Age of Azmoq: The Valantian Imperium

by Rajamayyoor Sharma

  Chapter 30: Survival

  I felt light headed.

  Everything around me was ringing. I didn’t think heaven would feel like this. Was this hell? Had Doyuncad punished me for my sins? I figured saving thousands of people and preventing a great bloody battle was enough to balance out the sin of having obliterated 2,000 soldiers. Apparently not. Although hell did seem a lot better than I thought it would.

  Then I slowly opened my eyes. It was the sky, as I remembered it when I was alive. It seemed like dawn. There was dawn in hell? I felt the ground below me. It was rubble. I sat up. The place seemed familiar to me. The walls were almost completely destroyed, but yes, I recognized them. It was the Round Lotus barracks. Apparently, I hadn’t died. Or Doyuncad was playing a cruel joke in hell. But she would have come up with much better punishments, than this place, if it was hell.

  I looked down. The ringing in my ear was incessant. But my eyes were soon able to focus. Where I used to have my left foot, I had a bloody stump. That’s why I was light headed. I was bleeding profusely. I needed to stop it, or I would actually find out soon whether I was going to heaven or hell. I thought I could use my clothes to create a tourniquet. Then I realized that most of my body was naked. And I had burn marks all over. If not for the loss of blood, my body would be writhing in pain. I saw something glowing in front of me. It was a large piece of red hot metal. I hopped to it, and pressed my stump onto it. The pain was enough for my light headedness and ringing to disappear completely, replaced by an agony which almost rendered me unconscious again.

  I held on to my consciousness. I had to see what had happened to the others. I looked at my leg. I had managed to cauterize my stump. The bleeding had stopped. The pain was almost too much for me to handle. I could feel the burn now. But I had to focus on my friends for now.

  I moved around looking for them. I shouted their names almost continuously.

  “Karn! Dev!” I kept shouting. I then saw Karn, not too far away from where I woke up. His clothes were mostly burnt off as well, and he also had burns all over his body. The rubble had badly bruised him. He was bloody all over. But when I checked, it was all old blood. All his bleeding had stopped. He was badly bruised, but was breathing. I shook him awake.

  He sat up with a start. He then looked at himself, felt his face and screamed, “Aaaahhhh!” I was worried that he was in a lot of pain. Then he said, “My skin! My beautiful skin! I was so handsome! Now I will be… less handsome.”

  I felt like hitting him. But neither could I hit, nor could he have taken a hit. Both of us were suffering, irrespective of what he said.

  We searched for Dev, who would have taken the full blast. In the meanwhile, I was trying to figure out how we survived. Karn knew more, having read Dev’s mind in the last minute.

  “He saved us. Dev, in the last second before the explosion when the stones were about to blow, pulled all the Azmoqian shields and armor around us like a ball. The metal took most of the blast I guess, absorbing the energy and heating up. Then I don’t know what happened. But I guess we came into contact with the red hot Azmoq and the rubble. Which is why we have these injuries. And you have a new stump.” He finally saw my broken leg.

  “I am sorry, Elbir,” Karn said. I didn’t mind. If we escaped the blast that levelled the barracks with just one broken leg and a few burns, we were truly blessed by Doyuncad. I still couldn’t believe the kid could do what he did. There was something about him.

  We found Dev tens of feet behind where we had landed. Surprisingly, he didn’t show any burns or blood. It was as if he was sleeping. One thing told us what had happened. His glove and bracer were glowing red hot. It looked like they absorbed all the heat from his skin before it could get burnt. His weapons were incredible. Master Grim was truly a genius.

  We tried to remove his bracer and glove. Despite the heat, we held it. But neither came off. We tried to shake him awake. He slowly woke up, as if from a deep sleep. He looked at us and was suddenly wide awake.

  “Are you guys alright?” He asked. Then he noticed his bracer and glove. He looked over his body and then at us. “I can’t feel any heat. Why is that? ... Why are you guys so burnt and injured?” He looked confused. Karn then told him his best guess. Dev was still confused.

