Black Sun Light My Way

by Spurrier, Jo

  Sierra felt Rasten’s bewilderment and despaired. Surely he hadn’t truly expected her to submit? But she could tell from a touch upon his mind that he was utterly unready and unprepared. Here he was, the terror of the north, the one who had made her wake in a trembling sweat countless times, cowering before his master like a whipped dog.

  She had to break Kell’s hold on him, and since she couldn’t distract Kell, she could only go through Rasten.

  Sierra drew a deep breath, gathering her power and cramming it down within her. Rasten had drawn power from her so many times that the tracks of it were worn deep between them. She choked back the flow shoring him up, and felt him begin to suffocate through the link. Clamping down, she let the power build, filling her limbs with molten, crackling energy and waiting for that moment when she could barely contain it … It seemed to take an age, and she realised then just how much more she could contain than even a month before. If she held out to her limits, Rasten would be dead. At this moment, she didn’t much care for his life, but she still needed his help.

  Sierra dropped all the barriers between them and shoved every bit of that energy into Rasten. It thundered through him, scorching his nerves, and struck with a thump that flung him off the ground. It burned like molten iron in his veins, sending another hot burst of power back to Sierra.

  The pain stung him into life. Rasten had been trained to endure — when worn down by pain and exhaustion he had learnt to submit and survive — but this searing spike of energy triggered a different response. As the great wave crashed and broke, he roused from the stranglehold of fear with a roar. With one instinctive blast of fury, of power that mingled lightning and flame, he broke Kell’s hold and flung the old man back.

  All at once, the world erupted into chaos. The earth trembled and heaved as a sound like all the thunder that had ever rolled echoed all around her. She couldn’t see a thing — the air was streaked with glowing golden mist and smoke as black as pitch. A wave of heat swept over her, more fierce than any blacksmith’s forge, driving her back.

  Rasten!

  Sierra, where are you?

  She couldn’t say: she didn’t know. Nearby, something was roaring so loudly that the noise reverberated right down to the pit of her stomach, and the air was full of acrid fumes. Clamping her hands over her ears made little difference — in the midst of that incredible noise it seemed that her head would split in two.

  Overwhelmed by the roar of earth and power, the choking smoke and ash, and the shimmering energy that filled her head, Sierra retreated. Objects on the ground entangled her scorched feet, and it was only when she fell sprawling over them that Sierra realised they were bodies — bodies of the men she had killed, the men who had assembled to watch her raped on a stage in front of the whole camp. She felt sick. Rasten would have let it happen, and yet she’d given him the power to break away from Kell. Sierra ground her teeth. She had only done it because she still needed him. Rasten! she called once again.

  Sierra, here!

  She could feel him off to her right. For want of any better plan, Sierra veered his way just as the ground shook once more, flinging her to the ground amid the trampled and broken bodies. The man she fell onto struggled and heaved beneath her, groping with bloody hands and Sierra hastily scrambled away. There was so much power flooding into her that she couldn’t tell which of the bodies were alive or dead. All of them were shouting at her at once like the bellow of an army advancing.

  She found her feet again as a volley of glowing missiles hurtled over her head, making her duck instinctively even though they were twice a man’s height above her.

  ‘Sierra!’ she heard Rasten bellow, but it was a strangely muffled sound, just barely audible over the awful ringing in her ears.

  She tried to follow his voice, but found her path blocked by a molten stream radiating intense heat. Thinking of her bare feet, Sierra backed away. It was full night now — when had that happened? — and the moonlight had vanished. Overhead was nothing but a black void, punctuated now and then by a flash of lightning with accompanying thunder she could barely hear. The only other light came from the glowing lava and the occasional spar of burning wood, and the glow of Black Sun’s Fire that played over the weapons still carried on the belts of dead and dying men.

  A shadow loomed out of the darkness ahead of her. It was Rasten, his face bloodied and his clothing scorched and torn. He leapt across the stream of lava to join her.

  When he went to take her by the arm, Sierra recoiled and slapped his hand away with a snarl.

  ‘What in the hells were you thinking?’ he demanded.

