The Warrior Prophet

by R. Scott Bakker

  The beasts stormed into the Auglishmen under Earl Goken the Red. Men were gored on great winding tusks, tossed and broken by trunks, split like sacks of fruit beneath colossal stamping feet. From the armoured howdahs strapped to the animals’ backs, Girgashi sent arrows into the faces of those shouting below. Then the giant Yalgrota felled one singlehanded, hammering the beast’s head with a mighty cudgel. The flint-hearted Auglishmen rallied, hewing the trumpeting beasts with axe and sword. Some mastodons toppled, pulled down by a hundred wounds; others panicked before the fire Prince Hulwarga brought against them and began rampaging through the Girgashi horsemen crowded in their rear.

  Across the Tertae Plain, waves of Kianene cavalrymen descended upon the advancing Inrithi. Those watching from the Gate of Horns saw the Padirajah’s White Tiger close with the Circumfix. They saw the standards of Gaidekki and Ingiaban falter while those of the Nansur crept forward. The stout-hearted infantrymen of the Selial Column hacked their way into the Padirajah’s camp. Then the drums of the heathen went silent, and all the world seemed awash in Inrithi voices raised in triumph and song. Cinganjehoi fled the field. The giant Cojirani, the bloodthirsty Grandee of Mizrai, was slain by Proyas, the Prince of Conriya. Kascamandri, the glorious Padirajah of Kian, fell jawless and dying at the sandalled feet of the Warrior-Prophet. His jowled head was mounted upon the standard of the Circumfix. But his precious children escaped, spirited away by slippery Fanayal, the oldest of his sons.

  Pinioned between the advancing Inrithi and the fallen camp, the Grandees of Chianadyni and Girgash charged and charged, but the Galeoth and Ainoni shrugged away their desperation and closed with them. The Men of the Tusk wept as they butchered the despairing heathen, for never had they known such dark glory.

  And in the wake of the battle, some climbed the mastodon carcasses, held their swords out to the glare of the sun, and understood things they did not know.

  The Holy War had been absolved.

  Forgiven.

  The surviving Grandees were strung from many-boughed sycamores, and in the evening light they hung, like drowned men floating up from the deep. And though years would pass, none would dare touch them. They would sag from the nails that fixed them, collapse into heaps about the base of their trees. And to anyone who listened, they would whisper a revelation … The secret of battle.

  Indomitable conviction. Unconquerable belief.

  Early Spring, 4112, Year-of-the-Tusk, Akssersia

  Woollen cloak and furs raised against the rain, Aëngelas rode, part of a long file of horsemen plodding across the Plains of Gâl through never-ending curtains of falling grey. They followed a wide trail of trampled grasses. Now and anon someone would find the untrammelled footprint of a child, small and innocent, dimpling the mud. Men Aëngelas had known his entire life—strong men—wept aloud at the sight.

  They called themselves the Werigda, and they searched for their missing wives and children. Two days before they had returned to their camp, warriors flushed with success in the ways of small war, and had found destruction and slaughter instead of their loved ones. Inveterate fighters became panicked husbands and fathers, sprinting through the wreckage crying names. But when they realized their families had been taken and not killed, they became warriors again. And they’d ridden, driven by love and terror.

  By mid-morning, colossal stoneworks resolved from the sheets of rain and reared above them: the moss- and lichen-crowded ruins of Myclai, once the capital of Akssersia and the greatest city of the Ancient North save Trysë. Aëngelas knew nothing of the Old Wars, or of ancient and proud Akssersia, but he understood his people were descendants of the Apocalypse. They dwelt among the unearthed bones of greater things.

  They followed the track over mounds, beneath headless pillars, and along walls spilling into gravel. The Sranc they followed, Aëngelas knew, were neither Kig’krinaki nor Xoägi’i, the clans that had been their rivals since time immemorial. They followed a different, more wicked clan—one never before encountered. Some of them were even horsed—something unheard of for the Sranc.

  They passed through dead Myclai in silence, deaf to her rebuke for the unruined.

  By evening the rains had stopped, but deepening cold was added to their horror, and their shivers became shudders. That night they found a firepit, and Aëngelas, poking through the black ash with his knife, retrieved a small pile of little bones. Children’s bones. The Werigda gnashed their teeth and howled at the dark heavens.

