Fire and Steel

Interlude 1: Yash Yadav

In a land an ocean away from the isle of Rudira a prince knelt upon the stony soil of the canyon. his Blacksteel sword was sunk halfway to its hilt in the ground. Yash pressed his forehead to the hilt of his sword and offered a prayer to the rising sun. He embraced the first rays of the morning as they kissed his dark brown skin.

"Exalted keeper of the sun disc, Become the edge of my blade and bless me with glory. Allow me to return to this land what has been stolen."  As the prayer left Yash's lips, the cavity where his sword had pierced the ground erupted in an incandescent orange-gold glow.

Divinity surged through the black and golden sword into Yash and he felt his skin grow hot from the energy that now flowed beneath it. When he pulled the blade from the ground its black edge glowed like heat made manifest. It cascaded orange, red, and white, with a similar but less intense glow coatinghis skin. Yash and the blade both gave off trails that looked like red and orange smoke that sizzled as they touched the surfaces of the rocks around him.

He hefted the sword into its sheath on his back and looked towards the canyon's entrance where a dust cloud was rapidly approaching. A chariot led by four galloping stallions, raced ahead of the dust cloud behind which a massive reptilian monstrosity gave chase. The creature, even on all fours, towered above the chariot, hell it would even tower over the royal army's elephants. The monster's snout was long like that of a crocodile's, lined with teeth like swords. It glared with eyes the color of fresh blood that glowed with stolen divinity. Its back was covered in a thick armor-like hide. This monster had gorged itself on the lives of many innocents: fishermen, farmers and even the soldiers who had failed to slay it. Each lost life had only made the creature more dangerous, and more powerful. Today, however, this creature was not the hunter it was the quarry.

"GLORY!" Yash roared as the Chariot neared him.

Without waiting for the chariot to slow, he leapt onto it, grasping a metal handle tight with one hand to steady himself.  Yash could feel the metal heating and beginning to deform from the searing warmth he emitted and the strength of his divinity-enhanced grip. Behind him, a massive recurve bow rested on a hook next to a quiver of arrows with Blacksteel tips.

The chariot continued to speed down the canyon towards an opening that, over years of mining, had been shaped into a circle. Yash called this opening in the chasm the "Akhada" because of its circular shape resembling a wrestling arena. Yash let go of the handle and grabbed the bow, knocking an arrow. He pulled the drawstring back, his back muscles working double time to pull through the immense draw weight. The prince turned to face the massive crocodilian monster and let his divinity flow from his hands into the bowstring and then into the arrow till the arrow glowed with a similar energy as his sword. He let the arrow fly and it whizzed through the sky like a burning comet but rather than hitting the Rakshasa, it sailed right past it. The creature for its part slowed for a moment and looked down at Yash as if mocking before once again increasing its speed to close the gap between itself and the chariot.

"I wasn't aiming for you, Rakshasa. Your blood belongs to my sword!" Yash bellowed as the arrow found its mark.

The arrow was instead aimed at a dowel of wood that held a board in place. The board exploded and in its wake brought down the several boulders it had been keeping from falling and blocking the canyon's entrance. Yash pulled his bastard sword from its sheath and jumped out of the chariot as the charioteer sped it through the exit. An exit before which Yash stood armed and defiant. The sun had risen high enough to begin burning away the morning chill. Even beyond the heat from within Yash could feel its rays beckoning him to act.

"Foolish Prince! You will die here and your divinity will feed my hunger. Then I will feast on every last human in your kingdom." The demonic Crocodile rumbled in a voice like grinding stones.