O: 38
For an entire ga’o, the Goyk’s celebrations showed no sign of abating, spilling out from the halls of Domaryd Fortress into the streets beyond. From the loftiest noble houses to the lowest commoners, all were granted leave to feast and drink without restraint.
To mark this turning point in their history, a grand and solemn Rite of Restoration was held in the newly completed square of Gawaring Kazdyn. King G’Vaszorynk, together with the royal circle of wizards, opened the ceremony by offering thanks to the High God before all their subjects.
Thereafter came the proclamation of honors and rewards for the commanders and soldiers. The wizards whose labors had contributed to the creation of the ashspawn breeds were likewise duly recognized. Each was rewarded according to merit, in many degrees and forms: lands, treasures, coin, titles, and advancement in rank and station.
Goykimar, the Marshal who had done most to secure the recent victory, was the first to receive honor at the king’s own hand. Clad in fearsome black armor, he stepped forth before the dais. The square erupted in thunderous acclaim the moment he lifted his double-bladed sword aloft.
‘GOYKIMAR!’
‘The Sword of Glory!’
‘GOYKIMAR!’
‘The Undefeated Marshal!’
‘GOYKIMAR!’
‘Son of Fire!’
Yet while the rest reveled in triumph, the Marshal remained unmoved, showing no interest in celebration or reward. Alone among them, he petitioned the king to send the army in pursuit of the surviving ownan forces. To him, the war was not yet over.
In the eyes of the people and the soldiery, Goykimar was hailed as a hero. But within the royal court, his dissenting view displeased many. Most sided with the King and the Prince, holding that they should not hasten an assault upon Ao’Tuatiweh. They offered three reasons. First, the ownan forces had been all but destroyed, and the pitiful remnant had already fled. Second, the ownans’ two principal leaders, Voznugaid and Tiknahah, had been slain. Third, the Goyk army itself had suffered grievous losses and needed time to recover and replenish its ranks.
In truth, there was a deeper cause as well, though few would have spoken it aloud. After enduring a hundred long ga’onax in Ao’Hanoorat, the Goyks had suffered bitter privation, tormented by hatred and by the pain of a lost homeland. This hard-won victory was to them both release and recompense, and they wished at once to reap its rewards.
The Goyk ruling class desired to rebuild their empire with all possible speed. They longed to raise the mightiest dynasty in history, so that their departed forebears might look down in pride, and so that the generations yet to come might live in abundance and prosperity.
When the honoring had been concluded, King G’Vaszorynk came forth again and made known to all his subjects the divine decree of Y’Kar, first shown to him in a vision before the battle. It proclaimed that the victory won by the Goyks had come by the blessing and power of the two Creator Gods. Therefore, all the people were to submit themselves wholeheartedly to the divine will, in recompense for such grace. As G’Vaszorynk declared, Kaigud, God of Creation, had ordained the raising of many temples and palaces, while Kailad, God of Destruction, had ordained that more forests be felled, more lands laid open, and more mines set to working. The king ended his proclamation with lavish promises of bounty.
Last of all came the rite of sacrifice to the High God and the lesser gods.
Beasts and ownan captives in great number were led onto the pyres set upon a raised stone platform. At the four quarters stood four massive furnace towers, and together with the central ceremonial dais they formed the shape of a four-pointed star. Around them stretched a vast circle lined with crimson banners, lashing in the damp wind.
A deep and ponderous blast of horns rose into the air, keeping time with the sinuous, eerie dances of the veiled maidens. Dark clouds gathered overhead, casting a somber pall upon the scene. Gumlog, the High Wizard, convulsed from head to foot, all the while muttering beneath his breath, his eyes rolled back until only the whites were seen. From his upturned palms, cupped together, a skull-shaped flame arose and drifted lazily toward the pyre. At once, five green flames flared up from the platform and the four furnace towers. They flew straight upward and were swallowed by the churning clouds. Meanwhile, the wretched forms of men and beasts writhed in agony.
Gumlog stepped forward, faced the pyre, and cried aloud:
‘O Supreme God Y’Kar! O Kailad, burn away all earthly defilement! O Kaigud, bring forth the flourishing of all things! Thanks be to the High God! Glory to the Child of the Gods! Praise be to Gawaring! Blessed be Gawaring a thousandfold!’
