The Warrior King: Book Three of the Seer King Trilogy

by Chris Bunch

  I ordered the offensive halted, and for our lines to be stabilized.

  Svalbard brought tea, a hunk of bread, and a large piece of cheese that wasn’t too dusty.

  I saw Sinait and Cymea hurrying toward me, faces worried, afraid. I drained the tea, cast the food aside, fatigue gone.

  “There’s a spell being mounted,” Sinait said. “A big one. A very big one.”

  My fatigue was gone, for I knew what that spell must be, the greatest of all spells ever cast in Numantia, the same spell Tenedos had indebted his kingdom to learn.

  This was the spell to summon the monstrous black demon that had destroyed Chardin Sher and his castle, the terror Tenedos had later almost loosed on the Maisirians and then on Nicias, the spell I’d broken by clubbing down Tenedos.

  Just now Tenedos would be striking a bargain with this demon, a bargain of blood and death. The last time the deal had been struck, millions of Numantians, more Maisirians, had died in payment.

  What would be the demon’s price this time?

  And how far, how long, would Tenedos let the horror rave?

  There was only one way to possibly stop the demon.

  • • •

  I expected argument from Linerges about haring off once more, but got none. He looked at me strangely, said something about the long bond being broken, said he’d make a feint wherever I wished to cover me.

  Sinait said she should go, but I refused. She’d created and trained my wizards, and I thought she was still a slightly greater sorcerer than Cymea. With great magic being imminent, I wanted Sinait with the army, able to instantly react to whatever happened.

  I took Cymea aside, told her what I intended.

  “Good,” she said. “I would have been angry if you’d gone without me. What are our chances?”

  “Perhaps seventy-thirty we’ll reach the Palace, forty-sixty we’ll be able to get inside, and from there, Saionji holds the dice.”

  “What a noble speech,” she said. “Makes me want to rush right out and die for somebody. I’m getting Jakuns. We’ve got even more of a score to settle with Tenedos than you.”

  “No,” I said flatly. “In that, you’re wrong.”

  I looked around for Svalbard, saw him coming toward me with Yonge.

  “If we’re going after Tenedos,” the big man said, “I thought Yonge should be along.”

  Again, there was no argument. Yonge had been with me from the beginning, back in Kait, with the Seer Tenedos.

  “Ten of your best skirmishers,” I said, and Yonge nodded.

  I washed, made sure my sword, my dagger were sharp and easy in their sheaths, took a plate one of my gallopers had loaded from a mess line, gobbled hastily. All I took was my weapons and a canteen. If we were gone more than a day, we would have failed.

  Yonge came back with ten men. “I’ve created a corps of fools,” he said proudly. “Every one of these idiots wanted to come, even though I didn’t tell them what was up, but only they’d certainly die in the attempt.”

  The men grinned good-naturedly.

  I had Cymea cast a Square of Silence spell, told them the mission. One of the skirmishers spat.

  “’At’s a good ‘un,” he growled. “About time t’ send that fuckin’ demon back to whatever hells he come from.

  “Get this fuckin’ war over with, so we can go back to tryin’t’ live like people again.”

  We were about to move out when Kutulu trotted up.

  “I hear you’ve business on the other side of the lines.”

  “How’d you hear that?”

  “Don’t worry,” he failed to explain. “No one else knows but me. And I know the best way to reach the Imperial Palace.”

  “You’ve got as much right as anyone to come with us,” I said. “Not that I think there’s anything other than rope that’d hold you back.”

  “No,” he said seriously, “no, this is repayment of a debt I incurred a very long time ago.”

  He actually laughed, beaming once more like a child at a birthing-day celebration.

  I told Linerges where I wanted the attack mounted after Kutulu showed me on a map his route, which was, indeed, most practical. Then we set forth to kill the demon king.

  • • •

  Passing through the still-fragmented lines was easy. We made our way east, past piled bodies, burning buildings, and grimy warriors to the Latane River, to the branch that ran down to the Imperial Palace.

  We found a boat basin, with half a hundred craft still moored, and I chose a good-sized one, some sort of work boat with a small cabin that looked terribly ramshackle but wouldn’t sink too quickly.

