Storm and Steel

by Jon Sprunk

  Harxes tried to maintain order, but everyone was asking questions and arguing about what they should do. Alyra wanted to slink out quietly, but she had given the order. Now she was responsible for them. “Everyone, listen!”

  No one looked to her. Instead, everyone continued to clamor at the steward. Harxes stamped his staff on the floor, but the noise only added to the chaos and started the young boy crying against Dharma's shoulder. Alyra gathered herself and shouted, “Listen!”

  Her face grew warm as everyone turned to her. “Please. The city is under attack, and we have to leave before it falls.”

  Her announcement produced a chorus of worried questions, but she lifted both arms to quiet them. “We don't have time to talk about it. I know a way out. A safe way. I'm going there now and I urge everyone to come with me.”

  “Listen to her,” Harxes said. “Lady Alyra will watch over us.”

  Unsure how she felt about being addressed as “Lady” Alyra, she nonetheless moved through the crowd to the door. Dharma touched her lightly on the shoulder and gave her a smile as she passed. Alyra returned the gesture with a squeeze of the hand. “All right. I need everyone to form a line. Single file. Captain Gurita and his men will walk on either side of us.”

  She nodded to the guard captain, and he answered with a firm nod. “We're not going to run,” she continued. “Just stay together and remain calm. Is everyone ready?”

  They surprised her by lining up quietly. The guards stood ready. I can't believe I'm going to attempt this. I hope someone is watching over us.

  At a look from her, Harxes opened the front door. A gust of humid wind rushed into the house. Rain pounded the walkway outside. Alyra marched out into the storm with the train of servants and former slaves in tow.

  Two dozen eyes watched their arrival from beyond the fence.

  Heavy drops of rain pelted Horace as he trudged toward the plaza. The ground shook as bright flashes of light filled the street at the end of the block where two armies were locked in vicious battle. Broiling flames washed over the soldiers, decimating both sides. Their screams, thankfully, were short-lived. A building on the far side of the plaza collapsed as if a giant invisible foot had come down from the storming heavens to stomp it into a pile of debris. Then Horace saw the robes.

  Bright crimson, they stood out in the mob like a tongue of living flame. The man wearing them was tall, or perhaps he only seemed so because of the fiery nimbus that surrounded him. His bare scalp was covered in the red tattoos favored by the Sun Cult's priests, with a large sun imprinted on his forehead like a third, glowing eye.

  Horace reached for his power, but his qa refused to open. Frustration beat down on him. He had come to help, but he was useless. Powerless. Just a man. But I've accomplished so much. Does it all end here? What's my problem?

  He looked deep inside himself, and what he found was fear. It filled him to the core, infecting his every thought and action. And he knew the reason why.

  In his mind he went back to the roof of the Sun Temple. The bodies of dead sorcerers lay around him, their flesh ruined by the powers he had invoked. He was on his back, fighting for his life. He remembered the pain as Rimesh's dagger pierced his shoulder, the warm flow of his own blood. He relived the sickening terror of what it meant to take a life. It seized his heart and squeezed, robbing the strength from his limbs. In that moment, as the menarch drove the knife down to finish him, Horace hadn't been able to tell which was worse. Dying or killing.

  That feeling had haunted him since that night, always lying beneath the surface of his thoughts like a crocodile waiting to strike. It had crippled his ability to use the zoana, so afraid his power might kill again. Yet, as he looked out into the plaza where people were fighting and dying, his fears seemed insignificant compared to the raw terror infecting this city. He thought of the pit under the old Sun Temple where he'd been interred to rot, and the cultists who had left Lord Mulcibar's corpse in the street. Then he thought of the queen, hounded at every turn by these zealots who hid behind the aegis of their gods. Like a mythical beast, every time he struck down one pillar of this cult, more sprouted up to confound him.

  Horace clenched his fists as the rage trickled through him. If he did nothing, how many innocents would suffer? How much misery would result from his lack of conviction? I can't let that happen.

  He lifted his right hand, open palm facing the sky, and called upon the power again. For a long moment it refused him, but he was no longer content to wait. He wrenched open the gateway inside him and wrested the zoana within.

