War Pigs

by Jay Requard

  He saw lights and heard drums, far-off rattles and a woman’s pleasured cries. Time dilated, and clung to the form in his arms, he submitted himself to the fury of a goddess. Pleasure intertwined with pain as the waters they lived in vibrated and boiled, washing the blood off his body so it could soak into hers, a feeding that doubled her strength with each passing moment.

  Pressed back against one of the banks, Lut prepared to die within The Azure Queen’s bliss, every moment taken from one breath to the next.

  No distractions, no mind.

  2

  The Dead Cheer

  Rolling away from her sleeping form, Lut groaned. His entire body ached, but looking to the side, he made out in dirt where she had chased him after their lovemaking, satisfied that he had pleased her. He hobbled toward the grove's eastern end, limping through one of the snowmelt streams that flowed from the northeast to feed her pond. Halted in its crystal flow, he lowered to his knees. The chill calmed the knocking pains in his joints.

  The nerves numbed, Lut crawled out of the water. He went to a small alcove he had cut from the thicket, smiling when he spotted the fresh loot his men had delivered while he slept. Quick to work, he went about sorting things, putting away the small bits of gold with the wealth he had gathered, the cannabis with the other medicinal plants he stored, and a fine weapon he demanded from each raid found its way to a small collection of arms he had hidden in a hollow near the back.

  The noontime sun had approached its apex in the sky when he left his small sanctuary. The Azure Queen played merrily on the heath beside her pond. She danced to Lut, her movements leaving silken streams of bright color in the air. A mix of roses, vanilla, and fruit, her musk inflamed his passions.

  Her hair fell perfect on her square shoulders when she stopped before him. "I need you to go do something for me today, Lut."

  He spotted where he had left Ravager in the grass, its keen edge speckled with the morning dew. Kneeling, Lut grimaced as sinew and bones cracked. "Your desires are mine, my goddess."

  "Good boy," she said, resplendent. "Bloodtide is upon us again at the behest of the bitch. One of my little birds told me that the raider wielding it has entered my territory to the north. This infringement must be answered."

  "Bloodtide?" Lut spoke the name with a bit of awe. A two-handed sword unlike any other, its cruel edge had spilled the blood of numerous enemies who assaulted the world of the Wagani, and more than enough of his own kind to merit its reputation. To test Ravager's weight against such a name like its own... "He is a flea compared to you, my goddess, but I would relish the attempt to wipe him and his dread god out."

  "No, no, no," she said, amused by his eagerness. "Just Bloodtide."

  "As you wish," Lut replied, stoic against the sincere refusal. "I will claim his weapon and present it to you, my love."

  "My love." The Azure Queen moved for him with the grace of a hill-lion, strong yet liquid. She laid a delicate finger on his thick, chapped lips, running their lengths before she massaged the sharp points of his lower tusks. He kissed her fingers.

  "What will happen to you when it is all said and done, my little prince?" she asked, a question she raised every time they parted. "Go, my champion. Go gain your glory."

  Somewhere between the wolf-crags and the first foothills of the northeastern mountains, Lut's war band clashed with the forces of Bloodtide, an old champion who had taken his sword from its previous wielder not long after he went to work for The Burnt Maiden, yet another lesser god conspiring for the power of the Azure Queen. Blood frothed in mud puddles as the rain transformed the battlefield to soup. Torn corpses lay, splattered in a mix of their entrails and soil.

  Through the grind of battle, as bodies were thrown at bodies and iron gained consecration, Lut found his way into the center of the conflict, where one fighter stood out from the rest. Armed with a sword three fingers wide and nearly as tall as its wielder, the enigmatic warrior only known by his blade’s name cut at his foes. The great waves of his movements knocked the younger whelps in Lut's gang aside like children before the broad strength of an adult. Spear shafts were severed and broken, faces gashed, victims of this figure crowned in the gilded skull of a bear.

  The two champions found themselves across from each other, caught in a place where chaos and chance allowed a moment of peace.

  "Who do you carry?" Bloodtide asked.

  "Ravager, whose width has cleaved the necks of astra-saints in the east to white-skinned bastards to the west," said Lut, hoisting his weapon. The flare of its edge shone in the mid-morning. "Before my death, it will be legend."

