by Gene Stiles
He had not always been this way. In a long forgotten past, Jax was kind and caring with a smile that bathed all around him in warm, golden light. He was a good husband and a loving father. His heart overflowed with pride that he was among the Clan that, at long last, would fulfill the Need and awaked the Ancestors. Glory would be heaped upon him and life would be filled with wonders and promise of a peaceful future for him and his family.
Yet, this was not to be. Jax found himself forced into hard, backbreaking labor, lifting rock and clearing paths from early morn to evening’s first breath. When the burning rays of summertime suns sucked the strength from his tortured limbs and caused him to falter, his vicious masters slashed his back and legs with barb-tipped lashes or beat him into submission with their fists and booted feet, taking immense pleasure in his torment. Should he attempt to fight back or flee their barbarism, his wife and two boys held in the encampment would pay a hefty price.
When the Izon fought their way to freedom, Jax watched in agonizing horror as his family burned into twisted black corpses, what was left of their faces scorched into masks of terrify anguish. As he knelt at their befouled, decimated bodies, his muscled shoulders wracked in gut-wrenching sobs, Jax felt hands grip his corded arms. He gave no resistance when they dragged him back to his cold stone prison to be whipped and beaten until a blessed darkness pulled him into its waiting embrace. At that moment, he no longer cared, relishing in the taste of the lash, accepting the pain as his due for not saving his loved ones. He grew to love those endless moments of blood and beatings, pleasuring in torn muscles and broken bones. It was his due for not protecting his family and he needed it to fill the dark pit of his empty soul.
Now it was his turn to teach his cruel ancestors the beauty of brutality. And he would teach them well.
The season of storms touched the valley floor and the high, snow-capped mountains surrounding it. If the winds whipped down from the cold crags above and through the rocky foothills, icy rains would hammer the grasses into muddy bogs. But if hot, dry air masses blew in from the southern flatlands, the churning clouds were pushed upward toward the steep peaks filling the skies with rolling thunder and flashes of heat lightning that seldom passed beneath the roiling darkness. In these times, the moisture from the heated ground and shimmering waters was sucked from the landscape with such intensity that thick blankets of warm, white fog would sweep across the quiet valley.
This was such a night. The air was muggy and thick as the Izon slipped silently across the open spaces from the forest, their sweaty bodies shifting in form through the dense mist like deadly, demonic wraiths dancing among the flowers. They stayed in a tightly packed group, always within an arm’s reach of each other so as not to be separated in the milky syrup surrounding them. Voices carried in the stillness of the air, echoing off the hidden buildings, somehow amplified and deflected by the whiteness so not even a low whisper emanated from the Clan. A touch passed from arm to arm gave direction and command to the small party as they neared the veiled, dim lights of the city.
“I do not know why we are out here,” Stanus complained, brushing away the damp, blond curls that matted his forehead. “By the very words of Iapetus, those animals escaped across the sea. They would not dare return to Atlantis!”
“I agree,” Bordinay nodded in the gloom, wiping his angular face with the soft cloth he kept inside his black leather vest. “Besides, it would have been much simpler to set wards along the perimeter instead of stationing men such as us.”
“It is by the command of Cronus,” Stanus replied, his words said so quietly that Bordinay need lean over to hear him. “His hatred of these Izon is such, he hopes there will be intruders to be killed on sight. That is why he leaves some streets accessible.”
“It seems foolish, I know,” Bordinay harrumphed, “None would dare…”
His words were interrupted by a searing pain that pierced his back just above his waist. He sank to his knees in shock only to feel a burning slice around his thick neck and the gurgling of his own blood filling his throat with a tangy, metallic taste. His mouth gaped in soundless words as the light slid from his bulging eyes.
Stanus stared as his friend sank to the ground, seeing a burly, hairy arm come from behind to slice a thin, bloody arc across his throat. He saw fountains of crimson spurt from severed arteries, pouring lifeblood in rivers down Bordinay’s corded shoulders. He wondered why he could not cry out; why he could not leap to the aid of his companion. He felt a strange pressure in his chest, astounded at the red-dripping shaft protruding from his heart. Stanus fell backward, driving the spear farther through his twitching body, stunned by the fact that his death brought so little pain.
