kantal remained silent and walked to the two chests.  He lifted the lid of the first to reveal a bountiful pile of twinkling coins.  In each chest was loaded one hundred thousand gold stallions, more wealth than he could hope to see in his lifetime.  To hand it over to this foul man angered him, but it was not his decision to make.  He had suggested that they bulk the gift out with painted fakes, but his king was eager to avoid dispute and had dug deep.  The sight of the second locked vessel gave Kantal a satisfying idea, a final desperate attempt to save face, and he turned upon the Enabler, eager to inflict a floundering blow.

“You will understand if I keep back half of the coin as, ah, security?  It will of course be paid once the services have run their course, but I am inclined to keep it close.”

The freak sat silent, clearly annoyed by the intention in the statement.  Kantal wondered briefly whether he had gone too far, whether he should have kept it simple to ensure a smooth execution, but his pride would not let him back down.  He gulped, on an edge between joy and horror.  Which way would it go?

“You may deliver the second chest to the Lord Nadari upon completion of your passage.  It is him that you will be angering with this pathetic gesture.”

The Enabler rose from his seat, drained the last of his water, and moved to the chests.  Kantal slid candidly out of the way, and watched as the Enabler elevated the other locked chest with disturbing ease.  He offered a frigid gesture of thanks with his free hand, turned smartly, and departed the cabin with his cloak flowing gracefully behind.  His feet barely made a noise.

Kantal struggled to keep pace as the strange man marched to the fore of the ship, and he was still moving when the Enabler stood to attention, bowed his head for a distinct moment,  and then issued a downward swing of the arm which triggered another great eruption of thick smoke.  When the mist finally cleared and Kantal peered through, the Enabler was gone, and so was the gold.  The spectacle stirred the crew to burst into astonished exhalations once more.

Kantal shook his head with a mixture of disgust and confusion.  The crewmen were muttering in wonder, speculating on whether he had flown from the craft like some winged demon, but something in the timings suggested a more mundane method of departure.  He turned to the stern of the ship, noting the tense look on the captain.

“Passage has been secured.  You may proceed.”

The Mithras continued on its way, and Altunia would fall on the morrow.  That was really all that mattered.

6 | Mind Games

DAMN IT, this was not ideal preparation.

By Felip’s reckoning, it was well past midnight, and the camp was all but dead, his men sleeping fitfully in anticipation of what was to come.  He too had been at rest, sleeping before the exertions of battle.  The entry of his chief steward into his dream was most unwelcome, and Felip was even more annoyed when he realised it was no dream at all.

“What is it?”

“Sorry sir, but the sentries have encountered a pair of trespassers.  They claim to seek an audience with you.”

Most confusing: he was leading a reserve that his grandfather had specifically established to ambush the Mikaetans tomorrow.  No-one, save his grandfather, was supposed to know of this, and so the arrival of anyone seeking audience was concerning.  He would have to oblige.

“Who exactly is seeking my counsel?”

The richly dressed servant shifted with agitation, as if nervous.  Eventually, he resigned himself to his duty, and spoke up.

“One of the two declares that they are of your family.”

Anejo.  This was terrible news.

He dressed in a loose cotton shirt and casual breeches.  His mood was even sourer given the arrival of his damned sister, and he skulked after the steward with ill temper oozing from him.  He was to be avoided.  When Felip finally erupted into the tent, his mood lowered still.

She looked bloody, beaten and tired.  She looked less of an honour of House Jinq and more of an overworked butcher.  Her posture betrayed severe pain right down her back, and there were cuts and bruises visible to her jaw.  Only her eyes seemed vibrant and a reflection of her true personality.  This was not right, but why could she not see that?

The man sat next to her raised his temper further.

“What is he doing here?”

He spat the words, no attempt to hide his scorn.  He had little enough trust for the Mandahoi, unnerved by the fact that his sister had so eagerly joined their ranks, but the presence of this man was beyond tolerable.  The Order of Mahan was the ultimate symbol of Mandari failing, but Anejo clearly disagreed.

