Queen of Fire

by Anthony Ryan

  “Should do thirty miles or more a day on this,” Count Marven said with a satisfied grin, stamping a boot to the brick surface. “More when the rain lifts.”

  “Be sure to scout all approaches,” Lyrna said. She was reluctant to tell her Battle Lord his business but Al Hestian’s counsel had instilled a lingering caution. They were certain to meet the enemy somewhere along this road; the only question was in what strength.

  “Of course, Highness.”

  The rain finally began to abate three days later, revealing a pleasing landscape of rolling hills and broad valleys, lush with grass and little sign of habitation save the occasional small villa, all of which proved empty of occupants.

  “All livestock slaughtered and crops burnt,” Brother Sollis reported two days later. He had led his brothers on a wide-ranging reconnaissance in force, finding no sign of the enemy but ample evidence their approach had been detected. “All wells spoiled with carcasses. A few bodies here and there, mostly old people, slaves by the look of them.”

  “Was there ever a more vile race than this?” Lord Adal said, shaking his head. He had taken the North Guard south on a similar mission, returning with equally grim tidings.

  “So,” Lyrna said, “we have no forage.”

  “Our existing supplies should last us to Volar, Highness,” Brother Hollun advised. “Where no doubt we will find more, once our … business is concluded.”

  “If I might enquire, Highness,” Lord Nortah said, “as to the exact nature of our business in Volar.”

  Lyrna met his gaze, finding his usual willingness to return the scrutiny in full measure. “We will exact justice for the wrongs visited upon the Realm,” she said. “And ensure they will not be repeated.”

  “Yes, as you have stated before. However, I should like to know how this justice will be administered. Do you intend to hold trials, perhaps?”

  “I don’t recall any trials at Alltor,” Lord Antesh said, regarding the Lord Marshal with a harsh glower. “And I know there were none at Varinshold.” He rarely spoke at council and kept to his own troops when on the march. The Cumbraelins had taken on a uniformly grim demeanour since the loss of Lady Reva, along with her aged guard commander and so many of their countrymen. Whenever she toured their ranks Lyrna found herself greeted with curt nods or barely concealed resentment; she had sent their Blessed Lady to her death, and they knew it. However, any anger they might have felt towards their queen was greatly outshone by their burning hatred for the Volarians, birthed at Alltor and a thousand other nameless atrocities, now stoked to greater heights by a feral hunger for retribution. Lady Reva had been their link to the Father’s love and guidance, surely He would bless all efforts to avenge her passing.

  “There were no trials at Alltor,” Lord Nortah returned, “because the Volarians are a disgusting, pestilent race raised in cruelty and murder. We, on the other hand, imagine ourselves a people of reason and compassion, or are our virtues to be cast aside now?”

  “Courage and fortitude are equal virtues,” Baron Banders pointed out. “Our people look to us to secure their future. It won’t be done with a soft heart.”

  “I have journeyed the length of the Reaches and the Realm,” Nortah said. “Taking more lives in the space of a few months than I did in all my years in the Order. I have led my regiment through battle, fire and hardship because I thought it just and right … and my wife told me it was necessary. But I do not wish to look into her eyes when she beholds a man who took part in wholesale murder.”

  He turned to Aspect Caenis, whose eyes remained fixed on the map, unwilling to meet his brother’s gaze. “And you, brother? Are you content for the Faith to be stained with innocent blood?”

  The Aspect didn’t reply immediately, lowering his head for a moment’s silent contemplation. When he finally opened his eyes and spoke, his tone was regretful but also certain. “The Empress and her empire are merely tools for a greater enemy. We all know this, though often we dare not speak of it. Knowing the nature of this enemy, I see the only path to his defeat in employing all measures at our disposal. If that makes us murderers, then I accept the name and the guilt. For if we fail, brother, there will be no wife for you to return to.”

  “I cannot believe the path to victory lies in staining our souls so black we become indistinguishable from those we fight.” Nortah looked to Brother Sollis, voice strained now. “Master? Surely you see the Faith compels us to a more reasoned course. The Order has always sought to defend the defenceless.”