  We boarded, cast loose, and let the river take us downstream, turning slowly, aimlessly, as if there was no one aboard, no one at the rudder.

  The banks of this waterway had been a favorite riding place of mine years ago, under spreading trees and bushes, a parklike strand that ran through Nicias’s government district.

  It’d been long without maintenance, and trees had been cut down here and there for firewood and other purposes. Bodies, human, animal, floated downstream, lay on the banks, and all about us in the heat was the stink of death.

  I could feel the building darkness, oppression, as one feels a thunderstorm before it breaks.

  We bumped past a downed bridge that marked our front lines, drifted on into enemy territory as the river widened.

  Minutes later, bugles sounded from behind us, and Linerges mounted the covering attack not far distant from where we’d crossed the lines.

  I peered out of the cabin, saw the rearing battlements of the Imperial Palace ahead.

  I was about to go over the side with two other men and push the boat toward the bank, but Cymea shook her head and moved her wand in peculiar fashion, whispering as she did. The current spun us once more, leisurely, then we drifted into a knot of brush and were trapped, very naturally, very innocently.

  No one was watching, and we went over the side in a rush into the water, waded to the shore and crawled up it. A sixth of a league away was the Imperial Palace.

  Those who design gardens for palaces, especially those intended for troubled times, are in an interesting trap. The lord who hired them generally wants his fortress to be beautiful, ringed with parks, walks, and genteel surroundings. Yet for every tree planted, every topiary sculpted, every rock garden built, the lord and his underlings’ danger grows, for each can give cover to an enemy.

  So it was with the Imperial Palace, and I remember well, in the old days, soldiers muttering at how many patrols were required, simply because the emperor wanted beautiful gardens. For an instant, I remembered one of these gardens, a secluded place where Marán, Amiel, and I’d first made love, then cursed my mind for behaving like a drunken monkey.

  The sixteen of us slid across the ground silently, like fog moving through trees. There were guards, but we bypassed them, the palace’s roofs and blank, staring windows closer and closer.

  There were only five or six guards, the identically faced homunculi, on the bridge across the moat. Drop them without raising the alarm and minutes later, we’d be inside.

  The doom feeling was growing stronger, closer. Tenedos must have begun his spell. Now, if Irisu would give us a few more minutes …

  But he didn’t. Or perhaps he wished to, but Saionji begged a boon, laughing in glee, anticipating the tide of souls who’d be coming to her, coming to the Wheel.

  Thunder whiplashed twice, though there wasn’t a cloud to be seen, and the ground rumbled as if in an earthquake.

  Across the Latane, beyond the city, a dark form materialized. It grew and grew until it was taller than the highest building in Nicias, and again thunder lashed as its features took on form, horrible V-mouth open, fangs dripping venom. Four arms extended, and the demon looked up at the skies as it had done before, but more terrible now, for this was day, not storm-tossed night, and bayed defiance to the gods and triumph at being reborn.

  Then it glided forward, to
ward the city, and one of the skirmishers whimpered, and I had to force control, for I wanted to pray, run screaming, or even worship the dark horror to save my soul from its embrace.

  But I pushed weakness away, and shouted, “Come on,” and half, then all the skirmishers were rushing the palace as the demon came across the Latane.

  One guard tore his gaze away from the nightmare, saw us, and shouted a warning.

  Then we were on them, and the guards went down, and we ran across the bridge, through open gates into a courtyard.

  “Up here,” I pointed, toward where Tenedos’s private apartments had been when he was emperor, just as twenty or more guards, more of Tenedos’s monstrosities, stormed out of the doorway toward us, paying no mind to the stalking doom beyond, good soldiers doing their duty to death.

  “We’ll hold them here,” Yonge said, and I nodded. “On them,” he called, charging forward.

  “Follow me,” I shouted, and Cymea, Jakuns, Kutulu, Svalbard, and I went up the long flight. We rounded a landing, a servitor came toward me, clumsily waving a long two-handed sword, and I clubbed him aside with my sword pommel and pushed him over the railing.