“You owe him a great deal, of that I assure you, but it is I who wish to speak to you.”

“There is plenty of room outside.”

“Felip, no; he stays.”

Bloody disobedient pain in the...  It was unacceptable, simply unacceptable.  None of his troops would speak so disrespectfully to him, so why should she?  She needed to be dropped a few steps, but now was not ideal.  She needed to be gone ... where she belonged.

“What do you want?”

She breathed deeply, shaking discomfort from her body in the process.  As she sat up and looked deep into his eyes, she implied urgency with remarkable effectiveness.  She believed whatever it was she wanted to say.

“Altunia is in grave danger.  We need to save it, and we need your help.”  Felip laughed mockingly.  The audacity was remarkable in its own perverse way.

“What preposterous statement is this?  You want me to abandon my duty on the basis of claims that must surely be false.  From where did you muster this story?”

Anejo sighed deeply, but she was not done.

“We are out of Nazalia, which was invaded, and their commander confirmed, under persuasion, that the move was a deception.  The real threat closes on Altunia, but there is still time.”

He wanted to glean the part of the other in all of this, but Anejo’s claims were too ridiculous to allow diversion.  His simmering mood would have to be targeted at her.  It seemed it always was.

“How, sister, do you suggest that such an attack could be made?  The approach upon Altunia is not vulnerable to any direction.”

There was only silence, which angered Felip.  How could she turn up, at this time, and request such action, when there was not even a reasoned argument to support her claim?  He swiped his hand in disgust, and was about to leave when she stood and played her final hand.

“Felip, listen to me.  I don’t know how, but it makes sense.  Altunia, our home, is under threat, and I believe this to be true.  The Mikaetans are here to distract you, and so to do nothing would be to play into their very hands.  Please Felip, you have to do this.  You have to do this to save our home.”

She was trying to guilt-trip him; a woman’s tactics.  Or was it?  His damned sister was not known for her feminine traits.

“No, you have no evidence whatsoever, and yet you ask me to abandon my station, and our grandfather.  We will crush the Mikaetans tomorrow, and then we will return to Altunia in victory.  I will not abandon my duty, and that is the end of it.”

Desperation now crept into her tone.  Her game was almost up.  “What if it’s true?”

He slammed his fist onto a tall chest of drawers.  The crash made the guards in the tent jump, and Anejo looked shocked by the display.  Only the mahan seemed totally unmoved by the action; freakish bastard.  Felip wanted the matter closed so he could get back to his bed.  The following day would be difficult, for many reasons.

“I will not waste words any longer.  Goodnight.”

He turned with the intention of leaving, but halfway towards the exit, he halted in response to her parting words.  This was stubborn emotional suggestion, even by her standards.

“Fine, I will go and try to save our home.  I’ll tell your wife and children that you were too busy to come to their assistance.”

He stormed into the darkness with his mood even fouler than it had been when he was awoken.  He was still wide awake when he heard his sister mounting her horse, and riding from the camp.

________

The dragon arced over him, its shadow dominating all about.  Its front claws rested on a domed building, which was edged by four peripheral towers, and a tall spire of a building which served as the military hub of Ahan.  The beast held an elegant stance, its chest pumped out, its head pointed to the heavens, sapphire blue flame shooting out.  Its wings were stretched magnificently, like it was laying claim to all below, marking its territory with its shadow.  The creature was spectacular, and Aran wasn’t scared at all, for this was the Mandari god.  He thought of the Stranger, and scratched at the leathery skin of his left shoulder.

“... Kunati will rise again.”

“What are you singing?  Is it that ridiculous ditty again?”

He scratched harder, and considered the terse stare of his friend.  Was friend too strong?  It was difficult to decide when there was no frame of reference.  She seemed angry, agitated, but that was no surprise.  He supposed that he would be anxious if his home were under threat.  Not the place he called home, but an actual home.  Somewhere he didn’t know.

