TIMEKEEPERS OF THE KINGS

(Novel)

Author: Deep Datewas

 

 

Copyright & Imprint Information

·         © 2026, Deep Datewas. All rights reserved.

·         All Rights Reserved: No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—physical, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the author.

 

Contact Information

·         Address: Village & Post Office: Datewas (Budhlada), District Mansa, Punjab - 151502

·         Email: author@timekeepersofthekings.com

·         Website: www.timekeepersofthekings.com

Other Books (Book Details)

·         The Artist (2015)

·         Nami (2016)

·         Her Last Words

·         My First Murder

·         A Winter’s Tale

·         Nimiko D Berian :

 

Important Content Warning for Readers

Before proceeding to the following pages of this book, please read this notice carefully:

To convey the depth of the story, the harsh reality of war, and the psychological struggles of the characters, this work contains highly intense and explicit scenes. This story includes the following elements:

·         Graphic Violence: Detailed descriptions of brutal massacres on the battlefield, extreme bloodshed, physical torture, and dismemberment.

·         Brutal Combat: Scenes depicting terror, intense pain, and absolute helplessness that may be psychologically distressing or triggering.

·         Strong Language: Harsh and explicit language used to express the anger, frustration, and deep despair of the characters.

Reader Advisory: This story may cause discomfort, anxiety, or psychological distress for faint-hearted or sensitive readers. If you feel uncomfortable reading such violent, gritty, or intense scenes, please ensure you are mentally prepared before proceeding, or choose to step away from this book.

Please turn the page at your own risk and discretion.

 

Chapter One: The Heir

(Time: 17 March 44225)

The slowing rhythm of breaths heavier than quicksilver could be heard from miles away. Behind trembling lips, chattering teeth crashed against one another again and again — like waves battering a shoreline — and the sound of hundreds of tongues could be heard even by the deaf. The tiny beads of sweat raining like lava down hundreds of foreheads struck the gritty earth with a sound like a shower of celestial meteorites spilling from the sky. Hundreds of heaving chests, tongues warring against teeth, eyes stretched so wide they seemed ready to tumble from their skulls at any moment. In their hands, six-foot spears whose iron tips were corroding away like metal dissolving in a blacksmith's furnace. Hundreds of iron shields bore the war's relics — broken arrow shafts, fragments of sword-tips, sprays of blood, and scraps of enemy flesh clinging fast, the way a child clings to its mother's breast. Every set of lungs heaved so violently inside every chest that they seemed on the verge of tearing through bone and bursting free. The minds of the hundreds of soldiers standing spear and shield in hand churned with thoughts of every conceivable kind — yet not one of them gave those thoughts a voice. These were the thoughts that visit every man before death.

A tear slipped, thief-like, from the eye of a round-bellied soldier with large, wide-set eyes — and he didn't even notice that he was trembling with fear. Barely two weeks ago, he had married Ajmeera from his own village — twenty-two years old, two years his junior. They had loved each other since childhood. When Ajmeera was eleven, he had killed a wild Kraasu cat to save her. The Kraasu was a ferocious species found in the East, whose tail was as powerful as its claws — and bore a claw of its own, with which it routinely mauled its prey. Kraasu cats ranged from two to three feet in length. After he killed the beast, Ajmeera had started calling him by its name — Kraasu. And from that incident forward, love had bloomed between Kraasu and Ajmeera.

Standing alongside Kraasu, spear and shield in hand, was Ablik — wide-foreheaded and sharp-nosed, with frog-like eyes set in a broad face, yet a chest like a fortress and a frame that radiated power. Ablik was twenty-nine years old, married eight years prior to a woman named Miraai — the third daughter of the youngest brother of the chief of the Khamaziyat tribe. In the Khamaziyat tribe, Miraai was legendary for her archery; she could bring down a running target from six hundred feet away.

Ablik and his friend Mazaar had once been hunting in the forest when their quarry turned out to be the same as Miraai's. When Miraai loosed an arrow from her bow, Ablik fired at the very same instant. Both arrows struck the deer's chest simultaneously, their iron tips meeting inside the carcass. Both were stunned — where had the other arrow come from? When they reached the fallen deer, Miraai claimed the kill as hers. The moment Ablik's eyes fell on her, he was undone — his heart given away before he could reclaim it. Ablik was broad-shouldered and powerfully built, with a complexion that seemed carved from light. Miraai was lost to him just as completely.

She told him he could come and ask for her hand according to the tribe's customs. The very next day, Ablik rode to the tribal chief to make his request. The chief summoned Miraai's father, Sher Khamaziyat, and Miraai herself. Both were willing. The tribal custom required the woman to loose an arrow at her future husband's chest; he was permitted to deflect it with an arrow of his own — provided his arrow did not strike her, though hers was free to strike him. This ceremony existed to prove that both loved truly — that the man would protect his wife under any circumstance, and was willing to take an arrow to the chest for her sake.

