Kings of Ruin (Kingdoms of Sand Book 1)

by Daniel Arenson

  Taeer turned back toward her, and Ofeer's heart missed a beat. There was light in Taeer's eyes, golden, all-seeing. Tendrils of luminescence wove around her fingertips.

  "There's more than one way to build an empire," said the lumer. "For here in Zohar shines an empire of light. This empire has no soaring towers, no great temples, no earthly glory, for she is woven of splendor."

  "What do you want?" Ofeer rose to her feet, and though her head still spun, this time she remained standing. "You didn't come here to show off your magic tricks."

  Taeer rose too. Ofeer felt small before her, weak, naive and young, nothing but a waif of a girl. The lumer was taller, curved in the places that men liked, and beautiful with her red lips and deep eyes, and suddenly jealousy filled Ofeer that such an enchantress was bonded to Seneca, had spent so many years at his side. A horrible vision filled Ofeer—a vision of Taeer making love to him. Ofeer had seen the scratches and tooth marks on Seneca's naked flesh, and in her stupor, she had thought them injuries from battle, yet now she wasn't so sure.

  "I came here to tell you two truths," said Taeer the lumer. "The first I already told you: that your mother loves you."

  "That is a lie," Ofeer whispered, but of this too she was unsure.

  Taeer ignored her. "The second truth you already know, though you drown it under your shame and pride. Your mother told you this truth before you ran from her, the truth of who your father is." The lumer leaned closer, stroked Ofeer's hair, and whispered into her ear. "You are the child of an emperor."

  Ofeer tried to shove the woman, but suddenly Taeer was several feet away, then gone into shadows. Ofeer's knees wobbled, and she fell onto the sand. A wave rose from the sea, dampening her hair, entering her nostrils.

  "No," Ofeer whispered, sand and salty water in her mouth. "Lies. They all lie to me. They all . . ." She pushed herself onto her elbows and lowered her head, her hair hanging down into the water. "I fucked my brother. Oh God above, I fucked my own brother."

  The words, coming out of her mouth like that, made her laugh.

  She laughed and laughed until her cheeks hurt, until her sides ached, and she fell onto her back and laughed some more, laughing with as much pain and abandon as when he had fucked her.

  It's true, it's true, it's true.

  Ofeer stood up and walked into the sea until the water rose to her knees, soaking her toga. She raised her arms, letting the garment fall into the water, and laughed at the moon and the sea.

  "I wanted to become the wife of a prince, to return with him as his prize." She tasted the sea on her lips. "But I will be an empress."

  PORCIA

  They were only hours into Zohar when she saw a hive of the rats.

  The village nestled in a valley, a backwater of several brick houses, a few gardens, a pen of sheep, and a small stone temple. The place could not have supported more than a hundred souls. Rocky hills rose around the village, thick with granite boulders and pines.

  "Look, Worm," Porcia said, riding at the lead of her legions. "Your countrymen! Fellow maggots to crush."

  Worm walked at her side, clad in rags, her iron collar caked with mud. Her left eye was still puffy, her back still striped. Her eyes dampened.

  "Yes, domina." The lumer dared not meet her eyes. "You will crush them."

  Behind them, fifteen thousand legionaries marched and rode along the dirt path that snaked between the hills and valleys of Erez, the northern wilderness of Zohar. Porcia had brought a thousand horses with her, and the beasts were struggling. The paths here were narrow, the hills steep, but the cavalry would prove itself invaluable once they reached the desert. At Beth Eloh, a few days south from here, their true test waited.

  But here . . . here we can whet our appetite.

  "Look there, Worm." Porcia pointed at a distant mountain shaped like a camel's hump. On its crest rose a walled town, a fortress in its center, still several leagues away. "The fortress of Ma'oz. More rats cower there. They can see us now. Do you think they'll storm forth to challenge us, or will they hide behind their walls like good rats?"

  Worm looked at her feet. "I think they'll hide."

  "I do too." Porcia led her horse around a boulder that had fallen onto the path. "You see, Worm, your kind are weak, sniveling little creatures, misshapen, hideous with your swarthy, hairy skin, your minds no sharper than that of my horse. But more than anything, a Zoharite is cowardly. He hides behind walls when superior races would fight for honor."

