Arynn thought of the years she’d spent wandering Vänalleato alone, away from the others her age and isolating herself to her father’s shop studying the maps. She’d looked at the charted lands, wondering where in the wastes Sera had gone. Never had she imagined her to be so close, waiting in a nearby land. When she’d turned sixteen, nearly two years ago now, the suitors started coming in, begging her father to at least give them a chance to win Arynn’s favor. None of them had been right for her. They’d sooner see her tied down in Vänalleato instead of out in the world where her heart lay.
Am I so different, then? Chaining Sera down while I attend my business? The thoughts of chains around Sera splashed a sour taste in her mouth. She needn’t ask Sera the details of her enslavement. The scars around her wrists and ankles were proof enough.
“Okay,” Arynn said.
Sera sat up straight, her fingers gripping the ruffles of her skirt tight. “Okay?”
Arynn exited the balcony, crossing back inside to the master bedroom she’d been given by King Randolph three moons ago. So much had changed in such a short time. In the three moons before being named legate she’d been an aspiring adventurer with her first taste of exploration offered by a scraggly haired boy waiting in her father’s shop during a spring storm. Before that, the lands of Ænæria were little more than words on parchment.
“You can come with me. You’ll have to stay at the tail of the party with the healers and cooks and craftsmen. But I’ll at least see you before and after drills.”
Sera leapt from the bed and swung her arms around Arynn. They embraced, and the sweet scent of her floral perfume gently greeted Arynn’s nose.
“So, I’ll see you morning and night? Not much different than now I suppose, but I’ll take it anyway.” She had a sharp smile—one that emitted the shine of her personality from before being taken. They released from their embrace, and Sera all but ran to her closet to collect her clothes.
She’s still in there, Arynn thought hopefully. They didn’t completely break her.
The darkness of night could have given them the advantage of surprise, but the shining Sun at midday fueled their path toward victory. Arynn rode as a passenger in the legate’s chariot, a sun-carriage with six wheels and the charging power of a small herd of oxen. Men of the Vänaguard dove out of the way as the vehicle lunged up the cliffside of Vänalleato. The Talamdoran knights held their ground, charging the sun-carriage with their horses and lances. The hard metal shell resisted the initial strikes and throws. One managed to strike true, piercing the front window. The glass spiderwebbed all across, obscuring Arynn and her pilot’s view.
Before Arynn could react, Prefect Memnon lowered his side window and unleashed an inferno from his sung pistol. Their armor glowed a molten red, and the knights screamed as they were cooked inside the very things which were meant to protect them.
A squadron of two dozen Rhion marched close behind to fend off the initial resistance and defend Arynn’s chariot while she worked to breach the town’s gate. She held out her own sung, a rifle with two barrels similar to the king’s own weapons. Her finger trembled against the trigger, questioning herself at the perfectly wrong time.
Vänaguard shuffled about the defenses, clambering across the ramparts and volleying arrows at the armored vehicle in vain. Gunfire filled the air, bright flickering flashes of light like candles ignited and extinguished over and over again.
No. This is what I’ve been training for. The sung sent out explosive blasts of concentrated energy. Wood turned to smoke, and the gate’s metal frames wept as they poured to the ground. The recoil knocked back against Arynn’s shoulder, pinching her shoulder blades together in a spasm of sharp pain from the old bullet wounds at the Ænærian prison. An electric shock coursed up her neck and down her arms and fingers. She bit back a curse and pulled the sung back into the chariot.
Memnon noticed her flinch of pain and narrowed his eyes.
Arynn ignored the disapproving glare. “Move forward. Break down that gate.”
Like a small thunderstorm, the chariot’s engine roared and sped toward the weakened Vänalleato gate. A battering ram mounted atop the chariot slammed first into the gate, shaking loose whichever pieces of wood and iron had survived Arynn’s blow. The entire gate rattled like a tarp in the wind. Memnon reversed the vehicle and then accelerated forward again. It shook again, the screeching of loosening metal a warning sign of the gate’s impending failure.