When the ceremony began, both Miraai and Ablik held bows. They waited for the chief's signal. When it came, Miraai aimed at Ablik's heart and released. At that same instant, Ablik aimed at the tip of Miraai's incoming arrow and released. Hundreds of onlookers held their breath. Both arrows collided in the air. Miraai's split in two; Ablik's passed just past her ear and buried itself in the wooden post behind her. The young men of the tribe erupted in a roar and hoisted Ablik onto their shoulders. When Miraai placed a garland around his neck, she found herself laughing. It was then that Ablik told her: he was one of King Zarbidorsh Lairsamt Esomian's hundred elite royal guards.

The spear in Ablik's hand was slipping with the sweat of his own palms. Beside him stood his companion Marooni — a blacksmith's son, twice as broad and powerful as Ablik, with a chest like hammered iron. Yet even Marooni's eyes were threatening to leap free from beneath his helmet. When the king had summoned all soldiers to prepare for war, Marooni had gone to see his father the night before. Marooni was forty-three — a man who had weathered many wars, the marks of which lay hidden beneath the silver shimmer of his armor. His father was eighty-seven and still working the forge. He too had fought in many wars. His wife had died thirty-three years ago of mountain fever. He had two children — a daughter and a son. Marooni, his son, was not striking to look upon, which was why no match had ever been made for him — yet he had bled for his king in battle after battle, earning medal upon medal for valor, which was how he had come to stand among the royal elite hundred. Past thirty, he had long since abandoned any thought of marriage. His sister had wed a man from the Jaaiban tribe and had three children. Marooni had always been his king's most faithful soldier, sending half his wages home to his father so the old man would never want for anything.

Before leaving for war, his father had said to him: "I have seen many wars, son — but this is the Great War between East and West. It will either annihilate the East entirely, or it will drown the sun of the West into permanent darkness."

Standing right beside Marooni was Furia — twenty-nine years old, the most agile young man in his tribe, a nickname that had followed him into the king's army. His father was a simple farmer who surrendered a third of every harvest as tax — but since Furia had joined the elite hundred, his father had been granted full exemption. Furia loved a girl from his own tribe named Amaani. They had met in secret many times and had long since become lovers — yet Amaani's father refused to bless their union. He believed that a soldier's life lasted only until he went to war — and he was not about to see his daughter bound to a man whose lifespan hinged on a battlefield. He did not want her to spend the rest of her days clinging to the memory of a man who rode off to war and never came home. He did not hate Furia — he simply loved his daughter with a ferocity that consumed everything else. Though he knew they had met in secret many times and shared a bed, he always deflected their love with the same words: "As long as soldiers wear iron helmets on their heads, they live — the moment the helmet comes off, death steps in."

But he had always known how deeply they loved each other. And so, before Furia left for war, he had placed his family's ancestral sword in Furia's hands and said: "If you bring this back from the war in one piece — I have no objection to your union."

Beside Furia stood Malaaku — long-nosed, with deep black eyes set in a lean face — one hand gripping his spear, the other holding his shield raised. Six feet tall, with a chest that thundered as though it could split fifteen men in half with a single stride. Malaaku was twenty-six, a son of the Bagira tribe. The Bagira lived in forests and were considered the greatest physical force in the entire East — they had never bowed before anyone in the Eastern world, and even the king had been compelled to forge a treaty with them rather than conquer them. A single Bagira warrior held the power to bury twenty enemies. Malaaku was the tribe's most celebrated spearman.

Four years prior, a spear-throwing competition had been held in the capital, drawing contestants from every corner of the world. Malaaku was among them. The world's most celebrated spearman, Enomotio Arbain, had managed to hit his target at three hundred and twenty-four feet. When Malaaku stepped up and hurled his spear, it flew past the target, past the field's boundary, past the crowds of spectators — and came to rest at a distance of four hundred and two feet. The king was jubilant, awarded Malaaku three urns of gold, and extended an invitation to join the royal elite hundred. Malaaku accepted. He hurled spears the way children fling pebbles — effortlessly, and his aim never missed.

Earlier in this very battle, Malaaku had drawn back with his full strength, taken his aim, and released — the spear crossed four hundred feet of open war, grazed the Western general's helmet, sheared off part of his ear, and continued straight through three soldiers fighting behind him. The Western army's general, Sir Aetonium Kraiban Psaichvi, was left stunned, turning to see from which direction the flying spear had come — and as he was still turning, a second spear came hurtling through the air straight at him. Sir Aetonium, with lightning quickness, flung his shield up and pressed himself flat and low against his horse. The spear tore through the shield and drove itself through the chests of three or four soldiers standing behind. Shaken to his marrow, Sir Aetonium dismounted immediately — so Malaaku could not fix him in his sights — and roared as his boots hit the ground:

"Archers — ready!"

