Heirs of the Fallen: Book 04 - Wrath of the Fallen

by James A. West

  They returned to the rowing deck and gathered up their clunking sacks. Sumahn drew a wax-sealed earthenware jar out of his, and gave it a gentle shake. From within, Leitos heard a slosh of water, and the gentle clink of a smaller jar within, this one filled with the Nectar of Judgment, the Blood of Attandaeus. When both jars were broken simultaneously, the water would ignite the volatile substance, and nothing could put out the flames until the deadly material had consumed itself.

  “One tossed into the hold should be enough,” Sumahn said, and waved his companions back from the grated hatch cover. He grasped the iron ring handle, heaved open the door, and hurled the jar through the square of darkness. They heard the crunching sound of the jar breaking. An instant later, a throaty roar sounded below, and the horned head of an Alon’mahk’lar thrust into view. The demon-born lunged out of the hatch, its massive shoulders filling the gap.

  Leitos drew his dagger, meaning to dig the blade into the demon-born’s eye, but a blast of purple-black flames erupted around the beast. The ship shook as if it had struck land, knocking Leitos and the others to their backs. Howling in agony, the demon-born madly thrashed one arm. The other had been blown off.

  Leitos bounced to his feet. “Run!”

  The others were already scampering up the ladder to the main deck. At their backs, flames rose higher and hotter, so greedy as to draw the air from Leitos’s chest.

  Close on Nola’s heels, Leitos threw himself off the ladder and onto the main deck, as a thunderous gout of flame shot from the hatch. He rolled to his back, gaping at the growing fountain of fire.

  Sumahn hauled him up. “Are you burned?”

  “My jars!” Nola cried.

  Leitos and Sumahn spun, eyes wide, both frantically searching for their own sacks, each loaded with jars of Nectar of Judgment.

  “Into the sea—”

  A deep, crunching boom drowned Sumahn’s order. The deck heaved beneath them, the planks bulging and spreading. Blinding flashes of indigo fire shot from the cracks. A rending crash filled Leitos’s ears, squeezed his skull, and burst the breath from his lungs.

  Then he was flying through the black of night, driven high by an expanding blister of scorching fire and shredded wood. He heard a scream. It might have been his own, or that of the ship dying, or either of his companions.

  The blister of fire chased him higher and higher, baking his toes, his legs, scorching his breechclout. Fragmented wood lashed at him like knives. Spinning now, arms and legs stretched out, he saw a roiling ball of fire rising from the ship, both of which lay far below him. He revolved again, and the dark of the night flashed before his eyes, then the burning ship again, farther away than before.

  His upward flight ended, and he plummeted, spinning down and down, his stomach rolling. A heartbeat later he slammed into the water, its surface every bit as hard as stone. Silent wet blackness enveloped him. It was cool and calming, that darkness. It soothed his burns, eased the ring in his ears. He let it take him down.

  Chapter 33

  “This is taking too long,” Adham said, gazing out at the quiet harbor. No lanterns on any of the ships had gone out, but he kept expecting them to.

  “Not so long as that,” Ulmek countered.

  Adham pressed his lips together against a retort, only because he knew the Brother was right. Not half a turn of the glass had passed since the boarding parties had gone down to the harbor. Suffering the stench of rotting fish and the heaps of night soil that surrounded the shacks and lean-tos they hunkered amidst, did not help speed the wait.

  Behind them, Zuladah’s southern wall loomed high and dark. An occasional sentry clumped by on the wall walk. Other than that, the city slept. Farther down the winding road to the harbor, Damoc and his people stood ready for the rush of Alon’mahk’lar that were sure to come, once the ships started burning.

  “Are you sure about this Muranna woman?” It was not the first time Adham had asked about her, but the calm before a battle had always made him restless. It was talk, or storm the gates by himself.

  “We have no choice but to trust her.”

  Adham was about to say something else, when a flash of purple-black light erupted from one of the ships.

  “Have you ever seen the Nectar of Judgment do—”

  Another burst froze his tongue, and then it seemed as if the ship’s timbers were bulging outward, and through a thousand joints, a roiling ball of indigo fire exploded. The fireball grew massive, sweeping all evidence of the ship away. A booming clap of thunder reached them an instant later, and then a gentle gust of warm air.

