"In the name of God, the Lord of Wisdom, Ahura Mazda—"
BOOM
The siege ram shook the underground tomb. Dust rained from the vaulted ceiling, sifting into Garshasp's iron-gray hair like ash. His bones rattled, grip held steady.
"…in the name of Atar, the Fire that Cleanses—"
BOOM
Truth against lie. Stone screamed as Asha hammered Druj's gate.
Steam hissed from the vents of his zereh armor, fire crawling up his spine. The Magi called the oversized suit a gift; to Garshasp, the thing that kept him standing.
His grip tightened on the haft of Atashgar. Power surged through the great hammer until the metal blazed, light bleeding from every edge.
Not a weapon now.
An altar.
"Asha shines bright, the highest truth—light the path, none fade away—"
BOOM
Men shouted, voices swallowed by the grinding siege engine. Terror in their throats—bitter with oil, wet with powder.
Snap-clack—rifle bolts chambered in the dark. Blades unsheathed. Soldiers bared teeth at the gate. Good.
CRACK
Stone split wide. The world held its breath—
—then exhaled.
The monstrous gate groaned open.
Rot. Time. Hunger. The stench rolled out to meet them. Torches gagged, shadows crawling toward their boots.
Garshasp rose. So did Atashgar.
"Let this hand," he murmured, "be Thy hand. Let it cast the Serpent into abyss."
Something laughed in the dark.
Vanguard locked shields, iron on iron, faith bound in muscle and oath.
Behind them, Magi carved blazing sigils in answer to the Zaotars' hymn. At their center: Atash Behram—Fire of Victory—sealed in brass and scripture. The sacred flame beat with the song's rhythm, waves of heat driving shadows back.
The ruins became a furnace. Every man an ember, waiting on Garshasp, the flamebearer.
He met his brothers' eyes. Scarred faces. Missing teeth. Men who had outlived the songs meant for them.
Farbod caught his eye—a stubborn bastard, three campaigns in yet still breathing. The old warrior's shield shook like the weight of it had doubled.
"What makes you happy, Farbod?" Garhsasp said, "what wakes you tomorrow?"
"...Home, I suppose, Pahlavan."
"Tell me about it."
Farbod's shoulders eased. "Stone house on the river bend. Fig tree in the yard. My wife hangs the washing on it when the wind's good. My girl chases the hens. My boy…" His voice softened. "Still at the breast. Clinging to his Ma like nothing else matters."
Garshasp's grin cracked wide. "I've got a mama too."
Farbod snorted.
"That funny?"
Farbod's laugh died in his throat.
Garshasp let the silence bite a heartbeat more, then broke it with a low chuckle and a clap on the pauldron. Farbod's own laugh followed—rough but steadier.
Others had heard. Shoulders straightened. Garshasp turned to the line.
"Breathe deep, brothers. Air's foul enough in here to kill them for us."
Chuckles rumbled through the ranks. Stiff shoulders loosened, if only by a hair. He then turned on the whole line.
"Rakshs, Salars! Nothing leaves or enters these walls but the righteous!"
Their answer came as a roar—half defiance, half prayer.
Garshasp turned to the Magi. Sweat carved dark rivers through soot on their faces.
"Light. Our. Path."
The hymn rose.
Holy fire exploded.
Light roared. Darkness shrieked.
And Garshasp stepped forward.
Five moved with him—his siblings in oath, his fellow Pahlavans. The bulwark of light.
Their boons burned hard as stars—Atashgar blazing, Mansour's mirror-sheen blade catching fire, Raha's silver bow gleaming.
Holy power poured from them like heat from an open kiln. More than light. Pressure. Purpose. Divine will pushing back against the breathing dark.
Garshasp raised his fist until every man saw it.
Held it high until the last man found his faith.
"The Serpent's head lies before us. Try to keep yours."
They marched.
Atash Behram carved a sanctuary in the dark, its glow warping on ancient pillars—carvings so old they writhed if stared at too long. No ceiling. Only black.
The air clung thick. Each breath carried rot and something worse. Fear. The kind that made lungs forget their work.