A soldier sounded the trumpet in a distinctive pattern — two breath-separated blasts — and immediately hundreds of buglers behind him echoed the same call. Every archer in the army snapped to attention. Thousands stood poised at their bows, arrows drawn and waiting. Then Sir Aetonium screamed:

"LOOSE!!!"

In a single exhaled breath, thousands of arrows took flight and began their dance through the air. Some struck one another mid-flight and spiraled to the ground, but most found their course and kept flying. King Zarbidorsh's chief general, Ario Miltair, saw them descending and screamed:

"Shields — UP!"

Thousands of soldiers raised their shields overhead in unison. Arrows buried themselves in iron and wood. But many tore through shields and lodged in arms, eyes, skulls, hands, feet, and thighs. Many soldiers had not managed to raise their shields in time — those men took arrows through the chest, thigh, skull, arm, gut, and sole — and they breathed their last where they stood. Scattered everywhere lay soldiers' blood, torn lung tissue, trailing coils of intestines, severed heads, half-gouged eyes, sliced hands and feet and broken bodies, the half-dead lying among the fully dead.

When the storm of arrows finally ceased, nearly half of King Zarbidorsh's thirty thousand soldiers had been swept from the earth. The survivors looked skyward — and saw another swarm of arrows descending upon them. They raised their shields in the same instant. But even this second storm claimed nine thousand more. In the brief time since the Great War had begun, King Zarbidorsh had lost twenty-four thousand of his thirty thousand men.

On the other side, the Western King Valfros Mathiiumak Saimias had sent his general with an army of three hundred thousand to conquer the East. Of those, roughly ninety thousand had been killed in previous campaigns, leaving two hundred and ten thousand still in the field. This army had swept through the North, the Middle, and the South before arriving at the borders of the East. Those kings who had refused to kneel had watched their kingdoms and cities set ablaze — their populations burned alive, or slaughtered in the most hideous fashions imaginable. The barbarities of Valfros's army spread like wildfire to every corner of the world. Many smaller kingdoms surrendered out of sheer terror and accepted eternal subjugation. Those who refused had their kingdoms transformed into graveyards overnight. Children were cooked alive and eaten. Women and girls were raped, their breasts severed, boiled, and consumed. Men and women had spears driven through their most intimate parts and were displayed on the fort walls like wooden figures strung up for a warning. This army had shattered every conceivable boundary of savagery and carved a singular dread into the heart of the world. In every direction, King Valfros had come to be known as the Butcher King. Even those who called themselves mighty had buckled before his forces. Sweeping steadily through the North, Middle, and South, he had arrived at the very border of the East. The East — for centuries deemed unconquerable — now lay crushed beneath the Butcher King's heel. All that remained was for this battle to end, and the great slaughter of the entire East would begin.

When the second rain of arrows ceased, King Zarbidorsh looked around and saw that barely six thousand of his soldiers remained. As far as the eye could reach in any direction, the enemy's army flooded the landscape like a tide that knew no shore. Chief General Ario Miltair, reading the shape of the defeat, gave the command:

"Four-sided defensive formation — hold it!"

In moments, the six thousand split into four units and took positions in all four directions. At the center stood the king's hundred elite guards, surrounding the king on every side. With him was his eight-year-old son — the Crown Prince, the next heir to the throne — clad in armor. Ten of the king's foremost soldiers encircled the boy.

The kings of the East had a particular tradition: whenever they rode to war, they always brought with them the heir to their throne — so that their children might know what the terror of war truly felt like, and understand what a king must endure before he begins one.

Crown Prince Abariyat Lairsamt Esomian — eight years old — stood with a sword in one hand and a shield in the other, clad in armor. The sword's hilt was gold. The ten foremost soldiers surrounding him carried shields six feet tall, each with only a single opening — wide enough for nothing but a spear to pass through. At every soldier's waist hung two swords. This was the full bearing of the king's elite hundred.

At the center stood Prince Abariyat, ringed by those ten soldiers. Beyond them, King Zarbidorsh himself — sword and shield in hand, his golden armor blazing. Around him, fifty of his elite hundred had formed a circular enclosure. Inside that ring lay an arsenal: arrows, spears, swords, heavy spiked chains, small pouches of various animal venoms, sacks packed with serpents, scorpions, crabs, and every variety of venomous creature. Among those fifty in the inner ring stood Kraasu, Ablik, Marooni, Furia, and Malaaku.

Ten feet beyond the inner ring, the remaining fifty elite soldiers formed a second enclosure. That ten-foot gap between the rings was filled with sharpened iron stakes — so that no one who broke through the outer ring could reach the inner one. These iron stakes and blades had been coated with a special poison that, upon the slightest contact with human flesh, took a life within seconds. The shoes worn by the elite hundred had long, sharp iron-tipped soles — soaked in that same poison.

