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By
Ronald T. Jones
Ajunge the demon-sorcerer narrowed his scarlet eyes in contempt. Five hundred horsemen clad in armor, bearing lances, thundered across the grassy expanse toward the high tower occupied by the twisted mage. The tower was unlike any structure that existed in the land of Zanjii. Smooth sides, windowless, stark, blindingly white, the edifice shot up into the sky like a gigantic sword. There was no protection around the tower. No walls, no moats, no sentries on duty. There was not a single construct to give hint that the demon-sorcerer had taken defensive precautions against attacking armies.
Ajunge’s contempt deepened, etching heavy creases in his serpentine face. Why take defensive precautions against foes he did not respect? Ajunge muttered a spell. A red aura surrounded him. Each word pouring from the demon-sorcerer’s mouth increased the aura’s luminosity, bathing the apex of the tower in a fiery lighthouse glow. The circular glow stretched into a band of light directing onto the plain below right in the path of the oncoming horsemen. The horses slowed and reared up in panic before the wall of light. Several horsemen tumbled off the backs of their mounts.
When the light vanished the Zanjiian horsemen were stunned to find themselves facing an army where nothingness existed seconds earlier. This was an army whose very appearance invoked fear in the fearless. For what the Zanjiian faced were not men, but abominations spawned by depraved sorcery.
The opposing army looked like men, at least facial wise, but that was where the similarities began and ended. The demon-men, for that was surely what they were, had lean upper bodies like cheetahs that flared out into thick hoofed legs resembling the hind legs of horses. The demon-men’s arms were not arms at all but lengths of bone hard limbs of an ivory white hue that articulated at the elbow joints like human arms. The limbs ended in serrated points that were sharp as sword blades.
Their sharpened arms were the demon-men’s only weapons. The demon-men were outnumbered five to one, yet neither fear of numbers nor anticipation of battle played across their inhumanly placid faces.
The human horsemen, by contrast, belted out a battle yell that shook the sky and resumed their charge.
The demon-men stood their ground like ranks of statues and were just as eerily silent. At the last second, when the horsemen’s lances were a hairbreadth from making contact with flesh, the demon-men acted. They leapt like lions, plunging their limbs through the chain-linked armor of the horsemen. When the demon-men retracted their limbs, they were covered with blood and their victims were sprawled on the ground locked in death spasms. Weaving through the shocked Zanjiians with effortless ease the demon-men slashed and thrust with their dreadful arms. Zanjiian throats were ripped open, heads lopped off in single swipes, torsos spitted like chunks of meat.
A Zanjiian managed to hurl a javelin that caught a demon-man in the eye. A group of Zanjiians surrounded another demon-man and trampled him beneath their horses’ hooves before finishing him off with a succession of lance and sword blows. But those were isolated successes. The demon-men were too fast and nimble to be so easily pinned down. Plus, they proved far more skillful with their natural weapons than the Zanjiians were with the panoply of man-made weapons at their disposal.
The demon-men successfully countered javelins, lances and swords, responding with uncanny agility wedded to well-timed arm-attacks that invariably ended in death or grievous injury for the recipients. In a matter of a few short minutes the grass plain was sodden with blood and littered with the bodies and body parts of five hundred Zanjiians. The demon-men circulated among the dead seeking out the wounded whose throats they slit with workmanlike efficiency. The horses were not spared either. When the demon-men were finished with the Zanjiians they idled their time chasing down riderless horses which were dispatched in similar fashion.
When the slaughter ceased, Ajunge cast out the light that transported his precious soldiers into battle. The demon-men were captured in the light and vanished with its passing.
* * *
Queen Zara of Zanjii was as renowned for her brilliance as she was for her breathtaking beauty. Indeed, the wit and cunning she had to draw upon to navigate the poisoned brambles of treachery and deceit on her climb to her present position would have taxed less capable minds. Outlanders unfamiliar with the queen would not have been immediately aware of the fortitude that existed behind the delicate allure of her dark brown eyes. Nor would they have imagined the ruthless determination lurking beneath the comely richness of her ebony hue.
Zara’s mother and father were killed in a palace coup when she was twelve. Ten years later, the then princess rode into Zanjii’s capitol, Malawai, at the head of a conquering army after vanquishing her parents’ assassins on the battlefield. She had snatched a stolen throne out of the hands of thieves to inaugurate a new era of peace and prosperity. So she intended. Five years after her triumph, the demon-sorcerer called Ajunge appeared out of nowhere, his tower dominating an otherwise featureless landscape.
The sorcerer demanded that the Zanjii Kingdom submit to his authority and that its queen bow before him in a public display of that submission. Zara refused. Since that day, the demon-sorcerer cast a net of terror across the land which Zara was powerless to throw off.
Now, after a messenger conveyed word that her vaunted iron cavalry, the flower of Zanjiian arms, had failed to dislodge the demon-sorcerer from his lair, Zara sank into a deep, dark pit of despair. She knew what was coming next.
