The Siege of Abythos

by Phil Tucker

  Tiron's heart sank. He'd never make it past them, sword or no.

  Another man took his free arm. Captain Patash. He said something in Agerastian, and Tiron went to yank his arm free. If the captain thought he could arrest Tiron, he had another think coming.

  Orishin snapped a response, and they came to a stop. Patash pursed his lips, twisted his head from side to side, said something back. Orishin considered it and then nodded.

  "The captain," said Orishin, pulling Tiron forward again, "knows of a worse place than I do. He will take us."

  Tiron took one last look behind him. Iskra was smiling now, rising to her feet to receive the embrace of an older lady. She looked at home, in her element, surrounded by the finest of the Empire.

  This was where she belonged.

  Not with him.

  The drinking hole was down by the bay. It was wretched, dark and foul, lit by crude oil lamps that filled the air with greasy smoke, little more than a rat's hole. No sign out front. They marched in and began drinking, standing at the center of a bar that was little more than a warped plank of wood laid on barrels.

  The alcohol was muddy and burned in all the right ways as it went down, bringing tears to Tiron's eyes and scalding his throat. He didn't know how long they'd been there, Orishin translating for Patash. They didn't speak much. The night began to grow blurry around the edges, the oil lights growing their own ghostly coronas, and Tiron felt a savagery arise within him, something dangerous and fell, an instinct that he only ever unleashed on the battlefield.

  He began to exchange heated words with a crowd of sailors, but the other two took hold of his arms and dragged him out.

  The moon wheeled in the sky. The flagstones glistened. Lights left streaks behind them as he turned his head. Shadows danced and houses dipped. Patash and Orishin sang a song he didn't understand, but he joined in anyway.

  They brought him to a large house with flowing curtains, as sheer as silk, white like Iskra's skin. He sat on a chair beside the window, waiting as people talked. When he touched them, curtains felt strangely coarse between his fingers.

  He was weary unto death. Where was he?

  He lifted his head to look around. A large room. Dim lighting. Low voices. Where had his friends gone? He leaned forward, one hand on his knee, trying to find them amongst the people lying on cushions and smoking strange pipes.

  A woman walked up to him, and he sat back. Oh, how she moved. Hips and thighs lush and full... and that smile. He leaned his head back against the wall, ready for her to pass on by, but instead she sat on his knee and leaned in to him, smelling of flowers.

  She whispered to him in Agerastian, but he understood her only too well. Her hair was done up. Her skin was warm, smooth.

  Pain ran through him like a crack through a block of stone. Suddenly, there was a fire in his loins, a sudden and desperate need for release.

  She rose and took his hand, pulled him across the room and up a set of stairs into a bedroom.

  She was adept at removing armor. His sword belt – where was it? He interrupted her and searched across the floor till he found his scabbarded blade. He had to keep it close. He propped it on a chair by the bed in case he was called for. In case she needed him.

  The woman pulled his tunic up over his head and pushed him back on the bed.

  The sheets were smooth, the room was spinning, and he wanted to just close his eyes and enjoy her touch, the feel of a person beside him.

  A memory intruded.

  Sarah. Celebrating their fifth year together. Their son was staying with her parents a day's ride away, so that night was all theirs.

  Candles. Too much wine. They had laughed and fallen into bed. Their bed, which had been his father's, and his father's father's. He remembered rose-colored light, Sarah leaning beside him afterward, tracing patterns on his chest as she listened to him ramble on about something. His skin had been smoother then. Less scars.

  She'd leaned over and stopped his lips with a finger. Had smiled down at him and said – and said – he couldn't remember the exact words. Something about how she no longer needed dreams. How he'd become her one dream, a real one, but how had she said it...

  Tiron sat up with a gasp, legs falling over the side of the bed. The woman asked him something in Agerastian, her voice sharp.

  He couldn't breathe. The incense in the room was cloying. He stood and saw a set of doors leading to a balcony. He pushed his way out, nearly breaking the handle, and stepped into the cool night air.

  Sarah. What had she said? He'd sworn he'd never forget those words.