  We pelted down a long corridor, to more stairs, started up them. I heard a shrill cry, saw Cymea go down. Something bounced away from her body, and I never saw whoever had loosed the sling, and my heart snapped, and I had to go to her.

  But I couldn’t, couldn’t hold her in her dying moments, if she even still lived, and ran on, the last of life dying within me as I raged, wanting only to drag Tenedos down into death with me, for everything now had come to an end.

  We came to a barred door, and Svalbard put his shoulder to it, but rage gave me power beyond any man’s, and the panels smashed aside under my boot heel.

  We were in the open now, a bridge across a courtyard far below, Yonge and his men still holding back the homunculi, the palace gardens, and Nicias beyond. We slid to a halt, as the monster came ashore, and I heard the sough of his breathing even at this distance, if breathing it was.

  He smashed his fist, backhand, in an idle blow, and the huge Ministry of War building broke apart as if it was made of a child’s blocks, and the demon roared savage glee, and glass around us shattered.

  The demon’s foot lashed out, smashing buildings along the waterfront, perhaps one the mansion Marán and I had shared.

  The horror screamed its joy; then its howl stopped.

  Another apparition was building, to the west, within Nicias. Brown mists swirled, became solid, and a warrior was born. It was a woman, wearing brown armor and helm, with a red shield. She was armed with a stabbing spear. I knew the face, and it was that of Seer Devra Sinait.

  Fearlessly the figure advanced on the demon, although it was only two-thirds its size, and the nightmare roared and closed. He swept out with his arms, and the spear flashed, and the demon screeched agony, and ichor poured from its arm. Again the spear darted, but this time the monster brushed it aside and struck with a taloned claw, past the warrior’s shield, and the warrior stumbled back, something reddish, like watered blood, floating through the air.

  Again the warrior struck, this time to the body of the demon, and again he howled in pain. But as he did, he had the spear in two hands, yanking it, and the warrior, toward him, then the demon had her by the neck, pulling her toward those terrible fangs.

  The warrior screamed as the creature tore her throat open, convulsed. The demon lifted her body, and hurled it from him, baying like a lion over his prey, and I knew, far away across the city, Seer Devra Sinait had died, trying to save her country.

  I broke from my daze and ran to the doors at the end of the bridge, Jakuns beside me, and jerked the door open. An arrow flashed, took him in the stomach, and he fell, writhing, lay silent, and now there were only three of us, as Kutulu threw one of the iron pigs he, too, favored into the archer’s face, stabbed him in the guts as he went down, and we ran up a long, curving ramp, and there were high doors at its end.

  On the other side would be the imperial apartments, elaborate, lavish, and I slammed the doors open, and they boomed as loud as the screaming of the demon as he ravened through Nicias.

  The rooms were different, had changed. The walls were warped, twisted, as if seen in a distorted mirror, furniture bent in strange ways, as if it’d melted.

  The air itself swam, as if through heat distortion.

  “Welcome,” Tenedos’s voice came softly. “Welcome to death, Damastes.”

  He stood before me, not as I’d seen him recently, but young, vibrant, clad in the armor of twenty years ago, a sword in his hand.

  “Your man will not bother us,” he said, and I heard a sigh and Svalbard crumpled beside me. Kutulu stood on the other side, motionless, paralyzed.

  “I’m hardly a romantic,” he said. “But I wanted the pleasure of killing you myself, in the flesh. My magic is committed to helping my friend finish the task I should have had him do years ago, when I was still emperor.

  “To destroy Nicias, so that I can rebuild it, and its people, in the form and image I desire.

  “Yes, yes indeed.

  “This is the end, Damastes, the end for you, but my cord, the line of my life runs on forever now.”

  I broke his spell, jump-lunged, and my sword cut nothingness, and Tenedos was standing five feet to the side. He flicked a lunge, I parried it, felt steel against my blade, felt an instant of hope this wasn’t an apparition, but was real, and could be hurt, could be killed.

  “Now my empire will be eternal, as shall I,” he mocked. “There is no hope of stopping that, no way of denying me my true destiny.

