“There is no greater weapon than fear,” he said. “My creations were made to serve only one master and achieve only one goal: to stop the so-called Bearers and, if possible, bring the Weapons to me.”
Talos examined the faces, like and yet unlike those of his friends, and shook his head. “You demand much of mere simulacra,” he said. “And perhaps you underestimate simple human courage.”
“You know the worth of your constructions, and I have faith in mine,” Baalshillek said. He cleared the images with a sweep of his hand. “Your companions are beyond your aid, and you will not be permitted to interfere with young Corvinus again.”
Talos stepped away from the stand. “If you are so sure of such things, why did you summon me here?”
“Because you and I are not so different, Talos. They called you ‘the Destroyer’ in the lands your machines ravaged. Yet you saved many lives by ending wars quickly. You made the rebels see the futility of their resistance.”
“Your priests have no need of my devices to achieve the same results.”
A rancid smell rose from the bowl, and Baalshillek summoned an omega priest to dispose of its contents. “You are too modest,” he said when the servant had gone. “You could make yourself very useful to me.”
“You do me far too much honor, lord priest. I fear I must decline the privilege of serving you and your god.”
Baalshillek sat and adjusted his robes around his legs. “You may choose to believe so, for now. But you will keep no secrets from me, old man. All that you have done or been, everything you have ever thought will be as an open scroll to me when my agents have completed their work.”
“I thank you for the warning.” Talos bowed. “If I have your leave to depart—”
“By all means. Return to the court. Draw up your plans and convince Nikodemos that you can put all the world under his heel. I will not tell him that your loyalty is as false as your foolish prophecies.”
“True or false, I am unlikely to see their fulfillment,” Talos said. “You, however, will be alive to witness your god’s downfall.”
Baalshillek touched his stone pendant and pointed at Talos. The old man crumpled, and his face whitened in agony.
“You live on the emperor’s sufferance,” Baalshillek said softly. “How you live is within my hands.”
Talos hobbled to the door and pulled it open with obvious effort. The victory left a foul taste on Baalshillek’s tongue.
No matter. Pain was obviously not sufficient in itself, but the old man had some weakness other than his dubious allegiance to Nikodemos and his fondness for the Stone-killer. Once Baalshillek learned it, no magic would be necessary to convince Talos where his true interests lay. Quintus Horatius Corvinus, so-called Alexandros, would lose his few allies one by one until he was entirely—and fatally—alone.
Chapter Two
Y our powers will come.
Rhenna sat on an outcropping of rock on a barren hill, gazing across the valley at the glittering speck that was Karchedon. Early morning sun beat down on her head. No breeze stirred this scorched place where even the city’s fat and glossy livestock did not venture. Yet the fertile croplands nestled between the hills seemed untouched by the scouring storm of dust that had driven the Stone God’s servants back behind their walls.
Rhenna could never again draw breath without being aware of the life in the air all around her…the pneumata and the lesser devas of sky and wind who had come at her desperate call. She had no idea how she had done it or if she could repeat the magic. But it had saved them, and she was changed.
Cian tended Tahvo in a sheltered hollow. The little healer was recovering from the effects of sharing her body with a host of divinities and would soon be up on her own two feet. The windstorm had won the fugitives time and a goodly distance from Karchedon, but Rhenna didn’t believe for a moment that the priests would abandon their hunt.
“We should move on,” Nyx said.
Rhenna looked up at the Southern woman through narrowed eyes. “When was it decided that you should come with us?”
Nyx leaned on her spear. “You need a guide. My home is south of these lands, and I have traveled this country before.”
This country. Nyx didn’t mean the hinterlands of Karchedon, leagues of rugged hills where the Stone God and the empire held sway. Something even worse than imperial soldiers lay between the seekers and the magical object they sought—an ocean of rock and sand, roasting under a merciless sun by day and bitter cold by night.
“You have crossed the Great Desert?” Rhenna asked.
