by J. S. Bangs
“You betrayed me,” he whispered. “My sister and my only friend.”
“Friend,” Apurta tried to say, “we are trying to save you. You’ve driven off the slavers, the kings. But you’re going mad.”
“I am not mad. I have never seen things so clearly.”
“She Who Devours has taken you over,” Vapathi said.
“She Who Devours keeps me alive,” Kirshta said through his sobs. “Who devours our enemies. Who makes us free.”
“We are not free.”
“You’re on their side.” His sobs choked into a vicious snarl. “You, Apurta, on the side of the Emperor who tore you out of your home and made you serve in your army. You, Vapathi, on the side of the khadir and soldiers who raped you. How could you?”
“We’re trying to help,” Vapathi said. The words sounded feeble and useless as she said them.
“Get out,” Kirshta said.
“Out of—”
“I said get out, before I change my mind.”
Basadi stepped forward. “They’ll only go to your enemies again. Don’t let them leave.”
Apurta put his hand on the sword at his waist. “Empress—”
Basadi saw his hand touch his sword. “He attacks!”
Kirshta looked up, his face contorted in anger. He let out a howl of rage.
Black blood suddenly gushed from Apurta’s ears and mouth, choking off his scream. Bile dripped from his fingers. Vapathi cried out. For a moment she glimpsed Apurta’s expression of horror. He gave one last pain-wracked glance at Vapathi and fell to his knees. His skin began to peel away.
Vapathi ran.
Out the door of the throne room. She heard Basadi shouting behind her, and Kirshta’s growled response, too warped for her to make out. The Red Men and the Devoured in the outer parts of the palace stared at her. At least they didn’t try to stop her. Her vision was blurry with tears.
Out the entrance of the palace onto the stone-paved wharf. She stopped, buckled over, and sobbed. Harsh, jagged sobs, choking out her breath and tearing at her stomach like swallowed knives. Her eyes burned. Nausea mingled with her tears.
She heard the murmuring of Red Men coming out of the palace. She swallowed another jag of tears and bolted away.
“There she goes!” She heard the voices behind her.
“Let her go,” the other one said. “The Mouth of the Devourer says she’s harmless.”
She ran. Onto the boardwalks of Jaitha, dimly visible in the fading evening light. The bright full moon hung low in the eastern horizon, washing the dead city in sickly yellow gloom. Down a ladder, onto the parched riverbed. Her feet pounded against the dusty clay. No thought except escape. Away, away. She weaved through the dead rotting on the battlefield, past the mockery of the crows and the glares of the vultures.
To the east she ran, tears running down her face, sobs burning in her chest. Without Kirshta, without Apurta. Only the cawing of the crows wished her farewell. Alone.
* * *
Click here to be notified of the release of “Fire of Ages”, the sixth and final volume of The Powers of Amur, to be released in early 2017.
The Emperor’s alliance is shattered. Refugees, peasants, and kings scatter before the marauding Devoured. Navran guides a desperate troop of survivors to Virnas, where they attempt to secure an escape for the citizens of the city. They will flee to a last holdout on the southern coast of Amur, to make a final stand.
Mandhi and her mixed band of Kaleksha and Uluriya make their way separately to the mouths of the great river, hoping they can return to Kalignas ahead of the hordes of Devoured. Along the way they meet a dispossessed slave, whose presence may doom them—or save them.
And the very last words of the sacred book give up their terrible secret. Now Daladham must find the courage to do the one thing that will destroy She Who Devours.
Turn the page to read the first chapter of Fire of Ages.
FIRE OF AGES: CHAPTER 1
There was a village here, a string of dusty mud-brick huts alongside the trampled road, with parched rice fields on each side. A lamp burned in one of the windows, the only sign of light and life in the village, but Navran made no effort to talk to the person. If the villagers wanted to join Navran’s cohort, they would do it on their own terms. He waved to the drought-stricken emptiness of the fields, barely visible in the dark.
“Sleep here,” he said. “In the morning we move.” The order was repeated back through the ranks following him.