  A dream. Her dream. He started to laugh, a pained sound that cracked, and then he buried his face in his hands. When he'd last seen her, she'd been lying dead, legs spread wide open on their bed, her face black and mottled. Choked to death by Enderl, the husband of the woman he now thought he loved.

  "Oh, Sarah," he whispered, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the railing. His shoulders hitched violently, but no tears came.

  The woman came up beside him, spoke gently to him, but he ignored her.

  What kind of a fool was he, to think he could just continue living after what had happened? To think he could just step into another life, fall in love with another woman, pretend nothing had existed before two months ago?

  Pain tore at his heart like eagles scoring his flesh, and he convulsed, hands turning into claws, and cried out, a bellow of rage that rang out across the rooftops. Oh, for a fight, a battle, a final act of violence in which he could lose himself, drown himself, impale a blade in his heart even as he skewered one last foe in turn!

  He staggered back and sat on a stool in a corner of the balcony. Stared down at his hands. So much blood on them. He remembered the face of the first man he'd killed. Man? A boy. A boy his own age. He'd almost been unable to swing. So had the other. Then, finally, they'd screamed and battered at each other until a lucky blow caught the other in the neck. The boy had fallen, bleeding like a stuck pig.

  Tiron closed his eyes, but he still saw the boy's face. The skirmish had continued around them, but Tiron had dropped his sword and fallen to his knees beside the dying boy. He'd stared, horrified, sick to his soul, as the other had choked on his own blood and died. Then Tiron had thrown up and staggered away from the fight, leaving his sword behind.

  And if fortune had shifted her favor? If he had died and not that other? Would that boy have grown up to be a worthier man?

  Orishin stepped out onto the balcony, wary as a cat entering a hunting hound's kennel. "Ser Tiron?"

  Tiron didn't respond. He simply sat staring down at his hands.

  Orishin sighed and moved to the railing, looked down at the street, then turned to regard the knight. "Perhaps it is time we go home."

  Home. He laughed darkly. "I have a home. A thousand miles away from here. My family home. It is a ruin." He wanted to tell Orishin about the bed. He fumbled for the words, then let it go.

  "My home, then, if only for tonight. Come. Let us get you into your clothing."

  "What am I to do, Orishin?"

  The scribe hesitated, then stepped back to lean against the balcony. "You are Lady Kyferin's knight, no?"

  "Yes." He rested his forehead on the base of his palms. "Her knight. Nothing more."

  "Come. We both know that is not true."

  Tiron closed his eyes. He felt exhausted. "Where will I go?"

  "You will not continue to serve your lady?"

  Tiron sat up. "Serve her? Watch her as she marries another, as she goes to his bed, as she spends her life with him?" Anger flared briefly, and then guttered and died.

  "My master, the revered scribe Hakis, once told me that there are no right or wrong decisions. No better or worse choices." Orishin watched Tiron's face carefully. "There are only opportunities for you to define what manner of man you are in this world. Are you a man who steals when he's hungry, or continues to search for work? Are you a man who sleeps with that plump, tantalizing neighbor, or who remains
faithful to your wife of fifteen years?"

  Tiron stared at him dully.

  "What I am saying, friend Tiron, is that you are faced with a chance to define yourself. You can leave or stay. There is no right or wrong. There is only the kind of man you wish to be. So ask yourself: are you the kind of man who deserts his lady in her time of need, or who remains loyal and steadfast, no matter how much it pains him?"

  Tiron exhaled tiredly. "Damn you, Orishin."

  "Yes, yes, that is exactly what I said to my master." Orishin smiled. "Now, come. Elysa is a most generous host, but she charges by the minute. Let us get you dressed."

  Tiron stood. He was, he realized to his surprise, completely naked.

  Orishin regarded him frankly. "You, friend Tiron, have been cut too many times. It cannot be healthy."

  Tiron looked down at himself once more. An old scar curled over his belly like a fishhook. Other white ridges traced their courses over his thighs, along his ribs. A hard, knotty star sat on the right side of his chest, and his left shoulder was mottled by a severe burn from years ago. The latest wound that he'd received in his side was still an angry red. "I guess I'm bad at dying."

