Like a storm, the armies of Kadesh poured forth from the borderlands and rode through the valley of the Nahar, a plume of dust in their wake as though they were a fire upon the earth. Summer was waning, and the floodwaters were drawing away, leaving fields covered in the black mud of the high season. The roads emerged from the water and dried in the fierce sun, and armies of horsemen rode over them, seeking the heart of empire.
Zudur was at the forefront, high in his war saddle, his helm shielding his face from the sun, and his standard-bearers riding close behind him. At his side walked the lion who was his only brother now, black mane vibrant in the waning light of day, the rear leg limping slightly as it went, a mirror of the misshapen king who led his hosts to war.
Too long had the warriors of the Hatta rested upon old victories. Too long had they grazed their horses on sweet grass and rode in hunts and mock battles, forgetting the taste of blood. Zudur remembered his childhood days, when it seemed the world lay open to their conquest, and the city of Kadesh was only a stop along the path. He had watched as months became years, and years decades, and now his father was dead and he was king, and no more would he allow the strength of his warriors to wither away. Ashem awaited, and they would take what had been ordained for them.
If he had any doubt of it, he had only to look on the lion that paced him, sent to him by the god of the sky. Ezurhad was the god of the lightning and the fire of the storms, and he had led the way of the people out of the eastern lands with a golden lion. Now another lion followed him and guarded him, and he knew he was favored of the god who had shaped his race like iron on a forge.
The sun was setting ahead of them, lighting the horizon in a blaze of fire, and when he squinted, he saw there the glimmer of water from the river and a shadow that loomed against the copper sky. They drew near to Keshan, the easternmost city of the kingdom of Ashem and long a guardian against invasion from the primordial lands. Here rocky hills guarded the flanks to north and south and channeled any attack across the ford in the river and then to the gates of ancient basalt. And there, watchful against enemies, stood the Colossus of Keshan.
Raised in a dark age, the statue was an idol of an unknown god, faceless with age so it was only the outline of a man with arms raised up. Long centuries of flood and fallow had sunk it deep in the earth so that it stood waist-deep in the mud of the river, slowly sinking deeper with every inundation. The sun gleamed on the smooth-worn shape of it, the black stone almost translucent in the brutal sun.
Zudur knew his father had sent riders to scout the way to the west, and when they had seen the outline of the colossus they had turned away, saying the city was guarded by a giant and no army could pass. Now Zudur looked on it and determined he would not be frightened away by the sight of a statue. He would ride beneath the shadow of the idol and then he would strike the ancient city itself. He would burn Keshan and drag away the plunder of its palaces and temples, and he would rip the dead kings of old from their tombs and drag their bones through the bloodied streets.
o0o
It was just after dark when a knot of red-robed men made their way from the city and down to the edge of the river where the colossus stood against fading stars. The night wind was cold, blowing the flames on their torches, scattering the smoke of incense in their swinging censers. Across the gulf of darkness that was the slow waters of the Nahar, they saw a thousand fires scattered upon the plain, and they knew the enemy waited there. The old enemy from a generation past, the barbarians who had come from the east and cut themselves a kingdom.
Now, at last, they had come to invade, and Megul, the high priest of Slud, the river god, knew that daybreak would mean death. Keshan was an ancient city, her walls old and crumbling, and against forty thousand hardened brutes they could must perhaps a few thousand soldiers of uncertain quality. Even with the river as a barrier, they could not hope to keep the attack at bay. Now was the hour when ancient knowledge was worth more than gold. Now was the time when blood would pay for blood.
The priests behind Megul dragged a hooded man behind them, bound and struggling, but he could not get free of them. The group of seven figures climbed down the slope to where the idol stood looming up from the clay, arms black against the stars, face worn away to almost nothing, so that there was only the suggestion of heavy brows and a hooked nose.
Megul looked up at the shape of it, and he smiled beneath his cowl. Here was the shape of Unar, the son of Slud, the progeny of the river god made manifest. Long ago, Unar had sinned against his father, and so he had been imprisoned here. Only the priests knew the secret of freeing him. Only the words he had learned and the blood of the guilty could unleash the power of the demigod upon their enemies. Now he would set free a might unseen since the morning of the world.
If there had been an altar at the feet of the colossus, it was long buried deep beneath the mud. Megul had no need of one. He gestured to his acolytes, and they drew off the prisoner’s hood and pinned him back against the unfeeling stone. His eyes were wide in the starlight, his mouth slavering where it clenched the rawhide thong that gagged his words back. Megul drew his bronze dagger and held it up to the sky. The river water was close, and he dipped it in the muddy flow, anointing it with the blessings of Slud.
