Storm and Steel (47 page)

“Which is why we must strike now, before he consolidates his power—”

“Quiet!” Jirom yelled.

Alyra and Emanon, both red-faced, shut up. Jirom took a deep breath and
let it out in a loud sigh. “Listen, both of you. If Horace is alive, we need to get him out. Emanon, I know you don't think he's worth the risk, but you're wrong. This is the right move. Alyra, he's right about the timing.”

Emanon snorted. “So I'm right
and
wrong?”

Jirom held up a hand to silence him. “The timing may be right, but we're suffering from a serious lack of manpower.”

“I've got some good news on that front,” Alyra said. “Your hired swords arrived last night after what must have been one hellish forced march, and they brought along the rebels who survived Sekhatun. The network is smuggling them into the city at this moment.”

“How many?”

“Twenty-four mercenaries and twice that many rebels.”

Jirom let out another sigh. Less than a hundred fighters. Not enough to stage a decent assault on a place as fortified and well guarded as the royal palace. “What other assets can we count on? What about your friends?”

“The Nemedians will provide what information they can,” Alyra replied. “But I don't think they'll involve themselves in actual fighting.” Emanon started to growl at that, but she overrode him. “They are taking a longer view of the situation. Erugash is only one city of the empire.”

“But if one city falls,” Emanon said, “the others will weaken.”

She gave him a wry look. “Try convincing
them
of that. King Moloch's army is only hours away. Once they arrive, Erugash will be under siege.”

“That's going to make things difficult,” Emanon muttered.

Three Moons chuckled. “I always knew you were the brains of this outfit.”

“I have a way to get us all out of the city,” Alyra said. “But I won't go without Horace.”

Jirom tried to come up with a strategy that would get them inside with minimal conflict. Stealth would be the key. “We need a plan.”

“It better be a damned
good
plan,” Three Moons muttered.

“Agreed,” Jirom said.

Emanon and Alyra exchanged glances. “Actually…,” Emanon said.

“We have an idea,” Alyra finished for him. She picked up the bag from the floor and dumped its contents on the bed.

An avalanche of metal fell over his legs. Jirom picked one up and turned it around in his hands. “
This
is your big idea?”

Emanon planted a kiss on his forehead. “Don't say I never bought you jewelry, darling.”

While Emanon took Three Moons out of the room to find “something decent to drink,” Jirom stared down at the pile of iron collars in his lap.

The walls of Erugash rose higher than he had remembered. Her lofty battlements bristled with powerful engines—scorpions, catapults, and mangonels. Yet the most lethal weapons could not be readily seen from this distance, the
zoanii
amid the ranks of soldiers manning those walls. The sorceries on both sides, more than any other factor, would decide this battle.

Abdiel eyed the rows of purple-black clouds gathered against the northern horizon.
Or perhaps not. Of all the days for a storm to strike, why do the gods choose today? Must they see him suffer more?

He looked to his master, Mebishnu, standing tall at the front of the flying ship, resplendent in a long robe of blood-red silk, with his hands clasped behind his back like one of the great men of the past.
Yes, after this day my master will take his place among those fabled names. Praise Amur!

Mebishnu had been different these last few days. More withdrawn and introspective. At first, Abdiel had attributed this to the responsibility of his new command. Leading thousands of soldiers, not to mention three independent-minded kings, was no easy task. However, the more time went on, the more Abdiel suspected that something else was at work. His master had hardly slept since the first river crossing, and his appetite had dwindled to almost nothing, as if he were now subsisting on air and sunlight.
It all started after those interrogations. But there was nothing unusual about them, nothing out of the ordinary
.

Abdiel considered for a moment as another piece of the puzzle slid into place.
No, it wasn't until after he emerged from his meditation, after the
interrogations. He was clearly troubled when he went into his cabin. But when he came out, he was changed. More determined
.

Abdiel put the matter out of his mind. Whatever decisions his master had come to while cloistered in that cabin, everything came down to today.

They floated half a league west of the great city. The flying ships of the three kings were strung out to the north like mountains of gold and silver. Colored flags waved on the decks of each ship, passing messages back and forth and down to the ground where the army had assembled, awaiting the final order. Abdiel's heart beat faster in anticipation.

