The Prince of Flames

A Kingdom of Sand and heat stretched on, without end all about him. Away whither to the west he could see the desert dunes yawn forevermore. Behind him, his steps that ought to have stretched out for an eternity were forgotten by time and wind, as swift as they were left behind.  The heat of the desert bore down upon, man and beast in equal measure doing so with little in the way for mercy for those who living within its boundaries. A kingdom of fire and sorrow, one that he had never fancied he would one day cross.

Curses fell from his lips, as often as rain does amidst the Valthrarian Archipelago to the east of the Kingdom of Belkis.

“I will end them…” He murmured to himself, “I will kill Loukas…” he swore to himself, full of hatred for the man by the name of Loukas. “Damn him, to the deepest pits of Tartarus.”

Continuously repeating this mantra, as might a man possessed the dark-man clung to his grey cloak. A cloak that was all that remained of his royal garb from before he had entered the desert, for he had shed the hauberk he had worn previously, as the heat drove nigh on stark-raving mad. All that he wore at present was a torn and ill-used tunic, one that had been torn as much by travel as by the battle ere the desert-crossing.

The Kingdom of Sand bore down upon him, its native heat oppressing him all the worst. Trapped in an ocean of hatred one that surrounded and overwhelmed him and all that could be seen, for hundreds of thousands of leagues. The lowliest of beasts as he had discovered were far less pleasant than the larger ones that inhabited the land all about him. Scorpions and serpents were prone of coming at him, whithersoever he should attempt to lay down his head, after the moon was in the heavens and night had arisen to replace the light of day.

Once Lord of a realm all to himself, he was now reduced to the rank of pauper at the mercy of the heat of the desert.

“I will end them…” He murmured to himself, “I will kill Loukas…” he swore to himself, still full of hatred for Loukas. “Damn him, to the deepest pits of Tartarus.”

Thus, went on as always his condemnation of the man, who he hated most in all, the world.

Days had passed in this fashion, and would continue to come and go in this fashion. On and on, journeyed the mightiest of the warriors of east Ifriquya.

Lo, he might well have crossed the whole of the realm into which he had been exiled to, were it not for hunger. Food was scarce within the Kingdom of Sand, it had always been thus and always would be, until the end days that is. It was for this reason that the highest of princes, the mightiest of warriors could be reduced to naught.

The once proud prince, over one last dune that looked little different from millions of others he had crossed over, he advanced.

In the distance some hours hence he had thought, he had spotted a distant oasis, so that now it looked all the larger. The last twenty times this sort of vision had appeared before him, in recent times he had scorned them. He would not allow himself to be fooled by a mirage, and be made to feel as a fool.

This time though, such was the exhaustion that weighed down upon his spirit, upon his very being that he could not but shuffle a little faster. At present, it was not the life-blood of Loukas he longed for, not the sweet taste of revenge he craved, but rather the fresh taste of water.

“Water…” little more than a broken husk, by this time so that he croaked and gasped, where once he bellowed and roared as might a lion.

His plea to the heavens (or was it to the spirits of those, who had walked this path before?) went unheard. None heeded his pleas and orders now. None could hear him. None he mused, with more than a little sorrow, were there to care for him.

Hamisi, his old advisor, nor his former friend Loukas could help him now. It was this knowledge that came very near to bringing him to his knees.

Despair though, could not conquer him. It left that, to its material cousin; weariness.

The rays cast down upon the earth, lit all about her. She had been there, for time immeasurable. Since the most primordial ages, when man was a young race one of many competing for dominance of all the lands of the earth, she had been there. Long before the desert had overtaken the landscape, reducing all to sand and to dust, her people had been there. This she remembered, in spite of the fact that the vast majority of her people, had disappeared from those lands.

Quite what man might have called her, was irrelevant to her. Such was the breadth of time that separated her since the last time, she had met with one.

This did not mean that she was cruel, or mad in any way you might have described as such, dear reader. To the contrary, she was the very definition of goodness and serene in a way that no woman, could ever compare with.

Softly, with incomparable gentility she stepped away from her precious oasis that she had never left in endless millennia, if only to lift up his head to bring a goblet to his lips.

At the touch of water, he stirred. The cool salve upon his broken and cracked lips was one that served to revive him so that he knew a gladness that he had not known in months. Never was a meeting more joyful than that which took place when they first set eyes upon those of the other.

To his mind, she was as ephemeral as the wind or the dreams he had had throughout his journey west. Never before had he seen such a vision.

