Queen of Fire

by Anthony Ryan

  Frentis looked up at the warehouse roof where Illian now stood, waving a torch to confirm all the drains were now surrounded by at least one company of fighters. “No reason to wait,” he told Tekrav.

  The Chief Quartermaster stepped forward, face grim but determined as he raised a flaming torch. “For Lemera,” he said. The torch disappeared into the hole, birthing an instant column of yellow flame at least ten feet high. It subsided to a modest-sized blaze after a few seconds, Frentis straining to gauge the results. Nothing. Not a single scream.

  He left Draker and his company guarding the flaming drain, running with Lekran and Rensial to the next one where Ivelda and half the Garisai clustered around the opening, watching as the porters poured more lamp oil into the sewers. A strong stench of burning oil rose from the opening along with a thickening pall of smoke, but it remained eerily silent. “If they’re down there, brother,” Ivelda said, “they know how to die quietly.”

  Frentis turned as a shout came from the hole, seeing one of the Garisai reeling away with a dagger embedded in his shoulder as a figure erupted from the drain, launched by his comrades to rise five feet in the air amidst a glittering cascade of water and oil. His sword began to flash as he landed, hacking down a Garisai and wounding another before a pole-axe cleaved into his chest. Two more Arisai were propelled from the drain in quick succession, oil flying from their spinning forms as they hacked and slashed, seeking to drive the Garisai back from the hole. One was quickly cut down but the other fought on, blocking thrusts and inflicting wounds with deadly precision. Frentis ran in, sweeping aside the Arisai’s blade to deliver a kick to his breastplate, sending him sprawling back towards the drain. The man clung on however, arms and legs spread, his comrades’ hands reaching up from below to propel him back to the fight, his grinning face fixed on Frentis in direct challenge.

  Frentis snatched a torch from one of the Garisai and tossed it onto the Arisai’s chest, stepping forward to stamp down as the flames engulfed him, returning him to the oil-soaked sewers. The column of fire was taller this time, the blast of heat singeing the hairs on Frentis’s arms as he reeled away.

  A rising tumult drew his attention to the dockside where he could see a dense knot of fighters attempting to contain a group of Arisai emerging from one of the larger drains fringing the wharf. Weight of numbers managed to keep the red men at bay but more and more were clambering free by the second, claiming lives with every sword stroke.

  “Your people with me,” Frentis told Ivelda. “This will be a long night.”

  By morning Viratesk lay under a cloying pall of grey-black smoke, every brick and tile as besmirched as the dazed rebels who wandered the streets or sat stooped in exhaustion. Frentis passed many huddling together, a few weeping from the strain of the night-long battle, most just leaning against each other, the eyes wide, blank holes in soot-covered faces.

  “Seven hundred and eighty-two dead,” Thirty-Four reported. “Four hundred wounded.”

  “How many of them?” Lekran asked, running a cloth over the blade of his axe. Although he was even more blackened than everyone present, the tribesman’s axe gleamed with a polished sheen.

  “We counted just over a hundred bodies,” Thirty-Four replied. “Though, judging by the smell, many more perished in the sewers.”

  “Seven to one,” Draker muttered, casting a wary glance at Frentis. “That’s bad odds, brother.”

  “When were our odds ever good?” Frentis turned as Weaver approached, their only captive at his back, tightly bound by several chains. The Arisai was shaking his head, uttering a soft, wry laugh as the freed Varitai around him looked on with uniformly sorrowful expressions.

  “It won’t work,” Weaver stated. “Not on him.”

  “The binding is too strong?” Frentis asked.

  “His binding is less constricting than the Varitai. He is … wrong. Twisted, in mind and body. Were we to remove his binding, we would be unleashing something terrible upon the world.”

  “Then let’s wring what we can from him and have done,” Lekran said, nodding at Thirty-Four.

  “He’ll tell you nothing,” Weaver replied. “Any torment you visit on him will be just another amusement.”

  “Can you heal him?” Frentis asked. “Mend his twisted soul?”

  Weaver glanced back at the Arisai, hands clasped together, his face betraying the first sign of fear Frentis had seen in him. “Perhaps,” he said. “But the consequences…”

  “Something comes back,” Frentis said. “Every time you heal someone, they give something back.”

