Varda shared the tent of the Ice King, while Vireon and Tyro kept their own pavilions. This time Vireon insisted Dahrima sleep inside. She curled up on the muddy rugs his attendants had spread to create a makeshift floor. The three armies passed an uncomfortable night lying on half-frozen ground and gnawing strips of dried meat rations. There was no singing or merriment this night, for the minstrels, harlots, and poets had been left behind at the edge of the marshes, and neither Man nor Giant held the mood for festivity.
Cries in the night woke Vireon more than once. Men slept uneasily in this place, haunted by the alleged ghosts that lurked here, or perhaps by their own superstitious minds. In the darkest part of the night, another great lizard wandered into the camp. It devoured two Uurzians and four horses before the Giants rose up to slay it. There was little sleeping among the ranks after that battle. Each of the three Kings doubled the watch under his command, but no more attacks came that night.
In the morning the camp rose early, eager to leave the horrid landscape behind. Vireon blinked away the remnants of nightmares. He had dreamed that Alua and Maelthyn were lost in the treacherous marshland. All night long as he slept he chased them and called out their names, and so awoke frustrated and unrested. This only angered him, and he pushed the troops to assemble themselves at a record pace. They must leave this place behind before its abstract terrors became real enough to do lasting harm. The loss of a few Men and Giants to the swamp was regrettable, but acceptable. All warriors knew the risk of a campaign. Yet the bulk of the triple host must remain intact when the three Kings reached the far side of the marshes.
They traveled fifteen leagues the next day, each one frozen by Varda’s magic, and the Giants slew two more hungry lizards. The Udvorg now professed great satisfaction with the raw flesh of these creatures. They had learned how to tip the beasts over to expose their vulnerable undersides. They offered cuts of bloody lizard flesh to their human allies, but the Men had not yet grown desperate enough to dine on such grisly fare. The Udvorg found great humor in the sensitivity of Men’s bellies. Angrid agreed with Vireon that, while the mammoth lizards dwelled in the swamp, the beasts must hunt for prey in the red jungle. There was no suitable game for creatures of such great size in the marshes. None but the host passing through it now.
In the fading light of early evening, Vireon first glimpsed the red jungle rising from the mists. Mighty trees, many of them tall as northern Uygas, gleamed scarlet and ruby, changing to shades of burgundy and carmine as the shadows of night crept eastward. The darkness beneath their tangled limbs was thicker than the swamp mud. If there were eyes staring upon them from the jungle depths, Vireon could not tell.
Only a few final leagues of marshland lay between the vanguard and the blood-colored jungle when Varda the Keen Eyes spotted the first of the watchtowers. The edge of the jungle marked Khyrei’s true border. Officially Ianthe’s empire included the swamps, but no Emperor of the black city was foolish enough to try and fortify the sunken land. Instead, a network of towers stood along the line of demarcation between swamp and jungle.
The towers were built of black basalt, like the city that gave them birth, and their summits were barbed with upturned spikes thick as ships’ masts. They rose from the jungle’s edge, spaced about five leagues apart, forming a north-to-south boundary. The line of fortified spires was known to extend into the southern reaches of the swampland, all the way to the Cryptic Sea. There was nothing to do but confront the Border Legions here, where they might still salvage an element of surprise.
“How many Men do you think are garrisoned inside one of those towers?” Tyro asked Vireon.
“At least a hundred,” Vireon guessed.
“Pardon me, Lords,” said Mendices, who rode near to Tyro. “My sources say a thousand men can live comfortably within these lean citadels, double that if pressed. Their size cannot easily be appreciated from this distance.”
“And if these towers stretch all the way to the southern shore as you say, how many must there be? How many legions control this border?”
“Rumors of war have been flying for years now,” said Tyro. “I suspect the Khyreins have boosted their defenses along this line. We must send scouts ahead to give us numbers and suggest formations.”
“Good,” said Vireon. “Send Men. Giants are too noisy.”
