With a snort of frustration he turned back to face Alwat. The god’s eyes shimmered in the lamplight like living orbs, watching him. Was all this Nasaan’s reward for trusting a war god to guide him? After all, from a purely military standpoint, his djira had done nothing wrong. Men feared him. His army was growing. Soon he would be ready to send his army out across the sands to expand his empire. It was everything he had prayed to Alwat for, everything his djira had promised to provide.
One could not expect a god of war to give a rat’s ass about commerce. Or gossip.
Yet both can be as powerful as the sword, he thought soberly. And both can bring down an empire.
“I’m sorry,” Sarosh muttered.
“Don’t be. I pay you bribes so you’ll tell me the truth.”
“There are also rumors of dark creatures circling this city, out beyond the view of the watch. I’m not sure if anyone has actually seen one, but the nomads are convinced they’re there. Sickness is said to follow in their wake.”
Nasaan’s chest tightened. “Winged creatures?”
“Yes.”
He remembered the thing he had seen on the battlefield the night he claimed Jezalya. Black-winged, immense, and clearly not a natural creature. Were there more of its kind out there? If so, what was their relationship to his djira? Were they her allies? Her servants? Or something even more alarming? He was suddenly acutely aware of how far out of his element he was. He needed a priest to help him sort it all out. But there was no priest that he trusted enough to share this with.
“The merchants speak of these creatures?”
“Not yet. Only the nomads.” He paused. “But that will change, if this goes on long enough. And if the tribes panic—when they panic . . . “ He let the word trail off meaningfully.
Then there will be chaos, Nasaan thought. And the gods may well decide to strike down the one who brought it to their doorstep.
Drawing in a deep breath, he tried to settle the storm of frustration in his gut. Or at least to look as if he had settled it. Reaching to his belt, he nodded stiffly. “I understand, Sarosh. Thank you. Your counsel is valuable to me, as always.”
He pulled a small purse loose from his belt and handed it to him. The merchant did not look inside as he took it, but weighed it briefly in his palm and was apparently pleased by the results. “It is an honor to serve such a generous prince,” he said, bowing his head respectfully.
He turned and headed toward the entrance. Nasaan listened to his footsteps receding for a moment, then said, “Sarosh.”
The footsteps stopped.
“Bandezek will be safe from this plague.”
There was a pause. “Our families will be glad to hear that, your Highness.”
Then the footsteps passed over the threshold, leaving Nasaan alone with his gods.
Chapter 30
T
HE MAP was in eight pieces, and each one had been folded several times. Even with rocks holding down the corners it was hard to keep them all flat. How little sorcery would it have taken to flatten them out? Or to bind the pieces together into a cohesive whole? Though Colivar once might have disdained Salvator for his stubborn refusal to accept the use of sorcery, these days, with the spirit of a Souleater clawing at his own soul from the inside, he did not view Penitent beliefs in quite the same light.
Gwynofar had joined them at this meeting, along with one of Farah’s marshals, a swarthy man introduced to them as Kaht. There was also a young woman named Shina, who had been put in charge of organizing the Seers and the Penitent witches into a united fighting force. Everyone watched silently as Farah laid out his papers, trying to derive meaningful information from the hastily scrawled images.
“The city is small by northern standards,” Farah told them. “The eastern quarter is given over to the House of Gods, here.” He pointed to the drawing of a round, domed building. “The palace is in the center of the city, here. The city is walled, solid stone on the outside with tempered earth at the core. Every witch that comes to the city is asked to contribute a spell to its reinforcement. That has been going on for twenty or thirty generations now, so locals believe that nothing short of a direct strike from the gods themselves could harm it. Probably true.”
“Underneath?” Favias asked.
“Also reinforced, my scout says. It would appear that all the mundane routes of invasion have been guarded against.” Farah folded his arms over his chest. “The current prince is a tribal warrior named Nasaan, who took the city by force a few months ago. He commanded a rather sizable army for this region—nearly a thousand men—but also relied heavily upon spies within the city to infiltrate its defenses. Locals now joke that every third person in the city answers to him, so trying to establish spies in the city would be risky business.
“He has a consort, supposedly a witch of some sort. Few people have seen her.” He looked at Salvator. “It is rumored she is not human, but some kind of demon. It is also rumored that she controls Nasaan. Neither is sitting well with the populace.”
“Siderea Aminestas,” Salvator muttered.
Most likely, Colivar thought. It was hard for him to associate the name with an enemy who had nearly taken his life, rather than a lover he had once known. Images of the two were too tangled up inside his brain for him to separate them cleanly.
“Is it possible she really does control him?” Gwynofar asked. “Perhaps in a magical sense?”
“I’m sure he still has his free will,” Colivar said dryly. “She delights in seducing men into obedience. There’d be no sport to it if they couldn’t resist.”
“A weakness,” Salvator muttered. Clearly adding it to some mental checklist he was assembling. “So is the city loyal to this Nasaan? Do we know?”
