by Joe Horan
At first she did not notice the trembling of the ground and the strange ripples of light in the sky. It was the cries of alarm from the volunteers that first alerted her to the fact that something unusual was happening.
“Stand your ground!” she cried. “Stay in formation!”
Minutes passed. The trembling stopped, the ripples of light died away but Shydor shone unnaturally bright. She waited, poised for whatever action would be necessary…
Suddenly the sun blazed brilliantly. She felt its rays scorching her flesh.
“Everyone get under cover!” she yelled.
They all scrambled for shelter in the buildings or in the alleyways between, anywhere they were in the shade. She had no idea what was happening, but even as she took shelter against a wall where she was out of the direct sunlight her tactical mind was thinking, How can I take advantage of this?
Shania stared in amazement. The bright morning sunshine brightened, then suddenly it was blindingly bright. It burnt her skin where it shone through onto it. Instinctively she stepped back into the shade. What the hell? There’s something wrong with the sun…
A year ago she had adapted one of the distance glasses the Institute was experimenting with to project an image of the sun. She called it a solar projector. They knew the sun was a huge ball of incandescent gas, but she had seen structure on it; small black dots which must be areas at a lower temperature. She told the elite group who studied the heavens, who were trying to measure the distance to the stars. They said she was seeing spots in front of her eyes, so she took the projector to the Institute and showed them. The Five Truths said: The World is basically understandable by observation and reason, so they accepted the evidence of their own eyes and called them Enterada spots.
She wasn’t sure where the projector was, so she started opening cupboards and pulling everything out until she found it. The sun was still in the front of the house and she could set it up just inside the window. She fumbled in her haste but eventually got it done. She looked at the image projected on the screen. She thought it was a bit larger than it should be and – she was sure – it was still growing. The sun’s blown up! Her jaw dropped open. If the sun has blown up it doesn’t matter what happens here. All life on the World will end.
But the image was getting less bright and a disc was appearing in the middle, a sun-sized disc. She tried to work out what had happened. The image of the sun gets bigger, which means it’s expanding, then the image fades and the sun is still there. It’s thrown off a shell of hot gas! As the gas shell expands it cools and the sun can be seen through it. Now why has it done that?
She became aware of screams and cries coming from outside. A woman lay on her back in the street right outside the flat. The skin of her face was badly burnt. Another body lay on the pavement at the end of the road. The windowsill was too hot to touch. She could see smoke beginning to rise in several places. She began to realise that as well as an interesting solar phenomenon this was also a disaster. A disaster on top of a disaster. But the Kaun Army are out there on the plains with no cover, while we have a city with buildings to shelter in. A negative number times a negative number is positive. Could a disaster times a disaster be something good? And has anyone else thought of it?
The heat of the sun was fading, so she pinned on her official cartographer’s badge and went downstairs. The baker’s wife was busy rendering first aid to her husband, who had burns on his hands and face; not too bad, she thought. She opened the door…
“Don’t go out there!” shouted the woman.
“It’s all right,” said Shania. “The worst is over.”
The sun felt a bit hotter than usual. She risked her eyes on a quick glance up. The diameter of the gas shell was now about ten times that of the sun and it had faded until it was barely visible. It must be moving at an incredible speed. What happens when it reaches us?
No time to think about that now. She set off towards the palace. There were bodies in the street; not many, most people got under cover in time. Buildings were on fire and local inhabitants had got together to fight them with buckets and fire pumps. She tried to run but couldn’t; her body was just too weak and crippled.
She rounded the final corner and stopped. The main square in front of the palace was full of warriors; well, people with swords. They were waving them about in a way that she was sure warriors would never do. The volunteers then, and sitting on a horse near the gate she saw Princess Desiree wearing her battle armour and holding her sword aloft.
“Stay in formation!” she shouted. “Remember to fight in pairs. Right, open the gate.”
Over on the far side the gates swung open and the ragtag army began to move through it, cheering wildly as they did so.
Someone has understood. But I still have information that might be important.
There were no guards on the doors – they were all trained warriors, so presumably they needed in the army – but one of the palace servants was on duty.
“I’m a cartographer,” she said. “I have information about the sun flare.”
He looked at the cartographer’s badge on her chest. That did the trick.
“Come in,” he said.
She was taken to a room on the upper floor. He opened the door and she went through. In the room beyond were Prince Joaquin and Chief Cartographer Nyassa.
“Come in, Shania,” said Nyassa. “I was just saying we need to send for you. My lord, this is Shania Enterada who discovered the dark patches on the sun that are now called Enterada spots. I bet you got that solar projector of yours out.”
Shania looked at them. Prince Joaquin was eighteen and looked younger; Nyassa was about eighty; no one knew her exact age. The prince had a reputation as a scholar while Nyassa knew more about her profession than anyone else on the planet.
“The sun threw off a shell of hot gas,” explained Shania. “That’s what caused the sudden flare. As it expanded it cooled, which is why the heat gradually died away. It’s got too faint to see by now, but it’s still there expanding.”
