Emperor of the Black Flame

 

Dust rose beside the river, and the sun set the ranks of spears afire as the legions marched to war.  Emperor Retarius rode among his armored bodyguard, watching his men deploy even as he kept an eye on the horizon where another cloud of dust showed the approach of his enemy.  All roads led to this place, all decisions and plans and strategies led to this single moment where men and blood and iron would decide the fate of kingdoms.

His plans to move his men south along the river and catch the approaching Hatta in between two armies had been checked, and the river battle had been costly.  He had lost both ships and men, but he had both in plenty.  The Hatta had taken the main crossing, and there they awaited him, and he knew they only waited because they expected reinforcement, and now that force was drawing close as well.

He had word that this desert usurper had allied himself with the deposed queen Arsinue, as well as the barbarian king of the Hatta, and that troubled Retarius, for he knew the true danger of a man who can make alliances as well as enemies.  A ruler must have both, after all, and the test of greatness is the choosing of them.  Retarius was a man with no enemies who remained alive, and so he felt a strange kind of gladness to meet a new enemy now, in this unexpected place.  He had come to put down the last spark of rebellion from an old, respected foe, and now he found himself grappling with a worthy adversary.

The river lay on his left, and the crossing was just out of sight to the south, over the scrub-covered hills and a cluster of date palms in a small orchard.  There was a town nearby, and he could just see the dusty rooftops if he looked to his right, but it was deserted and would not matter.  The enemy expected him to come and try the crossing, exposing his legions to the sweeps of Hattan horsemen, but he would not oblige them.  He knew this enemy would come leading with the charge of horse, and his foot-bound legions could not match their attack power against that.  Against a mounted enemy, he was forced onto the defensive, but he was prepared for it

The ground here was broken by small hills, scattered with irregular stones.  Already his men were setting their lines, picking up rocks and hurling them outward, where they would make charging horses trip and stumble.  He had siege weapons brought from the city, dragged here with great effort and set to fire on the rushing enemy.  Here the horsemen would find their mobility restricted, their charges shortened by a lack of open ground.  Arrows and javelins would bring them down and blunt their assault before it could land.  He knew if he could break their first two attacks, they would begin to lose heart, and his own position would strengthen.

There was little for him to do until the hour arrived.  His men knew their business, and he had no need to watch over them.  He rode to the small, upraised hill where a few broken pillars marked where a temple had once stood, and there his pavilion had been set, slaves waiting to attend him.  The enemy attack would not come until the afternoon, and he would rest until then.  Some cool water and cool wine, something to take away the close heat of this place.  He came down from his horse and went inside, feeling the tremble in the earth below him of armies on the move.

o0o

Utuzan stood in shadow, watching his armies gather in the light.  The rainy season had passed, and now the waters of the flood were receding and the days grew hot.  He remembered cool afternoons beside a vanished sea, watching ships skim back and forth under bright blue sails.  The memory shimmered before his eyes like a mirage.  He wondered again, as he had before, if he could harness the power he had to remake this land, if he could bring back the rain and the seas, if he could make it a lush, green place rather than a narrow strip of life crushed between the jaws of the deserts.  He did not know, and he disliked that.  He did not like unseen limits on what he could do.

While he had slept away through ages, imprisoned in a cell that was meant to be a tomb, the world had passed him by.  The land grew dry and silted away into sand, and men marched one way and then another, killing and burning, tearing down whatever stood until now there were more ruins than palaces, more forgotten tombs than temples to living gods.  It was a country of ghosts, and he wondered if he could make it live again.  If anyone could.

But to find out, he would have to fight a last battle, and he would have to crush a greater enemy.  The emperor of a distant land came to face him, thinking him some desert chieftain, or perhaps a trickster.  Always, in this age, they refused to believe who he was, what he represented, and what he meant to do.  They could only understand him in the frame of their own petty ambitions and rivalries, they could not allow themselves to believe what he was.

