Chapter Sixteen
A King’s Request
Four years later
The night was ablaze with fire even as arrows rained down all around. Despite the stiffness of the continued aerial defense, I could tell that the city was weakening in the face of our siege against it. Still, I held off from commencing the final assault.
The longer the fire had to work on the enemy’s defenses, the weaker their defense against us would be. I was for anything that conserved the lives of the men under my command.
My hand rose to grasp at my armor encrusted chest. Beneath the armor lay the necklace that Susori had given me. It had been over five months since I had last seen her and my daughter Lavaya. Even now Susori was pregnant and would soon deliver what we both felt sure would be a son.
There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t think of them or wish that I was with them. Once this city fell then I would be free to go to them.
The last of my obligations to the peoples of Ayenathurim would be complete, when this last city of the giants of Sapan fell. At least that’s what I told myself. Without fail, some new crisis would rise to clamor for the attention of me and my men.
I didn’t care. I’d been too long from my family. I was going to them no matter what.
It was time for this city to fall!
I turned from the glittering lights of the city on fire to mount up onto Phalon. Once in the saddle I drew my sword and pointed to the East, “Tell the King of Smirnaz to begin his assault on the city and we will do the same from here!”
The aide to the King saluted and galloped off into the night. Pointing again I yelled out, “Advance the ramps!”
At my command, large elongated ramps began to trundle out toward the battered walls of the city that had been under siege for close to four months. Tonight was the night it would finally fall.
Arrows rained down upon the siege ramps, but to no avail. Even though the arrows had rags soaked in a combination of oil and pitch and flamed brightly, the ramps did not catch fire. I had utilized an old trick to keep wood from burning. Although the smell almost made me regret using it, except for the fact that it was working.
The seven ponderous ramps were well saturated with sewage water. I wasn’t quite sure of the science behind it, but the sewage waste was better at repelling flame than water alone.
“Benaiah, you should not go on the first assault into the city. It’s too dangerous. An arrow may strike you.”
I smiled and turned to look at Jarken, “Where my men go, so do I.”
Jarken sighed heavily, but remained silent. I turned forward once more. The ramps were getting close. A Knight stepped close to Phalon and handed my helmet up to me.
I felt an eagerness rise up in me as the action of the coming battle drew close. Win this battle and then I would see my family. My beautiful wife’s face came into view, along with that of my daughter, and for a moment they were all I saw in place of the burning city.
“Sir, the ramps are almost there!”
I snapped out of my fantasy and became once again the warrior leader of a host of several thousand men devoted as I was to the cause of justice. I took in the position of the ramps and then I urged Phalon out to skirt along the side of the front ranks of double pressed cavalry behind me.
The burning fires of the city glinted dully off their armor even as a slight drizzle of rain began to fall to our favor. The army was ready.
“Men, you know what is before us. A city full of hybrids! Men and women who have forsaken the bloodlines of their ancestors and combined themselves with the seed of the fallen ones! They are an abomination before El Elyon and if they were allowed to remain they would continue to corrupt the bloodline of our kind! They make war with us out of eternal hatred, but now is the time to give them their eternal reward which they so richly deserve! Not one of them is to be left alive! Are my orders clear?”
“Yes sir!!!” bellowed back the host before me.
“Then to war!!!” I yelled, as I wheeled Phalon toward the city of giants. The Kingdom of Sapan had ever been at war with the Kingdom of Smirnaz. The giants of Sapan had often feasted on the flesh of the people of my birth and although there were many wars between the two kingdoms, never had the Kingdom of Smirnaz claimed a victory before this last war that had gone on for two years now.
This was the last city of giants left in Sapan. The reclusive giants that called these high peaks home would soon be no more.
I had lost good men in this war and I would lose more tonight, but our cause was righteous and the need for victory was great. The other Kingdomer Nations had never come to the aid of the poorest of the seven kingdoms, but now, after this fight, the Kingdom of Smirnaz would be at peace on all its borders, while the rest of the world toward the south and west fell apart as the tide of evil rose worldwide. It was that same evil we fought tonight, only we would win where other Kingdomer Nations were failing.
