Hammer of the Earth

by Susan Krinard

  She nodded. “I think they have been pursuing us since Karchedon, but I did not sense them until now. I am sorry, Cian.”

  “No. We all realized Baalshillek wasn’t likely to let us go without a fight.” A spike of dread sliced through him. “I should have heard the red stones long before they got this close. They haven’t called me since I found my people in Karchedon.”

  “Then at least they cannot draw you to them,” Tahvo said.

  “That seems small consolation at the moment.” He sniffed the air. Over the reek of bones rose the scent of men’s living bodies and sun-heated metal. “At least twenty, I think,” he said grimly. “Did they believe they could take us without difficulty after we left the others?”

  “Perhaps they were already drawn to this place,” Tahvo said. “Their masters’ power lingers here even though the Stone is gone.”

  “Then we have little chance unless the beasts will carry us.”

  Tahvo rested her palm against her mount’s quivering side. “They came into the pit for a reason,” she said. “They intend us to fight.”

  “How?”

  “You, too, have power here,” Tahvo said softly. “The power of your ancestors.”

  Cian could not deny what he himself had felt, but he had no idea how to tap that latent magic. Every time he shifted his weight, his legs sank knee-deep in bones. He couldn’t guess how far down he would have to reach to touch clean earth.

  He tried to remember everything he had observed of the Stone’s soldiers when they had hunted him in the North and taken him prisoner in Karchedon. They possessed strength and endurance far beyond that of ordinary men, were difficult to kill and knew no fear. Any one of them would keep fighting even after suffering a deadly wound. And these had tracked their prey across two hundred leagues of hostile terrain.

  But the children had weaknesses. They were creatures of rigid order and obedience to their priestly masters. They fought ferociously but without individual volition.

  Perhaps the sand horses were not so stupid after all. If the soldiers attacked in formation, their phalanx would be broken by the uncertain footing in the crater. They would be forced to separate, and the more they fought alone, the more vulnerable they would become.

  “I will do what I can to find the magic of the Guardians,” Cian said. “Hold on to the beasts, Tahvo. If they run, go with them.”

  “I can fight,” Tahvo said in a small voice.

  Tahvo had performed works of great magic in Karchedon and before, in the North, when she had joined with the spirit-beast Slahtti and spoken with the voices of gods. But there had been no Slahtti and no gods since Karchedon.

  “Protect yourself,” he ordered. “Carry the warning back to Rhenna.”

  Tahvo’s jaw set in stubborn defiance, but there was no more time for argument. The plume of dust had reached the edge of the crater. The first rank of soldiers appeared above it, brutal sunlight striking sparks from greaves and spear-tips. Booted feet stepped into a quagmire of bone.

  Cian thrust his arm into the white crust. Blade-sharp edges, horns and teeth scraped his skin. Then came terrible pain…fire that ate flesh and seared muscle to useless filaments. His fingers numbed. He screamed and pushed deeper, all the way to his shoulder, and felt the very marrow of his being sucked dry by the ravenous bones.

  A small, blunt hand touched his hair. Tahvo gave him her strength, chanting to her absent spirits, and Cian found the will to reach beyond what his body could endure.

  Bones clattered. Cian’s vision went dark. Tahvo pulled at his shoulders, and with a howl he yanked his arm from the voracious teeth of the dead. His shirt was in shreds, his skin bloodied and raw.

  Cian sat up. Two dozen soldiers were halfway to the sand horses, their formation fracturing as they struggled to find solid ground. They lowered their long spears, ready to pierce and impale.

  “I failed,” Cian gasped. “There is nothing—”

  “Listen.” Tahvo held her breath, and Cian heard a rattle and clink like metal striking metal. The bones under his right hand leaped upright and shivered with unholy life. A man’s leg bones snapped together, tottering as they joined with feet and pelvis, spine and arms and grinning head.

  “They are waking,” Tahvo whispered.