Where the light touched, the dark hissed. Still, the voices came:
'Garshasp…'
A dead friend laughing where no one should.
'You left us here…'
A lost lover's sigh brushing his ear.
'The light won't hold…'
He gripped Atashgar until the metal creaked. The fire's pulse was the only rhythm left in his body.
Move. Step. Move. Step.
The stone floor ended.
The throne waited.
Two pinpricks burned in the dark—not eyes, but the hunger behind eyes.
Shadows peeled away. A man stretched thin as leather and left to crack. A corpse upright. A king of dust.
The throne behind him: black basalt, raw and unadorned. No skulls. No rivers of torment. The arrogance of needing no glory.
Darkness curled to him, twining through his fingers and wrapping him like a long-lost lover. It kissed his hollow cheeks. Drank their holy fire like wine…
…and returned only emptiness.
Raha's breath hitched.
"Azhi Dahaka…"
The name hung too heavy to fade.
And the twin lights on the throne—
—blazed.
Ancient malice erupted, cutting through armor and oath to strike the tenderest wound—his mother's trembling hands holding him tight, unable to let go, sobbing when she finally did.
The hall froze. Pahlavans turned to statues cast in gold, their light faltering as darkness rose in a slow, creaking tide.
No one moved. No one dared.
Garshasp's gauntlets growled under his grip. Whispers crawled through him. He crushed them beneath one truth: This ends here.
"Bachak, you arrived as foretold." Azhi Dahaka's voice seeped through the dark.
Garshasp's smile sharpened.
"You seek justice," Dahaka said. "I smell hatred. Tell me—what if your truth was born of a lie?"
Garshasp didn't bite his trap. "Truth's not about being first. It's what remains when the shouting dies. Sun rising after a long night."
"The sun…" Dahaka breathed. "Your Mithra's eye burns. I've seen it, young one. It makes deserts. It whitens bone. Knives glitter honest at noon. Pyres flower brightest under holy light. What hunts at night hunts also beneath your day, Bachak."
"Then meet noon," Garshasp said. "See how warmly Mithra greets you."
A laugh. "That… is promised."
Azhi Dahaka's gaze drifted across the ruined hall, sliding over Garshasp's companions like they were cracks in the stone.
"Tell me," Azhi Dahaka said. "Your father, and his father before him… did their tales ever reach this hall—"
"—ENOUGH!"
Zaotar Sina roared, a thunderclap of holy wrath that shattered the Serpent's game.
Atash Behram flared in answer, its protective dome splitting open. Holy fire erupted outward, condensing into a screaming pillar of pure radiance that cleaved shadows in half.
Garshasp grinned. No more poisoned words, just fire and blood.
Six Pahlavans raised their weapons as one, boons flaring to meet the magi's holy fire, resolve forged to a single sharpened point.
Azhi Dahaka rose. Slowly. Like the end of a prophecy taking shape. Stone cracked beneath his weight. Shadow slid up his limbs, coiling across his chest—not hiding him now, but serving him. Shaping him.
Shadows dripped from him like tar, hardening into beasts with half-formed jaws and claws. They slithered free, born from the creases of his shadow.
The Serpent stood. All the Druj with him.
"Oh, Children… Light that brought you here is not the dawn you seek."
His voice cracked on the words. Garshasp didn't blink. Mercy from a Serpent was only another lie.
Azhi Dahaka's gaze drifted past him again. "And the head you so desperately seek to sever… is all that holds back a hundred more."
Garshasp answered with the only truth left: his all.
He breathed deep. His core ignited. The zereh's gears ground and locked.
He launched, power surging, carrying him across an impossible distance.
His roar shook the hall. A war cry. A funeral hymn.
The Pahlavans charged. They were fist of Asha hurled at the heart of Druj.
Garshasp swung. The hammer didn't just burn; it roared. Fire trailed in its arc, prayer in its stroke.
Azhi Dahaka watched the blow come, still as stone.
The last thing Garshasp heard wasn't steel splitting bone.
Wasn't the howl of dying shadows.
Just his enemy's final words, mourning, soft as a dying candle:
"In my silence, sing of the Black Sheep.
In my silence… sing the song of war."