Gods of Opar (v1.0), page 55
In long rows of twenty men abreast, the soldiers marched west along the uneven hills that skirted the Karhokoly. Near the front of the marchers, the party’s commanding officers filed ahead. One man stood out from the rest, though the warriors who walked on either side of him were extraordinary in their own right. This man, however, was obviously the commander of the group. While his leather cuirass and kilt looked battle worn, a fine golden-hilted tenu hung from his belt, and a fan of fish-eagle feathers sprouted from the top of the man’s bronze, gold-inlaid helmet, which gleamed brilliantly in the harsh glare of the Khokarsan sun. Though Kwasin had never before seen the man, he knew it must be General Phoeken himself.
Kwasin also recognized two of the large men who strode alongside the general, though he had not seen them before either. Still, their faces gave them away, as they were identical except for a gouged cheek that marred the features of one of the men. It could only be the hero-twins Bhaqeth and Klaqeth. Klaqeth would be the one with the disfigured face, a token from his most renowned exploit.
At the time of Kwasin’s exile, the fame of the twins was spreading throughout the empire like a wildfire across the savannas. The two claimed to have entered a valley to the east of Sakawuru where they had battled and slain a creature they called a ko’bok’ul”ikadeth, a giant three-horned, armor-cowled rhinoceros with skin as thick as iron and a temper as black as a starless and moonless night. Though the brothers brought back with them three enormous tusks to prove their claim, an expedition sent back to the valley by Minruth had found no trace of the daunting creature. Many began to question the brothers’ account, but popular belief still held up their reputation as heroic monster-killers. Kwasin did not doubt the twins’ story. Stranger beasts stalked the shadowy jungles around the two great inland seas. After all, he himself had once heard the terrifying cry of the r’ok’og’a while camping with his uncle along the shores of the southern sea—a hair-raising shriek that haunted him to this day. And if the dragon of the Kemus was real, why not an oversized, armor-plated, three-horned rhinoceros?
He eyed the hero-twins and the three other hulking warriors who surrounded Phoeken. Surely the tattooed one with the earring and the hook-ended broadsword was the hero Miwanes of Sakawuru. And the large, dark-skinned brute with the claw-raked face must be Toesem, the lion fighter of Towina. The third would be Kadyth the Silent, recognizable by the bright red scar across his larynx where a barbarian king had cut him before dying under Kadyth’s ax. Minruth’s greatest warriors—heroes all. And though none met Kwasin in terms of brawn or towering height, any one of them would have made a fearsome opponent; together, they might best a small army.
A bronze helmet, a cuirass affixed with a bronze breastplate, and a heavy leather kilt and leggings adorned each of the heroes. Each man except Miwanes, armed only with his ax, wore a tenu. Kwasin wondered if the warriors truly belonged to the brotherhood of swordsmen or if Minruth, following his mad reformations, had so adorned his champions in defiance of tradition.
“My scouts did not reveal this party, O King,” Gawethmi whispered. “They must have been hiding in the hills when—-”
But Kwasin did not want to hear the man’s excuses, nor did he want to let the valuable target slip by while Gawethmi took the time to signal his men. Further, he feared that the Mukhans would make too much noise as they charged up and over the hill, thus alerting the enemy and allowing Phoeken to escape. He would have to trust, however, that the Mukhans would follow his lead. If they did not, what he did next would be an act of suicide.
Kwasin left the still speaking Gawethmi and barreled down the hill alone toward General Phoeken.
At the bottom of the hill, Kwasin leaped among the spearmen who marched along the party’s flank. He let loose his wild energy, which had been pent up since his recovery from the illness that afflicted him in the temple. His ax swung out and cleaved clean through the bronze helmets of two marchers. The men fell, their skulls gashed open, before they even knew an enemy was among them.
Kwasin surged through the men toward his goal, his swinging ax clearing an opening before him as the startled soldiers retreated from his fury. Behind him, he heard a mighty uproar. The Mukhans had not abandoned him. They were charging as one down the hillside.
The tall form of the hero-twin Klaqeth appeared out of the confusion of men. Kwasin swung at him but the man parried with a spear he had grabbed out of the hands of a soldier. The spear shaft splintered like a dried twig. Klaqeth hurled himself backward, landing hard on his buttocks but unharmed by Kwasin’s ax.