The priests began their chanting, and their censers swayed back and forth, trailing smoke, making little arcs of fire in the night. Megul chanted the prayers to Slud in the ancient tongue that no man any longer understood. He swayed one way, then another. He held the dagger up to the wheeling stars, and as the victim made a muffled wail of fear, Megul brought it in and slashed across the man’s throat.
Blood gushed out, and the priests held the man as he twitched and kicked, gagging on his own death. Megul put his hand in the red mess, black beneath the stars, and then they let the body slump and fall, red flowing across the mud to join the river. “Water to water,” Megul said, smearing his hand across the black stone of the idol. “From the waters of the womb, to the waters of the river. We flow, we are born, and we vanish.” He bent and kissed the bloody stone, cool as the night. “Arise.”
o0o
Zudur awakened in the early fire of dawn, feeling the chill before the arising sun. He came from sleep eager, feeling the pain in his crippled leg but not caring. There was a readiness in him, for today his campaign of conquest truly commenced. He reached out and touched the lion that always slept beside him, and it stirred, lifted its head, and growled. It was a low sound, more felt than heard, and then he felt something move in the earth beneath his tent.
He got to his feet quickly, groping for his armor and his spear. He heard a distant sound like thunder, and then there came voices. They rose higher and higher, and then he began to hear screaming. The earth shuddered underfoot, and the lion snarled in the dark. Zudur grasped his spear haft for better footing and pushed through the flap of the tent into the gray light just before the blaze of dawn. Cold wind bit into him, and he spat it back. The eastern horizon behind him was a blade of rose color against the silvery sky, while the western edge, before him, was still dark. Something moved there – something immense.
He called for his horse and drew on his armor quickly, took to the saddle where he felt most alive. With his spear in hand and the lion at his side he rode toward the sounds of terror. Men began to stream past him, fleeing something unseen. Horses screamed in the dark, and he heard a great sound like the rending of trees when they fell in a storm. The darkness paled a little more, and then he saw it.
It moved against the paling horizon like a mountain come to life. Blank-faced, gleaming black stone like seared flesh, the idol stumbled through the edges of the camp. The arms were almost featureless, handless and stiff, and only one leg still ended in a foot, the other broken off above the ankle. It lurched, off-balance, all the more hideous to see because it moved like a maimed living thing. Zudur saw the great arms sweep down, shattering tents, scattering men and horses before it.
A blaze of fear ripped through him from belly to neck, and for a moment all he could imagine was turning and fleeing from this apparition, putting his spurs to his horse and riding until he had left it far behind. It came closer, silent and terrible, legs sinking into the soft soil, and there Zudur saw how it might be brought low.
He turned his horse and bellowed for his men, his personal guard and house warriors. “Get on your horses and bring ropes! Ropes and courage will save us, or nothing will. To me!” He raised his voice up into a great roar, a terrible sound that his lion echoed, and men all but lost to fear hastened to obey him.
Riders came streaming to his side, shouldering great coils of braided rope. Zudur took one for himself and spurred toward the looming stone titan. It seemed to hear them and turned toward the sound of horses, gouging the earth as it stumbled into their midst. Men broke and rode around it, evading the lashes of those terrible arms. Once and again it struck, smashing man and beast to the ground, splattering blood and bones alike.
Zudur made a loop of rope and whirled it over his head, as in his younger days when they had learned to snare horses or cattle from the saddle. “Throw! Throw!” he shouted, and he flung his noose high so it settled around one stout arm. A dozen more loops flew as one, and then another dozen. Some missed, but more fell about the arms. Some reached for the blunt head, but they fell short, for it towered too far above the ground.
He clamped his knees against his steed and gripped the rope in his powerful hands, and then he pulled. His horse knew this game, and it dug its hooves in, throwing its weight against the giant. One man and one horse would not make the difference, but twenty of them began to tip the balance. They dragged the idol and it staggered forward, fighting to get loose. Ropes snapped, and men were ripped from the saddle and hurled away, but more men came and threw their own nooses. Soon the statue was entangled in a web of ropes, and though it strained against them, it was dragged off-balance.
The thing gave a great heave to try and break loose, and Zudur was almost dragged from his horse, but he held his place, and more ropes were flung against the thing, entangling it. Men who had been thrown from their saddles ran and caught trailing lines, added their weight to the struggle. The idol staggered again, and then it crashed face-first to the earth, smashing men and beasts beneath the weight.
“Break it apart!” Zudur shouted, taking up the slack on his rope as the statue writhed and fought to get free. He saw riders leap from the saddle to climb the black stone, and they sought the cracks in the rock with spearpoints and axes. The air filled with the sound of blows upon stone. Bronze and wood snapped and crumpled under the assault.
