Ted Dekker - Mortal

Even if it was, he could not bow. Not to this Maker, no matter how much greater his life might be.

He knew one thing now: the boy must die.

One hand on the pommel of his saddle, Saric pushed himself up, eased his right leg over his horse’s hind quarters and slipped to the ground. The true battle wasn’t between Dark Blood and Mortal with sword and ax. It was here, to be decided between two rulers. One would live to rule.

The other would die.

“Jonathan!” The sound of pounding hooves joined the howling wind. Rom Sebastian, desperate, blocked by the line. “Run! Run, Jonathan!” A commotion rose up from the north. The crash of clashing steel; shouts of outrage and bitter curses.

The sounds were distant in Saric’s mind, from a dimension that no longer mattered. He gripped the hilt of his sword and deliberately pulled it from its scabbard with a loud scrape.

“Some would bring a new kingdom that flows with alchemy, intent on ruling the world for their own pleasure and gain,” Jonathan cried, his eyes on Saric as he approached and then mounted the steps.

“Others would rule as Mortals over lesser life.” He lifted his head, pointed in the direction of the Nomadic Prince and his men. “But today a new kingdom is among you. A kingdom where I am Sovereign, where I will reign with those who follow me. The deceiver comes to take what he cannot possess, but I offer my life freely to all who would live.”

Saric glared up at the boy spouting his nonsense.

Terrified by his words.

Uncaring because they meant nothing.

Infuriated by his accusations.

Trembling.

Jonathan seemed to have said his last. He stood in front of the poles from which the remains of a leather bowl hung, watching Saric.

The fighting beyond the line grew to a cacophony, now south as well as north. The Mortals were once again in full attack. A pointless battle of a lesser kind.

Saric stepped onto the raised floor of the ruins and stalked toward the boy, tip of his sword trailing on the stone behind him. Another peel of thunder shook the sky.

“Hello, Saric.” The boy’s voice was soft, for him alone. His eyes were limpid in the oncoming storm. “Do you see nature’s rage?”

Saric shot a quick glance at the black sky. Saw that it was rotating as if to drain the world.

“The Maker’s Hand,” Jonathan said.

Maker’s Hand.

He’d heard the lore. Surely he wasn’t claiming to be more than a man born of blood. The boy had lost his mind.

Or have you lost yours?

“I know you long for life, Saric.” The boy said, too quietly for anyone else to hear in the rising gale. “Your heart is black but you can’t ignore the cry of truth that my blood would bring you something beyond your imagination.”

All of Saric’s fears coalesced into one deafening question: what if it was true? What if the object of his search stood before him now, a pure vessel of beauty, truth, and love?

For a moment the notion drowned his hatred. The body before him became a vessel of unsurpassed, raw life to be consumed, not crushed. To be tasted, not destroyed.

To be worshipped.

Without thinking, Saric lifted a trembling hand. Hesitated. When the boy didn’t move, he touched his fingertips to his cheek. A ripple of power rode up his arm and into his body.

Saric shuddered.

“Look in my eyes,” the boy said.

As though of its own accord, his gaze traveled from the boy’s cheek to his eyes. Light flashed like sunlight through the boy’s storming hazel irises. Saric felt his body go rigid.

But there was more… A great and terrible sadness.

Empathy.

Tears.

“I am the life you long for. My light will imprison you always. I make it so.”

At the boy’s last words Saric’s world flashed with a brilliant light, blinding him to everything but the singular truth: he was dark as the pitch in his veins. The boy was infused with light. He, not the boy, had been deceived. Here was life-not in his veins, but flooding those of the one before him. Life he had never known. Life.

Saric’s legs buckled. He dropped to one knee, a great wail rising up from the pit of his gut, a heavy sob that was horror and grief and outrage all. It stole his breath, washing reason and purpose away.

Somewhere below, the Mortals were making a last, hopeless attempt to break through his lines-he could hear the sound of it far away.

He wept, only distantly aware that his children could see him-their Maker, kneeling before this boy. This Sovereign of a realm he did not-could not-comprehend.

“You spawn only death,” Jonathan said. “I, not you, hold power over life. See and know, dark Lord.”

Saric felt his sword wrenched from his hand. He jerked his head around to see Jonathan flying down the steps, no longer a boy but a warrior streaking toward the nearest line of Dark Bloods.

With a scream that turned Saric’s blood cold, Jonathan tore into the closest of them, easily sidestepping a frantic thrust of the warrior’s spear. The boy’s blade flashed and severed head from body.

Jonathan spun, screaming still, narrowly missed by another thrusting blade. He was too fast. Twisting with beautiful grace and power, Jonathan slashed into another warrior, cutting him nearly in two at the midsection. He sliced into another, separating arms from shoulders before plunging his sword through the man’s chest.

Saric watched, frozen in horrific wonder, as Jonathan summarily slaughtered six of his children without allowing a single blade to touch him.

Orders rang out. His ranks surged around the boy. Before they could close the circle, Jonathan cut down a seventh and sprang away into open ground. As if executing a carefully choreographed dance, he swept to the pole that held Triphon’s dead body.

He dropped to one knee and bowed his head in respect to his fallen friend. Long trails of blood from the wound in the Mortal’s gut streaked his belly and legs.

Jonathan stood and gazed up at the man, face wrenched with sorrow. He reached for one of the bloodied feet, leaned slowly forward, and kissed it. His sob of anguish echoed through the valley, cut short by a plea for all Mortals to hear.

“He will see life!” Jonathan cried, facing the line of Mortals where their leaders were mounted. “For the sacrifice he paid to save me, I give him life! Leave his body. He will not be buried with the others. As you find life, Triphon will find life.”

Jonathan spun and pointed the sword at Saric, eyes aflame. He held his position for an extended beat, then ran toward him, hunched low like a sprinter off the blocks.

Only then did it occur to Saric that the warrior who so easily killed seven of his children might as easily take their Maker who still knelt, immobilized and unarmed.

Panic flooded his veins. He started to push himself up, but the world around him was spinning.

And then Jonathan was at the base of the ruins. He took the steps in three long bounds and whirled to face the valley, bloody sword raised.

“Is there no end to death?” he cried.

He tossed the sword, sent it clattering to the stones just beyond Saric’s knee.

He masters not only life, but death.

Saric turned and stared at the sword, red beneath the darkening sky. From the corner of his eye, he saw Jonathan seize the two poles that held the broken leather bowl. Torment, anguish on his face. He was mad. He was magnificent. Arms spread wide, the boy flung his words at the world.

“Is there no song without the sword? Is there no love without jealousy? Is there no end to rage?”

His body began to shake. He rocked back and forth like a man possessed, beyond himself. The clash of battle had stopped, replaced only by the wind, the thunder, and the boy’s broken shouts.