Utros sighed. “I don’t want to believe them. You say that I’m the heart of this army, but I draw my strength only because I serve my emperor.”
And I have betrayed him with his wife … the woman I love.
“I may be strong, and I may have led these soldiers to many victories,” he said, “but without my emperor, I am like a door without a hinge. He is my commander.”
Ava returned to the bed and sat next to him. She began to caress his chest, while Ruva stroked his back. They touched his cheeks, the smooth skin and the dragon-burn scar.
All he could think of was beautiful Majel with her long black hair, streaked with reddish highlights when the sunshine struck her. Her almond-shaped brown eyes, her tanned skin that was more beautiful than gold, her kisses, her sighs, her moans as he held her, taking her with ferocity in his tent like an animal in heat. And then after that passion was sated, a longer, slower lovemaking as they sang a song with their bodies, a secret song that Emperor Kurgan could never hear.…
“Our magic is given to you,” said Ava, lying down and draping her leg over his, while Ruva touched his thigh, then wrapped herself around him as well. They were trying to tangle themselves in a knot of bodies and cold flesh. They had painted their smooth, hairless skin with fresh, bright colors again, but he could not see the details in the dimness of the smoky fires.
“We will give you everything, beloved Utros, if we can.”
“As you always have,” the general said in a soft voice, and then he responded to their touch.
The sisters had given him their devotion, their love, their energy, their faith, since they were teenage girls. They’d been considered oddities, revered in a small mountain town, which was one of the first conquests General Utros had made in expanding Iron Fang’s empire. Ava and Ruva had been born even closer than normal twins. Their bodies were fused, their legs melded like two soft candles pressed together.
The babies might have died or been cast out by superstitious villagers, but their father took a terrible chance while they were still infants. As their mother wept in despair, the father had taken his sharpest skinning knife and placed the two connected infant girls on a table. He had cut them apart, hacking through the skin and fused bone that was like an intertwined tree. He had broken them apart, splitting their fused legs; then he wrapped the wounds that bled and bled. Their wounds became severely infected. The shrieking babies had faltered, becoming sicker and sicker.
Then they had died. The spirits of the two innocent infants went to the underworld and actually faced the Keeper. Their hearts stopped, but for only a few minutes. Somehow the village healer managed to revive them. The father stood there, his face sagging, horrified at what he had done. But the girls lived. They had been snatched away from the Keeper.
But He had touched them.
Though each had a horrific matching scar on her leg, the girls were strong, and they healed. They tested each other. They grew up and learned how to walk and run so that they barely showed even a limp. But they did not hide their scars; they flaunted them, wearing short shifts, growing up aloof and beautiful.
When they were ten, the Keeper claimed the debt they had taken from him by killing both their mother and father in a terrible coughing plague, leaving the odd twins to raise themselves. The village feared Ava and Ruva, but their real magic hadn’t manifested until their blood courses came, at the age of thirteen. The young sorceresses lived in the cottage their father had built, and they terrified the villagers. They did no work, but simply claimed whatever food they wished, the clothing they needed, by walking into other houses and rifling through wardrobes and shelves, walking off with what was their due. The townspeople were too frightened to argue with them.
When Utros’s armies marched into their village, the soldiers pillaging and ransacking, the town leader begged the twin sorceresses to help. Ava and Ruva merely scoffed at him, then walked through the startled ranks of soldiers and presented themselves before General Utros.
“You need us with you,” Ruva had said.
“Why?” Utros had demanded, not understanding who the twins were, although he had seen the odd sparkle and offset gaze in their faces.
“You’ll know, sooner or later.”
Utros had indeed taken the twins as his own, though not as lovers. They were too young, and even though they grew to be quite beautiful, he never changed his mind. When he asked Ava and Ruva what he should do with their village, if he should subdue it in the name of Emperor Kurgan, they advised him to make a gesture that could not be misread by other villages in line to be conquered. So he killed all the townspeople and burned the buildings, then spread the word. He’d been a brash young commander then, and the sacrifice of that one town caused fifteen others within a day’s ride to surrender immediately to the banner of Iron Fang.