Time to take a lover.
The voice whispered into Zara’s ear; its sibilance almost calming. The demon-sorcerer possessed the power to project his words across distances. Zara shook her head furiously to shed the lulling effects.
Zara retreated to the far corner of her bedchamber, away from the terrace. Far from the terrace because the view was not to her liking. Ajunge’s tower loomed in the distance like a glistening needle. Even at night, the tower emitted an eerie luminance that defied the press of darkness. In the daytime it was a festering, incongruous scab on reality.
Time to take a lover, my queen.
Zara clamped both hands to her ears in teary-eyed anguish. But Ajunge’s words were not to be nullified for he spoke them directly into the woman’s mind. Once again you send an army to destroy me. Once again, I have cast that army into the well of oblivion. Now, an additional price must be paid. Another sacrifice to complete my victory on the battlefield.
“Damn you, wretched creature!” Zara screamed.
No, my Queen. Damn you for not having the good sense to know that you cannot defeat me. Enough delay. Take your lover now or see five hundred more perish by my hand. Mind you, the next batch of Zanjiians I eliminate will be children.
An additional layer of fear and loathing accumulated like settling ash in the pit of Zara’s stomach. Would the demon-sorcerer slaughter children? Need she even have doubted for a second that he wouldn’t?
Zara exhaled a slow breath to gather herself. She walked toward the terrace; her liquid eyes locked on the distant tower. How she longed to convert her gaze into a spear of flame. She would consume that cursed structure in such a blaze of fire that nothing would remain of it or its malignant occupant but scattered residue.
Helplessly, she turned away and called to her guardsman.
The lover that occupied Zara’s bedchamber had not been coerced. He had volunteered. The guardsman and his queen had an understanding that he would be the next sacrifice should the army’s attack against the tower fail. That understanding made the intimate hours he shared with his queen all the more intense and passionate.
Zara’s tears stained the silken sheets and pillows. When the guardsman’s energy was spent the queen wrapped her arms around him in a powerful, grief-stricken embrace.
When daylight peeked into her room, the guardsman was dead, a dagger thrust through his heart, his lips parted in a smile bespeaking contentment. His blood splotched the silken sheets and pillows, mixing with Zara’s still moist tears.
The guardsman’s companions entered the bedchamber at Zara’s call to remove his body. The other guardsmen bore no animus toward their queen for what she did. They understood why she had to do the demon-sorcerer’s bidding. If the circumstance called for it any one of the queen’s Imperial Guardsmen would have willingly sacrificed himself to prevent the deaths of innocents.
Zara felt encapsulated in a stifling shell of guilt as she held in her hand the dagger she used to murder a good man. Her advisors had pleaded with her to delegate that horrible task to another. But the burden of actually committing the act was one she was not willing to lay on anyone else’s shoulders. This was her burden—hers alone to carry until she either slew the demon-sorcerer or he slew her.
From inside the tower a peal of cruel laughter broke the morning silence.
“With the help of the One True God, we the Acolytes of Ajahh, will destroy this demon and his followers.” That declaration was made with sound conviction to match the zealous fervor of the black robed, black turbaned figure standing before the queen’s throne. Mamid Mahoj was a lean man with dark eyes that blazed the fire of his faith. He bore the pale complexion and narrow features of the far northern desert peoples. But the Acolytes did not all resemble Mamid. Two of his three officers behind him were as dark as a typical Zanjiian, the third one much lighter than Mamid. The religion of the One True God originated in the north and expanded outward in a wave of conversion.
Zara was not much taken with the Acolyte’s religion and the stringency it demanded. But she was desperate for any kind of assistance to rid her land of the demon-sorcerer.
The queen peered down upon the Acolyte leader from the cushioned perch of her throne. Huge iron plaques engraved with images of Zanjiian gods lined the walls of the throne hall. Zara could only imagine what the Acolytes must have been thinking, surrounded by so many displays of pagan grandeur. Standing next to the upraised platform upon which the throne rested were an assortment of Zanjiian ministers and military officers. Each man regarded the Acolytes with a range of emotions, from hopeful to skeptical to outright hostility.
“How powerful is your god?” Zara asked.
Mamid’s expression hardened even as a softening smile spread across his desert- scoured face. “He is all powerful, your majesty. He created all things...even the creature who plagues your land. As he created so he can smite. Through our actions, on your behalf, the glory of Ajahh will be revealed to all.”
“Name your reward should you succeed.”
“We only ask that you allow us to spread the message of Ajahh throughout your kingdom.”
Zara nodded her acknowledgement and respect. The Acolytes had no desires of the purse or the flesh. Surprising. Perhaps the purity demanded by their single god would indeed gain them victory. “Fair enough.”
Mamid bowed slightly, turned and walked away followed by his officers.