  Worm raised her eyes, just a flick, then her mouth closed tightly. She lowered her head again, perhaps remembering Porcia's many beatings, and nodded. "We are cowardly."

  Below in the village, a few farmers raised their heads, saw the host approach from the mountains, and cried out in fear. More people emerged from the stone houses and began to flee, racing toward the distant fortified mountain.

  "The first catch of the day." Porcia licked her lips, already imagining the taste of blood. "Legions! Quench your thirst. Tear down the rats. Swift as eagles!"

  "Swift as eagles!" they cried . . . and charged.

  Porcia kneed her horse and galloped. The wind billowed her red cloak and her helmet's crest. Behind her, the roar of the legions tore across the land. The rats scurried out from their homes, mothers holding babes, fathers turning toward the legions with pitchforks and breadknives. Sheep bleated.

  "We came!" Porcia shouted, galloping downhill into the valley. "We saw!" She grinned savagely and thrust her spear. "We killed."

  Her spear thrust into a mother's back, crashing through her torso, through her babe, emerging with a shower of blood.

  The cavalry charged through the town, trampling gardens, trampling children. Porcia laughed as she fought, as she cut them down. A few villagers tried to attack, waving their sickles. Porcia swung her gladius, severing a man's arm, and galloped past him. She knocked down a toddler, and her horse's hooves snapped the child's bones and crushed his skull.

  A few Zoharites managed to flee the village, to run up a rocky slope where no horse could ride. Porcia grabbed the crossbow that hung from her saddle, closed one eye, and aimed.

  "This isn't a battle," she whispered, raising the crossbow toward a fleeing woman. "This is a rat hunt."

  She fired.

  Her quarrel crashed into the woman's back.

  Porcia loaded another quarrel and cranked the string back.

  "I came." She shot down a limping elder. "I saw." Her quarrel tore through a young boy. "I killed." She shot again, slaying a mother. The woman's babe fell from her lifeless arms.

  Porcia looked around her. Corpses lay across the village, cut and crushed. The legionaries stood between the houses, atop the hills, across the fields, roaring for victory. A few men were looting already, feasting on fruit, bread, and mutton. No village men or boys survived, but a handful of legionaries were dragging a young woman into a home. It was a habit her father frowned upon, Porcia knew, but one she allowed her men. Glory alone could not sustain the legions. That was what her father did not grasp. It was the spoils of war—hearty village food, treasures of gold, and foreign women—that her men craved more than honor.

  Men care more for conquering cunts than kingdoms, she thought.

  Porcia wanted to join the festivities when she heard the shrill sound. A baby crying. The sound came from the hills where Porcia had shot those attempting to flee.

  A grin stretched across her face, and Porcia dismounted her horse. She climbed uphill, moving between the granite boulders, the pines, and the corpses. The urchin's cry rose louder. Porcia followed the sound and found the baby trapped under his mother's corpse. A little boy. Freshly circumcised, by the looks of it—a habit of these heathens.

  "I will cut more than your little cock," Porcia cooed.

  She drew her dagger. She silenced the screams.

  She tossed both babe and dagger aside. She knelt by the corpse of its mother and flipped the woman onto her stomach. A young one. Couldn't have been older than sixteen. Pretty, Po
rcia thought, despite the dark hair.

  Prey for eagles.

  Porcia needed no blade for this work. Her fingers were talons. She was a mighty eagle, and she ripped into her prey, digging, cracking open the ribs. Her talons reached deep, wrapped around the heart, and tore it free.

  "Swift as eagles." Porcia rose to her feet, holding the heart above her head. The hot blood dripped onto her helmet and ran down her face. "For the glory of Aelar!"

  A few legionaries cheered, but most simply stared. They too were weak. They had grown accustomed to fighting under her father. To hesitate. To show their enemy mercy. Porcia would cut that weakness out of them as surely as she'd cut out this heart.

  She brought the dripping organ to her lips, and she tore into it, tugging chunks free, feasting.

  "I eat the heart of a woman!" she cried, voice rolling across the valley and hills. "And now we head toward the heart of a nation. We march to Beth Eloh! There too shall we feast."