He saw Kardan emerge from the muddy waters and stride up the slope toward him, and he awaited his most terrible servant.  Kardan had once turned against him for love of a traitorous queen – a love he still carried.  Once a man, now a beast scaled and armored like a river dragon.  He walked with heavy tread and with his tail scything behind him with every step.  Utuzan awaited him in the shade of the stone wall behind him, and the reptilian giant bowed when he reached him.

Utuzan held out his hand.  “Do not bow before me, my champion.  I chose you to become great and terrible, and I chose well.  Not all men could have endured this change, not all men would have come back to my side after a breach.  I do not blame you for your choices, Kardan.  Battle comes this day, and I will need you.  If we are victorious, I shall give you whatever you wish, whatever that may be.”

He looked beyond Kardan to where the army moved like a vast living thing, not made up of countless men and beasts, but a single will and a single life.  “Everything is within reach, my friend,” he said, seeing into an imagined future so near he could all but feel the texture of it.  “It is all so close to us now.”

o0o

Retarius woke in his tent and saw the sun was all but gone.  He stirred and sat up, feeling uncertain and irritated.  He had expected an attack in the later part of the afternoon, and yet none had come.  He did not like being wrong: It made him wonder if he were wrong about other things.  His certainty had always been his great weapon.  He had spent his life guessing what others would do, and he was the ruler of an empire because he was often right.

The braziers had burned down to only coals, and it was almost dark in the shadows of the pavilion.  He realized he was hungry and reached for the bell to summon his slaves to attend him, but then he hesitated, and he saw something move in the darkness.  A shadow loomed against the far wall of the tent, as though someone stood just outside, silhouetted against the silks by the last of the sun, but then the shadow moved and he realized it was inside with him, and he felt fear like the taste of iron on his tongue.

The shape turned and he saw two gleams like eyes, and then it was taller, seeming to engulf the chamber, existing in the smoke from the dying braziers, and he felt a presence there, as a weight that pressed upon him.  Retarius had lived long near the core of power, and had encountered many rulers and leaders of men, but he had never felt an emanation like this.  It was as though in comparison to this faceless shadow his own existence had become thin and ephemeral, like smoke.

“Emperor of Varon,” the shadow said in a voice that seemed to reverberate as though within a vaulted hall.  “I had wished us to meet, eye to eye, but it seems that will not occur, and so I have come through shadows to meet you the only way we shall meet.  I am Utuzan, the Son of Anatu, the Black Flame.  I am your opponent, but I need not be your enemy.”

“You come unannounced into the presence of the Emperor, and you seek to parlay with me?”  Retarius slowly climbed to his feet, one hand groping until it found his dagger and closed on the hilt in a death grip.  “You come like a thief in the night, and you seek to address me as my equal?”

The shadow laughed.  “I was heir to a greater empire than yours before the first of your race uttered a word in your primitive tongue.  Empire was my birthright then, and it is mine now.  I have come to this later age and I will make of it what I wish, what should have been mine.  I will cast my power over all the lands, and all the peoples.  I will make a garden of plenty of this desperate land, and I will not cease at the shores of the sea.”  The shadow stretched forth a hand.  “You may stand in my path, or you may choose another course.  I come to offer you my countenance, and my sovereignty.  If you fight me, you will be destroyed utterly, and none shall even remember your name in ages to come.  But if you bow to me, then you shall retain your throne beneath mine, and nations yet unborn will bow before you.”

Now it was Retarius who laughed.  “You think I would bend my knee to a desert conjurer out of barbarian lands?  You know nothing of the pride and the grandeur of Varon, nor the conquests by which we have come to rule the four corners of the known world.  Kingdoms far across land and sea give us homage and tribute, and he who rules the empire is the greatest ruler of men the world has yet seen.”  Retarius clenched his fist.  “I have fought and schemed and betrayed and survived for thirty years to become emperor, and if you knew how I have struggled for this throne, you would not think I would surrender it at a word from you.  Your kingdom is sand and legend, and to them you shall return.  My legions will break your army of savages and conscripts, and I will drive you back whence you came.  Seek not to cow me with your tricks, I fear them not.”

