Doom-Quest of Ara-Karn 2 The Divine Queen

by Adam Corby

  They approached the iron gates of Bollakarvil, dust rising sluggishly from beneath their many-thousanded feet. The renegades stood to the fore, with the barbarian bowmen just behind them. No excitement showed on their bearded, metal-shadowed faces. There were no chants or savage cries. They came to a halt in accord to the shouts of their leaders.

  Vague yells sounded from the battlements of the steep city. Faces appeared above the walls and as quickly vanished. Rocks and boulders began to rain down from the heights. The veteran barbarians expertly dodged, reforming lines after the missiles passed. The lines edged closer to the walls. Bows were raised, arrows loosed. Men died on the walls, crushed beneath the weight of the very stones they had been about to hurl. A few harsh laughs rose from the masses below the walls.

  The renegades brought up two ramming-machines, great frameworks of wood and iron drawn by many oxen. Beneath leather awnings the rams swung to and fro, ponderously, iron-shod, suspended on heavy chains. The renegades under barbarian taskmasters strained against the rams. Above them men appeared with cauldrons of flaming oil, but the death-birds were loosed and the fire spilled upon the inner courtyard. Black smoke flowered over the gates with the screams of the dying. The rams played their music on the iron of the gates like thunder: throom-ah, throom-ah, throom-ah, dhroomb! The metal groaned, shrieked, gave. The bars snapped with a screech and the gates sprang inward, orange flames and black billows welcoming the armies of Ara-Karn.

  They swarmed in, choking rude chants. ‘Ara-Karn!’ they rumbled, ‘Ka-Ara-Karn!’ The name roused the fury of the barbarians behind. The renegades were shoved forward, trampling and slaying the few remaining Imperial guardsmen. Swords rose and fell, spraying red. The corpses were kicked aside. The invaders burst coughing past the smoke, rapidly filling the courtyard.

  Ampeánor hung back as much as he could manage, sick at the stench and blood and ease with which the city fell. Between them, and the savage soreness of his battered, blackened body, it seemed to him almost as though he had been sped to some other, horrible life; as though he had been consumed by the soul of some Madpriest, in an assault on Ul Raambar. As much as he was able, he kept barbarians or renegades between himself and the defenders. It was all he could do not to join them, to defend this holy place. The currents of battle swept him forward, up the cobbled streets of ancient Bollakarvil.

  Before him the renegades ran, to sack and rape before Gundoen and the veterans should restore order. They ran laughing and shouting. A young soldier came against him, a Rukorian by accent, bright-eyed and smooth-cheeked.

  ‘Try some combat with me, renegade!’ the boy shouted. Ampeánor took the cut on his shield and shoved the boy back.

  ‘Listen,’ he said lowly, ‘I do not want to fight you. Go back, flee to the mountains! There are no leaders to snatch victory out of this. No charan or chara will save Bollakarvil – they are gone! Go to Haspeth, save your life and flee to Tarendahardil!’

  The boy laughed gloriously. ‘Are you a coward, then? So you would save me? But who will save you?’ He lunged viciously, and Torval had much to parry it. In earnest he began to defend himself against the boy, who was no mean swordsman. Yet the inevitable opening came, and he took it. There was no other choice – yet he tried, as he killed the boy, to give him as little pain as possible. The black blood sprayed from the falling body, spattering a shrine of Elna by the side of the street.

  Ampeánor withdrew the black smoking blade, feeling the steaming blood run over his hard knuckles. His head ached with the excitement. He wiped the blade on the hair of the nameless dead man, feeling almost that he had rather been the fallen one himself. Then he went into an alleyway by the side of the street, and did no more fighting that pass. Jakgron discovered him when the din of victory had fallen, and aided him down the steep rocky slope to the quiet shelter of the tent again.

  Bollakarvil had been conquered as utterly as if it had been the commandment of dark God. All who resisted were put to the sword, but those who surrendered were allowed to purchase their lives. The weapons of the defenders were collected and the bodies of the slain given proper rites. Gundoen occupied the palace of the Porekan and set a garrison force to hold the city, consisting mainly of older or wounded barbarians and some mercenaries. The city treasury was spilled on the stones of the central square, before the ransacked Temple where the Emperors of Tarendahardil had once been anointed. The chieftains divided the spoils according to the rank and deeds of their tribes. All the many statues of godlike Elna were torn down and defaced, to the accompaniment of wine-slurred laughter and the squeals of yielding women.