“Sorry.”

“Oh, don’t be so wet.  If you want to sing then sing.  Just hold your back up straight enough to fight your damned corner.”

What a baffling exchange.  He hadn’t meant to anger her, that was for certain, and yet somehow he had.  All he’d done was apologise.  Maybe he should try again.

“Sorry.”

She shook her head, huffed, and turned away.  He had clearly failed, again.

“Don’t worry about her.  She’s upset.”

Anejo cast a stern look in Xen’s direction, but didn’t snipe.  Aran noticed that Anejo was digging at the skin about her nails, burrowing down and searching for the pain that would ease her burden.  He felt sympathetic, and scratched his shoulder.  The noise it made, like nails over uneven stone, was satisfying, and the darkness within him seemed to purr.  He shuddered.

Xen smiled weakly as he turned to her, and this surprised him; what a turn of events.  She was normally the one to disdain at Aran’s meek persona, berating him for his lacklustre behaviour, but here she was comforting.  She did look as though she wanted to be here less than Aran; perhaps that was it?  She sat against a stone pulpit, her skin pale and her body spotted with dark stains.  She’d let her hair loose, scraped into a tight greasy tail.  She seemed embarrassed by her appearance, diverting her eyes, arms folded over her littered uniform.  She didn’t look her usual pristine self, but that was understandable.  She’d almost died, and she’d saved Aran’s life.  Embarrassment bubbled up and the darkness sniggered.

He shied away from his saviour, and found himself considering Anejo’s tense form once more.  She was still digging beneath that nail, but her eyes were focussed.  Her god, Rhanna, or at least a stone representation thereof, may have been guarding over the city, but the enemy were not cowed.  The three students were huddled on the left hand portion of the ramparts of the central citadel – which was called Sentience – and they looked upon the bridge that presented the only access across the embracing river.  The Delfinian horde was terrifying to behold, and Aran felt himself shudder.  Was that the wind?  He suspected not.

“They won’t cross, will they?”

Anejo tensed at the question; she evidently wanted no interruption.  She allowed only a sparse response.

“They would be fools to.”

That appeased Aran, and his heart slowed to a canter.  Anejo and Kato had been the last to arrive, just as the rest of the city was being ushered behind the protective gates of the citadel.  She had strutted in with all the authority that her family name endorsed, but the show had been brief.  Keles may have been overshadowed by Kato, and perhaps even by the young woman herself, but he was not conceding his command.  She was sent to the left flank, punished to linger amongst the injured and the cowardly.  Here she was, with the surplus, looking upon a dark stain that threatened her home.  Aran looked back into the citadel and stared at the palace once more.  It was vast.

“Is that really where you live?”

“Yes, now will you please shut up.”

He turned and found her staring icily from behind her gauze mask.  She was not joking.

“Sorry.”

“Oh, I give up!”

There was, evidently, not a correct time to say that word.

A noise disturbed him, and he found himself looking to the Jinal Bridge, the great expanse of stone and gilt that laid an elegant passage to the citadel; the home of the Jinq; the Mind of Ahan.  It was a startlingly beautiful place, cast in spectacular white stone, elegantly modelled, and topped, quite literally, by the awe-inspiring architecture of Rhanna’s dragon-likeness.  It seemed almost offensive that such a place would be threatened, but Aran supposed that was the point.  A dark man on a tall horse stepped onto the bridge and spoke up to the gatehouse.  It was Keles who responded.

The exchange was only brief, and it seemed to be concluded when the Mandahoi strength was revealed.  About fifty grey shrouded killers revealed their collective potency, and the Delfinian on the horse was visibly shocked, even to Aran’s eyes.  Anejo too had revealed herself, standing guard upon the doorstep of her home.  Aran wished he had something that he would, so defiantly, stand for.

The moment seemed to teeter, as if the threat was tipping delicately back.  The Delfinian circled his horse at the nudge of a knee, agitated, surprised by the show of strength.  He was deliberating, determining his next move.  Anejo was right; they had to flee.  There was no other option.

