id: 565
name: Children of the Sun
author: Livid
date: 25th October 2021
text len: 5161
views: 17

Chapter 1: Axe in hand


	Hyrkās swung his bronze axe hard enough to feel the bones in his shoulders creak, his ligaments strain and his diaphragm involuntary grunt inwards, the hog-nosed, scaled beast with human like hands & posture yet clad in the stinking untanned hides of one of the great feline beasts of the mountainside's more frozen cliffs screeched in agony as it's crude stone dagger clutching arm and boiled leather shield thumped to the ground from a now thoroughly severed elbow. "I SEND YOU TO THE HELLS YOU CAME FROM DEVIL, THE DYÉWS-PHITÉR ACCEPT THIS SACRIFICE!" the hillwarrior bellowed, his throat raw and his lungs feeling as if they were touched by his patron god's solar fury. His brothers of oath and bondsmen of tribe and clan had been battling these demons for hours it seemed, for the sun was new in the sky when the bloody harvest began to be reaped, a cruel day it has been for a man so young to see so many kinsmen and bonded warriors lay slain so fresh in it's pacing. The fighting seemed to be slowing at least as he pulled the followed out ox horn with it's cast copper mouthpiece and blew a resounding rally over the din of the slowly winding down violence. 

	With the horn's distincting call being sounded twice, he roared out with a raw throat and tortured lungs "BROTHERS, TO ME, MAKE HASTE, WE MUST RALLY LEST THEY TAKE US BY THE CLIFFS!" knowing full well the enemy could not speak his tongue. Eyeing the shield dropped by his now thoroughly dispatched foe, he took note of it's construction, crudely tanned leather reminiscent of pigskin yet clearly not flensed from a swine, a mixture of bone and copper pins holding sinew & hide from a mountain goat onto the shield's rim. A revolting thing made by foul beasts living within the crags of a forbidden, miserable den of despair within the rock. Were these once men? Maybe, but that was for the Hierophant of his tribe to know, not for a warrior-chosen of Vyrkánios to dwell upon. Carefully his oath brothers of the warband broke off or slew their opponents, disengaging and assembling into a rudimentary formation, locking shields and moving away from the crags.

	"Remember brothers, we are born of the Wolf mother, yet blessed by sun & stone! Glory awaits us if we choose our battles wisely!" hoarsely yelled out Hyrkās to his brothers, they resoundingly slammed their shields together with great violence letting loose a warcry of "SPLIT SHIELD AND HEWN HELM, WE DO NOT YIELD!" in an almost ritualistic chant done in unison by ninety souls matching the pounding of weapons upon shields. The demons of the mountain scurried off, their numbers decimated, their headman left with a bronze axe-hammer plugged by a precious iron weight fitted into the ridged socket at it's hammer-face planted through the top of it's skull as if a great meteor was dropped by Mithras himself, dripping brain matter and stinking blood. Hyrkās rips the sacrificial axe-hammer from it's fetid altar of mortifying putrid foeman and flicks the blood of it, the bone and tooth charms lashed to the haft by sinew rattle like a whispering ghost of a lost time over the now silent battlefield minus the cries of carrion birds and dying men or beasts.

	Hyrkās' second in command was Arḗsyā, a brave soul and son of the Hierophant carefully shifted himself from his position in the formation and walked back to his Warchief, the expression of pride, but exhaustion was proudly shown gleaming under his dented and beaten helmet of bronze, it's nose-bar and cheek piece gently flapping, the bone ornament of boar tusk missing from the left cheek guard in particular with a dent matching a clearly delineated almost-cut into the bronze's thinner parts of the brow guard. "My glorious Koíranos, we sought and took glory this day, the demons of the mountain know pain after all these decades of enduring their raids! What awaits us next Lord?" Hyrkās' cocked his head to the right and began slowly scratching his sandy blonde braided beard, a stark contrast from the gleaming resplendent onyx hues of his oath brother's lowlander heritage. 

	Hyrkās cleared his throat and called his warriors to attention, "While glory was taken, it came at cost, collect the dead and prepare for the march home, we will likely be repeating this expedition come next spring when the valleys thaw, watch the winds brothers, a foul spirit rides them this eve." The remaining gathered warriors agreed and began to collect their honored dead whilst taking careful time to dispatch any survivors from the demons of the cliffs. The warriors began to proudly march back to the outpost at the edge of their sacred valley, and then eventually the home of their tribe. The march took a day at most, yet was rewarded by the watchman at the gatehouse cheering them in, returning heroes having culled the foe yet again this season. Yet winter is dragging it's cruel tendrils through the hills, by all accounts the tribal elders have declared it to be a bad winter, the Hierophant studied the augury and found it to be true by the will of the gods a hardship must be endured in the coming times at the foot of these cursed mountains.