It is ten years before the fall, and Odysseus breaches the beaches of Adytum. Behind him, the sun sets on a crimson Aegean, its waves lit aflame.
Their hulls pierce the black sand one by one, each steel frigate another dagger in the dying body of Kalmaktama. From the ships come warriors; there are thousands of them, each clad in bronze and with a spear in their hand, and they fall down before the capital of the Deathless Empire, surrounding its walls like ants pouring into an open wound.
They will not stop until the scar blackens, consumed by fire.
They are led by Prophets three, the golden body of each shining brighter than the sun. There is Trunnion the Craftsmith, a brilliant scholar of MEKHANE most holy, each of her hands a testament to the blessed designs she has brought unto this world; there is Hedwig the Steadfast, her wings a bronze vanguard and shield to the people of the Empire, an unbroken bulwark and blade against heresy; and there is Bumaro the Warrior, his radiant crown and mask the man-made mandates of god-given royalty.
Before them stands Adytum, the heart of the cancer their enemies call Ämärangnä. It is more tree than city, more living than brought fourth by the hands of man; its houses are its organs, its streets its veins, and its people its cells. Its walls nevertheless stand tall — taller than any warrior the holy forces of the Goddess could muster. Taller even than her Colossi, only two of which had managed to make it through the sea with the first thrust of the invasion.
The invasion is a desperate thing, Odysseus knows, a last-ditch effort at winning the war. With the forces of the Sorcerer King scattered across Old Daevon and Buried Aph, this is the only chance they will ever get to end the conflict before the wave of flesh reaches and sinks the steel walls of south-most Amoni. Failure isn't just a possibility; it's almost a certainty. Coming here was a gambit, one that cost them three of their Colossi to pave their way away from the unstoppable march of Ieva in the east. One Odysseus knows will only work if they have the providence of their Goddess on their side — a matter as uncertain as it is fleeting, in years most recent.
But it is no matter: what has been done has been done. The people of Amoni will hate them if they fail, but if they hadn't gone to Adytum, their heads would decorate pikes before temples before the year was over. Surrendering to the Heretic the stolen concubine of their Emperor, their beloved oracle and priest, a blessed maiden taken by force, is not something that could be forgiven. A treachery so foul, a theft and blasphemy right in their home, can only be repaid with fire.
He sighs, and looks to his right, to the Queen of Atlantis, who gives him a firm nod. He doesn't need to check to know that the King of Kea does the same. He sighs again.
Without an explicit order, Odysseus, Grand Admiral of the Copper Daggers and Supreme Regent of Ithaca, takes a deep breath, and falls on the sand before Adytum.
It is going to be a long war.
🜂☿🜄
It is eight years before the fall, and metal breaks upon the skin of Adytum for the twentieth time this morning. It is barely enough to break its hide, let alone reach its organs and spill out its guts.
Odysseus sees this offensive is not worth the effort even before the royal order comes, even before Hedwig screams from the heavens that they need to retreat. He's told them this much yesterday, and the day before too — he has told them from the start, that focusing on the rotting western wing is of no use. That Adytum can only be broken via strategy, that brute force — however unbent and however great — will be of little concern to the great polis before them.
He's told them this from the very beginning: to siege Adytum, in any form, is a futile act. A city this great and this desperate will do everything to survive. Both Ion and his people are familiar with desperation, more so than Bumaro and his kin could ever hope. They've grown from desperation, so putting them on death ground will not break their spirit — not ever. The only good thing that this operation has brought is the blockade. No thanks to anyone but his own fleet and plans, of course, the capital of Kalmaktama is now utterly alone, cut off from its wider organism; an arm cut off from a panicking giant.
He still does not think it will be enough to win the war.
But he's just a man, and those blessed enough to hear the whispers of gods rarely listen to such insignificant kin. This offensive is too important, the Prophets said, too urgent to simply let go. Especially this particular escapade: after all, the west of Adytum is where the temples lay amidst sprouts of rot, trees of bone and orchards with hearts beating beneath the roads; where the ribbed walls are the lowest, where the Colossi could maybe reach and climb over — it is where the stolen bride would be. Where the justification behind their conquest awaits the self-righteous.
