K'rar was standing on the ramparts of the fortified city of Mayorka the afternoon of the day after the swiftest defeat of Resistance forces in the three and a half year war. To his left was Jew, and to his right, Kratos. He was on the western wall, looking as far as the eye could see. The men were here to bid him farewell. His victory had handed them easy pickings now, so he wouldn't go with them to sweep the rest of the south and rid it of Resistance filth. Still, he and the old warrior Zeljko would march back to Zadok with the rebel General Almiron and his goons. They were taking them for a victory march, which was K'rar's idea. But before K'rar's northbound march, he would head in the direction in which he was looking, to Iscalan. It was almost exactly four years since he left, and now he was returning as a hero of the Province and of the country. Jew studied his face before he said, looking at landscape too,
'You having second thoughts about going to Iscalan?'
'No second thoughts, of course I'm going. I'm actually glad. Iscalan was my first stop when I crashed into this land.'
'Crashed into…what do you mean?' Zeljko asked.
'Well, hadn't told you gentlemen, but it won't be long before you find out anyway. I drifted to Xaxanika from the sea on a raft. There exists another land in the extreme south of the Bovidian Sea, the land of Moab. That is where I came from.'
'Are you being serious?'
'Yes. You'll learn the details as time passes, because I intend to go back. Perhaps you soldiers will come with me, might need you.'
'Well, can't say I want to listen to the details,' said Jew, 'but I have no reason to disbelieve you. You've already done inexplicable things, might as well be from a foreign land after all.'
'Always been wondering why you're black haired, and slightly darker skinned too. Now I know,' said Zeljko.
'Right. Well, we came to say our farewells. Have to go clean up the rest of the rat's nest.'
'About that,' said K'rar, 'when you reach Hazazon-Tamar, make sure you catch the priest.' They were just learning about the Astarte priest for the very first time, and it was clear that he was easily the real mastermind behind all of this chaos.
'Of course, of course.'
'You need to catch him and his pawn king of the south with a separate force, lest they escape.'
'A separate force? Go on.'
'A little trick I learned from me old days,' K'rar intended the pun, 'I'm certain, when you close down on Hazazon-Tamar, they'll employ desperate measures. Might slaughter people right in front of your eyes. Anything to save face. This will be a distraction to allow the rebel and his priest to get away through the back.'
'Right. We will flank him on both sides, as we did here.'
'No. That is not what I meant. Send as few as ten men ahead, Hannish if you can so they won't be suspicious. They need to get into the city before your armies get even close.' The armies getting close was destined to happen. King Sargios' men now outnumbered the rebels by seven men to one. K'rar didn't need to lend them any more tactics.
'Like what Chalak did to us,' Zeljko said.
'Yeah. Only this time, it will be a military operation.'
K'rar was at the Iscalan Township early on the third day. He had two men with him, Hernan and Picurus, when he arrived at the top of the wide road that led down into the Iscalan valley. All of Iscalan was visible, including the governor's residence, whose hill was adjacent to the one he was on. It was a small township, Iscalan. The road would lead him to the market, where another feeder broke off to the wharf, which was even lower than the rest of the township. K'rar took about five minutes just watching the place, heaving a sigh before he moved his horse. Iscalan was his home away from home, not even Fimron, where he had spent the largest part of the Xaxanikan episode of his life. He was wondering if his foster family would remember him at all. Old Hleb was likely at the wharf, listening to other men talk about the decisive victory over the rebels, without knowing that it was K'rar who had spearheaded it. Those at the capital Daager would know, but Iscalan was so far from the rest of the land, and K'rar thought they might not even know that Alhanan was cleansed of rebels.
He was wrong. When he and his men came within sight of the marketplace, Iscalan was waiting for him. They knew. The first person to see him was a woman tinkering with a clay stove at the back end of her house. As soon as she recognized him, even from a distance due to his peculiar look, she stole away from the house in a manner that K'rar thought was curious.
'What is she doing?' Picurus asked, and got his answer immediately. The whole town, including those down in the wharf, stopped whatever they were doing and began to come up into the road. They were giving K'rar a grand welcome. The crowd cheered him as he went down the road, yelling all sorts of praises.
'That's our son, that one!'
'Let's throw him a party!'
Then someone began a tune with the words,
'There once was a boy with bright brown eyes!'
The crowd replied,
'The Knight of Iscalan…'
'God bless the womb that bore him…'
'The Knight of Iscalan!'
