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 fist
s 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.
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