Markus
Mortal man was brought into existence first with blood, then with soul, and to this day that was still true. New men were born every second, bright-eyed and full of potential in the image of God, the creator of all. Mortals were terribly simple like that. They were given the ultimate gift without having ever earned it, blessing that they would never fully be able to comprehend.
To be born with a soul, with purpose, was wasted on mortals, Markus thought.
In the Sacred Clan of Kokabel, souls were considered gifts bestowed upon you by your father when he decided you were worthy of one. You were blood and power, but you weren't holy, weren't complete until you had gained what you had been born void of – the breath of God. Entire lives could be led without a soul, but death wasn't seen as tragic for those that died without it, for they were already meaningless. You weren't worth the air you breathed until you had a soul.
Markus of the Clan Kokabel was a man without a soul, and every day he worked toward it. Tirelessly. That was to be expected of someone of his stature, the next in line to the throne, the oldest living son of the King. He needed to prove his worthiness over his brother and earn what would make him complete. The leader that his Clan deserved. The one they needed. Anything less would be a disservice to their kingdom, to their Clan, to God.
There were many ways one could prove themselves worthy, but Markus focused on what he had talent for – hunting. There was always a beast in need of slaying, a town in need of saving, something in need of pursuing, and Markus found that he could provide that service. He was a fighter. He was a restorer of peace. Of order.
Which was why he was here now, crouching in the higher limbs of a tree in the swampy marshes toward the center of his Father's kingdom, waiting patiently for the creature that had been causing havoc in a town important to trade. The humidity had him sweating heavily under the bronze plates he wore, the skin of his face sticking to where the metal made contact against the ridge of his nose and forehead. He had been here for almost three days, unmoving, watching. The muscles in his thighs burned to the point of pain from the position he held, but his stubbornness was more powerful than any discomfort his body could ever summon to use against him.
He was trained from birth for this – the hunt, the struggle, the will to push forward to get done what needed to be done. That was his purpose. His only purpose until he was proved to have more worth than that. He was a tool for his Father to use as he pleased, and Markus was a good tool, one that could not be replaced. If he could not be replaced, he was in no danger of losing his place in line for the throne.
It was night again for the third time since he had taken his position and the rapid cooling of the air did little to relieve the heaviness that hung around him. He focused on his breathing, slowing the beating of his heart to a quiet, even thumping. He was beginning to think the creature might sense those things, know that he was here in wait for it. Why else had it suddenly stopped its attacks upon his arrival?
The area where it all seemed to occur was one usually used as a shortcut, where there was a narrow strip of land through otherwise swampy waters, massive trees with their reaching arms and roots everywhere. There were stones dotting the mossy, putrid waters on either side of the path, and, according to the locals, children had made games made out of jumping from stone to stone alongside trader's carts as they tried to get a treat thrown at them from the merchant passing through.
And then one night the children started to get pulled under and were not seen again. Anyone that tried to help the children were pulled under as well as whatever creature made sure it's victim was within reach of the stone but not the pathway, so it was easy to slip into its grasp underwater. Several days after that it started to attack the carts with its massive tail – and then, suddenly, one morning the trail was compromised, large sections missing. You would have to venture through the waters to get to the other side, lest you wish to take the long path around the marsh.
Those that dared to investigate found that the creature looked like a man, almost, with strange inhuman hands and small black eyes with a massive scaled tail. And though he had seen many a beast, Markus had yet to see anything like that.
But he wouldn't move until he did.
There was no movement here, only an eerie silence as the earth seemed to sense that there was to be a slaying and held its breath in anticipation. Occasionally a bird would fly through, cutting through the silence with a chirp or two before it took off.
It wasn't until later that night that the silence was shattered when a rather large and stupid looking bird landed on what was left of the pathway. It opened its long beak to begin squawking; an ugly, shrill sound, one that had Markus nearly flinching from the awfulness of it. The squawking continued as the bird strutted up the pathway with his long twiggy legs, opening his wings to shudder, squawk, squawk, looking this way and that for something, food, maybe a noisy female.
Something moved under the water then and Markus tensed, his world falling away save for where the head of an old man was silently lifting out of the water, just enough exposed so he could glare furiously at the noisy bird with beady little eyes. Large ears flicked up out of the water then, thin but shaped like a bovine, listening to the sounds the bird made.
Markus slowly drew in a breath, watching as the creature shifted, it's massive body moving under the water as it tilted away from the path, angling itself in such a way that Markus recognized it was lining itself up for something.
This was it.
