Goldenmark

by Jean Lowe Carlson

  What she had sparked in him.

  Something massive moved inside Theroun. Something with an oilslick darkness that swallowed the edges of his vision. More than an echo of what he had touched the night he and Jornath had battled, it was as if that darkness had found a home inside his flesh and bones – and stretched beneath his skin, trying to find a way out.

  Theroun couldn’t control the scream that tore from his mouth. He felt a press of eyes, the attention of two armies wondering what was happening. Not because they were being controlled by Kreth-Hakir, but because their General was losing it. Hands were upon him. Herringbone-clad men unlocking him from the chain, holding him down. Khorel Jornath came rushing out the main doors of the cathedral, taking the steps at a run, down to where Theroun spasmed. Seizing Theroun’s face in his large hands, Jornath forced Theroun to look into his eyes. Theroun’s body spasmed again, but Jornath hauled his face back with a growl.

  “See me.” Jornath rumbled. The sound of his voice and the silver power of his mind thundered through Theroun. “See me and be calm.”

  Theroun gasped for breath, twisting in annihilating pain, but where he’d have thought Jornath would have added to that agony, he found only a soothing calm issuing from Jornath’s mind and body. Theroun inhaled that sanguine calm, devoured it from Jornath’s hands. Like a moonlit balm it rushed through him, until he could breathe at last. His tremors shuddered out, leaving Theroun gasping upon the rain-slicked stones – the dark force inside him quiet.

  “Easy. Be still and breathe.” Khorel Jornath’s level gaze held an emotion Theroun never thought to see from him: sympathy. He watched Theroun’s eyes, one and then the other. “I cannot permit your wyrria to rise, General Theroun. Not just now. But we will speak of it later. For it is a thing that cannot be denied.”

  Still gasping for breath, Theroun could make no response, but he wrenched his face out of Jornath’s grip and the big man let him go. Jornath stood. He locked eyes with Theroun in warning, though there was no press of mind behind it. Jornath then adopted his usual cold detachment, vacant of his previous humanity, and faced the cathedral doors.

  Theroun’s brows knit, confused.

  And then his guts turned to ice as he saw a smooth shadow emerge into the drizzling day.

  Lhaurent den’Karthus’ presence was liquid as his steps whispered down the stairs. A robe of velvet slithered behind him, the tail of the eel. Not clad in grey today, but in a doublet and breeches of pure white silk chased with gold threads, his dark-opal eyes met Theroun’s, glowing with pleasure. Lhaurent shone in the rain like a sea-pearl as he raised his hands to the heavy clouds. Gold starburst pins decorated his high collar, each with a ruby in their center and looped chains of gold, an insignia Theroun didn’t recognize. As Lhaurent raised his arms, Theroun felt a wave of wyrric command, golden as a sunrise rather than silver like the Kreth-Hakir, surge over the Elsthemi captives and Menderian regiments.

  “Elsthemen has fallen.”

  Lhaurent’s words hit Theroun’s eardrums like a surging sea. Amplified by Aeon-knew-what power roared out from Lhaurent’s body, those words devoured Theroun’s mind. They flowed through his skull with the force of belief, making him shudder. It was mind-games, he knew, and still he could not control it.

  Slowly, Lhaurent den’Karthus began to unbuckle the high collar of his doublet. Letting his robe slip to his elbows, he opened his doublet, baring his collarbones and chest to the rain. Searing white light surged from his skin like a glowing tide, from a complex pattern of golden sigils engraved upon his body. Theroun felt a sublime power spread out into the grey day, like a shining net engulfing the armies in the shifting rain. And where the luminescence touched, seeping into hearts and eyes like a squid’s tentacles, men were sundered. Theroun could only watch in horror as men of both armies cried out, falling to their knees in the mud, rapturous.

  Soldier after soldier, succumbing to the vile wyrria issuing out from Lhaurent den’Karthus.

  “The deviance of the northlands has been culled!” Lhaurent spoke, his hands upraised as his power poured out. “Alrou-Mendera has answered King Therel Alramir of Elsthemen, who murdered our beloved Queen. There will be no mercy. Know that you Elsthemi have been mastered. Submit to Alrou-Mendera. Submit to the will of the Rennkavi your master, Lhaurent den’Alrahel of the Line of the Dawn. And to the Unity of all.”

