Two armed guards stood outside of the door to the chambers of Duvi, the High Priest of the Cult of Ceros. They were waiting for the delivery of slave women for the evening. They stood loosely with their hand on their swords.
Allor appeared in front of them for just an instant before Canto and Tal appeared behind them and ran them through with their light swords. Both guards fell to the sandstone floor. Their cauterized wounds prevented their leaking onto the ground at first. Canto and Tal stood over their bodies then cloaked themselves again.
Allor walked over to the doors and flung them open. He kept his head inside of his hood and his PPS set on low. Cloaking was still turned off.
There were two more guards inside of Duvi’s chambers.
“You. You are the dog called Allor,” said one of them as they both pulled their swords from the sheaths.
“I am Allor.”
“You don’t draw your sword. You will be easy to kill. Then I will kill your pretty mother.”
“She will kill you first,” Allor said with a smile.
The guard jerked hard when Tal’s sword entered his body from behind. She remained cloaked, but the blood and stomach fluid of the guard covered her sword and the outline became visible. Then his body slammed into the floor as she kicked him to the ground. The other guard turned to run away and was impaled on Canto’s sword.
From deep in the ostentatious rooms of gold, red, and blue, a man with short knife-cropped hair and boils on his face found his bow and quiver. He grabbed an arrow and aimed it across the rooms at Allor.
“You have met your match, wizard,” he said as he shot his arrow. His aim was good, and his arrow was delivered directly to Allor’s head, where it broke and ricocheted to the left.
“There you are,” said Allor, turning to Duvi.
“What magic do you bring to me, wizard?” Duvi said as he shot another arrow at Allor. It too hit Allor and deflected its path. Then a third one came, then a fourth and finally a fifth. Without arrows, Duvi looked to the nearby table. He threw a jug of water. It landed in front of Allor and the water splashed out at his feet.
“Duvi, Head Priest of Ceros, you have killed, you have enslaved, you have abused, and you will do these things no more. It is your judgment day,” said Allor, a strange look on his face like the wolf in that moment between the third and fourth time it tears the flesh of its prey.
“You do no frighten me, Allor dog, son of a whore bitch,” Duvi said, and spit on the floor in front of him.
“Good. Your fate was sealed long ago. This rev is when your pages turn blank. This day the Cult of Ceros will be no more.”
“My work will survive,” Duvi replied.
“In a few years no one will remember you,” said Allor. “Your ass-boil of greatness will fade from memory and I will forbid the scholars to include you in the histories. You will be dust again.”
“For what? What have I done to you?” Duvi demanded.
“She was killed by one of your raids. And for her blood I demand yours.”
“If we murdered her, she must have been ugly,” said Duvi defiantly with a sneer. “If she was pretty she would become one of my slaves. I must discriminate somehow or my stable would be overflowing. But you know the best ones? The women of Ceros. It’s because of their love for Ceros that they are so responsive to my needs.”
Allor stood still except for the tremble of anger.
“So what do you want? Gold? I have plenty. Women? Again the same. Take both of them, buy anything, fornicate with them until you have a temple full of children like me. What does it take to fulfill your need? I ask you this because I could never find the limits of my own needs. I swear upon Ceros himself that I always wanted more gold, more women, more converts, more slaves. Enough was not a word familiar to me. It is important to know what you want,” he said without the fear of a man about to die.
“I want to look at you moments before you die and let you go to your death knowing it was me that killed you. Look hard at your executioner, Duvi. I am death in human form, come to collect your debt.”
“Combat between us is unfair, you sit behind magic.”
Allor laughed.
“It was not fair when you raided my village. So it was never going to be fair between us. You will die. This temple and everything for twenty-five kilomaatars will be incinerated. Nothing but ash.”
“No one has that kind of magic.”
“Fool, it was never magic. Machines from people that live out among the stars,” replied Allor.
Allor put his hand into his robe and removed a round metal tube. It had a numeric pad and two sliding controls. He placed it on the floor. Then he cloaked.
“Where are you?” Duvi screamed.
“I am here, but only for this moment,” came the reply.
Duvi watched as three large clear golden balls formed. A tix later they left the temple at high speed. Duvi ran towards the small box on the floor in the other room. He held it in his hand and was examining it when it activated.
He was ash in an instant.
Far away, the soldiers of Allor saw the blast. Even further away they saw their Lord God crossing the sky in his flaming chariot. Men and women on horses rode across the border. Other men and women set fires in Ceros cities and towns.
The destruction of Ceros had begun.