“Yes. It is a wasteland few can survive in ignorance.”
“Yet you did not make the journey alone.” Cian joined them, brushing at the dust that clung to his sweat-streaked arms and chest. He had fought in Karchedon as a panther and run naked from the city; the windstorm had bought him time to twist a scrap of cloth around his hips. He was lean and lithe and beautiful, bronzed rather than burned by the sun, an ideal representation of all that was fine in a male physique.
Rhenna had held that body in her arms, felt it move with her own in the most ancient and carnal of dances. She tried to remember what she had vowed to herself when she had agreed to this mad venture. She could not be both lover and leader. She must be—
“I had aid,” Nyx said, oblivious to Rhenna’s turmoil. “There are tribes that live in the desert, men and women who share our hatred of the Stone, and I know where they are wont to dwell.”
“Did Geleon command you to help us?” Rhenna asked.
“I do not even know if Geleon survived the battle. I do this of my own will, and because I believe in the prophecies—as did the others who died for the sake of the Bearers.”
Rhenna rubbed her sunburned arms. “Many were willing to give their lives based on the words of one woman—”
“Your friend, who spoke with the voice of the gods.”
“—and because of these scribblings, which are much talked about but never seen.”
“Philokrates believed in them,” Cian said.
Rhenna snorted. “Philokrates lied about his past with the empire. How can we be sure of anything he told us?”
“The prophecies are real,” Nyx said. “I knew of them long before I came to Karchedon.”
“How?”
Nyx’s expression flattened. “I do not know how Talos obtained his information, but the Stone priests are not the original owners of the sacred texts. Others outside Karchedon have knowledge of the prophecies, and they will be our allies.”
“Your people,” Cian said. At Nyx’s nod, he added, “Then your country hasn’t yet been taken by the empire.”
“No.” Nyx stretched the hamstrings of her long runner’s legs. “The desert lies between Karchedon and my mother’s homeland. Even the Stone God’s minions are not yet prepared to conquer so great a barrier.”
“Then what brought you to the city at such great risk?” Rhenna asked. “Did the prophecies send you, or do you have visions, like Tahvo?”
“I need no visions to see the truth. No one on this earth can escape the Stone God forever.”
They looked as one toward Karchedon. Cian cleared his throat.
“What did you mean when you said I was to carry the Hammer?” he asked.
Rhenna started. She had heard nothing of this, but there had been little time for conversation since the escape. “You have information about the Weapons?” she asked Nyx.
“They are clearly mentioned in the prophecies.”
“Do you know where this Hammer lies?”
Nyx hesitated. “It is somewhere in the South, as Cian guessed. Beyond that, I do not know, but there are those in my village and among the folk of the deep forest who may help us discover its location—now that its true Bearer has been found.”
“These prophecies also mention Cian’s name?”
Nyx cut the air with her hand. “Any woman with half an eye could see that he is the one.”
“Indeed?” Rhenna arched
a brow. “One would think you have a personal claim on our Cian. Why is that, woman of the South?”
“He is Ailu. He has power over the Earth, and the Hammer is of the Earth. He—” She broke off, and suddenly rooted the butt of her spear into the gritty soil, chanting in her own language. Tiny buds burst from the polished wood and flared into whorls of green leaves. Living tendrils snaked up and down the length of the spear.
“I also am of the Earth,” Nyx said. “The Watcher is more powerful, but I have my gifts. You may find them useful.”
Rhenna concealed her astonishment and met Nyx’s eyes over the waving leaves. “I put more faith in the other end of your spear, if you’re prepared to fight.”
“She risked her life for us,” Cian said. “I trust you both. Now you’ll have to trust each other.” He pointed his chin toward the arid scrublands to the south, where only a few miserable goats could hope to find sustenance. “You can find these desert tribes, Nyx?”
“I can.”
“And they will be willing to help us?”
“We must be cautious, of course. We will be entering a land where they have fought for survival for thousands of years, but they know the Stone God threatens their very existence.”
