The Legend of Lojax
05:18 Mar 26 2006
Times Read: 560
this is the prologue from my book, a fantasy novel i wrote some time ago, and am only now making an effort in regards to getting it out there. maybe i'll have it published online sometime, or even bound, as though it were an actual book... one can dream...
it's the story of 'the unlikely hero' - a theme i have always been drawn to. the legendary hero Lojax has a double in our world, a simple man named Larry, who is faced with the challenge of his life. can this carpet salesman from Ballard fill the shoes of a legend? in the prologue, we are introduced to Lojax, the warrior/priest in his prime, and doing what he does best - kicking ass...
Prologue
Commander Jidian Makur squinted his eyes as he surveyed the plain below him. It was still dark, and a gray haze was lingering in the east as if Night was reluctant to give control of the sky over to the sun god. He used to be able to see in this kind of light, but the years had taken a few things from him, and he found himself relying ever more on the reports of his officers or the young eyes of his flag bearer. He knew it was foolish, but he leaned forward, as if that would help him see what was happening at the base of the hill he had retreated to. He was trying to make out the details in the tide of bodies and spears and banners, ebbing and flowing against one another. Desperate shouts and the clash of battle were almost deafening.
Things had gone horribly wrong. He had led his army with confidence, and as he now saw, arrogance, into a trap. He had ordered the retreat, and had managed to rally his soldiers to a quick and vicious counter attack. It had looked as though victory would be his after all.
Then something had happened which hadn’t made any sense. All he could do at first was stand and stare. Many of his front line troops had dropped their weapons and ran. These were well trained soldiers of the Empire; brutal, efficient, obedient. Some of them were veterans, men who had faced death countless times. And all of them knew the punishment for cowardice was much worse than a quick and honorable death on the field. But they had turned and fled.
So he had rallied them once again, retreating to the hillside to get this mess under control.
What had happened there on the front line?
He had sent Sergeant Krovak out to gather reports. He had always figured Krovak would rather strangle a superior officer before he would watch him turn coward, and many of the officers knew it. They resented the confidence Makur had given the brutal sergeant, but he didn’t care. It was good to have a man like Krovak close at hand. It kept everybody honest.
Makur stopped straining his eyes and ran a hand through his long graying hair. A half hour earlier, he had been desperately shouting orders, trying to organize the troops and counter the chaos which was devouring his army. But now he just stood there, with one question running over and again through his mind: has a legend come true today?
His standard bearer, whom he had chosen personally for his steadfast, almost stupid nature, was obviously at the end of his courage; the Imperial flag bearing the three black lions on a blue field was shaking in his white-knuckled grip. These men were not used to losing battles. That was why they were falling apart. Or was it something else?
A junior officer beside him took an arrow in the throat and fell gurgling to his knees. A desperate hand reached out, clutching at Makur’s cloak as a stream of blood sprayed onto his boots. He stepped away from him. Let the man die with some dignity.
Despite his bad eyes, he could see that some men were standing and putting up a decent fight, but many, far too many were retreating. He saw all this with an almost distant curiosity, as though this nightmare was happening to someone else.
A burly man with a grizzly black beard marched up the hill, shoving soldiers of both sides out of his way as he went. His chain mail was covered in gore and mud, his helmet was dented, and he had lost his shield. But he moved like a man who was in his element. This was what he had been born to do. This was what made him happy.
He stood before Makur and knuckled his forehead.
“Sir. The enemy has broken the lines, and Lieutenant Dorek is dead. Lieutenants Contel and Sherak are missing, as are some of their ranks. I believe they have turned and fled the field.” He spat on the ground as he finished this last sentence.
Makur nodded his head. He could almost make out their banners now. They were not more than a few hundred yards away, not counting the vanguard which had cut their way through his right flank a few minutes earlier, and were now making a strategic retreat, attacking the rear of what remained of his front line.
Krovak cleared his throat, assuming Makur’s silence meant he was to go on.
“Several of the men that I -” he paused, searching for the right word; it could be tricky if he said this wrong, “-questioned, babbled some nonsense before they died, about pain and fear.”
Makur still said nothing.
“Not because of me,” Krovak added. “They were afraid of something else. Terrified, actually.”