  "Bad at dying!" Orishin laughed, delighted. "I will have to remember that phrase. Now, please, do hurry. It pains my heart to think of how much money we are going to have to give Elysa without a single sacred orgasm in exchange."

  Tiron followed Orishin inside, grateful to see that Elysa had tactfully left the room. He dressed mechanically, swaying carefully like an old sailor on a pitching deck, and finally buckled on his blade. What kind of man was he? He wondered as he stared down at its pommel. Would he run?

  He sighed, realizing that he'd never truly been in doubt. "Lead on, Orishin. I must rise early tomorrow to return to the palace."

  "Good man," said Orishin, opening the door. "But, first, I need your help. It will not be easy to pry Patash out from amongst the four ladies he has paid for."

  "Four? By the Ascendant," muttered Tiron, following Orishin out onto the landing.

  "Yes," said Orishin. "He has told me he desires to die a happy man. It would seem he is taking matters into his own hands."

  Tiron moved toward the stairs. "I'll wait for you outside."

  He descended heavily, then made his way through the large room, down a hallway, past four armed guards, and at last out onto the street.

  There, he leaned against a wall, arms crossed, chin lowered. Iskra. Could he serve her as nothing but her knight? He didn't know. Did he truly love her? He didn't know that either. A deep and overpowering weariness fell upon him like a leaden cape. Who was he? Without his vengeance, without Iskra, what was left? An empty suit of armor and a sword?

  "If ever there was a dream," he whispered to the night, "it has surely ended."

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Tharok strode through the ruined entrance of the Shattered Temple into its cavernous interior. Gone was the assembled horde, and dead were the massive fire pits. Thin, wavering lines of smoke were ascending to the Sky Father here and there, the huge trunks burned down to charcoal skeletons. The taste of terror was still hanging in the air, a flat, sour tang that reminded Tharok how close he'd come in his wager last night to losing it all. How close the Convocation had come to turning on him and tearing him limb from limb.

  The reason he had been able to sway them so completely to his side lay coiled on the stage, her brilliant scales smoldering in the dawn. Tharok slowed and stopped, still within the shadows, and watched the proceedings.

  Perhaps some thirty kragh were kneeling before her on the cracked and heaved flagstones, foreheads pressed to the ground, muttering something in unison. Five shamans were standing in a loose cordon in front of Kyrra, their flesh blackened. They watched the supplicants and led them in their chanting, a droning, irritating sound that seemed without pitch or inflection, without rhythm or reason.

  Death's Raven was standing at their center, a large staff in one hand, a kragh's skull freshly bleached and tied to its top. He was wearing black robes now, and a hood had fallen over his face so that only his lower jaw was visible. Even from where Tharok was standing, he could see how the air shimmered around him, as if it were lacquered in some way.

  A large kragh stepped out of the shadows to his left, surprising Tharok and eliciting a growl from him as his hand went to his belt knife. It was Nok. His clan mate was in bad shape, thick bandages wrapped around his waist and a wicked cut still healing across his arm, but he was as imposing as ever, his skin perhaps a fraction lighter, his hair tied back in thick ropes.

  "Tharok-krya," rumbled Nok. "I thought you'd come through here sooner or later."

  "Nok." Tharok tried to read him, but the other kragh's face was closed. "You survived the Crokuk ambush."

  The last time Tharok had seen Nok, he'd been roaring as lowlanders bore him to the ground. Tharok had given him up for dead. Had he grieved? No, he'd been too focused on survival.

  "Barely. What you did at the end – turning the Crokuk against each other – it shattered their morale. We Red River were able to limp back to our camp. Barely."

  Tharok nodded. He still couldn't tell what his clan mate's attitude was. He saw Nok glance up at the circlet, and on impulse reached up and pulled it off.

  The world rushed and hissed away from him, and he staggered. Shook his head as if recovering from a blow, and then scowled down at the circlet. "The Sky Father curse this thing. It's all that's keeping me ahead now." He looked up to see that Nok's eyebrows had risen in surprise. "It's good to see you alive, Nok. By the Sky Father, it is."

  Still acting on impulse, he swung his arm out. Nok did the same, and they clasped forearms, both squeezing hard. Nok's arm was as hard and dense as an oak root, his clasp as strong as a bear's jaw, but Tharok grinned and squeezed back harder till Nok laughed and released him.