The companions on the road began to move into the fields. A young man, perhaps fifteen years old, walked a few steps into the field, curled up, and fell immediately into sleep without bothering to put out a blanket or a bedroll. Poor boy. A conscript from somewhere, pulled into Navran’s army in the hopes that they could break the Mouth of the Devourer. At least he was still alive. Most of the army lay in the riverbed of the Amsadhu, turning the trickle of the river red with their blood.
A hand touched his shoulder. Caupana, the tall, taciturn thikratta stood there with Srithi and Amabhu at his side. He carried a bedroll for Navran, and gestured for Navran to follow. Navran was about to refuse, but Caupana shook his head in anticipation of Navran’s objection.
“Come on,” Amabhu said. “We’ve been walking since dawn. You need to rest.”
“Do I?” Navran said. He looked back over the silent, miserable masses fleeing with him. He had made them come to Jaitha to fall to the hordes of the Devoured. He was responsible for bringing them to Virnas.
“Yes, rest,” Amabhu said. “Everyone is groaning at the pace. Don’t pretend that you’re fine.”
Navran grunted. “The Devoured….”
Amabhu looked back to the north in grim silence. “Yes. We know.”
They found a place near a leafless palm and curled onto the ground. Srithi stretched out atop her bedroll and was asleep immediately. Caupana lay down next to her, looking down with pity and concern.
“She’ll be fine?” Navran asked.
Caupana nodded. “Need to get her back to her husband and children.”
“We’re hurrying.”
Caupana tapped his thumb against his lips. “I’d prefer to bring her in good health.”
Navran sighed and lowered himself into a crouch. The remnants of their guards had followed him into the field and threw down their own bedrolls, clattering spears and bows falling to the ground. They set no guard—there were no bandits or threats that could hurt them worse than the Devoured coming down from Jaitha. Groans, curses, and sighs sounded all around them.
“Did we lose anyone today?” he asked Amabhu.
“I don’t think so. Might have gained some from the villages we passed through.”
They had warned all of the villages about the Devoured. The men of the villages had already been recruited for the army. When they heard of their defeat, the women and children chose to come with Navran.
“And the pace?”
Amabhu sighed wearily. “No one wants to go slower, Navran. Two more days and we can reach Virnas. Better get to safety.”
If Virnas is safety, Navran thought. He had a tattered army and a train of widows and children following him, and he had no idea whether he could actually save them.
“Go to sleep,” Caupana said.
“I should—”
“No,” Amabhu said, continuing his partner’s thought. “You weary yourself to no effect. Sleep.”
Navran nodded in resignation. He stretched out on his bedroll and looked up at the sky.
The Serpent stretched across the horizon in the west, the red prick in its heart burning like a drop of blood. He had nearly forgotten about the star in the chaos and horror of the past several days. Had it grown brighter? An evil omen. All omens were evil in these evil days. But the stars were the domain of Ulaur, and if Ulaur pricked the Serpent to make it bleed….
He closed his eyes, and sleep snuffed out his thought.
* * *
“Navran.” An urgent whisper
sounded in his ear. “Navran, wake up.”
He opened his eyes. The stars still burned in a black sky. The moon was down. His head throbbed and his limbs ached with weariness.
“Now,” the voice repeated. Srithi. She shook him gently.
“What is it?” he asked.
“We need to get away from the road. Further back, where they won’t see us.”
“Who?” he asked, but there could only be one answer. His limbs burned in rebellion at being made to stand and interrupting his sleep, but he would rise if he had to. “I’ll tell the others.”
Caupana was already awake and rolled up his and Srithi’s bedrolls. Navran rubbed his eyes and stretched his stiff, overworked limbs. The only thing that could get him to rise in the middle of the night like this was the threat of the Devoured. He took a deep breath, steeled his will, and rose to his feet. His thoughts were sluggish and cloudy with insufficient sleep. He blinked and rubbed his eyes, took deep breaths, and shook his head. It cleared his head enough to move.
