Quickly kneeling down to examine one of the slain warriors, blocking the rain with her body so she could see, she found that the skin of his neck bore the mark of Keel-A’ar.
“Kunan-Lohr,” she said, “I will have your soul for this.”
With her fangs bared, she waded into the mass of warriors that still surged in her direction, cutting down all who crossed her path.
* * *
In the end, it was a massacre, with every one of the traitorous warriors of Keel-A’ar slain. Some had been taken alive, but had swallowed their tongues or slashed their throats in ritual suicide. Kunan-Lohr’s body had not yet been found, and probably would not before the storm cleared. It was nearly impossible to tell more than male from female without hauling the bodies into good light under a shelter to view them.
The outcome, many warriors dead in a confused battle, was just as well. She knew that Kunan-Lohr must have discovered her treachery, and passed the information on to his warriors. But the lips of the dead could not speak. Thus did her dishonor in sending warriors to kill children remain a secret beyond her First. The leaders of the warriors who had gone forth to carry out the terrible deed had all perished the same day the riders had departed, their blood streaking the blade of Syr-Nagath’s First. And the First’s lips were sealed by a covenant even more terrible than that which Syr-Nagath had used on the young Desh-Ka acolyte.
Yes, the mutiny had been put down, and Syr-Nagath had let the rumors run free that it had been an unfortunate case of confusion. Ritual combat, perhaps, that had gotten out of hand.
Her mind had largely put the matter to rest when her First ran into the pavilion, a sick look on her face. Dropping to one knee and saluting, she blurted, “They are gone!”
“What do you mean? Who is gone?”
“The legions of Keel-A’ar, my queen! They are gone!”
Syr-Nagath stared at her. “Has your brain become addled? They were killed in the battle during the night!”
The First shook her head. “No, my queen. We have learned that was merely a cohort, perhaps caught while escaping through the rain. We know now that there were not enough bodies, not nearly enough, to account for all of them. We went to their encampment to search…and found this.”
A warrior, a tall, broad-shouldered male, limped into the queen’s chambers, escorted by four others. His leg bore a terrible wound, and he carried a dagger in his hand that, with a sinking feeling, Syr-Nagath instantly recognized.
“Syr-Nagath.” The warrior said her name with undisguised loathing, and did not bother to salute. He held forth the dagger, and she knew it was intended as a Sign of Authority. “I bring word from my lord and master, Kunan-Lohr, and speak on his behalf: For your dishonor in sending warriors to kill the children of my people and my own blood, our covenant is forever broken.”
Before anyone could move or speak, the warrior slashed the blade of the dagger across his throat. He stood, a look of pride on his face, until the torrent of blood began to slacken. As his eyes fluttered closed, he collapsed to the crimson-soaked rug.
Syr-Nagath looked up from the body to meet the gaze of the four escorting warriors, who stared at her in shock at the dead warrior’s words.
She felled three of them in the blink of an eye with her shrekkas before making a tremendous leap. Drawing her sword in mid-air, she took the head from the remaining warrior before his weapon was out of its scabbard.
Her First lowered her head, shivering with fear. “They left their wounded behind,” she ventured quietly. “All were dead save this one, who awaited us.”
Turning back to stare at the corpse of Kunan-Lohr’s messenger, Syr-Nagath felt a cold tide of rage wash over her. She would find Kunan-Lohr and shave his hair, then reduce his precious city and all who dwelled there to ash. “Alert the provinces nearest Keel-A’ar. They are to send their legions to lay siege to the city. I want five legions from our reserve here to be on the march by dawn to hunt down Kunan-Lohr. Have them send their mounted warriors forward at best speed to block him at Dur-Anai. I don’t want them delayed by the warriors who must travel by foot.”
“What of the other path to Dur-Anai? The trail through the mountains?.”
