Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king - Chapter 911

Capítulo 911: Battle of the sands(3)

There is always something that strikes at the back of a man’s mind when he brushes against the divine, like a coldness, an itch,or a whisper.As if the gods were dangling a thread just close enough to see its glimmer, but always too far to grasp. Matters away from the reach of both arms and mind.

Blake had been promised a crown in exchange for burning an empire to ash.

A simple bargain, in his mind. He had imagined he would receive it the moment the deed was done, perhaps the surviving troops, drunk on victory, would hoist him upon their shoulders and proclaim him king;or perhaps the Red God, in some blazing spectacle of fire and wrath, would descend and place the circlet upon his brow.

Reality, as always, had other ideas.

When Cain had explained his plan to him, Blake had been… stunned.This?This was how he was to grasp the prize?

He had stared at his brother then, wondering if that was truly Cain’s brilliance alone?Or was that the old hag’s god at work, twisting mortal thoughts and planting seeds where men would believe they sprouted naturally?

Had he been scammed?If this crown came into being through Cain’s hands, not the god’s, then what had he been bargaining for all this time?

Or, more disturbingly,was Cain’s scheme itself ordained?Was Blake’s choice to bring Cain into his fold ever truly a choice at all?Or had it merely felt like one, a play the gods had written long before Blake ever drew breath?

Such questions belonged to scholars and priests and doomed philosophers.

Blake was none of those.

Not today.

Today, his world was reduced to blood, screams, dust, and the hot thrum of his own heartbeat.

He was too far gone in the ecstasy of violence to ponder theology, there was nothing he could do but enjoy the moment.

At first, of course, he had been wary of the camel-riders.

Anyone with eyes would be.

He had watched one of the beasts tear across the field like a sandstorm made flesh.Its great yellow-furred legs pistoned, and its hooves,massive, hard as sun-baked stone,came down on an Azanian slave’s skull.

The head burst.

Not cracked.Not split, it just burst.Like a rotten melon smashed under a warhammer.

Bone shards sprayed out in an arc and gray matter clung to the beast’s fur like wet clay upon hands.The body folded under it, twitching once before becoming another smear on the churned earth.

Blake had flinched.

Just a heartbeat.Just enough to feel the cold hand of caution brush his spine.

Then the moment passed, and he was the red angel again.

However terrifying the creatures appeared, Blake reminded himself of one simple truth:a beast was still a beast.

And a beast bled.

He proved it when he swung his axe low, burying the blade deep into the camel’s foreleg.The weapon bit through tendon and bone with that same wet sound he had heard thousands of time, and the howl that tore from the creature’s throat was a sound that rattled the air.

Pain, fear, confusion, the same trio that haunted every living thing, clouded its wide black eyes.

Its power suddenly betrayed it.

The same mass that crushed men like dry reeds now became its ruination, momentum dragging it forward in a collapsing heap.Blake stepped back, boots scraping in the dust, as half a ton of screaming flesh slammed into the earth.

He felt the ground shake beneath him.

The rider atop the beast fared even worse.Pinned beneath the collapsing bulk of his mount, the man shrieked as his left thigh vanished under the impact, torn off as clean as if a god had plucked it.

Blake didn’t spare him a second glance.The man’s howls were already fading into the battlefield’s greater roar, and Blake’s hunger was pulling him onward, searching for the next enemy, the next strike, the next piece of carnage to carve his path.

Behind him, the camel-riders’ devastating momentum failed to break through the line.

Because after the charge came the real fight and in that fight, the Confederates thrived.

The slaves soldiers had done their job and received the blunt of the assault.

A couple dozen brave men would always outmatch two hundred terrified ones, especially against mounted foes.Fear made men freeze.Hesitation fed the grave.But aggression?Aggression toppled riders.

And the Confederates were nothing if not aggressive.

They surged forward with all they had.There was no formations nor disciplines, they were not soldiers after all but raiders.

It was just instinct.And the kind of vicious creativity born on a thousand burning decks.

