Prologue
Screams choked the desert beneath the gaze of a scorching sun. Mocking jeers, dying gurgles, the thunder of horseshoes, all mingled in the morass of desperate passions called a battlefield. Every clash of blades birthed new corpses and sowed the earth with resentment. The dead glared up at the living in glassy-eyed accusation, emissaries of death beckoning them to the netherworld.
In the middle of the hellish melee lay an oasis of deathly calm—a space unto itself, isolated from the turmoil all around. Two figures faced each other down, the air between them taut with tension. One was a boy sporting an eyepatch and wielding a gleaming sword, the other a man with skin of gentle lilac, hefting a greatsword in his burly arms.
“Even now, at the eleventh hour, more men appear to oppose me.” The man swept his sweat-slicked hair back from his forehead, revealing the small violet crystal embedded in his brow. “Truly, I was not born lucky.”
The boy’s stance was so lax, anybody would have thought he was distracted, but the man knew better. He sensed the fearsome presence radiating from that scrawny body—an aura of raw might that spoke of experience on countless battlefields tempered by years of devoted study. To find it in a child so young was nothing short of astonishing.
The man broke into roaring laughter. “Gah ha ha ha! A natural-born warrior, that’s what you are!” Finding such ferocity in a boy so many years his junior, he could not help but smile. “Come, One-Eyed Dragon! A fight to the death, winner takes all! You can’t say fairer than that!”
His dry lips split into a full-faced grin. He spun, driving the tip of his greatsword—as long as he was tall—into the sand.
The boy glanced at the blade, then gave a dismissive shrug. “You zlosta and your obsession with killing,” he said. “Unlike you, I’m not a brute.”
Yet, as he spoke, his mouth widened into a savage smile, putting the lie to his words. The expression made an unsettling fit for his youthful face, sending a chill down the man’s spine.
“But I’m afraid I’m in a bad mood right now,” the boy continued. “So I’m not going to let you off easy.”
Nothingness flowed through the boy. Shedding every last vestige of his emotions, he gave himself to the abyss. He raised his silver sword before his chest and leveled it at his foe.
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login