  Weaver nodded, turning to him with a tight smile. “If you wish me to try…”

  “No.” He moved towards the Arisai, drawing the dagger from his belt. The man’s amusement deepened at Frentis’s approach, his laugh rich with genuine mirth.

  “She did say you would prove interesting,” he said.

  “Does she give you names?” Frentis asked him.

  The Arisai shrugged. “Sometimes, those of us she bothers to recognise. She called me Dog, once. I quite like it.”

  “You know she sent you here to die?”

  “Then I am pleased to have served her purpose.” The man met Frentis’s gaze with steady eyes, fearless, even proud, but still mostly just amused.

  “What did they do to make you this way?” Frentis asked him, surprising himself with a sudden flare of pity. Weaver was right, this man had been born to a life that twisted him into something far from human.

  The Arisai’s grin turned into a mocking snicker. “Don’t you know? Your time in the pits taught them so much. For generations they bred us, trained us, tried different bindings to make us the perfect killers. It never worked, our forebears were either too wild or too much like the Kuritai, deadly but dull, requiring constant supervision. My generation was no different, yet another failure. Ten thousand Arisai destined for execution, after they had bred us with suitable stock of course. Then came you, our saviour, a shining example of the advantages of cruelty, the discipline and cunning inherent in the soul of a true killer. When she sent us here she told us we would be meeting our father, and I must say, I do find it a privilege.”

  “So,” Frentis mused, “there’s at least nine thousand more of you?”

  For a moment the Arisai lost his smile, frowning in consternation like a child fumbling for an answer to an awkward question. “Not perfected after all,” Frentis observed, moving behind him, dagger poised at the base of his skull. “What do you know of the Ally?”

  Dog brightened once more as the point of the blade touched his flesh, laughing with a wry shake of his head. “Only the promise she made us on his behalf the day she led us from the vaults; ‘All your dreams will be made flesh.’ We had been waiting so long, and had many dreams. Should you chance to see her again, father. Please tell her I—”

  Frentis thrust the dagger in up to the hilt, Dog the Arisai arching his back and convulsing before slumping lifeless to the ground. “I’ll tell her,” Frentis assured him.

  Why?

  The question comes to her without warning, causing her finger to slip yet again, another spot of blood spreading across the taut fabric. She regards the needle embedded in her finger with cold understanding; the flesh is like ice, devoid of pain. The needlework is poor, a child’s fumbled attempts to mimic adult skill. It is tempting to blame the shell and its numbed digits, but this particular craft has always been beyond her. The memory is dim, as are all her recollections of childhood, but there was a woman once. A kindly woman, with a face of feline beauty, who could sew with amazing skill, her fabrics adorned with a clarity and art that could match the finest paintings. They would sit and sew together, the woman guiding her small hands, pulling her into a kiss when she did something right, merely laughing at her frequent mistakes. She is sure this memory is real, though for some reason her thoughts continually shy away from the woman’s name, or her fate. Instead they always shift, becoming darker and she finds herself abed, whimpering as she sta
res at her bedroom door …

  A squeal of ropes and gears draws her gaze to the balcony. I have an exalted visitor to greet, my love, she tells him. An Empress shouldn’t neglect her duties.

  Why? The thought is implacable, irresistible in its demand.

  You know why, beloved, she tells him.

  Images swirl and coalesce in her mind, another precious gift captured by his sight: flames erupting from the sewers of Viratesk, the Arisai fighting, killing and dying with all the fury she expected. One, ablaze from head to foot, whirls in a welter of flame, still killing and laughing even as the arrows slam home.

  I know you have nine thousand more, he tells her. Where are they?

  Her hands clutch the embroidery as delight surges through her, the wonderful resumption of their lost intimacy. This was how it had been during their journey, the joyful mingling of hate and love, every murder eroding the walls between them. She realises her heart is thumping, faster and faster like a trapped beast raging at its cage. Until now she had thought this shell incapable of all but the most rudimentary feeling, but he, of course only he, can bring it to life.

