Chapter 155 A New Era II

Chapter 155 A New Era II
Mats scraped and the men rose but Vikram was already moving, faster than the rising, he was behind Rudra before he had finished standing and the crack that followed was the sound of a neck broken cleanly.

Arjun shifted.

He went for the partial shift, the wolf aspects coming up fast, the most useful form for close combat, and he went at Vikram with the speed that the partial shift added to his frame yet Vikram met him without shifting at all, catching him by the throat with one hand and driving him into a decorative pole hard enough that the whole structure shuddered, Arjun hung there for a moment and then didn't. 

He was dead.

Two people were left. The fourth commander.

He came at Vikram from the side in an attempt to subdue him, hoping to catch him before he could turn.

Vikram caught him first.

His hand closed around the commander's lower jaw. There was a brief, brutal jerk of his arm, followed by the sickening crack of bone. The commander barely had time to make a sound before Vikram tore the lower jaw clean from his face.

He dropped the broken piece to the floor and let the man collapse after it.

The tent fell silent.

Vikram stood there, breathing steadily, a full-blown grin spread across his face. He stood in the middle of the bodies of his commanders. Slowly, he raised his hand and licked their blood off his fingers.

Then laughed.

Then, he went back to the table and sat down at the head of it, picked up a piece of meat, and continued eating like nothing had happened.

Around him, the food was still on the boards and the candles were still burning, the cups that had been raised for the toast were still sitting where they had been set down, and four commanders who had sat at the table were on the floor in various positions. 

The tent reeked of death.

Yet Vikram ate.

He ate without apparent disturbance from any of it, working through the meat with his hands and the fruit with his teeth and looking at the tent around him with complete satisfaction.

He ate for a short time.

Khan was still at the table.

He had not moved during any of it, and had watched each death happen from his seat at the far end and he had not moved, not from paralysis or fear, but from extreme rage that had begun to roar inside him. He sat with his hands flat on the table and looked at Vikram eating at the far end.

"Kyun?" (Why?) Khan asked. His voice came out lower than he expected. "Yeh log tere saath the. Wafadar the." (These men were with you. They were loyal.)

Vikram looked up from his food.

He looked at Khan with a bright gleam in his eye, like he had just discovered a new toy.

"Isliye hi." (That is exactly why.) He licked his fingers one at a time, unhurried. "Loyalty is not enough. Loyalty from a weak vessel is worthless. It slows you down." He picked up a piece of fruit. "To build what I am building, I need people who can evolve. People who can become more than what they were." He gestured with the fruit at the bodies on the floor, a casual gesture, the kind used to indicate a minor point. "Those who could not, served their final purpose tonight."

Khan looked at him.

"Purpose?"

Vikram smiled.

Khan rose from the table.

He came around it without rushing, moving toward Vikram with the intent of someone who had made a decision in the last few seconds and was following it through, and Vikram watched him come with a wide smile, amusement dancing in his eyes.

Khan threw the first blow.

It connected, Vikram's head snapped sideways and he spat blood onto the table and looked back at Khan with that same grin; the only difference was it was now bloody.

"Good," Vikram praised.

Khan came again.

They traded blows, and Khan had every advantage. He was bigger, stronger, and had been fighting for most of his life. While Vikram was in the body of a child who could only muster a fraction of his physical prowess. Some of the hits he landed would have put another man down immediately.

Vikram barely seemed to notice.

He took the blows, staggered when he had to, then kept coming. Whatever pain Khan was used to inflicting, Vikram seemed to exist somewhere beyond it. He kept moving, kept his eyes fixed on Khan, and somehow, through all of it, he was still smiling.

That smile was beginning to bother Khan more than the fighting did.

Khan felt the arm before he saw it.

It went into his chest from the front. He felt it go in and felt the hand close around what it had found inside him, he looked down at what Vikram had in his hand then looked back at his face.

Silena.

The thought arrived with the clarity that final thoughts sometimes had. He saw her face and heard her name and felt her skin.

Then, felt the heart leave his chest. Because it literally did. He did not feel the floor when he fell on it.

Khan had died. Killed by his own Raja.



It's been close to half an hour and the candles had burned low.

The tent was still the same, with the same food on the same boards, same cups in the same positions. The bodies of the commanders were where they had fallen and Vikram was back in his seat at the head of the table, eating the last of the meat in a very calm manner.

Something moved near the far end of the table.

Khan's chest expanded. It was a full breath, sudden and violent. His hands hit the floor and his body followed as he awoke with a gasp, he was on his knees and breathing heavily, sweat coated his whole body. He started touching his chest with both hands, pressing both palms flat against it, and looking down at it with confusion.

He pressed harder.

There was nothing. No wound or mark. The shirt was destroyed but the skin beneath it was unbroken and unmarked. And his heart, he could not feel it beat but he knew it was there.

He touched his chest again, looked at his hands.

He looked around the tent and saw the bodies of his fallen comrades. 

Had he lost his mind? Or was he in the spirit world already?

Khan sensed someone watching him and finally looked up, his gaze connecting with a wide smile from Vikram.

Vikram was watching him from the far end of the table with his fingers laced and his elbows on the surface.

"Welcome," Vikram smirked, and his voice carried the warmth of genuine satisfaction. "Blood of my blood."

He looked at Khan among the bodies of four men and the remnants of a feast, and nodded.

"You are the first," he outstretched a hand.

Khan was still looking around, terribly confused. “The first what?”

“The first hybrid."