“Come then!” thundered Caylen, surging resolutely toward the towering figure. “Test your strength against me!”
With a blinding fulmination of light, a jagged tendril of viridescent energy suddenly lanced forth from the crystal cobra atop Sauruuk’s staff. The sorcerous bolt struck Caylen full in the chest, hurling him backwards and grievously searing his flesh. Momentarily stunned by the assault, Caylen shook his head in an attempt to clear his vision and raised his axe once more. Instantly, another blistering thunderbolt screamed forth from the cobra’s mouth and etched a sulphurous furrow into his thews. A wave of sublime agony tore through Caylen’s body and his limbs began to burn with a torturous pain akin to the touch of white-hot flame. Gritting his teeth, he brandished his axe defiantly and stepped forward once again. A third stroke of ruinous, eldritch lightning smote Caylen, scoring a great incandescent lesion into his abdomen. Drawing breath in ragged gasps and struggling against the overwhelming pain wrought by the arcane attack, Caylen hefted his axe and took another faltering step forward, his eyes ablaze with baleful fury. Another sinuous tendril of refulgent sorcery then lashed Caylen like a conflagrant whip, charring his flesh and causing his knees to buckle. With a feral roar of pure rage, Caylen collapsed heavily to the black stone tiles. Defying the call of unconsciousness which alone could offer blessed respite from the withering bombardment of searing sorcerous might, the clansman strove once more to lift his axe as he gazed up at the hulking form of the Serpent King which loomed imperiously before him.
“Coward!” rasped Caylen through gritted teeth. “Face me without your foul magicks, if you dare!”
“Pitiful human,” Sauruuk rumbled. “Know that I was commanding glorious legions of serpent-knights when your apish forebears were still huddling in caves! Did you truly aspire to stand against me? Now you will pay the price for your sublime arrogance!”
Then, a final pitiless bolt of coruscant energy shrieked forth from the crystalline cobra’s mouth and Caylen was engulfed by a suffocating sea of black oblivion.
Chapter VI
A Sacrifice in the Shadow of the Snake God
Caylen slowly regained consciousness to find that his wrists and ankles were shackled by broad chains of blackened iron. His ravaged body still burned with searing pain and as he glanced about at his surroundings, he discerned that he was fettered upright upon a great altar of obsidian which had been fashioned after the grotesque form of a huge, coiled cobra. The foul effigy’s fanged mouth gaped wide and as he tested his unyielding bonds, he realized that they were implacably fused to the adamantine black scales of the vast, carven snake. Caylen’s eyes narrowed in contempt as he realized that a seething throng of serpent warriors and human tribesmen ringed the altar, all of them gazing upon him in rapt and silent anticipation. The minacious gathering stood within a wide clearing surrounded by the tangled verdure of the jungle, and in the distance Caylen descried the lofty pinnacle of the Serpent King’s black ziggurat towering above the jagged treeline. The baleful sun glowered from his zenith in the azure sky and Caylen reasoned that several hours had evidently elapsed since his ill-fated confrontation within Sauruuk’s malefic sanctum. Straining in vain once more against the eldritch chains, he noticed that his axe and sword had been strewn heedlessly upon the black plinth before him, their chalybeous blades glimmering in the pitiless sunlight. With a shudder of revulsion, Caylen suddenly realized that the cracked base of the elapine altar appeared to be heavily stained with disquietingly portentous patterns of dried blood and other nameless ichors.
“So, they mean to sacrifice me, do they?” whispered Caylen furiously. “Well, by all the gods of my ancestors, I’ll not make a willing supplicant!”
Suddenly, from the trees at the northern edge of the clearing rode Sauruuk the Serpent King, mounted ostentatiously upon a bipedal reptilian steed. The creature’s scaly hide was striped akin to the pelt of a tiger and its great slime-flecked jaws snapped and gnashed with unfettered ferocity. The gathering of serpents and tribesmen parted swiftly, permitting their liege-lord and his hulking mount to approach the black altar. The saurian steed’s vast clawed feet scored the ground deeply as it stalked forward and its long, sinewy tail thrashed in feral agitation. Sauruuk reined in the heavily muscled beast some twelve feet from Caylen, appraising his shackled captive malevolently.
“See how easily the wolf is leashed,” hissed the Serpent King, his red tongue flickering exultantly.