The fifty soldiers of the outer ring were the greatest and most celebrated swordsmen in all the East — names known in every corner of the known world. This was the hallmark of King Zarbidorsh's army: the world's most feared warriors stood in his ranks. In numbers, his forces were small — but even his small forces outweighed far larger ones. When fifty thousand arrows had rained down twice upon his thirty thousand soldiers, twenty-four thousand had been destroyed in two strokes. To stand before an army of more than two hundred thousand was madness by any measure — yet King Zarbidorsh had chosen a death of glory over a lifetime of slavery, for he knew that not one of the Eastern tribes who stood with him would ever submit — and all of them would die in the same way: in courage, not cowardice. So he had gathered every soldier and tribe he could, and marched them onto the field of war to die with honor.

Beyond the outer ring lay a final, third enclosure — one that wrapped around both inner rings from all four directions. Soldiers holding six-foot shields had constructed four walls around everything. The forward-facing shields protected against frontal assault; the soldiers behind the main shield-wall raised their shields horizontally overhead — creating a ceiling of iron against aerial arrows. This formation was employed by the entire army.

They were now completely encircled from every side, with no way out — and no one wanted one. They had come to this battle for one thing only: a death of glory.

From the center, Chief General Ario Miltair roared:

"First ring!! Spears — ready!!"

All the spearmen of the inner ring dipped their spear-tips into nearby cauldrons of poison, then tied small pouches of venomous creatures to the ends of their shafts. They readied to throw. The chief general called again:

"Archers — ready!"

At this, the soldiers of the second ring lowered their shields — pressing one end against their shoulder and the other end into the ground — gripping each shield at its center with both hands, ready to use them as launching platforms. When the chief general judged all were in position, he roared:

"ATTACK!!"

In a single simultaneous motion, thirty-five to forty spears launched from inside the inner ring, flying in all four directions with the speed of wind — each with a pouch of venomous creatures bound to its tip. The moment the spears flew, thirty to thirty-five archers — each with five arrows nocked — sprinted toward the soldiers holding their lowered shields. Each archer planted one foot onto a shield, and the shield-bearers screamed as they launched them ten to fifteen feet upward into the air. From that height, the archers could see every spear in flight at once — and they released their poisoned arrows in a single simultaneous volley, in all four directions. The arrows found the enemy and tore through the pouches bound to the flying spears. As the pouches split open in mid-air, all manner of venomous creatures scattered across the sky and rained down upon the enemy below — and terror erupted through the Western ranks. Every soldier struck by an arrow died on the spot; every soldier bitten by a creature went numb and still. While the enemy scrambled to kill the writhing creatures, the Eastern chief general launched a second identical assault. Hundreds of poisonous beings now slithered freely through the Western ranks, felling soldiers by the score.

The Eastern chief general's strategy appeared to be working — but it could buy them only time. It could not win this Great War.

On the other side, the poison spread through Sir Aetonium's entire body and he collapsed right there on the battlefield. His younger brother — Sir Haigorn Kraiban Psaich, thirty-two years old, renowned wrestler of the South and West — took command and ordered men to rush Sir Aetonium to the royal physician's tent. Sir Haigorn was deeply unnerved by the Eastern army's tactics. Every one of their soldiers had poison in hand, and it killed more surely than any blade. He had no answer for it. Then his gaze shifted behind him, and his decision formed like iron cooling in a mold: he would burn them all alive.

He thundered: "Catapults!!"

Massive wooden machines — fifteen meters tall, capable of hurling boulders — soldiers began loading them. They soaked the great stones in black oil and set them into place. Hundreds of catapults stood ready to fire. Fire-tipped arrows waited alongside them, trembling on Haigorn's command. He went to one of the buglers and said: "Tell everyone to fall back — we are about to unleash a strike unlike anything that has come before."

The bugler sounded the signal, and in moments, hundreds of buglers across the field echoed it. Every soldier understood and began withdrawing from the Eastern army's square formation. Word reached Eastern Chief General Ario Miltair inside the enclosure — the Western army was falling back with speed. Ario understood at once: they were preparing a massive strike, one that would devastate them. But he had no idea what kind it would be, or from which direction. He had never seen the Western army fight before, and neither had the West seen the East in battle — and that mutual ignorance was feeding the dread growing in both of them.

Thinking quickly, Ario decided to play his last card — the one he had saved for the very end.

He signaled his bugler, who began a special rhythmic call. Hearing it, the archers soaked their arrows in a flammable liquid, and the spearmen bound small glass vials to their spears — each containing an extraordinarily volatile substance that, when combined with the flammable compound on the arrows, produced a vast outpouring of smoke. That smoke, twenty times more incendiary than ordinary fire, could generate blazing tongues of flame reaching fifty feet high — and would sustain them for a full minute.

The chief general signaled the spearmen. They hurled in all four directions. The archers released, shattering the vials mid-air. When the vials met the chemical-soaked arrows, enormous clouds of smoke billowed forth and swallowed more than half the battlefield — blocking even the sun's light from breaking through. Beneath the smoke, the enemy army was swallowed into darkness, and panic choked their ranks.

