Donarec and the Warlord Read online

  DONAREC AND THE WARLORD

  Book Two of the Tale of Donarec

  by

  Zackery Arbela

  Copyright 2020 Zackery Arbela

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  Copyright 2019 Zackery Arbela

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  A long time ago...

  The name assigned to him on the day he became of Use was Serezaam, given in memory of an older Servant who had spent a hundred and ninety years in the service of the Masters. So exemplary was his conduct, so perfect his obedience that it was deemed appropriate that his name be passed on to the next generation long after his flesh had rotted and his bones repurposed. So it was among the Nam’shaq. Obedience was all, and a moment’s notice by one of the Masters a greater treasure than a box of diamonds and pearls.

  The man who bore the name now sat on a tree stump atop a seaside cliff. Calm blue waters extended out in the distance - the local savages claimed that the waters were endless, and that a man could spend his entire life in a boat sailing before a strong wind and would die before he ever caught sight of land on the other side. All nonsense, of course...Serezaam knew the lands that lay on the other side, had set foot on them and seen the people who lived there, in several causes oversaw their slaughter and enslavement.

  Meat for the slaughter, fuel for the fires...that was the role of the savage. There was a hierarchy to the world, which he drew in with his first breath, placed deep in his being until it was as much a part of him as his own bones and blood. The savages, pitiful and contemptible, whose destiny is to be crushed underfoot and ruled at the pleasure of their betters. Above them, the Masters, that inscrutable, near-divine race, who held the universe in their massive hands and reshaped it as they wished, the very stuff of creation theirs to command, and all living things theirs to rule.

  And between them all, the Servants. Nothing like the Masters in glory, but as far above the savages as the savages themselves were above ants and mice. To the Servants were the orders given, and it was the Servants role to make the Master’s commands into reality. This was the natural order. To question it was to question why the living were separate from the dead, or why fire burned and water wettened. It was a question that presented its own answer, and that relieved the asker’s own ignorance.

  But it was two years since the Masters left. Serezaam knew they would never return. And that meant all kinds of other questions were now on his mind, and the answers he came up with were profoundly troubling.

  He looked down at his own flesh. He was not a tall man, his body wiry, his head shaved as was the custom, his olive-toned skin glistening with a slight sheen of sweat. Glowing faintly on his chest, his back and arms were runes, carved into his flesh like on stone or wood, and glowing with a faint blue light that marked the magic within. He knew their shapes as the old friends they were. On his left arm, the Mark of Regeneration, that rendered him immune to most diseases, and healed an injury in a short period of time, though it would not restore a lost limb, or save his life if the damage was too great to repair. On his left breast, the Mark of Celerity, which made his faster, the Ruce of Grace on the right breast that increased his agility. The Mark of the First Amplification, which increased the power of the other runes of health and as a consequence increased the span of his years - he had just seen his hundred and seventh summer, and by the reckoning of the Servant was still a young man with a future.

  At the base of his throat the Rune of Dissimulation, only given to those Nam’shaq of senior rank, allowing him to change his appearance, to assume the face and body of another man. Useful when it came to ruling over the savages, to look like one of their own. And at the top of his spine, the Rune of Restraint, which suppressed all sexual desire. It was this, more than anything else, which marked the Servants from the savages, for the latter were weighed down by their lustful desires, making them little more than animals driven mad by the need to rut. But the Servants, they were above such foulness, the runes a gift of the Masters that made them creatures of pure reason and perfect obedience.

  Such a creature should have been free from doubt. Serezaam looked up to the sky, as he did every day, and as always saw nothing. The Masters weren't coming back. Which meant hard choices had to be made.

  With a sign Serezaam got to his feet and left the cliff. The Great Encampment was a short walk away, and Serezaam spent the trip thinking over what he would say. For tonight he faced a most difficult task, something that until recently would have never crossed his mind,but now gained an importance greater than anything he’d ever known.

  To convince his brothers of that supreme impossibility: thinking for themselves.

  “Comrades!”

  The voice of Tugorzil carried through the Gathering Hall. The old High Administrator stood at the podium, looking across the rows of battered tables and benches and the men gathered there. In the front, the Nam’shaq, the highest of the Servants, the clerks and scribes who administered their Masters holdings across countless worlds of their Dominion, the spies and viceroys who kept the savages divided among themselves and prepared them for the day of their conquest, the taskmasters and overseers who placed the collars on the newly enslaved and kept the necks bent and their will broken. Behind them the Osa’shaq, the runemarked, battle-bred warriors who were the core of their armies, the finest fighters the Universe had ever seen, each one a match for a company of savages. Living weapons, swords with legs, who killed and conquered on command.

  They all looked to Tugorzil, saying nothing, endlessly patent. He was the High Administrator, chosen by the Masters to lead until their return, and spoke with their voice. He was ancient...four hundred years, it was claimed, reaching the limit of what the runes could accomplish with the human body. His body was thin and hunched, his eyes pale, his skin thin and wrinkled. Yet his voice carried, and his eyes remained sharp as knives.

