V2 Chapter 19: When the Red Moon is still on the sky (3)

The sun was still sinking at the eastern horizon. The winter moons have already come out of their slumber, early. One as blue as an azure rosebud, one as red as blood. The other one, the black one still remained asleep for another fifteen to twenty days or so.

Hyrios stopped the march and ordered his men to rest next to a shrinking moon lake.

Moon lakes were unlike the seasonal lakes that appeared and disappeared through the changing of seasons. Moon lakes were often the difference between living and dying when a person traverse the wilderness of the Great Plain. These lakes formed at nights when the three moons were full and round on the sky. And these lakes would remain so for a few days, two or three full ten days at most, and then return to just being a large puddle or dry out completely.

The ability to find these moon lakes was an innate ability possessed by every animal of the Great Plain. So were the Children of the Green Sky like Hyrios and his riders. They possessed the same ability, the same instinct, and knowledge to find these moon lakes across the Great Plain.

Hyrios took the saddle off Clamn to ease the beast of its travel fatigue. Clamn was visibly tired. Her entire body soaked and the flicker of her tail lacked the usual flare. But the mare was as sassy as ever, whined and complained. Among Hyrios’ most trained horses, Clamn was the most beautiful, but also the whiniest. Clamn turned her head elsewhere as if angry, refusing to meet Hyrios in the eyes. Hyrios chuckled. He removed his gloves, brushed Clamn’s long neck and ruffled her long mane while asking her for forgiveness. Only then, Clamn neighed and brushed her nose against Hyrios’ face, licking him with affection.

Hyrios then removed his belongings from Lai’s back and Threy’s saddle, putting the weight off the beasts. The two of them neighed in appreciation whereas Clamn was back to whining again, still demanding more attention from Hyrios. Hyrios took out the old wooden bucket and filled it with water, allowing his three horses to drink, graze grass and rest for time being.

Hyrios has ridden without resting, switching between his three horses in rotations for over a day. The few shortstops in the between for a few gulps of water could not be called rests. His body was sore from the constant march, but Hyrios knew that his horses must feel worse than he did. He would let them rest for tonight and then back to marching north at dawn.

Hyrios licked his lips as he unplugged his waterskin, his lips cracked and scaly like fish scales, and had a metallic taste to it. Hyrios did not realize how thirsty he was until he gulped down his first mouthful of water since dawn. He consumed his water sparingly, knowing that it would take another two days for him and his men to reach the nearest lake at Green Hill.

This shrinking moon lake was in fact just a small puddle, barely enough for Hyrios and his vanguard of 900 men and 2700 horses to ease their thirst. The moons were still very young, still crescents on the sky. It would take another twenty to twenty-five days for the moon lakes to form. Therefore, Hyrios could only count on those shrinking puddles and lakes for water.

Sometimes, Hyrios tried to imagine what he and his people would be without this innate ability. They would probably be the same as the Children of the Blue Sky. Straying away from the heart of Great Plain, sticking to the river banks and living inside the city walls. Hyrios rather killed himself first than living such a life. At his heart, Hyrios knew that he was a Child of the Green Sky even though his mother was one of the Children of the Blue Sky, a noble lady of the Shepiran Court and a distant relative of King Musa. Of all the children that she has sired for Hyrios’ father, only one was a Child of the Blue Sky, the second youngest child.

Even though the blood of the Children of the Blue Sky coursed inside his veins, Hyrios has always found it unbearable to live under the confinement of walls since his earliest memories. It was the instinct of every Child of the Green Sky to be liberated and be one with the heart of the Great Plain. Thus, his true home was the endless green sky of the Great Plain, not the stone walls of the western border. That’s where he grew up.

Hyrios passed his order to Krys and Fois, his cousins to make camps and dispatch scouts.

“How many days do we have until we see the northern prairie?” Fois asked while combing the mane of his horse. Fois has never traveled this far to the north.

“It’s just ahead, over the horizon” Hyrios replied, training his hand at the distant Great Spine. “See that small dark green part? That’s the Mangora forest. We are very near.”

“Finally,” Krys exclaimed. Her excitement for her first major campaign reinvigorated and washed away her fatigue. She volunteered herself and took off with her riders and eagles to scout the area, leaving the task of making camps to her twin brother.

Krys and Fois were the commanders of Hyrios’ vanguard. Twins they were. Each of them commanded 400 riders in battle even though they could command twice that number. According to them, having 400 riders under their command was better than having 1000 riders. “Half the number. But half the provision and twice the flexibility and twice the mobility,” as they would say.

Fois was short-statured for a man. He was much taller than a dwarf, but a little too short for a man.