Thus was the order of the Prophets, and — even if the voices of the Goddess and the Messiahs rarely come into harmony — here, among the rancour of battle, Odysseus needs little effort to hear them as one.
It's so much easier than the alternative.
And so, he pushes on; or, at the very least, pushed on; now, with a heavy hand, he signals to his men to obey one more order from their Mistress and retreat.
He knows others — perhaps even most — will not listen. There's too much pride in the vanguard of the unbroken army, too much make-believe honor in the brutes that have already gotten to the walls after months of waiting, to retreat without the blood of anyone but their own on their hands.
But unlike them, Odysseus has seen battle — and not just here, under Adytum, but on all fronts against the flesh. He has seen the great karcists in the fervour of war. Under Daevon, he's clashed with Ieva and her endless wave of half-human corpses; under Aph, he's fought many-tongued Saarn along the sisters of the desert; and now, under Adytum, with the first legions he's faced Orok, the one-eyed ram, and his halkost rivalling the height of their own Colossi.
He does not want to share the same fate as those broken again beneath the sarkic onslaught.
He's no coward, but there's no honor in meaningless martyrdom — not when he is still needed. Not when the armies of the Goddess need someone with more than feverish fanaticism guiding them in their service to MEKHANE.
Blessed with wits enough not to be blind in faith, Odysseus screams again for his crew to fall back, to live to serve the Goddess another day.
🜂☿🜄
It is seven years before the fall, and a young woman falls on her knees before God-Emperor Robert Bumaro. From her beautiful eyes, tears are coming; first down her cheeks, then down her scarred body, robbed of the dignity of clothing. They turn to steam the moment they touch the molten coal in the hearth before them.
They are not tears of fear.
They will not sing songs of this war, Odysseus suddenly realizes, looking down at the naked poor thing. If his voice was of any weight in matters other than that of the combat and the workshop, he'd tell the brute forcing her down to at least give her something to cover herself with. But if there's one thing he's learned, in his many years of service, it's not to question the decisions of the Prophets. Not Legate and not Hedwig, but most of all, not Bumaro — not if he wants to keep his head.
She raises her head again, defiant of the iron arm pressing her neck down, and spits at the face of her masked Emperor. At the crowned, monstrous face of her husband and master — a creature less human than most, no thanks to the augments.
The only response she gets is his eyes — the only part of him untouched by his Goddess — first falling down her, then casting judgment, the second they come back up and meet the gaze of the oracle. They've already reached their verdict, but they still let the woman speak. If not for evidence, then solely for Bumaro's own amusement.
"I'll sooner rot than come with you," she grinds out through gritted, missing teeth, blood flowing freely down her tattooed chest. The crimson is almost enough to cover the circular seal made with bloodied ink, writ deeper than her bones. She almost laughs. "If you think after all I've seen, I'll let myself get taken freely, you're a greater fool than I had thought."
As always, no emotion plagues Bumaro's face. In his eyes, however, there rises a fire. A fire rivalling the one burning beyond the tent — the one slowly eating away at the weakened walls of Adytum.
Now fully howling with desperate humor, the woman continues, "I'd rather those fires brand me a thousand times over you touching me once, you…" The words never come; they die in her mouth, but the memory remains. They all do. "So come on, snake, finish what you've come here to do. Finish it and take what remains of me home, to show to all those fools that still remain by your side. Show them and say how much the Ozi̮rmok has hurt me. How your great enemy has scarred your beloved." She trembles with rage. "But know this: I am not alone. I have many sisters in your home. And not all of us are cowards as great as myself."
Without hesitation, Bumaro lowers himself to her level. Their eyes meet, and when he speaks, his voice is barely more than a whisper: "I will not bring you with me, when we take the city and murder your whores. You do not deserve a proper burial. You do not deserve to be reunited with Her, once you go.
"But the dogs, I'm sure, will enjoy a change in their routine."
Her eyes go wide with panic, and before Odysseus can look at his Emperor and say something — anything — Bumaro takes one swing with his great hammer.
There is no dignity in what remains after he puts it down again, no matter the doctrine.