Phalon, in full battle regalia, plunged across the blood soaked ground littered with arrows and the debris of past days' engagements. We drew ever closer to the wall formed of gigantic boulders, precision placed by the offspring of the fallen Malachim.
The city was a formidable fortress, but greater than this last holdout had already fallen prey to the will of the men, still pure in their bloodline, that charged at my back. Size didn’t make the man and this war against giants proved it.
Arrows, from giant sized bows that were twice the length of our own arrows, flew by me to slam into others in the unbroken line of surging heavy cavalry. Where one horse and rider went down another soon took his place.
Swords forward, we broke our fixed line to angle for each of the seven ramps that had just now clamped against the base of the city wall. I dodged Phalon to the left and a giant sized spear plowed into the ground where we had just been. Another passed by my head so close that I felt the whisper touch of its staff against my helmet.
I heard the scream of a horse falling behind me, which no doubt heralded the death of yet one more of my treasured men, and the knowledge of that drove me on harder. Phalon leapt onto the ramp’s back and chewed up the wood slatted slope that still stank of the refuse of men and animals.
Within moments the battered wall top was before us and a giant that topped my own height by four feet stabbed at me with a spear. I ducked under the jab of the spear even as I swung my blade for the giant's head. As Phalon’s iron shod hooves let off sparks upon landing on the wide wall top, even so did the giant’s helmeted head as it fell with a dull clatter onto the stones.
On foot these giants of Sapan dwarfed us, but on horseback we were their equal for height. With a spike affixed to his head plate, Phalon gored into another giant guard. The giant was driven backward as he let out a roar of pain.
I drew my second sword clear, even as both of the giant’s grasping six fingered hands reached to break my horse’s neck. Both hands fell to the ground from a forward swishing downstroke of my blades and screeching the giant fell down before us, only to be clambered up and over by Phalon.
More and more of my Knights had streamed up and over the wall and the giants, for all their size, could not match our numbers or the force of our will. Still, the fighting was intense and it was with relief that I saw the main gate to the city burst inward from the force of a siege ram under the command of the King of Smirnaz.
Soon the King’s forces were backing us up in the tight melee of conflict, which was to our advantage when facing giants. The less room a giant had to fight with, the more easily they fell to our blades. In close conflict their giant spears and swords were of no help to them, even as our quicker blades flashed repeatedly into their tough hides and bled them dry.
The walls overrun and all the gates open to our combined forces, our complete annihilation of the city began. Not one of the mixed bloods was permitted to live. Neither were their livestock, which they often copulated with, allowed to live. There would be no spoil taken of this city either. Instead, the fire would cleanse all until only the rocks remained.
My swords dripping with blood, I found my way past the few remaining scenes of open conflict to an area relatively free of the bodies of the fallen. Shoving my swords into the ground I knelt and as was my custom I prayed. I prayed a prayer of thankfulness to El Elyon that the city had fallen at the loss of far fewer men than I had expected.
There were reports from many of how, on the approach to the city, the enemy’s arrow shafts had been blown off course by sudden breezes and how, once inside, the giants had seemed to be sluggish and far from the berserking wrath that legends were full of.
It was a miracle and the knowledge that I could now go to my family eased the built up tension surrounding my heart.
“Sir!”
Glancing up, I saw a high ranking Knight of our allies of Smirnaz. He looked very shaken and for a moment I thought the battle had taken a turn for the worse in my brief absence. One quick look confirmed otherwise though.
The Knight was speaking, “The King has fallen! He bids you come quickly!”
I got up, leaving my swords in my haste to follow the other man. Near where the gate had been broken in was a tight pressed knot of Knights, which made way before me as I came closer.
The King had indeed fallen. He was transfixed to the ground by a giant spear that gored him completely through his middle. The only way he was still alive was that the shaft of the spear must’ve formed a tight seal to help hold in his blood. Even so he was near death.
