For the Killing of Kings

by Howard Andrew Jones

  The signalman helped him buckle and then stepped back. “Can you stop it?” he asked.

  “I mean to try. Go, Lelanc!”

  The ko’aye lumbered for the edge, climbed the battlement, and flung herself over the side. They dropped down and away from the tower, curving out from the citadel as they built speed. He ignored his lurching stomach and stared at the Naor running for the breach in the outer walls.

  “Keep us above that wyrm.”

  “Yes.”

  No longer sun blinded, Rylin had a better look at the beast. It resembled Lelanc only in that it was winged. More reptile than bird, the beast’s black length stretched on for hundreds of feet. Barbs stuck up from its spine and skull and scorpion-like from its tail. Three riders sat it: one in front along a thick neck, and two more along its back ridge, both armed with bows. One of those helmed, bearded riders even now drew a bead upon Lelanc, who threw herself higher in the wind. His arrow missed by a wide margin.

  The monster wyrm flew straight and slow for the final city wall and the walled citadel on its steep hill beyond, carried by the ponderous flap of its wings. “One more of those roars and I bet towers start tumbling,” Rylin called up to Lelanc.

  “Their arrow men watch us,” she warned him.

  “Draw their fire from above. The moment they loose, drop in close.” Rylin hefted a javelin. He tried not to think about the Naor rushing the walls. If he and Lelane could bring this thing down, he thought the Alantrans could still hold them back. That outer wall hadn’t fully fallen yet. And they had the power of the greatest weaver of the Altenerai. Cerai was probably riding even now to repair that gap.

  Lelanc climbed high, and Rylin clung tight with one hand, his boots jammed tight into the stirrups.

  There was the briefest hesitation, a moment when they seemed to float, weightless, and then they were dropping almost vertically. His heart raced like a rabbit’s.

  The Naor archers mounted on the beast winged arrows toward them, and Lelanc veered. Apparently she hadn’t quite understood the instructions. Rylin pushed aside the thought of an arrow hitting her. If Lelanc lost control from such a height, they’d be nothing but cobblestone paste.

  She leveled out above and parallel to the great blue-black monster, only a couple of spear throws from the citadel. One of the bowmen set another arrow to his string and sighted on them.

  Too slow. Rylin caught him through the shoulder and he fell, screaming, arms flailing. Apparently the Naor didn’t use saddle straps.

  Rylin threw a second javelin, then cursed, for he saw it would be deflected by the top of the rider’s flared black helmet. This was the time to risk a little magic. He coaxed the wind to swing it wide, then pushed the point the other way.

  It altered in its course and took the man at the base of his skull. There was an explosion of blood, and at the same moment the man slumped the wyrm dropped like a marionette cut from its strings. It smashed through the granary at the foot of the citadel’s hill, sliding on through three homes as if they were nothing but kindling. A cascade of hoarded seeds swept out like a golden wave and engulfed its tail. Rylin prayed no one had been inside those houses.

  From below, a surge of cheers roared through the city, no matter the destruction.

  “Damn,” Rylin said. “Why couldn’t the wyrm pull up on its own?”

  Lelanc beat her wings to climb for the tower. “We stopped it. But they struck me.”

  “How badly?”

  “It hurts to fly. But I can.”

  “Land at the citadel,” he commanded. Surely there were healers there. He twisted in his saddle to look behind. The Naor were charging the low spot, but the Alantran defenders were taking a heavy toll with great flights of arrows, bolstered by catapults. The invaders dropped by the dozens, one catapult stone ploughing through a score of figures as he watched.

  With a little luck, they might just hold.

  They closed on the platform atop the high tower. There was no sign of the signalman as Rylin unclipped and hopped down, and for some reason his ring had lit. Maybe that was because of exposure to the beast’s magic. He was less worried about that than he was of Lelanc’s wound.

  “Hurry,” the ko’aye shouted. By now he recognized her wing fluttering as nerves.

  He spotted the dark feathers of an arrow protruding from the underside of Lelanc’s right wing in the meaty leading edge. He put hand to it gently. Fully a foot of wood stood out from where it disappeared into her white feathers, so he didn’t imagine it was a particularly deep wound. “Hang on,” he said. “I’m going to test it a bit—”

  “Rylin!”

