The acolytes instantly stopped their sparring and knelt on the sands of the arena, facing her and saluting.
Returning their salute, T’ier-Kunai turned to her First. “Have the seven senior-most of the priesthood join me in my quarters immediately, and dismiss the acolytes from training.” She paused, contemplating the worst of what could happen in the hours to come. “Once that is done, gather the priesthood and acolytes to the armory and prepare for battle.”
* * *
When Ayan-Dar had reached the mass of panicked keepers trying to escape the great chamber, he had been content to find a defensible position in the corner of a pair of the titanic walls that rose high overhead. In that way, he could not be surprised from his flanks or behind. He was near enough to the front of the chamber that he had a clear view of the entrance, but was not so close that he was within easy range of an attack by shrekkas or other throwing weapons the Ka’i-Nur might use.
But his presence there, in clear view of the keepers, prompted a stampede. They trampled one another and tore at those in front of them, sinking their talons into the unarmored flesh of their peers to try and escape the priest of the Desh-Ka who stood, horrified, behind them.
“Stop! I mean you no harm, keepers of the Books of Time!” His bellowed words failed to calm them, and in fact had the opposite effect, throwing them into a frenzy.
What happened next brought him to the edge of being physically ill. From the doorway through which the keepers were trying to flee, he saw the glint of swords rising and falling. The blades were covered with blood, and cries of panic were joined by shrieks of pain and agony as the warriors coming for him began to hack their way through the keepers they were there to protect.
Dark streaks fell from Ayan-Dar’s eyes, marks of mourning that turned the cobalt blue skin of his cheeks black as he watched the massacre. He bemoaned the fact that his people had forsaken the ancient gods, for he wished now that he had someone, something, to pray to, to relieve his soul of this dreadful burden.
“I did not wish this,” he whispered. He knew, deep in his heart, that even had he known this would happen, he would still have come. The information he sought was too important. But this, even though he had not intended for any such thing to happen, was a blight upon his honor that he could never fully erase.
As he watched the warriors cut their way through the helpless keepers to reach the main floor, a fire kindled in his blood, a burning rage against these honorless fools who so callously were destroying a living treasure that belonged to their entire Kreelan race.
The warriors of Ka’i-Nur, covered in the blood of the keepers, surged toward him. While he had easily vanquished the few who had come for him at the top of the column, he had held all the advantages. Against this many…
If it is my time to die, then so be it. Drawing in a lungful of air, he roared a challenge as the brutes threw themselves at him in a raging fury, and his sword began its bloody work. He knew he would eventually need to draw on the powers within him that had long ago been granted by the Crystal of Souls, but he had decided to hold back as long as he dared in order to give the keepers more time to escape. Unleashing the full power of his own fury now would only result in more needless deaths.
Slashing, stabbing, and whirling, his spirit singing in the glory of battle, Ayan-Dar began to kill.
* * *
T’ier-Kunai stood before the seven priests and priestesses she had summoned to her quarters. Their expressions were grim. “Remember,” she told them, “our task is not to seek battle, but to avoid it if possible. I do not know what fate has befallen Ayan-Dar, but I would not abandon him.”
The others nodded solemnly. Not all of the priesthood took kindly to Ayan-Dar’s eccentricities, but all had benefited from his wisdom, and none could argue his valor or honor as a warrior and priest of the Desh-Ka. They would not leave him, or any of the other members of the order, to the tender ministrations of the Ka’i-Nur.
She turned to the next senior-most priestess who would act in T’ier-Kunai’s stead while they were away. “Are the others of the priesthood and the acolytes prepared?”
“Yes, priestess. All are fully armed and are standing watch along the temple perimeter, with a reserve held at the Kal’ai-Il. The children and the non-warrior castes, save the builders, have been gathered in the great dome for protection.”
T’ier-Kunai nodded her approval. Should the temple be attacked, the warriors would mount an initial defense while the builders created a shield appropriate to the nature of the weapons used by the enemy. The builders beyond the temples were typically limited to structure of stone or wood. The abilities of those in the temples went far beyond such trifling constructs. In the last great war against the Settlements, they had erected a gigantic energy shield over the entire plateau that had withstood the assault of the enemy’s antimatter weapons. And the great dome that now protected the other non-warriors was more than a simple structure of stone. Beyond the thick entry door was a labyrinth of space and time, created at the height of their civilization in the Third Age, that could not be destroyed. An enemy army passing through its doorway could search within for an eternity and never find what they sought, and would never find its way back out.
Those the priesthood held most dear would be safe. She realized that she was almost certainly overreacting, but the Way of the Ka’i-Nur was alien to those beyond their walls. What the other six orders believed and held sacrosanct did not necessarily apply to the Ka’i-Nur. T'ier-Kunai would not underestimate the dark powers that might dwell in that ages-old relic in the Great Wastelands.
“Then let us go. I have been there before, and will lead you to the city gate. We must step through the barrier quickly to avoid any traps. I would take you straight inside, but our powers of teleportation will not work within the walls.”
“Will our other powers work?” One of the priests wondered aloud.
“I do not know. When I was there, those many cycles ago, I had no reason or opportunity to try.”