  Most of the looting was done by the mercenaries, supposedly the more civilized of the invaders. The barbarians had held themselves in check, having been disciplined by Gundoen and content with their rightful shares of conquest. They took no delight in rapine, having had their fill of it in the many cities already fallen.

  Not two passes after the conquest, all the houses and palaces were still standing, and the inhabitants of the city walked the streets with little fear. Some of the shops in the marketplace were even open for business.

  XVIII

  ‘Death Hath But Left Him Little to Destroy’

  AT THE FAR END of the lands where men dwell, the reek of the foundries of Ul Raambar the Unassailable mounted into the blue-black sky like a feather. Ul Raambar was a small city and of little wealth, not at all the equal of great Tarendahardil; yet she sat nestled in the mountains alone and unafraid upon the very knife-edged border, and guarded the high passes against the Madpriests. Ul Raambar faced distant Goddess where She sat, less than a fist above the bright horizon; but at the back of Ul Raambar, the mountains’ slopes fell away into the Darklands, where the light of Goddess never shone. There in the midst of sunless black seas jade God made His home, returning to it at the end of each pass after another futile attempt to beguile Goddess into following Him upon His road.

  In all the years of her existence, Ul Raambar had produced neither art nor song: but her warriors and proud ladies were her art, and their blue-edged weaponry her songs. Four centuries and more of ceaseless warfare with the Madpriests had made of these Raambas the most skillful and disciplined fighters in the world, whose swords were legendary. Each waking, companies of their lancers might be seen issuing from the green-worked gates of Ul Raambar, to patrol upon their hardy mountain-bred war-ponies the paths of the mountains of the knife-edged border, ever-wary of the marauding Madpriests.

  Then a man came riding to Ul Raambar from the north, leading behind his weary horse a sturdy pack-pony burdened with two large and curious barrels, of the sort seamen use for valued cargoes. His face was masked by the dark green hooded hunting-cloak from Gerso that he wore, fastened with a blood-red opal brooch-pin cut in the likeness of a serpent’s egg.

  Fording the shallow stream that farther northward became the river Kabdary and spilled into Elna’s Sea, the rider led his two beasts up the turning path to the gates of the fastness. There he was challenged by the legendary guardians of the gates, whose mountain-trained eyes could see vast distances across the Marches spread below. It was no easy feat for a spy or enemy to gain entrance to the halls of Ul Raambar. But this man looked upon the guards with their long beards combed and bristling and their limbs encased in iron out of lined eyes, respectfully but without fear, and answered them,

  ‘Ennius Kandi of Gerso, sent hither by the Divine Queen.’

  ‘It is our custom to demand proofs of strangers who would enter here,’ they told him.

  Smiling bitterly, the man showed them his token, which they recognized well, often having received the envoys of the Empress of Tarendahardil. So the green-worked gates of copper and brass were opened before him, and Ara-Karn entered Ul Raambar.

  He had been long in getting there from Tarendahardil, for he had passed through Rukor first, and delivered his other messages before coming to Ul Raambar last of all. Even then, as he passed through the green-worked gates, his armies were departing fallen
Bollakarvil and marching on Ilkas. But of this the guardians of the gates knew nothing.

  In the royal palace, set high on the unyielding rocks, the palace warriors conducted him through long halls, past armories and training-halls where the light of Goddess, stained a faint crimson, slanted obliquely through the broad stone windows. Some stories up they showed him into a small set of chambers facing the distant, moveless sun. The rooms were of clean-swept stone, low and unadorned.

  ‘Our lord asks that you pardon these rooms,’ the guardsmen said. ‘He knows they are scarcely suitable for one who has known the luxuries of Tarendahardil. Yet these are the finest we can offer. Even the High Charan of Rukor, our lord’s great friend, receives no better when he guests here. Do you refresh yourself after your arduous journey, my lord. If you wish a thing, ask it of the man posted without your door. Our lord asks that you attend him at the greatfeast.’