  "Not on the worth of Bloodtide, warrior," said his opponent.

  The two fell upon each other. Lut barreled into Bloodtide with an overhand smash, which the swordsman dodged while bringing his great blade around in a horizontal clash. Iron clashed as edges nicked, and crashing on the dry trampled field, sweat blinded Lut’s eyes.

  Ravager and Bloodtide met for a second exchange. Lut pressed past the long brand his opponent held, slipping the sword's reach as he would a punch in his youthful days. Overextended, Bloodtide stepped back to raise his guard, too late to see the trick Lut had made when the edge broke the scale armor covering his belly.

  Split like a melon, intestines fell as Bloodtide lost the sword in his hands. Cradling his guts, he met Lut's malicious glee with a proud smile. "Hail to the Ravager," he croaked through gory lips.

  Lut parted his skull to the teeth.

  The battle surged for a few more minutes, until an odd quiet conquered the desolate knolls. Blood smeared wildflowers, white petals stained dark, wavered in the air’s wilting heat. Those of Lut's raiders who survived closed on their leader, drunk on battle lust, possessed of what spoils they had taken from their kills.

  Satisfied beyond measure, Lut bent down and lifted Bloodtide from the soil. With the huge sword on one shoulder and his reddened ax on the other, he basked in the glory of his victory. Often those of his war band would have reveled with him, elated at the honor word of the event would carry, each of them adding to their own weapon’s fame. Yet on this day, the Black Hoods did not share smile at his results. Nervous glances traded between them, manifested in shuffled feet and loose grips on their arms.

  "Who will carry my trophy and proclaim my legend?" called Lut, an honor he had earned from his deed. "Who will be the first to carry my spoil?"

  None stepped forward. One voice spoke up out of the fifteen surrounding Lut, an arrogant voice he bristled to hear.

  Tet's cackle preceded his words. "Bloodtide, raider? Why take the blade of the defeated when one could have a victorious force like Ravager?"

  The circle closed on Lut.

  "You dogs!" Lut lowered his weapons, sword and ax, bearing both as if they weighed nothing. Hiding the strain in his chest, shoulders, and arms, he closed his hands tight to the handles. "The Azure Queen will flay you all alive for this!"

  "Flay us?" Tet laughed more. He held his iron sword to the south, pointing toward home. The edge nicked, the flats brown with rust, he shook his neglected blade with disdain. "How could we do this without her blessing?"

  "Lies," Lut shouted. He goaded his attackers, feinting attacks and swinging wildly at them when they came too close. "You bastards would base your theft on lies!"

  "That's the problem, Lut," said Tet. He advanced, prepared to fight. "They’re only lies if someone cares."

  3

  Light Ebbs

  Lut blinked his crusted eyes when morning struck his face. Dried blood flaked his cheeks, settled in the rents the thorn bushes had left when he dove into them, fleeing Tet and the rest of his betrayers. His flesh, scored from head to toe, burned in an agony beyond any physical catastrophe he had suffered in his life.

  And yet it did not match his despair.

  He did not remember anything of his desperate escape, not a step taken or a pain inflicted, or how close he had come to defeat. Deep within, in the place where he kept the most vulnerable thin
gs, a snake had slithered into that lonesome chamber, a violation of a truth Lut had thought absolute.

  Lut thought she loved him.

  A spark of hope fought for attention, a nagging doubt that this abandonment was not the work of the Azure Queen, but some scheme concocted by Tet. The idea that he had been distracted, duped by such impossibility, woke the hatred flowing in his veins.

  One sense remained: the weight of the ax in his hand. He had saved Ravager.

  He had guaranteed his revenge.

  Lut wrestled out of the thorn bushes sometime later, his legs bloodied from dozens of small cuts. Sore beyond measure, he shuffled into the woods, taking time to make sure he did not walk into an ambush. The forest was silent save for the sound of birdsong and far-off noises, skitters in the dins of leaves. He hiked through streams, creeks, and wetlands, always forward, always southbound. Even through pale blankets of cloud, Shur's hazy outline cut his circle, the great god's shield blazed white.