“Will it reach us and what happens when it does?” asked Prince Joaquin.
Shania paused. They said the prince was clever and he had thought of the one thing that was worrying her. She had no data apart from her own observations, but if it kept expanding at the same speed…
“The gas shell should reach us in about eighteen hours’ time,” she said. “When it does it should have thinned and cooled enough that it won’t cause any harm. There may be some aurora effects, but nothing more serious.”
“You’re sure?”
She closed her eyes for a moment.
“Not completely,” she said. “There’s no record of anything like this happening before so it’s impossible to be certain, but my feeling is that the worst is over.”
“And what caused it?”
“I have no idea,” she confessed. “We don’t know how the sun generates energy so we don’t know what could go wrong with the process.”
“Could it happen again?”
“Our Chronicles go back six hundred years and there is no record of anything like it, but if it happened once it can happen again.”
Chief Steward Darius Gossard came in.
“My lord, the army has reached the main Kaun encampment,” he said.
“If you will excuse me, I must go to the tower and see what I can,” said Prince Joaquin. “My sister is very brave, but she is also very young.”
“I quite understand, my lord,” said Nyassa. “If anyone can save us, it is Princess Desiree. Come Shania. I’d tell you to go home and get some sleep, but I’m certain you wouldn’t be able to. If you don’t mind my saying it, you look even worse than you usually do. This business takes a toll, doesn’t it?”
Desiree looked round at her army. In the front the veterans had formed a battle line; behind them the volunteers looked like a rabble. She caught a glimpse of Eoline Strike’s red hair close up behind the line, in the first rank of the volunteers.
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Desiree was in the middle of the line on her battle-trained horse, Midnight. She held out her arm to indicate where she wanted the battle line, then signalled forward. They advanced towards the Kaun camp.
There was a battle line of sorts forming to meet them, but it was ragged. Some of the enemy were in a bad way, terribly burnt and with skin hanging off in strips, but too many of them were still on their feet. Behind and to the left was King Shalmazar’s banner. That was her target. She had to get there and somehow kill the king before his army got themselves organised, before the inexperience of most of her warriors started to tell. A hundred veterans were behind her. As soon as the lines met they would form a wedge around her and try to break through.
“Stay in formation!” she yelled, afraid that the volunteers would just charge en masse and get themselves slaughtered.
She had a bow in her hand and loosed off five arrows before the lines met. A few arrows were coming back the other way. They were shooting at her; she made a fine target up on her horse. One glanced off the side of her armour and then Midnight stumbled and fell. She jumped off, rolled over and stood up sword in hand. Immediately Simon was on her left hand to partner her and the veterans formed the wedge around them. This was the plan. Drive through the enemy formation, reach King Shalmazar’s banner, kill the king. It was their only hope of victory.
“Keep moving!” she shouted; the sound of her voice would let her people know that she was all right – for now. She was near the apex of the wedge and whatever happened her chance of surviving this was not good. In her heart she said the ancient words for when death was close:
I have served my people. I have done no evil. Let the life force return to the power that gave it.
The lines met. A Kaun warrior came at her; he had lost control of the pain and was half crazed. She deflected his wild sword stroke and felled him with a backhand cut. After that she fought on like a wild thing, striking down men twice her size using skill and agility to compensate for lack of strength. The wedge penetrated the line and forced its way through. The trained men fought alongside her and behind came the volunteers, following through the gap she had created and mostly dispatching men already dying. This was desperate fighting. The enemy had realised what they were trying to do and men were coming off the back of the line to try and stop them, but still they made progress.
A blade caught her in the side, penetrated her armour and cut into her flesh. She controlled the pain and dispatched the enemy warrior with a single thrust, but others were slashing blindly at her. They knew who she was and were trying to kill her, recognising that if they did so the battle would be over, just as it would if she could kill King Shalmazar. Her men were trying to keep them off, but still some blades were getting through. Most were deflecting off her armour, but a few were cutting through and into her flesh. She controlled the pain as she had been taught and fought on.
At last she reached King Shalmazar’s banner. The king was a great bear of a man, three times her weight, renowned for his skill with sword, bow and lance. Though most of the warriors around him were suffering badly from the sun scorch, somehow he had managed to come through unscathed. When he saw her he gave a great bellow of rage and rushed upon her. Simon interposed his blade and the king struck him down without even looking at him, then turned his attention to Desiree. Sword clashed against sword, the young princess was driven back, stumbled and fell. King Shalmazar swung his blade downwards, a mighty blow that must surely have cloven her in two, but at the last moment she rolled aside and thrust upwards, guiding her sword unerringly beneath his breastplate and onwards into his heart. She got slowly to her feet, hurt, bleeding but still very much alive, cut off King Shalmazar’s head, impaled in on her sword and held it high.
“Behold, King Shalmazar!” she cried.