  The gondola jerks to a halt outside the balcony and she glimpses her guest. She feels his alarm flare at the sight of her, causing her to wonder if jealousy might lead her to pitch this pretty thing from the top of the tower. However, a note from the song as the girl’s gaze sweeps over Lieza tells her such suspicions are misplaced.

  Leave her be! he shouts in her mind. Touch her and you’ll never lay eyes on me again. I swear it.

  She resists the impulse to wallow in his rage and allows her heart to calm, trying to colour her response with cool detachment. The sooner you come to me the greater the chance of her survival.

  She winces a little, feeling the reforged connection between them strain as he masters his anger. When he returns his thoughts are dark with reluctant acceptance. The Arisai, he presses. Where are they?

  I can tell you where they are not. She finds she has to stifle a giggle. New Kethia.

  “Idiots,” Draker said, watching the Volarian column with a practised eye. “They ain’t even scouting their flanks.”

  “Why would they?” Frentis asked. “They’re expecting nothing more than a victory march when they reach Viratesk.”

  “Just over four thousand,” Thirty-Four said, returning the spyglass to Frentis. “Only one battalion of Varitai and a scattering of Kuritai. The rest are a mix of Free Sword mercenaries and conscripts from New Kethia. By my calculation, the bulk of the military strength left in this province.”

  “Idiots,” Draker repeated, shaking his head.

  The country west of Viratesk was largely devoid of the heights and forests Frentis had always found so useful. However, Master Rensial’s scouting along the coastal road to New Kethia had identified a broad depression in the farmland six miles to the west, too shallow to be called a valley but the southern rise sufficiently high to conceal the bulk of their army. The height of the crops was another advantage, tall enough to hide their archers, and dry enough to catch fire at the first lick of flame. The cavalry at the head of the Volarian column had evidently failed to take account of the mile-long strip of barren ground scorched into the rise and running parallel to the road, a hundred yards wide and the product of a morning spent in careful burning. The many farmhands in the army advised that such firebreaks were a common feature of Volarian agriculture and unlikely to draw undue attention from those who had never worked the land.

  “Some are bound to make it through,” Frentis told Illian and Draker. “If outnumbered, fall back and form a defensive circle.” He met Illian’s gaze, speaking with grave authority. “The issue will be decided on the flanks, so there is no need for excessive courage.”

  He saw her suppress a sullen grimace and force a nod. “Of course, brother.”

  He left them crouched amidst the tall corn-stalks and made his way to the lee of the rise where Master Rensial waited with their mounted contingent. The Volarians found little reason to educate slaves in riding but some knew horses from their previous lives, mostly Realm folk and a few Alpirans, enough to form a company of light cavalry some three hundred strong. Another thousand infantry were crouched a little farther back, mostly those lacking decent weapons, though some bore the swords and daggers taken from the fallen Arisai. The bulk of their infantry were with Lekran and Ivelda on the left flank, ready to charge in the Garisai’s wake when the time came.

  Frentis mounted a stallion captured in the hill country, well trained like most Volarian cavalry horses, but lacking the speed and aggression of an Order mount. Still, Master Rensial had been diligent in training both riders and horses so he was confident the animal wouldn’t shy from the charge. He nudged his heels to the stallion’s flanks and trotted to the crest of the rise. The Volarians would be sure to see him outlined on the skyline but it was of little matter now their lead company had drawn level with the end of the firebreak. Frentis drew his sword and raised it above his head, the archers in the cornfield standing at the signal, bows drawn. He could see a rider at the head of the column wheeling his horse about, waving frantically at the bugler, all too late.

  Over four hundred arrows rose from the cornfield and arced down into the centre of the Volarian column, raising a tumult of shouted alarm and discordant bugling. Apart from the initial chaos, however, the effect of the volley was minimal, claiming barely a dozen soldiers before their officers managed to whip them into reasonable order. As usual, the Varitai were first to form ranks, three battalions assuming a defensive formation in the space of a single minute. Frentis was pleased to see they had been placed in the centre of the column, meaning the flanks would be held mostly by Free Swords and recently pressed conscripts. Draker had it right, he concluded. These men are commanded by fools.