He went to the nearest group of sleeping soldiers. He had to shake them three times before they moved.
“Devoured are coming,” he said. “Srithi knows it. Get back from the road.”
A moan. “Yes, my lord and king,” the man said. They all knew who Srithi was, and they would move.
Navran roused another group, then another, then returned to Caupana and Srithi. By now the first men he had awakened were spreading the news throughout the rest of the camp. In a few minutes they would all be awake.
He caught up with Amabhu, Caupana, and Srithi a hundred yards away from the road. They crouched behind a hedge of dry, crackling brush, dessicated and brittle with the drought. They had crashed through a gap in the hedge and crouched on the far side. The soldiers and villagers filtered through the gap as well, putting the hedge between themselves and the road.
He nodded at Srithi and Caupana. “How long until they come?”
“I don’t know,” Srithi said.
He took a heavy breath and stood, looking over the hedge at the stirring camp, stirred up with chaotic movement as the sleeping were roused and everyone moved away from the road, seeking any place to hide.
“How could they have caught us?” he said. “I don’t think we could have marched any faster.”
“Do they sleep?” Amabhu asked. “Do they eat?”
Navran murmured. “We can’t even run from them.”
No one had an answer for him.
The evacuation completed. The dried fields nearest the road were emptied, and Navran’s army huddled among the hillocks and trees, watching the road in the darkness. Time crawled by. He heard soft grumbling from the men around him. Some of them curled up and returned to sleep in the withered grass. Nothing happened.
Srithi drew her breath in sharply. She grabbed Navran’s arm and pointed to the north.
Torches on the road. Raucous voices. Pounding on the clay walls of the village.
“How many people were left in the village?” Navran asked.
“I don’t know,” Amabhu said. “Not many. The one woman I saw didn’t want to join us.”
The torches advanced forward. There was a panicked scream from one of the houses, and the torches flickered. A woman stumbled into the street, chased by the mocking laugher of the Devoured. She tried to run, but in a few steps one of the men caught her and pinned her to the ground. The sound of her begging reached them as an indistinguishable muttering.
“… to Jaitha,” one of the Devoured men shouted. “Give your name to the Mouth of the Devourer if you want to live.”
“Yes. Please,” the woman said.
The Devoured man got up off of her and shoved her down the road. With a howl of laughter they approached the woman’s hut and set their torches to the thatch. In a moment the hut’s roof was a crown of fire, sparks and embers spiraling up into the darkness. The woman wept in the road. One of the Devoured kicked at her, and she ran off to the north.
With careless leisure, the Devoured went to every house in the village, pulled out whatever clothes and valuables they could find, and set the roofs on fire. Smoke obscured the stars to the west. Mocking and laughter mingled with the crackling of the flames. The thatch of the roofs didn’t take long to burn, and shortly the Devoured continued on down the road to the south, leaving behind the empty, ruined huts.
Navran let out a long, slow breath. He cursed softly.
“If they’re ahead of us on the road,” Amabhu said, “how do we get to Virnas?”
“There were only a few of them,” Navran said. “Could we—”
But the thought died in his mouth. The men were in no condition to fight, and if there were a few Devoured here, then there would be more.
“Get everyone up,” he commanded. “We’ll walk by the half-moon.”
Amabhu groaned. “No one will like it.”
“It doesn’t matter.” His head pounded from the lack of sleep, and his legs ached with the thought of more walking. “We have to,” he repeated, for his own sake more than for anyone else.
It only took a few minutes to rouse those who had drifted back to sleep and get them moving to the south. They stayed in the dry fields alongside the road, stumbling over the uneven ground in the night. He heard men fall behind him, curses and groans surrounding them. The pain of sleeplessness grew sharper in Navran’s head, but he stumbled on.
The eastern horizon turned gray, and the gloom gradually brightened to pink. A hot, dry wind began to blow from the east. With the growing light of dawn, Navran watched the road for any sign of the Devoured. He didn’t like what he saw.
