Word of Truth

by Rhett C. Bruno

  Blindly, he plummeted, air rising all around him. He had no time to be nervous. But Iam made his leap true, and Torsten’s fall broke in salty water. Water rushed up his nose and filled his mouth, completely disorienting him. He flailed to find anything to push off of, and his finger sliced against something sharp. He pulled it back, but as he patted around more, he realized that it was a sword stuck somehow between two metal rods, or a cell.

  Torsten knew that smooth groove down the center of a claymore blade anywhere—impossibly smooth, perfectly balanced. Even as his lungs struggled, he pulled himself to the side of it until his back hit a surface. He wrapped his blindfold around it, then pushed off with his feet.

  Stone shifted, nearly crushing his arm as it ripped a portion of his sleeve. The flat of the blade slipped forward and slapped the top of his boot. A pair of hands grasped the back of his shirt and heaved. The next thing he knew, he lay upon a ramp of rubble extending from the hole in the Tal’du Dromesh square. He huffed for air, hacking up water.

  “Sir Unger, you’re alive!” Lucas said, coughing as well.

  Torsten slid the sword up the stone, then tied his blindfold back on. The thing was soaked, blurring his vision—light and shadow bleeding over one another.

  But he was alive, thank Iam.

  “I suppose I am,” he said. “How did you—“

  “Rand got away, Sir,” he groaned as dragged himself farther up the rubble. “I failed again.”

  “We have other things to worry about.”

  Torsten flipped over and searched for Salvation. After locating it, he used it to push up to his knees, aiding Lucas as well. The chances of him finding that sword in all this mess, it gave him a spurt of hope that Iam was still with them.

  Markless Shesaitju men and women stampeded all around them, running for their lives, screaming. Zhulong tusk horns bellowed throughout Latiapur, summoning warriors. One voice, however, rang louder than all things—that of Caleef Mahraveh across the square.

  “Here, we fight for our city!” she yelled, standing atop a zhulong so all could see her in her shredded but still sparkling golden clothes. “Stand with me, warriors of the Black Sands.”

  “Stand with your Caleef!” her guardian Bit’rudam echoed. Then, he barked orders in Saitjuese.

  Torsten pieced together the blurred figures as the hot sun quickly dried out his enchanted blindfold. Serpent Guards fell into formation around Mahraveh, armed to the teeth, facing the entries of the Tal’du Dromesh. Shesaitju warriors fell in around them throughout the square, those without weapons handy wielding whatever they could get their hands on.

  Torsten approached the familiar faces, while Lucas struggled to keep up. He looked as bad as Torsten imagined he did himself.

  Sir Mulliner stood with a pack of Shieldsmen, brow furrowing with disbelief when he saw Torsten nearing.

  “I thought you were done for,” the Shieldsman said, breathless. His tanned skin was coated in blood, dust, and grime, as were all the other Glassmen.

  “You’re not so lucky yet,” Torsten replied. “The King is supposed to be holed up in the Keep. We have to get to him.”

  “We have to survive first.”

  “Sir Danvels, we’ll handle here,” Torsten said. “You reach the King.”

  Metal clattered and men chanted. Torsten looked back and saw the rival Shesaitju army amassing around the entry arches of the arena. Many painted their gray faces with stark white lines like skulls. The patterns were indicative of the far eastern and island afhemates he’d fought against in the wars.

  “Go, Lucas!” Torsten demanded. “And don’t return without him.” He clutched the weary Shieldsman by the shoulder and shoved him toward the markets before he could protest. Then, Torsten turned to the enemy, tightening his grip on Salvation.

  “Shieldsmen!” he bellowed. “The Black Sands stand with us in the light. We are the shield that guards Iam’s Kingdom. Stand with them until the bitter end!”

  The Shieldsmen pounded on their chest plates. He could hear their nervous breaths, their unsteady footsteps—they, and all the Shesaitju allies standing with them. Only the faceless Serpent Guards stood in eerie silence.

  A large portion of the arena’s upper level crumbled as one of the wianu clambered over it. Its midnight black eyes peeked over the crest, and then, it unleashed a bloodcurdling roar. At that, the enemy army charged, rushing out of the archways in the thousands.

