For a brief moment, Sankesh saw a prowling, angry dragon in the depths of his blue eyes. The vision vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared. But Sankesh was certain that he would never forget the sight of that dragon inside this man. And he would never admit it, either.
Even after he flayed this ant alive, even after he stripped any memory of him from the history of the world, even after he became a god and burned this insolent man’s homeland to the ground, he wouldn’t forget the look in his eyes.
“What do you want from me, Sankesh?” Hadjar asked.
He’d recovered a little from the recent pressure. Still, that hadn’t even been a direct fight, but only a brief exchange of ‘slaps’.
“What makes you think I want anything from you?”
“We wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
Sankesh’s smile was more like a beast’s feral snarl, but Hadjar had often heard such things said about his own smile.
“Maybe I just wanted to meet her beloved Hadjar.” Sankesh was glad to see the other man deflate slightly. “Arliksha told me that you’d gotten attached to the key. Are you serious, Hadjar Darkhan? Is it really worth a dragon’s time to pay attention to a pathetic creature from an ancient civilization?”
“I can hear the contempt in your voice,” Hadjar said, trying to drive the image of little Serra suffering from his mind.
“By the Evening Stars, I wouldn’t have even remembered Mage City if it hadn’t been for their elixir. In my opinion, dragon, if they went extinct, then they were too weak to fight for their lives. The weak have no place under the sun!”
Sankesh uttered that last sentence with unprecedented ferocity. Hadjar had heard that this was the motto of Sankesh’s Army — ‘Death to the weak, honor to the strong’. However, the King of the Desert wasn’t the author of the phrase. It had been interpreted in various ways in the Empire of Darnassus for centuries.
“And yet…” Hadjar replied calmly.
Sankesh looked him over once again. He wouldn’t have gotten where he was today if he hadn’t torn apart everyone in his way like a wild beast (which many believed him to be). He would certainly skin the man-dragon alive. But it would give him a lot more pleasure if he used him for his own purposes first.
“Join me, Hadjar Darkhan.” Sankesh’s eyes flashed and he held out his hand. Hadjar would need both of his hands to wrap around the King’s wrist. “What are you even doing with those worms? They aren’t worth your time. Under me, you’ll see new horizons of power open up before you. In a month, you’ll be a Heaven Soldier. You’ll get to command a real army. When I’m a god, you’ll be among my Generals.”
“And what do you plan to do?”
“Reshape this world!” Sankesh clenched his fist. The gleam in his eyes caused a slight disturbance in the streams of the World River. “Death to the weak! It’ll be our new law! Anyone that can’t endure the struggle for life has no right to walk under the sun!”
Was it really that simple? Was a maniac wearing a king’s crown sitting in front of him? Hadjar had fought against all kinds of people: generals led by self-interest, cultists who’d sought power, a king hungry for dominance over all, but for the first time in his life, he’d encountered someone who sought destruction for the sake of... destruction. If Sankesh judged people by comparing them to himself, he would always find someone weaker, whom he would then kill for his ‘noble’ goal.
“Sorry, King, but we want different things.”
Sankesh narrowed his eyes.
“Are you refusing my offer, Darkhan? Or do you fear the bracelet on your arm? My Scholars will remove it faster than you can remember the name of the worm that dared to put a collar on a dragon!”
Admittedly, such a proposal still struck a rotten chord in Hadjar’s soul. The temptation to get rid of his amulet early was great. But no greater than…
“No,” Hadjar shook his head. “It’s because of my honor.”
“Honor?” Sankesh snorted. “Don’t be silly, dragon. There’s no such thing as honor in this world. Or valor. Or courage. There are only the strong and the weak! You must know that. We must know that! We who were slaves! Who fought their way to the top by ourselves!”
Hadjar looked into the man’s black eyes. What resided behind that beastly mask and the mountains of muscle? Hadjar suddenly realized that no matter how powerful Sankesh was, he would never be afraid of him, because the King was a man whose fate had been decided by others. The King of the Desert didn’t wear a slave collar, but he still kept one in his heart.
“That is the difference between us, Sankesh.” Hadjar’s voice was calm and his eyes were steady, “even while wearing a slave collar, I wasn’t a slave.”
The fury in the King of the Desert’s eyes could’ve burned entire cities to the ground.
“Olgerd!” An animalistic roar sounded. “Challenge this worm to a duel! I thought I was talking to a dragon, but all I see before me is a slug!”
According to the laws of hospitality, Sankesh couldn’t take Hadjar’s life himself, but he could give someone else a chance to do so through a duel.
A man of a breed that Hadjar had never encountered before emerged from the tent. He was a true northerner.
Chapter 371
A tall, broad-shouldered man came out of Sankesh’s tent, which hadn’t been touched by the recent clash between their two auras. Six and a half feet tall, he was clad in chainmail armor lined with the furs of animals Hadjar didn’t recognize.
Shading his eyes from the sun, he swung his long saber slightly. In his left hand, he held a round wooden shield with an iron centre. Despite their apparent simplicity, these were all artifacts at the Earth level, worse than Mountain Wind and Sankesh’s halberd, but still good weapons.
Olgerd had broad, ugly scars across his chest. On his fair skin, the red and pink streaks were repulsive and eerie.
His rugged face, also scarred and wrinkled, was covered in thick golden hair. It wasn’t blond, like people from Lidus had, but rather the color of rye. His beard and hair had been braided, and metal clip-on balls dangled from the tips of his braids. They were rune-painted and contained no energy, but they clearly had some sacred meaning.
The warrior exuded the aura of a Heaven Soldier at the lowest stage, but it was much... stronger and more complete than the auras of foes Hadjar had fought before. These kinds of details were much more obvious to him now.
Meeting Sankesh’s gaze, Olgerd slammed his fist against his shield.
“Konung Black Bear,” he said in a harsh, snarling language that was a kind of mixture of Lidish and... a more animalistic tongue. “I greet you.”
The Desert King nodded toward Hadjar.
“Hadjar Darkhan.” This time, the warrior from the north of the Empire spoke the desert language with a very strong accent and made some mistakes. “I challenge you to honor duel. You insult master. Have no honor.”
“Don’t break your tongue, Olgerd,” Hadjar replied in the warrior’s language. He remembered a little of it. “I can speak the language of the snowy mountains.”
Hadjar hoped he’d spoken correctly. May the ancestors be kind to South Wind and may his rebirth be simple.