by P. K. Lentz
“You are the one who tests me, daughter!”
“Yes, inconveniently for you, I am your offspring,” Arixa said. “Your blood in my veins may not make me eligible to inherit your throne, since I have no cock. Nonetheless, I think blood will lend me legitimacy when I seize the throne from you.”
The Shath’s eyes and nostrils flared as Arixa continued, “If you fail to issue an edict emptying the streets of this city, I will be forced to empty them for you.”
“Arrest this bitch!” Orik cried at the mounted warriors of the Guard, at his son Skilis, at his own armed retinue on foot, at all who would listen.
Orik’s personal retinue on foot drew swords and axes and seemed the most inclined to act. The mounted guardsmen showed greater hesitation, merely setting their hands to blade hilts and maneuvering their horses into defensive a posture. Unarmed city-folk and palace dwellers who had gathered to watch raced out of the way.
Arixa only sat astride Turagetes, drawing no weapon, showing no fear.
“No!” Skulis cried. He rode in front of Orik’s retinue, raising an arm and putting the broad flank of his horse in the fighters’ path. “This is madness! She has three hundred warriors with her. If we battle the Dawn, which we must if we accost her, there can be no victor!”
“Skulis, you dare—!” Orik began.
“There are better ways, Father!” Skulis said. “Find one!”
Orik lifted a hand, staying his retinue. “She has threatened to usurp me. There is no greater crime.”
“The gods might call it a greater crime to kill one’s child,” Skulis argued. “Especially if she has been touched by those gods, as she claims.” He met his half-sister’s eyes in an earnest stare. “As I believe to be the case. Can you explain this silver second skin she wears, Father? Her strength? All of us here desire only a bright future for Scythia. Is that not sufficient common ground for us to resist attacking each other?”
Shath Orik growled, fuming and sneering while at the same time appearing to acknowledge the wisdom of his son’s advice. Arixa looked down on her sire with hard eyes and unshakable resolve. She felt fresh respect for Skulis, who had become almost an ally where she had previously seen him—for her entire adult life, really—as an impediment.
“If you two cannot find it yourselves, let me be the common ground between you,” Skulis said. “Father, I’m confident that Arixa will agree to remain in my custody whilst in Roxinaki. Or else to withdraw to the plains with her war band.”
“She must be imprisoned!” Orik snarled.
“You don’t have a cell that could hold me,” Arixa taunted.
“Sister, please,” Skulis admonished her, raising a palm. “Show our father respect. I’m trying to help you as well as my Shath. If you insist on remaining in Roxinaki, will you consent to confinement—temporarily—with my guarantee that I shall permit no harm to come to you? You may contact whomever you wish. I’ll even act as your messenger personally. Do you agree?”
Scowling, Arixa pondered the proposal. She had come intent on asserting her right, obtained by virtue of strength alone, to do whatever she pleased, treating the city as her own. But that was to let pride lead her, and she had come to Roxinaki in service of Scythia, not pride.
“I agree,” Arixa calmly declared. “I have no wish to be Queen. That threat was an empty one. But this city must be evacuated, Shath. I will see it done, no matter what.”
Orik glared, breath hissing from his beard. “I consent,” he said to Skulis with some hesitation. “But know that if this ends badly for me, Skulis, it will also end badly for you. You can be replaced.”
“Understood, Father,” Skulis returned. Then, to Arixa, “Now, let us go, with no more words spoken that might offend.”
Heeding his advice, the two groups separated. Orik and his retinue remained on the grounds of Agathyr Palace while the Guard, with Skulis and Arixa riding at its center, withdrew.
“Skulis...” Arixa started.
“I know, sister,” he cut her off. “You’re welcome. Show your gratitude by not causing me to lose my job.”
Arixa smiled at her brother, her mood considerably lightened thanks to his intervention.
The escort proceeded to deliver Arixa to the same guardhouse, the same cell, in which she had previously been confined.