Dark of flesh just as he was, she was slender as the finest of trees, full smiling lips, high cheekbones and the most shapely of figures. Such was the voluptuousness of her body that he studied her with considerable interest, rather more than he might otherwise have done with any woman other than Mirembe. In marked contrast to the princess once promised to him, this lady for she had to be a lady he told himself, was dressed in homespun garments of the roughest quality. Her hair woven into a series of braids and was long, so very long that it tickled his face and beard, with the locks in question woven together by blue and green threads.

But it was not to these that his eyes went, and remained enraptured by. Dark and yet full of colour they were, as the stars in the heavens. To stare into that gaze was to stare into the shining, glimmering heavens in the clearest of nights, never before had he seen eyes such as these.

So awed was he that he forgot to swallow, and began to choke on some of the water given over to him. Noticing this, the maiden worried and fussed for some time, “Oh do be careful, my lord!”

Shaking his head in response, he sought to allay her concern only to fail and worry her all the more.

“Where…” He croaked his throat still rough from the time spent without water.

“You remain still in the desert,” the woman- no, the goddess, he thought to himself, certain that she had to be amongst those who ruled over the world added. “I found you just beyond my oasis.”

Her wording was a mystery to him, her voice musical just as her accent was archaic. As enchanted by her voice, as he was, he forced himself to concentrate upon the meaning of her words and tried without success to puzzle out her meaning.

“Y-your oasis?” His voice cracked once more, and he was not certain she had heard him as she offered him more water. When he had drunk his fill, he could feel exhaustion at last begin to overtake him. Fighting to retain consciousness, as he could the darkness appear along the edges of his vision, he murmured, “Why your oasis?”

“Rest now, all will be well, for you are safe here,” She assured him, in a voice more comforting than that which his mother had spoken to him with, in his early childhood.

Against his will, though he wished to resist her instructions he could feel his weariness overcome him. As he did so, he heard her sing, the words of her song proved elusive such was the fatigue that overcame him. All he knew was that it was the most lovely sound, he had ever heard in all his life.

When at last he awoke once more, it was after a lengthy dreamless sleep that was the first peaceful rest he had had, in some time. More than that, it was the first time he awoke slowly rather than being suddenly awakened.

Blinking slowly, he was relieved to feel the heat of the desert having receded ever so slightly. The first thing he saw was not the skies, but rather the bottom of the palm tree that he had been pulled under. Shaded from the hot rays that had reduced him to exhaustion and near to madness over the course of his longest journey, the Prince could have wept such was the gratitude he felt in that moment.

A splashing sound drew his attention elsewhere, so that he sought now to pull himself up, keen to see what the source of the sound was.

Convinced that the woman he had seen the other day was little more than a mirage, he was shocked to see that she was not some creation of his burnt, water-starved mind. But she was in fact very much real.

He was startled however to hear a musical voice ask of him, “Ah, you are awake! At least, I had begun to fear you would never awaken.”

The speaker was the woman from earlier, from before he had lost consciousness. No long insensible to the world, he stared hard at her. Dressed in a white dress that stopped a little above her hips, with her upper body covered by a green bolt of clothe that covered her chest and a portion of her back and little else. In all, she was a far more tempting vision, than any oasis could ever be.

“You have awakened,” the lady of the oasis said eagerly, “I had begun to consider in spite of the invigorating effect of my waters, the possibility of having to dig you a grave.”

He could only stare, from where he lay on his elbows struggling to maintain his present uncomfortable position, “Where am I?”

His voice cracked but he was still able to form the words. Once again, she somehow heard him, so that she addressed him in warm tones, “You are within the boundaries of my oasis.”

This fact was plain to see, given that he could see the large body of water a short distance behind her, the surrounding near forest of palm-trees stood tall in defiance, of the heavens. Tall, though not nearly as he himself was, the maiden smiled at him in a comforting gesture.

Her smile captivated him, all the more.

“Who- what are you? What do you mean by your ‘oasis’?” He asked of her, bewildered by her strange words and peculiar accent.

“Ah, excuse me I had quite forgotten that you mortals, favour names. What shall I be called indeed? The previous time, I had dealings with your sort was not so pleasant,” She said to herself perplexed, as though the question of a name was a truly distressing matter. “You see, I know not which to give you, I have had so many, so long ago.”

“What did your father name you?”

“It was so very long ago, and I am not so certain a name given in girlhood should be given so freely,” She persisted a hint of defeat in her voice.

At once the Prince felt distressed to hear her laid so low. Keen to restore the warm smile from a short time ago, he gave unto her the first of the three gifts he gave her during his stay with her. “Charáji… the ‘water-joy’ or joy that came from the waters.”

The gift of a woman’s name startled and pleased her. At once, her wide grin from before returned, so that his spirit rested once more at ease, much to his relief with his heart quivering at so lovely a vision.

