Chapter 2: Cleansing

Blessed be your name, Mardocar, god of strength and genocide, sustainer of my body and eternal lord of my soul.

Sir Themur Mauran recited the old prayer as he sat on his strong, black horse, slowly descending the steep trail from the mountains toward the village in front of them. In the distance, he could see fires being lit among the small houses, torches on the ground and lanterns in the windows, as day began to turn to dusk and the villagers gathered in the streets and taverns after a full day’s work in the fields.

As hamlets went, it was not very large. But then again, it was built by the Derimar, and he shouldn’t compare it to the towns and villages of the Empire. They were a primitive people, the Derimar, prone to superstitions and delusions, relying on invisible science rather than on the gods you could see and hear. It had always held them back, Themur thought. A collection of loosely aligned tribes claiming to be a kingdom, the Derimar had never been a threat to the Agerian Empire, nor would the Lion Emperor allow them to ever grow into one.

On the other hand, the Empire had never been a threat to Derimar either. By sheer luck—for the Derimar, at least—the geography of Taeron had made a full-scale invasion of the tribes almost impossible.

To the east of the verdant River Plains, the Empire’s border with Derimar was marked by the Cold Edge, stretching from the Nimean Burn in the south to the Sea of Rage in the north, and possibly further still. As far as Themur knew, no man alive had ever seen the northern end of the massive mountain chain, though the Old Ones must surely have known how far it stretched, he mused. Not for the first time, he felt a tinge of jealousy for those who had come before him.

Ever since the Lion Emperors of old united the city-states of the River Plains under Mardocar’s banner two centuries ago, the Cold Edge had effectively prevented the Agerian Empire from rightfully claiming the savannah and lush rainforests of Derimar. Over the years, the tribes of the east had grown stronger and more plentiful. Now, they were ripe for the Empire to cull them, to send their strongest men to Terynia as slaves and their most beautiful women to be sacrificed in the temples of the gods of the world.

Strategically speaking, large-scale troop movements across the Cold Edge simply weren’t practical. Among jagged cliffs, deep ravines, and narrow, ice-covered paths, an army marching across the mountain range would reach the other side at only a fraction of its original strength.

Single file, on the other hand, a small band of soldiers could hopefully cross without too much trouble. And if you sent multiple small groups across the mountains time and time again, eventually, you could build up a full-strength army on the other side.

But for that plan to work, a bridgehead was first needed. The army to come would require a safe place to stay. They would need infrastructure, food, and water to sustain a hundred thousand men or more. And so, the very first band to cross into Derimar—Themur’s Knights Eternal—would have to fight to secure a place for the soldiers slowly trickling in behind them.

Still, all that was secondary to securing Mardocar’s blessing on the endeavor by sacrificing the first village they conquered.

The thought filled him with pride. Pride in his god, and pride in his position. And most of all, he took joy in the knowledge that his strong sword would soon taste the blood of the fair-haired mongrels polluting the land in front of them.

Mardocar, god of genocide, bless my blade so that it will reduce the inferior to ashes and elevate your servants to glory.

It was a good day to begin the invasion. Just before sunrise that morning, a meteor had streaked across the sky from west to east, like a heavenly arrow pointing the way from Terynia to Derimar. As signs went, he could not think of a better one.

It was a little strange, though, that Mardocar hadn’t yet boasted about providing them with the omen. But then again, he was a god, and it was not the place of men to know the minds of the gods of the world.

“Halt,” he said quietly, raising his clenched fist to signal to the Knights riding behind him to come to a stop.

Themur squinted, trying to see through the encroaching darkness.

“Dame Karleen, take your men and ride to the southern side of the village,” he ordered his second-in-command. “I want you to flank them, but stay silent and out of sight. Attack only when Mardocar’s voice tells you the sacrifice is ready. And take Sir Almand with you.”

“Yes, Sir,” the other Knight Eternal responded, crisp and quick, as befitting a woman who had dedicated centuries of her life to the service of the Empire and its gods.

The two groups split up, and the Knights under Dame Karleen’s command disappeared into the icy darkness, as the path they took led them away from Themur’s group. But in the cold silence of the mountain, he could still hear the hooves of their horses clopping against the hard stone for the next several minutes, growing fainter until they were swallowed by distance and the limitations of the human ear.

As Themur’s Knights approached the border village, the hard ground of the foothills of the Cold Edge gave way to softer gravel and eventually to the grass of the valley below. In the mountains, sneaking up on anyone while on horseback was all but impossible, but here, at the edge of the savannah, nature had granted the Knights Eternal a quiet approach, the soft earth and tall grass muffling the sound of their advance. In the darkness of late evening, their black horses and armor would be almost invisible to the Derimar, as the Knights silently approached them from the night.

Feeling his dry, fibrous skin stretch over his jawbones, Themur smiled inside his thick helmet. The tribesmen would never know what hit them. His group was now close enough to launch the attack.

With a war cry that echoed across the darkness of the plains like the shrill shriek of a banshee, Themur spurred his strong horse to gallop. His men, riding in tight formation behind him, followed up with their own screams, echoing through the night, too powerful and too eerie to be fully natural.

