Iardu’s thick fingers enclosed her. She was a sphere of dancing light caught in his palm. If she had lungs, she would have sighed with the greatest relief she had ever known.
“Our time grows short,” said Iardu, his eyes flashing as he studied the scene beyond the window. He brought the globe of light to his face, and Sharadza looked into the glowing orbs of his prismatic eyes.
“You have made the journey that all sorcerers eventually make,” Iardu said, “trading your mortal body for one of your own making… the product of your sorcery. I tried to spare you this, but Gammir has left us no choice. When the body born of woman has been shed, the sorcerer must rebirth himself, creating a new shell for his lifeforce to inhabit. In your case, Gammir has interfered with this process. Now your immortal essence, your undying spirit, is tied to the very stones of this chamber where your new body manifested. See the runes about your bed? They are Sigils of Rebirth, the nexus of your power on this layer of reality. These inscribed stones are as much a part of you now as were the bones of your earthly body. If you manifest here again, creating another new shell from blood and shadow, you will be again as you were… a mindless predator addicted to the blood of the living. Gammir’s slave.”
No! It cannot happen again. Anything would be better.
Iardu scanned the walls and floor of the chamber. “Yes, these blocks of basalt are forever linked to you now. Yet I sense that you would rather face annihilation than be reborn as a fiend of Khyrei again and again without end.”
Yes. Annihilation is what I deserve.
“This rune circle is the seat of your power, Sharadza. Now and forever. The only way to escape the curse of this place is to move the stones themselves. This can be done once only, and my options for aiding you are limited. If you wish it, I can transport them to a place of safety and peace.”
I beg you, Iardu. Do this for me.
If you will not destroy me once and for all… then do this thing.
Iardu nodded.
Even now she felt the pull of the rune circle, a strange gravity drawing her essence closer to itself. Iardu carried her to the ring, but did not step inside. He waved a hand and the bed with its pile of pillows and silks slid across the chamber to block the doorway. The Circle of Rebirth lay empty before him now, a yawning whirlpool threatening to draw her into itself forever.
The sorcerer raised his arms. The light of her immortal soul blazed, a sphere of sunlight captured in his hand. He sang an ancient incantation and the black tower began to tremble. Shadows were snuffed out by the glow of his luminescent eyes. Gradually the chamber grew brilliant with white light flowing from nowhere. As if the very air itself had caught aflame, the great glow drowned all sensation. Iardu’s voice rose louder, mixing with the rumble as mortared stone tore itself apart.
Sharadza would have screamed then if she possessed a mouth. Since she did not, she merely endured the terrible pain of his spell. His own bellow of agony came unexpectedly.
The tower erupted in a globe of swirling flame.
Black stones rained upon the city like burning coals.
At the heart of the rushing mob, Tong ran alongside his freed companions. About them ran fifteen thousand Sydathians. They spewed from the wall of jungle as the legions of Onyx Guards from the Southern Gate rode in formation across the ruined farmland. Nine thousand devil-masked horsemen bearing lance, shield, and sword met the beastlings at the center of the smoking fields. Walls of roaring flame lined the gate road on either side. There would be no fleeing this battle.
Fight or burn.
Tong and his people chose to fight. The Sydathians raced ahead in their hound-like fashion, falling upon the legionnaires with silent fury. They plucked the lead cavalrymen of the host from their saddles like slaves picking fruit. Most of the killing would be done by the talons and fangs of the eyeless ones. Taking the fields had been easy, but the original advantage of surprise was now gone. Tong’s crude legion of three thousand slaves with stolen blades was the beating heart of the invasion force. Yet the eyeless ones were their true weapons. He watched the Onyx Guardsmen die beneath the furious speed and flailing arms of Sydathians, and he thanked the Earth God they were his allies.
A great band of women, children, and elders took their shelter beyond the treeline, guarded by a thousand horned beastlings. They would be safe there until the fighting was done and the city liberated. Until every last Onyx Guardsman was put to death or lay helpless in chains. The city’s general had underestimated the full strength of the rebellion, just as Tong had intended. The black legions were greatly outnumbered by the Sydathians, each of whom possessed the strength of ten men. The carnage in the fields was only a prelude. The true slaughter had only begun.
