Chaos Calling

By PL Nunn

Sable was taken as a child and conscripted into a mercenary army. Given the name Battleborn when he took to the sword as if he had been god-touched. A talent that gained him the notice of the Warrior Divine, Sinan himself. And when he fled that life, returning to the home he barely recalled and the sister he had left behind, the dogs of war hounded his trail.

Eons ago the gods of Bharall imprisoned an entity more powerful than they. A chaotic god who threatened the order of the world. And for eons he slept, dreaming dreams of pandemonium, until a goddess Divine released him in hopes of teaching mortal-kind a lesson. But when Chaos escaped the bonds of her geas, the gods fled to their realm and closed it off, leaving human kind to deal with the mad god on their own.

Now Sable and the warrior god who was once his lover and now his enemy must reluctantly join forces to save the world from the madness that Chaos spreads in his wake.

• Language: English
• Publisher: PL Nunn
• Release date: Jun 16, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463785256

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Chaos Calling

P.L. Nunn

Chaos Calling copyright ©2018 by P.L. Nunn

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Chapter One

There was a small shrine to some minor god or another outside the way stop on the Southern Imperial highway. A farmer’s shrine, with offerings of wheat and dried vegetables. No one left coin on these roadside shrines, even the most devout knowing full well that such gifts would end up in the hands of hungry travelers rather than whatever patron deity they worshipped.

The fields hereabouts seemed fertile enough, so more than likely it was some agricultural god that garnered the devotion of the local farmers. The road was muddy, pitted from years of usage, long and straight, cutting through endless fields. The township of Jachatha lay perhaps ten leagues south and to the northeast of that, the neighboring hamlet of Gerga. Prosperous villages both and newly allied by the upcoming union of the children of their respective town leaders. There was to be a festival spanning both townships in celebration.

It was this festival that drew the pair of young travelers. Footsore and tired from days on the road, the young man and woman stopped at the way stop, two amidst a dozen or more travelers and farmers and merchants that crowded the common room of the small inn. They were recently bereft of a horse, the girl’s gelding having snapped a leg in a water obscured hole on the road some four days prior. One or the other of them had walked most of the way after, saving the one horse remaining to them from the burden of carrying double riders.

Dark haired both, she with dancing brown eyes and long, sun-kissed brown locks tumbling loose across her shoulders. Her skirts were layered and split, the manner a woman might wear that rode astride. She had a knife at her belt with a fine curved bone handle. When she moved through the common room, eyes shifted to follow her.

Her companion moved in her wake, more wary of the crowded room, eyes as dark as hers taking in the occupants, flitting past farmers and merchants and lingering on those few men who bore arms. When he moved into the room on the heels of the girl, the attention thrown her way turned to him. Sheep were always aware when a wolf stalked among them. The sword at his back was unique. Long, single-edged curved blade, a simple, circular guard between it and a long, leather wrapped grip. Singularly elegant, from the black sheath to the polished black sheen of the guard. Not the usual sort of blade men in Bharall carried. The leather armor was well worn, scuffed, but finely made. As was the man himself. Shoulder length dark hair was caught in a tail at the nape of his neck and his face was lean and handsomely featured, the thinnest of scars a white edge against his jaw. The face of a young man, but his expression was jaded and wary. The eyes of a man that had seen terrible things. There was enough of a resemblance between them, that they were most certainly related.

Brother and sister.

Stew or meat pie, Sable? the girl, having reached the rough chunk of wood that served as a counter, cast her brother a look.

Pie, he said, more to cater to the weakness he knew she had for meat pastries, than for any preference of his own.

She grinned and held up two fingers to a passing serving girl, then took the clay mugs of golden cider that the man behind the bar filled for her and looked for a tabletop with two empty spots.

They found a place in a back corner. Sable loosened his sword, leaning it against the wall next to the chair he took, facing the room. The girl, Bekka, sat down next to him, sipping with closed eyed adulation at the amber brew.

It’s as good as the last time.

Um.

If I make enough coin at the festival, we should buy a barrel on the way back.

We have one horse.

She sighed, still lamenting the loss of her mount. It had been a rangy, ill-tempered gelding that had been at constant odds with Yago, Sable’s war-trained mount, but Bekka, soft-hearted as she was, had grown fond of its cantankerous ways.