And so he did.  The horseman slid back into the ranks of his men, taking station at the rear before jumping from his mount.  Aran rubbed his shoulder and sang his poem, his ditty, eager to see this black stain gone.  The darkness pushed out, like it was excited.  He gulped it back down once more.

It seemed the Delfinian had some parting words, and he turned to the citadel to speak them.  Even Aran could make them out.

“You have brought this upon yourselves.”

The mass advanced, and the Jinal Bridge was stained black with invaders.  Arrows flickered, and just a moment later, a great booming rhythm went up.  They were battering their own entry, and Aran cowered in response.  Each thump against the gates stirred the darkness from the frail shackles of Aran’s resolve.

________

Damn the insolent bastards; they meant to attack.  Damn them and all their self-assured cockiness.  Damn them and their numbers, their order, their collective presence.  Damn them all, and damn that black commander most.  The siege of Altunia began.

She pumped her katana with her left hand, nodding rhythmically as she did.  Her second weapon was lost, embedded in the claw of a now deceased incarnation of God, but one of her precious weapons remained.  It looked like she would need it.

The enemy marched smoothly forward, meeting the gates of Sentience with a purposeful crunch.  The noise that went up seemed too loud, booming through her tattered soul, but Anejo quickly discerned the source.  A battering ram was safely ensconced in the midst of the attack, and as a thousand Delfinians hid themselves beneath a carpet of shields, the shuddering pulse of the siege equipment went up.  Anejo dug at her thumb, prising her nail deep into the flesh.  A spike of pain went through her, but that was good.  It kept her on edge.

Scaling ladders were quickly thrown up, and a stream of men began the climb, wailing manically as they went, but this was no place to climb.  The enemy were on a bridge, and it was with satisfying ease that the steps were discarded into the river far below, spilling the assailants like seeds on the wind.  The Mandahoi presence was strong, far stronger than it should have been, and arrows flickered into the black mass below.  Yet the brutal siege engine continued, and the gates creaked in response.

Anejo leaned back over the ramparts, watching the impact of the attack within Sentience.  Behind the great gates, which were bowing to an alarming degree, was a small contingent of Jinq guards in the highly polished regalia of the exhibition forces.  The fifty or so men looked petrified, even from a distance, and behind them cowered the city’s population; a hundred thousand impotent men, women, and children.  Only the gate held this city intact, and that inadequate defence was succumbing to the pressure.  Anejo pulled out her bow, and revealed her frustration to the enemy.

Xen was useless, and rightly so; she had been badly injured.  She now peered out from behind the stone defences, fear evident in her eyes.  Aran too cowered, but his was not excusable.  How had he ever made the cut?  She made a note to ask him.

Her own missiles littered the near side of the bridge, but from this distance the efforts were all but useless.  The enemy were packed tight, shields locked in formation, an impenetrable shell.  The battering ram continued, and the enemy ploughed on un-fazed, but Keles was not about to concede defeat.  To Anejo’s horrified eyes, it was in-humane, but this was war; there were no rules.  When the boiling oil spilled over the edges of the gatehouse, her heart even fluttered with satisfaction.  That wasn’t right, but it felt good.

The front end of the enemy went into frenzy as the boiling liquid swept through the smallest of spaces, scalding flesh as it went.  And then the burning brands were dropped, and the entire bridge turned to a blaze.  The screams of the enemy were horrifying, and on the light breeze, the smell of burning flesh wafted.  It was foul, but it was satisfying.

Despite this onslaught, the enemy came on.  The battering ram was salvaged, and the rhythm of defeat resumed once more.  Various siege tactics were tried by the defenders, but the enemy numbers were abundant.  The gates miraculously held, and Anejo chewed her lip.  It was always bleeding now, crusted and scabbed in places.  She had to stop.  Her left hand still pumped her steel, her bow discarded in frustration.  She wanted to do something to save her home, but what could she do?  Very suddenly, she was given no choice.