  “Gods good and wise,” Adham breathed, as the mushrooming fireball climbed up into the night, and slowly perished. Nothing but foam and shredded wood remained where the ship had been. Darkness fell again, and then he could not even see that. It was not until he felt Ulmek’s iron grip on his arm that he realized he was trying to get down to the harbor.

  “Wait,” Ulmek ordered. “That was a far better signal than I had hoped for.”

  “Signal?” Adham snarled, ripping lose. “Some of our people might be dead after that. My son might be one of them.”

  “I do not believe it,” Ulmek said, resolute. “Look there,” he added, pointing. Two more ships had begun to burn. But not explode, Adham thought.

  As the first few ragged folk began to creep out of their shacks to see what all the commotion was about, the familiar wail of an Alon’mahk’lar horn sounded from the city. By the time a second horn joined the first, the folk had vanished back into their hovels.

  Ulmek moved to the edge of a leaning shack and gazed up the road. “Make ready.”

  Adham barely heard him. In his mind, the ship kept exploding, and on its deck he imagined Leitos torn to pieces by the blast.

  He was about to abandon Ulmek and go search for his son, when the heavy tread of marching feet began echoing in the cool night air. A company of Alon’mahk’lar came soon after, all stretched out in a single file, brutal swords and iron-headed cudgels swinging from their fists. All at once, the line of demon-born halted. One turned toward them, its silver-glinting eyes searching.

  “Why are they spread out like that?” Adham whispered. The intent had been to trap the demon-born on the quays, and use the last of the Nectar of Judgment to burn them alive, all at once. As the beasts were arrayed now, they did not have enough jars to roast even half of them.

  Ulmek shook his head.

  “How long do we wait?” Adham asked.

  Ulmek suddenly cocked his head and gestured toward a sleek shadow ghosting toward them through the shanties.

  A hint of perfume signaled the arrival of the woman before she came into sight. Her eyes widened a little at the sight of Adham. “I did not think to find another Izutarian.”

  Adham took a measure of her, then went back to watching the Alon’mahk’lar standing on the road.

  “Sybeth,” Ulmek said. “I did not expect to see you here.”

  “Who better than the future Captain of the Queen’s Guard?”

  “Indeed,” Ulmek said, flashing her a smile. “Are your people ready to conquer a city?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” she said.

  The laughing way she said it caught Adham’s ear. As he was turning, he noticed steel glimmering in her hand. Ulmek dodged back, the startled curse on his lips becoming a hissing gurgle from the base of his throat. As Ulmek’s sword cleared the scabbard, the Alon’mahk’lar bellowed from the road, and Adham threw himself into a sideways roll. He pawed at his sword, but found himself mired in trash.

  Sybeth’s dagger flashed against the inside of the Brother’s wrist, his blade fell from spasming fingers, and clattered to the ground. Despite the blood bubbling from the gash in his neck, Ulmek used his good hand to draw his dagger. He rushed the woman, but she was so very quick.

  She parried his strike, danced close and slashed his throat again. She leaped away, as he stumbled forward and fell to his knees. With a clean thrust, Sybeth buried the dagger
’s long blade in his eye, and a hand span of steel burst from the back of his skull. Ulmek went rigid as a plank, and Sybeth kicked him away.

  By now Adham was on his feet. He lifted his sword and roared a battle cry as he charged. The butt of a spear cracked against the back of his knees, and he went down in a sprawl, his sword flying away into the darkness. Reaching for his dagger, he made to stand. All around him, hulking shadows sped out of the gloom. Massive boots smashed him down into the muck. A final boot slammed his head against the ground.

  As the black wings of oblivion began to wrap around him, he heard the clangor of swords, furious shouts and curses, and the brutal tongue of demon-born. Somewhere far off, down closer to the harbor, a scream rose above the fray. Belina!

  ~ ~ ~

  They were coming from every direction.

  Alon’mahk’lar poured off the road, while soldiers raced through alleys, or burst from the very hovels Belina and the rest of the company were using to stay hidden.