I suppose I’ll have to drink my fill now. Do you think I’ll make enough to buy a horse?

Maybe.

Her optimism was boundless. His, he kept close to heart, but ever supported her whimsy.

Bekka was an artist. She carried an array of dyes and inks, quills and brushes. She decorated pots and urns, painted and inked parchment and scrolls and even, when a large enough commission was offered, had done a fresco or two on the wall of some wealthy patron’s home.

Festivals were ripe with customers willing to pay for a bit of frivolous decoration. Portraits of the betrothed were especially popular, painted on pottery, stone or parchment. She made a decent wage at such gatherings, a welcome addition to their endlessly meager funds when the work Sable was best suited for was in short supply. His work required the use of the blade he never let far from his side. Or at least the threat of using it. A mercenary that had become these last two years, rather choosey about the jobs he accepted. The blood on his hands was copious, but he had been trying, for the sake of his sister and whatever shred of purity was left of his soul, to walk a different path. It was not always easy for a man that had at the ripe old age of twenty and three, gained a notorious reputation for himself. His face was not easily forgettable and the sword at his back was as strikingly exceptional— its twin after all, being the favored weapon of a god. A weapon that the god in question — one of the nine Divines, the highest order of all deities — had not exactly been pleased with Sable’s permanent acquisition of.

Battleborn, they called him, those that had served with him in the mercenary army of Deegan the Red. A child conscript, that instead of falling as fodder on the battlefield as most children thrust unprepared into battle did, had taken to the sword as if it were some missing limb. Eleven years old when he had been taken from his home and he had fought with the ferocity of a feral animal. Seasoned warriors had fallen to his blade. He had never bothered to take count of the lives he took. It had never occurred to him. And for no few years, during that decade he had served the whim of a merciless warlord king, he had been a cold and merciless killer.

So he had a reputation. A bloody, terrible reputation that he would likely never shed. And men with something to prove tried to prove it against him. And died. Sable seldom fought in half measures.

Bekka made it better. Bekka reminded him of the child he had once been, before he’d lost himself to the ferocity of war. He’d sought her out when he’d fled that life — when he’d fled the reach of something more powerful than the wrath of a mercenary king. And to that half remembered home, that village in the mountains of Ecyedon and that sister that had been all of nine when last he’d seen her, he brought down hellfire in his desperation to escape. The things that had pursued him were merciless. Some of them human, ruthless and eager to punish his desertion with brutal death. Some of them more than human, the larval offspring of gods and mortals, who served the pure blooded deities, minions and henchmen and monsters who sought his death with more gusto than mortal human men. Their hatred fueled after all, by envy that a simple human had caught the eye and the favor of a Divine.

Sinan’s dogs of war had hounded him more viciously than the mercenary bounty hunters that Deegan the Red had set on his trial. Sinan, one of the nine great gods — the Divines themselves — son of Tzur and Yehra, worshipped by fighters and conquers and warrior kings. Beautiful and deadly and malicious Sinan, who reacted quite badly to betrayal. As if he himself were not well versed in it.

Sable. Bekka nudged him, jerking chin in the direction of a group of exhausted seeming travelers, packs on their shoulders, hollow, shaken expressions on their faces. There were more, drifting in. Tired, dazed-seeming folk. Like refugees. He had seen the look before, on the faces of people fleeing terrible things.

The little way stop did seem overly crowded, now that he took closer note. A strained, wary crowd.

Something’s off, Bekka said, brows furrowed. What, do you think?

He shook his head, then shifted his attention towards the door and the group of men shouldering their way past the stoop shouldered travelers. Armed men. A mish-mash of armor, stubble and assorted weaponry. Cold and calculating looks. Eyes like wolves that darted around the room, always on the prowl for prey. He knew the look of mercenaries when he saw it.

Not entirely surprising to see them here. Festivals drew all types. They pushed their way through the tired folk in the common room and complained once at the bar, at the lack of harder spirits available. Cider seemed not to meet their needs.

One of them knocked a tray out of the hands of the passing serving girl and they laughed, the three of them, at the clatter of mugs hitting the floor. Laughed even more uproariously when one of their number put a foot to the broad rear of the maid as she bent to pick up the scattered contents of her tray. She toppled forward, into the shards of ceramic mugs.