Sir Haigorn stared at the darkness in astonishment — day had been turned to night. He could feel his army weakening, the darkness corroding their courage. He decided he would scatter the darkness with the blazing light of his enemies burning to ash.

He signaled the catapult operators. At a single gesture, hundreds of nine-to-ten-foot stone boulders drenched in black oil tore through the smoke and exploded into the sky before the red sun. Then at Haigorn's second signal, hundreds of fire-tipped arrows followed in their wake. The moment the arrows reached the smoke, it erupted — the entire cloud igniting into walls of fire fifty feet tall. In the span of one heartbeat, the whole sky became an inferno. Every soldier caught beneath those flames was reduced to ash on the spot. In a single moment, approximately ninety thousand of the Western army burned alive.

Haigorn — still on his horse — slid from the saddle and hit the ground. The light was so blinding no one could look toward it. Thousands of soldiers lost their sight from the sheer brilliance of it, and terror swept through the entire Western army. Haigorn had fought wars across the West all his life — but never, in the whole of his living, had he witnessed anything like this.

The hundreds of flaming stone boulders Haigorn had launched now fell like rain upon the Eastern army. Though their last offensive had devastated the West, the Easterners had no defense strategy remaining. When the storm of fire-boulders ceased, more than five thousand of the Eastern army had been killed — burned alive or crushed under stone.

The chief general approached King Zarbidorsh:

"My king — that was our last attack. There are no more strikes left to give."

"We knew from the very beginning that we could not win this Great War. But to halve the enemy's strength — that is enough for us."

"My king — history will remember you for fighting this battle, in which a king of the East with thirty thousand soldiers cut a Western army of more than two hundred thousand down to half."

"The Westerners will either turn back from here, or press forward toward the mountain tribes. If they press into the mountain tribes, I do not believe that army of one hundred thousand will ever find its way home to the West."

"My king — the men and young warriors of the East have shown the West what they are made of. Whatever remains of the fight, the elders, the children, and the women of the East will finish."

"My king — if we send the Crown Prince away even now, your bloodline will continue, and the people will be able to rally beneath their new king's banner."

Hearing this, King Zarbidorsh laughed out loud — long and freely — and only just collected himself before speaking:

"Ario Miltair — the East has never had a king, and never will. The East is nothing but a gathering of free tribes that no power in a thousand years has been able to tame. So if the West believes that killing me will hand them the East — they are wrong. My grandfather Surajis Lairsamt did nothing more than earn the trust of all those tribes — and that is why they all stand with me in this war. There is no king of the Eastern plains and mountains. Not me. Not my son. This crown is only a symbol to hold the East together — nothing more. Whoever wears it will be a king chosen and proven by the Eastern people themselves — not an inherited piece of furniture. If my son wishes to claim this crown, he must prove himself worthy of it."

Meanwhile, the screams and crumbling retreat of his own soldiers shook Haigorn to his foundations. He could not muster the courage to remount his horse — he knew his brother had been struck while mounted, and he was not about to lay his own life on the same altar.

Miles behind the Western front, inside his pavilion — this man who bore the title 'Conqueror of the North — Master of the Middle — Death's Merchant of the South — Great Maharaja of the West, Valfros Mathiiumak Saimias' — lay naked on velvet cushions in his private chamber, surrounded by his seven fair-skinned queens abducted from the Middle, engaged in congress with them. All seven lay completely unclothed, clinging to him, straining to keep him pleased. The queen beneath him screamed loudly throughout the act — so the king would feel that he was as supreme in bed as on the battlefield. The king was lost entirely in his own private world, oblivious to everything outside. The sound of the queen's cries reached the soldiers standing guard at the tent entrance. They kept their watch with utmost dedication.

Then a soldier arrived on horseback — wounds marked across his body, blood draining from one arm. He pulled his horse up outside the tent and called to the guards:

"An urgent message for my great Maharaja and master!! Most urgent!!"

Two soldiers crossed their spears to block his way. One — blunt-nosed — said:

"My Maharaja, my master, is presently engaged with the seven heavenly apsaras. He cannot receive any message at this time. If your head means nothing to you, you may step inside. If it does, tell us the message — and when my Maharaja is done riding the apsaras, I will carry it to him."

The mounted soldier burned with rage — but there was nothing he could do. He could hear the queen's cries clearly from inside. Finally he said to the guard:

"Carry this message to my Maharaja when he is free: our army's general, Sir Aetonium Kraiban Psaich, has taken a poisoned spear and is in his final moments. He waits for the king in the physician's tent."

"And who commands the army now?"

"Sir Haigorn Kraiban Psaich."

"A short while ago, we saw a white light in the sky. What was that?"

"I don't know — I've only just arrived. Deliver my message to the Maharaja."

With that, the soldier — named Tairikan Methan — mounted his horse and rode for the tent of the royal physician, Mishitan Kairan. Outside the royal pavilion, the guards listened contentedly to the fading cries of the queens.