It was a folk song that K'rar might have heard of, that was now being performed in his name.
'Looks like your exploits have reached all five corners of the land,' Hernan remarked.
It was not long before Magritte came down too, as well as his boss Prefect Daghan. Daghan's invitation to the King's ball three and a half years ago, K'rar remembered it vividly, was the reason this song was being performed for him, ultimately. K'rar had to eventually dismount his horse and mingle, and by the time he was finished, his hands were dirty from the activity. When the din died down, and the town went back to its business, Daghan said to him on the steps of the Gendarium,
'You made this whole town proud, son. You are even more popular than the governor.'
'How did they remember me after all these years?'
'Oh, they did. Governor Onder made sure of it. He is not here, but he sent us a message ahead of you. Besides, you didn't think the Township wouldn't hear of the victory you delivered at Rethrain? Very easy to put a face to the description of a young man with black hair. They said you had giants? Is that true?'
'Yes. It is no longer a folk tale. This strange land of yours keeps showing up all sorts of crazy things.' K'rar had sent the Nephilim back to the Kaffraria after the war, where he was to meet them when he was to meet them.
'Well, welcome home, soldier,' Magritte said, 'I suppose you're headed straight for Namsang? Can't imagine the feast they have prepared for you. You not only came back from the dead. You have been gallivanting across the land killing rebels.'
'Speaking of,' Hernan, who was present too, said, 'there is no rebel presence here. I thought we would find something, given that this is far from Rethrain.'
'It's far from their sphere of influence too,' Daghan said, 'they never reached here at all actually. In fact, northerner refugees fleeing from them flooded Iscalan.'
'And the Hananites welcomed them?'
'Yeah, why not? We were just fine, northerner or not, before those bastards started turning the world upside down. Us Hananites, we just want to spend our days fishing in the sea and shearing our sheep and making woolen coats. We haven't got time for silly wars.'
'Well, that's good to hear. Like you said, I came to see my people in Namsang. I haven't seen them in nearly four years.'
'I'll come with,' Magritte said.
Namsang was not far from the Township, but it was still remote and undisturbed, as he had left it years ago. Tranquil, cut off from the rest of the world, so even when K'rar arrived there, no one was waiting for him. There was no one outside save for lake flies shooting this way and that in the air. K'rar and company trotted slowly through the small village as K'rar reminisced on his last days here. He wondered how his foster family would treat him. He had wanted to surprise them, but as he now knew, his new reputation preceded him. When he took the turn between the hedge and the house, he met one or two young ones, who fled from him rather than sang praises. K'rar knew they had just run off to tell of his arrival, and by golly, every soul in the immediate neighborhood of the Hleb family, the long line of houses either side of him, recognized him. One lady shrieked like a banshee, arousing everyone else. In his compound, Phylla was the first one to appear, just as K'rar dismounted his black mare. She hadn't changed much, except she was now more buxom, with a larger figure, and perhaps larger breasts.
'It's K'rar!' she yelled, and ran into his arms before he even got off the horse completely. She didn't let go of him until she had ruffled his hair, pinched his cheeks and shook him by his shoulders and said a lot of words and asked a lot of questions, none of which concerned the war, and K'rar was glad because of this. K'rar was taller than her by lots now. He was taller than Rubin by even more.
'You stubborn boy!' Rubin was saying, 'you couldn't even wait to spend one winter with us!'
'Long story, Mother Rubin,' said K'rar.
'We thought you either died or forgotten about us once you went to the city. Then the princess sent us condolences!'
'She thought I was dead too. I thought I was dead.'
K'rar went to greet the others in the compound, including Hleb, Chio, and the twins Ansigne and Silas, who had changed much more than the others. Silas was quieter, and just watched as the adults slapped K'rar on the back and hugged him. Hleb said,
'When you left I thought you'd go and get yourself a decent job, like the Iscalan native you are. Instead you picked up a sword to become a man of war instead.'
'You might be surprised, but I was always a man of war.' K'rar said almost nostalgically.
'They are calling him the Iscalan Knight in the township.'
'Well he's from Namsang,' Chio said. Chio was also now growing his father's beard. K'rar on the other hand did not even have a tuft or a stubble on his chin, and Chio teased him by whispering in his ear, 'where's the beard? Every eighteen-year-old in Namsang has one!' He was right. When K'rar played with Chio and his buddies years ago, all had some facial hair, including Chio. Now Chio was sporting a quite large beard, almost competing with his father. He was actually hairier than him.
