The Lightning-Lord

  Snowfall had come early to the city of Pemil.

  The flurries followed on the heels of an unusual chill that blew in from the north, and while they were a thing of fancy and wonder at first, by the third day of cold and snow panic had begun to set in.

  Fieldhands were scrambling to save what little they could, threshing shriveled, pale wheat, and barley still green on the stalk. The black, rich earth of Klyazma’s northernmost principality had promised a bountiful harvest this year - one on which the Grand Prince had staked much for the coming months - and now it was ruined.

  But the rest of the catastrophic gears were already set in motion, and even as it seemed to Ermak of Anazov that the gods themselves were urging them to stop, they ground on.

  “Are you coming?” The voice broke through his daydreaming.

  Ermak blinked slowly, then shivered as the wind kicked up a squall along the great street. Boyar Osip waited patiently by his side - the rest of the noble procession to the citadel of Pemil had left them far behind. Ermak shuddered again, and pulled his coat tighter as he walked on. Osip of Korod was his brother-in law through Ermak’s youngest sister Rogneda - though at twenty years apart they might have seemed father and son, strolling as they were.

  “This cold is unnatural, it’s freezing my wits.” Ermak coughed as they strode down Kuznetskaya. The feverish work of the armories attracted a crowd that clustered around the smiths’ workshops and open forges for warmth. “Gods willing, at least down south it’ll be warmer.”

  “Might say you’re not the only one whose wits have gone,” replied Osip. He held his tongue as they strode past some of the city’s newest arrivals.

  Two of the savages sat playing dice - Varyazi raiders from the Jomnian peninsula, clad in maille and furs. They fixed the boyars with crude stares as they went by, muttering to each other in their strange tongue. Once they had passed well out of earshot, Osip huffed, “What is the Grand Prince thinking? Our fathers’ fathers spent decades pushing those barbarians back into the sea, and now we’re supposed to open our doors to them? What’s next, are we open up our wives' and daughters’ legs to them too?”

  “Quiet, fool!” Ermak said. “And remember where you are.” His brother-in-law was too clever by half, and his tongue too quick for his own good.

  Though half of them could trace their lineage back to Jomne, none of the boyars liked their Varyazi cousins - especially those whose merchant ships had fallen victim to their kind in the Shivering Sea. But now things were meant to be different.

  In exchange for a share of Belnopyl’s plunder, the Varyazi jarl - a distant relation of Svetopolk himself - pledged a fleet of a size Klyazma had not seen since Raegnald and his brothers came conquering. Fifty longships were already bobbing off the Sea Wolf Bay, and over a hundred more were well on their way to swell their numbers further for the march south. And the same Varyazi who menaced the merchants on the seas now menaced them all at home, such as the savages were.

  Osip pursed his lips, and said no more as they neared the citadel of the city. When they entered, they saw the rest of the boyars had gathered in the upper cloister of the Grand Prince’s palace. The longbeards huddled by blazing fires while druzhinniks stood in ranks before them, hard as ice.

  In the middle of the courtyard, several men were hard at work preparing the ceremony that the Grand Prince had summoned them for - the final send-off before the coming of war. The Winter Garden - whose beauty had withstood a hundred cruel frosts - was uprooted, and now in its place was a deep earthen pit which the men were filling with piles of wood. Ermak waved Osip off as he went to join the rest of the lords of the realm, thinking to himself. Watch your tongue, else it’ll be you they’ll toss into the fires.

  In times of peace, the Klyazmites burned many things as offerings to the gods - for the Lightning-Lord and Warmaster, stallions were the highest gift. But in times of war…the Lightning-Lord demanded more - enemy prisoners, traitors, and even captured kings and khans. Before the clash at Ongainur, the princes of Gatchisk, Pemil, and Belnopyl had burned alive a dozen captured Khormchak scouts and the Great Khan’s envoys. Ermak wondered whether it was the burnings that had cursed them, or the sin of killing envoys. But there were no Khormchaks to burn now, no emissaries or posols.

  “Boyar Ermak!” a voice cut through the chill air, drawing the attention of several druzhinniks.

