by Lucy Hounsom
The air burst open.
3
The Baioran Frontier, Acre
Hagdon
Remarkable, Hagdon mused, gazing at the distant temple that was Khronosta, its domes and towers looking as fragile as spun sugar. The structure was unfortified, without moat, drawbridge or battlements. In theory, it was a besieging army’s dream. In reality, it had never been captured. There was no point to a moat or reinforced walls when the temple and all its inhabitants could simply move elsewhere at the slightest threat. Or else-when, Hagdon corrected himself.
‘They need time to prepare their ritual,’ Iresonté said, as if reading his thoughts. ‘I don’t intend to give it to them.’
‘Time is their greatest weapon,’ he replied, his eyes still on the temple, wondering what was going on inside. The Khronostians weren’t usually so bold; they never stayed in one place longer than a week. ‘Perhaps they don’t intend to flee,’ he murmured.
‘When has Khronosta ever done otherwise?’
Hagdon heard the sneer in Iresonté’s voice and finally turned to look at her. She was a striking woman, dark-haired with the pale skin and paler eyes common in the north. A cruel woman, too, and not one he wished to make an enemy of, but she seemed to take offence at every word out of his mouth.
‘I wouldn’t be much of an officer if I didn’t consider the possibility.’ He touched the scar on his lip, an uncomfortable reminder of the last time he’d engaged the dualakat, the assassin-warriors of Khronosta. ‘Perhaps they feel the time has come to fight.’
Iresonté gave a reluctant grunt of agreement and turned away.
‘General.’ Carn, his bondsman and friend, staggered over, balancing a clattering stack of armour.
Hagdon reached out to steady the pile before it fell. ‘Why do you insist on carrying it all at once?’
Carn grinned and might have shrugged save for his precarious burden. He had a pleasing, open face that was just beginning to crease at the corners. His cropped hair was grey; Hagdon couldn’t remember it being otherwise. Carn had served as vassal to his father and was the only person Hagdon could bring himself to trust.
‘Are you sure about this, James?’ Carn asked as he fitted the red plate Hagdon had come to see as a second skin. ‘An assault on Khronosta?’ He glanced darkly in the temple’s direction. ‘It may be a trap.’
Hagdon grimaced, shrugged the left pauldron into a better position. The armour seemed to weigh more every day. ‘It’s possible,’ he said. ‘But orders are orders and they’ve been out in the open for weeks now. We may not get another chance. The emperor believes they’re behind the ambertrix shortage.’
‘How so? Where does ambertrix come from?’
Hagdon shook his head. ‘The best-kept secret in the empire. Only the emperor and his Thabarat technicians know and he’s worked hard to keep it that way.’
Carn secured the cloak to Hagdon’s shoulders and passed him the Sartyan general’s monstrous helm. Hagdon held it between his hands, staring into the eye holes. How many people had he killed while wearing it? Its bloody snarl would have been the last thing they saw in this world. Once, that had meant something to him. Now he felt nothing.
‘Just … be careful, James.’
‘Will you ever stop worrying over me?’
‘If you’d only manage to find yourself a partner, I wouldn’t have to.’
Hagdon shook his head. He tucked the helm under his arm and went to brief his officers.
It was a force of five hundred, chosen from the best of the Fist, that he led to the temple after sunset. The terrain favoured them, the rocky Baioran landscape offering cover almost to the foot of the low bluff on which the temple stood, looking incongruous amidst the arid landscape. His soldiers were ranged around the bluff, awaiting his signal, while Iresonté’s agents prepared to scale the walls, using the delicate carvings on the exterior as footholds. Hagdon traced a serpent with his eyes, following its body as it twined around a great wheel. The spokes were numbers, he saw, and each was part of a further wheel and further spokes until he lost sight of where he’d begun.
Once Iresonté’s agents were inside, they would open the gates for the rest of them. It would be quick and clean. In and out. Supposedly. But Hagdon hated to rely on stealth. More particularly, he hated to rely on men and women who weren’t his own. The temple’s obvious lack of defences disturbed him. It was almost too obvious.
No matter his disquiet, the attack would go ahead. If it didn’t, if they failed … he remembered the emperor’s eyes and suppressed a shiver.