“Unchain me, wormcast,” growled Caylen. “And we’ll have our reckoning.”
“You are in no position to be issuing challenges, human. Your meagre strength proved no match for my divine power.”
“You fear me,” rumbled Caylen, pulling his snake-forged bonds taut. “You dare not face me in fair combat. You are a craven thing fit only to slither upon its belly like all your foul kind!”
Sauruuk’s elliptical pupils abruptly narrowed as his yellow eyes glimmered with rage. “Your blood shall anoint this sacred altar to honour the glorious god of my elder race!” With that, he wheeled his ravenous mount and addressed the leering, expectant throng. “Make of this man an offering to the great Sidereal Serpent!”
The gathered servitors howled rapturously, hefting their spears and clubs in savage jubilation. In response, Sauruuk’s mount opened its toothsome maw and gave vent to a great, ear-splitting roar. Immediately, a cowled figure strode forth from the massed horde bearing a serrated blade of viridian crystal. As the cloaked individual reverentially approached the altar, Caylen discerned that it was an ancient, raw-boned serpent-man who inhabited the tattered and feculent robes. The ophidian shaman slowly ascended the blood-stained dais, his eyes glimmering balefully. Emitting a susurrant hiss, he raised the jagged dagger in obeisance before the great black cobra.
Caylen’s lip curled in a defiant sneer. “I’ll ram that dirk up your scaly arse, you diseased old bastard!”
“We hereby venerate the divine celestial snake,” the eidolic figure rasped, his blackened tongue protruding from his muculent jaws. “He who slithers serenely through the cosmos, anointing the abyssal void with his sacred seed.”
Snarling with rage, Caylen strained furiously against the darkling chains, his iron muscles rippling and bulging beneath his scarred flesh.
“An offering of flesh and blood,” the shaman hissed, raising the blade higher in his ankylosed claws. “A sacrifice to ensure the rebirth of the Pax Ophidia and the ultimate resurgence of the great saurian imperium!”
Caylen’s corded thews surged and swelled mightily as he continued to pit his unrelenting strength against his impliable bonds. Suddenly, from the base of the altar came the sound of rending metal and cracking stone.
The shaman’s voice rose to an ululant crescendo and the sacrificial blade whirled in his taloned hands. “All hail the Exalted One! Praise the ineffable god of gods! Blood! Blood for the divine serpent! Sssakuul, ka’anduruk, kandara-ka, sathulmarakuk, ka’aldaka!”
Then, the gnarled dagger slowly began to descend towards Caylen’s heart and a breathless silence enshrouded the throng which had gathered before the black altar.
To Caylen’s astonishment, he suddenly felt a great searing heat emanating from the centre of his heaving chest. The potent sensation of warmth grew steadily until it began to spread from his torso and course through his limbs, enveloping his thews in a mantle of calidity. Abruptly, arcane tendrils of writhing blue flame leapt from the clansman’s flesh, entwining his muscular frame and dancing across the chiselled contours of his scarred body. The undulating azure flames swiftly coalesced until they had entirely cocooned Caylen’s form in a coruscant chrysalis of scintillant energy, the sorcerous shell crackling and sizzling like a thunderstorm in microcosm. With a start, Caylen realized that his senses had instantaneously become more acute; his ears discerned the rustle of the breeze in the distant trees, his lungs swelled with the scent of the verdure and the beasts therein, his eyes descried even the tenebrous aura of heat surrounding the men and serpents within his
field of vision. Then, in a dazzling blaze of sapphirean witch-fire, the Wolf-King became as one with his mystic totem. All eyes within the clearing widened in stark amazement as they bore witness to the startling transformation. The aura of energy surrounding Caylen’s body abruptly assumed the form of a great lucent wolf, its eyes ablaze with an icy, azure radiance. Howling with lupine rage, Caylen ferociously heaved at the iron chains which bound him, the blackened links at once yielding to be instantly rendered no more than twisted detritus. A ferine snarl welling in his throat, Caylen then wrenched the manacles from his wrists and ankles and drove his lambent, claw-sheathed fist into the scaly heart of the onyx altar. With a deafening cacophony, the great snake effigy immediately shattered into ten times a thousand darkling shards, its ophidian countenance exploding into charred and riven ruin.