Tairikan reached the physician's tent and heard Sir Aetonium's voice howling from inside:

"I had annihilated every last enemy — and a sixth of their forces managed to wipe out half of ours!!! What in the name of all hells is this!?!"

Tairikan dismounted and asked the guard at the tent flap:

"What happened? Why is Sir Aetonium raging?"

"A message came in from the battlefield. A terrible one. Half our army burned to death in sheets of flame."

Tairikan was struck dumb. He went inside. On a wooden cot before him lay Sir Aetonium, his right ear bandaged. The poison had turned his right arm and right leg a deep, spreading blue. Half his face had gone blue as well. He was trembling violently. His eyes opened and closed in slow, uncontrolled pulses. The fingers of his hands and feet twitched on their own. The poison was consuming him, inch by inch.

Looking at him, Tairikan froze — and for a moment completely forgot why he had come. Sir Aetonium's gaze landed on him, and the man himself managed to ask:

"What was the Maharaja's answer?"

Tairikan collected himself:

"The Maharaja is occupied with his queens and I could not reach him — I was only able to deliver the message to his guards. As soon as the Maharaja is done, your condition will be relayed to him."

Sir Aetonium's trembling lips twisted with fury. He spoke through blood:

"That bastard is busy rutting with his queens while out there half our army burns alive—" — blood surged from his mouth — "If I weren't like this, I would have burned that bastard alive with my own hands. I curse myself for having followed the orders of a king whose soldiers die on the battlefield while he lies under his women in a silken tent. Mishitan — if I somehow survive this, the first thing I will do is put that king in the ground."

Three or four more waves of blood spilled from his lips as he spoke. Physician Mishitan felt deeply for him and knew that every word Aetonium said was just. All the West knew of this Butcher King's debauched ways — and of the savagery running through his bloodline. Mishitan caught Tairikan's eye and silently signaled him to keep all this between themselves. Tairikan asked:

"Do you have no cure for him?"

"None. I've administered every herb I carry. This is the venom of some Eastern creature I know nothing about. Without knowing the poison, I cannot find its antidote. By the time he was brought to me, it had already spread through his entire body."

"The people of the East fight with a filth I have never seen," said Aetonium, retching blood. Mishitan slid the pail closer to the cot, and said gently:

"You must not speak. In sixty-three years of practice, this is the first time I have encountered a poison whose cure I do not know."

"And in your sixty-three years, this is also the first time you have left the comforts of the West to come to a war against the wild people of the East."

"Yes, Aetonium. Many things are happening for the first time," Mishitan said, and breathed a long, tired sigh.

Back on the battlefield, King Zarbidorsh ordered the shields lowered. When they all looked around, all they could see in every direction were burning corpses. Everywhere the eye wandered — half-charred bodies, some still smoldering in active flame, the melted iron of shields and spears and helmets pooling in the dust, the ash of the dead, thousands of white skeletons gleaming in the hellish amber light — men who had not even been given the chance to scream. Seeing this landscape around him, the king ordered shields raised again and said to his chief general Ario:

"This is truly monstrous. I didn't know those tiny pouches were carrying the gates of hell bound shut inside them."

"My master — I myself am astonished. If we could launch just one more such attack, the entire enemy army would cease to exist."

"No," said the king, his voice shaking, his breath suddenly weighted. "An attack like that will never happen again. What was done today was savagery at its absolute limit. If I had known beforehand how terrible it would be, I would never have permitted it."

"My master — the enemy has never understood mercy. They understand only the language of fear. After this attack, they will need time to collect themselves. They cannot march over these smoldering, oozing corpses to attack us. They will wait for the ashes to cool."

"Yes — they will wait. Or they will launch an aerial strike. The time for my son's coronation has come. The blow we've struck them — they will answer it with a cruelty that has no ceiling."

With that, King Zarbidorsh walked toward the ring of soldiers surrounding his son. They parted to let him pass. He reached his eight-year-old son Abariyat Lairsamt and said:

"My son — the time has come for the East to have a new king. One who was martyred on the battlefield for his people."

"Yes, father. I will fight until my last breath."

"Well done, my son!!"

Zarbidorsh drew his diamond-hilted sword from its scabbard and rested its flat against Abariyat's right shoulder. All the soldiers behind them turned to face father and son. The elite hundred turned the same way. The king moved the sword's tip slowly from his son's right shoulder to his left, and declared in a voice that rang like iron struck against iron:

"I — Zarbidorsh Lairsamt, son of Adaelius Lairsamt, of the House of Esomian, the penultimate Lairsamt, King of Angorvat, leader of the eighty-three tribes of the East, Guardian of the Green Gates of the East spanning more than twelve hundred miles, the last Lairsamt of the House of Esomian — hereby declare Abariyat Lairsamt to be King of the East."