Sydathians and legionnaires clashed between walls of leaping fire. Tong wished he still rode on the back of Liberty, but the slaves could not convince their stolen mounts to enter the blazing fields. Even the calvary horses, trained to endure the chaos of battle, were skittish and frightened beneath the Onyx Guard, who whipped their flanks to drive them forward. Many of the armored ones abandoned their mounts for the steady feel of dirt beneath their heels. They drove forward on foot, only to die under a mass of leaping Sydathians.
Tong made his way through the ranks of warriors and beastlings, striving always to reach the southern wall. He came face to face with a dismounted captain as the warrior pulled his greatsword from the body of a dead Sydathian. His thrust had impaled it through the chest, and it died like a withering insect in the blood-soaked mud.
Tong’s sabre collided with the captain’s blade as he raised it.
Through the eyeholes of his fanged mask, the captain’s eyes were slits of darkness. His heavy blade moved quickly, battering away at Tong’s limited defenses. The escaped slave was no trained swordsman; yet the captain was exactly that. As the tip of the broad blade slashed a red line across his chest, Tong realized that this warrior would soon take his life. It was only a matter of seconds until his weary arm could no longer stop the greatsword’s arcing blade.
The press of soldiers and beastlings about them was tight. There was no disengagement possible. Tong raised the sabre again, his right arm gone numb as it absorbed the shock of the greatsword’s latest blow. A few more strokes and the blade would either slip into his bowels or take off his head. Tong sweated and screamed and beat his own blade uselessly against the captain’s armor. He chipped black lacquer from the bronze, but drew no blood.
The greatsword flashed sideways, and the sabre’s narrow blade broke in two. The useless hilt fell from Tong’s fingers.
The captain raised his blade again for a death blow that never fell. A pair of long white claws grabbed him from behind and tore the helmeted head from his shoulders. A gout of crimson rose up like a fountain, raining down upon Tong’s head and shoulders. He laughed at the death that had almost claimed him, gave a wordless thanks to the Sydathian brother who saved him, and took up the fallen greatsword as his own. He hoped it would serve him better than it had the headless captain.
So went the battle. Tong had learned to hold back and let the Sydathians do their grisly work. They did it easily and very few of them perished. Yet those slaves who rushed into battle with the trained soldiers fell quickly. Tong barked orders and curtailed the bloodlust of his freed brothers, while the eyeless ones tore the black legions apart. They reminded him of slaves scything down rows of ripe wheat. In less than an hour it was done.
Tong stood amid his fellows waving bloody blades at the stars, their faces red in the glow of untamed flames. The Sydathians did not cheer, they only convened once more in a great circle about Tong and his people. The eyeless ones did not celebrate victory, for they were not human and had no appetite for the butchery that came so easily to them. The Sydathians gathered up the bodies of their fallen; less than fifty of the beastlings had fallen to the war skills of the Onyx Guards. Yet they had slaughtered three entire legions of armored Khyreins.
How many more legions lay h
idden beyond those black walls? Even as he shouted victory, Tong feared to see the great gate open and spill forth a fresh host. He knew only what all Khyreins did: that a great number of troops had been sent west recently to fortify the Border Legions at the edge of the Great Marshland. Rumors of war with Yaskatha and Uurz had been growing for years. While Matay had still lived, she and he had stopped their work briefly to watch the long lines of warriors filing into the jungle, following a hidden road toward the distant swamps. Yet Tong was sure the city retained a few legions for its own defense.
Despite a deep cut on his forearm that bled profusely, the lad Tolgur had thus far survived. He stood near to Tong, leaning on a bloody spear. He was the first to raise his hand and point toward the black wall. Between the twin gate towers, bathed in the glow of the burning fields, there stood two winged figures. The flesh of each one burned white, even in the glow of orange night, and living shadows swirled about their bodies. Their wings were pointed, featherless things, folding upon their backs and rustling. At first Tong thought them two great pale bats. Then he saw the bright crowns gleaming on the brow of each figure.
Emperor Gammir had come forth to view the rebellion. His pale Empress stood near to him, raising lithe arms, shedding white flames from her eyes. Gammir the Reborn had returned from death only seven years ago, and Iardu said the Empress Ianthe had returned now as well. They were immortal beings, and their power was not confined or limited by death. Every man knew these things.
