Tyrant of the Ruined Sun - Chapter 227
Chapter 227: A Touch of Warmth
The battle then continued in a whirl of confusing action, a blur of ash, steel and rivers of red mashed together in such a disjointed manner, it almost matched the horridness of my own fractured mind; all to the haunting backdrop of a constant, unceasing clash of battle and slaughter echoing in my ears, while I lead my men to strike down band after band of dangerously desperate men and women in the narrow streets of the decimated city, in the ruined homes of some random family, beneath the broken gates of the city, as my men hurled defeated foes from the battlements and roofs above alike, into the gory inferno below.
I couldn’t describe more of it even if I wanted to.
At least not more of what my own hands accomplished, but a few portions of the battle did manage to remain clear to me, most prominently of which being when my duelling commanders finally returned half an hour or so after my brothers had departed, in their hands four severed heads, the bloody souvenirs left to them by their slain counterparts, before they then descended like hawks and vultures upon the doomed legions of the enemy.
It was more than a slaughter, more than a massacre, it was a mockery, a humourless farce, for if they felt the task of defeating my men to be an uphill battle when only Horus, Hasdrubal, Archon and Orhan were their foes, then the arrival of my most ferocious lieutenants was like asking a child to wrestle a grown elephant to the ground.
Leonid was the embodiment of death on the battlefield, wading through warriors with the speed of a legion of hardy farmers lunging upon a wheat field ready for harvesting; his alabaster scythe living up to it’s name, as it’s haunting swings became the requiems of every one who was unlucky enough to hear it’s razor edge kill even the air before it cleaved their souls from their flesh.
Tessiphina in turn, was a hurricane with her twin whips, a disaster with the grace of serpents and the force of a stampeding river, flattening combatants with truly unnecessary force and brutality, as though trying to purge her own wrath and hate, as though trying to quench her thirst for vengeance with their wasted blood.
Meanwhile Hamilcar, the old demon, could not be described with anything other than a plague. He tore and butchered and mangled more than the two monsters previous combined, rendering proud warriors into a meat paste on the floor within the blink of an eye, yet that was by far the lesser of his actions, as he seemed to possess an effect on the men around him none could compare with, an infernal ritual that spread the longer he remained in the fight. An infectious possession of sudden blood drunkenness, that radiated from him and into all who witnessed him.
It was a demonic blight, there was no other word to describe it, one that corrupted ordinary, increasingly battle weary men, back to their prime… No, not just to their prime, as they began showing manic expressions of what could only be said to be jubilation, as they rushed to mimic their Grand Marshal; suddenly birthing regiments upon regiments of new Demonborn.
While the original Demonborn, rushed to their father’s side, becoming even more ferocious than ordinary, as they began to march by his side like an infernal legion from the depths of my ancestor’s kingdom, as our enemy’s gargantuan army finally broke with a deafening crack, scattering it’s splintered remains in every which way, trying to escape the field.
The greatest of these splinter groups rushing directly to the ruined city, not that they knew that.
My memories return to being a jumbled mess of horror after that.
In all honesty, if it weren’t for the slight ruggedness of my breath, the thin layer of sweat coating my brow, and the subtle ache and numbness in my body at this moment as I beheld the final scarlet traces of the sinking sun, while I stood on a veritable mountain of corpses taller than the four story building next to me, in what’s left of what I could only assume to once have been the central plaza of the White Jewel, Oigbier, I wouldn’t have even been fully confident that I had indeed participated in the battle this day.
My mind is slow. Muddled. Unfocused. Almost like adhesive wax had been unnaturally layered in the confines of my mind, not allowing my thoughts to flow as naturally as before.
‘Has it been truly so long that I’ve bathed in war, that such a brief battle of a mere day could bring me down with such lethargy and weakness?’ I thought in self mockery, thinking what my past self would think of the present, coddled, pampered me, as I carefully fished around my armour, until I extracted from it that same dry branch of lavender.
