by Phil Tucker
Hundreds of kragh. Nobody else was in the courtyard.
Then others fell from above: Dalitha to her left, Akkara to her right. Khoussan landed heavily with a pained grunt, tumbled to the ground, then stood up shakily. Gray Wind fell as softly as a leaf.
"Come," said Kethe. "Let us shine."
Not knowing why, she touched her burning blade to each of theirs. Her white fire raced along each sword, its shimmering glow reflected in the eyes of her Consecrated. That done, she raised her sword high, gave a scream of defiance, and charged.
She was as fleet of foot as a skipped stone, the balls of her feet barely touching the ground. She could sense her Consecrated behind her, forming a V with her at the point. She flew toward the kragh, not giving herself time to think, to worry, to plan.
The kragh were climbing and leaping over the fragments of the gate, the huge blocks of masonry, and the shattered planks of wood, each a muscle-bound terror, all of them focused on their destination in the center of the courtyard.
Kethe slid into their midst like a knife slipped into a sleeping man's side. Her blade did not so much cut as caress, and where it touched, sides opened, blood flowed, and kragh fell. The song of the White Gate filled her, took her out of herself. She danced into the ranks of the kragh, swaying aside from blows, leaping high above their heads when they trapped her, landing in a spinning flower of death.
But the flood was too much; she could only kill so many.
Axes shattered when she blocked their blows. She sheared a head from a kragh only to be crushed beneath its body as it fell on her. She shoved it off and rolled aside as blows rained down on where she'd been lying. She pushed to her feet and leaped, only to have a hand grab her ankle and slam her to the ground. She severed the hand and then bent backwards, almost parallel to the ground, to avoid another swing of an axe, turned her bend into a backflip, came up swinging, and was struck in the side by a huge shoulder.
She floundered into other kragh, and they kept coming. Her world was hides and leather armor, tusks and swinging axes, beady eyes and jerky movements. Kethe screamed and launched herself at the enemy, hacking now with both hands, fighting her way through until she emerged on the far side of the flood of kragh, stumbling out into the open.
She turned, gasping for breath, only to be knocked flying as the ground beneath her buckled and erupted when something landed heavily behind her. She fell, rolled, came up, and saw that a troll had leaped from a tower top to join the fray below. It rose from its own crouch, hammer in hand, and bellowed, ropes of spit flying as it brought its hammer down on her.
Kethe screamed back and struck at the hammerhead. The stone block shattered as white fire shot through it. The troll staggered forward, thrown off-balance by the sudden disappearance of the hammer's weight, but it managed to lash out and backhand her with a horny fist.
Kethe spun through the air and hit the ground hard. She clawed her way to her feet, but the kragh were already upon her. A kick caught her in the stomach, sending her sliding back across the flagstones. An axe came down toward her head, and she barely rolled aside in time. The troll loomed over her, blotting out the sky. Kethe went to rise, but a kragh grabbed her by the arm and lifted her up, a second kragh grabbing her other arm before she could react.
Akkara burst into view. The entire left side of her face gleamed with crimson, and her sword had snapped off a foot above the hilt. She staggered, eyes wide and blank, and screamed as the troll reached for Kethe.
White fire erupted not only around the remains of Akkara's blade, but around her body. Only her eye sockets remained dark, burning black with all her pain and anguish. She ran forward, covering the distance in a blink of an eye, and leaped up, soaring into the sky like like a comet.
Kethe heard a ruinous roar deep in her mind. She felt the energies of the world being sucked into Akkara and saw the color being leached out of the rock, the kragh, the trolls. Akkara burned so bright, it was like staring at the sun. Her scream rose higher and higher, and then she collided with the troll and white fire exploded in every direction.
The kragh released Kethe. She staggered but didn't fall, throwing her arms up to protect her face. Fire bathed her, cleansing and hot, and then it was gone.
Kethe dropped her arms and blinked. The troll and some fifty kragh lay dead, their bodies bleached and withered as if they had been mummified. Akkara was lying on her side, completely white, all color gone from her clothing, her hair, her wounds. Kethe dropped to her side, unable to breathe. She was dead, nothing but a husk. When Kethe touched her shoulder, it caved in, turning to ashes.