  ‘That I wasn’t about to let myself be raped by a camp full of soldiers,’ she spat.

  ‘You’ve ruined everything —’

  ‘No thanks to you!’

  Rasten seemed about to speak, but then he tossed his head and looked away. ‘He’s got to be nearby. He can’t walk quickly with that bad leg. There’s still a chance we can finish this. Come on.’

  Once they left the ridge-top and retreated to the camp, most of the night was spent in arguing.

  Every now and then, Isidro tried to make contact with Sierra. If he concentrated hard enough, he could reach her despite the heated voices around him, but he couldn’t draw her attention — or perhaps she was simply ignoring him. Either way, he could see she was alive and whole.

  ‘I can’t believe this,’ Cam was saying as Isidro returned to the interminable discussion. ‘She’s in danger, Mira, and you’re refusing to help her!’

  ‘I’m doing no such thing!’ Mira said.

  No one, Isidro had noticed, was willing to say that Sierra had brought all this on herself when she chose to defect, but neither did anyone join Cam in arguing that they should ride to her aid.

  ‘We’re simply not equipped to help her,’ Mira insisted. ‘If even a few hundred of the king’s men survive that inferno, we’ll be hopelessly outnumbered, and might I remind you nearly half our people are civilians? My women, Anoa, Amaya, and also Rhia and Delphine — I won’t lead them into that chaos when we can’t ensure their safety.’

  ‘I’m not saying we should take defenceless women with us,’ Cam snapped. ‘I just can’t bear to leave Sirri there alone and friendless. I won’t abandon her, not after all she’s done for me.’

  ‘And what did she do for you again?’ Ardamon asked sourly. ‘Turned you out among enemy forces with little more than the clothes on your back and a vial of poison? In any case, Cammarian, there are others here more deserving of our protection.’

  ‘He has a point,’ Mira said. ‘We need to return those canoes and warn the folk who loaned them to us. They’ll be in danger if the survivors head our way.’

  ‘They will,’ Ardamon said. ‘I’m certain of it. They can’t go west, the Akharian legions are blocking their way, and if they head south those same forces will dog their trail. Their best chance is to come east around the ranges to get back to Mesentreian-held lands, and that means they’ll come our way. We have to move quickly and spread the news to anyone living in these hills.’

  ‘So we just leave Sirri to fend for herself?’ Cam said. He turned to Isidro. ‘You can’t agree to this, Issey.’

  Isidro began to speak, and hesitated. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘Ardamon’s right. The king’s men will be overrun if they stay where they are. And … I’m not sure we could be any help to Sierra even if we did find her.’

  ‘That’s right.’ Mira pounced. ‘And I’m not saying we should abandon her, Cam. We should fall back to a safe place, warn our folk to the east and then work out what to do next in a rational manner.’

  Scowling, Cam began to curse. ‘By the Black Sun herself —’

  The rest of his words were lost as the ground began to shake again. This time, the rolling and heaving of the earth went on and on in a sickening lurch. The hide above them swayed violently, and then began to list. Ardamon started up with a yell. ‘The tent’s collapsing!’

  In the distance Isidr
o heard wood cracking, and the low earthen rattle of rocks grinding together. Then, the ground beneath the tent rippled, and with a low, rumbling roar, the hillside began to slip.

  Delphine’s power flared, spreading beneath and around them in a shield. Those sitting nearest the tent-poles tried to brace them, but as the earth gave way, the chimney wrenched loose from the stove and collapsed in a gust of smoke. Mira and some of the other women were sitting in the path of the falling metal and, as they scrambled away, Isidro attempted a hasty shield to catch the hot pipes. The lanterns swung wildly, becoming deadly tethered missiles until the poles finally fell, burying them all in the thick, heavy hide of the tent.

  When the stomach-churning movement of the earth ended, Ardamon called out, muffled by the hide, ‘Is anyone hurt?’

  Nearby, a woman yelped and cursed, fighting her way through the layers. ‘Watch out for the pieces of the chimney: they’re cursed hot,’ Anoa said.