  Submit. It was the only word Theroun really heard from Lhaurent’s treasonous speech. The word poured through Theroun’s mind by the force of Lhaurent’s terrible magics. Amplified by every Kreth-Hakir, including Khorel Jornath standing tall at Theroun’s side, it was not a command he could fight. The mind of one man was a challenge; the mind of so many was impossible with that vile power of Lhaurent’s behind it.

  Theroun could taste the desire to submit upon his tongue like a cloying perfume. He could hear it washing through him like the ocean’s roar. His vision bleached out like seafoam, and Theroun broke to that vast inundation, his head bowed even as he grit his teeth. Though others gazed upon Lhaurent with rapture, Theroun’s face set in a rictus snarl, tasting only dark water and lies.

  But he was alone in his defiance. As the entirety of the Elsthemi and the Menderian army went to their knees – even the stalwart Jhonen, the burly Lhesher, and the rabid Vitreal – Theroun finally understood what he had missed: that Lhaurent played a far deeper game than Theroun had ever known. And that Lhaurent’s well-oiled subtlety had played them all – Uhlas and Alden, Elyasin and Therel, Theroun and even old weathered Evshein.

  Had played them until the game was utterly, undeniably, his.

  Rain sluiced the cold day. All went to their knees, submitting to the will of Lhaurent den’Alrahel, the Rennkavi. As Theroun sat there, manacled and understanding at last, he watched Lhaurent’s soft-booted feet slip close over the stones and pause before him.

  “Theroun den’Vekir,” Lhaurent sighed with obvious pleasure. “Do you not know when your time to submit has come?”

  “I submit only to my liege,” Theroun growled through his teeth. “And that is not you. Eel.”

  The power pressing him lessened. Theroun was able to raise his head and meet Lhaurent’s gaze. Lhaurent’s grey orbs shone with vicious pleasure. Sweet cologne seeped from him, filling Theroun’s nostrils with charnel stench. Unable to rise from the Kreth-Hakir and Lhaurent’s combined power, Theroun could only kneel in the rain as Lhaurent held out his hand.

  A ruby ring of dusky white star-metal fashioned with a wolf and dragon gleamed upon his right index finger. Suddenly, the full force of Lhaurent’s power slammed Theroun. Lhaurent’s ornate inkings seared like a falling star, and that terrible power came with a sundering ocean behind it. All Theroun could do was drown in the scent of eels. Suddenly, he understood: that he was a grain of sand on the ocean floor, a serpent drowning in the leviathan’s coils. Everything had been taken from him, doused beneath this oily water.

  His life, his purpose – even the battle in his soul.

  Lhaurent stood before Theroun, his inkings burning white. He reached out, stroking Theroun’s cheek, and delight shone in his eyes as he proffered the ruby ring. Power hammered Theroun, and with a strangled choke, Theroun’s lips were made to touch the ruby. The ring of dusky white star-metal tasted of horror, that spoke in whispers as it burned. As it touched Theroun’s skin, the power took him utterly and a paroxysm shook him. Before his men, his army, and the gaze of his bitterest enemy, General Theroun den’Vekir, Black Viper of the Aphellian Way, was finally brought low.

  Crushed beneath an ocean of wyrric power.

  The ring fell away. Lhaurent stared down with an endlessly pleased smile, his grey eyes shining with victory. Even as Theroun knew that he had been broken at last, something else shifted inside him: something made of unimaginable darkness and impossible might. It devoured the edges of his vision, stretched its immense oilslick blackness and inhaled. Except this force was not made of burning light, nor of hot or cold, nor silver mind-weaves. It was the
absence of these things – of all things. A force as vast as the Void stretched and woke inside Theroun.

  It was only readiness – and the strike.

  CHAPTER 6 – DHERRAN

  Delennia Oblitenne was, quite possibly, the most beautiful woman Dherran den’Lhust had ever seen. Tall of stature, she was muscled and curvaceous. Her waist was hardy, and from her athletic structure blossomed the hips of a goddess and full, ripe breasts. Long waves of silver hair were bound back in an ornate bun, her white eyes with their ring of pale blue glacially vicious. Thick muscle corded her thighs, and her ruby lips dripped blood to her chin and bare chest – because she was fighting stark naked, and had just bitten a man’s ear off.

