Durhallem surely smiled down as Tusk rode through the opened gates and gestured for the children who had earned the right to make their first kills. Some of them were surely his seed and others were not, but they were all children of Durhallem and they were killers. He smiled as grown men fled from his young followers or tried to fight back and died.
A gesture to Stastha had the horn sounding and the armies of Durhallem followed again, driving back the foolish and the brave alike.
Mendt, all of nine and still pink in the skin, drove her spear though a pregnant woman’s belly and then turned and rammed the same point through the neck of a man screaming his grief even as he tried to kill her.
She did not waste her time smiling. There were more people to kill.
Tusk adjusted his helmet and pulled sword and axe alike. He allowed them the first kills. He would not allow them the last.
Durhallem was generous and Tusk could be no less.
In a chamber far beneath the main palace, a place known to fewer than five living souls, Goriah’s body writhed; her hands clutched at the shroud that had covered her and pulled it away.
Tataya looked on, her face nearly expressionless, but her heart hammering wildly in her chest. What they did here was forbidden for a reason.
Pella stood on the other side of the marble table where Goriah’s form shuddered and moaned.
At the head of that table Darsken Murdro slipped his fingers into the fine blonde hair of the dead Sister’s head and looked down at her, his face surprisingly calm when one considered the powers he wielded.
Goriah’s eyes opened. There should have been a caul of pale, milky white over her eyes and it was there for a moment, but as they watched on her Sisters saw that film fade away, saw her eyes stare first at the ceiling above and then roll into the back of her head as she screamed.
Both Tataya and Pella flinched.
Darsken looked to Tataya and shook his head. “Now is not the time for you to feel fear. Now is the time for you to ask your questions.”
Tataya thought carefully before she spoke.
Too far away for anyone in Canhoon to notice, Lored, Chosen of the Forge of Ordna and King in Bronze, roared his approval as the siege engines finally shattered the massive wall around the center of Elda.
His people roared too, and then smiled.
Elda would have fallen either way, but he wanted them to understand the power of Ordna’s ways. They believed as he did, yes, but to see their beliefs made real, that was what all of the faithful desired.
The people of Elda spent three days doing their very best to defend against Lored and his people. The walls were heavy and the soldiers well trained, but they also preened and strutted and talked to each other until he tired of waiting and started the siege before they had been ready.
War was never meant to be discussed to the point of futility. War was meant to be handled quickly and with much bloodshed. Lored showed them the error of their ways.
After the walls fell, he and his people moved into the city quickly.
What the King in Iron lamented was not found by Lored. The people of Elda were trained in war, and they fought well, even if they lacked discipline and cohesive leadership.
Lored wanted to strike himself, but the patience of his followers must first be rewarded. They were allowed to fight and to kill as they saw fit.
For two days Elda burned and streets stank of blood and death.
On the third day, Lored and his people left the city, riding north and west, heading to join the rest of the Sa’ba Taalor, but only after they had killed as many Fellein as they could stomach with their endless appetites.
On the fourth day Lored woke early and stretched and praised Ordna for his many spectacular gifts.
“As you have asked, Great Ordna, I have done. All that I have and all that I am is yours.”
He raised the bronze spear he had crafted for his god and hurled it into the air, aiming for Elda.
His god took it from there. The spear rose higher than should have been possible and arced toward the very center of the city. When it reached its destination the tip of the spear drove down into the ground and immediately shattered.
Seconds later, the ground exploded. From a full day’s ride away, Lored felt the ground shake and his blood boil. The Daxar Taalor offered miracles every day to the faithful but few of them were so very direct.
Ordna’s people roared their approval and called to their god as the mountain rose in the distance. Fire clawed at the sky. Lightning ripped down the heavens in celebration of the god’s rebirth.
Ordna rejoiced and his people rejoiced with him.
Somewhere in Canhoon, Glo’Hosht walked unseen. Many were the people chosen by the gods to die. Glo’Hosht and his chosen worked to kill a select few. Some tides are stopped by mountains. Others are freed by the removal of a single obstacle. The Great Tide was upon Canhoon.
The time to open the gates was here.
At the Southern Gate Swech and Jost carefully aimed and struck again and again, the fine, poisoned darts working to kill before those they stabbed could even feel the sting of death.
The gate opened quietly to the waiting forces.
The army that spilled through the gate was not quiet. They did not need to be. The reason for silence had already been killed by the time they could enter.
They came prepared for war and found dead guards waiting for them. Not the sort to let a delay in the celebrations slow them down, the Sa’ba Taalor rode into Canhoon anyway and sought new enemies to kill.
The forces at the Eastern Gate were not yet inside when Canhoon struck back.
There are those who have never quite understood why Canhoon is called the City of Wonders.
There are tales, to be sure, but stories for a dozen lifetimes back or more seldom hold much sway with the living. They are fables and notions and tales to scare children into behaving and seldom much more.
Canhoon had rested well, it was time to awaken.