Luc and Clef dragged the lifeless corpses into a dimly lit alley between two high stone walls a little way from where the rest of the Clan huddled in quiet conference. They joined the group in the tight circle, their heads nearly touching so their barely murmured words could not be overheard.
“They will be expecting us to attack the dwellings on the fringe of the city,” Guel whispered, a cruel venom dripping from his rumbling voice. “That is why we will work our way further into this viper’s pit before staining our blades.”
“Will that not make our escape all the more difficult?” Luc queried, the raise of one bushy eyebrow the only expression on his impassive face.
“Escape? Did you think any of us would survive this attack?” Guel studied each man squatting in the foggy darkness, noting the grim resignation on each black countenance. “I thought not. Our only goal is to inflict as much agony and death upon our enemies as we can in the little time we have. We must show them they are not invincible and they pay dearly for the terrors they have heaped upon us. They must know that to prey upon the Izon is to find themselves bathed in the blood of our families, our loved ones and our brethren. That and only that is why we are here!”
Their eyes as blood-red as a pack of Dire Wolves, the men growled their agreement and slid quietly into the starless, foggy night. The Izon split up in teams of two, entering darkened homes like demonic, wrathful ghosts, invading sleeping chambers on silent, padded feet. Blades once shiny now dripped with crimson rivulets, slicing into sleeping flesh with merciless, sadistic pleasure. Dark red pools of blood stained polished floors and soaked patterned bedding surrounding dead and mutilated corpses.
Prenus smiled down on the sleeping girl child, brushing curly locks of auburn hair from her cherub face and tucked the light blue blanket under her soft little chin. He placed a gentle caress upon her forehead and dimmed the crystal lamp on the small, red table next to her bed. He spared one more glance at the bed opposite the nightstand where a slightly older, mirror image of the child lay in peaceful repose. Leah, his ten-year-old daughter, snuggled her fluffy pillow tightly to her chest, her knees pulled up beneath her bedsheets. His eyes glistened with pride at his sweet little children as he rose from the bed and headed for the chamber door. ‘Sleep well, my daughters’, he thought as he slipped from the room. ‘Oh, how I love you!’
Passing the open door of his bedroom, Prenus saw his lovely wife curled around her pillow so much like Leah that it brought a quiet chuckle from his lips. He made his way down the hall to the kitchen where a steaming pot of sweet tea awaited him. ‘One more cup,’ he thought wearily, ‘and I, too, can rest for the night.’
Stepping around the half-wall separating the hallway from the kitchen, Prenus stopped stock still, unable to open his mouth to let out an astonished ‘Oh!’ The curve-tipped head of the spear penetrated his pallet and sliced its way behind his eyes and into the grey mass of his brain. Dropping to his knees only drove the deadly blade deeper inside his skull, dimming his eyes and sucking the life from mind. The last words he heard filled his dying heart with abject horror.
“Fear not. We shall send your family into hell right behind you,” a guttural, rumbling voice whispered into his ear as his head hit the granite floor. “Burn with them for eternity, monster!”
Guel left the sleeping chamber of the children leaving nothing more than flayed pieces of tattered flesh lying in a sticky stew of entrails and blood behind him. Grimly, he wiped his long, deadly blade on his crimson-stained pant leg and slid it back into its sheath. ‘For my unborn child,’ he thought savagely. ‘For my Sheel.’
“We near the outskirts of the city,” Jax muttered, his voice filled with perverse, fiendish pleasure, the smell of expended sexual gratification tainting the air around him. He left the woman’s room with its door wide open to expose her naked, tormented remains. “There are not many dwellings left to explore,” he added with depraved dejection.
“The sun arises,” Guel responded as they made their way to the alley behind the stone houses. “We must hurry to join our Clansmen at the river’s edge. There is little time to make the foothills before the night is gone.”
“I shall stay behind and take a few more with me before I am captured.” Jax licked his lips in heinous anticipation, his dark eyes sparkling with depraved lust.
