Gern and I went down and stepped through the gates. The single man who had come forward was unremarkable. Gern cut the palm of his hand and offered the blade to the man.
“What is this?” he asked.
“A requirement for anyone who wants to come through. No Hessier are allowed.”
The man laughed. “Madam Yentif, this is embarrassing.”
“I do not understand your humor, sir,” I said. “Where is Aden? What is going on here?”
“Simple girl. Aden is safe from your archers. You will give me your child, or Enhedu will burn.”
“What?”
“Do not try to play dumb or delay. You have insulted my master with this wall of yours. Bring the child.”
Aden is a Hessier!
Gern looked back at me for permission to kill the man.
“You still do not understand, do you?” the man said. “Your opposition would be fruitless. But there is no need for such expense. Your druid and your prince are away. You have no defenses. Sikhek is dead. Bessradi belongs to us now. Your prince will have his day at the Council, and he will return. You may stay here. You can keep Enhedu and all you have built. Aden asks only for one Vesteal—your child. Take me to the child now, please, and there will be no bloodshed.”
“Please? You ask me to give you my daughter, and you say please? Tell me where he is in the crowd, and I’ll walk you through the gates and spare your life.”
“He knows your bows—your army. He is far away. Please, we must go …”
He kept talking, but I’d stopped listening. I searched the crowd for the man who meant to steal my child. The sea of downturned faces gave him away. A single pair of eyes looked at us from behind one of the cook pots. He was not so far away.
“There,” I screamed and pointed.
Gern planted his dagger in the man’s head and added his voice to mine, “Quick order! Archers, fire at will. Fire at will.”
Arrows stabbed toward Aden, and it seemed certain he would be struck, but each was bent up and away. The shafts came nowhere near him and rained down upon the disinterested mob.
“Back,” Gern called. “Dia, get back!”
I turned and ran.
A crackling roar shook the wall, and I was slammed to the ground. Black smoke and a wet mist pressed me down. The world was covered in flames.
A mass struck me with a grunt and growl. I was lifted up into the flames and carried away. My cries of pain were drowned out by Gern’s ferocious scream. It shocked me silent, and I willed the burning man to run.
Something else knocked us to the ground, and I lost all sense of my surroundings as I tumbled down. I could not see or breathe.
The blue light of the Spirit stole away my madness and pain. I gathered up her love and longed to stay in her embrace. Screams yanked me back.
Gern and I were beneath a layer of overcoats. A score of men crowded close. They lifted us and the exhausted healers who’d saved us, and together we ran.
The wall around the gate had been blasted down and burned. A roar of voices carried over the flames.
“Order, fire,” Bohn called, and thousands of arrows stabbed toward the sound.
Yet they came. Through the rain of arrows and the wall of flames, the children of Edonia charged as if from the hell of darkest dreams. Thousands perished. The icy grip of Hessier crawled up toward us.
“Retreat,” Gern ordered, and the Chaukai turned and ran. I jumped atop a horse and fled north with the rest. The infantry jammed the road.
“Make way,” Gern called as we rode ahead.
“Where to?” I asked.
“The bridge,” he said. “We’ll get across and collapse it.”
“But you’ll trap the men on the west side.”
“We would all lay down for the child. We must get Clea to safety.”
His plan couldn’t be all that was left to us. A quarter-million people were there—all of them my brothers and sisters. We could not leave them to be consumed by the Hessier and run.
We made it to Ojesti. Below the ridge to the southwest, the Chaukai ran for their lives from a dark mass of screaming slaves.
I yelled to the people in the village, “Run. Everyone, run. Across the bridge if you want to live. Run.”
Gern waited for no one and led us down and across the bridge. He made his way to a heavy barge tied onto the landing below the east side of the bridge, calling men to him as he went. They tied the barge onto the center supports of the bridge with heavy rope and set it adrift. The river carried the barge quickly to the end of this tether.
“Run,” we yelled to those streaming across the bridge. The barge lurched to a stop, the bridge shook, and the people upon it screamed.
“Come on,” Gern shouted, and with each passing moment we expected to see them all fall into the water. But the bridge held. “Rotting, stubborn old bridge. Fall, damn you. Fall!”
Back atop the ridge, Ojesti began to glow. The flash and screams knocked us back a pace. The entire ridge was on fire.
“Launch a second barge,” I said, but our time was up. The people still upon the road began to glow. One after another popped in a gush of flames as if it was their very blood that was burning.
The men upon the barge began to glow, and a great flash consumed the craft. The lines snapped and the burning barge started downriver.
“Back to Urnedi,” Gern said to me. “We’ll flee with Clea.”
We made straight for the keep.
Fana, Umera, and Pemini were there with Lilly and the children. They had horses, supplies, and the garrison ready to move. Pemini had hold of Clea.
“We go,” I said, and there was no debate. Everyone started down the stairs toward the waiting horses. Jescia was there, and I found some hope at the sight of her.
“Give me the child,” a greencoat said and took hold of my arm. The man teetered drunkenly. The rest aimed spears at him.
“The child,” said a second.
Umera handed her daughter to the man and walked with them back up the stairs. Two more Chaukai lost their will and followed.