Farah shook his head. “My scout said that the citizens don’t seem to care much who rules them . . . though the inhuman-witch-consort thing has them a bit on edge. They’ve weathered a few violent coups in the past, and most just try to keep their heads down until the trouble passes. Nasaan offered to spare the city if it surrendered, and the majority of its residents went along with that.” He paused. “His warriors are another matter. Tribal culture is fierce and bloodthirsty, and they consider dying in battle to be a sacred honor. If you met them in combat, you’d have to kill them to the last man before they’d give up . . . and maybe not even then.
“Outside the city is a strip of no-man’s land, and beyond that, that great desert itself. It’s populated by nomadic tribes, who gravitate to—and fight over—whatever stretch of land will feed their animals. The nearer ones have all sworn loyalty to Nasaan. The tribes that are farther out . . . .” He hesitated. “There are strange rumors, my scout said. Some sort of wasting disease running rampant there. He even heard tales of human sacrifices being offered, in an effort to get the gods to intervene.”
That is a Souleater’s influence, Colivar thought. Or more than one. The thought brought back memories from so long ago it was like viewing another man’s life. Images flashed before his eyes: whole towns with the spirit sucked out of them. Men and women who lacked the strength to feed themselves. Children abandoned by parents who had lost the capacity for human affection. “Where is this sickness supposed to be?”
Farah sketched out a wide circle on the map. The eastern side of it intersected a narrow line of mountain ridges, arranged in perfectly parallel lines. They looked as if some great beast had rent the earth with his claws.
“That’s where they are,” Colivar whispered. “The Souleaters.”
Ramirus looked at him. “How many, do you think?”
His eyes narrowed as he considered the question. “If there were approximately three dozen to start with . . . minus the ones who were left to guard the queen up north, which she killed . . . which was probably only a token force, as they were clearly planning to move their focus down south . . . .” He paused. “We should plan for two dozen. At least.”
Sulah whistled softly. “That’s a lot of Souleater
s.”
“I don’t think we have armaments to take on that many,” Favias said.
“Steel will work on them,” Colivar assured him. “It’s just not as effective.”
Ramirus stroked his beard thoughtfully. “The primary challenge, as I understand it, is getting them to come to ground.”
“The primary challenge with that many Souleaters,” Colivar said dryly, “is figuring out a way to avoid having all your soldiers lie down on the sand and beg to be eaten. Everything else is secondary to that.”
“I remember that,” Kamala said quietly. “At Danton’s castle, when—” She glanced at Salvator. “When Andovan died. I remember . . . wanting to be devoured.”
“And that Souleater was little more than a mad beast,” Colivar reminded her. “These won’t only be sane, they’ll have access to higher intelligence—and human allies to tell them when and how to best apply their power.” He looked at Favias. “Allies who may be able to keep them from responding to your call as a wild Souleater would. We must allow for that possibility.”
“The queen that I fought was bound to a human,” Gwynofar pointed out. “And she responded to my challenge.”
“She was bound to a child who knew nothing of strategy. And who was likely not strong enough to control her on a good day.” He shook his head. “That won’t be the case here.”
Some of the riders they were about to confront might be survivors of the Great War. Those men had been powerful witches in their own right even before Souleaters had come into the picture. But he had no way to explain how dangerous they were without explaining how he knew that, so he kept his silence.
Some of them might even be men he knew. That wasn’t a new thought, but the reality of it was only now sinking in. If he participated in this battle, he might well come face to face with those he had once lived with, fought with . . . and betrayed a world with. And then there was Nyuku. Hatred surged within him at the mere mention of the name. He had thought that all the centuries he’d put between them would have blunted the edge of that hatred, but apparently not.
Salvator looked at Farah. “What of the anchors? Did your man take care of that?”
“Aye,” Farah said. “He planted them here, here, and here.” He indicated points on the map just outside the no-man’s-land. “And he says that he buried one behind the House of Gods as well, in case anyone needed to go straight there. Assuming you don’t think the gods would mind,” he added dryly.
“Very well,” Salvator said, gazing down at the map. Colivar could almost hear his mind churning as he struggled to reduce all the information he’d just been given into some kind of cohesive strategy. “We have one goal that matters here, and one goal only. If the young Souleater queen is killed, then the rest of the species can be hunted down and destroyed at leisure. If she escapes, she may have a chance to create new queens before anyone can stop her. Once that happens there will be no practical way to eradicate them. Everything else must be planned with that in mind.”
“Does she differ from the males in any way that matters to us?” Gwynofar asked.
Colivar could see Kamala hesitating. He nodded slightly in encouragement, but she was clearly nervous about contributing information to the conversation. As someone who had spent centuries concealing how much he knew about these creatures himself—and having had to dance a veritable tarantella around the subject in recent months—he was sympathetic to her misgivings.
Not to mention, revealing the nature of the queen’s power would reveal her own. Though they won’t understand that.
“She can mask her presence through misdirection,” she said at last, “to a degree the others can’t. No one will be able to see her unless she wants to be seen. And probably no sorcery can be focused on her while her defenses are up.” She glanced at Salvator. “Or witchery.”
“So we’ll have to draw her out,” Salvator said.
“Siderea’s not a fool,” Colivar pointed out. “At the first sign of trouble she’ll flee Jezalya, taking the ikati queen with her.”
