Before long, individual specks rose up like drunken bumblebees and drifted away from their victims. Now, the tiny flecks were swollen globules the size of grapes, purplish red instead of black, engorged with blood. The rest of the cloud drifted and kept expanding, still hungry, still probing through the ancient city for prey.
Sickened by what she had seen, Nicci turned to the old woman, realizing what these strange people had done by capturing her. “You did save me.” She had killed so many of them! “You knew what was coming. If I had been out there when the sun rose . . .”
“We saved you, and perhaps we saved the world,” the woman replied. “We could not let them have you. The blood of a gifted sorceress is incredibly potent.”
Nicci was frustrated that they had been unclear, that their muddled old dialect and their urgency had led to such tragedy, but they had been desperate to keep her away from the black cloud. Now their voices were loud in the silence, and the zhiss detected the sound even from outside. Part of the swarm poured toward the towering palace in which Nicci and the others hid. The furtive people let out a collective gasp and retreated deeper into the shadows. The old woman pushed the thick door shut, assisted by others. Nicci added the last nudge to slam the barrier in place just as the buzzing, swirling zhiss struck the blocky structure. Through the stone-hard wood, she could hear a vibrating hum as the angry force vented its frustration.
With the door sealed, Nicci waited for her eyes to adjust to the light of intermittent torches mounted on the stone walls. The people had covered every crack and cranny, allowing no outside light and no speck of predatory blackness to enter.
The building was huge, an imposing palace with vaulted ceilings and enormous chambers larger than the torches could effectively illuminate. Hundreds of the pale people were crowded inside, far more than Nicci had expected. They all wore gray, unobtrusive garments. Although they seemed healthy enough, the people looked haunted.
The clamor of questions became too loud in her mind. “Explain what is happening here,” she demanded. “What are the zhiss and who are you?”
As the people muttered, the old woman pulled back her hood to reveal gray hair with a few streaks of brown. Her skin was pale to the point of translucency, showing the faint lines of blood vessels. “I am Cora. We call ourselves the Hidden People, for that is what we do—we hide.”
“What do you accomplish by hiding? I rarely find that a useful strategy.”
“We control the zhiss,” Cora replied. “We keep Orogang safe. We keep the world safe.”
The people with her muttered more loudly. Nicci was glad to confirm her suspicion. “So this is Orogang, the capital of Emperor Kurgan’s empire.”
“What is left of it,” Cora said.
A square-jawed man with a grim expression said, “Emperor Kurgan is long dead, destroyed by his vengeful people, but General Utros will return. That is what the old prophet said.” Nicci was surprised to hear the statement, but did not point out that the man’s desire might actually come true, though not in the ways he expected. The man introduced himself as Cyrus.
The old woman explained, “The city fell many centuries ago, after the people overthrew Iron Fang. The populace longed to anoint General Utros as their next emperor, and back then a crazed prophet insisted that Utros would come back to Orogang. But years passed, and he never returned. The empire fell into a civil war. The people were busy fighting under different flags, breaking into factions, paying little attention to anything but their own conflict.” She drew a deep breath. “Then the zhiss came.”
“Utros will return!” Cyrus insisted.
“I think we’ve waited long enough,” said a brown-haired young woman with a huff, drawing an annoyed glance from Cyrus.
“What are the zhiss?” Nicci asked, interested in the true danger. “Where did they come from?”
The Hidden People stirred uneasily at hearing their own history, but let the old woman continue the tale. “A fiery star fell from the heavens and struck the mountains. Inside, it carried the zhiss, like an egg sac filled with spiders.” A frown settled into her deeply lined face. “They fed on the population. The zhiss were just a black wisp at first, but each time they consumed a human, the swarm multiplied. The things used our blood to breed, and the cloud doubled and doubled again. Some of us learned how to hide.” Cora closed her eyes, and in the dim torchlight Nicci could see tears glittering.
Nicci considered. “But Kurgan fell fifteen hundred years ago. You cannot be that old.” She remembered the preservation spells woven through the Palace of the Prophets that prevented aging. Nicci herself was over one hundred and eighty years old. “Or are you?”