  Torsten twirled Salvation and dug in to face them. “Iam is with us, my friends!” he shouted. “For our King!”

  XXI

  The Caleef

  Surrounded by Serpent Guards, Mahi was transported out into the square beyond the curved entry colonnade of the Tal’du Dromesh. They led her to the mass of Shesaitju warriors who’d been patrolling the city. Now, they surrounded the arena to see what was happening and why all the markless, merchants, and cowards fled.

  “What is—“

  Mahi snatched the spear from the hands of the approaching commander addressing her from atop a zhulong. She elbowed aside the Serpent Guards around her and whipped back to face the arena.

  “My Caleef, you must get to safety!” Bit’rudam said, taking her arm.

  She shook free. “Safety is for the King. Babrak has gone too far this time.” She pushed off with the spear to stand atop the zhulong. She turned back to its rider. “Go to the stables and get any man or woman old enough to fight mounted.”

  He nodded and hopped off, summoning a few other warriors to run with him.

  Then, perched atop the beast, Mahi raised her spear and shouted in Saitjuese, “The traitor comes! Stand with me, my people. In the name of the God and Sand and Sea and his true Caleef, we must hold his city!”

  She didn’t tell them that their God was dead.

  The Serpent Guards immediately formed lines on either side of her and raised their weapons. More warriors fell in behind them, heeding the commands of their leader. Zhulong horns bellowed from former afhems, directing the formations. Even some unarmed civilians caught in the retreat were inspired to stop and stand with them.

  For a moment, Mahi was glad the stripping of their stations was mere ceremony. Without them to lead, there would’ve been confusion.

  “You saw what they have,” Bit’rudam protested, refusing to join the other guards. “Mahraveh, you must get to the Keep with King Pi. We’ll set up a second defense there in case—“

  “In case what?” Mahi growled. “If Babrak wants to fill the streets of this sacred city with blood, then let it be more of his own.”

  The ferocious roar from a Current Eater within the arena drew their attention. Babrak’s army had arrayed themselves beneath the arena’s entry colonnade.

  Mahi felt sick to her stomach. These were her own people, prepared to ravage Latiapur. All because an angry, pis’truda of a man refused to bow to a woman as his Caleef. Everything else fell from her memory. Pi, the marriage, Nesilia—she just wanted to kill Babrak.

  “My father fought on those sands!” Mahi screamed. “I fought on those sands! It was not the marks we earned that made it mean something. It was our hearts. As Shesaitju. Babrak would destroy that!”

  Her people voiced their agreement.

  Across the square, Babrak’s army riled up in their own manner, their leaders probably telling them lies about how Mahi had stolen her title. How she, Yuri, and her father had planned all of this, as if what she’d endured when she hit the Boiling Waters and met Nesilia face to face could’ve been planned.

  “He will lie and say I destroyed our history,” Mahi continued. “But we don’t need afhemates. We need only to flow in one Current. The souls of those who perished on those hallowed sands stand with us!”

  Her people broke out into raucous cheering, cursing Babrak—all but the Serpent Guards who stood firm and silent as always, and Bit’rudam, fretfully watching her. Their opponents did the same as their numbers amassed within the Tal’du Dromesh.

  “One Current,” Mahi said to him
, softly. “I must stand with them. Besides, we have with us the man whose battle with my father ended in a draw.” She nodded down the line of their forces, toward where Shieldsman gleamed in their pearly armor. Torsten stood in their lead, somehow escaping the arena after helping them.

  “Then none shall get near you, my Caleef,” Bit’rudam said. Without waiting for an invitation, he hopped onto the back of her zhulong and laid his weapon across his lap.

  “Circle flanks!” he ordered. “Drive them toward the serpent’s fangs, and we’ll cut them to pieces.”

  Not all the Shesaitju in their makeshift army understood his tactics. Still, enough former afhems were amongst them to relay the orders. Fanning out from the core of Serpent Guards, the ranks curled in, forming a U-shaped broader than that of the arena. When the enemy charged, they’d be funneled toward Mahi’s best warriors before they even realized it.

  She hoped. They could do little else to prepare before arrows started zipping over the arena walls. Then, without so much as a war cry, Babrak’s army charged.

