Lords of the Black Sands

by J. Edward Neill

  She tried to imagine how she’d come to be here.

  …the Sisterhood.

  …mother’s voice.

  …Elia, where are you?

  …who are these strange, violent men?

  In the midst of her thoughts, someone came to her. He was tall and locked behind plates of armor. She looked up to his face, and instead of flesh she saw black, colorless steel. Whoever lay behind it had resigned himself to death long ago.

  It was Eadunn.

  He pressed something into her hands.

  “Take this,” he said. “If someone tries to hurt you, use it.”

  Clutching the slender thing, she remembered Azid, the dark house in the village not three miles away, and the weapon she had found beneath his table.

  A dark-lance.

  Eadunn gave me back the dark-lance.

  Why?

  She might’ve dwelled longer on it, but the knights around her began to slow. She was close to the Pyramid now, near enough to see the giant wound in its side. A Scimitar disc, a huge one, had carved holes five men tall into the matte black stone.

  She heard the men talking.

  “There, see it?” said one. “It’s a mounted Scimitar battery. Whoever fired it…whoever burned this hole in the Pyramid’s side…they did it from the inside.”

  She followed the others’ gazes. The Scimitar was mounted on a swivel, resting just inside what had been a gate leading into the Pharaoh’s stronghold. The knights had told it true. Whoever had fired the great weapon had, in their desperation to kill some terrible invader, disintegrated the Pyramid’s gate from the inside.

  A gust of cold air hit her.

  Hanzo stopped beside her.

  And Eadunn, the man she’d loved but no longer knew, halted not five steps ahead.

  She awoke.

  As if from a dream, she snapped out of her haze. She shivered, feeling it run through her bones, and the fog in her mind was gone. She felt her fingers tighten around the dark-lance. She had the feeling she’d use it, but not when…or why.

  Ten yards before the still-smoking hole in the Pyramid’s flank, everyone stopped moving. Alone, Eadunn stood in the dark space between the night and the Pyramid’s insides. His sword was still tethered to his shoulder, and the starlight paled his armor. Thessia saw him tug his mask away from his face, and she swore the only things real in the world were him…

  …and the man who stood ten paces deep inside the Pyramid.

  “You,” she heard Eadunn say to the dark figure. His voice was flat, and yet she sensed the emotion lurking inside him.

  Fear.

  “Little brother,” said the figure inside the Pyramid. Whoever it was, he stood in a haze of smoke—not the imagined smoke inside her mind, but a dim fog of dust and burning stone.

  Thessia squeezed her eyes shut. The voice inside the Pyramid was familiar, yet alien.

  Oh God, she thought.

  It’s happening.

  The rest of the knights dared not walk another step. Like statues, they remained. Like her, they could but stand and stare.

  “Galen,” she heard Eadunn say. “My brother. It is truly you. I saw the smoke from the sky. I knew—I knew this moment would come.”

  The man named Galen, taller, slenderer, and possessed of greater darkness than any man in the world, stood in the haze of dust and smoke. He removed his mask, and Thessia shivered at the sight.

  He looked like Eadunn, only not. A short grey beard darkened his jawline, and his hair, black as the Pyramid itself, rimmed a face buried in shadow.

  Him.

  The one.

  He’s alive.

  “How’s the hand?” Galen said to Eadunn.

  Eadunn raised his left palm. Thumb, index, and middle finger remained—the rest were gone. The armored gauntlet Eadunn wore had been modified to fit three digits instead of five.

  “I thought it might heal,” said Eadunn. “But…I haven’t had a Blue Vial since…I can’t remember. I feel older than before.”

  “Old, little brother?” said Galen. “Or tired?”

  Thessia saw Eadunn reach for the back of his neck. The black armor lay atop his skin, of course, but beneath it she knew what Eadunn wanted to scratch.

  The skin-port.

  He needs it.

  They’re not really immortal.