They slipped between the stumbling Azanian conscripts, weaving like wolves between panicked sheep, aiming not for the riders but for the legs of the towering beasts.

Axes rose and fell.Steel kissed flesh.

Once a camel’s legs buckled, the battle was over.

The riders were dragged down with their mounts, screaming, trapped under the same creatures they had ridden so proudly moments before.Pinned. Helpless.Eyes wide with terror as the Confederates closed in, grinning through blood and smoke.

Some tried to draw curved blades to defend themselves. Few succeeded as the axe rained down

One by one, the desert riders fell, in the same way , cut the legs, break the balance,and kill when it can no longer stand.

Blake’s heart warmed, it truly did, as he watched the day unfold into carnage.

The proud desert riders, the very scourge responsible for Romelia’s crisis, were tumbling like children knocked into the dust, felled by unwashed sea-barbarians who had made profanity out of their holy.

It was beautiful.A hymn.

He could have admired the sight for hours. If he weren’t in the middle of it.

CLANG.

A scimitar glanced off the iron ridge of his axe, jarring his arm to the elbow.Right. He chided himself. Perhaps best not to daydream during a melee.

The rider who had ambushed him wasted no time, blades whirling like twin streaks of moonlight. Blake had no room to counter. No room to breathe. Each parry met another strike. Each step met another slash. Instinct begged him to fall back, to reset his footing.

But instinct didn’t win crowns.

Getting close did.

So Blake forced himself forward, inch by inch, through the storm of metal.He shoved aside blows with the haft of his axe.He let some strikes skid against his armor, sparks spitting off his pauldrons.Every heartbeat brought him closer to the towering camel’s legs.

Finally, he was close enough to see the beast’s eyes, wide, furious, its mouth rimmed with drool

But still no space. Each time he tried to swing, the rider tugged the reins, pulling the beast out of reach, dancing backward with infuriating precision.

It became a pattern.A rhythm.A mockery.

Parry, parry,step in. Reined away. Parry,parry,step in. Reined away.

He was being mocked at. He felt anger tugging at his fiber and muscles.And Blake was not a man to let anger go unanswered.

With a wordless snarl, he broke the cycle and sprinted forward.A scimitar hissed past his collarbone, so close he felt the wind of it kiss his skin.

He didn’t care when he felt warm liquid running down his chest…

Mid-run, he crashed his fist,hilt and all, into the camel’s head with all the weight of his charging body.

The crack was gorgeous and the blow landed perfectly.

The beast staggered once… twice… then toppled sideways like a felled statue.Five hundred kilos of flesh hit the earth with a thunderous thud, pinning its rider beneath its massive torso.

The scream that followed was like music.

Blake approached, his previous tension no longer there now that he could see victory. But the anger still was.

The man’s legs were twisted, pulped, trapped under the heaving creature. One of his arms flailed uselessly toward Blake, clutching at the air. The other beat weakly at the camel’s flank as if it might magically rise again.

Blake crouched beside him.

The rider’s eyes were wild as a man in front of death could be, pleading, furious, terrified.A whole storm of humanity in them.

Making it so that the two were more similar thant not…except of course Blake was the one with the blade.

He smiled and he took his time.

The rider tried to form words , but Blake spoke not his tongue, so they were more like the howl of a beast than the pleas of a man, not that any of the two would have sufficed.

None of them survived his own agony.

And Blake, spattered head to toe, face painted red by the arterial spray, looked almost… serene.

As if listening to a song.

A maiden’s melody.A lullaby sung over a lake at dusk.

Except this one was made from pain.And it warmed him better than any ever had.

He did not know how much he took with him, it must have been quite long though and most importantly, beautiful to look at , considering that for the duration of it, not a rider even dared to make an attempt to stop it.

He supposed all of them were too interest to see the end’s work.

It was only after he was done with it, and the cheers of his men ringing in his ears, that he turned around to see the great feller of Gratios fall back into the very dust they came from.