The Betrayed

by Igor Ljubuncic

  The last sentence seemed to trigger something in their king’s head. It perked up on its neck. “Yes. That’s it. I have a plan,” he whispered. “Summon the war council.”

  Within minutes, all of the nobles were gathered in their king’s tent, staring at a map of western Caytor. “My scouts report a weak and tired force of maybe twenty thousand men,” Vlad spoke, pointing at the large chart. “They have just taken a city and must be suffering from many casualties. This is an ideal time for an attack. Before they can consolidate or fortify their positions.”

  Duke Maris waited for his lord to let him speak. “Indeed, my king. That is a very wise plan. The scouts report most of the enemy forces camped outside the city. They must be busy pillaging and raping. They surely do not expect an attack from the southwest. Their flanks and rear will be totally exposed.”

  Vlad waved a short stick he used as a pointer, obviously excited. Some of the aristocrats around him backed away from the stinging lashes.

  “Our scouts have reported little or no patrols. All of them have come back safely. This means the enemy is completely oblivious to what happens just a few miles behind them,” Alexei spoke.

  “We will crush them in one sweeping blow,” King Vlad said loudly, almost shouting.

  And that concluded the council. In the morning, the command was issued for all troops to prepare for battle. The day turned into a frenzy of preparations, with smiths hammering fresh blades and shields for the soldiers. Fletchers slew geese and dried their feathers before making fresh swaths of arrows for the archers.

  The Parusite lords assembled their forces and, under their colorful banners, led them into Caytor. They kept in tight formations, keeping the flank and van forces close by. They did not wish their advance to be detected by the Eracians. They expected to arrive within just a few miles of the enemy positions by nightfall and rest for the last time before striking at dawn.

  All indications showed the Parusite army would be victorious by tomorrow evening.

  King Vlad rode Fania at a light canter, keeping somewhat ahead of his troops. They had urged him to stay behind, but he refused. He never let them bundle him into the rear, like some coward. He was the best warrior Parus had ever had. He was invincible.

  And tomorrow morning, he would kill thousands of infidels.

  With a smile, he headed for Roalas.

  Adam did not share the same sentiments as the Parusite king.

  Having been informed of the enemy move, he had deliberately toned down the ferocity of preparations for the inevitable clash, making the enemy patrols believe he was a complacent, deluded little warmonger, enjoying his little victory.

  His men gnashed their teeth whenever a Parusite scout came and went away unscathed, but they never once doubted his judgment. Even the mercenaries were afraid of him. Genuinely, deeply afraid.

  Like any dog who could not intimidate his foe with his barking, Captain Franco had come to him with his tail tucked between his legs, begging forgiveness and acceptance. The grisly murder of the animal torturers and the head and penis display over Roalas had convinced the last of the sell-souls that crossing Adam would be the worst mistake they could ever make.

  It came as no surprise when the mercenary captain came to inform him of the envoy, offering money in exchange for betrayal. A hireling had turned into a devoted follower. If he were not a dead man, Adam would have almost been impressed with his ability to render miracles.

  Just to spite the Parusites, Adam had ordered the envoy fatally detained. The enemy had no idea whether the soldiers of fortune would bet their luck and side with them during the battle.

  Today, it would all end, Adam knew.

  The air reverberated with the chaotic clop of thousands of hooves of Parusite cavalry, moving closer toward Roalas. Adam had his regiments feign a panicked scramble to arms, with people running all about the camps, ringing bells and shouting. The day was clearing, the dawn mist and light rain receding. The smudge on the horizon was forming into a solid mass of enemy troops.

  Despite his reassurances, Adam’s soldiers were quite apprehensive regarding the battle. They realized the enemy was much stronger, and they could not ignore the feeling of doom at being deliberately assembled in an inferior fighting position. But Adam insisted it was necessary for the complete victory he had planned.

  Adam stood alone on a platform erected especially for what he intended to do. A far shot from the prostitute he had been in his former life. Behind him, a river of people flowed, all of them counting on him to save them, trusting him with their lives. It was a madness only a dead man could embrace with ease.