As he watched the darkness swirl about the bright couple, Tong knew that Ianthe herself had come to crush his people. Could even the Sydathians stand against her power?
The Empress sang a screeching song, and men grabbed their ears in pain. The Sydathians sniffed the acrid air, sensing the presence of something they did not recognize. Yet they knew enough to fear it. Tong felt their fear as surely as he heard the hellsong of the sorceress.
The flaming plantations were snuffed out in an instant. A pall of smoke hung between the fields and the distant stars. The moon was lost behind dark, roiling vapors. Now these vapors shifted and flowed and joined with the shadows rising from the bloodstained earth. Shadows tore themselves from the stony substance of the black city’s walls and strode like Giants into the ashen fields. Winged shadows arose like great bats from the battlements where faceless guardsmen watched in awe. Serpents of living, seething darkness slithered from the river depths, gliding toward the Sydathian horde and its core of desperate slaves.
The host of crawling shadows fell upon the eyeless ones, thicker than black smoke. It rushed forward like a river of pitch to drown the army of pale beastlings. Some of the shadow horde resembled cobras, bats, wolves, Serpents, or deformed Giants; others shambled forward with no certain forms, conglomerations of talon, tentacle, beak, fang, and claw.
Tong’s forces had stood in the bloody glow of victory moments earlier, but now his brothers cringed before a tide of rushing darkness. In seconds it would smother them all, tear the lives from their bodies, and feed on the mangled debris of their souls.
He squeezed the grip of the greatsword with both hands and prepared to die.
I tried, Matay. Now at last I come to be with you.
Angry thunder split the night. An orb of fire akin to the sun itself erupted over the black city. Beyond the wall of rushing, creeping shadows, Tong saw a tower of the Great Palace disappear in a blast of churning brilliance. Rays from the miniature sun flashed in every direction, piercing the horde of shadows. A great cry rose into the night, the wailing of ten thousand damned souls in agony. The looming shadows burned away like wisps of fog in the glow of a sudden dawn.
A storm of basalt shards showered down upon the city. A few of the flying fragments toppled guards from the city walls or shattered the watchtowers between battlements.
Bathed in the radiance of dispelled horror and reborn hope, Tong smiled.
Iardu.
Atop the great gate, Emperor and Empress turned their heads to stare at their fractured palace, where the westernmost tower was no more.
“Forward, Brothers!” Tong cried, lifting up the greatsword once again. “Make for the gate! Our moment is now!”
Sydathians and slaves rushed forward in a great wave. The eyeless ones dug their talons into cracks between the stones of the great wall, climbing like a swarm of pale spiders toward the battlements.
14
Two Old Friends
The capital of Yaskatha sat proud and gleaming on the edge of a turquoise sea. Its lean spires shone silver against the blue heavens, and its flapping crimson banners bore the Sword and Tree sigil of King D’zan’s house. The Royal Palace stood atop a hill at the center of the city, surrounded by vineyards and orchards ripe with pomegranates, peaches, mangoes, plums, and other bounties of nature. The city streets were arranged in a series of concentric avenues and spacious colonnades. Public gardens grew thick with homeflower, jasmine, coconut, and starblossom. Sun-browned folk with golden hair filled the seaside marketplace, filing in from the green pastures east of the city.
Below the polished ramparts, marble wharves swarmed with activity. Hundreds of trading vessels unloaded spices, silk, and exotic wines. At either end of the crescent bay, three hundred tall war galleons sat poised for sailing, the famous Yaskathan fleet, second only to Mumbaza’s in size and grandeur. The King’s banner flew from every gilded prow, and the sails bore greater versions of the Sword and Tree.
Lyrilan stood in the bow of the Sunrider with Volomses and watched the gaudy sails of foreign traders flow in and out of the port. After thirty-three days at sea it would be good to feel solid ground beneath his feet again. The voyage had been an easy one, despite several summer storms. No pirates or sea monsters to endure. He had survived the sinking of Dairon’s Spear eight years ago thanks to dumb luck and the valor of Vireon Vodson. No far-seeing necromancer was striving to sink his vessel this time, which was fortunate because the Sunrider carried no heroes today. In addition to the busy crewmen, there was only Lyrilan, Undroth, Volomses, and the dozen legionnaires who had accompanied them from Uurz.