Among all the male relatives of Hyrios, Fois was, unfortunately, the shortest. He was constantly mocked for his height. But Fois was a man born without fear, a long claw badger of a man. If Fois had any amount of fear in him, he has left them inside his mother womb. That broken nose of Fois was the result of his fight against some twenty kids of the Horse tribe when he was fourteen. Not exactly a smart decision on his part because Fois was completely alone in that fight and then later punished by his father for inciting that fight. One of the kids who got beaten by Fois in that fight happened to be a child of the leader of the Horse tribe. Fois earned his reputation for being a fighter since.

Krys was Fois’ twin and elder sister. She was a rare breed of a woman. While it was not rare for a woman of the Children of the Green Sky to ride, hunt and go to war with men, a woman like Krys was rare.

Krys has always been especially large for a woman. She was as tall as Hyrios, but had none of Hyrios’ leanness. Krys was large enough to make Fois believe that she was the reason behind his shortness. And he still had that firm belief now. He often complained that she had stolen those growth spurts and height from him just by being his twin. And then, the two of them would wrestle or trade punches over such a stupid reason. She wanted his shortness and he wanted her largeness. Krys has always been the better wrestler whereas Fois was the better puncher.

There were not many men who can trade punch or wrestle with Fois. Fighting against Fois was even less desirable since Fois was the type who did not know how to hold himself back in a fight. Winning against Fois in a fight was even less desirable, that Hyrios was the first to learn. Fois was a sore loser and a real nuisance whenever he lost a fight. He kept coming back to demand rematch no matter how many time Hyrios beat him. He would fight until he won his battle. Thus, for a woman to be his equal in combat and be willing to fight with him at any time, it was rare.

Leaving the camp to Fois, Hyrios grabbed his horse bow and a quiver of arrows, foraging for meals with a hundred of his riders. Wherever there was a moon lake, there were animals nearby to hunt. It did not take long for Hyrios to return to the camp with a bunch of trophies. Badgers, rabbits, foxes, the usual small games with two boars and one grown bison, a delighting sight for Hyrios’ men.

Hunting has been a talent of Hyrios. His father has always told Hyrios that if every Child of the Green Sky was as great a hunter as Hyrios, there would be no animal left inside the Great Plain for anyone to hunt.

While it was a rider’s responsibility to prepare his own meal for the march with the coins he was given, Hyrios would often supplement their meals with wild meat and stews to keep their spirit high during every long rest.

Hyrios ordered the cooks to stick with usual, the anything-goes- stew. No matter how many animal Hyrios brought back in one hunting trip, it would never be enough to feed the mouth of his army. Thus, the anything-goes- stew has been a known tradition among his riders during a march. Hyrios would order his cooks to chop the animals to small swallowing size pieces and stewed them with horse milk, thicken flour water, herbs, salt, peppers and spices and whatever editable mushrooms, leaves, fruits, berries that Hyrios could forage from his trip. In this manner, each and every of his rider could have an equal bite of the meat that Hyrios brought back. Hyrios and his commanders were no exception. They, too, would eat the same stew with his riders, with the same portion, from the same pot.

By the time the cooks have already finished skinning and chopping the animals to pieces, and currently cooking their stews in those large pots, Krys returned and reported to Hyrios of her scouting trip. Her riders found nothing, no enemy scout, no trail of a marching army, and no human structure within the range of a full gallop distance. Her report was very similar to the report of the scouts that Hyrios have been contacting with his war eagles and fast riders.

And those scouts have traveled ahead of Hyrios’ vanguard unit for days. And they reported, “Nothing sighted,” as well in their reports, far from the type of reports that Hyrios has been expecting. Hyrios nodded his head without breaking his expression and told Krys to rest.

Hyrios sank into deep silence. Hyrios rarely doubted himself. But here he was, doubting himself in a crucial moment.

Hyrios expected many things from the reports. He expected the sighting of multiple reinforced military camps. He has expected a report of sighting a long wall erected at extreme speed to cut off the Golden Triangle from Zard. Hyrios expected worse news.

But, “Nothing sighted,” was the kind of report that Hyrios has constantly received.

There were only two answers to explain such unexpected strangeness. It was either that Hyrios’ vanguard marching speed was too fast or the other person who was leading the invading army was too incompetent. But neither should be the correct explanation.

Due to the urgency of the situation, Hyrios has already marched with his vanguards and his two favorite commander while leaving his army trailing behind. His army marched fast, 30 full horse galloping distance in a day. No army in Zard could do this.

But the other person had the early lead. His strike was equally fast. His three battles against the heroic king of the vanquished Kraig’ondor have proven that. His army would not lose in term of speed against any army. War chief, Master of War of White Winter, the Reborn Little Conqueror, the Bane of Neversummer, the Golden Despair, many titles to adorn one person both out of respect from his allies and fear and hatred from his enemies. In this day and age, his name was known through the entire continent.