  Hundreds of angry, gray faces rushed at her. Mahi clenched the shaft of her spear and prepared to kill however many she needed to. Ever since her reincarnation, staying calm had been an easy thing. It came with the onslaught of memories and the knowledge of what she was. Yet, Babrak changed that. Rage fueled her. Bit’rudam’s chest heaved against her back as he, too, prepared in his own way to battle his own kind.

  The forces crashed upon each other, and her zhulong bashed the first wave aside with its mighty tusks.

  Then hers and Bit’rudam’s blades went to work. They were like one artist painting the same canvas with two brushes, flowing this way and that, never clashing, always in sync.

  Torsten barked orders across the battlefield. His men plowed through the enemy ranks in a wedge formation, driving more toward the Serpent Guards, whose sickle blades and fauchards twirled without relent, dousing the stone in blood. The Glassmen didn’t move with the same grace, but Mahi had to admit, their tack was effective. They, themselves, were like a herd of angry zhulong in their heavy armor and giant shields.

  Mahi had sacrificed so much to stop the infighting between her people, yet here they were again. It all seemed so inevitable. Two clashing tides, only one to prevail. The old ways and the new.

  Their lines held in places, collapsed in others. Brave citizens of Latiapur flung vases and wares from the markets at the enemies—anything that could do damage. They weren’t archers, but it was better than nothing. From a numbers standpoint, now that most of the city’s army had arrived, Mahi had the advantage. Especially when her commander came from the stables with a horde of zhulong-mounted warriors, barreling toward the enemy’s east flank through the afhem housing district.

  Mahi stabbed a man’s chest, then ripped her spear out and slashed another across the jaw.

  They brought this upon themselves, she told herself. Babrak did this.

  Her zhulong took a spear to the hide and bucked so hard it snapped the weapon. Bit’rudam beheaded the attacker with one smooth stroke, while Mahi took down a warrior aiming for his back. Then, her attention returning to the arena, she spotted Babrak watching through an arch at the arena’s upper level.

  “Come and face me, you worm!” she shouted up, spinning the spear above her head and slicing it down through an enemy soldier’s shoulder.

  The zhulong cavalry crashed into Babrak’s forces, trampling them like ants. Babrak didn’t seem fazed in the slightest by the sudden turn in tide. He grinned directly at Mahi, then spun and lumbered away. In his place, hundreds of archers filled the open arches of the Tal’du Dromesh.

  He’d waited for all of Mahi’s forces to converge, then gave the order. Barbed arrows, loosed from high ground, lanced down in straight lines, maintaining full velocity, and peppered the battlefield. Babrak didn’t seem to care who they hit.

  Bit’rudam screeched, and Mahi glanced back. Her heart jumped, but only for a beat. He’d been clipped on the thigh. Nothing serious. Mahi yanked on the zhulong’s wild mane to turn herself toward the attack, swatting away one arrow and dodging another. By the time the last of the volley fell, men on both sides groaned everywhere. Shesaitju arrows weren’t built for range, but they shredded like no other. They were meant to intimidate with brutality. And it worked.

  “Caleef Mahraveh, it’s time for you to fall back!” Torsten called out, fighting toward her. His massive sword cleaved a man in two while a Shieldsman moved along at his side, shield raised to deflect arrows.

  “He’s right,” Bit’rudam moaned. An enemy warrior grabbed at his injured leg to pull him off the zhulong. He kicked the man away, and Mahi finished him.

  “Find the King at the keep,” Torsten said. “We need you…” he paused as an enemy charged him. His mighty blade swung in a wide arc, catching the man off guard with his range and gashing his gut. Other enemy combatants circled Torsten, keeping their distance as they watched their ally fall to his knees, cradling his entrails.

  “We need you both alive!” Torsten finished.

  Mahraveh bit her lip. But before she could respond, the distant roars of the Current Eaters rampaging within the arena were no longer so distant. She noticed Bit’rudam’s eyes widen with unfamiliar terror in her peripherals. All three of the legendary beasts broke through the side of the Tal’du Dromesh at the same time, masses of razor-sharp tentacles slashing everything in their paths. Massive chunks of stone and lengths of columns blew off the walls with them, flattening Shesaitju on both sides as they landed and rolled.

