by James Somers
“Mistress,” she said.
Zora started awake, noticing the colder temperature of the water, and then the concerned look on Jana’s aged face. “What is it?” she asked.
Jana already had a large bath towel in her hands as she knelt next to Zora’s head. “Strangers moving across the courtyard toward the ward,” she said urgently.
Zora pulled herself up on the stone lip of the bath, quickly accepting the towel and drying off. Jana was already handing her a fresh tunic and breeches. “Hurry, Mistress, they are not servants I’ve seen before. They have no business in this part of the palace.”
Zora knew this as well. Only women were allowed anywhere near the ward that was occupied by the priestesses of Belial. Crossing that boundary made one worthy of death by Belial’s commandment.
She practically leaped into her breeches, then hit the ground at a run, her tunic slipping down over her head and torso; arms through her sleeves by the time she got to the outer hall leaving the baths behind. As Zora’s bare feet slapped the cool stones, winding between columns, she saw three men dashing across the far veranda leading to the kitchens and the area where most of the priestesses in this ward would be gathered eating their morning meal.
Zora leaped over the nearest balustrade, lighting on the green courtyard beyond. From a leather brace of daggers folded inside her left hand, she pulled three knives. There was no time to run these men down. They were already almost inside. Zora pulled strength, balance and keen eyesight from the spiritual realm through the Gifts of Transcendence.
She hurled three daggers one after the other while still sprinting across the courtyard toward her targets. The men had just turned away from Zora, entering the cafeteria beneath an open archway. She had predicted this and had led her targets precisely. The two men flanking the third were struck between their shoulder blades with cold steel long enough to pierce their hearts. They fell—their limbs splayed across the stone floor while the third kept running.
The dagger had found its mark, but the man was wearing some sort of package strapped to his body. The jeweled pommel protruding from his back caught the sunlight, glinting for a moment before he disappeared inside. Zora did not know what the package might contain, but it didn’t look like it was meant to be removed easily.
The young women inside the cafeteria had seen the stranger by now. Some were shouting while younger girls with less courage screamed. Zora bounded from a marble urn up to the balustrade and over as precisely as a gazelle. As she entered the cafeteria through the archway, she saw a small fire bouncing out of his hand. The man turned around, taking in all of his intended victims. “Down with Belial and his witches!” he shouted.
The little fire hit the ground, and then ran up a cord turning it to ash. A fuse, Zora realized too late; trying to get to the man in time, trying to cut it before it reached the package tied with cords surrounding his torso. Her jeweled dagger still protruded from the canvas wrap that Zora knew must contain the powder she had seen demonstrated once by scientists who scoured the ruins of the former world. They too had used fire to ignite the powder, turning it into an inferno of flame.
Zora had pushed through several stunned apprentices, crying out for them to flee as she ran toward the rebel assassin. She snatched up a table by one leg intending to block the blast or batter the man—something, anything. He caught sight of her in time to smile maniacally; his arms opening wide to receive her.
Meanwhile, in those three seconds it had taken Zora to light upon the veranda, enter the cafeteria and take up her makeshift weapon, the little fire had run its course and found the canvas package upon the intruder’s back. The canvas, packed tight with gunpowder as well as the man bearing it, exploded. The table in Zora’s hands caught much of the force of the blast, lifting her into the air and tossing her backward at speed. The wooden table shattered and scattered from her grasp as her entire body went numb. All she had seen at the last moment was a raging fire—hell unleashed, consuming everything in its path.
SACRILEGE
A ball of fire tearing through a large portion of our ward would have been hard to miss had I been outside at the time of the explosion. However, I had still been within the temple prayer gardens housed beneath a huge translucent dome deep in meditation. The pounding thunder, though, had reached everyone’s ears for miles within the city. The tranquility of the prayer garden shattered suddenly as I and the other supplicants roused from our dream-states.
The fire dancing upon my upturned palm winked out as I leaped to my feet searching for the source of the terrible disturbance. Distant screams echoed throughout the temple, coming from places beyond in the city. I dashed away from the bewildered worshippers, into the main hall, past the altar of incense and the altar of sacrifice.
The priests of Belial were trying to coordinate their efforts, calming the faithful while sending out men to find the cause of the disturbance. None of them had noticed what I saw as I came upon the great statues of Belial within the main hall. Armed rebels had dared to enter the Temple of the High Serpent King.
I crouched behind the massive marble image of my dragon god, staring at the dozen men who had breached the temple proper. They carried weapons. Some I knew well. Others I had only heard about from Zora’s description. They each carried canvas bags by straps upon their backs. I was unsure of their use until the leader motioned the others forward.
The men pulled back flaps upon their sacks, removing threaded cords called fuses to be ignited with torches mounted on the walls. Three of the men stuffed their sacks within the space beneath the belly of Belial’s image. The leader ignited the first fuse as I decided to act.
Calling for speed, agility and the Touch through the gifts, I shot out of my hiding place near the statue’s long tail. Using the prominences flowing down the marble Belial’s back, I raced up and leaped over the shoulder, tumbling down as a ball to unfurl my arms and legs just before striking the leader.
