Our Little Gods 2: GOLDRAC, Of the Old Gods.

Chapter 10.

They went down the mountainside for two days before reaching the vast forest covered plains the people around them called 'Tel Nek'. They were met along the way with a second party. More Gatlins with the same giant hounds, white as snow, moving silently with the grace of strength tempered. They were accompanied this time with a ragtag mob of men and Domns from other tribes. The small clusters of individuals bespoke of exile, the loss of all but the souvenir of pride and privileges. Crown-less kings, destitute princes, and tenure-less lords. They all had the set jaws and frown brows dispossessed aristocrats assume when they travel a world where they have ceased to mean anything but still want their suffering to be considered as unfair. They would spit on the names of those who had hailed the coming of the conquering power and reaped the benefit of seizing the opportunity to endure. Traitors, they shouted, but at night in the solitude of the silence before sleep as they turned and tossed on the makeshift beds and borrowed blankets, they envied the foresight and adaptability of their cousins who had remained in the palaces and the mansions by the ocean and had dined on rare foods prepared by talented cooks and were sleeping off their delicate wines in fine sheets and plush beds. Yet, before sleep took them the nagging thought was there again, the emperor, the Undying, Gesaldene, ever since he had been allowed to come back fifteen years ago, he had not lost one battle. The cities of the empire were said to be wealthy and peaceful. Its people toiled and profited, their revenues and the value for money of their labor guaranteed by the unvarying imperial Erios. Finally, most of them saw the sunrise over the ocean and set beyond the Goldrac as it always did before and now, except that now the emperor seems to be more concerned than his predecessors about the welfare of all his people. What if he was the future and they the past?

After fifteen years of winning battles and always being one step ahead of his enemies, Gesaldene had called for a truce meeting and none of the people in the crowd riding there was deluded enough to be hopeful. You don't settle for peace when you have a winning hand, at least not in favor of the losing side. 

He came, much to everyone's stupefaction, alone, on a roan horse that looked more fitted for plowing than for battle. Their party had stopped a little outside the forest where the sloping ground from the plateau was descending into the vast plain that ended on the shores of the faraway Greyflow River. The sharp-eyed archers had seen the lone rider some time ago and had been assuming that he was a mere messenger. He rode to them at a steady pace never stopping and came up almost to their midst. 

Oneg leaned to Baalbek's ear to whisper: "he doesn't look overly concerned by his own safety, does he?" Gerrek was the one to gave him the reason why. 

"This my young fellow is the most powerful sorcerer-king in our world. I don't believe any of us here could so much as ruffle the hair on his head."

The self-styled emperor of the rising lands was a fit, handsome, ageless man. His shiny deep black beard and long glossy hair contrasted sharply with his pure white complexion. His cool quite grey eyes moved from faces to faces taking them one at a time. When he spoke, his battle-trained voice was clear for all to hear. He sounded like someone used to command, someone used to be listened to. 

Two of the Gatlin warlords made the gesture to ward off evil and without missing a beat the emperor repeated the ancient sign unsmiling, he then added: 

"You are right to protect yourself, mountain lords, for I have seen evil in its true form and it is to be feared." He had said this in the Gatlin tongue but he continued in the common tongue, "I have seen evil in its true form and I have turned my face away from it for it seeks to destroy all that I hold dear. I am still a man and not a demon. What my descendent did when he called me back from the long slow sleep of death was a mistake but since he forfeited his own life I would have been stupid to throw it away."