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Description
Azrac the Anvil, bastard King of Mavros, tightened the buckles of his leather breastplate. Forearms bulging, an iron forge hammer swayed in his white-knuckled grip, scarred with heavy use. His lion-skin cloak flapped in the wind as he surveyed the barren crossroads.

Pitchforks and makeshift spears bristled from the ranks behind him. Azrac’s grisly, bronze-skinned warriors stood in loose formation. The harsh sun reflected off of axe-heads, skinning knives, and cleavers. The men of Mavros awaited the opposing army that loomed in the cloud of dust rising on the far side of the crossroads.

The Fork of Toth was to be the staging point for the bastard king’s march on the Nine Kingdoms. No longer would Mavros suffer under the heel of empires. Every man, woman, and child was an instrument of vengeance, forged in the flames of torment. Its people wroth from 500 years of slavery, molestation, and butchery.

Azrac turned to Kiril, his second. She was tall, and lean, and fierce. Her raven hair billowed wildly in the breeze. The bastard king smiled broadly, no hint of humor touching his black eyes. “It doesn’t look like Sal’Hadin wants to surrender.”

Kiril frowned. “With a force that size, can you blame him?”

The ground shook as Sal’Hadin’s host marched in step. Their upheld swords shimmered like silvery blades of grass. Their bronze-helmeted heads were countless as grains of sand. Their bronze shields created the illusion of a slow moving landslide.

Bearing his Emperor’s crimson standard, the Premier General rode out front on a sleek black stallion. His muscular charger was an exceptional specimen, easily worth enough to outfit Azrac’s entire army. Glazed in golden armor and draped in silk the color of blood, Sal’Hadin approached the bastard king accompanied by an elite column of honor guard.

The lofty general smelled of perfume. “Is this it?” Sal’Hadin circled Azrac on his shiny black charger. “Mavros dog, you insult me. Where is the rest of your army?”

Azrac the Anvil gritted his teeth. “This is all the army I need. Two to one odds are acceptable to any man of Mavros. My warriors will cut you down like sheep.”

“Warriors?” Sal’Hadin snorted. “Half of that savage rabble consists of women and children.” The general eyed Kiril. “How fitting, a bitch at the right hand of a mongrel.”

Kiril shifted her spear point without subtlety. Azrac knew the quiet rage building inside her. His was a faint spark.

The bastard king looked at her intently. “She’s worth any three of your finest men.”

“Is she now?” Sal’Hadin stroked the end of his curled beard. “And what is a bastard king worth?”

Azrac narrowed his eyes, his spark growing into a slow flame. “Of your strutting armored peacocks?” He nodded toward Sal’Hadin’s honor guard. “Five.”

The general snickered. “With nothing but that lump of iron? You don’t even have a proper weapon.”

The bastard king gestured toward Sal’Hadin’s army. “There are plenty of ‘proper’ weapons about, should I find myself in need of one.”

“Tuck your tail, dog of Mavros. Scurry home to your hole in the mud. You are outnumbered and outclassed, no match for my superior force.”

Azrac scanned the crude ranks of his militia. They were a restless and hungry looking bunch. Men of Mavros. A fiery smile crept across his face. His flame fanned into a crackling fire. “Perhaps you’re right.” He rubbed his bald head. “Instead of sullying the road with the corpses of ‘women and children,’ why not settle this in single combat? I win, you yield, and clear off the road. You win, my dogs go home. No one else has to die.”

Sal’Hadin flashed a crocodile grin. “How very… civilized of you.” His tone dripped with sarcasm. “Name your champion.”

Kiril stepped forward. Eyes shining like diamonds. Sal’Hadin erupted in laughter.

The bastard king held a hand to his second’s chest. She smoldered with fury. “Unlike the good general, I fight my own battles.”

“Truly? Well then, as you so boldly pledged earlier, you are worth five of my finest soldiers. It would hardly be a fair contest if I named but one champion.”

Azrac’s fire surged into a roaring blaze. He should have known the general would exploit his words. Five of Sal’Hadin’s honor guard would be a formidable challenge indeed. But he was tired of the general’s clucking. “Very well. You shall see the worth of a man of Mavros.”