“I know this door can’t hold you,” Skulis said as he walked her in.
“I won’t leave without informing you,” Arixa half-joked, half-promised.
“What are your needs?”
“New armor. Mine may be... compromised.”
She mostly believed Vax when he said he had removed his listening device. But mostly was not the same as fully.
“I’ll have the armorer come to take your measurement.”
“I also wish to see an Ishpakian preacher by the name of Brother Phoris.”
“The Ishpakians have drawn larger crowds since your last visit. Father began dispersing them, and now they preach covertly. But I will manage to find this Phoris. Give me a day. No doubt you will have other company before then. Your mother, for one, as soon as she hears, unless Father bars her.”
“I doubt he could, short of binding her.”
Skulis left, and indeed it was not long before Patia arrived and pulled her daughter in for a long embrace. Arixa didn’t show her the ironglove, for what point was there? Her mother was not impressed by such things.
An armorer arrived soon after and measured Arixa. She made it clear to the man that he had ten days, and not one day longer, to deliver. There was a fair chance he didn’t even have that long, for Arixa scarcely intended to keep the people of Roxinaki in their homes and workshops until the final moments before Devastation Day, if she could help it.
Finally she told Patia of that approaching day, urging her to leave Roxinaki with as many of Orik’s children as possible, no matter what Father said. Patia in turn pleaded with Arixa to reconcile with her father. Arixa made a hollow pledge to try.
Yet again, her mother insisted on spending the night in the cell, but Arixa managed to talk her out of it. Arixa stayed up most of the night before finally drifting off seated on her cot with irongloved hand on sword hilt.
An unknown amount of time later, she awakened to a strong sense of danger. Leaping to her feet, she put hand to slung war-pick, looking all around.
The air was filled with a strong, unmistakable odor: burning pitch.
She felt stifling heat, heard the crackling rush of flames. Thick, black smoke rolled in under the door of her cell and seeped in around its edges.
Yanking the wool blanket from her cot, Arixa wrapped it around her face, leaving only eyes exposed. Crossing to the door, she put both hands against the wood, one bare, the other irongloved. Only her bare left felt any heat while the metal-shod skin remained cool.
There was no time to waste. The fire outside would only grow larger. The underground cell lacked windows, which left only one possible avenue of escape.
She tested the door, which naturally was locked and had no handle on this side. Finding an alternate grip with her irongloved fingertips, she shook it. The wood rattled on its hinge and bolt but didn’t give. She pushed with all her augmented might, and it yielded a touch, the iron bolt bending. She rested for a beat and tried again, using all her weight. It gave a little more. The heat in the room increased. Sweat poured down her face and coated her limbs.
She unslung her war-pick and battered the door with its spiked iron head. The wood only splintered without giving way, and so instead she threw herself bodily against the door, leading with metal-clad right shoulder. A gap of several inches opened between door and frame, and fingers of fire stretched through it. Arixa twisted away and kept hammering with pick and shoulder against the heavy door. With each thump, the door gave a fraction more, causing more flames to pour through the gap. She knew she must be more careful now, for if the door gave way suddenly, she could fall into the flames beyond.
Three kicks finished the job. One hinge
and the bolt both flew free, and the door became a ramp slanting upward into nothing but fire. Arixa realized why it had been so difficult to batter the door down: wood had been stacked on the other side. Pitch-coated wood, by the stench and blackness of the smoke.
Her eyes stung intensely. Only the wool of the blanket around her head allowed her to find breath. The exposed flesh of her left side screamed for respite from the blistering heat, but there could be none. There was only one way out: into the curtain of smoke and flame in front of her.
Setting foot on the fallen door, she charged through the fire.
Immediately, she stumbled. The short anteroom outside the cell had been packed with flammable objects. Leading with her impervious right, she clambered over the burning barricades, flames twisting around her legs trying to cook her like goat on a spit. She moved ahead by memory, recalling where the next door had been. More than once she gasped in pain as sudden flares seared a leg or her left arm.