I knelt down beside him and his hand reached up to grip the back of my head, my helmet having fallen off some time previously in the fight for the city.
“We did it! You and I! We are men of a generation that I never expected to live to see this glorious day when our enemies of old stand defeated on all sides!”
I nodded, as I gripped his other hand. There was a fierce joy to behold in his eyes as he gaspingly said, with all the force he could muster, “Smirnaz is free!”
“Yes my King,” I said.
His hand let go of my head to thrust at my chest, “And you are the one who has made it possible! You and the men you lead.”
I shook my head, “I would not have gotten far without a king such as you, willing to risk all in the pursuit of freedom. In truth, the glory is El Elyon’s because the victory we have achieved together is greater than either of us could have ever brought about by our own devices.”
Blood trickling from his mouth the King spoke, “Well said. Spoken like a King. Truly there has never been a more nobler bastard born to woman than you!”
I smiled, not taking offense in the slightest. The King coughed and I thought he was on the verge of passing out, when he suddenly gripped hold of my chest plate armor hard enough to pull me closer and say, “Truly there is no one better qualified than you to be king in my absence!”
Stunned, I stared at him in shock as he moved his intensely staring eyes from me to those that were around us, “Hail your new King!”
As one the Knights bowed low to the ground, even as I began to object, but the King would have none of it, “Benaiah, you and I both know how late the hour is. Without a strong leader the victories that we have achieved will all be for naught.”
How to tell him?
“Your highness, even as the prophetic hour is late, there will soon be no more kingdoms to be ruled over by Kings. You do me too great an honor in these last days to make me King.”
The King’s hold on me relaxed as he shook his head, “Truly, granting you kingship is not honor enough for your exploits these past four years on behalf of the seven kingdoms. Yes, the times of kingdoms will soon be no more I fear, but there will be a Kingdom! A Kingdom not built by men, but rather of El Elyon himself. Benaiah, I need you to lead the people into that Kingdom that even now draws nigh. Will you do it?”
At a loss for what else to do I nodded, wanting the King’s last few moments in life to be those of peace and not of concern. He smiled and gave me a faraway look as he said, “I can see it now Benaiah. I can see what we’ve been fighting for!”
I looked into his eyes, hoping to see a glimpse of whatever he was seeing of the realms of Shamayim but it was to no avail. His eyes refocused onto seeing only me and he said with a soft smile, “Thank you for teaching me and showing me the way back to the beliefs of my fathers', long since passed.” And with that said he was gone from the land of the living, the smile still on his face but his crushed body devoid of its soul.
I laid his hand to rest on his chest and rose up to my feet. Everyone was looking at me. I had a nation at my feet, but I was a man without desire for such a responsibility and yet it had always been that way. Ever since my days with Kuri, more and more had been asked of me.
“See to removing the King’s body from the city and the withdrawal of our troops before the fires become too great.”
The Knights leapt to obedience, even as I made my way away from them.
*****
I climbed up the battlements that I had taken an hour or so before and stared out into the night. I was now the king of an entire nation. What did that really mean?
Why was I so little enthused by the prospect of being a king? Susori would be ecstatic. She was forever about my advancement, but all I really hungered for was a simple life far from the maddening crowd where I could live and raise my children in peace.
Now the responsibility of not only the men who pledged themselves to me, but that of an entire nation, weighed on the decisions I made. El Elyon give me strength as this was all just too much to bear!
My attention was gained by light given off by torches that flared brightly in the darkened valley below the city. Who was this rushing in the night towards the scene of conflict and war?
The group of riders boldly approached the city and I made my way down off the battlements. The party of riders was put to a halt by surprised Knights not expecting the appearance of a third-party.
As I approached the riders I pondered on who they could be. As near as I could tell they were all warriors of which several were women. I came to a halt before the lead rider, a woman.
There was something familiar about her and then she spoke and opened up old memories to me, “Kuri sends his regards.”