Sal’Hadin sneered. “Indeed.” The general turned his black charger and clopped back to the safety of his army.

Kiril turned toward her king, concern dancing in her eyes. “You know he will not let you leave the field alive.”

“Then you know what to do.”

Kiril scowled, but she bent in acknowledgment.

The bastard king walked to the center of the desolate crossroads. The fur of his lion-skin cape rippled in the stir of blistering air. A bead of sweat ran down his back. It tinged the swelter with a brisk edge. Sal’Hadin did not keep him waiting. The general called off the names of his champions, and five of his honor guard emerged from the line.

The five stood together a moment, deciding what equipment they would take and what they would leave behind. But Azrac wasn’t concerned with their tactics. All men broke against the Anvil of Mavros. Still, there was no sense waiting for them to form ranks, or encircle him.

It was time to remind his battered people what their king was capable of. What they were all capable of. Their days of quiet suffering were over. The blaze welling up in inside of him flared into white holocaust.

Azrac broke into a sprint, his sandals kicking up loose gravel behind him. As he closed, the first soldier flourished a curved sword and slashed at his head. Azrac ducked in. Sword zipping inches above him, he swung the 12-pound hammer for the man’s knee. The hammer whistled as it shattered bone to kindling like a bolt of lightning through a rotting log. The force of the blow lifted the man from the ground, and sent him cartwheeling onto the side of his head. Hard. His body flopping lifelessly over it.

When the Anvil turned, the next soldier was already upon him, blade raised. Azrac spun and met the sword with his hammer. The blade snapped neatly in half, the top whirring away. But the hammer continued, splattering the honor guard’s face into a soggy crater, and clotheslining him into the air.

Azrac glared across at the three remaining champions. His eyes burning through them like wildfire. Doubt played at the corners of their hardened expressions.

The soldier in front of him hid cautiously behind a shield, waiting for an opportune moment to strike. Azrac waited for no such moment. Lunging forward, he roared. Veins stood out on his muscled arm as he brought the forge hammer down like a meteor. Sparks flew as it caved the soldier’s shield with a sound like thunder, and drove him into the gravel.

The downed soldier wailed, his broken arm trapped in the bent metal. The last two champions looked on in wide-eyed horror. Apparently they’d never seen anyone fold a bronze shield before. Azrac stepped over the broken man and casually kicked his sword away. Smiling, he wrenched the bent shield free of the man’s broken arm. The soldier howled. His eyes pleaded for mercy.

There was none to be found from the Anvil of Mavros.

Placing the bottom rim of the shield over the soldier’s throat, Azrac hammered down on the top. The shield tore through tendon and bone. It dug into the earth, viciously decapitating the man.

Of the two that remained, one held a spear, the other a sword. Azrac juked to the right. The swordsman leapt in with an overhead cut. Azrac shirked back to the left, reeling back his hammer. When the swordsman came down, Azrac’s hammer belted him in the hollow beneath his ribs. Stove in his armor. And catapulted him across the field.

His guts would be paste. The Anvil didn’t spare him so much as a second glance. Instead, his black eyes searched for their final target. Fear was written plain on the spearman’s brow as he backed away. Azrac the Anvil’s face split with maniacal laughter. The bastard king took a spinning hop and then hurled his forge hammer so hard it stung his hand. It whooshed loudly as it spiraled through the air. The spearman flinched. And the 12-pound hammer smashed into his shoulder with a bone-crunching thud, knocking him to the ground.

Azrac approached the soldier in no particular hurry. He picked up his hammer. Knelt over the man. Then bashed his skull in. Azrac stood unscathed, the victor of ‘single’ combat. “I hope those five weren’t your best!” he boomed in the direction of Sal’Hadin’s army.

The enemy ranks parted as Sal’Hadin emerged on his black charger. “You think you’ve won? A dog like you will never take the Fork of Toth from me.” The general’s voice was shrill. “Archers!”

Nothing happened. Not a single arrow was loosed.