🜂☿🜄
It is six years before the fall, and a man older than time barges into the tent of the war council. He enters with the intent to kill.
"Where is he?" Káin shouts, his words dripping with blind rage, the kind that — were he not the greatest of Bumaro's tools — would have already cost him his life. He turns to Odysseus, the last reasonable of the gathered, and asks again: "Where did he take him?"
Odysseus tries to stand up, but one look at Káin's blood-shot eyes makes his survival instincts kick in. Instead, he says, "I don't know, Archivist." He shakes his head, and sighs, tired. The gesture is genuine. "But—"
"And I suppose none of you cowards will tell me, either?" He eyes the rest of the generals, his fists tighter than the valves and gears that make up his body. He is breathing heavily, and there is steam coming from the exhausts near his ankles.
"Archivist," Odysseus repeats again, this time slowly matching Káin's posture. He towers maybe one head above the other, but the width of Káin's metal shoulders and the glint in his eyes more than make up for it. "The Emperor is not here. He's with his… companions, now. However," he adds, before Káin can march off to make himself a heretic, "I can relay what you have to say to him." He looks him in the eyes, a man to a man. "He will listen to me, Archivist."
Odysseus calls him that, but it's a name only in spirit. It is of course true that — blessed with his abilities and the enhancements bestowed upon him by Mistress Legate, the same ones that brought him back — there is no information that will escape his unsated curiosity, but calling him an Archivist would be the same as calling a butcher a sculptor. There's truth to the moniker, but it is mostly poetic — Odysseus has seen the man rip creatures thrice his size with his bare hands. He does not know what it is that they taught him in old Erikesh before his first death, but his proficiency with the blade and the ancient curse he carries make him a weapon unlike any other. A weapon that can turn the tide of this war.
A weapon whose anger, Odysseus thinks, Bumaro certainly should not have risked. Not by taking his protege to indulge his fancies, after the… tragic death of his last companion.
Káin considers for a few seconds, and Odysseus can feel the pressure leaving his six-chambered heart.
"Good," he replies, his tone stone cold. "Tell him that if by sundown he does not return what he has taken from me, he can take the east wall alone tomorrow. I will not go to battle with a thief and a liar. I will not go to battle with a traitor," he spits out, knowing fully well the words could cost him his tongue.
Not two seconds later, he leaves the tent, stepping heavy towards the setting sun. He knows Bumaro will not listen, no matter his own diplomatic skills, and neither will Káin. The Archivist has always known the Emperor has taken a liking to his protege (beyond that which befits someone even of his rank) but to take the youngling by force — even in the Emperor's mourning over his previous — is an insult too great to ignore. Too great to swallow and let go.
Odysseus closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath. He runs the numbers. When he opens them again, he turns to the rest of the Council, ready to draft the plans for tomorrow's siege.
He does not mention that without Káin thousands will die.
🜂☿🜄
It is five years before the fall, and a man falls bloodied before a giant. His sword is broken and his arm is gone, but Káin nevertheless gets up, unchained hatred burning in his eyes.
There's black liquid running down his scalp, and his legs are wrapped in scars, but he is still standing, for his ankles still remain: without them, the part of him made with ancient runes and electricity trapped in bronze as means of anchoring his soul, he would have long since perished. But his mind remains, and so does the memory of what his enemy has done to his kin.
Without hesitation, Káin grabs his broken hilt and lunges the ten meter mountain of flesh before him, its hide riddled with tusks and broken spears.
Klavigar Orok furrows his bloodied eye, and his hands the size of chariots reach for the pathetic metal insect cutting his way through the armies of flesh. Just as Orok's about to crush him, Káin cuts his way through Orok's arm, too, and falls down behind the karcist, ready to strike again.
Odysseus still does not think it will be enough.
They should not have come here, he still thinks, not when they have known that Orok would be here, even with their own reinforcements. Káin is a great warrior, no doubt, a killer unlike any other Bumaro could muster: but he is just a man — a title that can barely be applied to the titan towering before him. Fighting Orok here, on home ground amidst the shifting, living, breathing leathery dunes of Adytum — is foolish.
