At the sound of the voice, Torsten felt his knees begin to weaken and his legs almost buckled. Out of the corner of his eyes he could see the other men with him stumble a little as well. It was as if the voice was weighing upon them physically and not just ringing in their ears.
A strange sound emerged from one of the bronze knights. Torsten had the feeling the knight was laughing. He declined to join him.
The light filling the area of the throne grew in intensity, forcing Torsten to raise his hands to shield his eyes. After reaching a point where he was also forced to close his eyes against it, the light began to dim. Slowly it faded to a more normal level and a figure began to coalesce, standing before the throne.
Before them stood a man. A full six inches taller than the tallest man in Torsten’s crew. He was wide of shoulders and thick of muscle. He appeared to be in his late forties or early fifties. Eyes hidden in shadow were flanked with weathered skin that was beginning to wrinkle and crack in places. Yet his presence still spoke of immense strength. A sleeveless hauberk showed huge shoulders crossed with scars earned in battle and immense arms. Light gleamed off of what appeared to be armor covering the figure’s arms.
Upon closer inspection, Torsten couldn’t tell if the warrior wore armor or if the skin of his arms was actually made of steel. As if the huge warrior could read Torsten’s thoughts, he casually rolled one of his shoulders. The muscles of the attached arm tensed and thick cords of muscle and sinew drew tight beneath the steel, showing through it as though it was skin.
“I am Anhur. I have saved your lives and brought you here that you might serve me.” He spoke. There was real power behind the words he spoke. As if the words alone might reach out and strangle a man. The echo of his voice sounded no less dangerous. No one dared move as they gazed upon him.
“My enemies have awoken from a deep slumber. They have spent many years hiding from me and trying to recover from the wounds I have wrought upon them in the past. They are unable to face me in the worlds of Gods, and so they seek weapons with which to do battle against me in the worlds of men. You will not allow this. I will not allow this.” Each man before Anhur imagined that in the deep shadows of his eyes, he was looking directly at them. Boring a hole straight through them with his immortal gaze.
“But you’re a god. What weapons could men possibly possess that could challenge you?” Styg spoke without thought, allowing what passed through his mind to pass through his lips as well. Torsten couldn’t look away from Anhur. He was simply unable to. But he could hear the panic in the last few words that Styg uttered. As if the man feared he was about to be destroyed for daring to question their host.
Anhur sat back and the Throne of the God of War moved to place itself beneath him. He was silent for a moment as he placed his chin atop one massive fist that also appeared to have been wrought of steel. He took a deep breath as if he considered whether or not to kill the lot of them before gesturing dismissively in the air with his other hand.
Apparently the God of War is a bit of a drama queen, Torsten thought. No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than Anhur’s immense head turned towards him. Torsten thought for a split second that the god was about to attack him and realized that he had made a mistake. Anhur glared for a moment longer and then turned back to Styg. His features darkened ominously before relaxing once more.
“There have been many like you before, child. Mortals who dared to question the Gods. Let it not be said that I am unkind. I will entertain your question with an answer.” Anhur relaxed and reclined back into his throne. From Torsten’s point of view it appeared that the spikes that ran down its length melted into the god’s flesh.
“Those who lived in the ruins that dot your world and mar its beauty with their decay and rot, the ones you call The Ancients. They were a race of men who were powerful in the ways of magic. They were unmatched by other mortals. And in their hubris they sought to challenge the Gods. They dared to raise weapons against my throne and my person.”
Anhur’s face was blank, showing no emotion as he spoke. Ed couldn’t help but think of men he’d played cards against in the past, giving away nothing of what they were thinking or feeling when they gazed upon the hand that had been dealt to them.
Anhur seemed to look into each of them in turn before continuing.
“In their folly they poured their energies into creating great weapons of war. Some so powerful that no mortal could truly wield them to their fullest potential. Even then, a few were so imbued with essence of destruction that they had the power to kill even a God.”
“When I saw such abomination, weapons of such power in the hands of mere apes, and turned against me and my brothers at that, I had no choice but to utterly destroy the men who bore them and who had created them.” Anhur paused in his speech and clenched his fists. The steel of his skin groaned at the strain of containing the power held within. He unclenched his fists and was silent for a moment before he continued.
“I delivered my divine wrath upon them, and smote them wherever they could be found. But I did not act quickly enough and some of my brothers fell to them, lost in battle. Such was my anger at this that the final cities to feel my power are poisoned still to this day, killing any who dare to enter them. And serving warning for future generations what it means to cross blades with a God.”
All of Torsten’s crew knew some variation of this tale, heard in their earliest years of childhood. How the arrogance of The Ancients had led them into war with the Gods, and they had been utterly destroyed for their crime. To hear it from the mouth of one who actually participated in the cataclysmic end of The Ancients lent the tales a little more credence.
“But despite all of our fury and all of our power, or perhaps because of it, our scouring of the world of men was incomplete. In many places the weapons of The Ancients still remain. Cowards who dare not face me with weapons of their own seek them out through their mortal servants to set them against me. They will not be allowed to do this. As I said before I have saved you and raised you above other men that you might serve me in this task.”
