Psychopomp

Sing, Goddess,

Of the curse of man

Ever looming, never more than a breath away

Of the end that befalls all

Of the unknown, inevitable, only ever closer

Of the futile efforts to know its face

Of the unremitting rest flirted with each night

SUMMER

YEAR 974 ANNO EXODUS

Death neared, and like every time before, that night returned to memory. One more night, she begged and begged of him. Lie with me, my love, her words as sweet in echo as when she gave him this memory. Her hair, black as a starless new moon night, released from its usual braids to brush upon the smooth, ivory skin of her bare, slender body. Her eyes blazed like emerald seas aflame and looked so faithfully into his own, building an unspoken bridge upon which her soul walked to meet his and plead an end to this reticence.

The war will still be there, her delicate voice spoke from delicate lips. If you must die, let it be when the blood of Lykos lives on through another. Never before did he see her cry.

When she clutched his hand, held him close to her warm bosom, asked him to be with her…gods, he wanted to. He should have told her how blessed she made him feel, wiped away the tears, and devoted every word to comforting her, yet in that moment, he only reminded her that this world permitted no felicity. Not since the gods fled. If they win this war, reclaim the Holy Land, then perhaps man and his progeny can again enjoy the unity of humanity in man and woman. He should have said something different.

“How fitting it is,” a calm voice mused to his right, “that here may be where we fall.”

Suddenly the moonlit chamber and his wife vanished before another beauty that surrounded him. Fields of thick, bunched grass radiated like the sunset and swayed like the sea. Swathes of trees reached to the heavens and bore its weight with trunks broad as buildings and canopies flaked of gold, crimson, and indigo. And in the distance sat the jewel they all travelled across land and sea for, for which a million souls perished.

“The grave of a thousand armies that came before us to fight for this land,” the man continued, “Ravaged, ruined, burned, and the land yet thrives,” he chuckled in amazement, “Have you ever seen grass richer? Trees taller?”

“Yes, yes, Flavius,” Lykos acknowledged with grim, gravelly sarcasm, “Land thrives well off the blood of men. Since the Ichorians left, every sodden parcel in this world has been generously nourished.”

“True,” his companion admitted with peculiar admiration, “yet none stand so elegant as this, Lykos.”

Flavius was not wrong. Even the skyline of the city ahead mesmerized, bespoke of something transcendent, and Lykos sensed his men’s wonderment as thirty-thousand eyes beheld the city.

“Byzantium. The Holy City,” disbelief bent Flavius’ words and shook his head, “We are the first generation in nearly four centuries to see it with our own eyes. The elders, the poets, the priests did not exaggerate…it is beautiful.” Across the horizon the city ran, from mountains to sea, cutting jagged edges into the scarlet canvas of the sky. It stood a towering urban crown upon this sacred land. “Mortal man could never even imagine such wonder and wisdom.”

“I always thought the tales of the Holy Land an exaggeration,” Lykos admitted, “the musings of memories covered with roses over the centuries and idealized with the yearning of a lost people. To make the bloodshed palatable, poetic even.”

“Never for a moment did I doubt those tales, my lord. Would our forebearers have spilt blood enough to fill oceans for anything less? Not simply mortal blood consecrates this land, but the ichor, the blood of the Ichorians themselves. The fires that burn here speak to it.”

Lykos adjusted in his saddle and patted the neck of his blonde steed, “It shall be consecrated more today.” He turned to look over the men behind him. A legion covered in shining silver breastplates, plated pauldrons stretched from shoulder to elbow, plated metal skirts over their groins, and stubby gorgets shielded their throats. Sunlight reflected so sharply off their high-crested helms and the piercing points of their polearms they stood a host of glittering stars.

“Not by you, I pray.” Flavius said. His ponderous old friend sat atop a barded steed, himself clad in sterling plate armor. His dark hair and olive skin relished in the sunlight.

“We shall see what the will of the Fates be.”

“Perhaps you can see it from a distance. Far from this field, I can confidently say.”

The left corner of Lykos’ lips rose, “Mine eyes are not what they once were. From the front ranks, surely, I will see it best and with no room for doubt.”

“My lord,” Flavius brought his horse closer, “trusting the Fates is different from tempting the Fates.”