“Archers!” the general screamed again.

A soft clamor went up from the rear of Sal’Hadin’s host. Gradually, it grew louder. Realization dawned on the general as the sound of armed combat became unmistakable.

The Anvil of Mavros lifted his forge hammer and bellowed his most blood-curdling war cry. Kiril rallied the frothing ranks behind him into a frenzied charge. Men of Mavros flooded past Azrac on all sides. The bastard king flung himself into the tide of battle along side his bronze-skinned warriors.

He scoured the field for a single man. His black eyes found what they were looking for. That pompous cock, Sal’Hadin. The general was busy defending himself from the swarm of Mavros militia. He never saw the Anvil coming.

Azrac unhorsed the general in a flying tackle. When they tumbled to the ground, he held Sal’Hadin down by the throat. Men of Mavros pulled the general’s arms out wide and stepped on his wrists, pinning him helplessly. More of them formed a protective circle around the spectacle.

Azrac grinned, his black eyes hard. “Now you know where the rest of my army was.”

“You arrogant mongrel!”

He tightened his grip around Sal’Hadin’s throat. “After my dogs are finished with your twittering peacocks, I will spare one man in your army to carry a message to Damask. They will be given one chance to surrender, the same as you were.”

The general gave a weak laugh. “You cannot hope to take the city.” His voice strained beneath Azrac’s heavy hands.

“Using the weapons and armor your soldiers have so graciously provided, I will take the city. And when I do, I will slaughter every last man, woman, and child. I will raid your stores. I will take your livestock. Then I will burn Damask to the ground. All will fear the Anvil of Mavros and his dogs.”

Terror rose in Sal’Hadin’s eyes. “Then… then you will send me to carry your message.” He stiffened his lower lip.

“No, not you. You are a gift.” Azrac stood, and then he turned and walked away. His grisly warriors closed in on Sal’Hadin, Kiril foremost among them.

“Who’s the bitch, now?” Kiril snarled. Her eyes gleamed as she pressed her spear point beneath the apple of Sal’Hadin’s throat.

Description
Azrac the Anvil, bastard King of Mavros, tightened the buckles of his leather breastplate. Forearms bulging, an iron forge hammer swayed in his white-knuckled grip, scarred with heavy use. His lion-skin cloak flapped in the wind as he surveyed the barren crossroads.

Pitchforks and makeshift spears bristled from the ranks behind him. Azrac’s grisly, bronze-skinned warriors stood in loose formation. The harsh sun reflected off of axe-heads, skinning knives, and cleavers. The men of Mavros awaited the opposing army that loomed in the cloud of dust rising on the far side of the crossroads.

The Fork of Toth was to be the staging point for the bastard king’s march on the Nine Kingdoms. No longer would Mavros suffer under the heel of empires. Every man, woman, and child was an instrument of vengeance, forged in the flames of torment. Its people wroth from 500 years of slavery, molestation, and butchery.

Azrac turned to Kiril, his second. She was tall, and lean, and fierce. Her raven hair billowed wildly in the breeze. The bastard king smiled broadly, no hint of humor touching his black eyes. “It doesn’t look like Sal’Hadin wants to surrender.”

Kiril frowned. “With a force that size, can you blame him?”

The ground shook as Sal’Hadin’s host marched in step. Their upheld swords shimmered like silvery blades of grass. Their bronze-helmeted heads were countless as grains of sand. Their bronze shields created the illusion of a slow moving landslide.

Bearing his Emperor’s crimson standard, the Premier General rode out front on a sleek black stallion. His muscular charger was an exceptional specimen, easily worth enough to outfit Azrac’s entire army. Glazed in golden armor and draped in silk the color of blood, Sal’Hadin approached the bastard king accompanied by an elite column of honor guard.

The lofty general smelled of perfume. “Is this it?” Sal’Hadin circled Azrac on his shiny black charger. “Mavros dog, you insult me. Where is the rest of your army?”

Azrac the Anvil gritted his teeth. “This is all the army I need. Two to one odds are acceptable to any man of Mavros. My warriors will cut you down like sheep.”

