Volume 1: Arc 3: Chapter 9

The last chapter of volume 1.

OK. So you guys had issues with the last chapter. I get it. Don't really agree with some of the comments but what can you do?

Anyways, this is here for your enjoyment.

I'll be back between 5/6 to 5/8 as already discussed

December 09, 30 R.E

The army of Abria washed through Kankur like a raging storm. Building were torched, houses were looted, and overall panic swept the civilians living within the city. The army, which had been steadfast in repelling the defenders, was scattered and disparate in the large city.

Even they, the honorable and the brave, quailed against the onslaught of their one-time jailers. Still, they were soldiers and they had a duty to the citizens within Kankur; So, they rallied and pushed many of the Abrian soldiers out of the confines of the city; however, by the time this occurred, many citizens lay dead in the streets and the Council Building, a monumental, towering structure in the middle of the city burned. In a few hours, only the smoldering wreckage remained as ashes, pushed by a great wind, covered the surrounding buildings and people with soot, blackening their horns, clothes and faces.

As many brave volunteers gathered at the Council Building to search the wreckage, the soldiers outside the city began to conduct a pitched battle. Screams and wails could be heard within and from without the city throughout the night.

Only one man was immune to the cries of others. Rajac Rashak. He, who was covered in the blood of his enemies, roamed the battlefield striking down all Abrians who stood in his way. He grieved for his sister and the twisted thing that had once been his friend. This life was supposed to have been better than his last one.

Is that not what the program promised? Then why…why did this feel so…real?

This thought pounded in his head as he cut down soldier after soldier, his senses immune to the men’s’ cries.

That night, he bathed in a river of blood. His own men, those who were called brave, loyal, and honorable by the citizens looked upon their captain with utter terror at the path he carved through the enemy.

He was a true monster upon the battlefield. A blight to his enemies. A Siren to his allies. And so, everywhere Rajac when, carving a path, so too did the Kankur army. They charged, they rallied, and they pushed.

Fire tore behind them as their beautiful city burned. But, many citizen volunteers, who risked their own safety, slowly, but surely, began to douse the fire with buckets of water.

As night turned into day and the battle still raged, many of those who perished in the night were found as charred corpses in the morning.

Included in those corpses, were four of the six Council members; only Tai Rashak who lived on her farm and Jalai Manos, a healer who was within the healing tents when the attack occurred, survived.

Many others were counted among the corpses. So many, the citizen volunteers lost count. But, they knew the number was well over one-thousand.

~

Muhal backed away from his men; his face, shining with sweat, was pinched into a worried and slightly desperate expression. He had not expected things to go so sour once he actually made it into the city.

His men, after first entering, had torn the gate down so even if the Ventros managed to take bake the gate, they would not be able to impede Muhal for very long. Then, he and his men entered the Ventros city, which put up little resistance, and torched the place.

Their duty was to destroy every last one of these Greater Race people and, if they somehow failed to complete it, they wanted to kill as many as possible before that happened. As an aside, it also created a mass hysteria that swept through the Ventros soldiers, as those who had been so adamant in defending the walls from his men, ran around like chickens with their heads cut off as soon as he burned their city.

It was only when that man…Muhal sneered at the memory. That single man…He should have killed him when he had the chance. How many times had he wished it so in the last few weeks. But, orders had been orders. If only he had been in command ten years ago when he could have put a stop to this before it all began.

Muhal sighed. That man has caused him no end of grief. He was the rallying cry of the soldiers who pushed Muhal’s army out of the city and now, they were pushing them out of the valley all together.

Harried and exhausted, his men stumbled over each other as they slowly backed away from the marauding soldiers who cut everything down that moved.

It would be a total rout before long. And Muhal knew he would never be able to return to Abria. The rank he held, the men he commanded, the title he dreamed of; they would all be out of his reach.

For a long time, Muhal considered abandoning his army. He had family in the southern kingdoms. He could return to them; it had been, after all, a very long time since he left. They, no doubt, would have forgiven him by now.

In the end, though, he decided to stay. What was he without his men or his rank? Nothing that was what. And so, Muhal would fight for the remnants, the scraps, anything he could hold onto from this disaster of a day.

~

Rajac pushed forth not caring that he was exhausted, not caring that blood smeared him from head to toe, and not caring, just not caring at all. The remnants of Muhal’s army stood in front of him. Exhausted and deprived of any break for hours.

Rajac kept pushing them and his men followed as they cleaned up the wide, arching path he made. As Rajac thrust himself into the core of the Abrian soldiers; Muhal came to meet him. Their blades sang in chorus with the birds as they struck blow after blow at each other.

The surrounding soldiers, on both sides, were thrown asunder by the force emanating from both of the men as they struck at each other, unrestrained.

No words were spoken between the two men as they fought though Rajac had many questions and accusations he wanted to throw at Muhal, this was neither the time nor place for that. Both fought for their lives as they struck at one another dodging blows here and there and scoring strikes that stung like wild-fire had been seared into their very veins.

Muhal struck down with his great sword, cleaving the earth in two. A fountain of dirt rose in the air, buffering the surrounding soldiers in a fine misting of dust. Rajac spun, moving from the Delight of the Unknown into the Truth of the Many as he struck quickly and effectively at Muhal’s unguarded chest.

Tendrils of fire coursed from Rajac as he willed Fire Elemental Magic to coat his blade in the elemental substance. Muhal hurriedly raised his sword from its prone position as he backed up, knocking aside each of Rajac’s blows.