  The Imperial envoy nodded absently. The guardsmen carefully set down the curious barrels in the chamber’s storage niche, saluted and withdrew.

  In a basin the stranger washed the dust of the road from his lean brown limbs. Naked, his dripping body glittering in the dull stone cell, he came to behold his image in the polished silver of the mirror. The black and green-flecked eyes stared enigmatically back. Through the windows the mountain air, cool here even in the hottest season, billowed into the chamber like a cloud, at once intoxicating and wearisome. After a long time, the Queen’s envoy turned abruptly and entered the small, curtained dimchamber.

  * * *

  There were no high-sounding titles among the people of Ul Raambar. Even Ankhan, their king, disdained them, preferring the address of a simple charan. He was a tall man, whose high brow and broad straight nose bespoke both his intelligence and courage. His dark blue eyes flashed like lightnings in the dark sky beyond the mountains of his brows, with merriment or rage according to his mood. His glossy, chestnut hair he braided down his back in war and hunt, but here in his own hall his lady combed it free, so that it burst from his skull like a mountain thorsa’s mane. His chin he shaved clean, but a tremendous reddish mustache sprouted from his lip. He would twist it vigorously whenever he would make a point or seek to restrain his anger.

  He was known, and loved, as Ankhan of the Strong Heart. Not yet a man, he had led companies on raids into the Darklands; not yet bearded, he had slain his first man, a Madpriest chieftain named the Black Fist, or Verin Falx. When he was but eighteen winters, the age most Raamba youths were just allowed to go on their first raid, Ankhan had seen his father slain in a fierce assault on one of the hunting fastnesses farther down the mountains. Ankhan had not stayed even to see the body of Garkhan set into a death-barge on a river in the lowlands, but had organized a force of ten companies and led them deeper into the darkness than any other had ever dared go before: they went so far they were in danger of losing their way, as the mocking Madpriests led them on. But Ankhan had moved suddenly and trapped the trappers, destroying several villages and personally killing Urgo Hirx, the chief who had led the raid that had slain Garkhan.

  Such had been his first act as king of Ul Raambar; and it had sealed him the love of all the warriors as well as gaining him the heart of many-wooed Lisalya, whose stone-fisted father Dilyardin had captained one of the companies following Ankhan into the darkness.

  Now that same Lisalya sat at the side of her lord as queen of Ul Raambar, a superb woman, the equal of many a warrior. Three sons she had borne Ankhan, who promised to be all the warrior-lords their father was. Ankhan held her hand lovingly in his, from time to time leaning to her to whisper a jest or caress her mane of curling hair the color of red gold.

  Below them upon the long, unadorned benches, their warriors and ladies raised their cups to the rafters of the Charan Ankhan’s feast hall, loud in their merriment and tales. Then a silence fell athwart the hall, as the palace warriors ushered in the stranger.

  Chara Lisalya was the first to rise to greet him, filling the guest-cup with foaming wine and presenting it to him with her own hands.

  ‘We welcome you, Charan Kandi,’ she announced, ‘because of your lineage and because of the losses you have suffered at the barbarian’s hand, and not least because you come serving the Empress Allissál, our own dear friend and ally.’

  He bowed solemnly to her, and drank of the wine. The wine of Ul Raambar was dark, with a deep flavor not found in the pallid delicacies of Tarendahardil: a red wine to go coursing down the throat like hot blood.

  ‘Good wine,’ said the Gerso. ‘Yet not half so fine as the beauty of its server, which is outshone by that of only one other, and that only because she is divine.’

  ‘In truth, a courtier!’ Ankhan laughed. ‘We have few enough of those in Ul Raambar, Charan Kandi: welcome, and be your news good!’

  So Ara-Karn, the stranger, was seated in the chair of honor opposite the warrior-king and his lady, as he had sat across from the Empress of the South in the famed Imperial banquet hall, and across from Gen-Karn in the ruined halls of Tezmon, and across from Kuln-Holn in a wretched little hut over the shore of a deepwater bay in a corner of the wild far North. Yet here he seemed to belong as he had never done in any of those other places, like a wanderer come at last to a homeland he can but dimly remember.

