The detonation was rather impressive. Men were tossed on their backs as dirt and blood rained down on them. Smoke covered the field, further confusing the Akershani. Except more kept coming. Despite the terrible casualties inflicted by the Fortress weapons, the Sons were still drastically outnumbered. Every one of Eklavya’s men were fighting like savages—casteless, worker, or warrior, it mattered not. They had no reserve. There was nowhere to retreat. It was win or die. Even Keta had joined in, dragging their fallen wounded away from the fray.
All of his forces were occupied. There were no commands left to give.
It was odd. One should not be proud of criminals. Yet it was what it was.
The time had come to draw Devedas to him. Ashok surveyed the battlefield one last time, picked his ground, and then charged into a paltan of enemy warriors by himself.
Chapter 40
From Devedas’ vantage point in the barn, he could see that the fight was not at all the easy thing the Akershani had been expecting. They had an actual battle on their hands. It appeared there weren’t that many trained warriors among the rebels, but even the unskilled fought with heart and ferocity. And those damnable Fortress things! He had gaped in awe at their sheer destructive power. They’d shattered the hardest men like glass and left the field drenched in blood. Akershan’s elite had never stood a chance. Devedas had been taught to hate the things and seeing Protector Abhishek killed had made him despise them even more, but for the first time in his life he truly understood why the Law banned them. In a world where every man had his mandated place, those in charge could never let the weak have a tool which enabled them to so effortlessly match the strong.
It was very difficult to watch so many flagrant violations of the Law and not get involved. His Protectors were eager for the fight. They obeyed his command to hold, but for many of them it was obviously a very difficult order to hear. They hated criminals. They were born for combat. Law-abiding men were dying. And yet their Lord Protector had told them to wait.
Where are you, Ashok?
One side of the valley was engulfed in flames. The sky had turned black and was raining ash. The rebels with the Fortress rods had not used them for a few minutes, but there were still small explosions going off all over the battlefield as the rebels tossed flaming Fortress devices into the Akershani lines. Each detonation spread wounds and chaos. Then Devedas realized why the rods had been silent. The rebels armed with them were moving up the now ashen hill, probably trying to get elevation so that they could fire down upon the warriors again.
“The Akershan are losing their will, sir,” Jamari warned him. “Some of them are already fleeing. If we don’t act soon, the criminals might actually win this.”
That seemed inconceivable. Various rebellions had won small victories over the years, this one in particular had even claimed a few towns—albeit briefly—but the idea of an actual army of this size losing to criminals was preposterous. Or at least it would sound that way to the sheltered high-status men of the Capitol. The judges didn’t understand suffering, fatigue, or pain. Their feeble minds could never imagine that postbattle feeling, beyond weary, soaked in blood, muscles aching from swinging a sword, as you counted off how many of your friends were still alive. No. The judges were soft and useless. Which was why they needed to go.
And also why he was the one to replace them, otherwise Omand would just swap one oblivious bureaucrat for another, and Lok would be no better off.
“If the warriors lose, then they lose. That’s on their heads. Ashok is more important. The moment after we take Ashok’s life then you are free to kill all the criminals you want.”
They didn’t like it, but they would obey.
“Look!” Protector Ranvir pointed.
Devedas watched as a lone rider in black armor upon a magnificent white stallion traversed the field. The horse leapt effortlessly over a farmer’s fence, charging heedless of the danger right into a crowd of soldiers who were climbing over an irrigation ditch. The man in black laid about him with his sword, smiting heads and arms from bodies.
He squinted, for even the Heart had its limits for picking out fine details at such a distance. Everything in his life came down to this one moment. He had to be certain, for to reveal themselves too early would allow Ashok to escape. From here it could be Protector armor but painted to hide the shine. Could it be? But then his question was answered when the man in black caught a spear that had been flung at his horse, spun it about, threw it back, and impaled two warriors with it.
“That’s him.”
