Fires of Mastery (The Tale of Azaran Book 3)

by Zackery Arbela

  Rebels fighters beat their fists against the doors, yelling for Lugalzaeer to come back, to face their vengeance. "Clear a path!" Sargonaddon roared above the din. A passage opened in the ranks of the rebels, and through it trundled a large iron ram, taken from the prow of a warship and fitted to a long wooden log that was the main mast of a trading vessel in more peaceful times. A team of forty men pushed the large wagon on which it had been fitted, the rest of the army cheering them in. It picked up speed, the wheels clattering over the flagstones, men jumped back to avoid being clipped by. It struck the gates with a resounding boom! Dust and wooden fragments of wood fell away.

  "Again!" roared the admiral.

  The ram was pulled back some fifty feet, then shoved forward again, striking the gates a second time. The thick wooden face, made from beams of imported northern oak the thickness of a man's leg and reinforced with iron bands, shattered like clay, opening huge gaps in the doors. On the other side, one of the two bars cracked in half and fell away, the two bracers on the left snapping like dry twigs.

  "Again!" Sargonaddon ordered. "Break it down!"

  The ram pulled back. With a shout the men hurled it forward with every bit of their strength. It struck the gates with great force. The remaining bar shattered under the impact, the bracers hurled back in splinters. One of the doors was ripped off its hinges, tearing away a chunk of wall and falling to the ground, the other flying open and smashing against the wall, then hanging crookedly off to the side.

  The admiral ordered the attack, but there was no need. With a shout the rebels charged through the broken gate, Shapurashi's name on their lips and vengeance on their mind.

  In they went. Segovac, caught in their passage, went with them, his warnings lost in the chaos.

  Chapter Nine

  "The rebels attacking!"

  The cry went through the palace. Lugalzaeer strained to be overheard above the noise as panic spread. This was not how things were supposed to go. "My lord!" cried a guard, running through the palace. It was the same guard he had sent out only moments before. "The rebels are assaulting the gate! They have brought up a ram and even now they batter at the doors!"

  "Are they mad?" Lugalzaeer asked. "Those doors have never been breached! Shapurashi will be at it for a week before he makes a dent! What of the truce? What did he say?"

  "My lord, we raised the flag as requested. Lord Shapurashi heard your terms. He answered by shooting at arrow at the walls. One of the men at the top was struck and killed. He declares that as long as Enmer-Galila lives, there will be no peace and that he must see proof of the Kings death."

  "Proof is it? Right...where is that bastard's head?"

  "Here, my lord!' Another guard trotted up, holding a round object wrapped in cloth, blood dripping behind it.

  Lugalzaeer unwrapped the cloth and looked at the face of the dead king. "He never looked better," said the nobleman. "Where is Hatugali?"

  "No one had seen the commander, my lord..."

  "Find him! And as for you..." He turned back to the guardsman who had brought the news from the gate. But the man was gone. "Where did he go?"

  The other guards shrugged, looking confused.

  A mystery. But he put it out of his mind. "Time to calm the beasts," he said.

  He walked out of the palace, exiting the pyramid and crossing the wide stone courtyard separating it from the walls, several guardsmen escorting him. The sounds of rage and tumult rose from the other side of the walls. A pair of guards ran away from the gatehouses, faces pale with terror. "Save yourselves!" one of them shouted.

  The other pointed at Lugalzaeer. "You've doomed us all, you fool!" he shouted as he ran past. "Fool! Bastard!"

  Lugalzaeer frowned. "What do you mean?" he called back. But the guards said nothing, kept running for the Palace. "Save yourselves...." they shouted again before headed beyond earshot.

  A loud thump reverberated across the courtyard. Lugalzaeer turned back towards the gates, just in time to see one of the bars crack in half and fall out of its cradle. "Impossible," he breathed.

  A second blow sounded, the doors vibrating, the planks cracking, two of the bracers shattering to splinters.

  Another mystery. Lugalzaeer pulled away the cloth and grasped the Kings head by the hair, raising high, just as a third blow came against the gate, knocking it open. In came the rebels, bellowing in anger, streaming through the open passage like water through a channel. Swords were raised, spears glinted in the night. Hundreds of them, even thousands, every man Shapurashi had under his command by the looks of it. But no sign of the man himself. Likely he was in there somewhere.