  The miles marched on through the marshy valleys. Water, a plentiful resource, sated his thirst, but soon hunger gnawed at his stomach, emptied of food for more than a day. Lut's wounds stung with every move he made. A single step drew a labored breath, a hill a series of tortured groans. Slowed by his injuries, he reached the halfway mark, a copse of pines surrounding a wild blueberry thicket, a place of sunlight and mossy fields.

  Half-starved and woozy, Lut fell to his knees, laying his ax's weight in the soft green down. He found a small piece of flint tucked in his leggings, a needed tool no Wag left their territory without. Recovering his weapon, he struck the small bit of stone against the iron flat, strong enough to produce a spark. He gathered what bits of dried wood he could find as Ata, the high goddess of the night and the moon, brought the day back into her embrace.

  Summoning his last strength, he built his fire until the blueberries gleamed in orange light, swollen delights the color of unpolished sapphires. He reached to the lowest branches as the stars appeared, grabbing handfuls of sweet nectar. Lut gorged, his lips, tusks, and clawed fingers stained purple. His stomach ached at the sudden infusion.

  A growl cut the dark.

  A mountain lion padded into the grove. Small and sleek, the honey fur shimmered on his shoulders in the starlight seeping past the canopy, his tail a-twitch in anticipation. His amber eyes glowed as he stared at Lut.

  Lut lifted Ravager in his hands. Heavy with exhaustion, he stilled his body for the one chance he would have. He willed his hands tight to his ax's handle. The iron shone cold.

  The beast sprang from its cover, claws outstretched.

  Bones broke as blood sprayed a hot copper shower.

  Lut fell to the ground as the lion’s corpse crashed into him. Buried under the dead cat, jagged bones poked his body as hot organs wetted his chest. Shoving the corpse off him, he thrust beyond the ribcage, in search of a desperate meal.

  No Black Hoods helmed the outlying posts of the Azure Queen's domain, nor did any slaves inhabit the bamboo cages hidden inside the palisade. Dirt houses, great tents, the stalls for the craftsmen—the areas outside the goddess's tunnel—were emptied, though the possessions remained as if their owners would soon return.

  Strengthened by the lion's rangy meat and organs, Lut sneaked into the darkness of his divine lover's tunnel, worried that he would meet foes in the bleak passage. The same journey he made on the return from every raid ceased to be the easy road to heaven it had once been. The pat of his bare feet on the packed soil and trampled moss seemed heavier in his ears, a sound carrying more doom than he thought it would. The light at the end of the tunnel, usually bright and inviting, glimmered in a ruddy color. A burnt smell of flesh, sweat, and wine reached his snout.

  At the top of the rise to the Azure Queen's field, Lut stopped, stunned by what lay before him.

  At the hillock's apex roared a great bonfire, its flames licking at the sky. Bodies of humans and Wag alike smoldered on the pile, stomachs torn open to let the innards spill out. Raiders prostrated themselves around the blaze, hooded faces in the dirt as they chanted garbled litanies led by those who sacrificed more slaves for the pyre. Blood stained the grass, which trickled into the streams feeding the Azure Queen's pond. The surface of the water turned brown, sloshing as two figures copulated in its shallow depths.

  Lut recognized the two lovers.

  Tet almost covered the goddess's supple body with his wide bulk. Moans of pleasure reached high into the morning, her singsong voice pausing every time she accepted a hard thrust. Her shimmering eyes glowed in the faint shadows of her leafy enclosure until her gaze strayed from the pale firmament, drifting with the embers of the ritual fire. She knew someone watched.

  The Azure Queen greeted him with a happy smile.

  Ravager raised, he dashed forward. "Lut-tik-tik-tik!"

  The Black Hoods converged from the grove's hidden places. Lut barged through them, slaying one who came too close. His eyes on Tet, he did not see the rest of the worshipers charge him from behind. Caught in the mash of grasping hands, he thrashed to keep them back, the edge of his ax slicing those that dared to touch him. Frenzied, Lut searched for a hole in the wall of bodies when a voice called over the din of shouts.

  "Let him be," she proclaimed.