  “Once I worshiped Saionji, but then I learned I could be greater than she, for who has sent more souls to the Wheel than I? What are gods, but demons who’ve managed to be worshiped and taken great strength from that adulation?

  “Isn’t it true that all of those we call gods, Umar, Irisu, Saionji, the others, were once men who became demons and then gods?

  “Now I’ll be one with them, greater than they, for I know what I want, know that everything that exists is one, and all that matters is power, for with power you control fire, water, earth, air, war, even love.

  “Now come, Damastes,” he said, relish in his tones. “Come and try to save your world from me.”

  I paced toward him, and his image flickered, and four of him stood in front of me, as if I were looking in mirrors.

  He thrust, and Kutulu came alive, diving forward, taking the thrust and the blade flickered in, out of his body, and the slight man fell, lay motionless.

  Tenedos looked down at his corpse, curled a lip.

  “A better warder than warrior,” he said. “And in the end, no more than an unfaithful servant, punished as he deserved.

  “Now, Damastes, fight us … fight me, for which of us is real, which is illusion?” he mocked. I lunged at one, he jumped aside, and I felt pain in my side, saw steel flick away.

  “A pinprick,” he mocked, and I lunged at one Tenedos, sidestepped and slashed at another. Again one of the images cut at me, and I parried, felt steel, struck quickly in a stop-thrust, and the point of my sword drew blood across the image’s forearm.

  “Good,” Tenedos gritted. “I forgot what a swordsman you are. So let me give myself greater advantage.”

  Again the images flickered, and now there were nine.

  “Unfair, Damastes? Why don’t you complain? Say something. Pray, call to your gods if you wish. Perhaps they’ll intercede.”

  He laughed, and his laughter echoed, then stopped suddenly.

  “Enough playing,” he said impatiently. “Enough jesting. My creation calls for guidance on what to destroy, and I have no more time for you.

  “Fare thee well, Damastes á Cimabue. Go to your doom and hope Saionji grants you another life before I am ready to conquer her kingdom as well.”

  His eyes slitted, and he was about to lunge.

  I back-leaped, and his concentration was broken.

  “You
don’t die easily,” he said, and shuffled toward me, the careful stepping of a trained fencer.

  His muscles tensed, and then, from behind me, a woman’s voice came:

  “Lyrn, dav, maheel, nast

  F’ren, lenp aswara ast

  G’let!

  Now, Damastes! Strike now!”

  The room around me changed, was suddenly just a room, the swirling air stilled, and there was only one figure in front of me.

  For a moment he didn’t realize what had happened, then I cut at him and he pulled back, shouting in pain as blood crimsoned his side.

  Tenedos struck as I recovered, hit nothing but air, and I lunged, my sword going into his shoulder. He ducked then, swung his blade at my legs, and his sword tip nicked at me below the knee.

  He came up, driving hard in a full lunge, but I wasn’t there, but to his side, hard in my own thrust, and it took him in his side, opposite his heart, and my blade came out half a span on his other side.

  His body contorted, his face turned to me, wizened in pain, hatred, and fear, and he opened his mouth to curse me, but nothing came, and he sagged.

  I pulled my sword out, and he fell.

  I heard a scream, but more than a scream, a howl of defeat, of the very fabric of this world being torn, and the ground shook under my feet. Or perhaps my mind told me that was what should happen when the greatest of all wizards dies.

  Tenedos lay on his side, completely still, but I was not sure, kicked him over on his back, drew Yonge’s dagger and drove it up under his rib cage, into his heart.

  His eyes were empty, gone, but I remembered how he’d been reported dead once. Without his head, there could be no doubts.

  But the air thickened around me before I could strike, and I heard the whirring of wings, and I stepped back.

  I’m not sure I believe in gods anymore, at least not in the form we worship them in.

  But what I saw was very real. Hanging in the air, for just a moment, was a woman’s face and shoulders, hair wild and uncombed, eyes glaring in abandon. I couldn’t see her bare breasts, but she wore a necklace, a necklace of skulls.

  Perhaps it was a hallucination, perhaps not.

  Then Saionji’s image vanished.