She reached the second door. Its very surface was aflame, but there was no alternative. Arixa threw her right shoulder into it, and the gods were with her. Weakened by the fire, the door instantly gave way. She landed at the base of the stone stairs and felt a blast of mercifully cold air. The blaze was less intense out here.
She scrambled up the stairs on all fours, clumsily, flames licking at her from behind. Some fire followed her, and she realized the right leg of her trousers was ablaze. Whipping the blanket from her head, she patted the leg, smothering the fire.
Smoke billowed around her, flowing up the stairs. Her eye caught some movement in that direction, and then a flash of metal.
Assassins. In case the blaze failed to kill her.
She hoisted her war-pick, and shrieking like a death-god, she charged up the stairs. Before she reached the top, an arrow sank into her left shoulder. She ignored that just as she ignored the throbbing pain of the burnt legs that drove her up the stairs.
She reached the first of her would-be killers and cut him down, heaving his body over her shoulder down the stairs before it could fall. She gutted another and opened the throat of the next, each time climbing over their tumbling bodies to reach and kill another.
She screamed as she killed them. Their blades cut her, perhaps seriously, but the wounds felt as nothing after the bath of blistering flames.
She killed at least six before reaching the top. For the first time in her life, these were Scythians dying by her hand. The thought caused her no hesitation. She had not started this. Her king had started it. Orik, who was no longer her father and had tried to burn her alive.
The rest of her attackers fled through the door at the top of the stairs, which was not locked. In their haste, they didn’t take the time to shut it behind them, and so seconds later Arixa burst through into pre-dawn darkness.
She checked her body for flames but found she only smoldered in places, wearing gray smoke like a cloak. The defeated assassins didn’t stop or turn to have their faces seen by the thing of fury they had failed to slay. They just kept running.
Other Scythians gathered, city-folk drawn by the smoke. Some screamed or called for help. A few edged closer to Arixa, perhaps to help, but she warded them off with her pick anyway.
“Coward!” she screamed as loudly as she could in the direction of the palace. “Coward! Coward!”
She knew she could be heard. In the quiet before morning, there was no one in Roxinaki who failed to hear.
With the immediate threats to her life ended, Arixa began to feel more acutely the pain of her burns. Her knees buckled, but she stayed upright. She had to get back to the Dawn. Choosing that direction, she half-ran, half-staggered from the blazing guardhouse that belched black smoke in great clouds.
Unmolested except by city-dwellers seeking to help, whom she waved away, Arixa reached the outskirts of the city, walked into the high grass of the plain and came within sight of camp. By then, her burned legs could barely propel her.
“Ivar!” she cried out. “Uncle! My Dawn!”
After a short while the ground shook with the pounding of hooves, and Arixa felt herself supported by strong arms.
“What happened?” several voices asked repeatedly.
“Orik...” she said in a voice like ash, “sent men... to burn me.”
There was stunned silence at first. Ivar whispered angrily, “I’ll hack his head off.”
Others had similar, if less dramatic reactions. The choice between Captain and Shath was simple perhaps for a foreigner, but most of the Dawn were Scythian, and Orik was their chief of chiefs.
Arixa’s warriors helped her onto Ivar’s horse, which he mounted behind her. As they rode to camp, a tone sounded in Arixa’s ear. It was so out of place here, and so battered was her mind and body, that it had to sound again before Arixa recalled what it was and tapped the acceptance sequence on her palm.
“Would now be a good time for that favor you asked?”
Seventeen
“Yes... now!” Arixa uttered with a weak smile. Most of her body felt as though it were on fire, and her wounds, including an arrow in her shoulder, were its searing embers.
“Now?” Ivar asked. He was unable to hear Zhi’s half of the conversation. “Now, what?”
“Turn,” Arixa said. “Look... to the city.”
“Pursuit?” He twisted to look.
“Just turn me around so... I can see.”
