Desh raised an eyebrow, unruffled. “Ah. So your snakes can speak, father!” he said, feigning astonishment. “Careful that one doesn’t get too bold, though. I wouldn’t want to have to take its fangs.”
The acolyte gnashed his teeth, but Ghis laughed, then held up his hand, quieting him. “And why shouldn’t I let Farl here tear out your throat?” Ghis asked amicably.
Farl leaned forward, smiling, hungry for his master to unleash him.
“Go ahead, father, let him try. But when I kill him, you may regret it. And besides, you need me. You wouldn’t have summoned me otherwise. I’ve come to find out what your need is, and to decide whether or not it’s worth it to me to fill it.”
“Ne-uru-gal summoned you. He summons all true Kkadie. I am merely his servant.”
Desh narrowed his eyes. “I have never known you to be a devout man.”
“I was not,” he said with a shrug. “Then I saw the truth. I understand that you are skeptical, but I could show you too.”
“What is there to show? I doubt any of the gods cares much for the doings of pitiful mortals like us.”
“Ne-uru-gal’s kingdom is time without end. We are all his subjects, though most fear his rule.”
“When I was young, you told me the gods were a lie to make men subservient.”
“I was wrong, but not wholly so. The lies come from those who lay false claim to the word of the gods. Our simpering council of clerics. The treacherous, thieving magi. But I have walked through the fiery gates with Ne-uru-gal himself. He has shown me the way through the barrens. With his power, we can throw off the yoke and claim our true birthright.”
“All I’ve seen of his power, father, is death. The magi have helped us make peace when our peoples stood on the brink of war.”
Ghis shook his head. “Don’t you understand, Deshanyo? Don’t you see what they have taken from us?” His voice became hot with emotion. “War is the fullest expression of our very will to survive. What is a man without victory? Nothing. He is nothing. Victory is the moment when we are closest to the gods.” He hung his head, silent, staring at the fire.
Desh waited, saying nothing.
“They have robbed us of that strength,” Ghis finally said, still watching the flames. “Stolen it with trickery and shadow. We have given them everything we are in exchange for mere baubles and trickery. ”
“How does killing hundreds of people, including dozens of our own blood, serve to change that?”
“Because we killed one of them, Desh. We have proven that, for all their seeming power, they bleed and die, just like us. No. Not like us. Less than us. They hide their true nature behind a veil of false promises. We Nergugaltha walk in the harsh dark of truth, and we have torn away that veil. Any Kkad who seeks peace with our sworn enemies has already become a slave to the illusion. They are a necessary sacrifice in service of the truth.”
Desh either had unshakeable faith that we were going to swoop in and save him, or he was past the point of caring. “Is that what you think?” he said, raising his voice. “That we who seek peace are slaves? For the first time in an era, our people have taken a place as equals in a world of plenty. Say what you will about the magi, but we are no longer starving in the desert. We’re no longer warring among ourselves. We’re no longer digging in the copper mines of Sagamer. Can Ne-uru-gal offer us that?”
“Desh-”
Desh spat. “No,” he said. “Go ahead and sacrifice me to your murderous god. I’ll die before I worship at this altar of vanity and ruin.”
Ghis held up both hands this time to restrain his vengeful acolytes. He smiled a sad smile. “Please, Desh. I’ve never been the father you needed. I know that. Yet no one could ever doubt that you are my son. You are fearless, and your strength runs deep. I brought you here in hopes that you could see what I have seen. In hopes that we can fix what has been broken between us.”
“I think that maybe we are past fixing, father.”
Ghis shook his head. “No. It is not too late. Enough with words. Let me show you.”
He lifted his hands and opened his cloak, letting it fall to the floor, pooling on the ground by his feet. His long, dark, fierce mane of hair was gone, his head shaved bald. Tattoos ran from his scalp, down his back, around his arms, through the tuft of silver hair curling on his chest, covering the whole of his dark, lean, muscled torso.