  ‘As to your business here,’ said the king, ‘unless it be of surpassing urgency, we would put it off some passes, to entertain you as our guest. We get few indeed of your quality, Charan Kandi. Do you enjoy the hunt?’

  ‘If it please you, my lord, call me by the familiar, Ennius,’ the Gerso replied smoothly. ‘As for hunting, it was the chief occupation and love of my youth.’

  ‘So be it – Ennius, these hills about our mountains are filled even at this season with beasts as fierce and proud as the fightingmen of Ul Raambar herself! What say you, Ennius of Gerso? Shall we hunt? and seek out noble game to bring us down?’

  The envoy of the Queen courteously inclined his head. ‘My lord, I aim at nothing less.’

  * * *

  So with the next waking they rode out of the fastness through paths cut deep along the pine-mantled lower hills. Ankhan rode foremost, with stone-fisted Dilyardin beside him; behind them their guest rode alongside the Lady Lisalya. A company of lancers in full armor rode behind them, their eyes alert to the shadows. As they rode low branches of green stretched and caught at their caps and helms.

  The Gerso raised his voice, asking the king about the lancers. ‘Is the game so dangerous, lord? These men seem of too high a quality to serve as beaters of the bush.’

  Ankhan laughed, the long braids of his hair dancing. ‘And you witnessed the fall of your Gerso, and must ask me this? These men are in case of an attack by Madpriests.’

  ‘I have heard many stories about them, and have read the book of Skhel. Yet what are those Madpriests really like, my lord?’

  ‘Ah – trust not in all the book of Skhel, Ennius. Inozelstus was a prophet and a scholar, but he never lost sight of Goddess in all his life. Mostly, the book is what others told him; and tales are seldom accurate concerning the Madpriests.’

  ‘Yet how is it any man can live his life in total darkness? What can they eat in those wastes but each other?’

  ‘It is not so dark there as most suppose, Ennius. God rides the heavens like a great jade eye, much brighter than He ever appears here. And there are other things, small winking points of light that some say never alter their patterns, and by whose light the Madpriests are said to be able to journey about without ever losing their way. But of that, I am not convinced.

  ‘For food, many other things live in or get trapped by the darkness, beasts and strange fish in black pools. And there are wood and iron there as well. The men are terrible warriors; the women treacherous and vile. They would as soon die as live, and their greatest joy is to die in the mindless fury of battle. There is not a one of them but would gladly give his life, if by that act he might slay two or three of his enemies. They roam in bands along the bordering mounta
ins, hunting game and robbing men.’

  ‘I thought the Pass was the only way over the mountains.’

  ‘So it is, of any size or ease. Yet there are other ways, secret, narrow and dangerous, and known only to the Madpriests. Perhaps we shall encounter some – then, Ennius, you may see for yourself.’

  ‘Perhaps we might even capture one?’ the Gerso suggested.

  Dilyardin laughed. ‘As soon bring down a Darkbeast single-handed as capture a Madpriest alive, Charan!’

  ‘Enough!’ cried Lisalya. ‘Can we find nothing better to speak of than those doomed wretched spirits?’ She was dressed in a hunting tunic not unlike that Allissál had worn that past winter. It suited her wild beauty well. ‘Charan Ennius, lighten our mood instead, and speak of life in the great court. It is several winters now since we resided there in the company of the Empress, and bathed in the sacred Baths. And tell us also, how is the Charan of Rukor?’

  ‘Ha!’ shouted Ankhan, playfully swatting at the rump of his lady’s mare. ‘Now we have come to it! My Chara in truth is rather overly fond of the Charan of Rukor, Ennius. As a youth he spent several years among us: and it broke my poor Lisalya’s heart to bid him farewell.’

  ‘Nay, now,’ said the lady, her cheeks coloring a little. ‘Ampeánor is your friend and companion too, my lord. And I asked not only after him, but the rest of the court as well.’

  ‘Well, then,’ said the king, sighing and shrugging his shoulders grandiloquently, ‘my Chara will not let you rest until you have satisfied her curiosity, Ennius. It were best to spill it now, and give it up for lost.’

  ‘The High Charan of Rukor is well,’ said the Gerso, quietly, ‘if somewhat changed over the past months. The tale is that he is the Empress’s secret lover.’