A few hours earlier, Makur had been thinking of the medal he would undoubtedly have pinned to his chest for the crippling strike today’s victory would deal to the rebellion. Not that he really cared about the medal, he had plenty of them. It was meeting the Emperor again that he had looked forward to, and the prestige that would come with such a meeting.
He had also been thinking of hot baths, and soothing oils rubbed into his skin by young slaves. But now, instead of issuing the orders for the execution of the officers and enslavement of the enemy’s regular soldiers, he was looking down on his own ruin. Men were running past, some of them screaming with a kind of terror he had not seen since he had toured the Capitol Dungeons last year.
“Stand and fight, you cowards!” The silence of his commander had confused Krovak, and he found comfort in action. He grabbed the closest fleeing soldier by the hair and dragged him to the ground, pounding his big fists over and over into the prone soldier's face.
Commander Makur was squinting again, over the helmets and spears of his own remaining troops, to the approaching ranks of the enemy.
“The tide has turned,” said Makur quietly.
Sergeant Krovak lashed out from the ground, grabbing the ankle of another soldier as he ran past, tripping him.
“Fight, or die by my hand!” he bellowed as he smashed the man’s head against a large rock. Several nearby soldiers actually stopped retreating, and seemed to be weighing their options.
Makur stared in resigned disbelief at the sea of enemy soldiers, crashing down upon the small island of his remaining force.
“The enemy has a hero.”
“Soldiers of the Empire, stand true!” Krovak called to the men. Some of the more stalwart fighters rallied around the Sergeant, his massive presence bolstering their courage. They raised a ragged, yet defiant shout.
“Today is the day that I die.”
Krovak turned at this, and cocked his head at Makur. He respected this man, and had been under his command for several years now. He knew Makur to be a brilliant tactician and a ruthless soldier. He had never seen him admit defeat.
Krovak drew a huge broadsword from his scabbard and narrowed his eyes. Makur raised an eyebrow, wondering which way the brutal sergeant would turn.
“Not before me,” said Krovak, stepping up beside Makur. “Sir.”
Makur laughed at this, and put a hand on his shoulder.
“No, Krovak. You must yet live. I however, can never show my face in the Capitol again. Bring news of this hero to the Emperor. He's more of a threat than was ever imagined.”
Krovak spat on the ground again.
“That is an order, Sergeant.” Commander Makur was used to giving orders, and seeing them obeyed. “Now go.”
Cursing under his breath, Krovak obeyed. He shoved his way through the men as he walked off the field.
Makur squared his shoulders and hooked his thumbs into his belt. An impossible tide of warriors was falling upon him, led by a giant of a man in half ruined plate mail who strode up the hill with the confidence of victory. The officers closest to Makur fell back, forming a half circle around him.
“Let him pass,” Makur called to his men. They had no fight left in them anyway and obeyed immediately, making way for the advancing warrior and his captains. Makur could still hear the shouts and cries of men fighting on the flanks. The battle was officially still not over.
The enemy captain approached and smiled. He was dressed in the garb of a war-priest, but the torn and bloodied cloth of his vestments were unfamiliar to Makur’s eye. So was the way he stood there, confident and proud, looking right at him with an unwavering gaze. Honest, Makur thought to himself, this is an honest man.
The priests on the Capitol were a different sort all together. They were manipulative bastards with wicked eyes that demanded obedience to the gods, or at least to The Order. The Priests of the Technocratic Order were the ones responsible for the actual functioning of the Capitol City. The Capitol was a massive technological wonder, but it was the arcane magic which actually held the impossible city together. He didn’t trust them or their ways. He trusted himself, and the sword.
The man now stood directly before him and nodded to him. Makur knew that formality dictated he speak first.
“The field is yours, I believe,” he said for the first time in his life.
The man before him nodded again and looked around. Then he made a gesture with his hands, a circular sweeping motion, spreading his arms wide, then bringing them back again.
Makur blinked as waves of light emanated from the warrior-priest, and the two of them were surrounded by a shimmering sphere. The men around them, the distant sounds of battle still being waged down the hill, faded, slowed, stopped.