“Umera?” I asked.
She looked back at me. “Go,” she mouthed.
Pemini pulled me the rest of the way down, and we fled east through the palisade.
When we reached the road beyond the gatehouse, Umera’s scream broke over us. It pierced my heart.
I felt the glow behind us and a great wash of flames lit the sky. Urnedi was no more.
81
Prince Evand Yentif
Kalyn and I were in the courtyard of the Ash Row house upon our horses and in our armor when the bells began to toll.
Liv opened the carriage doors for us, blew me a kiss, and locked the doors behind us.
The streets were deserted. Bessradi was well trained for such events, and the holiday crowds that had gathered to welcome the arilas for the Council meeting had all withdrawn inside after the parades. The only people upon the streets were the militias and the Hemari.
We started toward the barracks. The men of the 1st and the 3rd were doing the same from all points within the city. We rode in behind a half company while the bells fell silent, and all eyes looked to the staff that stabbed up from the top of the Chancellery and the immense pennant that bore my father’s name.
Close to 4,000 Hemari infantry from the 1st and another 2,000 of cavalry from the 3rd had already assembled upon the practice field. General Sonsol was not on station—likely on his way to the Chancellery. Most of his colonels were there. They stood at the top end of the field near the entrance to the largest of the barracks. The triangle of field sloped down toward the river, and a brigade of Hurdu was riding north toward the palace and the Chancellery. Bendent and Yarik seemed to have their coup well in hand. But they had not planned on Rahan sailing in, and they sure as hell had not planned on me.
I found us a spot to the left of the gathering officers with a view of the entire field.
“Now?” Kalyn asked.
“N
ot yet,” I said. “We wait for the pennant to change.”
The young man was eager, and the waiting did him no good. He filled the armor he wore after the half season we’d spent sparring, and the sword on his hip was a heavy broadsword, same as mine.
I loved every moment there upon Marrow. I was not in the Council chamber. I would not be the Exaltier, and the man whose name I waited to see was one I would gladly serve.
“Any time now, Rahan,” I said and glanced back at the pennant.
A captain arriving late stopped near us to search for his company. He turned to me. “Afternoon, Colonel. Any word on how it happened?”
“One of his sons killed him,” I said.
“Which?”
“Not me,” I said, and the young captain noticed the insignia of the 5th upon my sleeves. He stammered, lost his color, and rode away to find his men.
The companies upon the slope began to notice me as well.
Riders began to arrive. Each was reporting the status of a gatehouse or bridge. Each would be at double strength with the 3rd in the city—seventy towers manned by a half company each. The colonel in charge had his list and checked off one location after another as the riders reported that all was well.
A murmur through the crowd pointed every man north. My father’s name descended, and up went Rahan’s.
“Who?” Kalyn asked. “Rahan. Rahan who? Yentif? Yentif!”
The men upon the field were having the same reaction. The officers began to yell them into shape. The colonels were animated and unsure. They’d all expected it to be Yarik, and to end the day his generals.
I drew my sword and rode across the top of the field toward them.
“My name is Evand Yentif!” I declared. “Loyal son of Zoviya. I am taking command of the Hemari in the name of Rahan Yentif!”
The cascade of boos was not as loud as I expected. The officers protested the loudest but gave no orders. I handed Marrow’s reins to Kalyn, dismounted, and stepped toward the dozen colonels and attending captains with broadsword and shield.
I said to the first man there, “Do you renew your Hemari oath to Rahan?”
“No, I—”
I smashed his head open with an overhand chop of steel and said to the next, “And you, sir?”
“Kill him,” the senior colonel said, and men started toward me from every direction.
The officers were not armed and armored as they should have been. The first that came forward had forgotten this and was not expecting my long thrust to pierce his shoulder. I smash aside the sword of the next with my shield and hewed open his chest.
“Hemari!” I bellowed, parried the stab of a sword, and cut down a pair of captains. “Rally! Hemari!”
The rest of the officers were upon me then—a man to my left and right, and seven rushing straight at me. “For Rahan!” I cried, and charged straight at them.
Steel met steel, and Grano’s armor served me well as I got into the mix. I slammed the man in the middle, flat on his back, and killed the man to his right with a backhand that caught his chin. I turned a half circle to my left, planted my feet, and killed all five men there with hard and fast overhand stabs.
The senior colonel tried a thrust of spear from my right, but I ducked into it and the spear glanced off the top of my helmet. I bashed his spear to the ground, charged in, and gutted the man as he scrambled back from me.
I spun and crouched behind my shield. Four captains with spears and a colonel with an ornamental sword had come up fast. I deflected two hard thrusts to my left at great cost to my shield, and parried a third up and to the right with my sword. The fourth captain’s thrust was low, and I let it pass under my right arm. I locked my arm down upon it, spun right and levered the spear out of his hands with the flat of my shield. My turn was fast, and still spinning right, I split the disarmed captain’s skull with a vicious chop, and followed on with a straight thrust that broke the colonel’s toy sword and punctured his neck.