  The power was sluggish at first. He could sympathize. His legs trembled just from standing. His shoulders and back were one solid mass of aches, and all his joints were on fire. Pushing those troubles behind him, he took a deep breath and held it. For a moment, he thought it odd that he was going to try to stop this man—even kill him, if he must—without knowing anything about him. Not even his name. Yet the red robe said everything he needed to know. Whatever happened, he needed to stop this threat now, before it spread to the rest of the city.

  He wove his first attack.

  The Order sorcerer didn't hesitate. He reached out as if offering his hand in greeting, and instead a crack appeared in the scorched pavement in front of him. The crack ran straight toward Horace, growing wider the farther it extended with a tremendous roar as the clay split and separated. Flames erupted from the crevice, bright gold like molten lava. Horace fell back on a ground that was rapidly falling away beneath him. The extruding fires made him think of the icy power nestled in his right hand. Fire and ice. He slapped that hand palm down on the street at the end of the crack as he rolled to the side. The zoana burst from his hand for the brief moment it made contact, then he was rolling away.

  Horace got back to his knees beside an overturned fruit cart, braced to leap away again if the crack continued toward him. Yet the splitting of the pavement had stopped, capped by a knot of blue ice. He glanced down the street. The sorcerer strode through the piles of smoking carcasses toward him.

  Horace seized hold of his power and sent it out in two separate attacks. The first was a burst of raw fire aimed directly at his foe. Much as he expected, the sorcerer walked right through it without so much as scorching his crimson robes. Then Horace brought in his second attack from above. He used the Mordab dominion to collect as much of the falling rain as he could hold and funneled it directly into the street. The water fell in a startling cloudburst, overflowing the gutters instantly and filling the street within seconds. Then he added a flow of Imuvar, and suddenly everything froze.

  The sorcerer jerked to a halt as he was encased in ice.

  Breathing hard, Horace lowered his hands. He'd done it. He'd faced his fear and won.

  The fighting had moved to other streets, leaving behind scores of bodies. Horace was preparing himself to follow it when a vise of living stone closed around his middle and picked him up. He glimpsed a massive shape approaching from the south. It had a head, two arms, and two legs, but that's where the resemblance to a human being ended. The knot of fear returned in his belly.

  A kurgarru.

  Before he could react, he was hurtled through the air like a doll. He struck something hard, cracking the back of his head, and then everything went dark.

  So this is what it means to possess the holy power.

  The ground trembled beneath them with every stride, the wet clay cracking as their heavy feet trod upon its face. Their sandals had fallen away, ripped to shreds by their stony heels until only tatters of the leather thongs remained, trailing behind them in the puddles. Abdiel/Mebishnu paused to take a deep breath. As the moist air filled their lungs, which expanded slowly as if made of lead, they looked ahead.

  The fall from the sky-ship should have killed them both. It would have, had Mebishnu not used his last instant of life to weave a final enchantment. He'd gasped as the power of Kishargal entered him, a seemingly endless wellspring of power and light suffusing every fiber of his
body. His master's dying gesture. As it had turned out, he survived.

  They both had, though Abdiel was less sure how he had been saved. He was inside Mebishnu's body, too. A silent passenger. His last memory of his own body was as he fell, certain that death awaited him when he struck the ground. Then suddenly he stopped falling to hang in midair like a puppet on its strings. And yet he could see his body lying on the street below, horribly broken. Then his vision flickered, everything too dark to see.

  When his sight had returned, he was in this new body, joined with Mebishnu. He saw what Mebishnu saw, heard what he heard. When this body took a step, he felt the vibrations run up through their legs. He could not explain it, nor did he care to. If this was a dream, he was content to remain asleep forever.

  They were transformed. Mebishnu's flesh had turned to living stone. Huge, cumbersome, and indestructible. In another time and place, Abdiel might have been struck with the wonder of this feat, but there was no time for wonder. They burned with fury, and only one thing would quench the awful fire consuming their brain. The destruction of this city.

