“Would you explain how this is even possible?” Merros’s voice held an edge that would not go away. The man had been smiling when he showed up, but now he stared around him with a brow that was heavy with tension and one hand resting on the hilt of his sword. Desh made it a point to study people. Whatever had relaxed the man so thoroughly was now a thing of the past.
The general was not addressing him. He was actually speaking to the stable master, a man who currently was looking around the room as calmly as he could for a method of escape. To be fair, Merros Dulver could be a bit intimidating. He also had earned a reputation when he started punishing the occasional deserter or soldier who simply would not follow orders.
“I swear to you, General Dulver, that I or one of my men have been here at all times.” The stable master was trying to put on a good face, but he was shaking and his brow was pimpled by fat drops of sweat that the weather was not responsible for generating.
Merros Dulver looked at the dead horses throughout the long stables and cursed under his breath.
Desh and the general had been taking one of their fairly regular walks and keeping each other posted on what had occurred in the last few days. They had passed communications back and forth but mostly had been far too busy to consider an actual meeting. Now, frankly, there wasn’t much time to spend on anything else. The armies of the Sa’ba Taalor were on their way. There was simply no way to avoid that unpleasant fact.
While Merros looked at the dead animals, Desh considered what they had in common and made a deduction.
“Poison.”
Merros turned his way, scowling. “What did you say?”
“Poison. We should check the feed and the water. I’d guess poison. And a good one, too. That sort of thing is not inexpensive.”
“And do you have a list of poisoners and how much inventory they carry? Can we query them and find answers?”
Desh ignored the sarcasm in the question and smiled tightly. “I have just the man to help us with this.”
“Oh, really?” He had Merros’s undivided attention.
“I have seen him work near-miracles. He is responsible for the recent change of events in the life of Laister Krous.”
Merros nodded. “I like him already.” He then looked back at the stable master. “I want samples of the water and the feed set aside. Keep them safe.” The look he skewered the poor bastard with was exactly why Desh had wanted him for a general in the forces.
“Who in the name of all the gods would poison a stable full of horses?”
“Who has the most to gain from killing them, Merros?”
Merros looked at him and scowled. It seemed the only expression he was capable of generating. “You think the Sa’ba Taalor murdered every horse in the royal stables?”
“I think you need to find out if the horses at your military stables are well.”
“Oh, by the gods!” Merros looked around for his personal aide. Taurn Durst was watching from easily a hundred feet distant and started in their direction before the general could call his name. The man was a bull, pure and simple. He had somehow managed to fit a human skin over his preposterous body, but Desh had a powerful suspicion that Durst was actually a very large bull. It explained why his face looked so heavy and his body shook the ground when he walked.
“Aye! Ho, sir!”
Merros closed his eyes for a moment, a look of long suffering moving across his features.
“Taurn, I need you to alert the stables. Have all of the horses checked, and have the feed and water checked for poisons. Set samples aside. Get fresh water drawn from the river for the horses.”
“Aye! Ho, sir!” The man turned and stalked away. He didn’t just walk, but seemed to actually generate an air of menace that moved with him. Desh was suitably impressed. It had taken him lifetimes to manage what the man accomplished simply by existing.
“I keep asking him not to bellow,” Merros said. “He keeps explaining to me that he has to lead the troops around me by example. I’d like to yell at him. I would, but he has a point.”
“You chose him for a reason. Allow that he has the right idea and worry about other things instead.”
“Aye. You’re as right as he is, I suppose. Still, the way he’s always there and always waiting for my commands…”
“That’s his duty.”
“I know. But, your Sisters never seem so bloody eager.”
“They have plenty to be eager about, Merros. Mostly they enjoy the finer things in life, like tormenting the men around them with their looks.”
“They are rather… spectacular.”
“They should be. They use sorcery to make certain they are noticed.”
“Really?” Merros shook his head. “I’d have never noticed.”
“If you could notice, they’d be doing the work the wrong way.”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you see when you look at the Sisters?”
Merros grinned. “I tend to see them and little else.”
“That’s the idea. They are gifted at keeping people offguard.”
“To what end?”
