Traitors. Swine. No, less than swine, rodents and vermin and insects and maggots worthy of nothing less than total extermination. If Peleus could give the order and expect his idiot soldiers to follow it, he’d have every single craven member of that pathetic Senate dragged out and mutilated before the populace.
The news had arrived in the pre-dawn, from two sources at once. One of Peleus’s generals had stumbled into his bedchamber, shaking him awake to tell him that the rebel host had made their way into the city through unknown means and begun fighting street by street. Chaos and ravage had broken out, and the deaths of civilians and soldiers alike was already inevitable.
It was only after that man had gone, as Peleus rushed to dress and arm himself as quickly as his exhausted body would allow, that the second source of news had arrived to clarify the truth of the matter. The Witch-Queen of Trabakond melted from out of the shadows, her tall and spindly frame dragging a dirt-stained man behind. She ordered him to speak, and he explained everything. How the wealthy men of the city had tried to flee, and in so doing left wide open a secret pathway through the city’s walls. That man had been promised clemency in exchange for his words; but not the rest of them.
Perhaps that was how he could get around it. Ordering the entire senate slain, that would be an overreach, but declaring them all under house arrest until the end of the siege, violators to be punished by death? A fair and just order. As Peleus stormed from his chambers, tunic flowing in the air and dagger at his hip, he quickly grabbed the nearest official and ordered the man to write up just such an order.
He would normally do that sort of thing himself, but there were more important matters to attend to, such as the vast numbers of rebels attempting to sack the Imperial Palace. Over a paltry breakfast of bread, honey, and preserved fish Peleus heard the reports from all of his field commanders. They, at least, executed their roles with competence. Despite the fact that the breach in the walls had been a complete surprise, the defensive response had taken place automatically, the commander of the defenses in each neighborhood reallocating his men for a protracted battle.
The simple fact of the matter, of course, was that they were severely outnumbered and running low on supplies. The men inside of the city were hungry and exhausted, and knew that if only they surrendered and disarmed themselves, they stood a decent chance of being allowed to leave unharmed. Desertions remained only a steady trickle, but if Peleus did not begin winning sooner rather than later, the pace would pick up.
Once again, time was not on his side. The Emperor needed a quick, decisive victory, and conveyed as such to his commanders. As much sacrifice as could be made, was to be made. A swiftly-forced draw was better than a slow victory. Even a depleted force could win, for soon relief would come in the form of Peleus’s secret weapon.
Lord Ethirus’s Claws, a collection of three hundred blades held in the most secure portion of the armory, would be that secret weapon. For days now, Peleus had been activating them, each one anointed in the blood of a slave and awoken with a brief incantation. Once he had given out orders and asked for a tagma of elite, trusted troops to be brought forth from the lines, Peleus rushed down to the armory to learn whether the rituals were complete and the Claws ready for deployment.
Along the way, though, Peleus found himself in the grand dining hall, face to face with an old friend. Bladethorn, the sword of the Macarian Emperors. A plain, ancient sword with a strange and spiny hand-guard. It was said that the weapon contained ancient power made available only in the hands of the Emperor itself. Perhaps, in this moment of greatest need, when the very integrity of the Empire was under assault, it would be better for Peleus to carry into battle the weapon of his forefathers? But for that to be sensible would require that Bladethorn have any true, demonstrable power. It did not. Peleus stared and stared at the sword in its hanger upon the wall, drawn to it like a moth to a flame. Lord Ethirus’s Claws held demonstrable power, he had witnessed it, and yet the poetry of carrying the Bladethorn itself…
Peleus grimaced, muttered an oath under his breath, and continued on his way. In a vaulted chamber deep below the palace, he found his greatest hope waiting for him. The keeper of the armory bowed his head and announced solemnly that all of Lord Ethirus’s Claws had been made ready.
“Save one for me, then,” Peleus announced. “Bring the rest up to the courtyard. A tagma of troops should be there soon. Arm all you can, and tell the rest they are dismissed.”
“Yes, my Emperor.”
As the slaves hurried to convey all the hundreds of swords to their future bearers, Peleus walked up and down the length of the armory racks, searching for his own preferred blade. The problem was, of course, that they were all identical.
Over the course of many months, he and the Witch-Queen had charged all of these swords with sorcerous power using the same ritual again and again and again. Each sword was a short thing, only slightly greater than the length of Peleus’s forearm with a sharp point and a broad blade. The magic in them was evident in every aspect of their form. The metal of the swords themselves was warped and serpentine, and the pommels had taken on an angular, almost crystalline appearance. They were clearly no ordinary work, but blessed by the god of strength and vengeance.
And that was only how they appeared when un-activated. Now, the swords which Peleus observed were shrouded in a red haze, as though already coated in so much blood that it formed a fog in the air. Peleus did not dare attempt to touch the metal out of fear of what might happen to his fingers. In the end, he had no choice but to follow his heart, and hope that the Golden Lord had guided his whim. He took the final blade, the one at the very end of the line, the sword which had finally proven to be the limit of his endurance for constant energy-sapping ritual.