“Charáji…” She uttered testing the word, as one might an unfamiliar fruit, wherefore she smiled a brilliant smile full of pearl-white teeth that glittered in the sunlight. “What a gift you have given me, o traveller! Keenly, shall I bear for all the days that come up to the end of days, and beyond it if I should have the honour to return after that time!”

Pleased and embarrassed by her enthusiasm, for so small a thing, the prince could feel against his will his cheeks turn scarlet if ever so slightly.

It was then that she returned his query, “And what is thy name, o lord of the east? Where did you emerge from, and for what purpose did you come hither into the boundless dunes that surround my small oasis?”

“I am Prince- no King Aganyú,” Said the royal, catching his own mistake having been on the verge of giving over the wrong title, a terrible mistake for one of his pre-eminent rank.

His mistake was noticed by Charáji, who raised a perfectly slender brow, “Prince or King? Which are you Aganyú?”

“I ought to be King, but have since become…” He did not know how to respond, how best to explain that he had lost his rightful throne. Again. And a part of him, had no great desire to speak of Loukas, or of Hamisi, of how they had stolen the princess Mirembe from him, or how her cousin had taken his throne. How best to explain such things? “Bah, I see no reason to speak of such things now.”

“But it matters a great deal to you, does it not? Then why would you not speak to me of it?” She asked keen to hear his tale, “I have saved you, and amongst my kindred it means your life is my own, and I may ask whatever favour I would have of thee.”

Hearing her speak so, irritated him so that he snapped at her, “I am bound to none, and am to be held in bondage to no man, no god, no woman or anyone else!”

Surprised by his anger, Charáji stared at him before she began to tremble. Scared, she flew from his side for the oasis with Aganyú prepared to cry out after her, fearful that she intended to drown herself when to his shock she dissipated.

It happened the moment she made contact with the water of the small pond, at the heart of the sanctuary in the desert. Disappearing down below, it was as though she had ceased to be, so that Aganyú felt a great wave of sorrow spring up in his being.

Had she died on contact with the water? Did she come from it, and this was why she had dissipated into nothingness? And why had she fled when he had lost his temper? It was nothing that he had done wrong, he told himself uneasy after some time had passed and the sky had begun to darken. Doubt fluttering into his being, in spite of his best efforts to repress it.

When he fell asleep at long last, it was with a huff as he turned away from the pond. Still though, he had the sense that someone was watching him.

It was two days before he saw Charáji again. It happened that Aganyú had little reason to want for anything, given there was by the time he woke every day, enough fish from the oasis cooked to get him through the day. The water was tasty, cool and left him rejuvenated in a way that no water, wine or any other draught had ever left him, in all his years of travels. The palm trees were tall and provided more than ample shade to shield him from the worst of the blistering heat.

In all, he might otherwise have enjoyed his time of recovery, were it not for his sheer boredom.

Exasperated by the end of the second day, Aganyú’s temper never very far from the surface snapped once more. “Where are you? Charáji, I have questions that you must answer, therefore reveal yourself to me!”

She did not appear.

This led to a whole host of curses flying from his lips.

Still no answer, so that in frustration he threw a pebble into the water. He was more than a little bewildered when after he had turned his back with a huff to it, the stone flew out at the back of his head.

He had just gone to sleep, when he stirred awake at the sound of someone brushing against him; he reacted as might a wounded wolf. Throwing himself against her, he threw her down with his spare hand going to his knife (one of the few weapons he still had on hand).

Once drawn, the knife was pressed against the throat of the squirming woman who lay beneath him. The shriek that was torn from her delicate throat, his own brain driven by fear froze at the sensation of her beneath him.

Stumbling for words, Aganyú dropped the blade only after he became fully aware of how close he had come to slay her.

Pulling away from him, she sat up trembling and shaking so that he was reminded of a small deer. Still weary, from being awoken in the middle of the night, he felt sluggish and confused by her sudden appearance before him.

Sensing that once more, she intended to seek to take flight from his presence, back to the waters that she had disappeared into the previous time they had quarrelled, he acted swift as lightning. Other men might react, but Aganyú preferred to act first as always, as all men of his nature were prone to.

When he had caught her up by the wrist, he said to her, “Wait, I should prefer that you not flee back to the waters that birthed you!”
“Let me go,” Charáji said almost pleading, still afraid of him.

“Not unless, you swear not to flee back to your waters,” quothe Aganyú insistently.

They stared one another in the eye, for quite some time.

At last the maiden, tested her mastery of the situation after a moment of hesitant silence, “I shall do so, only if you agree not to become agree.”
“I make no such promises,” He rejected at once surprising just as he had, when he had demonstrated how much he had recovered. “But if you should like, I shall try not to become angry.”