With that, Zarbidorsh sank onto one knee, held the sword in both hands extended upward toward his son, and bowed his head. Every soldier around him knelt and bowed. Abariyat reached his hand toward the diamond-studded golden hilt and took it in his grip. He raised the sword in one hand toward the sky, and spoke with fire climbing his voice:

"I — Abariyat Lairsamt, son of Zarbidorsh Lairsamt, last Lairsamt of the House of Esomian — King of Angorvat and the eighty-three tribes of the East — give this vow: that in this war between East and West, I will fight until my very last breath. The first and last battle of my life — in the name of the East's freedom..."

Even as Abariyat spoke, every soldier raised their head and began hammering their spears and shields into the earth. A wave of fire surged through them all. Abariyat continued:

"...In the name of the eighty-three tribes of the East and the royal capital of Angorvat..."

The thundering of iron on earth grew louder and louder.

"...Until the very last drop of free blood!!"

The collision of spears and shields with the ground grew so violent that the earth itself began to tremble. The soldiers' fire knew no ceiling.

The former King Zarbidorsh spoke: "This war — in the name of the East, and in the name of the East's new king, Abariyat...!!"

Sir Haigorn was mounting his horse when the ground began to shake beneath his feet. Fear seized him — was this a new Eastern assault? But no — it was nothing more than the resonance of their spears and shields driving into the earth. Through the thinning smoke, he saw thousands of soldiers, their backs to him, heads bowed — hammering their weapons against the ground in a rolling, shattering rhythm. This burning cadence and the trembling of the earth sent waves of dread rolling through the entire Western army.

Then, faintly, Haigorn caught the sound of a melody rising from among them — an old Eastern folk song. Thousands of soldiers were singing it together, in a single voice. Haigorn stood motionless — in all his years of war, he had never once witnessed anything like this on a battlefield. The song grew louder...

When the hour comes, bearing wings of fire,
When the hour comes, bearing wings of fire,
An ending will fall — and a new beginning will rise.
An ending will fall — and a new beginning will rise.
When the hour comes, bearing wings of fire,
An ending will fall — and a new beginning will rise.
Mercy, justice, death, time      
 — demand of me what you will,        
As much as you face your enemy,      
so much I stand beside you still.         
When the hour comes, bearing wings of fire,
An ending will fall — and a new beginning will rise.
When the hour comes, bearing wings of fire,
Wings of fire....... Wings of fire....... Wings of fire.......

Sir Haigorn watched the melody swell and grow. Through the thinning haze, he saw the remaining Eastern soldiers — running through crushed corpses, half-burned bodies, through curtains of living flame — screaming, roaring, humming that song between their teeth — advancing straight toward him. For a single, complete moment, the sight froze the blood in his veins. Then he looked harder — hundreds of spears were already in flight, hurtling through the air toward them.

Sir Haigorn threw himself behind his horse and screamed: "Shields ready — prepare to attack!"

He was still speaking when a spear tore through his horse's belly, shredding its intestines, and stopped its tip just before his eyes. "No!! No!! No!!! No!! No!!!!!"

Hundreds of Eastern soldiers came charging toward Sir Haigorn through the fire — screaming and roaring, the long iron-tipped soles of their boots collecting scraps of half-burned, decomposing soldiers — eyes, fingers, hands, ears, noses — flinging them into the air with every stride. Still they came, louder, shields raised, spears leveled forward, pressing on without pause.

They looked like death's own merchants, arriving to collect the souls of the living.

Haigorn steadied himself. Watching the demon-like Eastern soldiers bearing down upon him, he screamed:

"ATTACK!!"

— grabbed a nearby soldier's horse, swung onto it, and raged: "Not one of them survives."

Around Sir Haigorn lay heaps of dead — chests, skulls, and bellies freshly punctured by spears that had come at them like wind. Still, hundreds of cavalry and infantry charged toward the Easterners. Haigorn wanted this war over more than he had ever wanted anything. He pushed to the front, and behind him hundreds of cavalry rode over the corpses. Beneath the horses' hooves, the decomposed and half-burned bodies of soldiers splattered into the air, flinging pieces of the dead onto the riders behind. The battlefield reeked with a stench that could scorch a man from the inside of his nose — the smell of ninety thousand soldiers who had been reduced to ash or left as half-charred husks in the space of a single moment. No one could breathe in that air — and yet everyone only wanted this war to end.

A spear came flying at Sir Haigorn's head — he jerked aside and caught it out of the air with his bare right hand. He wheeled it around in his grip, leveled it straight, and with every ounce of his strength hurled it back in the direction from which it had come. The spear found Ablik's eye — drove through his skull, tore his iron helmet, and struck the soldier running behind him. Both died instantly. Seeing Ablik fall, Malaaku screamed: "NO!!!"

