by Ty Johnston
The room went more still than it had before. Men did not even breath.
The big man slowly turned, his gaze once more stretching out to encompass all those before him. “You have no strength in your words,” he said to Staebo, then to the crowd, “nor in your convictions. If these … Populars … are truly the blackguards you make them out to be, you are not men for suffering their existence among you. But as you battle with words instead of iron, I suspect they are little more than fools like yourselves. Small minded. Boorish. Afraid of shadows.”
Bayne turned his hard look upon Staebo once again. “When you use the language of war, make sure you are making war. When speaking of … politics,” here the warrior’s voice nearly cracked, “use the language of old women spreading gossip.”
With that the big man walked across the room and up the stairs, his heavy boots plodding. All eyes were upon him, following him. Not a sound could be heard but those heavy, wooden cloppings.
As soon as Bayne disappeared upstairs, there were numerous collectives gasps throughout the chamber.
And everyone looked to Lerebus.
Who allowed an abashed grin before standing and following his partner. His gaze remained watchful, however, and his left hand never left the hilt of his sword.
Soon enough the yellow-haired northerner was on the second floor away from the crowd, and only then did a semblance of sound and rumblings and movement return to the front room downstairs.
“Have you lost your mind?” Lerebus asked as he entered their room to find the larger man sitting on the end of the bed. “We will be lucky to make it through the night alive!”
Bayne allowed his scarred hands to hang between his legs as he stared up with a glint of steel in his eyes. “I begin to see why Verkanus and Marnok held these fools in such low esteem.”
“What are you talking about?”
“These mortals!” Bayne shouted, motioning with a hand toward downstairs where the din of the crowd was growing louder, angrier. “More and more I find them to be fools. They are not fit to govern themselves. They cannot even do so cordially. Everywhere I have turned there has been nothing but violence and words of violence. Mortal men kill, or they want to kill in their secret hearts. But they are weak and too frightened to do as their consciences dictate! If you have an enemy before you, you slaughter them! It is that simple. Otherwise, leave men be and shut your mouths!”
The big warrior sat there heaving, his head now in his hands as he stared at the floor between his boots.
Lerebus did not appear to know what to say. He stood there with broad eyes, unmoving.
Finally, after several minutes of quiet in the room, a quiet that was swiftly being overtaken by a verbal tumult from the lower level of the inn, Lerebus spoke. “I am a mortal man. Do you consider me among the foolish?”
Bayne shot up a glance. “You have not proven a fool as of yet, but you were captured by those gladiators.”
“And that makes me what?” Lerebus asked. “Weak? A buffoon?”
“It makes you ill prepared,” Bayne said.
“Are you to tell me you have never encountered events that were beyond your control?” Lerebus said. “Are you to tell me you have always been prepared for every eventuality in your existence?”
Bayne went silent.
Which was when the shouts from below grew in strength, shaking the very floor. Then followed crackings and thunders, as of wooden furnishings being shattered.
Bayne grinned. “It would seem I have caused quite the stir.”
“It would seem we should be going,” Lerebus pointed out. “I suggest out the window, and let us hope we can get to our horses.”
Bayne thrust himself away from the bed, standing tall. “I will not run from the likes of a mob.” He was Bayne kul Kanon. Why should he flee? He was a god, a god of war. He had dealt death to thousands of Trodan soldiers. He had faced and destroyed Emperor Verkanus himself. The only true defeat Bayne had ever faced had been upon another world, one that was far from this one.
But Lerebus had no knowledge of any of that.
“Madness,” the blond man said as he retrieved his spear and a sack of his belongings and moved toward the open window, the dark of night and the alley beyond.
Bayne bent and pulled his giant sword from beneath the bed. “Run if you will, but leave my horse. I will need it once I am finished here.”
There were stompings outside the room’s door, the audible cries of a crazed audience bashing its way up the stairs and into the hall leading to the warriors’ chamber.
