by Jon Sprunk
“But you served on a ship of war.”
“The Bantu Ray was merchantman originally. But when the crusade got underway, we were commandeered for the war effort. Our captain didn't have much choice in the matter.”
Her fingers plucked at his sleeve. “So you are not a zealot, gripped by the furor of your one god? No, I think you are more like a piece of wood floating on the river, pushed wherever the water goes.”
“Flotsam.”
“What?”
Horace shook his head. “Nothing. You may be right. I signed on with the Ray because I wanted to belong to something real, something bigger than my life. I suppose that must be hard for a queen to understand.”
“No, it's not.” She traced the palm of his left hand, over the mottled whirls and dimples of the ruined flesh. “How did you get these scars? They are not immaculata.”
Her eyes were so big and dark through the forest of lashes. He had the sudden urge to kiss her, but he tamped it down. “What do you want with me?”
He expected a rebuke for his forwardness or a disdainful look for failing to play her games, but instead the queen said, “I need to know more about your people. How far will they press their crusade against Akeshia? What would convince them to give up the fight?”
On some level, Horace knew she wanted him for something other than companionship, but it still stung to hear. “From what I saw, Your Excellence, nothing will deter them. The Church will not rest until your country has been defeated and converted to the True Faith, whether that takes a year or a century.”
She said something under her breath that Horace didn't catch. They had entered the desert. The sands flowed beneath them like a golden blanket. Beautiful, but Horace could still remember their brutal heat. Thinking of the journey with Jirom and Gaz reminded him of the desert storm. That entire day was foggy in his memory. The only thing he remembered clearly was the moment the power—his zoana—left his body. It had been like drowning, only to break the surface of the water to find air once again.
He was lost in his thoughts, watching the dunes pass by, when he spotted a dark smudge on the horizon. Horace shaded his eyes against the dwindling daylight and made out some kind of settlement encircled by a long, low wall—at least it looked low from this distance. Square buildings and lean towers nestled inside the fortifications. The flying ship slowed its velocity and turned due west on a course that would take it close to the town. As they got closer, Horace could see a second dark smudge outside the wall. He squinted and leaned over the rail. It was too far away to count, but he guessed there had to be hundreds of tents staked out on the sands. Earthworks and defensive fortifications surrounded the walls. The town was under siege.
“Who's fighting?” he asked.
The queen pointed to the settlement. “That is Omikur, one of my most vital holdings in the desert. It had never fallen to an invading force, until two days ago when it was seized by an army from Etonia.”
Crusaders. The soldiers aboard the Bantu Ray might have been in that army, if not for the storm that destroyed the ship.
“We suspect the invaders might have had an agent inside the town,” she said. “However it was done, the capture was a bold move, especially since they are many leagues from the sea and the protection of your fleets.”
Horace's anxiety returned, making him sweat despite the strong breeze that flowed across the deck. “And the camp is your army?”
“My Third Legion, under the command of Lord General Arishaka.”
There must be five thousand men in that camp, with another three or four thousand strung out along the siegeworks.
“I'm afraid I won't be much use as a soldier, Your Excellence.”
Her laughter rang over the winds. “Master Horace, really! You think I would ask you to fight your own people? No, we are here merely to observe.”
A little relieved but still not sure how much to believe her, Horace focused his attention on the siege. With the daylight waning, he didn't expect much activity. Yet men scurried along the earthworks, and the town walls were filled with soldiers. Were any of the defenders from Arnos? It would be impossible to tell unless the ship flew close enough for him to make out their banners. Horace tried to imagine what the men on those walls were thinking, surrounded by a vast enemy, far from their own lines. The queen was right. Taking this town had been a bold move, and maybe a fatal one for the invaders.
Perhaps reinforcements are already on the march. If they can hold out for a few days, they might be rescued.