There were people on the road. Not enormous numbers, but enough to disturb him. The ones that they had seen in the village were a vanguard, he guessed, one of many hordes going through the villages between Jaitha and Virnas. They would converge on the city. The Devoured would reach Virnas before them.
As the first sliver of the sun rose above the eastern horizon, Navran spotted the peak of the first of the watch-towers of Virnas. They climbed a low ridge and looked down the shallow valley, and his heart fell.
The tower was surrounded by the Devoured.
He stopped walking. The army drew up behind him and came to a stop. Caupana, Amabhu, and Srithi waited beside him. They watched the tower in silence.
There were men atop the tower shooting arrows down into the Devoured. Useless, of course—but these men had stayed back to guard the city, and hadn’t been at the battle of the Amsadhu. They wouldn’t know how to fight the Devoured. They wouldn’t know that you couldn’t fight the Devoured.
“We could sneak by them,” Amabhu said.
“And leave the men in the tower?” Navran said.
“They wouldn’t be the first ones we’ve left behind.”
The east wind gusted, stirring up the parched dust along the road. For a moment a swirl of dust obscured the Devoured milling around the base of the tower.
“Even if we go past,” Navran said, “they could see us. From this watchtower, there’s still most of a day’s march to the gates of Virnas. If they get there before us, they can’t open the gates to let us in.”
“We could arrange something,” Amabhu started.
Navran shook his head. “I wouldn’t let them open the gates. Better they lock us out than let the Devoured into the city.”
The hot wind pulled at Navran’s hair. He breathed heavily and kicked at the dry grass under his feet.
“I have an idea,” he said. He bent and picked up a tuft of grass. “In Davrakhanda, Kest said that they destroyed them by burning their bodies.”
“We can’t—” Amabhu started to object, then he closed his mouth. He looked into the east, at the hot wind blowing from the direction of the sunrise, then back to the ground.
“A good idea,” Srithi said. “Let the wind take the fire to them. We just have to start it.”
“And when the fire continues past the tower across the countryside?” Amabhu asked.
“It does no more harm than the Devoured,” Navran said.
He called some of the soldiers together. The plan was simple, and the men executed it in half an hour: gather brush and dried leaves, which were abundant, and get them into a long pile to the east of the tower. They worked furtively, hoping to stay out of the view of the Devoured besieging the tower. The wind was steady and dry.
When it was done, they had a line of piled kindling a hundred yards long, positioned directly in the path of the wind to the tower. Between them and the Devoured were only dried palms and brown sal trees, dead grass and withered scrub. The men had brands at the ready. At Navran’s signal, they set the kindling alight.
For a moment there was just a quiet crackling as the little flames licked up dry grass and brittle leaves. The flames rose and spread along the line of kindling. The grasses turned red and blackened, and the fire reached up as high as Navran’s waist. A gust from the east blustered past them. And all at once the fire seemed to roar.
It leapt up and surged forward, sparks and embers flying towards the tower and sending up flames wherever they touched the ground. The fire began to march, beaten by the wind, advancing with hungry, hot steps as fast as a man could walk.
“Now we watch,” Navran said.
Smoke obscured the tower. The line of orange blazed through the dried woods. The wind battered it, and the crackling of the fire became a roar. Navran and his men pulled back from the heat. The fire didn’t advance on them—the line of kindling that his men had lit was already reduced to white ash—but it thundered towards the tower, now a wall of flame as high as a man’s head.
Smoke blackened the sky in the west. Navran pulled his kurta over his mouth to keep out the smoke. The land before them was a charred blanket of coals.
The wind gusted, and the tower emerged from the black. A cheer rose from the men. The Devoured were gone. Navran caught a glimpse of the last of them fleeing to the west, chased by the wind-fed roar.
“Get the men from the tower,” Navran said. “Quickly!”
He led the way, picking his way through the fire-scarred fields and stepping gingerly on the coals. Ducking their heads to avoid the air full of ash and smoke, they dashed to the base of the tower.