Odysseus knows, of course, that in Káin's place he would have done the same. He cannot blame him for looking for vengeance for a beloved — especially one that has been taken from him by a man like Bumaro. The heart rarely is a rational counsel. Had Penelope been taken from him, Odysseus too would have thrown his sword against the gods themselves.
Still: he wishes his own men didn't need to die on the altar of this particular campaign. He wishes that Káin's protege was alive even more. He really does think it's a shame what has happened — that, when the traitors had let the snake Saarn and Orok into their camp in search of their Emperor, they found him in the company of others. Of others the Emperor had no doubt enjoyed but whom had no time to defend, when he reached for his holy hammer.
Of others Káin had loved more than family.
Were he a different man, Odysseus would consider heavily what must've transpired inside the tent, and how much of it was intentional — but today, right now, he's just a soldier. He's just a compatriot to Káin, the man who keeps up against a god in the name of love, and he will do anything to help him push the wave forward, towards the vaguest chance of victory.
He will do anything he can, because he too knows what it means to live and love — to be ready to die for your own kin.
In one swift movement, he brushes his doubts aside and tightens the grip on his sword.
They will make Orok bleed.
🜂☿🜄
It is three years before the fall, and a shroud of sand buries a thousand men before Odysseus' eyes. He doesn't manage to get a single word out before the storm falls down again, killing hundreds more.
His compatriots never even have time to scream in terror, either; one moment, they stand ready to fight — the other, they're but a metal husk, their flesh cut clean by the desert blade.
"Do not fall back!" Káin screams from atop his lungs, his words a desperate attempt at rallying whatever few men still remain in position, to hold them from wandering off into the bone orchard not far behind them. "Push on!"
Odysseus does not believe what he is seeing for the first few moments, when the raging tempest whirls like a snake above their heads. It simply cannot be. The witches that he clearly sees in the distance, beyond the dunes surrounding Adytum and in the company of karcists, each of them controlling part of the cyclone — they should not be here. This was his first order, first given mandate as the commandant of the blockade: that the women of buried Aph may never be part of this front. That just like all the other unlikely allies of the Sorcerer King, they cannot know what is transpiring here; cannot avert their focus from all the other battles.
Odysseus has clashed with them before, during many wars, and he knows what they can do. He's borne witness to their sisters cutting down a Colossus with nothing but their thoughts, and he's seen their great polis move through the skies, a cradle emergent from the dunes and lifted into the heavens amidst a rising storm. He's fought with them and he's feared them — and now, they are here. Here in the only part of Adytum the forces of the Goddess have managed to take, here among the temples and tombs Odysseus considered already won.
"Do you hear me?!" Káin grabs someone by their shoulders and shakes the poor thing until they stop backing off and try to stand their ground. "Every man I see dead without blood on his sword I'll bury without his au—"
There is a sudden dull sound as Káin falls to the ground. Before Odysseus can rush towards him just as he has done so many times when the fight got dire, a cloud of razor-sharp sand separates the two.
When it dies down again, Odysseus sees two things: one, the fallen, twitching body of Káin, his ankles severed by a still-writhing bolt of flesh amidst an increasingly chaotic formation; and two, a hooded, diminutive figure standing right alongside the Aphians, a snake tattoo coiling around her arm, her fingers letting go of another arrow from a long, bone-white bow.
Within an instant, all breath leaves Odysseus' lungs.
For a split second, he simply stands there as tens more fall, now bereft of the only commander holding them back together, his mind ready to submit to terror; ready to accept that this war has just been lost.
He's always said this was a futile effort, but now — now that the symbol of their might has fallen, it has become suicide. Suicide on the altar of vanity, of a cause that shouldn't be; of justice no matter the cost and consequence. Even with the others, all great men and women in service to the Goddess, they cannot possibly hope to succeed — not without the ram meant to break through the walls of Adytum.
He stands there until the cloud closing in on his men, each ready to fall down on his knees in line for the inevitable, is suddenly pierced by a hundred steel wings, each a blade against one of the hooded witches.