Lyrilan breathed deep the salty air, laced as it was with the aroma of foreign spices and peeled fruits. The warm scents of Yaskatha, where he hoped to find sanctuary.
The trip from Uurz to Murala remained a dull blur in his memory. His mind had still been fragmented during that leg of the journey, sodden with the terrible weight of guilt. Undroth had hired a carriage and four strong stallions for Lyrilan’s exodus. Volomses had ridden beside him on the thick cushions of the coach’s interior. Undroth and his loyalists rode escort on mailed horses. In order to avoid the mass of crowds and the acrimony of those who might waylay or harass the banished Scholar King, the carriage had left the city well before dawn.
Only a few wandering drunks and a squad of gate guards witnessed Lyrilan’s departure. None of them had fair words for Lyrilan or his retainers. Any such sentiments might see a man jailed or killed now that the Sword King was Emperor. Lyrilan curled himself upon the carriage’s couch and slept, waking only at the prompting of Volomses to eat dried fruit and drink a bit of stale wine. Ramiyah’s kisses still burned on his tongue, and he tasted nothing else.
Two heavy chests rattling on the floor of the carriage contained all that was left of his royal status. The first one held the Books of Imvek the Silent, along with a few fresh quills and rolls of good parchment. The second chest held a fortune in tourmalines, topazes, opals, emeralds, garnets, and other precious stones. Undroth had chosen well the most valuable items from Lyrilan’s personal treasury. Although he was no longer King, he would still live like a monarch wherever he decided to go.
One piece of jewelry stayed gripped in his hands for that ride, and Undroth could not remove it with soft words or prying fingers. Ramiyah’s necklace of pearls was set with a single great ruby; it was all he had to remind him of her. He moved the pearls tenderly through his fingers, kissed the bright ruby, and at times he even spoke to it. He offered to the stone the ap
ologies that he would never be able to bestow upon his wife. Volomses indulged him, though often Undroth would peer in through the carriage window, braided beard heavy with the dust of the road, and wipe his sweaty face in consternation.
Lyrilan spoke very little as the carriage pulled them along the Western Road, past villages destroyed by the long drought. Undroth gave out bits of copper and bronze to appease the crowds of beggars, but he did not stop the little caravan often. Lyrilan peered out the window at the brown and yellow fields that were once verdant and prosperous. They passed by like sad dreams sweltering in the heat of day. It seemed the Stormlands were dying.
Tyro had won the Empire, but it would crumble beneath him. His war would sap the land of its strongest and heartiest men, and the drought would continue to drain the land of everything else. Eventually this realm would all be desert once again, as it was in Dairon’s day. The Desert of Many Thunders would return. All those who survived would have to leave the Stormlands or move to Uurz itself, where overcrowding and starvation had already taken hold of the poorest quarters. These were the problems Tyro and his advisors ignored as they planned for the red game of war. Madness.
Lyrilan wondered if his own miserable condition was simply part of the madness that infected his homeland. Perhaps a Great Dying had come to the realm, and there would be no escape from it. No escape except, perhaps, for that of an exiled King. He laughed that day in the carriage, imagining himself the last survivor of the dead and decaying Stormlands, yet unable to ever set foot there again. Tyro and his descendants would soon rule a kingdom of dust and bones.
Dreams of Ramiyah tormented him during those nights on the seaward highway. When there was no inn, or when he wished to keep their presence hidden, Undroth made camp in the dry grasses far off the main road. There Lyrilan’s retinue slumbered beneath the stars, and all the men heard his moaning as he attempted to sleep. He clung to Ramiyah’s necklace and whispered to it when he awoke in the dark, then fell back into dreaming her murder over and over again. He remembered few of these nightmares, but in some of them Tyro executed him before the assembled crowds of Uurz, shearing off his head with a double-bladed axe. From these dreams he awoke calm and full of disappointment. For an instant he thought himself mercifully freed from the burden of living. Volomses ignored his perpetual heavy sighs, enduring them like a patient physician. He prepared boiled herbs and mulled wine to ease Lyrilan’s pain.
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