Savage Empire

XeeLee looked on solemnly as the shamans carefully prepared the body for the day's rituals. Rubbing in scented oils and wrapping it in fine cloth embroidered with tiny golden threads. The woven tapestry told the tale of the leader. The battles that he had won. The glories that he had led his people to. To die in battle would be a fate worthy of a warrior leader. XeeLee shook his head sadly. To instead die in bed, coughing out one's life to some unnamed sickness, was deep tragedy.

From all over the empire came warriors, nobles and common people. They came to celebrate the life of their leader and mourn his death. XeeLee watched as the people filed past the body as it lay in state. Most added a scroll-message, flower or a small gift of treasure or food to a growing pile. The gifts were meant to honour and sustain the dead in their next life.

Finally, the sun set and the stars began to fill the darkening sky. The sacred flame was used to light the pyre of wood upon which the body rested. Soon the flames leapt high. Adding their swirling golden sparks to the star's twinkling white points in the night.

XeeLee walked in among the flames and looked down sadly as the fire ate the flesh from his body, lying there on the funeral pyre. The grayness that had enfolded him since his death shifted and he felt himself drawn up to float among the whirling sparks. Sharing the night and their brief mad, dying dance with the eternal stars. Much later, as the fire cooled to a few glowing embers and the wind scattered the ashes in the cold morning light, he felt his awareness contract to a diamond hard point and drift off into an all-encompassing darkness.

XeeLee drifted alone in the emptiness. His soul filled with a profound disappointment that the expected paradise of heaven had turned out to be only this black loneliness. From time to time he would sense some other soul, likewise lost in the darkness, but these others were no surcease to his loneliness. For a time, that may have been mere seconds or a heartbeat less than eternity, he existed thus. Then he saw a light. An intense blue point that quickly expanded to fill the void as he was drawn closer.

XeeLee tumbled forth into blinding sunlight. Confused, he shakily drew a single breath before he was shoved past a strange altar towards a line of painted warriors. He turned to lash out at his tormentor, a man dressed in dark gray, mounted on some strange four legged creature, but was easily knocked to the ground. He cowered as the man/beast loomed huge over him, shouting in some strange tongue, pointing at the line. XeeLee scrambled up, hurrying to take the indicated place at the end of the growing line.

A second man, dressed in some strange metal cloth, walked down the line handing each warrior a spear. After all of the warriors had been armed the man mounted one of the four legged animals and led the troop off into a forest. XeeLee looked down at his own body. He too wore the paint and light bone armor favored by the warriors of the empire. His body was now young and fit. Yet he seemed somehow weak and clumsy. The spear felt awkward in his hand, tending to tangle between his own feet or to catch on the branches as they walked under the trees. Many of the other warriors seemed to be suffering a similar affliction.

No one spoke as the troop marched for hours with no break for food or water. Although armed, none of the warriors made to protest this treatment. XeeLee felt oddly subdued, somehow compelled to do the bidding of these strange men leading them. As the shadows grew longer, they came to a clearing. From his place near the end of the line XeeLee could make out a wooden stockade. The ramparts were manned by strange creatures. Though man-like, in that they walked on two legs, their faces seemed a hideous mask and their demeanor was brutish. He could hear them shouting to each other in guttural voices.

The man in gray ordered the painted warriors out into the clearing. Commanding them to charge the fortified position. No thought was given to the tired, weak and untrained state of the warriors. No attempt was made at stealth or misdirection. Just a mad charging attack. No one, not even XeeLee himself, challenged the insanity of this tactic. As he ran to attack, XeeLee felt an intense anger that the warriors should be so senselessly sacrificed.

It seemed, however, that these brutes were likewise lacking in their grasp of high strategy. Rather than defending from within the protection of their walls, they opened their gates and poured forth from their fort to do battle hand to hand. Many of the brutes proved to be as weak and clumsy as the painted warriors. Rather than the complete disaster that XeeLee had expected, the battle degenerated into a maelstrom of confusion with neither side having an overwhelming advantage.

As the battle continued, XeeLee became more confident with the spear that he had been given. He tried to gather some of the painted warriors to fight together. To lead them to victory in battle as he had in life before. None would listen to his commands. These warriors seemed driven only by a red lust of battle. They fought only for themselves, caring not that their fellows fell at their side for lack of mutual support.

XeeLee saw many men riding into the battle on the four legged beasts. Some of the men wore the metal cloth. Others wore robes of bright colors. At first these men seemed to be fighting the brutes also. XeeLee hoped that these others were allies for they killed with a cold intensity. Some men commanded huge red beasts that breathed fire and killed with magic. They swarmed about the brutes, tearing them to pieces. Often the men fought among themselves over some coveted scrap or trinket looted from the body of a brute. The brutes fell back, many fleeing this massacre outright. Then men and red beasts turned their fatal attention to XeeLee and his fellows. The painted warriors, it seemed, were not to be exempt from this carnage. Apparently they merely held a lower priority on the killing list. The killing began anew.

As battle was joined, XeeLee turned at a familiar sound. Ridgebacks! The cry of the battle comrade of his people echoed from the trees. A group of warriors mounted on ridgebacks charged from the woods into the battle. With the brutes in retreat, the warriors counterattacked the men and their beasts. To the surprise and dismay of their owners, the red beasts were being hurt badly by the warriors. One beast fell as it was isolated and attacked by several warriors. It's master was knocked from his mount and ran for his life.

This moment of victory was to be short lived. The brutes were back and attacking from behind. Now the warriors were trapped between the men and the brutes. Dying to two enemies. A blow from behind knocked XeeLee to the ground. As he fell he twisted. Trying to bring his spear around to face this threat. His senses were still addled from the blow and his spear was knocked aside by the brute's war ax. He felt time stretch out as he looked up into the animal eyes of his attacker as it brought its ax up for another, killing, blow. The setting sunlight glinted red from the blade and XeeLee closed his eyes as the ax began its downward stroke. Wondering what death would be like this time.

Instead of the killing bite of a cutting blade XeeLee felt a hot scorching wind. He opened his singed eyes to see the brute incinerated in the fiery breath of one of the red beasts. He rolled aside as a massive claw crashed down smashing the remains of the brute into a bloody smoking pulp. He scrambled away as the beast turned its attention to other brutes and painted warriors that were now attacking it.

The blow seemed to loosen the compulsion driving XeeLee to fight. He now saw this battle for the high insanity that it was. There was no purpose. There would be no victory or glory here. When all was done, there would be only the dead. The sun was set and still they fought. XeeLee realized that, although they wore the warriors paint, these were not his warriors. Not his people. They were like some macabre puppets created only to fight and kill and die as if for some unknown god's sadistic entertainment. He fled the madness.

At the edge of the clearing, XeeLee found a lone ridgeback. Wounded, its rider lost somewhere in the battle. XeeLee calmed the animal and it allowed him to mount. XeeLee guided it away from the butchery of the battle hiding deeper in the woods. As they hid in the night, XeeLee struggled to comprehend the madness of this land. Who was doing these things? How and why?

A dreadful thought occurred to XeeLee as he shivered in the night. Perhaps he was still dead... And this was hell...

© 2001 Todd Bailey