Rakhavis would have wagered his whole kingdom on his defiance of Daire. Even despite the swelling hordes of legions of the impish tyrant's soldiers, even despite the willing submission of the remaining free nations of Yyestalla, even at the condemning of the dwarf by those crying foul for his "handling" of his issue with his own mother. No matter what sort of intimidating maneuver Daire could attempt, Rakhavis was staunch in his claim that Amatara would never fall to the submission of one tiny redheaded man with a god complex.
It wasn't an entirely foolheardy claim. Amatara was thousands of men strong, the men of the desert, those whose fists trained in Niake Metha were like meteors descending from the cosmos, burning white-hot in a fury before decimating their targets with a force only they could manage themselves with. Not a man in Amatara was untouched in the arcane; by law, all soldiers were trained to handle magic in at least an elementary fashion, and no soldier went without an education.
In theory, Rakhavis' nation of brutes could have done it. In theory, the proud nation of Amatara would remain free, and Daire would finally taste defeat.
Of course, "in theory" was Yyestallan for "It should have been that way, at least." It decidedly wasn't.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hunter had been at his post for what felt like millenia. Security was sky-high in Edecaa, what with Daire's horde on the prowl just south of them. The captain of the Amataran army had been given guard duty, no matter how overqualified he was for the job. Sore? Hunter?
Well... nothing's impossible. After all, working one's hind end to a nasty mush to get to the place one desired to be only to be rewarded with layman's work doesn't make one's heart beam with joy, especially if one is a southerner more acclimed to the temperate weather of the mountains near Okanakai.
Even if it was damn hot out in the unprotected above-ground areas of the underground palace, under the blisteringly hot power of two white suns, and even if he still hated scorpions after all this time in the desert being near them enough to call them brother or sister, Edecaa's stronghold was his sole concern at this moment, and he was glad to protect her.
Midday had already rolled on by and the waltzing white suns Ijkar and Dreila were bringing their dance to the horizon in a slow, elegant drift. The sand was cooling slowly, no longer shearing at the thin veil from beneath which Hunter had kept his watch. Arid winds began their slow approach from the further reaches of the sands in the lands just out of his sight.
The captain's azure eyes were clenched tightly against the glare of the golden earth, doing their best to focus in the light for any darkness in the distance. The sweltering heat was forcing sweat to bead on his forehead, enough that now the few broken locks of twisted gold hair that hung over his eyes had become outright soaked, forcing him to break his statuesque vigil long enough to scratch madly at the itch it caused.
The palace only employed two guards- fore and aft of the great iron gateway to the Thetrachian palace. That was all they needed. The palace was virtually impregnable beyond those first two sun-heated slabs of iron and stone. Seven gates met the hapless intruder past that point, each one thicker and more tightly sealed than the last, and behind each was a small squadron of defenders, made up of Amatara's strongest and most intimidating men. No mere humans, Amatarans were huge anyway, the average man reaching seven feet tall.
Add onto this equation the strong Amataran nationalism and rigid training routine, and you definitely would have your work cut out for you trying to storm those gates, even without the constant watchful eyes of the captain and his son.
Justin stood watch at the rear gate, the false gate facing the Dairellian south intended to throw intruders off in their assault. The guard captain's son was a grown man already and, much to his father's dismay, curiously able to get the king to assign him to his father's side for most of his appointments. Wherever Hunter worked, Justin toted shortly behind, with a smile on his face that menaced with its innocent sheen. Little miniature Hunter, his father mused from time to time, "only distinctly more evil."
His son resented this observation- he didn't see anything evil about himself, simply mischievous. His intentions were pure enough. No other guard in Amatara was as well-accustomed to Hunter's logic and reasoning, and therefore, no other guard in Amatara was as well suited to be his veritable shadow and tag-along.
He'd sure picked the time to shadow him, however; heat wasn't his thing. He'd been in the safety of Amatara's underground fortress since they arrived not more than twelve years ago, where the cool earth sheltered the Edecaan people from Ijkar and Dreila and few people ever had to venture into the suns their whole lives apart from the shafts of skylight in the grand halls. He much rather preferred the king's chamber post much further into the labyrinth of Thetrachia where the suns couldn't bake his skin and steam his blood. Alas, though, father was out here, and the king had given his word to him that he may follow his father wherever he was posted.
Besides all this, Yyestalla was becoming dangerous for the children of kings and generals.
A year had nearly passed since the chain of assassinations that had thrown Yyestalla into an uproar. Blame and furvor flew furiously to the Grand Arri, the self-proclaimed Lord of Yyestalla, Daire, but no proof was ever uncovered that he was at fault for the systematic killings of three princes of the wealthiest Yyestallan nations. Three tragically young men, all close friends, and the living proof of the peaceful Pact of Nations that had allied against Daire's bold claim to all the world's wealth and power.
The youngest and most brutally murdered was the heir to Irkania, the Nation of Color to the Amatarans, a personal friend of Justin's. Whispers of a gruesome scene in his lofty bedroom in the white marble vaults of the Irkanian palace trickled down through the guard ranks, painting a grisly picture in Justin's mind of his friend's final hours that hadn't begun to leave even now. A month after the Irkanian prince's murder came the murders of the prince of Meiyestallia, the jungle realm of half-dragon people, and the Omandese prince of Miatalla, the northern land of the full-dragons, the Miatallans. Both had been taken during the night and murdered just outside their palaces, leaving the same sorts of sadistic flare the killer had left at the Irkanian palace as a trademark.
Edecaa's status as the world's last remaining free nation against Daire made the people uneasy; even if the imp had denied he could be so brutal as to kill mere children for the sake of power, it was clear after the three nations' submission to him that he had accomplished just such a thing. Guarding this final stronghold of Yyestalla at this moment in time took a lot of gall, something Justin and his father weren't sure they had.
View User's Journal
Stuff And Stuff, Man.
 |
