The sand faded, solidified and became Boratha-Lo’ar, the fabled crystalline bridge, the thick translucent stone floor that ran the width of the vast chamber of Wrommish. The heart of Wrommish glowed beneath her feet and lit the cavern in shades of gold and autumn. The fires of the mountain ran below her, and Swech held her arms wide and basked in that warm, wondrous glow. By all rights she should have been dead. She knew that. She was not foolish. The heat below her was more than enough to cook her flesh away and the gasses that rose from the molten core were poisonous. It was the will of Wrommish that all who entered the mountain were safe from the heat, just as the will of the gods kept the raging storms of the Blasted Lands at bay. Merros Dulver’s gods had never offered him any evidence of their existence. He was raised to believe that faith alone would protect him from certain fates, but none of the gods ever offered proof of their power. The Daxar Taalor offered miracles every day. The wise understood that.
She was aware of the others who stood near her, but they were not significant. For the moment she felt the delicious heat of the god’s heart and savored it. Merros Dulver had spoken to her of his people’s gods and how some of them were feared, angry forces of retaliation. The concept was preposterous. One should not fear the gods. One should only feel their love as the love of a parent for a child: unchanging and ever-present.
She closed her eyes and said a silent thanks to Wrommish for the love she felt and when she opened her eyes she finally acknowledged the people around her. They were her kin and her people. In some places she might have killed them on sight, but here, in the Heart of Wrommish, they were family.
N’heelis, Chosen of the Forge of Wrommish and King in Gold looked upon her and spread his arms in welcome. He wore no crown, but his long hair was wrapped in heavy golden thread and draped down to the small of his back in a coil as thick as her leg. She returned the gesture, enchanted by his beauty as she always was. His flesh bore the scars of a thousand battles and almost as many victories. He stood naked before the god and the deep slash marks on his chest formed a serpentine pattern that ran from his left nipple down to the middle of his right thigh. The heavy scars were the mark that Wrommish himself had placed upon N’Heelis when he was chosen as king. She had borne witness to that event herself.
When N’Heelis spoke it was not with his voice, but with the voice of Wrommish. His lips moved but the sound was too low, too deep and resonated across the entire chamber.
“You have served the Daxar Taalor with honor, Swech Tothis Durwrae.”
Words could not express her joy. Instead she merely held her arms wide apart and bared herself to her god.
N’Heelis walked closer. “I ask more of you still. I ask that you leave this land again and become the instrument of my will.” There was no question of refusing the command. For Swech, for any of her people, it would be easier to forget how to breathe and see than to deny the gods.
N’heelis’shands reached out and held her face. His eyes locked on hers and the will of Wrommish spoke into her soul, telling her all she needed to know.
She smiled and almost wept. Great Wrommish was generous. There would be great glory in her works to come.
N’Heelis let go of her and smiled. Swech leaned forward impulsively and kissed the palms of his hands. Then she turned from her king and kindred and walked to the edge of the crystalline bridge. The fires of Wrommish blazed below her and the rising heat, here exposed and unforgiving, dried her eyes and made her hair wave and flutter. Here, as nowhere else, Wrommish was present and his power was undeniable.
Swech stepped from the edge of the hard floor and allowed her body to fall, plummeting into the glowing core of Wrommish’s molten heart. Behind her three others followed suit, each called by the god for their own tasks.
For only one heartbeat she wondered about the life growing inside her, the child of her union with Merros Dulver. As with all things, the child would be born to her if the Daxar Taalor wished it.
The heat blistered her flesh and Swech’s hair burned away long before she was swallowed by the molten gold of Wrommish’s heart. Fires scorched her lungs and eyes even as she whispered the god’s name one last time.
There was no darkness.
There was light: brilliant and soothing and all-encompassing.
And then there was rebirth.
Her body was fire. As she rose into the night the flames congealed, solidified and became flesh.
Swech climbed from the blaze in two quick motions, ignoring the fluttering sensation in her stomach. Wrommish had told her she would be placed in a different location, carried by the flames. For the moment she had no fear of the fire, as she was shielded from the heat, but that would not last. The flames crackled and popped, and even as she climbed from them she had to duck under the meat roasting above her. The ground was cold not ten feet away, but where she rose the air was as hot as the pit fire.
Swech looked around for only a moment before spotting her chosen prey.
A careful examination of the area let her know that most everyone was occupied. Eyes looked elsewhere and people ignored her presence, as Wrommish willed it. Most were gathered together into tight knots of flesh, huddled in the cold and talking, relaxing, or just sharing each other’s company.
The one she sought was alone, her back to the fires and her body almost hidden in shadow. The woman stared out into the darkness and held council with the night. No one else was near her, and that was for the best. Unlike so many of the females she’d met in Tyrne, this female was not soft and pampered, but wore comfortable attire. Her hands were callused, and a long thin blade rested near her. This one could fight, her posture even when resting spoke of her abilities.
Swech did not carry a sword. At the moment she was naked.
