The Obsidian Heart

by Mark T. Barnes

  Something black swept through the monster’s ranks, scattering a good many of them. Mari swore as she rolled backwards, narrowly missing the cart-sized hoof that bludgeoned the air in its passage. The hoof crashed into a building, raining down a shower of ruined brick. There was a faint crack and a lot of pain as pieces of debris slammed into her chest. The air was forced from her lungs. Mari tumbled across the ground, sword clutched resolutely in her fist.

  Rising to her feet, it was difficult to breathe. She winced, leaning to her left around the pain. More contusions than Indris had healed, opened in her skin. Blood flowed sluggishly across her skin.

  Then the light from her sword went out. The largest of the monsters stepped forward cautiously. Within seconds, the others followed.

  Mari looked at the sword in her hand. At the waving ranks of monsters that approached her. Gingerly she twisted at the waist and felt agony spear through her from what she though was at least one broken rib.

  Don’t be an idiot, she thought to herself. Slowly at first, then more rapidly, she backed away.

  The monsters gained pace.

  Sword drawn, she was prepared to make a run for it when a column of silver-white light speared down from the clouds. It struck the ground with a titanic boom. The monsters caught in the light were blasted to tattered rags of dark matter that puffed away in the breeze. Those nearby were hurled sideways to slam against walls, their legs wavering.

  Shining figures streaked downward, trailing liquid light behind them. The Sēq, in their black coat and iridescent kirion armour. Their weapons flickering with witchfire. One of the Sēq spat on the ground, his face already streaked with blood and smoke. His old eyes in his young face looked weary, the lantern of his flesh little more than a wan spark. Yet he planted his feet squarely and started to croon into the cold, dark air.

  One of the scholar knights saw Mari and nodded towards the street at her back.

  “I’d run, were I you.” He then turned his attention to the malignant brood mother who gave a deafening, hooting bellow. She was so massive her horns seem to shred the clouds above her.

  The Sēq, wrapped in tumbling sigils of light, flung blazing geometries and spinning fractal polygons at the satyress, throwing themselves at her like too few candles trying to burn down an oak tree.

  I’d run, were I you.

  And she did.

  Mari was gasping, hand held to her side, as she made her way past Mauntro and his squad of Tau-se, then up the boarding ramp of the Wanderer. The Tempest Wheels and Disentropy Spools were already spinning, cracking, and snarling, giving off smaller versions of the pyrotechnic show above. She felt the vibrations through the soles of her boots.

  “What kept you?” Shar asked, eying Mari as she came aboard. “Looks like you took a tougher road than we did.”

  “Oh, you know. My life is one adventure after another,” Mari winced around the words as she took a seat. She tried to control her breathing and failed to ignore the pain. There came the sound of detonations from the city. Buildings were surrounded by brilliant coronas. A deafening bellow made Mari duck her head. She had taken longer than expected and Neva, Yago, and their comrades had not arrived. “We should get a move on, I think.”

  “Know anything about that?” Hayden jerked his chin in the direction of the city.

  “Can we just go?”

  Shar called out urgently to Mauntro and his Tau-se. Once the last of them was aboard, she lifted off from the Shoals. All the ilhen lamps on the Wanderer had been hooded, so she ran dark as Shar turned her prow south and away from the city.

  Hayden and Ekko stood watchfully at the stern, the old drover with his storm-rifle cradled in this arms, Ekko with his powerful bow in one massive, furred hand. The giant lion-man looked at the battle that raged over Star Crown Mountain with wide hazel eyes, pupils round as saucers.

  The rahns stood towards the prow, talking amongst themselves. Siamak had none of his people with him, Nazarafine had only Navid, her nephew. The Saidani-sûk warrior-poet looked the worse for wear, face bleeding and a long gash on his arm, blood pooling in the palm of his hand. Bensaharēn stood beside Roshana, wiping his sword blade with a length of silk, his face as calm as it ever was. There were flecks of blood on his armour and in his hair, though Mari strongly doubted any of it was his own.

  “Where’s Martūm?” Mari asked of nobody in particular.

  “We were separated when we were attacked by some huqdi flying the Erebus colours,” said a soft voice. Danyūn seemed to coalesce from the shadows. Those who stood behind him were equally quiet, the hilts of their weapons rearing like scorpion tails over their shoulders.