  Ermak turned to the caller, and saw Boyar Rodion striding toward him with purpose, his heavy fur-lined cloak billowing as he approached. The new voivode of Svetopolk’s growing army was a massively tall, broad-shouldered fop who had burrowed his way into the royal council like an infesting worm. He claimed lordship of some distant fortress on the border of the Sleeping Lands, but when Ermak had consulted the maps of Pemil’s domain, none of them bore any mention of such a place - nevermind records of Rodion’s supposed lineage.

  Still, much like the Varyazi, Rodion had wormed his way close to Svetopolk - and so his word was law. And so when Rodion beckoned him to follow - Ermak went. The voivode led him down the dim halls of the keep, striding as if he were their lord…talking as if they were old friends. “Ermak, brother, I took stock of your offerings and…well, is it not a bad way for one to bring so little when others bring so much to the feast?”

  “I’ve no more to give,” muttered Ermak as they climbed the stairs to the upper floors. Rodion offered a hand to support him, but he waved it off. “Those two I handed off to you were all I had in my dungeons - a pair of fools who were caught trying to make off with a crate of apples from the market two weeks ago. Have we gone mad to torture and execute over such things?”

  They climbed higher and higher. The Grand Prince’s keep had become cold and lifeless - no servants, no guards roamed the halls, only heavy, unnatural darkness. Perhaps it had swallowed them, just as the cold and gloom seemed to swallow all of Pemil. Rodion said little as they rose to the solar. When they entered, Ermak saw the vast stained glass windows were shrouded, leaving the Grand Prince’s study nearly pitch-black. Only a single stab of pale daylight from a little porthole cut through the gloom.

  “Gods, you still don’t get it, do you?” said Rodion with a shake of his head as he closed the door behind him. “When we give stallions to the Lightning-Lord, do we bring them for their meat, or for the draining of blood?”

  “I’ll give you as many horses as you wish, dammit! Even my own!” Ermak growled. “But people? Our own people?”

  “Yes, our own,” Rodion smirked. “Gods, just forget it. Be glad the others brought enough for the slaughter. Once we give them to the gods, you’ll see why all this is happening.”

  Rodion padded silently to the window. The pale light of the snowy day accentuated his sharp features, his sunken cheeks. He looked like a corpse himself. “Great times are coming, my friend. The harvest is beginning.”

  “What harvest? The frost’s taken nine-tenths of it, you fool.”

  “I mean a special harvest, my friend! That’s what all this sacrifice is for, don’t you understand?”

  Ermak shook his head. Rodion turned to look at him, then beckoned him to stand and look out the open window. Ermak stepped into the light, squinting, and then his jaw fell. The courtyard was teeming with people - on the edges were onlookers and boyars, but in the middle, packed tight as cattle, was an army of peasants. Chains rattled, groans were heard, and the crack of whips cut through the air as dozens more were shepherded in by the minute.

  “What is this?!” Ermak wheezed. “I see hundreds here- no, a thousand!”

  “What did I tell you?” Rodion smiled. “This is our harvest - a harvest for the table of the gods!”

  “This is butchery,” Ermak whispered. His hands clenched into pale fists. Were it that he had a sword…and still the strength of youth. “Last year we hanged and burned a few murderers, and that was it. Even before our war with the Khormchaks we never needed so many!”

  “We lost that last war, didn’t we?” replied the younger boyar. “No, this time our sacrifice will be magnificent. No more horses, no more base animals. These are the choicest cuts we feed to the fires, and the Lightning-Lord will truly bless us.”

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Ermak said nothing. He could do nothing. He looked out again at the teeming mass of humanity, and felt his heart sink further.

  “Straighten your shoulders, my friend!” said Rodion as he nudged Ermak in the side. He leaned in and whispered into his ear. “Soon! Soon we will sail down the Cherech, and bring fire and sword to Igor and his Khormchak ilk! Our hour of glory and freedom will be soon, don’t you see?”

  With a final chuckle, the younger boyar left Ermak standing alone in the solar.

  ***

  The day drew near to a close as the Grand Prince’s men began building the pyre. It took five dozen laborers to raise the timber walls of the cage. And all the while, Rodion’s sacrifices wept and screamed for mercy. Their voices rattled up to the solar, echoing maddening in the heavy darkness. Ermak’s heart pounded so fiercely it felt on the brink of exploding.