Utros never took credit for his victory, always insisted that Kurgan deserved the power and the glory, which meant that the emperor also received the blame and the fear. Utros moved on, conquering land after land.…
“We will help you fight,” said Ruva now, whispering close to his face in the dim command structure. “My sister and I know many spells, but for simple information, there is a more straightforward way.”
“I know,” he said. It had been several days since his army had awakened, and their siege was firmly in place. He remembered when this military force had first arrived at Ildakar. They had just recovered from the disastrous attack of the wild silver dragon they intended to unleash against the city.
Even without the dragon, Utros had brought his ranks to fill the plain and let Ildakar tremble before the unspoken threat for two days before he had marched up to the city gates to demand their surrender. He’d known they wouldn’t concede immediately, but he could starve and strangle them over time.
He hadn’t expected the wizards of Ildakar to turn his army to stone for centuries.
Those events seemed like only a week ago in his own mind.
“I’ve made my decision,” he said. “We’ll demand to speak with their representatives. Our next step depends on how Ildakar responds.” He smiled, then reached up to stroke his stiff beard and the patchy scar on his left cheek. “After we talk with them, I will plan how to tear down the city.”
CHAPTER 12
The next morning, Nicci awoke refreshed from dreams of running free and wild while also assessing the siege army. Now her thoughts assembled the details of the huge encampment she had seen through Mrra’s eyes.
She joined Nathan as he emerged from his own quarters dressed in trim white wizard’s robes enhanced with gold stitching on the cuffs and collar. After he had freed himself from his long confinement in the Palace of the Prophets, Nathan Rahl had preferred fine ruffled shirts and tight pants, high boots, wide belts, but on their journey he’d been stripped of his magic for so long, and now that he could use his gift again, he had decided to look like a wizard.
“Shall we solve this problem today, Sorceress?” he said with a quirk of his lips. “Save Ildakar and dispel the enemy army so we can be on our way again?”
Nicci set her jaw as they emerged from under the trellises of sweet-smelling vine flowers. “Yes, that would be a good idea.”
She had never shied away from difficult tasks. Even without the threat of the ancient army, Ildakaran society had many raw wounds that needed to heal. Many in Ildakar were selfish and aloof, takers who thought only of their own needs and nothing of the hard work, the blood and sweat of those who supplied them. But she had also met many strong and worthy citizens, including the followers of Mirrormask. Though the rebel leader himself had been a sham, the freed slave Rendell had shown particular wisdom and bravery, and Nicci was also sure that numerous merchants and lesser nobles would be worth preserving. Yes, parts of Ildakar had to be saved.
When she’d led conquests for the Imperial Order, Nicci had viewed Jagang’s entire army, from the commanders to the foot soldiers, as tools, nothing more. She herself had been raised under t
he poison philosophy of the Order, blind to the good in people. During her lifetime, Nicci’s tragedies and pain had turned her heart to black ice, and when her love for Richard Rahl thawed that ice and helped her see the truth, she herself had become the tool, the weapon that Richard required.
Nicci had felt only satisfaction when she killed Jagang, but that cold determination was tested to its limits when she was forced to murder the innocent girl Thistle so she could obtain the poison she needed to save the world.
That had been a prediction written by the witch woman Red in Nathan’s life book. And the Sorceress must save the world. The witch woman’s other premonition had guided a powerless Nathan over the high mountain pass of Kol Adair to Ildakar, where he had found the heart of a wizard to restore his lost gift.
Nicci had always made her own choices, pursued her own goals, rather than following the capricious winds of prophecy, but she took the life-book pronouncement seriously. And the Sorceress must save the world.
In order to win here in Ildakar, she needed to find her heart of black ice again. She would use her skills to save the city and defeat General Utros. The fight would require the resources, the weapons, the magic, and the manpower of the entire city, from powerful wizards down to the common people. She hoped they were willing to pay the cost for their freedom.
