The Three Kings by Slawomir Rapala	Biography and Bibliography
Table of Contents Chapter II: A Line Undone part 6 of 6

They came too late. Aezubah knew it already before he even reached the village leading a group of almost a hundred Northern Wolves and with two legions of Lyonese troops following them. On the way to Uaal they met with the remains of the band of Wolves that Jasper dispatched earlier to fetch the Duke and Iskald. They could not have known that Vahan had taken the shorter route through the woods and arrived in Uaal a long time before they expected him to.

Having found no sign of the two on the road, the band of Wolves quickly headed towards the village when suddenly they were ambushed by an overwhelming number of Tha-kians. Surprised and caught off guard, showered by hundreds of deadly arrows, the band was crushed within moments and forced to flee. Those who survived the unexpected attack met up with Aezubah, who had gathered forces as soon as he and Jasper returned to the Jewel and followed the first party.

Then they all hurried to Uaal, hoping to reach it in time, but Aezubah knew that they were too late even before he could smell the burnt wood and flesh, before he could see the destruction through the trees and before he rode into the devastated village and halted his horse abruptly in the middle of the smoking rubble.

Aezubah, Jasper and the others slowly and quietly climbed off their saddles. Words were not needed. Everyone knew they had come too late to save anyone. The villagers were butchered. What the Tha-kians left behind them was hideous: charred and mangled bodies of men, women and children, torn, tortured, tormented. The destruction was complete and no one was spared.

Without uttering a single word or making any gesture, the General slowly began to make his way through the burnt remains. While the others wept and whispered among themselves, lifted their hands to the sky, shook fists, cried and shouted insults at the Tha-kians and swore to avenge the villagers, Aezubah remained silent. Slowly and thoroughly he examined everything that remained, he looked at all the bodies. They lay everywhere, ragged, burnt and covered with blood; men, women and children alike. The bodies of younger women he found thrown naked in the bushes, bruised and beaten, evidence of brutal rapes.

Toddlers and babies were strangled and left lying by the bodies of their mothers. The bodies of men were covered with terrible wounds from swords and axes. Some were beheaded, their heads taken as trophies to hang on the Tha-kians’ walls. The expressions on all of the faces of the dead were that of hideous pain.

Aezubah looked everywhere once and then twice. His companions slowly grew quieter seeing his grief and they busied themselves carrying the bodies out into the open. They did not dare disturb the old man’s thoughts. His eyes were blank, his face motionless, and only from time to time when he leaned over the bodies, a painful grimace twisted his features. No one for even a moment doubted that Aezubah’s revenge would be horrific. If there was anything that the General excelled in, it was vengeance.

Several warriors stopped before the old man. He looked at the body they carried and closed his eyes. “Aaron,” His voice was quiet and grim.

The elderly chief had died from a savage blow to the head. The murderous Tha-kians spared no one during their vicious rampage.

“The Duke!” Aezubah suddenly heard. He walked to a burnt, crumbled household situated by the wall of the cliff. That was where they found Vahan.

The Duke of Lyons presented a strange sight. While other bodies were all twisted and mangled and pained, he rested smiling and serene. Miraculously, his body was not touched by fire. Were it not for the horrific gash in his chest, one would think that the Duke was simply sleeping. Sleeping quietly and dreaming a good dream. There was no fear in his face; it was joyful and filled with happiness.

The warriors looked at the body of their Duke with almost a divine fear while he rested in silence, mighty and powerful even in the cold embrace of death. Aezubah approached him, looked into his friend’s face, and then closed his eyes for the last time without saying a word.

“Take him away!” His voice was hoarse when he gave the order. He thought he knew why Vahan smiled at the moment of his death. After sixteen years of loneliness, of pain and suffering, sixteen years of living with only the memory of his beloved wife, his spirit had finally joined hers in the afterlife. The pain Vahan had carried in silence for all these years was gone. The fearless soul of a proud and noble warrior left the earth and joined the soul of a beautiful and virtuous woman.

Who knows? Perhaps she appeared to him in the moment of his death, took him by the hand and led him away from all the grief and the anguish, the misery and the pain of living, embraced him tenderly, smiled and welcomed him to a better world?

It was dusk before they carried out all of the bodies. Iskald was not among them. Aezubah also noted that all the youths were missing.

“You think they nabbed him?” Jasper asked quietly as he approached the old man.

Aezubah stood alone on the beach, looking keenly at the ocean, watching the sun as it disappeared behind the horizon. He watched the waters turn blood red. He nodded without turning towards the highlander. His eyes glowed in the growing darkness.

“I think so, too,” Jasper said. “If his body’s not there, they must have taken him. Goddammit! It would have been better if they had killed him!”

Aezubah turned his head slowly and glared at the highlander.

“It’s better that he live,” his voice was grim. “And he will live. If I must, I will sail straight into the Kingdom of the Tha-kians to free him. I will drown them in their own blood and pave roads with their heads. And he will walk through the burning towns, over their dead bodies and onto our ships, and we will sail back and he will rule Lyons as he is supposed to. Believe me, Jasper. I will do that.”

“I believe you will do everything in your power to save him,” Jasper’s voice was surprisingly tender. “But you are setting yourself up for a big disappointment if you think you’ll find him. When they reach their Kingdom, they will trade him that very same day and he will be gone. Gone, you understand? They will take him deep into their land or sell him across the border,” he shook his head. “Once he’s paid for, Iskald will disappear from the face of this earth and no one will ever see him again. ”

“Jasper,” Aezubah’s eyes were blank. “I will find him. And the Tha-kians will pay for what they did here today. If you think what you see here is wicked, wait till you see what I’ll do to them. I’ve been quiet for far too long. It’s time for my name to be known again.”

All the bodies were buried in a common grave, deep in the woods. The remains of the Lyonese Duke were cremated with all the necessary and traditional ceremonies; his ashes were closed in a golden urn and placed on the altar beside Dynah’s. The souls of two people, once divided and now brought together by death, stood silently beside one another in a solitary crypt atop a towering hill overlooking the ocean.

When they closed the tomb, Aezubah said, “My Lord and friend! I swear to you on all the gods living and dead, mortal and immortal, just and unjust, and on my own wretched soul, that I will avenge your death in such a way that will make the whole world shudder and loathe me once more. The traitor is already dead, and soon my anger will reach your murderers!

“Dynah! I swear to you on my honor and life that I will find your son and shield him from any more suffering. I will continue to protect him until my heart stops beating, and if ever there arises a need for me to lay my life down for him, I will do it gladly! I swear this to you at this time, the darkest of my life!”

Proceed to Chapter III...

Copyright © 2008 by Slawomir Rapala