My kick sent him sprawling backward across the polished marble floor, his torch skidding away into a corner. One of the other men was upon me in a moment with a sword in his hand. I spun aside as he struck down upon the place where I had been standing. Using his momentum against him, I raised my right knee to meet his forearm while slamming my right hand down upon his wrist. His sword dropped away as the bones of his forearm snapped neatly over my knee.
The rebel screamed in pain, falling sideways as he cupped his wounded arm. Spotting another rebel moving in with one of the weapons Zora had warned me about, I snatched up the dislodged sword from my previous victim, spun around completely to build centrifugal force, and then hurled the sword spinning at the man. His gun went flying out of his hands as the sword shot through his belly.
The fact that one of the fuses was already burning behind me had not been forgotten. If Zora’s description was correct, it could explode with such force that it might very well destroy Belial’s image and the entire gallery around us. Another gunner was taking aim to my right. I pulled two daggers from my brace, then spun left as the man fired his shot. I had spun inside the reach of another man with a broadsword.
My right arm thrust behind me, catching the swordsman under the ribs, my dagger tearing through his liver and other organs on its way to the large artery traveling beneath his heart. My left hand hurled its dagger backhanded into the chest of the gunman before he even realized he had missed me. Still, the fuse burned its way toward the canvas sack full of deadly explosive powder.
I had no time left. I reached for as much speed as I could through the gifts, then dashed toward the statue and snatched the fuse. It wriggled like a wounded serpent as the fire snaked its way along its length. Jerking the fuse free with surprising ease, I turned, tossing it into the face of my next victim. He dropped his weapon while trying to avoid the coil of spitting fizzing fire coming at him. In his confusion, my dagger found his throat as I ran past.
Fortunately the other rebels had forgotten about their canvas bags in their attem
pts to stop me from stopping them. The leader was only now beginning to pick himself up from the floor, shouting orders for his men to light their fuses and toss them back into the temple. But they had delayed those efforts too long. I retrieved the sword of my next kill and finished off several of these feeble fighters with single precision strikes; all of them essentially coming to me to be slaughtered. Perhaps their pride had kept them from retreating from a woman. No matter. They died just the same.
I expended my last dagger upon one of the men retrieving a torch, trying to obey his leader’s order to blow up his sack. My blade caught him through the back, piercing his heart from behind; one of the basic throws taught to us by our Elder Mothers at an early age. He fell, slapping the marble floor heavily; probably further breaking some of the bones in his face with the impact.
Only the leader remained. I had thought moments before when the attack began that I recognized this man. Now, upon closer examination, I knew him as one of the rebels we had encountered before during other raids into Babale; though none as brazen as this. Peka was his name; an unkempt man with dark stubble on his face. He bore tattoos down both of his bare arms and a dagger in each hand. “You dragon’s witch!” he cried, throwing the first blade with his left hand.
Calling upon speed again, I dashed toward him. His dagger grazed my shoulder. I felt only the sting of the wound; anger fueling my attack. I reached him in a second as he tried to defend himself with the dagger in his right hand. I thrust out simultaneously with my left hand to his right arm and my right foot to his left thigh using the Touch. The bones shattered in both appendages. Peka staggered back a few paces as I spun down scooping up his fallen dagger, then spun upward again in a single motion slicing up under his chin.
He grabbed his throat with his useful left hand. His lifeblood spilled between his fingers as he collapsed onto the polished marble of Belial’s temple next to his comrades. The image of the great dragon looked down with contempt upon them all. I turned to the image bowing reverently, thanking Belial for his Gifts of Transcendence without which such victories would not be possible. Perhaps my earlier distractions, leading to my time in the prayer gardens, had been foreseen by the High Serpent King and allowed in order to place me here in the right place at the right time. Such are the mysterious ways of gods. As for me, I could only guess.
ZORA
Following the attack upon Belial’s temple by Peka and his men, I had stayed at the temple trying to explain to the priests what had happened while helping to restore calm to those who had been worshipping there at the time. The earlier thunder that had woken us all from our prayers had, for the time being, been forgotten. However, news of the other attack in the city soon filtered in through the priest’s runners. There had been an explosion within Belial’s palace.
Hearing that, I detached myself from the High Priest, Benjamin, even as he continued throwing questions at me. But I could not stop to answer them now. My sisters in the priesthood had been in the palace within our ward.
I called for speed and endurance through the gifts, pushing my fatigued body to the breaking point. One of the well known side-effects of plunging into the Gifts of Transcendence was its effects on the physical body. I knew already that this two mile run between Belial’s temple and his palace, using the gifts, would feel like a marathon effort after I stopped to rest. Moreover, if a wraith dancer was not careful she could die from sheer exhaustion; though this had rarely happened.
When I came within visual range of the palace, my heart melted within me. It had not been the palace proper to receive the brunt of the attack but the ward of the priestesses. The cafeteria was a smoldering crater gutted by fire. Though we had heard the distant thunder of the explosion nearly a half hour ago, the bodies of my sisters lay sprawled upon the lawn and veranda entering the building.