Zudur cast a new noose around the thing’s head, and other joined him. Men and horses strained to keep the idol pinned down and restrained while other hammered at it. It was still enormously strong, and it threw them aside whenever it got leverage. Anyone who fell beneath it was crushed, and the mud under it was stained with blood and viscera. Zudur pulled, his horse pulled, and the flesh of men and beasts strove against unfeeling rock and ancient magic.
There was a crack like thunder that lashed the dawn light, and one of the arms of the statue gave way and split apart from the body, fell to the earth with an impact that could be felt and lay inert there upon the ground. The Hatta gave a cry of triumph and redoubled their efforts, hacking at the other arm and at the writhing legs. A leg split away, and then the other one. At last there was just one arm, pulling and twisting, trying to get free, but the men held it down and battered it until the stone split and it fell lifeless.
All that remained was the misshapen torso and the head, and it looked grotesque as it shivered and squirmed in the mud. Zudur came down from his horse and limped to where it lay. He almost felt pity for whatever twisted life animated this thing. A bronze-bladed axe was brought and put in his hands, and he struck at the stone neck once, twice, a third time, and then the tormented stone broke apart and the head fell to the ground.
There was a cracking, crumbling sound, and the head disintegrated, falling into shards of black stone until a skull lay revealed at the center, dark with age, the teeth made from darkened iron. Zudur looked at it, and then he struck down with the blunted axe and shattered the bone into pieces. “No witchery shall stand before us,” he said. “We walk with the strength of Ezurhad. No gods but our own. No gods.”
o0o
It was midday by the time Zudur had gathered and accounted for his army, and the cost of the black idol had been greater than he had thought. Thousands had been slain or injured, and more had scattered to the hinterlands and had not returned. Panicked horses had fled beyond capture, and there were many men who were not wounded, but were no less crippled by fear than their horses. He saw the terror in their eyes, and the sight of the shattered idol did not soothe them.
The sun was fierce, and it shone on the square white towers of Keshan, the heat making them shimmer like a vision. Zudur looked at them with wrath in his heart, and he decided they would pay in blood today, no matter what else it cost. He gave commands and formed his warriors. He left half his force behind in camp to guard their supply and tend the wounded, lest the city-dwellers try another cowardly attack, and he led twenty thousand men on horseback over the shallow ford in the river and to the shadow of the walls of the ancient city.
The thunder of hooves shook the ground and echoed off the barren hills. The Hatta gave forth their war-cries, and they charged the gates, sending forth clouds of arrows to scythe down upon the defenders who huddled behind the crumbling walls. The defenders hurled their own flurries of arrows and spears and sling-stones in answer, and through the afternoon the Hatta charged the walls, seeking a weak point. They hammered at the gates, they flung up iron hooks on ropes and tried to pull stones from the walls, and they flung arrows like rain.
Just before dusk, the gates cracked, and more hooks caught them and pulled them down. The ancient wooden doors fell to the ground in pieces, and Zudur shouted for his men to attack. He led a wedge of riders in a furious charge with spear and axe under a cloud of arrows. Men of Keshan met them in the broken gateway with a wall of spears and bronze points, and they crashed together in the chaos of battle. Zudur smote around him with his iron spear, piercing men through until his horse trod on the slain and blood ran underfoot like a flood.
But the soldiers of Kehsan fought like devils, and they held back the charge with their wide shields and desperate strokes of their spears and swords. They butchered horses and slew riders until the way into the city was blocked with the dead. The sun went down, and Zudur was dragged back from the battle, blood streaming from a dozen small wounds, his horse dead behind him. The lion guarded his side as his men carried him from the gates, and he cursed them with each step.
It was dark, and the gate had not been forced. Zudur knew his horsemen could not use their speed or maneuverability in the confines of the gateway. He had tried to push through with brute strength, and it had failed. Now the men of Keshan would build barricades through the night, and tomorrow he would have to try again and lose more of his own men. He felt his power over the army slipping away as they began to doubt, and he looked up to the emerging stars and called on Ezurhad to deliver unto him the strength to break his enemies.
o0o
By night the high priesthoods of the gods gathered in the hall of the Prince of Keshan. The pillars reflected the flames of the lamps, and the space beyond them was black as the sky, seeming to be endless. Peacocks cried in the palace gardens as the dozen holy men drew close about the central brazier and looked to the throne.
Prince Nemas was young, unmarried, and uncertain of himself. In times of trouble, he called on the gods and the powers of the priests to bolster his authority, and the army of barbarians outside in the night made him tremble to think of them. News from all sides was filled with terror. The Varonans had taken the capital and claimed to defend the kingdom in the name of the two crowns, while he had word that Queen Arsinue had raised a rebellion, and all the while some black wizard from out of the southern wastes was marching down upon them all.