“So we may have to do battle — if we have to do battle — against the entire temple with only sword and claw?”
T’ier-Kunai nodded.
The other priests and priestesses bared their fangs, an expression of pleasure. It would be a most historic challenge, indeed, should it come to pass.
“Let us go.” Clearing her mind, she focused on the old, dusty cobbles leading up to the horrid gate of Ka’i-Nur.
As one, T’ier-Kunai and six companions vanished.
* * *
Ayan-Dar had fought his way to the ninth level up from the great cavern when his strength finally began to wane. An endless stream of warriors had cast their lives away upon his sword, and the entrance to the Books of Time and the stairs below him was an abattoir, with blood cascading down the steps like a series of grisly waterfalls.
But the last warrior he killed had gotten lucky, his sword slicing into Ayan-Dar’s right side where he had no arm to help defend his body. It had happened in a moment when Ayan-Dar had been too preoccupied with swordplay to allow the metal blade to pass right through him.
You are no longer young, my friend. The words echoed in his mind as he cut the legs from another warrior who charged him. Well said. But the true strength of a Desh-Ka priest does not reside in the body, be it young or old.
The keepers, at long last, were finally gone, the survivors having fled into chambers that led from the landings on the levels he had already passed, or higher up the great staircase.
It was time. As another group of warriors charged down the stairs, he flicked away the blood that coated the blade of his sword, then sheathed it in the scabbard at his side.
For the first time, the warriors showed more than just blind aggression and slowed for a moment, confused by his action.
“I would accept your surrender, warriors of the Ka’i-Nur,” he told them. “Your kin have fought bravely, but there is no need for further bloodshed. You may live with honor.”
The eyes of the
lead warrior bulged in rage at his words, which he had spoken with all sincerity, for surrender after a battle well-fought was indeed honorable. Mindless slaughter was not part of the Way.
Except among the Ka’i-Nur, it seemed.
Bellowing in fury, they charged him as had the others before, but this time Ayan-Dar did not draw his sword.
Instead, he extended his open hand toward them, and cyan chain lightning exploded from his palm, burning them alive. The heat was so intense that it melted their armor.
The warriors fell in a screaming heap, their charred bodies filling the air with the nauseating stench of burning flesh. If healers tended to them right away, they might yet live, but that was beyond Ayan-Dar’s concern.
As with his physical strength, the powers that lay within him were not without limit. If the Ka’i-Nur had so many warriors to sacrifice, it was unlikely he would ever again see the light of the sun before he was completely exhausted. Then they would quickly overwhelm him.
For a priest of the Desh-Ka, it would be a noble end worthy of an inscription in the Books of Time.
The thought made him smile.
Lightning snapping through the air before him, he rapidly advanced up the great stairway.
CHAPTER EIGHT
T’ier-Kunai and the others appeared in a swirl of cold air before the brooding metal gate of Ka’i-Nur. They immediately stepped forward, swords drawn, disappearing into the mass of the gate just as searing flames erupted from the walls to either side.
When they emerged on the far side, they were confronted by a century of warriors, grouped in tight ranks facing the gate.
The priests and priestesses who accompanied T’ier-Kunai were shocked at the appearance of their distant cousins, at the differences in body and armor, but said nothing.
Momentarily ignoring the warriors, who held no surprise for her, T’ier-Kunai focused on Ayan-Dar, trying to sense him…
There! He was indeed alive, his spirit singing the song of desperate battle. She could sense him within the walls.
They were not too late, then.
“I am T’ier-Kunai, high priestess of the Desh-Ka,” she told the warriors who stood before her, “and I claim the right of visitation.”
The warriors clutched their weapons, struck with indecision.
“Such a right to visit here has not been claimed by any of the orders for millennia.” A female voice spoke from behind the tight ranks of warriors. “Why should we honor it now?”
The warriors parted to reveal a solitary figure, who T’ier-Kunai realized must be their high priestess. Unlike the other warriors, this one, a female, was modern in appearance, although her hair was bound in only three braids, not seven. Her armor, while serpentine and segmented like the others, was a brilliant crimson, with the rune of the Ka’i-Nur in the center of her breastplate. Unlike the Desh-Ka and the other five orders beyond these walls, she did not wear a Collar of Honor or a sigil of her order at her throat. That had passed with the disappearance of their order’s Crystal of Souls ages ago.
She walked in measured strides to stand just beyond the reach of T’ier-Kunai’s sword.
“You are not welcome here, priestess, and claiming the right of visitation means nothing.” She glared at T’ier-Kunai, baring her fangs in anger. “Any such rights to which the Desh-Ka may have been entitled were lost when your priest began his massacre of the keepers in the chamber of the Books of Time.”
T’ier-Kunai raised her hand to still the angry retorts about to spill from the lips of her companions. “If our priest, Ayan-Dar, drew his sword, it would not have been without good reason. We would take him with us now, and I give you my word of honor that I will do my best to make amends.”
“You were here, among us.” The crimson warrior stepped closer, eyeing T’ier-Kunai even as she ignored her words. “I remember you. The one who came to seek our aid when the great Desh-Ka were about to fall to the Settlements.”