“The exact same end that your Taurn Durst manages so easily. When people are looking at them, they are not looking at me. When he comes stomping up the street, most eyes are on him, and that allows you a modicum of freedom.”
Merros looked at him for a long moment and shook his head. “You have a strange way about you.”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean if I take off my uniform no one looks at me. I know. I’ve done it.”
“I doubt that is true any longer.”
“How do you mean?”
“You tried this before, back when you were Captain Dulver?”
“Yes.”
“You’re General Dulver now. You are in charge of the entire Imperial Army.”
“Yes, but it’s rather like that cloak of yours, Desh. With it you are a presence to be feared, the powerful advisor to the Empress and a sorcerer of unknown skills. Without it, you’re rather nondescript.”
“I’m not sure if I should feel insulted by that.”
“You’re not one of the Sisters. Without their robes, there would be mass chaos.”
“Fair enough.”
Merros changed the subject back to more important matters. “They’re here sooner, not later, Desh.” He looked around the area, his eyes scanning every access point. It was an automatic thing and the sorcerer knew that, but it was still interesting to note that the last group he’d seen who had the same tendency was the enemy they now faced.
“They are very likely already here. I have a few of my people trying to find any of their sort in town, but so far no luck.”
“For how long?”
“Since we arrived. They believe in war, Merros. Not every war I’ve been in involved swords and horses and shields.”
“But you have found no sign?”
Desh looked around very carefully for a moment and then shook his head. “I know they are here. However they are hiding, be it sorcery or something else, they are very good at it.”
“What? You think their gods are helping them?”
Desh felt a grin he couldn’t quite suppress. “You don’t?”
“No.” The general shook his head.
“You are a brilliant man. I’ve seen what you have accomplished getting a very weakened army in shape, and I’ve watched your work fortifying the defenses of first Tyrne and now Canhoon – and yet, Merros Dulver, you are sometimes powerfully stupid.”
“Say again?”
That made Desh’s smile grow a bit more. Merros was offended. So offended that he forgot who he was dealing with.
“I spoke clearly. You have actually seen the actions of their gods in play and yet you deny them.”
“What do you mean?”
“By all the gods, Merros!” He was actually laughing a bit. Really, he’d had less frustrating conversations with Nachia when she was eleven and those particular discussions had often led to him ranting for hours. “You watched a man summon a volcano with a sword strike. That wasn't sorcery of any kind I know. That was divine intervention. A god literally forced a mountain from stable ground. What else do you need to understand the power involved here? We are lucky they haven’t simply eradicated us completely.”
“Yes, well, when you say it like that…” Merros frowned, lost in thought, then shook his head and blushed. “I am daft.”
“Or very optimistic.”
“How can we possibly win this, Desh?”
“You are working on your side of that equation and I am working on mine. You wanted faster communications and I managed it. You want answers on the horses and I’ll work on that as well. You wanted to know where the enemy is coming from and, well, I have accomplished that, too, though the answer is not a pleasant one.”
“I am still trying to understand the idea of the Mother-Vine being gone.”
“Aye. I’m finding that challenging, too.” He looked away from the general, lost in memories of when the Mother-Vine had been a different sort of entity entirely.
“I know people who think you should be able to end all of this, Desh.” Merros wasn’t accusing him; he was making conversation. Desh was wise enough to know the difference.
“We’ve already discussed that.”
“I know. I’m just trying to find the right words to avoid having you boil me in my own skin.”
Desh grimaced inwardly; there was a very real possibility that he would never live that incident down and it had occurred over three hundred years earlier. “Speak directly. I like you, Merros. I’ll try to avoid killing you.”
“You said it yourself. They have gods. They have shown us their strength. You doing the same might well work to deter them.”
Desh nodded his head. “I’ve thought about that. The problem here is that it’s about fear.”
“Well, yes, that was rather my point.”
“So now we come to a different question. Do they fear me more than they fear their gods?”
“I don’t understand.”
“I can threaten them. I can make them suffer. They have been raised to believe that their gods are all-powerful and all-important. Unless I can be those things, I have no hope of convincing them that I am anything remarkable.”