Now there were four more people, strangers to K'rar, standing with them in the compound save for the neighbors whom K'rar knew, and the soldiers who had escorted him. They seemed like a family, of a Forkish man and a southern wife, with two sons. Hleb would introduce them when K'rar turned his attention to them.
'Ah, K'rar, this is Qallio, his wife Mesarea, and their sons Krespo and Marvis. Qallio is my cousin. The rebels forced him to come west from Asprit. They've lived here for most of the war.'
'Asprit?'
'It is in Syene, on the River Patma, between the lake and the mountain,' Qallio explained, 'I heard that they turned northerners like me into slaves, so believe me, I cannot thank you enough for ending the war, son.'
'Don't mention it.'
Because of Qallio's arrival, K'rar noticed, a major renovation of the home had taken place. Hleb's workshop had been reduced to just the extreme corner of the auxiliary structure, and the rest of it had been reconstructed as an extension of the main house, complete with concrete and all, and another door.
They had also known he would come, although they weren't sure, as K'rar had sent no kind of correspondence ahead of him. They were very popular now, because the king himself had visited this home to ask after K'rar, when he had lent him a battle-winning strategy. While Rubi and Phylla went to the kitchen to prepare a meal, his favorite, he and the company of nearly twenty two souls cooped up in the small yard while he narrated to them the events of the last four years. This time he left out no details, as it was not possible to conceal them. However, he still told them nothing of his bloodline and inheritance as he had told the king and the governess. He also left out the main activity that he and the Nephilim had carried out in his time with them. By the time he finished his story, he was inside with only his immediate family, as well as Qallio's kids, because the rain had started coming down.
K'rar spent all day here, but he couldn't stay the night, as there was no room. Before he left, he pulled Chio aside and said to him,
'I will return to Zadok tomorrow. I found a girl, you know.'
'Wow, a city girl. All the city girls will run to you now,' Chio said.
K'rar was shaking his head,
'Not just a city girl, Chio.' Chio didn't understand, so K'rar said, 'she sent you condolences when she thou…'
'No way,' Chio said, wide-eyed, 'no, no, no…you and the princess…'
'Shh! don't say it out loud. Now listen to me. There's a plan. A plan to return to Korazin.'
'Return to your land? How?'
'There's something I didn't tell the others. I wasn't exactly making a family up the mountain. The giants, they are excellent engineers. We built a Behemoth.' Chio knew what the Behemoth was.
'The…the large ship? The metal ship?'
'Yes. It is in the Kaffrarian islands. Now, I am going to start a project with a royal grant. I'll build a fleet of Stingers and more Behemoths, and my own military regiment. This will require lots of resources, lots of hard work. Good thing is, this land is endowed with the natural resources, but not a lot of the human resource. So it's not that simple.'
Stingers were also metal warships, but of a smaller size than the Behemoths.
'K'rar, I'm coming up, man. Even to become part of your regiment. Good chance to leave my father's house. And, by the way, uncle Qallio is the best metalsmith in this land.'
'Really? I need metalsmiths!'
'Then I'll come with him. Just send us a signal. When will this be?'
'After everything is back in order. After the war.'
'Okay. Still, though, how will you get past Godsrealm? You said no one crosses the boundary.'
'Yeah, but things have changed. I'll explain some time. Now like I said, this is going to need thousands of men, women. You pass the word around here about this, and you can come with the first pioneers. Iscalan pioneers.'
'You got it, man. I'll start immediately.'
K'rar had wanted this. When he envisioned his return to Korazin, Chio was part of it. Many other Hananite friends of his, many of whom he had seen today, were in his plan.
'Now, back to the matter about the princess. Really? You and the princess?'
'What? She likes me, she's a beauty, hell she's even tagging along with me on this thing.'
Chio almost gasped.
'Wha…now I was about to ask how the king allowed his daughter to fraternize with a strange Iscalan kid, and you're saying she's coming along on this?'
'Well, in case you haven't noticed, I saved the king's ass…'
'Yeah, so he can reward you with that grant and all, but his daughter? She's highborn. She would have been promised to some aristocrat's son or a wealthy merchant before you met her.'
K'rar smiled at him, nodding, but said nothing more. He just tapped his shoulders and said goodnight, and left.