  Lugalzaeer raised the head high. "Men of Kedaj!" he bellowed, trying to be heard above the din. "Behold! Enmer-Galila is dead! Long live Shapurashi, true King of Kedaj! Let him come forth so Lugalzaeer may do him homage!"

  The rebels halted for a moment...but only a moment. Then Admiral Sargonaddon pushed forward, his face wet with tears and twisted with rage. "Murderer!" he howled, taking a spear from a neighboring fighter and hurling at the object of his hate. It flew across the distance before Lugalzaeer could do more than blink, and struck him in the chest.

  Lugalzaeer fell, gasping in shock and surprise. The head dropped to the ground and bounced away. A moment later the rebels were on him, hacking and slashing with a mad frenzy. A pair of spears were then raised and on their points were spiked the mangled heads of Enmer-Galila and Lugalzaeer.

  "To the Palace!" came the cry. With a roar the rebels pressed on, forcing their way through the doors. Guardsmen who tried to resist were tramped down before they had a chance to stab or slash. Most fled, and were chased through the halls of the Palace, cut down from behind along with innumerable courtiers, officials servants, slaves and every other wretch whose bad luck it was that day to be in the Palace Quarter The halls echoed with the sounds of screams and clashing weapons.

  Before long the floors were slick with blood, corpses piled up in corners and against doors. The rebels turned to looting and wanton acts of destruction. Statues of gods and men were overturned and smashed to pieces. The paintings and bas-reliefs on the walls, a record of Kedaj's glorious past smashed with hammers and scored with sword and spear point. In the throne room a mob of men slung ropes over the throne and hauled it off the pedestal to crash to the floor. Giving the commands was Sargonaddon and Gaumashta, both mad with rage and laughing as the throne fell atop the headless body of Enmer-Galila, crushing it to a pulp.

  As was always the case in such times of chaos, lamps and other sources of light were knocked over, while some went a step further and set fire to sheets, curtains, furniture and anything else that was flammable. The pyramid palace may have been made of stone, but there were many things within it that were vulnerable to flames, including the ancient wooden beams that snaked though it like bones in a body. Spilled lamp oil spread flames across the floor, catching more than a few men unaware and lighting them up like torches.

  In the chambers once inhabited by Lord Lugalzaeer, a pair of servants were flushed out of a hiding place in a closet, one holding a bag of stolen jewels, the other a sword. In the ensuing struggle, a brazier burning aromatic incense on hot coals fell onto a bed. As the rebels cut down the servants, the bed caught fire. The rebels ignored danger, going through the room and gathering more treasures.

  Then the flames on the burning bed grew high enough to envelope a brass lamp hanging from the ceiling on a chain. A moment later it exploded, sending metal shards and burning oil in all directions. One of the rebels was right in the path and was set ablaze. Howling with pain he ran out of the room into the hallway outside, staggered into another chamber and then fell across a handsome couch made from rare woods imported from some steamy southern jungle. It had been treated with some sort of resinous varnish that preserved the golden-hued color of the wood...and which was also as flammable as pitch. Within moments that was ablaze and soon enough the rest of the room as well.

  Smoke filled the hallways of t
he Palace and it became hard to breath. Men dropped to the floor, choking. Other fled, rebels and survivors alike, headed back out the doors, the flames consuming those left behind.

  But one man did not flee. Segovac had come in at the tail end of the rush, and only knew of Lugalzaeer's death when the spear went up with his head spiked at the top. When he finally made it through the doors, he nearly tripped over a several hacked up bodies and did slip on the blood poured out of their wounds. When he found his feet again, he saw two men dragging out a shrieking woman from a room. One of them backhanded her across the face, while the other grabbed her by the hair and pulled her towards another door, curses pouring from his mouth like a river.

  "Leave her be!" Segovac shouted. He rushed over and knocked down the fellow pulling her. "Are you animals..."