‘There’s no need for you to risk yourself, General,’ Captain Analia whispered, as they awaited the signal. ‘We have our orders and Stealth Captain Iresonté’s agents are the best in the empire. She’s taking the field herself.’
Hagdon stiffened. ‘She is?’ It wasn’t what they’d agreed.
‘Captain Dyen saw her leading the group who’ll scale the walls from the west.’
The unease swirling around Hagdon’s belly grew stronger. While it was common military sense to realize no plan ever survived first contact with the enemy, he always ensured he went into battle with full knowledge of his troop placements, his own strengths and weaknesses – and the enemy’s. There was already too much they didn’t know about Khronosta. He’d have preferred to wait, to gather more intelligence, but the Davaratch was not known for his patience. Khronostian assassins had taken out too many key players in court, not to mention how close they’d come to infiltrating Thabarat, the ambertrix college of research. Hagdon should be relishing this opportunity to even the score. Instead he felt cold all over. This was wrong. And he never ignored his instincts.
‘Captain,’ he said quietly. ‘When we move on the gates, I want you to take half your company round to the south. The other half charges with me.’
Analia gave a single sharp nod. If she wondered why the plan was changing at the last minute, she kept it to herself. ‘Stay out of Iresonté’s sight,’ Hagdon added. ‘If I have need of you, I’ll send up a flare.’
As if to punctuate his statement, a green shower of sparks blazed overhead, burning brightly for a second before fading. ‘Iresonté’s agents are in,’ Hagdon said, nodding at the signal. See you on the other side.’ Analia saluted and turned to pass on his orders.
Hagdon’s troop broke cover, converging on the carved wooden gates just as they began to swing open. The courtyard beyond was more of an open-air passage which circled the inner temple. Pillars marched down its centre and around both corners, adding to the feeling of confinement. Although it looked deserted, the dualakat were known to strike suddenly and from the shadows. This could be suicide, he thought. Iresonté had estimated their numbers at less than fifty, but one dualakat was worth five of his elite.
Where was the stealth force? They were supposed to join him here. ‘Spread out.’ Hagdon passed the signal to Lieutenant Tara and in a few moments the passage was filled with red-armoured soldiers. The inner temple was a circular tower, domed, with two spires soaring up on either side. Grains of white sand rasped softly beneath Hagdon’s boots. The orange stone seemed exotic, every inch of it carved with arcane symbols. They pressed in on him, stealing his breath; he had an acute feeling of trespassing in a sacred place.
The soldiers’ mail was muffled; they made hardly a sound as they spread to cover the whole of the open area. Hagdon watched Tara complete a circuit. ‘Nothing,’ her hands said.
The gates banged shut behind them.
Heart pounding, Hagdon whipped round. Those he’d left to guard them lay sprawled, their blood soaking into the porous stone. A bell began to ring somewhere inside the temple and the flash of a yellow flare lit the sky – a signal and not one of his. Moments later, grey-bandaged figures stepped seemingly out of the air itself and into the courtyard, kali sticks held ready in their hands. Each wooden stick measured about two-thirds the length of Hagdon’s sword. They were far lighter, however, and the speed at which the Khronostians swung them was d
eadly.
Hagdon caught movement atop the gates and saw someone crouched there like a cat. Their face was covered, but they wore the black of the stealth force. He signalled them furiously – ‘Reopen the gates, secure an exit’ – but they slipped down the far side and out of sight. For a moment Hagdon felt only disbelief. Then he had to counter as a kali stick swept towards his neck, too fast for him to block with his shield.
He caught the blow on his sword instead and used the shield to force the Khronostian away from him. Tonight every one of his soldiers fought with a shield. No Sartyan could compete with the speed of the dualakat. It was far better to focus on defences – heavy armour, tower shields, long swords to keep the Khronostians at a distance. If they got in close, you were dead.
For several frenzied moments, it was all Hagdon could do to hold the warrior off. The bandages were wound thickly, their grey ends blowing free in the Khronostian’s wake as they ducked and wove, making the fight a dance. Hagdon’s attacks felt crude and clumsy by comparison. Eyes gleamed at him from between the face wrappings; the only other part not covered were the soles of the warrior’s feet.
