The Crown of the Conqueror

I

It was a sight almost as glorious as an Askhan army. On a litter carried by ten men, Erlaan-Orlassai surveyed his Mekhani warriors; fifty thousand near enough, arrayed in the best war gear their tribes could provide. Under the reign of their new king, the people of Mekha had responded swiftly, gathering what resources they could. With bronze taken from Askhan settlements, forged by armourers and smiths held as slaves from the same raids, the Mekhani made spear and arrow tips that could pierce the armour of a legionnaire. Under the guidance of the great Orlassai and his two strange companions, the Mekhani had learnt afresh how to best cure the hides of the behemodons, fashioning shields and armour almost as strong as metal.

Gone were the stone axes and howling mobs, the infighting and wildness. In quiet warbands led by their shaman-chiefs, the Mekhani horde waited on the dunes for their lord and commander. Behemodons stood sullenly at their chains, their backs heavy with howdahs, catapults and enormous spear-throwing bows constructed under the direction of their returned masters. Around totem-standards bedecked with bones and feathers, the groups of warriors knelt in the sand, hands raised to their brows as their king approached from dawnwards, the sun at his back.

At Erlaan-Orlassai's command, the bier-bearers stopped and lowered him to the ground. Wood creaked under his massive tread as he rose from his throne and strode down onto the sands of his adopted kingdom. Armoured he was, a few scant patches of rune-etched flesh visible between hard leather plates and rings of bronze and iron. His bizarre, boyish face regarded the army from beneath a helm crested with a dozen long feathers of red and blue and black.

The king grinned his approval, revealing teeth like ailur fangs.

"See the glory of Mekha restored!" Erlaan-Orlassai shouted, raising his arms into the air, the runes upon his tongue twisting his words into the guttural language of the desert people. "Feel now the strength that lies within these lands; a strength longforgotten but now recalled."

Erlaan-Orlassai drew a curved sword almost as long as a man is tall and held it up, its gilded blade gleaming in the rising sun. Fifty thousand spears were raised in return.

"Who shall rule again?" bellowed the Mekhani king.

"Orlassai!" came the reply, the sands shifting at the thunderous noise.

"Which land shall rule again?" The king's sword swept in an arc, encompassing the surrounding deserts.

"Mekha!"

The blade stopped, pointing to coldwards; neither at the dunes, nor the scrub, nor even at the river that glittered at the edge of the horizon, but at the lands beyond, and a city encircled by mountains.

"Who shall fall to us?" Erlaan roared.

The answering cry was even louder than the others, fuelled by generations of scorn and hatred, powered by fifty thousand grievances and two hundred years of subjugation.

"Askh!"