Chains of a Dark Goddess (38 page)

Magnos tumbled back in surprise and terror. Breskaro feinted, with a half-step to the right, then spun clockwise on the ball of his foot, swinging the longsword in a great arc. The razor-sharp Eprosian steel, ignited with sorcerous fire, clove through the metal armor that guarded Togisi’s neck. 

The blade sliced through flesh and bone. 

The head of General Magnos Togisi rolled free from the burning stump of his neck.

Breskaro bent backward and released a primal scream of victory. He darted over to Kedimius, picked him up, threw him over his shoulder. Then he sprinted toward Esha. 

A knight charged him. Despite carrying Kedimius, Breskaro easily ducked under the lance and cut through the warhorse’s front legs. He split skulls, decapitated mounts, and severed arms and legs until he reached Esha. He dumped Kedimius beside her. He couldn’t tell whether Esha was breathing, but he stood nearby and cut down every enemy who approached, whether on foot or horse. With blade and darkfire and his strength renewed, none could stand against him. 

Larekal staggered over to to join them and fought with Breskaro, despite a nasty wound that had blinded his left eye. Whum and Aleui broke free and joined them, along with Amrasi and the last three Valiants. They stood there together, with Esha and Kedimius at their center, fighting against the waves of soldiers that washed up against them.

A horse made a noise that was more of a caw than a neigh and burst through the line. Breskaro leapt onto Nightsoul’s back the moment he reached them.

“The mechanism!” Harmulkot shouted to him. “You must use it or we’re doomed. Raise many. Raise them fast.”

“I’ve almost strained it to breaking already!”

“There’s smoke...” Kedimius’ eyes were starting to regain their focus. 

“Breskaro, I know,” Harmulkot said. “I
know
. But we have no choice. You
must
risk it. The Matriarch is near.”

“Don’t,” Kedimius warned.

A shaft of light streaked toward them, though the soldiers in between them and the Matriarch broke up the beam. Harmulkot’s illusory appearance on top of Aleui flickered. She nearly disappeared.

“Too late anyway,” Harmulkot muttered.

Breskaro cast the
spell of the ram of force
and aimed it toward the Matriarch who was only a hundred paces away now. The spirit ram reached halfway to her before it dissipated, knocking down many of the Issalians that stood between them. Without them in the way, the glow intensified.

The light burned Breskaro. Nightsoul, his coat turning dry and brittle, looked away. Breskaro was forced to as well. He gazed down at Esha. 

A shaft of light struck Esha. She convulsed and gasped for air. She struggled to get free from the lance pinning her to the ground.

Not dead yet. I can still save them.

Breskaro’s eyes flared and he turned toward the Matriarch and the scalding light. “We must charge into it, my friend,” he told the demon horse, patting it on the neck. “We’ve no choice but to fight her head on.”

Kedimius pulled the lance out from Esha’s back and rolled her over. He clasped his hands over the puncture wound that came out below her ribs, from which blood was pouring. The Matriarch’s light sparkled in Esha’s golden eyes. 

Aleui took one of the Valiants’ mounts and joined Breskaro.

“It comes to this,” Harmulkot said. “I am glad to have you as my champion, Breskaro Varenni.” 

Breskaro spurred his mount and lifted his sword, still blazing with darkfire. “We fight!
For Orisala
!”

“For Mûlkra!” Aleui cried, brandishing her mace.

They rode together, Amrasi and another Valiant at their sides. The battlefield cleared between them and the Matriarch who pointed the Prime Matrix at them. The crystal blade emitted a wide beam of light. Beside her with a crystal matrix in hand rode the priestess Ilsimia. 

The light from the Prime Matrix narrowed into a focused beam that the Matriarch turned against Amrasi. The Valiant captain collapsed into a lifeless corpse and slipped from the saddle. While Ilsimia took out the other Valiant, the Matriarch pointed the brilliant light of the Prime Matrix at Aleui. The illusion making her look like Harmulkot vanished as the goddess swirled back into her qavra.

The Matriarch and Ilsimia turned their matrixes toward Breskaro, and the beams of white light engulfed him. 