Syr-Nagath fixed her with a look of predatory glee. The First bowed lower, wishing she could burrow into the earth. “Let him try,” the Dark Queen said softly. Then, after a moment, she added, “Send a legion up the trail. If he is there, have them drive him and his warriors into the river.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
As five of the queen’s legions prepared for the long march to Keel-A’ar, the builders completed the first stage of their labors. The mountain of dead warriors had been reduced to a small black lake. The surface was utterly still and flat like the black obsidian of the fortress of Ka’i-Nur. The rain made no impression upon it, for the drops simply disappeared as they touched it, absorbed into the sea of tiny particles that were not molecules, nor were they atoms. They were something else, something that had been discovered early in the First Age by the ancients, in the times when great machines were used to accomplish what was now done through body and spirit, through force of will. The particles were a matrix material that could be manipulated to create whatever was desired, on any scale, great or small. Creating it was extremely difficult, but using it was not.
On the side of the lake nearest the queen’s pavilion, the builders had gathered in a wide, deep circle around the builder mistress of the Ka’i-Nur. She again raised her arms and focused on the mental image of what the queen wished her to create. It was an ancient machine that Syr-Nagath had once seen in the Books of Time that had taken her fancy. Although extremely primitive compared to many other weapons the Ka’i-Nur builders could create, especially with a reservoir of the matrix material, it had the virtue of simplicity. While the builders could create anything that had been recorded in the Books of Time, and anything else their imaginations could conceive, the warriors and other castes, as necessary, had to be taught how to use it. With the ancient engines of war the builders were to create now, little explanation would be necessary, and their effect on the enemy would be terrible, indeed.
Such simple machines could also be created easily and quickly, as the builder mistress was about to demonstrate.
While it was at first difficult to see except when lightning flashed overhead, wisps of the matrix material began to drift from the dark lake. It could have been mistaken for mist or smoke, except that it moved quickly, with a purpose.
In the open center of the circle where the builder mistress stood, something began to take shape. At first it was no more than a shadow, a vague angular outline of strange proportions, deeper black against the darkness. As the minutes crept by, the shadow became completely opaque and more details emerged. It was large, the length of ten magtheps nose to tail, and had eight wheels that were as big around as a warrior stood tall. But it was not a complex vehicle, for there was no propulsion system of any kind. It had been designed to be pulled by animals.
Atop the chassis was a wide platform that supported a strange device that none of the builders had ever before seen. As large as the platform on which it stood, supported on a pedestal mounting that could be traversed and elevated, it was rectangular in shape, but bent, curved, as if a huge pipe had been cleaved down the middle.
As the thing continued to take form, the curved device became brighter, finally revealing itself to be a huge mirror. Lightning flashed, and many of the builders cried out in shock and pain as they were temporarily blinded by the intense light the mirror cast in their direction.
A group of warriors stood by with magtheps wearing harnesses. When the builder mistress was finished, she lowered her arms and the warriors quickly strapped the beasts to yokes that attached to the weapon’s chassis. A pair of warriors mounted the chassis and took their seats at the front. With a few cracks of a whip over the backs of the protesting beasts, they had it moving through the clinging mud.
After a few moments, the thing was swa
llowed by the rain and darkness.
“And now, children,” the builder told her peers with the accent unique to those of Ka’i-Nur, “we shall build more. Many more.”
* * *
The builders were arrayed in two lines, with one from Ka’i-Nur facing a builder from among the other vassals to the queen. After seeing, sensing, how the mistress builder created the first machine, all of them could replicate it. While it would be possible for a single builder to create a single machine, none of the other builders were nearly as powerful as the Ka’i-Nur mistress. But a pair of them could make short work of the task. A stream of the matrix material flowed from the great pit, a dark cloud that swirled between the two lines to congeal into hundreds of angular shapes that would become war machines for the queen.
Their labors did not go unnoticed.
