Ulana-Tath frowned. A fierce and accomplished warrior, Anin-Khan was also the sire of eight children. He had spent far more time in the creche than she. And yet she remained unconvinced. “You know that infants her age can sense almost nothing through their blood. It was coincidence, nothing more.”
Shaking his head, Anin-Khan told her, “I will not argue, mistress, but I hold to my belief that she sensed the darkness in him at the same instant as did I. Ria-Ka’luhr is involved in some unknowable mischief. I do not trust him.”
“Why would an acolyte of the Desh-Ka come to do us harm after one of their high priests vowed they would protect her?” She shook her head in frustration. “Why would Ria-Ka’luhr have bothered to save me? He could have killed me and none would have been the wiser.”
“Had he come upon you earlier, perhaps. But we would have pursued him had he killed you out in the open where we found you. We knew who you were, and we saw his approach. He would not have escaped us had he caused you harm.” He shook his head. “By saving you, he guaranteed his own entry to the city.”
“Then why did he not kill us before Keel-Tath cried out?” Ulana-Tath was doing her best to restrain her anger at Anin-Khan’s insinuations. He was a capable and cunning warrior, but she feared that in the shadow of the peril cast by the Dark Queen he was seeing wraiths among shadows, threats where there were none. “He could have killed us all and made good his escape in the confusion.”
“I do not know, mistress, but I think that he fears her.”
“An infant?” Ulana-Tath’s incredulity was plain in her voice.
Anin-Khan clenched his armored fists. “Do not think me mad, mistress! I know what I felt, and what I saw. On his face in the instant your daughter screamed was an expression of fear, a fear sufficient to break his will.”
“I do not wish to doubt you, but what would you have me do? Kill him? How many warriors would we lose if we tried? And how would we explain that to the Desh-Ka?”
Shaking his head, Anin-Khan said, “Of course not, mistress. We will go according to our plan. All I ask is for us to be vigilant. If we arrive at the temple safely and I am wrong, I will offer him my life to cleanse my honor.” He glanced at Keel-Tath, who now rested comfortably in her cocoon against the nurse’s breast. “It would be a small enough sacrifice to ensure that your daughter reaches safety.”
* * *
Ria-Ka’luhr fought the nausea that swept through him as he helped the two warriors prepare the mounts for their upcoming journey to the Desh-Ka temple. Under any other circumstances, Anin-Khan’s dismissal of him to such a menial task would have been an insult fit to spawn a challenge to ritual combat, but Ria-Ka’luhr was secretly relieved.
He had intended to kill Ulana-Tath and the child there, in the creche, and had been about to draw his sword when Keel-Tath screamed. It was not the sound that stayed his hand, but her spiritual voice in his blood. She had somehow seen into his soul in that brief moment, and he had felt his emotional defenses fall. The voice of her spiritual song had filled him with such mindless fear that his concentration had been completely shattered.
And Anin-Khan had known. Somehow, the savvy old warrior had known Ria-Ka’luhr was going to strike even before the girl-child screamed in terror.
By the time the elder warrior gained his feet, Ria-Ka’luhr knew he had lost his advantage. He was certain he could have bested the other warriors and Ulana-Tath, but Anin-Khan gave him pause. Kunan-Lohr would not have entrusted the safety of the city to anyone but the best of his warriors, and Anin-Khan had the trophy scars of many battles.
After the moment passed, and after he saw that Ulana-Tath’s attitude toward him had not changed, Ria-Ka’luhr simply pretended as if nothing had happened.
Yet, something had happened, and Ria-Ka’luhr had to decide upon his next course of action. He could not simply leave and try to kill them again later, perhaps ambushing them along the road to the temple. That would make clear his malignant intent, and they would be prepared.
Or…he could continue to pretend nothing had happened, that he had merely been startled by the child’s sudden cry, and that Anin-Khan had misread his reaction. Ria-Ka’luhr doubted that Ulana-Tath would openly confront him about any suspicions Anin-Khan might voice to her; to do so would be a deep insult to the Desh-Ka, and he would have clear right to challenge her to ritual combat.
No, he thought. They may be suspicious, but they would do no more than keep watch over him. His opportunity would come once they departed from Keel-A’ar. The road to the temple was a long and dangerous one.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The warriors bound to the Dark Queen were not the only ones who suffered the cold misery of the pouring rain. Builders, many hundreds of them, labored in the darkness to do her bidding.
Next to the healers, the builder caste was the smallest in number among their race. Few were born each cycle with the necessary genes, and fewer still were able to master the powers that resided in their bodies and minds. But those who survived their training could perform wonders. Whatever could be visualized, they could create, using whatever materials were at hand.
Their creative powers were limited only by the ability of a master or mistress to concentrate enough builders on a given task, and by the skill of the senior builder in guiding the others. He or she provided a mental image, a blueprint, from which the others could work. Most builders were well-acquainted with creating stone from other stone, for that was one of their most important tasks: building and maintaining the defensive works and other structures needed by a city.
The only structure not created by builders was the Kal'ai-Il, the place of atonement that was at the center of every temple and kazha. These were built by hand, from the labor of thousands of warriors directed by builders according to the old ways.