The Khronostian’s speed increased and the figure began to blur. The dualakat weren’t only superb fighters; their power allowed them to slow time, making it seem as if they moved impossibly fast. Hagdon felt a sudden blow to his calf that staggered him and sent him to one knee. But luck must be smiling on him – another of his soldiers, fighting his own dualakat, lost his shield. It skidded spike-up across the stone towards Hagdon just as the Khronostian solidified to deal him the final blow. The warrior’s bare foot came down and the sharp point skewered it.
Hagdon moved fast. A thrust and two shield bashes sent the Khronostian tottering backwards, blood streaming from its injured foot. A low moan came from behind the bandages as the figure fell to one knee. Now that their positions were reversed, Hagdon didn’t hesitate – to hesitate with the dualakat was to die. He plunged his sword into the warrior’s chest.
Those eyes blinked once at the blade as Hagdon pulled it free. Blood swiftly turned the grey bandages arterial red; it bubbled from the Khronostian’s hidden mouth, which seemed to be trying to shape words. Despite himself, Hagdon bent down to hear. ‘Khronos,’ the warrior breathed. ‘Once the Kala is found … our people will … return from the shadows.’
The head lolled to one side, rasping breath stilled. On a strange impulse, Hagdon reached down and tugged free the bandages around his opponent’s face.
A woman looked up at him blankly, her green eyes fixed. One of her cheeks was liver-spotted with age; the other as smooth and unmarked as an infant’s. Hagdon backed away, stung by the dead gaze, the shocking patchwork of flesh. He scanned the courtyard and saw more red-mailed bodies prone than standing.
‘Tara!’ he yelled and the lieutenant – about to help a fellow soldier – turned instead towards him. ‘Get these gates open,’ Hagdon said, ‘and get our soldiers out. As many as we can save.’
‘The stealth force—’
‘Abandoned us,’ Hagdon snarled, thinking of the black-clad figure perched on the gates. ‘They let us in and left us to die.’
Blood flecked one of Tara’s paling cheeks. ‘What? Why?’
‘I will know,’ Hagdon vowed, ‘but now we get our soldiers out.’
While Lieutenant Tara sounded a retreat, Hagdon made for the gates, lashing out at those dualakat battling his forces. A couple he caught off guard with his charge, knocking one unconscious. His intervention was enough to turn one small fight in his soldiers’ favour. Three-on-one, they dispatched the Khronostian with chill efficiency and Hagdon swept them up on his way to the gates.
They wouldn’t open. A simple bar was all that secured them from this side, but it wasn’t lowered. Something on the outside, then – Iresonté had locked them in. Hagdon cursed, thumping his mailed fist on the wood. When he turned to look back at the courtyard, he saw a massacre. A few grey-wrapped bodies lay among the dead, but otherwise the ground was a sea of red. Perhaps thirty Sartyans remained standing – the same number as there were Khronostians. Had the dualakat routed them with so few?
‘Open these gates!’ Hagdon thudded his fist into the wood again. He wouldn’t die here, wouldn’t let Iresonté get away with treason. She’d planned this out, she must have, and the stealth force she’d brought along tonight would all be implicated in it. The scale of her betrayal was staggering.
‘There’s a bar and chain through the handles of the gates, sir.’
‘Dyen!’ Hagdon called. The captain was one of those he’d left to hold the gates.
‘I’m working to get them free, sir, but … I think my arm’s broken. Someone attacked us – from behind. The dualakat must have had warning.’
Hagdon ground his teeth. His soldiers would not have expected an attack from the rear, not when they knew the stealth force supposedly guarded them.
Analia, he remembered, cursing the panic that fogged his mind. He groped for the flare, but it was gone, ripped from his belt in the melee. ‘Dyen,’ it emerged as a gasp, ‘do you still have your flare? Captain Analia has men to the south.’ If Iresonté hasn’t also ambushed them, he thought.
He heard Dyen’s hiss of pain as he was forced to use both hands to light the flare. Red streaked the sky and, slightly more hopeful, Hagdon turned his attention back to the battle.
Exhausted by the unrelenting speed of the dualakat, his soldiers were barely holding their own. Hagdon rushed to one group’s aid, laying about him with a fury fuelled by the bitterness of Iresonté’s betrayal. The emperor would hear of this, he vowed, as soon as he returned to camp. The ambertrix receiver had enough power left for one conversation.
