As Iron Falls

by Bryce O'Connor

  As it was, though, none of the beauty of his surroundings could take the foul taste from Raz’s mouth, the heavy understanding that all of it—from the airy courtyards to the smooth tiles of the floors to the silk draperies that fluttered in the archways as they caught the morning breeze—had been built on the sweat and blood of others.

  Fortunately, Raz didn’t have to wait long for the opportunity to vent some of his disgust.

  They encountered the first trio of soldiers within a minute of leaving the kitchens. Raz would have expected to run into trouble earlier, truth be told, but between the early hour and the apparent fact that at least a portion of the palace guard had indeed been drawn away to the outer city, he counted themselves fortunate.

  Then the Tash’s men appeared out of a side-hall a fair distance ahead of the group, catching sight of them well before anyone could do anything about it.

  “HERE!” one of the soldiers bellowed as all three drew their swords. “HE’S HERE!”

  That, though, was all the time it took for Raz to surge ahead, barreling into the three figures with a roar he hoped would shake the very foundations of the place, Ahna whipping around in a horizontal arc.

  The first soldier did his best to fend off the dviassegai’s heavy blow, but there is little and less thin steel and flimsy wood can do against the masterworks of Allihmad Jerr. Ahna shattered his shield like it were made of cheap glass, punching through the man’s hasty defense and catching him a glancing blow to the throat. As he dropped his sword to clutch at the great gash that partially-severed the front of his neck, his two comrades bravely stepped forward, still shouting their alarm.

  “HERE! THE DRAGON IS HERE! TO ARMS!”

  Ignoring this, Raz ducked a blow and swept the feet out from under one of the soldiers with a leg, half-flipping him as he slammed into the floor with a wheezing grunt. Using the impetus of the turn, Raz leapt and dealt a second kick to the other’s shield, blasting him backward so hard he tripped and slid five feet on the smooth stone floor.

  He fell on the downed men with about as much mercy as a wolf pouncing on injured prey, the gladius flashing twice more in his hand before they were still.

  “Raz!” he heard Syrah shout as the others caught up to him. “On your left!”

  Raz whirled. Sure enough, two sets of guards were charging him from down the side-hall the first patrol had appeared from, shouting their own warnings even as they ran at him. In all directions, Raz could hear other voices picking up the cry, as well as booted feet coming nearer.

  Better make this quick, sis, he told the dviassegai silently, already taking two bounding steps at a diagonal up the hall.

  Leaping as high as he could, he planted a foot in the perforated grating that made up the left wall, shoving himself into the air. He heard the men of the right group gasp in shocked surprise as he fell down on them, blades already slashing. One fell before he even hit the ground, skull split through his helmet by Ahna’s falling blow. The other two had better luck, swinging their swords at him as he landed. One caught him a shallow blow in the shoulder, slicing his scaled skin, while the other pinged off the ocrea that encased his leg. Barely feeling the wound, Raz spun and met them. By the time they lay bleeding on the ground, Syrah had two of the other group lassoed in her fiery lash, her steel staff thudding into their temples in quick succession.

  The last—unfortunate soul that he was—was screaming as Raz’s men fell on him as a howling mob, weapons rising and falling until the man was silent.

  “Aleem!” Raz shouted. “Esser! The Tash’s court! Which way?”

  The young Northerner was the first to respond, looking up from the gore to point left, up the bloodied hallway. “There!”

  “On me!” Raz roared, taking off at once. Syrah was right on his heels, and the others disengaged themselves from the poor soldier’s mangled form to follow close behind.

  The Tash, it turned out, had made a fool’s choice when he’d allowed his guard to be split between his home and the outer rings. They encountered several more groups, some coming six, nine, even twelve strong at a time, but Raz’s blades, Syrah’s magic, and the overwhelming numbers of Akelo, Karan, and the men behind them always felled whatever the palace could throw at them before they ever got too bogged down. Within ten minutes Raz lost count of how many dead and unconscious men they’d left behind, just as he’d lost track of the turns and corners and flights of stairs they had taken. Esser continued to lead the way, one eye bloodied up by a blow he’d weathered from a shield across his forehead. At his back, Raz sensed that the rest of their little army had not come out unscathed either, but he didn’t have time to look back and take stock of the price their incursion was claiming on the brave former slaves charging behind him. He could hear Syrah’s familiar breathing over his shoulder, the clack of Karan’s clawed feet, and Akelo’s near-continuous shouts of encouragement to the others. He took courage from that, turning to follow Esser down a short set of broad steps and left up a massive hall whose staggered walls reached at least fifty feet into the air. Here, they ran into another half-dozen soldiers, but a quick rune from Syrah sent half of them flying into the air to be lashed to the nearest wall. Of the other three, Raz took one, Akelo and his kuja downed another, and the last lurched back with a howl as one of Erom’s daggers thudded through the left eye-slot of his helmet.

