Blade of Empire

by Mercedes Lackey

  * * *

  Xennara flew homeward, her thoughts on one thing: to rid her body of the parasite it carried. Then she could return to the Harvest, safe from interruption once more.

  It was only a handful of Risings ago that she had lain with King Virulan. It was a dangerous honor, but such only added spice to the encounter, and the wounds had quickly healed. Almost as soon as the Endarkened descended upon the Elflings, Xennara could feel the nauseating sensation of life moving within her body, and at last—reluctantly, angrily—she left the killing ground.

  There are so many! Surely some will remain by the time I return! The thought did not console her. Altruism was not an Endarkened trait. What Xennara could not take for herself, she could not have, for no one would consider giving her charity.

  Upward she flew, scarlet wings straining, until the killzone was only a tiny blood-red speck on the ground below. Higher and higher, until the blue darkened and the air thinned and she flew onward as much by sorcery as by wings. At the utmost pinnacle of her flight, she drew in her wings, folding them tightly about her, and dove. Her lips peeled back in a savage grin of joy. Her hair streamed out behind her, the wind of her passage stripping its ornaments away. That same wind whistled over her skin and in her ears, singing a high frantic song like the music of terrified screaming. Below her, Obsidian Mountain grew from a dark speck in the midst of an icefield to the tallest mountain in a jagged chain. Soon she was close enough to see every fold and cranny of its surface, and in the moment when it seemed she would dash herself to death on the rocks, she unfurled her scarlet wings with a sharp crack! and glided in through one of the cave entrances.

  The entrance was guarded, as always, by several of the Lesser Endarkened. They scrabbled to open the enormous doors of black iron that barred her way into the deeper caverns, and closed them behind her just as quickly. Now she was in absolute darkness, but no Endarkened needed the light of the daystar to guide them.

  A few steps, and she found a shaftway to lead her directly to her goal. Without hesitation, she flung herself into it, her huge scarlet wings brushing against the glass-smooth sides with a keening whisper as she fell. Though the Penance Chamber was deep within Obsidian Mountain, it lacked the glorious ornamentation of other deep-mountain chambers. This was not a place the Endarkened came by choice, and one which they left as quickly as they could.

  As her feet touched the floor, a cramping spasm made Xennara growl and hunch over. Wetness slicked her thighs and trickled to the floor: in a fit of impatience, she ripped the remaining ornaments from her body, flinging them as far from her as she could.

  The clicking of hooves on the glass-smooth floor heralded the approach of one of the Lesser Endarkened. Xennara gasped as another spasm took her. For a race that took such delight in the pain of others, the Endarkened took little joy in their own. The fastest way to be rid of the puling parasite she carried would have been to slit open her own belly, but the pain would be unbearable. So she squatted and strained, hoping her shame would be over soon. By now she was ringed by a circle of the Lesser Endarkened. It was to them that the newborn would be entrusted; they who would feed it and raise it until it was old enough to join the society of the Endarkened as an equal, for any of the Endarkened who could not defend themselves from their brethren quickly died.

  Her barbed tail lashed and her great ribbed wings opened to their fullest extent as she pushed. She dug her talons into her skin and her sharp white fangs drew blood from her lips. At last the head of the infant appeared between her legs, then one shoulder. One of the Lesser Endarkened darted forward to grasp the infant and draw it free. Xennara howled at the new spasm of agony and lashed out against the Lesser Endarkened, but the creature had already dodged out of reach. Birth-waste rushed from her body, spattering the floor. Xennara forced herself upright, breathing deeply. It was over. Praise to He Who Is.

  “Mistress, what are we to name your daughter?” the Lesser Endarkened midwife asked.

  A daughter to share my curse. Xennara forced the rage at King Virulan down and away. The Endarkened did not feel loyalty or togetherness or even unity, but there was one truth the female Endarkened all agreed on, whether Born or Created-and-Changed: the King would never be allowed to know how absolutely they hated him for making them what they were. Not until the hour of his destruction.