He slashed at a grey body, but the Khronostian leapt back, agile amongst the corpses that littered the courtyard. The orange stone seemed thirsty for blood – only stains remained as a patina on its surface. Shouts reached Hagdon and he gave silent thanks when he heard Analia’s voice barking an order. After another second of fierce fighting, hammering began on the gates, the regular thunder and fall of axes biting into wood.
The gates weren’t built to keep out an army – or even fifty soldiers with axes. With a crack, they splintered, shards spraying those closest. Captain Analia’s half-company poured inside, kicking bits of wood out of their way. ‘Injured,’ Hagdon called, ‘get the injured out!’
‘Sir,’ Analia said, ‘you must go. We’ll hold them.’
Hagdon found himself shaking his head, feeling a tickle as blood seeped from one nostril. He wiped it, but the metal of his gauntlet merely smeared it across his skin. ‘Get the injured out,’ he repeated before turning to stalk through the field of his own dead. With a cry, he fell on the dualakat battling Lieutenant Tara, sweeping his spiked shield down and out to catch the warrior across the hip as they disengaged. The Khronostian staggered and Tara took the chance to stab the bandaged figure through the eye. A moment later, she doubled over, hand to her ribs and Hagdon seized hold of her, draping one of her arms over his shoulder. ‘Cracked,’ she breathed. ‘Damn greyface.’
When he reached the gates and looked back, it was to see Analia’s force making a last stand. Whittled down to twenty, they stood shoulder to shoulder, their shields slotted together to form a wall. ‘Captain!’ Hagdon shouted. ‘Get your men out of there.’ Analia glanced over her shoulder and spared him a grim nod before calling retreat.
Bloodied, beaten, they pulled back from the orange-stoned temple, leaving their dead in the enemy’s care. Hagdon’s nose was still bleeding, but, clutching sword, shield and supporting Lieutenant Tara, he couldn’t spare a hand to wipe it.
Were he the Khronostian commander, he would not have hesitated to send out warriors to nip and harry a defeated foe, but when he glanced back, the ranks of dualakat merely stood there, stone-still in the splinters of their ruined gates. In their midst was a cowled, bent figure, leaning on a staff. ‘Why?’ Hagdon wondered. ‘Why do they not finish us?’
‘Because t
hey know they can,’ Tara said and he realized he’d spoken the question aloud. ‘Their mercy is nothing more than a message of contempt to the emperor.’
Hagdon grimaced. The Khronostians didn’t fear him; they didn’t fear the might of Sartya and they didn’t fear the emperor. After years of running and hiding, striking, retreating to the shadows, they had come into the open and had held their ground. Something had changed. Again he saw the green eyes of the dead woman. What had she said? Once the Kala is found …
As Hagdon stumbled with his wounded comrade into the concealing darkness, a voice called out to them, carried on the hissing wind.
‘Come, Sartya,’ it said, ‘throw your men at our walls. When Khronos, our Kala, arrives to lead us, your time in the light is ended.’
4
The Hoarlands, Acre
Kyndra
It seemed as though they were surrounded by people on horseback. But there were no horses; the figures floated, bodiless and indistinct, as if seen through mist. A moment later, Kyndra realized it was mist.
Arms and heads coalesced, faded and coalesced. The figures writhed, unable to hold their forms for long, but more were appearing. They converged on the party from every side. Kyndra dismounted and urged her stallion closer to the others, the six of them backing into a defensive circle, holding tightly to their horses’ reins.
‘I can’t touch the Solar,’ Kait said. She whipped the knife from her belt and slashed at the nearest figure, whose ghostly hands hovered inches from her chest, but the blade passed right through. As she raised her fist again, Medavle caught it.
‘It’s no use,’ he said, gazing at the spectral host.
One of the figures sharpened, leaving the others to fray almost to nothing. A face formed, featureless save for two eyes and a ragged slit of a mouth. The mist shrouded it in pale robes and its voice hissed like wind over sand. The words made no sense to Kyndra, but Medavle’s eyes widened. ‘Acrean,’ he said.
