by Stephen Deas
‘Oh? How’d that go?’
‘Not as well as I’d hoped.’
Tuuran got up. The heart of the basilica was a colossal dome of enchanted glass and Scythian steel, crowned by a second much smaller dome of beaten gold and with a walkway around it. From that upper balcony Tuuran could see everything. He turned to Berren and gripped his shoulder. ‘Whatever I have to do,’ he said. ‘One way or another. Anyone, anything.’ He cocked his head. ‘You in there, Black Moon? You listening? Why not a dragon? Wouldn’t that be better? Tell me what I need to do to get my friend back and I’ll do it …’
A dazzling light burst from the sky, a beam straight from the sun. It smashed into one of the hatchlings. The dragon screamed and dropped away, wreathed in dazzling white flames, crashing into the city below. Tuuran caught a glimpse of it, burning, rampaging through the streets and setting fire to everything it touched before it melted and died. The silver in Berren’s eyes flickered.
‘You remember I told you a story once, how I went fighting for the Sun King to earn the money for my slave girl?’ Berren looked out over Merizikat. ‘Was here. And that was the sun priests of the Dominion bringing down the fire of their god …’ His expression changed to something painful. ‘Got to put to an end to that malarkey. He’s coming, big man. You really should go now.’ Berren’s eyes flared silver.
The other hatchlings scattered across the city. A second blast of sunfire struck the eyrie. It raked back and forth. Where it touched the rim the black stone turned bright orange, to lava that ran over the edge and rained a second deluge of fire on the city below. Brilliant silver light burst from the Crowntaker’s eyes as the balcony door opened behind him. A solar priest stood frozen in the entrance. The Black Moon took two quick steps, touched him and turned him to ash. He did the same to another. A third priest erupted in a dazzling light of his own, golden and warm, but the silver of the Black Moon devoured and consumed him. The half-god pressed on past into the dome and calmly closed the door behind him, and after that Tuuran didn’t see what happened and didn’t much care to. Howled evocations echoed, commandments hurled like weapons, curtains of light sliding through one another to score the sky as the Basilica of the Unconquered Sun lit up brighter than a lighthouse.
Enough of that. Didn’t look like a place for hanging about. He rode his sled across the rooftops to where his legion waited. Seventy-odd men and women, half survivors from the eyrie, half of them from the night-skin ship her Holiness and her dragon had sunk. Knife-stabbed and soul-cut, every last one of them as best he knew. Made to be loyal. Forced to obey. The only ones missing, the only ones left up on the eyrie, were the enchantress and the alchemist and Myst and Onyx. The rest were here, every last one of them, young and old. Most didn’t know which end of a sword was which, but they were all soldiers now, because the Black Moon simply didn’t care. Tuuran had kept the white witch busy to exhaustion as they’d crossed the sea. Every man and woman had a sled, each wore enchanted gold-glass armour, each carried a pair of lightning throwers and a huge glass shield. The rest was up to them. It might be enough, he hoped, at least to keep them alive.
He took a moment to look at them. His legion. Not many of them yet, and most weren’t fighters and never would be, but it took his breath away thinking what it would be like to have a thousand men armed and armoured like this. A legion of true Adamantine Men with sleds and lightning. Unstoppable …
Most of them were scared witless. A handful couldn’t wait. That handful would do, and fate and luck would see to the rest, one way or another. He pointed to the palace at the top of the hill of Merizikat. They all knew what they had to do, so there was no point in some great speech. He looked at them instead, met the eyes of the ones he thought he could trust one by one, and then rode his sled as fast as he dared, low over the rooftops of the city, trusting the men who were truly soldiers to follow. Never mind the palace walls and its gates and its heavy iron doors and its hundred guards. Never mind everything the sun-born kings of the Dominion thought made them safe. Here I come. Tuuran grinned. Death from above. Like a dragon, only worse.
He spotted a balcony high over the front of the palace, the sort of place where a king stood to wave at his distant subjects, safe and out of reach of any harm. A set of gilded doors behind it beckoned him, and there was no one standing watch there with a bucket full of crossbows like there ought to be. He grinned, then glanced over his shoulder to the basilica and wished he hadn’t. An eerie light shone from every crack and window of the dome, a flickering brilliance of swirling silver and gold. It made his stomach churn.
Best not to think about it.
