Goldenmark

by Jean Lowe Carlson

  “And my way of understanding my world is via my force of will.” Theroun mulled that over, feeling how it made sense.

  “Indeed. Many commanders of battle who show wyrria have will-aptitude. You have accepted your wyrria, Theroun. But now you have to understand how to wield that power. So that when your time comes, you have the full strike of the suna hebi behind the lance of your will. Tell me. What does your inner Black Viper long to do? What does it lust for? What is the thing for which you would seek Queen Elyasin’s absolution?”

  Theroun took a deep breath. The tone of the conversation had changed, and they’d entered his training now, just as they’d done each evening. “My wyrria longs to desecrate. To kill for sheer pleasure, without restriction.”

  “And how is your viper’s killing restricted?” Jornath’s eyes were knowing, dark.

  “I am limited to killing only adversaries,” Theroun responded promptly. “And only upon the battlefield where such things are normal.”

  “What did you experience when you drank my blood, Theroun?”

  Theroun shivered as his wyrria stirred, eager. “Pleasure. The satisfaction of feeling your lifeblood slip away. I wanted to see the light leave your eyes, to know that I had conquered you. To experience the sheer pleasure of dealing your death.”

  “If we were not adversaries, what you lust for would be called murder.” Khorel’s eyes bored into Theroun. “Tell me. Would you kill someone in the height of passion, would you murder someone – if it were allowed?”

  “No.” Theroun’s answer was prompt.

  “Would your viper?” Jornath’s smile was knowing.

  Theroun hesitated. He could feel his wyrria rise with a spread of unfathomable blackness as he pictured a scene he’d so often tried not to – a dark fantasy. Something forbidden, something he never let himself imagine, though he’d hedged upon it many times. What came to him was terrible, but it fed the vile power within.

  “Yes,” he rasped.

  Jornath slid to the edge of his chair, his gaze penetrating. “Stay with that scene you are thinking of, Theroun. Picture it. I want you to feel it. Feel what happens. Place yourself in that passion and that desire for death. Let the fantasy run riot and see where it goes...”

  The scene rose, fast as a viper’s strike in Theroun’s mind, and he could not deny it now. It was his dead wife he saw in his fantasy, so beautiful in her heyday. Lissendra del’Mira had been a Cennetian goddess, and had let Theroun fuck her as hard as he wanted. In his fantasy, her copper-gold locks were fanned out upon the pillows in his command-tent upon the Aphellian Way. Theroun gazed down into her jade eyes, screwed up in aching pleasure. He kissed her full, red mouth in the dusty heat, sweat slicking them both. In their passion and the stifling afternoon heat, he turned her over, gripping her by all that hair, forcing her up on all fours in a tight arch.

  “Take her, Theroun.” Jornath’s command roiled through Theroun, as he watched the scene like a silver nimbus within Theroun’s mind. Theroun’s wyrria rose, feeling the scene, living it. He felt oilslick-dark coils unwind, surging through him with a heat more vicious than the pounding of his blood. Theroun took his wife harder in his fantasy, pushed them both to terrible limits. Lissendra cried out for him, blissful as he rammed into her, over and over. And Theroun knew what he wanted, what his wyrria wanted. A searing sensation surged through Theroun’s body, washing through him with shivers of hot and cold poison.

  A painful sensation, but pleasant. So fucking, terribly good.

  Do it! Jornath’s silver command slammed Theroun, breaking his last restraint. Theroun’s wyrria flashed in a venomous strike as he slashed his wife’s throat in his fantasy with a black knife, just as she came screaming his name. Shuddering with orgasm, pumping blood out upon the bed, she gave Theroun her everything. And he came for her hard, giving her his all – claiming her sex, her blood, and her beautiful death.

  Something tremendous exploded from Theroun and he screamed as his viperous wyrria roared out. He felt that oilslick-black energy hammer Kreth-Hakir to their knees all around the camp, as cries of pain echoed in Theroun’s mind. When he opened his eyes, Khorel Jornath was on the rug, knocked out of his chair to his knees. One fist upon the carpet, he breathed hard, his gaze still locked to Theroun.

  “That is the power of your darkness,” Jornath grated softly.