“You’re certain, master?” Jamari asked.
The man in black paused, looked directly at the tall barn…and lifted one gauntlet in greeting…Of course he did. Because Devedas had picked the exact same lookout position that Ashok would have if their situations had been reversed.
Hello, brother.
“Converge on the man in black.”
Ten Protectors of the Law leapt from where they’d been waiting. There was an incredible amount of magical energy drawn from the Heart of the Mountain as all of them called upon it at once to grant them swiftness of limb. Devedas stepped from the loft, dropped twenty feet to the packed dirt below, and began sprinting across the farm.
Vaulting over fences and low stone walls, the Protectors quickly reached the fields. They were in a loose group as they sprinted toward Ashok. There was no need to issue orders. These Protectors knew what to do. The farthest two on each end of their line began veering off. They would surround the entire paltan that Ashok was hacking his way through, and then all of them would work their way inward until the Black Heart had no way out.
Except it appeared Ashok wasn’t even trying to escape. On the contrary, he leapt from his mount so that he could kill warriors more efficiently. The white stallion—now splattered red—kicked a warrior’s helmet flat, and then trampled another man beneath his hooves as he ran away.
They rushed past the obviously apprehensive phontho and his command staff. A cheer went up as the warriors saw ten suits of gleaming silver armor cutting through the tall yellow grass. The Protectors have joined the battle. Victory is assured.
Let the warriors take heart, but their lives were not his concern. Devedas had more pressing matters to deal with first.
As they reached the edge of the fight, Devedas slowed a bit and waited for his Protectors to spread out and encircle the target. Whichever way Ashok darted, there would be someone there to intercept him. The warriors who saw the men in silver were quick to get out of their way.
The rebel in black armor was twisting and turning between the spears, dropping warriors left and right. Nobody other than Ashok moved with such precision and killing grace. There was no ancestor blade in his hands, but even with regular steel he was an artist. Being surrounded only meant that he could kill in multiple directions as the poor doomed warriors tried to keep up with an inhuman force of will. He was using the techniques taught to them by sword master Ratul, but refined, to be even more pragmatic. There had never been any beauty to Ashok’s style, only efficiency. In the time it took Devedas to push through the crowd, three more warriors had been crippled and two had been sent into the great nothing.
Devedas’ certainty was absolute. This was the criminal the whole world had been searching for.
“Ashok Vadal!”
The black helm turned toward Devedas for just an instant, before he had to dodge around a spear thrust. In response Ashok clipped the back of his attacker’s leg, severing tendons, and sending the warrior to the ground.
The other warriors had instinctively flinched back when they heard Devedas roar their opponent’s name. No matter how much courage a warrior possessed, that name gave pause. The pile of dead and dying along the banks of the irrigation ditch gave even more.
The pause granted them a small moment of quiet among the chaos. So the man in black reached up, unhooked the chain mask from his helmet and let it hang, exposing a familiar face. “Hello, Devedas.”
“But Protector—”
“Leave us!”
This was Protector business. The warriors picked up their wounded and carried them away. Devedas waited until they were gone before turning back to Ashok.
They’d been brothers once. They’d saved each other’s lives more times than he could count. Through hardships unimaginable to lesser men, through wars, campaigns, raids…fire, blood, and carnage, they had stood together. Devedas had loved this man, but now the Law, honor, and ambition all required Devedas to slay him.
“We chased you across half the world, but it’s over now.” Devedas spread his hands, indicating that Ashok should look around.
He did so, surely noting that whichever way he turned, there was a man in silver armor, waiting. The nearest rebels were close enough that the noise of battle could be heard, but Ashok was all by himself. There was no one to help him. Despite certain doom his hard features displayed no emotion.
The Protectors were armed with a wide variety of weapons, whatever they were personally most skilled with, swords, hammers, axes, various pole arms, all were ready in their hands. Slowly, they approached, until Ashok was standing in the middle of a ring.
