Khord leapt over embankment and slammed his warhammer into the ground. The blow resonated through serpent's canyon and served as a beacon for the Grigori soldiers behind him and running along the canyon walls. Even the horsemen had trouble keeping up with him across the rough ground. The Dumannios moon provided reasonable light in all but the canyon's shadows, which were lost to darkness.
Khord cleared another ridge and came to the canyons dead end. He had worried that their prey had escaped by magic or he was hiding in one of the many shadowed outcroppings along the canyon walls. But this wasn't an opponent who was accustomed to hiding.
The Grigori infantry fell silent behind Khord, finally stopping their forced run. The box canyon had a rise in its center, a stone mound more primitive cultures would attribute to a natural altar of Kilmorph. Stephanos sat on his horse atop the mound.
Shadows fluttered across the Grigori soldiers as Khord's brother Cabal and his hunters jumped off the canyons walls. In flight the ravens feathers woven into their cloaks made a sound like hundreds of ravens as they transformed in flight from men to birds and back again. They became a black cloud reaching down to the canyon floor where they reappeared in formation with their weapons ready and raven masks drawn down protectively in front of their faces.
Stephanos's white horse glowed in the moonlight and appeared unafraid of the army of men arrayed against his rider. Stephanos himself looked like a glorious conqueror returning from battle to meet the adulation of crowds, not a refugee forced into a dead end. He looked up smiling, you could almost hear the distant triumphant cheers that followed him.
Cabal rushed out screaming "Attack, don't let him speak."
Unfortunately no one in the canyon heard anything beyond "don't". At a glance from Stephanos a dull throb pushed through the air, a blanket of sound that cut Cabal off from the rest of the men and sent everyone else stumbling as their ears reacted to the change in pressure. By the time they had recovered Stephanos had already started addressing the men.
"Of the empires of men I value the Grigori the most. For they have recognized that the gods are not worthy of their worship. To you as men, I offer my admiration. But, of your leader, I can only say that he does not carry his goal far enough. He sulks in Erebus when he should be leading the revolution. It is not enough to refuse to obey the petulant war games the gods have planned for men, but we must overthrow those games as well."
The men stood quiet. Stephanos's voice echoed through the canyon and as Khord looked around he saw that in the brief interlude between Stephanos's sentences other men nodded as if confirming statements Khord couldn't hear. Stephanos's mouth also continued to move even when Khord couldn't hear him speak, his lips drawn back in a deformed smile and his long thin tongue slipped easily about as he spoke.
Khord would have remained entranced by the words except that he caught sight of his brother laying on the ground by the canyons walls. Blood ran from his ears and he was gasping as if under a great force, yet the men around stood listening to Stephanos. Khord willed himself to run to his brothers side but it was as if his body was asleep. He was able to move his mouth enough to bite down on his tongue, and that pain woke up his body and allow him to stumble forward.
Above him Stephanos continued.
"Cassiel tells us that the gods are corrupt. But then why does he command us to live peacefully within this jail they have built for us. If your king was corrupt would you follow the governor that still requires your gentle supplication to his orders, no matter how benign? Or would you march upon the palace and pull it down around him? We have been told this is impossible, but who has said this? The king and the governor they sent to control us!"
Khord fell down beside his brother. Stephanos's words still resonated within him and each one called for his joints to stop moving, his mind to stop questioning and his soul to accept. Belief's he held for his entire life seemed little more than fairy tales compared to the immutable force of Stephanos's speech. It was becoming the foundation of everything he believed and everything else would have to be reevaluated to conform to this new ideology.
Cabal was close to death, his hair was matted with blood and it pooled on the canyon floor. Cabal looked up at his brother and summoned enough strength for one last action, to reach up and box both sides of Khord's head.
Khord howled in pain. His ears range from the blow. He yelled again when he saw Cabal's eyes close for the last time. He was overcome first with despair, and then with anger. Stephanos stopped speaking, or so he thought. When he looked he saw that Stephanos was still speaking, Khord just couldn't hear him beyond the ringing of his ears.
Rushing forward Khord once again called upon the magic of his warhammer. Aiming not for Stephanos, but the earthen mound his horse stood upon, he struck it with enough force to shatter the rock and send the crack of the hammers impact echoing through the canyon.
In that instant the men awoke from their trances. Stephanos's horse stepped back away from the crumbling rock and Khord climbed up the mound to attack Stephanos directly. Spurred on by the death of his brother he charged, yelling for his men to join with him.
They did join the fight, but not as Khord wanted. Before he got to Stephanos nearly a dozen arrows had pierced him. His own men were quickly on him and dragged him down from the mound, chopping him to pieces on the canyon floor. When it was over Stephanos rode out of the canyon with his new army of Grigori soldiers behind him.
