His eyes opened and his blurry vision started to clear, as he felt heat. He could feel the cuts and pain stinging all throughout his body, yet he tried to force himself up. He fell back down onto his stomach, writhing in the pain. He tried once again and managed to lift himself onto his knees.
He looked to in front of himself and saw flames, to his right the same and to his left a similar ordeal. He could see the silhouettes of the great northern riders who had swooped on them like eagles, ripping them apart. He could see them harassing the wounded and taking people prisoners, as well as loading their carts and horses with their loot and bounty.
He struggled onto his feet and started stumbling forwards before falling back on his knees, shouting a roar of pain and anguish, one of the many among the cries and screams of the local populace, wails of women and the laughter and crude tongues of the barbaric raiders. In a last successful attempt to get back on his knees he used his dagger as a stable crutch. Once he was up, he started coughing and wheezing with the growing amount of smoke and flames enveloping the area around him.
Looking around to see the skilled opponent that had disarmed and knocked him out during the battle and raid. He saw many of the foreign warriors, none of them his nemesis, the one that had dishonoured him in battle. To the horsemen it mattered little, they didn't notice him getting up and moving around and he knew it. In this state who would care about some crippled and wounded wretch?
As he staggered around he picked up a spear lying next to him and straightened his helm. Everywhere he looked he saw nothing but flames, and the strewn bodies of fallen soldiers. Many of them were pin cushioned with multiple arrows, lying face first in the ground. Then in the distance, he saw the devil himself. A silhouette rode towards him, jumping over the flames and thrusting his blade forward. As the rider inched closer his face came into vision. The rider was visibly young in age, with a round nose, tanned skin, and his hair was as deep red as the flames he was surrounded by. In his clouded grey eyes there was a sort of determination that was seen in few.
He steadied his shield for the impact from the charging horseman. But then came a sudden move he should have seen coming. The horseman sheathed his sword mid-gallop and turned his horse around a mere few feet away from him, instead drawing his bow as he turned away. The Saka drew an arrow in a flash and once again suddenly fired an arrow. It landed in his knees and he fell to his knees shouting in rage. It was as if the world slowed when the warrior released his second arrow, the one he was holding in his bow hand. It whirred straight towards his face and he closed his eyes, accepting his fate. For a single moment the pain was the most he had ever experienced, then everything blacked out.
********
Pasyai looked at the dead man in front of him with a sort of respect. This opponent had fought well and deserved an honourable send off. He dismounted his horse and dislodged the arrows form the bleeding body of his fallen enemy, placing them neatly in a row beside him. He then turned the body of the man to face the starry and red night sky, also putting the shield of the dead man on him. Just as he had finished his task his aijhysäta came riding behind him. He turned around to face his elite warriors as they drew their blades and made raucous cries of victory. Tied to their horses tails', all of these men had slaves bound in a line behind them and their horse laden with loot.
"My lord this settlement lies in flames and for a hundred stades the skies are red with the flames. Should we head start the long ride home now, or perhaps should we head to our camp to rest for a few more nights before doing so?" the rider quizzed ecstatically, obviously being excited to show his clan and family the result of his first great raid.
Pasyai mounted his horse and started trotting to the main square of the town. "No need to head back to our homes so quickly. That would be an act that might seem weak or cowardly. No, for that would be weak. Rally the men and find me a man that can speak both our and their tongues. A trader would be best, these people have warriors amongst them and I know that real warriors do not barter".
The riders who were trailing their lord quickly bowed and turned around, deciding to gallop off down the hill and into the burning town square with their plunder, so they could tell their friends and clansmen that everyone was allowed to retire from a hard night of pillaging. Pasyai alone kept riding upwards to the top of the hill.
Eventually he reached the top of the mount where he had a beautiful vantage point from where he could see the valley and town below. It was a mesmerising site as the brilliant red of the flames rose up into the night sky. He knew his father would have disapproved of such a raid, but alas, the times were tough and the previous autumn there had been a meagre harvest from the already barren lands of the Pamirs.
He just sat there for a while on his trusty horse, viewing the site below. This town, Balatta, he had visited it as a child with a cloth trader that was close friends of his father's. The memories of visiting the little beautiful temple that was near the main square especially remained in him. It was beautifully carved into a cave and the many fantastic idols in it painted by the local maidens. There was a glass roof on the top of the cave-temple so that the small hall would be illuminated by a beautiful golden light whenever the sun shined through the glass.
It had been a local priest that had told him that. He had told him a story as well, a story of how a god or hero or something saved his people from thirst and starvation. He had forgotten the story for most of the part, a vague memory sitting in the back of his mind. He wanted to make a parallel situation between the hero and himself but he knew that the situations were different.
Scrunching up his face, he started riding back down towards the town to check on his troops, hoping they wouldn't be getting to rowdy or too drunk to ride their steeds. He silently watched flames as his horse walked down the hill. The night was definitely quiet for what had happened and the only sound was the occasional rustling in the grass and the crackling of flames.
That's when Pasyai heard it. A groaning and coughing coming from his left, in a near distance. He steered his mount towards the noise to investigate. It trotted towards the groaning and Pasyai saw where the sound was coming from.
Lying down with his head against a rock was a wounded man with an arrow in his knee. The man could not have been older than himself (yet he did not look like the fighting type) and Pasyai instantly felt a pitiful guilt for what he saw in front of him. He dismounted from his horse and got out a pitcher of water from his luggage, knelt next to the wounded and put it to the mouth of the rasping boy so he could drink.
The boy coughed and tried to get up and failed. He lacked any strength in his arms, which Pasyai noticed were also bleeding and bruised. Pasyai put the pitcher beside the boy, who picked up the pitcher and drank some more water, most of it falling beside him and on his face. He then used the remaining to wash his straw-like black hair, which was crusted in dried blood (as was the rock behind it. Pasyai could only guess his head had been dashed against the rock). The boy looked up at Pasyai and smiled a wry smile.
"Pass my spear, I 'm feeling fitter than ever. I'll skewer the fools off their high horses." he rasped, wheezed and coughed, a little blood coming out of his mouth. He kept on smiling and tried to get up once again, failing as before. "Tell me oh great rider how may I repay the debt of my life?" he said mockingly, trying to move his legs but shouting in pain.
Pasyai mistook the boy's statement seriously and looked at the bleeding man in front of him suspiciously. He then sighed and got an arrow from his quiver and dipped the tip of it in the boy's blood. He then leant in to whisper into the boy's ears.
"Give this to your chief so he may deliver it to his lord. Ask him to recite that if the great lord of these vales does not pay tribute to me and give my tribe land to settle on I shall send him an arrow for every town I sack. Every time the head of it shall be a little bit more covered in the blood of the fallen than the previous." Pasyai stopped to think of what a fair time should be to give his adversary.
"If he has not agreed to such a treaty before the leaves have fallen than his realm will shall".
Pasyai got of his knees and dropped the arrow next to the wounded warrior, adjusted the mattress on his horse before he mounted his horse and started trotting away. The wounded boy in turn just watched shocked at the man who was riding away, before turning to the arrow next to him. He wondered how in hell he would get up and take the message to his smouldering village.