Despite the fatigue already burning in my muscles, I pushed harder, using the gifts to drive me toward the grisly scene. I leaped, finally, over the balustrade and paused at the sight of Carra, one of the Elder Mothers, lying supine upon the stones. She looked very much like a broken doll; her lifeless eyes partly rolled up into her head, dried rivulets of blood coming from her ears, nose and mouth. Her tunic had been singed heavily by the fire while her limbs lay twisted in macabre fashion: disjointed and broken.
I gasped at the sight of her. Despite having seen dead people many times in my life, I found myself utterly shocked by this. The Elder Mothers were not feeble women whose usefulness had long been spent. They were the best of the best and still very deadly warriors. In fact, their experience and skill was the precise reason they became Elder Mothers at all; to pass on their knowledge to new generations while they were still in their prime.
How could these bumbling rebels have done this to her? I wondered, my mouth agape. I began to hyperventilate as tears flowed down my cheeks. All at once the fatigue of using the gifts hit me like a great weight. I crumbled beneath it, landing on my hip next to Carra’s corpse, only supporting my upper body with trembling arms.
One of my sisters appeared at my side, her hands grasping my shoulders. “Gwen? Where have you been?”
I looked over my shoulder finding Sarah there. She was perhaps ten years older than me and currently serving with the High Guard here in Babale. I was trying to speak, but found that I could not. She tried to console me, brushing my hair with her soot-stained hand. “It’s an unthinkable tragedy, Gwen.” Now she was crying with me.
I closed my eyes longing for comfort, but it wouldn’t come. I looked again at Carra, still not believing an Elder Mother had been killed. Then my eyes shot open. “Zora!”
I twisted in Sarah’s grip. The look on her face terrified me. Something had happened to my Elder Mother. I was almost unable to voice the question stabbing my heart. “Is she—?” It was all I could manage. Zora was the closest thing to a real mother I had ever known. My true mother and father had given me up to the service of Belial at so early an age that my memories of them were precious and few.
Sarah’s expression softened a little. “She lives—”
Immediately, I felt I might faint at this glorious news.
“—but she has been hurt very badly,” Sarah finished.
Still, I didn’t care, so long as she was alive. It was not until I saw Zora for myself that I realized how premature my joy had been.
Sarah led me through our ward. Apart from the cafeteria, our living space had remained relatively unharmed, no doubt due to quality craftsmanship and hard stone. Nevertheless, the odor of burning permeated everything: bodies, hair, clothing—all of it mixed with other things destroyed by the explosion.
It took me a moment to realize that something other than smoke and fire had infiltrated every nook and cranny of our ward. Anger was there and pain; both in measured amounts. However, fear was everywhere. I could see it in the tear-stained expressions of the anguished and in the proud faces of our most well-trained wraith dancers.
Something had changed in us all. We had never felt truly vulnerable before. This attack had shown us how much folly that thinking had been. The rebels were no longer a mere nuisance. Now they were a very real threat, and something had to be done about it.
When we arrived at the infirmary, I was surprised to see how many of my sisters had been brought here. Normally, there are anywhere from two to three hundred priestesses dwelling within Belial’s palace at any given time. Any number of our ranks might be traveling abroad to other patron cities, or be on assignment throughout the kingdom doing the will of the Serpent Kings.
The infirmary, with its thirty beds that normally sat empty, was filled beyond capacity, overflowing into the corridor. This did not even account for the dead I had seen laid outside the cafeteria. Women with bloody abrasions, cuts and burns were everywhere free space could be found for them. When I considered it, I realized how well planned the rebel’s attack had been.
They had wanted to strike at both Belial’s temple and his palace. Wraith dancers, as the pr
imary warriors serving under the rule of the Serpent Kings, were the main threat to whatever goals they hoped to achieve. Wisely, the ward of priestesses here in Babale had been hit first, effectively preventing any interference at the temple where their other team would strike. They had also known our schedule; finding warriors of all ages congregated at the morning meal in our large cafeteria. A better opportunity to kill large numbers of priestesses at one time could not have been found.
As we walked within, winding through the wounded, I heard moaning distinct from the rest of the din. I had been holding onto Sarah’s hand as we closed upon the infirmary. Now, I was squeezing it tightly. Though I had never heard her utter such a sound before, I still recognized Zora’s voice.
She had been moved into the surgical suite beyond the main triage chamber. I could see several physicians, all trained from the ranks of priestesses, moving around her. I caught glimpses of Zora’s thrashing against their efforts, emboldened by her pain.
She was still covered in blood, and much of her clothing had been burned or blasted away in the explosion. Her blonde hair was matted heavily with blood on one side of her head and missing completely on the other. She was screaming one moment and moaning again the next. Several of our warriors had been stationed on her arms and legs to hold her down while the physicians tried to suture her wounds. Even the medicines, derived from opium poppies, seemed to have little effect at diminishing her pain.
I could not help the tears streaming down my face. I couldn’t bear to look at my Elder Mother in such pain. Death almost seemed a better alternative, if only she didn’t have to suffer so. Sarah tried to console me, allowing me to lean upon her for strength. “It looks worse than it is,” she said. “The physicians say she will recover with time. Zora was the only one of us who realized what was happening. There were three men, but Zora killed two before they could get to us.”