  “In here,” Damoc urged, forcing open a door and ducking into a pocket of darkness that stank of spoiled food.

  Sword in hand, Belina followed him in and eased the door closed just before a demon-born thundered past, its great horned head turning, seeking.

  Light flared behind them. A scrawny man in a long filthy tunic stood in a corner, an oil lantern in one hand, and a tiny knife in the other. “You cannot be here,” he cried.

  “Be still, friend,” Damoc soothed.

  “Leave my house!” the man screamed, hurling the lantern.

  Belina and Damoc jumped aside. The lantern crashed against the wall and burst alight. Flames leaped up the wall to reach the ceiling.

  The sound of breaking wood turned them. The man had thrown himself out of a window without bothering to open the shutters. An escalating tumult of screams and clashing steel pierced the opening, and sporadic flashes of purple-black light told that the Yatoans were using up the last few jars of Nectar of Judgment that Ulmek had doled out. Belina still had hers tucked into the haversack she wore, as did Damoc.

  “This way,” Damoc said, ripping open the shutters of another window and clambering through the narrow opening.

  Belina was halfway out when a loose nail snagged her haversack. She pulled hard, but the heavy canvas held firm.

  “Hurry,” Damoc called from the darkest shadows. In the other direction, indistinct figures were battling on the road leading to the harbor.

  Smoke had begun streaming around her, and tremendous heat licked at her legs. Belina held her breath and reached behind her, trying to pull herself loose.

  “Leave it!” her father called.

  Seeing no other way, Belina started to shrug the straps of the haversack from her shoulders. Then she heard the sound of steel meeting flesh and bone, and the thump of something heavy falling into the dirt.

  Before she could turn, a demon-born’s clawed hand caught her hair, and jerked her and the haversack the rest of the way out. The Alon’mahk’lar flung her against the wall of another shanty. Rough-hewn boards splintered under the impact, and she crashed into the midst of a cowering woman and her wailing children.

  “Stay away!” the woman shrieked, gathering her brood about her like a protective hen. “Leave us!”

  Belina rushed to the shack’s front door, sweeping a guttering candle off a table as she went. Darkness engulfed everything, and with it came the shattering of wood, and an Alon’mahk’lar’s cruel voice. Belina ripped the door open, and a few hurried strides brought her to her father.

  Within the shack, the woman’s shrieks cut off as if they had never been. One by one, so too did the cries of her children. Those abrupt endings were as distant as the racket of shouts and hammering steel coming from the road.

  Damoc lay curled on the ground, lighted by the growing fire within the first shanty. Where his head should have been, there was nothing, save a spreading pool of blood.

  Belina backed away. Her heel struck something and sent it on a lopsided tumble. It stopped against the burning shack. A horrified scream climbed up her throat when she saw Damoc’s half-slitted eyes regarding her, his mouth partway open, as if to impart some last piece of advice. Falling embers sizzled on his cheek, and more smoldered in his close-cropped hair.

  What will I tell Nola? She thought, even as she screamed. She went on screaming after an Alon’mahk’lar moved into the mouth of the alley. It might have been the same that had killed her father, or it might have been another. In the end, it did not matter.

  Belina jerked the haversack off her back, pulled a fat earthenware jar out, and flung it at the demon-born’s feet. One moment, all was cast in shadow and ruddy firelight. In the next, an indigo explosion ripped the demon-born into burning gobbets of flesh and shattered bone, and flattened the two shacks on either side. A blinding purple-black fist slammed into Belina, knocked her tumbling down the alley.

  ~ ~ ~

  A gentle wave washed over Leitos’s face, rolled him like a barrel. He came up a moment later, coughing and swiping his eyes with the back of his hand. Both his hand and his face felt burned by the sun. How did I—

  Another wave drowned the thought. Leitos bobbed to the surface and began treading water. Nearby, the shattered hull of a burning ship rode low in the water. Flames leaped off broken timbers and chased billowing smoke skyward. I was on that ship. Me ... Sumahn ... Nola.

  A little farther away, two more ships were burning amid dozens that were not. Upon their decks, men ran to and fro. Men and Alon’mahk’lar.

