The burning was his. Every mother that leaped, screaming, from a flaming rooftop, sleeping infant held close in her arms, was his. Each frightened militiaman, leather jerkin and wooden stave his only protection, brought down by iron-shod hooves and iron-shod spear, was his doing. It was an emptiness beyond despair.
The walls loomed behind the burning, largely unbroken. These great mud-brick husks would crumble into the Sesh for centuries to come. It was like the skin of a desert snake. The body and spirit had shrugged its’ skin, moved on…but the remnant would bleach in the desert sun until the wind wore it away to nothing.
Yes…these walls of men’s fear would still stand. The walls did nothing…there was death within and without.
He had killed. He had killed until killing lost its’ meaning. And he made no effort to keep his men under control. It was useless. The horde was loose. The Redeemer had come.
It was in the ruins of one of the city’s great palaces that the father saw the son. The son was holding something…a ball attached by a rope to a small stick. Protruding from under a fallen column, some brilliant blue stone, turquoise or lapis, lay the child’s hand that had once held this simple toy. No longer. The muscles were rigid, the heart stilled. A hall that once echoed with laughter would now know only the wind.
Arastephas’ had many horses, but this one was crimson. Whether from the natural color of the mane, or because it had been bathed in the blood of his master’s foes, Atraxes could not tell. The golden mask hid the face of a man that he once called father. Now, though, he only saw a monster in metal.
He could not tell, he would never know…but the face under the mask smiled. It smiled, after all this. Atraxes could only feel disgust.
The masked man spoke. “You have given me a great victory, descendant. We are revenged upon the sons of Te’esh.” His horse picked its’ way carefully over the bodies and rubble. Atraxes heard a distant crash that could have been breaking glass or pottery, as the lilting victory chants of the steppe rose into the sky with black plumes of smoke.
Atraxes ripped off his helm, viciously throwing it to the side. “You think that Taleldil is appeased by this mockery of a battle? Do you see a noble victory in the death of these children?”
Arastephas stood still. “When I was a herder of sheep, I saw that our flocks and herds had grown too numerous. Whether by the hand of man or the gods, each season the grasses grew thinner.”
Wiping a soot-stained hand across his face, Atraxes leaned upon one of the shattered columns in exhaustion. His father continued.
“The land was dying. I saw Taleldil pushing the child out of his cradle. What did I choose? I chose to kill the people of this land so that my son’s bleached bones would not lie in a Rath Satar that has become a forsaken desert!”
Atraxes coughed, and spat blood. He stared at his father. And he stood.
“High Prince Arastephas, as Prince of the Star, I challenge you to the blood-duel, for rule of our people.”
Arastephas’ eyes narrowed. His son’s lieutenants had been lurking in the shadows. Xephaion, Atalik, and Isal-ha stepped forward, crossing arms before the High Prince. “We witness his claim.”
The Redeemer laughed. He laughed like a man possessed. “How fitting that I see the blood of my own son stain the land I have bought for him with the blood of my people, and by my own hand.”
Atraxes turned away from the High Prince. “Ephkar the shepherd had a son. Arastephas the Redeemer has none.”
“So be it.”
Just for that, I'll send you two PMs of orders again! *has already done so due to size, but now it's also retroactively an act of outrage!* 
