The Vastness

by Hausladen, Blake;

  “She is hard to know,” I said.

  “Like the rest of us, she had changed.”

  The conversation ended there, as awkwardly as it began.

  The day wore on and we climbed the fast slope of the road, and the ground became gray as we rode beneath the slow cascade of ash that fell east from the peaks despite the spring winds. Clever snapped at the larger flakes and occasionally one of his Akal-Fell offspring would attempt the same. My flaming core warmed for a time as I considered how much the Chaukai had matured in the three years since Barok and I had arrived up that road. From fourteen old men with nothing but longbows and a secret, they had become four divisions of stout infantry and a full brigade of horse archers that rivaled the Chaukai of old. They rode heavy Akal-Fell matured by magic and trained by a seventh-generation horsemaster. Their armor, swords, and spears were the finest Heneuran steel and their method of command and control had been forged by three centuries of Hemari at war. Each troop of infantry and horse included a singer that had practice magic upon the silver stairs.

  We’d have time as well to mature this fit force as we made our way south to Alsonvale through whatever obstacles Yarik or our better enemy Aden had waiting for us. For the moment, however, our scouts were as far south as the town of Grish and the Kogan Valley with no word of opposition. General Oklas and his men from Almidi were a bit bloody from skirmishes along Trace’s border, but no large force had moved north yet. They might still, but the opportunity for them to do so was all but gone. I tried to look beyond the skirmishes the Kaaryon promised us to the harder battle with the Ashmari but it was terrible to consider. It would be a devil of magic and madness unfit for living men.

  The last of the parade’s affect faded, and the clop of hooves and occasional cough were the only sounds that rose above the low hiss of the flames that swirl inside my armor and horse.

  Barok did not show himself. I could not decide if I should let him eat and sleep shut away from us or call him out with jokes and story. I’d have preferred to save him from the constant reminder of the trip he’d made to Enhedu in a similar carriage, but this might well be the last quiet moment of his short life.

  It seemed easier somehow to be a constant, if diminished, version of my former self than to choose to be sacrificed so terribly.

  I decided to leave him to his solitude.

  We camped that first night upon the broad patch where a timber camp had once stood. We reached the top of long road during the next morning’s march. The uncluttered ground between the two peaks was the last open space we would see until we reached the long slow slope where ancient mines had been carved into the valleys, so I kept our pace quick. The stretch between the two was narrow as it hugged the undulating skirt of the mountain. It would be a misery to camp the army upon it.

  The valleys that were our intended campsite were in view when the trip offered its first interruption.

  “Eyes up,” came a call from the head of the vanguard.

  A pair of scouts rode in. Something was wrong.

  Barok opened the door of his carriage and looked around as if he heard something. Evela was the next to emerge with Lilly, Fana, and Lady Jayme in tow.

  I called the army to a halt as they converged upon me.

  Clever and I burned brighter as Barok approached and they kept back several paces.

  “Something stirs,” Lady Jayme said.

  “Do you hear it, too?” Barok asked me. “The voices.”

  “I do not,” I said, waved everyone to be still. I asked the scouts for their report.

  “There is movement in the valley below,” one said. “It seemed a fog at first, but it grows thick and dark. We’ve seen the like enough, sir. They are ghosts. Thousands of them.”

  “Who died upon this road that there would be so many?” Evela asked.

  “I toured this road with Sahin,” I said. “Each valley and gully below contains the remains of Edonian mines. They are filled with the bones of the slaves that perished here.”

  “There are others rising, too,” Barok said and took hold of Gern’s arm as he stumbled. Kyoden was taking him and this time his visitation was brutal. Barok shook, cried out and when the dead king let go of him, he fell. Druids and Chaukai collected around as Gern held Barok up. He looked more like a doll than a man.

  “The world will never stop taking from him until he is gone,” I said.

  “He is Vesteal,” Evela said and called a singer to revive him. The song was fast and hot, and the blue light dazzled the tall rocks that buttressed the west side of the road. The sea and sky to our east paid us no attention.