  She licked the blood off her lips. She would devour all this land. All the hearts of Zohar would be hers. She would make this a land of her conquest, of her glory, of her hunger. She would return to Aelar leaving a graveyard, a wasteland of bones. She would return as a great conqueror, return to become her father's heir.

  Soon Zohar will be mine. And then the Empire.

  She rode on, leaving the corpses to rot. The worm walked at her side, while the legions snaked behind her on the dirt path. Behind them, the vultures feasted.

  As she rode between the hills, Porcia glanced up toward Ma'oz, the walled town and fortress on the mountaintop. She smiled thinly.

  "You were right, Worm," she said to the lumer who walked beside her. "The rats remained behind their walls. We will leave them there to cower. But the walls of Beth Eloh will fall before us."

  "Yes, domina," said Worm, eyes downcast, her rags stained with blood.

  Porcia swallowed her last bite of heart and rode on.

  JERAEL

  "Can you build them?" Jerael said. "Just like those."

  Master Malaci stood on the wall with him, gazing at the field. He was a scrawny old man, robed in homespun, his beard long and white. He leaned over the battlements, squinting and blinking, struggling to bring the view into focus. In the fields outside the city rose the enemy catapults, trebuchets, and ballistae, armed with boulders, barrels of oil, and iron bolts.

  "Those are things of war, Jerael." The old sage's voice was high pitched and breathy. "Machines to kill, to destroy, to crush."

  Jerael nodded. "Which they've been doing. To us. Which is why we need some of our own."

  The old man huffed, raised his chin, and straightened to his full height—which was firmly below Jerael's shoulders. "I am a man of knowledge, Jerael Sela. A man of scrolls, of medicine, of astronomy, of lore. Never of violence. I detest violence, for it's a thing of darkness, and I serve life."

  Jerael sighed and placed a hand on Malaci's shoulder. "And we're blessed to have such a righteous man in our city. I—"

  A catapult clanked in the field. A boulder flew toward them. Across the wall, a hundred Zoharite soldiers grimaced and knelt.

  Jerael cursed, ducked, and shielded Malaci with his body. The boulder slammed into the battlements before them. Bricks and dust flew. The wall shook. Other boulders sailed overhead, cleared the wall, and slammed into the city. Roofs shattered. Screams rose from below, and a woman wailed, calling out the names of her loved ones.

  Jerael straightened and pulled Malaci back to his feet; the old man had fallen to his knees.

  "Do you see, Jerael, what tools of war can do?" Malaci stared at the ravaged city, eyes damp. "So much destruction. So many lives lost. I will take no part in such horrors." He puffed out his frail chest. "How could I contribute to this violence?"

  "Dear Malaci." Jerael dusted rubble off the old man's shoulders. "You've been a friend all my life. When I was but a boy, I admired you more than any warrior or prince. You were—and are—a man of scrolls. Of knowledge. A man who builds rather than destroys. You are the model of a Zoharite, humble and wise. You do not wish to kill. You care for life. Yet now, Malaci, our life is in peril. Now I need your mind and hands to protect life."

  Malaci stared at the city, then back toward the legions and machines in the field. A sigh ran through him, and when he spoke again, his voice was low, somber.

  "Do you think you can win this, Jerael?"

  "I don't know." Jerael gazed toward his home on Pine Hill, at the eagle flag that rose atop it. "They outnumber us, and many more might be sailing our way even as we speak. Even should my family return with aid, I don't know if it'll be enough." He stared into Malaci's eyes. "But I know this. Zohar has survived in this land for three thousand years. We survived many wars. We survived slavery in Nur and captivity in Sekadia. Even when our halls fell, we rose again. I believe that we'll withstand this storm too. But I still need your mind. Not because I crave to kill the enemy, but because I want to protect all that we've built here. My daughter. Your scrolls and the knowledge within them. Fifty thousand souls in Gefen, and a million souls that live in this kingdom. We must protect them, Malaci. I with my sword and you with your mind."

  Malaci lowered his head, shoulders stooping, then looked up with damp eyes and nodded. "I will build you catapults, Jerael Sela. I will build you trebuchets. Give me a hundred workers, and I will mount weapons upon our walls."

  Leaning on his staff, the old man descended the staircase that led to the courtyard. Jerael remained on the wall, here with his soldiers, staring eastward, staring at the forces besieging his home.