“How many times must we abide this conversation, Flavius? Its frequency will not change my mind.” Lykos’ gilded eyes, passed down from his mother and her mother, surveyed the men arranged across the hill. At its foot he ordered the halberdiers to form ranks and upon its crest he placed the muskets and cannons. Mounted knights winged the formation, and scouting parties scoured the lands ahead of them.

“Something must,” an urgent sincerity laced the words, “Is Lady Kyniska with child yet?” His friend’s dark eyes finally part from the city to set upon him.

“You know better than to ask a question you know the answer to.”

“My lord, it is my duty as a Vesperterran to persist in insisting you refrain from direct combat until that answer can be different.”

“Though you are a holy man, surely you understand how a lady becomes with child. Time, location, opportunity do not wish it so at this moment,” Lykos sighed with beleaguered patience, “so I must insist this issue wait, my friend. Spare your efforts.”

Hesitation slowed Flavius’ next words, “A compromise lies closer…I believe the follower’s camp is not far behind, an hour’s ride. There are…harlots among them.”

“Enough,” Lykos commanded, “you insult me and Kyniska.”

“Insult is not my intent, my lord. The Levians will make it a point to kill or capture you. You are easy to distinguish, a large target. To have them gain more prospect from you than your own people would dishonor us all.”

“What would you have me do?” Frustration broke through Lykos’ stoic demeanor, “Break my vows? Act the craven now upon this field and before the men?”

“I would have you think of the future, of the progeny that will inherit this world from us. I understand your sentiment, my lord. I do. Were the circumstances of our world different, were you not you, all would unquestionably esteem you as the honorable man you are. Yet our circumstances are what they are, and I fear your motives to be…shortsighted.”

Lykos scoffed and returned his companion’s intense stare, “Says a man pleading with me to sacrifice honor and oath for this mortal world.”

Flavius did not immediately respond. He looked at the ground in thought before raising them back to eye contact, “If we succeed in taking the city, it will not be the end. The Ichorians will not return to this world, nor the Levians truly perish from it. We are not like you. If I or any of these men perish, if our lineages cease here, then yes, it is tragic. Yet if you die, if your blood is lost or worse taken by the Apostate, then for our people it is a calamity. This hell we and our forebearers contended with only darkens. I know you feel it would dishonor you, dishonor Kyniska, but ultimately it matters not which womb bears the child, so long as they bear the ichor. Your ichor.”

Perhaps the world would be better without any of it at all, Lykos thought as he turned his sight toward the city and followed along its distant skyline. “Not another word will I hear of this,” a menacing coldness chilled the air.

“CONTACT!” called one of the men upon the hillcrest. A trail of blood-red smoke cut through the sky like a fresh wound, just enough for them to see above the tree line.

Suddenly the air thickened, and every man’s heart thundered in quaking percussion.

“Man must already be beset upon,” Flavius muttered.

Another crimson wound cut through the sky, then another, and another, lacerating all along the horizon.

“Flavius, take your position,” Lykos commanded, unshaken.

“I am at it, my lord.”

“You are to be upon the flank with the cavalry.”

“I hold no command and no obligation but that which I swore in sight of gods and men: to ensure the survival of you through this body or another. If you wish me upon the flank, you must go there, as well.”

Lykos took a deep breath and nodded. Dismounting from his steed, he towered above all his men with a frame bound in thick muscle. Clad in blued steel armor molded with utter craftsmanship and emblazoned with a golden royal eagle upon its breastplate, he truly appeared a god amongst men.

Scars and deep-sunk grittiness are sewn through every face before him, each the face of a man fortunate to survive every battle before now. Yet as he walked before them, peered into each pair of eyes, in that moment he saw apprehension, a terror the lips would never dare speak.

“I am of this earth as you all are,” Lykos proclaimed, spreading his words as far as wind would carry, “I am here upon this earth, as you all are. My heart beats with excitement and fear as yours do. We are all children of the gods, made kin not by blood but by conviction. The latest generation gifted their image, their beliefs, and left upon this earth to reclaim the land they once lived. It is us who now have it within our grasp. We have paid a heavy price and will only pay more! You all have followed me here of your own volition, and for that I am grateful. Remember there is something greater than death! Who we choose to be will follow us Beyond! Let us be Worthy of the gods once more!”