Not entirely convinced, Charáji still hesitant was to sigh and reluctantly agree not to flee from him. “I should suppose, it is all that I can hope for.” She paused if briefly so, relaxing ever so slightly, “When did you recover your strength?”

Aganyú shrugged his shoulders, “Earlier this morning, I know not how or why, it may have to do with the waters of your oasis, which brings me to my question; what are you?”

At last releasing her, when he noticed how her body language relaxed ever so slightly, as she considered his question. “I am amongst the eldest of the world’s daughters.” Seeing that this answer had not satisfied him, she was to expand upon her statement if against her own will. “I am daughter to Pontus, daughter of the seas what many of those from across the northern sea dub and those of Ossirian a ‘Nereid’. I am in the tongue of the westerly-folk of Ifriquya a ‘water spirit’.”

“I do not understand, if you are a sea-spirit why are you in the midst of the desert?” Aganyú demanded of her confused.

“It was not always so, quite some time ago mine was an underground pond, yet as the winds cut through the desert and the sand dunes shifted I became an oasis.” She explained simply, yet still he did not understand.

“If you were once below ground, how could you be born a ‘Nereid’, I had been taught that they were all daughters of Pontus or a descendant of his.”

“You are well taught.” She praised impressed by him, and pleased to hear of his knowledge.

Aganyú looked away from her, “My father taught me, all there was to know of old lore.” His melancholy and pride were washed away, as her waters had done to his exhaustion, “If I may ask, which way leads to civilisation?”

The question was one that she preferred not to answer, “If you should wish, I will retire for the moment for I need my rest. I shall return in several hours.”

Before Aganyú could stop her, she leapt away and away in the waters one heartbeat to the next.

Bereft of all company, the prince cursed vociferously.

The heat of the day bore down on him once more in the days to come, with those days passing in a lazy fashion so that Aganyú quickly grew restless. His perception of the world was that time, was not unlike sand in one’s hands; flowing between one’s fingertips out of one’s grasp.

The worst part of his stay with Charáji was that he had to use a cloth, dip it in the waters of her pond and wipe at his body with it. He would have preferred to properly bathe in the waters, however when he attempted to do so the Nereid had stopped him.
Embarrassed, she had flushed a vivid scarlet and informed him that were he to do so, she would not be able to restrain herself. Unsure of what it was that she had meant, he had listened to her with near equal embarrassment when she told him she would never let him go were he to do such a thing.

“No man has ever bathed in my waters, and I have never been with one in any capacity,” She informed him hurriedly. “I do hope you will understand.”

Such considerations were a mark of his character to his mind, so that he was to curse and complain at some length when it came time to cleanse his body every few days.

It was after a week of this treatment that he had the opportunity, to correct it when from the west came the most unexpected of gifts. The gift in his eyes was a sign that there were people in that direction, in the form of a camel laden with treasures and food and drink.

The animal in question was on the cusp of collapse, when it at last reached the oasis. Nary a rider to be found, it at once drew Aganyú’s suspicion. He might have struck the animal dead, at once were it not for Charáji interposing herself between them.

“Stop, he is little more than an innocent beast,” She insisted.

“He is a pile of meat, I am hungry and what is more is that no animal makes it so far in the desert without there being a reason. The most likely cause for this, being that it had a rider until recently,” Aganyú argued at once annoyed by her refusal to do as she was bidden.

But once again she would not heed his words. In time, he decided that it might prove better to wait until later before, he attempted once more to slay the animal and examine the contents of what it carried on its saddle.

Charáji for her own part, was impressed by the jewels and treasures that the camel had carried hither to her oasis. “Look at these fine goblets of pure gold, and these necklaces made entirely of pearls and emeralds!”
“Bah, needless trinkets,” Snapped Aganyú hardly impressed, only to espy an opportunity as she was distracted by guiding the animal to the water.

Shedding his clothes, so that he could bathe he had just plunged himself into the water, when the Nereid shrieked in surprise. “What is it that you think you are doing, Aganyú?”

“I am bathing, and cleaning myself after much too long,” He retorted irritably.

“I have asked you not to shed your clothes, and bathe yourself in so wild a fashion.”

“What of it?”

She remained quiet, still innocent to the world in spite of her beauty. Ignoring her complaints, he set about cleaning himself with the royal stopping only when he saw the heated look she gave him. It was not one of anger, but rather one of visible longing and desire, whereas the camel for its part was visibly angered spitting and shrieking.

Thinking that the jealousy in its eyes was his imagination, he was pleased to see that Charáji had ceased paying it any mind. There was a sense of wrongness about the animal, since first it had arrived.

It was for this reason that he preferred to treat it the way that he did.