Not for long. Kwasin raised his great weapon above the man, who unsuccessfully tried to dig his heels in the soft and yielding dirt in a frantic attempt to stand up. Then Kwasin lost his own balance as the force of many bodies hurled into him from behind. The weight of the falling ax carried him forward and he landed chest-first on the ground, air heaving from his great lungs. He had somehow missed Klaqeth, who had mysteriously disappeared.
Feeling both helpless and foolish—like a mighty but doomed elephant he once saw downed by pygmy hunters during his exile—Kwasin rolled onto his side as many feet trampled or jumped over him. Then, noticing he had still somehow managed to hold onto the ax, he yelled at the stampeding men to get out of his way and cut his weapon at their legs. They were his own men, but their trampling would kill him if he did not act.
The charging men made clear. Kwasin got to his feet, groaning at the pain in his ribs from injuries yet unhealed from his previous battles. Before him, not fifteen feet away, stood Captain Gawethmi. His shield and helmet lay next to him on the ground and the man cradled the bloody stump of his right arm beneath an armpit. Towering behind Gawethmi, whose face shone as pale as the moon’s, stood the hero-twin Klaqeth.
Kwasin shouted and ran forward, but too late. Klaqeth drove his sword through the back of Gawethmi’s neck, then leaped over the collapsing body and advanced on Kwasin.
By the grace of the Goddess, Kwasin looked over his shoulder and saw Bhaqeth running at him from the rear. Kwasin crouched low and swung his ax at the advancing man, who fell back to escape the blow that would have cut him down at the knees. Then Kwasin allowed the weight of the ax to spin him back around at Klaqeth. Klaqeth jumped back. Kwasin, completing his rotation, found himself again confronting the other brother. The men were like hyenas, Kwasin thought, one retreating while the other advanced in a cowardly but deadly cycle. Doubtless they had slain the fearsome ko’bok’ul”ikadeth in the same manner.
A terrible din assaulted Kwasin’s ears and all about him a tangle of soldiers surged forward. Then he was being pushed along by his own troops. Klaqeth and Bhaqeth were forced to run with him to escape from being trampled to death by the advancing Mukhan line. He no longer saw Miwanes, Toesem, or Kadyth. Perhaps they had retreated to protect Phoeken.
A cacophonous mix of shrill and throaty screams, accompanied by a heavy thudding and the sharp cracking and splintering of wood, filled Kwasin’s ears. Soldiers ahead of Kwasin slammed into one another, thrusting spears and hacking swords against their enemies’ shields. The splintering sound was that of many spears breaking, and doubtless many bones. The odor of blood, urine, and excrement caught on the hot wind.
The forward momentum stopped. He heard a whistling and looked up to see a blur of leaden missiles crisscrossing overhead. Both forces had unleashed their sling-ers, though the predominant number belonged to the Mukhans. So far Phoeken’s men had been unsuccessful in their attempt to regroup after the initial assault. Now they would have a harder time as the Mukhan javelin throwers momentarily darkened the bright sky with their weapons.
Kwasin had little time to take it in. Now that the troops’ forward motion had stopped, Bhaqeth was fighting through the men toward Kwasin. He turned and saw Klaqeth doing the same.
Shoving his own soldiers out of the way, Kwasin ran forward and took on Klaqeth. Kwasin slid the ax’s thong from around his wrist and, with a mighty heave, launched the ax at the man. Letting go of the ax in the midst of battle carried much risk, as he might never recover it. But he could not hope to defeat the brothers by playing it safe.
The ax smacked hard against Klaqeth’s shield and tore it from the man’s grasp. Kwasin drew a dagger from his belt, swung it back behind an ear, and flung it at Klaqeth. The man raised his tenu and threw himself to one side in a reflexive attempt to escape Kwasin’s throw.
Too late. The dagger plunged through the Klaqeth’s scarred cheek and impaled itself between his jaws. Klaqeth fell backward, dead.
Just behind Kwasin, a man howled. Kwasin whirled and drew his short sword barely in time to deflect Bhaqeth’s descending tenu. The blade hit with such force that even Kwasin’s mighty muscles could not prevent him from being forced to a knee. A demon rage seemed to possess the surviving twin now that his brother had been slain. Kwasin parried blow after blow, regaining his feet but falling back as Bhaqeth lunged with his longer, square-ended sword.