She smiled as I exclaimed, “Mayrin?”
She nodded, still smiling, but then her face sobered, “It’s time. Kuri wants you to face the witch of Vella in his stead and convince her to let the Yesathurim people under her control go. They are the last of the tribes to be gathered.”
I looked at her blankly as everything happening this night was all just too much for me to continue comprehending clearly. “Gathered?” I asked.
She nodded her head quickly, “The Targon Mountains are overrun by every vile creation of the fallen ones imaginable! The Yesathurim have been gathered together in the valley that you helped clear in the Holy Mountains years ago. We have built a city, along with a great wall, to hold our enemies out. It has been our only task since Kuri has drawn us all back together from the nations. The only clan that remains abroad is that which the Witch at Vella controls. You will help us won’t you?” she asked, suddenly looking uncertain for the first time.
I was the King of a people who needed a leader. I was the husband and father of a family that needed me. But I was first and foremost the trusted servant of the man who’d made me to be the man that everyone seemed to think was impossible to do without.
How could I betray that first and most sacred trust? I couldn’t.
“I will do as Kuri asks and go to confront the Witch at Vella.”
There was a general stir in the Knights around me and focusing on them I said, “And then, if El Elyon permits, I will bring my wife and children back here in order to rule as your King, but this I must do first. If this is not to your liking then elect another king to rule over you.”
“No!!! We will wait. We will have you and no other as king, as ruler over us!” one Knight said.
Another Knight stepped forward and said, “As our king the army should go with you to Vella.”
I shook my head, “The army stays here to protect Smirnaz. The men under my command will also stay in order to ensure that the people are safe from attack by anyone emboldened by your leaderless state in my absence.”
Strong objections began to be raised, but I shut them off, “I am the King and I have spoken, even so do as I have commanded!”
In the silence that followed I turned to Thanuel, who’d come up to the scene, “I place you in command in my absence.” To his credit, Thanuel voiced no objections before the others, but I knew it would have been far different should I have given him the order in a more private setting.
Then turning to the crowd of Knights I said, “I have long awaited the call of this mission to Vella. Years have gone by since it was given to me by my master and I shall not fail him, even as I know you will not fail me in doing what I have asked of you. I believe this mission heralds in the end of our time as we know it. It is my strong belief that the time of kingdoms is at an end and that the Kingdom of Shamayim is close at hand. Prepare your hearts and look closely to your lives to make sure that you are right with El Elyon. I would also caution you to put your houses in order and to be ready to leave the lands that we have fought so hard for these past few years and be ready to go to the East, even as prophecy would have us believe such will be the way to the Kingdom. I leave you now as there is no time to be wasted, but know that you will be in my prayers.”
Sar’ran had brought Phalon up to the back of the crowd and I made my way through them and mounted up. Sar’ran had already lightened the load by taking off Phalon’s battle armor and I thanked him for it.
Sar’ran gripped my arm and looking down to his face I saw tears make their way through the soot that caked all our faces. Meeting his eyes I said, “I will be back and I will ride with all my friends again. We have yet more battles to face together, of this I am sure.”
He gave a firm nod and let go, even as Jarken handed both of my swords up to me. I waved farewell and took off for the broken gate of the city, not waiting for Mayrin and her band of warriors.
As I streamed down the mountain valley I heard Mayrin and the others catch up. Vella was before me in the distance across the length of Ayenathurim, but my mind was filled with the sad reality that I still could not go to my family that I had left in Crona, even though I had won this last battle.
The battle of this night was just to be the first of many, even now I rode towards a battle of the spiritual. I was committed to the task of freeing Kuri’s people in Vella, but I hoped that El Elyon handled the Witch. Indeed, it was out of concern for what the Witch could do that had in large part made up my mind to leave my personal army here.
This coming battle with a powerful Witch would be far different than any physical engagement of war such as this night had heralded and yet I had confidence it could be won. I had confidence because Kuri thought I could do it and if he believed so then I knew that even so it would be done.