The Tides of Bára

by Jeffe Kennedy

  “More than there are towers in Bára.”

  “Dozens, maybe,” she temporized. With Lonen off his back, Buttercup shifted, restless, and she grabbed for the reins. “Counting isn’t his strong suit. Aren’t you in more danger on the ground?”

  “Buttercup will protect you, but I can’t effectively swing the axe with you on his back, too.”

  “Then I’ll get down.” Before she lifted a leg, Lonen was there, free hand gripping her knee.

  “Don’t. You. Dare.” He sounded darker, more stern and threatening than she’d ever heard him. “You stay on this horse no matter what happens. Use the knife if you have to. I’ll draw the golems away, then you make a break for it.”

  Her naïve brain finally caught up. “No. You’re not sacrificing yourself for me.”

  “Of course not,” he replied too easily, releasing his grip to pat her knee. Then took the reins from her and knotted them loosely to a ring on the saddle. “I’ve killed hundreds, maybe thousands of these things. I’ll clear a path for you, draw them off and chop them up, then meet you at the oasis. Have Chuffta guide you there.”

  As if called, Chuffta glided in, wings fully spread to catch the thick, cool air, soundless as the ghost he resembled. Surprising her, he landed on Lonen’s shoulder, green eyes shining in the night. “I’ll fight with Lonen, then we’ll find you.”

  Tears rose up to choke her throat, her eyes burned with them, but she throttled them back. “I’m staying here with you,” she told them both.

  “No, you’re not.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  They spoke the words, aloud and mind-voice together in an uncanny echo of each other, their united certainty reverberating on several levels at once.

  “You have to make it to Dru, Oria,” Chuffta told her firmly.

  “The Destrye need you more than they need me,” Lonen said, stroking her thigh now, much as he’d reassure Buttercup. “At this point, you’re the only one who can save them. My job was just to get you there.”

  “You’re their king!” she gritted fiercely through the teeth she’d locked to hold back the overwhelming tide of emotion. Hers and his, twined together. “They need you.”

  “Not if they’re dead, they don’t.” He sounded so calm, so resolved. “My brother Arnon can be king, but only if you make it to Dru and stop your brother.”

  The magic whispered across her nerves, sand eddying over rock in a restlessly building breeze. Familiar. The golems of Bára.

  “Nearly upon us.” Chuffta confirmed. He took wing, shooting up to circle above them.

  “Lonen.” She said it pleadingly, unable to think of anything else to say to convince him. Surely he couldn’t die like this, but how could one man fight off so many? He’d killed thousands, perhaps, but even she knew that had been with his men all around.

  “Don’t worry, love,” he said, squeezing her thigh through the silk of her gown. His grief and fear came through clearly as the brilliant stars. He did intend to sacrifice himself for her. “I’ve survived worse than this. And Chuffta will help me. I’ll give Buttercup the signal. Your job is to stay on. Cling like one of your Arill-cursed burrs to the saddle. Chuffta and I will find you.”

  A lie. He didn’t expect to survive this.

  “I don’t want to lose you,” she managed, aware that she’d utterly failed to hold back the emotion, her chest aching with the effort to suppress it. No hwil whatsoever.

  The magic of the golems sang louder, almost as strong as being in Bára again. All around them. She risked taking Lonen’s hand, the contact searing her, but she welcomed the pain, bending over and pulling him to her. His mouth received her kiss, harsh and full of desire. He wanted to live, but he wanted her to live more, for his people to live. His beard scratched her face, his hand releasing hers to cup her head and hold her tight there as he drank her in.

  Then wrenched himself away. He stepped back, well out of reach.

  She floundered internally, scrabbling to rebalance after taking so much of him in. It helped that she’d been relatively empty, but the sudden influx was as if someone had suddenly lit a too-bright torch in a dark room. The presence of the golems all around flared across her newly sensitized senses.

  The shadowy silhouette that was her husband lifted his battle-axe, swinging it in a circle over his head. “Fare well, my powerful queen,” he said. “It’s been the privilege of my life to be wed to you. Take care of my people.”

  So much for his protestations that he’d catch up to her.