Lerebus glanced at the other fighter’s back. “Bayne, there is no need for bloodshed. We can leave.”
The scarred, bald head shook slowly. “No. I will not run. Whatever should come, these fools bring it upon themselves.”
With one last glance, Lerebus shoved a leg out the window. Then he was gone.
There was a thumping noise from outside, then hollers and shouts went up. “There’s one of them!”
Bayne had no time for concern about his companion. He kicked back, shoving the bed into a corner, then brought around his sword and gripped it in two hands before his chest.
The door to the room smashed open, a trio of red-faced, gritting and spitting men revealed in the hall.
Bayne stood his ground.
The first through the door was a burly fellow with a black beard, stains on his gray tunic and the reek of bad wine about his lips. He hefted a woodsman’s ax, the tool used to knock open the door. Bayne split his head, leaving brains to spill upon the floor.
The next fellow was average size and wearing a greasy toga and sandals. In each of his hands was a rusting scythe. He had just enough time to step into the room and blanch at the slaying of his fellow when steel entered his chest, cleaving through his heart.
The third man wore dusty leathers. He was the youngest of the lot with a thin beard. He also appeared to be the only one with any real training or experience in combat. Upon seeing the swift death brought to his companions, he stuffed his knife back into its scabbard and fled for the stairs.
Bayne roared, kicking aside dead men, and charged into the hall.
The man in leathers did not waste time with the steps. He jumped down the flight of stairs, landing with a crack and a twisted ankle at the bottom.
A half dozen other men suddenly appeared at the bottom of the staircase, each a drunk with makeshift weapons and slurred speech. Several grabbed the injured young man and pulled him away from the stairs while the others hoisted their weapons and screamed for Bayne to come down to his death.
The big warrior obliged. He leapt, his body out at full length, his sword extended in one hand.
There were screams, but none of the townsmen moved out of the way. They were too shocked to do anything but watch.
More than three-hundred pounds of solid muscle and steel bones crashed into the commoners, squashing one man nearly flat and breaking his neck as he bent beneath Bayne’s weight. Others were knocked aside, back against the front wall, or were spilled onto the lower landing of the stairs and into the front room proper.
Bayne himself was none the worse for his actions. He jumped to his feet, his long sword stabbing out to take a man in the throat, his free hand grabbing another fellow by the wrist and squeezing, cracking bones and turning flesh to red jelly.
There was no counter assault. The wind was knocked from the townsmen. The doom that was Bayne was among them, and none were brave enough to match death face to face.
All fled.
Or tried to.
A few made it out the hanging curtain that was the inn’s entrance, but the space was tight near the stairwell and Bayne’s steel was singing. A dozen men were slaughtered within seconds, blood and intestines coating the floor in gore.
The rest of the crowd that remained, a dozen or so, fled to a back room along with the inn’s staff. There were scrambling noises, shoutings and finally a slam of a door.
All was quiet but for the drip o
f blood from atop tables and the heavy breaths of the gigantic man now standing in the middle of the room.
One handed, Bayne swished his sword through the air, slinging blood and stringy strips of flesh onto the walls. He growled low and slowly turned toward the the exit to the streets.
His mind was awhirl with images of death and destruction. The breaking point had come. It had not been violence that had pushed Bayne over the top, but words. Words of stupidity. Words of trepidation. Words of avarice.
The mortals had brought it upon themselves. Bayne had learned that lesson. During his days of wandering, up the mountain and then in another world, he had been educated in the foolishness of men. They were not fit to live, let alone rule. They were greedy, selfish, cruel, degenerate, demonic, even to one another. No, mankind had been given its chance. Bayne had tolerated their foolishness for as long as he would.
No longer.
He would begin here. With this town. If other humans should attempt to stand in his way, let them beware. Bayne was going to march forward from this point onward, and no longer would he put up with the nonsense, the idiocy, of these precarious creatures.
A god walked the earth and he was an angry god. Let humanity tremble.