  Like drones to an ant-queen, the Black Hoods receded. An aisle formed in the direction of the pond, and down she walked with Tet in tow. The young raider carried Bloodtide folded in the crook of his elbow, a proud accoutrement to a thief’s smirk. He stayed behind when the goddess reached the circle's center, flanked by many of those who had also betrayed Lut.

  "My little prince," she said. "I'm so happy to see you alive."

  Coiled to attack, Lut hesitated when the pads of her dainty fingers touched his swollen arm. Wide-eyed with wrath, he glanced to her for a moment, unsure whether to let his guard down. "What did he tell you?" he asked. "What lies did he spew?"

  "Lies?" The Azure Queen cast a confused look at Tet. "No one has told me any lies."

  "Tet said you ordered my slaying! He tried to steal my weapon, my life, my glory, and all while proclaiming to do so in your name!"

  "Because I did."

  Lut thought he died when the goddess uttered the admission. His breath caught in his chest, his hand weakened on his ax. He looked to his sacred goddess, his mouth trembling. "Why?"

  She loosed a pitying laugh. "Because it is the way of the world, and the world is mine, isn't it? As long as I'm happy, there should be no others."

  Lut shucked from her grip. "I've never strayed, I've never questioned..."

  She laughed louder. "I didn't order your death because of your loyalty, Lut. I ordered it because of you."

  Lut gaped, unable to speak. Tet cackled, a shaming sound that filled the void. Lut tensed, ready to charge when a sudden realization pounded home in his mind. He had made this decision, a decision never considered in the ten years since Lut had come under the shadow of his lover and deity. The fault was not with Tet.

  The fault resided with him.

  "Please," he whispered to her. "Tell me what I must do to fix this."

  "It's so simple, my little prince," said the goddess. "Give up Ravager. Give up your legend."

  4

  Flames Alight

  Not far from the Azure Queen’s domain lay a small lake, its expanse a sparkling surface of lapping waves stroked by the immortal wind. Lut stood on the shore, his clawed toes sunken into the soft, wet clay. A great mirror, the water reflected Ata's pale face as she hung in the night sky, with only a crescent cheek revealed among a sea of blue stars.

  He had walked for hours to reach this point, though he did not know why he had chosen it. The daze of his dismissal had carried him onward, without thought or notice of why things happened the way they did. At the edge of a dream's oblivion, Lut held Ravager tight in his gnarled hands, at odds with a world he thought he had defeated.

  At least three of her raiders had followed him. They were back there, he knew, somewhere in the
thickets watching while they gripped their spears. If he ignored the wind he heard their breathing, the sound fast, shallow, and intense.

  "Her raiders," he whispered, embittered. The reality of a decade’s devotion spread cancer in his stomach, an acidic ache filled with regrets. Lut had spurned his father, his people, all for her, for legend, thinking both were allowed. The mere idea of the title he earned—raidlord—seemed hollow in the awful truth of things.

  Yet none of those choices had mattered. The only choice left faced him there on that muddy shore, a kind of foe he never guessed he would face in this life. His immediate thoughts returned to his father. Did Grus still live far off in the forests of Mystland?

  He wondered what Grus would say, and in some way, he knew.

  "Never give your back unless you know a way out," Lut recited, finding new meaning in old words. His grip tightened on Ravager's handle.

  He knew the way out.

  Lut turned around to face the trees. "Come, curs. No need to hide like cowards."

  From the darkness the three Black Hoods emerged, armed with iron-shod spears. He recognized them among the younger whelps in the goddess’s retinue, though they bared too few scars against Lut's own experience. They approached cautiously, the barbs of their weapons pointed at him.

  "Throw it in, Lut," said the closest of the three. "The goddess said you can't come home until you throw away Ravager."

  A wicked grin carved Lut's mouth, baring his dirty teeth. "Did she?"

  "Do it," said one of the others, nervous. "We'll stick your guts if you don—"

  Before the last syllable escaped the youth's mouth, Lut wheeled his ax around, launching it at his target. Ravager’s edge buried its bill in the male's chest. His two compatriots stood there as the corpse struck the earth with a thud.