Inside the pavilion, the air did not behave as it did in the world of men. It was heavy, ionized, and carried the faint scent of ozone and ancient cedar.
Enkidu-Sa felt the weight of the atmosphere pressing against his lungs, a physical manifestation of the sheer ego required to occupy such a space.
At the center of the tent, the "Grand Marshal" of the Auric Reclamation did not sit upon a chair, but upon a mountain of history.
Gilgamesh was draped across a throne forged from the fused remnants of a thousand master-crafted blades—weapons he had deemed "unworthy" of his own hand but too "amusing" to discard. He did not look like a rebel leader.
He did not even look like a man born of a woman. His skin had the luster of polished marble, and his hair was a shock of defiant gold that seemed to trap the light of the flickering torches.
"Father," Siduri said, her voice losing its playful edge and adopting the precision of a courtier. She bowed, not out of fear, but out of a recognized, absolute hierarchy.
"I have brought a moth from the libraries of Lagash. He claims to have 'eyes' for your treasury."
Gilgamesh did not move. He was staring at a holographic map projected from a device that looked like a jagged tooth of obsidian—scavenged archeotech that Enkidu-Sa's master had only ever whispered about in myths.
"Lagash," Gilgamesh finally spoke. His voice was a resonant baritone that vibrated in Enkidu-Sa's very marrow. "A city of dust and old paper. Tell me, scholar... do you know why the Hross-Horde dares to breathe the air of my plateau? Do you know why the Imperial Court grovels for the scraps of their own table?"
Enkidu-Sa prostrated himself, his forehead pressing into the thick, ornate rugs that muffled the sounds of the camp outside.
"They have forgotten the nature of ownership, My Lord," the scholar whispered, his voice trembling but clear. "The Court believes their divine mandate is a loan. The Hross believe it is a prize to be stolen. They are both wrong."
Gilgamesh shifted his weight, and the mountain of swords beneath him groaned. He turned his gaze upon the scholar. His eyes were not human; they were the color of molten rubies, possessing a piercing clarity that seemed to strip Enkidu-Sa of his skin, his history, and his secrets.
"Go on," the King commanded.
"The divine mandate is not a loan, nor a prize," Enkidu-Sa continued, fueled by a sudden, desperate surge of his own lifelong ambitions. "It is a Tithe. The world is a treasury that has been mismanaged by thieves and children. You are not a rebel, Lord Gilgamesh. You are the rightful owner who has returned to find his storehouse in disarray."
A silence stretched through the tent, broken only by the low hum of the crystalline array outside. Siduri watched with bated breath.
Then, the King laughed. It was a sound of genuine, terrifying amusement.
"A thief's justification," Gilgamesh remarked, standing up. He was impossibly tall, his presence expanding to fill every corner of the pavilion. "The 'Ten Strategies for Peace'... that little scroll in your box... throw it into the fire. I do not seek peace. Peace is the stagnation of the unworthy."
Enkidu-Sa felt a cold shock of terror, but Gilgamesh stepped forward, his golden-clad boots silent on the rug. He reached down and, with a single finger, tilted the scholar's chin upward.
"I seek an Audit," Gilgamesh declared. "The Hross-Horde thinks they are masters of the north? They are merely pests in my garden. The emperor in the capital thinks he holds the a divine mandate? He is a squatter in my palace. I will need someone to record the reclamation. Someone to count the heads of the mongrels as they fall and to catalog the relics I pull from the mud of this era."
He looked at Siduri.
"Give this moth a robe that isn't stained with peasant filth. Give him a stylus of Urukian steel. From this day, he is the Royal Chronicler of the Second Host."
"Thank you, My King!" Enkidu-Sa gasped, his heart hammering against his ribs.
"Do not thank me yet, scholar," Gilgamesh said, turning back to his holographic map of The Cradle. "To serve me is to witness the end of the world as you know it. You sought a leader worth following unto death... but you have found a King who does not recognize death as a valid excuse for failure."
Gilgamesh waved a hand, and the hologram expanded, showing not just the Central Plains, but the entire planet—and the strange, flickering lights of ships descending from the void above.
"The Audit begins tomorrow at dawn," the Primarch whispered, his eyes reflecting the cold stars. "And I shall start with the Hross. I want their 'Khan' to see the gold of my armor before I erase his name from the scrolls of time."