Outside the grand villa, the sound of the army hammering on the walls was a monotonous background noise that thrummed through the streets, but Nicci barely noticed it after several days.
When the pounding abruptly stopped, the unexpected silence was as loud as a scream.
Nathan nearly stumbled on the fine gravel path as he walked alongside her. “Dear spirits!” He scanned the skies, gazing past the city to the tiny dots of soldiers on the plain.
Nicci narrowed her eyes, listening to the sudden quiet. “I don’t like this.”
Nathan forced an unconvincing smile. “Maybe it means Utros has decided to surrender.”
“Neither of us is that much of a fool,” Nicci said, hurrying toward the wall.
* * *
When they reached the towering main gates, High Captain Stuart was barking orders for his sentry soldiers to be ready for an attack, but the ancient soldiers had withdrawn beyond the fallen moats. Stuart rushed over to Nicci and Nathan. “Some sort of signal came from the center of the army. The soldiers stopped their pounding and marched back.”
From the high battlements, Nicci peered over the wall, noticing the chipped outer surface of the huge blocks at the base. The endless pounding had marred the stone, gouged divots and small cracks, but the gifted wizards had reinforced the blocks with strengthening spells. At the base of the barrier, she saw smoke stains, pools of oil, scattered boulders, and other missiles that had killed hundreds of the enemy, whose bodies had been hauled away.
Out on the plain, General Utros’s army spread apart with eerie coordination, the ranks forming an open path for a single man to ride forward. He sat astride a chalky war mount that plodded forward like a plow horse instead of a charger. The rider wore leather armor with broad shoulder plates, a blocky helmet, and a wide curved sword at his side, but he did not draw it. He rode at a methodical pace up to the enormous gates, where he stopped.
From the high parapet, Nicci looked down. The man was a craggy-faced veteran, an older warrior who exuded power and efficiency. He stared up at them for a long moment while High Captain Stuart and the wall guards muttered, waiting for the representative to say something.
Finally, the scarred veteran raised a gauntleted fist and shouted, “In the name of General Utros and on behalf of the almighty Iron Fang, Emperor Kurgan, we demand to speak with a representative of Ildakar. We will negotiate how much damage your city must suffer before you surrender.” He waited.
The wall guards whispered to one another, glancing at Stuart, who in turn waited for Nicci and Nathan. None of the other duma members had yet arrived at the wall.
Nathan furrowed his brow and called down at the man on the horse, “So, you’re not General Utros, then? You are just a lackey.”
The armored man’s expression twisted, then returned to stony frankness. “I am First Commander Enoch. I speak for Utros, and Utros speaks for Emperor Kurgan. We will withdraw our forces so you can send us your negotiator. We guarantee the safety of your representative. The general wishes to be sensible, until you give him reason not to be.”
Enoch wheeled his horse around and rode back out to where he disappeared among the countless enemy soldiers.
* * *
Without the firm hand of the sovrena or wizard commander, the duma members were disorganized. For centuries under the shroud, their city business had been aimless, but now that they faced a terrible crisis, the council members weren’t sure who would make such an important decision, or even who would speak for Ildakar. No one seemed eager to volunteer.
Nicci and Nathan sat among them, impatient. The duma members Elsa, Damon, Quentin, and the half-petrified Lani discussed Utros’s ultimatum among themselves. Oron, the newest member of the duma, had the most to say. “We have no choice but to speak with Utros. It’s the only way we can get information.”
“It’s the only way to resolve this,” Damon agreed. “What if he offers tolerable terms?”
“But we can’t send our most powerful people out there,” Quentin said. “What if it’s a trick? If General Utros holds us hostage, our city will be that much weaker.”
“He gave us his word, promised the safety of our representative,” Elsa said. “That army has pounded on our walls for days, but this is the first we’ve heard from the general. Aren’t we obligated to find out what he wants?”
