Blood Confrères
Short Story
A submission for Iron Age Media’s prompt: The Centurion.
“Chaos, mayhem, and the magic brought about by the death of order rarely evades the notice of history. “
These were the words of a man named Fume who sat at the helm of a clan of confrères obsessed with the bloodshed of their time.
This was a time of severe conflict, a conflict which took to the grave a great many civilizations in one particular region of the world that knew only how to submerge itself under great depths of blood. The people of this region who knew naught but their own struggle for survival were often raided by other more gargantuan marauders who outmoded them in combat, and reaped the rewards of both money, and bodies living and dead earmarked by their rampage. Survivors fled the region overtime, only by a trickle, due to the lack of mercy of their attackers.
Any crew of howling brigands can lay steel to the flesh of some poor village forsaken to the terminal island that was misfortune, but these raiders were worse by a factor of a thousand. The only entity that ever gets the unerring attention of civilians, politicians, and Gods as a unit when attempting to do away with these gore-addicts, have been those men who have put down their own pedestrian maturation along the vines of life, and have charged teeth first into what was often the jaw of death itself.
The problem is, those men native to the problems of this region of blood did not succeed. Not yet, anyhow.
Fume’s unbending armies reach across mountains and oceans to grip at the throat of their opponents, only to squeeze and not let go until the target of their discontent has been utterly obliterated.
One tribe was burned to a crisp after being trapped inside their own base of operations. Another, axed to the very last man, that man also cleaved to death, due to these armies not adopting the currency that was diplomacy and warnings.
Thugs often seek wealth to artificially favor their own growth. Armies effectively commit to and write the preamble of their own demise, and expend their energy on taking their enemies with them to the gates of the abyss to fulfill a particular mission, not expecting to make it back with their original number.
These men had no mission, they just liked blood spilled.
Fume, the military maverick in charge of these rampant hordes knew this well, he was the one who engineered it after all. The aging chief of a more recent band of tribes once told him before his execution: “You and your number make no attempt at cloaking your actions in gold or honor. You are forces of nature unlike all the other armies yes, but you are not man. Man builds.”
The Chief’s steely single eye pried open Fume like a chest full of flames in the heart of a blizzard. The barbarian saw something that most did not see of Fume.
When Fume asked the chief why he came to that conclusion, the chief answered back: “Because you don’t rule over men. You host demons, and you will be the death of us all if not stopped.”
Furrowing his eyebrows with the torque of a rotting metal cable that popped at the first rumble of an earthly tremor, Fume pointed his index finger accusatorily, mocking the barbarian’s words. “What would you know? Learn to live as I do, and maybe your women wouldn’t flee to the secure states like starving mules smelling the alfalfa of those peaceable reprobates.”
Shooting back in this debate, the Barbarian had no need for a pause. “Yes, that’s the problem with your army. Yours mastered the art of sweltering, but the mold underneath waxes inquisitive, asking.. How long will I really last out here? I heard word, tall tales of the great Centurion who is bringing back order to these violent lands, your time is up.”
Plunging deep into the Chief’s remaining eye, Fume fumed and ensured he wouldn’t have to listen to the ramblings of a man too smart for his own good anymore. He hated the slight that came from that man’s lips. Insinuating that his great empire of destruction could ever fail was ludicrous in Fume’s eyes. Two of his warriors rushed into the tent this took place in, wondering about the gaggle within, and spying the dead chief bloodied on the floor, still in his bindings that he was restrained by since the last battle. For the first time the Chief’s words dropped all pretense associated with riddle and vacuity.
Fume was a shorter man, lanky, whom used magical spells to get what he wanted. Purple robes, and sickly green eyes marked his visage, but it was an appearance that few would recall, since they were usually killed in his wake. His soldiers on the other hand, were the ones affecting his handiwork due to mind control.
They were tall, muscular, their skin was tinted red as a result of their artificial enhancement provided by Fume’s magic and were already exceptional at combat due to years of the fighting Fume came about in. These marauders were unwell. Their mouths twisted vertically, making them look like insects more than Humans. The barbarian knew that this arrangement would not last forever, and he knew that this region of blood was only staying as such because of the power-trip of a madman.
It was a rare moment where the shifting discomfort of brigands that belonged to the Chief and others like him, those who first emerged as a result of the chaos, struck a far and away preference for surviving civilians than the second wave, which was all-encompassing bloodshed and slaughter that was Fume and his forces. This was why the women and children continued to flee away from his territory, into the clutches of what remained and still prospered of civilization. Unlike him, they did not find vigor in the dismay of everything, they found solace in their possible futures.
Leaving the prison tent, Fume turned his gaze to the far horizons of the land. Turning his far vision to its very limits, he spied upon the land, pondering for minutes at a time.
In the distance, he saw a man on horseback. Scout most likely, as Fume recognized military equipment on the man, and it looked like he was wearing a helm that hosted spikes and a colored mohawk was sported vertically down the middle of the helmet. A fiery gaze was directed towards Fume, it was as though the man, though being impossible for the average person, could actually see Fume from his plateau. This fanciful staring contest continued for a moment before the man turned away. As the man continued his business elsewhere, Fume reconciled his childish dismissal of reality.
Soon, his region of blood would get devoured by the next all-encompassing power. Only this was a power which reveled in order, and not his brand of chaos.
Fume was captured after a single battle which lasted three days, and was executed thus ending his de-facto reign of terror.