“It appears you brought a sizable piece of the Order with you.”
“I thought I would need them. When we set out I believed you still had Angruvadal.”
“Understandable then.” With that sword, it would have taken ten. Without it, he had no chance at all against so many. Ashok bowed. “Brothers.”
Every Protector here had looked up to Ashok before the revelation of his true identity. Some of them might lie to themselves and deny it, but of course they had. For Ashok Vadal had been the best of them, everything that a Protector should aspire to be, the righteous living embodiment of the Law.
Many of them returned his polite greeting. Others remained in angry silence. A Protector could devastate a normal man, as all the blood pooling in the bottom of this ditch testified, but all here had all touched the Heart of the Mountain. Even the proudest among them knew that Ashok was good enough to defeat any one of them, maybe two, or even three as he had in Neeramphorn. Against ten? This would be an execution.
Albeit a costly one.
“You know I’ll get some of you. I do not wish for any of you to die.”
“Did you say the same to Ishaan before you stabbed him in the heart?” snapped Broker Harban from the opposite side of the circle.
“I did,” Ashok answered. “And I am sorry that he didn’t give up when he had the chance. He was a good man. As you are all good men. It would sadden me to kill you.”
“Then just end it here, Ashok,” Devedas pleaded. “It was your sword that made you honor bound to always do your best. Angruvadal is gone. There’s no need to shed any more Protector blood. Bare your neck and let us end this crime.”
Only Ashok shook his head. “I can’t. I have another obligation now.”
“To who?” Devedas angrily gestured toward the battle. “To these scum? To a bunch of Law breakers who spit on everything you’ve ever stood for?”
“Every man has his place.”
“You’re not even a whole man!” shouted Kushal.
“By birth, no. For that fraud I was as deceived as the rest of you. I never intended to betray the Order. The choice to align myself with these criminals was made for me…I have come to terms with it. This is my place now. As the Law is yours to protect, then those who would be free of its yoke are mine.”
That had been Devedas’ greatest fear, for never in the world had there been a man of more singular will than Ashok Vadal. And now he had found something else to believe in.
“I am truly sorry it must end this way, Ashok.” Devedas was somber.
“Me too.” Ashok reached up and put his mask back on. “Let us begin.”
Though the battle still raged, hundreds of men screamed in agony or rage, as metal clanged against metal, bowstrings thrummed, and bombs exploded…inside the circle it seemed almost calm.
The calm did not last.
Chapter 41
Ashok had known this reckoning would come and had long dreaded the day. Now that it was here, surprisingly enough, he found himself at peace with it. Though the Law had made him an enemy to the Order, he bore no hatred for these men. The Protectors had once been his family. It was with great sadness that he would cross blades with them. Yet he would fight without reluctance for Ashok truly wished to live. For that to happen, Protectors would have to die.
So be it.
Fifth-year senior Kushal came at him first. Hailing from the same Great House, but far younger, the experienced Ashok’s treason must have struck Kushal especially hard. Ashok’s very existence offended all who obeyed the Law, but it was a terrible mockery against Great House Vadal. The man entrusted with their sacred ancestor blade had lost it and brought shame to all who bore their name.
Unlike many of the Protectors here, Kushal had never had the opportunity to spar against Ashok. Surely, he had been given warnings about Ashok’s skill, but if so, had not truly comprehended them.
So it was Kushal who stole the honor of striking first.
Ashok killed him for it.
He’d seen the sword thrust coming and shifted to the side just enough for it to glance off his breastplate. His instantaneous response had been a draw cut up across Kushal’s throat, so hard and fast that chain broke and leather split. The edge was exactly aligned with the angle of the blow. It was a perfect cut.
The other Protectors stood there in silence as their young brother stumbled away clawing at his throat. Ashok had cut him to the spine. All the precious blood that had been in his brain was dumped down the front of his armor while the fresh pumped into the sky. Not even the Heart of the Mountain could save a man from such a wound. Kushal dropped his sword. It stuck, point down in the dirt. Then he fell on his face as his blood drained into the ditch.
