Tiuk hurtled through the narrow streets of the Rush, refusing to lose any momentum as she drilled through the soldiers in her way with her glaive. The tails of her magenta cape were on fire, but the sporadic showers of blood from her enemies kept the flames from spreading. Just a few hours ago these soldiers had been hers, but now they had painted this sinister symbol on their foreheads and renounced their allegiance to the principle of equality between lishas and hurums that Kurush was founded upon. They had joined the rot eating away at Kurush.
She decapitated Damesh – she had known his mother since they
were little. She sliced off Mimura’s arm – she remembered how excited she had
been the day she joined the guard. She disembowelled Karakur – just a few days
ago he’d joyfully announced that his wife was expecting. Lekura, Asankur,
Urush, Shankur, Ekshura, Gamash, Rugur, Nashura, Urnessa, Ishur, Sharesh, Anki…
For Tiuk each needless death proved how far the rot had spread, how deeply she
had failed as a commander.
She came to a stop, a trail of butchered lishas behind her,
when she reached the Palace of the Ikark. Lishas were running across the square
carrying ingots, vases, piles of silken gowns and every kind of precious object
imaginable – some with panic-stricken faces as they fled their homes, some with
the glee of looters who had struck gold. Some maniacally threw flaming torches
over the walls of the elite estates, some of the pyramidal mansions had already
become roaring mountains of fire. On the paving of the plaza lay Shakresh in
his white toga, the shock of his demise still written on his face. Watching
Tiuk from the steps of the Palace with a self-assured smile was Kisha.
“Why are you doing this, Kisha? My sister raised you to be
better than this”
Kisha chuckled, “It’s all thanks to you, aunty dearest. You
see, I was round Gilkush and Ragur’s house on the Night of Hunger. Ragur knew
about a loose tile in the kitchen ceiling. We saw the whole thing. I’d never
seen a lisha have so much fun before! I remember drooling so much I was afraid
it would drip onto you, but I couldn’t stop watching. I vowed to myself that
one day, when I was big and strong, I’d eat hurums too. You taught me the most
important lesson of my life – that hurums belong in our bellies, because they
are weak and we are strong”
Tiuk sighed. Her gigantic frame rose and fell as she caught
her breath. The pain from the myriad wounds her soldiers had managed to inflict
on her as she ploughed through them caught up with her. The weight of her shame
crushed her broad shoulders. She had no retort to Kisha, but that did not
change the fact that she had to put an end to this tyranny they were trying to
found. It was the least she could do to atone for her sins.
She tightened her horned helmet, then launched herself up
the grand staircase. Kisha raised her spear, ready to pierce Tiuk’s neck, but
Tiuk dodged her thrust and charged past her in the hope of gaining the high
ground. She did not count on Kisha swinging her tail, the end of which had four
bronze spikes tied to it, slicing her ankles. She fell face-first, her lower
jaw cracking against the edge of a stone stair, the cuts all over her body
seething in protest. Her glaive escaped her grip. She rolled over onto her back
just in time to catch the shaft of Kisha’s spear as it bore down on the point
between her eyes. But she could not snap it, nor wrest it from Kisha’s grasp,
such was Kisha’s lethal determination as she stood over her downed commander. Tiuk
could not resist, but she bent the spear’s aim and the bronze tip sliced
through her cheek.
As her spear hit the stone, Kisha lost her balance. Tiuk
grabbed hold of her breastplate, dragged her down, and drove Kisha’s face into
her helmet, its bronze horns chipping her teeth. Without giving her a chance to
recover, Tiuk flipped the two of them over, pinning Kisha against the stairs
with her unrivalled bulk. She poured her rage into her fist, and rained her
fury down upon Kisha again and again. Her other hand pressed against her
throat, crushing her windpipe, keeping her in place as she thrashed around like
a terrified animal caught in a trap. Only when she started gasping for air, an unnerving
rasping sound that did not seem natural for a living creature to make, did Tiuk
loosen her grasp.
“I’m not so irredeemable that I would kill family,” said
Tiuk as she stood up, picked up her glaive and started walking up the stairs,
leaving Kisha to cough and splutter, “Run. Leave Kurush”
Kisha glared after her, clearly considering one last attack,
but instead she scarpered down the stairs and into the burning alleys. Once
Tiuk had reached the top, she turned and looked out over Kurush. She saw only
fire, from the slums of the Ekuan quarter to the mansions of the Rush. Waves of
smoke were even rising from the offices that formed the base of the Palace,
seeping through the gaps between the weathered stone blocks. The place she had
sworn to protect, now swallowed by hellish inferno. I tried as best as I could,
she told herself, this was the right course of action. But it wasn’t enough.
She walked inside to the Hall of Accords. There was no
Gilkush, no huddled mass of hurums. No light, no sound. In the empty darkness
she spied the five thrones of the Ikarkurs, but only one was occupied. In front
of the Hall’s central column, Tadarur sat with his head lolled back, his jaw
agape, the blood around the gash in his neck already dry. Tiuk inspected the
corpse for a moment before hauling it off the throne, dumping it to the side
and sitting in its place. As exhaustion caught up to her, she melted into the
seat. Her blood dripped onto the stains of Tadarur’s. She chuckled to herself.
“My reign shall be a just and generous one,” she announced
to no-one, “we shall start rebuilding Kurush at once. This is the dawn of a
glorious new age!”
There was a thunderous crack that sounded like a mountain
splitting in half. Then another. And then another. The Palace started to shake,
and the rumble of falling stone grew louder and louder. The great stone column
behind her leant further and further before eventually giving way. The colossal
statue of Makush, the legendary lisha who built his trading camp upon this
hill, his hand still reaching towards the heavens, crashed through the ceiling.
Her shame of her failures, her sorrow at Kurush’s fate, her frustration that
she could not save it, they all slipped away into the night at the last moment.
Tiuk knew that there was nothing more to be done.
Constructive criticism welcome
© Paul Bramhall
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