Kethe cried out and rose to her feet, horrified. Acting only on instinct, she located her blade, lying on the ground a few paces from her. She scooped it up and turned. Soldiers were emerging from the bases of the towers, but the kragh were now bunched around the grate. It had been torn asunder by the remaining trolls.
A huge wyvern descended from the heavens, and a kragh leaped down from its shoulders – a massive kragh like no other, with a coal-black hide, an iron circlet around his brow, a black blade in his fist. He towered over the others, raised his blade, let out a tooth-rattling roar, then stood gloating as his kragh descended through the ruptured grate into the bowels of Abythos.
Kethe stood there, aghast, then shook herself and cast a look around the battlefield. She saw Khoussan fighting a knot of kragh to her left, Dalitha in his shadow. Akinetos was standing toe-to-toe with a troll, gripping its wrist in one hand, a blade in the other, crossed with the troll's club.
Kethe saw a blur come up from the side – Mixis, leaping down from the battlements, landing gracefully off to her right.
"To me!" Her voice cut across the din of the battlefield. "For the White Gate! To me!"
Kethe ran forward, and she felt more than saw the other Virtues and Consecrated draw in after her. They had to cut off the flow of kragh going below ground. Hundreds had already descended. Sprinting forward, avoiding fights and dodging blows, Kethe ran to intercept the stream with despair clawing at her heart. How had they been defeated so easily? What manner of cruel genius had orchestrated this plan?
She stared at the distant black-skinned kragh. Tharok. That had to be him.
Grim determination settled upon her. She would cut her way through to him. No matter what it took, she would fight her way through his horde until she reached the warlord, and then she would slay him.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
The gloomy fastness of Starkadr's Portal chamber echoed with the sound of three thousand soldiers awaiting their orders to advance. Iskra was standing at their head beside General Pethar and al-Vothak Ilina, and in front of them, a regiment of the army's hundred most elite soldiers was lined up before the Portal.
All was ready. This was the moment. All her planning, all her deliberating, all of her commands had come to this. The army of Agerastos was awaiting her command, three thousand souls poised to change the Ascendant Empire forever.
All eyes were on her. She gazed out over the serried ranks that disappeared into Starkadr's ubiquitous shrouding fog. Men were standing shoulder to shoulder, packed in tight. The cavernous ceiling echoed their anticipation. Weapons were drawn, shields raised, uniforms clean and gleaming. Her army was poised to step onto the stage of history.
Iskra took a deep breath and turned to the Vothak standing nearest the Aletheian Portal. She nodded to him, and he cried out the command phrase that sent black waters flooding inside the arch. Immediately, the elite soldiers rushed forward. They were lithe and quick, their limbs wiry with muscle, their favored weapon the short thrusting blade, their shields round and light. The Hundred Snakes of the Empire, they were called, and the emblem of the medusa was inscribed across their chest plates.
One by one, they darted into the Portal, the Vothak calling out the command phrase a second time to ensure it stayed open. Iskra could sense currents of excitement as they roiled through the army, the building of tension, the need for release, for action, for blood
. She watched as the last of the Snakes passed into Aletheia and then stepped forward herself.
Unsurprisingly, none of her subordinates had complained when she insisted on being near the very front of the attacking column, an area of assured danger, completely unsuitable to the empress. But she didn't care if each of them hoped she died within the next few minutes. She had to be close to the front. She needed to be there when they reached the Ascendant's palace. There would be no room for mistakes, no room for accidents that could shatter all her plans at the most critical moment.
So Iskra stepped forward and passed into Aletheia through the mystic black passage between worlds, into the ornate hallway she had walked once before when she was searching for Audsley.
She gasped, allowing her equilibrium to return, and saw that the last of the Snakes was already jogging out into the Seventh Circum, following her directions to the letter. Good. She hurried after them and heard the whisper of her palace guard coming through. She strode down the hall, turned down the side corridor, and turned again to emerge through the open secret door into the Seventh Circum.