“Agreed,” said the Sword King. Tyro set Mendices the task of assembling a covert force of Uurzians to explore the jungle’s edge and survey its black towers. The band of scouts ran into the darkness with only the sounds of sucking mud to mark their passage.
With the last two leagues of swamp ahead of them, the host stopped to rest by the light of a full moon. The Kings saw flames dancing in the upper windows of the nearest watchtower. Standing on the shoulders of a Giant, Vireon saw three such towers, including one directly ahead of the triple host. The second and third towers rose to the north and south of their path. He saw fires dancing amid the jungle trees too, sign of additional troops encamped outside the strongholds. The Kings allowed no encampment this close to their enemy. Not until they discovered exactly what lay before them. They might have no choice but to rush forward and wage a nocturnal battle. If they did choose to stay in the marshes until dawn, it would be another night without fire or warm food. A restless mood fell across the waiting host.
The time for the spilling of Men’s blood was almost upon them.
Not long after the company of scouts departed, the wailing of horses drew Vireon’s attention. Men rushed from the lines, bellowing warnings of black tentacles or colossal vipers risen from the muck. Six riderless horses fell or were pulled into deep pools of marshwater. Vireon went prowling about the edge of the camp with Dahrima at his back. Men and Giants watched as the black waters of a great mere rippled.
“There!” a soldier shouted, pointing with the head of his spear. A dark tendril shot up from the muck and extended itself toward him. Soldiers poked at it with spears. They leaped back into the midst of their fellows, trying to avoid the grasp of the slippery thing. Vireon bounded forward as the appendage wrapped itself around a spearman’s torso and lifted him from the ground.
“My Lord!” The helpless warrior screamed, arms pinned to his sides, eyes pleading at Vireon. “Help me!”
Vireon’s greatsword flashed in the moonlight. The warrior fell into the mud, half the severed tentacle still wrapped about his waist, twitching and oozing a noxious ichor. The dripping stump withdrew into the waters. Soldiers pulled their brother free and sliced the tendril into quivering bits, which they kicked back into the fetid water.
Another shout rang out in another part of the camp, and Men screamed in alarm. Vireon looked above their heads where another tentacle, greater in size than the first, rose from the muck to linger eyeless and pointed. It struck like a viper, pulling warriors into the air, then directly into the dark waters of the lakelet. They would soon drown if they were not immediately devoured by whatever beast lurked below the swamp’s surface.
Vireon raced through the ranks of startled men, and now cries of surprise and horror came from all sides. Oily black tentacles burst from the newly thawed muck to strike at Man, Giant, and horse alike. Sprays of blood filled the air as the tendrils crushed flesh and bone to ghastly pulp.
Men ran to avoid the arc of Vireon’s blade as he slashed at the darting coils. It seemed the earth itself sprouted clammy members to steal the lives that dared its cursed ground.
“They’re everywhere!” someone yelled.
“Gods preserve us!” rang from another place in the panicked ranks.
“Ghurvald! It’s taken Ghurvald!” cried a stricken Uurzian. Chaos replaced the orderly nature of the lines, and their formations fell to pieces.
The black tendrils rose up everywhere, dripping with silt and tangled roots. The northerners sliced and hacked at them, but there was no end to their number. The marshy ground trembled beneath Vireon’s feet as he shouted orders and severed another serpentine limb.
; A great moan rose like thunder from the marsh, and the world turned upside down.
A colossal thing of mud and tremulous flesh rose up beneath the triple host, trailing slime and mire from its shambolic bulk. It stood tall and broad as a craggy hill, stinking of ancient filth, a forest of tendrils striking out to entrap its victims. Men, horses, and even Giants toppled sideways and fell from its quivering back as the impossible mass boiled up from below, scattering lives and loamy boulders by the score. Its tentacles grabbed most of those who fell from the rising heap, squeezing and ripping and dousing the host below with hot blood.
It had no definite form, this mad creature from beneath the swamp. Its blistered, warty flesh was rife with fanged mouths, a hundred gnashing, mewling, vomiting maws. Tentacles deposited the choicest bits of Men and horses into these champing orifices, and sometimes whole Men died between the rows of jagged fangs. A chorus of wailing voices fell from its unknown summit, the tremulous cries of tortured animals or Men.
