“I beg the Afterlife,” Tyranny muttered. “Why on earth did you do that?”
“It’s just as I thought,” Wigg said, his curiosity forcing Tyranny’s question aside. Holding the skull out, he turned it to face them. As the empty eye sockets glared at them from the distant past, they looked eerie, menacing.
“Does either of you see anything unusual about this skull?” Wigg asked.
Tristan was intrigued, and he walked nearer. There was something unusual about it, he realized. The skull was highly elongated. He looked back into Wigg’s eyes.
“It’s oddly shaped,” he answered. “It doesn’t look entirely human.”
Just then the Minion officer neared. “This is what I was referring to earlier, Jin’Sai,” he said. “There are many human skeletons here, and some look like this one. This armory is but one room. I can scarcely imagine what we might find if we were to search the entire ship.”
“Why does the skull look like that?” Tyranny asked. “What was wrong with him?”
Wigg smiled. “There was nothing wrong with him,” he answered, “for a Blood Stalker.”
“That’s a Blood Stalker skull?” Tyranny asked.
“Yes,” Wigg answered. “Believe me—I saw enough of them during the Sorceresses’ War to know.”
“What were Blood Stalkers doing aboard this ship?” Tristan asked.
“Serving their superior masters, I presume,” Wigg answered. “In any event, we can now be sure of at least two things. First, this stalker was named Marcus, and he held the title of Carnifex. And second, the Intrepidus was commanded by Vagaries worshippers, for only they employed Blood Stalkers.” After setting the skull down, Wigg took another look around.
“If this ship could talk, her tales would surely be fascinating,” he added softly.
Just then Tristan heard several of the Minion warriors cry out, and he turned to look. The subtle matter had returned and was flying into the armory through one of the many smashed windows lining the tilted port hull. After all of it entered the room, the amazing substance gathered itself up for a moment and hovered above the dusty weapons, armor, and skeletons. Then without warning it divided into three distinct streams, and they headed straight for Wigg, Tristan, and Tyranny.
Tristan panicked as he felt the azure matter wrap around his waist and hold him fast in its iron grip. In moments Wigg and Tyranny were similarly caught up. Before Tristan could cry out, the subtle matter stream lifted him high into the air. Wigg and Tyranny soon followed him, and the three of them could only look aghast at one another.
“Don’t fight it!” Wigg shouted as he watched the others struggle. “We have no choice but to obey! If the subtle matter wanted to kill us, we would have been dead long ago!”
Tristan started to shout out something, but before he could, the subtle matter whisked him up toward one of the smashed-out windows. Wigg and Tyranny watched in horror as the azure powder dragged Tristan out through the window. Before he knew it, Wigg was taken out the same way, followed by Tyranny.
Dazed and frightened, the wizard and the privateer soon found themselves hovering in the air by Tristan’s side, directly over the narrow channel. Tristan could hear his warriors shouting from inside the ship, and the many others still on the rocky ledge started desperately running as they tried to come to the aid of their Jin’Sai. Some took to the air in an attempt to free Tristan from the subtle matter’s grasp, but Wigg sternly ordered them back.
For several moments the three captives hung in space and looked at one another in terror, wondering what might happen next. But before Wigg could shout out another warning, he got his answer.
The three subtle matter streams spun their captives around to face the dead end. To their amazement, the edifice started to rumble and thunder, just as had the rocky walls near the sandy shore when they first rose to meet the cavern ceiling. The captives watched breathlessly as a thin azure line formed down the center of the end wall. Then the wall began to part, its divided surfaces magically receding into the side walls and sending tons of loose stone crashing down into the channel. The terrifying space in between looked pitch-black and infinite.
Suddenly an awful wind arose, its force so strong that Tristan thought it might throw the Intrepidus free of the rocky shelf and into the channel. The waves rose to many times a man’s height and swayed violently to and fro, imprisoned between the unforgiving walls. Just when Tristan thought he could take no more, a vortex suddenly appeared within the depths revealed by the parting rock walls. It reminded him of Faegan’s portal, but this could not be Faegan’s work, for it was far larger than any portal that Faegan could summon, and its color was much more dazzling.