The victory was soon proven to be his, when the maiden took to the waters, unable to resist. Hers was a lonely nature, one that had craved companionship for so long, this he knew all too well when she was within arm’s reach. The longing, and wistfulness yet uncertainty in her eyes when she hesitated brought the first laugh in some time to his lips.

“I-I should not… love between immortal and mortal is always bound in tragedy.”

“Come here girl, and never you mind such nonsense,” Aganyú interrupted pulling her towards him, “We make our own destiny, those poets and scribes who say otherwise are to be scorned!”

It was the first time in some time, since he had been with a woman and it was all the more glorious for it, he thought later, at that time he was pleased to note that the camel was gone.

Elsewhere whilst they gave way to their passion, in the fortress of Kolwé, high as a mountain and the same colour as sandstone with four turrets it was there within its walls that the Desert-Lord lived.

Dressed in fine velvet robes from the far distant empire, so that one might well have taken him for the peacock lord of some castle or other of Ossiria, he was by no means such a thing. There was little of the civilised world in him, beyond his fine dress and his massive girth.

Pacing the floor of his spacious, carpeted room deep within the fortress full of brigands, who had long since been cast out of the western kingdoms, the warlord of Kolwé was unusually apprehensive. Typically a man utterly at ease in his massive room, his nervousness might have caused one of the more ambitious men to rebel, were it not how he had closed his door to be alone in his chambers.

It was why he leapt some fifty feet in the air when he heard someone knock on the said door. “Yes?”

“It is I, milord Kolwé,” The nefarious Nibilan said.

Pulling the man into his chambers after unlatching his door and throwing it open; closing the door behind his scout, who shrunk from him, he was to demand of him. “What has happened? Where is my bride?”

“If I may, milord it has come about that she did not follow me back,” Nibilan replied reluctantly a hint of anger in his eyes.

Unsure of why his servant was angry, he chose to overlook it in favour of how the oasis-nymph he desired was not present. “What do you mean, she did not follow you?”

“There was a man present, with her.”

“Man? What man?”

“I do not know, I know only that she has taken him for a lover,” The shorter man said morosely, looking away from him.

Struck by this admission, and filled with rage Kolwé very nearly struck the other man. He might have, yet he knew that such a demonstration of rage would gain him nothing. “A lover? A lover? Why did you not prevent such a thing? Why if you were so incompetent, did I turn you into a camel and send you out into the desert?”
“Forgive me master!” Nibilan pleaded pathetically.

“Bah, why should I? At present you are of no further use to me,” Kolwé growled furiously, “Away with you, to the prison lest I destroy you here and now!”
The underling departed though not without several oaths, amongst them a few choice ones of vengeance against his lord.

It was not as though Kolwé the Bandit was blind to the passion his servant bore for the water-nymph, but it was just that he gave it no true regard. To his mind, the man could in no way pose a challenge to the war, for her affections.

The only man he now saw as a true rival was the newcomer to the oasis.

How could it be, he wondered to himself later, as he made his preparations to strike that someone had succeeded in crossing the desert to reach her. I had the west and north guarded, and none could survive the crossing from the east or south. The desert was too gruelling, the journey liable to kill even the hardiest of men.

“Bah, no matter, soon she will be mine!” He told himself resolutely.

It happened that when he struck, it was later. Doing so just as the sated couple lay tangled together, admiring the stars high above their heads.

“You see that constellation there? That is the one of the rescuing of Amun-Re, the most formidable of the gods. It was he who bestowed upon the lands, to the distant north-east the gift of civilisation and order, or so it is said.” Charáji explained drawing a kind of map with her index finger along the stars in question. “You see, there was a time when he was unmanned and unkinged, and it took the cunning and loyalty of his mightiest subjects to rescue him. Oh, and there is the heroic Shalar laying low the mighty serpent of Hallalal. He was the mightiest of his people.”

“I have heard his legend, even in my homeland,” Aganyú replied in his deep voice, “I should very much have liked to have laid eyes upon him.”
“He was a great warrior, and a fine sort,” Charáji remarked with a slight giggle she added, “If a little pompous.”

It was a gesture that would have angered him in another, or at any other time. Yet in that moment, all that her mockery of one of his heroes growing up, could only bring a smile to his lips. It was strange to think, he mused, he had admired so many heroes of legends yet she had known them personally.

It made him ponder melancholically, what it was that he might leave behind. The time when the gods put up the images of the heroes of legend, had passed. Now was the age of kings and of warring over, for the thrones of those very heroes.

“You are once again longing for another place,” Charáji complained, irritated, “Why should you long for another place when you are here with me?”

It was a strange complaint, and a strange thought he knew; to be wistful for another time and place when her arms were about him.

Her jealousy and possessiveness startled him, so that he blinked foolishly at her. Aganyú experienced as he was with women, he was wholly unprepared for the black jealousy of a Nereid.

