The God King hotf-1

by James A. West

  Madness, the big man had said. For the denizens of the Chalice, no doubt such madness was brought on by hunger, desperation, and no small measure of greed … and for the soldiers of the Ivory Throne, perhaps something more motivated them. Though Varis’s cruel oppression was a new-birthed thing in Aradan, it must have engendered a greater sense of rebellious wrath in an already restive land. Even should he succeed, Kian understood that a grave change was coming on the hearts of all Aradaners-maybe all the world-a shift in men’s dealings with each other that could well alter the face of the nations.

  “If Sharaal gave the order to attack his own city and men,” Kian said, “then he must also have no intention of extending mercy to his heir. With such strife, blood will fill the gutters.”

  What the ultimate outcome would be, Kian could not guess, nor could he worry over it. For himself, he wanted to reach Varis before Sharaal, for only he could end Varis’s short rule.

  “Lead us to your man,” Kian said to Hya, his tone soft but dangerous.

  Chapter 45

  “You will need weapons,” Azuri advised.

  Kian’s hand fell to his side, and he felt more naked than he had moments before.

  Hya nodded toward the bed. “Under the mattress, you’ll find what you need-though it might not be what you want.”

  Kian dragged the mattress off a layer of splintery gray slats. Shoving these aside, he saw the gleam of steel. More, he saw rust, in great amounts. He did not bother asking her why she would have such a collection. He took only as much time as he dared in choosing out a dagger and sword. Both had good weight and decent balance, as well as scabbards. Of their rust-pitted blades and cracked leather hilts, there was nothing for it. And besides, he was not sure just how much use they would get anyway. Against Varis, the powers that had created mankind, and perhaps the very universe, would be the weapon of choice. Kian offered up a wordless plea to the silent god, Pa’amadin, to grant him the wisdom and skill to wield such godly powers this time, where he had failed before.

  At Kian’s nod, Azuri led them into the dim hallway, where they halted at the crash of a door kicked inward, then watched two grubby men edge into the shop. Lost in the shadows, Kian and the others remained hidden, preparing to ambush the shadowed figures. But before the intruders fully crossed the threshold, a shout turned them. Curses went up. A flash of steel-glowing orange from some unseen fire-streaked and slashed, and one of the men in the doorway let out a garbled squawk, reeling backward with blood gushing from his throat. His companion roared, made an ineffectual stabbing motion. His unseen foe parried the strike and countered smoothly, leaving the man shrieking, even as his sword and severed hand hit the floor with a clatter. An instant later, the screams were cut off by wet gagging noises, as the man choked on a foot of steel buried in his neck.

  With quiet urgency, Kian turned the opposite direction and ordered the others after him. He did not retreat out of fear, but rather need. His battle was with Varis, not the rabble of the Chalice, the House Guard, nor Prince Sharaal’s forces.

  Kian led his incongruous band into the makeshift stable. Without question, the air was colder than it had been when they arrived, colder than Kian could ever remember, even in Izutar. Their mounts’ rolling eyes reflected the orange light of nearby blazes whipped into infernos by howling winds.

  Azuri squeezed past the others to peer out through a crack in the wall’s planks. “The fools are burning everything.”

  “Madness!” Hazad said again, as that seemed accurate enough.

  “Anyone in the alley?” Kian asked.

  “No,” Azuri answered.

  Kian did not hesitate. In one swift motion, he kicked the rickety door. Although just short moments before his strength had been in question, he now felt fully recovered, as if he had never been near death at all. The force of his blow ripped the hinges loose, and the snow-laden gale sent it flipping down the alley like a leaf.

  “Do we ride or go afoot?” Kian asked sharply.

  Hya, gaping at the chaos wrought by the storm and the hands of men, turned slowly. “By foot,” she said, pointing down the alley at a crumbling mud brick wall.

  Kian dragged the borrowed dagger free of its scabbard, slashed the horses’ lead ropes, then swatted their rumps to send them out into the storm. He hoped that their pounding hooves would hide his company’s escape down the dead-end alley. He also prayed Hya had not lost her wits, and instead of escape was leading them into a trap.