The shadow drew itself up.  “Very well, I will accept your answer.  You will have cause to curse this moment, and the choice you refused, but I shall not offer it again.  Look for me to come as a pillar of fire, and not all your legions will prevent me.”

The shadow grew larger, consuming the chamber, snuffing out the smoldering braziers, and then Retarius flung up his hands and thrust his dagger forth uselessly, crying out as the coldness of the shade seemed to pass through him.  A wind coursed through the tent, whipping the silks and moaning like a banished soul, and then it was gone.

Retarius heard his slaves coming, their voices alarmed at the sudden tumult.  He lowered his hands and looked at the blade of his dagger, wishing for the clean contest of battle, iron against iron, blood against blood.

o0o

The night came filled with ten thousand stars, and the sky was a black so deep it seemed endless.  The legions encamped in their fortified positions, behind rows of sharpened stakes, their tents in close order so the men were always near to each other, ready to throw themselves into their armor and to their ranks at the sound of the call.  Riders ranged outside the camp, carrying lanterns and watching for any surprise attack.  The night was still, the breeze cool from the east, and the sounds of singing insects and calling birds a constant chorus.

The attack did not come by stealth.  There was a sound like thunder, and a bolt of red lightning smote the southern horizon.  Where it had touched the earth a pillar of crimson fire roared up, but it did not fade, but rather grew taller, the glare of it so bright it hurt the eye to look on it.  Slowly, the column of fire began to twist, like a dust devil given fiery form, and the roaring of it shook the very air.

Men came from beside their fires, from their tents and bedrolls, and they lifted their eyes up to look on the pillar of flame, flinching from the brightness.  They all watched as it began to spin with slow majesty, and then it advanced with the steady pace of a titan.  Fire went before it, igniting the scrub brush in the rocky hills, red lightning trailing from it like a veil.  The sound was a bellow that made the ground shudder underfoot, and for a moment men stood paralyzed as they watched it come.

Then captains began to shout for men to get into order, and the camp exploded into action, soldiers rushing to don their armor and gather shields and spears and swords all at once.  Drums beat and horns called and the legions formed into their ranks, each looking with fear upon the tower of fire, red light illuminating their faces.

Retarius came from his tent, slaves following him to finish fastening the ties on his armor, and he stared at the sight that met him.  The night was alight with a crimson glare, and he remembered the words of the shadow as it left him.  Look for me to come as a pillar of fire, and not all your legions will prevent me.  He felt real fear down in his belly, as he wondered what men in ranks could possibly do against such a power.

There was thunder beneath his feet, and then the tower of fire crested the last hill and he saw before it a wave of armored horsemen charging wild-eyed for his lines, and he shouted for the men to hold fast.  Here was an enemy he understood and could fight.  He heard the screams of horses and then there came the dark song of arrows descending through the night.

The riders were deadly archers, and with the fire at their backs they could see to loose their flights of black-shafted death in scything cloud upon cloud.  Arrows fell on the legions like grim rain, and hundreds died before they could raise their shields and hunker beneath them with arrows quilling the earth around them.

The war engines loosed, and stones and bolts slashed into the horsemen, but there were not enough to slow them, much less stop them.  Red lightning arced from the pillar of fire and scarred the earth, shattering the guarding rows of sharpened stakes.  Legionaries were blasted off their feet, their formations breaking, and then streams of riders came pouring through the gaps with axe and sword, and the night flowed with blood and the screams of the dying.

The legions were caught by surprise, their lines broken, and the riders went through them like spears into flesh.  Without their tight formations, the foot soldiers could not hold off the attacking horsemen, and the riders cut them down from all sides, the whole dissolving into swirling chaos.

