Tevun-Krus #31 - Dying Earth

An Offering to Helios - A Short Story by @RyanP978

Apex the Bloodless hunted the most dangerous prey upon all of the Dying Earth; wizards.
Apex was a tall, pale-skinned man, not powerfully muscled but slender and wiry. At his hip was one of the sacred Sunblades, its radiant blade hidden within a scabbard of cracked leather. The runes that spiraled up the hilt in a double helix pattern were currently dark and inert, the crystal at the base well-polished but without the distinctive glow the blades gained once they had been charged with the magical energy of an absorbed spell.
Apex was part of an secret society called the Order of Helios, named after an ancient sun god from a long-forgotten epoch. For as long as he could remember, he had been taught that the dim red sun in the sky was not natural. Once it had been strong and fierce in the sky, and there were no days when the sun barely provided enough light to differentiate from nighttime. The source of all life on Earth, the sun, was slowly dying.

And the ones who he had been taught to blame were the mages, who bent the laws of the universe to their whim. Where did they get the power to perform such acts? The Order of Helios believed it was from feeding upon the sun, like a swarm of bloated cosmic parasites. Members of the Order were commanded to seek out mages wherever they might be found, whether they were neonates, true masters of their art or even charlatans pretending to great power using slight of hand. They used stealth, subterfuge and deception to find their way through their magical defenses, and when the time was right, they struck for the heart.

For some weeks, Apex had been tracking his first major target, a wizard that was not well liked by his peers and was therefore unlikely to bring down immediate reprisals from the mysterious group called the Blue Principles; a mage by the name of Faucelme. Not long ago, the dying red sun had appeared to be in its last death throes, and the Order of Helios had fed the paranoia of the populace, directing them towards their most favored scapegoats, the mages. Even as earthquakes and other strange phenomena plagued the Dying Earth's surface, the Order had organized a great pogrom against the magic users, which had continued even after the solar unrest had subsided. Even monstrous creatures such as the Deodand had joined in the hunt, finding in the temporary alliance a chance to feast upon wizard-flesh without fear of reprisal, at least from ordinary humans.
It was in fact one of the flesh-eating halfmen who had brought the story to Apex of a middle-aged, balding wizard in ragged robes who had been making his way along the scrublands south of Port Perdusz, one who had met the description of the local magelord, a man named Faucelme. The luckless Deodand and his warclan had fallen upon the mage, but had found themselves sliced to ribbons by the wizard's spells and dwindling but powerful collection of magic talismans. The Deodand had fled to share the word of his encounter, and that word had reached the ear of Apex.

Apex was unsure why the wizard was trekking on foot through a region that did not look kindly upon their rapacious and murderous lord, especially with a pogrom on; he suspected trickery from one of Faucelme's fellow wizards. Nor did he find such a question particularly important. What was important was getting to the wizard before he was able to return to his manse. If he was able to make it back to his stronghold, he would be able to recharge his spells behind a host of magical wards, and the opportunity to claim the wizard's head would be lost.

Apex had been eager enough to claim Faucelme's head that he had even tracked down the surviving Deodand, and convinced the halfman through a combination of threats, promises and hard liquor that it would be in his best interest to accompany the hunter. Deodands were rapacious, lazy and cannibalistic, but their senses were greater than those of a normal man, and this one had been given more than ample opportunity to memorize the wizard's scent.

So, with a Deodand acting as his bloodhound, Apex followed the trail of Faucelme into the scrublands, one hand always on his sword should the halfman decide that treachery would get him a faster and less dangerous meal.