  Theroun’s throat closed. His mind rang like a war-gong. Even as his wyrria surged with glory, Theroun’s humanity wailed. How could he fantasize about his wife’s death? How could that be what his wyrria craved? Theroun collapsed to the floor, gasping. Eyes tight, he could not stop the horror. The scene replayed, over and over. Her corpse upon the bed. Her corpse in his command-tent upon the Aphellian Way in the sweltering afternoon. Her throat slit by his hand, and by another hand, but her beloved eyes dead all the same.

  “I killed her!” Theroun gasped. “I brought her to camp... it was my fault she died! Aeon forgive me––!”

  Theroun broke, roaring upon his elbows and knees. Mind-blind, wild, a black vastness roared through him and all around. He felt the power of that scream lance out in a second strike, piercing the ears of every Hakir within a five-league radius, making them shudder. A heavy hand settled to Theroun’s shoulder and quicksilver serenity poured through him, Theroun drinking it as gratefully as he’d devoured Khorel’s blood the night of his binding. Gradually, the scene faded. Theroun’s wyrria slipped back into a quiescent state, the immensity of the blackness at the edges of his thoughts coiling away for another time.

  “How can this be a part of me?” Theroun rasped as he clutched his chest.

  “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer,” Jornath spoke softly. “There is only one thing that is a man’s natural enemy, Theroun. The shadow-side of his own true wyrria. But knowing your enemy is power. And knowing what gives your enemy power is even moreso.”

  “I have to become this thing inside me?”

  “You have to not be afraid of it.” Khorel gave his shoulder a small squeeze. “Having dark desires and acting them out are two separate things. But if you face your desires, your Beast will become your friend. More than that, it will allow you to harness its power, and fight for you rather than against you. Do you understand?”

  With his forehead pressed to the carpet, Theroun nodded. Swallowing back bile, he was at last able to sit up. “I begin to.”

  “Good.” Jornath’s smile was pleased. “Your training will now include far more than the calming meditations I have shown you. Now that you know how to raise your wyrria, we begin the Harnessing Sigils. I will show you how to bend your wyrria to your will. We can’t have you blasting every Brother in a five-league radius with your inner torment, now can we?”

  Jornath laughed, amused but with pride ringing through his deep voice. Seizing Theroun’s shoulders, he helped Theroun to his feet. He stared Theroun down, but not without compassion. “The road you shall walk is long and difficult, Scion. But I promise you, it will not be without assistance, nor without rewards. Mastering your shadow-will is the greatest pleasure a man can know.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because nothing is forbidden.” Jornath’s mouth quirked. He opened his lips as if to say more, then shut them again with a rueful smile. “Take some time. Walk along the bluff or down the cliffs. Clear your mind. A man’s first time opening to his shadow-will is not an easy thing. Ask forgiveness of your dead wife, for the things you desire.”

  “You saw all of that, just now?”

  “We are linked, Scion.” Jornath’s face was impassive. “Learn to use your power to shield your mind from mine, and I will see no more. Every man here has personal things he keeps to himself. The nature of one’s shadow-will is the most personal of all. Go. Take a walk. A meal and a hot bath will be prepared for you to enjoy later. At midnight tonight, you and I have a personal mission to attend, but you may rest until then.”

  “And this mission is?”

  Jornath’s eyes darke
ned and Theroun could read distaste in them. “I’m going to send to Lhaurent in meditation tonight and ask for more ships. As my Scion, it is your rightful place now to attend all my meetings, so you will attend tonight, and try to penetrate my mind as I converse.”

  “Lhaurent won’t enjoy that, being gainsaid. Or feeling me with you, given any sort of position in this army other than shit-keeper.”

  “No.” Jornath’s hands slipped from Theroun’s shoulders. “And it will make him suspicious, but he depends on my Brethren and will not cut us loose.”

  Theroun cocked his head. “Do you fear Lhaurent? His retaliation upon you if he’s displeased?”

  Khorel Jornath gave Theroun cold eyes. “Yes. I am not a fool. But learn one thing, and one thing well, Scion of my Blood. I did not last a thousand years in the Kreth-Hakir Brethren, breaking my challengers and those I challenged as I ascended the ranks, for being an idiot. I will not risk my Brethren on an ill-conceived battle, not for any king or tyrant. Like your wife was to you, they are family to me, though of a different sort, and I will protect them from those who threaten them, even if it means breaking a few to save the many. You are now family to me. And Lhaurent, though he carries Kreth-Hakir blood in his vicious veins, is no family of mine.”