“Warriors?” Sal’Hadin snorted. “Half of that savage rabble consists of women and children.” The general eyed Kiril. “How fitting, a bitch at the right hand of a mongrel.”

Kiril shifted her spear point without subtlety. Azrac knew the quiet rage building inside her. His was a faint spark.

The bastard king looked at her intently. “She’s worth any three of your finest men.”

“Is she now?” Sal’Hadin stroked the end of his curled beard. “And what is a bastard king worth?”

Azrac narrowed his eyes, his spark growing into a slow flame. “Of your strutting armored peacocks?” He nodded toward Sal’Hadin’s honor guard. “Five.”

The general snickered. “With nothing but that lump of iron? You don’t even have a proper weapon.”

The bastard king gestured toward Sal’Hadin’s army. “There are plenty of ‘proper’ weapons about, should I find myself in need of one.”

“Tuck your tail, dog of Mavros. Scurry home to your hole in the mud. You are outnumbered and outclassed, no match for my superior force.”

Azrac scanned the crude ranks of his militia. They were a restless and hungry looking bunch. Men of Mavros. A fiery smile crept across his face. His flame fanned into a crackling fire. “Perhaps you’re right.” He rubbed his bald head. “Instead of sullying the road with the corpses of ‘women and children,’ why not settle this in single combat? I win, you yield, and clear off the road. You win, my dogs go home. No one else has to die.”

Sal’Hadin flashed a crocodile grin. “How very… civilized of you.” His tone dripped with sarcasm. “Name your champion.”

Kiril stepped forward. Eyes shining like diamonds. Sal’Hadin erupted in laughter.

The bastard king held a hand to his second’s chest. She smoldered with fury. “Unlike the good general, I fight my own battles.”

“Truly? Well then, as you so boldly pledged earlier, you are worth five of my finest soldiers. It would hardly be a fair contest if I named but one champion.”

Azrac’s fire surged into a roaring blaze. He should have known the general would exploit his words. Five of Sal’Hadin’s honor guard would be a formidable challenge indeed. But he was tired of the general’s clucking. “Very well. You shall see the worth of a man of Mavros.”

Sal’Hadin sneered. “Indeed.” The general turned his black charger and clopped back to the safety of his army.

Kiril turned toward her king, concern dancing in her eyes. “You know he will not let you leave the field alive.”

“Then you know what to do.”

Kiril scowled, but she bent in acknowledgment.

The bastard king walked to the center of the desolate crossroads. The fur of his lion-skin cape rippled in the stir of blistering air. A bead of sweat ran down his back. It tinged the swelter with a brisk edge. Sal’Hadin did not keep him waiting. The general called off the names of his champions, and five of his honor guard emerged from the line.

The five stood together a moment, deciding what equipment they would take and what they would leave behind. But Azrac wasn’t concerned with their tactics. All men broke against the Anvil of Mavros. Still, there was no sense waiting for them to form ranks, or encircle him.

It was time to remind his battered people what their king was capable of. What they were all capable of. Their days of quiet suffering were over. The blaze welling up in inside of him flared into white holocaust.

Azrac broke into a sprint, his sandals kicking up loose gravel behind him. As he closed, the first soldier flourished a curved sword and slashed at his head. Azrac ducked in. Sword zipping inches above him, he swung the 12-pound hammer for the man’s knee. The hammer whistled as it shattered bone to kindling like a bolt of lightning through a rotting log. The force of the blow lifted the man from the ground, and sent him cartwheeling onto the side of his head. Hard. His body flopping lifelessly over it.

When the Anvil turned, the next soldier was already upon him, blade raised. Azrac spun and met the sword with his hammer. The blade snapped neatly in half, the top whirring away. But the hammer continued, splattering the honor guard’s face into a soggy crater, and clotheslining him into the air.

Azrac glared across at the three remaining champions. His eyes burning through them like wildfire. Doubt played at the corners of their hardened expressions.

