Demons and kings
Arslan still sensed the bitter taste of bile on his lips. To resist the nausea, in front of the slaughter of the torn corpses, that Kishward had shown him, had been hard. Even more difficult had been to listen to the rapport Kishward had received from Zaravant, before the young man left to rejoin Jimsa.
Every Zaravant's word reported by the commander of Peshawar had been, to the young Sha, the atrocious confirmation to the worst of his fears.
"I wanted you to see with your own eyes," Kishward had said. "Now we know that Qbad asserted the truth, in saying he was victim of a black magic spell."
At his nod, the soldier who accompanied them had rearranged the cloth to cover the bloodied body, lying in front of them.
"Unfortunately it is so. Just as I feared" Narsus agreed, getting up after examining the wounds that rip the remains of the fallen warrior. He had spoken in stifled voice, from behind his sleeve, which he held up to cover his nose, to defend himself from the stench of the corpses that soaked the air.
With the throat tightened by horror and dismay, Arslan had watched, one by one, the many, too many dead ones lined up under the vaults of one of the fortress's underground department stores. The pitiful white sheets, which Kishward just before
had removed to show him the bodies, they were now back in their place, to conceal the havoc suffered by those men.
Men whom he himself had sent to the disaster, along with Daryun.
"What did I do?" he had finally murmured, so lowly that only Elam and Alfrida, closer to him, had heard him.
"It was not your fault, Majesty," the girl whispered, touching his arm.
Without a word, Narsus had turned to leave. In the moment he had lowered his arm and uncovered the face, Arslan had caught in his tense features an expression of bewilderment and uncertainty, which he had never seen before.
It had only been a moment. Narsus had immediately recomposed and resumed his usual uncaring air, but Arslan had understood that the brilliant strategist, this time, had something in front of him that he feared not being able to face. And maybe
he was addressing himself, the same bitter reproach that he, Arslan had just directed to himself.
"How do you feel, Majesty?"
At the voice of Elam speaking to him, Arslan shook himself. The boy had approached him, while, along with Alfrida and Jasvant, they followed Kishward and Narsus along the corridors of the fortress, heading for Qbad room. A little behind them, Lucian was walking gloomily.
"I'm fine," answered Arslan, straightening his back with an effort. "I'm fine," he repeated, more to convince himself than his friend.
"I feel very bad. I had never seen anything like this" moaned Alfrida, the greenish face.
"Neither do I," Lucian said coldly.
Arslan turned to him. The marzban lowered his face, but not quickly enough to conceal from the young Shà the expression of accusation flaming in his eyes.
"That sword ... " Lucian said, as could not resist besides giving voice to his torment. He waved his hand toward the old saber in the scabbard hanging from Arslan's belt. "With due respect, Majesty, that sword should have stayed where it was."
Arslan felt a chill of cold running down his back. In a nervous motion he clenched his fingers on the hilt of the legendary sword, which had legitimized his right to the throne of Parsia.
"I wish it had been possible, Lucian. Believe me" he replied bitterly.
"It's not time for recriminations!" cut short Kishward, and stopped in front of a massive door made of wood and iron.
The commander of Peshawar raised his hand to knock, but before his knuckles hit the door, it suddenly swung open inward. Followed by a fierce blasphemy screamed from inside the room, a physician in fluttering white robes crossed the door in rush and went to clash against the general's chest.
"My Lord Kishward," the doctor whimpered, "I beg you, tell him that we have took away his clothes under your order! For his sake ... as you said yourself, so that he would lie down in bed and not try to go out!" then he saw Arslan and threw himself to the ground. "Your Majesty!"
Arslan invited him to get up and was about to say something, when Qbad's voice thundered in a furious roar.
"Kishward, damn bastard! Let me get my clothes back, or I swear on Mithra's sacred sterns, that I go out from here and go around your damned fortress, naked as my mother gave birth to me!"
Arslan smiled and stepped forward. Despite everything, he felt pleased to hear the harsh, deep voice of the fierce marzban.
"I see with joy that you are better, my brave general Qbad" he said, passing next to Kishward who moved aside to leave space for him.
With nothing else on him that the bandages on his wounds, Qbad, standing by the unmade bed, opened wide the only eye on the young Shà.
"Are you already here?!" he exclaimed surprised.
"Qbad, I find you fit" Narsus said, while with one hand he covered the eyes of Alfrida, who was elongated her neck to peek in the room.
"I was better," Qbad growled. He tore a sheet from the bed and wrapped it around him. He made the gesture to bow down to his sovereign, but his leg gave way beneath him and Qbad fell badly on his knees.
Arslan ran to supported him, preventing him from ending up lying on the ground. In vain, the young man tried to raise Qbad up: the man was too tall and heavy for him to be able to do it himself.
"Kishward, Jasvant help me!" called Arslan, fighting against the sense of impotence and inadequacy that burned his soul. Suddenly he felt the big and strong hand of Qbad squeezing his shoulder, so vigorously that it hurt him.
"Forgive me, Majesty," the general murmured. "Forgive me, I've been an idiot. I behaved as a newbie, and I dragged Daryun into a trap."
"The responsibility of what happened is mine, not yours" replied Arslan. He brought his pale fingers to the tanned and rough ones of the warrior, and again the feeling of not deserving the trust and devotion of a man like that hurted his heart. He withdrew his hand and stepped aside as Kishward and Jasvant seized Qbad one on each side and pulled him up.
"Leave me!" roared Qbad and shook off the two men, only to fall sitting on the bed behind him with a grunt of pain.