The Silent Army stood facing the outer wall of the city and watched, expressionless, as the Sa’ba Taalor broke through and threatened all that they had died to protect.
As one, the vast army of statues shifted, placing their sword tips against the wall beneath them. It was a small thing, but this time people noticed.
If they were concerned about the odd action, they did not have time to respond. As soon as the blades touched down energies unseen spilled from the sentinels and lashed out across the land.
Roughly one thousand yards in from the edge of the outer wall the ground shook across all of Canhoon.
The Sa’ba Taalor were in motion, but they were not foolish. Training sometimes pays off where common sense might not prevail. The warriors stopped their forward motion almost as one and looked carefully at their surroundings.
At the Northern Gate Tusk shook his head, spat and for the first time in his life demanded that his followers retreat. He was not amused, but he was also not foolish enough to argue when Durhallem told him what must be done.
At the Western Gate Tarag Paedori did the same, immediately wheeling around and reversing the charge.
At the Eastern Gate the attacking forces stopped their advance and left the unbroken gate in peace.
At the Southern Gate those who had already gained entrance continued on and those who had not retreated.
The timing was important. Those who failed to listen died quickly.
The ground shook a second time and then the whole of the city shook.
The permanent structures in the city were almost unaffected. They had been built to withstand amazing trauma, and the sorcerers who had rebuilt the city had been in their prime and eager to prove themselves.
The walls of the palace did not shift, though a great deal of furniture moved and shuddered and danced. Merros Dulver managed to pull Nachia from the window where she was still staring before an errant marble bench could crush her against it.
Throughout the area called
Old Canhoon and a distance beyond it as well, the buildings stood and the possessions within them shuddered and the people screamed as if the world were ending.
Maybe they were right.
The ground shook again and the city groaned. The bridges over the river that ran between the First Wall and the Mid Wall bucked and roared and screamed as they were torn asunder. The stones had rested there for centuries and been tended as necessary, but they could not withstand the force of the ground itself rising.
All of the ground. There was a line, surprisingly even, that ran around the entire circumference of Old Canhoon, and along that line everything toward the center lifted at once. The ground shivered and moaned but did not collapse. The great stone roads were not destroyed. The very buildings that had once rebuilt themselves from the ruins of first a great earthquake and then an invading army did not falter or fall.
The Sa’ba Taalor who had retreated, even Tusk, all nodded with understanding even as they backed away in dread. This was not the work of their gods. This was something different and unknown.
They had been saved from the madness by their gods and they rejoiced in their hearts, but to see the city begin to rise was unsettling just the same.
Old Canhoon groaned as it continued to rise, the whole of the city and a deep wedge of stone and dirt and the heart of the earth came with it, lifting higher and higher into the air as every last soul who could prayed to gods or contemplated the end of their lives.
In the highest tower of the palace a spot from which numerous rulers had looked down over generations on all that they had sworn to protect, the Empress and her closest advisors stood and held tightly to the edges of the walls as they looked out and watched the city rise.
There was a very strong possibility that Merros Dulver screamed. It was equally likely that Nachia Krous made sounds that did not normally come from the most powerful ruler in the known world.
Desh Krohan did not scream. Desh Krohan first gasped and then started laughing with joy. He clapped his hands and jumped up and down with the enthusiasm of a very happy toddler, he bellowed his excitement. “By all the gods I never thought I’d see the like again!”
Merros managed to swallow his fear and looked at the madman laughing as the world floated away below them.
“See what? This? What in all the world is happening?”
“This!” he gestured madly. “I forgot that Old Canhoon can do this!”
“What is it doing?” Nachia jabbed a finger in his direction. “What did you do to my city?”
“I didn’t do this, my dear! Old Canhoon did this! This is why she is called the City of Wonders! She’s escaping!”
Nachia tried hard to look through all of the windows at once and failed and finally focused on her First Advisor again. “Well? Where is it going?”
Desh stopped laughing and looked at her, his face suddenly worried all over again.
“Do you know, I have absolutely no idea. I just know that it is going and we have a chance to regroup and prepare all over again.”
“What’s different this time, Desh Krohan?” Merros looked at him and shook his head. “What could possibly make a difference? No matter where we go, I can promise you the Sa’ba Taalor will follow.”
Desh smiled again. “This time we have them.”
The wizard pointed to the window. They had continued to rise and currently a substantial flock of birds was moving around the palace wall, exploring their new, unexpected neighbor in the sky.
“Who? The birds? What will they do, shit on their armor?” Merros was close to hysteria. He had never much liked sorcery and even using it a little made him uncomfortable. Moving cities was well beyond his usual horizon for calm.
“No, Merros!” Desh walked over and gripped the general’s shoulder. He spun him toward the window and pointed toward the Mid Wall. “Them! The Silent Army! They’re here to protect us. It’s the only possible reason for the city moving, because I promise you, I had nothing to do with it this time around. Not the city and not the army.”
Merros and Desh and Nachia were all looking out the window when the next miracle occurred.