Cora shook her head. “No, that was generations ago, but we have stayed because we know our duty. We need to keep the zhiss here. If we leave, the cloud will seek out other villages, towns, cities, and then the zhiss will be unstoppable.”
The young woman who had scoffed at Cyrus came closer, even managing a smile. “The swarm only comes out in daylight, so we are safe as long as we remain sealed in our buildings until dark.” The girl would have been pretty, a heartthrob for any young man, if she hadn’t been so pallid. “I am Asha. We go out at night to hunt and gather. We have stockpiles of food throughout the city, enough to last for decades, but we dare not leave Orogang.”
“We wait,” Cyrus said. “We have our purpose.”
“But the zhiss fed on those two deer,” Nicci said. “Won’t the swarm reproduce now?”
Cora shook her head. “The zhiss sustain themselves with the blood of animals, but there is some quality in human blood that lets them reproduce.” The old woman lowered her voice. “And gifted blood is the most powerful of all.”
Nicci realized the significance of how vulnerable she had been out in the ruins. “When you first saw me at night, how did you know I was a sorceress?”
“We didn’t,” Cora said. “We just tried to save you, but when you fought back using your gift, we knew it was imperative to get you inside, away from the zhiss, even if it cost the lives of many of our people. If the black cloud had fed on you . . .” She let her words trail off, shuddering visibly.
Nicci wondered if her gift would have been able to deflect the hungry black swarm. She didn’t count on it.
Old Cora continued her explanation. “And so we remain here and feed the swarm just enough to keep it under control. It doesn’t wander away, but we cannot leave. Not ever.”
“Unless we stop it somehow,” Asha interjected.
Looking around inside the expansive foyer of the palace, Nicci frowned at the burned bodies of those she had killed with wizard’s fire while trying to avoid capture.
“I’m sorry I caused you so much harm,” she said again, tasting the regret in her throat. “I didn’t understand what you were doing.”
“We were not only doing it to save you,” Cyrus scoffed. “If the zhiss had fed on your blood, our situation would have grown far worse.” He added an edge to his voice. “If we could not bring you inside the shelter in time, we would have killed you.”
Nicci faced him in the flickering torchlight. “You might have tried.”
CHAPTER 10
Creeping through the trees, Verna and her companions searched for a small mountain village, hoping to find it before the enemy raiders did. The fresh-faced novice Amber accompanied her, as well as the morazeth Lyesse and five of Zimmer’s D’Haran soldiers.
Lord Oron stalked beside the prelate, hard-faced and unhappy with his circumstances. “I was once a respected member of the wizards’ duma, as well as the head of the skinners’ guild. Now I am wandering through a trackless forest hoping to find a few hovels.”
Ahead, they heard bleating sheep, and the trees opened up to reveal an expansive meadow. A terrified flock was being driven down the grassy slope by thirty armored soldiers.
Verna shot a glance at the powerful wizard from Ildakar. “And I was once the prelate of the Sisters of the Light. Now it appears we will b
oth be shepherds.”
Lyesse was already sprinting forward. “That is enough meat to feed many enemy soldiers. We cannot let them have the animals. Come, let’s stop them.”
As Verna watched the aloof soldiers herding the sheep along, her voice came out in a low, husky growl. “At least we will make them pay for what they did to that poor shepherd’s family.”
Only an hour earlier, they had smelled smoke and come upon a burning cottage in a high meadow, where they found the bodies of a woman and her daughter, both with their throats cut. The cottage had been stripped of supplies, all the food eaten. Farther out in the grazing fields, they found a tent that held the shepherd and his teenage son, both also dead, along with their dog. The tent had been set on fire, and the corpses were half burned. Now the ancient raiders were driving the whole flock back to the main army.
“It is only thirty soldiers,” said Lyesse, pausing to watch from the edge of the trees. “Our swords will make quick work of them. I’d kill them all myself, but then Thorn might not believe my score.” Her lips quirked in a smile as she looked at the other D’Haran soldiers. “I will let my comrades have a turn as well.”