It was fleeting, and she had to peer hard.  The enemy formation was tight packed, rigid and strict, but the break flashed once more.  Moving through the mass of dark soldiers was a darker character still.  He was cloaked, shrouded in black, and it was when he looked momentarily in her direction that she recognised the danger.  Then she saw the rattler, the tool of this man, and she shivered.  The gates would not last.

Her length of climbing rope was out before her mind could rebel, and she very adeptly shackled a flagpole almost halfway between her and the bridge.  She climbed onto the crenulations, testing the firmness of purchase.  She was about to concede to gravity when a desperate plea forced her to stall.

“What are you doing?”

“The Black Guild is down there; someone needs to stop them.”

“No Anejo!  This is madness.”

She smiled, the thrill of the moment wiping her fear away.  Her friend was right, this was madness, but someone had to do it.  Her words were not considered.

“It’s only madness if it fails.”

And just like that she descended to the gates of hell.  She cascaded onto the bridge, and was very suddenly alone, just her and a thousand Delfinians intent upon her life.

7 | The Gates of Hell

WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

“The Black Guild is down there; someone needs to stop them.”

Xen’s words fell on clogged ears, and she found herself watching, mouth aghast, as her friend committed almost certain suicide.  The unexpected was always to be expected with Anejo, but this?  It didn’t bear thinking about.  Xen clawed her way from her injured comfort, and pleaded openly.

“No Anejo!  This is madness.”

Her age-old companion paid as much heed as she usually did.

“It’s only madness if it fails.”

Then she was gone, exploding upon the enemy formation with remarkable impetus.  Damn it, did every stupid thing she did have to be edged with gold?  It only encouraged her, but despite her impact, there was no way out of this.  She savaged the immediate enemy, but the masses wrapped around her, like a tide.

And then Xen’s world fell apart.  From the high battlements of the gatehouse, she watched Keles ready himself, perched precariously on the edge of the stone parapet.  He was watching the insanity of Anejo, and he uncoiled a length of rope, dropping it three-quarters of the way down the gatehouse.  In a mere fraction, he was descending rapidly, skilfully controlling his velocity with his knees before dropping into the death pit below.  He was gone from her sight, dissolved into the mass of the enemy.  He too offered himself to inevitability, and Xen’s heart cracked.

“KELES!”

She was consumed by panic, desperation cleansing her of pain and tiredness.  She unclipped her grabber and swung like a maniac for a handling of Anejo’s quality.  The claw embraced the flagpole for a fleeting moment, but it bounced meekly away and succumbed to gravity.  She had tears in her eyes as she reeled the tool back in.

“You can’t go over there!”

How dare that little bastard interfere with her intentions!  Her dearest friend and her lover had just thrown themselves to certain destruction.  There was simply no way she could sit back and do nothing.  She continued reeling the rope in as she let loose her disdain for Aran.

“Shut up, just shut up!  What right do you have to tell me what I can and can’t do, you little coward?”

That hurt him, the impact of the abuse clear on his pathetic face.  She turned to witness the engulfing crisis once more, tears hot, her breathing short and desperate.  She flung the rope a second time, and was distressed to see the hook completely miss.  She released the instrument, resigned by her lack of ability, and then fell to her knees as sobs racked her body.  Tiredness dwarfed her once more, and she slumped to the stone.  Aran peered at her pleadingly, sadly even, but he was a spineless imp.  She did not want to concern herself with him.

Her whole life, everything she existed for, was at the mercy of the Delfinian army.  They were a famously unforgiving foe.

________

He couldn’t believe the stupidity, the arrogance, the preposterous insolence of the act.  She swept into their ranks, skittling men this way and that.  Her blade flashed quickly, and it danced elegantly as she brought purpose to her madness.  The ability did not diminish the idiocy though, and Keles cursed the damn woman.  She would need to be punished for this, punished for her reckless behaviour, for the danger it put others in; if she survived that was.  She could simply not be a mandahoi, not with this insane trait.  She was a mindless, dangerous, idio—

He saw the guildsman, and recognised the rattler.  They were in serious trouble, and she had been right.  Was she always right?  It didn’t matter, not now.