  They started toward the queen's palace, their great arms swinging back and forth with every stride, torso creaking as the hard flesh rippled. The storm continued to crash over the city. Lightning flashed in jagged forks. Rain fell in sheets that washed mounds of garbage and the occasional dead body down the overflowing gutters. None of it concerned them any longer. They could weather anything the tempest hurled down. At last, they had become the perfect weapon of their god. They had become death.

  A troop of Erugashi soldiers approached from the north. As the soldiers stuttered to a halt of mass confusion, Mebishnu and Abdiel unleashed their wrath. Euphoria flooded their hardened veins as the zoana shot forth. Bright ropes of Girru sizzled in the rain to wrap around entire squads of soldiers. They melted armor and seared away flesh in bloody rivers.

  When a file of soldiers charged them, Abdiel/Mebishnu met them with open arms. Their huge, stony hands tore through mail, crumpled shields, and ripped off limbs. When the soldiers tried to flee, they chased them down and crushed their bodies underfoot. Screams filled the plaza with a beautiful music.

  As they continued their rampage, spots of light flashed down the street before them. Abdiel/Mebishnu quickened their pace. They saw Brother Opiru in a plaza. A moment of elation filled them to see their brother-priest, but it was cruelly stolen away as Opiru was encased in a tomb of ice. Their eyes turned to the enemy who had done this. A lone zoanii standing between them and their righteous vengeance.

  Abdiel/Mebishnu reached out with their power and seized the man in a fist of stone ripped from the ground. With a flick of contempt, they tossed the zoanii aside. He collided with the wall of a building and fell to the flooded street, unmoving.

  They held onto the zoana for a few moments more just to feel the energy running through the hardened clay beneath their feet more keenly. Then they started off again, down the boulevard that led to their final goal.

  “Are you certain this is the right way?”

  Rain pounded the narrow avenue cutting through the Garden Quarter, filling the gutters with murky brown water. Alyra waved at Harxes, who stood a dozen paces behind her with the rest of the household staff, to be quiet. Their trek through the city had been tense up to this point, as sounds of fighting and the storm put everyone on edge, but so far they hadn't encountered any real danger. Until now, possibly.

  She was leading a group of more than forty people, as many of those who'd been chanting outside Horace's home had accepted her invitation to join them. It hadn't been part of her plan, but she couldn't just leave them there.

  When they'd finally found the street that would take them to the escape route, Alyra spotted a group of soldiers outside a gated manor house a few blocks down. The soldiers had pushed through the gate before she'd gotten a good look at them. Were they part of the Erugash militia or Nisusi invaders?

  She took a few more steps down the avenue, staying clear of the gutter. The homes here were large, each enclosed within its own yard, most of them walled from the outside. They had decorative frames and deep stone gables. Elaborate scrollwork ran up the corners and across the overhanging cornices, depicting harvest designs such as grapevines and fishnets. This section of the city was home to the well-to-do citizens, those who had wealth but not the benefit of a noble title. As such, it attracted syndicate merchants, dealers in rare goods, and successful artisans. There was a reputable collegium nearby where many of these families sent their children. Alyra didn't know who lived at the manor down the street, or why the soldiers were there, but she didn't like the look of it. She was devising an alternate route in her head when Harxes called to her again.

  “My lady! I don't think we should tarry here. We're all getting very wet.”

  She glowered back at him. She didn't intend to be cruel, but the look made Harxes take a step back. Alyra sighed and brushed the rain-soaked hair from her eyes. He was right; they needed to get moving. The longer they stayed in the city, the better chance trouble would find them. She took another look at the open gate. She thought she heard voices, but it was hard to be sure over the storm. She might have tried her luck alone, but she couldn't risk the lives of her charges.

  Finally, she hurried back to the group. “We have to find a different way around.”

  Questions came at her, asking why. Alyra shook her head at them. “No time for arguing. We'll go north and try another approach.”

  “We're getting close to the wall,” Captain Gurita said in a low grumble.