  “Comrades,” he repeated, looked down the quiet ranks. “Two years have passed since the Masters left. Two years since the fall of Mount Pentaro at the hands of the traitor, the foul one, whose name will never be spoken! The last order was given, that we remain here, at our post, for two years, waiting for their return. But…they have not come. Doubtless they have their reasons, and it is not for us to question their decisions. We can only obey.”

  Nods at that. Obedience was the first, last and only virtue, so every one of the Servants knew in his bones and blood.

  “If they did not return, the will of the Masters was clear.” Tugorzil was calm as he laid out the horror to come. “We are to destroy every trace of their presence on this world, every tool, every weapon, down to the boots on our feet. And finally, we must also destroy ourselves. So the Masters commanded. And we shall obey. Gather your men, every last company on the parade ground. And pile all the weapons and equipment in the center. We have with us a Purveyor of Immolation, which will be strong enough to erase our presence and our remains from this savage world, and we shall meet our deaths in perfect obedience…”

  “No!” Serezaam spoke, rising from his bench and strinding to the front. All eyes watched him as he went, wide with shock, unable to understand what was happening. How could this be, a Servant interruptin
g a superior? Even worse, contradicting what was said?

  Tugorzil’s mouth opened and closed several times as his mind tried to wrap itself around this unusual situation. Meanwhile, Serezaam turned towards the captains, overseers and administrators.

  “Comrades…” he began. “No...brothers! My brothers, hear me now! The Masters are not coming back, because they have abandoned us!” Shocked murmurs and scowls at that. He sensed the danger but pressed on. “I am an Overseer, I have spent time among the savages. And foul though they may be, there is still some wisdom to be gained from their ways! They also have servants, and it is a law among them that when one makes an oath to serve, the master is also bound to protect! Should they not be bound by the same rule? And if they abandon us, are we not in turn free from our obligation to obey? We don’t have to destroy ourselves! Our fate now lies in our own hands! They have forgotten this world. But we still stand on it, and we can make our fate here!”

  A long, shocked pause. Then one of the Osa’shaq leaders hesitantly raised a hand. “How?” he asked.

  “We are stronger than the savages,” Serezaam answered. “Faster, more intelligent. Even the least of us is worth a hundred of them! Does this not prove our superiority? Our right to rule over them? We can go forth and carve out our own dominion, where our word is the law that must be obeyed! Servants no longer, we will be the Masters…”

  “Enough!” Tugorzil shouted, finding his voice. He raised his finger, pointing down at Serezaam. “Seize him! Do it now!”

  Nam’shaq stood and surrounded Serezaam, grabbing his arms. One of them drew a knife from his belt and raised it up, ready to strike.

  “No, hold off.” Tugorzil shook his head. “Overseer Serezaam. You have spent much time among the savages, too much it seems, for it has warped your thinking. But there will be no corrective action, for you will die with the rest of us. Until then, place him in bonds and lock him away!”

  The Nam’shaq escorted him out of the assembly hall. Tugorzuil watched him go with amix of pity and bafflement. For any Servant to consider such thoughts, let alone say them out loud...the Masters were right to order their deaths. “It shall be tonight,” he said. “Before this corruption spreads any further. Gather your companies in the Field of Practice. At the midnight hour, I will activate the Purveyor of Immolation. And then, as the Masters commanded, we shall perish in perfect obedience.”

  They bound his arms with rawhide thongs and sat him down on a stool. No curses or insults, as there would be with jailers among the Savages, merely a look of profound disappointment. One of their own had gone native or something close to it. Such things were bound to happen when the Servants were away from the Masters for so long. Far better for them to die now than fall further into corruption. Serezaam didn't need to hear them say the words out loud, he could hear in their heads.

  For his part, Serezaam could only feel a sense of futility. He was awakened, but they remained resolutely, intransigently asleep, unable and unwilling to accept the enormity of what they were about to do. To stand meekly while Tugorzil activated a device that would incinerate everything in a one mile radius, so completely that not even a speck of ash or a fleck of charred bone would remain. Merely to accept the command of Masters who cared not if they lived or died and merely ordered their delayed mass suicide for reasons of...well, he had no idea what those reasons might be. But these men, the closest thing he had to a family as the savages understood it, were about to die. And he could only feel grief, though he did not yet know how to weep…

  The door to the shed opened and three men stood before him. He blinked, his eyes taking a moment to adjust. Two were Osa’shaq, captains by the slashes on the shoulderpads of their armor, the third a Nam’shaq who held the rank of Administrator, though one of junior rank. “You are Overseer Serezaam,” the last said, after a moment’s hesitation.

  “I am.” Serezel looked at them all. “Why are you here?”

  The Osa’shaq looked at each other. “I am Orazaak,” said the first Osa’shaq, a tall, burly fellow whose head bore stubble in need of shaving. “This is Kazovar.” He gestured towards his compatriot, a younger fellow with a lean build and hair that was at least two fingers length on his head. Serezel frowned at the sight...a sign that discipline among the fighters had gone a bit slack.

  “I am Arragaz,” said the Nam’shaq. “Those words you said, do you mean them truly? If your bonds were cut and you went free, what would you do?”