“No, Jax,” Guel said, gripping his friend on his muscled shoulder. “Should we escape, I promise you a return. We shall come back again and again as long as there is life in our limbs. You have my word.”
With a heavy disheartened sigh, Jax acquiesced, running alongside Guel in a ground-eating pace toward the river. The two men raced through the dim, winding streets that twisted through the dingy warehouses and closed businesses of the waterfront staying far to the east of the brightly illuminated, bustling docks lining the churning river. They arrived at the last deserted storehouse at the edge of the city as the first rays of the rising sun reddened the thick band of clouds that capped the snowcapped mountaintops. In the shadows of the dirty street behind the building, the faint forms of the squatted Izon looked like a misshapen mass of ill kept bushes.
“Where is Clef and Luc?” Guel queried, hunching down with the cluster of men. Each of them wore bloody hatred on their stained and red-soaked bodies.
“They have not arrived as yet,” Brock responded, using the rag from his black leather belt to wipe away the thick layer of sweat and sticky body fluids from his broad, scarred face. He tied his jet-black, matted hair behind his pillar-like neck with a small strip of hide and whispered in the lightening gloom. “I do not think they will return at all.”
“We will give them a few more moments,” Guel nodded. “We have little time to wait for them. They know our path and can join us upriver if it is possible.”
It was not possible.
While a thick blanket of ebony still wrapped the valley floor, Clef slipped into the lightless house like a wraith hovering above the granite floor, Luc close behind him. The coolness of the night entrapped the last vestiges of the dense mist in the damp spaces between the hard rock homes. Tendrils of fog seeped into the doorway they had left open, snaking around the wooden furniture of the living room leaving beads of moisture on the polished surfaces. Though their sharp eyes adjusted well to the dusky light of homes they had invaded, this place seemed especially dark with heavy drapes and curtains drawn tightly over all the windows.
Moving cautiously, the Clansmen more felt their way around obstacles then saw them. The rooms, though cluttered with chairs and a long couch, were small with no long hallway to mark multiple rooms. Only one door seemed to separate the living spaces from a bedchamber. That was fine for Clef and Luc. Their lust for vengeance was nearly sated by corpses they left in their wake. They had gorged themselves on over twenty kills this night. This one would be their last before they joined their brethren on the city’s edge. Slowly, Luc turned the handle on the bedroom door.
Mironese snapped awake with crystal clarity, his Aam-trained senses alerting him to some tiny sound that registered more in his brain than within his ears. Breathing imperceptibly, he opened his awareness and picked up the minute trace of a latch turning. Slipping silently out of his bedsheets, he glided across the cool granite floor on bare feet. It took but two quick strides to reach his clothing and the long, wicked-edged blade that hung from his belt. The door was just cracking open when he reached the wall beside it. The cold stone sent a pleasant shock wave down his naked, powerful, eight-foot frame that heightened his already awakened nerve endings. Breathing slowly, he waited.
Mironese allowed the first of the two intruders to step all the way into the near-dark room, waiting until the second burly form entered the threshold. He could tell by their size and the way his assailants moved that they were of the bestial Clan. Striking with the speed of a maddened viper, Mironese thrust his glistening blade into the heart of the thing in his doorway, the long blade exiting the back of the dying body. Before the knees of the creature could even buckle, he whipped the blade free and into a deadly arc the clove the head clean from the other attacker’s broad shoulders. Both corpses hit the smooth, polished stone at nearly the same time.
Mironese touched the crystal lamp next to his mahogany-framed bed, bringing his room into daytime brightness. Ignoring the pools spreading around the dead things on the floor and the arterial spray dripping from the picture-less walls, he grabbed the com and alerted Aam headquarters in the Great Pyramid. Since the Izon attack on the fringes of Atlantis, the order was given to report immediately any incursions. Once he made his report, a team was dispatched to remove the animals from his home and erase any evidence of their existence.