Thereupon he began to chant ancient incantations. The company of wizards below joined in, answering him with eerie cries like the lament of voices sending off the dead.
A scorching rain poured down amid flashes of lightning. The crowd stretched up their hands, tilted their faces to the sky, and opened their mouths to receive the burning drops as they ran down their throats. At these sacred signs and omens, the people burst into exultation and grew more frenzied with every passing moment. Shouts, laughter, and choking sobs merged into a single chaotic clamor that drowned out even the rain itself.
After the Rite of Restoration, Gawaring Vaszorynk was exalted and praised by all his subjects, for they believed that through him the favor of the gods had been restored. Goykimar’s triumph, too, was ascribed to that same divine grace.
~~~
The king ordered that a tower be raised on the very site where the Grand Rite had taken place. This monumental work was decreed to surpass all others in majesty and height, so that it might be seen from every quarter of the capital. It was given the name Y’Karax, meaning “The High God’s Purifying Fire,” and was to become the tallest tower in history, worthy of the glorious return of the Goyk people.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Stone quarried from Mount Bazdien was used in its making. That mountain was bound up with the “genocide-demon,” as the Goyk called Oawgiboni, and for this reason they believed that every trace of it must be erased.
The Goyk regarded Oawgiboni as a devil, a thing accursed and ill-omened, and would not even speak its name. Whatever remnants of Oawgiboni had been left behind were carefully gathered by the soldiers and cast into the cremation furnaces. The ashes were then borne away and scattered beyond the borders of the Ao’Mahgar Grandcrystal. The royal wizards performed further rites of purification as well. Only then did they feel at ease breathing the air, now that it was no longer tainted by death-scent.
According to the plans drawn up by the officials and scholars overseeing the work, the Y’Karax Tower was to rise in five distinct tiers. At its summit, the uppermost tier had two faces, carved in relief to depict the God of Creation and the God of Destruction. The four tiers below represented the social ranks in descending order. The Goyk society’s rigid division into classes was founded upon the teachings of the Stone Scriptures of the High God’s Messenger.
Only the line of Gawaring was entrusted with the keeping of the Stone Scriptures and the charge of transmitting them to the people.
The Scriptures tell this tale:
In the First Age, when all was chaos and unformed, the High God Y’Kar brought forth his Children, the Vegus. Among them was one named Kaik, to whom was entrusted the making of sentient life for the Realm of Aomry. To fulfill this solemn charge, Vegus Kaik divided himself into two divine beings: Kaigud, God of Creation, and Kailad, God of Destruction.
At the beginning of all things, Kailad swallowed the blazing primal clouds of the cosmos. Then from his mouth he spat forth the two Gawar Fangs, the three sands—Gokaz, the precious white sand; Gokop, the fine golden sand; and Gokun, the common green sand—and the gray mire left over, called Ogus.
From these materials Kaigud fashioned the Goyk people. The two Gawar Fangs became the first man and woman of the noble and exalted line of Gawaring. In the Goyk tongue, Gawaring means “Children of the Gods.” From Gokaz arose the wizards, court officials, generals, and nobles. From Gokop arose astrologers, alchemists, apothecaries, scholars, and merchants. From Gokun arose soldiers and the common laboring folk: craftsmen, farmers, hunters, smiths, carpenters, and all other workers of the hand. From Ogus alone came the ownan, who dwelt like wild creatures in the forests and were deemed fit only for bondage.
The classes and ranks of Goyk society were to be plainly displayed through the reliefs and inscriptions carved upon each tier of the tower. The Ogus class alone—that is, the ownan—being deemed filthy and base, was to have no place in the honored architecture of Y’Karax.
The common Gokun class longed always to join the royal army, thereby seeking to raise their standing to that of the Gokop. And if fortune favored them with worthy merit, they might even rise into the noble class of the Gokaz. For this reason, the soldiers were ever loyal and proud to serve in the army. They fought willingly, eager to win distinction, cherishing the hope that one day they might live in wealth amid great halls and splendid palaces.