And at the base of his skull, there was a glistening, protruding lump, copper wires snaking out from it, gripping the skin behind his ears and neck like a claw, like a parasite, like a nightmare.
“Send them in,” I said. “In the names of every last Scion, send the guards in.”
* * *
Thirty of our Bronze Guard spilled out of the tunnels and into the altar room of Ne-uru-gal like a swarm of vesps emerging from their nest. They were armed with curving swords and long spears, screaming battle cries.
Socha came at their head, his long scimitar glimmering in the scattered torchlight of the cavern. He swung his free hand up towards the ceiling, opening his palm at the top of the throw, unleashing four surveillance drones. They gushed white light, chasing away the shadows, giving us sightlines across the room.
The walls of the cavern were chiseled with gruesome murals of violence: soldiers clashing in battle; men impaled on pikes and rotting in ditches; small mountains of skulls piled as high as a house; birds circling above the valleys of the dying and the dead.
Ghis stepped forward, weaponless, raising his arms, his face contorted with rage. He shouted something, but it was unintelligible amidst the chaos of the raid. A spear flew towards him across the room. He pivoted, grabbing it from the air as it passed him, then twirled in a circle, using the momentum of his spin to hurl it back.
It took one of the guardsmen in the chest. The young man cried out, reeling backwards into another guard behind him. Then Ghis’s acolytes rushed past, charging towards the guards.
Ghis turned and walked away from the altar, moving towards the rear entrance. I spotted Xander crouching in the corner, his eyes darting left and right. Then his eyes locked onto Ghis.
“Xander,” I said, “No! Stay there! Stay low!”
If he heard me, he ignored me. He started moving, skirting along the wall, heading after Ghis. We lost sight of him as bodies crowded together in combat, and the image feed from the surveillance orb that hung from his neck stuttered with his movements.
Desh was also running towards Ghis, but two of the Nergugaltha came from the side of the room, intercepting him. He elbowed the closest acolyte in the nose. Blood spurted from the force of the strike, but the man shook it off and kept coming, and before Desh could do anything else, the other acolyte thudded him on the back of the head, knocking him unconscious. He caught Desh as he fell, hooking his arms under Desh’s armpits. He nodded to the other acolyte, who scooped up Desh’s legs.
“Socha,” I shouted. “Ghis is getting away! And they’ve got Desh. Do you hear me?”
“I hear you, pausha. I need a moment.”
“The master of understatement,” I whispered as I found him on one of our monitors.
Three of the acolytes came at Socha at once. He was older than most, older even than Ghis, and these three young warriors closed on him with the certainty of a pack of wolves who had singled out the weakest animal from the herd. If they were smarter, they might have realized that his age was a testament to his prowess, but they rushed in, heedless. Socha was patient and unrelenting, parrying every assault, turning every misstep to his advantage.
He cut through them in less than a minute.
But more acolytes were coming in from other entrances, emerging from tunnel depths we could only guess at, flooding the room, and Socha could not break through the crush.
“Damn it,” I muttered. “Socha, stay with the men! Hold ground.”
I saw him nod, and he began to move among the Bronze Guard as the battle pitched back and forth, steadying them, urging them on.
“I’ve got
eyes on Desh,” Xayes said, pointing.
The two acolytes were hauling him towards the rear entrance that Ghis had left through. Xander edged into view, intercepting their path. One of the acolytes with Desh lifted his hand to point at Xander, but before he could shout an alarm, his hand darted to the side of his throat, and a confused look came over his face.
Blood leaked from between his fingers and around his palm. His fellow acolyte felt Desh grow heavy in his arms, and he turned back to see what was wrong.
A dagger sprouted from his chest.
The two men fell to the ground almost simultaneously.
Thorn, Desh’s female lover, ran up. She wore leather armor that shielded her chest, arms, groin and legs, but still gave her full mobility. She knelt down beside the two dying men and retrieved her daggers. Then she held something beneath Desh’s nose. His eyes snapped open.