Stepping back, Kwasin nearly tripped over Klaqeth’s corpse. Still blocking Bhaqeth’s repeated blows, he bent down, gripped a giant hand around Klaqeth’s limp neck, and drew up the dead man before him as a shield. Bhaqeth’s blade, which had been swinging out toward Kwasin, pulled back to avoid slashing his brother’s corpse. Kwasin grinned devilishly. Taking advantage of Bhaqeth’s hesitation, he hurled himself forward and slammed a foot against the surviving twin’s shield. Again, a risky move. If Bhaqeth had not been so unnerved by the unconventional use of his brother’s corpse, he would have been able to chop off Kwasin’s leg at the knee. Instead, stepping backward from the momentum of Kwasin’s kick, Bhaqeth lost his footing and fell to the ground.
Kwasin stood over Bhaqeth. Then, with all his weight, he pressed a foot down on the shield that rested on the man’s chest. Bhaqeth groaned under the great pressure, his eyes bulging with terror as the end of Kwasin’s short sword stabbed down at his head. The man turned away and the blade impaled his cheek. It reminded Kwasin of the way he had skewered the other brother with his dagger. He smiled at the epic symmetry, and at the fact he had finished what the legendary three-horned rhino could not.
Now the soldiers about Kwasin surged backward as the enemy reversed the gains made by the Mukhans’ initial charge. Kwasin shouted hoarsely and shouldered his way forward against the tide. He needed to recover his ax before he lost his bearings in the mad rush of men.
Then he saw the ax on the ground before him, just as a large hand reached out of the chaos and wrapped itself around the weapon’s haft. Kwasin looked into the face of Kadyth the Silent and swore. Kadyth must have lost his own ax in the melee. The man, greed twinkling in his eyes, took aim at Kwasin and swung back the ax.
Out of sheer reflex, Kwasin grabbed a man running by him and heaved the fellow at Kadyth. Fortunately the man was a Khokarsan soldier, although Kwasin had not checked beforehand—it could just as well have been an ally. Kadyth’s ax sliced through the man’s leather armor. With a cry, the man collapsed. Before Kadyth could recover from his swing, Kwasin lunged forward and chopped with his sword. Kadyth screamed as the blade cut through the heavy leather kilt covering his thigh, but he did not fall or let go of the ax. Instead, unable to swing the massive weapon back without again giving Kwasin the opportunity to attack with his sword, he thrust forward the ax. The blunt top of the ax’s head drove into Kwasin’s chest, and though he wore a cuirass, the terrific blow heaved the breath from his lungs. His breastbone and ribs seared with pain as he fell backward and to the ground. His vision filled with sparkling stars, through which he saw his own giant ax descending upon him. He willed his muscles to respond, to no avail. At last, the hollow oblivion of death had come.
Then, suddenly, his vision cleared. Kwasin saw the ax that had been falling toward him drop from Kadyth’s hand and land harmlessly on the ground. Kwasin dropped the sword he had forgotten he still held and grabbed the ax, rolling out of the way just in time to prevent Kadyth’s body from falling on top of him.
Kwasin vaulted to his feet to find himself looking into the dark and ugly face of Miwanes of Sakawuru. Blood rivered down the pirate warrior’s hook-ended broadsword and onto the downtrodden grass, a testament to the gruesome work he had just finished on Kadyth.
“Why kill him?” Kwasin shouted, advancing toward Miwanes. “Are you an ally of Kho?”
Miwanes’ laugh croaked like the caw of a dry-throated raven. “Haven’t you heard?” he said. “Minruth has promised the kingship of Dythbeth to the man who brings him your head!”
Miwanes’ sword whistled through the air at Kwasin, who deflected the blow with his ax. Somehow Miwanes managed to hold onto his blade, although his scarred face winced with pain at Kwasin’s blow. Seizing on the man’s discomfort and the opening caused by the lowering of his sword, Kwasin slammed frontally into his opponent, grabbing Miwanes’ bronze nose guard and roughly heaving off his helmet. The two men fell backward into the grass.
Miwanes dropped his sword, which was useless at this proximity, then drew a dagger from a sheath on his belt and tried to stab it into Kwasin’s throat. Kwasin grabbed Miwanes’ wrist before the man could complete his motion and thrust the ax at the man’s unhelmeted temple. Though Kwasin had little room to swing his ax at such close quarters, the heavy iron head still carried enough force to crush in Miwanes’ skull.
Kwasin rose from the body of his dead opponent and scanned the chaos of battle around him. Somewhere amid the fighting, Toesem, the lion fighter of Towina, would be looking for him. But then, on the ground beyond the fallen body of Kadyth the Silent, he saw the bloodied corpse of the man he sought. Miwanes, in his greed for the king’s reward, had already done Kwasin’s work for him.