  There could be no sleep that night, so they rode on. The plains seemed a heart-stopping hollow, a great funerary shroud, exposed at all points to abyssal portent, to impossibly cruel designs. What had they done? How had they angered the man-pummelling Gods? Had the Stag-Flame burned too low? Had the sacrificial calves been diseased?

  Two more days of wet, shivering fury. Two more days of trembling horror. Aëngelas would see the tracks of barefoot women and children, and he would remember their burnt homes, the bodies of the tribe’s adolescents strewn amidst the wreckage, desecrated in unspeakable ways. And he would remember his wife’s frightened eyes before he’d left with the others to raid the Xoägi’i. He would remember her words of premonition.

  “Do not leave us, Aënga … The Great Ruiner hunts for us. I’ve seen him in my dreams!”

  Another firepit, more small bones. But this time the ashes were warm. The very ground seemed to whisper with the screams of their loved ones.

  They were near. But both they and their horses, Aëngelas told them, were too weary for the grim work of battle. Many were dismayed by these words. Whose child would the Sranc eat, they cried, while they tossed on the hard ground? All of them, Aëngelas said, if the Werigda failed to win the morrow’s battle. They must sleep.

  That night anguished cries awakened him. Pale, callused hands dragged him from his mat, and he drove his knife through the belly of his assailant. The thunder of hooves crashed around him, and he was struck face first into the turf. He struggled to his knees, crying out to his men, but the gibbering shadows were upon him. His arms were wrenched behind him and cruelly bound. He was stripped of his clothes.

  With the other survivors, Aëngelas was driven through the night, pulled by a leather thong cut into his lips. He wept as he ran, knowing all was lost. No more would he make love to Valrissa, his wife. No more would he tease his sons as they sat about the evening fire. Over and over, through the agony of his face, he asked: What have we done to deserve this? What have we done?

  By the wicked glare of torchlight he saw the Sranc, with their narrow shoulders and dog-deep chests, surfacing from the night as though from the depths of the Sea. Inhumanly beautiful faces, as white as polished bone; armour of lacquered human skin; necklaces of human teeth; and the shrunken faces of men stitched into their round shields. He smelled their sweet stench—like feces and rotted fruit. He heard the nightmarish clacking of their laughter, and from somewhere in the night, the shrieks of the Werigda’s horses as they were slaughtered.

  And periodically he saw the Nonmen, tall upon their silk-black steeds. What Valrissa had dreamed, he realized, was true: the Great Ruiner hunted them! But why?

  They reached the Sranc encampment in the grey light of dawn, a string of naked, brutalized men. A great chorus of wails greeted them—women crying names, children howling “Da! Daa!” The Sranc led them into the midst of their huddled loved ones, and in an act of curious mercy, cut them loose. Aëngelas flew to Valrissa and his only remaining son. Wracked by sobs he hugged both of them, clutched at their bent backs. And for an instant he felt hope in the pale warmth of degraded bodies.

  “Where’s Ileni?” he hissed.

  But his wife could only cry “Aënga! Aëngaaa!”

  The respite, however, was short-lived. Those men who couldn’t find their families, who either knelt alone in the frozen mud or raced screaming and searching for faces now dead, were butchered. Then those wives and children without husbands were also hacked to silence, until only those who had been reunited remain
ed.

  Under the dark eyes of the Nonmen, the Sranc then began beating the survivors into two rows, until the Werigda were drawn in long threads across snow and dead winter grasses, husbands opposite their wives and children.

  Leashed to an iron spike hammered into the ground, Aëngelas cringed from the cold and threw himself over and over against the braided thongs that held him from his wife and son. He spat and raged at the passing Sranc. He tried to summon heartening words, words that might let his family endure, that might grace them with dignity for what was about to come. But he could only weep their names, and curse himself for not strangling them earlier, for not saving them from what was about to happen.

  And then, for the first time, he heard the question—even though it was not spoken.

  An uncanny silence fell across the Werigda, and Aëngelas understood that all of them had heard the impossible voice … The question had resounded through the souls of all his suffering people.

  Then he saw … it. An abomination walking through dawn twilight.