There was no theoretical limit to what the builders could do, so long as enough were focused on the task and the senior builder could guide them. But builders were so few and so precious that they were rarely given up to a rising leader such as Syr-Nagath. In the past, wars had been fought over one city-state refusing to relinquish its builders to kings or queens who demanded their service. This was one of the greatest obstacles for any monarch to overcome, and was the main limitation on the advancement of technology during each rise of civilization. The Books of Time held records of complex machines and weapons, but it took many builders and masters and mistresses skilled in focusing their powers.
Syr-Nagath had found both in the Ka’i-Nur. Unlike the descendants of the other orders, the builders of the Ka’i-Nur had long focused on things far more complex than glass and stone. While the Desh-Ka had not realized it during their recent visit to the great fortress in the wastelands, the weapons they had encountered there were not captured during the last great war with the Settlements, but had been created by the order’s builders in the seventy cycles since. Creating each weapon had been a long, difficult process because they had so few builders. But they had become masters of focusing on complex mechanisms, and could easily lead other builders in the creation of simple machines such as those the Dark Queen had in mind for them now.
Led by the builder mistress of the Ka’i-Nur, the others of her order and the additional builders the queen had coaxed and threatened from her vassals marched from near the queen’s pavilion along the mud-soaked paths that led to a natural depression in the ground nearly a league away.
It was perhaps fortunate that their arrival was in the pouring rain, for it helped to mask both the sight and stench of the place. For here was where the dead had been gathered. It was a mass grave, with tens of thousands of bodies. While warriors were generally sent off to the afterlife with a funeral pyre, wars such as this made it impossible. There were too many dead, and not enough wood for pyres. Normally the many bodies were burned in a collective pyre, but Syr-Nagath had decreed that the bodies would simply be dumped here. None had known why, nor had the porters charged with the grisly task asked or complained. The queen’
s word was law.
The builders could not see the mountain of corpses through the rain, but there was no mistaking the place as hands and feet, along with other unrecognizable body parts, became clear in their limited field of vision. At that distance, they could smell the bodies, as well, and many wrinkled their noses at the foul odor.
With a gesture of her hands, the mistress split the group of builders in two, with each now led by the senior Ka’i-Nur builders, who marched to the right and left around the great burial pit until they closed the circle at the far end. For every Ka’i-Nur builder in the line, there were several builders from among the other bloodlines. The Ka’i-Nur builders would amplify the visions of the senior mistress for the normals, to better focus their creative powers.
But before they could create, they had to destroy. The raw material for anything created by the builders had to be drawn from something; they could not create from nothingness. They normally used foundation material that was similar to what they sought to create. This was why much of what the builders did was based on stone or, in smaller cases, glass, for the transformation of the materials was more one of form than of substance. Creating something vastly different from the foundation material was possible, but took extraordinary skill and effort, and was terribly inefficient.
There was another way, however, that dated back to the Second Age, and had not been used outside Ka’i-Nur since those ancient times. The builder mistress, who was exceptionally gifted by the standards of any age of their history, had studied and practiced it on a small scale for many cycles. It is what she had used to create the weapons with which the order’s warriors had fought the Desh-Ka.
She took a deep breath, forcing herself to achieve a state of complete calm. What she was about to do here, using the mass of bodies as a foundation, had not been done since the end of the Second Age.
Completely ignoring the rain and the crackle of lightning that lit the sky, the builder mistress closed her eyes and began to focus. It took her several moments, far longer than normal, for she had to seek out the spirits of the builders not of the Ka’i-Nur and bind them to her. It was like weaving a complex pattern in the dark, but this was a task she had been born to.
When it was done, she could sense the power at her command, and she trembled in the same ecstasy warriors felt in the heat of battle. Here, around this mountain of the dead, she had harnessed more builders than had been brought together in millennia.
She raised her arms, holding her palms forward, toward the dead. As if controlled by invisible strings, the other builders, hundreds upon hundreds of them, did the same, exactly mimicking her movements.
Then she focused on the dead, visualizing in her mind what she desired. The other builders saw her vision as if it was an extension of their own minds, and they focused their powers, as well.
Within the mass grave before them, the bodies began to soften. Melt. Skin began to disintegrate, sloughing away in a mass of black particles, like glittering ash. The muscle gave way, joining the mass of black particles that now looked like liquid, but was not. Then the bone. The black substance joined the putrefying slop at the bottom of the grave, which itself transformed into the same shimmering dark matter. The undergarments and metal of the armor that clung to the bodies, even the living steel blades of the weapons, all disintegrated.
As the builders labored in silence under the angry sky, the mountain of the dead began to slowly collapse in upon itself.
* * *
Kunan-Lohr stood alone in the meadow, surrounded by the darkness and hammering rain. His body, long accustomed to the deprivations of war, shook off the discomfort as he waited. He had chosen this spot because many of his warriors were familiar with it as a staging area they had used in the past when traveling to the eastern kingdoms before the war. It was close enough to the queen’s encampment that there was little chance of them losing their way, but was also far enough from the main road that it was unlikely they would be seen, especially in this deluge.
