The evening sky, clear blue only an hour prior, was now violently threatening to break into night. Thunder without noise crackled, echoed by the strange vibrations that permeated the air, raising goosebumps on forearms and making hair stand at end.
Both armies faced each other, grim purpose visible through the eye slits in the crude helmets most of the infantry wore. On the other hand, the top-ranking commanders sported ornate headgear, with feathery plumes providing a resplendent effect.
This was the army of Zakaria. At least, that is what it was before the great nation split into two in the wake of the murder of the Crown Prince of Zakaria five years ago. The Assembly had been thrown into unprecedented chaos, with political dissenters taking the opportunity to delay the selection of a new Crown Prince.
The then-ailing Emperor, Abubak'r, had been powerless to instill order. Too sick to even properly grieve the untimely death of his only son, his Imperial power and influence fell to pieces around him, even as he lay bedridden, his mind fed different doses and varieties of malicious poison by advisers and members of the Assembly, who sought to gain political foothold by Imperial association.
Of course, his fragile mind had been unable to bear the weight of the disarray and sheer madness. He gave up the ghost a month later, his only legacy being the enforced unity of an Empire with too many dissenting subgroups.
Then, the vicious power struggle had begun. Those who wished to keep the Empire together at all costs, and shared the dead emperor's dream of a united Zakaria, faced off against the diverse elements of secession.
In the middle of this power struggle lay the Assembly elite, a group of thirty-eight old men too proud to admit error and more ambitious than was healthy for the future of the Empire. Loyalties changed at the frequency of a toddler's whims, as first insults, then blows marred their formal meetings.
In the end, war broke out after the whittling down of several key elements in the struggle. Thus, it was that the final battle would be championed by two distinct factions: the Imperialists and the Evolutionaries.
The former group was headed by Kuku Restares, the chief of Naktar, a small but wealthy kingdom to the east of the Empire. Kuku was a ruthless war leader and a close confidante of the late emperor.
He stood over six feet tall, with a muscular frame borne of decades of military training. A member of the Assembly, his voice had echoed loudest in the Hall in the months of turmoil that followed the emperor's death, as he'd advocated for a switch to a more democratic procedure in choosing the next emperor. The death of the crown prince had made his position tenuous, as there had been no clear laws set on how to handle succession in the unlikely event of a royal's death. And the rival faction was unwilling to accept a democratic voting process because they feared that he would win.
Their fears were well-placed.
Kuku had successfully brought over the majority of the Assembly to his line of thinking with a combination of articulate arguments and timely assassinations. Slowly but surely, the pendulum of power swung more and more toward him.
Until the appearance of a highly unlikely contender.
Presently, this contender faced off with Kuku on the field of battle. The generals of the opposing armies had ridden to the middle of the soon-to-be death field. Kuku rode with two of his lieutenants, Chief Kalabo and his cousin, Commander Ogor.
Commander Ogor had been the brains behind the strategic assassination of much of the Imperialists' opposition in the early years of the war. As a result, he had risen quickly through the ranks, propelled by his own ruthlessness and the favor of his royal cousin, who'd been the first member of the Assembly to declare for Kuku openly.
Chief Kalabo's role at Kuku's side remained a mystery to the rest of the elite members of the Imperial faction. Kalabo did not have Kuku's intimidating stature or his cousin's prowess in battle. The small kingdom that he presided over, Utu-Utun, was neither wealthy in resources nor overly populous. Its natives were simple agrarians who subsisted on cultivating rice on the fertile steppes of the one-hundred-odd hills that softly jutted out of the otherwise rocky, barren ground.
The Utuns had been among the first kingdoms to fall to the might of the late emperor's Imperial expansion, with Chief Kalabo happy to throw open the gates to welcome the all-conquering army of Zakaria.
There had been rumors that a deal was struck, the terms of which the general public remained ignorant. Now, Kalabo stood elevated, having outlived his conqueror, now loyalty-pledged to another.
If he had managed to attain such a position within Kuku's closest circles in such a short while, there was no telling what he was capable of, especially given his reclusive lifestyle.
Kalabo was a puny man in his late sixties, only a few years away from the Great Black Gate, the consumer of souls and hoarder of the dead. He rode on a jet-black horse whose sleek coat blended perfectly with his own midnight skin.
Unlike his two imposing companions, he wore no war garb. Instead, he was clothed in a sleeveless red shirt made from crocodile leather. His shorts were black, with strange symbols woven into the material. In his hand was a simple, gnarled staff that jolted with every motion of the beast beneath him, and his eyes were hooded, expression unreadable.
The Imperial delegation had come up to their rival equivalent. Kuku snorted, then smoothly slid off his horse. His direct counterpart did the same and drew near. Their retinue remained on their saddles, observing the exchange with keen interest and grim intent.
Kuku was the first to speak, not bothering to extend his left hand in the customary elite greeting of Zakaria.
'Even after several losses, you stand here willing to meet your death to prove your point. Admit it; you have lost.' He waved his right hand toward the direction of his assembled host. 'My forces are much larger and better equipped than yours. ''By midnight, your blood and the blood of your friends and loyalists will feed the green in this valley. Your lifeblood will nourish the earth beneath you, and by the time its fruits ripen, no one will remember that you ever existed''.
Kuku's boasts echoed around the small party gathered, even as the breeze gained in strength. The air was now cold, and the breeze whipped his cape about furiously.
The atmosphere was tense with the promise of the bloodshed to come but seemed to crackle with the expectation of another form of violence, one not fully understood by the two hosts standing ready to deal death.
Feature Image Credit: Byzantinum