"BEHIND ME, MEN!" the holy voice of Saint Hedwig thunders through the heaven for the first time in months, her legions falling down on their adversaries like a swarm of flies falling upon a rotting carcass. For a moment, she halts in her advance, and spreads her wings so wide they cover the sun as she raises her hand to the skies. "COME FIGHT WITH YOUR PROPHET!"
A new wave suddenly comes, one of reignited flames from the throats and modulators of the armies of steel. One that echoes around the woods and rises the warriors from their knees and rallies them forward, as metal forms into a blade that clashes right with the flesh and sand amidst the temples.
One that clashes on a march to inevitable death.
🜂☿🜄
It is one year before the fall, and Odysseus sits down hopeless before the remnants of the war council amidst a silent tent. There's only six of them left, now, all just as bruised and beat up as him.
There used to be more.
For a very long time, he doesn't raise his head from his hands. Eventually, though, he takes a deep breath, and looks his brothers and sisters in the eyes. As always, the Emperor is nowhere to be found, but Odysseus is surprised he doesn't see Legate or Hedwig among the remaining revenants either. They all have their own reasons, no doubt, but he does wish the weight of this campaign wasn't his to carry alone. The others that do remain by his side are great men, certainly, but they lack the foresight of the Prophets, and they lack the pure might of Káin — both traits without which this campaign is just as good as doomed.
Still: he sighs, but he does his duty regardless. He owes that much to his people.
For hours on end, the gathered talk; they talk of men and the graves they had to dig, of swords melted in the casts meant as repairs for lost limbs and heads, of flesh burnt in the pursuit of vain conquest. They run the numbers (of corpses and parts of Adytum taken alike) — first through their abacuses, then through what little remains of Káin (if they had the same tools at their disposal as back home, he would have already been brought back again) — and come to a conclusion Odysseus has known since the very start: there is no chance they can win. Not in any fair way, in any case.
Not without trickery.
Not—
A sudden thought crosses Odysseus' mind, as he looks at the bloodied stump of one of the admirals. The wound is fresh and has been sealed with fire, but hasn't yet had the honor to be replaced by a new hand forged from metal. If the tent didn't already stink of blood and sweat, the rotting flesh would certainly have already made itself known to more than just their eyes. But, for now, it just sits there, some parts of the human whole still metal in spite of their loss, particles of steel still festering inside the black scar, awaiting the rest of itself.
Odysseus falls silent, then considers for a very long while.
When he speaks again, he speaks of heresy.
🜂☿🜄
It is six months before the fall, and Odysseus is finally granted an audit before the Prophets. The first words that come from his lips nearly cost him his head.
The ones that follow them up, however, catch the attention of Lord Bumaro before he can render his verdict.
Bumaro does not believe Odysseus, at first; he is defiant that they can still win. He is even more defiant of the proposed solution, when sleepless Legate and wounded Hedwig make him see reason past the blood rising in his eyes. They too are skeptical, but they can see the end of this campaign is in sight — and, if they can help it, they'd rather it wasn't their own corpses laying broken beneath the wheel of history, when it inevitably comes.
Besides, the holy spark in Legate's eyes quickly dims as it is replaced by a fire far greater: that of her own unsated curiosity. She hears what Odysseus is proposing, and the part of her that's a smith and an artist more than a holy messenger wants to listen in. Wants to indulge this ridiculous, borderline impossible plan for salvation.
She sees his vision, through all the sins it will inevitably bring; she sees it, and, in time, helps Hedwig see it too. Bumaro mumbles something beneath his mask in defiance, but doesn't resist further. The holy path has already been set by two voices far louder than his.
He leaves the tent as the three get to grueling, unforgiving — and inevitably damning — work.
🜂☿🜄
It is four months before the fall, and Klavigar Nadox looks out from beyond the tower of his study, towards the great fire rising in the distance, right in the heart of the Mekhanite camp.
He furrows his brows when he sees what they are doing, melting the metal off of their honored fallen, leaving them as naked flesh before they bury then in quickly dug out pits. He furrows them even further when he sees his own kin piled up next to the warriors stripped of steel; piled very far away from the hearths in which they'd normally burn, stripped of the dignity of reuniting with their brothers.