  “Don’t you dare die, Destrye!” She ordered, sgath rising in her as it hadn’t for a long time. Not since they’d left Bára. In the darkness, ghostly white gleamed, like fog crawling in across the sand from the sea. Golems. “I love you, you cursed barbarian.”

  His teeth gleamed with his unexpected grin. “I know you do, sorceress.”

  ~ 13 ~

  Oria’s suppressed screech of inarticulate frustration did his heart good. Of course, hearing her admit she loved him, despite all the ways he’d failed her—and despite her own wishes, he suspected—did a great deal to bolster him, too.

  He’d won the regard of the most amazing woman he’d ever encountered. Something for the tales right there. Perhaps he’d finally satisfied his debt to Arill. Or would, by saving Oria and sending her safely to Dru.

  Stupid of him, to forget the golems might be out there. Low light confused their senses, but they still roamed at night. He’d been so focused on crossing the desert, so certain Yar had not pursued that he hadn’t thought to watch for the golems. Of course, Oria had insisted they’d all perished with their foul creator. He was sure she had not lied about that, which meant she’d been misled.

  No matter. This he knew how to do. It wasn’t entirely true that the warhorse couldn’t outrun the monsters. He could—but not with two on his back. Oria didn’t need more reasons to hesitate, however.

  The salt from her tears still lingered on his lips from that incredible kiss. She loved him. The knowledge filled him with power, and he burned to take down the golems.

  Oria screamed when the first leapt at him from the blackness of night, Buttercup dancing her out of the way. Hopefully she’d manage to stay astride—she did have a reasonably good seat, considering she’d never seen a horse before. Something to do with her magical communion with animals, he assumed. The scream had been for him. She clung to the saddle as he’d hoped, through Buttercup’s rearing when he struck out with iron-shod hooves, knocking aside the golems in his path. Hopefully they’d cleave a path for her quickly enough that she wouldn’t have to see him overcome.

  ‘Dozens,’ indeed. More like a hundred. But he had Chuffta to help, the derkesthai wheeling about to guard his back and the flanks he opened to attack as he swung the axe two-handed. The iron cleaved through two at once with the powerful stroke, sending the halves falling to the shadows at his feet. The things had no brains; the Destrye had learned that early on. It did no more good to cut their heads from their necks than to cut off a limb. They just kept coming.

  No, what worked best was to chop them at mid-chest level, separating the clawed hands and fanged mouths from the ambulatory body. The sharp parts couldn’t move and the relatively harmless body could only bump into him—until he stomped them with his iron-soled boots. Treacherous for wading in stone-bottomed oasis lakes. Perfect for battle with unnatural creatures.

  One part of him kept track of Oria, safe behind him thanks to Buttercup’s careful maneuvers. The training was meant to save injured soldiers but worked just as well for a foreign sorceress with no fighting skills. The rest of him focused on methodically cutting through the golems—and leading them away, back down the slight ridge they’d ascended. More of them around him meant fewer for Oria to flee, so he welcomed the onslaught.

  Liberating, too, in a way, not to have to reserve any of his strength.

  All out, in this final battle of his.

  Three golems snaked in on his unguarded left flank, claws sharp
as broken glass slicing through his side. He turned the pain into a bellow of fury, continuing the swing to the right and using the momentum to bring the axe around. Before he did, Chuffta dove in, the green fire hitting the three attackers, their fanged maws melting, their globous heads following. They staggered past, clawed hands waving in the air almost comically, until Chuffta’s fire finished them.

  Lonen laughed, exultant at their demise. Each one demolished put Oria one step closer to Dru and safety. He would die, but she would live. And she loved him. It was enough for any man’s life.

  He kept moving farther from Oria, judiciously at first, wary of her being cut off from him. Fortunately, the golems had ignored Oria for the most part. Were struck by the powerful hooves of the warhorse when they didn’t. The Destrye had seen this before. Though the mindless things would go through anything in their path—men, women, children, livestock and pets alike—they tended when attacking to focus on the warriors. Some instruction embedded in them, no doubt.

  Who knew? Perhaps something in them recognized Oria as Báran and thus not to be attacked unless necessary.