He shot over the outer palace walls. Kept his eyes on the waiting balcony as he skimmed a labyrinth of gardens and yards and stables, an archery field, a jousting circus, maybe a bear pit, other things that didn’t make much sense when all you had eyes for was racing through the sky as fast as you dared and praying not to fall off. Soldiers on the ground pointed up. Maybe they shouted something, but if they did then he couldn’t hear them over the rush of wind. You’re all too slow, you lazy shits. Archers came next. He saw a man stringing a bow. The first arrows flew, but only a handful, wild and hopelessly wide. He braced to hit the balcony, flipped the sled, trying to make it stop at the last moment, lost his balance, flailed horribly, and jumped as the sled hurled them both smashing into the doors. He made sure to hit them axe first. They burst open. He rolled and came up on his feet, battered and shaken but with all his bits still working, so that was something. He was at the end of a wide gallery. Thick carpet, mustard yellow. Panels of pale wood. Alcoves on both sides, neat and regular, all very pretty, each with a statue or a bust set just so, but more to the point were the six armed men at the far end. Decked out in fine golden armour and armed with halberds and short stabbing swords …
That was the opposition? Flame, they might as well have set some kittens on guard for all the difference it would make. He pulled his axe out of the mangled door, took a deep breath and bared his teeth. Right then.
‘Tuuraaaaaaaan!’
He had about a split second to throw himself flat as the next sleds reached the balcony. The first came hurtling way too fast, clipped the mashed doors and flipped into a spin. Halfteeth fell off and rolled across the carpet ahead. The next came a little slower. A woman half jumped, half fell, and landed beside him. Her sled smacked into Halfteeth as he was getting up and knocked him straight back down again. He swore. He was still moving though. Good stuff, that witch armour.
The men with the halberds were yelling their lungs out, but they were holding their ground, not charging like they ought to. Mistake. Tuuran took a moment. Checked behind, but the next sled riders were coming in more carefully. Not as brave or not as stupid, he wasn’t sure which. Should have practised this a bit more, but too late to be worrying about that now.
‘You two good?’ Halfway along the gallery the walls opened either side to a wide double flight of stairs that curved towards the back of the palace as they swept down. Soldiers were already running up them, yelling and howling, swords drawn. Not many, not yet, but there would be plenty more soon enough. Had to put an end to that. Cut them off, and fast.
The woman nodded. Flame, but she was so short he could have picked her up and thrown her. Halfteeth let out a volley of curses and drew his lightning wand, and that, Tuuran reckoned, would have to be enough. ‘Fast and brutal,’ he howled. ‘No quarter, no stopping.’ He took off down the gallery. The soldiers at the far end were exalts, the armour told him that much. The best the Dominion had to offer. Might even have been a fair fight one on one, hand to hand, but fuck that. Tuuran paused a moment, let Halfteeth and the woman run past him, and fired off a blast of lightning down each stairway, sending the men running up scurrying back for cover. More Adamantine Men were landing. They were strung out, each flying their sled at their own pace. Maybe he should have kept them together, shepherded them, but at least this way he
knew the ones who got here first had the balls for a fight.
‘You!’ He levelled a finger at the next man along. ‘Hold these stairs. Twelve men either side then send the rest on through. Anyone tries to come up, let them chew on lightning.’
Halfteeth and the short woman had stopped, waiting for him, giving a wary eye to the six bellowing exalts. Flame! He bawled at them, ‘Need me to hold your hand, do you?’ He hit the exalt wearing a bigger golden plume in his helm with a bolt of lightning wound up as far as it would go. The exalt flew backwards, slammed into the door behind, jerked and spasmed a few times and fell twitching. ‘Like that, you dogs!’ Sod fair fights. He threw another bolt from his last wand and then fell on the others with his axe. Another explosion of lightning told him someone else had got the idea. The exalt in front of him swung. Tuuran caught the halberd with the shaft of his axe. Two more thunderclaps went off, felt like right beside his ear. The exalt in front of him flew back and smashed into the wall, knocking down a bust. His back arched and his arms and legs jerked up and down and then he was still. The air smelled of scorched skin and burned hair. That was more like it. No mercy, no quarter …
Another thunderbolt. Lights danced in front of his eyes. His legs gave way. He stumbled and stretched out a hand to catch himself. Sparks arced from his gold-glass gauntlets to the floor.