She used that to her advantage and stepped in front of the woman.
There was a moment of shock at her unclothed body, and then a heartbeat of curiosity. When recognition flared in the woman’s eyes, Swech struck quickly; a hard blow that knocked her opponent into a daze. Before she could recover Swech killed her. A deft strike to the throat and the woman coughed softly and then choked on her own blood.
Another quick look around told her that no one had noticed anything. Wrommish was good to her.
The chill of the night air made itself known and so Swech took the woman’s clothes. She could not leave the body to be found. There were too many witnesses who would surely ask questions. Instead she crouched over the cooling corpse and lifted it onto her shoulders.
Her skin felt wrong. Her mouth felt wrong. Every part of her felt off from the way it should have, but that was not an issue. She would adjust. Beyond the fire’s edge there was forest. The caravan the woman traveled with was on a wide road, well paved and tended, but there were no signs of towns or cities, and not more than twenty or so people looked to be taking this journey together.
She did not bury the body, merely hid it beneath a layer of loam that had not been disturbed in many months. Scavengers might find it and eat it, but they would not cause a problem. The people around her would be moving on with the dawn’s light. Wrommish had told her that much and shown her a great deal more.
Swech moved back to the campsite and gathered the belongings of the woman she’d killed. They were hers now, along with the woman’s body and face, name and memories.
Even as she settled for the night she felt the thoughts and beliefs of the woman in the back of her mind, like a constant echo from a hundred different people. She would adjust and endure if the Daxar Taalor willed it.
She wondered what went through her victim’s mind when she saw herself approaching, naked and unarmed. Ultimately it did not matter, but curiosity was one of the many aspects of life that she enjoyed. The world was full of new wonders. She would see as many of them as she could on her way to Fellein’s capital.
They gathered the bodies and carried them, sometimes hefted on shoulders and other times dragged by their heels, but all of them were accounted for
. By the time Tusk and his retinue had reached the apex of the mountain they had been joined by two hundred additional members of the kingdom.
Tuskandru, Chosen of the Forge of Durhallem and Obsidian King looked down into the heart of the great mountain and saw the fires below and knew that they were good.
Without hesitation he raised the body of the man he knew only as Colonel Wallford above his head and heaved the corpse of his first victim into the punishing heat rising from below. As the body flopped bonelessly downward and smashed into the liquid fire he bellowed out his god’s name and then watched the body burn. One after another his people followed his lead, raising the bodies high and then tossing them down, calling out to Durhallem with each offering. Nothing of the enemy was kept as a trophy. All that they had carried with them was offered to the god.
And when they were done, Tusk led his people from the top of Durhallem’s highest peak and down to the Great Hall where they would feast and celebrate the start of the great battles coming their way. And feast they would, for Tusk was hungry and soon enough the Council of Kings would be gathering across the valley in the Palace of the King in Iron to discuss the destruction of their enemies.
Sometimes the gods are kind.
Two
The Guntha told stories of massive black ships crewed by demons. The demons were allegedly horrible to see and impossible to kill. They were, according to the Guntha, the main reason that the island people had attacked Roathes again and again.
Each time island-dwelling Guntha had been repelled until, finally, there had been a sort of peace for the last three years. No one expected them to try again after their last defeat.
Then the Guntha started amassing their troops as they had in the past along the finger of land called the Blade of Trellia once again. They always gathered there first, for Trellia was one of their earliest queens and she had declared that strip of land sacred long ago.
This time when Marsfel had asked for assistance from the Emperor the result was different from times past. Instead of weeks of correspondence and requests, the long-time enemies of Roathes were killed in one simple attack by a handful of strangers sent by the Emperor as a favor to King Marsfel.
Marsfel had expected a few soldiers to come along, look at the gathering forces and send word back to the Emperor that, yes, troops were needed to reinforce the meager army of the Roathians. That was what had always happened in the past. The troops had to be paid, the Empire sent money, Marsfel skimmed a bit of currency and everything went on as it had before.
Only not this time. This time the Guntha were massacred. This time Marsfel had sent a small group of mercenaries to detain the eleven people who had allegedly slaughtered over a thousand of the islanders, and his mercenaries had never returned.
Their remains were found on the King’s highway. The eleven got away. According to Lanaie, Marsfel’s emissary and daughter, the man who had led the eleven was now in charge of the entire Imperial Army.
Could it get worse? Marsfel had asked himself that question after reading the latest news from his daughter. The answer was yes. Of course it could get worse. It already had. The Guntha were no longer a problem. That would have possibly been good news, but the reason they were no longer a problem was because at least one of their islands had exploded.
Fire had erupted from the sea and the islands had been buried in flaming rock and the Guntha had been burned to ashes as their islands merged into one massive, growing land mass. The islands had once been tiny specks on the horizon, but now they were one large pillar of flame and ash that covered most of the skies above. The waters of the Corinta Ocean were cloaked in black clouds that rained gray ashes down upon all of Roathes, as far as he could tell.