Falufa, the queen’s senior advisor, looked up at Zara when the Acolytes exited the hall. “Your majesty, the Acolytes are not to be trusted. If they defeat that demon, they’ll turn on us and try to bring us to their religion at the point of a sword.”
Zara reclined on her throne cushion. She thought for a moment then grinned. “Falufa, if the Acolytes are successful, they won’t need a sword to bring us to their religion.”
The Acolyte army, one thousand strong, approached the tower of the demon-sorcerer. Half of the Acolytes were on horseback, the other half on foot. All were armed with an assortment of bladed weapons from scimitars, common in the desert lands to straight swords and spears, adopted from peoples the Acolytes had converted . . . or conquered. There were bowmen among the Acolytes, but they were dispersed amid the uncoordinated mass of their brethren.
Mamid rode at the head of the army, mounted on a majestic white steed. He eyed the tower like a big cat eyed prey. His lips moved rapidly in whispered prayer chants to his deity. Then he drew his scimitar and held it up. The blade’s razor edge captured the glint of the sun. “Oh Ajahh, give us the strength to slay the demon! We are your righteous servants!”
The words were barely out of Mamid’s mouth when the ground began to shake. Horses pranced in fright. Men shouted consternation.
Mamid, momentarily distracted by the tremor, redirected his attention on the tower. “Steady, warriors! The demon is trying to frighten us. But his efforts are mere parlor tricks compared to the might of Ajahh!”
Suddenly creatures emerged from the ground less than fifty yards in front of the Acolytes. A mass of enormous, brutally muscled monstrosities with ape-like bodies. Their faces resembled rhinoceroses with bulging insect eyes. The rhino-apes let out a frightful roar, their wide-open mouths revealing rows of block shaped molars more suited to crushing rocks than rending flesh. The rhino-apes wielded massive clubbed weapons with metal spikes sticking out the ends.
The rhino-apes attacked before the Acolytes could recover their wits. Faster than their lumbering appearances suggested, the rhino-apes bounded toward the humans, waving their clubs.
The Acolytes responded with equal ferocity, shouting out the name of their One True God before charging into battle. A succession of human heads shattered from the impacts of rhino-ape clubs. An Acolyte was affixed to a cluster of spikes at the end of a club. With one arm the rhino-ape used his club to heft the still living human off his feet and plowed him head first into the ground.
In some cases, the rhino-apes used their bare hands to slaughter. Scores of Acolytes were pounded by the rhino-apes’ granite fists until they were reduced to crimson patches in the grass. The humans were superb swordsmen, but even their tempered steel blades proved insufficient to the task of penetrating the leather hardness of rhino-ape skin.
Mamid’s horse was taken out from under him with a bash to the skull by a rhino-ape’s club. The Acolyte leader leapt off the dead animal’s back with battle trained agility and advanced toward the rhino-ape prepared to mete out vengeance. A light flashed before the Acolyte leader and standing in the spot previously occupied by the rhino-ape was the being Mamid intuitively recognized as the demon-sorcerer.
Mamid paused briefly to take the measure of this foul creature. The demon-sorcerer was man-like in size and shape. His face, however, was a blend of serpent and human. Greenish scaled skin, deep socketed red eyes, smooth hairless head, thin jutting mouth curled in cruel mirth. The demon-sorcerer wore a flowing blue robe, covering a green form-fitting garment that radiated a luminescence distinct from the natural brightness of the day.
The Acolyte leader reared his sword back. “Abomination! To the fire will I send you!”
Ajunge laughed and thrust out his hand, emitting an invisible force that halted the human as if he had run head long into a stone wall. “Where is your One True God, Acolyte? Why does he hide from me?”
“Blasphemer!” The Acolyte bellowed as he strained to regain movement in his limbs.
A billowing torch whooshed from the demon-sorcerer’s outstretched hand, enveloping the paralyzed Acolyte leader. Mamid’s robes were consumed in a writhing blanket of flames that spread over his body. But his face remained unscathed. The Acolyte’s hatchet features stretched into a horribly contorted reaction to the unspeakable agony afflicting his body. Mamid could not scream, could not so much as let out a ragged whimper. His vocal cords were burned away.
The shooting flames ceased and the demon-sorcerer lowered his hand. What was left of the Acolyte leader collapsed to the ground in a smoldering heap of seared flesh and bones. The well-preserved face was locked in a permanent grimace of pain.
The rhino-apes annihilated the rest of Mamid’s followers with nearly as much ease.
* * *
The demon-sorcerer entered the queen’s palace as if he had ownership of the ground upon which he tread. He had already killed five Imperial Guardsmen posted at the gate; their bodies reduced to blackened lumps in a directed gale of demon fire.
At Ajunge’s appearance in the throne hall, more guardsmen readied swords and spears to protect their queen.
“No!” Zara called out to the guardsmen. “Lower your weapons!” She would risk no more guardsmen to this creature’s lethal sorcery.
The guardsmen complied with teeth-gritting reluctance. Nevertheless, they formed a perimeter around their queen.