Ivar wheeled his mount, gave a sharp whistle and signaled to the other riders to halt and about face. Seated in front of him on the saddle, Arixa looked back at the dark outlines of roofs and towers of Roxinaki, lit here and there by lamps in windows. Above it, the night sky was just beginning to brighten with the coming of morning.
“What are we looking for?” Ivar asked.
“Just... watch.”
It seemed a long time but was likely only a minute before the green lights appeared.
Ivar gasped. “What’s that doing here?”
“Watch!”
The lights grew ever brighter as the skyboat descended, swooping nearer and lower until it hovered over the city and became recognizable as a silvery sphere. The green lights flared so brightly that Arixa had to squint, and as they subsided, the air itself began to vibrate with a sound like none Arixa had heard. It was at once a hum and a roar and a droning whine. It started low, but as the moments passed it swelled into an assault on the ears. Surely not a soul could remain asleep in Roxinaki.
For a long while, the ship hovered there, brightly shining, emitting this noise and occasional other, sharper sounds. Then it rose and slowly moved to hover above a different quarter of the city, and another and another.
Very faintly, under the ship’s blanket of nightmarish noises, Arixa heard screams of terror.
“Thank you, Zhi... thank you.” Arixa commed. “You’ve saved them.”
“Zhi?” Ivar said. “Pretty woman with the eyes? That’s her up there?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Arixa left her comm open while she spoke, that Zhi might overhear the reply. “Because I asked her to, and she is very brave.”
“Is that sufficient?” Zhi asked.
“A little more...” Arixa requested. “I want them... terrified.”
“Understood.”
A bright blue light pierced downward from the sphere to earth, reminding Arixa of the death-beams she had seen in her vision. “Don’t hurt them!” she cried in alarm.
“It’s harmless.”
With relief, Arixa watched the remainder of the spectacle. The bright ray of blue light alternately vanished and stabbed down on a new target like a god’s dagger. As the harsh, pervasive noise emitted by the ship began to wane in volume, the screams of the people of Roxinaki grew more audible.
Their screams made Arixa smile, not because she delighted in spreading terror among good folk, but because it meant they were ready.
Ready to be saved.
“We must prepare the Dawn to ride into the city,�
� Arixa said.
“You’re in no shape for that,” Ivar said forcefully before easing his tone. “You need to heal. Thankfully, that shouldn’t take long. Your father will be shitting his trousers right now. It may be best to leave him sitting in it for a short while.”
Arixa laughed weakly. “You keep proving that you should be a bard, Ivar.”
“I only write dirty rhymes in runic,” he said dismissively. “You have the Ishpakians working for you inside the city. They’ll come out in force after this. So will you agree to stay in camp a day, or do I have to put Dak to guarding you? Remember, he’s stronger than you again.”
“Fine,” Arixa agreed. “Anyway, if I lay eyes on Orik now... I’ll murder him.”
“And he might try again to murder you. Wait a day, regain your strength, and let the smell of his own shit make Orik reconsider. We’ll murder him later.”
“I already admitted you were right, Ivar. Shut up and bask in it.”
Zhi’s shuttle remained over Roxinaki for perhaps a quarter of an hour before shooting higher and zooming north, zooming over the Dawn’s camp before disappearing into clouds.
When it was invisible and its sound had faded, a tone sounded in Arixa’s ear over the persistent shrieks and shouts of the terrorized city-folk.
Zhi’s voice followed.
“I’ve thought about what you said, Arixa. I want to fight. There might be a way we can do it. I will contact you in person within three days. When I come, you and six augmented fighters must be ready to leave on an expedition. Zhi out.”
“You’ve turned my lowest day into a triumph, Zhi,” Arixa returned. “We shall be ready.”
“Care to share?” Ivar asked of the one-sided conversation while they rode back toward camp.
“Soon. When I know more.”
Ivar sighed. “You’re lucky we trust you so fully.”
“Not luck. I like to think it’s earned.”