  “You didn’t try to find him?”

  The blond man shrugged disinterestedly.

  “I’ve more urgent tasks for Danyūn and his crew than chasing that wastrel, Martūm.” Roshana’s voice was uncompromising. “Besides, we have Vahineh and she is the only Selassin left of any importance. She’s in one of the cabins below with the Wraith Knight.”

  “Did Indris leave with Neva and the Sky Knights?” Siamak asked.

  “Hmmm?” Mari stood and looked out towards the receding bulk of Avānweh. Lightning flared in vivid colours through swirling cloud. The moon tinted everything with a faint wash of blue green. There were the other silhouettes of flying ships that had taken to the air, tiny things like midges that swarmed for a moment, then broke into dotted lines that moved east and west from the city. Some of the ships formed an amorphous blob, which Mari assumed were those who headed south.

  “Siamak asked you a question!” Roshana snapped. She came to stand next to Mari, jaw set and square. “Now I’m asking it. Is Indris going to provide the distraction we need to survive?”

  “You’re quite a selfish bitch, you know,” Mari said conversationally. Roshana flushed and raised her hand, which Mari responded to with a raised eyebrow. Danyūn stepped up and Mari flicked a bored glance in his direction.

  “It won’t end well,” Mari warned. A possibly hollow threat given her broken ribs, but she had had just about enough of Roshana to last a lifetime. Bensaharēn came to Mari’s aid, shaking his head at Danyūn and his Gnostic Assassins. Mari eyed Roshana with distaste. “All you care about is your own miserable agenda,” she said. “You couldn’t care less about Indris, other than what he can do for you.”

  “I’m the rahn of the Great House of Näsarat, Mari.” Roshana’s voice was frigid. “And you’ve no concept of what I do or don’t care about, let alone what I will or won’t do for my Great House.”

  “Like trying to marry Indris off to Neva?”

  “At the very least,” Roshana said with equanimity. With quicker hands than Mari would have credited her, Roshana gave Mari a stinging slap in the face. “Now do as you’re told and answer my—”

  Mari struck Roshana with Blade Hand, straight to the temple. Roshana did not utter a sound as she collapsed, Danyūn catching her and lowering her to the deck.

  “You’ll die for that,” he said. The assassin looked at her from lowered brows, his face still deceptively placid.

  “Don’t think so, lad,” Hayden said. He and Ekko stood with their weapons pointed at the assassins. Bensaharēn remained where he was, a faint smile tugging at his lips. The old warrior-poet shrugged when Danyūn looked at him for support. Mauntro and the Lion Guard stood silently, eyes narrowed and tails sweeping the deck, muscles bunching beneath their fur.

  “I hate to break up this moment of camaraderie you’ve all got going on,” Shar called out over the whistling wind, “but we’ve got something strange up ahead.”

  “What is it?” Mari asked, moving to stand by Shar.

  “Roje faruqti cha!” Shar rolled her eyes. “If I knew, I’d have said.”

  “Sweet Erebus, you’ve a mouth on you.”

  “Wouldn’t need it if people didn’t—”

  “Fine,” Mari held up her hands in surrender. She looked forward, joined by Ekko and Mauntro. “I can’t see a damned thing.”

/>   “There,” Ekko pointed to where there was a disturbance over the water.

  “That doesn’t help much, you know,” Mari said caustically.

  “Of course, Pah-Mariam.” Ekko nodded his apology. “It resembles a waterspout, moving rapidly in our direction.”

  “Before you ask, I’ve changed course twice and it’s still trying to intercept us,” Shar said sweetly.

  “And we are being followed,” Mauntro added. “Wind-galleys and what appear to be people flying. I thought Indris said this ship was faster than anything our enemies would have?”

  “I do believe he did say that, yes,” Ekko agreed.

  “Could it be the way the Seethe is flying?” Mauntro asked politely, casting a critical eye at Shar. “If she continues to fly so slowly, we will have a fight on our hands.”

  “Shame,” Ekko said.

  “Hmmm,” Mauntro nodded sagely.

  “Faruq yaha sodden,” Shar told the Tau-se. “The Wanderer is faster than anything that bastard Corajidin should have. No offence, Mari.”