Giants strode forth to battle the Swamp God and they, too, were caught in its steely grip. Axes and spears sank into pustulant flesh with little effect. Vireon lay in the mud for a second where the beast’s uprising had tossed him, and he realized the entirety of the scene.
This nameless obscenity was the true guardian of the Khyrein border. It was no coincidence that it slumbered so close to the line of watchtowers. The creature writhed and shivered across the marsh, the height of its shapeless body dwarfing even the tallest Giant, its numberless tentacles faster and deadlier than vipers. It loomed large enough to blot out stars and moon.
Somewhere along the western edge of the triple host, someone screamed a fresh warning between the blasts of an Uurzian war horn.
“Khyreins! Border Legions!”
Another note from the horn tore through the night. Vireon struggled to his feet and tore at the dragging tentacles about his waist and limbs. One of the fanged maws loomed above him, gnashing rows of uneven teeth and spewing filth. It yawned wider than the mouths of the great lizards, mindlessly eager.
“The Khyreins! They come!”
Men and Giants wailed and fought and died while the horn bellowed its warning.
Vireon understood now, but it was too late.
There was never any chance of surprising them here.
They were waiting for us.
Waiting to unleash this abomination.
A blue flame flickered somewhere in the howling darkness.
16
Shards of Dawn
An abiding tranquility replaced the fading thunder. A universe of brilliant flame died away, replaced by warm golden sunlight. Green leaves rustled on the rim of awareness. Vision was a blurred and shifting thing at first, but sound came more easily into focus. The songs of gulls mingled with the trilling of island birds. The sighing of gentle winds rustled the tops of trees. From somewhere beyond the whispering foliage came the rhythmic pounding of surf against sand.
Smells came next, the scents of fresh loam, summer grass, tree bark, honeysuckle… then jasmine and the ripe flesh of hanging fruits.
Vines coiled together beneath a roof of twining leaves. A pair of red plums dropped from a low tree branch. Bits of stone buried in the brown loam shifted toward the surface and joined with the mass of busy foliage. Plant, fruit, and stone merged in a two-legged, two-armed pattern.
A body of living vegetation lay in the dappled shade of the green lawn, soaking in the raw powers of sun, wind, and sky.
I live.
She pulled her leafy limbs together, sent the stone flowing like water through the center of them. The fallen plums turned to glinting emeralds, then opened as a pair of sea-green eyes. The immense power of the earth seethed like an ocean; she floated on the skin of its roiling surface. It flowed into her from the roots and leaves of the curling vines. She wrapped more of the ropy plants about the skeleton that had been the naked stones. Blossoms of darkest purple crept forward to encircle her skull, becoming at once her flesh and the locks of her hair.
Elemental energies converged like stormwinds, and Sharadza wove them together like filaments of silk or wool. Now she stood, flexing vegetable legs and raising her leafy arms toward the sun. The final movement of the song her mind sang with the melodious earth brought a transformation from fibrous green to brown and supple skin.
She stood tall and whole in the body she remembered, and she called forth a second skin of leaf and vine, which became a gown of green fabric laced with a neck design of purple blossoms.
I live, and I breathe.
And I do not thirst.
How long has it been?
A familiar voice interrupted her thoughts. “How do you feel?” Iardu asked.
The wizard stood not far away, beneath the branches of a pomegranate tree. His red-orange robe refracted the sunlight even more than the jeweled rings upon his fingers. His mother-of-pearl eyes narrowed at her without their usual chromatic sparkle. He looked unspoiled yet weary. He rubbed his small silver beard as he looked her over.
Sharadza inhaled, welcoming the sweet garden air into her lungs. Tears smelling of plum streamed from her new eyes. “Alive,” she whispered. “I scarcely believe it. After what happened… after what I had become…”
“A lie,” said Iardu, stepping close enough to touch her shoulder. “Your half-brother twisted your natural pattern, adding his own foul ingredients. I’ve removed them as best I can. But see here the stones that were the floor of the tower chamber where he kept you.”