  “And to preserve the Faithful,” Sollis replied, his tone no less certain than the Aspect’s. “Should we fail here, the whole world may fall to ruin. The Faith gave its support to the queen’s course in full knowledge of the import of this mission. We cannot afford virtue now, brother.”

  “And I,” Antesh grated, face flushing red, “did not come to these shores to leave the greatest soul in Cumbraelin history unavenged.”

  “Vengeance is not justice!” Nortah’s fists thumped the table as he leaned forward. “And if Lord Vaelin were here…”

  “He is not,” Lyrna stated, her voice soft but implacable. “I am here. And I am your queen, my lord.”

  She watched the Lord Marshal master himself, knowing he was fighting to keep unwise words from his lips. Of all of us, she thought, he stands immune from the lure of vengeance. The realisation stirred a flare of envy, a yearning for a part of her lost somewhere amongst the flames.

  “You are a good man, Lord Nortah,” she told him. “The Realm is enriched by your service. And so I give you my word as your queen that this army will do all it can to spare innocent blood. But, be assured that when we reach Volar I will see it destroyed down to the last fragment of stone and the earth salted so that nothing grows amidst the ruins. If you have no stomach for this course, you are free to resign your command and depart without disfavour.”

  Lord Nortah lowered his head, teeth gritted as he hissed a sigh. “No innocent blood,” he said, head still lowered. “You promise me?”

  Lord Iltis bridled with a growl, “The Queen’s Word is given, and not for you to question, my lord.”

  Nortah’s head came up, his eyes blazing at the Lord Protector for a second before casting his gaze around the other captains. Lyrna wondered if he thought himself the only sane man in an army of maddened souls. As his gaze settled on her, he spoke again, his voice the flat, precise promise of a very dangerous man, “Your word may not be for me to question, Highness, but I will hold you to it nonetheless.”

  Another week of marching took them from the pleasing hill country and into a broad dusty plain, its only feature of interest a long river stretching away east in a winding course roughly parallel to the road. “At least we won’t be taken unawares,” Count Marven commented, peering at the barren vista. “You couldn’t hide a single horse out here.”

  The following day saw a dim, jagged shape appear on the haze-covered horizon, resolving into a strange sprawling building adorned with multiple tall spires. It sat in a wide bend in the river, the size of a small town, but absent any dwellings. Instead it consisted of a series of pyramidal structures arranged in a spiral, all topped with towers of ascending height, the tallest rising to at least two hundred feet.

  “A fortress?” Benten wondered as they closed to within a half mile of the building.

  “No defensive walls,” Iltis said. “And no one to hold them if there were.”

  There was no sign of any response to their approach, the varied structures devoid of light and movement. Lyrna turned at the sound of a galloping horse, finding Wisdom reining in at her side. Lyrna had left Arrow back in the Realm, unwilling to subject her to the possibly deadly discomforts of the ocean crossing, and discovered her new mount wandering near the dunes when they landed. It was a handsome stallion with a coat of pure black, so finely bred Lyrna wondered if it hadn’t carried the Empress to the shore the day she crafted her storm. She named him Jet in honour of his colouring.

  “Great Queen,�
�� Wisdom said, a habitual greeting that always left Lyrna wondering if she wasn’t being mocked. “Impressive isn’t it?” the Eorhil elder went on, gesturing at the building.

  “Indeed,” Lyrna agreed. “I would be more impressed if I knew what it was.”

  “Navarek Av Devos, which means Portal of the Gods in your tongue. The last great temple of the Volarian gods. The only one to survive the Great Cleansing, I suspect because of its size and remoteness.”

  Lord Adal’s North Guard rode ahead to inspect the temple, finding it deserted but for a colony of nesting vultures. At Marven’s suggestion Lyrna agreed the army would camp there for the night; the temple lacked fortifications but still had roofs aplenty and she knew many of her soldiers would appreciate a night under cover of stone rather than flimsy canvas. There was room enough for about half the army, Marven posting the remainder in a wide defensive arc anchored on the river. The temple extended up to and beyond the riverbank where a long row of monstrous statues lowered their heads to the waters. They were mostly impossible combinations of various beasts, a tiger with the head of a lizard, a great eagle with a long scaly tail. There were also two human figures amongst them, improbably muscled warriors kneeling to lower a hand to the swift-flowing current.