As one the Silent Army raised their swords and dissolved into the wall they stood on. Only seconds later they walked out of the wall as if passing through a curtain and stood around the wall, now facing outward, toward the edge of a city that continued to rise higher into the air.
Merros frowned for several seconds and then did something he had never truly done before in his life.
He thanked the gods.
Seven Forges Book IV
The Silent Army
This novel is gratefully dedicated to Phil Jourdan and Paul Simpson for keeping me in line, and working miracles on the edits. It is also dedicated to Marc Gascoigne and Mike Underwood because I enjoyed the hell out of our conversations at World Fantasy.
Special thanks to every reader who has followed along with me through this tale. I hope you’ve enjoyed the journey. Special thanks also to Penny Reeve, for all that you do that so very few people get to see.
One
The kings gathered together, those of them who were near the place where Canhoon had once rested in the ground, and stared at the vast landmass rising above them.
It was an impressive sight. Canhoon, surely the oldest of the cities in the Fellein Empire, a vast city with millions of inhabitants, had risen into the air, soaring higher and higher until it seemed only a little larger than a fast ship.
Tuskandru stared at the retreating stone cloud and felt his jaw clench. He had been patient. He was ready for a proper war.
Next to him, Tarag Paedori crossed his massive arms, which was an impressive sight in full plate armor. Tusk would not have thought it possible, though he’d never worn such heavy armor himself.
“I do not like sorcery,” the King in Iron mused. “When I meet this wizard you’ve spoken of, I plan to kill him first.”
“He is not so easy to kill, I expect.” Tusk looked away from the dwindling city and back at where Canhoon had been. Most of the city had risen, but everything between the Mid Wall and the Outer Wall was still there, broken and scattered by the tremors caused when the city rose. Only Old Canhoon had taken flight. Tusk could see people there, looking out from their homes or simply wandering around, shocked by what had just happened. It was not a common occurrence to see a city rise into the air and fly away. Where once the city had been, a deep wound now lay, so vast that it was hard to contemplate. Waters from the river were already raging into that gash in the earth and in a day or so it would likely be a lake.
“What now?” he asked
“Kill the people left behind. And then…” Tarag Paedori removed his massive iron helmet shaped to look like the face of his god, Truska-Pren. “Then we chase the city.”
“How?”
“It is a very large target, Tusk. And it does not move so quickly that we cannot follow. Sooner or later we will have a chance to find our way to the heart of that city. The Daxar Taalor would not call us to war if it was not time for the Great Tide. This is merely an effort to escape from the gods. It will fail.”
Tusk nodded his head and then gestured for Stastha to call for war.
She raised her horn and gave the signal. Immediately the Sa’ba Taalor who followed Tusk stopped gawping at the dwindling city and prepared themselves, calling out their praise for Durhallem.
“To war!” Tuskandru’s voice rang out in perfect unison with that of Tarag Paedori. “To war and kill your enemies!”
More horns sounded, but Tusk barely noticed. It was time to honor his god with offerings of blood and bone. Tusk lived to serve.
The three figures walked across the silence of the Blasted Lands, moving at a steady pace. They struck an image that was not easily forgotten in the vast desolation. A heavy layer of dust covered them like a mantle, spilling from their hair and drizzling down their clothes. There were two men and one woman. The first of the men was a massive brute, a towering member of
the Sa’ba Taalor, with gray skin, long dark hair and eyes that glowed in the growing darkness. Next was a young woman who seemed almost childlike in comparison. Her hair, though currently hidden by dust, was thick and blonde and curly and her heart-shaped face bore a blank expression that made her look younger still. Behind them, the other man moved on, his head lowered toward the ground. If he saw anything at all it was only the blanket of fine dust and ash that covered the world around them so completely.
The first of the trio was called Drask Silver Hand. His name came from the fully functioning metallic hand at the end of his right arm. In the past someone looking at his silver limb would have been able to clearly see where the flesh and the metal had been placed together; there had been a deep seam of scar tissue and open spaces where the fusion of skin and silver had not fully connected. That scar was gone now, replaced by thin tendrils of silver that pulled the flesh close to the metallic hand.
Drask looked at his hand several times as he walked, watching the silver threads pulling and tightening. It was a fascinating process for him. He flexed his metallic hand, watched the tendons, real and artificial alike, pull and turn.
To his side, sometimes lagging behind, came Tega. The girl was still in her teens, and her skin was soft and flawless where Drask was hard and his flesh marked by hundreds of scars, some fine and some substantial. Her eyes were blue and did not glow with the same inner luminescence that marked all of the gray-skinned Sa’ba Taalor.
Trailing behind the both of them and never looking up from his feet, Nolan March plodded steadily along. He had the swarthy complexion of a northerner. His hair fell around his shoulders and draped down in front of his face like a veil. Anyone who could have seen his face would have been surprised by how calm he looked, as that was not usually the case. Nolan was not known for his patience, though he was now disturbingly placid.
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