Horace glanced at the queen out of the corner of his eye, hoping she couldn't read his expression. He had a hard time swallowing, and not just from the dry desert air. Fortunately, a bodyguard came over with refreshments. Horace accepted a copper goblet and peered inside. It was a light red wine smelling slightly of cloves. He took a long drink despite its sharp aftertaste.
Horace almost spilled the cup as a horn sounded below. He hadn't noticed the ship descending; they were now only a couple bowshots above the dunes and sailing along at a slower pace. As he looked over the side, a forest of great wooden arms sprang up from the earthworks, sending dozens of fireballs sailing through the sundered twilight. The orbs of burning death burst, some upon the battlements where they spread viscous flames among the troops, and others inside the town, exploding in the streets. Yet the town was well designed against attack. The walls were protected by machicolations and hoardings with sloped roofs that repelled the burning missiles. Still, a few penetrated the defenses. Soldiers thrashed as they burned. The fortunate ones were put to the sword by their comrades, but too often those comrades also caught fire when they came too close to their burning fellows, and so the carnage spread. Horace had seen burning pitch demonstrated before, but the fires launched by these incendiaries stuck and burned for far longer than pitch or oil.
“My God,” he muttered, unable to take his eyes from the devastation.
“Not your god,” Byleth said, “nor any of mine. This is science and sorcery, the worst of both.” She shook her head. “Do you see what monsters war makes of us all?”
Horace tried to watch the scene below with detachment, but it wasn't easy. Now seeing the town's walls up close, they were sturdier than he first thought. And although the firepots were deadly, the defenders were quick to douse them with sand, which worked much better than water. Gazing at the great catapults amid the earthworks cocking back for another volley, Horace was tempted to try his powers, to sever the pulley ropes that worked the siege weapons or to ignite the firepots in midair. He made no move to help the defenders, however. With the queen standing so close to him, she would sense if he tried anything.
His stomach dropped when a crackle of thunder raced across the sky above. The hull creaked as the vessel swung around on a northerly course, circling the town. Yet Horace was watching the sky.
Byleth said something, and the helmsman consulted a spherical device mounted beside his station before answering. The only word Horace caught was “hour.” Then clouds appeared from nowhere, and the sky darkened.
He jerked upright when a powerful shock raced up his spine. Thunder crashed over the ship as a bolt of lurid green lightning shot from the sky. The clouds swirled with twisting winds, gathering into a maelstrom above the city. Horace's gaze was drawn to the center of the storm. There, behind the screen of thunderheads, he sensed a presence.
The hunger. An insatiable need to destroy and consume. It washed over him and entered him. He was powerless to resist its call, unable to stop the connection between him and the longing. And in that moment he sensed he was close to understanding something vital about the storm, or maybe himself.
The ship shuddered as a tongue of lightning slashed the sky off the starboard bow. Over the crackling after-rumbles, someone was laughing. Horace looked to the queen in shock. Her eyes were pits of utter darkness in the deepening twilight.
“What say you, Storm Lord?” she asked. “Shall we dance with the gods?”
Horac
e could only watch in horror as the chaos storm swept over the town. A fire had exploded within the urban center where the buildings were clustered closest together. Emerald brilliance stung his eyes again as another bolt lanced from the sky, and a tall tower collapsed. More fires leapt up inside the crumbling structure.
The urge to help almost overcame Horace, until cool fingers touched his hand. The queen leaned against him as the flying ship swung away from the town. The smell of the perfume in her hair drowned the bitterness lodged inside him. Squeezing his elbow, she smiled at him before she sauntered away.
Omikur drifted in their wake, now just a spot of yellow light in the darkness of the desert. The storm remained above the settlement, blasting the walls with occasional lightning. He felt drained and was tempted to lie down on the deck and close his eyes, etiquette be damned.
“She's testing you.”
Lord Mulcibar came to stand beside him. Glass orbs had come alive at both ends of the flying ship, glowing like giant fireflies. Horace sighed as he looked into the impenetrable blackness below. “Then I wish she would find someone else to torment.”
“Be wary of what you wish for, Master Horace.”