“What do you want?” Zara demanded of the intruder.
In an eyeblink, the demon-sorcerer was standing within inches of Zara, so close she could feel his hot breath steaming her forehead.
The guardsmen whirled about, shocked to discover that the demon-sorcerer had breached their cordon.
“Stand down!” Zara shouted, putting on a brave façade to conceal her terror. Another emotion arose inside her to take the edge off her fear. It was hatred, pure elemental hatred. The more she harnessed that hate the more emboldened she was to meet the demon-sorcerer’s malice-filled gaze and hold it.
“Soon I will grow weary of your obstinacy, my queen,” Ajunge said with a carnivorous smile.
“But I will never grow weary resisting you, Demon!” The queen’s gaze bore angrily, defiantly into the demon-sorcerer as an ever-increasing portion of hate took hold of her.
“Oh, I think you will. In time your desire to send men to their deaths will exact a toll on you.” Ajunge looked around the palace. “Of course, I may decide to take up residence here before that day arrives.” The demon-sorcerer met the queen’s eyes. “Time to take a lover.”
A flash of light filled the throne room. When it subsided, the demon-sorcerer was gone.
That night another guardsman entered the queen’s bedchamber. The following morning, he met his ancestors.
Two days later, Zara ventured to her shrine room for a much-needed period of communion with her ancestors. The sight of a man inside her most confidential of sanctums stopped her in her tracks. Zara gasped in astonishment and shouted for her guards as she backed out of the room.
“Please, do not be alarmed. Allow me to introduce myself before you have me escorted out of the palace,” the stranger requested all too calmly.
“I’ll have you escorted, but it won’t be out of the palace,” Zara countered heatedly. “It’ll be straight to the dungeon!”
A half dozen guardsmen stormed toward the shrine room.
The man spread his arms to show he was unarmed. “At least hear me out before you confine me.”
Zara raised her hand, stopping the guardsmen short of seizing the stranger. “Speak then. Who are you and how did you get in here past my guards?”
The stranger displayed a shadow of a smile. “My name is Toulou, your majesty and I’m here to solve your demon problem. As for how I got here, let’s just say that I have a talent for gaining access into places where I am not supposed to be.”
“A talent? Are you a sorcerer?”
“No, your majesty, I am not.”
The queen analyzed the stranger. The man wore the white cotton sleeveless tunic and loose fitting dark gray pants of a coastal dweller. Yet the diagonal slashes on his right cheek marked him as being from the interior. He was tall and, she could not help but to note, blessed with a strong physique and a handsome face. His hair was shorn nearly to the scalp and his dark eyes radiated a keen intelligence and steady confidence...maybe too much confidence. The men she sent out to kill the demon brimmed with that same overabundance of confidence.
“You are from the hinterlands?” Zara asked, stepping closer to the stranger.
“Originally, your majesty. Upheavals precipitated my family’s migration to the coast where I was raised.”
“Are you a soldier?”
The stranger nodded. “A soldier, a merchant, an occasional scholar, a traveler.”
Zara’s eyes narrowed in bitter skepticism. “And you think you can defeat the demon-sorcerer?”
Toulou’s reply was almost too casual. “Of course, your majesty.”
“I get the sense that you don’t have a full understanding of the enemy which you are so eager to face,” Zara snapped. She threw up a finger cutting off any response the stranger was about to offer. “I have launched seven attacks against the demon-sorcerer to no avail. After each failure he forces me to take a lover for the night. By morning that lover must die. If not the demon-sorcerer will slaughter innocents at random. The one time I defied him after a failed attack the demon-sorcerer entered my kingdom.” Zara paused, her gaze drifting on the current of a horrific memory. “Fifty of my subjects died by his hand, with impunity!” Her focus raced back to the present. “That is the monster you face. An underworld nemesis who thus far has repelled all of our efforts to vanquish him...at the very least expel him from this land.”
“I understand quite well how formidable this enemy is,” said Toulou. “I also know that you are formidable in your own right. You have not surrendered to him. You continue to fight.”
Zara let out a huff of dismissal. “The demon-sorcerer toys with us. I’m sure if wanted he could have seized my kingdom long ago. Our resistance is just a game to him, one he relishes in playing.”
“Then let’s indulge him again.”
“Indulge him? Do you think this is a game, too?” Zara glared at this presumptuous stranger, the command to have him dragged from her sight dangling on the tip of her tongue.
Toulou shrugged. “I am offering a service, your majesty. Accept it and I will confront your enemy. Reject it and I will move on, leaving you to his tender mercy.”
“And if you succeed what do you want?”
“Zanjii is a wealthy kingdom. I expect you’ll compensate me accordingly given the enormity of the task at hand.”
Zara was greatly tempted to reject the man’s service. She knew nothing about him, was put off by his arrogance and the fact that he had the gall to invade her shrine room...
And yet there was something oddly reassuring about this man called Toulou...if that was his real name, which she suspected it wasn’t.
