Human Side Stories: Of Destruction and Creation.

Human Side Stories: Of Destruction and Creation.

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Commissioned by Citino

Wordcount: 2500

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From the east, five hundred have come from the mountain’s steppes. They join the ranks of those who they called their foes for all time. Six hundred men of the valley, with their long spears, have marched beside their ancient foe. The small tribes between them have also come forth, many poorly equipped and disparate, but garbed either by the two former foes. The number boggles the mind and even the sight is hard difficult to look upon. 

“I shall be bereft of wealth simply feeding my people and my newest allies. My lands cannot feed those who have said they shall come.” I confessed my worries to the hooded giant that stood by my side. Though my father and my father’s father taught me the ways of kings, and my blood ran true, I could not look upon him without bowing my head. The miracles he created, the magics he performed, and the message of the coming end he spoke of made it so even in my throne, surrounded by all my merits, I was subordinate to Him. “I must ask for your aid in feeding those that have not yet come.”

I feared his refusal and the hunger that shall be inflicted upon all before battle, but when he raised his head from silent contemplation and met my gaze, I could only feel small beneath a golden gaze.

“All shall be fed by my hand.” With a voice like whispered thunder and with limbs like corded bronze, he walked forth with limbs clad in gold and body swathed by white silk. He raised his hand towards the plains, which I looked upon as my father his father did before him, and he showed me true power. Not the power of men with swords, or gold and glory, but something utterly beyond my reach. Clouds formed upon a clear sky, then from the heavens fell snow, even in spring. Some gathered in his hand while falling upon all who came and my people. He offered it to me and I imbibed it with my own hand. For the first time, I felt truly full and satiated as I ate after the mere handful, he granted me. “Tell those who cannot fight to gather it and flee. The pace of the beast has quickened and they shall die if they stay.”

My heart wavered, not because I was commanded, but because of the prospect of defeat.

“How… how could we possibly fall?” A thousand able-bodied men were here. They were granted weapons made of iron and were alive with light. Those with bows, no matter their age and skill, found themselves able to hit anything with the arrows they were given. All warriors, from those who fought together and those who fought alone, claimed their strength has increased tenfold and mere bronze blades can no longer cut their skin. Did it matter that the pace of the incoming calamity increased? “Here, surrounding us, is the greatest army ever created! We cannot fall as long as you are with us!”

I expected a reprimand, a voice like crashing thunder, yet instead I received silence. And, upon the face of a being beyond me, in His face there was only sorrow and regret. In golden orbs that saw the truth more so than any other possibly could, was fear and apprehension. Not the face of a king of kings, but that of a father looking upon his son before they waded into battle against that which threatened their homes.

He turned away from me and left me to my court and the sight of jubilation in the distance. 

The silence was more damning than any words could have ever hoped to be and for the first time in my life I felt truly, utterly filled with fear.

What could drive Him to feel and fear as he did?

What was the calamity that now approached the unified peoples of the world?

To those questions, I knew I would only receive the answer upon the world’s ending.

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The Head Warrior approached me with a smile, while clad from head to toe in iron that drove away shadow. His was a life of violence rendered and dealt upon and by his body. In a battle a year ago, he lost his leg, and was consigned to merely teach the next generation of warriors until his death. Yet now he stood upon a new leg, one composed of metal, and obeyed him as his regular leg would, He is one of the Champions chosen by Him and he bore upon his iron-clad chest the symbol of a dove with wings spread. 

“My king we are ready for battle!” He stood at the head of six hundred of my finest. From birth, they were chosen and the work of many ensured that they were fed, trained, and organized unlike any other fighting force in all of the world. They were sharp of mind, stout of body, and quick of hands. Each one wielded a spear, a shield, and a sword, while the finest amongst them carried two quivers of arrows and a bow. My father set into motion their creation, so that I may conquer the mountains and seize the lands beyond, yet they would never fight their fated foes, but instead fight alongside them. “Say the word and the scouts shall be sent to harry our foe and have it fear us even as it approaches!”

“No. We stay and protect the beasts of fire He provided us.” I should have faith in my father’s greatest achievement, yet my eyes were drawn to the white-robed, elders in white cloaks who tended to the strange creatures that He brought into existence. They were great beasts who slept in chains, that mimicked the shapes of men, but were with featureless faces and the wings of birds grafted upon their backs. Each one had four arms and each hand gripped a spear as tall as five men. They were creatures that were worshipped with wide eyes by those from afar, yet He had looked upon the thirty he mustered and sighed. “I will not lose you and others. There is more battles to come beyond this one. Let the monsters fight and absorb the blows, while we take the victory.”

“Ah, your father taught you well! That is true! Even though I itch for a fight, I’d make for a poor Head Warrior if I were to fall.” Those words and the calm that followed them ought to have been impressive. It was the same as witnessing a man’s choice to simply cease lusting for blood. However, the sudden change merely reminded me of His silence and quiet worry. His was mood that was not changed easily. Nor did it change without purpose. “So? Do you feel it, my king? The lightning in the air? The razor-sharp winds? The coming of death?”

The words uttered by the Head Warrior reached the depths of my heart and he understood that I did not know what his words meant with a single glance.

“Yes. It’s good that you do not. It means your father did his job well, but after this battle you’ll surely know of it as well as I.” The Head Warrior turned his bearded face towards the horizon where all the chained, white, and winged giants were faced. One of his eyes was already dull and gray, but it felt as though both his eyes were solely locked upon what was to come. “I feel it, as everyone else who has truly fought. What comes is nothing less than our own benefactor, but one aligned for death rather than life.” The smile that formed upon his lips was unlike any other smile I’d seen before. It was filled with sorrow and anguish, but surrounded by impenetrable glee and excitement. “Glory comes, my king. Immortality in its truest state, in the only way men can hope to truly last for all time, is coming our way.”