  Her opponent, a thick fighter of enormous stature, roared in pain. The big man only struggled fruitlessly in Delennia's vise-tight grip while she choked him out from behind, one arm locked around his throat and the other behind his neck, on her back in the sand. He flailed, pummeling her as blood poured from his ear over her white throat and collarbones. His struggles weakened as she grinned, teeth red. Putting her lips close to his mangled hole, she whispered something as his eyes rolled up – and he passed out.

  The crowd in the underground catacombs went wild as the fight ended. They roared so loudly that the soot-blackened stones far beneath the city of Velkennish vibrated with it. Torch-flares shivered in their iron brackets from the power of the din; lantern flames danced in vaulted stone niches. Gold exchanged hands and drinks slopped into mouths as Delennia Oblitenne roared in triumph. Slipping out from beneath the unconscious man with a deft twist, the Bitter part of the Bitterlance launched to her feet, sand cascading from her muscular ass as the crowd chanted her name. Stepping over the downed man, thighs rippling, she straddled him and gazed down upon her conquest. Setting a foot to his chest, she shook him with it, then put her foot to his face, smushing his lips and nose.

  And then she squatted over him, and peed in his slack-open mouth.

  The crowd cheered. The fighter was out, dead to the world and his own humiliation. Lingering in the shadows near a pillar at the top of the coliseum tiers, ten rings up from the fight-floor, Dherran, Khenria, and Grump watched the sordid yet exhilarating scene. Dherran and Khenria blended in tonight in black sneak-thief jerkins with leather hoods up, but Grump had come dressed in fine lord’s attire – as his alter-ego, Grunnach den’Lhis – part of how he had secured their entrance to the fight this evening. Bristling with weapons, the trio were generally left alone up in the top tiers where there was less musk and piss-scent wafting through the gargantuan space.

  From his vantage Dherran let out a slow breath, horrified as much as he was awed. Delennia Oblitenne, the Vicoute Arlen den’Selthir’s once-lover, held power and glory in her every movement, and yet, she was also terrifying. Delennia came to her knees astride the fallen fighter, her well-muscled thighs gripping his hips. She mimed fucking him as her glacial gaze commanded the soot-stained fight-hall far beneath the city. The crowd exploded into frenzy yet again, as the magnificent woman got up and kicked her fallen opponent in the ribs.

  “My friends!” She roared to the crowd. “Who is this lout that does not acknowledge a good night spent with Delennia Oblitenne?!”

  Jeers exploded in the underground space, deafening Dherran.

  “You’ve got to be joking!” Khenria hissed.

  “Shush.” Grump admonished, his eyes pinned to the fight-ring far below. “Watch. If all goes well, Dherran fights her next.”

  “I’m fighting her?” Dherran blinked. “Three weeks wandering around Velkennish and doing shady deals in order to gain access to these fights to show me off – you said I’d be facing the fiercest fighter in the city!”

  “Delennia is the fiercest fighter in the city, Dherran, my boy,” Grunnach chuckled. “She’s why we’re here. And you are our bargaining chip.”

  “Why don’t I like the sound of that?” Dherran growled, wondering for the hundredth time if they’d made the right move to come to Velkennish in search of aid for Arlen den’Selthir.

  “Trust in Grump, Dherran my lad.” Grump chuckled, still watching the sand-ring and the woman within. “He knows some things about love, loss, and warfare. Having you fight Delennia is just our opening gambit. Our fist in the door, so to speak.”

  “If Dherran’s fight is only our opening gambit, then what is our closing one?” Khenria piped up, her dark brows knit in as much confusion as Dherran felt. Grump was full of secrets, and he’d been less than forthcoming about his past here in Velkennish or his overarching plan to secure Delennia’s alliance for Arlen.

  “You’ll see, you’ll see,” Grump murmured distractedly. “For now, just watch.”

  As they turned back to the scene far below, Dherran heard a number of suggestions issue from the crowd, of what Delennia should do with the man she had conquered. Her head was cocked, listening to them all, until finally she raised her hand. “Friends! As my opponent has so thoroughly embarrassed himself in front of my guests,” she made a sweeping gesture to the crowd, who cheered riotously, “I don’t think he deserves my hospitality, do you?!”

  They booed, shuddering the vast underground catacomb of blackened stone and slime-encrusted columns.