“Very well. I accept your offer. Now remove yourself from my shrine room and we will discuss the details of your task at sunrise.”
“Thank you, your majesty.” Toulou bowed with a hint of flourish and fell in with the guardsman who promptly escorted him away, but to a guest quarters, not the dungeon.
Zara watched the military maneuvers from her shaded palanquin positioned on the edge of the vast palace parade ground. The stranger, Toulou, had brought with him different men from different lands to aid him in reorganizing the Zanjiian military in preparation for battle. The empee, a regiment of heavily muscled superbly conditioned warriors from the far south trained the main body of Zanjiian foot soldiers in the former’s brand of light infantry tactics.
The Zanjiians fumbled their way through a series of formation marches early on. Constant drilling improved the Zanjiians’ performance, though not nearly to the satisfaction of their perfectionist empee trainers. The harried Zanjiians would receive very little rest that day.
Light skinned horsemen of the type Zara had never seen before worked with her native cavalry. The foreign horsemen were stocky, ruddy faced men with slanted eyes and long braided hair sprouting from the backs of their bald heads like horses’ tails. They were armed with strangely shaped bows made from bone and sinew. The bows cast arrows at distances previously unimaginable to the queen. The Zanjiian cavalry spent hours practicing with those bows. They shot arrows from horseback until they were reasonably proficient. Of course, they would never surpass the foreigners in an expertise ingrained in the latter since childhood.
Zara’s eye settled on Toulou who was conferring with a couple of Zanjiian cavalry and infantry captains. The stranger wore his usual cotton coastal attire, along with a sheathed sword and dagger. She liked how the glaze of sunlight accentuated the deep obsidian cast of his well-toned arms. Zara repressed a smile, scolding herself for her frivolous distraction in a time of crisis. She stepped out of the palanquin, much to the dismay of her attendants who expressed silent disapproval. The queen should not be mingling with soldiers...particularly of the uncouth mercenary variety.
Zara threw her head back authoritatively. Fortunately, the queen’s prerogative outweighed the pettiness of custom.
At the queen’s approach, the Zanjiian captains bowed. In the old days prostrating would have been called for, followed by a sprinkling of dust on the head. Zara did away with that form of obeisance upon her capture of the throne. The stranger bent his head minimally forward before meeting the queen’s gaze with a bold concoction of deference and roguishness.
Zara felt a heating of her cheeks unrelated to the day’s warmth. “Toulou,” she greeted, brushing away the feeling. “You are doing a fine job with the soldiers. They certainly look impressive at drilling, but survivors of past battles against the demon-sorcerer have told me how difficult it is to kill his unearthly minions. Are you sure these new tactics you teach will be effective?”
“They are tried and true, your majesty,” Toulou replied. “He pointed to the empee warriors. “Where they are from empees forged an empire and invoked dread in the hearts of any foe bold enough to face them on the field of battle.” Toulou extended an arm toward the pale horsemen. “The Tartors conquered half a world for their Great Khan.” The stranger indicated several more men, black skinned like the Zanjiians and empee warriors, but dressed the same as Toulou. The men were demonstrating to a large group of Zanjiians the use of an odd contraption that shot arrows with as much force as the Tartors’ bows. “Crossbows from the land of the Hann have wreaked havoc on opposing armies. These new tactics and weapons, in conjunction with traditional Zanjiian weapons, when pitted against the enemy, will be an irresistible combination.”
Men pushing five boxes resting on two-wheeled carts caught Zara’s attention. The front and backs of the boxes were covered with holes. Long sturdy looking arrows with menacing razor-sharp points poked out of each hole.
“What are those?” She asked, pointing at the carts.
“Hwachas,” replied Toulou. “I obtained them from Koryyo, a kingdom south of the Hann. The demon-sorcerer will taste of their fury soon enough.”
Zara looked at Toulou, fascinated, almost captivated. Almost. “How did you come about all of these resources?”
“Through my travels.” Toulou smiled as if he were aware of how vague he was being.
The queen pressed her lips irately. “Very well, Toulou. Keep your secrets. Just answer this: what brought you to the life of a mercenary?”
“War and profit, your majesty. My two interests.”
Zara lowered her voice. “Are there any other interests?”
Toulou stared at the queen, allowing the question to go unanswered a little longer than protocol demanded.
A tingle raced through Zara.
“Perhaps,” Toulou said. He didn’t elaborate.
Zara didn’t insist on it. She bade farewell and headed back to her palanquin, feeling a tad light headed. It must have been the day’s warmth.
The tower had no windows, yet Ajunge could see through its solid walls as if there was no obstacle to block his view of the outside. He saw an army approaching his tower. The Zanjiian queen had still not given up. What a fool that woman was. He would have to teach her another lesson...a lesson scrawled in the blood of another doomed army. Perhaps afterward she would submit of her own accord. And then again perhaps not. The demon-sorcerer grinned in anticipation of another one-sided battle. He raised his arms to summon his hosts...