Before Merros could answer, a young soldier ran up to them calling the general’s name.
Dulver took the message the boy handed him and dismissed the lad immediately. Whatever had to be done, he had no intention of passing the information back to the same messenger. Too many chances of things going astray, Desh supposed.
Merros read quickly and shook his head. “Every last horse. Every single horse within the Imperial palace and through the whole of the military stables.”
“General Dulver!” They turned to see another young runner coming, holding another folded, sealed note.
“Well, this bodes poorly.”
The boy was sent on his way and the note was read and this time Merros Dulver grew pale. “It would seem the First Lancer Division is returning to Canhoon.”
Desh frowned. “I though you reported them all slain.”
“Well, yes, that was the problem. Still, they and the archers they took with them are on their way back here as we speak.”
“General Dulver!” This runner came from the northern gate’s direction. He was older and he looked utterly terrified. Refugees had been coming in steadily from that direction since Trecharch fell. That the man could get through the press of people was impressive.
“What is it?”
“The enemy is coming, General. There is an army of the grayskins coming down the Imperial Road.”
“How far out are they?” Desh interrupted, looking to the messenger and breaking protocol without the least concern.
The man looked at Merros for a moment and then answered Desh. “They are two days out at the most. But they do not stop. They continue walking even in the dark and I think they will be here sooner than that.”
Merros shook his head and cursed under his breath. Desh looked at Merros for only a moment and then gestured toward the chambers where Nachia kept her residence.
“Come along, General. I fear you might get your wish.”
“What wish is that?”
“You may yet get your display of power from me.”
Nachia Krous looked down from the top of the very highest tower in the palace. The view it afforded her was one that most would never see. She wished she could appreciate it more than she was able to at that moment.
From where she stood in the tower it was possible to see for a great distance. Far off, she could see them gathering, the armies of her enemies moving into place, settling before a final march would put them at the edges of Canhoon. The way between where they were and Trecharch was mountainous, but not this close in. A field of dark shapes impossible not to notice. She could not make out individual forms, but she could most certainly see the gathering, like a massive swarm of distant ants, if the ants had learned to light campfires.
This was war then: a crawling, endless panic; a fear that the world would not end well. How many people would die in the next few days as the Sa’ba Taalor came for her, to take her head and her crown and claim the entire world for their own?
She thought of the King in Iron, the behemoth of a man she had faced off against with her heart hammering in her chest. She had stared him in the face, but she’d had to crane her neck into a very uncomfortable position to achieve that task. He was leading his forces to her, and he could destroy cities with a gesture.
She was breathing hard and trying not to panic by the time Desh and Merros made it to her chambers.
“Majesty.” Desh moved into the room and she felt the panic abate. He had that effect on her. He always had. He was a strong, soothing presence even at the worst of times.
She pointed to the window facing north. “There. Look, Desh. You can see them from here.”
He walked past her without a sound and looked. “They come from several directions, Milady, as we knew they would.”
Nachia took in a deep breath and faced her First Advisor. “And what can we do about them?”
“We have our forces gathered, Nachia. But we have been struck a blow. The horses are gone. All of the stables. Someone poisoned them.”
She cursed under her breath. “So we have no cavalry at all?”
“We have no lancers. We have no horses. We still have a very large army waiting here to defend us.”
“And they have those damnable beasts of theirs. That gives them a rather substantial advantage, Desh.”
The man looked past her, studied one window and then the next.
Merros Dulver was oddly quiet. She looked his way and he stared at Desh.
“I think we might have reached the time when I ask you to use sorcery, Desh.”
The First Advisor nodded. “That is why I am here, Majesty. You know that this will exhaust me. I will be tired to the point where there is little I can do for a day or more. Still, I will make an example of one target. You have but to choose one.”
Nachia looked at the latest maps, moved from one window to the next and finally decided. “Let the forces in the north know that the Fellein Empire is unforgiving. They have destroyed Trecharch. They should pay for their actions.”
Merros stepped closer and looked at her maps. He used his finger to indicate where the greatest gathering of the Sa’ba Taalor were, according to the latest reports. It was one thing to see distant forces gathered and another to know which areas would have the greatest concentration of the enemies.