Unlike most others in his family, who all took immense delight in challenges, Markus preferred things simpler. He did not play with his prey, nor did he draw out a fight for the sake of entertainment. The second he saw a way to end it, he did. He went in for the kill as soon as a weakness was exposed.
When the beast lifted its massive tail to swing it at the bird, Markus hurled his sword with a flick of his wrist, a fraction of his strength. It cut through the air and flew through the creature's head easily before it flew into the tree behind it, hitting it with enough force to crack it up the middle.
Markus did not wait to see if that killed the beast – destroying the head worked most of the time but not always. He leaped from the tree to grab the limp tail and pull it out of the marsh, hand over hand with slow pulls. It must have weighed as much as six horses, maybe seven, but that was nothing more than a feather for Markus – if he wished, he could have jerked it out entirely from the water. He was slow because it was an unfamiliar creature, a stranger to his kingdom. It could have several heads for all he knew, all waiting to take a bite out of him. He pulled the creature up onto the narrow path to examine it with a critical gaze. With a snap of his finger, his blade reappeared in his grasp, a useful spell on the metal, and slid it back into its holster.
It seemed dead, the ugly creature with the massively bloated stomach. Its hands were as described, so he did not doubt this was what had been terrorizing the town. When it appeared to only have just the one head - or had the one head, before his sword cracked it open like an egg – and appeared well and truly dead, he relaxed and began to drag it behind him toward the town.
He came to stand just outside the tree line, dropping the beast there to stare down into the valley where the town was just beginning to wake, people milling about with uncertain glances thrown toward his silhouette in the distance.
Markus kept his distance from the townspeople, never close enough to make out features if he could manage. Close proximity to others made his skin crawl, anxiety sliding under the surface of his skin like a cold liquid he could never rid himself of in the presence of others, turning his stomach sour. Even this far off, he could hear their thoughts like whispers on the wind, hushed but ever-present. The closer he would get, the louder and more sure they would become, and once he could see the white of their eyes he would see other things as well, visions that invaded his own thoughts until he had to actively fight against them to hear himself think.
So, Markus kept his distance.
But he was tired, and that meant that he could not put up his shields as effectively, so he could hear them even here, whispers. Spoken clear in the air around him he heard the thoughts of those that noticed him refer to him as the Spirit of Helenus, though he had yet to understand what that meant.
He assumed it was a reference to his grandmother, Helen, a brutal warrior who had done many great things in her life and the subject of many stories in his kingdom. There were statues of her likeness guarding over many towns, a spear in one hand and trident in the other, usually held over her head with the tips touching, an unwavering figure of authority and protection.
A woman dressed similarly to how the statues of Helen was depicted came to stand in the middle of the town then, where a fountain gurgled clear water from the mouth of a finned horse made of stone. The woman was familiar to him, more so than even his own mother. It was his Aunt Cydonia, who took a drink of the fountain as she eyed him, taking her sweet time before she started walking toward him.
He did not have any issues with the intrusive thoughts of any of his Aunts. His Grandfather had been a very powerful mentalist, more so than Markus, and all of his children were trained to keep their thoughts to themselves, lest they wanted to suffer the consequences of the King so much as hearing a hint of them. When his Aunt neared, there was no change in the noise he picked up. There was an impenetrable wall around her mind, just as with all her sisters.
How he envied her for it. He had never been quite so skilled to be able to construct one as solid as hers, not without leaving himself vulnerable. Living under his grandfather's thumb had left his mind unable to to many things, it would seem.
"Well, well, what meat do we have here." Cydonia sang out as she eyed the dead creature. His Aunt spun the bone spear in her grasp, the same one that Helen's statues' all bore likenesses too. It was a special weapon of great power, one that Cydonia overwhelming enjoyed exercising and lording over her sisters.
Those in their family were not especially gifted outside of the blessing all in their Clan possessed – but Kokabel's extraordinary speed and strength, that of one hundred men combined, didn't always get one as far as one would like in a realm of magic and varied talents. Some clans bore great power every generation, every single member capable of doing great and terrible things...but in the Clan Kokabel, it was a rare and far between occurrence for such power to be born to them.
Markus had some talent, half that of his Grandfather's if the rumors were to be believed, and though that was still more than the grand majority of anyone born recently to his family, it was still nothing in comparison to their rivals. The ability of a Mentalist, which was what Markus was, was useful at times but did little to help him slay beasts that had fewer thoughts other than food, sex, and sleep. There were no tactics involved, nothing that he needed to know to overcome. Once he knew where they were hiding and what they were capable of, he would execute them.
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