  “None taken. I’m way ahead of you there,” Mari said. “But it doesn’t explain exactly what, by Erebus’s burned bones, we’re dealing with.”

  “Little ill trickles of moonlight and mist,” Omen said from the doorway to the lower decks. The Wraith Knight picked his way across the deck. “Spirits and witches with hate on their lips—”

  “We’ve no time for your nonsense words, Omen,” Hayden said tensely.

  After a long pause where the others all looked at Omen, then at Hayden, then at Omen, Hayden finally sighed. “I meant I wanted you to just say it. Y’know, like a normal person would.”

  “Oh. Very well. Whoever follows us is using disentropy. And lots of it. I can feel it from here and see the shapes of the witches and the wind-corsairs, and fell-summoned daemons, light in their flight as they dance upon—”

  “Balls,” Mari sighed.

  “They are definitely getting closer,” Mauntro observed.

  “And Rahn-Roshana is quite skilled with a blade,” Ekko added. “We probably could have used her awake right about now.”

  Mari threw both Tau-se an obscene hand gesture, regretting it as pain lanced her ribs.

  “I broke through their cordon once,” Shar said tersely, “but they’re not giving me any room to move now. We’re being herded southward, further from Avānweh.”

  “You can’t break through again?”

  Shar levelled a flat glare at Mari, who shrugged and took a step back.

  Mari looked forward to where the shadows of the Mar Ejir rose like blackened sword points off the port rail. Avānweh was built at the narrows where the Lakes of the Sky met, as well as the mountain ranges of the Mar Jihara and the Mar Ejir. As far as Mari knew, the Ejiri mountain tribes had little to do with the Great Houses, though a couple were sayfs on the Teshri, neutral voters who sold their support in return for whatever they needed. The kind of flexible and mercantile loyalties her father made abundant use of.

  “What are you going to do?” Siamak asked as he joined them.

  “Make a run for Dalour,” Shar said, tone dubious, “then try to head northwest for Qeme. That puts us in Näsarat Prefecture.”

  “And if that is not possible?” Nazarafine’s voice was panicked.

  Mari pursed her lips. She knew her father wanted to take Vahineh, but to capture the Federationist rahns would be an added bonus. Out here, where there were no witnesses, anything could happen and any story told to justify the sudden loss of three heads of the Great Houses.

  “If I can’t,” Shar said rigidly, “then I can’t. I think we need to face facts we’re going to have a fight on our hands before this is over.”

  “How do you propose to combat the witches?” Bensaharēn asked. Mari scowled at her former teacher, though admitted to herself he was right. If she closed her eyes she could still see the satyress and her brood of walking, murderous trees. She thought on the shame of her fear and in that moment thought of Indris and he would be facing such things, or worse, even now. Sadly there was no way of levelling the playing field…

  “The Näq Yetesh,” Mari whispered. Then, more loudly, “The Dead Flat!”

  “I know what it is,” Shar said, “but you do realize the Wanderer needs disentropy to, oh, I don’t know, stay in the air?”

  “No more so than witches need disentropy to use their Arcanum, or to keep their summoned spirits bound.”

  Bensaharēn smiled. “A powerless witch is just another person in a robe. It would go some way towards levelling the odds.”

  “Are you sure, Pah-Mariam?” Ekko asked.

  “On the first part, yes. On the second, not so much, but it stands to reason. Indris told me the witches use an… what did he call it… an Excreting Precept—”

  “Extrinsic Precept,” Shar laughed, then sobered as she tried to keep the wind-galley level in a sudden crosswind.

  “Whatever. Anyway he said their powers come from outside themselves. If they don’t have that power…”

  “I hear you.” Shar pulled levers around her pilot’s chair and the vessel angled further southward. Mari could see the flickering lamps of Dalour in the distance, then beyond it an expanse of moonlit emptiness, as uncompromising as an anvil. Shar spared a glance for Mari. “You’d better tell everybody to hold on to something. I’ll try to land us on the edge of the flat and hope great Tyen-to-wo of the Laughing Wind isn’t inclined to make fools of us all.”

  “Do what you can, Shar.”

  “And then what?”