Dusk had fallen. The clouds visible through the far columns had turned slate and lost their definition, merging into the night sky. The Hundred Snakes had formed up into a tight square and were staring inscrutably back at the horrified Aletheian citizens, who were recoiling in shock at the sight of them.
The sight of drawn weapons in the Seventh Circum was anathema. The Snakes were a savage insert, a slash across a gorgeous canvas, a block of writhing darkness in a perfect plane of white light. Iskra saw fear on the faces of some of the pedestrians close by, but on more than one face she saw bemusement, an inability to understand what was taking place before their very eyes. She also saw a few hesitant smiles, as if those people were prepared to be amused, as if this sudden appearance of dead-eyed soldiers with naked blades might be the beginning of some festival or show.
Iskra's palace guard stepped into place behind her and immediately began to assemble her palanquin. Two long poles were slotted through the sewed-off sleeves at the edges of a canvas teardrop. That done, the guards crouched and lifted the poles onto their shoulders, and Iskra stepped within and sat cross-legged.
The guards rose to their feet, lifting Iskra so that she swayed between them in relative comfort. She had wanted to march with the men but had finally admitted that she would be unable to keep up; everyone was to move at a jog, and climbing the Way of Righteousness would have defeated her long before they reached the Fifth Circum, let alone the First.
The Snakes moved forward, and her Guards began to hurry along behind them. No words were spoken; no threats, no proclamations. Iskra could hear the next regiment emerging from the secret door into the Seventh Circum and begin to march behind them. A long snake of Agerastian soldiers would continue to emerge over the course of the next hour.
They moved quickly. It was imperative that they outrace word of their coming. Iskra heard the occasional cry of outrage and a few demands called from the onlookers, but none of her soldiers responded.
They turned off the Circum into a radial hallway that speared into the heart of the stonecloud and there joined with the Way of Righteousness. There was much more traffic on the Way, even at this hour, and now the reaction of the Aletheians was loud and horrified. Iskra heard screams, shouts of protests, startled cries for the guards.
But, despite the outrage, nobody sought to arrest their ascent. Up they jogged, always curving around the central shaft, making their way to the very top.
Iskra peered out through the folds of her canvas palanquin. She saw brilliantly glowing lamps illuminating the white stone wall of the Way, which was adorned with endless inscriptions, artwork, tapestries and mosaics, pedestals on which sat lacquered vases, and huge stone pots filled with palms. The work of centuries had gone into adorning the Way, which stood as a metaphor for the soul's climb to perfection. Iskra swallowed a knot in her throat. Such beauty.
Please, she whispered, though she didn't know to whom she was praying. Please, let my coming not touch off disaster. Please, let this beauty not be destroyed.
Iskra's Guards switched, and fresh men took the palanquin's poles from the weary. Their pace never flagged. She could hear the tromp of thousands coming up behind them, the echo distant and diffuse in the great spiral of the Way. Endless crowds were pressed back against the far walls, their mouths comically open in dismay.
Up they climbed, ever up. She saw the ornate entrances to the halls that led to the Sixth Circum, then the Fifth. They passed the Fourth, and then the great arches leading to the Third.
Iskra's stomach was a ball of knots, and the swaying of the palanquin was making her sick. She was about to confront divinity, or at the very least its symbol. There would be bloodshed. The Ascendant's palace was sacrosanct, defended more by tradition than swords, but there would be resistance at the last.
Iskra steeled herself. She had come not to destroy but to refine, to improve, to change.
Forgive me my hubris, she prayed, her hands forming the Ascendant's Triangle without her realizing. She gave a laugh that was part sob and pulled her hands apart.
They passed the halls of the Second Circum. It was here that she had thought they might find the greatest resistance, here where the Virtues' Temple was located. Instead, the Snakes continued their mile-eating jog, up and around, until finally the Way leveled out and Iskra realized that they had arrived.
The First Circum.
The pinnacle of the Empire.