But the discipline of the iron legions did not break.  The battle drums called for them to fall back, and they did, men forming shoulder to shoulder with their fellow soldiers and fighting their way back, passing through the masses of tents, where the ropes and stakes tripped the oncoming horses and broke the charges.  Arrows began to fly from the legion’s archers, and riders began to go down, horses screaming as they were stung by bronze points.

Retarius was on his own horse, riding behind his lines, shouting orders to get the men back into some kind of ranks.  The enemy charge had been spent, and they were swirling now, driven back for a moment to regroup, but they would come again in moments, and this time they had to face a wall of spears and shields.  His own horsemen were gathering, but they were too few to face such a huge force of cavalry.  He had to save them for when their charge would be needed, for the right moment.  Now he had to form lines and fall back toward the river.  The horses would be bogged down in the mud, and he could retreat to the boats if he had to.

Something was rushing, like a wind, and for a moment he could not tell where the sound came from, but then his horse danced sideways and he looked down and saw water pouring across the battlefield.  There was no rain, no storm, and yet the river was rising, and he saw his men staggering as ankle-deep water flowed around their feet.  It was rising rapidly almost to their knees, and then he heard something inhuman bellow in the darkness.  Arrows began to fall all around him, and the pillar of fire flared bright as a sun.

o0o

Kardan rose from the river, feeling his old strength in his limbs, in the sweep of his tail, his arms like iron, his skin an armor no blade could overcome.  He carried a long spear in his right hand, and in his left a hammer cast from bronze in the shape of a ram skull.  He broke the surface, a wave swelling behind him, and he roared into the night.  Even his scars now felt like bolts of power seared into his flesh, and he knew nothing could stop him.

He waded from the shallows, and the enemy ships were there along the shore, drawn up in long rows, and he bellowed as he reached the first one and broke open the hull with one stroke of his hammer.  He heard men on the decks shout and the sounds of running feet, and then arrows began to rain down on him, snapping when they struck his iron skin.

Kardan laughed, but his voice would no longer make such a sound, and so he only let loose a long, guttering snarl, and then he smashed open another ship.  Javelins glanced off him, and he stabbed upward with his long spear, impaling a man and lifting him off his feet, hurling him overhead and out into the black waters.

Fire kindled there in the dark, and then a line of small sparks trailed across the surface of the river.  For a moment it was only that, and then as one the sparks lifted and soared above, and then a flight of burning arrows came down out of the night and slashed across the beached ships.  Men screamed and shouted in alarm, and fires sprang up.  Kardan roared and another flight of arrows came, and another.  Out of the darkness came a vast flotilla of river barges, each of them brimming with Utuzan’s foot soldiers.  Guided by the pillar of fire they pushed in to the attack, raining fire on their enemies, and the Varonan ships were cast into a panic.

Kardan bellowed and moved among the galleys.  Some of them tried to back water and get afloat where they could maneuver, but he simply crushed their hulls open and left them foundering in his wake.  Here and there decks began to blaze as men tried and failed to fight the fires that sprang up under clouds of arrows dipped in burning pitch.  Desperate men leaped from the rails of the galleys to become mired in the mud or to flail in the shallow waters.

The attack of river barges came on, and men threw out ropes and climbed aboard the galleys, armored and with swords in hand, ready for battle, they overran the defenders, hacking them down and casting their corpses into the waters.  Whenever they seized a ship they broke open the hold and loosed the slaves chained to the oars, adding their vengeful fury to the ferocity of the battle.

A galley almost made it into the stream, but Kardan was there, and he pulled himself board, the ship tilting beneath his weight.  Men showered him with arrows and spears, and he battered them aside with his hammer and with sweeps of his tail, splattering the deck with blood.  He pinned the steersman to the mast with his spear and left him there, splintered the deck and ripped it apart to reveal the ranks of chained men in the holds, and then he reached down with one clawed hand and broke the chains between his fingers.