  He gripped the bloodstaff, waiting. The ancient weapon excited him in an almost sexual way. The sleek, cool glassy texture had an almost divine quality about it. A weapon that could destroy armies. What was someone wielding it expected to feel?

  Adam knew his military conquest would end today. There would be no more pointless wars. The streak of his perverted genius and impossible luck would not run forever. And even if it could, he did not want it anymore.

  Killing gave him little pleasure or purpose. But a realm based on his principles was something to strive for. His speech before the city folk of Roalas had imbued him with a strange sense of fulfillment. He had delivered the speech as a sort of protest against the world and the gods that had abandoned him and so many like him. He had not expected his own words to work on him as well.

  Adam could see himself building a nation of people who believed in reason and one another rather than fictional phantoms and false creeds. He possessed the military power to make sure his ideas were upheld. His forces would fight to the death to see his dream realized.

  But while troops could keep away foreign armies from retaking the lost land, they could not build a nation. Only he was capable of that. Without him, the brilliant conquest would wane in the history books to become a lucky tantrum of a single madman.

  He had the chance to forge peace with the Caytoreans and see the rise of their secular nobility to greater power. He had the chance to forge peace between Eracia and Caytor, something no politician or a general had ever accomplished. And on top of all that, he had the legitimacy to build a new world for simple people who wished to live without the hypocrisy of religion.

  Once the Parusite forces were obliterated, there would be no one left to challenge him. The Feorans were a rabble, slaughtering across the Territories. Most of the Eracian army was his. The few men who still remained loyal to the monarch cowered in the safety of the border forts, without leadership or purpose. All that was left was King Vlad and his troops. But they would all die today.

  At his feet lay a bound criminal who had stolen from the people of Roalas despite Adam’s explicit ban. He was one of twenty others to be used as ammunition for his bloodstaff. Despite Lord Erik’s suggestion to use fresh corpses, Adam chose to combine the destruction of the Parusite army with an unusual execution of the condemned prisoners. They, much like him, were already dead men, even if their hearts were still pumping warm blood through their veins.

  He waited for the Parusites to come within a mile of his position, then three quarters of a mile, half a mile.

  Adam laid the butt of the bloodstaff against the bound man. As the blood lanced into the staff, the man gasped and froze as color drained from his skin, leaving him a bluish-gray corpse. Holding the weapon beneath his armpit, Adam leveled it at the Parusite swarm, aimed, and squeezed.

  Nothing happened.

  He looked down at the crystal rod in his arms. In the heat of the moment, he had laid his fingers too far from the black marks. Readjusting his grip, he pressed again.

  A torrent of blood jewels exploded from the tip, arcing toward the enemy in a sweep of red meteors. Adam gripped the deadly weapon in his arms and watched with a macabre, emotionless passion as the hail of rubies slammed into the enemy force.

  They went down like rye under a scythe, a whole regiment flattened into a heap of still bodies. Adam aimed to t
he left and right, sweeping across the enemy front. Men died in their hundreds and thousands.

  He could only imagine the magnitude of horror blasting through the Parusite ranks. But it was happening too fast for the enemy army as a whole to grasp their destruction. Fresh fodder streamed forward, unaware of the bloodbath happening just a few yards ahead of them. There was no sound to Adam’s destruction, only the fast flashes of red.

  The bloodstaff sputtered. Without hesitation, Adam motioned for another prisoner to be placed before him. Then another. By the time he was finished with half the condemned, the battlefield was still and quiet.

  Masses of his soldiers, conquered Caytoreans, and mercenaries were pouring toward the platform, shocked, speechless men witnessing history. They tottered like drunkards, dragging their bodies. The world was impossibly quiet. It was almost unbearable.

  No one could believe fifty thousand Parusites had perished in just a few minutes. They all saw it, but their minds refused to register the holocaust. The scene was too surreal.