“And once we’re beyond the desert?” Rhenna asked.
“Forests,” Tahvo said. She crept up the low hill, feeling her way with outstretched hands. The unbroken silver of that blind gaze was still a shock to Rhenna, filling her with dreadful rage and bitterness.
“I see it in my mind,” Tahvo said, smiling sadly at Rhenna as if she had heard her thoughts. “A vast sweep of trees like the pelt of a great green beast. Not like the North.”
“Nor like the woodlands in the hills west of Karchedon,” Nyx agreed. “You will see many changes between here and my mother’s country.”
“Will there be villages where we can purchase clothing and supplies?” Rhenna asked.
“There is one we may reach by nightfall.” Nyx inclined her head to Cian. “We should continue on our journey before the soldiers find our trail. If you are ready, Watcher…”
Cian looked to Rhenna, waiting for her signal. A small concession, but it warmed her heart. Dangerously so.
I am leader, she thought. Rhenna-of-the-Scar is no more.
She hitched up her small pack and started down the hill. Nyx caught up and passed her, using her spear as a staff. Cian followed with Tahvo.
They made reasonably good time on foot, using their limited supply of water sparingly. Nyx’s pace never flagged. Tahvo asked Cian’s help when she needed assistance over the roughest places, but the healer fared remarkably well with touch, hearing and smell, in addition to the mystical shaman’s senses she possessed.
The land gradually gave up its scant moisture, growing more rocky and bare with every passing league. Dry stream beds carved deep gorges out of overgrazed pasture, stripped of grass and all but the hardiest shrubs. An occasional goat paused in its browsing to stare at the interlopers, and jackals poked their heads from behind jutting rocks, laughing at human foolishness. The air grew so stifling that Nyx called a halt in the shadow of a cliff until the noonday heat had passed.
“The village I spoke of is not far ahead,” she said. “The people who reside there are kin to the wandering desert tribes. They will have horses, which can carry us to Imaziren territory.”
“Imaziren,” Cian echoed, helping Tahvo drink from her waterskin. “This is a name I have heard before.”
“Philokrates called my people ‘Amazons,’” Rhenna said. “A strange similarity.”
“Imaziren is the word for more than one tribesman,” Nyx said. “The singular is Amazi.” She glanced at Rhenna. “Among the desert tribes, women fight at the sides of their men. Your women fight alone, do they not?”
“My people have no kin outside the Shield’s Shadow, except male offspring who return to their fathers among the steppes tribes,” Rhenna said.
“Yet your legends don’t tell where Asteria was born,” Cian said.
Asteria, First Mother, founder of the Free People. It was true that not even the Earthspeakers, Healers or Seekers of Rhenna’s race could be sure of Asteria’s origins.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, watching waves of hot air rise from the baked earth beyond the border of the cliff’s shadow. “As long as these Imaziren help us.”
After the four of them had rested and the sun had begun its downward journey to the West, Nyx led them out again. At sunset they reached the borders of a small, mud-brick village beside a small patch of green Nyx called an amda. Tall, branchless trees with broad, fringed leaves at their tops shaded the houses and the livestock grazing in a surprisingly verdant pasture.
Nyx, who spoke a little of the local dialect, took the coin the Karchedonian rebels had provided and ventured into the town alone. The people Rhenna glimpsed were brown from the sun, men and women both, but their hair and eyes ran from dark to fair, and they wore light garments befitting the hot weather. They came out of their plain, pale houses to talk and sip beverages from clay cups as the cool of evening brought relief from the day’s fierce temperatures.
Rhenna spent most of the next two hours pacing and debating how soon she should go after Nyx. Cian watched her without comment, his chin resting on his knees.
“They are here,” Tahvo said.
Rhenna spun to face the healer. “Who?”
“The spirits. It is difficult to sense them in this land. The water runs deep under the ground, and many of those who once inhabited even the dry places have fled.”
