by Ty Johnston
Tallerus looked up between a dead man's limbs, the general's eyes white amidst a mud-splattered face.
"There you are," Bayne said.
Then the big man leaned forward, grabbed the Trodan by an arm and heaved.
With a scream, Proconsul Regius Sulla Tallerus was hauled from the mass of dead. He continued to cry out as Bayne flung the man to one side, the general collapsing in a heap, his left arm broken at an odd angle behind his back, his legs layered in thick mud and blood. Several fresh wounds slashed his face, and his helmet was twisted to one side and barely hanging atop his head by a frayed strap.
Bayne kicked him, bringing a fresh shout of pain.
"Quiet," the warrior said, standing over his foe.
There were several more sniffles, then the general collapsed onto his back. His good hand reached up and undid the strap to his helm, removing the silvered object and tossing it to one side. Only then did Tallerus allow his gaze to rise to that of the war god.
"What now?" the proconsul asked. "Will you slay me as you did my uncle?"
Bayne scoffed. "Your uncle was a better man than you. At least he was bold enough to face me on his own, instead of hiding behind a wall of warriors."
Tallerus allowed a slight grin of his own. "My understanding was he sent an army against you first, and only then did he approach for single combat."
"All the more reason he is a better man than you," Bayne said. "He knew what he was facing. You only hid."
"I didn't have the time!" Tallerus spat, the phlegm red as it hit the corpse of one of the general's men. "You slaughtered us before I had a chance! I should have sought out a mage and brought him. Only magic can vanquish magic."
"Perhaps," Bayne said, "but a touch of intelligence wouldn't hurt, either. You should not have confronted me in the first place."
"You came upon us, if you will remember," Tallerus said. "We were at camp when you made yourself known."
"True enough. Which leaves me with questions."
"Will you spare me if I answer?" the proconsul asked with incredulity in his voice. "It seems unlikely. Why should I tell you anything?"
The warrior god's smile showed vicious teeth. "Because I can make your short life very uncomfortable."
The eyes of the general lowered to the mud encasing his legs. It was as if he no longer had the strength of will to stare his fate in the face. "Will you allow me to live?"
"Perhaps."
"Then I shall answer," Tallerus said. "What other choice do I have?"
"None whatsoever."
The Trodan's gaze drifted back to the warrior's visage. "Then ask your questions and let us be done with this."
“You said you were looking for me, scouring the land for me,” Bayne said. “I had been gone from this ... land ... for many years. Explain how you knew I had returned.”
The proconsul twisted his head to one side and spit again, the sputum nearly all red now, then glared back at his doom. “We captured a warrior crossing the border from Ursia into Pursia some few weeks ago. It was he who told us you had returned.”
“Weeks ago?”
“Yes.”
Bayne frowned. “I had not come back as of yet. In fact, I have been back less than a week.”
“All I know is what he told us,” Tallerus said. “I questioned him personally, thinking he was some northern mercenary looking to gain some gold in our lands. We Trodans do not tolerate mercenaries.”
Bayne harumphed. “Why did you think him a northerner?”
“Mainly his long pale hair,” Tallerus said. “That and the sword he carried. Solid steel, that weapon. I took it for my collection.”
“What became of the man?”
“I sold him to a group of traveling gladiators,” Tallerus said.
Bayne's eyes narrowed, his gaze deathly as he leaned over the downed Trodan. “What did you say?”
Fear climbed the general's features as he moved his head back as far as he could, his hair twisting in the mixture of mud and blood. “I sold him to gladiators,” he said. “It was that or slay him!”
Bayne straightened and stared off into the young morning's blue sky. Lerebus. The man had known him before their meeting. Yet he had given no sign of awareness. How was this? And the northerner had passed along word that Bayne had returned, or possibly that he was returning. How could Lerebus have known such? Bayne himself had not known he would rebound to the continent of Ursia until he had woken near the village that was not a village. But somehow Lerebus had known, and he had known who Bayne was, what Bayne could mean to the Trodans and to this world.
It was a mystery that could only be answered by finding Lerebus himself. But that was a thought for another time. After Pedrague. After Tallerus.
“You have told me enough,” he said to his battered foe.
“Will you allow me to live?” Tallerus asked.
Bayne stared at the man for a long, hard moment, then, “No.”
A boot snapped out, the sturdy sole connecting beneath the officer's jaw and shattering bone, driving shards of mandible into the Trodan's soon-crushed skull.
With care, Bayne stepped back to look at his handiwork. The body of Tallerus barely had a head, and what remained of that was a mess of scarlet jelly.
“Your family name did you little good today,” the warrior said.
Then he turned and marched away from the remains of the camp, the largest mountain on the black horizon growing larger with each step he took.
And the rain began to drizzle once more.
Part VI: The Wake
Days passed. How many, Bayne could not have guessed to any exactness. More than a few, but surely no more than ten.
On foot he crossed the open field to the south of the mountain he had once traversed, a mountain that had become so familiar to him and so entwined with his own destiny he had come to think of it as a home of sorts. Of all the places he had traveled, the mountain was the only one in his memory that held any true solidity. The mountain never changed. The mountain was always there. Looming. Reaching. A part of his soul.
