Tyrant of the Ruined Sun

Chapter 75: Hamilcar's Expedition 7

The two armies wrestled long and hard, their ferocity increasing tenfold by the second. Further and further pushing each other to more and more deranged extremes of slaughter. Turning the battlefield into a whirlpool of carnage, carelessly pulling in all who were near it before shredding them under the sheer pressure of it's relentless and unfeeling momentum.

But Hamilcar's experienced eyes saw far deeper than that. He knew that the current butchery was only the prelude of what was to come. Like a glass window submerged under water, it's only a matter of time before it succumbs to the mounting weight and shatters, and so was this battle. The ever rising levels of depravity were eventually going to rupture, and with it one side would fall.

That side most likely being the Eclipse Empire's. Which did not anger Hamilcar, as so much can be done by the sheer force of brute strength and blind courage alone. Especially against an enemy so many times their number. But he was not worried as his army had not yet fully revealed it's claws.

And just as he thought that, crimson columns lanced down from the skies, bathing the Olgan archers in fire, momentarily silencing their bows that had reaped the souls of hundreds of Eclipse soldiers.

And since most of the Murathicus Tribes had no real air force of any kind to speak off, the Olgan warriors were utterly unprepared for the devastating attack they faced, made all the worse by the fact that they kept huddling together, due to their basic human instinct, as well as their training which always stressed that they need to remain close to their officers, which gave the Chimera Knights a plethora of easy targets to choose from, instead of dispersing across the entire plains in a loose formation, which would greatly diminish the Chimera's effectiveness.

Yet slowly but surely the Olgan warriors began to adapt, with some of the brighter officers even commanding their men to stay away from each other and to begin firing back. Though this still did very little, as they felt they were fighting shadows.

Whenever they attacked one of the Chimera Knights, they would quickly ascend to escape the hail of arrow fire, before vanishing in the night sky due to the Chimera's natural black fur, only for them to appear on a different side of the battlefield and surprise attack them again and again and again.

But that was only the start of their misery as suddenly the horizon thumped with the sound, of what seemed like to them as muffled thunder. Yet they saw no clouds in the sky, which furthered the shroud of confusion blanketing their minds.

A shroud that was as violently ruptured as the earth when the first volley of projectiles struck their lines, causing lurid flowers of dark brown and red to bloom across the field, in a morbidly beautiful, macabre masterpiece.

Cannons were not as much of a rarity as an air force in the Murathicus lands, so the clan warriors weren't as shocked or unprepared by it, yet due to them still abiding by the same dominating doctrine of artillery warfare as the rest of the world, cannons were only judged by their size and strength. Thus, the cannons who were inherently cumbersome in nature and required a great expense to purchase, manufacture and even operate, were forgone by most clans below the large grade. And the Olgan and Dolgan Clans were the same as well, having absolutely no artillery in their arsenal.

Yet that proved to be the last of their worries at the moment, as the clans still found all their previously held beliefs completely shattered as this battle continued on.

"Are those cannons?!" One Olgan Clan warrior asked in disbelief, as he tightly pinned down another thrashing warrior, so that a second man bandaged his burned body.

"It has to be. Nothing else could do this." The second man replied between applying the medicine and wrapping bandages.

"But aren't cannons supposed to take hours if not days to set up? How are they firing so soon?! And how are they firing so much? Don't cannons need ages to reload? Do they have hundreds of them?!" The man asked again, his voice now betraying his mounting panic, as the colors fled from his face.

"I don't know! Just hold him down already!" The second man raised his voice more than he intended, and his tone came out harsher than he desired, but his own fear and anxiety pushed them to that unwanted extent.

He opened his mouth to make right his wrong, only for a stray cannon ball to strike near them at that moment, and send them flying back under a shower of ash and their own boiling blood.

And during all this time, Barrafin, who had led the charge himself, remained completely unaware of all that was transpiring elsewhere on the battlefield, his sole focus being on his sword and the foe before him, his mind consumed by a single phrase "Just one more. Just one more. Just one more." His sword slashing to the rhythm of his focused mind.

'Just one more.' He thought, convincing himself that one more life could tip the balance in their favor, even though he knew it wouldn't. Not as long as that demon was on their side. Yet what else could he do? Nothing. That was an undeniable fact.

'Just one more.' It echoed again in his desperate mind.

He wouldn't accept it. No, he couldn't accept it, or he feared his reason and will would vanish with it. He had to keep fighting. He had to keep killing. Until he found the answer, until he found his salvation. He couldn't lose hope, not yet. Not before he has used every ounce of strength left in his body. He won't give in!

But just then, a crimson flash blinded him as a gust of hurricane wind rippled around him, tossing him to the blood stained ground.

Scrambling to his feet, he struggled for a brief, terrifying moment due to his still rattled mind, before his eyes finally registered what had happened. The battlefield that was so cramped he struggled to swing his blade and not strike his allies, was now barren within a hundred meter diameter around him, as his once brave comrades lie there on the ground beside him, with the sort of agnostic expression that only those who have faced the truly ludicrous can show.

Tearing his head away from the sight of his fallen brothers, Barrafin beheld the man responsible, wanting to glare at him with all the rage and malice of his martyred men; yet all he could muster at this moment was a fearful stare and a hitched breath.

Before him stood none other than Hamilcar, blood still dripping from the edge of his war axe. Barrafin could feel it now, Death's breath at the back of his neck and the thick taste of blood in the cool night's breeze. At that moment he knew this was it, this is where he will take his final breath, where his lease on life would expire. This was it.

Yet instead of feeling a crippling sensation of existential crisis or a serene acceptance of the inevitable, his heart and mind were set a blaze by the phrase that had dominated them both this entire time, but now greater than ever before, as if molten fire had replaced his blood.