Salvator nodded. “Then the first issue is making sure she can’t do that.”
Shina offered, “It should be possible to raise a spell that would hinder transport. But the power that would be required to do that, if we don’t know exactly where she is . . . .”
“You’d have to cover all of Jezalya,” Ramirus said. “And since you can’t set up camp directly outside city walls, that means a lot of extra territory would have to be included.”
Favias pointed to the places where Farah had indicated anchors had been placed. “If witches came in at these points simultaneously, they could spread out from there. Shina?”
“Six focal points surrounding the city would be enough to establish a stable containment field,” she said. “Mind you, that wouldn’t prohibit all witchery. But it would cut short any attempt at magical transportation.”
“So Siderea would not be able to escape, with or without her ikati.”
“Six focal points for your witches means six points of weakness for an enemy to attack,” Farah pointed out. “Kill one witch, break the circle. You are surrounded by tribes who answer to Nasaan, and possibly to her as well. Too easy.”
“Our Seers can pool their energy into a single conjuration,” Favias told him. “Removing one of them might weaken it, but the spell wouldn’t collapse completely in any one place.”
“But weaken it enough, and Siderea might be able break through,” Salvator pointed out. “So everyone conjuring the spell will need cover, both military and metaphysical.”
“You have enough witches for all that?” Farah asked, raising an eyebrow.
Salvator glanced up at him. A faint smile twitched his lips. “God provides for the faithful, King Farah.”
“We still have two dozen Souleaters to deal with,” Favias reminded them. “They’ll see us as soon as we arrive, and if they have human intelligence, they’re going to figure out what we’re up to. Any one of them could lay waste to a witch and her bodyguards without missing a wingstroke. So we have to deal with them first or the rest is all meaningless.”
“But if we do battle with them first, then Siderea will know that trouble is coming, and she’ll likely flee. Along with our quarry.” Salvator rubbed his forehead; it did nothing to ease the pain in his head. “What weapons can be used against these creatures? Besides the obvious?”
“Witchery—like sorcery—requires that one focus one’s attention on the target,” Ramirus said. “So we can’t rely on that being available.”
“I fought one,” Kamala reminded him. “Outside Danton’s castle. I focused on him well enough to use . . . witchery.”
Colivar shook his head. “That one had been mentally unhinged by the death of its human consort. It could barely think straight, much less defend itself in any meaningful way.”
Salvator looked at him suddenly. “Do they all respond like that when their human partners are killed?”
For a moment Colivar was silent. He was considering what he should or should not say . . . and what memories these words might awaken. Then, very quietly, he offered, “My understanding is that it depends on how long the bond between them has existed. For those who are newly joined, the death of one’s Souleater’s simply returns the human mind to its former state. A disorienting experience, to be sure, but not necessarily a crippling one. But the longer a bond endures, the more interdependent the two minds become. The sudden loss of half one’s soul can be a devastating blow when you have forgotten any other mode of existence. And then for a Souleater, there is also the sudden loss of higher intelligence . . . which in some cases will be the only thing holding their bestial instincts in check.” He looked at Salvator. “If you kill their human partners, the ikati may turn upon each other. Or they could turn on Jezalya. Or on you. There’s no way to predict what will happen.”
“So how do we take out their partners?” Favias asked. “That sounds like the most realistic strategy.”
Colivar s
hook his head. “Souleaters never stray far from their human consorts. You won’t be able to attack either group without the other moving in to defend it.”
“What of Siderea herself?” Salvator asked thoughtfully. “If her Souleater were killed, would she go mad?”
Colivar hesitated. “That bond is very recent, so she should be able to weather severance fairly easily. But her queen may be another story. Depending on exactly how young it is, and when Siderea bonded to it . . . the creature may never have had to think for itself, except in the most primitive terms. In which case . . . .”
“. . . . It may not be able to function at all,” Salvator observed.
Colivar nodded. “Exactly.”
“So if we destroy Siderea, the queen may be an easy kill.”
“That’s only speculation,” Colivar warned him.
“I understand that.”
Folding his arms across his chest, Salvator gazed down at the map. “It all hinges on the Souleaters,then, doesn’t it? Without them in the picture, everything falls neatly into place. With them there, we have no starting point.” He shook his head, clearly frustrated. “There must be a way.”
“Majesty,” Favias said, “I’d like a chance to confer with my fellow Archivists on this. With all this new information, they may be able to come up with a new strategy to deal with the creatures. Immobilize them perhaps, even if we can’t kill them immediately.
Salvator considered, then nodded. “Very well. We could all use some time to digest this information, I think. Let’s adjourn until first thing tomorrow morning; you can brief us then.” He looked at Farah. “I thank you so much for all you’ve done for this campaign. If we’re successful in this, it will be in good part because of your efforts.”
“You flatter me, your Majesty.”
“Do you have the anchors with you?”
Farah reached into a small pouch hanging from his belt and drew out four slender pieces of bone. Each had a broken end and was incised with a symbol from the map. “The other part of each of these is buried at the arrival site, in one of the places I indicated. Magister Sulah said that organic material would provide the best trace, so that’s what we used.”
Legacy of Kings Page 39