He flexed his shoulders, and the satisfying crack dutifully followed, energising him for his assault.  He had not intended to drop, it would be madness after all, but the choice was denied.  Anejo had risked herself, and so must he.  He stepped forward, the air snapping his greys, gravity grabbing him.  Wind whipped across his face, but he was not disturbed.  The paw was extracted, a great brute of a thing, half hammer and half sword.  As he descended the final stretch, the heavy steel crushed down on its unsuspecting victim.  The poor fellow didn’t stand a chance.

The enemy were instantly disorientated, confused by the onslaught from above.  Keles took advantage, and swept his paw about in anger.  There was nothing deft about this combat, nothing refined and precise.  The weapon had massive weight, and with his bulk behind, it cleaved great gashes in the opposition.  The blunt edge broke bones and battered flesh, and the finely honed reverse sliced effortlessly through limbs; like a razor through hair.

A space appeared, a clearing of death and destruction; his destruction.  His breathing was frantic, not enough air in the world, but his senses were his own, just about, and he spun to see Anejo spearing her latest target.  Her attention turned to the guildsman, the black cloaked, gold masked magician, and Keles went to join her.  The enemy were reforming, closing the gap fast, and as Keles got to the student, she rammed polished steel through unguarded flesh.  The guildsman died, but from beneath his body sparked a trail of crackling smoke.  The fuse was lit, and the rattler was primed.  The army at his back very quickly halted.

“Get here!”

He grabbed her, fury in his voice, but not aimed at her.  She had done well, but failure loomed.  The rattler, a semi-dome of heavy iron, was in position against the beleaguered gate of Sentience.  Within that quarter sphere would be packed a frightening volume of dark magic; powders and explosives.  Keles saw his only option, sprinting past the fizzing carpet of dust, dragging Anejo and heaving her between the rattler and the edge of the bridge.  The explosive weapon would usually be held in place by great poles and a mass of men, but Anejo’s impact had shattered its stabiliser.  The thing would be uncontrollable, putting all at risk, but the gates would crumble, unless...

His weapon was forgotten, only desperate effort consuming his mind.  He had never been lacking for strength, but as he went to haul the body of the rattler about, to turn the explosives away from the gate, he thought he could feel his very muscles snapping.  His face went into a mad grimace, eyes tight shut, fire stretching through him.  He heaved like he had never heaved before, like he would not live beyond this moment; that was probably true.  But the rattler stayed, refusing to succumb, stubborn; just like he was.

Anejo added her weight to the effort, and the margin was earned.  The apparatus slid awkwardly at first, but momentum was gained, and the gaping threat yawned out.  The enemy visibly recoiled from the danger, and as the blanket fuse spread into the mouth, Keles pulled Anejo roughly behind the iron dome.  He pushed against the pressure of the explosion, and held his breath.

The world turned upon him, pressed into his body, but he resisted, disorientated by the unimaginable sound, terrified.  The world grew white hot, so damned hot, and he closed his eyes to hide from the piercing light.  His vision was stained with fire, the heat grew, he retched at the pressure, felt Anejo cowering within the midst of his embrace.  The noise escalated, ripping his ears to pieces, tearing at his soul, shattering his eyes, his teeth, his bones, until finally, desperately, it ceased.  The world took on a strangely serene state.

Everything stayed white, stamped by fire; the ghostly blanket of his destruction.  The noise had stopped, but instead there was only a high pitched wailing sound.  He looked about, not seeing anything, desperately confused.  Was this death?  Was that the sound of the dead coming to greet him, the wail of his past?  Was this really the other side of the veil, such clarity and singularity?  No, it couldn’t be, it was not the time.  He had not said goodbye to Xen, had not kissed her.  He couldn’t go just like that, and so he would hold back.  Something moved within his grip, and he recognised the feel of a student unwinding in his arms.  Was Anejo with him in death?  No, this was not the end.