  “Kyoden was less kind this time,” I said as Barok came to. “What did he tell you?”

  “These are the worst of his memories. The army Sikhek pressed up this road as he invaded Edonia left thousands dead on both sides,” he said. “The valley below is where the Zovi broke Kyoden’s army.”

  “What stirs them?” Gern asked.

  “My blood,” Barok said. “The same power that stirred Kyoden when I walk beneath the yew will wake them all. I should have sailed around. I must withdraw.”

  The shadow of Mount Virk was growing darker and the vapor of living breath was becoming visible. It was time for the army to make camp, not attempt a turn.

  “It would be hard for you to make your way up through the army this late in the day.” Gern said. “The road is too narrow. Could the ghosts be sung to? Forgiven like the Tracians after the battle of Urnedi?”

  He did not respond. A glow rose in the darkness upon the road below us and the earth trembled. The Zovi who had invaded Edonia rose in their armor amidst the Edonians they had conquered and enslaved. Their hatred blazed, weapons came up and they began to shriek at each other. A thousand-year old battle was warming before us as more and more ghosts rose. The serpentine ribbon of road became red and angry.

  “We may need to risk the move,” I said, but the Chaukai and the rest remained silent. Upon their faces was the terrible dread I remembered so well. The glow moved farther up the road until forms began to stir around us, soldiers and slaves made of black smoke and blazing anger broiled from the road and the rocks.

  “Barok, Gern,” I called but they stood transfixed. Many of the men had fallen or slumped forward upon their horses. The fell carriage teams and the Akal-Fell held their ground, I could not judge if they would remain calm.

  “Such sorrow,” Evela gasped. She had hold of Lilly, who lay limp in her arms. Fana and Jayme propped each other up and clutched at their ears. Of all our thousands, only the trio seemed conscious of the world.

  “What can we do?” I asked them. “What could the Spirit want of us that Barok’s blood woke so many?”

  “Barok is fueling this but he is not the cause,” Evela said and pointed to the blazing twists of valley below. “The center of it is there. We are only on the edge of this rising magic. Did Aden travel this road?”

  “He did,” I said.

  I struggled to understand what else could exist that would command the dead. The road became a river of flames and the ghosts of the Zovi and Edonians began to tear at each other.

  “Leger, help,” Fana screamed as the ghosts of the Zovi rose around us. A handful of tortured Edonians were nearby, bowed and chained. The seething Zovi began to tear into them and the Chaukai. The air filled with gushing ash and sprays of blood.

  I turned Clever and charged. Horse and sword erupted into bright flame as we joined the swirling melee. The Zovi came apart as we struck them. They bellowed their triumph and gathered around me.

  “There are too many,” Evela yelled. “Leger, you cannot fight them all.”

  My thoughts flared and flashed as if gripped by the headache of a night of drinking made worse by the blows of a hammer. I growled, Clever screamed, and we down the road.

  “Rally,” I bellowed through the madness, hoping for a wall of men in green. A blazing phalanx of broken Edonian dead assembled around me instead. They were thin and weak, mere wis
ps. I ordered them forward all the same, glad for their numbers.

  Before us, the Zovi were tearing apart the Edonians. Flame and ash swirled and the trees along the road crackled and burned. The invaders were more substantial somehow—in the quality of their hatred, or the condition of their bodies when they had perished. It would be over in moments.

  I slapped my visor into place and rode straight into them. I did not weaken as I withdrew from Barok, sustained instead by whatever lay below. I searched for it but could find nothing through the red tempest.

  We struck the wall of Zovi souls and our swords, fists, and teeth tore them down. Spews of ash filled the air, and like a gray wave we smashed the forward piece of them asunder.

  For a moment I saw a white object far below at the back of a long valley, a boulder perhaps, shrouded in blue flame. But more Zovi came and the ashen stew of the renewed battle obscured the view. All that remained for me was to fight.