~~~
O: 39
Goyk detachments regularly patrolled the lands around their encampment. In forests confirmed to be free of ownan, companies of Green Crossbow troops, who also served as hunters, would move in. Prince G’Kazdyn personally led these hunts, despite the King his father having forbidden it.
The Ogoses kept sending their calls into the woodland without cease. After the recent battle, only six of them remained, Katuo among them. And with their Yoa-force now so limited, only a small number of beasts received the warning and fled. Most of the animals remained in the forests and across the grasslands, still unaware that the deadliest of all predators had returned.
G’Kazdyn was watching through a long spyglass. He raised one hand. ‘Hold. I see one there. No one is to move without my order.’
With two of his subordinates beside him, he stole forward in silence. Then he straightened and drew his bow. The arrow hissed through the air and buried itself in the chest of a beast standing absorbed in its leaf-browsing. It gave a faint cry and limped away. G’Kazdyn sprang after it, flushed with excitement. Another arrow flew, this time piercing its long neck.
The prince came up to it and stooped over, gazing down at his quarry as it labored through its final breaths.
He laughed in savage delight. ‘Well? You have seen my marksmanship, have you not?’
‘Ah!’ cried the official beside him, as if he had just witnessed a marvel. ‘The High God has bestowed upon the Prince a most rare gift.’
‘Has He?’ said the Prince with cool indifference. ‘It was no more than a trifling beast.’
‘You are truly remarkable, Your Highness. Indeed, you are worthy of the great bloodline of Gawaring,’ said a minister, in a graver and more measured tone.
‘Your Peerless Highness, Lord G’Norol has not spoken beyond the truth,’ said an old captain. ‘In all my life, never once have I seen an archer of such unfailing aim as Your Highness.’
G’Kazdyn allowed a few more men to finish their honeyed words before at last speaking with solemn dignity:
‘I have long awaited this day, and now my wish is fulfilled. In Ao’Hanoorat, all I could do was shoot those mindless ashspawns, and there was no pleasure in it. Cut off this beast’s head for me, and see that it is cleaned, dried, and properly prepared. I shall hang it with my own hands in the great hall of Domaryd Citadel, in remembrance of the first beast I ever brought down.’
‘As Your Highness commands,’ said one of his retainers obsequiously. ‘A most splendid idea, Your Highness. The Citadel will shine all the more gloriously for the trophies of Your Highness...’ He hesitated briefly. ‘If it please Your Highness, most wise and gifted, this servant would ask one small thing, should leave be granted...’
G’Kazdyn flicked a hand. ‘Speak.’
‘With deepest respect, Your Highness. It is only this: our Green Arm Corps possesses crossbows of formidable power, able to strike at great range with unerring precision. Why, then, does Your Highness favor this ancestral bow instead?’
‘Hmph. You servants are as small-minded as ever,’ G’Kazdyn said loftily. ‘A fire-crossbow tears the prey apart with a single shot. If it is so easy, what pleasure remains in the hunt? With a traditional bow, I must draw near with care. I must watch the wind as well. Even when struck, the prey does not always die at once. It is wounded and flees. Then I may savor the full thrill of stalking and pursuit. And I may behold with my own eyes the beast gasping out its life by my hand. Now that I have explained it so plainly, do you understand?’
‘Oh! Your Highness’s mind is profound beyond measure! No wonder this servant could never fully grasp it. I am truly a fool, even while standing at Your Highness’s side,’ the court attendant wailed.
The others likewise seized the chance to flatter G’Kazdyn. When he was sufficiently pleased, he gave the order:
‘You lot, follow me and seek out more prey. I now grant you all leave to display your skill. Use the fire-crossbows. Hunt as much as you please—the more, the better. When we return to the palace, lay out a feast. I shall taste their flesh.’
By the time darkness fell, the hunting parties were on its way back. The backs of the Smarpon herd were laden with the carcasses of animals, still warm and wet with fresh blood. Many more had been left behind, for there was no way to carry them all. For a hundred ga’onax in Ao’Hanoorat, the Goyk had lived on nothing but plain, meager food, just enough to fill the belly and keep life in the body. Fresh meat, in that moment, was what they craved more than anything else.
~~~