Leave her be, you asses. Bekka had a habit of misjudging her ability to deal with dangerous situations. Spoiled perhaps, by Sable’s presence at her back.

She stomped up to the three miscreants, fierce eyed and indignant, putting herself between the red cheeked serving girl and the men.

Oh, now this one’s got her feathers all ruffled, don’t she?

Pretty little goose, though, another leered.

And the third circled, like wolves were aught to do and laid a hand on her shoulder.

Don’t. Sable slid through the nervous onlookers, a stillness about him that was unnerving.

One man sneered at him, gruff and bearded and fetid with road stench. Who’re you to tell me what to do? What sort of sword is that on your back? Is it pretty decoration or does it have a sharp edge?

Sable canted his head ever so slightly. You don’t want to find out.

They laughed, drunken fools high on the belief of their own competence. But Bekka shook her head at him, a silent appeal to not shed blood here. It was a place that held good memories for her and on the road he led her, she had few enough of those.

So the sword stayed in its sheath at his back and he broke the nose of the man who dared lay a hand to his sister with an elbow to the face. Then flung that howling miscreant into the other two when they started towards him. There were screams then and people scrambling for cover as the mercenaries went at Sable and Sable danced out of their way. And Sable danced exquisitely. Violently. Brutally. His efficiency, when it came to taking men down, was a thing of beauty.

It was not until one of them, staggering and bloody, decided to take the brawl to the next level and drew steel, that Sable drew a blade of his own. Not the sword at his back, that was for killing men, but the dagger in his boot, that he flung underhanded before the man’s sword cleared its sheath. It took him in the thigh, cutting his movement short, making him howl bloody murder as he fell, clutching at the leg.

Sable stalked towards him, kicking him over with a boot to the chest, then jerking his dagger free. He turned dark, deadly eyes to the other two. They stared at him, bloody faced and breathless.

I know you..., one of them whispered, face gone white under the dirt and the smears of blood. Battleborn.

Fuck..., the other said.

Get out. Now, Sable suggested softly.

They grabbed up their companion and did, cutting a hasty path for the door. The people around the edges of the room stared wide-eyed. Likely none of these common folk had ever heard the name ‘Sable Battleborn’, but they stared at him as if he were some poisonous reptile in their midst all the same. He turned his back on them. Went back to the table and his mug of cider in the corner and pretended no frightened looks were cast his way.

Bekka paid him no heed at all, instead helping the trembling serving girl gather up fragments of broken mugs onto her tray.

Has something happened? she asked.

The girl looked up at her, surprised. You don’t know?

We’ve just arrived. We’re heading to the festival in Jachatha.

There will be no festival. Jachatha and Gerga are at war.

Bekka cast a look of dismay to Sable. He leaned forward, trusting her to pry details loose.

War? But — why? These towns are allies. What about the wedding?

The girl laughed bitterly, holding up a broken shard of pottery. No wedding either. Not without a groom. The bride’s brother attacked and killed him six days past. When both families were gathered at the shrine to Lukanna, of all places, praying for her blessing on the union, I hear. They say he went mad and stabbed the groom in the eye.

Gods save, Bekka whispered.

They did not that night, the girl said. There was more blood split as the families and their guard went at each other. The Gergans fled, but came back a day later in force, attacking farms outside Jachatha . And Jachatha retaliated. It’s been going on now ever since. And scum like those your man there chased away have been coming, offering their services to one town or another. There are so many dead...

The girl knelt, head down, crying softly. Bekka took her hand, murmuring soft words. Sable looked around the room. These were not just travelers. They were refugees. He could see it in their eyes now, the look of innocent people torn from their safe, comfortable homes by war. He knew that look well. From a hundred villages and towns and cities that he had been a part of the destruction of.

He shut his eyes, then finished off the cider and rose, summoning Bekka with a jerk of his chin. She nodded, still speaking softly with the serving girl as he made his way outside.

Now that he looked, the carts in the yard were piled with personal belongings instead of produce. The road from Jachatha was dotted with people slowly making their way north. Some led wagons overflowing with household goods, caged animals, or icons to some god or another. Others carried bulging packs, while some had only the clothes on their backs.