Soon the howling wind and the whirling vortex had become so overpowering that the three prisoners blacked out. As the wind tore at them, they hung unconscious in the subtle matter’s grasp, and awaited their unknown fates.
Tristan was the first to be called. Without warning the subtle matter holding him flew directly into the depths of the whirling vortex. His arms and legs flailing in the air, Wigg soon followed. Tyranny went next. When the three were gone, the vortex disappeared and the rock walls rumbled shut, leaving no trace of what had just happened. The terrible wind died, allowing the channel waves to again find their equilibrium.
As the stunned Minions looked on, a deathly stillness crept over the channel, the rocky ledge, and the mysterious ghost ship that lay upon it.
TRISTAN AWAKENED GROGGY AND DISORIENTED. HE WAS lying prone, and he had no idea how much time had passed since he had been pulled into the vortex. His vision was fuzzy and his head swam sickeningly.
Raising himself up on his elbows, he saw several figures standing before him, but their images were too hazy to distinguish. He tried to look around to find Wigg and Tyranny, but his blurred eyesight failed. He shook his head, trying to clear his vision.
Fearing that he had entered Rustannica, he sat up groggily and reached behind his right shoulder to grasp his dreggan. To his horror, he found that his sword and his throwing knives were gone. He also realized that his clothing had been changed. He now wore a dark blue silk robe wrapped oddly around his body. His knee boots were gone; in their place, thick socks and wooden thong sandals clad his feet.
“You will not need your clumsy physical weapons here in the People’s Palace, Jin’Sai,” he heard a female voice say. “Please calm yourself. We mean no disrespect, but our magic is far more powerful than that of your Conclave mystics. You feel drugged because you are unfamiliar with our vortex. We deeply apologize for any discomfort you might have suffered, but it was the only way. The feeling will pass, and your vision will clear momentarily.”
As he tried to see through the haze, Tristan thought he saw one of the figures raise a hand and point it at him. At once his eyesight began to improve.
First the cloudiness disappeared, then his double vision cleared to reveal a scene of startling beauty. The room in which he lay was magnificent in its exotic splendor, and the woman who had just used the craft to aid his eyesight was remarkably beautiful. Her long dark hair was piled atop her head in a strikingly unusual way, and a silken robe wound around her body revealed a tantalizing hint of the graceful figure that lay beneath it. Several more women dressed the same way stood beside her, their hands folded gracefully before them.
“Who are you?” he demanded. “What have you done with my friends?”
“They are well,” the woman replied. “Because of the strength of your blood, you are the first to awaken.”
“Where am I?” he asked.
The woman bowed deeply from the waist. As she did so, the others followed suit.
“You are safe,” she answered as she remained bowed in his presence. “You are the first Jin’Sai to reach our side of the world, and your arrival has long been anticipated.”
Rising and looking into Tristan’s dark eyes, she smiled. “Welcome, Jin’Sai,” she said. “Welcome to Shashida.”
IV
GO
LD AND DEATH
CHAPTER XXXV
Sadly, more often than not the difficult thing to do is also the right thing.
—MASHIRO OF THE HOUSE OF CRANES
AS TAMMERLAND BURNED AND THE CRIES OF HER TERRIFIED citizens rose into the night, Khristos’ lead viper looked around and smiled.
Just as the Viper Lord had planned, the surprised Minion patrols wandering the city had been no match for the thousands of Blood Vipers that came slithering up from the depths of the Sippora. Caught off guard, the winged warriors had fought well, but the vipers’ superior numbers soon ruled the night. The lead viper knew that the alarm had gone out to alert the royal palace and that the hordes of Minions camped there would soon arrive. He welcomed their coming, for the Viper Lord’s plan depended on that very thing. As the heart of the city burned, the viper in charge of the carnage slithered about, taking stock of the scene.