  The archers kept up their barrage without pause as the Volarian line took shape, continuing to loose as a chorus of bugles pealed out the signal for a general advance. Frentis had no need to issue further commands, the archers having been well drilled in what to do next. Even though the corn was tinder dry, Frentis had taken the precaution of liberally scattering oil-soaked bundles of kindling about the field, providing aiming points for the archers which their fire arrows soon found with creditable precision, birthing an instant conflagration. They had strict instructions to loose five arrows in quick succession then run for the firebreak, though some continued to let fly even as they retreated from the smoke-shrouded field. The inferno took hold almost immediately, a bright wall of flame stretching the length of the advancing line and birthing a thick curtain of black smoke that concealed all from view.

  Frentis turned and nodded to Master Rensial then kicked his stallion into a gallop. They had burned a broad avenue through the corn on either side of the main firebreak, wide enough to accommodate a charge by a full company of cavalry quickly followed by a thousand infantry. Even so, the thickness of the smoke made for an unnerving ride, his horse voicing a whinny of protest at the proximity of the flames. Frentis kicked his flanks again, spurring him to a faster gallop and they drew clear of the smoke, finding himself confronted by a pair of startled Volarian cavalrymen. He rode between them, slashing left and right, hearing simultaneous shouts of pain before charging on.

  All was confusion now, the smoke descending and lifting according to the whim of the wind. When it cleared he cut down any Volarians within reach, when it thickened he charged on, his only indication of the progress of the battle coming from the screams of pain and fury on all sides. He caught occasional glimpses of Master Rensial, killing with typical artistry, his horse seeming to dance at his slightest touch of the reins, confounding those unwise enough to challenge a man Frentis now knew to be the finest horse-borne warrior in the world.

  The Volarians proved to be a mixed bag, some fleeing at the first sight of Frentis, others immediately rushing to confront him. As the smoke thickened once more he found himself assailed by a mounted Kuritai, apparently unconcerned by the diminished vi
ew, charging at him on a fine stallion two hands taller than his own. Frentis twisted in the saddle as the Kuritai closed, his sword sweeping down to cleave into the neck of Frentis’s stallion. He leapt clear as the animal screamed and reared in a fountain of blood, landing nimbly on both feet and casting a throwing knife at the Kuritai. It struck home, sinking into the slave-elite’s face just above the jaw, but failed to divert his charge.

  Frentis rolled, trying to slash at the charging stallion’s legs as it thundered by. But the Kuritai was too skilled a rider, angling the animal’s course at the last moment to avoid the blade. Frentis threw another knife as the Kuritai wheeled for a second charge, the steel dart sinking into his horse’s rump and causing it to rear. Frentis sprinted forward, leaping and slashing, the Order blade cleaving through the greave on the Kuritai’s wrist. He tumbled from the saddle, rolling to his feet and whirling to face Frentis with sword levelled, blood still jetting from the stump of his severed hand. Frentis heard a familiar snarl behind him and sank to one knee, Slasher and Blacktooth leaping over to attack the Kuritai with well-honed precision, the bitch fixing her jaws on his legs whilst her mate tore at his throat.

  He didn’t wait to view the spectacle, running through the haze in search of further opponents. His ears were soon assailed by a great roaring followed by the multiple clang of clashing weapons, his ears leading him to the sight of his infantry tearing apart a battalion of Free Swords. They had evidently charged headlong into their line, given the way it had bowed and broken in the centre, hacking and stabbing with their axes and scythes, every face lit with a desperate fury.

  The Free Swords tried to stand their ground for a time, bunched together in compliance with the shouted orders of their officers, many freed slaves falling to their short swords, but their line had been broken and, unlike those they fought, they still entertained notions of long lives and families. After another few moments’ frenzied resistance they began to break, men turning and sprinting into the smoke, at first singly or in pairs, then a dozen at a time. One ran in Frentis’s direction, skidding to a wide-eyed halt and landing on his backside, his sword apparently already dropped. Frentis paused to regard the man, taking in the terror in his quivering face, the unintelligible pleas spouting from his lips, and pointed sternly towards the west. The Free Sword gaped up at him for a second more then scrabbled to his feet, sprinting away, still begging for mercy.