Now there were the dreaded Hatta at his very gates, and the priests of Slud had called forth their sorcery and it had failed them. They had barely stood off the assault of the enemy before dark, and they all knew that another attack would come with the dawn, and the defenses of the city would break. Riders of death would tear through the streets, ravaging and plundering. The men would be killed, the women enslaved, and the ancient city would burn.
“And what do you propose we do now?” Nemas said, shifting on his throne. “Megul, you promised to destroy the enemy with the Son of the River, but they dragged him down and broke him into pieces.” He shuddered at the thought of it, sure they would do the same to him. “Pieces!”
“Many of them were slain, nonetheless, my lord,” Megul said. “We delayed their assault by half a day, if we can make the next attack costly enough for them, they may decide it is not worth the cost.”
“Half a day,” scoffed the high priest of Hadad. “That will not save us.”
“Then call forth your own god,” Megul said, angry. “Where is the power of the Unconquered Sun? Will he save us in the morning? Somehow I doubt it.”
“Do not blaspheme!” the prince snapped. “I will not risk offending any gods. Not on this night.”
“Do not suffer yourself to care for gods,” came a silken voice from the darkness beyond the pillars. “For they shall not care for you.”
The men all stirred, turning to face the shadows, and they saw something move. A few of them made holy signs and muttered oaths as a female form emerged from the dark, dressed in thin white silks and decked with gold and jewels that flickered as she moved. Her eyes reflected the light of the lamps like coins in deep water, and Prince Nemas felt coldness run through him when he recognized her.
“Queen Arsinue!” he gasped. “How came you here?”
“No place within my kingdom is denied to me,” she said. The priests gave back from her as she entered the circle of light. They had heard the dark rumors, as had the prince, though he had not believed them until now.
Nemas stood from his throne and bowed low. “My queen! Pray you have brought an army to help us repel the invaders at our gates! I hope that we may be saved!”
“I have come alone,” she said. “And yet I will see that the city is not razed. I have come, indeed, to meet with this barbarian king and make alliance with him.”
Megul held up his hands, making a sign of warding. “We will not bow to you, queen of darkness! I see now you are an unclean thing! You are an ekimmu out of the primal dark! Begone!”
Arsinue smile a bloodless smile, and then she moved so quickly Nemas screamed. She plunged her fingers into Megul’s neck, tearing through his skin so that blood gouted and ran down her arm, and then she ripped out a fistful of his flesh and he pitched to the ground, twitching and gagging. She flung the torn-loose meat of his throat into the brazier, and it sizzled there like cooking fish.
The other priests cried out and fled, scattering into the shadows of the palace, and Arsinue watched them go. She brought her bloody hand to her lips and sucked the red from her fingers. She looked at Nemas, and her eyes glittered like a beast’s. He felt his throat go dry and he bowed low, then went to his knees. “Spare me, oh queen! My throne is yours!”
“Of course it is,” she said, taking her seat there. She gestured to the corpse of the high priest on the floor. “Clean that up. See that he is burned. Bring me water to clean myself, and then I will go forth and save the city. Fear not.” She licked her fingers again. “Fear not.”
o0o
Zudur sat at the opening of his tent, looking past the fire into the night. His small wounds were dressed, and he barely felt the pain. One hand gripped his sword hilt, and the other stroked the mane of his lion companion. The stars were afire above him, and he heard the sounds of the camp on all sides. Voices of men, the grunting and muttering of the horses. Here was where he would be, rather than in pillared halls or upon silken cushions. Here was where a war-king should rule. His throne a saddle, his scepter an axe.
His men had orders not to disturb him save in dire need, and so he brooded alone, thinking on the dawn. He would order an assault, and more of his men would fall, and they would lay the weight of that upon him. His people had grown soft, ruling Kadesh. They expected victory without blood, plunder without death. He would make them fierce again, and he would see they did not lose their way again.
The shadows across the fire moved, and he blinked as a woman appeared from the darkness. She was beautiful and pale, sheathed in translucent white silks and hung about with jewels. Barefoot, she came to stand on the far side of the fire, and he saw her eyes reflect the light like a hunting wolf’s. Beside him, the lion stirred and growled low, and Zudur knew he faced no ordinary woman.
“I greet you, Zudur, King of the Hatta. I am Arsinue, Queen of Great Ashem. I have come here, alone, so that we may make common cause, and not waste our strength fighting one another.” She smiled. “Let us go inside, and speak, one ruler to another.”
Zudur thought for a moment, and then he nodded. “Very well, Queen,” he said. “Come to my tent, and we shall take counsel as kings and queens should.”
He rose, heavy on his crippled leg, and she went with him into the tent, and the world was silent, then, save for the howling of the wolves in the borderlands of night.
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