Talon, Desh’s male lover, came up behind Thorn. He carried a sword in one hand, and barbed lash in the other. He turned his back to them, facing out towards the battle, making sure no one approached as Thorn helped Desh to his feet. Desh said something to her. She nodded. She wiped the blood from the daggers, and slid them into fitted sheaths that had been stitched into her leather armor. Then she tapped Talon on the shoulder and said something to him.
He whipped his head around, narrowing his eyes at her, but Desh nodded his head and raised his hand. Talon grimaced, but he nodded, then ran back towards the melee.
Thorn knelt again, scooped up a sword from one of the acolytes she had just killed, and handed it to Desh. Together they left the cavern, following after Ghis into the darkness of the tunnel.
A moment later, Xander ran after them.
“Damn it,” I said. “Keep his image feed on a dedicated monitor. We can’t afford to lose them.” One of the monitors filled with the shake of the surveillance orb around Xander’s neck, but when he entered the tunnel, the image faded to black.
“Reach-”
“I am monitoring Xander’s vitals,” he said, anticipating me. “He is still alive, but the tunnel is too dark to get a clear image.”
“Infrared?”
“Not on this particular device.”
I cursed again. “Do we have any idea where those tunnels might come out?”
“The bedrock is too thick to scan through with any accuracy. I am doing my best to map the tunnel as Xander moves through it, but it is impossible at this point to know how far they go.”
“Can you-”
“It is already done. I have four drones at one hundred feet above the temple district. As soon the others emerge, we will know.”
“Thank you, Reach. We would be lost without you.”
“Orenpausha,” Sid said, “you have to see this.” He pointed to the monitors that he and Xayes were both hunched over.
It was Talon. He was mesmerizing to watch, exquisite and terrible. He stabbed one acolyte through the back of the head with his sword. He strangled another with his lash, leaving it wrapped around the man’s neck as he danced backwards from a third, narrowly avoiding a dagger to his bowels, and then darted in to strike through the attacker’s throat. He turned in time to see the previous acolyte tear the lash from his neck, ignoring the stinging barbs, and charge at him. He rolled, slashing at the attacker’s knees, felling him to the ground, and then drove his sword through the man’s back.
Farl the giant saw Talon cutting through his fellow acolytes and let out a bellow of rage, charging towards Talon. Two of our Bronze Guard tried to intercept him, but he batted their swords aside with his hands, ignoring a fierce gash on his arm. He grabbed the one nearest him, lifting him off the ground by his head. He whipped the man around, snapping his neck, and threw him into the second attacker. As the second guard tried to rise, the giant walked over to him and kicked him in the face. The man went limp, crumpling back to the ground.
The giant lifted his arms and let out another huge roar. The nearest guards scrambled away from him, terror in their eyes. Talon stepped forward, quick and silent, his face a mask of calm.
Farl kicked his leg towards Talon’s face. Talon slipped the kick, slamming his left elbow into Farl’s inner thigh, and in the same motion, he slid his sword between Farl’s ribs. The giant froze, jaw open. His body shuddered. He dropped to his knees, then he fell forward on his face. He lay there, unmoving, blood pooling on the rough stones of the cavern floor.
“Eledar’s breath,” Adjet whispered, unconsciously touching her hands to her belly as she watched the violence unfold.
“That man is like a ghost,” Xayes said, eyes wide with awe. “I didn’t know an unmodified human could move like that.”
By then, the second wave of our guards had arrived. But even when the giant fell, the remaining Nergugaltha would not relent. They fought with terrifying, berserk ferocity. They did not seem to feel the wounds inflicted on them, and would not yield until they were dealt crippling strikes. But they were badly outnumbered, and with Socha and Talon leading the less experienced guards, it was only a matter of time.
“They have this under in control,” I said. “You three stay here. Make sure that temple is scoured from top to bottom. No more surprises. I am going up in the hopper. Reach, as soon as you have eyes on Xander, patch him through. We cannot let Ghis get away.”