“Tell me now that the Dark Queen’s works are not our concern.” Ayan-Dar stood next to T’ier-Kunai at the far end of the black lake. While their eyes could not see the builders and the fruits of their labor through the rain, their second sight could. The old priest had convinced one of the others of the priesthood to keep watch on the queen, and what the priest had seen the old Ka’i-Nur builder do this morning had prompted him to return to the temple and inform T’ier-Kunai. Grudgingly, she had given Ayan-Dar a temporary reprieve from his restriction to the temple in order to accompany her here, that they could see the work of the builders with their own eyes.
The high priestess of the Desh-Ka knelt down at the edge of the black pit, trying to peer with the senses of her body and mind into its depths. But it was as impenetrable to her efforts as it was to any form of light. Even when the lightning flashed overhead, the pit remained black as the space between the stars. The stillness of its surface was eerie. The storm poured rain from above, but the drops vanished as they came in contact with the dark pool.
“What is it?” T’ier-Kunai had never seen the like. She reached a hand toward the surface, and was surprised when Ayan-Dar quickly deflected her hand away.
“Do not,” he warned. “Only the builders of Ka’i-Nur, perhaps, can tell you what it is. I have only read some of the ancient accounts of its use, and its dangers. Whatever touches it, becomes it, unless the builders determine otherwise.”
“If that was the case, then what is here would consume the Homeworld.”
He nodded. “That nearly happened in the Second Age. In fact, that is how the war that led to the Final Annihilation began.” He nodded in the direction of the builders. “Even as they labor to create their machines, part of their consciousness is devoted to maintaining a barrier between the material in this pit and the earth beneath. But there is no need to shield the rain from harm. The raindrops, or anything else that should be thrown in, is absorbed and then transformed into this dark matter.”
He drew a knife and knelt down, dipping the blade into the dark matrix. The blade, as with all edged weapons used by his kind, was of living steel, the most durable substance known.
After a few seconds he pulled the knife away. The blade was gone.
“And this…dark matter, it can be used to create anything?”
Ayan-Dar nodded. “Yes. Anything from the tiniest object imaginable to the greatest.” He swept his arm around. “While it has never been done on such a scale, it could be used to create an entire world.” He looked at her gravely. “Or destroy one.”
“And this dark matter has not been used since the Second Age?”
“I requested that our keeper inquire among the other orders, to consult their Books of Time. Unless there are records at Ka’i-Nur that say otherwise, then no, this matrix material has not been used since then. The great machines and ships that have been built over the millennia since the Final Annihilation, during those times when great leaders have arisen, were created by builders, yes, but they did not use this material as a foundation.” He nodded toward where the builders labored to create the queen’s new arsenal of weapons. “It would have taken all those builders, working together, weeks to create one of those contraptions using traditional methods, and far longer to build a machine that could build other machines, which is how the starships the Settlements used during the last war were constructed.” He paused. “It took them decades to build those ships, using thousands of builders working together.”
“And when they were defeated,” T’ier-Kunai said, “and the inevitable fall of their civilization began, all those machines were destroyed in the ensuing chaos.”
“Yes, just as happens here with each fall. The knowledge of each generation’s accomplishments is preserved in the Books of Time, but the ability of the builders to recreate what once was, or to create something new, is limited because making complex machines is inherently difficult. The ancients who first gave us the precepts of the Way understood this, I believe. It is that, as much as anything else, that binds us to following a simple life, cherishing simple things. In such a system, achieving an advanced level of technology that we could use to destroy ourselves is a rare thing.”
“But even then,” T’ier-Kunai said, “the true power has always been with us, with the martial orders.”
“Since the end of the Second Age, yes.” His mouth compressed into a hard, grim line. “But the equation has now changed. Weapons that would take time and great effort to create, or were even impossible to make since the end of the Second Age, the Dark Queen can now build in minutes or days. I believe the eastern armies of T’lar-Gol will fall this day, and it will not be long before Syr-Nagath rules the entire Homeworld.” He turned to face his priestess. “She will no longer need the Desh-Ka and the other orders to maintain the balance with the Settlements, or preserve the Way. She will seek to destroy us all.”