  “Gods of some kind?” Lyrna asked Wisdom as they toured the city. She couldn’t help a certain fascination in the sheer eccentricity of the place; to construct such a vast building with no practical purpose whatsoever was both baffling and delightful, as well as providing an appreciation of the long history of the people she had come to fight. They were not always as they are now.

  “The fifty guardians of the gods,” Wisdom replied. “Crafted from all the beasts of the earth to fight an eternal battle against the Dermos, denizens of the great fire pit beneath the earth, the eternal enemies of all humanity.”

  Lyrna’s gaze was drawn to the largest of the statues, a broad-backed ape of some kind, with a long serrated tail and arms as thick as tree-trunks. Murel’s mouth twitched in suppressed laughter as she switched her gaze between Iltis and the statue. “How did they manage to capture your image long before you were born, my lord?”

  She smiled sweetly at his baleful glower, pressing a fond kiss to his cheek before dancing away.

  “That’s Jarvek,” Wisdom said. “Long held to be the greatest of the guardians, until the shadow folk tempted him into all-consuming lust for a human queen. He bore her away to his lair far beneath the earth but, before he could inflict his vile desires upon her, she was rescued by her sister, Livella, the warrior maiden who carried a spear blessed by the gods.” Wisdom pointed to another statue nearby, a tall female figure on a plinth, standing straight and proud with spear in hand. The sight of her provoked a fresh burst of laughter from Murel.

  “First his lordship, now you, my lady,” she said, pointing at Davoka. “This place is truly uncanny.”

  Davoka merely gave a faint grin, casting a critical eye over the statue’s improbably generous proportions. “A woman made like her would spend her days falling over.”

  “Statues of guardians, statues of heroes from myth,” Lyrna said. “Where are the gods?”

  “You will not find them here,” Wisdom replied. “The gods were considered so divine that for a human to attempt to capture their image was considered blasphemy. Even their names were known only to a small, select priesthood. Those wishing to seek the aid of the gods would petition the priests who would in turn petition the requisite god. For a price, naturally.”

  Iltis and Benten drew their swords at a sudden shout from the centre of the temple, soon transforming into a scream that echoed from the granite walls. Lyrna shrugged off Iltis’s objections and went to investigate, making her way to the circular space in the centre of the temple where she found Aspect Caenis crouched over Brother Lucin. The elderly Gifted lay on his back, face contorted in a grimace of pain and horror, foam frothing on his lips.

  “He had a yen to see this place before its abandonment,” the Aspect explained, holding the brother down as he convulsed.

  “An unfortunate decision,” Wisdom commented, pointing at a squat stone plinth nearby. “The gods were generous, but also thirsty.”

  The plinth was three feet tall, narrow and rectangular with a semicircle carved into its upper edge. Positioned at its base was a bowl-shaped indentation in the stone floor from which numerous channels led off towards the surrounding pyramidal structures.

  Brother Lucin’s convulsions subsided, the old man’s eyes fluttering open, wide with shock at whatever they had witnessed.

  Blood, Lyrna thought, eyeing the plinth. It had been scrubbed clean by centuries of wind and rain, but she knew it had once been red. Always blood with these people. Once spilled to sate the conjurings of their own imagination. Now drunk to banish the spectre of death. Killing their gods didn’t change them.

  She hadn’t dreamt since the Battle of the Teeth, spending every night in a deep, untroubled slumber. She would have liked to imagine it the sleep of a just and contented soul, but knew it had more to do with simple exhaustion, each day being so full. So it took some time to realise that her bare feet were not really treading on the temple’s stone floor, taking her towards the plinth with a slow but steady stride. It was red now, as it had been when this place commanded the faith of so many deluded souls, slick with blood from top to bottom, the bowl-shaped indentation brimming with it, the channels taking the offering to the silent houses of the gods.