* * *
“Oren?” Xander’s voice came through the com. “Can you hear me? Where are you?” He sounded terrified.
“Xander! I’m on my way. I’m in the hopper now. Give me your exact location.”
But there was no response.
“Reacher?”
“His last communication came from here,” he said, illuminating a point on the map of the city that was transposed on the pilot window, “near the granaries.”
“Got it,” I said, swerving west towards the storehouses where we kept and distributed food grown on the mainland. As I flew west, light flashed in the sky like lightning filtered through a storm cloud.
It was a clear night.
A moment later, a pillar of smoke mushroomed into the sky, blotting out the stars.
“Eledar’s breath,” I whispered, angling the hopper towards the smoke.
“Pausha!” Sid’s voice came on. Xayes was shouting in the background, but I could not make out what he said.
“I’m here, Sid.”
“Do you have eyes yet? What in the names of the Scions was that?”
“There was another explosion.”
I heard Xayes again. He sounded panicked.
“What’s going on back there?” I asked.
“We can’t get Xander on the coms either,” Sid said.
Then I saw the granaries. My stomach dropped. Fires were burning everywhere through the storehouses, vicious glowing wounds gushing thick black fumes like blood. In the center of the district, where the largest warehouse once stood, there was a crater big enough to hold dozens of people. Smoke and vapor roiled out of it. Debris was scattered all around.
Debris, and bodies. Too many to count.
I saw a few men of the Bronze Guard. They must have been nearby. They were fighting, but there were dozens of people attacking them. The people were not warriors or acolytes. They looked like ordinary citizens, men and women both. But they were armed with swords and daggers and makeshift clubs, and they fell upon the guards in the same berserker fury as the acolytes in Ne-uru-gal’s temple.
“Sid, are you getting all of this?”
Other people were fleeing, blind animal panic clear on their faces even from where I hovered. Several were clawing at their eyes as they ran. One man stumbled to the ground, landing on his chest and face. He did not get up.
“Yes, pausha,” he said. “The imaging is coming through. What in the names of the Scions is going on?”
“People are going mad. They’re turning on each other like raving beasts. I… I don’t understand. Where is this violence coming from? I thought we cured them of these baser impulses.”
“Is there any sign
of my brother?” Xayes said in the background, his voice panicked.
“I don’t see him. But I will find him, Xay. I promise.”
I spun closer towards the crater. There was a woman kneeling at the edge of it, and she was surrounded by a half-dozen fallen bodies. Her head was bowed and she was covering her eyes with her hands. She lifted her head as I whirred past in the hopper, turning towards me, reaching up with bloodied palms.
Thorn.
Blood poured from her eye sockets, crimson rivulets running down her cheeks, mingling with the dirt and soot on her face. A man walked up behind her, lifted his foot and kicked. Thorn tumbled into the crater, disappearing into the smoke.
“Pausha!” Sid shouted, “Was that-?”
“Yes. Get word to Socha immediately. I don’t know what’s going on here, but our guards are being overwhelmed. We need to contain this.”
I circled again, but there was too much smoke and confusion. I climbed higher, looking for a safe place to land. I spotted a quiet square nestled in between a cluster of houses, away from the immediate tumult. I touched the hopper down. From there, I made my way on foot back towards the granaries. I cut through an alley and came to the edge of the scene.
I caught a whiff of smoke. Burnt wood, the sickening smell of charred flesh, and something else I could not place. Something cloying, like a dozen jars of pine sap baking in a hot, sealed room. My eyes started to water. I covered my nose and mouth with my hand, and moved out of the alley into the open ground.
Three people, bodies streaked with blood and ash, charged at me.
I stiff-armed the first. He fell in a heap. I slipped the second as she swung her sword at me. It whistled past, the blade sparking off the smooth cobbles of the street. I knocked her on the back of the head, dropping her to the ground next to the first. I caught the club of the third in one hand as he swung at my head, wrenching it from him. I kicked him in the chest, sending him flying backwards.
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