The third man had an arm shattered off at the elbow, and his ragged, bloody stump dripped onto the ground, though a leather belt had been cinched around it in a makeshift tourniquet. The fourth victim had a mangled crotch, as if someone had used a dull axe to chop away at his groin, striking off his privates and leaving torn flesh on his thighs. The victims moaned with the abject misery of their inexplicable wounds.
“We found dozens like this, General,” said the subcommander. “They’re alive and awake, and yet they’ve been mutilated. I can’t understand how it happened. It is malicious, senseless damage.”
Utros tried not to show his revulsion. His thoughts spun in different possibilities, looping around until he finally understood. “They were attacked while they were petrified and helpless. Some cruel person smashed off their features and left them horribly damaged.”
The general remembered when his army had swept through conquered cities, ransacking them. They would tear down the capital buildings, burn the temples, and destroy the statues, because General Utros would allow no god other than Emperor Kurgan. Yes, the Keeper dominated the underworld behind the veil, but here in this world, Iron Fang must be the one they feared and worshiped. If the conquering soldiers found revered statues of their leaders, they would batter the faces until they were nothing more than chipped stone.
Seeing the mangled wreckage of these soldiers, the broken arms, the maliciously destroyed groin, he knew someone had done the same thing, vandalizing the stone figures in his petrified army. But these weren’t just statues. These had been real men, loyal men, and Utros felt enraged.
“It is one more thing we will avenge when we invade Ildakar,” he said. “Tend these poor men, care for them however you can.” He wasn’t sure if the moaning, agonized victims could hear him. “You have already paid a tremendous price, and for that I am eternally grateful. I vow that Ildakar will pay a greater price than you’ve suffered.”
After they departed, Utros needed a moment to compose himself. He looked up with relief when First Commander Enoch entered, his rugged face showing a hint of satisfaction. Utros gave a lopsided smile with his scarred face. “Enoch, I hope you have a good report. I’ve heard enough details about latrines and campsites and mutilated soldiers.”
Enoch seemed pleased. “Yes, General. We finally have some answers.”
Three armored soldiers wrestled a pair of captives through the open door, a man and a woman. They were middle-aged, but bent with the years added by a lifetime of hard labor. They wore patchwork leather, wool, and fur garments. The couple huddled close to each other, but the soldiers pushed them into the dim room. The woman stumbled, and the man caught her arm, holding her upright. They trembled as they stood in front of the table.
The first commander stepped off to the left. “Our scouts found these two camped in a high meadow. They are animal herders tending fifty creatures called yaxen.”
“Yes, sir,” said the captive man, trying to sound helpful and cooperative. “We’re yaxen herders, just simple people. We pasture the animals and bring them in to sell at Ildakar or to other towns in the mountains.”
Utros was glad to have real witnesses, a man and woman who had not been petrified for years. “Then you have vital information for us. You know what’s been happening in the world.”
Ava and Ruva glided forward to regard the captives in predatory silence, their eyes boring into the shivering man and woman.
Enoch said, “We captured their animals as well, sir. Scouts are herding them back to camp right now, so we’ll have some food supply. Enough for our officers, maybe.”
“Good thinking, First Commander.” Utros steepled his fingers as he leaned over the table. He spoke in a calm voice, hoping the captives would not need to be coerced. “Tell us about the lands around us. Apart from Ildakar, where are the nearest towns and cities? Who are the leaders?”
“My lord, we are simply yaxen herders! We don’t know anything,” said the man.
Utros added an edge to his voice. “You may address me as ‘sir,’ not ‘my lord.’ I serve Emperor Kurgan, and I will be the judge of how much you know.”
The woman sputtered. “Emperor Kurgan? But, my lord … but, sir, he’s been dead for ages. He—”
Utros pounded his fist on the table, not sure he wanted to hear what she had to say. “What are your names? Let’s start with simple information first.”
The man reached out to touch the woman’s arm. “My name is Boyle. This is Irma, my wife. We’ve herded yaxen all our lives. Our two children are grown up and now they live in a mountain town to the north.”