His confusion though was set aside, when he heard what seemed to be the sound of a jackal or hyena growling just beyond the array of foliage.

Suspicious of what lay beyond, he studied the darkness beyond the trees, ignoring as he did so the vast multitude of complaints that Charáji was laying at his door.

“Tush, Charáji,” Aganyú said in a voice barely louder than a whisper, “Do you hear that sound?”

She stopped, not liking being told to be quiet she very nearly carried on regardless of his stern tone. But in the brief moment that passed, before she could get any words out she heard the sound that had distracted him. “That is a jackal… I know the sound, for there are a great many to the south-west of here and they at times visit my oasis. Yet, this one is rather queer.”

“How so?”

“I do not know, I know only that it feels wrong somehow, in conflict with nature.” She gasped frightened and shrinking away from it.

On his feet one heartbeat to the next, he was to take up the dagger he had left by his clothes. Aganyú was to hurl himself past the foliage and upon the beast in question, with a roar of rage the cries of his lover ignored.

The jackal in question at first offered little in the way of resistance. Seeking to resist him, it tried to bite and scratch but as he had a grip on its throat with his right-hand, he had the advantage. Aganyú’s dagger was soon embedded in the shoulder of the over-large jackal, striking as suddenly and swiftly as might lightning.

Shedding his Jackal cloak, Kolwé shrieking as his blood decorated the leaves and the sands of the desert, pressed against his assailant of all things his gold serpent-headed ring. Wearing it upon his third finger, it was to sting Aganyú with all the sharpness of an actual snake-bite.

A stifled, hoarse scream that was quieted into a groan escaped the clenched lips of the royal as he fell forward.

Relieved to have survived him, Kolwé panting regained his feet. “You beast, you struck me! You knifed me! I ought to suffocate you to death!”

“Stop, do not hurt Aganyú!” Charáji objected keen to turn some of her water into a sort of weapon, by shaping the water into a sharpened point.

The lance of sorts that she directed at him, from her pond was to miss the sorcerer, who threw himself upon the ground. When he regained his feet, he drew from one of the many satchels girded to the belt about his waist, “Do you see this lady of the oasis? It is a bottle, of some mystical means! It was gifted to me by the great Valfar, the Seer of Eri, for having rescued him during his great illness.”

Charáji was familiar with neither the bottle of which he speaks, or of Valfar, or of what or where Eri was. All that she knew at this moment, was that once uncorked and near to her the bottle began to draw in the lady of the oasis, for her it felt akin to having her essence torn about and re-assembled.

Screaming for Aganyú, there was little he could do save grit his teeth in futile rage. Still paralysed from the mysterious snake bite, the last he heard before he sank into darkness were the taunting words of Kolwé.

“Be warned, stranger that should you ever come near my Nereid-bride again, I shall be certain to do more than simply leave you here.”

Aganyú would remember those words, and would add them to the store of flames that already filled his soul to the brim. The next hours he spent in humiliation, crawling and struggling as best he could once sensation was restored halfway to his left arm. He did not crawl after the departing sorcerer though, for he had learnt one thing in his time by the oasis; the waters of his lover were as a restorative. Once dipped in them, he would recover after two hours from the bite of the snake-ring and would set out on the hunt at once.

“No one takes what belongs to me… and lives…” He swore to himself, eyes burning with fury.

Kolwé’s return to the keep was glorious. It was all that he had imagined it to be. In his chariot, which he used when travelling outside of his fortress, he cut a fine figure to his mind. His men were curious as to what it was that he had brought back, and were awe-struck by the beauty of his captive.

A few might have attempted to force themselves upon her, were it not for the fear they felt for their chieftain.

Smiling indulgently at them, he informed them, “Go fetch thy families; we shall need women to attend my bride, for she is a lady who merits the utmost respect and dignity!”

It was an order that several of them, were more than happy to obey. Celebrations meant beer and wine, so that no brigand would possibly say no.

The bride herself was escorted in chains to chambers that had been prepared for her, some time ago. Hardly thinking of her at all after she was no longer in his presence, Kolwé was soon distracted by the organising of the celebration. All had to be perfect.

Barking out orders to all those who served him, soon they had wine-bottles and kegs of beer fetched from the cellar. Food was also sent for, from the towns’ which were a day away from their home and was soon brought back by armed bandits who took a great deal of meat (and still living cattle), flour and a myriad of fruits and vegetables. Anything that could be devoured was seized that they might enjoy them when the time came.

The more docile farmers were permitted to not only keep their lives, but to come to enjoy the festivities. Keen to enjoy the food and drink most were to flee from the keep as quick as they could, since most of them feared the brigands too much to overstay their welcome.