  Screaming faces and ancient swords rushed at us and stalled our wave. The Edonians below had been torn apart and the Zovi surged against my thin line in ever increasing numbers.

  I tried to call the rest to gather close upon me, but had no voice. My armor began to sag, Clever began to slow. Zovi flung themselves at me by the hundred, their souls flashing into puffs of ash as they spent themselves upon me.

  Behind me, voices rose, but I could not hear their words.

  The Zovi screamed and came at me in a wall of flame. I tried to bring up my sword, but I could not.

  48

  King Barok Vesteal

  The 38th of Spring, 1197

  “We must help Leger,” Fana shouted over the screams of the dead.

  I was sitting awkwardly upon one of the flat road stones. Gern sat limp next to me, and the rest leaned on their knees or against their horses. A few Chaukai lay dead around me, burned and opened like gutted deer. It did not seem real. Not like this. Why did the world ask this of us?

  Fana kept yelling. Evela had hold of my good arm and my face stung as though she’d hefted me up so she could slap me.

  Nothing at all made sense until I heard the sharp clank of metal. Leger was coming apart upon the fiery road below. Something had summoned the dead against us and Leger was losing. He had stopped them but he and the Edonians with him were fading fast.

  “What can we do?” I asked. “This is not the right fight. Is there no song that will sustain him?”

  “None that I know,” Fana said. “Nor would I send your blood down to him. It would strengthen the Zovi as much as it does Leger. Jayme, Evela?”

  The old Sermod lay on her back not far away. Tears streaked her face. She shook her head. Evela’s strong hands clasped my hand and wrist. She looked from the blackened stump of my right arm to bodies of a Chaukai.

  “Whatever power below that has summoned them is the same power needed to entomb souls,” she said.

  Fana shook her head. “No. We cannot repeat my mistake.”

  She was suggesting we make more like Leger.

  I looked Evela in the eyes and said, “This world seems to wish me trained for sacrifice. Do it. Do it before madness or death steals away the chance. I will not lose Leger a second time.”

  Evela was quick. She shimmered as she moved, producing a curved knife. She laid me down and cut the flesh above the blackened stump of my arm and painted Jayme’s mouth. The weathered witch screamed and leapt up.

  “Do not presume to give me power,” Lady Jayme said and punched Evela hard upon the chin, snapping her head around.

  Evela staggered and Blue sparks arched off her wounded face. She spat blood from her mouth and looked ready to stab the old witch. They began to shout at each other until Fana shouted for help.

  She had hold of the body of a dead Chaukai and was dragging him toward me.

  “We dare not make more like Leger,” Lady Jayme yelled. More tears poured from her but the sound of her sorrow was drowned out by the screams of the dead. A wave of heat pushed at us as the burning tide surged further up the road toward us. A blanket of ash washed across us.

  The trio hugged and wiped each other’s eyes before the three mothers turned toward me.

  They painted the dead Chaukai’s flesh with my blood. More of the Sermod were roused, and Jayme led the terrible choir. The syllables of their song filled my battered ears and made my bones ache.

  One of the ghosts in the melee was pulled back from the fight as if tied to a line. The barked syllables hauled the unmoored thing in and bound it to metal his corpse. The dead man howled and leapt up, the flesh inside smoldered as its iron armor began to glow. The stink filled me with rage.

  “Go,” Fana said, and the terrible being charged the ashen melee. It struck the seething mass and the Zovi were flung back. Clever shrieked and Leger lifted his sword.

  “Hold still, Barok,” Evela said with a calm that stole all my misgivings, despite the bloody knife she held. The blue nimbus upon her was warm and friendly.

  Fana brought another body and another iron bound soul rose. It leapt into the seething smoke, burst into flames, and tore at the ghosts surrounding Leger. The Zovi fell away for a moment before smashing them back further.

  Gern tried to sit up. He took hold of his wife’s ankle. She knelt down and embraced him. They wept, bathed in ash.

