Blood of Azura

Part XII

He heard the crying before he reached the entrance; a mixture of high pitched wails, soft sniffing, terrified pleading.

He rounded into the crypt and let his eyes adjust, the torches ensconced on the damp walls offering very little light. The Zybar were already wrangling the girls, dragging them, carrying them over their shoulders - some no older than eight namedays perhaps - towards the darkest part of the crypt. The boys who dared to fight them, to protect the smaller ones, were hit, hard. Two small bodies lay crumpled by a tall stone etched with long-forgotten names.

'I'd advise you not to take another step, dog.' Theodan said, levelling his stare on the largest Zybar. A tribe leader he'd seen at the war council meetings but who's name he could not recall. Smaller than Theodan himself, he towered over the other Zybar of his tribe. The leader not by birthright or by the will of his God, but because in this too the Zybar were very much like animals, gravitating towards those who could best them in battle.

'We are merely taking what is ours, Leoth. This is not your business.'

'Yours?' Theodan frowned. 'Azura's riches are to be divided equally amongst her conquerors.

'They are spoils, not riches.'

'Children are not spoils.'

'They are children of Azura; Azura is Zybar's spoil.' One of the smaller ones said, bravely. Fool.

'Unhand them. Now,' Theodan warned. He issued a look to Draden and Saryn, commanding them silently to move to where the other Zybar crowded the group of children.

The leader smirked. 'You do not command me, Leoth,' he said. 'I am a tribe leader. I take my orders from my King.'

'Your king orders you to rape and murder children?'

'My king orders me to cleanse Azura of its filth.'

Theodan flashed his teeth. 'I see only one type of filth here, and it stinks of Zybar. Unhand her - she is a child. They are all children.'

The Zybar thought about a reply, Theodan could hear his slow, useless mind moving with consideration, but he said nothing. The eyes of the young girl were wide with terror, her face streaked with tears and dirt. When the leader chose to ignore him and took a step forward, Theodan's blacksword was out of its harness quickly, whispering through the air to stop just at the base of the Zybar's throat. The other Zybar moved to retaliate but Theodan's men were quicker.

Draden crouched and kicked the legs out from one which brought him to the floor, he stepped forward and pressed his foot down on his throat whilst he pulled out his own backsword and brought it to the other's neck. Saryn had his arm wrapped around his mutt's throat so that he had begun to gasp for air. The remaining Zybar, too far away for any of them to reach where they were, grabbed the nearest child, a small boy with large golden eyes that reminded Theodan of Cassine's, and held a blood-stained dagger below his little throat.