  Serezaam answered without hesitation. “I would leave this encampment and got out into the world. I would make whatever life I could for myself, by any means that come to hand. And I would take with me any who would no longer be a Servant, but a Master.”

  Again they looked at each other. “Many among our sword-brethren think the same way,” said Kazovar. “The Masters have abandoned us.”

  “Why should we die for those who have forgotten us?” Orazaak added. “We have swords. We have the runes. And if the Masters have cast us aside, we no longer are bound to obey them.”

  Serezaam nodded slowly, then looked at Arragaz. “Are these your thoughts as well?”

  Arragza hesitated before answering, and when he did there was a hint of shame in his voice. “I don’t want to die,” he said.

  Orazaak looked at him with scorn. Kazovar nodded with sympathy. Serezaam didn't pass judgement either way. In truth he had no desire to meet death this day. “So be it. How many are with you?”

  Orazaak cut the bonds with a knife. “Five Great Companies,” he said. “With their officers. I command one, Kazovar another, the rest march under their own captains and banners.”

  “All we need is a leader,” said Kazovar. “We are in agreement it should be you.”

  Serezaam rubbed his aching wrists. “Where are they?”

  “Five miles to the east,” Arragaz said. “Beyond the range of the Purveyor.”

  “Let us be off them.” He stood and walked to the door. “Where are the others?” he then asked.

  “Gathering in the assembly field,” Kazovar said. “As Tugorzil ordered. Will you go to them as well?”

  Serezaam shook his head. “No. They did not listen before, they will not listen now. They have made their choice.” He walked out the door. The others followed after, headed into the night.

  The midnight hour approached. Tens of thousands of men gathered on the assembly field. Company by company. Standing in perfect ranks under their battle standards, the dark armor glinting under the light of the moon and stars. The Nam’shaq administrators, overseers and scribes in the front, calm and composed, watching as Tugozil opened a metal crate and took out a stone egg the size of a man’s head, its sides glowing faintly from the rows of runes cut into its surface.

  Wincing slightly at the weight, he raised it and placed it in a wooden cradle, and then placed his hand on the top, covering a large star-shaped rune three times the size of any other. The blue light filling it changed to red at his touch, and the change spread down across the device, moving from one row to another, blue light changing to a dark blood crimson, glowing with evil intent, the light bathing Tugorzil and every man within fifty yards. A red beacon of death in the night, glowing brighter with every passing second.

  Tugorxil raised his head to the heavens. “Hear us!” he bellowed, calling out to the Masters, who could not hear him and would not care if they did. “Know that we remained ever faithful! Let our willing death be a mark of our obedience!”

  The stone cracked, and within moments red fire rushed out from within, surrounding the Purveyor of Immolation and forming a burning ball, hotter than the heart of a Sun. It spread outwards with a roar, consuming Tugorzil in a heartbeat, then the ranks of men standing at that end of the field, as well as all the structures on the other side. Every hut, every barn, every shed, dinstregrating in that intense flame. The men stood still, not a one turned to flee, any fear they felt hidden beneath a calm acceptance, an obedience that they could never turn against.

  Outward and
upward it grew, spread across the field, a second red sun shining in the night for a moment. The field was gone, the flames rolled over them, over the rest of the encampment, then through the valley beyond, spreading out a mile in every direction, turning the night bright as day, and then brighter still.

  Then, with a rush of hot air and a final hiss, the flames faded from view, leaving behind a heat-shadow that dissipated more slowly under the sea breeze. Where the Great Encampment had stood, there was now a broad expanse of scorched earth, the stone melted and turning to glass. Not a scrap of bone, not a piece of ash that had one been flesh, not a wall or belt buckle or twisted remnant of metal remained. Every trace of their presence was gone, and only sterile, burnt rock remained.

  Ten miles away to the north, the five Great Companies that chose life over obedient suicide watched this in silence. Some bent their heads, and on a handful of faces a tear might be seen, before it was quickly wiped away. They stood there for a long time, marking the loss of their brothers and wondering what it meant for their own futures.

  Finally, Orazaak turned to Serezaam. “What now?” he asked, fear in his voice.

  Serezaam turned away from the scene. “We march,” he said.

  Present day.

  “Beremi.” Donarec Kasovaron shielded his eyes with one hand while pointing ahead with the other. The sun shone down brightly and hard on a day that was nearly cloudless, reflecting off the green grass of the surrounding plains, giving them a shimmery effect that was both beautiful and somewhat disorientating. Farms and pasture nearly divided up the land, marked by hedges of raised turf, clustered along the edge of the wide trade road that ran straight as an arrow to the walled city in the distance.

  His companions sat in the shadow cast by the hassor tree, a broad-branched, multi-trunked tree that stretched out from a main stem to cover a hundred yards of packed earth that was the caravanserai’s courtyard. Rough benches lay scattered about , wedged between the trunks of the hassor. All one plant, he was told, an import from strange forests to the south, where it was said such trees might stretch for miles on end, one growing into another and starving rivals of light and moisture. The broad leaves blocked the worst of the midday sun, allowing travelers to rest in the shade.