“So much for Minruth’s great heroes,” Kwasin muttered. Then he turned and rejoined the fighting.
11
By morning the tides began to turn in favor of the Dythbethans and their new allies. Phoeken’s troops already stood demoralized by their losses in the face of General Wahesa’s reinforcements. Then, shortly after dawn, yet another army appeared on the southern horizon. Kwasin immediately sought out General Wahesa in his tent, where he had been planning his next moves.
When Kwasin entered the tent he found a tall tribesman standing before Wahesa, his wife, and a captain of the army. The general, his eyes beaming as-with satisfaction, looked up at Kwasin and said, “Just as your city entreated Mukha for support, I too have fostered an alliance.” Wahesa eyed his wife as if pleased with her. “The army that approaches is under Mukhan command,” he said at Kwasin’s questioning look, “though Wan”so tribesmen make up nearly a third of the force.” Kwasin’s eyes grew wide. He had never heard of anyone making an alliance with the west-coast or northern tribes.
“Times are changing,” Wahesa said, “but so obsessed are we with this Time of Troubles, we fail to take notice. You may have heard reports lately that some of the more distant outposts have been engaged in skirmishes with the pygmies. As the seasons grow warmer, their tribes are growing in number. And as they hunger for new and fertile lands, they, along with the natives hitherto restricted to isolated regions in the west and northwest, have begun to encroach on the outskirts of the empire.”
Kwasin had not heard these reports, but then he had returned to the island only months ago. He had encountered several tribes during his travels through the Western Lands, but he had found most of the territory he passed through stark and uninhabited. That Wahesa could gather together enough of the tribesmen to organize a working army surprised him.
General Wahesa went on to explain that the tribes from which he had recruited were under the suzerainty of Daka’s father, King Mahedana of the Wan’so. Suddenly Kwasin understood the great pull Daka had over Wahesa and why the general had accepted an outlander as his army’s priestess. Their marriage had been political. Wahesa would gain reinforcements for his invasion of Khokarsa, while Daka achieved for her father’s confederation the lucrative support of the mighty Khokarsan empire—that is, should Wahesa be victorious in his campaign against Minruth. Not to mention the fact that Daka was now a revered initiate of the Temple of Kho, a position rarely granted to foreigners.
Kwasin regarded Wahesa. The man was a keen politician, perhaps too keen. He would have to watch out for him. Kwasin knew that his own marriage had been one of convenience and that Weth held little love for him. The queen of Dythbeth was as shrewd as Wahesa. When the time came for the two to meet, they might conspire, and then things would go very badly for Kwasin.
The next few days passed by in a whirlwind of activity. Phoeken and his troops retreated to the west of the great plain, but Wahesa and General Hahinqo did not want to give the enemy a chance to rest and regroup. The second Mukhan contingent was ordered to swing to the west and cut off Phoeken’s retreat. Then the combined forces of the Dythbethan and Mukhan armies were to draw the enemy to the north, in the hope of forcing the Khokarsans up against the banks of the Karhokoly. However, things did not go exactly as planned. Some of the Wan’so warriors accompanying the Mukhans could not understand the ancient ban on the bow and arrow enforced throughout the empire. Consequently, several of the Wan”so smuggled the Goddess-forbidden weapons aboard the galleys that had landed their people on the southern shores of the Kemsilemu, or Great Claw Peninsula. Somehow the Wan’so had concealed their bows and arrows from their Mukhan commanders on the trip overland to Dythbeth. Now that the Wan’so had encountered the enemy, they hungered to use the prohibited weapons.
A great argument ensued between the Mukhan commanders and the Wan’so, the result of which was that a handful of the more forceful agitators were executed. When it seemed that an all-out insurrection was brewing, the Wan”so officers serving as liaisons between the tribesmen and their Mukhan commanders turned to someone their men would listen to. This was Daka, who told the assembled tribesmen that those who disobeyed the prohibition would be cursed by their own gods and goddesses, as well as the Great Mother goddess of the Khokarsan people. Further, all ancestors of the disobedient would also be cursed. Almost immediately, the prohibited bows and arrows were turned over. The Wan’so regarded their King Mahedana as a god, and therefore Daka, his daughter, as a goddess. They believed every word she uttered, or at least believed in the reality of her threat, for often the deities had their own hidden reasons to mislead mortals. Thus the Wan’so’s fear of divine wrath settled an argument that had begun over the Khokarsans’ fear of their own Goddess’ prohibition. Kwasin believed in Kho’s wrath himself, but he did see the irony in the outcome.