Lightning tore the sky overhead, the glaring light shimmering from the raindrops as if from a million shards of glass. In that instant, he could just see to the surrounding line of trees and the dark shapes that moved toward him: his warriors, the survivors of Keel-A’ar’s once-proud army.
“My lord!” Eil’an-Kuhr, his most senior war captain, bowed her head and saluted as she reached him. She had to shout to be heard above the rain.
“It is good to see you, Eil’an-Kuhr.” He reached out and gripped her forearms in greeting. Then he leaned closer, speaking into her ear as more dark forms gathered around him, rendering their salutes. “Did you escape unchallenged?”
She shook her head. “No, my lord. I do not know what happened, but at least a full cohort was cut off from the rest of us. I fear they ran into the encampment of another of the legions. All I know is that our warriors turned and fought with great valor. I could hear their war cries clearly, even through the rain, and felt the joy in their hearts.”
Kunan-Lohr nodded to himself. He had felt their spirits, as well, the song in their blood a raging fire that even now still flickered. It was unfortunate to have lost their swords, for he had great need of them, but they had been given the opportunity to die with great honor. “So shall it be noted in the Books of Time.”
“What are your plans, my lord? Are we to return home?”
His other war captains had joined him, as had the more senior warriors, all of them clustering around him to hear his words as his diminished army formed ranks in the soaking meadow, awaiting his command. Other warriors, unseen to his eyes, lurked in the trees around them to provide warning should enemy forces approach.
“We would if only my wishes could bear us forth, but I fear that is not to be.”
Eil’an-Kuhr and the others nodded their understanding. None of them had expected to return to Keel-A’ar alive. The thought brought no sadness, only acceptance. As long as death was attended by honor, the place and the time it found them were irrelevant.
“We will make for the pass at Dur-Anai,” Kunan-Lohr told them. “I know the riders Syr-Nagath sent forth failed in their mission, for Ulana-Tath and my daughter yet live. The queen will next send legions to lay siege to the city to try and finish the task appointed to the riders.” He paused. If the Dark Queen sent an army to Keel-A’ar, they would likely raze the city to the ground and kill every one of its inhabitants. It was the only possible way she might conceal her dishonor. “I do not know what Ulana-Tath will do, but we must buy her and Anin-Khan as much time as we can to prepare their defenses. At Dur-Anai we can hold off far more than our own number.”
“How are we to get there, my lord?” One of the other captains asked. “It is nearly three days of hard riding along the main road from here. Even at a full run, we could not hope to catch a mounted force if the queen should send one forth to block the pass.”
Nodding his agreement, Kunan-Lohr told him, “We will take the mountain trail to the north. It will be difficult this time of year, but will cut many leagues from the distance we must travel.”
“Does not that trail cross a tributary of the Lo’ar River?” Eil’an-Kuhr’s expression was hidden in the dark storm, but there was no masking the fear in her voice. To enter the rivers, especially at this time of year, was to invite death from the creatures that lurked there.
“It does, but there is a bridge.”
Another warrior shook her head slowly. “I am sorry, my lord, but the bridge was washed away in a flood when you were home attending your daughter’s birth. It has not been repaired.”
Kunan-Lohr looked heavenward, closing his eyes against the rain as he fought to contain his despair and fear. There was no other way to reach Dur-Anai in time, and if he tried to make a stand anywhere else along the road before the pass, his warriors would be quickly massacred. “Then we must ford the river.”
* * *
Syr-Nagath stood outside her pavilion in the downpour, quivering with rage. Around her she could
hear the sounds of a pitched battle being fought, the howls of war cries and screams of agony as swords, axes, and other weapons did their bloody work.
Startled from a sound sleep by the sudden clash, her surprise was quickly overtaken by anger that the enemy had dared attack at night, which even Syr-Nagath recognized as a time of respite from combat.
Perhaps they know what shall become of them when the sun again shows itself after the storm, she thought. If they had divined her intentions, it was quite possible they would consider a preemptive attack, although it went directly against the fundaments of the Way.
“It is not the armies of the east!” That had been the report brought by her First. “The war captains nearest the line report all is quiet there. The fighting is within our army’s encampment, to the west!”
Sword drawn, followed closely by her First, Syr-Nagath strode through the dark and pouring rain toward the closest sounds of combat.
Such was her shock to find how close the battle raged to her pavilion. They were coming for me, the fools!
Gaining the edge of the swirling mass of warriors, she was unable to tell friend from foe. With a howl of frustration, she made a few lightning-swift cuts at exposed legs, and her First dragged the now-screaming warriors from the fray for Syr-Nagath to examine.
“They are all ours!”
“Our warriors fight among themselves?” Her bellow carried above the rain, catching the attention of the nearby combatants. “What madness is this?”
“It is she!” One of the warriors gestured to some of the others with his sword. “The Dark Queen!”
The battle suddenly increased in pitch as many of the warriors roared and tried to fight their way toward Syr-Nagath. Hacking and slashing at their opponents with maniacal frenzy, several broke through, only to quickly perish at the Dark Queen’s hand.
In Her Name: The First Empress: Book 01 - From Chaos Born Page 16