The darkfire licking his blade flared out. Nightsoul’s animating spirit cried out and vanished into the Shadowland. The mount beneath Breskaro turned to rotten flesh and bones and crumpled beneath him. He landed on his feet and staggered forward.

The Matriarch pulled up only ten paces away and continued to blast him with the full force of her matrix, singing all the time. Aleui continued to ride but Ilsimia intercepted her. Aleui ducked under Ilsimia’s outreached staff and knocked her from the saddle with her mace. Ilsimia tumbled to the ground. Aleui turned toward the Matriarch and spurred her mount forward. But before she could reach the Matriarch, two of the Scarlet Guardsmen intercepted her. Their concentrated sword-strikes overwhelmed her. Grievously wounded, she fell from the saddle. 

Under the focused light, Breskaro fell to his knees and pain erupted within every part of his being as his flesh and organs burned. Wounds that had healed minutes earlier reopened and spurted dark ichor. Blood and embalming fluid boiled within him. 

The cheers of the Seshallan army grew dim. The Matriarch’s power was stripping his soul from his tortured body. The world grew dark. Layers of the Shadowland raced by. He saw, for a single moment, the sad countenance of the Keeper of Death before a tremendous gate wreathed in ice and flame sped toward him. The screams of the damned echoed in his ears.

The Matriarch rode up and loomed above him. Her power rained down upon him. Breskaro’s physical form was almost spent. 

Suddenly a sharp crack, like a bolt of lightning, cut through the noise of both the Shadowland and the physical world. Thunder boomed and echoed through Kerokar Pass.

Breskaro’s consciousness shot back into the living world. 

The Matriarch recoiled above him. A jet of blood spurted from her forehead, where a lead bullet had pierced her helmet and shattered her skull. Her eyes rolled back into her head. She slumped in the saddle then tumbled to the ground. The crystal sword landed beside her and went dim. 

The battlefield around them fell silent.

The Matriarch was dead.

Chapter 56

Esha stood fifty paces away, her arm still outstretched from casting the sling bullet. A grin spread across her face. Her eyes burned with golden flame. The wound from the lance had sealed completely.

“Gotcha!” she cried as she launched into a sprint.

Kedimius, Whum, and Larekal lumbered after her. Everyone else, whether Issalian or batrakosian or Mûlkran, simply stood and stared.

Breskaro stood on shaking legs and lifted his sword, expecting the Issalians to attack. Still they hesitated. Aleui, badly wounded, crawled toward him. Her assailants didn’t even notice. The silence spread all the way through the pass. Mûlkrans at the far end of the pass regrouped as the Issalians withdrew. Though the battle was still the Issalians’ to win, they were stunned and without leadership.

Not understanding what was going on and barely able to focus on anything, Breskaro turned to Esha, but she zipped past him and leapt onto the corpse of the Matriarch. Standing on the body, her feet firmly planted atop the Matriarch’s pregnant belly, Esha took up the Crystal Sword of Seshalla. She pointed it high in the air and shouted:

“The Prime Matrix is mine!”

Now the Issalians acted. Knights of the Scarlet Guard roared and rushed toward her, but skidded to a halt as a swirling, sparkling radiance formed around the crystal sword and streamed down upon Esha. It was brighter by far than the beam the Matriarch had focused on Breskaro. The tip of the sword disappeared into this vortex and slowly more and more of the sword dissolved.

One Issalian didn’t stop. A priestess. 

Ilsimia, with a dagger drawn, charged toward Esha, who didn’t see her. Esha continued to hold the sword high, bouncing on her feet with excitement. Fuming with religious fervor, Ilsimia lunged at Esha’s back. Breskaro stumbled forward of failing legs but he couldn’t reach her in time. But a man intercepted her. He shouldered into Ilsimia and she tumbled backward and landed with a sickening thunk on the blade of an upturned axe that lay upon the ground. The blade punched through her back and protruded from her chest.

Blood bubbling from her mouth, she gazed at her attacker in horror. His expression matched hers. 

“I
loved
you,” she murmured.