Sharadza scanned the grassy earth about her bare feet. She stood at the center of a loop of rectangular stones. They were scattered in an uneven circle about the garden, blocks of dark basalt, each one as large as her head. On the exposed surface of each stone sat either an engraved rune, or a portion of a bisected rune. Her gaze followed the line of stones, taking in the intricacies of the sigils. This was the rune circle Gammir had carved all about her bed, where he had stolen and sculpted her first resurrection. Iardu had plucked these stones from the crumbling floor of the tower as his sorcery destroyed it.
“These stones are forever linked to your immortal essence,” said the sorcerer. “I am sorry this has been done to you. Yet your free will has been returned, the curse of the shadow lifted; these runestones are the nexus of your new existence. You have passed through the Gates of Death twice now. This second rebirth marks the beginning of your enlightenment. You no longer wear the chains of the body your mother birthed. You have birthed yourself this time, without interference. I merely brought your spirit essence here, along with the stones that imprisoned it.”
“What is this place?” she asked. Now she looked beyond the mortared walls that enclosed the garden. Three towers of pale stone rose outside the tree-lined enclosure, turrets and eaves decorated by spirals of precious gemstones. She recognized neither the architecture nor the landscape.
“This is my garden,” said Iardu, opening his arms. “I’ve brought you to my island. My home.”
“Of course.” She knew this already, somehow. It would be some while before she could catalog and recognize all the things she now knew. A deep well of secrets yawned in the back of her mind.
“You will be safe here, far beyond the reach of your half-brother and his shadowlings. Whenever you shed this body, through violence or any other means, your spirit will return here to be reborn at the center of these stones.” Iardu’s ageless face darkened. “It was either this fate, or the one Gammir had in store for you. An eternity of slavery and bloodlust.”
Sharadza wrapped her new arms about Iardu. “Thank you,” she said. “I will never be able to repay what you’ve done for me. It was like a nightmare… I knew that what I did was not of my own intention, but I could not… I could not…” She lost her voice as the memory of hot, sticky blood in her throat returned. She saw for a moment the face of a boy she had killed and fed upon, then the faces of a harlot, a tradesman, a father, a cobbler. More. Ranks of nameless slaves without name or number bleeding and dy
ing at her knees.
The red, lingering kisses of Gammir…
The breath rushed from her lungs and she fell at Iardu’s feet. Her stomach roiled and would have emptied itself if it had contained anything at all. Yet this new body had eaten nothing but sunlight so far. She retched and heaved, drooling spittle into the grass. She wept.
Iardu bent down to wrap his arms about her.
“It’s all right,” he told her. His hands were gentle on her shoulders, warm against her back. “It’s all right.”
“No!” She pulled away, rubbing at her tears. She stared into his kindly face. “You don’t know the things… the things I’ve done. The killing… feeding on innocence like some wicked beast! He used me, Iardu. He made me do terrible things. I’ll never forget them. And I’ll never be able to forgive myself.” She shuddered as she wept, cupping her face in her hands. Her skin smelled of ripe leaves.
Iardu stood in silence while the waters of sorrow drained out of her. A bottomless reservoir of shame, guilt, remorse, and, beneath it all, an impotent anger. How could she? She should have killed herself rather than endure the filth of that dark existence. She did not deserve this liberation… this enlightenment of which he spoke.
“I should have…” she stammered. “I should have…”
“You should have never gone to see him,” Iardu said. “Yet you did. What happened was not your fault. We cannot change the past, Sharadza, but we can learn to live with it. You may think what Gammir has done has destroyed you. But hear me when I say this: it has only made you stronger.”
“I’m a murderer!” she shouted at him. “A thousand times over! And worse!”
“You are a sorceress!” He shouted back, startling her with his vehemence. “I tried to sway you from this path many years ago, but you were determined to walk in your father’s shoes. So you have. Tragedy and sorcery are no strangers. You are the daughter of Vod. You will endure. You must!”
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