The ashes covered the land, the people, the buildings and the water alike. Hideous clouds of black ash came in from the waters, stinking of death and worse. The plague-winds had come to his kingdom and the people he ruled were succumbing to them. Some grew sick and recovered. Some simply grew weak. Others died, and there was nothing to be done about it. Even kings cannot force the winds to blow the opposite direction.
The tides that rolled in were greasy and stank of dead fish and rotting meat. The waters were too hot, and the air was hotter still. Roathes was cooking away, stewing in its own juices, and he was powerless to make it stop. The raging storms over the growing land mass out there had not abated, and roaring hot winds were washing in regularly, tearing apart the shoreline and washing away anything that was too close to the waters. The Blade of Trellia was already gone, submerged or washed away. Who could say? The waters were too hot, and the fish that had long been a staple for the area were either dead or had fled. Fishermen aren’t much use without fish.
And reports kept coming in of vast, black ships on the horizon. Ships large enough that they could be seen even against the backdrop of the fiery island and the falling ash and lightning storms. If they were really out there and not merely nightmares, they were supposedly filled with demons.
The ships had not come in from their distant location yet. That was the good news for Roathes. The only good news.
Most of the boats in Roathes were for fishing. There were a few naval ships and they were being readied, but, really, there weren’t nearly as many warships as Marsfel had claimed for a very long time. There hadn’t been much need, after years of peace. Corinta had the closest naval fleet and they really never came this far north.
The absolute worst news? Well, he had asked for help from the Emperor after being caught in a lie, and the man who would ultimately decide whether or not he needed assistance was a man he had attempted to capture or kill.
Marsfel considered all of these things while he waited for word from Lanaie. She was still in the Summer Palace, because the Emperor was dead, assassinated by gray-skinned strangers from the Blasted Lands.
He had never been to the Blasted Lands. He never wanted to go to the Blasted Lands. He could not understand why anyone would willingly go to the hellish place to begin with. All he had ever heard of the desolate ruins was that they made the raging storms coming in from the sea seem relatively calm. That was a horrible notion.
And yet the Emperor had sent emissaries for some insane purpose and so now he was dead. Was there a connection? The people from the Blasted Lands were gray-skinned. They came from the same direction as the black ships.
He might well have continued on that thought process, but instead he stopped when Turrae showed up, shaking his head and running. He was not normally a nervous man, one of the reasons that Marsfel had chosen him as a steward.
“The ships are coming closer, Majesty.” Turrae’s voice was weary.
The ships? “The black ships? From near Guntha?”
“Yes.” His voice shook. “Majesty, they are so much larger than we thought.”
Marsfel shook his head. “Show me.”
Turrae led quickly and climbed the stairs to the highest level of the stone keep Marsfel had lived in his entire life. There a dozen soldiers were standing together and arguing over who got to look through the spyglass that was a permanent fixture on the side of the tower pointing toward Guntha, or rather, where Guntha used to be.
“Leave us!” Marsfel roared the words, and the soldiers vacated as quickly as they could while maintaining their dignity.
Without the glass, there were a few distant specks that might be ships in the distance between the flaming island and the shoreline. He used the cylindrical contraption that had been one of the treasures of his people for as long as anyone could remember and looked around at the waters carefully. The specks were indeed still there and, as his steward had warned, they were ships. They were indeed much larger than he’d expected.
The ships were as black as iron, and bloated. They sat low in the waters and their sails were drawn tight as the winds from behind them pushed them toward the shores. It was hard to count how many of them might be on the waters, but with an effort he made out fifteen of the vessels. Fifteen ships cut
ting closer to the land. Very large ships, if he was guessing correctly without the benefit of any reference points.
Marsfel sighed and shook his head. “Call to arms. Prepare for battle.”
“What if the ships are merely investigating?”
“Then they will see our forces preparing for them. There is no way around that.”
“Yes, Majesty.” He heard the regret in the man’s voice and felt it in his own heart. They were not ready for a war.
“And Turrae?”
“Yes, Majesty?”
“Send word to the capital. We need help. We need it as soon as possible.” He did not expect an answer, and certainly not a positive one, but it was all he had left.
How long does it take to bury a man? How long to give his spirit rest?
In the case of Wollis March it had not taken long. His spirit had gone on and, in the traditions of his people, his body had been burned and the ashes collected. When his wife and son finally showed themselves they would be presented with the ashes, which would then likely be scattered to the winds with the appropriate ceremony.
In the case of an Emperor, however, there was a great deal more involved. There were kingdoms to notify, you see, and they in turn had to send emissaries to present themselves before the Imperial Family, and then, likely, there would be declarations of regret and more promises of fealty and, of course, there was the matter of replacing the deceased with the next in line to rule the Empire.
It was a statistical nightmare, and for well over a month the Summer Palace had been as tempestuous as the skies above the Corinta Ocean.
Merros Dulver left most of that to the people who took care of such affairs. He was busy enough without having to consider seating arrangements and who had to make offerings to whom.
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