Preoccupied by the organisation of the wedding, it was shortly before the moon began its own ascent that Kolwé was alerted by one of his followers’ daughters of how unhappy his ‘bride’ was. “She refuses to eat, has refused to allow us to dress her and will not leave her chambers.”

“What? Offer her a bauble, women like baubles and jewellery.”

“She refuses to accept them, and has taken to throwing them out her window,” The girl reported reluctantly.

Bewildered and angry, Kolwé was to grumble and follow her out of the dining-hall, intent on making his beloved future bride see sense.

Little did he know that this was to prove what in the end saved his life; it was at this time that Aganyú slipped into the main hall of the castle.

Aganyú had arrived within the halls of Kolwé. He had followed the few tracks that remained, and had lost his way but once, whereupon he had happened upon a local merchant. The man had pointed him in the correct direction, generously adding that he ought to avoid the castle. But the prince was not to be dissuaded from his attack upon the keep.

Once he had arrived, he was to knife one of the returning brigands to death. Stripping him of his clothes, so that he might take his place he then slipped into the keep. The bandit’s sword was a poor replacement for that which he had lost, in the east which had belonged to his forefathers. But it would suffice, if only for the moment.

The next thing he had to do, was to slip in. Doing so as though he belonged there, he was not stopped or questioned, with Aganyú reluctantly appreciating that the brigands had a set uniform. Their leader was no ordinary bandit he thought to himself, with grudging respect.

Once inside, he kept his acts of wanton murder in check, until he knew where Charáji was to be found. This he discovered easily enough, by listening in upon the conversations of some of those, who had been brought to the castle to prepare the dinner-feast.

“Kolwé, oughtn’t have stolen her,” Said one maid, whispering to her good-mother who shook her head at her.

“You be quiet girl, less one of his favourites report you,” the old woman reprimanded her, with a worried glance all about them.

“Where is she?”

“In the high-tower,” The older woman said adding with considerable pity, “The poor girl did not come willingly.”

Neither woman said much more, for some time.

Noticing the two of them standing apart from some of the others, as the preparations for the feast reached its end, one of the brigands called out to them. A large, obese ogre of a man, he was to approach them a menacing air about him.

“You two, have done enough gossiping now back to work,” He growled at them, both women daunted went to hurry off, when Aganyú spoke up.

“Leave them, they have done nothing wrong, knave.”

“What did you call me?” The large bandit grunted, his dusky skin purpling with barely concealed rage.

His gaze met that of Aganyú. The volcanic dark eyes of the latter flashed, with white-hot hate. Rage met hate. Banditry clashed with princely regal authority.

The flash of steel from a scabbard that was tilted up, as the chair upon which the royal sat was thrust back. The bandit gurgled; scarlet blood rained and sprayed itself onto the nearby feast-hall wall and floor.

Few there were who noticed initially. The scream that was torn from the throat of the ladies, alerted all those about them that something was amiss.

Aganyú had by this time begun to move, hewing down another man from behind, then he who was next to him. Male servant or brigand meant nothing to him; they were all enemies to be cut down. Their blood to serve as condiments for the vultures and corpses to feed the most wicked of carrion-birds.

“Hither, come hither you jackals! Taste steel as you never have ere this moment!” Aganyú taunted them, seized by battle-madness unlike any he had tasted as of late and unlike any they had ever seen.

It was the sort of fury that could only leave death in its wake. The death of the berserker or all his foes could be the only result.

The first man to challenge him and more than his equal in battle, was nigh on twice his height with a considerably larger build. The man was to strike him, throwing him back by sheer force of physical might. Once he regained his feet, Aganyú threw himself forward once more, this time rolling beneath the horizontal slash of the other warrior, slicing through the man’s knee.

His head still buzzing from when he struck his head against the wall, the prince with his red-hazed vision was to decapitate the man who had tossed him about the feast-hall with little difficulty.

The next man came at him from behind, thinking he could not possibly foresee what he might do. This proved false, as the warrior heard his battle-cry echo throughout the hall, so that he threw himself back out of the way of the clumsy attack.

Hewing him down, he grabbed this man’s attack leapt over the nearby long-table, to slash one brigand’s head in half, splattering his interior throughout the floor. There were two others who challenged him, with Aganyú forced back, parrying their sword-strikes and evading them as best he could. It was they who wounded him in several different places, such as near his left foot, and his right arm.

“Have at him brothers!” Cheered another man.

“He must soon fall!”

Aganyú felt his resolve and his rage renew itself, as he struck back at the two of them, feigning three strikes against one only to drive the other back, even as he moved to strike at the first. The second man with his next charge broke the sword; the prince had taken from the guard outside of the castle.