  "There you are," rumbled Nok quietly. "I'd thought you gone for good."

  "Almost. But there's still some of me left. I'd throw this circlet aside now if I could, but I need it to stay ahead of the medusa." He stared at the distant stage. "I swear to you, I did not know she intended any of this. My mistake. But I'm going to make it good now. Will you come with me?"

  "I am of your clan," said Nok. "Need you ask?"

  Tharok looked down at the circlet and grimaced. "Yes."

  "Your trolls?" It was asked with a certain measure of wonder and incredulity.

  "I don't dare use them against her. Too big a risk. First, I try talking. I'm good at it when I wear this thing."

  "Then lead on. Talk. I'll be ready to swing my ax if talking fails."

  Tharok nodded grimly. There was no need to mention that Kyrra's gaze would kill them both long before they climbed onto the stage. Nok knew that; his promise was simply a testament to his loyalty.

  Tharok slipped on the circlet, inhaled deeply as his thoughts expanded, then walked out of the shadows and approached the stage.

  Kyrra was coiled up, her snake's body curled in on itself, her torso rising from the center. She was perilously beautiful. Her eyes were closed. Was she sleeping?

  Death's Raven raised his hand, and the chanting stopped. The thirty kneeling kragh rose up and looked back at him with a mixture of curiosity, fear, and uncertainty, but mostly indifference.

  He was their warlord. Kyrra was their goddess.

  "Golden Crow," said Tharok, coming to a stop a good fifteen paces from the stage, hands on his hips. "You're looking well."

  "Tharok." The old kragh's voice was a rasp. "I have chosen a new name. You are to call me Death's –"

  "Raven," cut in Tharok. "Yes, I know. Very dramatic."

  It was hard to speak so casually to the shaman. Tharok might not have managed it without the circlet. The old shaman was surrounded by a palpable aura of power the likes of which he'd never had before, which prompted a dread that caused Tharok's gut to tighten.

  Death's Raven grimaced. No – it was a leer, Tharok realized as the shaman raised a hand. It began to
burn with green fire, and Tharok heard the distant sound of screaming. It came from all around them. A spirit, he realized with a shudder.

  "I do not appreciate your mockery, warlord," said Death's Raven. "I am more than willing to demand the respect I deserve."

  Tharok sensed Nok shifting uneasily beside him, but he never looked away from the old shaman. "You abuse the spirits."

  "Yes," agreed the shaman. "Much has changed. I am more than willing to show you."

  The other four shamans stepped up beside Death's Raven, and as one they raised their hands. Green flame cloaked their fists, and the sound of screaming multiplied, as if now a throng were in torment.

  Nok unshouldered his ax.

  "Kyrra!" Tharok barked her name, looking past the shamans to the slumbering medusa. "Call off your dogs. I've come to talk."

  Her eyes slid open, and Tharok's flesh crawled at the sight of her serpentine eyes. All it would take for her to destroy him was sliding back that final protective membrane – then he would immolate for what felt like an eternity before turning to stone.

  "My dogs, Tharok? Why such animosity?" Her tone was almost playful.

  It would be futile to protest, to complain that she'd not warned him, hadn't told him of her plans to convert the shamans into her creatures. That she would begin to undercut his authority by returning to the old ways. No, doing so would achieve nothing beyond revealing his weakness. He had to regain the initiative.

  "We break camp in three hours."

  "So soon?" She sounded indolent, almost petulant. "This temple brings back such delicious memories. I would stay a while longer and savor them."

  "In three hours," said Tharok. "The warlords are already taking down their huts."

  "And to where do we march?" She rose higher, swaying as she did so. Her shamans lowered their hands, letting the green fire mercifully dissipate. The screaming stopped. "The Tragon?"

  "No. Word will be reaching Porloc about our rise to power. As soon as he hears what you have done to our shamans, he will know that he must oppose us." The excuse unfurled in his mind even as he made it. "We cannot let him prepare his ten thousand Orlokor, cannot let him march them to his wall at the base of the Chasm Walk."