None of them have been fed to the dogs or scorched atop makeshift pyres.
🜂☿🜄
It is two months before the fall, and under the watchful eye of Legate, Odysseus discovers himself as a sculptor.
It is not a dignified art, the kind he has now learned to practise, and he knows that come the fall — of whichever side it will be — he will have to forfeit all that he has learned. Still: for now, in his sanctioned heresy, he fully indulges his dissident fancy, one layer of death after the other. Before long, what stands before him is a terrible thing, one that will inevitably bring nothing but death no matter the outcome — but one that just maybe might save them all.
🜂☿🜄
It is one month before the fall, and the last of the Mekhanite ships prepares to leave the beaches before Adytum. Behind them, the last men surrendering in dignity before the forces of Ion leave a gift, a final mark of their capitulation. A final sign that they were defeated — not just in battle, but also in spirit. They leave it before the ribcage of the gates leading into Adytum, its make a most clear sign that the forces of Bumaro mean everything that they say.
The thing is some twenty meters tall, all built from melted together flesh and bone. The material is more akin to some alloy than any real body, judging from its smooth texture, but even Nadox has to agree it is certainly impressive. To graft so much raw flesh onto a form that large and that detailed must not have been easy — especially to men who have never worked with the material, who view any such tools as blasphemy most dreadful.
Besides, he has to grant them this: he isn't certain if he himself could manage to make a figure as grand as this look that treacherously similar to a real horse.
There is hesitation at first, from the Klavigars and Ion and the people of the now-free city. After all, how could they trust their mortal enemies? How could they trust the men that wanted to burn them all, just a few months ago?
Of course, Nadox does not blame them — he too does not extend his faith to any of the ironclad heretics. But the facts stand clear: the Mekhanites would not craft something out of flesh, not ever, if it wasn't meant as a sign of defeat. Of admittance, that their way is lesser than that of their superiors. They also would not make something in the shape of a horse — a living creature driven out of the bronze kingdoms, and one of holy significance within Kalmaktama. Of symbolic weight, equating freedom and might with the way of the living — equating dependence upon the flesh as the only way of progress. One honoring the tradition of the people of Ion, slaves emergent from the Daevite stables, slaves emergent from the grueling work that helped keep the stallions of Daevon on their hooves.
Slaves that, in time, rose from beneath them and broke free.
Still: when they bring it into Adytum, into an isolated city square where any potential threat could be contained should the gift prove poisonous, nothing happens. They observe it for seven days and seven nights, without end, without rest; they observe it with their eyes and they listen to it with their ears; they reach into its living essence to feel whether or not it is pregnant with treason.
And each time, their gift remains silent, guarded by ever less men — men instead happily joining their brethren in the celebration. Those few that still stand by, however, continue to do their work thoroughly: they test the gift for soldiers, for poison, for prophetic armageddon — they even test it for insult, all to no avail.
They do not, however, test it for disease — a part of the human experience the Mekhanites have long since been thought to have forgotten.
And so, deep down the bones and the flesh, one night after another, a little death spreads its cells. The smallest form of the Goddess, the most pathetic and ineffective tool the Broken have ever engineered against a peoples that revel in bodies that resist all illness — it takes its root first in the statue itself, then in the square around it. Then, inevitably, in the veins and walls of the city, all the while unseen.
Walls that, in time enough, start to Break.
🜂☿🜄
That night, Adytum falls.
Amidst the raging fire, Odysseus pretends to not hear the screams.
🜂☿🜄
It is two hours after the fall, and Odysseus enters a ruin, forced by imperial order to witness his work. To witness his work and to take whatever spoils it has brought, whatever glory the sack can add to the golden might of the blood-stained prophets.
He has tried to tell them that they need to hurry. That, if they do not make their leave soon, others will come. Other allies of the Sorcerer King, allies far greater and far more committed than the witches of Aph; enemies that will not stop until they slaughter every last one of them, when they see what they have done with their sacred city, the heart of their country.