The rowers burst free and ran howling onto the deck, butchering their former captors without mercy, and the galley ran aground on a sandbar.  Kardan looked to the west, where the pillar of red flame threw crimson light across the world, and he held up his hammer in salute.  This battle could only end in one way, the way of the Black Flame.  He called for the foot soldiers to follow him, and then he leaped into the water and waded ashore, following the sound of battle.

o0o

Retarius could barely believe how swiftly his legions came apart.  Water swept across the field and took men off their feet, and then he saw a glow of fire where he had left his ships.  The barbarian horsemen came riding in like a wave of iron, and arrows cut down his soldiers in windrows.  He heard the dreadful sound of battle lines meeting, and without the hollow sound of shields, it was the sound of death, of armor and bone splitting beneath the blows of axes and swords.

He turned and shouted to his cavalry, trying to form them up.  If they could rally, he could lead them from the battlefield.  It was too late to win or even to hold, he could see that.  He had not become an emperor by fighting impossible battles, and this one was over.  Now he turned his thoughts to escape, and knew he had to be swift, or the nomads would simply ride him down.

The pillar of fire rose up, piercing the cloud of smoke above, seeming to touch the velvet arch of the sky itself, and then there was a stroke of red lightning and a towering form was there before him, wreathed in black and seated on a horse that howled like a wolf and with eyes that glowed like coals.  The giant appeared as if from nowhere, holding high a black sword that flickered with a dark fire, and Retarius heard a roar that seemed to echo from beyond the stars.  The pillar of flame took on a shape as of a woman as tall as the night, and her voice echoed like thunder.

His horse reared, uncontrollable and wild-eyed with terror, and then the black sword came down and Retarius raised his own blade to parry it.  The stroke fell and he felt his body shiver at the impact, the bones of his arm cracking and grinding against themselves.  He saw his sword shatter like glass under the stroke, sending shards of iron spinning away in all directions.  One came close and then pierced his eye with a flash of pain.

The black sword came on, unstoppable, streaming fire like violet stars, and when it struck him he felt his body was shattering as though it were made from stone.  He pitched back from his horse, and he felt his essence being drawn from him, his awareness stretching and deforming, vanishing into dark, and he screamed one final scream against it before he was gone.

o0o

Clouds stood in towers and temples over the city of Qahir like a reflection, or a dream of what could be.  The setting sun blazed through them, turning stone and sky alike into fire.  The city lay silent, the streets deserted, people hiding in their homes and looking outward, awaiting the arrival of the one they feared, the one who had won their kingdom and would now rule it.  They looked to the horizons and awaited the coming of Utuzan, the Black Flame.

The army marched in long columns, the horsemen in their barbaric finery and cloaks made of scalps, tattered and bloody Varonan standards carried before them.  The armies of High Ashem and Meru marched in their wake, rank upon rank of soldiers with spears and shields, their banners blowing in the wind from the sea.

Before them all came the lord himself, a giant upon an immense black horse, black robes billowing around him.  At his side was carried a litter, shrouded against the sun, and there was the banner of Queen Arsinue returned at last to the city of her ancestors.  Even though all knew their queen had returned, there was little celebration.  They had heard the tales of her bloody rites and the whispers that she was no longer a living queen.  Fear marched with the dread army, with the desert riders, with the clans of the Hatta led by their monstrous king.

There was no looting when the army entered the open gates.  The vanguard gave forth war-shouts and blew on their battle-horns, but there was no pillage, no rapine.  Utuzan rode before an army of terrible warriors, and yet not one of them broke ranks to set a fire or plunder a single merchant.  The people emerged onto balconies and rooftops and looked down as the great army passed.  Tens of thousands of horses, tens of thousands of men, all led by a black shape from the darkest legend.

Utuzan rode to the palace, and at the gates he called for the head of Retarius to be brought forth and placed upon a spear draped with his bloodied and tattered cloak of imperial purple.  The gruesome trophy was held up, and Shedjia smiled as she called for the soldiers who remained in the palace to give way, as their lord was dead, and they were alone.