Oron agreed, resting his chin on a bunched fist. “It’ll buy us time until we figure out how to drive them off, or how we can all escape.”
“Escape?” Nathan said with a snort. “Dear spirits, there must be half a million people in this city. You mean to send them all out, down the bluffs with ropes and ladders, to sail away down the river? That would be impossible.”
“Not evacuation,” Quentin said. “We were thinking of other alternatives.”
Nicci said, “General Utros may know nothing about what happened to him. They just awakened after being turned to stone for centuries. He might not realize how much time has passed.”
Lani nodded. “I myself didn’t notice any passage of time when I was petrified. Maybe he doesn’t know that his emperor is long dead.”
“His entire siege is pointless,” Elsa said. “Maybe we can make him see that. Will he see reason?”
“He’ll be the desperate one. This city has been self-sufficient for a long time, and we can withstand a siege indefinitely, but all those soldiers need to be fed,” Quentin pointed out. “Hundreds of thousands of soldiers without supplies. We can just wait until they all starve. We have the advantage here.”
Oron laughed, a cold twisted sound. “We should send our best orator. If Utros has no emperor to serve, we can recruit his army for Ildakar.”
“Then we would have to feed them,” Elsa said. “Even if they agreed to cease hostilities, how could the city support countless thousands more people?”
“It was not a serious suggestion,” Damon said.
Nathan wore a puzzled look. “No, that’s an important point. It’s been days already. Surely, they haven’t eaten since they awakened. There should be panic, mass desertions, yet they seem well disciplined. How can there be hundreds of thousands of soldiers without food or shelter?”
Lani had a confused expression of her own. “I haven’t felt the need to eat or drink since I awakened.” She touched her chalky skin. “Part of the spell still lingers. Maybe they don’t need food.”
“If that’s true, they can maintain the siege forever,” Nicci said.
Damon groaned. “I wish we could simply raise the shroud again and go about our business as before, when Ildakar was at peace.”
“Ildakar was never at peace,” Nathan muttered. “You just didn’t see it.�
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Nicci pulled the conversation back to the point. “Once Utros knows that Iron Fang is long dead, that the empire itself has crumbled, he should realize his siege serves no purpose. Someone should be able to convince him of this.”
“Who would go out there and tell him?” Quentin asked. “I certainly won’t volunteer. I don’t trust those bloodthirsty soldiers not to kill our representative and launch the severed head over our walls.”
“Why not send Thora to do it?” Damon asked. “Let her take the risk. She insists she only wants the best for Ildakar, and she’s expendable.”
This provoked loud, angry muttering. “We cannot trust her,” Lani said, with surprising venom. “Not at all.”
Nicci hardened her voice, disappointed in them. “You are the members of the duma. Will none of you go and face General Utros for the sake of your city? You will not walk out there and parley with your greatest enemy?”
Elsa sighed and seemed to be deep in thought. Damon and Quentin looked to Oron, as if expecting the new duma member to accept the challenge, but he merely picked at his fingernails with a small dagger.
“Enough of this foolishness,” Nicci said. She had walked among enemy armies before, had seen the worst the Imperial Order could do. “It must be done.” She glanced at Nathan. “Will you accompany me, Wizard? You and I can speak for Lord Rahl as well.”
“Of course,” he said with a wistful smile. “I spent centuries studying history. If nothing else, I’d be delighted to meet the legendary General Utros himself.”
CHAPTER 13
The gates of Ildakar opened with a slow, grinding groan. All the locking spells and protective wards had been removed by the wizards working together to release their defenses. The towering slabs of reinforced wood began to creak apart on mammoth hinges.
Nicci’s blond hair flowed loose in the breeze that stole through the widening gap. Her clean black dress fit her form perfectly. Nathan was beside her, an equally striking figure, with his pale hair brushed to a silky luster and his gold-trimmed white wizard’s robes that made him look powerful and imposing.
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