There was a wrenching pop, and a second later the Broken landed on his feet in a crouch, the bandit falling from his mount beside him. A quick glance showed that the man’s neck had been wrenched around and now lay at an unnatural angle. Two of the nearest bandits had witnessed their companion’s death, and the Broken dove under the horse, heard the beast cry out as the two crossbow bolts that had been meant for him sunk deep into its flesh.
Mad with pain, the beast screamed, charging away, but the Broken was already rushing toward his nearest opponent. The man’s eyes were wide, and he was fumbling at the crossbow, trying to reload it, his hands, in his terror, betraying him, and he had not finished when the Broken arrived, leaping up into the saddle behind him. He wrapped one arm around the man’s forehead, another his neck, and gave a savage twist. As the dead bandit fell away, the Broken snatched the crossbow from his lifeless hands and spun, ducking and hearing the whistle of a passing bolt even as he finished loading his own weapon, firing in one smooth motion.
The bolt took the man in the heart, and he was pitched off the back of his horse from the force of the impact. Voices from the circled wagons, shouting as their hope renewed at the appearance of this unlikely savior, but the Broken paid them no mind. He was no savior, not him, and the truth was that there was nothing left in the world that might be saved.
He gave the horse a kick, and it broke into a gallop, charging around the circle of wagons. Soon he came upon another bandit, but the man fell to a crossbow bolt from inside the wagons before he reached him, so he hung onto the saddle with one hand and leaned out, riding close and ripping the bolt free before the man toppled from the saddle.
The remaining two bandits noticed his approach and rushed toward him, their swords raised, coming in on either side of him, meaning to box him in and leave him with nowhere to flee. They did not know, could not know, that the Broken had no intention of fleeing. He let them come, let them grow confident in their assured victory. Then, a moment before they reached him, he lifted his leg over the horse, grasping the reins tightly. He dropped to hang from one side of his mount, and both of the bandits sweeping attacks missed.
But in the split-second before the horses carried their riders past, the Broken lashed out with the crossbow bolt he still held, plunging it into the artery of one of the men’s legs. Blood fountained in a gush, coating him and his mount as they charged by. As soon as he cleared them, the Broken was already spinning his horse back around, charging toward the remaining bandit who was struggling with his own scared mount.
The Broken waited until he was close, then leapt, extending both legs in a kick that sent the bandit hurling from his horse. The Broken followed him, landing in a crouch that turned into a roll, carrying him back to his feet. He stalked toward the bandit who still lay on the ground, gasping with pain. “P-please,” the man groaned, staring up at the bloody-coated figure looming over him, “don’t.”
“It is a mercy,” the Broken said, and he knelt beside the man, wrapping his arms around the bandit’s throat almost gently, pulling him close.
“D-don’t—” the man pleaded, his voice rasping as his throat was constricted under the increasing pressure of the Broken’s arms. But it was the last he spoke, and his struggles slowed, as the Broken continued to squeeze, his face expressionless until, in time, the man’s frantic efforts stopped altogether, and he was still.
The Broken laid the corpse on the ground, and leaned back, studying it. Those eyes, open but seeing nothing, looking into the great abyss that waited for all men, that the world itself would come to in time.
“Oh, thank the gods. You saved us.”
The Broken slowly lifted his head to see that the remaining caravan guard had come up to stand before him. Young, in his early twenties if that, barely a man at all, staring at the Broken as if he were some god come to save them. But he was wrong, and if the Broken was a god, his purpose was not to save, but to end.
The Broken said nothing. Instead, he rose and started toward the corpse of the other bandit, lying motionless in a large crimson pool.
“It was unbelievable,” the guard said, following behind him, “the way you…it was incredible.”
The Broken was barely listening. He reached down and pulled the crossbow bolt free of the man’s leg, then turned to the guardsman.
“Those whorls,” the young man said, pointing at the swirling designs visible on the Broken’s bare arms and face. “Those…those are Ekirani markings, aren’t they?” His eyes went wide. “Man, I cannot believe our luck, to stumble on an Ekirani blademaster out here in the middle of nowhere.”
The Broken looked over the man’s shoulder at the half a dozen merchants gathering at the edge of the circled wagons, watching him with a mixture of hope and fear. Then he turned back to the mercenary. “I am not Ekirani,” he said. “I am the Broken.”
He tightened his grip on the shaft of the crossbow bolt and started forward. There was no saving the world, no rescuing it from itself. It was a truth these men did not know, not yet. But they would. He would show them.
***
He stood in the center of the wagons when it was finished, and let what was left of the arrow shaft fall to the ground. Dead bandits, caravaners, and guards lay around him. Blood coated his face and clothes, nearly obscuring the swooping black whorls that covered his body from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. Nearly, but not entirely, for such markings as these were made to be seen. They would never fade or crumble, and nothing save the rending of his flesh would take them from him. For these markings symbolized what it meant to be Ekirani, represented the Dance to which all Ekirani men were dedicated to upon their birth. The tribe was known throughout the land for their skill in combat, but it was not their ability to kill on which they prided themselves. Instead, it was the peace, the harmony, they believed the Dance granted them, and it represented a way—the only way, so they believed—of a man moving through his life.