Five thousand men, foot and cavalry, were arrayed across a swaying sea of grass, leading to the demon-sorcerer’s tower. This was the biggest force fielded by the Zanjiian queen. The infantry was spearheaded by the empee. The southern warriors carried large elephant hide shields, spanning head to toe, and wide-bladed stabbing spears. They wore only loincloths, feather plumed headdresses and sandals. The Zanjiian infantry soldiers were a bit more covered. They wore chain links over leather-armored kilts and carried their own native variations of empee shields and spears.
The heavy infantry hefted thick wooden shields and short broad swords. They marched in formation as well as the empee. Zanjiians with crossbows were clustered in front of the infantry, cavalry in the van, led by the Tartors. Zanjiian heavy cavalry occupied the middle of the cavalry line. Light cavalry were on both flanks behind the hwacha positions.
A ray of sun bright light emanated from the tower like a gleaming blade, bringing forth a horde of blade-limbed demon men. The ground quaked and springing from the earth in thick plumes of dirt and flying grass were the massive rhino-apes. The demon-men sliced the grass around them, demonstrating the lethality of their blade-sharp limbs. The rhino-apes bobbed their spiked clubs in bestial displays of ardor.
The demon-sorcerers’ minions surged forward in a crashing wave of uncoordinated ferocity.
Humans lit fuses behind the hwachas. Seconds later streams of arrows ignited by propellant powder zipped from the wheeled launchers, whistling across the field. Hundreds of the projectiles sailed into the packed mass of rhino-apes and demon-men striking them down in droves.
The Tartors on both flanks galloped forward, leading the Zanjiian cavalry on a counter charge toward the enemy’s flanks. They opened up with a barrage of arrows from their composite bows.
A rain of arching arrows swished down upon the enemy warriors hitting those the hwacha arrows missed. Half the demon-men went after the Tartor and Zanjiian horsemen. The human cavalry fled and the demon-men, who were as fast as horses, pursued. But the Tartors were as deadly in flight as when on the attack. They twisted in their saddles and released flurries of arrows that left scores of pursuing demon-men tumbling in the grass dead or injured.
The Zanjiian horsemen who mastered the rearward shot to good effect lobbed arrows that struck their marks nearly as often as Tartor arrows. The Tartor flag bearer shifted pennants, signaling the end of the retreat. As one, Tartors and Zanjiians wheeled their mounts about and thundered straight into the teeth of the demon-men’s pursuit.
An arrow storm blew through their ranks and more demon-men fell with shafts sticking out of their bodies. Heavy Zanjiian cavalry followed behind the light cavalry slicing through the disorganized demon-men with swords, javelins and lances. The demon-men that recovered from the severity of the human attack struck hard. Their razor arms went into motion. Men were slashed open while still mounted or dismembered or impaled while on the ground. Horses were sliced or gutted. But the heavy cavalry continued to pressure the demon-men, riding many of them down like elephants trampling grass.
The empee received the full brunt of the rhino-apes’ charge. The enormous beasts pressed forward, their combined strength bending the middle of the human infantry line almost to the breaking point. The rhino-apes’ front ranks added to the fury of their momentum, smashing human skulls and cracking shields with their clubs. The human center buckled further. Empee warriors thrust with furious precision, sinking their stabbing spears into a wall of rhino-ape hide. The Zanjiians poured in behind the empee, supporting the center, preventing it from shattering.
The rhino-apes’ single-minded focus on the middle caused them to neglect their flanks. On the mid flanks, crossbowmen fired off volleys of arrows, dropping nearly a full rank of rhino-apes. The second rank stumbled over the bodies of their fallen comrades. Zanjiian light infantry moved in rapidly, taking advantage of the rhino-apes’ confusion. Human spears and swords mowed a swathe of butchery along both enemy far flanks. The savage thrill of combat the rhino-apes were normally infused with when engaging these weak men was beginning to be replaced by a growing sense of alarm.
Something was not right. It was nothing that the rhino-apes could have articulated. Their level of intelligence did not allow for in-depth analysis of their situation. All they knew was that they had somehow lost their advantage over the humans . . . that this battle was not going in their favor. Savage instinct drove them to fight and kill despite the misgivings clawing at their collective sense.
The rhino-apes’ clubs blurred up and down in a mad frenzy of death dealing. Humans collapsed beneath those stupendous blows but more retaliated with equal vigor. The bite of human bladed weapons was gaining in ever increasing frequency. The rhino-apes were squeezed in from all directions, making it difficult for them to raise their clubs. A rabid pincer of spears and swords closed in on the rhino-apes like the shutting jaws of a giant hungry beast.
The few demon-men not shot down by cavalry arrows attempted to dash to the defense of their underworld allies. They were mauled by vengeful Zanjiians and pushed back into the packed mass of the center where they were either flattened by the panicked crush of their oversized comrades or perforated by human blades. The jaws of that beast closed tighter, inexorably, emboldened by human hatred, fueled by human vengeance.