  Two of Rodion’s men escorted him down to the courtyard when the time finally came. He found a place next to one of the braziers, but the fire did little to chase away the shaking in his hands. Up close, he saw the folk gathered by the others in terrible closeness - some had the look of criminals, but many more were commoners, the old, the feeble, the dim-witted…and women and children aplenty. They stood shivering in the cold, most wearing little more than filthy, bloodstained rags. Then Svetopolk’s men began to drive them forward, lashing with whips and shoving with spear shafts, forcing them into the pit, the earthen cage.

  By now, the fight was beaten out of those who had been strong. The teeming crowd shuffled in a great press of flesh and shoving. The screaming of the crowd swelled with hoarse roars and jeers from the druzhina, and then they began to topple into the pit. Standing by the edge, more of Svetopolk’s men tossed split logs and twigs, soaking them with lamp oil.

  The unwashed faces rushed by in a terrified blur of wide eyes. They all melted into one. Ermak barely noticed the woman pushing towards him through the crowd until she was nearly face-to-face. In her arms was a child, no older than two.

  “Take him!” she shrieked, thrusting the boy out as Svetopolk’s men shoved her back. “Take him! Save him, my lord! Save him!”

  The boy half-fell into Ermak’s arms, and a moment later the tide swallowed his mother. The druzhinnik who shoved her back whirled around to face him, his eyes burning holes behind the eye slit of his helm. Ermak held the boy tight…and the guard turned back to lay into the crowd with a horsewhip.

  “The prince is here,” he heard the boyars whispering. “The prince is here, he’s here.”

  Over his armor of iron scales and maille, Grand Prince Svetopolk wore a deep red fur-lined cloak. Next to him was his wife, the newly-crowned Grand Princess Sigfrid on one side, and Rodion on the other. Lady Sigfrid was of Solarian bearing, and a shrew of a woman who domineered over her handmaids and the boyars’ wives with the kind of righteousness only a Solarian could have.

  She once called us savages, Ermak recalled. When she saw her first burning. She said something then - say something now, would you?! Anything…

  But a change had come over Lady Sigfrid. In both stature and spirit she seemed smaller - her head was bowed low, and she barely seemed aware of where she was. Barely even alive, by the look of it. But by contrast, Rodion was lively and well - and as Svetopolk stepped to the dais built just before the earthen pit, the boyar waved a hand over the screaming mass of peasants before the prince.

  Silence crashed down like a tidal wave, the air itself seemed to grow heavier. Where before the courtyard was filled with screams, now there was only the crackling of torches and howl of the wind dancing between the pillars. It was as if a door had been closed - a door on the suffering and terror that nonetheless was plain to see before them all.

  Rodion turned to the prince, his sickening grin barely visible in the torchlight. Svetopolk lifted his bearded chin, surveying the gathered boyars. His form seemed to swell as he passed his gaze over them all - exuding a terrible dread that made Ermak shrink back without thinking. The boy in his arms squirmed, whimpering. Rodion whispered into Svetopolk’s ear, and then he spoke.

  “Brothers of Pemil,” he began. “For too long have we here suffered under the rule of Igor the Weak. For too long has the House of Belnopyl stolen from us - our silver, our grain, our very flesh. For too long have we bowed to a line unworthy of our loyalty - a line that has sold our land and people into bondage to savages from the east. But no more!”

  A murmur ran through the ranks of the boyars, though none could speak aloud in the eerie silence. Ermak felt his stomach turn, bile rising in his throat. He could still see the people in the pit, pressed together in terrified anticipation. Many had fallen to their knees, hands clasped, pleading soundlessly to gods who would not answer.

  Svetopolk gestured to the pit. “This is the old way,” he said, his voice rising with conviction. “A tribute to the Lightning-Lord, who watches over us! The weak perish, the strong endure! This is the way of our ancestors, the way that Pemil shall rise once more!”

  Several boyars exchanged uneasy glances. Ermak saw it - the doubt, the hesitation - but no one dared to speak. Not here. Not before the Prince, clad in black iron and crowned in firelight. And not before Rodion.