“Back up more and charge it full speed,” Arynn command.
“Legate, at full speed we may be thrown through the front window.”
“Then we’ll jump out at the last second. You know how to drop and roll, yes?”
If the prefect had any concerns, he did well at hiding them from his expression. He’d been used to crazy orders having worked under Fenwin all those years.
They backed up a good fifty feet before charging at full speed up the steep road. Arynn swore under her breath as she released another sung blast at the gate before leaping from her seat and rolling onto the hard ground, pain shooting through her in every direction.
Like a demon rushing through hell, the chariot bellowed forward into fire and metal, demolishing the last bits of integrity holding up the gate. The town was breached, and with the raiding ships from Neptuan launching cannons at the town from the lake below, the battle of Vänalleato began.
Countless bodies, Penteric Alliance and Rhion alike, lay scattered and dismembered just beyond the fallen town gate. In the midst of the carnage, Arynn wondered if bringing Sera along had been the right choice after all. So much death here—more even than she’d witnessed in Jordysc. Could she be sure Sera was safe at the party camp just beyond the town? Had enough Rhion been left behind to protect her?
But, of course, Arynn couldn’t imagine what the ride to Vänalleato would have been like without her. The nights had been frantic, her dreams of today’s battle creeping in like ghosts haunting her sleep. Waking up next to Sera had been the only solace in such isolating times. And what kind of nervous wreck would Sera have been had she been forced behind in Vestinia with Lady Estel leading the province? No, this had been the right choice.
Not that mattered much now. She’d already made it.
Already she had lost count of how many people she’d killed. Soon after the chariot had breached the gate, she and Memnon retook their positions within the fortified sun carriage and continued their assault. She didn’t think about their names and faces as she pulled back on the sung’s trigger and sentenced them to a merciless execution. In the heat of battle—between the cries, cannon fire from the Neptuan fleet distracting the town’s defenses, and musty soot—Arynn found herself in a trance unlike ever before. Her heart raced and pumped sweet fury through her body. She felt she didn’t need the protection of the chariot. She was unstoppable. Nothing could touch her now. Not with this power at her fingertips and an army at her whim.
Not until after she’d seen a man in simple worker’s garb run down by a troop of Rhion on horseback did Arynn come back to reality. There were civilians here. People who were just as much victims as she and Sera under the Elders and their sweet lies. That man could have been someone’s father. Sera’s father, even. Without a word to Memnon, Arynn flung open the chariot’s side door and jumped to the ground. She stumbled as she struck the still earth from the moving vehicle. As soon as she caught her footing, she pressed her fingers between her lips and whistled for the horsemen’s attention.
The Rhion at the rear heard her call and yanked back his mount’s reins. “What is it, Legate?” he shouted over the wails of war. He was one of hers—a Vestinian. She’d expected insubordination from Thatch’s men—another reason why she’d left the bulk of them outside the town to help wrangle up any escapees and bombard the town as a distraction while she and Memnon led their forces onto the frontal assault.
Arynn bit back the urge to snap at the soldier right there. Her heart beat against her chest like a savage animal t
rying to break free of its cage. Memnon’s nagging voice echoed in her mind, demanding she put this man and the other riders in their place for disobeying orders. Maybe it had been a mistake, leaving him behind. At least he knew how to control and discipline his men.
“You and the others killed that man. That was against my orders.”
The Rhion looked down at Arynn from his armored horse. The shock was plain in his pale eyes. “He attacked us.”
Arynn looked at the trampled man’s mangled body. He held no blades or bow. “With what? He’s unarmed.”
“Legate, this is a battle zone—we don’t have time for this.”
“Get off your horse,” Arynn snapped coldly.
“W-what?” the Rhion stuttered.
“Get off the horse. Don’t make me repeat myself, or that’ll be two orders you’ve disobeyed.”
The dumbstruck Rhion stood frozen, the horse distracting itself from the chaos by scrapping its front hoof against the ground. Arynn raised her sung; as soon as it approached the Rhion’s direction he hurried from the steed’s saddle and scrambled to the ground. Arynn shoved past him as soon as his boots landed, and she swung herself atop the warhorse, snapping its reins and charging forward.