Turning his radiant gaze next upon the bewildered serpent-shaman who now stood terror-stricken before him, Caylen swiftly grasped the ancient figure by his scaly throat and hauled him pitilessly from his feet. Dropping the gnarled sacrificial dagger, the shaman scrabbled in vain at the great searing hand which clasped him agonizingly aloft. Abruptly and with a sickening crack, the shaman’s flailing ceased and Caylen hurled the broken corpse to the earth.
Stepping down from the cracked dais, Caylen scanned the throng for Sauruuk’s whereabouts and then growled with disdain as he spied the Serpent King wheeling his mount and fleeing briskly into the labyrinthine aegis of the jungle. Moving to give chase to his foe, Caylen’s advance was halted by a sudden volley of slender shafts and blowgun darts emanating from the seething horde of tribesmen and serpent warriors. Feeling the hot bite of the myriad envenomed projectiles, Caylen was instantly thankful that he had recently supped deep of Akamai’s noisome antivenin draught. Levelling his gaze at the assembly of savage adversaries, Caylen bared his teeth and prepared to surge into the fray to meet their spears and blades with the naked might of his ensorcelled fists. Suddenly, from the shadows of the surrounding trees there came a storm of arrows and barbed javelins. The missiles rained down upon the thralls of the Serpent King like a merciless storm, swiftly felling a score of the painted tribesmen with withering efficacy. Turning to survey the periphery of the jungle, Caylen beheld Nalani and a party of her warrior kinsmen poised at the tangled treeline, already preparing another volley of shafts and spears.
With a grin, Caylen spun to the ruined altar and gathered up his axe and sword, realizing that the powerful sensation of invigorating warmth which permeated his body was dissipating steadily and the arcane glow suffusing his frame had suddenly begun to wane. Never before had he experienced such a surge of sorcerous energy, not even when the most fearsome of battle-spells had been woven about him in the fray, and although he was loath to now be dispossessed of the mystic might which had empowered him, he nevertheless felt a surge of comfort to be hefting his familiar weapons of steel once again. Turning once more to the jungle’s boundary, Caylen beheld Nalani beckoning him desperately to her side as her tribesmen loosed another volley of shafts from their palm-wood bows before proceeding to disperse rapidly into the depths of the jade vault. Weighing his options in a heartbeat, Caylen decided to join the beauteous savage in her flight, reasoning that the servitors of Sauruuk would yet prove ample grist for his bloody mill of cold steel another day. And so, with the last vestiges of azure energy flickering upon his scored flesh, Caylen-Tor surged headlong into the torrid embrace of the verdant jungle.
* * *
In the tranquil seclusion of a benighted glade, Nalani’s slender fingers gently traced the contours of Caylen’s chest as she applied a viscid, herbal balm to his many wounds. The redolent puce unguent swiftly set to work easing the pain of the numerous furrows and gashes which had been scored into the reaver’s flesh, soothing the baneful crimson welts wrought by the Serpent King’s harrowing sorcerous assault. High above the surrounding tree tops, a veil of cloud slowly cleared the face of the gibbous moon and the two figures became bathed in a lambent, eldritch light. Clenching his jaw, Caylen once more found himself enraptured by the woman’s sparkling eyes, marvelling at the bewitching intensity of her amethyst gaze.
“I thought you dead,” Nalani whispered, her hands sliding languorously down to the blistered skin of Caylen’s abdomen.
“It will take more than a snake’s treachery to slay me,” growled Caylen. “You witnessed my capture?”
Nalani nodded. “I followed you to the devil’s pyramid. You did not detect me, for I am silent as a ghost in the jungle. I saw you enter the temple and I lingered until I beheld your body being borne from that place by the serpent’s thralls.”
“My meeting with that scaly fiend did not go as I had planned,” grumbled Caylen.
“Where is your friend? Did he perish?”
“No,” replied Caylen. “I sent him home. Through the portal of which Akamai spoke. Then I destroyed it, to ensure the unhindered escape of my crew.”
“A selfless deed.”
“Mayhap. Why did you come to my aid?”
“When I saw that the serpents intended to make a sacrifice of you, I gathered a scouting party with Akamai’s blessing. You were willing to risk your life to free my people. We could do no less in return.”