After a few days he came to the remains of the gladiators' camp. The wagons still stood in the field. The bodies still lay upon the trail in the foothills leading up to the mountain, though the corpses had been torn and shredded by wild beasts; still, there was enough flesh and enough bones for Bayne to recognize the men he had slain. Those deaths had come but days earlier, though to the wandering warrior it felt as if decades had gone by.
A change was coming over Bayne, and he felt it gradually making a place within his being. What brought this upon him was unknown, but he felt it was his nearing to Pedrague. He would have much to explain, much of which to speak. Pedrague would not be pleased with what Bayne had to say. Was it sadness that was beginning to grip the warrior? He thought not. It was a feeling with which he was unfamiliar, a feeling for which he thought there might not even be words to describe. It was a melancholy of sorts, a grieving for a change coming to the world, coming to Bayne's world.
And change was coming, the war god knew. What that change would foretell he had not a clue, but he recognized it looming ahead of him. It was like the autumn, a change in seasons, a change from the warm days of summer to the cold darkness of winter. His had always been a heated soul, rushing to deal out what he considered justice, though admittedly a harsh justice. But of late, since his wounding at the hands of Marnok's priests, his form of justice had been even more rough, more crude, more discordant and more dissonant.
Before Marnok, Bayne had been filled with an unsureness but a sense of fairness. Even if the world itself was not always a place of justice and lawfulness, Bayne had had few compunctions about dealing out his own judgments where necessary. After Marnok, to an outsider it might have appeared that little had changed within Bayne. But that was not the case. He had changed. He had come to see the world as a place that never held justice and lawfulness. He had come to see himself as the only purveyor of righteousness in a world of the m
ad, a world where brutes reined and the weak were hammered beneath blows of corruption.
This fugue that rolled over Bayne during his long walk brought him around to realizing that perhaps he was no better than the men he had slain, those he considered fools at best and madmen at worst. He questioned himself. I am a god. Should I be held to the same levels of morality as lesser men?
His godhood was that of another world, was one created by men, though men of seemingly superior skills and intellect and magical ability. Still, did his godhood give him any rights over mankind? Especially considering he was not naturally a god of this land, this world?
Had his hurt turned to hatred? A hatred that had blinded him?
He came to no conclusions. Perhaps Pedrague would have the answers.
Though Bayne doubted Pedrague could answer one particular query about a subject that had puzzled the warrior for some little while, since leaving the dead Trodans behind. It was the rain. The sky had opened and cleansed him yet again of the paint of carnage, and once he was cleared of bodily grim the rain had gone on its way. This had happened so often Bayne had begun to believe it was a subconscious power that had its source within his own godhood. But if so, it was a somewhat useful though confusing ability. From what he knew of his own skills and powers, mostly from his own experience and from what Marnok had told him, there was no hint of capabilities at controlling the weather, even the rain. That mad other-worldly god Marnok had not hinted at such, and Bayne had not noticed such before his return to Ursia. He tried several times to consciously call up a storm, but to no avail. Knowing he would heal and would suffer little pain, Bayne had even sliced open one of his own hands to allow the blood to flow, but the wound had lasted but seconds and that did not seem long enough to bring about a rainstorm.
His healing abilities, as well, had seemed to grow stronger since returning. He had always been a swift healer, protected he now knew by a skeleton of purest steel. But lately his natural healing powers had seemed to have been given some boost, some extra inner strength. In years past he could suffer a wound but would have healed within minutes, or sometimes as long as a day if the wound had been of sufficient damage. Now it seemed he could suffer a major injury and within seconds he would be whole and well again.
He was gaining in power, but he knew not why. It seemed to Bayne it had to be connected with his own godhood, but of this he was not sure. Perhaps it had something to do with his manner of creation at the hands of Marnok and that other-worldly gods' compatriots; could it be the elixirs and chemicals used in Bayne's creation increased his abilities with age?
His thoughts remained questioning and grim once he left behind the bodies of the gladiators, the scene of death doing little to shift the ideas forming in his mind. Now he followed the familiar trail around the side of the mountain, and soon enough was heading north.
Eventually a slight rise in the land revealed ahead where once had been the brick road upon which he had traveled. Of the shepherd and the sheep he had seen days earlier, there was no sign. Upon walking onto the road proper, his boots setting with firm steps upon the now grass-overgrown bricks, he paused to give himself a moment of rest and to survey the village that was not a village that rested at the foot of the mountain.
The village that was not a village appeared much as he had witnessed it the last time he had been in this location. Empty. Silent. Broken. Forlorn.
There was nothing for him here, and there was nothing to do but follow the path through the village that was not a village and up onto the mountain. It was a path he had taken once before, a path that had lead him to mysteries.
He would take it again. He would see Pedrague, at least one last time. Perhaps the wizard-priest had some answers, or perhaps Bayne's old friend would slay the warrior in a fit of anger over Bayne's recent exploits. Either way, the war god would be done with it.
So, once again, he climbed.
He put one foot in front of the other and walked through the village that was not a village. The site was barely recognizable to the little hamlet he had known decades earlier, but the path up into the mountain itself appeared little changed from the years.