‘Not at me, you shit-stained blankets!’ He twisted and rolled but the exalts were already done for, lightning-crisped, all of them. The short woman stooped beside him.
‘You all right, boss? Halfteeth caught you with his lightning.’
‘He did, did he?’ Tuuran picked himself up. His legs felt taut as though every muscle had clenched tight. More thunderbolts bellowed behind him. His men defending the stairs. He turned for Halfteeth, thought about punching him a few times and making him Noteeth, then thought better of it. ‘This witch-made gold-glass armour might mostly turn our lightning, but fucking ouch and be more fucking careful.’
The exalts had been guarding an ornate double door of mahogany with the seal of the sun set in gold right in the middle of it. Mahogany and gold. Meant something, that did. Crazy had told him so once. Something important. Couldn’t remember what, but sod it: guarded meant something behind that was valuable. Made it as good a way to go as any.
Cracks of lightning shook the walls. He had enough men at the stairs to hold them now, lined up behind their shields and with Chay-Liang’s wands to rain thunder-death down all day if they had to.
‘Hold your nerve, lads, that’s all you need to do.’ The last of his makeshift legion were arriving, stacking their sleds, slinking in slow and reluctant. The ones who didn’t want to be here, who didn’t know what to do. Tuuran turned back to the mahogany door. Couldn’t see how to open it, but a door was a door and he had an axe. The first blow hacked off the seal of the sun. The next splintered enough wood to show him the metal bars across the back of it.
‘Shit!’ He grabbed Halfteeth. ‘These doors open, you murder anyone who comes out. Got it?’ He ran the length of the gallery, back to the balcony, yelling at the soldiers still coming in to get out of the way until he found the men at the back who’d come with a crate of the enchantress’s bombs. Black powder. Would make life interesting, this would. All the way across the sea he’d drilled and drilled and drilled his tiny ragtag legion, even in the weeks before they left, between stockpiling food and water for the journey. Even the ones who were next to useless knew how to form a wall of shields and keep back dragon-fire. They knew how to protect one another and they knew how to throw lightning. A few knew how to fight with a sword or an axe or a mace, but they learned that on their own time, because when you had a lightning thrower on each arm, who gave a shit for swords and axes …?
Bombs were different. They hadn’t practised bombs. He picked up one in each hand and weighed them. Didn’t even know how hard he had to throw them or how far away he needed to be to be safe.
‘That’s one big pair of tits, boss.’
The lightning from the top of the stairs was getting fierce. Crossbow quarrels stuck out of the walls and pinged off glass shields. He saw more than one already cracked. Plenty of repair work to keep the witch busy after they were done. He shoved the bombs at whoever it was with the smart mouth. Didn’t know if dropping one was enough to make it explode. They were glass, so he reckoned maybe it was.
‘They’ll bring scorpions to the stairs before much longer. When they do, throw these at them. That’ll shut them up.’ Not that half these soldiers even knew what a scorpion was, but he figured they’d learn quick enough once they had one pointed at them. He grabbed the sled with the rest of the bombs, sprinted down the gallery, snatched hold of Halfteeth. ‘You two!’ He shoved the sled against the door, then pulled Halfteeth and the short woman back a good way because he had no idea how big these bombs really were.
‘We cover the men behind us.’ He pushed Halfteeth to one side of the gallery and pulled the woman beside him to the other. He pushed her against the wall and set his shield beside hers. They probably looked ridiculous, him and her together, him as big as he was and her small enough she was almost a child. ‘I’m sure you’ve got a name, but once you’re in the legion you get another. You can be Tiny.’ He turned his head and roared back down the gallery. ‘Everybody duck!’ Gave it a moment to sink in and then threw a bolt of lightning at the box of bombs on the sled beside the door. Cringed.
‘Tiny?’ said the woman beside him when nothing happened. ‘That’s shit.’
‘You’re in the legion. You take what you’re given.’
The woman propped her shield, kicked over a statue and smashed it with an ashgar as tall as she was. She picked up the statue’s head and offered it to Tuuran. ‘Last man who said that ended up with a trowel rammed through his eye,’ she said. ‘Halfteeth calls me Snacksize. Still a bit shit, but I’ve let him long enough that it’ll do. You want to throw this at those bombs of yours or shall I brain you with it?’