  Please, God, he prayed silently. Let my wife and daughter return with aid from the city. Let my boys return with aid from the hills. Protect us, Lord of Light. Shine your light upon us.

  Yet no answer came from his god. Jerael wondered, as he had wondered nineteen years ago in Cadom, whether Eloh had abandoned them—whether he truly existed at all. What if Zohar had no shepherd, no guardian above? What if there were no gods, if the world were but a stage where men wrote their own plays? If God truly existed, how could Jerael's brother, brave Eliel, have fallen at Cadom? How could his son, sweet Mica, have died after only one day of life? How could this terror now be falling upon this city?

  "If Zohar has no protector above," Jerael spoke softly into the sandy wind, "I will be her protector here under the sun. If no god defends us, my sword and shield will, as long as I can lift them."

  "Father! Father, hurry!" Atalia's voice rose from below, and Jerael looked down to see her racing across the courtyard and up the wall. "Father, they're coming toward the southern wall!"

  "What is?" He frowned. "Atalia, what?"

  "Towers!" Sweat shone on her brow. "Towers of wood and leather, bearing archers! Towers on wheels."

  Jerael's heart sank. He turned toward the other soldiers on the wall. "Fifth phalanx! With me. To the southern wall!"

  He raced downstairs toward the courtyard, and a hundred warriors followed. They ran through the city, passing by toppled houses, wounded soldiers who lay shivering and dying, and a temple where priests prayed for salvation. Soon they raced up more stairs, heading onto the southern wall of Gefen.

  In the distance Jerael saw them, drawing nearer.

  "Siege towers," he muttered.

  Atalia sneered. Blood splashed her armor and caked her hair. Ash smeared her face, and stitches held together a cut on her cheek. Her eyes blazed with fire, and she turned toward the warriors of her phalanx. The dour men and women stood along the wall, coated with just as much blood and dust, many of them wounded and bandaged. Some were barely more than boys and girls.

  "Phalanx, draw your arrows!" Atalia said. "Light them with fire."

  Jerael turned toward the phalanx that had followed him here from the southern wall. "Warriors of Zohar, draw arrows of fire!"

  All across the wall, the warriors lit the tips of their arrows. Jerael stared at the approaching siege towers and cursed. There were three of them. Each tower stood the h
eight of several men—as tall as the city walls. Their wheels creaked. Wooden beams formed their walls, overlain with leather. Battlements of iron plates topped the towers, and behind them waited legionaries. Dozens of slaves toiled in the field, pulling the siege engines toward the city wall.

  "Shoot the slaves below!" Atalia shouted. "Shoot the—"

  "No!" Jerael bellowed. "Men, no!"

  Atalia spun toward him, eyes flashing. "Father, why—"

  "Look!"

  He pointed toward the slaves who were tugging and shoving the siege towers. Atalia stared and her face blanched.

  "God's balls." She hissed. "They're . . . Zoharites."

  The slaves below wore only loincloths, and their beards flowed down their chests, gray with age. Crowns of thorns topped their heads, cutting the skin, and blood dripped from lashes on their backs. Each man bore a wooden sign around his neck, displaying the words: "Rat of Zohar."

  "They were taken in the last war," Atalia whispered. "Nineteen years ago. God, Father. They've been slaves for two decades."

  Jerael's hand shook around his bow.

  Are you among them, Eliel? Do you toil here too?

  His younger brother, only twenty during the last war, had vanished in the slaughter at Cadom. His body had never been found, presumed drowned at sea. But Jerael had always clung to hope. Now he sought his brother's face among the slaves below, yet all those faces looked the same: haggard, bearded, the eyes dead.

  No. You died, Eliel. You had to have died. Jerael gnashed his teeth. I could not live in a world that would inflict such pain upon you, that would turn a proud, handsome youth into a wretch.

  Jerael forced a deep breath and shouted, "Men, fire at the towers! Burn them down!"

  He loaded a flaming arrow and fired. Atalia shouted. Hundreds of arrows sailed from the wall and slammed into the siege towers.

  The towers kept rolling. The arrows sank into the animal hides coating the surface and petered out. More arrows flew, and soon the siege towers were bristling with them, but still the structures did not burn.