  With those fierce yet strange words, Jornath turned, striding out into the settling evening. Leaving Theroun alone with the last remnants of his wyrric power and the dark shadow within him.

  CHAPTER 31 – ELESHEN

  The ride south out of the mountains and into the deep forests of central Alrou-Mendera had taken less time than Eleshen anticipated. Keshar-cats moved fast through the lowland pines and alder, and they’d traveled hundreds of leagues in only four days of hard riding. A day’s ride north of Vennet now, the morning brooded with autumnal storms and a drizzling rain as their company slid through the shadowed forest.

  Eleshen’s dappled grey keshar, Moonshadow, was smooth as silk beneath her saddle. Though they’d traveled hard, the massive cat had muscles in places where muscles ought not be, and Eleshen relished riding her. Keshari fighters in wet furs and motley leathers moved around Eleshen like stalking shadows under the heavy canopy, many riding double with Kingsmen in their Greys with hoods up against the rain or stalwart Palace Guardsmen in military oilcloaks. Towering fir and darkoak trees crowded close in the rolling hills, interspersed by white-ash and populus whose leaves stood out golden in the somber light, fluttering in a chill breeze.

  Eleshen’s cat paused, lifting her great head and opening her mouth to snuffle the increasing drizzle. A low yowl mourned from her throat. Other cats heard it, halted, lifted their heads to the scent and yowled. Merra’s massive white cat Snowscythe stopped beside Eleshen’s with a growl.

  “The cats ahv scented blood on the storm – battle.” Merra reined up, setting her long polearm in her stirrup’s pocket and palming back her wet braids. She flicked her fingers to her top commanders, Rhone and Rhennon, who ambled their cats to her flanks. “Stalk the ridge ahead. Kill any Menderian sentries.”

  Rhone and Rhennon gave quick hand-signals to their elite keshari teams, then stole away upon their mounts through the dense alder and wet loam like muscled shadows.

  “Advance! Silent!” Merra hissed from her mount. The entire company was soon moving, though all talk was absent now. Slinking through the trees and the wet, Merra led them up the ridge rather than down into a deepening gorge, making sure her forces stayed to the shadows. Soon, they had a high overlook of the river cutting two hundred feet down to their right in a narrow gorge. The gorge opened out into a broad river-valley, and Eleshen’s breath caught as the view expanded at a rocky promontory.

  The seeping drizzle marred the view, but nothing could obscure the arresting citadel that rose up before them. The river broke around a massive upthrusting of red stone cliffs that rose up in a high-walled city, glowing crimson as the sun dipped under the clouds to the west. Rainbows shimmered as minarets towered up into the bruised sky, Eleshen craning her neck to fully take the city in. The lower vaults were entirely cliffs; sheer walls of cinnamon stone – a natural upthrust in the middle of the river. Fifty feet high, the cliffs rose to arched ingresses set in midair. There was no bridge to those doorways, no way to assail the cliffs. Each arch was flanked by towering carvings of winged men and women thrusting spears to the sky. Doorways to nowhere dotted the city’s spiraling reaches. Bridges spanned the heights, vaulting from tower to tower – a city wreathed in clouds yet anchored in the riverbed.

  Eleshen’s breath caught as she gazed upon the camp in the river-valley just south of the citadel. Menderian soldiers filled the valley, a sea of tents and picket-lines and avenues. Smoke raised in thin streams from braziers and cook-fires as Menderians in battle-leathers moved upon the plain like ants, hedged in by enormous cliffs to the east and west.

  A skirmish was in progress at the river between the camp and the fortress. As Eleshen watched, a volley of flaming arrows went shooting up from a battalion of men upon the river’s bank, hitting the vaulted archways of the fortress with a splatter of fire, setting the wooden bulwarks in the fortress’ archways aflame. Enormous trebuchets had been erected upon the top of the fortress’ archways, but were not in use, archers below in the vaults returning fire down across the river.