  “Not far!” Esser shouted as soon as the encounter was over, running up the hall again without looking back, reaching up to wipe some of the blood from his face with the back of his sword hand. “It’s just up the way!”

  Raz believed him. He couldn’t stop to study their surroundings, but he realized that the massive space curved as they ran, like it formed some sort of colossal ring. He imagined they had to be the circling the base of the center of the palace. He could feel the presence of power here, looming up and over him. It wasn’t the sort of power he had known in Cyurgi ‘Di, of course. It wasn’t the warm, arcane hum of energy that vibrated, like a living thing, from within the depths of the mountain the Citadel had been built from. The essence here was cooler, harder. There was nothing magical about it, its force coming rather from the sharp majesty of the cavernous vaultings above, the still, white-and-gold draperies that hung across the space overhead depicting the crossed spears of Karesh Syl, and the light of the morning that filtered pale and lifeless through the opaque glass in a series of round clerestory windows crowning the outer wall.

  Yes, he knew, they were certainly getting close.

  “There!” Esser shouted not half-a-minute later, pointing ahead of them.

  Raz saw the hall open up, then, a sudden outward press of the walls to form a sort of pseudo-room that the way spilled into before continuing out the other side. It was a wide, spacious area, the colored pattern of tiles in the floor lit by the dome of iron and glass high, high above. Seeing it, Raz hammered ahead, using Ahna’s haft to pull Esser back behind him, knowing what to expect. When he reached the space, he charged in some fifteen feet before any of the others, fangs bared and weapons at the ready. He spun in a quick circle, searching for his first opponents.

  That was when Raz felt the first flutter of worry tap against his heart.

  There was nothing. Nobody. Only a pair of massive, gold-plated double doors set in the outer wall, silver inlaid in the shape of the Sun over the brighter metal. As Syrah, Karan, Akelo and the rest of the group caught up to him, Raz’s crest flared nervously over his head. He could see, easily, where there should have been sentries, and there should certainly have been sentries. There were four pockets, little annexes in the walls, diagonal from each other across the hall. He could even smell the past presence of the men, make out the distinct hint of dyed leathers. There were usually guards here, he knew that, and hard as he might, Raz couldn’t bring himself to believe that—if these were indeed the Tash’s courts—the man would go so far as to willingly dismiss the soldiers of his personal retinue so flippantly.

  Not right, the harsh voice of the ani
mal hissed in the back of his mind, stirring at his sudden fear. Not right. Something’s not right.

  Before he could say anything, though, he made out the shouts and footsteps of the chasing palace guard, convening on them from either end of the hall.

  “Shit,” Raz hissed, head snapping in either direction, trying to decide.

  “Raz?” Syrah demanded, gripping him by the arm and shaking him, like she thought something was wrong. “What are you doing? This is it! Come on!”

  Raz looked down at her, wondering if he should voice his suspicions. He wasn’t sure and, glancing over her head at the rest of his men, he saw the fear in their eyes, and the worry.

  He saw also, now that he had a moment to take them in, that they numbered far less than the eighteen they’d been when they’d first left behind the eastern shores of the Dramion Sea.

  “Raz!” It was Akelo’s turn to shout, nocking an arrow to his bow and sighting down the east hall as the sounds of the approaching guards grew louder. “The court! Into the court!”

  Even so, Raz hesitated.

  “Raz, what’s wrong?” Syrah asked, this time only for him to hear, seeing the concern in his eye.

  Raz blinked and looked down at her. There wasn’t so much as a hint of panic in the smooth features of the Priestess’s face, only stoic determination. She had come this far with him. She was ready to see it through.

  “Be ready,” he told her simply, hoping she understood the warning.

  And then Raz barreled forward, slamming an armored shoulder into the metal of the doors so hard they crashed open with a deafening bang that echoed in the cavern of the room beyond.

  “Bar the entrance!” Raz bellowed at once as Syrah, Akelo, and the rest poured in around him, already turning to help heave the doors closed again. “Hurry!”

  The others leapt to it with gusto, shouting and grunting as they threw their weight against the massive things. Foot by foot they swung shut again, and Raz caught the briefest glimpse of the palace soldiers pouring out of either side of the hall, shouting in panic as they saw the doors closing. Then, with a second boom, the metal and timber met, blocking the way.

  “Seal it!” Akelo commanded as the soldiers outside started banging on the entrance, shoving their bodies against it in a desperate attempt to get inside. At his side, Odene was already taking his shield and kicking it into the wedge of the bottom jamb. The other Percian followed his lead, the rest of the men ripping spare blades from sheaths or iron plates from their armor to do the same. Soon, with several screeches of metal on stone, the doors were well and truly blocked.

  The most pressing matter attended to, Raz and Syrah turned to face the chamber behind them.