It was a very good sword. Peleus took the blessed blade in his hand and at once felt a terrible strength arise within him. He swung it once, twice, thrice, each swing faster and more vicious than any blow he had ever struck. Flowing down his arm like a chill injection came strength and vicious rage, accelerating his pulse and, as it reached his mind, filling him with spite for those who dared to impugn his reign as rightful and proper Emperor. Peleus grinned, eyes bulging with fury, even as he took the sword’s paired sheathe and tucked it into his belt. There would be a great slaughter today.
The tagma who received the remainder of Lord Ethirus’s Claws were already chomping at the bit to be set loose when Peleus joined them in the courtyard, and the revelation that their Emperor would be leading them personally lent them strength of will impossible to convey. The plan was simple: with strength and force they would sweep the enemy away, starting at the southern shore and collapsing their line one unit at a time. With strength and might they would persevere.
It was not until the first clash of sword on sword and man on man that Peleus realized the true power of Lord Ethirus’s claws. With an enemy before him, the rage that flooded Peleus’s mind and the minds of those who fought at his flanks was magnified tenfold into a blinding fury. Fear could not touch them, exhaustion was nonexistent, and pain only induced an animalistic vengeance. Many rebels did not even attempt resistance, but fled instantly at the sight of the red-lit warriors who rushed forward heedless of impending death. But whether they fled or stood, once Lord Ethirus’s Claws were upon them, the slaughter would begin.
There was no other word for it but slaughter. With the strength of the arcana in every muscle, those who held Lord Ethirus’s Claws could strike three times for every once they were attacked, and in each stroke give forth all of their strength, hewing through necks and piercing into ribs and any other gaps in the armor their foes presented. There was, too, a subtle magic to the lethality of the blades. Any flesh which they cut seemed to wither or weaken, even small wounds widening and widening as the matter around sloughed apart, as though each sword-wound was being followed by a wound struck by the god himself.
From battle to battle Peleus rushed, exhaustion of mind and body totally nonexistent. There would be a price to pay when the battle was done, that much he was certain: but that personal price would be nothing once his rule was secured. Heedless of all consequence he went, creeping up through the poor districts at the southern end of Chrysopolis, then crossing up into the Trabakondai Quarter where the fighting was particularly thick, and up from there brought ruin to the rebel barricade across the main road. Attrition within the elite tagma, too, was something that scarcely existed despite the mad charge. Out of three hundred men, barely over a score had fallen despite the tremendous odds, and the supernatural rage which infused the whole group was so powerful that no amount of loss could weaken their resolve to fight on and on until absolute death.
It was just after they had crossed the main avenue of Chrysopolis and entered into the northern half of the city, though, that the rebels became wise to what was happening and developed a counter-stratagem. This was where the weakness of Lord Ethirus’s Claws revealed itself: at first, Peleus was so overcome with rage and bloodlust that he did not notice the trap into which he had fallen, believing only that he had come across a particularly thick concentration of rebels.
But as new forces appeared before him again and again, as his headlong progress across the city slowed to a crawl, those few parts of Peleus’s mind which were not so possessed by anger began to turn and convolute. He had fallen into a trap, and though it took far longer than it should have for him to realize its shape, he gradually came to understand.
The enemy had realized the fruitlessness of head-on confrontation, and were instead attacking in an endless loop, small units of soldiers appearing, striking, and then retreating just as quickly. Their aim, no doubt, was to keep Peleus and his forces trapped in place until they were bled dry, or until whatever magic finally gave out and they all collapsed from exhaustion and accumulated injuries. For the first time that day, Peleus felt fear. He knew not whether this trap might prove effective; either way, he would have to act quickly.
Forcing himself to reduce his rage, he ordered the tagma to hold position, and put together a squad of a half-dozen men who seemed most in control of themselves. This chosen team went with Peleus as he searched his surroundings for the highest nearby structure, which turned out to be the roof of a nearby temple. He and his chosen few stormed inside, demanding access from the terrified priests, whose terror only grew when they recognized the face of their Emperor. They acquiesced quickly, and Peleus found himself with a broad view over much of the neighborhood.
And, indeed, after a frustrating minute staring out at the horizon, Peleus saw what he was looking for. A great fortification line where the rebels had built up barricades in the streets and set up an array of banners for the coordination of their forces. In other words, the one place where Peleus could go to tear out the enemy’s coordination by the root.
When Peleus rejoined the tagma, it was with a renewed purpose and a renewed rage. He drove them onwards like a cruel master driving a pack of mules, forcing them always forward, even if it meant allowing bleeding strikes by ambushers to go unavenged. In that headlong death march, the tagma took as many casualties as they had in the entire battle up to that point, but it proved more than worthwhile; before long, they had run up directly against the rebel barricade, and could begin the true fight once more.