  ‘What about the people outside?’ Mira called. In the near distance clansmen cursed and horses nickered in panic, while the roar of water sounded much closer than it had been before.

  Isidro had been sitting with his back to the tent wall, and had flung himself face down to avoid the collapsing poles. He shuffled back awkwardly until his feet found the edge of the hide and the place where the bed of spruce met the bare ground outside.

  Once free, he flung the edge of the tent back as those nearest to him followed him out into the fresh air. Delphine was one of the first, and Mira came scrambling after her, pulling Cam with her as he began to cough again from the smoke billowing from the still-burning stove, the air reeking of scorched hair. ‘Quick, get the tent off before it burns,’ Mira said, and the others still struggling to emerge joined her to haul it free.

  Isidro turned to Delphine. ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘No, no,’ she said, ‘just shaken. How’s your arm?’

  He hadn’t noticed it throbbing until she mentioned it. ‘It’s fine,’ he said. With the tent cover clear, the lanterns lay in the jumbled remains of the frame, and he stooped to snatch one up.

  Delphine’s tent had collapsed as well; a gutter of sparks and smoke came from the chimney where the pipe-thimble still anchored it to the tent wall. ‘Oh blast, the books,’ she said, and hurried over to pull the hide clear.

  Isidro took stock of the remains of the camp as he helped her. All the tents were down, and the horses were still plunging and panicking at their tethers while Ardamon’s men tried to soothe them. This patch of ground now sloped steeply in the opposite direction of the cant of the hillside, and had slipped dozens of paces below their previous position. The worst of the landslide must have happened below them and the land they were on had slumped down to fill the void.

  Ardamon made a head-count and found every soul accounted for, and no injuries beyond a few bruises and the burn to Anoa’s arm where she had brushed against a piece of chimney. Once assured there was no immediate danger, Mira mustered them all to collect the gear and pass it hand-to-hand out of the ruin of the camp.

  By the time it was all done and men, gear and horses were all assembled once again on what they could only hope was solid ground, it was no longer truly night at all, but early morning. Mira had her women light a fire and boil a kettle, and cook a hasty meal of bannock to fortify the troops. ‘Alright,’ she said when everyone had a bowl in one hand and a chunk of fried bannock in the other, ‘let’s take stock. Have we lost anything vital?’

  ‘One of the horses is dead,’ Ardamon said. ‘It broke a leg in the slip. One other is badly lame, and another seems likely to follow.’

  ‘So what now, Ardamon? We were talking of packing up and heading back east to the folk who loaned us those canoes …’

  ‘I still think we ought to, but with three horses down we’ll have to carry some of the gear on our own backs.’

  ‘I still don’t like leaving Sierra to fend for herself,’ Cam said, his voice rasping again. ‘If there’s too much gear to carry, why not leave some of it here? A few of us can stay behind and give Sirri a place to come if she needs help. If you leave the injured horses, too, they might be sound by the time you come back for us.’

  ‘Lady Mira, I think it would be best for Cam to rest a little longer before he is called upon to travel,’ Rhia said. ‘He’s improving, but he is still not well. Too much exertion could make him ill again.’

  Ardamon shook his head. ‘I don’t like splitting the party,’ he said. ‘If Cam’s too weak to travel then he’s too weak to fight, and with soldiers heading our way …’

  Delphine hesitantly raised a hand. ‘Let’s think for a moment. If we all go east together we’ll be moving slowly, but if a few of us stay behind, it will free up horses to carry packs, and you’ll move faster without us. If I stay back, I can keep a small camp hidden from any soldiers who come by. I can even mount a defence if it’s needed.’

  ‘Ardamon, I think she’s right,’ Mira said. ‘Those folk to the east need to hear the warning quickly. If Cam stays, I’ll stay, and if Delphine’s hanging back, Isidro probably should, as well.’ She turned to catch his gaze. ‘I doubt you’d be willing to ride away from Cam again so soon in any case.’

  Ardamon scowled at her, but Isidro could see him pressing fingers into his thigh as he tallied up men, horses and gear. At last, he turned to Delphine. ‘You’re certain you can keep them safe?’