  “The Vials…” said Eadunn, “I didn’t know. About Japas. About what happened there. Had it been up to me—”

  “You’d have given me a few Vials and sent me off into the wilds?” Galen grimaced, and Thessia couldn’t help but feel cold. “How’d it feel, little brother? Did you think getting rid of me would make you the heir? Did you stop hunting me for one moment—even one—and wonder whether you should do something else with your life?”

  Thessia knew Eadunn’s struggle. She’d seen it always.

  Had Eadunn truly failed at hunting his brother?

  Or had he allowed Galen to escape? To give the appearance of hunting the Prey, but nothing more?

  “What happens now?” said Eadunn.

  “Climb back into your ship,” said Galen. “Fly as far as it’ll take you, as far from me as you can go. And pray—pray I choose not to spend the next thousand years hunting you as you’ve hunted me.”

  “I can’t do that, brother,” said Eadunn. “I’m not leaving until I look Father in the eyes.”

  “Father?” Galen’s was a look that made Thessia and the men beside her shiver. “Are you still calling him Father? A man slaughters the woman who birthed you, nails her up on a cross, burns her body for all the Nile to see—and you call him Father. Of all the world’s cowards, Ead, your shame must be greatest.”

  In that moment, through the fog of dust and darkness, Galen Varwarden caught Thessia with a glance. Here stood the man she and the Sisterhood had been charged across the centuries with pushing atop the throne. But to see him in the flesh, his two swords dripping blood, his armor stained red, she knew only fear.

  Something flashed in Galen’s eyes. She felt suddenly small, as if the next wind from the desert sand might carry her away.

  Had he recognized her?

  Did his darkness soften, if only for a breath?

  Elia, she thought.

  He knew her.

  And maybe even loved her.

  The standoff between brothers seemed destined to end in bloodshed. Galen was situated beside the Scimitar disc battery, and yet Eadunn did not retreat. Thessia had heard legends of the Prey, how he moved faster than any human, how being the firstborn of two immortals had given him immense physical gifts.

  He could reach the Scimitar…

  …and turn us all to ashes in seconds.

  “I’m finished hunting you,” Eadunn said to Galen.

  “I know.” Galen didn’t move.

  “I’m finished hunting everything.” Eadunn continued. “Father—he would have me kill the entire world just to make you die. I won’t do it.”

  Galen stared Eadunn down. The great Nemesis, slayer of the world, looked somehow small beneath his brother’s gaze. Thessia had always dreamed the Prey would be something else, a shining symbol of goodness in an otherwise desolate world.

  But he radiated only shadow.

  Not vengeance for what he’d lost.

  Nor wrath at his brother for centuries of suffering.

  It’s something else.

  Something worse.

  “You can’t do this alone, brother,” Eadunn declared. “For all your skill at making people die, you need our help. There will be traps. There will be guards. You’ll never get into the throne room—not unless I help you.”

  Galen glared, again withering the men who stood behind his brother.

  And yet…

  He knows Eadunn’s right.

  She didn’t know why, but at that very moment, Thessia felt the urge to lift her dark-lance and carve Galen Varwarden’s head clean off his shoulders. The feeling came from her gut, not her head. It crawled up her esophagus and into her th
roat. Quickly, she swallowed it down.

  And oh, how it hurt.

  My oath.

  The Sisterhood.

  What is wrong with me?

  “Tell me, Ead,” said Galen, “why exactly you want to help me. If I breach the throne room, your audience with dear papa will be brief. That’s my throne he occupies. I haven’t crossed the centuries for conversation and tea.”

  Eadunn said nothing. Galen must’ve read something in his brother’s eyes, just the same as everyone else had done.

  “Oh, I understand,” Galen said after a brief, silence. “You’ve come to kill him, too.”

  * * *

  The tunnels they walked made Thessia want to scream.

  Vast empty corridors, the black walls shining, the distant thrum of water, and the hammer of armored feet atop the cold, lifeless floors brought her back to a place she didn’t desire.

  The last time she remembered being inside the Pyramid, she’d had a sack over her head, chains upon her wrists, and armored knights dragging her through the forever-long halls. She hadn’t been able to see much, but she’d known. She’d remembered all the times she walked alone through corridors stark and black, hoping for Eadunn’s return, wishing somehow for the Pyramid and all its shadows to dry up and vanish in the desert heat.

