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Chapter 26: This is the Way
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Part 3
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Proving Grounds, Varanasi
Lord Perun's Domain
Milky Way Galaxy
Stone shattered, and metal armor broke, turning another man into a bloody pulp. Elizabeth felt sick at the carnage yet forced herself to keep watching. To be a witness to this was the least and the only thing she could do.
The immense cheering crowd made it all worse. Such bloodshed should never be condoned, much less enjoyed. Lord Perun was making a point. There was no mistake about that. He acted like a throwback to an era that had been over, or at least should have been, a long time ago.
That wasn't the case here and now. As a diplomat, she had seen some ugly things, and the people cheering to the tune of slaughter were high on her list. This wasn't civilized society as she knew it, and she did her best to bring it forth through her work with the US government. Instead… Weir averted her eyes when Perun somehow levitated multiple spinning chain weapons and cut a group of Jaffa into bloody chunks. She could see children among the gathered crowds. Instead of their parents trying to shield them, they pointed at the bloodbath below, cheering.
This was sheer insanity!
Elizabeth's gaze went back to the bloodstained arena. Almost half of the champions, more like sheep to the slaughter, were already dead. Some of the rest were obviously injured, moving in ways that favored arms, legs, or sides. They still kept going forward, doing their best to kill Perun for all the good it would do. Weir wanted to stand and scream at everyone to end this damned spectacle!
Sadly, she knew better. For all the gruesome nature of what was happening, it wasn't pointless. Tens of thousands cheered Perun's murder spree. Many, if not most of them, appeared genuine, too, Elizabeth decided. This wasn't Earth, and even on Earth, there would be too many cheering such a gruesome spectacle.
Weir forced herself to look at the unfolding tragedy through a professional prism. They were here for a reason. Lord Perun was making a point in a straightforward, brutal way. He was proving for all to see that he was an extremely dangerous Warlord. The context was different compared to how the word was used these days on Earth. Perun couldn't be simply dismissed with contempt, and not just because of the raw power he wielded, though that was the most critical factor.
Another Jaffa died, with his head smashed into the ground with such force that the armored helmet buckled, collapsing and splashing a halo of blood and bone that sunk through the cracked stone. Perun picked up a chain sword and charged a small group of alien warriors. The remaining Jaffa could no longer bring overwhelming numbers to bear, so now Perun was demonstrating his prowess in a different way. Instead of using his technology to slap around large groups of them, he wadded in with blades of spinning teeth and energy, leaving shredded corpses in his wake.
Elizabeth decided something like this couldn't be seen on Earth anytime soon. It would send the wrong message to too many people, making them underestimate Perun. It was only now that Weir began to fully understand how the meaning of the titles they gave Lord Perun were both to the point, yet in too many regards, entirely missed the point due to Earth's recent history and preconceptions.
That realization was harrowing because Elizabeth was one of those who warned people about falling into such pitfalls. Despite that, here she was, recognizing that even she was not immune to that train of thought. The problem was that for all her experience, for everyone's experience, the kind of politics and societies they were dealing with now haven't truly existed on Earth for longer than they were alive. There were similarities, sometimes very close ones, which only made it easier to misjudge what they were dealing with. Or perhaps she was overthinking things and attempting to put the slaughter she was watching in a familiar context that made sense.
Perun's chain blade bit into the knee of a Jaffa while he held the champion's ax, locked in place with the lightsaber, no matter that the lager, and in theory stronger man, was doing his best to overpower the Goa'uld. The alien warrior collapsed with a pained scream, allowing the self-proclaimed god to slip behind him. Perun slammed his energy blade in the back of the Jaffa's head and, at the same time, forced the crippled man to parry the spinning teeth of the chain sword after swinging it at his face. Four champions tried to pounce on the Goa'uld while he was killing their ally. They all froze in the middle of their jumps, held in place by alien technology. Well, Weir prayed it was technology because Perun was dangerous enough already without being some kind of space wizard!
The struggling Jaffa stiffened after the lightsaber finally burned a hole in his helmet. Elizabeth was thankful for the small mercy of not seeing what happened to the poor man's head. And he was one of the lucky ones, receiving a relatively clean and fast death.