“How many of our people will be hurt in the process?”
Desh looked at her after she’d asked the question and the expression on his face was as revealing as a stone wall. “I suppose we can find out in the final body count. As I warned you before, I can aim this. I cannot control what happens once I let it go.”
“Aim what, exactly?” Merros sounded worried. Nachia knew how he felt.
Desh Krohan did not answer with words. Instead he walked to the window that faced north and raised his hands into the air. There was a balcony outside the window. It was narrow and Nachia had never quite had the nerve to walk outside on it. Heights did not scare her nearly as much as the notion of falling did. It was one thing to look and another to risk losing her balance.
Desh Krohan stood on that narrow balcony and concentrated. His face was set, his brow furrowed with tension. His hands were steady, however, and he moved them as he muttered to himself.
When he was finally ready he pointed with his fingers widespread and hissed a word beneath his breath. She could not hear the phrase, but the sounds that she did hear made her feel queasy.
In her entire life she had never seen magic used in a display of force.
She prayed fervently that she never would again.
Tuskandru looked around the area and nodded. Durhallem had told him where to stand, where to wait with his people, and that was exactly what he intended to do.
His army was vast, yes, but he knew firsthand that there were powers well beyond those offered by a good sword, and he had seen what the sorcerers of the Fellein were capable of. They could fly! They could move from one place to another at speeds that seemed impossible. He had never seen them attack and according to his god they only did so sparingly.
Durhallem said an attack was coming. He had no reason to doubt his god.
His forces waited patiently while the other army moved forward, shuffling along on dead feet. The gods had their ways. A city was cleared and the corpses of the enemies were placed as the gods demanded and then those corpses rose and walked. A gift to the Fellein. They would have their dead back.
In the far distance he could almost make out the city of Canhoon. It was the goal of all the kings for the moment. They would reach that goal soon, but first he was to wait where he was while the wizard of the Fellein showed his power.
He would wait.
He was patient.
Cullen felt the power building.
She did not question the sensation, but instead allowed instinct to guide her and ran hard and fast, her legs pumping furiously. She was a full day ahead of the Sa’ba Taalor, getting closer to Canhoon all the time.
“Run, Cullen! Run as hard as you can!” Deltrea’s voice cracked with raw panic and the sensation was contagious. Cullen sprinted harder still, her vision shaking as she hurled herself downhill along the Imperial Highway. The woods were fine when dealing with the grayskins, but now that she was well ahead of them the road was better.
She ran until she felt her sides burning and then she slowed, still moving but no longer as quickly. There were limits to what she could accomplish. She could climb a tree with ease, scale a hill or run along vines, but she had never covered long distances before and her legs burned and her chest and sides ached. She had run miles farther than she knew, pushed on by the power that nested inside her.
The presence inside of her, the last remnant of the Mother-Vine, urged her on and she moved, gaining new vitality from that odd presence. She did not run, she couldn’t have any longer, but she moved forward and she looked toward her destination, Canhoon.
Deltrea’s voice became a wordless scream of panic and Cullen fell to her knees and then curled into a ball on the ground. The fine hairs on her arms and neck rose into the air; so too the hair on her head. She covered her ears and closed her eyes, but the light still came and the sound followed.
Ahead of her the heat that came her way crisped her hair and dried her throat. Behind her, the world boiled.
She would have boiled as well, but the presence she held inside deflected the blast.
Swech was looking at the palace when the world went mad.
She was contemplating the reactions to all that was happening in Canhoon. The people who ran the stables were moving in a fury of activity, and soldiers crawled over the palace grounds like ants on a corpse.
She had seen Merros Dulver walking earlier with the wizard, Desh Krohan, and she had made certain not to be seen. He was a handsome buck and she admired him.
The general and the sorcerer had been in a hurry and they’d headed into the heart of the palace, barely bothering to look around at all.
She was expecting news from Jost, but so far nothing had been forthcoming.