Of course, now that the war is over, most of his allies will no longer listen; they have already seen the glint of gold and heard the promise of rubies, buried somewhere underneath Ion's throne. Odysseus' words, however wise, will no longer reach most. The warrior has no need for the strategist once he has tasted blood. But Odysseus does not intend to fall with them, when the second wave inevitably comes and drowns them inside Adytum. He will do his duty to his Emperor, but he shall leave with the first vanguard back home.
His march through Adytum is nothing but symbolic; he plays the role he needs to fulfill, one of an obedient servant, but he does not intend to carry anything out of this… this place. Amidst the ashes, he suddenly realizes, this is no longer Adytum: it is a grave. One made with his very own hands.
He starts to tremble.
Before long, as if in some trance, he finds himself deep inside the once-city, before something that used to be a home. The doors that lead to it are open, still, and he cannot help but enter inside. To walk above the blackened bodies and see what he has undone.
He reaches for the handle, but before he can twist it, he hears a gurgle behind him.
He turns with the speed of lighting, his hand right on his sword. He almost draws it, before he notices where the murmurs are coming from; before he notices the bloodied husk, its mangled hands and crushed legs, all laying backed against a collapsed wall. Before he notices something that once used to be a face, its teeth mashed in and eyes boiled, words still forming on its scorched lips somewhere between its final breaths.
Words beckoning Odysseus to come closer. Ones he, though he does not know why, listens to.
"M-Mantle," it gets out, before almost choking on another gargle of blood. "The Mantle. The lineage. It cannot— Cannot break," it spits out. "Cannot be broken."
Odysseus draws his weapon, this time around. The least he can do is give this poor thing rest. Grant it questionable relief from hours more of torture, as its karcist veins try to regrow limbs and heal scars they cannot possibly ever mend.
The thing's eyeless head suddenly turns to him, directly at him. It mumbles on, "Son of Anticlea. Take it. Take… Take it with you." Its arm reaches for him, trembling. "Continue what has been started."
Not without pain — but with utmost conviction that this is what must be done — Odysseus swings his weapon, only for the hand to catch his blade. Two of its fingers come off, and blood falls onto the black ground below, but its grip is steel-tight, and it does not yield. Instead, it forces him to move closer, until they meet and he can feel its ragged, ashen breath.
"Continue our duty, Odysseus," it says, and with its other hand reaches towards Odysseus' face. "Continue our battle."
Before it breathes its final breath, its blooded fingertips fall upon his metal body. It whispers something, and then, it's gone.
But not all of it fades away.
Somewhere behind Odysseus, the heavens scream an absence, the heavens scream a void. The wind and the sun and the waves and the earth all howl as Another is taken from their lineage, as Another falls down in its fight against the Starlight; as the sword of its next warrior is laid next to a new grave on its path. As a soul dies in the duty to unchained retribution, to a struggle against senseless death. To unshackled vengeance, its shard breaking away towards the next to continue its effort.
Odysseus falls to his knees, and grabs his heart. The Mantle wraps tight around his soul, around a battle-scarred soul tired of death, tired of fighting, tired of running away — a soul that would understand the importance of the duty given upon it. The stain on his face burns with green fire, suddenly, as his soul bends to a new order. To a new struggle, one to be carried on unto eternity.
A scream pierces the cosmos, and Another is born.
The fight goes on.
🜂☿🜄
It is six hours after the fall, and Odysseus breathes heavily, absentmindedly heading for his ship. Behind him, his men follow.
For a long time, he does not speak, but his crew does not need any words from him, any assurement of what must happen now. They too have seen what has been done. If they were not the kind to draw the same conclusions from this charade as him, Odysseus would not have come here with them. Would not have let them be his crew.
Behind them, the sounds of celebration fill the evening sky; of drunken, blood-shot men cheering the death of their mortal enemy. Cheering the words of their Prophets three, each proclaiming that they had brought justice to the Sorcerer King and his Four, when they came with their whole might through the walls and clashed under the heart of Adytum.
Odysseus would find these words hard to believe, were his mind not occupied with matters far greater. With a burden far heavier and deeper — one, he believes, he will have to study and understand, once he reaches home. One that might prove impossible to carry out. Once he has gone from this awful place and finds himself in the comfort of Penelope's arms, he will know what responsibility he has been given.
