Prologue
The warrior worried while the poet sang. He stared out across the cold, lifeless plain they would have to cross tomorrow. The sun had sunk below the far end of the plain; the red sky slowly drowning in growing black sticks of shadow.
Poet’s mournful tune echoed the softly howling wind as it tugged and nipped at the edges of their cloaks. The biting wind blowing the clouds away, crystal stars already twinkling brightly in the black night sky behind him. A clear night. A bone cold night. And a full blood moon.
The plain was lifeless, but not dead. Among the death-defying scrub barely clinging to life, snakes were hunting mice and small desert cats were stalking prey. And something was hunting them.
He couldn’t be sure, though. There was no sight or sound he could identify. Years of hard campaigning and long seasons hunting with his father, his brothers, his friends – had given him an instinct. He knew it was out there. He could feel it in his bones. And for the first time in decades, he was worried.
Their mission was simple enough, but necessarily secret. Only the king and two other commanders knew about it. They had been selected because they were the best of the best. Two weeks there and two weeks back across the flat, uninteresting terrain. Sand dunes and scrub plains. No one ever travelled willingly out here. No cattle were grazed; no traders hauling caravans of goods from one city to another. No deadly crocodiles, no large carnivores – as if everything dangerous or large had disappeared or wandered off. Their mission wasn’t dangerous at all, only secret.
So what might be hunting them? Soldiers from enemy states? Spies from within? The warrior didn’t fear them. His long experience in successful campaigns and years on hunting trips had prepared him well. He’d once fought and killed seven of an elite troop who’d tried to ambush him. He didn’t need to prove himself. His men knew. He knew. So what would make the hair on his neck stand up he wondered.
There were dark, ancient rumours about this region. This vast, flat, uninhabited area of plains and sand dunes. Traders and explorers who had made it back to the cities on the edge. Animals gone, blood on their clothing, long rake marks down their backs. Dark rumours. Wild tales. Old wives tales most likely, once the local gossip mongers had gotten hold of the story.
An animal of the night. Pitch black. Blood red eyes. Claws. And a clicking sound. Every campaign and every hunting trip he had been on, the same old scary stories came up around the campfire. On every trip and campaign he’d faced deadly enemies and brutal, cunning soldiers – and now they were all dead and he was alive. Now other armies and enemy fighters told scary stories to each other. They told those stories about him. He had become the scary beast the others feared.
Poet finished his tune. The warrior turned around and stepped back to the warm, crackling fire. His two companions opposite each other, seated. Casually watchful. He sat down carefully, scanning and listening as he joined them. ‘Trouble?’ Poet asked. ‘Not sure’, he replied. ’Let’s stand a watch, just in case. I’ll go last.’
He reached out to warm his hands on the fire, its mesmerising dance reflecting in his companions faces. A good team, all seasoned warriors with long experience in hard battles, leading younger men or completing difficult missions. The best of the best.
‘I’ll go first, then’, grinned the youngest of the three. Junior. Although he wasn’t that much younger than them, he had a face that never seemed to age. He fought and drank and played as hard as any of them, but his face always kept an annoyingly cheeky, youthful glow. The other two managed to grunt both assent and annoyance in a single syllable. Not chatty types.
Having eaten and set up camp before sundown, the warrior and the poet wrapped their swords in their cloaks and laid them within arms reach next to their beds. They stretched out, yawned and went almost straight to sleep. The fire flickered and danced, sending its own shooting stars up into the night sky. Junior considered their barely begun journey, the hard road behind and the long road ahead. This was his first mission outside the kingdom and he was a little excited. He imagined the journey in front, the mountain and the secret cave. He thought about the honour they would receive when they returned. The gold, the special appointments, the privileged treatment. His imaginations turned to thoughts and his thoughts turned to dreams and his dreams led him gently into a deep sleep.
The warrior’s eyes burst open and the bright stars and icy wind attacked them as his dreams fled madly away from his rapidly waking mind. A sound had set off the sentry part of his brain, never fully asleep while on mission. Something had disturbed his slumber. He quickly searched his mind for the sound – a faint clicking. Gone now. He raised his head slowly and scanned their camp. The fire was almost out, only the faintest red glow was left in the soon to be lifeless coals. Junior was still seated in the same place, slumped over and obviously sleeping. An inexperienced squad commander would have jumped up and slapped the sleeping guard awake, shouting expletives and outlining in gruesome detail the punishments to be visited on him for his failure on duty. An experienced commander first assesses the environment. Many stupid soldiers awakened by careless creeping noises have jumped up – only to find themselves the first target of a quietly attacking enemy. The warrior was not a stupid soldier.