  At first he thought that Lelanc objected to the idea.

  “More come!” Lelanc let out a shrill caw of alert.

  At the same moment Rylin heard a second warning horn from the distant wall.

  He felt the blood drain from his face as he stared once more toward the sun.

  Five more monster ko’aye flew from the west. Damn! The first must just have been testing their defenses. But he and Lelanc had learned its secret. They might just be able to take the things down. It would be tricky, but they could do it. With a little luck. Well, probably a lot of luck.

  He pulled the arrow from her wing quickly. It bled a little but she evinced no pain. “We must fly with weapons!” Lelanc cried. “Remount!”

  Rylin was readying to do just that when he froze in place. His ring still burned brightly, but his body didn’t respond. He was puzzled until he understood he was under a sorcerous attack.

  He might not have had physical control, but he retained consciousness, and that enabled him to slip his sight into the inner world. He discovered a veil lay across the battlement, hiding its true form. The signalman lay there beside his mirror in an awkward heap. Life energy leaked from his weakening frame, shifting in color from gold to gray. A slumped figure in a blue khalat lay nearby, and with a start Rylin recognized that wiry hair as Varama’s, whose own life energy was dulled.

  And creeping up on Rylin’s right was Cerai, seven magnificent hearthstones, the keystone, and multiple shards shining in her pack, each one tightly sewn to her own life force.

  Rylin reached out for that same hearthstone energy, but Cerai easily batted his effort aside. Her mystical attack emptied him. He tripped backward and fell to one knee. It was only then he truly understood that she was the source of the veil. It must have been her presence that set off his ring, if he’d only bothered to pay attention.

  Cerai climbed into the saddle as Lelanc sat statue stiff, subdued by sorcerous threads of command.

  Rylin fought the wave pounding at him to surrender, to lay still. Somehow he found the strength to pull his sword.

  “I’m sorry about this,” Cerai told him. “I truly am. But I don’t have time for this nonsense. Up, beast!”

  Lelanc beat her wings. Rylin lurched to his feet and stumbled after, grabbing a javelin. He was winding back to throw it when Cerai’s assault flattened him once more. He dropped, dizzily, as she soared north upon Lelanc. He might have called to her that they could stop the Naor if she simply turned back, but he wasn’t certain if he’d spoken or merely wished to, and soon it all faded to dream.

  26

  Battles in the Dark

  She drove them to their death.

  Elenai had been proud that she’d mastered the hearthstone to such an extent that she’d been able to bring N’lahr’s plan to fruition. But she hadn’t given serious thought that she led these strong and vital creatures to their destruction until it began to happen.

  No part of it had been easy, from the manipulation of the eshlack matriarch to the shepherding of the vast herd through the Shifting Lands—the Gods be praised that there had been no storms—to the endless push toward the distant city and the Naor army. The last three days were a blur of short sleep and infrequent meals and cravings for things she had never known, like the taste of succulent grass and the sun’s warmth on a broad furred back. They had traveled past hills and c
anyons and smoking villages that told of the Naor’s passage and pillage for supplies.

  She’d barely noticed when Kyrkenall helped her down from Lyria, his loyal mount. Vaguely, she was aware that she stood beside N’lahr near the height of a bluff where Gyldara had slain two Naor watchmen. Almost the whole of her consciousness lay like a web across the senses of the herd, seeing what they saw and smelling the deep rich vegetation that they craved. Twice during the journey she had allowed the herd to stop to eat and rest a little, but she could spare them nothing more, and drove them on, through their leaders, and through the occasional sharp blasts of fear she sent wavelike through their ranks.

  Already she knew that dozens were dead or dying, and they had yet to meet the Naor horde. A few had broken legs or necks in careless falls. Mothers left mewling calves in the wake of the rushing herd, and aged or injured eshlack that might have lived long months under different circumstances fell behind to fend off predators alone. The insistent push she gave to the minds of their leaders brooked no delay, and the mass of the herd moved as if fleeing death rather than chasing it down.