Yet I couldn’t smell that treasured scent, only metal, excrement and dying fires, the stench of war.
I feel my mind return to some of it’s previous edge, as my rage burns away much of my tiredness, causing my divine power to once again erupt with a mighty wave of divinity and bloodlust, as my silverish white eyes begin to darken with leaking wisps of hellfire that cause the air around me to both sizzle in heat and to turn sluggish in bitter frost, as the sun’s final light seems to have been forcibly stuffed behind the horizon, precipitously banishing it’s warmth from the world.
“My liege?” A voice then sounds out near me, refocusing my attention back into the physical world.
But when I look up, I am surprised to see that my generals have all congregated before me, utterly without my notice, all of them still covered in the muck and grime of the day’s events; yet then I notice a flash of something in the pits of their eyes, a flicker that has always been present but now shone with a particular gleam among the phantasmagoria of their displayed thoughts and emotions.
Fear.
They are afraid. I can see it, in all of them, even in Hamilcar and Abraham, though it seems to be more akin to trepidation in them than genuine fear. But whether they are scared of me, my power, my actions or what exactly I wasn’t sure.
Though I assume I wasn’t striking a particularly sane or inspiring sight, sitting there, reclining comfortably on a macabre throne of carnage, encased in black armour so bloated with blood you could no longer distinguish the obsidian steal from the life blood of another butchered soul, while radiating out such a potent mixture of divinity and killing intent it caused the blood already infecting the mountain air to shimmer a more nightmarish vermillion in the sun’s dying light, while the wails that had finally been carried away by the breeze only moments past, now returned with a haunting vengeance, as though summoned from the depths of hell in answer to my cruel call.
“Have they been crushed?” I ask, though I had a feeling my voice was more terrifying than it usually is, as they all seemed to tense at the sound of it.
“Yes, sire.” Hamilcar says with as he slightly bows at the foot of my new makeshift throne.
“Any other issues that need urgent?” I ask again.
“No, my emperor.” He shakes his head, still bowing, as the others now followed his lead.
“I am tired.” I almost offhandedly remark, as I rise.
They instantly part to allow me to calmly pass by, as Horus and Abraham immediately retake their position on my flanks.
My generals bow lower than usual, but I pay it little mind as I make my way back to my tent.
I call back to my chimera, as Bellerophon then swoops down along with him. His ashen coat is matted and slick with all manner of foulness, and he seems tired and slightly wounded, especially his front right paw, as he seems reluctant to put much weight on it, but other than that he seems to be pretty excited to finally having been able to hunt to his hearts content.
I ride my chimera, as my guards do the same and we sail the sky over the battle with Bellerophon in tow. As I expected, it is a hell that could even give the most horrifying of battles in the Devils’ Eye a run for it’s money. Corpses as far as the eye could see, with a smell that stung your nose with every breath you took, even at our height.
I take a moment to drink in the sight of it all, before I then continue on my way, past the killing fields and into the soon to be crowded camp.
I land before my tent, and ask the maids awaiting my arrival outside “My brothers?”
“His highness Nizam remains a sleep since he arrived, while prince Cyrus went to bed a mere hour ago, just when the battle was coming to a close.” The older head maid quickly answers me, catching in the brief second our eyes met a glint of admiration, awe and of course fear; but I caught something else as well, something odd. There was a hint of excitement in her as well, as though she knew something I didn’t.
“Ready my bath.” I commanded, my eyes continuing to search her for answers, while my fingers quickly worked to unfasten my helmet and remove my gauntlets.
“Y-You’re bath has already been prepared sire.” She stutteringly said, uncomfortable by my piercing gaze upon her.
I nod, still looking at the maid, before I decide to wash away the filth from me first, yet just when I pulled aside the curtain doors to my room, I saw something that cast out all other thought from me. Freezing me in place as though I’d turned to stupid stone.
A sudden curse only broken when the ordinarily cold, slender fingers I was accustomed to burned like fire on my skin.
She was there.