“The prelate and I also have a respectable amount of magic,” Oron pointed out. “We’ll take care of a few ourselves.”
Out in the open meadow, the soldiers banged their swords on their flame-embossed shields to keep the sheep moving across the sloped grasses. They had no idea they were being watched.
The D’Haran soldiers drew their weapons and crouched, hiding in the forest camouflage. A breeze stirred the branches, rustled the leaves. Lyesse gripped her short sword and looked over her shoulder at her companions. She raised her heavy dark eyebrows. “What are we waiting for?”
Oron raised his hand and called upon his gift. “I’m not waiting.” The sky darkened over the meadow, and a sharp wind began to blow harder. The marauders looked up, grumbling at the sudden afternoon thunderstorm. A single black cloud unleashed a downpour that fell only over the meadow, drenching them. The bleating sheep kept moving.
With a smile, Oron twisted his fingers, and a thin lightning bolt speared down into the middle of the enemy soldiers, killing two and scattering the others. In terror, the sheep bolted in all directions.
Prelate Verna and the others needed no further encouragement. Smiling, Amber used her own gift to summon a whirling whip of air that lashed out and caught one of the enemy soldiers, knocking him over. He yelped in surprise.
The D’Haran soldiers charged out of the forest, with the lean morazeth bounding ahead of them. In the pelting rain and howling winds, the ancient soldiers didn’t realize how few were attacking them.
Thunder boomed from Oron’s black cloud. Another bolt of lightning shattered one of the enemy warriors into chunks of charred flesh. Fleet as a jaguar, Lyesse leaped in among the startled soldiers. Swinging her short sword, she decapitated one of the men, then gutted a second with her backstroke. “Two!” she cried, and fell upon more victims.
Yelling, Verna ran after them. Amber followed her. “I’m at your side, Prelate.”
Though Verna felt old and weary from the long journey, she was tough. She had trained many young wizards in the Palace of the Prophets, had even been able to enforce her will on Richard Rahl. She was a scholar, a leader, and powerfully gifted.
And she had been to war before.
Verna called up a pocket of air above the milling, frightened sheep, then collapsed it, pressing her palms together. The snap of compressed air made an explosion of sound, a harmless boom that sent the panicked sheep bolting into the trees.
She looked at Oron. “The raiders will never catch those sheep now.”
The wizard gave a small nod. “Effective, Prelate, though I would rather kill the enemies, not just startle them.” He raised both hands, twisted his wrists, and changed the magic he had released. The pouring rain froze into a wave of long, sharp ice projectiles that were like pointed arrowheads pelting the drenched soldiers. Then the D’Haran soldiers fell upon them.
Utros’s raiding party had expected little resistance when they harassed undefended villages and an isolated shepherd’s family. Surprised, they were easy targets, and all of them were quickly and methodically dispatched.
True to her word, Lyesse accounted for six of the enemy soldiers herself. Three D’Haran soldiers had been injured in the fray, and they all sat together under now clear skies and bound each other’s wounds. Verna and Oron used their gift to heal the worst of their cuts.
Before sunset, they made camp outside the damaged cottage. Two of the men retrieved the bodies of the shepherd and his son from their burned tent and brought them back so the entire family could lie at rest next to one another. Verna and her companions took the time to give the poor victims a proper burial, which seemed fitting.
“The Keeper took them too soon,” she said. “But at least they will all be a family in the underworld.”
In a hard voice Oron said, “The Keeper didn’t take the rest of the ancient army soon enough. I’d like to send them all to the underworld.”
It seemed fitting to leave the bodies of the ancient warriors to rot on the hillside.
As night fell and the party built a fire outside to brighten the darkness, Lyesse trudged back across the meadow with one of the sheep over her shoulders, killed and gutted.
“The rest of the flock is scattered,” she said. “This one will be enough for us, and Utros will get none of them.” She dropped the carcass near the fire, then used her dagger to cut chunks of the richest meat for them to roast. “It has been a good day.”