  Hya shook her head, and then moved with unexpected sprightliness into the biting storm, the others hard on her heels. Snow had already drifted against stacks of rubbish along the length of the alley, the pristine white speckled in brownish red grit and dark ashes. The bone-cracking chill shocked Kian’s mind to a preternatural clarity. He glanced about in anticipation of an attack. None came, but harried screams and shouts of command soared to them on the gale’s breath. Men and women ran hither and yon before the mouth of the alley, and their freed horses bowled over several people. No one stopped to help their fellows, and none looked down the alley.

  Ellonlef moved to his side and drew her dagger. In the erratic light, a glimmer of ferocity shone in her eyes that he would have expected only in a hardened warrior. He could almost pity any enemy that might happen across her path. Unable to resist, he flashed her a smile, which she returned.

  From behind, sounds of a brief, violent scuffle drifted out of the shop. A moment later, Azuri stepped free of the shadows, the end of his sword bloody. Shaking his head, he said, “We must be cautious. It seems the people of the Chalice have lost their minds to a sickness cured only by fighting.”

  Hya motioned for the others to follow her. Hazad trailed her like a huge mastiff. At the end of the alley, she instructed him to heave aside a haphazard stack of rotting hides. Hazad slammed his sword into its scabbard, caught hold of a bundle, and hurled it aside. As Hazad labored, he revealed a small half-door set low in the brick wall. Its iron banding was rusted, the wood coated in ancient mold and fungus, but it looked strong and thick.

  Once the way was clear, Hya produced a crude key and inserted it into a keyhole crusty with frozen slime. She tried to turn the key, but it would not budge. Hazad immediately squatted down, took the key in his fist, and cursed as he tried to turn the stubborn mechanism. After a vigorous rattle, it turned.

  Behind them, a furious shout went up. Kian spun, as did Ellonlef. Azuri moved beside them, casual in his stance, his gaze merciless. A dozen howling men rushed forward like a pack of rabid wolves. Rabble they were, bearing knives and cudgels, their wrath fired by the mindless rioting. Kian had seen such crazed behavior before, and knew bloodlust had stolen their reason. Taking a wider stance, Kian made ready.

  “Come!” Hya said sharply. She had to repeat the command twice more before Kian turned away from the fast-approaching mob. Hazad, his great bulk straining, heaved open the small iron door that lay just behind the outer wooden door. Rusted hinges shrieked in a voice higher and angrier than either the storm or the surging tide of murderers charging down the alley. Without pause for breath, Hazad turned, caught hold of Hya, and tossed her through the opening. He went after, straight into the face of her outraged curses.

  Kian did not bother a second glance at the attackers, but rather spun Ellonlef around and propelled her toward the small dark opening. She vanished quicker than either Hazad or Hya, followed by Azuri.

  The pounding of many feet rumbled the ground, maddened shouts filled the air. Kian dove headlong through the tiny doorway. He tumbled down a short flight of stone stairs, rolled a short way, and then shot to his feet. He rushed back the way he had come, lending his strength to Hazad’s in closing the iron door. A hand bearing a dagger poked through the shrinking gap, and bones broke with the sound of snapping twigs between mud brick and metal. The wielder screamed, the dagger clattered down the steps, and the mangled hand jerked out of sight.

  After the door boomed shut, Hya’s voice rang out. “There is a bar to the right
.”

  From outside, heavy pounding shuddered the door. Hazad’s frantic curses told that he was searching for but not finding the bar. Then, as the door began to creak open under the press of the rioters, his oaths cut off in a shout of triumph. Kian was knocked sprawling when the man slammed his girth against the door and fumbled the bar into place. The pounding lasted for a time, but there was easier prey elsewhere, and the marauders gave up and went after it.

  “Everyone stay where you are,” Hya ordered. “My warehouse is unkind to those who do not know how to navigate it without light.”