As it had in the fields to the south, darkness came and went as Bayne made his way. The moon rose with the stars, soon to be followed by the lightness of day garnered by the rising sun. Through it all he never slept and never rested for more than a few moments. Food and drink were things that rarely crossed his mind, though his stomach grew tight and gave forth a gurgle every so often; it had occurred to him to scrounge for sustenance at the gladiatorial camp, but the thought had been driven out of his head with the notion that he must press on. He had wasted enough time. He knew Pedrague's location, and to there he was headed.
The climb along the mountain road remained mostly familiar, though here and there he spotted subtle changes. More than a few new trees had grown to size along the path, and once he had reached high enough Bayne could make out that the woods to the north of the mountain had grown more thick, wilder. Still, he never paused to take in the scenery, but kept up a goodly pace that allowed him to take note of whatever changes came his way.
There were a few other apparent differences from his earlier trip up the mountain. First, there was no sign of the a tavern he had come across and set aflame. Also, he wondered at the disappearance of a landslide of boulders and dirt and gravel that had once blocked his way, forcing him to climb straight up the bluff.
Once past the site of the landslide, for some little while Bayne did find new displays, a region which he had not before traversed. Here the road and the side of the mountain were little different than they had been lower among the crags. A tall gray wall of stone rose to his right. A precipice followed the road on the left, beyond it a long fall to treetops below. Here and there a cloud-like mist would wander across the warrior's path, soon to be displaced by the warmth of the sun.
Always above was the heights of the mountain. Near that peak would be the cave Bayne sought.
So he walked and trudged and made his way.
Eventually the path became familiar to him once more, and he recognized a slight incline as being one of the spots that would lead to the ledge where the cave was to be found.
The nearness of his goal sent a shiver along Bayne's spine. Did he actually experience fear? No. Not fear. Nothing more than anticipation of the future, of the unknown.
He bent forward slightly and began the ascent of the ridge, his thick-muscled legs working as if a machine, taking him gradually higher and higher.
Then he was there, on the flat lip of grass that stretched ahead of him some ways, ending in a mountain wall with a black opening in its center.
The cave.
The familiar cave.
Yet there was a surprise awaiting the warrior.
To one side of the cave's mouth stood a sturdy figure in black breeches with deerskin boots stretching up to the knees. About his chest was a white shirt mostly covered by a dark red jacket of soft leather. At the fellow's midriff was a wide belt sporting a dagger on the left and a short sword on the right. A gray cloak hung about this man's shoulder, billowing gently beneath the long yellow hair that dangled from atop his head. In one hand he gripped an iron-tipped spear longer than he was tall, and he was not a man of short stature.
Lerebus.
"Welcome, Bayne," the northerner spoke.
For the first time he could remember, Bayne kul Kanon was truly caught off guard. It was more than merely being surprised. His very soul was stunned, sending his mind reeling. Here was a man he had never expected to see again, a man by many rights whom he should consider an enemy. Yet there was a part of Bayne glad to see Lerebus alive and well, though the two had shared no true love for one another when they had traveled together.
"I see you no longer ride," Lerebus said.
The words snapped Bayne from his odd delirium. "My steed was killed by Trodan spears," he snapped.
"I suppose that means you had a confrontation
with Proconsul Tallerus," Lerebus said.
Bayne frowned. "Another fool. He deserved his fate."
Lerebus nodded. "I'm not sure I could disagree. A rather unpleasant fellow."
"I did not know the man long enough to come to many judgments of his character," Bayne said, "though I was surprised he was looking for me."
"He told you, then?"
"Of course," Bayne said. "His dying words were of how you had warned him of me."
Lerebus chuckled. "I'm not sure I would say I warned the fellow. His men captured me and brought me to him for questioning. He asked what I was doing along the border between Pursia and Ursia. I saw no reason to lie and told him I was looking for Bayne kul Kanon."
The war god's eyes became those of a killer, narrow, flat, hard as stone. "Explain."
"I should correct myself," Lerebus said. "More specifically, I was seeking your resting place."
Now Bayne's eyes widened. "What is the meaning of your words? My resting place? I am not dead, nor do I expect to be anytime soon."
Lerebus chuckled once more. "I didn't say you were dead, or going to be dead. Though I do believe ..." His words trailed off.
"Go on," Bayne said.
"No," Lerebus said, though the word did not come out harshly. "I have promised not to divulge too much to you. It could ... alter the outcome of events."
At any other time, Bayne believed the rush to kill would have overpowered him. He would have charged forward, fists flailing or sword swinging, hacking apart this man who would dare to keep him uninformed of ... of what? That was the concern. And it was agonizing. Far too often there had been others who had seemed to know far more than Bayne about his own identity, his own destiny. Verkanus. Ashal. Marnok. Even Pedrague himself. And now Lerebus. It normally would be enough to drive Bayne to madness and blood thirst. But here, now, before Lerebus, he felt a calmness roll over his emotions.
This was not like him. Since leaving the dead Trodans behind his emotions and thoughts had been unfamiliar, specifically unmartial. Bayne could only surmise somone, likely Ashal or some other god of this land, was tampering with his mind.