Hundreds of citizens and Minion warriors lay dead in the streets, their blood pooling in the gutters and their bodies lying wherever they had fallen victim to the vipers’ talons, fangs, and venom. Scores of buildings had been set afire by marauding Blood Vipers carrying torches. Winding their bodies and tails around Tammerland’s many lampposts, the seething man-serpents slithered up them to smash the glass globes and eagerly light their torches. The torches were then tossed through the windows of shops and homes and the vipers gleefully watched them burn. Anyone caught rushing from a burning building was summarily killed, and the many thatched roofs in the city provided opportune targets as the torches tossed on top of them set them ablaze straightaway. Many citizens with endowed blood were being ruthlessly gorged on while still alive, their screams ringing out into the night as the vipers—once again hungry now that they had been freed from the water—searched for fresh endowed livers on which to feed.
Despite the great destruction and bloodshed, it was not the Viper Lord’s plan to occupy the city or to kill all its inhabitants. Seeing how many weak-minded mortals could be murdered meant nothing to him, nor did the growing numbers of burning buildings. Killing Minions was advantageous, but just as the main body of warriors arrived to relieve the city, most of the Blood Vipers would slither their way back down the riverbanks to reenter the Sippora and escape unseen. This would be no cowardly retreat, but a clever tactical maneuver.
To add believability to their charade, some vipers would be ordered to stay behind and fight to the death. Their ranks would be enough to trick the Minions into believing that they needed to remain in the city and fight on, but not so great that Khristos would miss them during the next part of his plan. Viper sentries waited on many rooftops, constantly searching the southern sky. At the first sign of Minion relief troops they would wave their torches, signaling that the retreat into the Sippora should start.
As the carnage wore on, the lead viper also looked skyward. The Minions would arrive soon, he realized. Turning back to survey the battle, he smiled once more. Hopefully enough time would remain to kill the few surviving Minions and devour many livers of the endowed.
After ordering another viper to watch for their sentries’ signals, he hungrily slithered across the dewy square and used his talons to rip into a young man’s corpse.
BY THE TIME SHAILIHA AND HER FORCES ARRIVED, TAMMERLAND’S center was nearly destroyed, and fires were spreading outward in every direction.
From her place in the litter she gazed out aghast over a sea of flames. Dead humans and Minions lay everywhere. Vipers voraciously fed on human victims as others madly set fire to yet more buildings. Heartened by their success, the grotesque monsters writhed about each other in a sickening orgy of victory. As her litter neared the scene, the princess pulled her sword from its scabbard, gripping it so hard that her knuckles turned white.
Faegan, Abbey, and Aeolus rode with her. Flying alongside, Traax commanded the bulk of the Minions, while Duvessa led her specialized cadres of female warrior-healers. At Traax’s suggestion, only a skeleton force had been left behind to guard the palace and the Redoubt. As they neared the battle, the rising smoke choked their lungs, and terrible screaming could be heard as its chilling tenor rose into the night.
Our people are dying down there, Shailiha thought. My failure to find and kill Khristos and his forces has brought this tragedy on us. But now the fight is finally joined. Khristos’ rampage must end here and now, on this night of nights.
Shailiha signaled her troops into the fray. Their dreggans flashing, thousands of Minions swooped down to tear into the seething vipers, while Faegan and Aeolus loosed azure bolts at the monsters with everything they had. The battle was joined.
KHRISTOS WAS THE FIRST TO STEALTHILY BREAK THE SURFACE of the river. His timing was perfect and his resolve unshakable. Smiling as he looked across the water, he realized that Gracchus’ plan was proceeding perfectly.
While thousands of his vipers waited unseen in the murky depths, Khristos surveyed the area. Just as Gracchus had told him, the palace lay near the river bend. Between the river and the palace lay a great field, its dewy expanse providing the huge area needed to contain the great Minion war camp. Untold lines of shadowy war tents seemed to stretch forever into the distance, their openings flapping gently in the nighttime breeze. Just as Khristos had hoped, it seemed that every available warrior save for a few sentries had been called out to quell the mayhem raging in the heart of the city. Quietly turning around in the water, he confirmed the orange-red glow in the sky.