The demon-sorcerer would not have believed it possible if he had not seen it with his own eyes.
From the summit of his tower, Ajunge’s enchanted view of the plain below enabled him to witness how the humans were winning this battle. The Zanjiians, with able assistance from foreign mercenaries, along with new and effective weapons, had demonstrated a discipline and competence not shown in previous battles. Plus, they employed an encirclement maneuver to such superb effect that they managed to surround his soldiers completely.
Ajunge recoiled in distress at the sight of his valued warriors being cut down like weeds in a farm plot. The demon-sorcerer flailed his arms, screaming his rage at the very top of his lungs. He decided immediately that the Zanjiian queen was going to pay a final price for her defiance. He was finished with this game. Now it was time to seize what was his.
Ajunge materialized outside the queen’s palace in a ream of light. Twelve demon men accompanied him. Imperial Guardsmen reacted to the intruders’ sudden appearance instantaneously, but they were still too late to avoid the conflagration that blasted vengefully from the demon-sorcerer’s hand. Amid the flaming clumps of human remains, the demon-men fanned out to chop down the survivors. For the surviving guardsmen who were burned over most of their bodies, the razor edge of a demon-man’s arm was a merciful release from the pain of their injuries.
Zara was standing next to her throne surrounded by grimly determined guardsmen when the demon-sorcerer and his demon-men stormed into the throne hall.
“It’s over, Demon,” Zara announced coldly. “You will leave my land or suffer the consequences.”
An amused snarl lifted a corner of Ajunge’s wrinkled mouth. “Victory is not yours, wench! You may have won a battle, but not the war.”
A voice came from behind the demon-sorcerer. “You heard the queen. She said it’s over.”
Ajunge turned slowly to see a tall man in a loose, white sleeveless tunic standing behind him. His garb and facial scars marked him as one of the queen’s foreigners. The stranger held a straight sword in one hand a long dagger in the other. A group of bare-chested warriors carrying large shields and wide-bladed spears filed into the throne room with perfect military precision. The steely, challenging looks on their hard faces betrayed no fear. The warriors formed a semi-circle around Ajunge and his demon-men.
The demon-sorcerer regarded the stranger as if the latter were a bug fit only to be crushed beneath his heel. “I won’t waste time with you, vermin. But I promise, the queen’s death will not be so abrupt.” Lifting his hand toward Toulou, a jet of flame shot out.
Zara screamed in horror when she saw Toulou enveloped in a blue-white ball of fire. But when the flames subsided to nothingness, she was shocked to see that the mercenary leader was still standing, still alive. The demon-sorcerer’s fire had not burned the man, had not so much as singed him.
Zara’s guardsmen shouted their alarm, then whooped in elation at this miracle of the stranger’s survival. The empee held steady, their bodies tensed to spring into action.
Ajunge drew back in utter astonishment. Impossible. The man still lived. He thrust his hand out a second time releasing another current of fire that once again washed harmlessly over his intended victim.
“You might as well surrender,” Toulou suggested implacably. “Your hold over this land is no more.”
Ajunge stared hard at the foreigner. Then he threw back his long robe and unsheathed a double pronged sword from a jeweled scabbard. “Whatever magic is shielding you from my enchanted fire, it will not protect you from the bite of my steel.”
The demon-sorcerer advanced, his red eyed gaze beaming a sweltering spotlight of malignancy on the stranger.
Toulou raised his sword and dagger, bending his knees slightly in a fight stance.
Before their blades collided, Ajunge shouted a command to his demon-men. “Kill the queen!”
Two battles were fought within the gilded splendor of the throne hall. The larger battle involved the demon-men’s attempted assault on Queen Zara. The guardsman, inspired by the foreigner’s repelling of the demon-sorcerer’s foul magic, met the demon-men’s attack with a ferocity that obliterated their previous fear. The first rank of guardsmen sprinted forward, plunging spears and swords into their foes before the latter could position their arms to block the attack. The empee warriors came at the demon-men from behind, their wide bladed stabbing spears carving up flesh in deadly flashes of motion.
In the second battle a sorcerer and a mercenary struggled to the death. Ajunge reveled in the exhilaration of close quarter combat. How long had it been since he used his sword, felt the sturdy heft of its hell-forged blade, the smooth flow of its motion? Too long!
Toulou ducked as the demon-sorcerer’s blade passed above him in a clean stroke that would have surely taken his head. He leaned in with his own sword, aiming for the demon-sorcerer’s heart. The mage stepped back avoiding the thrust, at the same using his blade to slap Toulou’s sword aside. Toulou countered with a diagonal dagger slash to the face. Ajunge jerked his head back. The dagger missed by inches. Ajunge whirled around like a mad dervish, his sword whizzing in cross strokes that Toulou labored to parry. A tip of the demon-sorcerer’s sword caught Toulou’s dagger arm, drawing a gash across his tricep. First blood.