Their pace slowed to a walk, and Iskra unfolded herself from the palanquin and emerged into the night.
They were at the very apex of the stonecloud. Nothing was above them but wisps of clouds and glittering stars. The sight was stunning. Iskra tore her eyes away from the heavens and looked at the palace – an elegant dream of a building, its architecture following natural lines and curves so that it seemed fashioned from cloud and not stone. Gold light was radiating from thousands of lanterns affixed to its outer walls, so that its very substance seemed precious. The path to the front gate was broad and plain, and there were no exterior walls; no defensive measures had been taken.
The palace seemed deserted. No one was outside, enjoying the views on the terraced gardens. The windows were empty, the balconies devoid of people. Only one figure was standing before them, planted in the center of the broad road that led to the palace gates.
The Snakes slowed and came to a stop. The next regiment moved out to stand at their left side, the third regiment moving to the right. Three hundred men, the core of which was the cream of the Empire, the next two hundred nearly as elite. Behind them emerged the next regiment, and the next, and the next. Six hundred men, crowding the available space in front of the Ascendant's palace. The next hundred remained on the ramp, and the Agerastian army ground to a halt behind them.
Iskra moved forward. The sole figure was a man, she saw: young, confident, standing with his arms crossed and his chin raised, his pale blond hair turned silver by the light of the stars and pouring down his back in a careless cascade. He was beyond striking, his features as close to perfect as she had ever seen, and he had a careless arrogance that belied the fact that he was facing an entire army by himself.
"Stand aside," she commanded.
"No," he said, and then he smiled and cast back the edge of his cloak, revealing the twin swords that were belted at his waist.
"Then tell me your name, stranger. I would know who it is that has chosen to die so bravely against such overwhelming odds."
"I am Theletos, the Longed For, final guard of the emperor and the impure thorn amidst his holy flowers. In all my long lives, never have I failed my duty; never have I fallen before any man, woman, or kragh. Come, Iskra Kyferin. You have sought to meet your destiny. It awaits you, singing within my blades."
The Hundred Snakes stirred uneasily. Cold-blooded, lethal killers they might be, but they knew exactly whom they were facing – by legend, by reputation, by name. I
t was to their credit that they didn't break and run.
"Theletos," said Iskra. "I salute you. Three thousand soldiers I have brought with me to ensure my audience with the Ascendant. Were you any other living soul, I would seek to reason with you, persuade you to step aside." She smiled sadly. "But I will not insult you in such a way."
Iskra stepped back and nodded to the captain of the Hundred Snakes. "Do what must be done. And send a man to fetch the Vothaks. Hurry."
Theletos unclasped his cloak and tossed it aside. As it floated away, he drew both swords and raised them overhead, crossing the blades into a glimmering X.
The captain of the Hundred Snakes raised his hand and made a circling motion with his forefinger. His soldiers ran forward, sweeping out on both sides, encircling Theletos in a matter of moments, their ranks four deep. The other two regiments moved forward with less confidence, filling in behind the semicircle that faced the Way.
Iskra could barely make out the slender Theletos, but she saw him smile and close his eyes. As he did so, white fire rushed up his blades as if they had been soaked in oil, a fire so bright it cast stark shadows behind each of her soldiers and caused half of them to cry out and throw an arm over their eyes.
"My soul to the White Gate," Theletos laughed, and then he attacked.
CHAPTER SIXTY
Each step took effort. Each step was accompanied by a dull drumbeat of despair.
Should he turn back? What would his father have said? Was anything worth betraying his people?
The badlands were stretched out in front of him. Asho had eschewed the paths and was cutting a straight line across the black rock fields toward the entrance to Abythos. He felt as if he were wading knee-deep through mud, forcing his way against his every instinct.
Behind him was the jumbled mess of the cubes, their geometric shapes a luminous white: a hive of slavery, his point of origin, his ancestral home. When he emerged from Mikho's hideout, he'd seen the gathering crowds at the edge of the cubes. Hundreds upon hundreds of Bythians, pickaxes and shovels in hand, a simmering, growing mass that had beckoned him.