  Suddenly, rising above all the pain, I felt my emotions. I realized what had happened. A part of my mission was over. Azrial, the man who murdered my brother, was dead. No one could have survived a blast like that. No even a member of the Final 100. We had done it. I looked at Dev, who also had a similar realization dawn upon him. We both were happy. We had saved Villasboro, defeated our enemies and extracted our revenge in one swoop. Then I remembered Morgan’s letter.

  “Dev! What about Morgan’s letter? We are not out of the woods yet. We need to think about that.”

  Dev didn’t seem worried. “Don’t worry about it. The letter has been destroyed.” He then told me about what he and Karn had done. I was really happy. Karn had really thought of everything. We were in the clear. Master Forresgrim’s village was safe.

  We started to talk about what we needed to do now. I was clear. My revenge was partially over. But the love for my brothers wasn’t. I wasn’t going anywhere until I got my hammers. The others also felt sentimental towards their weapons. So we decided to search for them. It was like searching for a metal needle in a stone haystack. But Dev made the search easy. He used his ability to feel for Azmoq to search for his blade. It had moved with him during the blast, but had snapped off at some point.

  There was something about him. He seemed at ease with his ability, this extraordinarily rare power that he had. He was able to summon his blade to him. He then said, “I can sense all the buried Azmoq from the weapons of the Final 100. They should be close to the armory.”

  He looked and felt around. He then pointed out approximately where the weapons were. We were thrown hundreds of meters from the armory. It was a great surprise that we survived. Without breaking any major bone. Karn and I were in a bad state, but there was no way we were going to leave our weapons behind. Dev took the lead. “Why don’t the two of you rest? I will locate your weapons. That is the least I can do.”

  We didn’t need any more convincing. We moved past the barracks rubble, slowly. We reached the edge of the rubble and just collapsed on the closest patch of grass available. When we woke up, the sun was setting. Dev was nowhere close. We went back to look for him and saw a deep hole in the rubble. As we reached the spot, we saw that he had moved a lot of the rubble with his bare hands, which were swollen and bleeding. I shouted to him. “Stop, Dev! What are you doing?”

  Dev looked up at us and beamed. “I can sense your weapons. I am almost there!” Karn slowly descended the rubble to reach Dev. I couldn’t descend. My leg was in a precarious situation. I didn’t want to further reduce the chances of my survival. But Karn didn’t stop Dev, he joined him. They moved the last bits of the rubble as they saw what had happened to our weapons.

  All the hammers were badly damaged. The legacy of my brothers was shattered, along with a part of my soul. All my hammers had their handles broken. Three of them had their head broken also. Only my eldest brother Boyuk’s hammer had a mostly unbroken head. I remembered the day those hammers had been forged by Forresgrim. We used to have wooden mallets with bits of iron or bronze embedded in them before the master came in. They were ineffective weapons that faded after each battle. These hammers made us the Cekic Ortaq. That was their power. And now they were broken. I felt sadness overwhelm all the pain I felt.

  Karn’s weapons were in a worse state than the hammers. Four of them had completely broken blades, and the last one had also snapped into two. But at least they hadn’t been completely disintegrated.

  Karn and Dev slowly brought the largest pieces of our weapons up. Finally, with broken weapons and bodies, we set out. I couldn’t focus on what I was to do next. My emotions were in a tumble. My joy of killing Azrial finally, balanced the sadness of seeing the legacy of my b
rothers shattered.

  But Karn was clear on what we needed to do. Our first objective was to get away from the blast site. We had already waited for a while. Valantian and Morgenian emergency forces would arrive at the barracks any minute.

  As we slowly moved away, we realized we were in terrible shape. We were severely injured, and had no access to food or shelter. On top of that, I had left no foot. Most of our weapons were broken, so we had no means of defending ourselves. But all that mattered right now was sleep. All three of us fell on a nice grassy patch maybe a kilometer away from the barracks and slept. Dev and Karn tried to wake me up the next morning, but I was in too much pain to open my eyes. My whole body was on fire, from inside and out. The injuries, the severed leg, the burns. They were all getting to me. I was unable to move.