A thrust of a spear caught the right side of my helmet and tore it away. My ears rang, but I got my shield up in time to take the second smart thrust. The heavy spear punctured the shield, and its owner could not get it free. I charged him, deflected the stab of a second spear, and with cuts left and right, killed the last of the officers.
The rest of the Hemari upon the field were almost upon me.
I planted my maimed sword in the chest of the senior colonel, flung my broken shield aside, and tore the insignia of the 5th from my shoulders. “Hemari!” I cried above the choir of dying officers, and took hold of a heavy spear, “Hemari!”
The first of the men sprinting toward me came on too fast with his sword held high. I put the tip of the spear into his armpit and levered him off to the left with a crash of blue.
“Hemari!” shouted the next man up, and as he came he tore the insignia of the 1st from his sleeve. A trio of old line sergeants behind him had already torn their coats, and they added their voice to his, “Hemari, rally!”
They turned and faced the rest with me. Some below slowed. Lieutenants all across the field were calling their men into formation. Those that kept moving littered the field with their insignias and formed up with us.
We were sixty guardsmen with a trio of gnarled sergeants when the first solid group of 1st division men came up. I stepped forward of the ranks, pointed at the men before me, and asked, “Are you a Hemari?”
The trio in the center paused their advance. I killed the men to their right and left that kept coming with long and savage stabs of my spear.
“Hemari!” I called, and it was returned by the men behind me.
The trio tore their insignia. One was stabbed in the back, and the ranks roared with anger at the man who had done it. He was cut down, and the rest of the company joined us.
“Horse!” I called, and Kalyn raced in with Marrow. I jumped aloft and ordered my small force into line.
The view down the hill was not what I’d wished. Never this!
Men with shoulders bare were being cut down all across the field. Pockets here and there were holding their own, but everywhere I looked the Hemari were destroying themselves.
“Hold!” I cried “Hold, Hemari! Brothers, join me!”
But the battle had begun. Old and new were fighting to the death. To my right, the battalion of 3rd division cavalry was on its way toward us across the stone walk between the barracks and the field. And below us, three companies of 1st division infantry were forming proper ranks.
“Order, wheel right, and phalanx forward,” I said, and we turned to face the 3rd. The colonel in command ordered a charge, and he seemed intent upon flinging his Akal-Tak straight at me. Spears and shields formed up around me as the mighty horses galloped straight for us.
I felt as though I was falling.
The ground shook.
“Hessier!” someone cried before the black grip stole the fire from my heart and all of my will. I sank forward, and Marrow laid herself down as I tumbled from the saddle.
82
Geart Goib
Five Hessier entered the deserted well of the Tanayon Assembly Hall and stood before us like statues. They had drawn all the surrounding magic of the Shadow to their bodies but did nothing more.
Ryat and Avin were close behind me.
“You are made differently,” I said to the Hessier. “The song that made you—it is different than the one that Sikhek uses.”
They did not answer, but I did not need them to. I could see the difference. The Shadow was not in the Ashmari’s blood like it was with Sikhek’s Hessier, it was in their bones.
“Well, that’s not good at all, is it?” I said. “Yes. Look at you. Each bone of your bodies needed to be sung to and bound with mercury. You lot are expensive. Stupider, too, and just as easy to see if you know what to look for. Hell of a lot easier to kill, too. Ahh, but stupid means loyal. The Shadow loves you.”
“We are not easier to kill,” said one. “We are superior.”
“We’ll see about that. Where is Parsatayn?” I asked.
“He has taken command of the city, and he desires that you join him.”
“And how do you hope to convince me to do that?”
They looked passed me to Avin and began to sing a song that would kill him.
No.
I had no choice but to sing.
draw mercury
Two of the five fell as the mercury exploded from them. The others gave up their song to perfect their defenses. They did nothing to protect themselves from my poleaxe. I drove its head through the eye of the first before he could move, and hacked open the head of a second with a sweeping chop of the blade end. They were slow—like old and tired men. The last started singing again without concern for my weapon. I swept him off his feet and stepped over him.
‘Burn him,’ the Shadow whispered.
I wanted to do it. The heat of his death would be beautiful, but I was too long a Hemari to not use the weapon in my hands.
“You are to sing,” the Ashmari said up at me. “The Shadow wants you to sing.”
“Yes, I know,” I said to him and staked his head to the floor with the pike atop my poleaxe. “Sorry to disappointment you.”
“Geart, time to go,” Avin said.
The magic that bound the dead Ashmari together was failing. The misery of their tortured souls spilled free and bathed me in cold beauty.
“Geart, hurry. We must away,” Avin said and took my arm. “Soldiers!”
I lost my thoughts for a moment. “I’m cold.”
Ryat and Avin fled passed me, a pikeman in pursuit. Something clanged on the back of my shoulder.
‘Burn them,’ my Father whispered. I only needed to take the verb he offered, and the inferior men around me would be gone.
“No,” I said, and leapt after the pikeman. The long head of my poleaxe punctured his back, and he went down squirting blood from both sides.
“Stay behind me,” I said to them and turned. A hundred men blocked our way back up the stairs into the cathedral. Four of them were already before me with weapons raised. Rage grabbed my guts. I took the verb my Father offered and reached out to burn them all.
Tanayon Born Page 9