The soldier in front of him hid cautiously behind a shield, waiting for an opportune moment to strike. Azrac waited for no such moment. Lunging forward, he roared. Veins stood out on his muscled arm as he brought the forge hammer down like a meteor. Sparks flew as it caved the soldier’s shield with a sound like thunder, and drove him into the gravel.

The downed soldier wailed, his broken arm trapped in the bent metal. The last two champions looked on in wide-eyed horror. Apparently they’d never seen anyone fold a bronze shield before. Azrac stepped over the broken man and casually kicked his sword away. Smiling, he wrenched the bent shield free of the man’s broken arm. The soldier howled. His eyes pleaded for mercy.

There was none to be found from the Anvil of Mavros.

Placing the bottom rim of the shield over the soldier’s throat, Azrac hammered down on the top. The shield tore through tendon and bone. It dug into the earth, viciously decapitating the man.

Of the two that remained, one held a spear, the other a sword. Azrac juked to the right. The swordsman leapt in with an overhead cut. Azrac shirked back to the left, reeling back his hammer. When the swordsman came down, Azrac’s hammer belted him in the hollow beneath his ribs. Stove in his armor. And catapulted him across the field.

His guts would be paste. The Anvil didn’t spare him so much as a second glance. Instead, his black eyes searched for their final target. Fear was written plain on the spearman’s brow as he backed away. Azrac the Anvil’s face split with maniacal laughter. The bastard king took a spinning hop and then hurled his forge hammer so hard it stung his hand. It whooshed loudly as it spiraled through the air. The spearman flinched. And the 12-pound hammer smashed into his shoulder with a bone-crunching thud, knocking him to the ground.

Azrac approached the soldier in no particular hurry. He picked up his hammer. Knelt over the man. Then bashed his skull in. Azrac stood unscathed, the victor of ‘single’ combat. “I hope those five weren’t your best!” he boomed in the direction of Sal’Hadin’s army.

The enemy ranks parted as Sal’Hadin emerged on his black charger. “You think you’ve won? A dog like you will never take the Fork of Toth from me.” The general’s voice was shrill. “Archers!”

Nothing happened. Not a single arrow was loosed.

“Archers!” the general screamed again.

A soft clamor went up from the rear of Sal’Hadin’s host. Gradually, it grew louder. Realization dawned on the general as the sound of armed combat became unmistakable.

The Anvil of Mavros lifted his forge hammer and bellowed his most blood-curdling war cry. Kiril rallied the frothing ranks behind him into a frenzied charge. Men of Mavros flooded past Azrac on all sides. The bastard king flung himself into the tide of battle along side his bronze-skinned warriors.

He scoured the field for a single man. His black eyes found what they were looking for. That pompous cock, Sal’Hadin. The general was busy defending himself from the swarm of Mavros militia. He never saw the Anvil coming.

Azrac unhorsed the general in a flying tackle. When they tumbled to the ground, he held Sal’Hadin down by the throat. Men of Mavros pulled the general’s arms out wide and stepped on his wrists, pinning him helplessly. More of them formed a protective circle around the spectacle.

Azrac grinned, his black eyes hard. “Now you know where the rest of my army was.”

“You arrogant mongrel!”

He tightened his grip around Sal’Hadin’s throat. “After my dogs are finished with your twittering peacocks, I will spare one man in your army to carry a message to Damask. They will be given one chance to surrender, the same as you were.”

The general gave a weak laugh. “You cannot hope to take the city.” His voice strained beneath Azrac’s heavy hands.

“Using the weapons and armor your soldiers have so graciously provided, I will take the city. And when I do, I will slaughter every last man, woman, and child. I will raid your stores. I will take your livestock. Then I will burn Damask to the ground. All will fear the Anvil of Mavros and his dogs.”

Terror rose in Sal’Hadin’s eyes. “Then… then you will send me to carry your message.” He stiffened his lower lip.

“No, not you. You are a gift.” Azrac stood, and then he turned and walked away. His grisly warriors closed in on Sal’Hadin, Kiril foremost among them.

“Who’s the bitch, now?” Kiril snarled. Her eyes gleamed as she pressed her spear point beneath the apple of Sal’Hadin’s throat.