  This, she thought, is what it’s like to lead an army, to send forth troops to die. These might not be people, but they were her soldiers, and the casualties mounted because of her choices. Many more were to come, and it troubled her that these particular soldiers had not asked to join the fight, would not benefit from it, and that she sent them anyway.

  N’lahr’s voice was close in her ear. “Time to direct them into the Naor.”

  Diverting her attention for a brief moment to look through her own eyes, she perceived the campfires of a vast army that lay outside the plateau where her walled home city stood less than three miles away, and she breathed a nervous sigh of relief. They’d made it in time. Vedessus was still intact. She could see the latticework of its famed windmills rising above the walls, their blades turning in the ever-present wind. Above them the heavens were festooned with waving emerald and magenta auroras. Though strange to any who had not grown up beneath them, to her they were a reminder of times past, and early days when she had lain on the roof beside her young mother, who’d told stories about the ghostly banners left in the skies by the warring Gods.

  Yet her mind boggled at the size of the enemy horde before them. How many were they? Could her herd, immense though it was, truly wreak the damage N’lahr predicted?

  Still tenuously linked to the moving matriarch, Elenai scanned her surroundings more critically. The Naor had posted their now-dead sentinels on this bluff because of the fine view across the wide old river valley to the distant city. Its northern face was a sheer drop of more than thirty feet, and its western and eastern sides were nearly as steep. Apparently N’lahr had led her up the gentle southern slope, at the base of which she noted their horses picketed, puffing hard, and cropping at low grasses just beyond a thin line of scrubby trees. Kyrkenall and N’lahr were at each elbow. Gyldara studied the distance from the edge. Lasren, more pained and exhausted than he’d admit, had removed the boot from his bandaged leg and sat massaging it on the ground nearby.

  “There’s something you’ve probably been looking for,” Kyrkenall said quietly to N’lahr, pointing. Elenai was too busy fighting for control of the eshlack to study where her companions looked, for the animals struggled to run anywhere but toward the Naor camp.

  Through the matriarch’s eyes she saw canyon walls fall behind on either side, felt mighty legs driving her into the open, saw the signs of the two-legs and their vast dwellings where the sharp and hurting things were kept. She battled the eshlack’s wish to keep well clear of their gathering.

  Run, she told the matriarch, knowing as she did that she drove the animal to certain death. Awash with disgust for her betrayal, Elenai nonetheless pushed the message forward. Death pursues you. Run. Straight into the two-legs. Guide the herd. With all her will she bore down, and the great beast charged forward to stamp the two-legs.

  Elenai brushed the minds of the nearest eshlack with that same anger just as an alarm bugle sounded in the camp ahead. The closest would follow, but those behind might start to veer. She lay her commands upon individuals in the hordes behind, and then the masses beyond them. Kill, she ordered, kill the two-legs before they kill you! Bring them pain before they cause it!

  She ordered and they obeyed, rank upon rank, sweeping the Naor tents and dragging them after and stamping the men that fled to mush. Here and there a few soldiers swung up spears and formed in lines but the eshlack drove on and in, crushing through the Naor and running on even though mortally wounded.

  Kyrkenall let out a whoop and struck the air with his fist before grabbing her shoulder and squeezing. “I like how you drove that one group straight for Mazakan’s tents.” Kyrkenall laughed.

  “Mazakan’s here?” she asked.

  “I thought you knew.”

  She shook her head.

  “There was no missing it,” Kyrkenall protested. “The seven triangular flags flying over the big tent?”

  She shook her head.

  “Whether you aimed for it or not,” N’lahr said, “it worked. Nicely done.”

  “Thank you.”

  They watched the chaos unfold for long minutes. By the light of the aurora, dissipating clouds of dust raised by the eshlack stampede were tinged blue and green. Any of the animals still running fled west, following the river. Tents were smashed and broken all along the valley floor, and everywhere were dark lumps. If she hadn’t been looking with the inner world imposed over her sight, she wouldn’t have understood them for dead Naor and horses. Larger mounds were fallen eshlack.