  Cian ignored his heaving stomach and pushed Tahvo against the terrified sand horses. There was no other shelter from the horror stirring on every side. Skeletal men rose from their open graves, reaching for swords as sharp as the day they had last cut human flesh. Horses arched necks of bleached vertebrae, smashing skulls beneath narrow hooves. And there were other creatures, things made of plates and spines and far too many teeth, fitted together piece by piece like some monstrous puzzle.

  Dead men and animals and monsters turned hollow eye sockets to Cian. One creature leaped out in front of the rest, snapping its tail over its pale, pitted flank. A semblance of black fur settled over its oddly graceful bones. It opened its noseless muzzle impossibly wide.

  Brother, it said in Cian’s mind. Kill.

  Cian closed his eyes. Then he turned to face the Stone’s warriors. They had stopped for an instant when the dead had come to life, but now they pressed forward again, unafraid.

  Cian flung off his clothes and changed. Blood beat wildly in his chest and throat and ears. He filled his mind with thoughts of revenge, of bloody retribution for his people who had died, here and in Karchedon. The skeletal Ailu came to crouch at his side. They leaped as one.

  Metal scraped under Cian’s claws as he dodged the thrusting spear of his chosen prey. The ghostly Ailu batted at a soldier’s head as if it were an infant’s plaything. Warriors built of naked bone hacked at limbs and helmeted heads in eerie silence. Monsters rattled spines, clamping massive jaws on greaves and armbands, crushing bronze and iron like brittle papyrus.

  Cian lost himself as he had done at the last battle in Karchedon. The taste of enemy blood washed away all that was human. The dead were more real than the living. The living must be destroyed. Chaos ruled the world, and Cian laughed.

  He laughed while the soldiers were slaughtered, one by one. He laughed as the skin was stripped from their bones to feed the legions of death. He laughed when their stinking corpses collapsed to join the ranks of the long-lost fallen. He could not stop laughing even when nothing of the soldiers remained and the skeleton army turned, unsated, to the only creatures that still drew breath.

  Warm air ruffled the fur of Cian’s shoulder. Tahvo knelt beside him, her fingers locked in the heavy pelt behind his ears.

  “Come back, Cian,” she said. “We must leave now.”

  He growled and snapped toward her hand, but she didn’t let go. The dead ones moved closer. The Ailu clacked its teeth, and the man-creatures behind it hungrily stretched fleshless fingers.

  “There is too much evil here,” Tahvo said. “They hate all that lives, and they will kill us.”

  They cannot kill a god, Cian thought, but his mouth would not form the words. He changed to human form, and the hundred cuts on his body bled afresh.

  Pain did what Tahvo could not. Cian stared at the red-streaked human hands, wondering if they belonged to him. Gods could be wounded. They could die.

  “Cian!”

  He stared into the woman’s silver-blind eyes. The humpbacked beasts sank to their knees and moaned impatiently.

  Cian grabbed Tahvo’s arm and shoved her toward her mount. He lifted her up over its rump, made sure she had a firm hold on its fur, and ran to catch his own beast. The sand horse lurched up under him almost before he gained his seat. Earth rumbled.

  As one the beasts galloped up the slope, scattering bones like pebbles. The skeleton soldiers pursued. Cian and Tahvo mounted the rim of the crater, and their sand horses bellowed as the sand rippled like tossing waves. The silent scream of a thousand dead voices exploded from the crater.

  Cian glanced over his shoulder in time to see a funnel of bone and sand shoot up from the pit behind them, ripping the grotesque creat
ures apart with its fury. Arrows of slivered bone hissed past Cian’s ears. Sand stung his eyes, blinding him. An indescribable wail shrilled in his ears, the lament of beings who would never again know life or light. Cian’s mount stumbled as the earth gave one final, agonized heave.

  Then there was silence. The beasts slowed as if they had exhausted their strength, snorting and panting. Cian reached out, feeling for Tahvo’s mount. His fingers clutched at dust-laden cloth.

  Tahvo caught his hand and squeezed it. Together they dismounted, legs trembling, and gazed back the way they had come.

  Dust and wind settled, leaving behind an unbroken expanse of sand where the crater had lain. The hungry dead were gone, along with their Stonebound enemies, every last bone sucked into the maw of the earth.