He strode forward, brushing aside the curtain.
Outside, the town was in chaos. Where before had been the cries of joy and celebration, now there were the weepings and lamentations of fear and abhorrence. People ran to and fro, gathering children and family and friends and sprinting for doors which were soon slammed shut. More than a few fingers were pointed toward the blood-splattered warrior standing in front of The Undecided Rat, but none dared approach the seeming madman.
Until six young warriors clad in studded leathers marched forward on the road from the town’s entrance. These brave youths carried cudgels and iron-tipped javelins.
Bayne watched them come with a smirk upon his features.
The six halted a stone’s toss from the big man and one of them stepped forward, opening his mouth as if to speak.
Bayne did not give him a chance. The swordsman sprang, in a single bound covering the distance between the inn and the six youths.
Steel swung and a head rolled onto the dusty road. A pair of spears darted forward, one glancing off chain links, the other stabbing into Bayne’s right arm, splitting flesh and drawing blood.
It was not enough to stop the butchery.
Bayne roared and hefted his huge sword high overhead, bringing the weapon down to crack against a skull so hard the dead man’s eyes popped from their sockets.
Then Bayne was a whirling tornado of steel and death. Limbs flew. Blood splattered. Stomachs were gashed wide and dinners recently eaten spilled to the ground.
When the warrior came to a halt mere seconds later, he was the last combatant standing. The six were not only dead but hacked to pieces, their blood forming a small lake beneath the twitching trunks and arms and legs and heads.
Bayne grinned an evil grin and stepped out of the growing pool of gore, the bottoms of his boots tacky from the mess.
He spotted a lamp, a burning thing of iron filled with oil and hanging from a nail atop a post.
He pulled the lantern down and stared into the dancing light. Yes. Flame. This was how it would be. His destruction would be total.
His arm came back, the wound from the spear already healed and the blood crusting on his thick muscles, and he threw the lantern.
The small metal box curled through the air then crashed with a crunching sound through an open window. Shouts went up from inside the house and soon enough dark smoke was rising from the window. A family came running out the door, a man and woman and two elderly folks.
Bayne stepped forward to greet them with steel.
By the time the fires were dancing in the window, four shattered bodies lay at the warrior’s feet.
Another lantern beckoned along the town’s main road. Bayne went to it and soon enough another building was in flames. Then another. And another. In the time it would take a man to walk from one end of the town to the other, half the buildings were aflame or smoking. None had dared cross the mad warrior among them. All had attempted to flee. Some even escaped with their lives.
The others were but meat in the road, above them standing their slayer, the glow of the flames dancing off the ridges of his scarred, blood-drenched flesh.
Only then, with half the town burning and its residents dead or in flight, did Bayne turn toward the stables to the side of The Undecided Rat. He found his steed still there, the animal spooked but tied well and already saddled. Lerebus had done him a last favor.
Bayne did not know if he would see the light-haired northerner again, but it mattered little. The god of battle had declared war on humankind. Let all men, including Lerebus, be wary of Bayne kul Kanon. Bayne had seen enough. He would go his way, but he would no longer tolerate fools to live.
Part IV: The Debate
The sun had not appeared though the sky was the color of a robin’s egg when Bayne rode forth from the town, black smoke scaling to the heavens behind him. The heat from the burning warmed the big man’s back, and the scents of charred wood and melting flesh hoisted their way to his nose.
To all outward appearances, the destruction had no other effect upon him than a tight line of his lips. Inwardly Bayne grumbled. Despite his martial past, his creation as a god of war, wanton death and terror had never been his way. Now things had changed. He had changed. And it did not sit fully well upon his mind. There was an inkling of him that had not quite regret, but harbored a loathing for his newfound measures. The thought brought a smile to those flat lips. His new measures were no different than his old measures; they were simply expanded in their use. Bayne’s experience had taught him the uselessness of man. No, worse than uselessness. Man fought against all that was natural and all that was right. Man was a horror. Bayne would not go out of his way to destroy, but he would no longer tolerate what fell upon his path.