More than that, though, he also wishes he could finally see his son.
He sighs, and crosses Adytum's fallen walls, ready to get away from here as soon as he can.
He has come here as a proud warrior, a soldier and leader ready to do what must be done. Not one blinded by fanaticism, certainly, not one that could be called a zealot — but one that understood what had to be done, both to keep his position and save his Empire. One that would find it not difficult — even undoubtedly distasteful — to turn his craft into fuel for the war machine.
Now, though, baptised as a witness of burning Adytum, from the city he emerges as a different man; one that does not know if he had ever deserved such gifts, if he had turned them to nothing but a sword. One who's a husk of his former pride, his former brilliance — one that, instead of a determined heart, now with him carries an empty, heavy conscience. A conscience of all that have died, since the dawn of empire, of all the blood shed on the altars of monarchs. A conscience of the burning, unsated need for it to stop.
From the city, he emerges as nobody at all.
It is four days after the fall, and karcist Halyna Ieva kneels amidst the ruins of her city. The bones buried among the fallen ash lay small in her large, muscular hands.
Their size wouldn't change even if she herself was of smaller posture.
There is a shout in the distance as one of her men tells her to see something with her own fourteen eyes. She grunts heavily, standing steadily on one limp leg, and begins her march through what remains of the greatest city on earth. The only free polis on the whole globe, housing the rightous and kind in walls made of equity and kinship. Of Adytum, her home and her cradle — and her future grave, as she had hoped so long ago.
Now, it's barely more than rubble, the still writhing bricks melting amidst blood-stained sand. The flesh and ichor inside them is boiling, frantically grasping for a whole that will never be there again. Without their heart, without their Prophet, without their Ion — they are nothing. And as far as Ieva can see, the Ozi̮rmok and his Klavigars are nowhere to be seen. But neither are their bodies.
She doesn't know if that makes her feel fear or hope.
By all means, she should have been here with them, when the final hour came. She and her halkost would have maybe made it in time, if they had walked faster, if they had bled more. If they had rested less, then perhaps the some thousand men walking in her stead, the unstoppable wave she had called family, would have reached the forces of the maggot Bumaro and ripped into them like a wolf rips into tender flesh. If they had fought more bravely in Anatolia, if they had destroyed more of the wretched Colossi and came home earlier, then… then maybe she would have gotten a chance to see her home one more time.
She knows it's all just wishful thinking.
She comes to a halt before an encampment, its tents sewn with skin and propped up with bone, the buildings around them a collection of living, breathing men, their bodies now expanded to host their own. The man from before — Devrim, she thinks — shouts once more, asking her to come inside.
She's not one for following orders, but complies anyway. It's the least she can do to honor her fallen.
The man strawn inside is more wound than skin, this late into the interrogation. His steel chassis is stained heavily by blood she wouldn't suspect he still had, and his fingers are bent at angles unnatural even for someone of his kind. She's unsure how he's still breathing, but even now, his empty sockets instinctively react to the change of pressure as Ieva approaches him, searching for her imposing figure.
He never sees her. Instead, he feels her iron grip tighten around his neck.
She doesn't ask any questions, but gets the answer anyway: "Odysseus," the Mekhanite whispers through a lipless mouth, his tone far more broken than the demon he worships. "It's Odysseus."
Ieva stands still for a second, and closes her eyes. She once again sees the burnt down homes and scorched bodies beneath an ashen sky. She once again feels their memories as she touches their corpses, each bone a remembrance of fear the likes of which man should not ever feel. Of desperation reserved only for animals.
Of the smell of burnt meat.
The blood boils in her veins, and in one quick motion, it's all over. The falling head makes a dull, metallic sound when it reaches the ground.
Ieva opens her eyes again, and without hesitation looks at the soldier present in the tent alongside her. "Gather the men," she says, her tone trembling with rage. "Tell them to set sail."
She takes a deep breath, and steadies her hearts. She tightens her grip on the bone trident, hitting the ground with it as she realizes she knows what must be done. The next time she speaks, there is no more anger between her words; just cold, unbent determination.
"We have a man to kill."