Finally, Mebishnu turned his head and nodded to an officer standing nearby. The officer nodded to the signal leader, and a moment later the ship's massive fanlike flags extended. Far below, a clamor of rustling armor and weapons arose as the army began to march toward the walls.

The Erugashi had not challenged their approach to the city, which the generals agreed was a grave error. They expected skirmishing parties harrying them along the way, dampening their morale with every foot of ground they covered. Or so the generals said. Mebishnu remained silent during these discussions, giving no opinion either way.
He sees farther than they do. Something in the air tells him this will be no ordinary battle
.

Abdiel glanced again to the north where the storm clouds were rolling closer. Then the eleven Brothers of the Order came up on deck, their red robes billowing in the breeze, and took their places beside Mebishnu. Abdiel smiled with pride.

Down below, massive spears and tumbled stones rained down from the walls in a hail that intensified as the combined legions of the three kings advanced. The armies sloughed through the devastating attack until they got close enough where their archers could return fire.

Abdiel appreciated that he was witnessing an extraordinary event. For all their bickering and squabbling, seldom did the city-states of Akeshia engage in full-out war with each other. The last had been shortly after the Godswar when this same city, Erugash, had attempted its ill-fated march to hegemony, only to be fiercely defeated by her sisters. A defeat that had cowed any similar ambitions along the same lines.

Explosions detonated along the front ranks. Steel and flesh flew through the air, away from the smoking patches where soldiers had once stood. The city's
zoanii
were finally getting involved. He saw them, men and women in fine raiment scattered along the wall. Abdiel waited for Mebishnu and the Order to react, but they merely stood by and watched the battle unfold.
Saving their strength, no doubt
.

A disturbance ran through the army below as a massive construction was trundled forward from the rear. This contraption, which was basically a huge log on wheels, rolled with increasing swiftness through the ranks on a direct path toward the city's western gatehouse. Abdiel's first reaction was disdain. How could the generals think such a crude battering ram would make a dent in the city's heavily reinforced gates? Evidently, the city's defenders didn't think much of the approaching attack either, as they made no special effort to stop it. When the rolling log neared the gates, arrow fire from the battlements picked off the men pushing the vehicle one by one. Yet, by the time the last pusher fell, the log had enough momentum to carry it the last few yards to the gates. Abdiel strained his ears, expecting a faint thud as the ram made contact.

Instead, a massive fireball erupted with a thunderous roar. The sound of shattering wood and tearing bronze rocked the flying ship. When the black smoke cleared, one of the titanic gate doors hung loose on melted hinges. The opposite door remained more or less intact, but a breach had been made.

The army surged forward with a loud cry while the conflagration engulfing the sagging gate continued to burn. Mebishnu spoke to his adjutant, and the message was relayed by flag. The ships of the three kings began to sail forward.
Now comes the second attack, descending like a hammer blow from the gods
.

He felt the deck shift as the ship moved forward at a sedate pace. The Order brothers raised their hands as if they were praising the Sun Lord. Perhaps they were. Abdiel imagined the fervent prayers whispered silently in their minds. Oh, to be a part of that brotherhood! The rapture of their sacred bond brought tears to his eyes.

When they lowered their hands, a torrent of combined elements burst from their fingertips. Abdiel made out streams of fire and water, the rippled gusts of wind and tumbling blocks of stone. The power swept across the
gatehouse battlements. Soldiers were thrown off the wall, burning, frozen, crushed, and battered. Here and there, an enemy
zoanii
resisted the sorcerous scourge, and a battle began between the brothers and those magicians. Multichromatic waves passed back and forth, ripping through the mist-shrouded air. One by one the enemy was defeated, picked off and crushed.

Through it all, Mebishnu remained still. Unmoving except for his eyes.

Down on the ground, the army's advance bogged down as it met resistance at the gate. Defenders blocked the breach, but how long could they hold?

Abdiel looked back to the north and was startled to see the thunderheads had extended across the plains. Faint rumbles echoed from their depths amid a flicker of lights.
How long can we hold out against that creeping chaos?

