Upon a wicked steed, p.1
Upon a Wicked Steed, page 1
Upon A Wicked Steed
The end of the world is cruel, especially to the one who caused it.
Pat Thompson
Copyright © 2023 Pat Thompson
All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Cover design by: Ino
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Prologue: Two Fires
~ One ~
Chapter One: The Final Stand
Chapter Two: Give Me the Sway-Backed Nag
Chapter Three: To Victory and Blood
~ Two ~
Chapter Four: Brother Against Brother
Chapter Five: Lightning in a Spear
Chapter Six: Knife to the Heart
~ Three ~
Chapter Seven: Charge of the Gods
Chapter Eight: Godless
Chapter Nine: The Final Foe
~ End ~
Acknowledgement
Prologue: Two Fires
~ One Year Before ~
Yyle leaned back, her head resting against his shoulder as he snaked an arm across her back. She closed her eyes and let out a long sigh as those beautiful fingers found the knot right behind her shoulder.
The others were asleep. No one but the stars were watching.
They were so close that she felt his every gentle movement in keen detail. When he turned his head, when he leaned forward, when his lips brushed her cheek. She didn't pull away, though with every step she felt she should. A nagging twinge of guilt finally ruined the moment for her and she opened her eyes again, used her head to nudge him away. She didn't make him move his arm, though. His fingers stopped moving, but he still held her close.
He didn't say anything. He wasn't going to make this easy on her, was he? He wasn't going to ask.
It was on her to say it.
"We... should get some rest."
That wasn't what I was supposed to say.
"Mm."
He was exhausted, same as her. Same as all of them. The villagers had severely underestimated the number of mercenaries holed up in that inn. All six of them had survived, but not unscathed.
Yyle's shoulders hurt. Her neck hurt. She remembered when things hadn't ached at night... somewhere during their adventures, she'd stopped being young. Twenty-seven didn't seem that old, but apparently it was old enough.
He shifted again, his head lolling sideways to rest against hers, mirroring how she rested against him. She could feel his breathing (deep and slow) and realized she might have waited too long.
"Are you asleep?" she whispered, barely moving.
"Mmmmm..."
She looked back at the fire, the nagging voice and her weariness competing for control. The latter wanted to stay right where she was, drift off to a well-deserved sleep in the arms of the man she loved. The former...
The former had control of guilt. And guilt kept her awake.
"We shouldn't keep doing this."
She whispered the words because she hated them. They stuck in her throat. Please be asleep.
His breathing didn't change.
She couldn't wake him now. He deserved his rest. It could wait.
Her own eyelids drifted down into the welcome, soothing depths of sleep. The low embers of the fire continued to glow, a dim light on six exhausted adventurers dead to the world.
~ One Night Before ~
Yyle stood with her back to the fire, the heavy, sickening knot in her stomach intensifying as she listened to the only two battle-brothers she had left argue behind her.
"This is our responsibility. We didn't stop him when we had the chance--"
"You don't know it's him! It could be anyone. You're talking about going up against a god."
Yyle looked out across the gathering armies, both on their side of the unclaimed fields and on the other. Their side flew many banners, the other only one.
A god.
She didn't believe it, but for a bitter moment she could see why others would. A single entity uniting once-warring nations under his own black banner, now marching to claim the southern realms as he had the northern. It seemed... impossible.
And yet it had happened. In less than a year.
"We must stop it here. With the blessing of the gods we convinced them to stand together, and we have to ensure it counts. He needs to fall. Here. Tomorrow."
"And who will do it? You? Yyle? La?"
"Any of us could, with the right help."
"I won't. You cannot kill a god."
"Who said anything about killing?"
She hated hearing Harah and Densk argue. She hated the silence of her battle-sister as La stared darkly into the fire.
La's people stood across the plains, under the black banners. Fallen. It was a broad term now, one applied to all from the common soldiers in black to the kings who commanded them to the gods claimed by those enemy nations. All of them together, Fallen under the influence of the conqueror.
Nothing Yyle could say would stop this. The world stood on the brink of war, and she saw no rest beyond it. No normal to return to. They four were the only ones left. There was no bringing it all back.
But... if Harah was right… there might be a way to stop the increase of bloodshed.
She stayed where she was, staring at the bleak horizon, as the argument became a speech, and the speech became a weary silence, and the silence became reluctant, restless sleep. And then, following the tug of her heart rather than any plan from her head, she crept down the hill towards the empty plains between armies.
Tomorrow, they would be soaked in blood. Unless Harah was right.
And unless she could out-argue a so-called 'god'.
~ One ~
"And when all that shall be done has been done, the man upon the wicked steed will raise his eyes and look upon the ruin and say 'Shava ek', that is, 'make an end'. But the hunger of the beast will not be satiated, for its hunger is to the God of Gods, and no end will be made. Though all the world be devoured, man and all his gods and beasts and possessions, the land and all her forests, streams, and mountains, there will be no end."