  ‘From soldiers without even a touch of mage-craft? Absolutely,’ she said.

  Ardamon sighed and scraped his hands through his unruly hair. ‘Alright then. The rest of us will head east at all possible speed, dump our gear and head back for you. It shouldn’t take more than five or six days. We’ll need to find you a good spot to camp … Isidro, you and I should see to that now, while the rest of you pack.’

  Severian was dead, his body crushed and broken by falling stones when the fortress walls collapsed. When weeping servants laid the corpse at her feet, Valeria squeezed out a few tears for the sake of the men, but inside she felt more rage than sorrow. Always a disappointment, she thought, looking down at her eldest son. And no less now than you ever were.

  Survivors of the conflagration were creeping in through the dim light of dawn to cluster around the bonfires, shivering and hungry from a night spent without shelter, some wounded in their flight over rough ground in the dark, or trampled by their comrades in the confusion.

  The remains of the king’s army had regrouped upwind of the volcano, in sight of the ruined camp. The shocked and sombre silence of the men hardly changed when Valeria’s guards brought the king’s body into the camp.

  ‘Your majesty.’ A cluster of men awaited her attention, kneeling in neat ranks upon the gritty ash. Lords and captains, they were veterans to a man. It was Lord Endrian who addressed her, a man she had known for twenty years, and who had stood at her side when the savages tried to put her worthless younger son on the throne ten years back. ‘Your majesty, we share your great sorrow. My queen, what would you have us do now?’

  Valeria ran her eyes across the ragged survivors, and then turned to the hill to the northeast, where the remains of the fortress clung to the ridge. One tower still stood, but it listed heavily with the supporting walls torn away. Glowing ribbons of lava wove around the base of the walls, and as Valeria watched another portion of ruins collapsed, raising a cloud of ash. ‘We must find Lady Cortana,’ Valeria said. ‘The babe she carries is the son of Osebian Angessovar and heir to the kingdom.’

  At the rear of the assembly, a man lifted his head. ‘Your majesty, I saw Lady Cortana fleeing with some of your guards before the fortress began to fall. Forgive me, my liege, but I did not see where they went.’

  Valeria favoured him with a smile. Her own guards were trustworthy: they would keep the girl safe. ‘Endrian, set men to searching for loose horses and survivors, and for Lady Cortana. She is carrying your next king, gentlemen, and you will treat her with all respect. Every man who can stand is to be called to duty — we must salvage
what we can from the old camp. The men need tents, stoves and supplies, and we must have fortifications in place before the cursed Akharians find the courage to investigate. What do you make of our numbers, Endrian?’

  ‘It’s too soon to be certain, your majesty, but from what I’ve seen we may have lost three men out of every ten.’

  With water and supplies buried or contaminated by ash, that number could rise sharply — and that was before the Akharians learnt of their misfortune and pressed their advantage. Valeria kept her face serene, but inside she felt as chill as ice. ‘What of Kell? Has the lord magister been sighted?’

  ‘Your majesty, some men reported crossing his path a few hours ago. They hailed him and offered to escort him here, but he refused and sent them on their way. He was said to be heading east, your majesty.’

  East? Why in all the hells would the old lecher go east? ‘And the apprentice and the barbarian wench? Have they been seen?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge, your majesty.’

  Gods rot your balls, you old fool, Valeria thought. What cursed game are you playing? He’d assured her Rasten was bound to his will, as obedient as a performing dog and, foolishly, she’d taken him at his word. Those two would have to be dealt with — for this, she’d give them deaths to be remembered for generations — but right now the invaders were a greater threat. Without a mage to defend them, the Akharians would cut through her men like a hot knife through fat.

  Kell knew that. He might be an old fool, but he had some wits left. If he had left his home ground undefended to chase down his rebellious underlings, he would know he might well be dooming the last of Mesentreia’s might in Ricalan. Valeria’s belly clenched with sudden anxiety, and for a moment she swayed so violently that Endrian leapt forward to catch her. ‘Your majesty!’