Coil of Worlds

Their enemy’s attack came to a sudden halt. Apart from the war cries of the Malirrans in the tree line, the forest turned silent. Nothing moved. The suddenness bewildered his men. Their cries died out as they realized there was no one left to fight. The archers sought orders from Commander Ferer.

Ferer called out, “Hold your positions!”

Lukar stared into the forest with suspicion. Their enemy wasn’t done, but he had no idea their strategy. Their style of fighting was foreign, leaving him indecisive for the first time since becoming a commander under the reign of Morrich the Brutal.

In the distance he heard the stampeding of the pack animals. The koti bleated their fear and anxiety. Lukar bit back a snarl when he understood their strategy—disrupt or stall their forward movement.

It wasn’t to kill all his men, which was nigh impossible with such a small force of Pyranni warriors. The goal was to slow them down, encumber them with the additional tasks of cleaning up after tonight’s chaos, tending to the wounded and recapturing the koti herd.

After signaling his orders to Ferer, Lukar swirled around and strode to the far side of the camp. Moving faster with Semnac’s power filling him, he tried to construct the enemy’s next plan of attack. What was their next move? What would they attack next? What would cause the most problems for his army?

The supply train.

In mid-stride, he changed direction, calling out his commands. Seeing their king, the soldiers came to his call, ignoring their previous orders.

The struggle within the supply train filled the night air. The guards were losing the battle. Brandishing his sword, he screamed, “Attack!”

He saw the arch of yellow fire streak through the sky and growled. Was he too late? Lukar blindly reached out and grabbed the first man racing by him. “You. Get men and put out the fires. Now.”

The man bowed and scrambled away at a dead run. Meeting the eyes of another of his councilors for a brief exchange of understanding, Lukar skirted the floundering supply guards and slipped into the forest. His guards kept pace around him. With his acute hearing, he heard the skittering slide of rocks to his right and shifted course. Lukar signaled his guards, and they dispersed except for the two who stayed at his side. As he waited for his men to settle into position, he crouched down beneath a tall tree. His two guards stayed standing, facing outward, protecting him. Their signature black clothing blended well with the shadowed forest.

He felt his heartbeat increase its tempo. He felt excitement for the first time in weeks. The monotony of the journey through Pyran had dulled his senses, and he had grown bored. He smirked. Knowledge of his invasion had reached Gharra, and soldiers had been dispatched to slow their approach. His enemy thought to harry him into submission.

The smile that crossed his face was all teeth. The King of Pyran would find his foe craftier than expected. After tonight, Lukar would post more guards and build defenses to protect his men. They would not be so easily caught off guard the next time the Pyrannis attacked.

When his men were in place, Lukar flowed to his feet and moved in. With the silence of predators, Lukar and his two guards approached the Pyranni warrior from behind. Lukar could hear the man breathing; his nervousness apparent in the way he moved within the dark shadows of the forest. Lukar stood and watched for a moment. The man acted as if he was waiting for others to join him. He held a bow with a loosely notched arrow as he scanned the area in front of him.

Poking the man with the tip of his sword, Lukar played with his prey. The blonde warrior tensed, holding up his hands in surrender, his weapon dropping from his hands.

“Come now,” Lukar taunted, “do you not want to fight?”

The man opened his mouth to warn his fellow warriors. Lukar hissed and leaned forward, grabbing the man’s hair in a ruthless grip. He used the strength given to him by Semnac to stake the man on his sword. With a deep grunt that ended on a breathless whimper, the man died. Effortlessly holding his sword in a one-handed grip, he stared down at the corpse in dull curiosity. The warrior had had courage after all, even if he died without a fight. Lukar sneered. His first impression aside, these warriors were too easy to overcome.

He wanted a real fight, a battle where he could exert himself. His eyes locked onto the trail of blood sliding down the blade toward the hilt. Lukar kicked the man off the end of his sword. The body landed with a soft thud, the plants cushioning the fall. He fingered the blade and brought the drops of still warm blood to his tongue. The richness soaked into his pores. Perhaps he’d keep the next one alive for his entertainment.