Kedimius stroked her brow. “My love — I — I didn’t mean—”

“You can go to
her
now,” Ilsimia spat. “To ... hell with ... you.” She spasmed violently and went still. 

Kedimius knelt in the dust weeping and didn’t even look at the miraculous scene occurring behind him.

The last of the Prime Matrix disintegrated into the swirling energy cloud which now enveloped Esha. She rose into the air, high enough that everyone on the battlefield could see her. Silence reigned in Kerokar Pass. Even the groans of the dying ceased.

Esha threw her arms outward and lifted her head toward the sky. The Matriarch’s armor tore open and the unborn child within ripped free of the womb.

The fetus was made of golden light rather than flesh, with a small sapphire glow on its chest. As it rose toward Esha, it grew from a babe to a toddler to a child. 

The glowing form merged with Esha. The light intensified; the energy swirled; then there came a blinding flash. 

Where Esha had hovered before there was now a woman of unsurpassed beauty, with long golden hair, golden eyes, bronze skin, and svelte form. A sapphire qavra stone was embedded in her chest. Crimson garments of silk spun from the aether and wrapped around her, forming a tunic. A spear with a staff of ebony and a tip of blue-cast steel also materialized.

Every Issalian knew the woman before them and the Spear of Endless Dawn was legendary. Until this moment, it had rested on the altar of the Grand High Temple of Seshalla, where Breskaro himself had placed it after recovering it on a quest. Every knight who had knelt at the altar and pledged himself to the service of Seshalla knew instinctively that this was their goddess.

“This battle has
ended
!” she yelled into the pass with a vibrant, lyrical voice. “I,
Seshalla
, declare this!”

The fighting had ceased anyway. The Issalian knights knelt throughout the pass, ignoring their Mûlkran enemies entirely. The Issalian regulars hesitantly followed the knights’ lead. Puzzled by the turn of events, the Mûlkrans didn’t seize the advantage and attack. Instead they began to regroup and help their wounded withdraw. The batrakosians who remained fled toward the city.

Seshalla drifted down and landed in front of Breskaro. She reached out a hand to steady him, but he lurched away. His eyes burned with emerald rage. His vigor was returning, though his skin was blistered and weeping blood and puss. 

“Come forth again, Harmulkot, my old friend,” said Seshalla.

“
And
old enemy,” said Harmulkot as she ghosted out from the qavra hanging around Aleui’s neck. “Which will it be this time?”

“Too many years have passed for us to be enemies, sister.”

Harmulkot rose high and shouted, “Warriors of Mûlkra, our fight is at an end! This war is over!”

Those Mûlkrans throughout the pass and beyond cheered.

Seshalla also rose into the air and proclaimed: “Warriors of Issalia, this crusade has come to an end. Mûlkra is not your enemy.”

Murmurs spread throughout the army. 

“I know this is confusing. You’ve been told that I ascended to live with the Great Deities. The Matriarch and her predecessors misled you. My power was bound within the Prime Matrix. For centuries I was held prisoner. But now I am returned and a new glorious age may begin.”

Seshalla landed and followed Breskaro. He was trudging toward Mûlkra. 

“Breskaro,” she said in a voice that had a hint of Esha’s accent. She looked, too, as if Esha had grown into a sleek, powerful woman of amazing beauty and aura.

He stopped and turned his head to the side. “You deceived me.”

“I didn’t intend to. Esha had no idea she was a Qaiar Inheritant. That knowledge was buried deep within.”

Breskaro looked to Harmulkot who had joined them. “You knew, didn’t you?”

“After the metal beast, yes.”

“You were right not to tell me.”

“I
am
sorry, Breskaro,” said Seshalla.

“I gave my life for you.”

“I know. And I
am
honored.”

“For seven years I hated you for abandoning me in the Shadowland.”

Seshalla leaned in and whispered, “I have not the power to take a man into Paradise.”

“I came back from the Shadowland a second time minutes ago, in part to save Esha ... to save
you
. I returned to find that my shield-maiden was my master all along.”

Seshalla placed a hand on Breskaro’s shoulder. “As Esha I didn’t know who I truly was because I was not fully myself.”