  Adam turned to face his people. All standing together, murderers and children, soldiers and women, their faces pale, their eyes agleam with something he had never seen before: a sort of a panicked adoration that zealots reserved for their illusionary gods.

  “The war is over,” he said. His voice carried over the silent, shocked mass. “Our enemies are dead. We can now lay down our weapons and begin our lives as free people, a new nation. You will be my people, and I will be your leader and protector.”

  He lifted the bloodstaff aloft, holding it in both hands. “I hereby declare the birth of Athesia. It will be a land of men without religion. You do not need gods. You only need me.”

  Silence. For a long while, no one spoke.

  Then, as one, the crowd saluted and cheered, “Long live Adam! Long live Athesia!”

  As the crowds roared, tears welled up in Adam’s eyes at the realization that on the day of Athesia’s birth, he, too, was born anew.

  CHAPTER 44

  Ayrton felt lost. Lost in time.

  The city was a magical, unchanging place. Time had very little meaning for its immortal inhabitants. Someone could easily get immersed in the little intricacies of their souls, easily forgetting about the world that lived and pulsed around them.

  It was with an almost military discipline that Ayrton woke every morning, marking the passing of yet another day with a little rent on one of his sleeves. Another day without any success in trying to persuade the gods to abandon their daydreaming and start planning an escape.

  So far, he had not even managed to get them to acknowledge him, let alone listen to his arguments. They would continue with their pointless hobbies, uncaring, blind and deaf to his desperate attempts. Before he even began with persuasion, he had to stir them up from their trance.

  But the task demanded far more than rhetoric or cunning. It required sheer willpower, which oozed from him like water down an otter’s back. Being in the City of Gods took away his sense of urgency and worry. The fluffy, never-ending spring cocooned the soul in the softness of childlike carelessness. Ayrton found himself often confused and weary. His soul tried to fight him, to surrender to the bliss of the city.

  The only thing that kept him sane was the discipline, counting the days, counting the hours, repeating the simple, dull tasks of everyday life that made the subtle difference between a human and a statue. Nevertheless, it was extremely difficult. You began to doubt yourself, to wonder whether the task you have been sent to complete was not futile or self-doomed from the beginning. Giving up seemed like the most sensible thing to do.

  Luckily, Elia was at his side, reminding him that he was not insane, that the sweet dream he fought was, in fact, a menacing nightmare. He had no idea what happened in the outside world, but he knew that every new day brought the Feoran horde closer.

  The gods were getting weaker by the hour, thinner, paler. Most now slept, comatose in an early death slumber. For them, it was almost too late. But others were still alive, if barely, stupid animated things that kept to themselves and their little arts.

  Another monumental difficulty in completing the holy mission was its logic. It lacked any. He was supposed to save the gods. But he had never expected the gods to be these stupid, withdrawn creatures. Ayrton often wondered what it was he was trying to achieve. Suppose he did manage to save the bodies. What about the souls? What about the beings who were the actual gods and goddesses of the realms? Was there any meaning in saving the body if the spirit was already dead?

  Again, his only link to reality was Elia. She was as lucid, if naïve, as ever. She did possess some hidden, frightening insight, but her ability to cope with the world’s peril was that of a child. She had very little idea how cruel or crafty humanity really was. She could not fathom the extent of evil and depravity men harbored in their souls.

  Every day, Ayrton woke to a world where he was the only human, with a goddess as his only companion. Without ever desiring it, he found himself drawn toward her, toward her simple and soft personality. He found himself falling in love with her.

  Ayrton knew he was probably going slightly mad. Humans were sociable creatures. If they had no one to talk to, they started talking to themselves. He had no idea how much of the intimacy he shared with Elia was the manifest of loneliness and how much something else, something genuine. But here and then, he had no ability to gauge his sentiments. They were what they were.