“From the Stone God, as they did in the North,” Rhenna said.
She nodded. “But water rises to the surface in this place, and the spirits linger. Nyx said that the desert tribes rely on the green islands. Perhaps I will be able to talk with the spirits once we are in the sea of sand.”
“If Nyx keeps her promises, you won’t have to burden yourself. You’ve had enough dealings with devas to last you half a lifetime.”
“But it is not over,” Tahvo whispered. “It is only beginning. For all of us.”
Rhenna shuddered. “You’re still mortal, Tahvo. Remember that, when the devas are so anxious to use you.”
But we’re all being used, Rhenna thought. Even the devas.
Cian sat up, nostrils flaring. “Nyx returns. With horses. And food.”
Rhenna hardly thought of nourishment when she caught the unmistakable smell of horseflesh. Nyx led a string of four mounts, one hardly larger than a pony, the others smaller than the steppes breed and far from beautiful, but sturdy enough in appearance.
“It took nearly all our coin to buy them,” Nyx said, offering the lead of a bay gelding to Rhenna. “They’re desert-bred, able to travel on less water than most.”
Rhenna examined the gelding’s legs and patted his shoulder as the animal snuffled her dusty hair. “They’ll do,” she said. She assessed the other horses and chose the tallest gray gelding for Cian, while Nyx took the chestnut mare. The pony might have been made for Tahvo’s short stature and uncertain horsemanship. The tack was not of the best, worn and rubbed thin, but it would serve.
Nyx laid out her other purchases, including larger waterskins for the horses to carry and a change of clothing for each of the riders. There were shirts, trousers and headcloths for Rhenna, Tahvo and Cian, dyed the same ocher hue as the landscape. Nyx had chosen a tunic that left her legs bare. She had bought low leather boots for herself and taller ones for the Northerners. Tahvo’s were decidedly too large.
The meal consisted of flat bread, a thick stew of beans, vegetables and mutton, and a brown drink Rhenna guessed was beer. When the last of the perishable food had been devoured and the rest packed away, Nyx passed out rough woolen blankets and the group made a fireless camp beneath the scraggly branches of a scrub tree. With the horses bunched nearby, Rhenna could almost imagine she was home in the Shield’s Shadow with the herd, back in the days before the devas had spoken to her in voices of wind and blood.
>
A breeze puffed against her cheek, and she swatted it away. Cian stirred and rolled over to face her, eyes half-lidded and glinting by moonlight. Tahvo snored under her blanket, and Nyx stood watch near the horses, her lean body erect in a warrior’s stance.
“You can’t sleep?” Cian asked.
Save for brief conversations, the two of them had barely spoken since formulating the plan to leave Karchedon. So many deaths, so many sacrifices stood between that day and this. So many vows that Rhenna wasn’t sure she could keep.
“I could ask the same of you,” Rhenna retorted. He was almost within reach. If she stretched her arm and fingers…
Cian shivered. “They must be pursuing us,” he said.
“Do you know this, or only fear it?”
“I’m always afraid.” He raised himself up on his elbow. “I’m afraid for Tahvo, that she’ll be driven mad by the powers that consume her. I fear for Nyx and her disillusionment when she sees how unworthy I am of her expectations. And I fear for you.” He spread his right hand on the ground between them, the hand that lacked its smallest finger. “Rhenna—”
She willed him not to speak of things that could only create more discomfort for them both. But his eloquent golden eyes said all the words his tongue did not, bringing a slow, heavy throbbing to the core of her body.
“Would you change what happened?” Cian asked.
He had no need to explain himself further. She remembered a garden lush with flowers and trees, untouched by the impossible snow that fell throughout Karchedon. Lying with a man she had wanted without daring to admit it, giving and taking in equal measure. Knowing there could never be a moment’s peace or certainty between them.
“I would not change it,” she said. “But that was a place out of time, Cian. We can’t go back.”
Hammer of the Earth Page 3