  Kian waited in cold, lightless silence, as Hya shuffled through the gloom. After few moments, the gentle sounds of running water filled the chamber. Slowly, a faint amber luminescence grew brighter and brighter, showing a wide, low-ceilinged storage area. The water he had heard emptied from a crude spout into a long and winding trough that fed numerous firemoss lamps situated throughout the underground warehouse. While that was rather ingenious to his mind, what amazed him was the untold amount of loot stored in crates, barrels, or simply heaped up in wobbly piles. While a quick study told him none of the goods were worth much individually, taken as a whole, Hya was in truth quite wealthy.

  Hya noted everyone gazing at the loot, then snorted quiet laughter.

  “All this,” she said, motioning with a wave of her arm, “has been collected in payment over the many long years of my time here. The Chalice offers little in the way of enticement for an old woman, so I use what I need, and put the rest here.”

  She got a faraway look in her eye then. “I had intended to sell it all and send the gold to Rida … now, I suppose that is a task I will never accomplish.”

  Kian felt her sorrow, yet at the same time he felt a growing sense of urgency. Moment by moment, he was sure the tide was turning in favor of Varis.

  Speaking gently, he said, “We must reach the palace, otherwise none of us, perhaps no one in the world, will ever finish put-off tasks, or any tasks, save those laid out by Varis.”

  Hya scrubbed the sheen of tears from her eyes, and that distant expression was replaced by fierce determination. “You speak the truth, Izutarian. Come, follow me.”

  Chapter 46

  Hya led them through the maze of stacked goods to the far side of the warehouse, and then climbed up a set of wooden stairs. She rattled a bolt and eased open a thick door, allowing the glow of leaping flames to filter past her. After a moment’s hesitation, she passed out of sight beyond the doorway, and Kian and the others hurried after.

  The room beyond proved to be a hovel so dilapidated as to be unappealing to looters. Sometime past, a fire had gutted the small building, and the previous owner, perhaps Hya herself, had boarded up the windows. Rot had created wide gaps in the boards, allowing the light of the Chalice’s present burning to cast a lurid radiance over the dusty floors and walls of the tumbledown building.

  Kian moved to a window and peered out. Men and women rushed by like animals fleeing crazed butchers at their heels. He had hoped the chaos had not spread so far. For all he knew, the Chalice and Ammathor both were beset by the desperate madness of the night.

  “Hya,” he asked, “which way do we go?”

  “Left out of the front door and down Wine Street,” she said, shaking her head in disgust at the sight of so much wanton carnage.

  “Against the flow,” Kian said, shaking his head. “We need horses, but without those …” He glanced around to Hazad.

  Hazad rolled his eyes. “I will lead. The rest of you just make sure no one pokes my backside.”

  All moved to the door facing Wine street and gathered behind the big man, Kian and Azuri placing Hya and Ellonlef between them and Hazad. Hazad looked back, received Kian’s nod and, with a bearish roar, kicked the boarded door, sending it and its splintered frame soaring into the street. In the general panic, few runners so much as glanced their way.

  Then they were out, running into a maelstrom of wind and snow, screams, blood, fear, and raging fire. Hazad was a ram before them, battering aside anyone who came too close. The rest followed in a narrow cone bristling with sharp blades. Hazad halted them as a handful of howling riders charged past on lathered horses, their swords and cudgels falling at will. Their victims, old and young, rolled through the deepening snow, leaving trails of blood.

  A battle cry turned the murderers, and a dozen mounted House Guard charged them. Outnumbered, they wheeled their mounts and galloped away. The guardsmen surged after, so intent on their prey that they did not see their true targets standing not twenty paces distant.

  Hazad set off again, going this way or that under Hya’s guidance. Every turn revealed sprawled, bloody corpses and innumerable wounded littering streets and alleys. A screeching trull was assaulted by a pair of crazed brutes, while not three paces away one of her companions indifferently rifled through the pockets of a dead man. Farther off, a gathering of urchins was busy trying to break into a closed shop, even as another group was using torches to set afire whatever they could, apparently just to watch it burn. Mostly, however, people who could ran. Everywhere was madness, chaos, fury and terror.

  “These people deserve Varis,” Kian growled, even as he broke from the group to strike off the arm of a bloated wretch of a man dragging a squalling naked girl of no more than ten years into an alley.