A cough, a scream, the desperate cry of shattered victims; these were the noises that greeted him as the wailing – no ringing – died away.  He was alive, shocked and battered, but alive.  He turned his head, and his vision stayed blank.  His eyes had been scorched, but no ... there was the hint of green.  It was just a mighty mist, the shroud of destruction.  It would clear.

His attention was dragged to the bridge, to the scene of carnage.  It was just unfolding, the extent of the annihilation, but it was revealing itself.  He stood, struggling as he went, coughing uncontrollably, and then he needed his wits; only they had deserted him.  In the white mist formed a shadow, and then it had edge, purpose.  A vast weapon unveiled its length, and a fiend came stalking behind it.  The spectre had murder in its intent, and Keles was the target.

He was not ready; he had no weapon, no energy.  He went to move, and stumbled, his sense of balance ripped right from him.  As he crumbled to the floor, his hand landed on steel, a crude length of weapon, any weapon; anything steel would do.  He climbed to his feet, but gravity deceived him and he fell again.  The man came closer, their commander, a devilish looking adversary, slight but sturdy.  Keles forced his feet once more, and as the weapon of his newest opponent swept upon him, his own defences were desperately drawn.  The weight of the strike added to his leaden arms.

He stumbled a third time, rolled away, and his snarling enemy stalked after him.  When he finally found the cohesion to rise and face his opponent, the fight was already lost.  It was only a matter of time, and he suddenly pleaded for Anejo’s assistance.  He found her in his vision, but distress settled.  She was less orientated than he was.  He would have to survive this on his own, but this was beyond him.  He needed a miracle.

________

The Maul: that is what men called him.  The Grey Plague and Mandestroy were other permutations, but Maul was the original and best.  The name derived from a reputation as killer of those most frustrating of foes; the Mandahoi.  It was not a name lightly earned.

It was how he won his place as an officer, a moment of madness gripping him, death stalking him.  Only he did not succumb as all others did.  He killed them, and he battered them savagely.  A reputation was forged, and Kantal had ridden a wave of notoriety ever since.

It was no isolated incident either.  The stories blossomed with the reputation, each occurrence adding to the growing legend that was the Maul.  He had in excess of a dozen trophies, the weapons of these prize victims, a shrine to his greatness.  This was a victory above all others though, the invaluable scalp of a Mandahoi demi-god.  Keles’s death would taste sweetest of them all, and the fact that he was disorientated would not sour the moment one bit.

The man was pathetic, wielding his scrap of metal desperately.  Kantal’s own weapon swept down in a killing arc, and as the impact arrived, he felt the resistance falter.  His victim was well below his capabilities, and the moment was close.  His small army had been brutalised by the guildsman’s wares turned upon them, but this victory would stir the spirits, bring them back.  He still had the numbers, and the gates looked precarious.  Victory was still within his grasp, and he went to earn it.  He had paid enough after all.

The smell of saltpetre filled the air, a sharp sense, strangely sweet, that wrinkled his nose.  It was difficult to breathe in the environment, and he felt like dust saturated his lungs, but that was no restraint.  His skin was moist with the effort of killing, his arms full of dull ache and yet infused by furious anticipation.  It was a joy, this work, the savagery and insanity of it stirring ecstasy in his mind.  Anger melted seamlessly with ambition, and focussed training spilled forth as steel swept impeccably through the fog.  It was almost too easy.

The other mandahoi was still hunched over by the gates, struggling to even stand, but their trophy would also be appreciated.  Two new blades with which to embellish his shrine, and this man’s would top them all.  The legend of the grey stumbled once more, and as Kantal kicked his victim’s weapon easily away, his anger fuelled the end.  He could sense the rising wave of his men’s excitement as his great blade drove on, and his heart neared new heights as the moment came.  It was with a jarring sense that the end was denied.

The other had come to play.