A ripple of lights flashed from the city walls followed by a string of sharp blasts. Tiny black packages were falling from the kings' ships, which now floated above the battlements. Everywhere a package touched, it exploded with a violent orange burst. Flames spread across the top of the city walls as soldiers were incinerated where they stood. Siege engines went up in columns of oily smoke.

Abdiel leaned forward over the railing for a better view. The initial attack of the firebombs was a resounding success, but the fires soon dwindled and went out on their own. And more defenders flooded the battlements to replace the losses. Queen Byleth's defenses were surprisingly effective.

“She cannot hold out forever,” he said.

He hadn't meant the words to be overheard, but Mebishnu turned his head. As always, no emotion showed on his face. They could have been watching a theatrical performance in Thumon Park. “Byleth is dead.”

Dead? What joyous news! It's a miracle sent by Father Amur
.

“What we face now,” Mebishnu said, “is the product of another mind. Perhaps not as keen as the late queen's in a purely strategic sense.” He turned back to the battle below. “But certainly one more willing to sacrifice its resources. It's an interesting challenge.”

Abdiel watched with growing apprehension as the defenders fought back. The army had so far failed to get past the gate. It withered under the
incessant storm of defensive fire. Abdiel did not mourn for the fallen soldiers, who would be remembered with glory for their small part in this clash.

A powerful gust of wind rocked the ship. Abdiel clutched the railing with one hand and caught his cloak's flaps with the other. Shouts called out across the deck as the pilots attempted to adjust for the sudden squall. Two Order brothers lost their footing and fell overboard, and Abdiel squeezed his eyes shut.

As the ship slowly returned to level, Abdiel risked a glance up, and his heart nearly gave out. The storm had moved over the city. Crackling groans like the war cries of ancient titans echoed from within its ink-black depths. He jumped when the first bolt of lightning flared from the roiling masses. It struck King Ramsu's vessel near the rear. The afterimage seared his retinas a fraction of a second before the resulting thunder slammed his eardrums.

Ramsu's ship listed onto its side, flames exploding from between the seams of its hull. With a groaning shudder, the grand barge careened into a section of the wall and exploded in an eruption of fire and shattering stone.

Abdiel looked to his master and wondered what he was waiting for.
You know what you must do. My master. My son. Don't let this moment slip from your fingers. You may have come from humble birth, but you can still emerge as the brightest sky the empire has ever seen. Take that wonderful gift your poor departed mother and I gave you, and grasp your destiny with both hands!

“Forward!” Mebishnu shouted above the roaring winds. “All speed!”

Abdiel laughed, filled with elation as the ship surged ahead. This was the moment, the decisive cusp. His son, his master could still win the day. The first cool drops of rain were a balm on his soul.

The agony was never-ending. Raw sensation scraped along Horace's nerves, spreading fire across every part of his body. It went deeper than his flesh, tearing into his organs and muscles, deep into the marrow of his bones, a fire that burned away all other thoughts.

The constant whine from the device caused a torment all its own. The stone table beneath him was like a slab of ice. Yet, despite the cold, he was drenched in sweat. His joints were swollen knots of anguish, crying out with every jerk and quiver. He could feel his
qa
pulsating as the power was drawn from it, through him and into the machine. Instead of the ecstasy he normally associated with the
zoana
, this was a violation of the deepest kind.

At the same time, something grew in the midst of his torment. Like a shadow lengthening as the sun goes down. The dark presence. As agony rippled and twisted inside him, it coalesced behind his eyes. He tried to shove it away, but it would not budge. He sensed it was…amused…by his efforts.

The pain.

Astaptah had told him to embrace it. He almost laughed through the growls wrenched from his throat. Embrace it? The agony was excruciating, and there was nothing he could do but struggle. It was driving him out of his mind. Blood filled his mouth as he ground his teeth back and forth, serrating the sides of his tongue.

All the while, the dark presence burrowed deeper. It was a second torment, just as incessant and horrifying as the machine sucking out his power. He writhed back and forth, pulling at the bonds holding him in place. Images flashed through his mind, of Sari and Josef, of Jirom and Alyra, of Ubar's severed head staring at him. Everywhere he looked it was death and pain. They were his inheritance, and part of him was glad he no longer had a child so he couldn't pass these dread gifts on to another generation.
No, let this die with me!