Anger and pride had killed Kushal more than Ashok had. One could not strike so clumsily at one of the greatest swordsmen in history and expect to live.
The others would not make such a foolish mistake.
They would come at him, two or three at a time, but never so many that they would get in each other’s way like the warriors he’d been fighting before. They would sting him, cut him, bludgeon him, wear him down, and then the moment he slipped—and slip he would for even the Black Heart was human—they would deliver a crippling blow. Since it could only aid one thing at a time, the moment he received a wound sufficient to kill a normal man he would have to turn the Heart of the Mountain’s power toward staying conscious instead of granting speed and strength to his limbs. Then the Protectors would finish him off.
He glanced toward the hillside…He needed more time. So Ashok grabbed Kushal’s sword, pulled it from the ground, and spun it once to fling the clinging dirt from the tip. The Vadal blade felt good in his off hand. They would be coming at him from all sides, so he would use the western two-sword style. He could strike more effectively in one direction with only a single blade, but that would do him no good if he was getting stabbed in the back at the same time.
The Protectors didn’t speak. There was no need for Devedas to tell them what to do. Kushal’s twitching corpse was sufficient reminder to respect their opponent. They were professionals. They simply acted.
It was another Vadal man who led the attack. Jamari flicked his sword at Ashok’s eyes, but he whirled away, then dove over the mace Broker Harban aimed at his knees. Ashok rolled across the ground, wrist, elbow, shoulder, as Ranvir slammed his glaive into the dirt where he’d just been. He leapt back up just in time to be struck in the chest by a chakram that had been hurled by Tanhaji Kharsawan. The razor-sharp disk bounced off the steel, revealing a silver streak beneath the paint.
Ashok used his second blade to parry a thrust
at his back, and his primary to shove aside a descending pole arm. By the time the glaive hit the ground, he kicked Ranvir’s leg out from under him, but before he could stab that Protector, Broker shoulder checked Ashok back. He stumbled but kept his feet. Broker was the second biggest man in the Order, so that impact had been like getting hit by a running ox.
Instinct told him that he needed to break through and run. There was no surviving this fight. Instead he stood his ground. Ashok would not abandon this ditch. It was his ditch now.
The Protectors circled. As predicted, they came at him three at a time.
Ajinkya attempted to deliver a mighty overhand blow with his battle axe. Ashok intercepted the handle with his main blade. It still hit hard enough to slide his boots through the grass. He slashed Ajinkya across the belly with Kushal’s sword, but failed to penetrate the armor. Broker swung his mace at Ashok’s helm, and all he could do was duck, driving himself forward into Ajinkya, who tripped and fell.
Ashok went rolling over him, landed on his knees, and then stabbed blindly backward. Ajinkya cried out as the sword slipped past his shoulder plate. Ashok twisted the blade out and then dove to the side as Ranvir’s glaive trimmed the grass he’d been kneeling on. From the prone, he struck, and struck again, lightning quick. But Ranvir’s greave stopped one, and then Jamari’s sword intercepted the other. He almost managed to get back up when Broker’s heavy mace clipped the back of his helm, wrenching his neck hard. Then Jamari kicked him in the chest. His ribs felt it even through the steel, but the momentum of the blow helped him upright.
They kept at him, but Ashok feinted, causing his opponents to flinch. It was enough of a break in their frantic pace that Devedas ordered, “Hold.”
Even with the Heart, Ashok’s arms burned. His neck ached and his ears rung. So he was glad that Devedas signaled for Rathod to help the wounded Ajinkya out of the way. Ashok had gotten in a lucky hit that time. The puncture wound he’d inflicted had severed the main artery across the top of the chest, but a Protector could live through such.
Destroyer of Worlds Page 39