  “It is over,” Tahvo whispered. She felt Cian’s arm. “You are hurt.”

  “It’s nothing.” He shivered. “There may be others waiting for us.”

  Tahvo tore a strip of cloth from the hem of her shirt and tied it around Cian’s forearm. “The beasts will take us home.”

  Home. No such place existed for any of them. But he and Tahvo had survived another day.

  “Let’s ride,” he said.

  Yseul stared into the slight depression where the bone pit had been, where the Children had gone to do battle with an Ailu, a blind healer and a pair of ugly riding beasts. The bones were gone, and so were the Children. Not one drop of blood remained.

  She had underestimated Cian. She had made the decision to leave the vicinity of the Amazi camp to follow him and the female, waiting for the moment when they would be alone and at their most vulnerable. But Farkas had grown impatient. He had ordered all but a dozen of the Children to attack, certain that the vestiges of the Stone’s sorcery would be enough to defeat the enemy.

  He had been wrong. Cian had drawn upon the power of his ancestors, and it had been enough to rouse the Stone-killed dead to a fury of mindless destruction. The Children had fallen. Now the few that survived stared at the new-made grave of their brethren with a look in their eyes that almost hinted of rebellion.

  Yseul dared not hope that those who spied for Baalshillek would be among the dead.

  She turned from the crater and stared the way her enemy had gone. He would return to the Amazi camp and warn his allies of the attack. There was no stopping him when the Children had just suffered such a grievous loss. The survivors must be used carefully, and only when their sacrifice would win a certain victory.

  “What now?” Urho asked.

  Yseul glanced from the pale-haired shaman to Farkas, who brooded in angry silence. “Indeed,” she said. “What now that Farkas has lost us two-thirds of our troops?”

  Farkas snarled wordlessly. Yseul smiled. “Perhaps now you will listen to my counsel,” she said sweetly.

  Urho grunted and drained the last drops from his water skin. “What do you suggest?”

  “You are not rash like our brother. You understand that we can make no more mistakes. That is why we will find the nearest spring and you, Farkas and the Children will remain there while I return to the Amazi camp.”

  “Alone?” Farkas snapped.

  “I can travel more quickly than the horses, and with greater discretion than a larger party. We must know what the seekers intend, and then we must hinder them in any way we can.”

  “Hinder but not destroy,” Urho said.

  “Precisely.” She bent closer. “A time will come when our enemies will be weak, but we must be patient. You will control Farkas while I am gone.” Her tongue flicked against the lobe of his ear. “I can trust you, Urho.”

  He breathed out harshly. “I do not trust you, woman.”

  She laughed. “How far have you progressed with your control over your Element?”

  “I can find water.”

  “Excellent. Continue to hone your powers, my friend. Perhaps we shall need them when I return.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Karchedon

  T he lower city and harbor were exactly as Quintus remembered them. Below the citadel of palace and temple, all the world was in perfect order. Shopkeepers and bakers, cloth dyers and laborers went about their work with serene and smiling efficiency. Shoppers at the market murmured to each other but never haggled over prices; women congregated at the fountains to fill their amphorae but seldom paused to gossip. Not a single beggar, cripple or petty thief worked the streets or the agora.

  There was no obvious reason for such unnatural calm. The soldiers and priests, who watched for deviants or troublemakers, did not worry the Stonebound populace. Nothing could pierce their impenetrable facade of contentment.

  Nothing save for Festival, and that Quintus could not forget no matter how many times his aristocratic companions extolled the wonders of Karchedon. He looked into the blank eyes of a fruit vendor and saw the mindless, snarling mask of a killer; he regarded the pretty face of a docile servant and recalled a wild-haired female, blood spattered on her smooth cheek, tearing with nails like claws at the unprotected flesh of a lame child.

  He could not forget those things any more than he could forget that tonight was his last chance to set Buteo free before he was given to Baalshillek.

  “My lord,” Hylas said, lightly touching Quintus’s arm. “Will you not look at the ships?”