  “Savilla,” she said. “Call her Savilla. Send her to me when she is grown.”

  Xennara strode from the chamber, ignoring the birthing-mucus caked on her skin.

  Blood would wash it away quickly enough.

  * * *

  Tzurliat had never imagined it was possible to get tired of killing, but no matter how much of the meat she ripped apart with fangs and talons, there was still more to kill. She was almost glad that some escaped into the Flower Forest where she and her kindred could not follow. Meat was stupid and had short memories. Soon enough it would venture out again.

  Pain and fear hovered over the killing ground like a red fog. Even the painful brightness of the day could not mar her pleasure. With each breath she took, Tzurliat felt reborn. She gorged herself on the pain of her victims; reveled in the inventiveness of her brethren. Here, someone plucked a child from its mother’s arms and hovered above her, dangling the child tantalizingly out of reach for a few moments before dashing the infant to the ground with so much force the body bounced and skidded in the red mess leaking from its flesh. There, another of Tzurliat’s fellows hamstrung a warrior then used magic to peel him, layer by layer—armor, under padding, skin, flesh—as he tried to drag himself to safety. There were so many delicious variations to try.

  And best of all, the day belonged entirely to the Born—just as Hallorad had been given to the Created-and-Changed. The King and the rest of the Created had come to watch, but the killing belonged to their children, in acknowledgment of the Cycles of privation and sacrifice that had lulled the meat into a false sense of security.

  The Elflings had thought themselves so very safe and sheltered. Today the Endarkened proved that they were wrong, over and over again. From now until the end of the Red Harvest, the Endarkened would move from sea to sea, destroying every living thing in their path. The tireless, immortal Endarkened could fly and fell and feed without stopping, moving westward until they returned to this very place, and when they had …

  The task that He Who Is had set them would be done.

  Behind them would come the abominations of King Virulan’s Cold Nursery, and between them they would ensure that nothing, down to the smallest insect and blade of grass, survived. But never will there be such glorious slaughter as there is here today, Tzurliat thought wistfully.

  And yet …

  There were whispers. Barely rumors at all. But these vague sourceless hints all spoke with one voice: delay.

  But what of the Born? the rumors whispered. The Born were tainted by the crime of every enemy of He Who Is: they were Created Life, and many of them had created Life in turn. If the rumors were true, the Born would be the last to die here in this terrible place of light and life—but they would still die. There would be no glorious communion as their selves were re-absorbed into the eternal Nothingness of He Who Is.

  Everyone knew the price of rebellion or even of displeasing King Virulan. The Endarkened were masters of torture and the sweetest and most wonderful expression of that mastery was to use their arts on one of their own. Tzurliat had seen such an execution once. The traitor’s death had encompassed Cycles of unendurable agony—an agony that no Endarkened wished to experience for themselves.

  But if the Born no longer ruled …

  Yes, Tzurliat decided, launching herself into the sky with her latest captive. In delay, there is enough time for anything to happen. Anything at all.

  To think such thoughts was not treason, not rebellion. It was only truth.

  * * *

  The sun set over the Vale of Celenthodiel and the moon rose. In its light, the stones of the courtyard, the meadows and fields sur
rounding it, were black with Elven blood. The Endarkened soared and wheeled in the night winds over the killing ground. They circled over the Spire of Celephriandullias, above the Fireheart Pass, out over the wide plain of Ifjalasairaet.

  Hunting.

  Some of the Elves had found some other hiding place than the Flower Forest. Night became day again, became a dozen days, as Endarkened searched them out and took them away to the World Without Sun. Those who could not claim the glory of an Elfling captive vented their spite upon every other living thing they could reach: horses, oxen, cattle, mules, sheep, goats. But they could not enter the Flower Forest to claim the treasure they knew was hidden there.

  They tore at it with storms, rained fire down on it from above. The winds did not break the trees, and the flames died quickly. King Virulan sent for Lesser Endarkened and forced them into the forest to drive the Elflings out. The Lesser Endarkened did not return.