  The other man punched Segovac in the face. The Rhennari fell back against the wall, stunned. For a while the world was a dreamlike, terrible place, filled with prancing shadowy figures, creatures with the bodies of men and the face of demons, rising high above him, feasting on the flesh of the dead and committing all manner of obscenities on their bodies. He heard the screams of beasts in pain, of predators killing their prey, the strong tormenting the weak before consuming them...

  Not demons. Just men, when all restraint is gone and they fall into savagery. The voice of his god...or his own wisdom. There was a darkness in the mortal soul. Morality was a chain that bound it. The laws of gods and men a prison that kept it confined. Reason and faith were lamps and torches that drove it back. But the darkness remained, as much a part of men as their limbs, just waiting for the chance to break free, to run wild, to overwhelm the senses and drag men down to a level beneath that of beasts.

  When Segovac finally recovered his wits, the two men were gone. There was no sign of the woman, through pieces of a torn dress and a bloody smear on a nearby wall did not speak of a good end for her. He got to his feet, the smell of smoke thick in the air. He ignored this, along with the screams. He hand only one purpose now - to find his friend Azaran and to escape this hell pit.

  He pressed on, headed deeper into the palace, into the heart of the madness.

  There were bodies scattered about the hallways. Azaran stepped past a dying man, paying his cries no more mind than he would the buzzing of a fly. He smelled smoke, but it was nothing at the moment. Only vengeance counted now. A righting of wrongs, a balancing of the scales. It drove him forward even as the air in the Palace became thick and every inhalation an exercise in agony. Runes flared on his chest, repairing internal damage that would have felled an ordinary man.

  He came before a hatefully familiar door. Closed and unguarded. He gave it a shove and heard the bar on the other side scrape in its cradle. Azaran paused a moment, summoning his strength. The second line of runes burned brightly and filled with him with vigor.

  The door flew his from his kick. He ignoring the pain shooting up his shins, knowing any injury would be healed by the third step. He entered the Princess' chamber, reached over his shoulder and drawing the gray sword. "Show yourself," he called out. "Zeyaana...oh."

  He saw her lying slumped on the floor. Blood stained the front of her dress and the lower half of her face. Her hair hung limply about her shoulders, damp with sweat and vomit. The base of her throat was almost pitch-black in color, a dark blot of sickness on her skin. Her head was slumped down, mouth open, eyes closed.

  "Damn." He lowered the sword. There would be no vengeance here...wait. He heard her breath. Soft, barely present. but it was there.

  Hate burned in him. It was an odd sensation, something he had not felt as far back as he could remember. He'd killed more men than he could easily count, but he'd never actually hated any of them. Disliked perhaps, but nothing beyond that. But when he looked on this woman, who'd played with his sanity like a musician with a lute...

  Azaran placed the tip of the sword under his chin. A shudder ran through her body. Her head raised slowly. Bloodshot eyes stared out from a pale, sweaty face. "Azaran," she said, without a hint of fear. "Am I still beautiful in your eyes?"

  "You were never beautiful to me." His hand tightened on the sword. "Give me a reason I shouldn't run you through."

  A twitch of her shoulders suggested a shrug. "I can't think of one," she said, her voice little more than a croak. "But if you wait a while, it won't make a difference. I overindulged in the gift I was given. Now I pay the price."

  He looked down at the base of her neck. The blackening of the skin there was not natural. And she was not first he'd come across in these lands with abilities that defied explanation. "Nerazag gave this to you," he said finally.

  She nodded again. The flesh under her chin grazed the tip of his sword, adding a fresh trickle of blood to the mess. Neither paid any notice. "He gave my father that sword, the seeds of the shamma. He was the one who made the arrangement with the Corsairs. All my father has came from Nerazag's hands. But to me he gave another gift. Power over the minds of others."

  Azaran grimaced. "I remember it."

  "You would be the first." She smiled slowly, a sight made ghastly from all the blood. "He did not trust my father...a wise choice. My brother was a fool. I was his plan, should my father need replacing. I controlled him and every other man of the court. They ruled, but it was my words they spoke. They all wanted me...and I ruled them. Not everyone...couldn't control Ithkaan, his mind was too strong. The other women hated me...called me a whore. But I had power and they did not..."