“What is it called?” Utros asked.
“The town? Why, it’s … Stravera, my lo—… sir,” said Boyle. “Stravera. It’s the nearest large town.”
Irma cleared her throat. “Many of the other villages grew over the centuries after Ildakar disappeared, but now that the city has come back, we have a new market for our yaxen.”
Utros frowned. “What do you mean, now that Ildakar has come back?”
“Why, the whole city vanished for centuries, sir, disappeared behind the shroud of eternity. And your army … sir, it was turned to stone, too. Thousands and thousands of statues. They were there all my life, many lifetimes. There are legends about where you came from, but we were never sure,” Irma said.
Boyle broke in, “We’d take our yaxen to the high pastures in the summer and then down to the plain as the weather grew colder. We’d camp among the stone soldiers year after year. I think I may even have seen one that looked like you, sir, and … and the ladies.” He glanced at Ava and Ruva.
“Explain these legends. How were we turned into statues?”
“Why, everyone knows that, sir,” said Boyle, indignant.
The twin sorceresses quivered like serpents preparing to strike. Utros said, “If we knew the answer, we wouldn’t need to question you. Speak!”
“Why, sir, when the army of General Utros came to lay siege to the city, the wizards of Ildakar worked a powerful spell to turn them all to stone,” said Irma.
“After that,” Boyle continued, “the wizards knew that Ildakar would keep being a target for outsiders, so they worked more magic and swept away the entire city for more than a thousand years. Only in the past couple of decades did the magic fade. The city reappeared after all that time, so we started selling them our meat and pelts again.”
“Then why did my army awaken just yesterday?” Utros asked.
Boyle and Irma were confused. Their mouths opened and closed, but no answers came forth. They looked at each other, and Utros saw an undercurrent of caring and mutual protection flash between them. That was a weapon he could use.
“We’ve been up in the hills. We didn’t even know you were awake, until your soldiers captured us. Always before, we just saw the statues,” Boyle said. “That’s all.”
The general did not expect subtle explanations of magic from these two. “Tell us where to find Stravera and also describe the other cities in the area. As herders, you must know where they are.”
“We know of a few,” Irma said, “but I’ve never been farther than Stravera or down here to Ildakar, not in all my life.”
“Our two sons live in Stravera,” Boyle said. “Why would we need to go farther? The yaxen have all the pasturage they need.”
Utros didn’t think they were lying, but, to be sure, he asked the questions again, pressing for more details.
Because he sensed their vulnerability, he had Enoch snap Irma’s two little fingers, a brittle hollow-branch sound that was much more delicate than her shrill wail of pain. Boyle babbled and repeated his information, and the threat of breaking more of his wife’s fingers finally elicited the names of four more mountain and river towns that Boyle had heard of, but never visited.
“Thank you,” the general finally said, looking at the sobbing old woman, the ashen and wrung-out man. “You have been most helpful.” He turned to the two sorceresses. “Do you think they’ve divulged ev
erything they know?”
Irma cried, “We have, my lord!”
“I assure you, General! I swear!” Boyle insisted.
“Very well. I believe you.” He nodded, and Ava and Ruva glided close to the two terrified yaxen herders.
“Can we … can we go now?” Boyle stammered. “We’re worth nothing to you as prisoners. No one will ransom us.”
“We’re nobodies,” Irma insisted, holding up her mangled hands. Her broken fingers drooped.
The sorceresses caressed the air around them in strange gestures, circling the two whimpering captives like hungry wolves. “You’ve given all you can,” Ava said in a soothing voice. “You no longer need to take up space in this world.”
Ruva leaned closer, drawing upon her gift. The twins were linked, their gestures in a perfectly symmetrical synchronicity. “Fold yourself up now, so we can put you away.”
Boyle and Irma twisted and jerked, not comprehending what was happening. Against their volition, their arms bent upward, pressing flat against their chests. They leaned over at the waist, bending at an impossible angle until their vertebrae cracked like brittle branches.