  Sometimes, he remembered the horrible black times of his past. He remembered visiting brothels where ugly, shriveled whores had serviced his loins for coppers. He remembered the honest interest and affection he had felt then, because there had been no one else he could have shared them with. Afterward, when the crushing bleakness of his heart would have eased, he had asked himself how he could have possibly been drawn to those women, what he had imagined and deluded himself about.

  Maybe it was what he experienced now. Maybe it was all his imagination, a desperate desire to feel belonging. Dream and reality were almost one and the same in the City of Gods.

  He hoped it was more than just a dream.

  Day after day, he started caring less and less for the zombies around him and more and more for the one living person who shared his fears. He opened his heart to her, told her everything. She never judged him. She had no measure of good and evil to weigh against him. To her, he was just who he was, no more, no less. It was a bliss he had never hoped for.

  Still, threads of terror remained in his heart, linking him to the horrible world outside. Now, more than ever before, he had a real reason to see the gods taken to safety, and if not every one of them, then just Elia. It was no longer a simple mission.

  His intellect ran out. He had no idea what to do. The gods simply would not listen.

  One day, he decided to try something drastic.

  “That’s Simon,” Elia said, pointing.

  In the vast field of wooden sculptures before them, the carpenter continued his subtle work, chiseling exquisite beauty from raw timber around him. A mountain of dust lay at his feet.

  “Hey, you!” Ayrton shouted. The god stirred as if he had heard or remembered something; then he lowered his head back to the wood. Ayrton started toward him, toppling figures as he walked. He reached Simon and grabbed him by the shirt, shaking him.

  “Listen to me! The barrier is failing. Very soon, everyone will be able to enter the city! There are humans out there who wish to see you dead. They will come here, and they will kill your body.”

  Simon watched with perfect eyes devoid of any understanding.

  “You will be cast into the Abyss. You will cease to exist. Faith will cease to exist. Do you understand me?”

  Elia stood by Ayrton’s side, watching her former lover. He showed no inkling of recognition.

  Ayrton gritted his teeth. “Damian has fled the Abyss. Out there, infidels are leading vast armies of soldiers against your followers. They are destroying your temples and shrines. They are weakeni
ng you. And soon, it will be too late for you. For any of you. You will not be remade again. You will forever remain trapped in the Abyss. And faith will die in the realms.”

  No sign of comprehension. Then, Simon frowned. “Damian?” he whispered.

  Ayrton felt his hope blossom. “Yes, yes, Damian! He’s fled the Abyss.”

  Simon gently removed Ayrton’s hands from his shirt. He blinked several times. “Damian?”

  Ayrton waited, hardly daring to breathe. But Simon kept staring stupidly into infinity. “Elia is with me, here,” Ayrton added after a while. The goddess at his side squirmed with emotion.

  Simon looked at her. He smiled softly, a ghost of a smile. “Elia?” Then, he bent over his tools and continued to chisel.

  “Oh, dear gods,” Ayrton growled. He yanked the piece of wood from the god’s hands.

  Confused, Simon looked around him, searching for it. His empty eyes came up. “Mine,” he said. He extended a hand.

  The Outsider threw the thing on the ground. “Listen to me, you fool! Do you even understand what is happening? Damian has fled the Abyss. Listen to me! Listen to me!”

  As if Ayrton was not there at all, Simon went down on his knees, picked up the wood from the ground, rose, and began carving again. “Damian is in the Abyss,” the god said. “He’s trapped forever.”

  “He escaped! You have all felt it.”

  Simon looked up. “The world is corrupt. Humans are corrupt. We don’t want to go back.”

  Ayrton grabbed the god’s thin, bony wrist. If the patriarchs saw him, they would probably grind him to dust for his blasphemy. “Simon, listen to me. You have to focus. You have to think! The world is corrupt, yes. You abandoned it a long time ago. But you are no longer safe here. The humans wish to see you dead. They will soon breach the defenses of the city. They will come after you. Your isolation cannot continue. You must flee again. You must flee mankind once more.”

  “We don’t care for men anymore,” Simon said. The god tried to wrestle his arm free, without success. He was so weak.