“You mean it can get worse than this? I'm a prisoner to the people my country is at war with and I have to just watch as those crusaders down there are slaughtered. If this is a test, then I'm glad to fail it.”
“You have to understand the delicacy of the situation.” Mulcibar lifted his gaze to the west. “We are an old civilization. We watched your nations grow from tribes of fur-wearing savages, and some of us still have a hard time believing that your people have advanced all that much. Then there is our politics. All power in Akeshia flows from the zoanii. Yet the Temple of the Sun has clawed its way into dominance over all the other cults, largely due to the emperor's favor, and now it chafes under our rule. Akeshia has suffered through more civil wars than I can easily recall, and now we teeter on the edge of another, one which might change the face of the empire. Keeping you close is in Her Majesty's best interest. And yours.”
“Oh? How is that?”
“You have the zoana, but you are not of the zoanii. You have no family here, no master, no liege.”
“And no loyalties. Right?”
“Exactly. You are a weapon with no attachments. That makes you unique in Akeshia, and it makes you valuable.”
“So the queen has to keep an eye on me to make sure no other faction scoops me up. I understand that much. But what's in it for me?”
“You can consider the alternative. We live in a time of violent upheaval. Without Her Majesty's aegis, you would be without allies.”
Horace winked at him. “Not even you, Lord Mulcibar?”
“I'm an old man. You might be powerful—perhaps the strongest magician we've seen in generations—but you can't defeat the entire empire by yourself.”
Soft footsteps crossed the deck. “What are you two whispering about?”
Lord Mulcibar bowed and retreated as Queen Byleth returned. She leaned against the railing beside Horace, and he couldn't help but think that with just one push…“Ah, nothing much. History, actually.”
“Ack. My tutors bored me with history for years. None of it makes any difference. The past is gone. It's the future that concerns me.”
“I don't know how you do it,” he said. “You're the ruler of a city, but you're so young and a…”
“What?” She glanced at him out of the kohl-lined corners of her eyes. “A woman?”
“Well, I…uh, I just meant that…”
She laughed and put a hand on his forearm. “Don't worry. I've been called much worse than that. Ask Lord Mulcibar to take you on a tour of the river district in Erugash. There's some very inventive graffiti about me.”
“I'm sorry, Your Excellence. It was ungrateful of me to refer to your sex.”
“Master Horace, you are anything but ungrate—”
The queen's words were cut off by a terrific roar. The deck of the flying ship bucked as if the vessel had struck a reef. Horace grabbed the railing and threw out his hand as the queen tipped backward. He caught her by the wrist before she fell over the side. She opened her mouth as if to say something as he hauled her back from the brink, and then collapsed in his arms as limp as a clubbed fish. Horace tried to hold her upright, but the ship lurched again and rolled halfway over onto its starboard side. As the ship dropped out of the sky like a stone, turning Horace's stomach inside out, Byleth slumped to the floor. He was doing his best to keep her pinned in place with one arm when a second explosion occurred.
The wizard at the bow helm collapsed in a tangle of scorched flesh and smoldering robes. His body slid over the edge as the flying ship tipped forward. Several soldiers fell off, too, flailing at the air. Horace put his back to the railing and gathered the queen into his arms. He fought the urge to vomit as the flying ship continued to pitch, sucking in shallow breaths through gritted teeth to keep down the ball of nausea roiling in his gut. Lord Mulcibar lay flat against the deck next to him, somehow staying fixed in position. To Horace's right, only one wizard helmsman remained in the aft section, hanging from the metal pole. Gilgar held onto the railing with one arm. Horace craned his neck to look down and regretted it at once. The ground was coming up fast to meet them. He squeezed his eyes shut. In a few moments, they would all be dead.
Sari, I pray I'll be seeing you soon.
The queen stirred in his arms. Horace looked down to see her eyes opening. She appeared confused or perhaps just dazed. Then he felt the power thrumming in his chest. He reached for it and gasped as the white-hot energy surged through every fiber of his body. It roared in his ears, driving out all thoughts of dying. He wanted to live.