  But it hadn’t.

  And here she was again.

  At the forefront, the brothers walked together. Eadunn, tall and broad—Galen, taller still, his cabled muscles pumping beneath his armor. They wore their masks now. They might’ve blended in with the other soldiers, had Galen’s swords not been crimson, had the lights hidden in the floor not seemed to weaken when he walked by.

  Galen had slaughtered all the guards outside the Pyramid, Thessia knew.

  He’d escaped the Scimitar’s wrath, killed its operator, and butchered all the men inside the gate.

  And he’d done it alone.

  The other knights, still eleven, shuffled ahead of her, but walked well behind the brothers. She half-expected one of them to ambush Galen. After all, the Prey had been declared their enemy since birth.

  But if any were thinking it, their thoughts died before ever seeing the light.

  They were too afraid.

  It was then something broke the deep silence within the Pyramid.

  Far ahead, footsteps rattled the floor.

  In the dark corridors beyond the one they walked, a door opened and grey light leaked out.

  The other knights froze just ahead of her, but the brothers, their swords already out, sprinted at the sudden light.

  “Enemies?” worried one of Eadunn’s knights.

  “Yes. Enemies,” said Hanzo.

  Dark and fearless, the brothers ran together, and met the Pharaoh’s soldiers just as the cadre rounded a corner. In the space between seconds, they fell upon their foes. Twelve of the Pharaoh’s soldiers, there were, but none expecting the Varwarden brothers. In one hand, Galen flashed his blade, the black steel seeming to know the weakest points of the soldiers’ armor. In his other hand, the dark-lance moved without sound, the only evidence of its power the screams of those whose limbs it sheared away.

  Eadunn wasn’t as breathtakingly fast as Galen, yet what he lacked in speed he made up for with sheer, uncaged power. She’d never watched him kill before—she’d always looked away. But now she stared as he loosed a thunderous shout and swung his heavy sword. He crushed men despite their armor, caving in the skulls of two, driving the black-bladed point into the chests of two others.

  The twelve soldiers stood no chance. Two carried dark-lances, but never lifted them from their belts, dying instead with swords dangling from loose fingers. Another, a tall brute, carried a Scimitar disc, but Galen slew him first, severing first his hand and next his head. The brute collapsed hardest of them all, his thick limbs crashing to a stop on the mercilessly hard floor.

  Eadunn’s knights, swords in hand, reached the battle just in time to see its end. By the time they and Thessia caught up, Galen and Eadunn stood over twelve dead bodies. Blood flowed atop the smooth, dark floors. Swords and limbs lay jumbled in shallow crimson pools.

  In seconds, it had begun.

  In seconds, it had ended.

  Neither of the brothers relished their work. In the deep quiet afterward, they removed their masks and looked over the dead. They stood at the junction of four great halls, almost meditative in the silence after killing.

  “Lords, shouldn’t we keep moving?” Hanzo urged.

  Thessia stood among them, watching and waiting. To her it seemed as if Eadunn’s knights weren’t really present. Ghosts, they might’ve been, for all that Eadunn ignored them and Galen looked through their faces.

  It was then the secret wall opened.

  Young Hanzo no sooner opened his mouth to speak again than the giant black panel slid out of place behind him and a fell light spilled out into the corridor.

  Armored men poured out of the wall.

  Hanzo was first to die, the burning line in his back opening up beneath a dark-lance’s caress.

  Thessia screamed.

  There were twenty, at least. With heavy swords and several dark-lances, they waded into Eadunn’s men with reckless abandon. Someone shoved Thessia to the ground…and then promptly died, overcome by three men with steel masks and short, armor-piercing blades.

  In the chaos, she lost sight of the brothers. She felt their presence nonetheless. The initial attack all but wiped out Eadunn’s men, and yet the Pharaoh’s soldiers began to die. A dark-lance whispered through the mob, clipping arms and burning metal. While on the floor, Thessia raised her own lance, but never pushed the little button on the wand’s side.