  “I agree!” Delennia crowed. “So take him away, fellows, and string him up in the privy! Let a shit fighter be graced with the stuff of his make tonight, so he’ll never forget what he is!”

  At her pronouncement, the crowd surged forward, hauling the unconscious man up out of the blood-spattered sand to their shoulders and carting him away. His head fell slack, piss dribbling from his mouth as the centipede of unsavory humanity hauled him out above their heads. Moving through the crowd, the unconscious fighter was carted off through a hulking stone arch in the fifth tier into shadowy catacombs beyond.

  “Where are they taking him?” Dherran hissed, watching them go.

  “To the privy, Dherran my lad.” Grump’s chuckle was sour. “They’ll put him in manacles there so everyone can shit and piss all over him until dawn. And then she’ll let him stumble home.”

  “Halsos’ hells!” Dherran gaze swung back to the sand-pit. “Will she do that to me if I lose?”

  “The privy is the good spot, my boy. I have no idea where she'll put you.” Grump gave another sour chuckle. “This is Delennia’s domain, lad. This is the catacomb beneath her estate. She runs these fights. But she doesn’t like men who lose on purpose, trying to curry favor with her, so she makes sure they don’t want to lose.”

  Dherran’s stomach churned. “How many fights does she perform a night?”

  “These fights only happen once a season, and the days rotate so the Vhinesse’s guards can’t catch them. Delennia fights a few herself at the start of the night, then turns it over to more interesting bouts.”

  “The bouts get more interesting than this?” Dherran glanced over.

  “Vastly.” Grump’s eyes were hard staring at the sand-ring. Though he lounged against the soot-blackened column in his hunter-green lord’s finery, his doublet chased with golden thread and his breeches a fine russet leather, Dherran saw that Grump had set his fingertips to the gilded close-work knives at his belt, fingering them gently, then adjusting the long rapier at his hip.

  “It’s rare for men to live through a fight the later the hour gets,” Grump murmured, his gaze hooded and dangerous. “Delennia’s seasonal fights are famed throughout Cennetia, Praough, and Valenghia. They attract the best fighters in three lands, and the most brutal. Some come for sport, some for glory, some for the purse of gold that is ensured if they win a match. But some just come for blood. So you see, it’s better that you’re fighting Delennia herself, if we can get her to notice you. Thankfully, I’ve greased a few palms tonight with ample coin, which should have done the trick.”

  Taking out a blackened steel coin from inside his doublet, Grump began walking it over the backs of his knuckles. It was the talisman that had gained them entrance to the fights tonight, at the storm-grate
behind the Weeping Sepulcher in the Cemetery of the Fallen. The damn thing featured a scorpion being strangled by a vine on one side, a blazing crown around a bleeding heart upon the other. Just the look of it gave Dherran jitters, as had the statue of the Weeping Woman before the sepulcher. A red verdigris had corrupted the statue’s eyes, making the angelic figure seem like it wept blood as it gazed penitently up at the sky with prayerful hands.

  Fitting, for the entrance to a fight-hall as vicious as this.

  “Don’t do it, Dherran.” Khenria’s grey eyes were fierce as she gripped his arm. “Don’t fight her. She’s insane!”

  Dherran took a deep breath, gazing down upon his fierce little hawk. Ready for anything, lean and sinewy Khenria den’Bhaelen was everything a young Kingswoman could be – a vicious ferocity searing from her opal grey eyes, her tumble of short black curls shining with a nimbus of blue in the torchlight from a nearby bracket. Standing tall in her black leather thieves’ corset purchased three days ago and absolutely bristling with knives, which weren’t proscribed here in the fight-hall, she looked every bit the young killer – able to keep her own in a catacomb of thugs, thieves, and mercenaries.

  “I’m afraid I have to, Khen,” Dherran murmured, reaching out to stroke a lock of her short black curls out of her eyes. “We need Delennia. She was once allied with Arlen den’Selthir, and we need her standing army if we’re going to have any hope of helping Arlen secure Vennet and the surrounding locale against Lhaurent’s forces. I have to fight her. Or else our entire journey here, through the Heathren Bog and everything else, has been for nothing.”

  “Well said, Dherran my boy, well said,” Grump grated, his gaze still pinned to the sand ring.

  “I don’t care!” Khenria’s eyes flashed in the torchlight, her jaw set. “We’ll find another way to approach her! There has to be some way to—”