- Segment 34-7 of Visions of the Final Age
as dictated by the Prophet Eka.
Chapter One: The Final Stand
Harah strained his eyes, seeking out one familiar figure in the grim horde blackening the plain. His soul-bound osprey - Tili - searched as well from high above them, riding on unfamiliar winds. She didn't like it here. He could feel her desire faintly in the back of his heart, soaring on ocean winds and kissing sea-salty water with her beak to get at plump fish in swarms just beneath the surface.
It was hard enough to get her salted fish from the cooks now. Food was under close rationing, and he was just another soldier. No one could afford to treat heroes differently anymore.
Heroes.
The enemy army had started forming ranks. Four nations, or what was left of them, under one black banner. Behind Harah, the joined forces of the remaining five controlling kingdoms - along with a meager handful of lesser city-states and tribes - were hurrying to follow suit, though they needn't rush. His bird's eye view betrayed the sheer vastness of that slow-moving black machine, beyond what those on the ground could see. The armies of the four Fallen nations were not alone - indeed, they were outnumbered by their black-clad allies. What force it was that bolstered their ranks, though, neither Harah nor Tili could quite make out.
Whatever they were, they organized slowly.
"Whisperer!"
Harah reluctantly tore his pale gaze away and glanced over his shoulder, lifting the rim of his wide hat to get an unobstructed view of the speaker. One of the camp messengers - an Isler like himself in formal white and sea-green livery - sat just within shouting distance, his horse nervously prancing in place even this far away. The horse-fear in the camps was a problem that would wreak havoc on their cavalries unless someone figured out how to stop it, and soon. Harah hefted his spear and set off at a jog to join the messenger.
"The, ah, high priestess demanded I give this to you," the young man relayed when Harah reached him, and leaned down to hand him a sealed scroll. "She said you had better hurry, though. With them moving like that, every eligible man is being summoned."
Harah's greenish eyes widened, but he took the scroll and quickly slid his finger under the wax seal. A quick glance confirmed the messenger's hints. His petition had been accepted. The goddess of storms would hear him.
If I get there quickly.
"I'm sorry, messenger, but I need your horse."
The messenger grimaced, but more out of resignation than annoyance. "They said you might." He swung his leg over the saddle and slid to the ground. "Gods be with you, Whisperer."
"Gods be with us all."
The five armies and the scattered bands called themselves "Unified", but each still kept to their own camps, flew their own flags, and carried their own gods. Harah had to ride past rows of soldiers as they lined up to face the Fallen; heavily armored blocks of men in gold and red from the Jyu Republic, men and women in all-white on unhappy horseback from Kyre, and his own familiar sea-green Islers with spears and nets. The other two armies hadn 't begun forming ranks yet, but only because they could do so quickly on demand and were still constructing either defenses or war-machines. Both the Tchek Imperium and the Provinces of Lach were renowned for their military might, a might honed through repeated clashes against each other - the Unified Front would not exist if either had refused the call.
La had insisted it would never happen. Honestly, Harah had silently agreed with her. The fact that the High Imperium and Lach's First Minister had agreed to a truce proved the gods truly were with them in this fight.
He spotted La talking with one of the company leaders as he rode past the Kyre troops. His old friend's onyx-black skin stood out like a beacon among all that white clothing, but he did not stop to say hello. They (he and La and what remained of their group) had said their goodbyes last night at their own camp on the outskirts, just in case of the worst case scenario. Today, they were just soldiers.
Just soldiers.
He kept having to tell himself that. Twelve years of journeying from island to mountain to frozen wasteland as a free agent, carving his own way, was over. The people he'd helped, the friends he'd made along the way, the quests they had taken up…
He hunched over the neck of his borrowed horse, a lump of pain suddenly formed in his throat.
It all ended here.
Please, oh gods, end it here.
The nations of the United Front had brought them all. Every god they had. Three pantheons, more than forty gods in total, from across five different cultures. Lach and Tchek had the most in number and the most varied in origins, won from their neighbors and each other over centuries of war, but against all odds the scattered councils of gods had agreed to reunite here, at the edge of oblivion - in fact, they had insisted on it. The Kyres had already slaughtered thousands of animals on their gods' alters over the last three days, though (thank goodness) all the meat had ended up going to hungry soldiers instead of being allowed to rot. Harah passed a shirtless Jyun holyman chanting prayers while he pounded on a huge leather drum (reminding him painfully of Qie), and just a few moments later he saw an Isler priestess arranging rocks for a totem.
United, yet distinct. Allies, yet incompatible.
It was a miracle. Harah clung to that knowledge as he passed into the quickly-emptying Isler inner-camp, where women and children hurried to pack their possessions. It was a miracle, and the gods were with them. That meant there was a chance.
The smell of fish. The wild sea-breeze. Sand, hot from the sun, and shade, cool under the trees.