For he was going to die. He had no illusions otherwise. Astaptah had won. Byleth was gone, the rebellion was crushed, and the vizier had this monstrous
machine that could control the chaos storms. But what did he want? Even in the midst of his agony, Horace puzzled over that question. What did Astaptah want? To rule? That seemed too petty. Too far beneath him. The man was megalomaniacal. He was aiming higher.

Pain is the key
.

Horace focused on his
qa
. In his mind's eye, it appeared as a glowing golden portal. The glow was muted now, the aperture covered by a murky gray screen. He pushed on it, but the screen was unyielding. He might as well have been trying to dig through a sheet of solid iron with his bare hands. He kept working at it nonetheless. He divided his mind into two parts. While the one part suffered and thrashed, the other remained focused on the task. The knowledge that he was dying, bit by bit, honed his concentration to a razor's sharpness.

In the Akeshian treatises about magic there were descriptions of the effects on
zoahadin
, how it separated the sorcerer from the source of power. Horace hadn't paid much attention to those passages, and now he wished he had. It seemed there must be a way to defeat it. He tested every spot of the gray curtain again and again. He pushed and tugged at it, he tried to slip past its edges. Each time it defied him. It was flawless in its simplicity. Then he felt something. A tiny imperfection in the screen like a pinhole, but so small he wouldn't have ever noticed it if he hadn't been so completely focused. If his life hadn't hung in the balance.

He pushed against the flaw with his mind. Not with blunt force as if to smash it down, but with sharp, precise hits like he was chipping away at a stone wall. As the machine buzzed and dug into his flesh, he worked at the task. Every instinct pressed him to push harder. Doubts whispered in the back of his head.

Your life is running out with every beat of your heart
.

Too slow! We must hurry!

What if Lord Astaptah returns before you've gotten through?

Hurry, you fool!

Horace refused to give in. The pinhole was widening. Slowly, so very slowly, but it was widening. After a time—a few minutes? an hour? he
couldn't tell—the pinhole had grown enough for him to get a firm hold on it with his mental touch. Reaching through, he grasped the edges and pulled. The flaw gave way all of a sudden, and his
qa
yawned open.

Horace basked in the heat of the power rushing into him. With the power came more pain as the
zoana
put everything into sharper clarity, and with the pain returned his anger, burning so hot he thought it would consume him. And he didn't care if it did.

He released it all with a shout that tore at the raw tissues of his throat. The room shuddered, and the slab underneath him became searing hot. Fiery pain exploded in his head and also at his neck, wrists, ankles, and across his stomach. The pronged handle bore harder into his forehead. Horace yanked at his bindings and cried out as they burst open.

Rolling off the table, he landed hard on the stone floor. The metal handle dangling from the ceiling glowed cherry-red. Glowing streams of melted
zoahadin
ran down the sides of the slab. Globules of molten metal clung to his skin. He hissed as he rubbed them off his wrists and stomach. With every welt that rose from his seared flesh, his rage grew.

Horace swayed for a moment as he got to his feet, holding onto the edge of the table for balance. The glow of the superheated metal was fading, or perhaps it was his vision. He didn't feel well. Emptiness welled in the pit of his stomach, a pit too deep for even the power surging inside him to fill. The dark presence slithered down his spine, an icy touch under his hot flesh. It spread out through his nerves down his arms and legs, penetrating through his bones. Everywhere it touched, the pain exploded, rising to new heights. Yet this time he didn't fight it. He embraced the bitter torment like a brother. He was one with the void.

He flexed his
zoana
, and the door flew off its hinges. He had no idea where he was going, but he had to keep moving. He paused in the doorway. An incredible buildup of power called to him from above this chamber. Faint vibrations ran through the stone walls and floor. Strange sounds croaked in his mind. Then the sound of footsteps jarred him out of his fugue.

The presence stirred inside him, and a radiant globe appeared above his head.

Did I do that?