Tuuran shrugged. ‘You throw it. Bombs go bang, you can be called whatever you like; bombs do nothing and you put up with what I choose.’
The woman snorted, gave him a look and threw. The explosion hit like a wall, hard enough it tossed him off his feet. Pieces of glass faster than arrows shattered on his shield, a cascade of noise, or maybe that was his ears ringing from the explosion. Choking sulphurous smoke filled the gallery, making him weep. He trotted forward, spluttering and waving at the air as if that would make the stench go away. Pieces of twisted metal hung from the stonework, but the doors were gone. Not so much staved in as disintegrated. A good chunk of floor had gone the same way.
No time for thinking, not now. He ran and jumped the gap. The room beyond – what was left of it – was square and as tall as the gallery. Richer than Tuuran had ever imagined possible, or at least it had been before some vandalous bugger had let off a bomb right beside it. Rugs ran from wall to wall; they looked so thick and soft that they might have made him want to take off his boots and walk barefoot if they hadn’t been on fire in a few places and smouldering in a good few more. A tapestry covered the far wall and told, in embroidered reds and golds and bronzes and every colour between, the story that everyone in the Dominion knew, of the creation of the first men by the holy sun. There were paintings on the other walls, all portraits, a good few of them slightly shredded now, bookcases that had toppled in the shudder of the blast, a credenza, tables with bottles and glasses scattered and smashed. A pair of swords hung drooping from the far wall, one with a hilt of pure gold …
‘Come on! Come on!’
Shallow spiral steps rose curling through the middle of the room. Tuuran bounded up them, Halfteeth and Snacksize and another man right behind him. Speed was all that mattered, times like this. Shock. Wouldn’t be long before the exalts brought priests with their sunfire. Maybe those rockets from the harbour, if they still had any left. When that happened, even the witch’s ligh
tning wouldn’t be enough …
The stairs ran through a library. Books and what looked like an alchemist’s workbench. No people. Running footsteps from above. Tuuran raised his shield as two soldiers head to toe in gold plate came clattering down at him. He let lightning fly and then threw himself out of the way as the two exalts tumbled past down the stair, arms and legs twisted and flailing and with a smell of burned skin lingering behind them. He clutched his ears, ringing from the explosion and never mind all these fucking thunderbolts. Took a moment trying to shake the noise out of his head. Halfteeth and his other friend pushed past; Tuuran chased on, still shaking himself. Rattled his bones, all that thunder …
The steps spat them into a square room. First thing Tuuran saw was a man in a yellow robe. Second thing was Halfteeth’s friend bursting into flames, screaming, haloed in golden fire and burned to ash. Halfteeth fired both his lightning wands. Yellow robe flew off his feet, up into the air and smashed into a wall. Snacksize caught him in the face with another bolt. He fell like a sack of dead meat. Twitched a few times, skin black and flaking. A surge of movement came at Halfteeth from behind, a fat man wearing the clothes of a king and wielding a hatchet, about to bring it down on Halfteeth’s head. Tuuran swung his axe and took hand and hatchet together, and then something hit him from behind, staggering him. He whirled. A man with a sword who’d been stupid enough to swing it like a club and not take a hopeful stab for the gaps in the gold-glass. Tuuran roared. The swordsman jumped away, but that only landed him right next to Snacksize, who punched him in the face with an armoured gauntlet. Down he went.
Took a few more minutes of kicking in doors and throwing lightning before Tuuran realised he’d lopped a hand off the arch-solar of Merizikat himself, and the buffoon with the sword was his son and heir. He dragged them back to the gallery and the stairs and held them there, one each side, and let them scream at the soldiers in the hall below until everyone got the message that it was all over, and could they please stop shooting crossbows at their king. The Black Moon, last Tuuran had seen, was enjoying himself with the half-god sport of disintegrating priests, and her Holiness and her dragon were out over the estuary explaining with judicious fire why none of the ships anchored there should think about sailing away just now, and so it all got a bit awkward when the arch-solar started blubbering questions like ‘What do you want?’ and ‘Why are you here?’ Mostly they seemed to think it was him who ought to have the answers, which was a bugger, because Tuuran hadn’t the first idea why they’d come to Merizikat at all, never mind started on sacking the place. Didn’t help that he was in a shitty mood that had been getting steadily worse ever since they’d left the islands. Zafir. Dragons. Half-gods. Fuck the lot of them.