  Dev and Karn carried me. We were a day’s ride from Welehölla. That meant, on a horse, one would need about a day to reach Welehölla. We were three injured people, with one guy missing a foot who was barely able to move, let alone walk. It would take us four to five days to reach Welehölla. Given our current states, we would be dead by then. We still pushed on, limping, walking, and crawling towards Welehölla. I was sure we couldn’t make it alive. There was a faint possibility that Dev and Karn could survive if they left me. I sniffed at my new friends. “Guys, it is better you go on. I am going to die anyway. You can’t struggle like this.”

  Karn and Dev looked at me as if I had asked them to eat me. They didn’t even respond to my statement. I kept repeating, “Please leave me and save yourselves,” until they finally stopped. I was happy that I was finally able to get through to them. Then Karn said weakly.

  “Shut up old man. You are getting on my nerves. Unless you want us to carry you with your mouth sealed shut, and die without being able to say your last words to your god, you will not repeat the garbage you are spewing.”

  They continued to drag me. I was soon on the edge of consciousness, unable to see what was going on around me.

  By the time I was up, it was dawn. The sun was rising. The three of us were still on the open road. It was cold, but my body was heating up. But Karn and Dev were looking ahead. Karn noticed that I was up.

  “Good morning, sleepy head,” he said in a barely audible voice, but a mock cheerful tone.

  “What… is… going… on?” I asked with all the energy I could muster. And before I heard Karn’s answer, I passed out again.

  The next time I woke up, I had a cold sheet on my head. I looked around and both Karn and Dev were asleep. We were moving in some sort of a carriage. It had a white cover and was drawn by a couple of horses. We were lying in the middle of all sorts of things. They varied from tiny trinkets to large mattresses. My leg seemed to have been bandaged. As I looked around, all our wounds had been treated. I wasn’t completely sure of what was going on.

  The man driving noticed me moving and shouted. “So you up, my friend? How do you feel?”

  “Much better. Thank you… friend. But I am confused. How did I get here?”

  The man seemed to be a cheerful one. “Well, your confusion is understandable. You were completely unconscious when we found you. This is a caravan. We travel from place to place, trading wares. We were in Welehölla a few days back. We left, just as there was some large commotion in Welehölla. We were travelling towards the Round lotus to sell some wares, when we saw the building go up in a column of white light. We debated whether we should go check it out, and in the end, the cautious ones were overruled by our adventurous leaders.

  As we got nearer, we saw you three trying to sneak into one of our carriages. We would have killed you all then and there, but the young one offered us a lot of money to keep you alive. Some now, the rest later, if you three survive. So right now, we are on our way to the barracks. You can see it in front of us.”

  I was surprised at our luck. Romansh were nice people generally. They spent time gathering knick knacks and selling them in various cities. Other sources of income were offering protection to travelers in dangerous territories and participating in fights or fairs that offered good money. They always kept their word when money was involved. I was happy that Dev had the money, but curious about where he got this money and where the rest was. If he didn’t have any more, these guys were surely going to kill us. I could see that they had taken all our weapons. As expected. Not that most of my weapons were functional anyway. Only broken pieces. I didn’t raise any of those points.

  “I see. Thanks for not killing us and saving us instead. Where do you plan to go after this?”

  “Sure. I don’t generally like to kill paying customers. After the barracks trip, we will travel on the Weltosh Road, and move along the villages to reach Khratosh. After that, who knows.”

  This was a good route. It was populous and if we survived, we could disappear easily. “If we survived,” had a big if. I was close to collapsing again. We soon arrived at the scene of the blast. The caravan stopped right beside it. The driver of our carriage got down to check it out. I raised the tarp on the side to see what was going on. Then I figured out what these Romansh wanted. They were going through the rubble, to find whatever valuables they could.

  But they had to hurry. I was surprised that the Valantian reinforcements and Morgenian troops hadn’t already arrived there. Perhaps they were wary. After all, this was an unprecedented event in the history of this continent. Romansh were definitely the more daring ones. This actually bode well for us. Their general scavenging would hide our attempts to locate our weapons. There would be no evidence of our escape. But there was also a danger. Given the extent of the attack, the Romansh might be rounded up for questioning. Then we would be in trouble.

