Konstantins Crusade English version, E W [most read books of all time TXT] 📗

And the emperor was a very different kind of beast. One with a thousand heads and appearances that were now cast against the walls of the Pyramid city. Except one.  Damotes made an attempt to grab his telescope again only to not find it at his belt. Gone… Stolen…

“Lord Damotes…” The sudden voice startled him. He had not heard anyone approaching him..Decades of war had made him wary of potential enemy’s around him. And there were quite a few even within the walls of the city that did not like him or his men. He almost beheaded the creature appearing out of one of the shadows cast by the wall behind him. Only two things saved its life. One, it was too small, so his blade missed its mark only cutting air before he finally realized his mistake, stopping the sword. The second one… it had his telescope, shining in one of the pockets of the beings tattered clothes. Just a Kobold, he thought. I am getting old. A sad realization. He was getting tired easier, was constantly on edge… Maybe once this was all over he would request the Archons for a Post guarding the inner City itself. If he lived that long, that was, which would require him to actually hold this place against the Empire.

The being standing now before him was only half his size. What was visible of his features was mostly hidden behind a mask of bleached wood, besides two yellowish eyes that didn’t seem to look straight past him. It wore an amulet with a set in, blue stone that seemed to glow with an inner light. The hands, being hidden by thin, metal plated gloves held a scroll of paper, sealed with a single thread of gilded wool.

Damotes took the letter without a word and broke the makeshift seal. For the people here, Kobolds ere just part of daily live, some employing them as messengers. But Damotes didn’t like them any more than the soulless constructs that wandered the city.  It wasn’t even their looks, he never had seen more of them then far too wide clothing, scales and surprisingly sharp teeth  or their predisposition to apparently steal anything they could.  They just seemed to produce the same, unpleasant feeling of wrongness in him as those golems. As if they were somehow connected by the same magic.

Kobolds could move through the small Passageways and Corridors that honeycombed the walls and ran beneath the roads. And one could place a bet on anything left outside at night being gone or at least taken apart the next morning, anything considered of value to the silent messengers of the city taken to never be seen again.

Damotes turned his back to the creature again, finally starting to read. His face took on a saturnine expression. For a moment, he was tempted to just ignore the message. Typical of the priests to actually send a messenger to him instead of contacting him personally even when he was standing literally outside their Pyramid. And of course they didn’t tell him why they demanded to see him, only that his presence was required.  He let the piece of paper drop, before turning to the Kobold again.

“I presume my son is already with them?”

Of course he didn’t get an answer, if these creatures could do one thing, then it was keeping secrets. They seemed to attract them like a dog did attract fleas. It as after all, part of their livelihood in this city. So instead he simply pulled his telescope from the Kobolds pocket. It did not protest but Damotes stopped for a moment, rotating the Instrument in his hands. He didn’t want it, he tough. It would be nice to get rid of it. Before he could change his mind, he simply gave the telescope back to its would be thief, then gestured at him to leave. The Kobold simply disappeared in the same shadows he had emerged from and if Damotes didn’t know that there had to be some kind of door or passageway, he could have sworn the little creature just turned invisible.

Slowly he started making his way up the Pyramid. He didn’t look forward to meeting the High-Priests again. Large gardens with small wells dotted the way, the water features appearing golden in the early sunlight or creating small rainbows.

Far below him though, the Armies of the Empire renewed their assault on the city walls. With the break of day the siege also had begun anew. He could hear the distant thunder of canons being fired, the projectiles hitting the wall but not yet being able to actually break through it. Some were not aimed at the defensive structures, instead arcing far above them and smashing in the crowded streets and homes, destroying them.

The sun had only begun its way over the horizon but the cold of the night was already vanishing and Damotes was already sweating. Still he did not slow down on his way up the steps. Helike also was a cruelly hot place at times and the desert nearby often brought with it sandstorms but at least the air was dry. Not in this place. Even the scarlet cloaks him and his man wore offeed little protection from this kind of heat but still he had not allowed himself or any of his Paladins to remove any part of their armor. If there was one thing he had learned in all those years then that there was no such thing as safety in a war. Dying to a ricochet or some shrapnel just because it had seemed comfortable to run around without a helmet was wasteful at best and dishonorable at worst. And there was a fine but important difference in commanding men to die… and wasting their lives.