  The King of the Endarkened was too wise to concede defeat or even to indicate that he imagined such a thing. Before his subjects could become frustrated, he summoned the Endarkened back to Obsidian Mountain, there to enjoy the fruits of their victory.

  * * *

  The Heart of Darkness glowed with torchlight. The flames made the figures in the wall murals seem to writhe in an agony that mirrored that of the Elfling stretched upon the cunning golden frame set before the Dark Throne. The victim could not live much longer, even with Khambaug’s magnificent artistry to delay his final moments.

  Virulan sat upon the Throne of Night, the Crown of Pain upon his brow, his fangs bared in an approving smile as he watched. The banquet tables and playrooms of the World Without Sun were glutted with shrieking playthings, and the Endarkened gorged to satiation on Elfling flesh. No longer were captives given only to Virulan’s favorites. Now he gorged his darlings upon blood and pain as if he wished to rouse their appetites to new heights: he had made it his new custom to begin court each Rising with some entertainment. All the Endarkened understood that message: it was the promise of the glories to come.

  And all knew Virulan could grant—or withhold—these pleasures at his whim.

  Khambaug’s subject was beyond screaming now. Its every breath was a sob. With glittering tools of obsidian she made the delicate cuts in the skin of his torso. The Lesser Endarkened beside her handed her each new tool almost before she could reach for it. Skin was delicately teased away from the muscle beneath as her audience murmured its praise of her deftness. Muscle was delicately extracted without destroying the delicate web of veins, nerves, and arteries, and the watching Endarkened gasped in awe and wonder. Not even a talon-scrape or a wing-rustle disturbed the beautiful music of the Elfling’s pain.

  At last bone stood exposed, and beneath it the glistening tissue of straining lungs and spasming heart.

  Khambaug looked to Virulan, who nodded his permission. She made one last careful cut, and then pulled the ribs apart as if opening a treasure box.

  “And still it lives!” Lashagan murmured in delight, for even now, the Elfling’s heart still struggled to beat.

  Khambaug bared her fangs in triumph as she plunged her hand into the Elfling’s chest cavity. The mutilated body spasmed once as she closed her fingers around his heart and pulled. She raised it high above her head in triumph, and then knelt submissively before Virulan, holding it out to him on her cupped palms.

  Virulan smiled as he accepted it from her. The still-pulsing muscle crunched faintly as he took a bite. Blood dripped down his chin and from between his fingers.

  “Beautifully performed,” he said, tossing the remains back to her. Khambaug lowered her gaze demurely even as she gulped down the treat. Virulan gestured, and the room exploded into sound as the Endarkened cheered.

  He is clever, Uralesse thought, in grudging admiration. He guarded his thoughts carefully: Virulan trusted him least of all his subjects, for Uralesse was the only other of the Created who was still as He Who Is had shaped them. The World Without Sun was a place of plots and scheming. Loyalty was something the Endarkened neither possessed nor valued, and Virulan’s great magic had increased their numbers a thousandfold. The plots and counterplots, the cabals and conspiracies, reached to the foot of the Dark Throne. But there they stopped.

  The beginning of the Red Harvest had been a thing unequaled even in the memories of the Twelve. Even when some of the Elflings escaped, Virulan had not allowed that to mar his victory. Uralesse knew, too, that Virulan had created tools to go where the Endarkened could not and the Lesser Endarkened would not go. He remembered the occasion, less than a hundred Risings ago, when Virulan had summoned them all, Created and Born, to witness his genius.

  * * *

  “My dear comrades, my fellow children of He Who Is, I know that you are as eager as I for our Red Harvest to begin. As it will be the last hunt, it must be perfect—a fitting offering to He Who Is. I know you are impatient, but is it not truly more artistic, more delightful, more … just … to aid the Brightworlders in their own destruction?”

  The silence that followed did not indicate agreement, Uralesse knew. What it meant was power. He watched as Virulan paused for a moment to savor that fact.

  “I do not mean to leave our great crusade to those who are weak, merciful, incapable of utter annihilation. No. It shall be ours. But before it begins, I mean to raise their hopes of survival. To show them a tiny danger and let them hope to overcome it. And then to dash those hopes entirely.”