The nine hundred or so remaining Eastern soldiers continued charging toward the enemy alongside their king. The new king, Abariyat, ran among them with his ten personal guards. From the front came another storm of arrows — and from those, barely two hundred and fifty managed to survive. Soldiers' bodies fell to earth like hailstones crashing down in a storm no one had wished for, hitting the ground with a dull, terrible weight. The Eastern army was on its last breath. They had no strategy left — only a courageous death to receive.

Western horsemen were taking Eastern heads and sending them spinning to the earth. Necks were being separated from bodies the way a farmer cuts carrots from the ground — cleanly, without hesitation. Eastern spears had driven themselves into horses' chests up to the hilt — and the dying Easterners took five, six, seven enemies with them into the dark. This was no longer a war. It had become a slaughterhouse. The Westerners were butchers. The Easterners were meat.

In moments, sixty more of the king's elite guards were cut down. Kraasu's head had been severed and lay in the dirt — a horse's hoof came down upon it and ground it into the dust. Marooni's both hands had been hacked off, and his body lay under the hooves of Western horses trampling past. Furia lay on the ground, soaked in blood, a spear buried deep in his skull. Malaaku hurled his last spear with everything his body possessed — it drove through several cavalry riders' chests and buried itself in a horse's jaw. He reached for his sword — and at that moment Sir Haigorn came riding up and, in a single clean stroke, took Malaaku's head.

Only twenty soldiers now formed a ring around the former King Zarbidorsh and King Abariyat. A defensive circle of twelve to fourteen feet — twenty soldiers within it, and beyond them more than eighty-five thousand Western soldiers standing spears and shields raised. Sir Haigorn rode up and stopped before them:

"Kill them all — but the king and his son are mine."

With that, the Western army fell upon the twenty soldiers — and in moments, tore them apart like carcasses in a slaughterhouse. Intestines, severed limbs, skull fragments, rolling eyes — scattered across that eight-to-ten-foot circle.

Sir Haigorn addressed Zarbidorsh:

"King Zarbidorsh of the East — how utterly helpless you look now."

Then he turned to Abariyat:

"Did you run out of men that you had to bring a child along?"

"In the East, crowns do not come arranged on platters. You earn them by taking spears and blades in a field like this one. The one before you is not a child — he is Abariyat Lairsamt Esomian, the present King of the East."

"And what does it matter? Who will even know who was king in the final moments of a battle? He is nothing now but another corpse waiting to be made. The East shall henceforth fall under the rule of the great Maharaja Valfros Mathiiumak Saimias of the West."

At this, Zarbidorsh erupted in laughter — and Abariyat laughed alongside him. They composed themselves, and Zarbidorsh spoke:

"No one has ever ruled the East — and no one ever will. What you just faced was nothing more than the East's border — and this border alone burned more than half your Western army alive. From here, forty to fifty miles toward the setting sun, you will begin to see the real East."

"I will bury every single house in the East twenty feet underground — or my name isn't Sir Haigorn Kraiban Psaich," Haigorn snarled with his full fury. Abariyat smiled slightly and replied:

"Our custom is not to bury — our custom is to burn. So why shouldn't we burn the enemy alive? The East is waiting for you with great impatience. I trust you'll arrive there soon."

Hearing this, the screaming faces of his burning soldiers began to swirl before Haigorn's eyes. His rage snapped free of every restraint. He drew his sword and advanced toward Abariyat — but Zarbidorsh stepped into his path. A savage duel of blades broke out between them. In the midst of it, Abariyat pried loose a copper coin from the hilt of his sword — a coin blank on both sides, carrying no mark. He placed it in his palm and tossed it into the air, speaking inside his mind:

King of kings, This world is your marketplace. The guardianship of the East rests in your hand — Grant me your sword. I am your servant and I ask of you: If I am the wrongdoer, strike me down here and now. If my enemy is the monster, Then, my master — let the hunt be yours.

The copper coin struck the earth — and in the same instant, his father's head fell at his feet. Zarbidorsh's eyes were still open, and they were looking straight at Abariyat. In those eyes, Abariyat saw his own face reflected back at him — and a tear formed at the edge of his own eye and began its fall toward the blood-soaked earth.

In that falling moment, his father's old story came to him — the one Zarbidorsh used to tell him every night before sleep. A story in which a warrior gives a king a copper coin and says:

"I am very pleased with your good deeds. If ever you or your heirs should need me — let whoever holds this coin at that moment fling it into the air, and before it touches the ground, I will be there. This is my promise to you."

The coin had long since struck the ground. And so had Zarbidorsh's head. And now Abariyat's own tear had fallen, too — onto the blood-drenched earth.

Watching all of this, Abariyat was beginning to truly believe that stories were only stories — that in the real world, no warrior ever came to help. With fury consuming every corner of him, he seized his sword and charged at Sir Haigorn. Haigorn hurled the spear in his hand straight at Abariyat — it grazed the boy's cheek and flew past. Abariyat felt his cheek tear open — and then, without choosing to, his eyes closed.

All he could see was black.

Absolute black.

Nothing else............