Caylen scowled. “I have unfinished business with the Serpent King.”
“You summoned the wolf-spirit!” exclaimed Nalani. “Akamai said he sensed great power within you! But even with such might, I doubt you will be able to defy the foul one and his horde.”
“I know not how I invoked such arcane might,” muttered Caylen. “And I have no inkling as to whether I could wield such sorcery again.”
“And now, he will come for us,” whispered Nalani. “He will wreak vengeance upon my tribe for daring to thwart his foul blood-rite.”
Caylen’s eyes narrowed. “I shall stand against the Serpent King and his army in defence of your people. Though it may well be my final act, it is all that remains to me now.”
With a shuddering sigh, Nalani slowly pressed her fulsome lips to Caylen’s in a passionate yet forlorn kiss. His heart racing, Caylen embraced the woman lustfully, returning her ardour tenfold.
Suddenly, the surrounding verdure noisily disgorged the gaunt figure of Akamai the shaman, his rheumy eyes burning with an almost delirious light. “No time for that!” he cackled, brandishing a gnarled staff of banyan wood. “We have foreseen the future! The devil stirs in its lair!”
“The outlander will fight beside us,” blushed Nalani as she leaped briskly to her feet. “We shall all die together!”
“Perhaps not,” rasped Akamai. “The prophecy shall be heeded! Our people shall be led into battle by one who hails from across the icy sea!”
“Aye,” snapped Caylen, rising irately. “I’ll indulge you and your damned prophecy, old man. I shall lead you.”
“You’ll do more than lead us, outlander,” grinned the haggard shaman, leaning heavily upon his crooked staff. “Come the dawn, you’ll be anointed our blessed king!”
Chapter VII
Enthroned Beneath the Mountain of Fire
As the dawn painted the eastern sky with rutilant hues, the tribal procession made its way swiftly through the jungle towards the base of the great volcano. Men, women and children marched resolutely through the foliage, many bearing torches fashioned of pitch and palm fronds or carrying broad drums of seasoned wood with stretched goatskin heads. Almost the entirety of the settlement had embarked upon the ceremonial trek, with the full complement of the tribe’s warriors present and armed for battle. At the head of the column strode Caylen with Nalani at his side, assisting the wizened figure of Akamai through the tangled verdure. At length, the dense jungle gave way to a colossal clearing blanketed by a layer of coarse, cinereous ash. Caylen emerged warily from the trees to behold a vast, rock-strewn plateau riven by a score of jagged fumaroles which ceaselessly disgorged noisome clouds of acrid vapour. Grimly surveying the chasmed, piceous expanse, the clansman noted that the fissured terrain was
ringed by a deep circular trench from which rose a shimmering, nebulous heat-haze. The crumbling, sulphur-encrusted remnants of ancient stone statuary lay strewn upon the asperous ground and Caylen cautiously clambered over the sundered fragments of a carven, sun-bleached effigy to peer into the gaping depths of the abyssal furrow. Far below, he discerned the searing glow of an undulating river of rutilant lava, its crimson surface roiling and bubbling like an angry, incandescent serpent. The sensation of baleful heat and foul effluvia was palpable and Caylen solemnly turned his gaze toward the vast Mountain of Fire which brooded half a mile distant. The ominous black peak’s summit was ringed by a corona of molten rock and a gargantuan pillar of white smoke billowed ceaselessly from its cracked and jagged crown.
“You stand now upon the sacred Circle of Flame,” rasped Akamai as he shambled breathlessly to Caylen’s side. “An ancient and hallowed site, sanctified by the elder tribes who first venerated the great Fire God. Long ago, mighty temples stood defiantly here in the mountain’s shadow, proclaiming their grandeur pridefully to the heavens. Now, the pitiless ravages of time have rendered this place naught but a ruin; a desolate tomb haunted by the restless ghosts of the hoary priests who once offered their oblations to the cruel deity of ash and flame.”
“Delightful,” muttered Caylen mordantly.
“Bah! Time enough for prattle later!” barked Akamai, hobbling off towards the looming mountain. “The snake lord is on the move! Make haste!”
Nalani turned to Caylen and fixed him with a sardonic gaze. “To think, an outlander pirate who came here in search of plunder shall soon be proclaimed our king.”
The Chronicles of Caylen-Tor Page 18