Thirty-thousand voices boomed in unison, shook the earth with a death cry for their enemies to hear, for the gods to hear.

Lykos slid his tower-shaped helmet over his flowing onyx hair, the soaring eagle perched atop its flat crest blazed in the sunlight. With ornate halberd in hand and Flavius by his side, he took his place among the men.

Tremors loosened earth, rattled and rumbled. Through the grassy fields ahead poured forth waves upon waves of men clad in steel and leather. A tide of flesh made manifest surged to the cadence of fanatical cries. Among its currents, bound in chains speckled with putrid flesh, were spawns of perversity and grotesquerie. Beings whose human forms were thoroughly disfigured charged forth in throes of agony. On their bodies writhed the synthesis of many bodies made feral, jagged pieces of a demon’s fantasy stitched together from the limbs of man and animal.

Defibrillating booms bellowed from the cannons; plumes of slate smoke spewed from their breeches. Those sunset fields turned to a butcher’s tempest. Bodies exploded into chunky, scarlet mists, legs, arms, and entrails precipitated upon all.

“MAKE READY!” The command echoed from the hillcrest and repeated in urgent cadence along the line. Thousands of men snapped their muskets to the ready.

“AIM!” Scores echoed, and thousands of muskets brought their muzzles to bear.

“FIRE!” An endless percussion rattled the air and summoned asphyxiating white smoke that stole away more and more of the clear aqua sky. It drifted over them until coalescing with an opposing pink mist and shrouded everything in a vaporous fleshy dome.

Quiet followed and Lykos and his men stared into the mist ahead, waited for the slaughter now so patient in its approach.

Lights like lightning in clouds flashed ahead. All around, bodies split and exploded, left blood to drip off the armor of those yet standing.

“Mighty Ichorians,” Lykos heard Flavius chant under his breath.

Those still living shuffled over the mangled dead.

“Let us be Worthy to join you Beyond.”

The tide came closer and closer, its many faces so easy to discern. The gangly beasts crawled forth, their roars so resounding they could split armor asunder.

“Let not your remaining son fall this day. Let this world have a ray of your light for but a moment longer.”

Lykos’ voice bellowed loud as the cannons, “READY ARMS!” and hundreds of centurions echoed the command.

In sharp unison the front ranks brought their polearms to bear. Terror pled their minds to forsake the fields, to flee in the face of such onslaught and cruelty.

Another night, Lykos silently asked the gods. One more. His thundering heart raged hotly through his body, left a nigh breathless void in his chest which beat for something primal…. Yell, it urged him, wring those vocal cords dry…and he obliged.

Those with him added their cries, laden with the fury of generations lost and vengeful.

Deafening cracks of bone and steel screamed across the line as hordes of men and beast charged full speed into them.

Streams of blood sprayed in endless rain. Polearms pierced throats and eyes, thrusted, and splintered, caught bits of vocal cords and optical nerves. Arms were chopped and gnawed from bodies, heads twisted and pummeled in, legs sheared and cracked open. Bones peeled from flesh; brains mined from skulls.

For each poor soul that suffered such a fate, another took his place.

Those who fell were minced piece by piece under the sheer weight and desperation of those fighting to stand. Armor cracked and flesh milled to mush to coalesce into bubbling, crimson mud.

Muskets and cannons beat and cracked, added more and more to this concoction of earth and sinew.

With mighty strength, Lykos swung and thrusted his halberd to add a new scream to this chorus. His blade hammered a man’s skull, cracked through to lodge into the neck of another. It pierced the abdomen of another, pulled out the screaming man’s entrails for him to behold in horror.

For hours this churned. Clouds of gunpowder and dust choked out the sun, condemned the tens of thousands below to kill and suffer and die in a shaded swamp of stewing flesh. Men and beast that breathed upon hitting the ground soon died from ingestion and inhalation.

Divine, Lykos recalled Flavius’ words.

Life and death roared, screamed, and wept with every breath, and discharged with every morsel of mortal strength. This field, so long starved, now gorged itself upon the feast of a millennium, indiscriminate in the bodies it devoured.

More, it shamelessly demanded, and more did man and beast provide.

When the clouds tired and settled, when the last vestiges of the sun’s rays rivaled the color of the crimson earth, did the feast end. When only a tiny fragment of the army remained standing and the enemy fled, did quiet return.