He felt sick. He swallowed hard to keep from losing the meal he had eaten in the night. He managed to control himself and turned his eyes onto the man before him; looked a little closer. Everything about him was big, almost too big. He held an enormous war hammer in one hand, the long wooden haft of it stained with blood. Two great horns stuck straight out from his helm in a ridiculous fashion. A large bronze holy symbol hung from his neck on a thick chain, depicting a golden sun rising over hills, and the name ISHTAR. Makur wondered again, if the legend had come true.
“You're... Lojax.”
The man simply stared, the wild look of battle still hadn’t completely faded from his eyes.
Makur had told Sergeant Krovak that he couldn’t return to the Capitol and face the Emperor with such a defeat, and this had been partly true. But there had been another reason he had wanted to stay, had needed to stay. He had to face the man he now stood before, who had in a matter of hours destroyed one of the best trained armies in the Imperium. Makur needed to know if it was the man who had defeated him, or if he himself had simply become old and was ready for defeat.
“How...?” was all he could manage. He opened his palms and gestured to the battlefield.
Lojax’s voice was gravel from deep within his massive frame.
“The power of Ishtar runs through me. The Child has come. The Empire will fall.”
Makur almost laughed. Was this man mad?
“The Empire has stood for over eight hundred years.”
Lojax stared back at him. Makur shook his head in disbelief, but curiosity crept back. He had to know more about this hero of the rebellion, and his cause.
“Tell me, who is this child?”
“She will change the world,” answered Lojax. “She is the bringer of a new dawn.” He bowed his head as if in reverence. He looked back up at Makur, his eyes boring into him. “You are a great commander, Makur, and you have given your life to the Empire. But nothing can stand in the way of Ishtar. The Emperor and his Capitol are a disease which must be cured. Join us, fight again for a cause you can believe in.”
Makur heard truth in the big man’s words. The Empire was a disease. It had all but destroyed so many of the lands it depended on for resources to feed the huge machine. The Capitol was his home, but he had always known it was a monstrosity. ‘The Crawling City’ it was called by many, moving slowly, inexorably, down the massive network of tracks towards the next region to be exploited under Imperial domain. But he had never concerned himself with the politics of the Emperor he fought for. He was a soldier, and he did what he was told. Or at least that’s what he had told himself for thirty-five years.
“No,” he shook his head. “My destiny is sealed. I no longer have a place in this world.”
“You have a strong will,” said Lojax, studying him closely. “Some fates can be changed.”
Makur closed his eyes. The words of Lojax held power. He felt his own beliefs faltering for a moment, fueled by his doubts. If the legend of the Hero was true, then the other legends might be real as well. The Empire coming to an end? He shook his head again. No, he was simply too old for all this nonsense. Besides, he was no coward; he wasn’t about to walk off the field with the man who had just defeated him.
He took a long breath, and drew his sword. He held it before him, and studied the old notched blade, as if seeing it for the first time.
“Long live Emperor Io.”
Lojax nodded. “So be it.” He made a motion with his hands, dismissing the magic which had held them apart from the rest of the world. The barrier around them eroded and they were once again on the battlefield.
Lojax hefted his huge hammer as Makur raised his blade, and the two of them exchanged blows, parrying and dodging each other's attacks. Makur was older than Lojax, and his sword arm slower and just a little weaker than it was a decade earlier. Time may have robbed him of the edge he once had, but experience was on his side.
He managed to evade Lojax's heavy maul, and connected with a powerful stroke to his shoulder. The metal plates of Lojax’s armor held fast however, and he countered with a hard blow to Makur’s breastplate, almost knocking him to the ground.
The two of them fought for several exchanges, and Makur held his own against the stronger warrior. But his motions were mechanical, without spirit, as a man resolved to die. He had foreseen his fate, and was now prepared to meet it.
Lojax connected the haft end of his hammer to Makur's jaw, stunning him. Their eyes locked as Makur's sword wavered in his hand. Lojax swung the hammer in a wide arc towards his head. For Jidian Makur, all was darkness.
Lojax straddled the body of the fallen man, planting his feet to either side of him. He began to sway in a momentary trance of battle lust as waves of power and euphoria overcame him. He held out both arms, commanding the attention of the troops around him.
“The Child!”
A thousand voices answered as one deafening roar.
“ISHTAR!”
The battle had been won. The Empire had been routed. The golden light of the sun rose over the plain.
- © 2002
COMMENTS
-