  The Romansh took a few hours to sift through the rubble. They found a quite a few swords, pieces of armor, but few pieces of value. They did find the Azmoq armor which Dev had used. They had no idea of its value. But they were still happy with their haul as we set off again. As we left, I felt I saw something disappear, just like when Azrial moved. I had trained myself to fight Azrial and his ability. The times when I had gone up against him, I held the upper hand until another opponent joined the fight. I was trained to look for those “flashes,” the flicker when Azrial disappeared.

  I told myself to relax—there would be no more disappearances that I would have to follow… no more. Azrial was dead. This was probably the wind moving something.

  Karn and Dev finally woke up as we left the barracks. Dev saw me conscious and almost screamed, “Elbir! How are you feeling? How is your leg?”

  The driver shouted on my behalf. “He is fine. He just lost his leg. He is lucky to be alive. If he had stayed on that road without cleaning his stump, he might have died of fever.”

  We travelled to join the Weltosh Road, a few kilometers from Welehölla. The colossal city was still in view after a few days of travel. We spent most of our time getting to know each other better. We spoke to each other till we were bored. There was nothing else to do. I was still happy with the death of Azrial, so I felt talkative. The weapons were a sore point, but we could get them fixed. It was just a question of taking it to a good blacksmith. The one thing we avoided talking about was the barracks destruction. We didn’t want anyone to overhear that detail.

  We weren’t able to move much, so we had to rely on the Romansh for sustenance. They were more than willing to help. In fact they were nice enough to get our horses for us from the trader we had given them to. Karn was the happiest to get Arion back. Dyaus also seemed close to Dev. My horse, Ahren, an Ahremic beauty, wasn’t a being I was close to. I had gotten him at a horse ranch in Amurazon, after I helped the owner’s son escape capture from a Valantian ambush.

  Now we had means of travelling around again. As we got better, we started to talk about where we wanted to get off. I couldn’t ask Dev about the money as the driver was listening to us all the time. I finally got an idea. I slowly signaled to Karn to read my mind.

  “Does Dev have the money to pay the Rom
ansh?” I thought.

  Karn shook his head.

  “Do either of you have any money?”

  Karn nodded.

  “Will it pay for a third of the ask?”

  Karn nodded.

  “What about half?”

  Karn nodded.

  “Anymore?”

  Karn shook his head. We had enough to pay for half of the ask. It wasn’t enough. Even if you were a copper short, you would be killed by the Romansh. We didn’t have our weapons, we were outnumbered 30 to 1. Plus these guys had just saved us, we didn’t want to fight them. We wanted them to have all we could give, so that they were adequately compensated. But that thought gave me an idea. Later in the day, I caught up with our driver, Grou, as he took a break. There was another Roma who was with Karn and Dev, to look over them.

  “So Grou,” I started. “What do you think of my horse?”

  Grou looked at me and beamed. “It is a splendid beast. Ahremic?”

  I nodded. “Pure breed. Directly from the Üzilis Range.”

  “I see. Nice. Why do you tell me this?”

  “Well… I wanted a favor from you. Actually, I wanted to do my friends a favor. They saved me from certain death. I want to cover at least half the price they agreed to. Will this horse do?”

  Grou smiled. “No, my friend. It is a fine horse, but it is worth maybe 500 gold. Not 700.”

  I was afraid of that. I had no other choice. I had to give up the only other asset I had. My brother’s hammers. I had made Dev and Karn dig it out. It was difficult. These pieces of metal that had been my brother’s hammers, were pieces of my soul. But it was the right thing to do. I had to save the lives of my saviors, the men who also made my revenge possible. The men who I had come to see as my friends.

  I knew I would be able to sell them to Grou for the remaining amount. I was able to retain small pieces of each hammer, which was enough as their memories. It was still such a difficult thing to do. Those hammers were a large part of my life ever since master Forresgrim had forged them. They were my motivation for revenge. And now, they were gone. I, Elbir of the Cekic Ortaq also known as Eric of the Five Hammers, had no hammers left. But it was alright. I gave them up for my new friends, my new brothers.