She road on after the other riders. They’d already passed the nearest intersecting alley. Her view was obscured by the shops and homes throughout the streets. She guided her horse onward, angry at the Rhion for ignoring her call back at the front of the village. Furious they’d disobeyed her for killing an unarmed citizen.
Flashes of light suddenly danced alongside the alleyway. A bullet grazed below her right cheekbone. She howled with equal parts fear and rage. Her first thought jumped to treachery, that one of the Rhion she’d been pursuing had decided to utilize the chaos of battle to oust the outsider leading them.
She came up behind another rider who’d joined the fray and found the other Rhion she’d been after, scattered here and there, some no longer even on their horses. The docile creatures had weeping wounds, fresh blood painting the street below them. Across the street, a dozen or so men fired their rifles at Arynn’s men in a surprise shoot out.
Vänaguard shouldn’t have guns, Arynn thought bitterly. Vänalleato’s technology was far more primitive than even the weakest of Ænæria’s provinces. But no. It took her some time to reconcile the present situation with her deeply rooted conceptions of what used to be her home. The Miners Guild possessed guns. Surely Ben or her father could have used their connection with the guild to arm the Penteric Alliance’s settlements.
Suddenly, the horse in front of her buckled and tripped headfirst, launching its rider forward where his skull met the stone street with a crack all but muted by the symphony of battle. Arynn yanked the reins of her own steed as hard as she could, pressed her spurs inward in the hopes of avoiding what inevitably happened. Her own mount trampled over the fallen horse in front of her and collapsed forward. Arynn had braced early enough, preventing herself from being shot forward like the poor Rhion who now lay in a halo of red. Still, she buckled forward but used the momentum to leap from the falling horse and land into a roll on the street.
An axe hissed through the air just beyond her dangling red braid. She leapt backward, reeling from the near decapitation. The soldier before her swung his heavy blade back and then around again, using its momentum to follow his first swing. Arynn dove to the ground, dodging the next attack. She unsheathed the cold metal blade from her hip and sank it into the man’s boot. He howled and tried to back away but stumbled, his foot staked into the ground like a tent spike.
Wrath shone in his eyes as he looked at Arynn with recognition. She recognized this man, and he her. Someone she’d known from a previous life. Just as he opened his lips to curse her name, his forehead sank in with oozing red as a bullet pierced his skull. Arynn turned to find a Rhion a few yards back holding a smoking barrel. He lowered the weapon and ran off to the next skirmish.
Clouds crept into the sky, eclipsing the sun as the battle raged on. Rain pattered against the rooftops louder than the rattling arrows and bullets against wood and metal shields. Mud splashed about, scattered across her armor, and stained her pale skin. A group of a half-dozen Rhion regrouped with her, forming a defense around their legate. They moved as a single unit through the town, steadily making their way inward to their destination. Heavier resistance built up close to the center with ballistae and heavier firearms. Men from Sydgilbyn and armored warriors from Talamdor held the final defenses before the Grand Elder’s tower beyond the cathedral. Steel bit against steel in clangs barely audible over the heavy rain and explosions of angry battle.
Arynn and the Rhion guarding her closed in on their enemy’s last stand. Their armor did little to shield against the piercing bullets of her Rhion and spewing fire of her sung. A row of wood and stone barricades lined the cathedral’s northern tower where the soldiers retreated for a reprieve from the flurry of gunfire. Arynn and her Rhion would have to meet them in close quarters to take them out, and there the enemy would surely have the advantage.
Bullets and arrows danced back and forth between both sides. Rhion surrounding Arynn fell, embracing the earth one final time. Fewer foes fell across the barricades; the enemy was winning. Her sung ran low on power with the number of times she’d fired it throughout the assault. Two, maybe three shots left before she would be carrying dead weight. The storm grew only harsher, its rainclouds stealing the precious sunlight she needed to charge her weapon.