  “The Stone Gate, my lady!” Harxes said, referring to the city's northernmost entry. “Perhaps we could—”

  She cut him off. “It will be blocked by the enemy. Or, if not blocked, at least watched. It's too risky.”

  When no one commented, she started up the next street. Three blocks to the north, they discovered a public garden she'd forgotten even existed. The gates were open and unguarded, so Alyra took her people inside. The high fence and rows of fruit trees allowed them to move unimpeded. It was surreal to hurry past the tiers of beautiful flowers, so carefully maintained and manicured, their fragrances filling the moist air, while people were fighting and dying less than a mile away.

  When they exited the gardens, Alyra went out first alone. The street was clear in all directions. One block to the south was an intersection. A dappled brown-and-white horse lay dead in the middle of the junction. A draft beast, she assumed by the heavy yoke around its neck. Probably part of a wagon team. It had been cut free of its traces and left to lie where it died. Water pooled around the dead animal. Through the gaps between the large houses before her, she could see sections of the old racing stadium.

  Alyra waved to the others, and they filed out, all of them soaked to the skin. The children were shivering despite the humid warmth of the day. Forcing herself to smile, she led them down to the intersection. From there it would be only a short walk to the track. The homes along this street looked vacant, without lights in the windows or signs of occupants within. Everyone is probably hiding, hoping the danger passes them by.

  Part of her wished she had chosen that option. She could be back at Horace's manor, locked up tight and waiting it out. But she'd heard too many stories about enemy occupations over the years. The Akeshian legionnaire was the backbone of the empire, the epitome of modern military perfection, and yet no force was so feared in all the world because of the terrible cruelties they were known to inflict on the peoples they conquered. Alyra didn't want to experience that firsthand.

  When she reached the intersection, Alyra peeked down the avenue running east-west in both directions. There was some movement down the eastern way, but it was far off. Most importantly, the path to the stadium appeared empty.

  Motioning for her followers to keep up, she rushed down the avenue. The stadium rose before them. A centerpiece of Erugashi sport when chariot racing was popular, before gladiatorial games came into fashion, its former glory was sti
ll evident in the grandeur of its size and design. The high outer walls were battlemented in the ancient style with stone eagles set along the edge. Once they were inside, Alyra hoped they would be safe until Horace arrived. He'd better be here soon. I don't know how long we can wait.

  She was just about to step onto the brown brick causeway surrounding the stadium when a tremor ran through the wet pavement under her feet. It was more shocking than fearsome. Some pieces of stonework fell from the outer face of the stadium, adding to the detritus of broken brick and overgrown weeds lining its walls, and a flock of black birds flew from the upper levels with a chorus of shrieking caws.

  It ended after a few seconds. Alyra waited a moment for her stomach to regain its equilibrium. Then she turned to wave the others forward. As she raised her hand, another quake rumbled through the earth, this one stronger and more sustained. She reached out, but there was nothing to catch her as she stumbled, all sense of balance lost. Many of the household staff fell as well, except for Harxes, who clung to his staff to remain upright, and Dharma, who clung to him, with her children hugged close with one arm.

  Alyra was getting back up when she glimpsed movement beyond her people. A mass of soldiers, two or three score, approached from the other side of the intersection. Alyra's heart pounded hard as she saw the crimson and gold colors of their uniforms. Nisusi legionnaires.

  “Move!” she yelled.

  The sight of the advancing soldiers spurred the people to running. The household guards came in behind to cover their flight. She breathed a little easier when everyone reached the stadium grounds before the soldiers had even crossed the intersection, but her relief died quickly. What would they do now? All she could think of was to get the people inside.

  “Go! Go!” She pointed to the nearest gateway. Thankfully, it was not secured by doors or bars, just an open, dark tunnel leading into the vast structure. Please let it not be blocked inside.

  As the people streamed past her, she watched the enemy soldiers. The rain spattered off their tall oval shields and the planes of their armor. She wracked her brain for an idea. Even if she got the people into the underground tunnels, the soldiers would eventually run them down. She needed a ploy or a distraction, but she was out of tricks. Now would be a great time for you to arrive, Horace.