  And there. On that side, the tides of golems thinned. He whistled, catching the warhorse’s attention, then signaled. Before his hand dropped, Buttercup leapt, clearing several golems and trampling others. In the clear, he disappeared into the night, Oria’s white face turned back, looking for him.

  Buttercup galloped through the night and Oria clung to his back, holding to the saddle with both hands—still awkwardly hanging onto the knife, too—not even attempting to take the reins. The battle receded in their wake, all sounds of it fading into one more background desert noise. It had been eerily silent anyway, the golems making no sound, only punctuated by the hot rush of Chuffta’s fire, the hollow whumps of his beating wings, and Lonen’s bellows of pain and fury.

  She’d hear them for the rest of her life.

  Clenching her jaw to keep her teeth from clacking together, she thought furiously. No way could she leave them behind. Lonen would die—if he hadn’t already—overcome by those endless waves of attacking golems.

  They did look very like the menial worker golems of Bára. Those had become practically invisible to her eye, always a part of the background on the rare occasions she’d descended from her tower. Some priests had an affinity for glass, just as Yar had for stone, and some long-ago inventive sorcerer had employed his ingenuity to transform his relatively unglamorous talent for making drinking goblets and plates into forming creatures from the same materials. Not only glass replicas of animals, like those Oria had collected and had left behind with all her things, but living facsimiles of people.

  Close enough, anyway. Due to the nature of glass, the worker golems were mainly tubes with smooth-featured, globular heads, and attenuated arms and legs, finishing in fringes of fingers for grasping and manipulating. Possessing less intelligence than most animals, the worker golems could be set to perform repetitive tasks, usually those too boring or distasteful for Bárans to do themselves.

  Some, she knew, had been tailored to specific tasks. The ones set to cleaning the sewers and removing blockages tended to be smaller and skinnier, to fit more easily into the pipes. But none of them were like the ones that had attacked them.

  She’d seen them in Lonen’s mind before, but that somehow didn’t quite match the reality. Those gaping maws that took up most of their heads, overfilled with sharp-edged fangs with no purpose but to rend and kill. Those fringes of fingers made into scythes of claws good for nothing but slicing at living flesh.

  When her mother had explained the battle golems in the aftermath of Bára’s fall to their Destrye conquerors, she’d insisted that no one had intended them to kill the Destrye. Sisto claimed he’d found a way to create the golems with a kind of ongoing spell. It acted like a packet of sgath. He embedded them with both the command to carry out the task—to fill the barrels with water and bring them back—and also with the magic to keep them animated. No one realized that would result in them going through anything—or anyone—who stood in the way.

  Trained by the temple, Oria had excellent recall and she remembered those words clearly. The creatures she’d seen this night, however—they’d obviously been constructed to kill. She’d weep for what Sisto, and Bára, had done, but she’d left her tears behind with Lonen. His battle rage had swirled around him in arcs larger than the concentric circles he cleaved with his axe. With Chuffta weaving in and out of the pattern, they’d formed a kind of lethal dance, demolishing the golems and leading them away from her.

  But there had been so many. More and more pouring in from all around, filling the air with magic.

  They would be too much, even for a warrior as mighty as Lonen. And she was hurtling away from any hope of saving him.

  Not that she could do anything. Bereft of her own magic, so weak and—

  No. That wasn’t true. She felt tremendously better. Singing with sgath, in truth. But how could that be?

  …a kind of ongoing spell … like a packet of sgath … provided them with the magic to keep them animated.

  Packets of sgath from Bára. Each of those golems carried one. She summoned the memory, hearing her mother’s voice. …the Destrye began to fight back. They discovered that iron would kill Sisto’s golems by neutralizing the packet of sgath. He felt them die.

  The iron didn’t neutralize the packets of sgath—it released it. And she’d been right there, in a monsoon of sgath, as Lonen’s axe dropped the golems. No wonder she’d absorbed so much—even with her portals as closed as she could make them.