“And if I choose not to serve?” Pier’s voice broke the reverie Torsten found himself in while listening to Anhur. Always a defiant smart-ass, that one, he thought. And at the worst possible times.
The God of War was on his feet in less than an instant, fury etched across every fiber of his being. Muscles tensed beneath the paper-thin skin of his huge neck and veins bulged at his temples. The sinews of his arms looked as though they would force themselves through the steel shell that covered them. Time blurred as the ancient behemoth rose from his throne and one instant Torsten saw the God of War clearly as the finest painting and next he was just a blurred mass as he moved.
Pain surged throughout the bodies of Torsten’s crew, forcing them to their knees in unison, with teeth grinding against the bowel loosening pain. A tornado of hammers roared within Torsten’s head, each blow against the inside of his skull sending pain streaking throughout his entire being. Blood ran freely from Torsten’s nose and the others groaned in pain. All except Pier who seemed frozen in place, still on his feet.
“If you choose not to serve?” The God of War whispered as he hissed the last word, but his voice resounded with deafening force in Torsten’s ears, crushing his thoughts to dust. Anhur raised his right hand out to his side and a massive sword floated smoothly through the air and deposited itself in his grasp. None in Torsten’s crew could see where the blade came from, only that it had not been there a moment before. Truly enormous, it would have required both hands for a normal man to even lift it, much less wield it.
Anhur stepped forward and extended the tip of the sword towards Pier.
“If you choose not to serve?” He repeated the question in a hushed tone. “What makes you think you have a choice?” The same whispered voice simultaneously assaulted all of Torsten’s senses, leaving him as a man damaged in mind, powerless to act. He could only watch and listen.
“Pi
er, that is your name. Is it not? Step forward and impale yourself upon this blade that I might enjoy the sight of your blood as you die.” The war god commanded. And Pier strode forward to obey, unable to resist. Anhur lowered the point of the sword towards Pier’s approaching stomach.
“Slower.” The god spoke. Pier decreased his pace. The moment’s silence allowed Torsten to regain his senses and he looked to Pier, seeing the terror and confusion on his face. He didn’t want to do as he was commanded, but he was somehow compelled to. As if he could not control his own actions.
Pier’s breathing became rapid and erratic as he took another step forward, closer to the tip of the sword. His eyes darted from side to side as if searching for an escape from this situation, but none presented itself. His face twisted in panic and his eyes widened as he took another step and the sword drew ever closer.
The tip of the sword touched Pier in his solar plexus, just below his sternum. He took no further steps, but began to shift his weight forward against the sword. The blade did not waver in the least as Anhur held it tight. The god’s face showed no emotion as he stared intently at Pier.
The scout’s shifting weight drove the tip of the sword, unnaturally sharp, slowly into his flesh. He exhaled forcefully in pain, but was unable to give voice to what he felt. The War God’s control over him was absolute. Blood bloomed upon the white robe that he wore and radiated outwards from the point of the blade.
Pier shifted his weight further and the steel bit deeper into him. Blood flowed freely down the front of his body, staining the robe as it went. Steel met nerve and Pier was frozen in a moment of intense anguish as he was locked in position by the will of the War God.
Anhur withdrew the blade from Pier’s abdomen with a snarl and let go of it. The sword levitated before the scouts, point still aimed at them and moved to hover above Anhur’s head. The threat was obvious. Pier stood, unable to move, and bled. Anhur waved his hand once and the flow of blood stopped.
“You are in the presence of a GOD!” His rose to a roar with the last word, battering the minds of the men before him. “You are incapable of disobeying me, child.” He spat the last word as though it were an epithet. “Kneel, and be silent.”
Pier stepped backwards to his place among his brothers and knelt, matching the pose of the other scouts exactly. Torsten found himself unable to look at Pier as his head moved to align his gaze upon Anhur without thought.
“This man,” Anhur began and waved his left hand dismissively before him. A ghostly image of the skull-faced sorcerer of the Mountain Men appeared before the scouts. Its ethereal quality was unnerving. Torsten recognized the man instantly and he appeared to be before them in the flesh, but they could see through him. It was as if the god had ripped the sorcerer’s soul out of his body and stood it before them.
“Not only does he serve my enemies, daring to gather weapons to them for use against me and mine, but he has something that belongs to me. Something stolen from me long ago.” Anhur continued. A small metallic cube appeared in the air next to the sorcerer and rotated slowly. Light gleamed from its surface as though it was polished. “You will be given weapons from my armory that you might strike him and his servants down. You will bring me my possessions. And you will bring me the Demon’s Maw along with the sorcerer’s skull. When your task is completed, you will be rewarded. If you fail, you will die. By his hand or mine.”
“You,” Anhur spoke as he stepped towards Torsten.”You will lead this group and be raised in stature above others as my servant. But you must be whole to serve me. I do not accept the vassalage of the weak or the infirm.”
Of its own accord, Torsten’s right arm rose before him, holding the metal cylinder covering the ruin of his hand aloft for all to see. The God of War waved his hand once over the cylinder and it began to hiss as if releasing some gas trapped inside. A tingling sensation spread across the hand that Torsten did not have.