“A good enough one,” Verna said. Though they had killed thirty of the enemy, she knew there were countless more soldiers, and that thought weighed on her. Was this merely an exercise?
But when she looked at Amber’s satisfied smile, she decided to let the novice enjoy the victory. Verna promised herself that the war was not, in fact, insurmountable. There would be many defeats and setbacks before all was said and done, but they had won this day, at least. . . .
CHAPTER 11
The great army of General Utros consisted of as many tactical details as there were soldiers. As the general planned the conquest of the Old World, his greatest challenges were administrative.
In the late afternoon, he stood outside his pavilion and stared across the sweeping encampment, deep in thought as the sun lowered behind the mountains to the west. His tactical mind was a complex series of turning wheels, one thought changing another as he considered the consequences of his actions. He touched the gold mask that covered the left half of his face, a price he had been forced to pay. Consequences . . .
Although he understood his army’s dire situation better than any of his soldiers did, he refused to let desperation press him into making another brash choice. He would plan his next move carefully, using his insights, experience, and strategic knowledge. He listened to the camp sounds as his hungry troops settled for the night. They gathered around communal bonfires to tell stories of their lost loved ones or to play ancient gambling games.
After the devastating setbacks—the mayhem of the titanic Ixax warriors, the return of the gray dragon, the fiery transference magic—his subcommanders had reported the actual tally of losses only to Utros. He could not let the masses understand just how terrible a blow they had suffered, because his army must never learn that true defeat was possible.
The bodies of the fallen were swiftly burned in funeral pyres to disguise the vast numbers of corpses. Also, so they would not feel the constant reminder of their fallen comrades, Utros reorganized his entire fighting force, reassigning the surviving soldiers into new companies under new subcommanders, so they would not immediately see how many comrades they had lost.
The greatest blow, though, was the loss of Ildakar itself.
Utros turned toward the end of the valley and the sheer drop-off to the river lowlands. The whole city was gone, as if it had never existed. His explicit purpose, burned in
to him by Emperor Kurgan so long ago, had been to conquer Ildakar. That was the reason he and his vast army had marched through the mountains down from Orogang, and now their primary goal had been snatched away.
Utros knew he had little time. He pressed his mask against the hard scar of his cheek. The pain in the stripped side of his face sent twinges into his skull. For now, his men still had faith in him. They trusted their general, swore deeper loyalty to him than they had ever felt toward Iron Fang. Utros would not let them down, but he had to give them something to hold on to, some new hope, an attainable goal. He would rally them, fire their determination.
Ava stepped out from the pavilion’s shade. She had applied black soot and dark red paint in incomprehensible designs over her breasts and flat stomach, then donned her filmy blue gown. She was breathtakingly beautiful, like her twin, and she was equally terrifying. She reached out to stroke his thick biceps. “My sister is returning, beloved Utros.” Her touch lingered on the embossed design on his copper armband. “I sense her.”
His gaze was drawn to the scar that ran along her outer thigh where her leg had been fused with her sister’s at birth, before their father had hacked them apart as babies. Though they were physically separated, their Han remained connected.
Ava gestured with her chin toward where a large party trotted out of the northern hills through the scorched grasses. Several hundred mounted soldiers led a train of wagons and pack mules loaded with sacks of grain and casks of ale, and they also drove sheep, cattle, goats, and a few yaxen. Even from a distance, Utros recognized First Commander Enoch and the pale, painted figure of Ruva at the front of the party.
Groups at separate campfires let out cheers when they saw the supplies. Throughout the day, dozens of scattered raiding parties had returned with whatever provisions they could liberate from villages or isolated homes in the hills. The trickle of food was enough to reassure the army, for now.
Utros was confident none of his soldiers could complete the calculations of just how many sacks of grain, how many cattle, sheep, goats, chickens, deer, or boar, were needed to feed more than a hundred thousand mouths. He had to find a solution before his army understood the magnitude of the problem.
Heart of Black Ice (Sister of Darkness: The Nicci Chronicles Book 4) Page 7