More Jaffa charged at Perun. He swept down with the hand holding the chain blade, and the four champions suspended in the air slammed into the ground with incredible force. Stone imploded with a deafening sound that drowned everything else. The arena's brutalized stone shattered in a feet-long circle around each impact point, bringing over a dozen Jaffa to their knees.
By now, only a third of the champions Perun decided to slaughter were still alive, and many of them were obviously injured by being slammed into the ground or through close encounters with his blades. Bloody, dirt-coated figures stumbled forward with fanatical tenacity. Perun met them with spinning blades. Metal screamed and hissed as teeth ground their way through, and a lightsaber melted it. Screaming, Jaffa fell in bloody heaps while Perun turned around them, avoiding their weapons as if he knew where they would strike before they did it. The champions were becoming less coordinated as their numbers declined, and they spouted injury after injury. If anything, Perun was consistently moving even faster now. He was a blur, and Weir could hardly track his weapons as they struck repeatedly, rending armor to get to the flesh below. A mauled Jaffa corpse flew away from Perun, and before it could fall, he was already dismantling another champion. Blood, shredded metal, and pieces of the poor man flew in all directions before the Goa'uld mercifully finished him off.
In desperation, a Jaffa who couldn't get off his knees threw an ax at Perun's back. The Goa'uld didn't even turn. He kept slashing at another champion, yet the spinning weapon froze in mid-air before it could hit him in the back. Perun let go of his chain sword, caught the Jaffa he was dismantling, and shoved him against its still spinning blade. Metal shrieked, followed by the Jaffa's howl of pain. Perun held him in place until the screams turned into gurgles, then finally cut off, letting the terrible sound of a chainsaw mulching through flesh and bone carry throughout the valley.
Instead of screaming in horror, the Jaffa spectators went utterly wild with their screams of support. There was no faking their sheer joy. At that moment, Elizabeth finally understood that for all its problems, Earth had been a shining gem in a galaxy of bloodthirsty maniacs.
Perun tore the mangled corpse off the ax, picked up the weapon, and headed for the Jaffa, who threw it. A few of the champions who could still move stumbled his way in a final show of defiance.
They lasted less than a minute, leaving Perun intact, now covered in even more blood and gore. He looked around and let go of the chain weapon. There were only a few Jaffa left on unsteady feet. All other survivors were lying on the ground or on their knees, unable to move.
Perun extinguished his lightsaber and attached it to something on his belt.
"I find myself disappointed," the Goa'uld's inhuman voice struck like a whip.
He raised his hands, and every alive champion floated in the air. Perun clenched his fists, and twenty armors imploded into balls of twisted metal. Fountains of blood exploded from breaches in the broken metal, splashing all over the ravaged arena.
A moment of utter silence descended upon the valley before the crowds went insane, screaming Perun's name with religious zeal, the likes of which Elizabeth had never seen or heard before.
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Part 4
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Proving Grounds, Varanasi
Lord Perun's Domain
Milky Way Galaxy
Perun walked away from the slaughter, dripping blood. He stopped before the gathered Elders. They were a study in contrast – some were pale and angry, others appeared to be impressed or resigned. Here and there, an Elder offered a stoic, defiant glare.
"Treason never prospers," Perun's voice boomed, "because if it does prosper, no one dares call it treason. He glowered at the Elders. "Anyone with a brain would know why the Supreme Sun God, Ra, gifted me Varanasi and two more of Kali's worlds. He sees her ways as unacceptable. The Supreme Lord Ra chose me as a weapon to wield against her at his convenience. Your foolishness infringed not only upon my authority but that of Lord Ra himself! That is something no sane God can accept. If I was a less benevolent being, I would have wiped out your Clans already, root and stem!"
A ripple of unease passed through the gathered crowds. Weir felt it too, though for a different reason – she lacked the context to be sure which of Perun's statements made the locals wary. There was, of course, the little issue of Ra being dead now, too. The way Perun put it made the context of his visit to Earth very clear.
Kali should know what position Perun was in. If Weir's read of Goa'uld society was anywhere near the reality of it, she knew that the consequences would be grave the moment Kali knew Ra was dead. There wouldn't be a mere diplomatic fallout or sanctions. She was likely to go for Perun's throat and make an example of it. It was hard to accept that an interstellar empire could operate that way. Yet, the more Elizabeth saw, the clearer it became what the hell the rest of the galaxy was! Frankly, it might have been a miracle, likely thanks to Ra, that the whole thing didn't go up in flames before.