The younger girl had been sent to find one of the sorcerers. Not Desh Krohan, but another, a man named Jeron. Until Krohan came back to Canhoon, Jeron had been in charge of the city in many ways. Now he did the elder sorcerer’s bidding and sent his mind out to find the secrets of the Sa’ba Taalor. The wizards had an array of their members moving through the Empire and communicating together. They spoke of the Sa’ba Taalor and shared secrets that the gods did not want shared. It was time to end the problem.
Jeron was to be killed or converted. Jost was the one to handle the matter in either event. That decision came from Paedle, not from Swech. There was no discussion necessary.
She pondered the fate of the sorcerer even as Desh Krohan stood upon a balcony so high above her that even her finest bow and arrow could not have hoped to reach him. The only reason she recognized him at all was because of his robes, which moved and shimmered and seemed so very alive.
The sun was gone and the world was moving toward proper night. There was a glimmer of color at the edge of the world and beyond it the darkness and the stars. Her eyes were not prepared for what happened next.
The sorcerer moved his arms and threw them outward as if he might be hurling rocks from his hands.
Instead of rocks it was lightning that spilled forth. A great, potent stream of liquid light ripped across the darkening skies and turned the world white. Stark shadows snapped into focus, but the tongues of liquid blue fire that ripped from his hands took away all other colors and made those shadows dance madly.
Had she been in her own flesh her eyes would have adjusted instantly. A second set of eyelids would have moved, and protected her from the glare as surely as they protected her eyes from the dust of the Blasted Lands. She was not in her body, however. She wore a different woman’s flesh.
The light blinded her for a moment, leaving her seeing phantom shapes in blue.
The sound came next, a roar as pure and potent as the screams of the Mounds. The noise rippled through the air and echoed off buildings, sending throaty vibrations through her entire body.
Swech closed her eyes and waited, while all around her people reacted to the unexpected sound and sight as if the world itself were ending.
Swech knew better, of course. The Daxar Taalor were not yet ready for the world to end. Though they were surely fine with certain parts falling into ruination.
Trecharch burned once more. What the Sa’ba Taalor had failed to do was taken care of by Fellein’s greatest sorcerer. That the land was already in ruin was a given, but the trees that remained, the animals foolish enough to come back to the area after the Pra-Moresh came through, all found out what magic could do.
Lightning ripped down from the heavens in a thousand brilliant tongues, stroking the earth, the trees, the rocks with fires so potent that wood exploded into flames, the ground boiled and rocks were shattered. Birds and insects startled from their rest fell, stunned or cooked where they waited. The few humans left in the area – and there were only a few, as most had either been killed or long since had fled the area – died just as quickly, their bodies burnt into husks in a moment.
Along the path of destruction the army of corpses meant as a perverse gift to the Fellein were destroyed. Flesh fried, bones burned, metal and cloth disintegrated in a pyrotechnic display. Water evaporated or boiled, and for a dozen miles the world was scarred.
Less than a mile from the massive detonation, Tuskandru watched and experienced a new sensation. He was not familiar with fear. He had been startled many times, but never had he been afraid.
He did not like it. The unfamiliar emotion was burned out of him, replaced by anger.
All around him his people stared, shocked by the unexpected ruination.
When the lights had finished bathing the sky, and the sounds had completed their roaring reminder that some things were beyond mortal understanding, Tusk looked at his people and observed their reactions.
Most of them did as he did. They looked around and assessed the end results of the attack. A few trembled.
He marked the ones who were afraid. They would be watched.
“Durhallem warned us to wait and so we did!” He had no choice but to yell. Even then he was uncertain how many could hear him. It did not matter. What was important was that his people understood that he was not afraid, and that he and they should be ready for war.
Some turned toward him. Others stared around. Tusk nodded and reached into the satchel attached to Brodem’s saddle. The horn was easy to find. It was all that filled that particular bag.
That noise got the attention of all of them. The note was sharp and clear as he called them to war. It was time to ride. They would not stand still and cower in the darkness. The Sa’ba Taalor were warriors. Any who forgot that would suffer the wrath of their king, the wrath of their god.
“We ride! We have a people to conquer!”
Tusk could barely hear their responses, but he felt them in his flesh. The roar of his followers was as loud as the thunder itself.