The Derimar guards did not have time to reach for their weapons before the Knights Eternal had passed through the still-open gates. Once inside the village, they rode down the main street, the long blades of their black swords sweeping at anyone unfortunate enough to be within range. Screams of terror and pleas for mercy filled the once silent night, as mothers cradled the decapitated bodies of their sons and husbands embraced the mutilated remains of their wives. Voices of anguish rose into the air as blood flowed through the streets.

Somewhere along the line, a lantern must have been knocked off a wall. Themur didn’t know if it was something one of his Knights had done on purpose, or if it had happened by accident when a Derimar panicked and fled. Whatever the reason, he didn’t care. The fire that quickly spread among the small wooden huts of the village would provide Mardocar with a burnt offering, sweetened by the stench of human flesh roasted alive.

Slowly, the Derimar guards began to organize themselves to counter the attack. Themur had to give them a small measure of credit. Unlike the civilians in the village, the guards had not panicked. While they didn’t pose much of a threat to the Knights Eternal, they were still an obstacle that had to be dealt with. Turning his horse around, he set his sights on a group of archers standing at the edge of the street and rode as fast as he could toward them, his sword swinging in front of him with god-given strength.

Fifteen men's lengths out from the guards, he heard a buzzing sound and felt a burning sensation in the right side of his chest. He drew a shallow breath. Quickly looking down, he realized that one of the archers had gotten lucky. From a small gap between the plates of his armor, he could see the wooden shaft of an arrow sticking out of his body. Judging from its position and length, chances were it had penetrated his right lung.

The wound was quite painful, but there was no time to remove the arrow now. Charging at full speed at the terrified archers in front of him, Themur chose to ignore the injury. Pain, he was used to. It could be suppressed, controlled, and channeled into an offering to the gods.

He slashed at the guards, cutting the head cleanly off one and the right arm off another. The remaining two started to flee, but in their inferior stupidity, they ran straight down the street instead of dashing to the side. Catching up to them on his horse took only seconds, and the ensuing fight was even shorter. Against a Knight Eternal of Mardocar, they never stood a chance.

Shortly afterward, the defense of the village was broken. Around him, the Derimar guards slowly raised their hands in surrender. Now, it was time for the second phase of the attack to commence.

Believing the immediate danger was mostly over, the terrified villagers began to calm down a little. They had lost the battle, and now they had to start mentally preparing for life under their new Agerian overlords. There was still screaming and crying, but they were now a broken people, fit only to be sacrificed upon the altar of the gods.

If it pleases you, Mardocar, god of genocide, now is the time.

In his mind, Themur felt his patron respond favorably, and he knew Dame Karleen would feel the same sense of reassurance. Only seconds later, the war cries coming from the south of the village confirmed what he already knew. The time to sacrifice the remaining villagers to the gods of the world was finally at hand.

The second band of Knights Eternal swept over the Derimar village like locusts, making sure there were no survivors. The acrid stench of the smoke rising from the burning buildings, the sweet odor of roasted flesh, and the metallic smell of human blood mixed together in the air. To the Knights, it was intoxicating. For the briefest of moments, they were granted the faintest glimpse of the sensation the gods of the world felt when lives were tormented and sacrificed to their glory.

* * *

“Do you need help with your armor, Sir?” Dame Karleen asked him, when she saw Themur struggling to remove his chest plates without disturbing the shaft of the arrow too much. “Let me at least hold it up for you.”

“Thank you,” Themur responded with genuine appreciation. “Mardocar stopped the bleeding, but the arrow went in really deep. I can’t get it out with the chestplate on.”

Dame Karleen, still in her black armor, tilted her head to look around his side, trying to get a better look at the wound in the flickering light of their campfire.

“Yeah,” she confirmed. “We’ll have to push it through your back.”

“Nothing I haven’t done before,” Themur muttered to himself. He wasn’t afraid. He knew the wound would not kill him. One and a half centuries ago, he had pledged his soul to Mardocar in return for a long life and good health. For 160 years, he had served his god faithfully, and Mardocar had been true to his promise. Granted, the god now owned his soul for eternity, but as long as Themur didn’t die, that was a deal he was willing to live with. Healing his wounds was one thing, but resurrection was not part of the contract.

A few minutes later, they had gotten off his upper body armor, and Dame Karleen cut the shaft of the arrow and started to push it deeper into his scar-covered body. His skin was stretched thin over old and decrepit muscles, his old scars red and infected, many of them oozing foul-smelling pus whenever his comrade squeezed his body as she tried to push the arrow through.

Themur bit down on his tongue. Eventually, the arrowhead appeared through his back among a trickle of black blood. Dame Karleen grabbed it with a large pincer and pulled it out with a sickening, sucking sound.

He coughed, the foul taste of rotting blood filling his mouth. He spat it out on the ground and grabbed his waterskin to wash the nauseating sensation away.

As he watched, the skin around the entrance wound began to move. It looked as if maggots were crawling inside his flesh, pushing it over the edge of the hole the arrow had left in his body, until his skin eventually closed in on itself, leaving one more scar among the memories of countless battles fought in Mardocar’s honor. Themur assumed the same was true for the wound on his back, even though he couldn’t see it. For a few minutes, the new pockmark bubbled and roiled, swelling and filling with pus, but eventually the parasitic healing powers of his god subsided and the sickening motion ceased.

Only the pain remained.

Author's Note

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