The bellow of fear that tore from his throat, was followed by the man having to throw himself back, over the table. Regaining his feet, he tore apart a man who hardly put the remotest of defences against him, only for him to take a moment to look about for the means to protect his person from the two skilled bandits.

The victorious smirks that came over their lips, as six of their compatriots surrounded and began to push Aganyú back towards a corner, incensed him.

A nearby buckler, one that bore the sigil of a crimson lion upon it caught his eye. It had belonged to one of the many dozen or so men, he had hewed down at the start of the conflict.

It sat just behind two of the uniformly dressed brigands, and glimmered ever so slightly to his maddened mind in the light cast by several of the candles.

This buckler was the focus of his next brutal actions. Throwing the hilt-shard as one might a dagger, against one of the bandits, armed with a simple cudgel. While the man screamed as the blade was embedded into his side, Aganyú leapt forward.

Dodging, weaving and evading sword-strokes and axe-strikes along with the clubs of those men not so well armed. Slashing back here and there, he was to grab the buckler and leap back to his feet fast as lightning.

Able to parry now more easily, thanks to the shield the monarch from the east was to avoid further injuries.

His next strikes met, added to the army of corpses that lay all about him. The horror with which the survivors, even those two skilled brigands who had daunted him earlier grew with each murder. Each killing stroke, chipped at their resolve until he at last confronted the two men, with the two moving as one, once more.

Feigning a strike at one, Aganyú tore victory from them by striking with the shield in his right-hand against the more muscled of the two. The man screamed as the sound of crunching bone tore through the hall, his knee shattered he was not to endure his agony for long.

Turning upon the next man, Aganyú expected him to charge him as had all the others.

Instead of doing so, the brigand looked about the hall, at the dozens of corpses left there by the rage-filled prince, and did what he ought to have done some time ago; he bolted for the doors.

Aganyú moved to give chase. Intent that there should be no survivors, he was however distracted by a cry of rage along with a series of curses.

Remembering what the servants had said about the high-tower, and his beloved Charáji, Aganyú was to turn on his heel, to follow the source of those screams.

Ignoring the weeping women-folk, he fought his way up the tower. Tearing, slashing and striking with all the rage of one possessed. His was the might honed by a life-time of war and a hundred ancestors, more savage and battle-hardened than the last. Against which the enemy had no defence, no means to fight against save had they the discipline of the legionnaires of Orissia, or the savagery of Kentauro or Mervoud tribes.

The tower door was thrown open, with Aganyú more than pleased to see Kolwé in the richly decorated chambers. Near the large open-air window with a duo of women whimpering and crying to one side, Kolwé held himself to one side backing slowly away from the door, eyes darting between Charáji and her rescuer.

Alarmed by the blade the sorcerer held to Charáji’s throat, the bandit lord’s eyes wide with fright as he stared at his foe. “Just who are you? How could you have cut down all of my men? There were hundreds of them!”

“I have fought against more, for far less treasured a spoil as Charáji,” Aganyú growled full of hate for the bandit who shrunk back from him. “Give her over, and you will die quickly brigand.”

“Charáji? Is that her newest name? She has so many, I cannot remember them all.”

“I could, all those she has told me,” Retorted Aganyú impatiently, “Do you intend to surrender?”

To his first reply the Nymph visibly melted, whereas the brigand appeared uncomfortable, jealous even. But he focused upon the slow advance of the warrior, “Stop! Hold, warrior! This dagger was given to me by the lord Eshu, and could end her as easily as it might yourself traveler.”

Aganyú only glared all the fiercer at him.

Kolwé met his gaze a hint of apprehension slowly entered his eyes. Backing away still farther from the warrior, he did so, just as Aganyú advanced slowly, with Charáji backing away with her captor.

Charáji soon had another source of fear, when she nearly backed out the window. This caused all three of them to glance in her direction, as she wobbled for a moment.

Realisation flickered to life in the clever eyes of the sorcerer. Staring briefly at the window, he moved with unexpected speed for one of his girth, faster than Aganyú who moved forward to attempt to seize him.

Leaping out the window, the plump mage flew as well as would a rock. Staring out the window as Kolwé donned a vulture-cloak, mid-fall so that he took flight for the distant horizon.

“Thank you, for having come to my rescue, Aganyú,” Charáji murmured as they departed from the castle, “I prayed and hoped you might, but had begun to lose faith.”

“Shame on you, woman for doubting,” Aganyú reprimanded her, he then added rather more tenderly, “You should have known better than to doubt me. Once stated, my devotion never wavers.”

Moved, she all but leapt up at him, embracing him with all the fervour of the most ancient of spirits. Pleased, he crushed her in his arms, bruising her lips with his own with a low growl of approval from deep within his chest.