His Mythril-Armor still felt heavy though and for the first time he actually considered at least leaving it behind when in the safety of the upper city.

When he first heared the name of this place he had laughed. Laughed about the descriptions its envoys had given, about how much they seemed to revere their home. And he had laughed more when they told them to what that name translated. Now he didn’t feel like laughing anymore. Not since he had first seen the city for himself, its Pyramids reaching to the skies and almost touching the clouds, each one of its steps as high as the city walls of Helike high enough that the upper quarters were illuminated by the sun long before it reached the rest of the land. And with the first rays of daylight the shadowy hunter of the city returned, bringing with them fresh prey. The screams he had so successfully ignored all this time grew louder the closer he came to the very top of the pyramid. He knew all too well what awaited him.

Xihuitzin was the City oft he Gods. And the Gods demanded blood.

"I am iron." He repeated the words like a mantra as he watched the man being brought into the light. A miserable light, in spite of its glory. A single beam, invaded through a grid at the capstone of the pyramid, through a dozen prisms of polished crystal that focused it until an almost-solid column emerged that made the rest of the room seem all the more sinister. The chamber ofthe  high priests was huge, more like a cave than a building it seemed. The ceiling of the chamber was high enough that a dozen gigantic stone guardians could easily find space under it, six each at the north and south end of the hall. They were motionless, the crystals in their eyes and hearts dark, yet each one might have been towering effortlessly over the outer walls of Xihuitzin. Twelve thrones loomed around the circle of light, three arranged in an inner ring and nine farther out. Of the figures on the nine outer thrones, only shadows were visible.  Priam knew that even close up he wouldn’t have been able to see better. The blue robes, not unlike the ones he wore, hid the faces and bodies of the thrones occupants , and part of him was glad for it. He did not want to know what these people looked like ... if they were humans at all. They moved like Humans  and spoke like Humans ​​but what he sensed of them ... Priam shook his head. Power. Threat. A cold and constant feeling of his limbs falling asleep when he stayed in their presence for too long.

 He had learned to prepare himself for the innermost chamber of the pyramid city, but even with the mental shields, this place sapped his nerves ... and summoned the voices. Indistinct whispers, words in a language he did not understand, if it was one at all, and not just the byproduct of his slowly disintegrating mind. No, Priam did not want to know what was hidden under the flowing blue silver robes of the high priests. And as for the figures  on the inner three thrones ... Priam did not talk to anyone about it, had  not even told Damotes, but a part of him was sure, if even one of them touched him, he would lose his mind.

The three wore not the simple robes of the remaining high priests, but armor that looked like green glass. Metal hinges joined the panels together into a wide cloak which, with the slightest movement of its wearer, gave off a soft ringing tone . Wide crowns made of the same glassy material loomed over their heads, and mosaic fragments formed a broad halo. All three high priests sat motionless, staring into the light and waiting. Priam knew from experience that the pillar blinded one, hiding the uncovered faces of the three. Only once had he thought he saw a face a few months ago, when he and the other emissaries from Helike first entered the city. And what he had seen was definitely not human. Or at least ... not completely. The face was too ethereal, the features finer than what he thought possible, and even more disturbing in its perfection. Perfect, except for the pale skin, which looked thin as parchment and ancient and l veins shimmering through it and the slight tremble that seemed to go through every nerve constantly. It reminded him of the trembling of an animal that was slowly bleeding ... died. Yet the sense of power emanating from these beings was overwhelming. How could something be so powerful ... and yet make it seem that it was dying? Could the twelve leave their thrones at all, or would they simply turn to dust after all the years and decades they had been waiting here in the darkness? But how did he get the idea that they were waiting for something?

“They are waiting for the right moment to rise again. Waiting for others. "Priam almost screamed out loud. There was no voice in the room, it was in his head, in his bones. For a moment he had been distracted, ignoring his mental barriers. The inner hall of Xihuitzin was full of voices and whispers. He had heard it before. Elsewhere, but rarely as strong as if