I could not speak, as he looked upon me with eyes on the precipice of madness. 

“We shall become the myths and legends which will shape all of history. Us. All who are gathered here, we have all been brought together to one end, and that is to destroy something which feared by a creature that can create miracles.” His words were fevered, but steady as he spoke and turned his eye away from me. I felt shame curdle within my stomach, knowing that he saw my fear, but I still heard the strain of his manic smile as he spoke, while I looked towards the horizon. “This is it, my king, the day of reckoning. This is the day when mankind proves that it is worthy of standing above all the other creatures which claim this world. We stand here, now, to prove yourself and rise to meet evil with our weapons, bodies, and souls without qualm!”

His words should have stirred my heart, yet in the distance he stood upon a hill and looked upon the horizon where his beasts were faced. Though my eyes were not the sharpest amongst my people, I could see his features as clearly as though I were a step away. His teeth were grit behind thin lips. His eyes were unblinking. His hands were clenched into fists. My father’s teachings told me what the eyes of others could not. Fear, frustration, and fury filled Him. His was not the gaze of one with immense power and might, but that of a warrior who was facing imminent defeat.

So, though my greatest companion and warrior spoke of immortality, I could only think of my own demise. 

…

There was naught to be done in its path, despite all the power and might that mankind could hope to offer, there was nothing to be done. The men of the mountains, tall and rugged, were as easily slain as those of the peaceful valleys. Swords glistening with light did as poorly as those composed of chipped stone. Armor fell apart as muscle did, and no matter the number of battles waged by the warrior, the finest fell alongside the weakest. 

The forest was naught but black ash that filled the air and coated the lungs. Hills upon which animals grazed were reduced to lands that curved deep into the Earth’s lowest depths. Blue skies were tainted black. The baleful clouds that robbed all of the sun were filled with a red light. It colored all with the tint of scarlet and turned flesh black. 

He stood alone now.

The peoples of the world failed him, though he granted them power and might beyond their wildest dreams. Many had fled, or even offered their allegiance to the great, terrible beast which burrowed through the mountains and erupted from the Earth. Though they perished to it, they shall forever taint the sacrifice of even those who tried to fight against all of the world’s evils. In His wisdom, as He chose to send away the young and the old, we would be saved… as unworthy as we were of his efforts.

His people, the wizened eldered clad in white who tended to his beasts, had fared better than the rest of humanity. They wielded His power, guarding and shepherding those who could do naught but perish in the wake of our greatest foe, and I still lived as the last of them pressed his palm to my heart and pressed his scrolls into my arms, so that I might live on and act in his stead. With their power, they beat back the darkness, forced the dark cloud upward rather than have it ravage us as it did the forests, yet they all perished for their actions. 

His Beasts had charged into the darkness when it first came forth, but they never returned, even as the darkness regathered from their assault and came forth unimpeded. 

He was truly alone now. 

A single tower stood gleaming in the battlefield filled with blood and rot, a shining spear of white light which drove away the dark clouds and the baleful, scarlet poison that felled many before they stepped into battle. Upon that tower, He stood wielding a hammer that swirled with the light and warmth of the sun, and his white cloak was resplendent upon his unmarred, immaculate form. The winds howled, tearing stone and men apart, but it merely buffeted his ebony locks across his visage. Wrath filled him, superseding all other things, as he confronted the monster for us, for those who ran, and for the entire world. 

“I know not what you are, but you should not exist in this world!” His voice was truly like thunder now. It echoed for all the world to hear, even though I was the sole being alive to hear it. He bared his hammer toward the beast enrobed in ash, smoke, and baleful light and it was repulsed by a light greater than the sun, which threw into mountains that wasted away in its mere presence. However, it rose once again with a roar of defiance upon its lips. His immaculate form rose up into the air, his white robes discarded by the winds, but a purer brilliance enrobed him that could not have been carried by any mundane material. His form was touched by light, his body becoming purity itself, and in his presence blue skies once again bore upon the world with Him at its center. “Begone, beast! You are not welcome here! Fall! Fall into the depths of the underworld and never return!”

The ivory tower upon which he had risen trembled at his words, before rising upward. In unison, others arose with it, smaller, but still of the same make. From the ash and dust of the battlefield came forth the pillars which would keep the world safe from the predations of evil. The eyes with which I was blessed saw each one, as they formed a circle around the vile abomination that He faced, and as one they joined one another with chains that grew from them. The Beast roared at the sight, hateful at the sight of purity and creation, but it was too late.

Each pillar burned bright, splintering and breaking beneath the strain of the power He sent to them, but each one accomplished what they were made to do.

They chained the Beast, then dragged it down from where they came, even as it roared and spat flame in defiance… it fell and fell until it was no more.

It was a triumph. 

A success beyond imagining.

Yet He did not roar out in victory, but instead looked upon the devestation wrought by the Beast and tears fell from his stalwart gaze.

“I failed you. I am sorry.” His words were filled with trembling, as he bowed his head and returned to the earth. With care and empathy, he looked upon all those who still lay suffering from the Beast’s wrath and those who perished, and nothing besides loathing for himself filled him. He could not meet my gaze when our eyes locked. 

From that, I knew that my life had no greater purpose than to see this King of Kings ascend and make the world his own.

For not only did he have power, but he fought for humanity, as well.