The orb's white light threw shadows down the roughhewn tunnel outside the door. Dark shapes approached from his left. Three of them, their gray robes rippling as they ran with an odd, shambling gait. Hooked knives jutted from their gnarled fists.

Horace's hand lifted of its own accord, and three fiery lariats shot down the tunnel to seize the robed assailants and pull them to the floor. The men made no sound as they writhed, smoke rising from their charred flesh. Not a single gasp or groan. Horace, goaded by the presence, reached into the stone and sent it protruding upward. A dozen rock spikes shot up from the floor, spearing his attackers neatly. Their movements ceased.

More figures in long robes came at him from the other direction. He burned them with fire and throttled them with vises of solid wind, riddled their bodies with barrages of speeding rocks and sent javelins of ice through their skulls. When he was done, the tunnel was littered with their corpses. All done without a hue or cry from a single mouth. Not even his own. What did that mean?

A deep roar echoed down the passageway, followed by a blast of crimson light. Horace closed his eyes as the power washed over him. It only lasted a few seconds, but he luxuriated in the unrestrained freedom of the
zoana
. Then it faded, returning the passage once more to gloomy darkness.

Horace shivered as the dark presence directed him past the sprawled bodies.

Emerald lightning slashed the sky, illuminating the black thunderheads in sharp relief. Each levin bolt was accompanied by a discordant crash that echoed through the heavens and shook the timbers of the barge. Less than twenty yards beneath the ship's keel, they passed over the city battlements. Arrows and other missiles struck the bottom of the hull, rattling like hail against the enchanted hardwood.

Clutching fast to the railing, Abdiel was battered by the winds and rain, yet he grinned hard into the face of the storm. The western gatehouse was destroyed, parts of its structure on fire as the army of the three kings pushed inside. Shouts and screams rose from the ground where the fighting was the thickest.

The great pyramid of the queen's palace sat in the center of the city, a slate-gray mountain rising up through the fog. Such a pity Byleth was no longer alive to witness this moment. Instead, her lackeys would pay the price for her disastrous reign. Especially the outlander sorcerer. Mebishnu would cleanse the entire city with fire and steel. Nothing else would do except to burn the rotten tree down to its roots so it could be rebuilt into a shining example of peace and piety.
Thank you, Lord of Light, for blessing me to see this day
.

Another bolt of lightning struck near the ship, making him flinch. He glanced back in their wake. King Sumuel's ship was limping away, south and west, away from the battle with smoke trailing from its decks.
Coward! You flee at the moment of our triumph!

For Abdiel could see how this would end. His master had taken a huge gamble, but that was the way of a true leader. Big risks garnered vast rewards. If they captured the palace, resistance among the city's defenders would disintegrate. The battle would turn in their favor, and with it would come peace. An abiding peace in the shelter of his son's—his
master's
—hands.

The ship rocked sideways as something struck the underside. Abdiel peered over the side, but he couldn't make out anything through the smoke and mist covering the city. Mebishnu never even glanced down, his attention fully focused on their destination.
Yes, I must have faith in you. I must trust in your
—

The flying ship bucked like a cat dropped into scalding water. One moment they had been sailing through the sky, the next a wave of light—there was no other way to describe it—washed over the airborne vessel, blinding Abdiel as it passed over him. The deck leapt under his feet at the same time as a sonic boom exploded around him. Then the ship was failing, sinking like a lead weight. Red robes fluttered like moth wings as more of the Order brothers slid off the deck.

Abdiel wrapped both arms around the railing. Through half-closed eyes
he saw his master stagger against the golden bowsprit. Mebishnu swayed for a moment, his hands grasping for the spar, and then he went over the side.

“No!” Abdiel screamed into the storm.

He let go of the railing and tried to run to the front, but his sandals slipped on the slick boards, and he rolled across the deck. His back slammed against the forward railing. Gasping and coughing, he tried to squirm to his feet, but there was no purchase.

The ship lurched again, tilting even farther forward. Abdiel looked down. At first there was only the mist. Then a slanted rooftop appeared, rushing toward him at a fantastic speed. He remained conscious until the very moment the ship crashed to the earth.