  Now there was a murmur of approval, and Virulan smiled. “Come, my darlings,” he said. “Come with me and see the rich gifts I have for those who dwell beneath the sun.”

  * * *

  In Ugolthma, where the World Without Sun lay, nothing lived and nothing grew, and so Virulan’s Cold Nursery had been placed far enough to the south that the sun rose and set each day, plants grew upon the ground, and Bright World beasts existed in sufficiency to feed Virulan’s newest children.

  The Endarkened were gathered upon a high ridge at twilight. Below a herd of snow-elk—creatures larger than horses, with fearsome branching antlers—were gathered by the thousands to graze, trusting in their numbers to protect them from ice tiger and snow lion.

  “Watch,” Virulan commanded. “Watch my Coldwargs at the hunt!”

  The snow-elk scented danger and began to run just as the first of the Coldwargs crested the low hill above them. Soon the whole herd was in flight. The Coldwarg pack followed. They did not attack the stragglers; instead, the Coldwarg swung wide of the herd, paralleling its flight to encircle it. The herd began to curve away from the line of running Coldwarg, but it was too little, too late. The pack had outrun them. The herd turned back upon itself, and the Coldwarg charged.

  They flung themselves into the mass of horns and hooves, and as they ran, they killed. A single snap of their great jaws could rip out belly or throat. Uralesse watched, delighted in spite of himself, as blood ran and steam spilled from the half-frozen earth. Not one of the thousands of snow-elk was permitted to escape. When there was nothing left to kill, the Coldwargs began to feed.

  “So beautiful…” Orbushnu breathed, her scarlet wings trembling with the force of her emotion.

  He has them, Uralesse thought, careful to keep his thoughts entirely shielded. I had believed—hoped—there might be rebellion if he continued to delay. No longer. “They are beautiful in their savagery, my lord Virulan,” Uralesse said aloud. “I would expect no less. But … a better wolf…?” He let his voice trail off, as if he were honestly puzzled.

  “Wait. And watch,” Virulan said, baring his long white fangs in a terrible smile.

  The scene below looked like a battlefield. Suddenly the Coldwarg leader raised her dripping muzzle from the belly of the snow-elk upon which she was gorging, and threw back her head to give a short imperative howl. Almost as one, the Coldwargs retreated.

  “I see something coming!” Gholak cried excitedly. She turned to Uralesse, her face soft and flushed with the slaughter she’d witnessed.
“What is it?”

  Virulan chuckled paternally. “My losels come.”

  If the Coldwargs had been impressive, the losels were not. They were grey-furred, nearly invisible in the deepening twilight, perhaps a cubit long, resembling weasels or otters.

  But there were so many of them.

  They came in a mass a mile wide, a carpet of fur that stretched off into the distance. The small beasts of the tundra fled before them. The mice and hares and other creatures outran the losels easily … but Uralesse had the uneasy sense that the living carpet of hunger would not stop.

  The losels reached the killing field, and spread out over the dead. Soon all that could be seen was the losels themselves. The sound of their gnawing upon the bones of the snow-elk was the loudest sound that could be heard, and the grinding popping crunching was pleasant to the ears of the Endarkened. The living carpet continued to advance, and the concealed carcasses writhed and twitched at the assault.

  “They will feed until not even bones remain,” Virulan said.

  “I wonder that there is anything for us to do, with such efficient weapons in your arsenal, my lord King,” Uralesse said, now making it seem as if he merely jested.

  “I was most artful in their creation,” Uralesse answered. “Generation upon generation they seem like any other creature of the World Above. Scavengers. Solitary beasts. Then suddenly—” here he smiled “—and mysteriously, they begin to breed, and breed, and breed. And then they gather together to swarm, as you see, and every living thing flees before them. But that cannot continue forever. They do not breed when they swarm, and so the swarm will age, and starve, and only a few survive. It would be a century or more before you might see this sight again.”