  The Tash’s courtroom was a cool, somber place. Less austere than the grandiose halls of the palace proper, it nonetheless radiated the same assertive presence, the same heavy sense of power. Several dozen marble columns about five feet wide flanked a heavy carpet that led down the center of the chamber, their beveled caps reaching up to support the ribbed vaulting of the ceiling maybe a hundred feet above their heads. More banners hung from these marble pillars, still as death in the quiet of the space, their white-and-gold fabrics settling handsomely over the curving of the stone. The shadowed walls on either side of the massive room were plain, but somewhat rough-hewn, and appeared to be comprised of interlocking blocks as high and wide as Raz was tall. Accenting everything, along the apex of the ceiling, a wide strip of what looked to be heavy clear glass crested the entire chamber, bathing the right-side columns and floor in a solid ray of dusted, early-morning light. There was an age to the place that removed it from the rest of the palace, a still tranquility that made Raz feel, standing with Syrah at the top of a long set of plain marble stairs that rippled out from the court entrance, that this was the keystone, that this was where all things had begun in the horrid triumph that was the city of Karesh Syl.

  And there at the end of the chamber, as though to reinforce the idea, the man that could only be the Tash himself waited, calm and regal in robes of white and violet, watching them with dark, impassive eyes from his raised throne.

  CHAPTER 53

  The sovereign of Karesh Syl, it transpired, was a well-worn man who looked to have seen near twice as many summers as Raz and Syrah put together. He sat in the middle of a trio of high-backed stone seats set atop a large dais whose steps fanned outward, much like the stairs Raz and Syrah now stood atop. On his right, a younger, rather ugly man with an ample stomach barely hidden by his black-and-orange silks sat similarly composed, mirroring his master’s calm. The man on the Tash’s left, on the other hand, was obviously agitated, his posture rigid beneath his grey satins, his dark hands gripping the arms of his throne so firmly even despite their fair separation Raz could see his arms shaking. On either side of this pair, at the very edge of the top-most steps of the dais, two odd, large clay pots sat, somewhat out of place in the otherwise somber splendor of the marble room. Raz hardly gave these a thought, though, as his attention was rapidly stolen by the more pressing concern along the base of the steps.

  There, like a living wall of steel, at least half-a-hundred soldiers stood three-men deep in a curved line along the bottom of the dais, shields raised and locked, swords out to curve overhead in the fashion of the Percian army.

  Suddenly, Raz thought he knew where the guards outside the courtroom doors had vanished to.

  “Clever,” he muttered in annoyance.

  Beside him, Syrah nodded. “They knew where we’d end up. I thought we should have had more trouble getting here…”

  “Makes two of us,” Raz answered, heaving Ahna up onto his shoulder.

  “Three,” Akelo corrected him, stepping up on Raz’s other side to survey the scene below them now he was sure the others had control of the door. “Why send their best to be cut down one after the other, when they can just force us to face an army?”

  “Why indeed?” Raz grumbled resignedly, eyeing the contingent of soldiers with a twinge of concern.

  Managing to shove his worry aside, though, he spoke to Akelo without looking around. “No one gets in or out until our business is done here. Understood?”

  Akelo’s face was hard as stone. “Not a soul,” he promised.

  Then, with a single pat on the armor of Raz’s arm for luck, the former slave hurried back to assist Karan and the rest of his surviving men.

  Raz, in turn, glanced around at Syrah.

  “Ready?” he asked her quietly.

  All he got was a stiff nod, her one good eye fixed on the three thrones and the men who occupied them on the other side of the room.

  Together, they started down the steps toward the court floor.

  Raz left Syrah to watch their forward as they descended, his eyes scanning the room, looking for any sign of a trap. Unfortunately the columns hid much from view at any given time, and the air was so thick with a myriad of smells and tastes that he couldn’t deduce anything through the sweat and stench of the army before them, the lingering perfume of the gentry that likely crowed these halls later in the day, and—oddly enough—the underlying scent of what might have been vinegar. Wrinkling his snout at this, Raz decided instead to study the soldiers before them, calculating the variables of their approach, wondering if perhaps he could goad or intimidate them into breaking rank, making the fight ahead that much easier. To his disappointment—if not his surprise—not a one among them moved as he and Syrah cleared the last step, walking quickly along the carpeted way between the columns. Behind them, the clangs and bangs of guards’ swords and shields outside against the silver and gold gilding still echoed about the vastness of the chamber as they tried to get in.

  Raz had just started to pray to the Sun that the doors would hold when, at the other end of the hall, the Tash was the first to break the quiet.

  “Raz i’Syul Arro,” he said by way of greeting, though his voice sounded equal parts displeased and strained as he struggled to push himself to his feet. “You have the great
honor of being the first of your kind to ever set foot in the halls of my predecessors.”