  “Some of you wonder why we do this,” Svetopolk continued. Ermak swore he saw the prince’s eyes flick over him. “Why criminals and cowards are not enough. But I tell you this - war is upon us. It will be a war that will decide the fate of our people! A war that will cleanse the stain of Belnopyl from our land! A war that none among you have ever witnessed before. And all of you must see - must know - what is required to win it.”

  At a signal, one of the druzhinniks stepped forward, torch in hand. He held it high, pausing just long enough for the gathered lords to understand, to see the horror before them.

  Then, he dropped it.

  The fire was shy to emerge - only a few bare wisps appeared at first, dancing perilously in the howling wind. But then the oil-soaked rags came alight, and the flames burst to life in a hungry roar. The orange blare spread fast, leaping from log to log, closing a circle around the people within. The peasants surged away from the rising heat, climbing over one another in frantic, silent terror. Hands clawed at the earthen walls, slipping, failing. The fire raged higher, orange and gold and a deep, terrifying red that washed the whole courtyard in crimson.

  Some of the boyars exclaimed in terror…others, in awe. The fire was unlike anything they had ever seen - more beautiful, more terrible, more powerful. And from within the growing blare of light, Ermak swore he saw something staring back. Something old beyond measure - eyes that stared back at men since time immemorial, when the first of their kind picked up a blazing branch from a lightning-struck tree. Perun. It is Perun. He is here. He is watching.

  The silence held a moment longer - one unbearable moment - before Rodion dropped his hand. And then the screams came.

  Raw, terrible, unending. The crowd in the pit shrieked as the flames swallowed them, bodies twisting in agony. Some threw themselves into the fire outright, desperate to end their suffering. Others trampled their fellows, trying to escape the inescapable. The scent of burning flesh filled the air, thick and choking. Ermak turned his face away, bile rising in his throat, but the cries clawed at his ears.

  The boy in his arms wailed, a high, thin sound that cut through the din. Ermak forced himself to look at Svetopolk.

  The prince stood still, watching the pyre with solemn intensity. His lips were parted slightly, as if he were whispering a prayer, but his eyes burned with something else—something deeper, darker. Rodion, beside him, smiled.

  When Svetopolk turned back to the gathered boyars, his voice was steady, unshaken. “Look upon them!” he bellowed. “Look upon the price of weakness! This is what Igor has made of us. Slaves. Chattel. A people who know only how to bow and give, never to take. But no longer.”

  Then Rodion stepped forward, his arms spread wide. In the crimson light, the petty boyar was an inhuman monster - a twisted red thing whose eyes glowed with a golden sheen. He drew his sword, raised it to the sky, and then bellowed a prayer.

  “Oh Perun, Lord of Lightning and Heaven.”

  “Oh Perun, Lord of Lightning and Heaven,” the boyars roared in unison after him.

  “Oh Perun, who rules higher than all. Accept this sacrifice of flesh and blood in your name.”

  A frenzy spread among the boyars and druzhinniks. Ermak saw some of the warriors in the courtyard turn against one another, slashing and striking one another with swords and clubs. Several boyars pulled at their faces and beards, tearing out fistfuls of bloody hair, frothing at the mouth like dogs. Others bit their own wrists and fingers as the prayer continued, spilling blood on the flagstones. Then the red spatters on the ground began to converge, merging into a thin red stream that twisted along the snowy ground and into the pyre.

  Rodion’s form rippled - but not from the haze of the heat. The petty boyar grew larger before Ermak’s eyes, tearing free of his wool jacket and cape to reveal skin like clay, blackened by heat, with cracks that seemed at once random and lovingly hewn. Long black hair cascaded in a wave down to the snowy ground, which began to smoke as the fire continued to expand. And all the while, the screams and prayer swelled.

  “Oh gods of mine, fire, earth, and stars above.

  Accept our blood, our spirit, and our love.

  Break the false, cleanse the land. Give us steel and strength to guide it.

  Oh, gods of mine…”

  The fires closed over the men and women within like a maw snapping shut. The screams transformed, becoming almost harmonious - a single long, agonized wail that cut to the bone.

  The catastrophic gears were already set in motion, and all Ermak of Anazov could do was close his eyes.

  Then he heard a groan. The cage was moving - and the fire within was alive.