The gates opened, and a gray-faced captain came forth and bowed low before Utuzan and surrendered all his men, asking only for their lives.  Utuzan waved him away and commanded all the remaining legionaries to be inducted into his own armies, for there would be more work for them.  He rode into the courtyard of the royal palace and looked up as the sun died and tuned the sky to midnight, and he closed his eyes for a moment, tasting the wind from the sea, reminding him of another sea long ago.  Could it be a year since he awake in the darkness, roused by blood?  Now he ruled the extent of this ancient land, but there were other lands beyond, and a wider world.

He looked as Arsinue opened the curtains of her litter and stepped down to the earth, gleaming in her white gown.  She smiled, showing her long teeth, and he found her beautiful then.  She would make a fine empress for him, and a foundation for a new dynasty.  “Black Queen of Greater Ashem, I return to you your throne,” he said.

She inclined her head.  “Grateful I am for the gift, my lord.”

“You shall not only be queen of one kingdom, but of all.  My empress you shall be, and I shall gather all kingdoms beneath my shadow.”  He gestured.  “Go and retake your home, and tonight we will feast to our victories.”  He looked up into the night.  “And many more to come.”

o0o

That night there was revelry in the city of Qahir, and in the palace the halls resounded with song and story and music.  Queen Arsinue knew her home, and she called forth her finest entertainers, legions of servants and slaves.  There was feasting and dancing and magic, and at the center of it Utuzan sat on the double throne beside his pale, undead queen, and he was like a heart of darkness that drew in everything around him.

He gave honors to his men, gifting lands and titles and treasures.  King Zudur of the Hatta would be the commander of his armies, and all saw the images of far kingdoms shimmer in the air when he called for more conquests and more lands brought beneath his crown.  Izil, chief of the Emru, was made overlord of all High Ashem and Meru, to govern and defend it.  Shedjia lurked in the darkness at his side and was pleased, for this was the place where she wished to be.  She was close enough to Utuzan’s power to touch it, to learn it, and yet she stood forever in shadow, unseen and unknown, everywhere and nowhere, a ghost behind the throne.

He called forth Kardan, and the scaled beast of war came through the hall, dragging his tail behind him and bearing in his hands a sealed jar that he carried as though it were more precious than diamonds.  He bowed his head to Utuzan, and the Black Flame nodded.

“If it is what you wish, my friend.”  He lifted his hand and Kardan cried out, fell twisting to the floor.  The jar fell and shattered, and a long, white serpent reared from it, singing with spread hood, glaring with black eyes.  Then a glow suffused both of them, and Kardan howled as he writhed and shrank and changed, until he lay panting on the floor, a naked and mortal man once again.

The serpent thrashed and coiled, and then the glow engulfed it, and then instead of a serpent there was the pale, unclothed shape of Malika, who had been Queen of Meru.  She gasped on the stone, shuddering as though she were released from a great cold.

“I restore both of you to your natural forms,” Utuzan said.  “Your past transgressions are forgiven.  Go forth and live as you will.  I will not hinder you.”  He gestured, and slaves came and bore them up, wrapped them in silks and bore them away.  It would take time for them to recover from the changes to their bodies.  Slowly, the revelry resumed, and yet eyes returned to look on their new emperor, wondering at the power that he commanded.

“They fear you,” Shedjia whispered.  “Your mercy confounds them and makes them wonder what you will do next.  It was well-done.”

“Of mercy I have none,” Utuzan said.  “My acts are immutable, chosen by myself, and do not depend on what some lesser being may consider as my motive.  Remember I am not an earthly king, nor a mortal emperor.”  He turned slightly, and she saw the brooding expression on his face.  “I am the last of a dead race, the last ruler of a vanished world.  I take a place for myself here, but it is not my place.  I will strive to make this world like the one I lost, and yet it will never be its equal.”  He closed his eyes for a moment, and a shadow, as of pain, passed over his countenance.  Outside there was a peal of thunder, and Shedjia looked upward into the smoky darkness of the hall as she heard the skies open with the sound of rain.