Horace hoisted the queen higher into his arms. He didn't have a plan, and there wasn't time to devise one. With only a handful of seconds to act, he embraced the first idea to cross his mind. His eyes sought out the helm pole at the bow of the ship, a dozen yards above him across the canted deck. If his powers could drive away a chaos storm, he reasoned that they should be able to manipulate something more solid. At least, he hoped so. With a tentative touch, he tried to reach out with the zoana. Nothing happened. The ship continued to plummet to the ground. The queen murmured something, but Horace couldn't hear her over the wind howling in his ears. He closed his eyes and blocked everything out. He reached for the metal pole again. This time he felt a chilling tingle like cool steel running across his brain. Horace didn't pause to appreciate the oddness of it all; he envisioned himself wrenching back on the handle. The deck rolled beneath his feet, slowly righting itself. Horace glanced over the side.
Too late!
The ground still raced toward them. He saw the river, so close he could make out the ripples of its current and the tops of several boulders sticking out of the water. Horace's heart thumped, and the energy pulsed with each beat. He tried pulling up on the helm pole, but the ship's trajectory remained fixed. Horace bit his tongue, not knowing what to do. Then firm hands slapped against either side of his head and forced him to look down. The queen's eyes were wide open. “Push against the ground!” she shouted.
And though her voice was torn away by the rushing wind, Horace heard it clearly. He almost laughed. Her demand was impossible. Insane! They were going to die. He reached out ahead of the falling ship, not expecting to find anything, but he did. A horizontal force beneath them, firm against his mental touch. With the queen's eyes locked on him, he pushed against it with everything he had.
The river wound like a sunbathing serpent, lush and brown amid the riparian grasses that grew along its flanks. Gazing at it from the shadow of a huge boulder on the riverbank, Horace could appreciate more it than he had from the air. In the desert, the river was life. Yet it had come close to being the site of their death.
Dawn had come, bringing with it the heat of the day. A line of sweat dribbled down his forehead as he thought back to those panicked final moments onboard the flying ship. At the queen's
command, he had pushed against the ground. Or, to be more precise, against the powerful force he'd felt running along the ground. He could still feel it, under his feet, firm and unyielding, but also comfortable in a familiar way. At the time, he'd thought it would be impossible to stop a falling ship with just his mind, but the zoana had responded. The ship had bucked under him like an unbroken stallion, shaking so violently he almost lost his grip on the queen, but somehow he held on. Then the ship struck the ground hard enough to crack the hull in half and throw them over the side. He fell in the shallows of the river and got up without a scratch. His clothing, now caked in mud, took the worst of the damage.
Horace glanced back at their makeshift camp beside the river. The queen sat on a small rock, her arms wrapped about her knees, face resting on her forearms. Though she hadn't been injured as far as he could tell, she hadn't talked much since their landing either.
Lord Mulcibar sprawled on the ground beside the queen, a rolled cloak under his head. Horace had found him in the weeds, eyes open and staring up at the sky, but alive. With a little cajoling, Mulcibar had come around and managed to walk on his own, allowing Horace to focus his attention on the queen. One soldier had survived as well, although he'd suffered a broken leg. Horace had done his best to make the man comfortable under the tree. That was it. No sign of Gilgar or the helmsmen. Just four survivors out of a score, but it was a miracle any of them still lived. But what had caused the ship to crash? Horace recalled a loud sound like an explosion.
No, there were two explosions. The initial one that started the descent, and then another on the way down.
The ship now lay in pieces along the water's edge. Horace considered going over to take a look, but instead he went to check on the queen. She was looking a little better. Some of the color had returned to her face. She was talking when Horace got within earshot.
“—decide when we get back to Erugash.”
Mulcibar struggled to sit up. “Your Majesty, it is not yet clear what caused this incident. We should consider all possibilities.”