And now, Ra was dead because of a fumbled international expedition. Under almost any other circumstances, Elizabeth would have been a hundred percent behind the mission to Abydos. The precedent for international cooperation was incredibly useful, after all.
Perun let the crowds calm down before he continued.
"You have attacked my people, destroyed my property, and defied my authority. That is treason, Elders. Your sentence is death. As to your clans…." Perun walked away from the condemned men until he stood before the gathered women and children. "Congratulations, the warriors of your Clans not caught committing treason are now members of my First Varanasi Penal Legion. They will die to wash the dishonor your Elders brought you," the Warlord decreed. "The lives of those caught in the act are now forfeit."
Shocked gasps and wails came from many women and children. The analytical part of Weir's mind concluded that what Perun was doing might be cruel. However, what made it all worse was the fact it might work given the particular details about the local Jaffa society. Elizabeth simply didn't know enough about the people in this world and their culture to be sure one way or another. All she could do in that regard was observe the gathered throngs of people. Some were sullen, others angry, though many simply looked grimly at the unfolding drama. There was no way to say what was hiding behind those expressions without more information. Were they angry at Perun condemning their fellows to death? Were they concerned he was too heavy-handed, or perhaps because he wasn't making a starker example of the perceived traitors?
"Your Clans have lost the tenuous trust that I had in Jaffa, who have not fought and bled beside me on the battlefield," Perun continued. "Your Elders destroyed the respect due to the loyal service to your Gods over the millennia. I will give you one chance to earn back my trust and respect through your actions," Perun paused for effect. "I will give you one chance to earn back the future of your clans as well. Your children will be my wards until such a time the stain on your honor and names has been expunged with the blood of my enemies and washed away by the sacrifice of your warriors."
It was all Weir could do not to stand up and scream at Perun, the utter bastard. What he was doing was inhumane!
He looked at the Elders, who were all universally pale at this point. Perun was holding a sword of Damocles above the heads of their families, and Weir was sure he would swing it down without a second thought if he deemed it necessary.
Instead of going wild with rage, the Jaffa all around the valley shuffled in unease. More than a few appeared impressed by what Perun was doing, others apprehensive. He wasn't just holding individuals responsible for their actions but condemning whole families for what a few of their members did. This was a blatant example of collective punishment, which any civilized nation shied from, or at least should, and rightfully condemned!
There was no one who mattered left to condemn Perun. The only being whose opinion might have mattered was now dead at the Warlord's hand, to protect Earth no less. This was such a disaster that Elizabeth struggled with the very idea of explaining it to various members of her government. There would be no way to sugarcoat what happened today, and if anything, delivering the news the wrong way would only compound this tragedy with another.
"Take them away for processing," Perun ordered his Jaffa and waved at the women and children. He glanced at the helpless Elders. "Your crime is treason. You are guilty. Die. Jaffa, Kree!"
The Jaffa around the Elders moved as if they had trained ceaselessly for this moment. The group at the back of the prisoners fanned out, getting out of the way, while the rest brought up their weapons and aimed. Plasma hissed through the air. Each direct shot tore through chests, picking up Elders and throwing them back. The plasma bolts kept going, blowing off limbs and scorching flesh. A single barrage cut down over a hundred and thirty people. The Jaffa advanced then and systematically murdered any survivors.
That act of murder earned Perun many grim nods from the people around whose faces Weir could seem, making her despair for the state of the local society. Were they all insane, bloody bastards?!
"See, son? This is how you deal with treason!" A single voice carried over the subdued valley, making Weir cringe at the image it brought forth into her mind.
"My way is your future. Sabotaging it is treason. I will not tolerate my Jaffa. I will not be so merciful again if any of your Clans spits on my benevolence," Perun promised.
That couldn't possibly work as deterrence, or could it, Weir wondered. The families certain to hold a grudge might not be able to retaliate anytime soon. However, Elizabeth wouldn't bet on their future loyalty, especially that of the children Perun was taking as hostages. They saw fathers, uncles, and grandfathers die by his hand and by his word.
Unless… was he going to brainwash them all to be obedient child soldiers? The more Weir learned, the more her horror at the situation grew.