  His pain muted by shock and wine, the man reeled, his stump pouring scarlet. His mouth yawned wide as if to protest, but Kian gave him neither a hearing nor mercy, and rammed his steel into the man’s filthy guts. As the brute sank to his knees, his one hand failing to hold back the roping spill of his innards, Kian searched for the girl. She was already gone, fled into the night. He gave a brief and silent prayer for her safety. Of the man who had been intent on raping her, he left him moaning in the snow. For him, Kian prayed that the bastard would suffer through the whole night before death stole him away.

  Kian rejoined his companions, fury boiling in his chest. “Go!” he ordered, torn anew by the idea that he might well soon give his blood for people who deserved a life of chains and servitude. And if not for the little girl who had escaped, he might have changed his mind on the instant, and departed Ammathor and made for Izutar. But the girl, while he could not foresee her future, she at least deserved a chance at a better life, deserved to make the choices that would ruin her or bring her out of the sewers of the Chalice. Like her, and as he and Azuri and Hazad had been as children, there were countless others who were merely trying to survive in a merciless world. Varis would offer no choices, save to worship him or to perish.

  The snow was falling faster and now lay ankle-deep. Above the dilapidated rooftops, wind-driven blazes tinted low, scudding clouds a baleful orange. Roiling smoke stung eyes and tightened throats. As they crossed one street, Kian saw the first soldiers under Prince Sharaal ride forth in a precise rank and file formation, their scarlet uniforms and flapping Crimson Scorpion banners making it seem as if they were on parade. Some bore lances, others swords, and still others rode with bows at the ready. They paid no heed to the swirling insanity, only rode north, pushing their adversaries under Varis’s command hard toward their ultimate objective-their master’s usurped throne. Before they reached their destination, Kian knew, they would fully meet Varis’s men and do battle. And such a battle, that of brothers-in-arms fighting each other under the command of a warring father and son, would leave a bitter regret in their ranks that would last a generation, no matter who triumphed.

  Kian pushed that aside. His intent was to reach and destroy Varis, for the greater good of all men. Despite himself, he nearly laughed at that. He was a survivor, a man of battle and steel, a man of honor and duty even, but he was no hero as told of in a stories. He went because he must … for he was the only man on the face of the world who could.

  After running from shadow to shadow for what felt like hours, Hya ordered them into the lightless throat of an alley that ran at a right angle to the storm’s ferocity, giving them a measure of reli
ef from the stinging white gale. The others peered at her with concern, as she collapsed against a wall.

  “Are you well?” Hazad asked. “Should I carry you?”

  “I am well enough,” Hya gasped. “Just old and tired. As to toting me about like a sack of potatoes, there is no need. We are nearly there.”

  “Down!” Ellonlef cried.

  Kian threw himself flat just as a hail of arrows clattered against the wall where Hya had been standing a moment before. If not for the screen of swirling snow, the archers would have pinned them all. Gleefully calling out, as if murder was but a pleasurable game, the attackers galloped off into the night.

  “By Memokk’s stones!” Hazad hissed, as he jerked his head out of a deep snowdrift. Frozen stiff, his beard braids poked out at all angles, like crusty white adders.

  Kian scrambled to his feet with an enraged grunt, squinted into the storm as more riders charged past the mouth of the alley. The riders loosed flaming arrows at windowed shops along the street. Where flame kissed wood, infernos followed, eating quickly and hungrily. Soon, the whole of the Chalice would become a pyre.

  “If we do not reach these friends of your soon,” Azuri said flatly, “they will be roasted alive before we can use their services.”

  With a look of weary sadness in her eyes at the spreading pandemonium, Hya nodded. “Cross the street before us. Keep on as straight as possible, until I say otherwise.”

  They continued, now matching their pace to the old woman’s. After many more twists and turns through the warren of streets and alleys, the worst of the fires and bloodletting fell behind, and they came to the northern edge of the district. Around them, massive mud-brick storehouses sprouted like fortresses. It was the only place where the lives of people from Ammathor and the Chalice overlapped. Here, bands of criminals propped themselves up as merchants, and kept their strongholds amid the common wares of the realm.