  He blinked salty water from his eyes, but could not clear the vision of a demon-born surrounded by purple-black flame, as it tried to escape the burning hatch.

  In a rush, everything came back. Stealing onto a ship, slaughtering the watch crew, Sumahn casting a jar of Nectar of Judgment into the hold an instant before an Alon’mahk’lar came roaring out.

  Adham had told Leitos that Alon’mahk’lar avoided water, as their bones were heavy as iron. So why had one been aboard the ship they burned, and why were there more on the other ships?

  “Gods good and wise, you’re alive!”

  Leitos turned and saw two figures paddling closer. Sumahn and Nola, both grinning like fools. Nola’s bandage had been ripped away by the blast, and her scar looked worse for its wet sheen, but he was glad to see them both.

  As his companions came together, he said, “We were betrayed.”

  Sumahn’s smiled vanished. “I know. No Alon’mahk’lar would have been on the ship we boarded, or any of the others, if they had not known we were coming.”

  “What about the others?” Nola asked, turning toward shore.

  For a long time, no one said a word. Fires burned all along the winding road from the harbor up to the southern gates of Zuladah. Distant screams drifted over the water.

  “We are not done fighting,” Leitos said, and began swimming. Sumahn and Nola called out, but he kept on until he climbed onto a narrow strand of pebbles and sand at the foot of the breakwater.

  He had already retrieved his bundled clothes, before his companions joined him. It was not his robes he wanted, but the sword beneath them. The steel whispered as it cleared the scabbard. Then he was running, with Sumahn and Nola close on his heels.

  They reached the top of the rocky breakwater, and rushed along its back. Demon-born swarmed the docks, along with armored men.

  “Wait!” The urgency of Sumahn’s call halted Leitos.

  “What is it?”

  Sumahn looked over the burning shanties. “This fight is already over, little brother.”

  “Never,” Nola snarled. “My family—your family—is up there. We must help them.” She tried to charge off, but Sumahn caught her arm and dragged her close. She cursed and fought. Grim-faced, he absorbed her blows until she ceased. Panting, she asked, “Would you have us abandon them?”

  Sumahn hesitated. “We have no choice.”

  Leitos edged closer to his companions. “We can live as cowards, or fight—”
/>   “And die,” Sumahn interrupted. “Would our deaths make us heroes, little brother?”

  Instead of answering, Leitos ran toward the screams and the fires. Sumahn swore behind him, but both he and Nola raced to catch up.

  Leitos charged down off the breakwater and onto the road, and there hamstrung the first Alon’mahk’lar he saw. The demon-born went down. He swung around in front of the beast and slashed its neck.

  Then he was off again, and soon lost track of his companions. He had no plan, and little thought for the consequences of his attack, save to kill as many enemies as presented themselves. Rage burned in his chest, blinded him to fear. He butchered his way through demon-born and men alike, until blood covered his sword and ran over his skin in crimson rivers.

  Halfway up the hill, an Alon’mahk’lar flung a limp woman onto the roadway. In the red firelight, Leitos saw that it was Belina, her face covered in soot and blood.

  Leitos surged ahead, avoiding yelling men clad in the armor of the City Watch. The demon-born turned to meet him, and easily deflected his sword stroke with its own massive blade. Leitos feinted and swung, the tip of his sword clipping the creature’s knee. Bellowing, the beast dropped to the broken cobbles. Leitos rammed his steel deep into his foe’s yawning mouth and cut off that cry. He tried to yank his sword free, but the demon-born’s teeth bit down. Leitos began kicking at the beast’s face, at the same time yanking the hilt. Bloody steel screeched past clenching teeth, an inch, then two. He kept tugging, all too aware that more enemies were closing in.

  His sword finally tore free, and he whipped the blade in a threatening pattern around his head. Laugher drew his eye to an archer a second before the man fired. The arrow thudded into Leitos’s belly, but he felt only a small, fiery prick. He leaped at the archer before he could put another arrow to bowstring. Leitos’s sword shattered the bow’s upper limb. Following the wild strike, he spun closer and buried his blade into the man’s helmed skull. More soldiers swarmed around them, eager to spill Leitos’s blood.