* * *
Syr-Nagath stood at the head of her army as the clouds receded. Both sides had used the respite of the rain, miserable as it had been, to bring forward more reinforcements. She knew from the reports provided by her First that the coalition of the eastern armies had committed their full reserves, concentrating them here, opposite where she stood. It was a truly formidable force, and would actually have given her pause for concern if she had not already determined the fate of her enemies. She regretted the coming waste of so many warriors that she could have added to her own strength, but there was no other way. The fighting here had gone on far too long, and her enemies had refused to yield with honor.
Now that the builders had provided what she needed, the war for T’lar-Gol would shortly come to an end.
Her warriors were arrayed on the slope of the ridge overlooking the main battlefield where they had been fighting for weeks. None had advanced to the main killing ground, where the enemy ranks now stood, waiting. Tens of thousands of them stood before her in ranks a hundred deep, with hundreds of thousands more arrayed to the north and south. At the head of each army group stood the king or queen, waiting impatiently for Syr-Nagath’s army to engage them.
Along the top of the ridge behind her, the strange machines created by the builders formed a line that stretched the length of the battlefield. Even now, more machines were being built and quickly moved into positions along the distant wings.
Syr-Nagath turned to the builder mistress of the Ka’i-Nur, who stood beside her. “The warriors understand how to use these devices?”
“Yes, my queen. It is very simple, actually. One warrior looks through an aiming device to align the weapon while the others turn cranks to align the mirror to the point of aim. The mirror itself is…intelligent, and able to change shape as needed to focus the maximum amount of energy on the target. You will not be disappointed.”
Frowning, Syr-Nagath only nodded. She was not accustomed to hearing words like “target” or “aiming device” in the context of a battle. But those words and many more would become part of her vocabulary soon.
The opposing warriors began to shout encouragement to her army to come forth and give battle. They did not jeer or mock, for that was not part of the Way. They simply wanted to
fight. That was what warriors did.
But not today.
“Soon,” the builder said. The clouds were thinning now, and the sky began to brighten, revealing a beautiful magenta hue where there had only been oppressive dark and gray.
The sun suddenly emerged. It was not on the horizon, but was midway toward noon, rising in the eastern sky above the enemy positions.
“Perfectly positioned,” the builder mistress said quietly. “When you are ready, my queen.”
“Let us finish this.” Syr-Nagath turned to her First. “Activate the weapons.”
* * *
Ayan-Dar and T’ier-Kunai had moved, changing their vantage point to an unoccupied knoll behind the lines of the queen’s army. They masked themselves using an ancient technique that made it nearly impossible for anyone to see them. It was not the same as being completely invisible, but only someone looking directly at them, who knew they were there, could see them.
They had an excellent view of the battlefield and, more important, of the war machines that were aligned along the ridge behind the queen’s battle line. From here, they could see beyond the enemy lines all the way to the foam-flecked shores of the Eastern Sea.
As the sun broke from the clouds, the landscape came alive. Even trampled as it was, the battlefield and the ridges to either side exploded into the deep green of the steppe-grasses and ferns. Where the conditions suited it, yellow and orange lichen blazed. A freshening breeze whipped in from the ocean, the air clean and crisp after the rain had washed the stench of the living and the dead from the air.
“A beautiful day.” T’ier-Kunai breathed in the salt air from the ocean, enjoying the scent after having momentarily set aside the reason she was here. “A good day for battle.”
“I fear not.” Ayan-Dar pointed at the nearest of the war machines. Like the hundreds of others arrayed along the ridge line, the great mirror mounted on the pedestal was tilting. All of them had been pointing straight up, but in synchrony they were now all tilting and turning toward the sun. It was a sinuous motion that reminded him of the carnivorous zhel’aye plant, just before it struck its unwary victim. “Not for the armies of the east.”
In Her Name: The First Empress: Book 01 - From Chaos Born Page 17