Refugees. Damn.

His horse was tethered not far from the door. A long legged black, who seemed greatly indisposed to the flock of humanity making its way through the yard around him. Ears were laid flat and large white teeth showed when a man brushed close, tethering a sway backed mule next to the warhorse.

Yago, Sable said sharply as those white teeth made to snap at the old man’s shoulder. Black ears flicked and great dark eyes fixed on him accusingly. There was no grain to be had and the yard was muddy and crowded.

Bekka appeared as he was tightening the saddle cinch, slapping Yago on the rear when he puffed out his belly, most displeased with heading out again so soon after stopping. Grain had been promised, and a rubdown. Sable scratched under the silky mane once he’d adjusted the girth to his satisfaction, pulling the soft black muzzle close to him and promising in the soft murmur a man might use to talk to his horse and not be thought the weaker for, for a proper curry and an extra portion of grain for supper.

Yago blew out a skeptical snort, long suffering, but willing to make the effort for his person, even if his person insisted on riding double with his small female companion.

Sable swung up and held out a hand for Bekka.

Are we in a hurry? the girl asked, wrapping one arm around Sable’s waist as Yago launched into a trot.

I want a closer look at what’s happening.

Not thinking of taking work? she asked warily. Sometimes, to keep them fed, he had no choice but to barter his services as a sell sword, but Bekka didn’t like it. Sable was more pragmatic. He did what needed doing, even though her opinion of him mattered. More perhaps than she knew.

No. They had coin in their pockets from his last job, the escort of a rich merchant caravan, and if they were thrifty it might last through the month. So it was not money that drove him, but curiosity. And the sense of guilt that always skirted around the edges of his sanity, when he came across the victims of casual violence. He had debts to pay that might never be balanced.

So he took them down the south road towards Jachatha, past slowly trudging people headed in the other direction.

What do you think happened? she asked. To make a man attack his sister’s groom? He had to have known it would escalate.

Sable had no answer.

Gods. Look at their faces. She stared in quiet dismay at the beaten, shocked expressions of the people they passed on the road.

He tried not to.

He had tried these last two years to keep her far from places of conflict, but the world was rife with danger. Wars between provinces, bands of mercenary warlords preying on whoever was weak enough to make it worth their while. Bandits roamed the roadways and slavers ventured into Bharall from the outer kingdoms. Add to that the enemies with personal grudges against him, that occasionally picked up his trail and the girl might have been better off at home in the poor village they had grown up in. He had been selfish seeking her out, after his desertion from Deegan the Red’s army, but desperation made for poor judgment and his had been great. His sanity had been a tenuous thing. She had helped him find it again.

The road was bare of travelers after a point. When they came to a fork, he chose the left path, the one leading towards Jachatha. The road cut through gentle, grass-covered hills, dotted here and there with patches of forest. He saw carrion birds circling before the first bodies came into view. In the grass, off the side of the road, flies buzzed around a cluster of corpses. No recent kills from the smell and the bloating of flesh. A day dead at least. The birds had been busy and their work was gruesome. A few of them sat, gorged and beady eyed not far off from the dead.

Bekka gagged, looking away, cheek pressed against Sable’s back.

Not much further, the clash of weapons could be heard. Sable urged Yago off the road and into a canter. At the rise of a hill, they saw the remnants of what had been a battle between a dozen or so men. Bodies littered the ground, the last two desperately swinging at each other with bloodied swords. They were not adept with their weapons. Neither of the two survivors, nor the bodies on the ground were armored, as if they were simple townsmen or merchants drawn to battle against their better natures.

Fools.

Even as he watched, one managed to get in a strike at the other and blood spattered from a torn throat. The loser fell, gurgling, clutching at his ripped flesh. The victor stood a moment in dazed incomprehension, before he looked up and saw Sable and Bekka on the rise above.

Stay, Sable told the girl, dismounting, heading with calm strides towards the trembling man.

Stay back, the man cried, pointing his blade threateningly.

The man’s eyes took in the sheathed weapon, the cut of Sable’s armor made for war, light, hardened leather covering the lean, hard musculature of a young man in his prime. None of the bodies strewn about the bloody field wore more than tunics and sandals. These men had not come dressed for battle.