  Stars began to swirl as Evela and Fana painted corpse after corpse until there were no dead men left. I drifted in and out of consciousness. Heat bathed me, as I felt the terror of a half million dead slash the heavens and the earth with their voices and flames. They pressed Leger and troop of soul-irons back, closer and closer to us.

  “More,” Leger screamed.

  Then Fana and Evela dragged a living man toward me. It was Gern.

  Fana knelt over him, his face in her hands. “Do you consent, my love?”

  A gust of hot ash shot the air above us as Leger tore at the horde.

  “My love, I leave it to you,” she said to him and kissed his lips. “Tell me no, and we end here.”

  “This cannot be right,” he said.

  “It is not, but it is all that is left to us. Decide it my love. Stand with Leger in death, or we all perish here.”

  He whispered to her, kissed her once, and closed his eyes.

  Fana and Evela looked to me. The blue shimmer upon Evela took hold of Fana and each set a hand upon Gern. He took hold of my hand and the glow spread to him and grew until I was bathed in the soothing glow. They closed their eyes and waited for me to decide.

  I did not want to do it. I could set his life aside. Was there nothing the struggle would not take?

  Around is the darkness waited, laughing and leering at us. It would swallow us all.

  I forced away the Yentif ire rising in my throat and gave my consent.

  I did not see the knife Fana used but heard the gurgle of Gern’s blood in his throat. Evela took more of my blood, and Jayme’s choir made the air crackle as she bound his soul into his armor. He sat up, looked to Fana, and reached to her.

  She screamed as red flames began to curl from his eyes and mouth. She fell back, her clothes smoldering. She tore her clothes away, and knocked back those that tried to help. Gern stood up and turned to her.

  “Go,” was her command as the flesh of the man she loved was dashed to black ash. His spear caught fire as he turned, and with a bellow that shook the mountain he charged into the tempest.

  He struck it like a fist slammed into a puddle of black mud. The Zovi were dashed back and Leger’s call rumbled over the din.

  “Order—phalanx forward.”

  A red wall formed and our soul-irons fought the ghostly horde to a halt. The grip of terror faded. Voices rose around me and the choir’s song surged.

  A Chaukai took a knee next to me. They cut his throat and his body fell as his soul leapt into the iron that encased him. One after another they came, the colored ribbons upon their coats curling and smoldering as their bodies burned.

  “My horse, too,” said one. His horse,
bathed in blue light, gnashed its head and shrieked with the fury. He asked it to kneel and held its head while Evela’s knife opened its wide throat.

  I looked into the laughing shadows and spit a curse at the God who besieged us.

  “I will end you,” I said and spat at the darkness.

  Dancing stars began to collide and cloud my vision. Through the swirling din more men and horses came. They became a river of meat, anointed by my blood, to be rendered and remade by the ever-rolling verse. The song warned back the growing night with violent light and a wafting blue mist that glowed as hot and angry as the singer who caused it. On it went, and the Earth’s chosen joined Leger’s army.

  The last singer standing was Lady Jayme when she fell exhausted beside the rest laid out around me. Fana was only person left standing. The glow upon them and the mist lingered.

  I heard Leger call an advance.

  “Prop me up,” I said and she sat down and pulled me into her lap. She wrapped her hands around my opened wrist and I clutched her arm while we watched the battle move down the road.

  Leger and his throbbed and surged forward. The fought as though they were still me, ready lines and spears moving in unison. Their cohesion was telling though, as the mob of Zovi swirled and pattered their thick red line with no effect. The fire and screams of the Zovi began to fade.

  Leger’s entered the long valley and his sword and armor began to glow. He called orders and the blazing formations of soul-iron divided and pursued the last of the Zovi up into the twisted folds of the mountain. The thin forests on those slopes burned while the last of the Zovi fell, and the swirling clouds of black ash held away by the heat of the battle began to settle. As it drifted down around us, I saw a last burning shape tucked deep in the valley. It was taller than a man, egg-shaped, and shrouded in blue flame. Leger shattered it with a single blow and blue flame was extinguished.

  The last of the terror left me, leaving only regret.