Boyle screamed as he bent his legs at the knees and then bent again in the middle of his femurs, breaking himself, folding down. His shoulders cracked and crunched, collapsing in like a wilting flower. Beside him, Irma continued to fold herself again and again. Like old blankets, the two human forms were creased and then folded, then folded repeatedly into a smaller and smaller package. Finally, their necks snapped and the screaming stopped. But the pop and crack of breaking bones continued as the two layered themselves into compact packages of dense, dripping flesh on the floor of the headquarters. The entire process took several noisy minutes.
“You may remove them,” General Utros said to Enoch. “Call me when the herd of yaxen is brought in. Tonight, we’ll have our first feast since awakening.”
* * *
All fifty of the shaggy animals were slaughtered at the edge of the camp. Because supplies would be lean for some time, the butchers were careful to save all the blood, to strip off the hides, to keep the offal, the bones, anything that might be useful. The pelts could be used for blankets or tent walls, the sinews dried as lines, the guts made into bowstrings, everything else boiled into large vats of soup.
The meat was roasted on huge bonfires, and although there wasn’t nearly enough to feed thousands of troops, Utros divided the feast among his top-level commanders and their lieutenants. The fifty yaxen provided enough meat to feed more than a thousand when judiciously rationed. Utros had made up his mind to take no more than the others.
He stood before the bonfire, inhaling the savory smells of haunches and joints searing over the flames. Meat juices dripped into the embers. The commanders pressed forward to be served.
Because of the tension and confusion, as well as the rigorous work he had to do, Utros had driven away all thoughts of food for more than a day, but he knew he had to have nourishment. He accepted a small serving of the fresh meat and made sure Ava and Ruva were also fed.
Feeling the heat of the large fire, even with dulled senses, he stood next to the twins and First Commander Enoch. They all took bites of the steaming meat, but the food felt oddly leaden in Utros’s mouth. He had often relished rare, dripping meat fresh from the hunt. He’d eaten countless meals of game cooked over a fire.
Now, though, he felt queasy. When he tried to swallow, his body rebelled. He didn’t want to eat. He couldn’t taste the meat. He felt sickened, and saw that his other commanders had the same reaction. One man even spat out his first mouthful, looking confused and embarrassed.
Enoch said, “Maybe you should give my serving to some of the men, General. I … I’m not hungry.”
Utros realized that neither was he. Genuinely perplexed, he looked around, saw that no one was eating the meat. All the slaughtered carcasses would go to waste. More details circulated in his head as he tried to understand, pieces fitting into place, even though they made no sense. He remembered no one drinking the water, no one using the latrines. Many supplies had gone untouched, though they were available to the soldiers.
His body craved no nourishment. The stone spell had preserved him for centuries, and it had not entirely let go. He stared toward Ildakar as the realization dawned on him. He dumped his meat on the ground and felt nothing. The others grew alarmed as they came to the same conclusion.
Utros smiled, understanding what an enormous blessing he had just discovered.
Maybe he wouldn’t need to feed his giant army after all.
CHAPTER 7
Bannon felt uneasy when he and Lila returned to the fighting pits near the combat arena. The place held only terrible memories for him, but that was where the hundreds of seasoned warriors wanted to gather. That was where they felt at home, where they had learned to fight for the entertainment of the people of Ildakar. Now they had to defend the city that had enslaved them. Everyone could see the enormous military force outside.
Bannon had rested after the night of the uprising, but he couldn’t relax. The city was under siege and he, too, might have to fight for Ildakar, a place he had never dreamed of calling his own. The awakened stone army filled the plain, and for three days now they had battered the walls, with little effect. General Utros had sent no ultimatum, no emissary, but Ildakar needed to be ready.
Lila remained by his side, though he didn’t understand why she stayed so close to him. He couldn’t forget how many times she had browbeaten him, challenged him, ground him under her heel as she imposed exhausting, painful training so he could fight against some desperate warrior or hungry beast in the arena. Now Lila seemed to consider him her friend, or at least her special project, though he had not asked for her company.
