Episode 38: Devil Riders
Written By Karl White
For more than six millennia, Anu lived comfortably among the Egyptians as a god. But the world turned and by the early first century, Egypt was a Roman province, though remained very much as it had been prior to the conquest. But as the West relied more heavily on grain and other exports from the region, the old traditions thinned, giving way to the spread of Christianity.
Anu retreated to deeper shadows. He was still whispered about, but the uncompromising creed pressed hard against the old gods. In 391, the Christian emperor Theodosius outlawed the ancient rites and shuttered the temples. Riots followed, anti-pagan mobs smashing and burning the relics of ages past.
Anu’s divinity had so long been his shield, but now made him a target. As night fell, he cut a path of blood out of the city. By the light of the moon, he watched his altar crumble, and felt a vulnerability he had never known before. But idle years atop the food chain made him forget who he was. And so he vowed his carnage would no longer be bound by a single kingdom. Nose to the wind, he hunted for a new place in the wide, growing world. What he sought, was an army.
Anu watches the past burn, 391 - © 2025 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
Traveling north, Anu bounced around Asia, a continent still ruled by the old ways, where the powerful grip of oppressive religion was not welcomed. He lived deep in shadow, passing through farming hamlets, a silent assassin who tried not to stir notice...still feeling exposed.
One night, as he fed on peasants in a straw hut, streaks of light slashed the dark, moving across the thatch, and shouts rose outside. He slipped to the edge of the village and watched them come, nomadic riders, sackcloth and fur layered beneath piecemeal armor, metal helms gleaming like cold moons. They hit like saddled lightning, fast, precise, sacking and burning, cutting down the slow and the stubborn without hesitation. The raid was brutal, quick, and gone before the night caught its breath.
Smoke curled. Blood steamed on packed earth. Anu flared his nostrils and drank the scent. In the yellow churn of firelight as the village burned, the light reflecting in his eyes, a revelation, an understanding clicked into place...
In the hills, Anu found them, a splinter group of Xianbei barbarians known as the Warriors of the Night Ride. A bonfire roared at the camp’s heart, crude tents ringed in shadow. They feasted on plunder. To win them, Anu knew he’d have to speak in a language they understood, spectacle and strength. He knew how to play the part of a god.
As the barbarian celebrated, Anu stepped through the blaze of their bonfire, flames curling around him, his skin unscorched. Swords hissed from sheaths. Spears leveled. Eyes went wide...A warrior spoke up, unsure what to make of the stranger.
Anu reveals himself to the Warriors of the Night Ride - © 2025 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
WARRIOR: Are you a ghost?
ANU: I am Death. And you have summoned me to this realm with tonights offering of your sacrifice.
Their leader, Yeke, stepped forward, driving a spear through Anu’s chest.
YEKE: You’re not death. You’re a man. A pale man.
But as the barbarians laughed at the quip, Anu pulled the pike out, still standing.
ANU: You command this group? You will yield to me at once.
YEKE: We are Warriors of the Night Ride. The strongest in all the lands. We do not yield.
ANU: Then face me. A fight to the death.
Accepting the challenge, Yeke’s men buckled on his breastplate, pressed a sword into his hand. But when he looked up, Anu was gone--
YEKE: The pale ghost flees! No match for us!
The men stilled...As without a sound, Anu slid from the darkness behind Yeke. He felt the presence and turned, blade raised.
Anu struck, claws like hooked steel. A blur of slashes, leather, flesh, and iron peeled apart. Blood hit the fire, stained dirt.
As Anu stepped back, talons dripping with blood...Yeke staggered forward, his face, throat, chest were cut into ribbons. He fell to his knees. Anu moved behind him and with one clean rake ended him.
ANU: Who else will step forward?
Silence. Shock. No one moved.
ANU: You call yourselves the most feared in these lands...but the world runs past your horizons. You win with muscle now. But with me at the helm, you will carry fear as a second blade. At your name alone, enemies will falter. At your approach, they will beg for death.
Bending the knee, the riders watched Anu by the glow of the firelight, knowing they were in the presence of more than a mere man.
ANU: You were Warriors of the Night Ride. Now, you serve me.
WARRIOR: What shall we call you?
ANU: I am Anu, the bringer of Death.
WARRIOR: Not Death, you are Mógui.
ANU: What does that mean?
WARRIOR: Devil.
ANU: Then you are my Devil Riders.
Anu and his Devil Riders - © 2025 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
They accepted him, and he remade them. An elite mounted terror unit, the Devil Riders, tearing loosed across the countryside night after night. For Anu, it was starting over...no palace, no tribute on demand, only the hunt, kidnapping peasants and farmers to feed on. Under his hand the riders grew into a superstition made flesh, a rumor with hooves and steel. Villages constructed doors to bar at sunset. Fires dimmed when hoofbeats pounded the dark.
Decades passed. The Devil Riders cut a red seam through China and Mongolia, the mysterious Mógui leading their night charges. He was a soldier again, a role he’d missed. They weren't the fanged shock troopers of his home world, but they swore fealty and killed at his command.
They took land and treasure, and gloried in the ruin of their enemies. Their legend endured as riders aged and were replaced. But the dreaded Mógui did not change. Unstoppable, ever fierce, and deadly in the night.
TO BE CONTINUED…