Mironese lifted his uniform from his chair and stepped over the black puddles and stinking bodies, careful not to spread their filthy stains in footprints throughout his home. Dressing quickly in black leather pants that molded to his brawny, sinewy legs, matching V-neck shirt and leather vest that strained to cover his rock-hard chest, he pulled on his knee-high, ebony belt and rushed outside to his awaiting sled. Throwing a leg over the vehicle, he spun it around and raced toward the city’s glowing heart.
Iapetus snapped awake clear-headed and moving before the grim news passed completely from the messenger’s lips. He dressed quickly in his obsidian garb, throwing his black cloak over his monstrous shoulders. Every Aam in Atlantis received the alert on their coms and gathered in the foyer before their commander could even reach the antechamber. Iapetus looked to a grim squad leader for more information, his seething, black eyes saying more than words ever could.
Elias cringed beneath that fiery, withering gazed, but stood ramrod straight before the second, hiding his quaking fear inside his trembling heart. The horrifying information he had to pass on would not be received well and he did not wish to be the one to share it with the gigantic man before him. His jaw set so hard that twitches jerked beneath his ears. Elias sent a silent pray to the Creator that there would be no reprisals against him, personally for his report.
“Second,” he started, forcing the words out between his thin, pink lips, “there have been multiple attacks within the city with multiple casualties. How many we have yet to discover. The Aam on their way here discovered those we know of by way of bloody tracks left on the sidewalks. It appears to be a pack of these filthy Izon attacked our home while the People slept. Only the two slain by Mironese have been found.”
Iapetus stared at him as if he were a bug to be squashed beneath his booted foot and, for a moment, Elias wanted nothing more than to flee from those flaming beacons. It took an act of shear will to keep his feet rooted on the patterned tiles of the floor.
“Can you at least tell me in which direction they are moving?”
The question, spoken in an ice-cold whisper, washed over Elias like a stormy sea as if all that had occurred was his own personal fault. He could not help the involuntary shutter that rippled down his tall, wiry body.
“From what we currently know,” Elias responded, his head slightly bowed, “I would guess they have travelled northeast through Atlantis heading toward the Gaia.”
“You guess?”
“It is our…best estimate,” Elias replied, his voice faltering. His eyes stared at the rich, golden shape at his booted feet awaiting the blow t
hat would surely end his life. It did not come. After an eternity of seconds, he dared raise his ocean-blue eyes, surprised he still breathed. Elias was even more amazed to find that Iapetus no longer even looked in his direction. He let the captured air seep from his lungs, unaware that he was holding his breath.
“Spread out along the river from the docks to the eastern mountains,” Iapetus commanded, venom spraying out upon the men like burning drops of acid. “Block any route of escape and notify me at the first sight of those putrid beasts. Capture them, engage them only if you have no choice, but leave them alive. I shall be there to welcome these filthy animals to Atlantis and make them pay for their heinous crimes.”
‘We may yet survive this night,’ Guel dared hope, his thick legs trembling from the punishing pace he set for them. The last wisps of mist lay tattered and twisting upon the dewdropped, waist-high grasses of the vast meadow that bordered the northwestern mountains. Already the barren, rocky outcroppings that marked the beginnings of the foothills were clearly visible in the brightening light of the rising sun over the range to the east. The twinkling stars of the night sky winked out one by one as golden rays pierced the veil of rolling clouds that often draped the ragged peaks. The luminous beams set ablaze the snowy, white crags before the fleeing Izon, lighting their path toward the promised escape in the tumbled boulders scattered haphazardly before them.
All that hope disintegrated in a blast of eye-watering white light that seared the air at Guel’s right. The dazzling, milky beam sliced Jax neatly in half at the waist, his plummeting legs continuing their mad dash forward for yards before tumbling to the hard, moisture-laden ground, unaware that the brain commanding them no longer sent signals down a severed spine. Guel instinctively dove to his left, rolling through the deep, green grasses to gain space between him and the bloodless remains of his friend and brother. In the heartbeat it took for him to regain his feet, all but four of the Izon in his band lay scattered around him in smoldering, lifeless heaps. His remaining comrades dashed to his side, forming a back-to-back circle, spears in hand and ready to sell their lives dearly to the passionately hated devils that quickly surrounded them.