For these training exercises, Lila had called more than two dozen surviving morazeth to help prepare the warriors for what might be a far more terrible fight. The hard-bitten women seemed to be composed of tightly wound springs, hard leather, and sharp edges. The morazeth served their city without question, without deviation, and did not accept that their roles had changed despite the uprising. Ildakar was still Ildakar. Though the arena warriors outnumbered the morazeth by nearly ten to one in the training areas, they showed clear deference to the women.
The fighters had returned to the combat pits to rearm themselves. Many of them, including Bannon, had helped Mirrormask’s cause during the bloody revolt, but now, faced with the ancient army trapping them inside, the various parties had come to an uneasy, though unresolved, truce. The downtrodden slaves still felt generations-long enmity for their former masters, but most of these warriors recognized the common enemy. Once they defeated General Utros, they would continue their philosophical argument and reshape the government, if anyone remained alive. Bannon hoped to be gone by then.
In the tunnels near the arena, many hollowed-out grottoes had been painstakingly converted into combat rings, training floors, and sunken pits where warriors could face off against each other. Bannon had sparred with Lila many times here, once even with the captive sand panther Mrra.
With Ildakar under siege, the fighters gathered as if for a daily training session, but they realized how much more was at stake. They were muscular, scarred, flinty-eyed—survivors all. Many wore only loincloths, though some had donned leather chest armor. They chose sharpened staves, square knouts, curved hooks, short swords, whatever weapons made them most comfortable.
Lila stood in the torch-lit grotto holding a whip in one hand, a short sword in the other. At her hip, she also had her agile knife, its small handle engraved with spell runes, the tiny pointed blade capable of delivering a burst of enormous pain. Bannon had felt its sting himself when Lila had used it to control him, to punish him, to drive him to fight harder. Now she disregarded how she had treated him, seemed to think he didn’t even remember.
Lila raked her hard gaze over the gathered warriors. The rest of the morazeth stood in their places looking just as beautiful,
just as deadly. Bannon had watched them train other warriors, and he knew some of their names—Kedra, Lyesse, Marla, Thorn, Genda, Ricia—but none of them had given him “special” attention, like Lila.
“While we wait for General Utros to make his next move, we will train you into the best fighters possible. We may have to prepare you for war,” Lila said, stepping into the role of leader. “Adessa is gone. Some saw her leave Ildakar on the night of the uprising, perhaps on a mission of her own. If she’s not here, she’s no longer our concern. My sisters and I will continue to harden you. For Ildakar.”
Bannon spoke up. “We’re not training to fight for the entertainment of the gifted nobles. None of us are. I want that understood.” He looked around at the other warriors. “But we have to be ready to fight against the army outside. That’s our real enemy.”
“Of course, boy,” Lila said with a mocking smile. “Do you believe battling those ancient soldiers will be less demanding than arena combat? Don’t be ridiculous. A fight to the death is a fight to the death, whether it’s on the arena sands or out on the battlefield. I want you to have the skills to survive either.”
The other morazeth squared their shoulders, lifted their weapons, and faced the countless opponents. Lila continued, “Today my sisters and I will fight our utmost to help you survive in a real war. The few of you who die immediately in a battle will be of no benefit to our city.” She looked at Bannon as the other fighters shifted restlessly. “And I intend for you to survive, boy. I’d be greatly disappointed if you got yourself killed too soon on the battlefield.”
“So would I,” Bannon said, without any trace of humor. He raised Sturdy, swung the sword to loosen his arms. As a farm boy, he had worked in the cabbage fields, the son of an embittered man who drank too much and couldn’t control his violent tendencies. The man had beaten Bannon, but unleashed the worst of his temper on his battered wife; he’d finally clubbed her to death, because Bannon hadn’t been there to stop the vile man. His father had been hanged for his crimes, but Bannon took no satisfaction from it.
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