Against so great a concentration of force, Peleus felt himself to be drowning in foes, cast adrift and tossed from enemy to enemy as though he had fallen overboard during a storm and was being thrown back and forth by the unruly waves. To blood and to wounds he lost himself, and the rage which emanated from Lord Ethirus’s Claw in his hand burned white-hot.
One by one, the tagma began to dissolve under the sheer pressure. Men bled out and died, the magic unable to sustain them any longer, or else the magic itself gave out and left the man behind to collapse from exhaustion. They were outnumbered ten to one, and the enemy was so inflamed with vengeance that they could nearly match the rage of those who bore Lord Ethirus’s Claws. The bodies of Philgeoniai piled upon the ground, turning the streets into a sludge of blood and gore that sucked at sandals and stank mightily, and Peleus could not tell if victory or defeat was at hand. He did not care. He would not retreat until the last of his men had fallen.
And then into the fray strode the elite guard of the rebellion, ready to deliver the killstroke. These were men who had fought all their lives, doughty warriors who held the fate of their people and their land in their hearts above even their own lives. At the center of that force, striding across the battlefield in a great panoply of steel that had surely been old when he was born, was the arch-traitor himself, Abderus, Exarch of Philgeonia.
With a huge broad-headed spear he cut through the attacking Macarians, his reach keeping the killing blows of Lord Ethirus’s Claws well away from him, and with the might of his own strikes delivered decapitations, dismemberments, disembowelings, and other such awful wounds that no man could survive. As soon as Peleus saw him, the grim rage that had consumed his heart and soul was replaced by a different emotion: pride and vanity. How better for a rebellion to end than with the rebel leader and the Emperor to square off in single combat?
“Traitor!” roared Peleus, shoving through the melee to confront Abderus.
“Peleus,” Abderus said, his expression measured and stoic.
“Have you nothing to say for yourself? You who have unmade your virtue, forsaken the very Empire you gave everything to serve? And all for what? Petty greed? Envy of my position?”
“I will not make words with you. You don’t know why I do what I do. Now fight me and die, wretched whoreson maggot!”
Peleus attacked with all the fury and energy that he was accustomed to, the red energy of Lord Ethirus’s Claws flaring brilliant as the weapon swept through the air. But he had slowed, and without realizing, exhaustion had come to dominate him. He fought as best as he could, and to Peleus’s shock, Abderus kept up the pace. He could not move so swiftly, but the great arcs and powerful thrusts of his spear made for an entirely different tempo of battle.
A flicker, a mere glimmer of fear alit in Peleus’s mind. Had he, perhaps, met his match? He shook that fear out of himself, and fought on, determined to prove to himself and to the Golden Lord that he would not retreat until death was the only alternative. An Emperor, after all, cannot allow himself to die merely for glory. And perhaps it was that the Golden Lord was smiling down upon Peleus that day, for determination overcame.
The swiftness and power of the Emperor’s strikes grew even as exhaustion robbed him of his precision; swordplay is not a game of brute, apelike exertion, and so it was that Peleus was gradually losing ground. Abderus stabbed forward, a precisely-aimed strike that would dent armor at least and pierce Peleus’s heart at worst. As he had done a hundred times, Peleus swung Lord Ethirus’s Claw to deflect the thrust to the side; but he was slightly too late, and struck against the spear’s shaft rather than its head. And, with the power of the god-blessed blade in his limbs, the impossible took place: in a single stroke, Peleus severed the shaft of Abderus’s spear. The steel head went flying uselessly to the side, and Abderus was left carrying only a worthless length of wood.
Both fighters paused, stunned. Peleus reeled beneath the weight of his exhaustion, his thoughts muddled and his body reduced to a gangling assemblage of flesh and bones. He might have collapsed there and then, had not he seen the expression in Abderus’s eyes through the slit of his helm: hopeless defeat. He had been disarmed.
It was that expression which rekindled, for but a moment, Peleus’s lust for victory. He surged forward, cocking back Lord Ethirus’s Claw, and though Abderus attempted to retreat, he could not do so fast enough. Peleus seized the traitor’s armor by the shoulder, and with a great upward movement, thrust the point of his sword into the only gap available to him, directly between Abderus’s helm and his neck-guard. The sword found the soft underside of Abderus’s chin and, propelled by muscle and magic alike, drove upwards into his brain. Abderus died silently.
Peleus retrieved the blade, his body already beginning to fail him. All around, the nearest elements of the rebel army had seen what had happened, and were falling all into a panic. Peleus raised his arm in a gesture of triumphant victory and let loose an inarticulate roar of animalistic dominance. Then he fell into a swoon, and was dragged from the field of battle by his troops, bleeding from a dozen wounds.
Noooo! My himbo! Helen's poor little PTSDafflicted meow meow!
Abderus ?
well then!!!