After the sixth consecutive blow, Muhal trapped Rajac’s sword by breaking the sword’s movement against the flat of his blade. A sharp clang rang through the air as Rajac’s arm jarred from the impact. In that split-second of discomfort, Muhal struck at Rajac as quick as a viper.

Rajac avoided the blow by a hair’s breath as he shifted into the Cadence of Jin, stepping directly into the second step as he threw up a wall of Metal Auxiliary Magic.

Sweat coursed down both of their faces now as they bent low in their stances, more to keep themselves up, than for defensive purposes.

As they fought, the remaining soldiers around them had, once again, begun their pitched battle. The Kankur soldiers, whose moral was currently high, began to box in and hack away at the Abrian soldiers, whose moral plummeted with every retreating step they had to take.

Muhal glanced back at his men, a pained, sorrowful expression on his face. There was no hope now. All was lost. He had revealed his last card and it had not worked. Raising his sword, he prepared his final charge. He did not do this for Lord Gaya or even for his men. He did it for himself. He had always wanted to be…someone. Someone with stature,

importance, believability and creditability not just associated with his race or clan name. In Abria, he had that. And now, with all of that disappearing before his eyes, he had nothing left to lose.

Rajac’s emotions were in turmoil as he fought Muhal. How could a man be so callous as to casually look behind him, notice his men were dying, and not sound a retreat? Was he so loyal to his master that their lives meant nothing to him? Did his sister’s death mean nothing to the man? Or Temos’?

Rajac beat against Muhal, tearing a small flap of skin from his face in the process. Muhal growled in frustration as he threw Fire Elemental Magic at Rajac who dodged it easily; however, as Rajac was forming a spear of Metal Auxiliary Magic, Muhal struck again, not even waiting for his magic to miss Rajac. With his sword arm extended, he lunged at Rajac, howling like a madman. The sword went straight through Rajac’s arm, tearing the muscle in the process.

As Muhal pulled his sword out, Rajac hissed in pain as his left arm hung limply at his side, too numb to move. Rajac threw himself onto Muhal and did not even attempt to use his sword. Smashing his forehead into Muhal’s own, he corralled Muhal to the ground where they grappled. Muhal, frantically, attempted to free himself from Rajac’s grip and even restored to biting in his attempts.

Rajac, though, was too focused upon his objective to care at this point. Using his head once again, he pounded it against the membrane that held Muhal’s brain. Pound! Pound! Pound! Splurrch!

One of Rajac’s horns pierced the membrane and impaled the brain, throwing viscera and brain matter every which way like a squeezed grape. Muhal’s body became limp as he entered death’s embrace. Rajac, finally feeling that the matter was done, rose and looked around.

The Kankur soldiers were busy finishing off the remaining Abrian soldiers who were huddled together courageously defending against the multitude arrayed against them. The fire that lit Kankur alight the previous night had been extinguished and the healing tents were over-crowded with the injured, sick, and volunteers.

A new day would dawn in Kankur.

Rajac let his emotions return to him and all he could do was weep. Tears of salty brine mixed with blood trailed down his face as he walked, alone, away from the battlefield.

~

That day would always be known in the legends of the Ventros as the day the shackles had been thrown from their long-suffering servitude. It was the day a hero became a villain and a villain a hero. A day where the Council, once a hall-mark of Ventros society, was abandoned.

Over the next few months, times changed in Kankur.

Many blamed the Council for their lack of control over the situation. If not for the hero, then the day would have been lost, many of the citizens cried.

And so, the Duchy of Kankur was established making the Western Territories four ‘dukes’ swell into five. An unknown, Salas Teras, was chosen by the selecting committee to become duke. It was said, more rumors than anything else, that he was a patient, quick-witted, and wise man. While many held back their opinions, there was cautious optimism that this new duke would be a boon for their growing city.

Many burials resulted from that day. Among them, the daughter of former Council-Member, Nisa Rashak, was buried. Her ceremony was grand and ostentatious as she was the brother to the hero as well.

The army was reformed once again. Base Commander Yaka Ishan recruited like mad that following spring. The decimated army swelled into a force of nine-hundred men. When the recruits who joined asked where Captain Rajac was, their elders always gave them side-long glances. Many had wished to join the army just because of the captain. As ambition clouds many men, those who strive for greatness always tend to congregate towards those who are already grate.

But, the captain was nowhere to be found. The officers, who fielded these questions from their men, turned them away stone-faced and tight-lipped. If they knew where the captain had gone, they weren’t saying.

And so, time passed and the Duchy of Kankur grew. Rumors of its existence spread far and wide. Within the Western Territories, the maligned and mistreated races of the other duchies began to travel towards Kankur which held their only hope for a peaceful life.

~

Somewhere, far distant to the Western Territories and the Duchy of Kankur, a lone travel wearing a thick traveling cloak walked slowly up the dusty road towards a city in the far distance. Other travelers passed him at a far quicker pace as they hurried towards their destination in a mad rush.

But this travel was in no hurry. He had nowhere to be.

He had completed all that he wished in this life. There had been difficulties-obstacles to overcome, complications from his decisions, and an impatience that had bread obstinacy and idiocractic thought. But, success, in the end, was a fine medal to hang upon his mantel. A reminder to what he achieved and what it had cost to achieve it.

He smiled sadly as he thought on all that he had lost during this long journey.

As the wind whipped over his hood and though his hair, trailing dust between it’s dark strands, if one looked closely, they would have seen the tips of ivory horns before the man casually pulled the hood down against the wind even as it buffeted his hand gently as if it were prodding him to show, to the world, his true nature.

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