  Vedessus was safe, but she felt a little sick.

  Enemy horsemen had turned their backs to the city. Some were in full gallop, scattered wildly, but a larger mass departed in orderly ranks. All seemed on course toward their bluff, or maybe the canyon beside it, which would lead them out of the river valley.

  As Elenai tried to guess at their numbers, a presence brushed against her and brightened greedily at the proximity of an active hearthstone. It had to be a Naor weaver. Tendrils of interest from that distant mage feathered about her. She shuddered as the probing presence brushed her, and she sent a blast of pain at him before she turned off her stone. That encouraged a speedy withdrawal. Only when she looked away from the inner world did she discover N’lahr waiting intently beside her.

  “They know we’re here, don’t they,” he said.

  She nodded. “One of them just tried to use my hearthstone.”

  “They probably detected it once the attack began. We’re lucky the enemy was too busy waking up and dodging eshlack to make a concerted counterattack against you.”

  “That wasn’t luck,” Kyrkenall declared. “They were outplanned. I figure we have ten minutes before they draw close. They might just ride past.”

  “They might,” N’lahr conceded. He didn’t sound optimistic.

  “Our horses are too flagged to get us out of here in any case.”

  N’lahr agreed with a head bob. “We need to change the odds again, Elenai. If you’ve any energy left for sorcery, steepen the approach to the south side of our bluff.”

  He called out other orders as Elenai touched her hearthstone. The moment she did, though, she felt that mage grasping for it again. Whoever it was had both power and ambition. She didn’t have the time to wrestle for its control. She drew in as much energy as she dared and shut it down. If nothing else, her actions had at least lessened her own fatigue.

  She looked out upon the galloping Naor. Among that larger contingent one carried a banner topped by a narrow fanged skull—a ko’aye skull, she knew from tapestries. And the seven triangular flags beneath identified it as Mazakan’s standard. He was coming.

  Elenai turned to N’lahr and found him bent along the top of the slope, utilizing what she recognized as Denaven’s blade to pry up a skull-sized boulder. He’d suggested that they all pack extra swords, and she now understood that he’d foreseen this moment. He s
ent the rock rolling, then moved onto another before it came to a stop halfway down the slope.

  “The Naor in that big group are carrying Mazakan’s standard,” she reported. “He must still be alive.”

  “Yes,” N’lahr replied as he worked up a slightly larger rock. “I’m not surprised.”

  “I wasn’t able to change the terrain.” She was reluctant to admit she wasn’t entirely certain how to do that on real ground, in any case. “Their mage is waiting to fight me for control the moment I activate the hearthstone.”

  “We’ll make do.” N’lahr sounded remarkably calm. She’d expected he might be disappointed. “Help me with this, will you? Any spots to spoil the footing of the Naor or their mounts might save our lives.”

  She understood on the instant—he was working to roughen the terrain. The others began imitating N’lahr in choosing medium-sized rocks to pry up. Their removal would create holes and loosen the soil on the sloped surface, slowing enemy ascent.

  As she labored, oddly grateful to stretch aching muscles, Elenai imagined how the Naor might assault their position.

  Their bluff looked down upon the rest of the plain from a height of thirty or thirty-five feet. Composed mostly of crumbly sandstone ornamented with only the occasional clump of grass, it was level from its edge to about twenty feet back in a rough rectangle sloping gently down to the canyon floor south. Similar rougher or taller bluffs on either hand marked the edge of Vedessus’ valley, but N’lahr had chosen their ground well. The sheer drops along the north, east, and west of their escarpment made assaults from those sides unlikely, so the Naor would come up from only one side, the easier south.

  Just beyond the sparse screen of trees and bushes near the bottom of the slope, Kyrkenall was hurriedly cutting the horses free of their pickets; at a slap on her rump, Lyria led the others at a tired trot into the easterly darkness. If the Naor assaulted the hill they’d probably dismount first, owing both to the difficulty of getting through the copse and of maneuvering mounts on the narrow height. The space was restricted enough it would limit the number of enemies that could come forward at once. A smart commander would send them up with spears, probably fifteen at a time.