The Islers didn't belong here. He'd begged them to come stand with the rest on behalf of all god-held life, and they had answered. But they didn't belong here.
They will die here.
He shook his head, trying to banish what could not be banished. Some of the others, his own companions (being haunted by the whispers of dark spirits) were ready to give up hope, but Harah didn't need evil influences to recognize the grim reality of their situation. People would die, in unforgivable numbers, at his request. He just had to ensure the opportunity those lost lives gave him wasn't wasted.
To that end, he dismounted before the tent of Vyla'akah. It was a feeble home for a goddess, but this war had come upon them far more quickly than anyone had anticipated. Harah handed his summons to the priestess waiting outside, and the tan, sandy-skinned Isler woman gave it a glance before nodding solemnly.
"Go in unto her with the blessing of the ocean," she recited, and crossed his palms with water still salty from the sea. He allowed it, though his peoples' customs had lost some of their significance to him over the last decade among other nations. He bowed his thanks regardless and ducked in under the flap of the tent to barter with the god.
Vyla'akah was not native to the islands. She had been claimed years ago from the Everath, one of the now-Fallen kingdoms gathering under that black banner across the plains. Nonetheless, Harah knelt when he reached her totem and took off his wide-brimmed hat, baring sweat-darkened white-gold hair. He didn't have time, or resources, to make himself presentable. The gods would just have to understand.
"Goddess of the storm, allow me to be frank." He had never been very good at the whole prayer thing. Yyle had tried to teach them all once, but he didn't remember any details. "An evil unlike any in mankind's memory has taken half the world, and it is coming for the rest of it. We need your help more than ever, and I know you've heard a lot of requests like that today." He placed his spear in front of her totem, lengthwise between him and her. "I would ask you to ignore them all. I need you more than they do, to end this today. I know who leads the enemy, but I can't… I can't fight him alone. I will need divine strength, of spirit as well as arm." Was she listening? He hoped so. It could be hard to tell. "Take my spear, Vyla'akah, and fight alongside me. Do this, and I…"
He hesitated. Curse his weak heart, he hesitated.
"... I'll end this evil. I promise."
Kill. I meant to say kill.
Harah closed his eyes, his jaw tensing against the accusation from within. He had intended to say 'kill', and yet, deep down, he still hoped. It was impossible - far, far too late - but perhaps… just one more miracle.
A surprisingly light chuckle seemed to fill his ears, trembled in his bones. Harah shivered, the hair on his arms immediately prickling from the presence.
"I accept."
That was it. Two words, and then the totem collapsed as the spirit of the goddess left it. Harah rubbed his arms, his surprise at her willingness dampened by the same sense of… inevitability that had been following him for days, now. His spear - a simple weapon, unornamented but sturdy - trembled as a goddess took up residency, and then began to shine. Sparks flickered off the metal spearhead for a moment before fading, but left behind a lingering blue-white glow that originated inside the metal and seemed to seep down into the wooden shaft. When it appeared to be stable, still glowing but now unchanging, Harah carefully brushed the haft with the back of his hand to check for shock discharge before picking the spear back up.
It didn't hurt, though there was a subtle tingling that ran up his fingers when he touched it. He drew in a deep breath, relieved and resigned. If she had refused, he could have given up this mad quest. The others had outright refused to undertake it. No one could have blamed him.
But a deal was a deal, and it was the right thing to do. Evil had to be fought, even when no one wanted to do it. Even when it lurked behind the face of–
His osprey focused suddenly and he closed his eyes to look through hers. There! On a hilltop in the middle of the Fallen army…
A man with dark hair, long and shaggy and swept by the wind, sitting tall on the back of a horse, unmoveable above the slowly-shifting darkness of the horde. Even Tili's sharp gaze could only make out a few details at this distance, but Harah needed nothing more than that silhouette, that posture and stance, to know.
Do not lose him, he whispered to her, spirit-to-spirit, and the bird acknowledged the command. Harah walked out of the empty tent, his grip on the new god-spear turning his knuckles white.
He had his weapon. He had his target. Now… all that was left was to wait.
And pray.
~
The battlefield had been chosen by the gods. Each of the nations of the United Front had found themselves facing the same ultimatum - fight for the Plains of Arlesium, the legend-rich "Fields of the Gods", or fight to the end without their aid. And after four realms had Fallen despite their fortifications and trenches, their gods unresponsive to pleas for aid, none of those remaining dared take the same risk.
And so here they were, getting in line for their turn to die.
La could feel her horse trembling beneath her. The Kyres had folded her easily into their cavalry's ranks when they learned she was skilled on horseback, but as confident as the riders seemed, their horses weren't doing any better than her's. Something the men could not sense was affecting them in ways no Whisperer had been able to fully counter. Terror was calmed to anxiety with the efforts of every animal spirit-binder in the five armies, but even that was an incomplete solution.