  “If I’m right, our fight becomes slightly less than impossible.”

  “What if you’re wrong?”

  “Just hope I’m not.”

  “IT IS ONLY WHEN WE FREE OURSELVES OF THE DILEMMAS OF MEDIOCRITY, AND BY VIEWING OURSELVES THROUGH THE LENS OF ANOTHER’S PERCEPTIONS, THAT WE CAN KNOW GREATNESS.”

  —Asrahn-Erebus fa Basyrandin (473rd Year of the Shrīanese Federation)

  DAY 358 OF THE 495TH YEAR OF THE SHRĪANESE FEDERATION

  Corajidin watched with sick wonder as the sky burned.

  Standing at the prow of his wind-skiff, Corajidin was close enough to Mahsojhin to hear the individual voices of the mystics as they exhorted nature to do their bidding. Witches in their diverse Aspects soared through the air, or stood firm in the ruins of their once great university with their elemental daemons at their sides, while the armoured Sēq strode the sky in their crow-dark coat, or entered the battle on foot, meeting the witches blow for horrendous, arcane blow. The mountainside roared as pieces of stone were shorn from it. Lightning flashed, striking witches and scholars from the air. Brilliantly lit geometries spun, tumbled and whirled, exploding, slicing, and searing all they touched. With every passing moment it seemed more witches and more scholars joined the fray.

  Somehow the Sēq had been prepared, though from the signs of the battle it made little difference.

  A witch in the Aspect of a giant albino wyrm, with luminous wing and tail feathers, undulated across the sky. It coiled about the diamond octahedron shielding a scholar. The scholar sang his canto, while the wyrm screeched and bit and constricted, the two tumbling towards the ground as they fought. On the mountainside below a prodigious ape, its back sprouting long phosphorescent quills, held a scholar above its head and dashed her brains out on the rocks. Fantastical, terrifying shapes flickered in and out of existence across the remaining shelf of the Mahsojhin, or the air above it. He had to close his eyes against the sudden brightness of the energies that were summoned, focussed and thrown with devastating effect. From behind his closed eyelids he still saw an insane afterimage of squiggly lines that seemed burned into his vision. He blinked a few times to regain his sight.

  Kasraman leaned on the rail, his face intent, eyes shining like lamps even as his outline wavered with a horrific, daemonic shape that never quite settled. Wolfram stood firm, his remaining protective wards tinged a brick red. The others had been seared away in the furious exchange of energies bet
ween the witches and the Sēq.

  “Has anybody seen the Emissary?” Corajidin asked. She had clearly done her part in opening the Mahsojhin, though had not been seen since. Corajidin wondered whether she was on some dark mission for her darker masters.

  “No. But I’ve news from Igreal, one of the witches sent with Belamandris,” Kasraman said. “Martūm’s intelligence was correct. They took Vahineh aboard the Wanderer and tried to escape. Belamandris is confident they will run them down soon. Tahj-Shaheh’s wind-corsairs are much faster than we gave her credit for, particularly when helped along by the witches. Indris, Mari, Vahineh, and anybody with them will soon be in our custody.”

  “Excellent! Martūm may be a self-serving little insect,” Corajidin nodded, “but he is my self-serving little insect. I doubt I can trust him further than I can see him, but he has proven useful.”

  “You’ll make him the Rahn-Selassin, Your Majesty?” Wolfram said distractedly. He had his hand on Kimiya’s shoulder, channelling her energy into their defences. The young woman looked wan, skin pale against her leather collar and the sheer, partially opened coat that fell from one shoulder.

  Corajidin stumbled sideways as the wind-skiff lurched drunkenly. Wolfram’s wards cracked like glass, turning an angry red. Kimiya whimpered as Wolfram drew more energy from her to repair them.

  “What in—”

  The skiff was struck again, a resounding thunderclap rolling over them. Corajidin saw a blur of witchfire and kirion, wreathed in sparks, as it flew back into Femensetri’s hand some distance below. It was a large spear, bright as lightning forged into metal. A sapphire-scaled gauntlet covered her entire arm, the rest of her sheathed in an ancient style of armour, each scale and lace limned in light. The Stormbringer held out her other hand. Lightning speared down. She grasped the flickering bolt and rose into the sky.