  It was half-again taller than a man, with long, folded wings curved like scythes over its powerful frame. Save where it was mottled by black, cancerous spots, its skin was translucent, and sheathed about a great flared skull shaped like an oyster set on edge. And within the gaping jaws of that skull was fused another, more manlike, so that an almost human face grinned from its watery features.

  The Sranc howled with rapture as it passed, and jerked at their groups as they fell to their knees. The mounted Nonmen lowered their shining scalps. It studied the rows of hapless humans, and then its great black eyes fell upon Aëngelas. Valrissa sobbed, a mere length away.

  You … We sense the old fire in you, manling …

  “I am Werigda!” Aëngelas roared.

  Do you know what we are?

  “The Great Ruiner,” Aëngelas gasped.

  Noooo, it cooed, as though his mistake had aroused a delicious shiver. We are not He … We are His servant. Save my Brother, we are the last of those who descended from the void …

  “The Great Ruiner!” Aëngelas cried.

  The abomination had walked ever closer throughout this exchange, until it loomed over his wife and child. Valrissa clutched Bengulla to her bosom, held out a tragic warding hand against the hoary figure.

  Will you tell us, manling? Tell us what we need to know?

  “But I don’t know!” Aëngelas cried. “I know nothing of what you ask!”

  Effortlessly, the Xurjranc snapped Valrissa’s tether, and hoisted her before him, held her as though she were a doll. Bengulla shrieked,

  “Mama! Mama!”

  Once again the question thundered through Aëngelas’s soul. He wept, tore at the turf.

  “I don’t know! I don’t know!”

  Beneath the monstrosity’s claws, Valrissa went very still, like a calf caught in the jaws of a wolf. Her terrified eyes turned from Aëngelas, and rolled upwards beneath their lids, as though trying to peer at the figure behind her.

  “Valrissa!” Aëngelas screamed. “Valrissssaa!”

  Holding her by the throat, the thing languorously picked her clothing away, like the skin of a rotten peach. As her breasts fell free, round-white with soft-pink nipples, a sheet of sunlight flickered across the horizon, and illuminated her lithe curves … But the hunger that held her from behind remained shadowy—like glistening smoke.

  Animal violence overcame Aëngelas, and he strained at his leash, gagged inarticulate fury.

  And a husky voice in his soul said: We are a race of lovers, manling …

  “Beaaassee!” Aëngelas wept. “I don’t knoooowww …”

  The thing’s free hand traced a thread of blood between her bosom across the plane of her shuddering belly. Valrissa’s eyes returned to Aëngelas, thick with something impossible. She moaned and parted her hanging legs to greet the abomination’s hand.

  A race of lovers …

  “I don’t know! I don’t! I don’t! Beaase stop! Beaasse!”

  The thing screeched like a thousand falcons as it plunged into her. Glass thunder. Shivering sky. She bent back her head, her face contorted in pain and bliss. She convulsed and groaned, arched to meet the creature’s thrusts. And when she climaxed, Aëngelas crumpled, grasped his head between his hands, beat his face against the turf.

  The cold felt good against his broken lips.

  With an inhuman, dragon gasp, the thing pressed its bruised phallus up across her stomach and washed her sunlit breasts with pungent, black seed. Another thunderous screech, woven by the thin human wail of a woman.

  And again it asked the question.

  I don’t know …

  These things make you weak, it said, tossing her like a sack to cold grasses. With a look, it gave her to the Sranc—to their licentious fury. Once again, it asked the question.

  The abomination then gave his weeping son—sweet, innocent Bengulla—to the Sranc, and once again asked the question.

  I don’t know what you mean …

  And when the Sranc made a womb of Aëngelas himself, it asked—with each raper’s thrust, it asked …

  Until the gagging shrieks of his wife and child became the question. Until his own deranged howls became the question …

  His wife and child were dead. Sacks of penetrated flesh with faces that he loved, and still … they did things.

  Always, the same mad, incomprehensible question.

  Who are the Dûnyain?