She swore at herself for the rash decision to leap from the chariot. Her power cells for the sung had been left inside. The trampled man had fanned such fire in her that she’d lost all sense. It’s the ties to this damned town. They chain me down, weaken me, and ruin my judgment. And what had her temper gained her? The man was still dead, and most of the Rhion who’d killed him were right here, themselves dying against the last defense erected by the enemy. Her outburst at the Rhion whose horse she’d taken had been for nothing. She’d been a fool to think she could control the battle fever of men at war. Now she understood. She felt the fever the second people everywhere started dying. It was disgustingly euphoric to feel such power over death and chaos.
Wind howled, and her loose strands of hair fluttered in the shock. The ground trembled, and the sun chariot rolled into the scene with all its might and devastation. It charged through the barricades and rammed through barricades and impaled unsuspecting foes with its anterior spikes. Memnon groaned as he rolled through the mud by Arynn’s side.
Before Arynn could ask what the blazes he was doing, the prefect spoke. “Shoot it.” His voice was weak, the sound of a man with more than a few broken bones holding him together.
Arynn cocked her head to the side, confused. Memnon raised a weak hand, his trembling finger aimed at Arynn’s sung.
Her eyes lit up, realizing what Memnon had set in motion. The chariot had slammed through the barricades, but the enemy defenses had not yet been breached. The Grand Elder’s tower of the cathedral was their objective. Once it fell, Vänalleato would go with it.
With the final charges of her sung brewing with the power of a tempest, Arynn took aim at the legate’s sun chariot. She could have another fashioned after her victory. She held her finger against the trigger tight, holding it as long as she could before the vibrations of the weapon shook her arms uncontrollably. It released a great wave of energy bound for the chariot. Orange and yellow light flashed around the vehicle for the blink of an eye.
And then it exploded. Dust and smoke roared across the scene like a vengeful spirit. It spread all around, and the few surviving Penteric Alliance soldiers gasped for air.
Her mistake of leaving behind the power cells had just been her army’s saving grace by turning the chariot into a massive bomb.
Arynn and her remaining comrades in the vicinity approached the fallen wall with caution. Her sung remained slung over her shoulder, completely empty of power. She ventured forth with a small pistol in one hand and a short-
bladed xiphos in the other.
Rhion cut down the remaining foes who’d been tasked with defending the Grand Elder’s tower. Few remained by the time Arynn and her guards arrived at the breach. She was hardly surprised by the fact that the tower wasn’t better guarded from within. She’d been careful to take the town by surprise, yielding Vänalleato scarce time to prepare defenses. The Grand Elder had often protested about the presence of Vänaguard in the holy cathedral. In the time the town had been able to prepare for the attack, Arynn bet few soldiers were stationed inside the tower. Well, his hubris would get the better of him now.
She’d only ever been inside the Grand Elder’s own tower twice before. The first time had been when she and Sera had been caught kissing by another townsperson. The Grand Elder took it on himself to berate the young couple, explaining the immorality of their ways. The second time had involved Sera too but after she’d gone missing. Arynn had gone straight there to plead for his help in finding her. At the end of the exchange, he’d somehow made Arynn feel like the disappearance had been her fault.
The interior was hardly recognizable. Before it had been filled with bronze and clay vases on marble pedestals set just beyond heptagonal windows through which light gleamed across the decorations. Between the windows lay elegant pieces of art, paintings depicting the history of Vänalleato. And, of course, at the end were the spiraling stairs leading to the Grand Elder’s own chamber—a place no one in the entire Alliance had ever set foot, save for the old beard himself.
Now the whole place was buried in dust and gore. The dismembered pieces of enemies lay indiscriminately across the once-immaculate floors. Blood and scorches defaced the paintings, and all but one of the windows were shattered to shards.
“Three Rhion with me. Two more keep watch of this room,” Arynn commanded after clearing her throat of the smoke that had crept into her lungs from the smoky, ransacked scene. “The rest of you, go help your comrades in the field. You all know my orders.”
The Heir of Ænæria Page 41