"Your attitude is unworthy of your rank!" shouted Lucian, advancing in the room with long, angry steps, fists clenched against his hips. "You are in the presence of his Majesty Arslan!"
Qbad twisted the scarred face in a grin. "Toh, Lucian. Old grumpy sparrowhawk, here you too?" he looked behind the old marzban whose mustache trembled now with indignation, and watched at those present. "Elam, always with this bizarre court artist? and you, Alfrida? I'm glad to see your pretty face again." He returned the girl's smile and stretched his massive neck, as if looking for someone behind her. "Where is Farangis? Why is not she with you?"
"Farangis separated from us immediately after leaving Ectabana," Narsus replied. "She decided to follow another, faster track, through the mountains of Kohjir, convinced that she could precede us to find Daryun."
Qbad smiled sardonically. "I should envy him, then. It has never happened to me that a beautiful woman looked for me with such devotion even to face the gorges of Kohjir." He became gloomy and his forehead clouded up. "Do you think he is still alive?" he asked, staring at his hands clenched in fists, resting on knees.
"Farangis's instinct is our best reassurance, Qbad," Narsus replied.
"To not say the only" grunted the warrior. "I imagine the minstrel is attached to her skirts, as usual" grinned, then became gloomy again. "Is there anything you have to tell me, Kishward?" he asked turning to his friend.
"Zaravant is back, and immediately left. I did not tell you before, because I wanted you to stay calm" replied Kishward. He put his hand on the other's shoulder and looked at him straight in the face. "He has found the place, where you had indicated, and has also found the drawings that you said you saw: snakes. Snakes drawn everywhere."
Qubad grabbed his arm violently, as if to crush it. "What else did he find?" he growled. "Tell me!"
"Corpses, Qbad, and not just men: there were numerous ghouls and ... more. You were right: they had been dragged all into underground, this is why they seemed to have disappeared" replied the fortress commander. He straightened up and freed his arm from friend's grip.
"Daryun?" asked Qbad again, tight teeth.
"We only found his cloak. In pieces" Kishward answered darkly.
Arslan felt the heart jolt in chest, when Qbad threw his head back and burst into a bitter, ferocious laugh. "The cloak remained in the clutches of the first ghoul who tried to put his claws on Daryun, and found himself without an arm!"
"It was torn ... full of blood," Elam said.
Qbad looked at him. "Ghoul's blood" answered. "I saw with my eyes Daryun cut away, with a single blow, the arm from the shoulder to that monster." He turned to Arslan, and the young Shà felt his soul get even heavier before Qbad's dark gaze.
"I hope the instinct of your beautiful priestess is right, Majesty. Before the fog swallowed everything, while those cowards of my soldiers dragged me away, I saw Daryun trying to take the men to the rocky ground, to the north, to the mountains. In a few we managed to retreat to Peshawar, and I think they let us go. We were not their target."
"What do you mean?" asked Arslan.
"The only one they wantedt, it was Daryun" Narsus intervened. "The trap was for him, you were just a bait. The bait they knew we would have bitten."
"Can you explain yourself, Narsus? Whom are you talking about?" Lucian asked nervously.
"The servants of the Demon King Zahak" answered Arslan. He raised his head and, looking at the others, saw their faces became pale. "Those same who have manipulated Hilmes, so that blinded by his desire for revenge to remove the seal that imprisoned their lord, on the Demavant." He brought his hand to the saber and it seemed to him that the handle had suddenly been red-hot, so as to burn his skin. "This sword ... Rucknabad was the seal, and I completed the work of Hilmes."
"But not in the way the necromancers of Zahak would have wanted" Narsus intervened. "We have spoiled their program, preventing Hilmes from recovering the throne of Parsia and opening the way to Zahak. Now, they want revenge. Daryun was only the first on the list." He paused, and in the stunned silence that fell on the room, he approached the window. "The first objective of their plots. They planned everything, so that as a result of the events we would send Daryun straight into their hands." He frowned, staring at the distant Demavant shape.
"If even Daryun have managed to escape them, the necromancers will hunt him," said Kishward, grim. "And not just to him," he added.
Narsus nodded grimly. "I imagine they will want to celebrate the return of their lord, offering him our blood in a golden cup. And I ... " he stopped and took a deep breath before continuing. "I, this time, I don't know what to do" he admitted, with bitterness.
"I know what to do!" Arslan snapped taking everyone by surprise. "First of all, we must find Daryun, before the necromancers do it! Striking him they believed to break our trust ... my trust! But they are wrong! This Zahak will also be a demon, but he is not invincible." He grabbed Rucknabad, as if about to draw it out. "This sword has defeated him once, and we have seen with our eyes how he fears it even today."
"Gieve always sang that old ballad, remember?" Alfrida came forward, clinging to the Narsus arm. "That myth, which tells how Rucknabad, forged by a fragment of the sun, will forever drive out the demon Zahak in the abyss."
"If the legends are true, and apparently they are" said Qbad, "They can not be true only half. I would say that we can already drink to our victory."
"Do not joke with the myths, it brings badly" Jasvant muttered.
"Jasvant is right," said Elam, seriously. "There's nothing to joke about."
"Nobody is kidding," Arslan answered firmly. He approached Narsus and turned his gaze to the left mountain, which stood out in the clouds. He looked at her for a long time, almost as if he wanted to respond with the force of his gaze to the silent challenge that this cursed place seemed to address to him with his only existence.
"Kishward, prepare your men. We leave" he ordered at the end, without hesitation.
"May the gods protect us ..." Lucian murmured in a whisper.