  A woman of dreadful appearance stood next to the plinth, knife in hand. She wore a besmirched blue dress, the bodice and skirt stained to blackness, though Lyrna could see it had once been a fine garment, worthy of a princess in fact. But it was the woman’s face that commanded her attention, raw and freshly burnt, faint tendrils of smoke still rising from the charred flesh.

  “I have been waiting,” the burnt woman said, fixing Lyrna with a fierce gaze, her tone full of admonishment.

  “For what?” Lyrna asked in mystification.

  “You of course.” The woman beckoned impatiently at something in the shadows and a young man stepped into the light, short of stature but possessed of delicate good looks. “Your worshippers are keen to make offering.”

  Lyrna watched the young man kneel at the plinth, his gaze locked on hers, face expressionless. “I kept my promise,” Lyrna told him, unable to keep the tremble from her voice. “I found your mother. She travels with my army, a sister of the Seventh Order, come to win justice for her son.”

  Fermin smiled, his lips widening to an impossible extreme, revealing long rows of triangular teeth, the teeth of a shark.

  The burnt woman’s knife flashed and Fermin’s throat gaped open, blood gushing forth in a torrent, cascading down the sides of the plinth to fill the bowl. The burnt woman shoved the body aside and beckoned again, another figure coming forward. He was taller, well-built, his scarred face telling of a hard life, though his smile was the same one that came to his lips when the ballista bolt speared him through the back. It was still there, the steel head protruding from his chest, scraping over stone as he knelt.

  “You had a choice.” Lyrna knew the words a lie even as they spilled from her lips. Harvin, however, seemed to find her dishonesty amusing, for he laughed as the knife flashed again.

  “I didn’t do this,” she insisted as the burnt woman pushed the body away and beckoned again. “They served me willingly.”

  “As they should,” the burnt woman said. “Mortals live only to serve their gods.”

  Furelah came next, bowing to Lyrna with a dagger in each hand, her face and hair slick with seawater, eye sockets empty, the surrounding flesh partly eaten. Just before the knife opened her throat a small crab crawled from the black circle of her eye, its pincers snipping at Lyrna as if in accusation.

  She tore her gaze away from the spectacle, but found no relief. The temple was crowded now, a long line of people, a few she knew, most she didn’t. The Meldenean archer who had tumbled from the rigging at the Teeth,
a Seordah woman who had fallen at Varinshold, and so many others. Eorhil, Nilsaelins, Cumbraelins, like Furelah, all dripping brine, their flesh partly claimed by the sea …

  “I HAD NO CHOICE!” she railed at the burnt woman, falling silent at the sight of the figure now kneeling at the plinth.

  “Choice?” Malcius asked. His head was cocked at an obscene angle, though his face was kind, his smile rich in affection and sympathy. “Choice is not the province of those who presume to rule,” he told her. “The world is yours to make, my sister. As I always knew it would be. Don’t you think it would have been kinder to kill me sooner, before I took the throne? Didn’t it ever occur to you? A small drip of poison in my wine cup? It would have been such an easy thing.”

  “No,” she said in a whisper. “You were my brother … I once did a terrible thing for you.”

  “You set me free to preside over the destruction of my Realm, the murder of my wife and children.” He raised his arms as the burnt woman stepped closer. The knife didn’t flash this time, instead she pressed it to his flesh with delicate, even loving tenderness, her other hand cradling his head to her breast.

  “Do not turn away now, Lyrna,” Malcius said as the blade traced across his throat. “For the gods are always thirsty…”

  She came awake at Murel’s gentle prodding, the lady starting visibly at Lyrna’s wide-eyed stare. “The Battle Lord sends word, Highness,” she said. “A Volarian host approaches from the east.”

  She found Count Marven at the temple steps, the plain beyond him busy with soldiers forming ranks and riders galloping to their companies, a thick pall of dust rising to shroud the morning sun. “Brother Sollis estimates their number at sixty thousand, Highness,” the Battle Lord reported. “Almost all Free Swords, which is unusual. They approach in good order though.”

  Sixty thousand. Little over half our number. The Empress makes a desperate gamble to stem our advance, perhaps? “Take no risks, my lord,” she told Marven. “We cannot afford significant loss.”