Dawn of Swords

PROLOGUE

Today, thought Clovis, is a perfect day for bloodshed.

The air was hot, the wind dead, and the tall grass still. The flags his bannermen carried hung limp on their shanks. To Clovis Crestwell’s right was a vast open plain, empty of settlements for miles. To his left were the tightly packed trees that formed the edge of the Ghostwood. The soft, insect-like whispers that oozed from the haunted forest carried without any apparent need for wind. The whispers caused a collective shudder to work through the battalion that marched on the Gods’ Road, intermixing with the sound of marching feet.

Clovis sat tall in his saddle, his shoulders pulled back and his long silver hair swept from his face. While on the outside he exuded calm indifference, his insides shuddered with anticipation. It was on this day-this bright and windless day-that his years of planning would finally be set in motion. Today was the day he paved the way for his god to rule the world.

The man riding astride the lead stallion, Lord Commander Vulfram Mori, raised his hand. Immediately, the progression halted. The fighting men removed their helms and unhitched the waterskins from their belts, taking long gulps and wiping sweat from their brows. They’d marched all the way from Veldaren, the capital of the eastern land of Neldar, and the long journey had left them exhausted. Their leader, though, showed not the slightest sign of wear from the trip. Vulfram looked barbaric; naked from the waist up, his muscular physique was an intimidating sight that dwarfed the greatsword strapped to his back. His head was shaved bald, though a lengthy auburn beard speckled with gray fell from his chin to the middle of his breastbone. But the Lord Commander’s deep brown eyes contained a wisdom that betrayed the impression of barbarism. Vulfram was forthright, cautious, and loyal, and he did not question his superiors. His choice in appearance was purposeful; he demonstrated his boldness by donning no protective armor, inspiring his armored charges to be as fearless as he was. He was a suitable man to lead the army of Karak, the God of Order made flesh, Divinity of the East.

Though deep down, Clovis knew he should have been granted those duties, not Vulfram.

“How much farther?” he asked.

The Lord Commander swiveled in his saddle.

“We should be on the bridge in forty minutes, Highest,” he replied, bowing low in his saddle. Clovis allowed himself to smile at this gesture of respect, his jealousy lessening. Forty-two years before, Karak himself had bestowed Clovis with the title Highest. It had happened on the very day that the First Families, House Mori and House Crestwell, crowned the first king of the eastern realms. Highest meant that none were more trusted in the eyes of their god, granting Clovis sovereignty as the king’s advisor. Humanity was in its infancy, Karak had told him, and they needed strong men like him to show the way.

Vulfram gazed west, to where the Gods’ Road wound off into the distance.

“Are you certain we must show force, Highest?” he asked. “Would a warning not suffice?”

“It is not your place to question the will of our god,” Clovis said. “It is your duty to obey.”

“Yes, Highest,” said Vulfram, bowing low once more.

Kicking his horse, the Lord Commander galloped around the resting troops, shouting for them to make ready for the onward march. The men groaned but offered no complaint, sacking away their waterskins, and putting on their helms. They formed two lines and advanced once more, their chainmail glimmering with the water that had dripped from their chins. Clovis noticed that many were red-faced from the heat, even though they’d been fitted with light filament shirts and breeches instead of sterner steel. He grunted, thought of delaying. It would not do to have the men passing out on the Gods’ Road before fulfilling their duty to their god and realm. His impatience won out, and he joined Vulfram in urging them onward.

The dusty road passed with numbing steadiness, and Clovis allowed his mind to wander. He had not seen his god in decades. Shortly after the naming of Neldar’s king, Karak had left the realm and not been spotted by living eyes since. Clovis’s only interaction with his deity had been through a series of recent dreams and visions, which had instilled in him a desire to teach a wayward faction of his people the price of blasphemy. Yet Clovis had been hesitant, as dreams were unreliable. He pulled out the pendant he wore around his neck, which had mysteriously appeared at his bedside one morning, its crystal forged by the breath of the last dragon of the land. Were it not for the Whisperer, a being of shadow that contacted him through the pendant, he would never have acted. At first he had thought the Whisperer to be Karak himself, come to offer him guidance from wherever the god had isolated himself, but even when he learned that was not the case, Clovis could not deny that the Whisperer’s desires mirrored his own-a longing for a land ruled by a single, divine presence. Those most blessed by Karak, such as Clovis and the rest of his immortal House Crestwell, perhaps even the mysterious Whisperer, would hold stations of divine power in this new realm. This vision of holy unity began with one simple act, confirmed to him in the dreams sent by Karak-a show of force against the people of Haven, the township nestled within the delta that sprouted from the southern tip of the Rigon River, the body of water that split the land of Dezrel into two equal halves.

The trees of the Ghostwood soon gave way to the eastern spine of the delta that lay before them, and the rocky soil was replaced with marsh grasses. The Gods’ Road flattened out, and at the Lord Commander’s urging, the men picked up their pace to a brisk jog.

“Who do we fight for?” Vulfram yelled, and the soldiers answered, “For Karak!”

They came upon Karak’s Bridge minutes later, a sturdy overpass of wood, granite, and black marble fifty feet across. On the other side of the river was the stumpy rise of the Clubfoot Mountains. To the south, obscured behind a thick line of evergreens, was a series of crude huts. They were the beginnings of a new extension of the Haven Township. And at the base of the nearest mountain, rising into the sky like a stone guardian, was the end result of the peoples’ blasphemy. This was it, the reason they had come, the edifice whose destruction the Whisperer had preordained since the first day of its construction.

The Temple of the Flesh.

Vulfram held up a single fist, and the soldiers halted their advance.

“Ready arrows!” he shouted, and his men pulled the bows from their backs. They nocked arrows and lifted them skyward, one hundred taut strings awaiting the call.

The Lord Commander turned and directed a questioning look at Clovis, who gestured at the monstrosity before them with an open palm. For a brief moment he saw worry, perhaps even a glimmer of defiance, and then Vulfram shook his head and galloped to the rear of the convoy. He did not give the order, which disappointed Clovis. So be it. Such a weighty responsibility should be his anyway.

There’d be no warning. No message beyond what was delivered with steel barbs. No chance for the men, women, and children to seek shelter within their blasphemous temple.

“For Karak!” he shouted, and the soldiers loosed their arrows. With a smile, Clovis watched the shafts sail into the afternoon sky.