Riding along a narrow path of crumbled stones beneath his horse’s hooves, his route taking him deeper into the mountains, he spied signs of those who had fled before him after abandoning the destruction of their town. There were some few hoof prints and deep wagon tracks in the path, but mostly there were footprints and shoe prints and other signs of men’s passing. There were discarded items, furniture and tools and clothing and more, every few feet along the side of the road. There had been fear, bringing about the casual dislocation of personal items in an attempt to flee all the faster.
Men feared Bayne kul Kanon. Which was good. Too many had not feared Bayne in the past. They had often enough paid for that with their lives. Perhaps now, with more and more afraid of the warrior, they would leave Bayne alone instead of constantly harping upon him or trying to steal from him or to make use of him or to send him into slavery.
Sitting high in his saddle, the warrior’s thoughts turned to his destination, the Ashalite temple in the mountains. He had hoped to find Pedrague there, or perhaps word of where the priest could be found, but now he was wondering if that place should continue to be his goal. Word of Bayne’s actions in the village would spread, and Pedrague had never seemed the type of man who would tolerate such. Still, Pedrague was the last tie to what Bayne considered his old existence, his old life. He would break that tie, or at least straighten any loose ends of it left frayed. He would find Pedrague and he would not lie to him about what he was, what he had become. Then Bayne would leave. It was that simple. The warrior harbored a suspicion that things would not go so smoothly if he should ever find his old friend, but that was for Pedrague and others to decide.
Besides, Pedrague was the only mortal who had ever bested Bayne in combat. It had been upon a battlefield some thirty years earlier. If there was any mortal man owed respect, owed any answers, it would be Pedrague.
The trail before him began to climb, gradually at first, then more and more steep. The ascension was never so abrupt as to be impossible for the rider�
��s steed, yet the loose, rocky ground beneath the hooves gave little steady traction. Bayne pulled on the reins, halting his beast, then slipped from one side of the saddle. He wrapped an end of the leather harness around a mighty wrist and proceeded, drawing his horse along behind.
After climbing for a half hour, the gravel road flattened out somewhat, though there was still a slight rise in the land. The canyon that had housed the town below here widened near a peak. The outlook was gray, almost grim. Everywhere was rock and stone the color of dark mud, with some few dead bushes and forgotten trees dotting the sides of the hills around the path.
Bayne breathed somewhat easier. Though he had no true fear of any man, the wider view gave less opportunity for an ambush, something that had been a slight concern. The townspeople would surely retaliate against him at some point. They might not do so personally, but the shepherd at the old village that was not a village had mentioned these were now Trodan lands. A magistrate of sorts, or perhaps even a military leader, would eventually learn of the rain of destruction Bayne had brought upon the town. Bayne would welcome such a challenge, though he had hopes of finding Pedrague and being on his way before such an encounter could occur. He simply wished to be left alone. If not, death and doom to those who crossed him.
The apex of his climb was soon reached by mid-morning, and the rocky path widened even further before him. The view beyond was beautiful. Bayne could see ahead for miles. He was atop a flat spot on one of the lower mountains of gray stone, itself part of a ring of higher crags that surrounded an image of green below. The place Bayne spotted in the distance was much as the shepherd had described. The mountain trail wound down to level ground, beyond a long, wide valley filled with green yards and large fields of corn, beans and other foods less obvious from a distance. In the center of the valley sat what appeared to have once been a small complex, at its heart a stone castle with a pair of towers, one reaching two stories and the other three. A wall of rock that rose only to the knees surrounded the compound, appearing to have once been part of a taller curtain wall. Even at Bayne’s current height he could spy a couple of hundred people busy running to and fro on some frantic business below. Beyond the castle walls there was a long but narrow lake of the most blue water the warrior had ever witnessed.