Two soft clicks – from the North – impossible to tell how far. Gone now. He reached carefully for his sword, still wrapped in the cloak – hilt sticking out. He felt the hilt and tightened his grip. He noticed more as he senses came fully online. Nighttime sounds were missing – little crickets playing their chirpy tunes, rustle of snakes and mice and little footsteps. All gone. The stars and the low sinking moon told him it was 3 hours past midnight. 3 hours to sunrise. Witching hour.
Another soft click, moved around to North West. Fires can be used to keep larger predators away. They were drawn to it, but kept a decent distance – never venturing in no matter how tasty the prey around it may be. In these lands, there was no need for fire – all the predators were too small to worry about. He was annoyed because they would now need to build the fire back up again for breakfast. And he hated wasted effort. Junior was going to get a belting for falling asleep on only the second night out on mission. His assessment complete, he needed to wake poet and he was just about to call his name when he heard another sound. And this time the hair all the way down his spine stood up. He pulled his sword out silently and poked poet in the leg – a standard emergency call between them to wake up fast, trouble is upon us. He knew he had little time, Junior was just going to have to wake himself up when all hell broke loose. He tensed himself for a fast start and focused on locating the sound.
The sound he had heard was a twig breaking. It had been close, maybe 4 lengths away. But this time from the South. Nothing he knew could move around that fast. And silently. So it had to be two. Two what? Not snakes. They liked the warmth of the fire, but stayed away from the smell and taste of the air. Not a fox, they never attacked – not even when they were sleeping. Not wolves, there weren’t any in this region. Men then. But what was the clicking? And how could they have advanced so close without him discovering them? No man was that good. He was the best of the best. He felt Poet awake, tensed and sword in hand.
Then a blur appeared on the left of Junior and slammed into his chest. His head shot up, eyes and mouth open as the black blur ripped him open and 4 knife like blades vanished back into the darkness behind him. Sound and fury exploded across the small campsite. Poet and warrior both jumped up together. “Three or more! Backs!”, warrior called out to Poet to let him know his estimate of the number of enemies and how to defend. Poet immediately went back to back with Warrior, swords up and scanning. Clicking sounds were suddenly all around them. Warrior gave up counting, estimating a squad of twelve from three directions – four soldiers to a man. Based on their reputation its what he would have done.
Junior was still looking down in surprise at the small hole in his chest, blood flowing freely – sounds out of his mouth choked with surprise and pain. Warrior knew he was done. Then a black shape lowered out of the black night behind junior and covered his head. There was a soft slapping, sucking sound and as the blackness vanished back into the night, Junior’s head just wasn’t there. His headless body fell slowly forward from the rock he was sitting on and thumped into the dust by his feet.
For the first time in years, Warrior felt true fear, not just the anxiety of battle. He could kill anything he could see – but he hadn’t seen what had killed Junior, or at least recognised it. What weapon could rip a hole out of a man so cleanly – and what could take a head without the swing of a blade or a visible body? While everything had been speeding up since his eyes had opened, now they seemed to slow down.
He thought about the mission, the secrecy and the formula they carried. There were only two copies of it. After tonight there might only be one. The formula was critical to the building of the empire, the building of a civilisation. No one else could be trusted with it and now it might end up in dust, forgotten and useless. The formula was priceless. The fire of the gods. He wasn't to know that his wasn’t the only mission travelling under the crystal stars that night.
Clicking sounds behind him; he trusted Poet with his life and left him to fight while he defended himself and Poet’s back. He heard soft slapping sounds, a sudden spasm from Poet knocking into him and then jerking away. There were strangled grunts and the cut of a metal blade against what sounded like metal studs over leather. And then his back was exposed to the biting breeze.
Then he saw it. Clicks clicked and then stopped. The Warrior was tall, over 6 foot. But he was looking up at it and he thought the silliest thought as it moved down towards him. All this time, those ridiculous gossip mongers had been hopelessly wrong. They didn’t have blood red eyes at all.