Looking back, he saw the royal palace standing west of the campsite, its many lit torches shining down onto its barbicaned parapets. The moat surrounding the castle looked deep and tranquil, and the drawbridge had been raised and locked into place between its twin gate towers. To an untrained observer the magnificent structure would surely appear unassailable, but on this night that perception would be wrong. Even so, the largely unprotected palace and the many treasures it housed were not Khristos’ first goals. Looking to the south, the Viper Lord smiled again as he spied the first of Gracchus’ targets.
The two magnificent Black Ships that Tristan had left behind sparkled in the moonlight as they rested in their massive wooden cradles. Khristos’ heart leapt as he realized that only a handful of Minion sentries guarded them. Without the great ships, the Jin’Saiou’s ability to hunt him down would be greatly curtailed, and she could no longer sail across the Sea of Whispers. These ships would therefore be Khristos’ targets.
Following Gracchus’ orders, he would set fire to one and steal the other, filling it with his vipers and then using it to his further purposes. Having fought and sailed alongside Failee during the Sorceresses’ War, he could empower Black Ships as well as any mystic alive. But even he could fly only one ship at a time, so the other must be made useless to the Jin’Saiou here and now. These things must be done quickly, before Shailiha and her Vigors mystics realized that the battle in the square was a diversion and hurried back to the palace. The time was right, the setting was all Khristos could have hoped for, and Gracchus’ plan was ready to be executed.
Submerging again, Khristos waved his thousands of vipers forward. They would quietly climb the riverbanks, then slither silently on their bellies through the tall grass to flank both sides of the Minion camp and rush in to dispatch the remaining sentries. Soon after, the warriors guarding the ships some distance away would follow their brothers into the Afterlife. If both attacks succeeded quickly and quietly, those in the castle would perceive no threat until one Black Ship was in the air and the other was in flames.
As the magenta moonlight gently licked the waves of the Sippora, Khristos and his vipers started to surface, their huge numbers slithering up the dark riverbank like a menacing tide.
SWINGING HER SWORD IN A PERFECT ARC, SHAILIHA SLICED its blade through the throat of another attacking viper. The thing stood frozen in time for a moment before falling to the cobblestones, dead where it lay.
Daring to lower her sword for a few precious moments, the princess found that her arms were leaden a
nd that her lungs clawed to capture each new breath. Her mind wanted to keep fighting, but more and more her body refused to obey. She and her forces were exhausted, and to her dismay, seemingly endless hordes of vipers still poured around street corners and down dark alleyways to come and challenge them. The princess’s face and body were peppered with blood and offal, and she knew that her muscles would soon give out. Even so, like her comrades, she had no choice but to fight on. Faegan and Aeolus were somewhere on the far side of the square, still loosing azure bolts, their fingertips long since blackened and singed. The acolyte and consular cadres who had followed in separate litters were doing the same all across the macabre urban battlefield.
Shailiha took a quick look around to see that the Minion corpses seemed at least equal in number to those of the vipers that had been blown apart by azure bolts or cut down by Minion swords or returning wheels. As more Minions landed in the streets, terrified citizens ran madly in every direction as they tried to escape the raging vipers.
Shailiha desperately hungered for a battle report, but Traax had not yet brought one to her, forcing her to wonder if her valiant commander was dead. She knew that to effectively lead this fight, she must understand what was going on around her. But in all this madness, finding Traax seemed impossible. Shailiha had lost track of Abbey long ago, and she had yet to see Khristos. Not finding the Viper Lord worried her, but aimlessly searching through the raging battle would surely get her killed. Knowing that she must learn how her troops were faring, she realized that there was only one way to do it. She would take to the air again and view the battle from above.
Just as she was about to summon some warriors to her side, Shailiha saw another viper coming. She instinctively backed up and lifted her sword high with both hands, readying herself for its attack. Then the deadly viper unexpectedly stopped short and glared directly into her eyes. With its talons outstretched and its strong tail coiled up beneath its humanlike upper body, the thing ominously levered high into the air, then looked down on her and let go a menacing hiss.
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