The surviving Kaun warriors, seeing their king had fallen, turned to flee. A few got away. Most perished as the volunteers chased after them, slashing at anyone wearing Kaun colours. Had they but turned and stood their ground things might have been different, but when an army fled in such abject confusion it was almost impossible to stop it. The rules of war placed the Ochirans under no obligation to give quarter and they did not do so.
It would be written in the Chronicles of Ochira as the Day of Salvation, the Day the Sky Fell, the day Princess Desiree the Brave killed King Shalmazar the Great before the walls of Ochira City.
It was the day the World began to die.
Shania and Nyassa went back to the Institute. A number of the cartographers were there, but no work was being done until one of the field cartographers arrived. She had been with a team who were observing the battle from outside the wall.
“The Kaun Army is running,” she reported.
There was a cheer in response, then Nyassa said, “Details, details.”
“We can’t see much even with the distance glasses. There’s too much dust. We saw the princess’s horse go down right at the start, but she was up and fighting on foot after that. The volunteers seemed to be holding formation, then we saw the enemy just break and run.”
“What does it mean?” asked Shania.
“I think it means we’re safe,” said Nyassa.
They stayed at the Institute until the army returned in triumph, Princess Desiree riding in front with King Shalmazar’s head on a pike. She had killed him in single combat; a fourteen-year-old girl had vanquished an experienced warrior three times her size.
Prince Joaquin watched from the balcony as the army returned. At their head rode his sister – not on the same horse as she had left, he noticed. Her armour was battered and liberally splashed with blood. She carried a pike, on top of which was impaled a head. It had a thick black beard and a diadem hung crookedly down over one eye.
“Is that who I think it is?” murmured the chief steward, Darius Gossard, who was standing beside him.
Desiree raised the pike on high.
“Behold! King Shalmazar!” she cried.
The roar that went up in response was positively rapturous.
“Perhaps the gods do exist, sir,” said the chief steward.
“If so, you do wonder if they could not have devised a way of saving us that didn’t involve killing quite so many of us,” remarked Joaquin, who had already learnt that at least two thousand citizens had perished from the scorch of the sun. “No, what happened is a natural phenomenon. We do not understand it yet and perhaps we never will, but it is not the work of gods.”
He watched his sister dismount from her horse. She hid it well, but he could tell that she was exhausted and in pain. He ran downstairs and met her as she came in the door. As soon as the doors were closed behind her, as soon as she was out of sight of the people, she stumbled and almost fell. He ran forward and caught hold of her.
“Off to bed with you,” he said, suddenly the bossy elder brother again. The fact that she did not object told him just how near to the end of her strength she was.
He waited outside her apartments, pacing anxiously. They brought out the armour they had stripped from her body and he examined it closely. The inside was stained with blood and there were several slashes in it, including one continuous gash from left shoulder to right hip. He shuddered when he looked at it.
The healer had been in there nearly an hour now. He fought the urge to burst in and see what was going on; it was improper for him to see his sister unclothed. He did keep sending the maids in, however, and they kept returning with the same report; the healer was attending to the princess’s wounds. This did not make him feel any better.
At last the door opened and the healer emerged, a middle-aged woman, her hands and apron bloody from Desiree’s wounds.
“Well?” he demanded.
“The princess has sustained a number of battle wounds,” she replied. “None are serious. I have stitched the worst and applied bloodweed. All should quickly heal.”
His little tomboy sister, who had played with a wooden sword when other girls her age play
ed with dolls. Her armour had protected her, but not completely. A number of enemy blades had penetrated and cut into her flesh. He could not bear to think of it.
He went in as soon as the maids said she was decent. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, wearing a demure blue dress that finished just below the knees, the fashionable length nowadays. There was a red line on the outside of her left leg, beginning just above the ankle and disappearing up underneath the skirt, a scratch that had not even been considered worth a bandage. He wondered just what condition her body was in underneath that dress.
She looked up at him and smiled, but he could see the tiredness in her eyes, tiredness and something else. He had seen that look in men’s eyes when they returned from the battle and had a chance to process what they had seen and done.
“You should be queen, Desiree, and I should be second to you,” he said.
“No!” she said. “You have the knowledge that I shall never have. We will need your wisdom to rebuild all that we have lost.”
“We will rule together. Brother and sister, king and queen.”
“It shall be so. Now I must see to the men. There will be wounded to tend to, grieving widows to comfort. Three hundred fell in the battle, and at least as many were wounded.”
He could have ordered her to stay in bed. Ha! I’d like to see you try. Instead he helped her to her feet. Her strength seemed to return as she headed for the door.
Delia Glarn watched the sea. The exposed skin on her arms and face was hanging off, she could barely control the pain but still she watched the sea. This was her one job, to watch the sea.
She was on top of Watchtower 28, on a headland just to the east of the bay that contained the fishing town of Mahoun. The watchtowers had been established a hundred years ago along the southern coast of the kingdom to give warning of an approaching tsunami. Three times since then the bells had rung; each time the people fled to high ground and safety. Houses and ships could be rebuilt; human lives could not.