A soft trill echoed through the leaves of the trees, and Lukar smiled in satisfaction. His teeth glistened in the dark with startling effect. His men kept close to him as he stalked his next prey. Hearing the quiet crack of a tree branch beneath a boot, he signaled his guards back and hid behind the low-lying branches of a tall shrub. A heated whisper reached his ears and he grinned. There were two men for him to fight. He relished the coming battle. Lukar waited as the Pyranni warriors closed the distance between them, walking into Lukar’s ambush.

“I think I heard something,” whispered one of the men, the Pyranni accent unmistakable to Lukar’s ears.

The other warrior cursed under his breath, but the sound carried in the quiet forest. Lukar watched their silhouettes as they peered around them, searching for their friend. In the stillness, Lukar could hear the orders yelled by his commanders as they imposed order in the chaos left by the Pyranni warriors.

These men wouldn’t reach their assigned rendezvous point.

He cocked his head in consideration, staring through a break in the shrubbery at the two men crouching back to back. No, he should have a few of his guards follow these two back to their camp. Lukar discarded the idea with a grim smile. His guards only needed one man to track; the other was expendable. He could amuse himself.

His guards following his lead, Lukar paced alongside the men as they approached their destination. Amusement threatened when one man halted their progress, whispering they weren’t alone. Lukar decided he’d capture him, letting the other go. A man that listened to his instincts was a man not easily swayed by pain. He shrugged; he’d find out one way or the other.

Lukar attacked when the opportunity arose. The first man stepped around a large rock face, momentarily leaving the other alone. He struck out with the hilt of his sword, knocking the blond-haired warrior unconscious and tossing him over his shoulder. His weight was inconsequential with Semnac’s power flowing through his veins. Right before the Pyranni warrior came back around the outcropping of rocks, Lukar stepped behind a thick tree and retraced his way back to the Malirran camp. He ignored how the man’s fear enticed his bloodlust.

Once he could no longer hear the man’s cries, his personal guard surrounded him. As expected, two guards were missing. Lukar had no doubt they’d rejoin him when their task was complete.

The weight of the unconscious man on his shoulder was lifted by a silent guard. He grunted in response; he’d forgotten about him. Announcing his presence, Lukar walked out of the trees to the stares of his men. Soon a cry was taken up, his name shouted to the heavens.

His sunken eyes took in the scene with satisfaction. His men hadn’t lost their zeal for battle. If anything, they were more determined to crush Gharra into the ground, leaving nothing but ruin in their wake.

He stopped by the tents of the wounded, intending to speak to his injured men, but left when the blood became too much for him to bear. Lukar’s fingers twitched with the need to reach out and rip open the injuries. His years of eating flesh brought a certain, horrific knowledge. Lukar knew just where to cut for the greatest flow of blood, and he knew which place on the human body would bring forth the loudest screams.

Before the skirmish, he had finished his evening meal, gorging on the flesh of a man. And he already wanted to tear open his wounded warriors for more? The sacrifices were no longer enough to contain his cravings.

He breathed in the air, clearing the smell of heated iron from his lungs. In the recesses of his hardened soul, an emotion surfaced. Lukar stood there staring up at the night sky, trying and failing to name it. But he persisted, knowing it was important. On an exhale of air, he named it for what it was—a long banished emotion.

Shame.

It built within him until he had to cut it off by breathing Semnac’s name aloud. But the unbidden thoughts came forward anyway. What would happen when he was surrounded by the blood and misery of his followers in the coming siege? What would happen when the time came that gorging on the flesh of the Pyranni captives was impossible?

Unsettled, Lukar turned his attention away from the doubt creeping in and focused on the mess the Pyrannis had left behind. His path had long since been set. Semnac never offered a reprieve from the burden of her dark gift. Reaching his tent, Lukar found three of his commanders awaiting his return. Without a word, he stalked inside and abandoned the last of his doubt by exerting his willpower.