  Babrak, self-proclaimed man of the people, brought everyone together so he could heartlessly sacrifice whoever he needed to. The horrifying Current Eater, which landed in the center of the battleground, roared, its spittle and stench dousing the square.

  Mahi didn’t fear it, but her zhulong did. She felt its muscles tense before it tucked tail and bolted. It turned so abruptly, Bit’rudam was thrown aside. She would’ve joined him if she hadn’t grasped a handful of its mane with one hand.

  The beast rampaged through her army, and it wasn’t alone. The zhulong cavalry was driven into hysterics as well, squealing in terror. Mahi had been around the creatures her entire life and had never heard them release such a sound. She attempted to calm hers, to no avail. So, she tried to leap off onto a market stand canvas, and as she did, one of the Current Eaters bellowed again, and her zhulong made a sharp turn.

  Her foot twisted, getting caught in its stirrup. She hung off the side as the zhulong bounded down alleyways. She tightened her core, crunching to avoid hitting buildings, all while trying to tear free.

  Another zhulong raced in front of hers and broke through a stand. The canvas awning collapsed atop it, forcing it into a wild spin. Its tusks stabbed hard into Mahi’s mount, and together, they spun. Before Mahi knew it, she was careening through the air, landing hard against a rock formation.

  Rubbing her dizzy head, she worked her way to her knees, and from her low vantage, saw the battle she’d just been ejected from. Once the Current Eaters had entered the fray, everything changed. Their tentacles raked everyone aside, showing no prejudice—Serpent Guards, Shieldsmen, everyone had to fend for themselves.

  She clambered higher up the rocks to get a better view. Her presence alone would help nothing. She needed to devise a strategy and fast.

  The crest of the formation didn’t offer any answers. It did, however, allow Mahi to see over the bluffs to the Boiling Waters, where Latiapur’s defensive navy had somehow not noticed the approaching fleet. Her ships converged toward the mouth of the arena where the attack had originated.

  Waves pushed out in a straight line from that point, rocking her fleet violently. One slammed into the bluffs. Another’s sails were ripped to shreds. One of Babrak’s warships sailed toward the palace, somehow unaffected, that same mystic on the front holding her arms out wide.

  Waves didn’t naturally behave in such a singular manner. They weren’t only big, but forceful, radiating off of the
ship like magic.

  Mahi turned back to the city, where one of the Current Eaters broke through further and rampaged through the markets. The thing was pinned with hundreds of arrows and still hadn’t slowed.

  Destruction rained down everywhere. Chaos in the streets, barbed arrows in the sky, mythical monsters, cartwheeling through Latiapur, a place where no battle was to be done outside of Tal’du Dromesh. The old ways were officially over, but Mahi was afraid of what the new would genuinely look like.

  That was when Mahi realized… no strategy could get them out of this. The enemy’s magic could manipulate even the waves.

  So, she ran along the ridge of the bluffs, hopping from point to point, racing toward the Boiling Keep. Hundreds lived there, and bells within the high dome bellowed as the city remained on alert. It was time for them to signal retreat and get the King to safety.

  Mahi squeezed through a narrow pass in the rocks, then leaped down to the palace steps where warriors posted in the palace were set up in layers to prepare a final defense.

  Mahi grabbed a former afhem. “Call a retreat,” she ordered. “Everyone. The entire city.”

  “My Caleef, we can hold the Keep,” he protested.

  “We won’t. Is the King inside?”

  “The Glass boy?” the former afhem asked, not masking his disdain. “Not at all.”

  Mahi grunted in frustration. “North. Tell everyone to flee north by land.” The Current Eaters were sea creatures. As little as Mahi knew about them, she had to believe that land was their best option for escape.

  “To what end, my Caleef?”

  “White Bridge.” Then she turned and shouted, “Abandon the city! Abandon Latiapur.” Her voice carried to the dock lifts where soldiers prepared to descend and take more ships out to their doom.

  She yelled it to warriors, to the few posted Serpent Guards, to servants and dockworkers.

  Abandon Latiapur… Words she never thought she’d utter, words her father nor any of the proud afhems ever would’ve dreamed of until their ranks were broken entirely, and they were forced to surrender like Sidar Rakun.