No, not the other; they were still cowered against the whitewashed gates of Sentience, looking on forlornly.  Keles was backing away, fatigue and desperation clear in his expression, disbelief perhaps to still be alive.  That was satisfying in its particular way, but his death would be sweeter.  This new interference would suffer the same fate.

The Maul swept upon the alternative, turning his death blow into an adept flash at a face.  This new grey was quick, snake fast, but they all were.  It had not stopped Kantal before.  His heavy steel danced from side to side, swiping the two slim weapons of his opponent in rapid deviation.  The mandahoi persisted with his attack, which was quickly becoming defence, but Kantal was practised, and his blood ran like the greatest of rivers, fuelling his rage and his effort.  The moment blossomed, like a flower in spring, and he saw the opportunity for his first kill.  A quick glance confirmed that this would be uninterrupted, and when he returned to his victim, a jarring sensation struck him.

He wore the grey, but it was ever so slightly paler.  There was no caste either; just a gauze mask over the jaw.  Skirts flowed from the waist of the man, and a delicate silver circlet was woven into the hood.  They were all unfamiliar signs, and for a moment they confounded Kantal, but not for long.  He would not be denied his victory.

The mandahoi, or whatever he was, had angled his arm back in a desperate search for leverage, and as Kantal tangled the second weapon in the teeth of his gauntlet, his right arm hissed forward, snapping hungry steel into tender flesh.  It was almost as if there were no resistance at all, and as Kantal’s arm powered on, his smile broadened.  But his momentum never stalled, the resistance was too weak.  His balance failed as a consequence, and he very suddenly recognised the reality.  His victim had turned aggressor.

Somehow, unbelievably, ridiculously, the man had angled his torso such that Kantal’s steel slithered right past; almost like he bent his very body.  The arm was still angled away, but in a frightening turn of velocity the weapon accelerated.  Kantal threw himself forward, desperate to avoid the blow, all anger forced from him; fear encroaching.  He slammed into the floor face-first, and as the flourish of dizziness struck him, he felt a mighty blow to the back of the head.

Darkness, hazy darkness, stars, lights, swimming vision.  The stages of his recovery were unwelcome and time consuming.  When he shook his head to rid himself of the final dregs of shock, the immaculate point of a Mandahoi katana was poised delicately at his temple.  His breathing rattled, and his head throbbed with an unparalleled pain.

“Look.”

Of course he obeyed.  He wasn’t stupid, and he barely had a choice regardless.  The second straight edge of his tamer was pointed against Friendly, to the wide green plains of Ahan, and to improving visibility.  Kantal was confused for a moment, not recognising the relevance, but it soon struck him despite his agony.  There, in the middle distance, was an army; a much bigger army.  The banners of Ahan snapped proudly in the summer breeze, and in that instant, he knew he had lost.  Time was against him, and the battered gates of Sentience now seemed made of stone.  A horn called out, and he could sense his men being drawn to the same conclusion.  Any semblance of resilience was instantly demolished, and his ordered assault turned to panicked flight.  The blade swept from his temple, and he watched the mandahoi walk purposefully away.

He dragged himself to his feet, and the pain amplified, crashing about his skull.  He swayed where he stood, only balancing himself when his fellow officers intervened.  He would go, defeat souring his tongue, but before he did, he had to know.

“Who are you?”

The man turned, and Kantal suddenly realised how small he was; the bastard.  How had he done what he did?  The words that reached him only confused the matter, but they were enough to silence him.

“They call me the Axis.”

The bastard; what kind of idiot walks around declaring his identity with such a ludicrous identifier.  The Maul stumbled from Altunia, blood on his lips, and defeat sinking heavily in the pit of his aching stomach.

Thank you

Thank you for reading these sample chapters. If you enjoyed them, the full novel is available from major online book retailers.  And if you really enjoyed it, then please feel free to spread the word and recommend to friends!  Self-published authors rely on word of mouth, so your voice is very important.

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James Hockley

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