His servants had removed the remains of his meal and repositioned the rack along the wall of the tent. The loss of the early dawn light made him blink in the shadowed interior. The night wasn’t a total loss. They’d use the attack to their advantage. His men would set a trap for the Pyranni troops hidden in the forest. But first, his councilors had to reclaim order.

Crowded inside the tent, his war council awaited his orders. Placing his hands on both sides of the map, Lukar leaned his head down and considered his options. Off the main road a mid-sized city lay a short distance from their camp. The supplies they lost tonight could be restocked there. It’d also provide a safe place for his wounded to recuperate. If the fortifications were sufficient, he could leave behind a small contingent of men. If not, his army was delayed a day or two from reaching their final destination.

The fortifications took priority. He didn’t trust himself around the open wounds. They were close enough to Gharra to begin strengthening the strongholds they’d conquered for defense countermeasures. He couldn’t afford for Pyran to attack him from behind.

Too much was at stake.

¤¤¤

Even with the anger brewing in his body, Lukar couldn’t help but admire the destruction lain out before him. The Pyrannis were indeed cunning foes.

They had destroyed their own crops. The village was empty of life; the mass exodus was telling. The Pyrannis were sending their people to their stronghold, Gharra. They sought safety in numbers behind the thick walls of their king’s fortress. What livestock couldn’t be taken with them lay bloated in their pens.

This was the second time he’d underestimated Pyran. Lukar gazed at the razed farmland and the smoldering remains of the city from his vantage point on the koti. To some extent the destruction of their own land was a measure Pyran’s desperation.

The Malirran infantry walked by his perch. The tread of booted feet and the jingle of gear filled the air. The council’s decision last night was to restock their supplies by overtaking the village lying in ruins around them. Without the supplies, his army had to slow their approach. He’d have to send the men out to forage the forest, ranging farther and farther as the land’s resources were depleted.

Lukar could almost feel his men’s confidence be consumed by the blackened earth they marched over. His council had believed the Pyranni warriors would regroup with the others, waiting for night to fall before striking again. The return of his two personal guards dissuaded that idea. The Pyranni warriors weren’t regrouping. They were shifting their position along the main road, lying in wait for the Malirran army to cross their path.

His army had faced a barrage of tactical raids all morning. Along the road, his men were forced to stop their forward march to shield themselves from attack. From the cover of the surrounding territory, the Pyranni warriors effectively dispatched Lukar’s men without losing any of their own. Lukar and his commanders sent scouting parties into the forest, but they came back empty handed.

Whispers were spreading that the Pyranni warriors were ghosts.

Although the enemy wasn’t numerous enough to defeat his massive army, Lukar’s forward momentum was nonexistent, and chaos reigned up and down the lines. In less than a day, the Pyranni warriors accomplished what no other army had ever done before.

Fighting against an enemy they couldn’t see was demoralizing his army. In order to maintain his army’s loyalty, he had to conjure a swift response and defeat his hidden adversary. Lukar turned his head to look down the long line of his army marching by him. Seeing his eyes upon them, his men’s march changed to a more purposeful stride, their faces morphing into lines of determination.

The real war had finally commenced. It was decided. Pyran wouldn’t surrender without a fight. This strategic maneuver by his enemy initiated the chain reaction coming in the following weeks and months.

It was now his turn, his move. Lukar felt the stirring of his Goddess in his mind. He could feel her atavistic pleasure at the coming bloodshed. Through him and his council, Semnac would feast on their enemy’s fear and deaths.

The contingent of warriors responsible for the two, newest captives strode past him. The two Pyrannis were stripped bare and strung up behind the cart. With their legs fettered with metal cuffs and a short length of chain tying both ankles together, they struggled to stay upright.

A plan formed in his mind. He’d bait a trap for their foes, creating a deceptive gauntlet for the Pyranni warriors to negotiate. His enemy had already shown a proclivity for rescuing their fellow warriors. Lukar could use that against them.