Peace. Harmony. All lies. Pretty enough, like some fine vase sitting upon a shelf, but like that vase, fragile, easily destroyed.
The Broken had long since given up such beliefs, and knew the Dance for what it truly was—a path, like so many others, no better, no worse. A path that led broken men down broken trails to a destination that would be, once they reached it, as broken as the world they had left behind. No sound issued in the clearing—the horses having long fled before the slaughter—and the only thing to be heard was the rustle of the wind through the twisted tree-tops and the swish of the grass in the breeze. Yet, for all the stillness, his instincts, honed over a lifetime spent in the practice of the Dance, detected someone regarding him, and he turned.
A massive man, seven feet tall at least, his shoulders impossibly wide, stood only feet away. He stared at the man, surprised that anyone could have made it so close without him knowing. The giant made no threatening move, yet menace, danger, seemed to radiate from him. His thick hands were calloused as if from fighting, and long dark hair hung nearly to his waist, adorned with fetishes the Broken did not recognize. There was something savage, something wild about him. There was a sword strapped at his back, one nearly as long as he was tall, the blade only inches away from the ground.
They studied each other silently for several seconds. Then, finally, the Broken spoke. “I did not hear you.”
“No,” the stranger said, his voice deep, almost impossibly so, the sound of it like boulders scraping together. “For if there is a single truth to battle, Tarex, it is that the worst of it comes upon a man without trumpets or horns to announce its arrival, and no matter his diligence, he is always caught unprepared.”
“We are to battle then?”
“Men and gods alike are always in battle, Tarex,” the giant answered. “What some call peace is only a lull in the fighting, the struggle. A man is born into battle. One that, in the end, every man will lose. This is a truth known to you, I think.”
He did not disagree, nor would he have, for the man’
s words echoed his own thoughts. “I am Tarex no longer. Not for many years now.”
“You are who you are,” the stranger answered. “That, too, is a battle no man can win.”
“I am Broken.”
“Yes. As all men are, as all men must be.”
“You as well?”
The man gave a small smile at that, but there was no humor in it. “I am no man, Broken.”
“I know. You are Paren, the God of Conflict and War. You are the Doombringer, the Destroyer of Hope.”
“I am. And a thousand names besides. Does that frighten you, Tarex of the Ekirani?”
“How could it?” he asked honestly. “I know you. I have known you all my life.”
“So you have,” said the god. His massive head turned, sweeping the clearing and those dead scattered among it with his gaze. “Tell me, Tarex, if given power enough, what would you do with the world?”
“It is dying,” the Broken said. “And in that death, there is pain. I would end it—all of it.”
“For them?” the god asked. “For the wife and son you lost?”
Memory swept over him with a shocking vividness. Two bodies, broken, destroyed. It was to avoid the memory that he always walked, ceasing only to sleep before beginning again. The memory that had dogged his footsteps, never far, a hound loping after him, calling out from time to time to let him know it had not left, would never leave. It was the way it had been for many years—the Broken walked, and the hound of memory followed. Yet now, under some power of the god’s, he found himself confronted with that creature, that beast, found that what had slowly, over the passing of time, become little more than a shadow of which he caught the barest glimpses, now stood in front of him, inarguable in its reality.
That beast reared back, clamping down on him with the teeth of remembrance, and there was no hate or anger in its gaze—it did only what it was made to do. Other memories, ones he’d thought long buried by the passage of years, flooded back. The inexorability of what his brothers had called his “fall” but what he believed then and still believed, was no more than the opening of his eyes, the unclouding of a vision that had either failed or refused to see the truth. He remembered the first time the Dance had become something else, no longer an exercise of harmony and peace, but one of blood and death and ending—yes, that most of all. All things, all manner of creature, marched slowly toward their ending, and the world marched with them. He was the ender, the one who would bring them all to it sooner, if he could, and in so doing save them the inevitable pain of their journey.
The Broken remained silent for some time, saying nothing. The weight of memory was incalculable, heavy enough that some might be bent and bowed beneath it, but it was one with which he was familiar, a weight he had grown accustomed to carrying. So, finally, he shook his head. “I started this path because of them, but they are not what keeps me on it.”
“What does then, Tarex the Broken?” the god said, his voice little more than a growl. “Is it riches you seek? Acclaim? Honor?”
“Riches are no more than paint upon a corpse, acclaim nothing more but the breath of the dead speaking of their own, and honor is as much a myth now as it ever was.”
“What then? What is it that you want? What is it that drives you, exile?”
“Death. I want death.”
“Whose?”
The Broken met the god’s eyes unflinchingly. “Everyone’s.”
The god studied him for several moments, then finally gave a single nod. “Very well. Yet for all your skill, for all that you have been a servant of mine even before you knew it, still your abilities are not equal to the task you have set yourself.”
“No man’s ever are.”
“No,” the giant said, giving a small smile. “They are not. It is a common enough conceit—of men and gods alike—that one might happen to possess all the tools one needs to achieve his goal. You are not the man you need to be, not yet. But you will be.”