  Opening a narrow channel and reaching, she found Buttercup’s mind. Some wild magic leaked in around the edges, but she could withstand that for a time—because she must, if for no other reason. The hot-blooded gallop of thoughts from the stallion greeted her and her suggestion that they return to the fight with a rush of gladness. He bore great affection for his master and looked forward to battling beside him again.

  In truth, she did, too.

  She’d had enough of this being weak and worthless. If she couldn’t save the man she loved, then the rest meant nothing. Not even revenge.

  ~ 14 ~

  Though his arms—no, his entire body—had begun to fatally tire, Lonen fought on. The longer he stayed on his feet, the better chance Oria had of making it clear. He poured every drop of the unrealistic optimism she’d chided him for harboring into believing she could and would make it. The golems hadn’t come to the oasis, so maybe whatever magic kept wildlife away would also serve to keep her safe there. She’d find something to eat—or Chuffta would help her.

  After the next oasis, she’d be able to find naturally occurring fresh water before much longer. Buttercup would be her guide there. She’d make it to Dru, maybe even lead a long and fruitful life there. The Destrye would treat her… well, with honor, if nothing else.

  Green fire roared too close to his side, and he caught himself from stumbling farther into Chuffta’s line of attack. Claws sliced through his calf muscle above his boot, the pain penetrating the haze. Not claws. Fangs—a bodiless golem head clung to his leg by its razor-sharp teeth alone.

  Had Alby been here, he would have taken care of that kind of cleanup, and Lonen missed his squire dreadfully. Of course, had Alby been with him, Lonen would have sent him to protect Oria.

  In his moment of distraction, another golem leapt at him, sinking its fangs into his forearm as he hastily deflected the Arill-cursed creature. Long claws swiped at him—giving his throat a near-miss—so he jammed the haft of the battle-axe in the thing’s face, popping it free, taking a good chunk of flesh with it.

  Reversing the thrust, he batted the head off his leg, sending it spinning away into the ring of dismembered corpses all around him. The bits and pieces waved claws and gnashed fangs, looking oddly like a field of summer wheat waving in the morning light. Two more golems crawled spider-like over that rim, fangs and claws glinting with golden radiance. The sun was rising. In the tales, this w
ould mean some magical surcease from the attack, but in the real world no such serendipity would save him.

  He staggered again and the wounded leg gave, taking him to one knee. More than that recent bite getting to him, perhaps. He bled from dozens of lacerations. As many as there were towers in Bára, he thought to himself without humor. Just his fate, to be thinking of that cursed city as he faced his death. Instead he summoned Oria’s face, with her otherworldly beauty and sheen of fantastical magic. Or was that Arill’s face? The goddess, coming to take him the Hall of Warriors.

  Perhaps his transgressions had been forgiven after all.

  The white-winged derkesthai hovered before him, piercing green eyes replacing the vision.

  “Go,” he told Chuffta. “It’s over. Go to Oria, where you belong.”

  The Familiar swooped up, then circled around his head. A group of three golems joined the first two, spreading into a loose circle to surround him. They’d grown smarter somehow, nearly like wolves in their intelligence, forming simple strategies to harry him until he’d grown too weak to defend himself.

  He wobbled, concentrating on staying upright, not bothering to wipe away the blood that dripped into his eyes. At least he still held his axe. He’d die with it in hand. And Oria—she would live. Too bad he had no hope that she carried his child. Even his optimism wouldn’t take him that far. Unless Arill had performed a miracle?

  He’d fix on that. Arill had not only absolved him, she’d seen to it that his seed made his way into Oria. With her grit and determination, she’d see the pregnancy through. He could picture her as in the paintings of Arill as mother, her belly round and skin glowing with health and happiness. There. Oria would laugh at him for pulling out such an extraordinary feat of wishful thinking.

  Hazily, though the sweat and blood, he saw the golems approach, cautious, but with bladelike claws at the ready. Behind them someone human climbed the golem heap. His brothers Ion and Nolan, come to escort him to the Hall of Warriors. He should have known they wouldn’t let him die alone. No—it was Ion and their father. King Archimago frowned at him, holding out the wreath and sword of kingship. The image wavered, then resolved into one person, a flash of copper and crimson, blowing in a wind he couldn’t feel.