  She couldn’t tell friend from foe.

  And though a part of her wanted to kill them all, the idea died in her throat.

  She watched it all unfold.

  One man, his arm burning, tore the mask off another and skewered his jaw, but died when still another warrior slid a sword between his armored plates.

  Three men held down a fourth, raining blows upon his armor until he went still. The three wore masks, their grunts muffled behind faceless steel.

  Bodies newly made collapsed among those from the brothers’ first slaughter, and in moments the dead outnumbered the living. Still on the floor, Thessia scrambled away from everything. Her scars hurt with such fury she cried out, but she kept moving, her palms leaving a warm, wet trail of blood as she escaped.

  Somewhere within the melee, a shadow flashed across her vision.

  It was Galen, she knew, for no other could move like he.

  A dark-lance flashed in his direction, but he threw himself into a running slide, popping up behind the Pharaoh’s soldier, driving his sword up and through the man’s chin. The man’s mask clattered on the floor.

  But he wasn’t a man, at all, just a tall boy, likely younger than Hanzo had been.

  For many moments, Thessia stared in horror. She thought perhaps the battle might last forever, that soldiers would keep pouring out of the walls, that the dead would stack up and fill the Pyramid to its top.

  Then she heard a shout. The cry was one of absolute terror, drowning out all other sounds. During Galen’s slide, he’d plucked the fallen Scimitar disc from its resting place on the dead brute’s shoulder. And now Galen lifted the obsidian thing, aiming it at men whose swords fell from numb fingers.

  “Get down, brother,” he shouted, and then arose in the heart of the battle.

  Thessia flattened herself to the floor. She couldn’t make herself watch. Galen, she knew, had switched the Scimitar on and turned it against every man within the battle.

  Foes.

  Friends.

  Every mortal in sight.

  She didn’t dare look until a full minute passed. The rattle of swords, the screams of the mortally wounded, and the crash of armored bodies to the floor died, and the sudden quiet was agony.

  When it was done, she opened her eyes.

  Galen stood in the same
place he’d been. Eadunn crouched near him, kneeling almost as if in worship. Both men had removed their masks, and both were sweating.

  Everyone else was gone. Eadunn’s men, the Pharaoh’s soldiers, weapons, armor, masks—nearly all of it was ashes floating in the Pyramid air. Pieces of bodies unburned lay scattered, but no man beyond the brothers lived. No weapon was deadlier than the Scimitar, and no one more dangerous than the one who had wielded it.

  The Pyramid’s insides were scarred. The Scimitar had made circles, the damage reaching deep into the black-mortared walls. From one wall, water rushed out onto the floor, a pale sea blending with scarlet rivers of blood. From another, sparks popped, the white embers shining in the thick, cold shadows.

  And then, Galen dropped the Scimitar to the floor and crushed it under his boot. The obsidian thing crunched, smoked, and died.

  Galen looked disgusted with what he’d done.

  When he saw Thessia sitting, watching, and shaking, he allowed himself what might’ve been an empty smile in her direction. It lasted only a moment, and yet his glance might as well have been a century long.

  Thessia understood.

  He sees Elia in me. He loved her, after all.

  But the love in him had gone.

  And now, in a sea of ashes and dead men, stood a man without a soul.

  36

  If someone had asked Thessia when and where the world’s fate was to be decided, she would have known.

  Somehow she’d always known.

  Through hallways long and dark, through cavernous rooms filled with nothing, the Varwarden brothers led the way closer to the Pyramid’s heart. They said no words to her, allowing her to flutter along behind them as if she were a ghost.

  No walls opened up.

  No traps ignited.

  No throngs of armored knights came pouring from the dark.

  For all the Pyramid’s size, it had always been a an empty, monolithic void. There simply wasn’t enough food to feed the sort of army one might’ve expected to inhabit such a place. Most of the Pharaoh’s soldiers were elsewhere—in Alexandria, at the Nile delta, or dead—lying in the smoldering ruin of the Black Fleet. And the rest, Menkaur’s scientists, servants, and concubines, existed above in the countless chambers higher within the Pyramid.