  Quintus came back to himself and focused on the vessels in the harbor. There were hundreds, ranging in size from tiny fishing boats to the evil black ships, casting shadows over their lesser brethren like gods among scurrying ants. But the ships to which Hylas drew Quintus’s attention were of ordinary size, driven by wind and oar rather than the depraved magic of the Stone.

  “You see how our emperor looks to the welfare of his people,” Hylas said, pointing toward the fleet of merchant vessels being loaded with amphorae of grain, oil and wine. “His advisers and satraps send reports on those regions of the empire that have a surplus of crops and other goods. This surplus is sent to the provinces where food is scarce, where there has been starvation and drought. In this way, none are without the necessities of life.”

  “And does he pay the merchants and farmers from whom he takes these goods?” Quintus asked.

  “Some sacrifice is required of the most prosperous citizens of the empire so that all may benefit.”

  Quintus laughed. “Do you truly believe this, Hylas, or is it simply what Nikodemos commanded you to tell me?”

  “My lord,” Hylas protested, color rising in his smooth cheeks. He glanced about at the privileged young men and women who made up Quintus’s entourage, chattering as they drifted alongside the dark water. “I know that many more would suffer if not for the peace that has come with the empire.”

  “Peace.” Quintus gestured toward the people in the wharfside marketplace. “What do you see when you look at the common citizens of Karchedon, Hylas?”

  “I see men and women unburdened by illness, hunger or fear. People who are content—”

  “Because all the sick, defiant and imperfect have been given to the altars,” Quintus said, choked with memory. “Because the rest are bound by the Stone.”

  “This is not the emperor’s doing.”

  “But it happens with his approval…here, and everywhere the empire rules.” Even in Tiberia, once the priests succeed in putting down the rebellion. “Have you seen Festival, Hylas?”

  Hylas would not meet Quintus’s eyes. “From a distance.”

  “Because you know what it is, and what it makes human beings become. Animals, savages, loosed from their chains for a night of madness. And Nikodemos allows this to continue.”

  “Because he must,” Hylas said with a sudden show of temper. “Can you believe that our emperor approves of what the Stone demands?”

  “I know he protects those he considers worthy,” Quintus said. “You, Danae, Chares, Galatea…we are safe because we live in the citadel, free from the priests’ rule, while the plebeians are forgotten.”

  Hylas sighed. “Not forgotten, my lo
rd. In order to keep his advisers and generals unbound—so that he is not entirely dependent on the Temple for his administrators and armies—the emperor must make terrible choices.” He lowered his voice. “It is all compromise, my lord Alexandros, until the time when such concessions are no longer necessary.”

  Quintus watched a beta priest and his escort of soldiers stroll along the pier. None of the merchants or their customers glanced up from their wares. “And when will that be, Hylas? When all the world is under the emperor’s control, the Stone will be too powerful to overcome.”

  “Not if Nikodemos has your help,” Hylas whispered. “You could be the factor that guarantees victory. I had hoped…” He sucked air through his teeth. “I had hoped that by showing you the good done by the emperor, even in the face of evil, you would come to see that he is the only man capable of defying the Stone God. He alone has the strength of will and purpose to watch and wait until he has gathered every resource necessary to take back what the priests have claimed.”

  Quintus rubbed the deep groove between his eyes. “I have heard this before, Hylas.”

  “Then I beg you to listen,” Hylas said. “Every one of us, none more than the emperor himself, despises what the High Priest has made of the empire. Believe that the Stonebound will be set free, and there will be true peace.”

  “It must be easy to have such faith when you have never suffered from the Stone’s oppression.”

  “You think not, my lord?” Cat-eyed Galatea took Quintus’s arm and drew him away from Hylas. “We have all lost something to the Stone, in spite of our emperor’s favor. Hylas is no different.” Her hand slid up and down Quintus’s arm in a soothing caress. “You have noticed that Hylas has little of the usual interest in women.”

  “It has not escaped my attention,” Quintus said dryly.

  “Hylas had a lover in the lower city, a man who had escaped the priest’s testing.”

  “I have no wish—”

  “Do you know what it is to love, Lord Alexandros, and see the one you love torn from your arms?”