  "Why me?" Azaran asked. "I was nothing to you."

  She laughed, then coughed up bit of black sputum. "Nerazag came," she said, her voice now gurgling. "Said to watch for you. Said he'd give...more gifts. Azaran the Unstoppable...a demon of the battlefield. I thought you would be...useful. Tired of waiting for Nerazag to give the word. Lugalzaeer was hungry, Hatugali was bored. Knew many in the city would rise if the chance came...someone had to kill Ithkaan. But he who did it would be hated in the city...had to be done just right...no blame on Lugalzaeer or me. You were perfect...outlander, killer...just in your nature to murder an upright man..."

  Azaran wanted to take the sword and plunge it deep in her guts. Instead he pulled it away. A drop of red stained the tip. "Was any of it real?" he asked.

  She shook her head. "No. You were...a tool to be used when...the time came. A toy for me to play with until then...weren't any good at it, truth be told..."

  The truth. He would know it, come what may. "Why?" he asked.

  "I had no choice." Her hands clenched at her sides. "I...was nothing. The younger daughter of...a younger wife. The son of a shopkeeper has better future. My father...didn't know my name...my brothers he loved. They mattered...because they were men. Because they had power over others. That is the only thing that matters in this world. Rule...or be ruled. I would hold the whip hand...would make my fate as my brothers did...not be sold off to some old noble or merchant. I would have power...I would matter."

  She coughed again. Death was not far away. "So," she said. "There it is. I had power...now you have it. Take your vengeance. I can't stop you..."

  He wanted to. More than anything. Instead he stepped away. "No. There is nothing I can do to you that you haven't done to yourself. Die as you will, Zeyaana. You no longer matter."

  He turned his back on the woman and walked away, not looking back. Leaving her to the flames, to her own injuries, he did not care.

  The fire had spread throughout the Palace now and the air had turned noxious. Through it stumbled Segovac, no longer sure of his direction, no longer sure of his purpose, only that he must keep going.

  "Forward...forward. Keep going, must keep going..." He said this to himself over and again, through the words came out as as little more than slurred mumbles. "Must...forward..."

  He fell to his knees. The air was too smoky, he could not breath. It was a mite fresher down near the floor, enough for him to cough ferociously.

  He needed to get out of here. No, needed to keep going.
Segovac looked up at the walls, saw the brilliant frescoes blackened by smoke, the stone walls cracked from the heat. How was he even alive? Which was was out? Which way to go?

  Segovac. The voice spoke in his head as much as his ears. He looked up to see the smoke swirling about, drawing in sparks and bits of flame, forming itself into the shape of a man. Two balls of flame floated up to where the eyes would be, looking on him with a sense of calmness and compassion. Legs of smoke and embers planted themselves before his face.

  "Am...I dead?" he asked. "Are you...demon..."

  You know me, Segovac.

  And he did. The voice was the same. The voice of his god. Unless he was hallucinating from the smoke...

  "What..." Segovac managed to say,.

  Rise. Continue on. You are almost there.

  "Can't...smoke...heat..."

  The smoky figure turned, pointed a dark arm down the hallway. The smoke suddenly parted, a passage opening through the murk. Flames receded as a cool breeze that smelled of spring flowers and new life blew across his face.

  He stood, his head clearing. He looked up into the face of his god. "Where do I go?"

  You will know. Prepare yourself.

  "For what?" But even as he asked the question, Segovac knew what was coming. "Why? Here and now? I've come so far and my friend needs my help."

  It is necessary. A hand reached down to touch the side of his head. Though made of smoke and flame, it felt warm and full of life, the hand of a father blessing his son. Knowledge filled Segovac's mind...things that were, things were to come, possibilities both good and bad. What had to be done, what had to be sacrificed. And he knew the truth, that it was necessary.

  "I understand," he whispered.

  The smoke dissipated, the glowing eyes turned to sparks that faded. He stood alone in the hallway, the passage still open.

  Segovac continued on, proclaiming the Great Chant, his words half lost in the noise of the burning Palace.