  Appendices

  Character and Faction Glossary 603

  Map of Eärwa 608

  Map of the Western Three Seas 610

  Character and Faction Glossary

  Characters

  Drusas Achamian, a forty-seven-year-old Mandate sorcerer

  Coithus Athjeäri, Saubon’s nephew

  Bannut, Cnaiür’s uncle

  Nersei Calmemunis, Proyas’s cousin and Conriyan leader of the Vulgar Holy War

  Cememketri, Grandmaster of the Imperial Saik

  Chepheramunni, King-Regent of High Ainon and leader of the Ainoni contingent

  Cnaiür, a forty-four-year-old Scylvendi barbarian, Chieftain of the Utemot

  Ikurei Conphas, Exalt-General of Nansur and nephew to the Emperor

  Eleäzaras, Grandmaster of the Scarlet Spires

  Esmenet, a thirty-one-year-old Sumni prostitute

  Geshrunni, slave-soldier and momentary Mandate spy

  Hoga Gothyelk, the Earl of Agansanor and leader of the Tydonni contingent

  Incheiri Gotian, Grandmaster of the Shrial Knights

  Paro Inrau, Shrial Priest and former student of Achamian

  Ikurei Istriya, Empress of Nansur and mother of the Emperor

  Iyokus, Eleäzaras’s Master of Spies

  Kascamandri, Padirajah of Kian

  Anasûrimbor Kellhus, a thirty-three-year-old Dûnyain monk

  Kussalt, Saubon’s groom

  Maithanet, Shriah of the Thousand Temples

  Mallahet, powerful member of the Cishaurim

  Martemus, General and Aide-de-Camp to Conphas

  Anasûrimbor Moënghus, Kellhus’s father

  Nautzera, senior member of the Mandate Quorum

  Nersei Proyas, Prince of Conriya and former student of Achamian

  Cutias Sarcellus, First Knight-Commander of the Shrial Knights

  Coithus Saubon, Prince of Galeoth and leader of the Galeoth contingent

  Seökti, Heresiarch of the Cishaurim

  Serwë, a nineteen-year-old Nymbricani concubine

  Seswatha, survivor of the Old Wars and ancient founder of the Mandate

  Simas, member of the Quorum and Achamian’s former teacher

  Skaiyelt, Prince of Thunyerus and leader of the Thunyeri contingent

  Skalateas, mercenary sorcerer

  Skauras, Kianene Sapatishah-Governor of Shigek

  Skeaös, the Emperor’s Prime Counsel

  Skiötha, Cnaiür’s deceased father

  Ikurei Xerius III, Emperor of Nansur


  Krijates Xinemus, Achamian’s friend and Marshal of Attrempus

  Xunnurit, Scylvendi King-of-Tribes at the Battle of Kiyuth

  Yalgrota, Skaiyelt’s giant bondsman

  Yursalka, Utemot tribesman

  Factions

  The Dûnyain: A hidden monastic sect whose members have repudiated history and animal appetite in the hope of finding absolute enlightenment through the control of all desire and circumstance. For two thousand years they have bred their members for both motor reflexes and intellectual acuity.

  The Consult: A cabal of magi and generals that survived the death of the No-God in 2155 and has laboured ever since to bring about his return in the so-called Second Apocalypse. Very few in the Three Seas believe the Consult still exists.

  The Scylvendi: The ancient nomadic peoples of the Jiünati Steppe. They are both feared and admired for their prowess in war.

  Schools

  A collective name given to the various academies of sorcerers. The first Schools, both in the Ancient North and in the Three Seas, arose as a response to the Tusk’s condemnation of sorcery. The Schools are among the oldest institutions in the Three Seas, and they survive, by and large, because of the terror they inspire and their detachment from the secular and religious powers of the Three Seas.

  The Mandate: Gnostic School founded by Seswatha in 2156 to continue the war against the Consult and to protect the Three Seas from the return of the No-God, Mog-Pharau.

  The Scarlet Spires: Anagogic School that is the most powerful in the Three Seas and has been de facto ruler of High Ainon since 3818.

  The Imperial Saik: Anagogic School indentured to the Emperor of Nansur.

  The Mysunsai: Self-proclaimed mercenary School that sells its sorcerous services across the Three Seas.

  Inrithi Factions

  Synthesizing monotheistic and polytheistic elements, Inrithism, the dominant faith of the Three Seas, is founded on the revelations of Inri Sejenus (c. 2159-2202), the Latter Prophet. The central tenets of Inrithism deal with the immanence of the God in historical events, the unity of the individual deities of the Cults as Aspects of the God as revealed by the Latter Prophet, and the infallibility of the Tusk as scripture.