  Sneaking out of the shadows from the ledge, Rhennon and his group returned, Rhennon sidling up to Merra with a low report. Looking through a copse of alders to the left, Eleshen could see a catapult upon the rocky promontory. The rocks there were smeared with fresh blood, the mauled bodies of ten Menderian soldiers still as stones. Khouren’s tawny cat slid up next to Eleshen’s, ruffling its bedraggled fur with irritation, Ihbram’s big roan male sliding up next to Merra and Rhennon. Eleshen shivered in the drizzle, something in her veins thrumming for battle and blood.

  “Scouts are encamped on all the ridges surrounding the valley, in groups of ten or fifteen,” Rhennon reported, low. “The Menderians have catapults here and on the western ridge. We assume they’ve got an evening report-signal, but we’ve not seen anything. Rhone’s gone on with his team to take them all out, quietly.”

  “Well done,” Merra spoke back softly. “Let me know when Rhone returns and confirms kills.”

  “General.” Rhennon nodded soberly.

  “That’s Arlen fortress, the Vault.” Ihbram spoke beside Merra on his big cat. “Parts of it were ruined when I last saw it, but looks like Arlen’s done repairs over the past decades. And those trebuchets atop the archways are definitely his. We’re in for a fuckstone of a fight if we go down there, though. I estimate eight thousand Menderians, give or take.”

  “Berlunid’s fury!” General Merra gave a hard sigh. “We need ta get into that fortress, but it’s suicide ta barge in on a force that large in a tight valley like this, especially when they’re already at arms.”

  “It’s worse than that. See that splatter on the wood and how the rain can’t put those fires out?” Ihbram gestured at the fortress, where men were now dumping cauldrons of water down from the upper archways to try and douse flames in their bulwarks, as the steady rain couldn’t sate that twisting green-gold fire. As they watched, one bulwark crumbled, then another. Far below, using oxen and men protected by a turtle of shields, the Menderian army was rolling six siege-towers to the edge of the quick but shallow river. Another volley of arrows sailed up to splatter the fortress with a greenish-yellow fire.

  “That’s Pythian resin, lit aflame,” Ihbram growled, his face hard and drawn. “Splatters far, sticks to anything like a sonofawhore. Burns like phosphorus while it eats a hole right through anything except stone.”

  “Pythian resin.” General Merra watched the battle, her face tight. “That bastard Lhaurent. If we go down there, they’re going to start shooting all that at us. We’ll lose everyone.”

  Merra lifted her chin, watching as the defenders sent the flaming bulwarks down into the river now with battering rams from the inside, blocking the river where the siege-towers
were supposed to be rolled with green fire. The towers had been nearly ready to enter the water, but the oxen began to panic at the flames. They watched as oxen snapped their traces, shying from the burning river and trampling men. They couldn’t hear screaming from their high vantage, but they watched as men scattered like ants and left the towers standing still.

  “Clever fucker, Arlen,” Ihbram grinned as the flaming bulwarks in the river began to catch aflame two of the siege towers that were too close. They went up like chimneys, as men strained at thick cables to haul the other three back to a more secure location on the stony shore. A few burning bodies went floating downstream, searing yellow-green in the vicious twilight.

  “There. Look at the southeast tower.” Ihbram gestured to the nearest wall of the fortress, set with narrow ledges leading up to a few massive ingress-arches fifty feet up. “Those ledges are big enough for cats to jump up, make it to those near archways. That’s our way in.”

  “Those ledges’re narrow, an’ they face the battle,” Merra fixed her gaze on the route they scouted. “Five hundred cats ascending a few at a time would be easy pickings fer Pythian arrows, an’ the Menderians would see us fer sure, if we climb while they’re active.”

  “Dammit,” Ihbram murmured, throwing down his hood to bare his red braids, palming them back in a rare show of frustration.

  The setting sun began to die over the western cliffs. Within seconds, that thin strip of golden light between hills and sky had been snuffed out, the valley plunged into a suffering twilight beneath roiling thunderheads that intensified the rain as a wind picked up. All their allied commanders were pulling up hoods now, huddling in their oilcloaks and furs – watching the battle below with futility in their eyes.

  The two flaming siege towers crumbled, falling into the shallow river and burning on. Still, the Menderian army sent volley after volley of flaming arrows up to the fortress’ arches, picking off archers who sent flights of arrows down. It was a stalemate, Eleshen could feel it. Even after weeks, neither force had vanquished the other. The fortress was nearly impenetrable, but it left the defenders with no real way to retaliate against their foes, either.