I’m not here to fight you. The calm in his voice was deceptive but it brooked no disobedience. Put down your sword.

Who’re you? A mercenary for Jachatha?

No. I take it you’re from Gerga?

I am. The man lifted his chin, but his voice trembled, his hands shaking so badly he had to clench them both around the bloodied hilt of his sword.

How many have died, that men like you have entered the field of battle?

What —? Men like me? There was offense that Sable doubted his fighting skills. I fight for the honor of Gerga. I fight to avenge our blood.

And how much blood will it take before vengeance is satisfied?

The man’s eyes went blank, confused. He opened his mouth. Shut it. Then said brokenly. I - I don’t know.

And then, with silent efficiency an arrow bore through his neck. Wide, shocked eyes stared at Sable, before death took the man and he crumbled.

Sable’s eyes darted up, searching for the archer and found him, a figure on the crescent of the next hill. Another arrow was released and he swore under his breath, stepping adeptly to one side. The bolt hit and stuck in the dirt where he had been standing. Not a bad shot, considering the distance.

He moved quickly and evasively, using side-to-side strides that made no easy target for even a skilled archer. With his free hand he drew his dagger and sent it hurtling towards the archer.

It was too far a distance for true accuracy, but it served to interrupt the man’s focus long enough for Sable to cross the distance between them, and with the long blade, his accuracy was never been anything but true. Sable very seldom fought to wound and the blow was a killing one. The archer fell, eyes wide in shock. The body lay twitching after. Not much more than a boy.

Sable cleaned the blood from the sword on the fallen man’s tunic, mood darkening by the moment. Remorse was a faint whisper from the darkness. There had been years when he had marched under the bloody flag of Deegan the Red, that he had beaten the feeling of it into submission for the sake of his own survival. But it came back to him now and then, dragged out of the shadows by Bekka’s presence. By Bekka’s compassion.

This boy had chosen the path to his death when he’d fired on him. And better his blood wetting the grass than Sable’s. He did regret not fully understanding what the whole thing was about. He disliked killing blindly.

He dearly wanted to know if the boy he had dispatched had been a bandit, a mercenary, a lunatic out of his mind, or merely a desperate soldier fighting a battle to avenge the act of a madman.

There was movement down the hill. Bekka heading towards him on Yago. Bekka whom he’d told to stay put and who never listened. He sighed and beckoned the girl towards him. The sun was not so low that a girl astride a horse would not make an easy target for other archers hiding in the woods not so far away.

He scanned the hills but saw no one else.

Off, he directed. And she slid down, standing close by Yago and staring with wide, horrified eyes at the body on the ground.

Gods protect. So many dead. They don’t look like soldiers.

They’re probably not.

She shut her eyes, swallowing heavily, trying to hold back breakfast more than likely. I don’t like this. It feels — wrong. Let’s just pass on by.

Sable narrowed his eyes, realizing even as his sister said it, that there was a certain ill-feeling stirring the very air. There was something forced, something contrived about the whole of this unfortunate situation. He had seen war. Seen bloodshed and battle and felt the cold dismay of the aftermath. But this — this made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

Unnatural.

And distantly familiar. He canted his head, curious.

Not just yet, he decided.

So they walked on, down one hill and up another and ten more like them. By the second hill they found the remains of four more men. By the fifth the bodies of over a dozen and by the ninth had passed no less than a hundred casualties of this tragic little war. When they topped that last hill a plain spread out before them. On that plain lay the bodies of hundreds of men and horses. Here and there a cry was raised and in a few places the sound of metal against metal could be heard. It was hard to see where exactly the spots of combat still existed for small clumps of brush and wood dotted the flatlands.

Bekka let out a low, misery laden sound. The blood smell in the still air was cumbersome and bitter. Sable frowned distaste. What a tragic waste. If the leaders of the two forces that had met and clashed and so utterly decimated each other had been here then they were surely among the slain. Savagery. It was as if they had fought to the last man, no one among them wise enough to call for retreat when the losses had become too high. He stepped over a body and curled his lip at the glazed-eyed, feral look on the face of the dead man. They