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Varkas threw his head back and let loose a thundering roar.
“Cast down your steel and yield, and your lives are spared!”
A stifling quiet settled over the killing ground.
Trading wary glances, the men began letting their weapons fall, one by one.
The dull percussion of discarded iron and ash wood rippled outward from where he stood. Screams and the savage clash of steel still echoed from deep within the fortress, but the fight had wholly drained from the men packing the bailey.
Keeping a sharp gaze on the yard, Varkas worked his blade free of the rebel’s shoulder. A ragged groan scraped through the man’s clenched jaw as he took the agony.
Varkas laid the red edge of his steel against the man’s throat and jerked his chin toward the men.
“Take him.”
The order had barely left his lips before Imperial soldiers fell upon the commander. They pinned him down with blunt violence, binding hemp cords hard around his shattered wrists.
Once the ropes bit deep and held, Varkas sheathed his sword, his tone falling bleak and cold.
“This wretch answers to the Imperial Court for high treason. Keep breath in him.”
He pivoted to gauge the rearguard’s sweep, but a wet, grating laugh caught his step—pulled up from the dark of a ruined throat.
Stopping short, Varkas glanced back with narrowed eyes.
“…What strikes you as amusing?”
“Ah, do pardon me if I have given offense. It is merely that Your Excellency’s devotion to the Imperial throne is so dreadfully inspiring. I found myself unable to choke it down.”
The man’s armored chest rose and fell in heavy heaves as he dragged out his words.
“It is like watching a well-broken mastiff. I see the whispers were true—the priests of Osiria trained the heir of Shearkan quite thoroughly, after all.”
The surrounding air went brittle as ice.
A furious Eastern warrior drove the butt of his spear into the prisoner’s shoulder, barking a warning.
“Hold your insolent tongue, traitor!”
Dark blood welled anew from the split flesh, but the kneeling man gave it no mind.
Fixing Varkas with bright, feverish eyes, he pushed the goad further.
“Where did you bury your warrior’s blood? Your forefathers fought the Empire to their last breath. The Great King Shearkan once shook all of Robiden with terror, dealing even the legendary Wigru a mortal wound in their final clash. And now his seed grovels as an errand boy for the Guirta dynasty…. Your ancestors must be weeping tears of gall in the dirt.”
“…Is that the sum of your wit?”
A cold, mirthless curve touched Varkas’s lips as he looked down at him.
Leaning down, he spoke in a measured, even cadence.
“Nothing rings quite so hollow as the sermon of a broken man.”
The rebel’s shoulders locked. Beneath the iron visor, his face remained hidden, but whatever amusement had warmed it was clearly gone.
“Let me pose a question in turn. How does it taste, losing everything to the very dog you mock?”
· · ·
“Your grand design lies shattered in the mud. Heimdal is broken, and soon your carcass will dry out on the scaffold like morning frost. In the annals of the realm, the name Bjorn Blodar Heimdal will be recorded as nothing more than a ruined general who met a dog’s death in a fool’s revolt.”
Varkas seized the lower rim of the man’s helm, wrenching his chin upward, his voice dropping low.
“Tell me. How does it feel to hit the stones?”
“…It tastes like filth.”
The words came spit through gritted teeth, cold breath hissing through the visor slits against Varkas’s skin.
“Yet I will spare you the details of the taste. You will know it well enough soon, Grand Duke.”
Varkas’s eyes narrowed into slits.
A sudden, prickling cold crawled up the marrow of his spine.
Certain that this was no empty boast, Varkas drove his armored boot hard into the man’s midsection.
The strike landed with a dull, heavy crunch, throwing the man sideways into the dirt. The jolt tore the leather chin strap, and the iron helmet buckled loose.
Varkas ripped the helmet away and tossed it aside. Snatching a fistful of thick platinum-blond hair clotted with grime and gore, he jerked the man’s face up to the graying light.
“Whatever hand you think you hold, your game is finished. Thrash all you like, it changes nothing—”
The cold cadence broke off. The pale blue seep of dawn fell across the prisoner’s bare features.
A smirk twitched across the blood-smeared mouth, languid and vile.
“Do you know me now?”
The name dragged out of Varkas’s throat, dry and frozen.
“Roman Talis…”
“I am touched you remember.”
The twisted grin spread wider across the man’s face.
Varkas wrenched the hair backward with brutal force. The hair was dyed, but there was no mistaking the heretic hunter who had dared to tread his sovereign lands.
A low growl tore from his chest.
“What have you done in the East?”
“Come now, why so fierce? You spent years tearing through my demesne. I merely wandered a bit through yours in return…”
The man’s frame shuddered with a soft, bubbling chuckle.
“I took great pains with the preparations. By now, Kalmor should be a lovely slaughterhouse.”
Varkas’s jaw hardened, his features slowly tightening.
At the sight, the man burst into raw, mocking laughter.
“Why look so stricken? Did you truly imagine your own nest would stay warm while you turned mine to cinder? Ha! If you mean to piss on another man’s life’s work, you should have made peace with your own going to hell!”
A leather-wrapped fist cracked across his jaw. The laughter snapped sideways with the violence of the blow.
Varkas hauled him upright by the hair again, dragging that ruined face back into his sight.
Spitting out a mouthful of blood and broken teeth, the man drawled on.
“While you played the good little lapdog for the Emperor, your East was carved open for a banquet. Your keep, your wealth—all ash on the wind. Your bloodline butchered like cattle. And that woman of yours…”
A sickening smear of a smile curled his torn lips.
“I gave special word that she be handled with exquisite care. By this hour, the wild men of the wastes must be wearing her ragged. My only sorrow is that I could not be there to take my turn.”
His shrill, deranged laughter echoed through the bloody bailey.
“She must look like a shredded doll by now—gck!”
A thick gout of crimson erupted from his open mouth. Only as the blade met the throat did Varkas realize he had already driven the dagger home.
A ragged gasp went up from the watching soldiers. Varkas heard none of it.
Clamping the back of the skull in an iron grip, he dragged the blade sideways, grinding it through meat and cartilage. The heretic hunter’s wide eyes, still clinging to life, clouded with raw agony.
Varkas stared straight into those darkening pupils, drawing the steel across by slow, measured inches. The blue blade sheared through muscle, through cords and dark vessels, grating until the last spark died in the eyes that choked for air against a severed windpipe.
He pulled the blade free through the far side of the neck and hoisted the dripping head into the gray air. Nearby, several younger soldiers doubled over into the slush, heaving violently.
Paying them no heed, Varkas hurled the severed head at the feet of his vanguard.
“Mount it on the battlements.”
Even men seasoned in butcher’s work stood paralyzed, sickened to their boots, none daring to step forward.
Leaving them frozen, Varkas cut through the yard, his boots grinding over the mounds of dead.
By the shattered outer gates, the Wolfram Cavalry was reforming ranks. He bore down upon them, his voice coming out unnervingly flat.
“Rally the host. We ride for Kalmor without delay.”
Reading the dark gravity in his lord’s eyes, Daren immediately put his horn to his lips, winding the call to gather the Eastern riders.
Varkas wrenched the reins of Toruk, tethered at the edge of the camp, and turned his gaze toward the sun creeping over the jagged black peaks.
The cold, blinding glare stabbed into his eyes like needles. Varkas shut them tight against a wave of dark vertigo, then opened them, hard and unblinking, and vaulted into the saddle.
END