A lengthwise split showed on the cylinder and it broke in half along that axis, the two halves falling to the ground. There it revealed that the hand Torsten had lost in the fight against the sorcerer and his gray men had been replaced. A moment of confusion overcame him as he looked upon it.
It seemed to be his own hand, the same size and dimensions, but cast from the same living steel that covered the War God’s arms. The forearm and hand rotated, giving Torsten a full view of the new hand, front and back. It clenched and unclenched and he felt the incredible strength in it.
“I give you this gift that you might know what it means to rewarded by one such as me.” The granite voice echoed throughout the Hall of Iron. “Rise.”
As one the scouts stood at attention, nearly identical to one another in posture and poise save for the steel hand of Torsten and the blood-stained robe of Pier.
“My knights will see that you are fed, armed, and equipped. When the time is right you will be sent back to your world and you will do as I command.”
With the last word he spoke, Anhur seemed to grow in size. Larger and larger until he towered over the scouts and defied the physical limits of the Hall of Iron. He glowered down at them, all terrible power and stoic omnipotence, eyes glowing blue from where they were hidden in shadows, speaking of the threat of violence before he simply vanished.
The hall was silent for a moment before one of the bronze knights spoke.
“Follow.”
His voice sounded distant and hollow as though it echoed inside of his armor. The other bronze knights marched towards a wall that opened to reveal another hallway as they approached. Unable to do anything else, Torsten and his crew formed a single file line and marched out of the Hall of Iron in perfectly synchronized lockstep. The echoes of their footsteps lingered for a moment before fading to nothing.
HE watched their preparations for several minutes, staying low and peering out from behind the edge of the parapet. The crenellations were just the right size for his head. After waiting and observing as long as he dared, Eric pulled his head back behind a merlon and exhaled with relief.
His count was the same as it had been the last three times he’d dared look out from behind the safety of the battlements. One thousand of them, at least, he thought. There was at least that many because when he hit one thousand there were still a lot of them he hadn’t counted. He hadn’t counted any higher because he didn’t know any numbers higher than one thousand.
Others had been overheard giving their estimates, voices touched with despair. It was possible they were right. Eric knew that more of them were out of view. Either in the trenches they’d been digging since they arrived or not huddled around the fires marking their lines.
Yeah, at least a thousand, he thought once more. Most men would count themselves blessed by what Gods may be to never behold such a sight. In the east, back in The Kingdom proper, Mountain Men were thought to be myths. Little more than something to frighten children into behaving. Eric’s own mother had told him countless times as a child that they would come for him in the night and carry him off to slavery or worse if he didn’t do as he was told.
“You’ll make a fine bride!” She had chuckled as she mocked him. At the time he had thought it odd. As a grown man, he thought it was kind of bitchy to say to her son.
Popular mythology aside, men living in The Western Fringe knew a little better. Mountain Men were very real and a part of life in the west. A few Mountain Men could be a good sign. Possibly traders come to sell or barter. Goods manufactured back in the east and increasingly in the western lands fetched a good price in such transactions. A dozen or so Mountain Men could go either way. They might be out hunting or ranging, perhaps come to trade or track down a criminal of their own. Or they might be looking to raid and pillage.
More than a thousand though, wearing warpaint and bringing strange weapons with them, that had trouble written all over it. The kind that didn’t end well for enlisted men from humble origins back east.
There had been rumors of a large group of them burning
their way through the small towns and farming communities further west. The occasional refugee would show and say that they’d burned down his home, torched his crops, and killed his family. That didn’t sound like the way of the Mountain Men to Eric.
As long as he’d been garrisoned in the west, he’d heard of them raiding farms to carry off food and grabbing farmer’s daughters and wives to carry off to marry. More than a few women had survived being taken by them and even years later returned to civilization to tell their tale. A few had even written stories about it.
Most of them couldn’t actually read or write, but there were always those that could. They were eager enough to have their name attached to a book about civilized woman being taken by the savages. Those were always big sellers back east. At least among the upper classes. Most everyone else couldn’t read, but they were still glad to hear about the debauched life of a slave girl among the wild men of the west.
An army of Mountain Men, Eric mused, probably hadn’t been seen since the old days. During the long war. When The Kingdom had expanded from the collection of wealthy sea-trading cities along the coast to the land that it was now. The Mountain Men had fought long and hard to keep their lands, but in the end they had lost and been driven to the west where they’d taken refuge in the World’s Spine.
But this was not the old days. And that was an army of Mountain Men camped around the walls of Fort Pleasant. A fitting name, he thought. It was pleasant enough. And it was a fort. Something left over from the old days during the long war in the west. A legitimate fortification, stone walls and all, joined by a rapidly growing town full of the children of farmers from the west that wanted some semblance of city life, but either couldn’t afford to go back east or were too scared to try it.
The fort had good views of the land, decent weather as far as this part of The Fringe was concerned, and the accompanying town had the only sizable population of women to be found for several weeks ride. There was gambling to be found as well, if a man knew where to inquire discreetly. Hell, he’d even managed to get laid a few times with tales of his adventures back in the east before he joined the army.
Sons of the Gods Page 9