Toulou ignored the wound, his mind sorting out an array of techniques to use against his opponent. For a practitioner of the magic arts this demon-sorcerer was unexpectedly skilled with the sword, much to Toulou’s dismay.
The demon-sorcerer squatted low enough to cut at Toulou’s ankles. Toulou leapt as the blade blurred underneath his feet. With near impossible swiftness Ajunge brought his sword up in a back swing with the intent of disemboweling the human as he landed.
Toulou barely blocked the blow. But doing so tilted him off balance and the force of the deflection knocked the sword out of his hand.
Toulou’s sword went flying before clattering to the floor far beyond his reach. He stumbled backward struggling to regain some equilibrium.
The demon-sorcerer charged ahead, seeing the human in disarray. He double gripped his sword, lifting it high in a chopping position.
Rather than resist the inevitable fall, Toulou sailed with the motion, hitting the floor in a fluid roll. He caught a split-second glimpse of a double-pronged blade flying toward him and Toulou side-rolled. A bloom of sparks erupted where Ajunge’s hot steel collided with the cold stone floor.
Toulou leapt to his feet dagger still in hand. Skilled as the demon-sorcerer had demonstrated himself to be Toulou saw a weakness. His opponent was too hell-bent on killing, less concerned with protecting himself. He was becoming reckless.
The demon-sorcerer brought his sword up then down in another overhand stroke. Toulou spotted an opening and glided beneath his foe’s swing. He deftly adjusted his grip on his dagger and sank it hilt-deep into the side of the demon-sorcerer’s neck.
A vital artery severed; blood poured from the wound like water through a sieve. Ajunge staggered sideways like a drunkard, one hand pressed to his neck in a vain attempt to block the bleeding. The demon-sorcerer’s grip on his sword weakened until it slipped out of his hand. He dropped to his knees.
Toulou stood over the dying sorcerer, marveling at how the color and consistency of the latter’s blood closely matched that of human blood.
Ajunge gazed up at the foreigner, disbelief clear as daylight in his expression. His eyes and mouth were agape; his body trembling as if struggling not lose his hold on life.
Toulou gave the demon-sorcerer another taste of his dagger. This time through the heart.
The demon-sorcerer’s ragged breathing ceased in an instant and the rest of his body collapsed to the floor.
Toulou stepped back, allowing the tunnel vision of his duel with the demon-sorcerer to expand and encompass the rest of the hall.
He saw that the guardsmen and empee warriors were victorious. The lacerated bodies of the expressionless demon-men were scattered across the floor. And the queen was alive.
Toulou met Zara’s eyes and the two shared a smile.
The kingdom exploded in jubilation at the demon-sorcerer’s demise. Celebrations marked every corner of the land. Queen Zara opened up her palace to her joyous subjects and every space from the courtyard to the parade ground throbbed with revelers.
Zara’s name rang to the heavens in rapturous chants.
The queen stood on the palace terrace next to Toulou, casting an appreciative gaze upon the crowd below. While she was touched by the chants, Zara felt in no way deserving of the adulation. The credit for this victory belonged to the man beside her.
“How did you survive the demon-sorcerer’s attack?” She asked Toulou. “What magic did you use?”
Toulou shook his head. “There was no magic, your majesty. No charms, no amulets, no whispered spells or incantations. It was a matter of not believing.”
“Not believing?”
“The demon-sorcerer’s power was fueled by people’s belief in its potency,” Toulou explained. “With belief came the fear. He used that fear to exert his control over you. I never for an instant believed he had the power to kill me, which is why his fire had no effect on me. That’s also why his army was not as invincible as on previous encounters. My men did not just train your soldiers in the use of new arms and new tactics. We had to train their minds to believe that the demon-sorcerer’s minions could die on the field of battle as easily as a man.”
Zara looked away as a surge of guilt and frustration bubbled inside her. “The men I sent to their deaths, the men he forced me to kill, my dead subjects...all of this evil he wrought upon my kingdom could have been avoided had I simply stopped believing in his power.”
Toulou put a gentle hand on the queen’s shoulder. “Do not blame yourself, your majesty. You had no way of knowing the secret to his power. No one in your kingdom did.”
Zara put her hand over his, taking a measure of solace in the foreigner’s words. “So, what lies ahead for you? More war and profit?”
Toulou’s gaze shifted to a point beyond the horizon. “It’s what I live for.”
While disappointment clouded Zara’s expectations, she did detect a note of hesitation in Toulou’s reply.
That night the queen took the foreigner as her lover. She did so of her own free will, unfettered by a demon-sorcerer’s threats.
When she awoke the next morning Toulou was gone.
Zara suppressed the ache in her heart. A small smile lit up her solemn expression. “War and profit,” she whispered. “One day you will tire of those things.” She arose prepared to welcome to a new day. “In the meantime, I have a kingdom to govern.”