There was a feeling then, like soundless thunder, and the Broken thought that he felt the very ground beneath him tremble in its wake. Turning, he saw a staff lying on the ground. On either end of the staff had been fashioned a foot-long blade, and the shaft itself was crafted of a metal he did not recognize. The blades shone in the sunlight with deadly promise.
“Some weapons,” the god said from behind him, “are tools. Axes that might kill a man or fell a tree, knives used to gut fish or to slit throats. And in their multitude of uses, their truths becomes marred, shadowy and unclear. This one, though, is different. It has only one use, only one purpose. Do you know it?”
He knew. Staring at that weapon, there would be no way not to. “Death,” he said.
“Yes. Take it, Tarex the Broken, and with it my blessing. You will become what you have sought, and with its deadly truth you will enlighten the world.”
He did, kneeling and retrieving it. The metal was cool beneath his touch, nearly freezing. Yet, it felt right in his hands, as if it belonged there, as if it had been crafted, forged just for him. Or, perhaps, he had been forged for it. He was still marveling at it, turning it over in his hands, when he winced as something cut into his flesh. Blood leaked from his hand, staining the weapon’s shaft, and he pulled it away…but he saw that it was only a small cut. He searched the shaft for the jagged edge that had scored him but could find nothing and, frowning, he lifted his eyes to look at the god.
“There is always a price, Broken.” Paren said. “You know that.”
“Yes. What would you have of me?”
“I would have you do what you have wanted to do for many years, Tarex. The world is a wounded animal, dying slowly. And in its death throes, it lashes out, harming all that it can. I would have you end it.” He turned, looking north. “I would have you end him.”
“Him?”
The god did not answer, only studied the distant tree-line and the world beyond as if his godly vision granted him images far past the Broken’s perception. “There are those of my kin, Broken, who do not know the truth as we do, who believe the world, in all its corruption, is not beyond saving. They are wrong, yet in their error they have sent one to save it. You will meet him, and you will show him the truth. But I warn you—this one is no normal man, and as I have gifted you with power, so has my father gifted him.”
“Your father?” The Broken might have long ago lost faith in the world and its gods, but he knew them all, had been taught at a young age. “You mean Amedan.”
“Yes. My father has grown old, Broken. And in his age, he sees hope where there is none, believes that which has long been beyond saving still salvageable. But I will show him that he is wrong—we will show him.”
“It is enough,” he said. Then he turned and began stalking in the direction the god had indicated.
“Wait.”
A single word, but there was power in it, power enough to freeze him in his tracks, making his muscles suddenly refuse to obey his commands. He looked back at the god.
“You will meet this one in time, Tarex. But first, I have another task for you, others who must be shown the truth.”
“Others?”
“Yes. You know of the Ferinan?”
“I know of them. They are great warriors.”
“Yes, and in that they serve me. Yet they are foolish, filled with a hope that does not belong. You will teach them, Broken, the only way you know how. You will go south.”
“And what of him?” he said, staring north once more.
“He will come to you, in time. Are you so very eager then, Broken? To prove yourself?”
Tarex the Broken said nothing. Instead, he only turned and began the long walk back to the southern desert, to where the Ferinan people might be found. The god knew much, understood much, but he did not know everything. Tarex did not search for validation, for a way to prove his worth—he never had. He searched only for an ending. And, perhaps, among those sand-choked wastes, he would find it.
***
&
nbsp; Paren, the God of Conflict and War, stood silently watching the one who called himself the Broken stalk past the bodies of those he had slain with no more thought than a man might give to the unlucky insects he crunched beneath his boot. A good servant, a messenger carrying a crimson message to the world, one borne in Paren’s name.
“Ah, Mother,” he said, “you will like this one, I think. You will be happy with my choice.”
“She is never happy. You know that.”
Massive shoulders shifted in an almost imperceptible movement, and the God of Conflict held the giant two-handed sword in his right hand, hefting its impossible weight with ease. “Why have you come, brother?”
“You know why,” Javen said, moving to stand beside his giant kin, his eyes following the disgraced Ekirani’s progress. “I have come to ask you to leave off this madness.”
“Madness?” Paren asked. “It is not madness to kill that which is dying, Youngest. It is a me—”
“Save your justifications,” the God of Chance responded. “I know well what you would say, for they are words I have heard as well, and they are not your own. She twists the truth, you know. She always has. And what she does, she does not out of mercy but of jealousy, of hate.”
“You are wrong, brother. She wishes only to make the pain stop.”
Javen sneered, and suddenly one eye blazed a brilliant white even as the purely black one that was its opposite seemed to become an impossibly deep well, one in which the world itself might drown. “You know nothing,” he hissed. “You are a fool, brother, and though you call me ‘Youngest,’ you are possessed of no more wisdom than I.”
The giant’s body trembled with rage, and he took one step toward the other god. “What, then?” Javen demanded. “You would slay me? Your brother? What mother would condone such a thing? Even mortals, for all their faults, would not attempt to justify such an act.”
“We are not mortals, brother,” Paren grated. “And in what is coming, gods and mortals alike will suffer before the end.”
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