In minutes they were mounted and riding or walking as befit their abilities.
Fear was for lesser beings. The Sa’ba Taalor had nothing to fear. Their gods were with them.
Merros Dulver watched on as Desh Krohan rained destruction down on a land that was days away. It started as a lick of light from his fingertips and exploded outward from there.
There was no way to escape the sight.
He squinted against the light coming from the skies and spewing forth across the distant area, and watched the fires burning. The sun set, but the glow from the north matched the dusk’s fading light.
The air stank with the discharge of power.
Nachia stood at his side and looked at the ruination.
She turned to look at her First Advisor with wide, genuinely shocked eyes.
“What if you’d missed?” Her voice was small, barely a whisper.
Desh sighed. “And how many times have I offered you that exact argument.”
The sorcerer walked away from them heading, Merros supposed, for his private chambers. “I am tired now,” Desh muttered. He did not look back.
From the north Tuskandru gathered his armies and moved, slipping among the trees and advancing with more stealth than many would have thought him capable of managing. The simple fact was that after the earlier display of power it was best to let the enemy think that he and his were gone until it was too late to do anything about it.
To the east, the movement of the army was more direct. The Imperial Highway was occupied with the movement of troops in numbers that would have had most of Canhoon trembling if they could see that far, but the army of King Tarag Paedori was still over a day away and moving at a steady pace. The rear echelons of that army stopped when the sun set. The forward wave did not stop but continued, moving slowly but deliberately in the direction of Canhoon.
In the direction of home.
As with Tuskandru, the King in Iron brought with him a gift of the dead. Lancers and archers alike moved along the path, bearing little by way of weapons but not needing any, either.
Kallir Lundt, once of Fellein and now of Prydiria, stood next to his king and stared after the moving dead.
“I don’t completely understand. Why send them back if they are unarmed?”
Tarag Paedori looked down upon him. The man was well over a head and shoulders taller. He was, without doubt, the largest man that Kallir had ever met.
“The dead are a reminder. They let the Fellein know that the gods favor us. Should any have lived long enough or have written a record of the past, they are a reminder that the Fellein once used armies of the dead to fight their wars.”
Kallir nodded his head. “None will remember, but they will be scared senseless by the very notion.” He spoke a complete truth there and he knew it. When he saw the dead rising it was all he could do not to run away. He was not easily frightened, but dead things should stay dead.
The King in Iron looked at him for a long, silent moment and then looked back toward the distant Canhoon. “Are you uncertain, Kallir Lundt? These were your people before you joined us.”
“No. I have accepted the gifts of Truska-Pren and I have been given so many gifts.” Still he spoke the truth. The maps that the Sa’ba Taalor had of Canhoon were drawn by memory, and they were remarkably accurate. There were discrepancies, to be sure, but fewer than most would have imagined. “I know that what must come next is inevitable.”
The king nodded. “That is good. I want you with us for this. I want you to bear witness to what happens to Canhoon and the rest of the Empire.”
Kallir nodded his head and did not speak. He had seen the power of the gods of Taalor and yet, he felt doubts. They had mended his face. They had punished others before him, and he had watched as one of the arrogant, youthful fools who sometimes must beat their chests to prove themselves had fallen to the ground before him and been transformed. He had learned in a moment where the mounts came from. They were the humbled, those who lacked the faith needed to follow the Daxar Taalor. He knew the Daxar Taalor had power.
Still, his faith was strained. He had never seen any action on the part of the gods of Fellein but still he found himself wondering if the army he sided with would be strong enough to take on the vast forces of an empire at least a hundred times the size.
He wondered if the gods of Fellein were truly absent.
One gauntleted hand rested on his shoulder for a moment and he looked up toward his friend, ally and king. The eyes of the man glowed with their own light in the semidarkness. All around him the Sa’ba Taalor lit the area with faint starlight wherever he looked. “Rest, Kallir. We ride at dawn and we ride until we reach Canhoon.”
Kallir nodded and moved toward his tent, still feeling a sense of unease.
He would pray and soon enough he would know if his prayers were answered.