'Just. One. More.' His mind roared as he steadied his hands and rushed at the perceived demon before him, his aura flaring wildly around him as he swung his blade with a cry of effort, using his all in that one strike, picturing himself as the valiant hero in one of his favorite stories his parents used to tell him when he was but a young, curious child.

But this was not such a fantastical tale, but reality where miracles where far harder to come by.

Barrafin's mightiest strike, that he poured his all into was not even given the courtesy of facing Hamilcar's blade, but the back of his left hand, as he casually slapped his sword out of his grasp.

Shock was the only word that could describe Barrafin's current state of mind, yet the only thing aching him more than his now bleeding palm, was the humiliating disregard of his foe and his own sense of weakness.

Allowing these emotions to further fuel him, Barrafin clutched his fists and looked back up at the towering Hamilcar ready to fight to the end. He swung his fist madly, with no technique or plan, but a desperate move powered only by desperate emotions.

Yet as expected, this again did not work as he suddenly felt an odd sense of weightlessness, as the sky and the earth exchanged places in his eyes, a strangely beautiful scene he thought at that moment. A scene he couldn't appreciate for long, as he suddenly felt himself crashing into the ground, with such force it knocked the wind out of his lungs, which made him desperate to reclaim some of it, only for blood to gush out of his mouth instead!

'My ribs are shattered. And judging by the burning sensation I'm currently feeling, as well as the blood, I'm sure a few of my bones have pierced my organs too.' He calmly analyzed, though he didn't understand why he was still alive. He knew full well that Hamilcar could easily have killed him just then, but he didn't.

'What are his intentions?' He thought fearfully.

That's when he suddenly heard him say "You have a true warriors heart, Barrafin of the Dolgan Clan."

Gazing up at him, Barrafin, though he hated himself for it, couldn't deny himself the sudden burst of pride at having acquired the recognition of this seemingly invincible man standing in front of him. Yet, before he could fully embrace it as the final words he would ever hear, the hand he thought would be clenched to deliver the killing blow was instead offered opened, with his palm to the sky, in an inviting gesture as he heard "It is unfortunate for someone such as you to perish in this trivial place, that could never hope to truly reveal your true brilliance. I, Hamilcar Seth, Grand Marshal of the Eclipse Empire, offer you a once in a life time opportunity to join us."

"You want me... to join you?" Barrafin asked in a disbelieving tone.

"Indeed." Hamilcar replied emotionlessly, yet his eyes said otherwise as they bore into him.

Barrafin stayed silent for a moment, before he replied with indignant rage lacing his venomous words, while completely disregarding the horrendous pain he was in "You damned northern invaders! Talking as if the whole world is beneath you! Do you take me for a coward, who would betray his people? Or do you think my honor is so cheap that it can be bartered for my soul? Which is it? Tell me! What do you take me for, you bastard?! I am Barrafin, Patriarch of the proud Dolgan Clan, not some common trash that would turn his coat at the toss of a damn coin! I'd rather die than pledge allegiance to such a blood hungry nation which invades it's peaceful neighbors on a child's whim!" He finished with a roar so loud, he felt his already wounded chest nearly collapse in on itself.

The silence that followed between the two was more deafening than the cacophony of the battle raging around them. And this continued and continued with each second passing by in an increasingly slower pace, until Barrafin couldn't hold it in anymore and wanted to continue cursing at him, but was instead stopped by Hamilcar asking "You would blame a lion for hunting a gazelle?"

"... What are you...?" Barrafin wanted to retort, only to be stopped yet again by Hamilcar's words, which echoed with an added layer of ageless wisdom.

"Words, Barrafin of the Dolgan Clan, hold far more meaning in them than most people give them credit for. And unlike you, who has taken on the stern yet loving title of Patriarch or the many others who have inherited the strong and high title of king, the man I call master does not go by such mundane labels. As he has claimed non other than the title of Emperor. Tell me, do you know what an Emperor means?"

Barrafin, feeling himself returned to the time his father used to lecture him when he did something wrong, remained silent, his mind conjuring no answer to follow up such sagacious words.

Hamilcar, seeing his plight, continued calmly "It is the representation of the highest place any man can hope to reach and this changes you, Barrafin of the Dolgan Clan. For with the title of Emperor you, and with it your nation, are not only obliged but in need to become a carnivorous being, who can only thrive on the spilled blood and conquered lands of your foes, otherwise you face a withering like that of a bloated, rotting corpse, from both within and without."

Barrafin felt a chill like nothing he has ever experienced before racing across his body, at the depiction of Hamilcar's words, yet before he could even get a momentary respite to somewhat organize his mind, Hamilcar resumed "So you see, your earlier anger at us was misguided, as we don't come here out of a sudden whim to bully the weak, instead it is out of necessity for own survival against a far bigger and far, far more dangerous world than you can ever hope to imagine. But if you must find blame with someone, then I suggest you direct it towards the Gods who fixated the eyes of a born predator, such as my master onto your lands."

Barrafin felt his knees almost buckle beneath him in protest, as if begging him for a respite after several tons of invisible weight had suddenly been dropped on his shoulders. Yet that was only going to get worse as Hamilcar, his arm still outstretched asked yet again "Now that you know, I ask you again, Barrafin of the Dolgan Clan, to join us, not only for yourself, but for the prosperity of your clan as well."

Barrafin, feeling as though he had suddenly found himself on fate's crossroad lowered his head, and remained silent, weighing all the possibilities he could think off, before replying with a parched voice, as if he's endured a march through the desert without water for months on end "On one condition..."