His past strategies and tactics were still being studied across the continent at the moment from various sources. And Hyrios was one of those who was still studying these subjects.

This person was a truly terrifying opponent. He has always been terrifying since the first time Hyrios saw him.

But what’s more terrifying was that he only fought wars and battles that he would surely win. That meant if he fought a battle, he would win it. If he declared war on a kingdom, that kingdom is surely vanquished. Five major campaigns, five victories. Of all four kingdoms that he has declared war upon, four have vanished from the map.

That was nothing short of a legend. That was something only the old Dragon Slayer could do.

Hyrios had no wish to scare himself by overestimating his opponent. And he was not a person who scared himself by painting a dragon out of his opponent’s shadow. But, his opponent this time was not some small-time instigator, pirate or bandit. If White Winter has decided to become an enemy of Zard, then that person has become Hyrios’ enemy.

There was no worse enemy than that person.

Hyrios has noticed that the distress letters from Madukat had been inconsistent and filled with bogus information for a while now. From his study, Hyrios has noticed that was the usual signal, the only signal of that person’s attack. It always started with the letters and the warbirds. When those war letters and battle reports became confusingly unreliable and filled with nothing but pure bogusness, that, that was the most obvious sign of his attack.

And yet, no fortification, no military camp, no army, no movement, what is the meaning of this? Hyrios inwardly questioned himself. Am I too hasty?

That night, when he closed his eyes, Hyrios dreamt the strangest dream of his life.

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The Red Queen of Beauty, she looked exactly as the legends have described her, and even more.

Gold is Niwdar

Red is Lust

Black is Death

Three Queens of Beauty, three manslaying dreams. If a man saw just one of them, the bringers of the colored dreams, the bringer of the golden dream or the red dream or the black dream, he was no longer a part of the living from that moment.

If a man saw the golden dream, he would rather kill himself than continue living. If a man saw the red dream, he would rather be asleep than awake from that moment. He would sleep to chase after that red dream again until his mortal form failed him. If a man saw the black dream, he was considered gone from the living realm for he was looking at Death in the eyes.

Hyrios was seeing red without a doubt. And there she was, the bringer of the red dream.

A scorching red blaze she was, a blazing fever that took the air away from a man, and left him breathless and gaping in stupidity as he stood watching her from afar.

Never has Hyrios seen a blaze hotter than this and more terrible than this, this red dream and the Red Queen of Beauty herself. She was the flame of flame, a flame of ardent, the original all-consuming flame of passion.

She was the very embodiment of the flame. But the flame was the domain of Sinintee, the God of Civilization and War. But if there existed anyone who could erode that domain and seized it from Sinintee, it would be her, the Red Queen of Beauty.

If Sinintee’s flame could soft and shape the strongest of metals and hardest objects, the Red Queen could shape the toughest man with a wink of her eyes, and more. She was the kind of flame that made even the most strong-willed warriors desired to be softened and reshaped in her sinful image.

The Red Queen was a blazing fire, but she was unlike any blaze that Hyrios has ever known. There was magic inside that blaze, magic that forbade a man to turn his eyes from her shape and the sway and flicker of her movements, magic that petrified that man solid, magic that filled his head with the most sinful images, magic that made him craved to be embraced by the pure heat of that flame and be incinerated into the ashes of his former self.

In front of the Red Queen, there was no discipline soldier, no iron-willed warrior, no virtuous holly man, no great hero, no wise king, no beloved father, no faithful husband, not even a relatively decent man. In her presence, a man would realize that he has never been so weak. In her presence, there were only the ashes of sins and remnant of ardent.

Never had Hyrios fought this kind of foe. The Red Queen was not his foe. His instinct was his deadliest opponent. His sinful craving and secret desires, which he had no idea that they existed, were his undoer. Hyrios was his own worst enemy at the moment. His thought damned and his reasons ashen as that red blaze approached him swaying with the tiniest of her movements.

In the midst of that scorching haze, Hyrios bit his lips and clenched his fists, desperately clinging to the last piece of himself that have yet to be incinerated.

“Bravest Champions,” that red blaze whispered.

There existed no force of reason nor strength of will to stand against such a sound. The Red Queen’s image was an all-consuming blaze, hot, her voice was so much hotter. It was an inferno that spare nothing of man on its path. It was thick and viscous with magic and heat. It was like the promise of ardent, a promise that a man would be burn completely into ashes without any piece of him left behind. It was lava if only lava made a man wanted to be showered in it.

So why? Why can he be like that?

If the legends have described the Red Queen correctly for what she was, the last bit of Hyrios’ reason believed that the legends have forgotten to describe that man who stood next to her. Even when he was wrapped inside her flame of ardent, he was himself. Even when the Red Queen showered him with her sheer passion, he was himself, whole and complete.

“The Prince of The Alliance wishes to send you his regards.”