“Yet we prevailed. As we shall prevail now. Return our priest to us, alive, and we will go without further bloodshed.”
To either side, the warriors began to back away from the crimson warrior, not in orderly ranks, but in barely restrained panic.
“We shall see, priestess of the Desh-Ka.”
The world turned a brilliant white.
* * *
As Ayan-Dar cleared the fifty-second level, the warriors who had been hurling themselves upon him without cease disappeared. The stairway above and below him was empty, save for the dead and the dying. All he could hear were the moans and screams of the wounded he had left in his wake. The air was filled with the smoke of burned bodies and seared metal, and it was only with great difficulty, even with the incredible control he had over his body, to not cough and gag.
Exhausted, he sagged to his knees. Glancing back down the stairs, at least as far as he could see as the steps spiraled out of his view, he had difficulty imagining how many warriors he had brought down. How many could this underground city possibly support? And how many remained for him to fight?
The skin of his hand was a mass of ugly red blisters, not from the power of the bolts he unleashed, but from the heat radiated back at him from the armor of the warriors he had killed. Some of them had gotten so close that he had been forced to push them away, even as they burned. Some he had simply passed right through, as he had stepped through the metal of the gate, but he wasn’t able to do that and unleash the cyan fire at the same time. Even priests of the Desh-Ka had some limitations.
But that was a trifle for a healer to mend. Assuming he survived.
While he was thankful for the respite he now enjoyed, he was troubled by the sudden disappearance of the Ka’i-Nur warriors. He would not allow himself to believe that he had slain them all, as comforting a thought as that was.
That was when he felt a deep change in his blood, a spark that rose in an instant to a brilliant flame. He grinned as he realized that it was T’ier-Kunai and six others of the priesthood. They were here, no doubt under the ancient right of visitation, in hopes of saving him.
“You may yet survive this, old priest.” He spoke the words to himself as he knelt there, trying to recover his strength. He opened his heart to his priestess, that she would know he yet lived, before he got back on his feet to continue the journey to the surface.
He had only taken a handful steps when two things happened. He sensed T’ier-Kunai and the others as they were rocked by agonizing pain, and the great stairwell was filled with a bone-chilling roar that he remembered all too well from one of the quests of his youth.
The Ka’i-Nur had set loose a genoth somewhere along the great stairway.
* * *
T’ier-Kunai could smell her own flesh burning, but she shut the pain away as she leaped clear of the energy weapon the Ka’i-Nur priestess had unleashed.
The crimson armor the enemy priestess wore was more than the basic metal alloy that T’ier-Kunai and her companions were wearing. It was a biomechanical suit, not unlike those the warriors from the Settlements had worn in their previous bid to take the Homeworld. Just before the Ka’i-Nur priestess had triggered her weapon, a segmented helmet had extended over her head. Such weapons gave their wearers formidable capabilities, but could not compare to the powers imbued by the Crystal of Souls.
Blinded by the flash, T’ier-Kunai could not see with her eyes, but she did not need to. She could see better with her second sight. She had not been able to cast it through the walls of this place, but now that she was inside, she could see everything. The genoth that was now hunting Ayan-Dar deep in the earth. The masses of warriors that were charging up the great stairway to the surface. The ashen remains of the warriors who had been here a moment ago, killed by their own priestess.
T’ier-Kunai and her companions had scattered the instant before the weapon was triggered. All of them made it out of the blast zone save one, Sal’ah-Umir, whose left leg had been vaporized. He now lay on the glittering black stones, unconscious.
As the crimson priestess turned briefly to flick the three weapons away, she was struck in the side by a massive bolt of lightning from one of the Desh-Ka priests that sent her tumbling to the ground.
“Finish her!” T’ier-Kunai and three of the others sailed through the air to land in a circle around the Ka’i-Nur priestess, who was struggling to get back to her feet.
Holding out their hands toward one another, thick arcs of lightning exploded between the open palms of the Desh-Ka warriors, rapidly forming a globe of lightning that enveloped the enemy priestess. She looked up in time to realize her fate, but by then it was too late.
The crackling globe of pure cyan energy began to contract around her, intensifying as it grew smaller. The priestess triggered her energy weapon again, but that only aided in her undoing. None of the energy escaped the cyan globe that was rapidly collapsing around her. Her armor failed in a dozen places, exposing her frail flesh to the contained maelstrom.
Her shrieks of pain were mercifully cut off as the globe shrank, faster and faster, to consume her body. When it had collapsed to the size of T’ier-Kunai’s fist, the globe flared and vanished.
There was nothing left of the Ka’i-Nur priestess, not even ash.
“Beware!”
The remaining priest who was tending to the injuries of their fallen comrade shouted a warning.
Blinking her eyes, T’ier-Kunai noticed with relief that her vision was slowly returning. At the blurry image that greeted her, she suddenly wished that she was still blind.
Hundreds of warriors were charging from the mouth of the atrium capping the great stairway. And all of them wore crimson armor and carried energy weapons.
* * *
Ayan-Dar leaped up the stairway, using his power to loft himself as far as he could, kicking off the walls as the stairway turned.
In Her Name: The First Empress: Book 01 - From Chaos Born Page 10
