The Worldbreaker Saga Omnibus

by Kameron Hurley

  “It’s Nasaka’s grandchild,” Meyna said. “I suspect it will be.”

  “One who can bear children, or cursed like me?”

  “All signs say it will bear children,” she said. Meyna had not gendered Mey-mey until she was a year and a half old, when Mey-mey started applying a gender to herself.

  He held out a hand and helped her out of the bath. She was gloriously naked, but he handed her a towel quickly, to keep from thinking of it. “So you’ve decided to invest in me, finally,” he said. “What changed your mind?”

  “I was in prison for almost a year,” she said. “It gave me time to think.”

  They married in the Sanctuary, a hasty ceremony that earned him strange looks from more than one Ora. The faces of the Oras were different – Almeysia and Una gone, Gaiso dead, Nasaka shuttered up downstairs. Only Masura was familiar, and it was she and Soruza who held the ceremony. By all laws it was an illegal pairing; Mohrai, Rhin and Hadaoh had to sign all the appropriate documents, agreeing to the match. But Ahkio wanted symbolism. He wanted continuity.

  Most of all, he needed to hold up Meyna’s child in the light streaming in from the dome above, colored red in the light of Oma’s visage, and declare it the Li Kai, his successor.

  He had three dozen witnesses to it. The child squalled at him. He held it tight, gazing into the mirror of Meyna’s eyes, and mourned for Kirana, and the line of Kais that could have been.

  Meyna had not expected this part. He saw it in her face.

  When he returned the child to her arms, he leaned over, whispered. “I know you want to come to Kuallina. But if I die there, something needs to continue. Do you understand?”

  “I’ll hold the temple,” she said.

  He withdrew.

  Friends. Enemies. It was all blurring together now.

  He got onto the Lift to Kuallina, into an uncertain future.

  36

  Ghrasia was on the wall of Liona when the Tai Mora army arrived. Scouts brought word just ahead of their arrival. She had just enough time to beg for a dozen jistas from the Temple of Para. Only five arrived ahead of the army.

  News had already reached her about the fall of the harbor, and the forces headed toward Kuallina. She had sent half her army to Kuallina to shore it up, not anticipating a second Tai Mora army at her gates. Her strategy and tactics classes taught her not to fight a war on two fronts and not to divide one’s forces, but with an army as massive as that of the Tai Mora, their sheer numbers defied standard rules of engagement.

  When she gazed over the great wall of Liona, it did not surprise her to see her daughter Madah there at the head of the Tai Mora army, swinging a great weapon from her perch atop a low rise where she addressed the long lines of blue-clad parajistas.

  She would know her anywhere – the long lean lines of her, the hatchet of a face, the heavy brow she shared with one of her fathers. When Ghrasia went home to wash and prepare her body for the funerary feast, she had looked terribly peaceful in repose, far more peaceful than she had in life.

  Madah was a fighter – angry, violent. Ghrasia had kept her out of trouble by pulling a lot of political favors, and Nasaka kept that hanging over Ghrasia. Nasaka had covered up the violence, and even one accidental death. It seemed appropriate that it was she who led the army to the gates of Liona, to burn down her mother’s wall with a force of parajistas so large Ghrasia had no hope of pushing them back. The parajistas on the wall with her were already sweating, holding a great wall of air around Liona, but it would not last.

  Ghrasia stayed on the wall for the first onslaught from the foreign army that clogged the pass for as far as she could see, far greater than any number of refugees or legionnaires.

  The wall shook so hard under the offensive that Ghrasia lost her feet.

  She did not stay for the second volley.

  Ghrasia strode purposefully downstairs. She felt oddly calm. The little feral girl met her as she rounded the corridor leading to her study, and sniffed at her hand as she passed, then trailed after her.

  She found Arasia two doors down, yelling at a group of militia.

  “Get the militia off the wall,” Ghrasia said. “When the wall falls, we’ll be caught in it. Regroup on the other side.”

  “We’ll hold Liona,” Arasia said.

  “We won’t,” Ghrasia said. “But we can slow them down. Abandon the wall and regroup outside of it. They’ll have to get over the rubble of the wall, and that will give us an advantage with archers and jistas.”

  “It won’t fall,” Arasia said.

  The hold shook again. Ghrasia caught herself against the wall.

  Arasia put out both hands. Two of the militia fell. “All right!” Arasia said. She rounded on the militia. “You heard her! Relay the order!”

  Ghrasia paused at the door to her study and stared at the big tapestry of Faith Ahya crossing over the pass into what would become Dhai. She wondered who would come out the hero of this moment.

  She moved downstairs, yelling the retreat as she went, and the great fortress trembled and shivered beneath her. One hallway fell in behind her as she went, trapping those who came after. She stayed long enough to huff out a few blocks before she realized it was a lost cause, and then she was moving again, trying to drown out their cries with distance.

  Heroes.

  Ghrasia made it into the courtyard, falling into a mass of militia and civilian support staff streaming for the relative safety of the woods. She made her way there, calling for Arasia, rallying the confused militia.

  She climbed atop a broad tree, its leaves still unfurling in the low spring season, and called at them, “The wall of Liona will fall! When it does you will hold them here. You will delay them to give Kuallina time to muster her defenses. You knew this day would come. Some must fight so others may live peacefully. You are the ones Oma chose to fight. Fight well. Die better.”

  She slipped down from the tree. “May I take your arm, Arasia?”

  “Of course,” Arasia said, and linked her thick arm with Ghrasia’s slender one. She towered over Ghrasia. Ghrasia patted her shoulder.

  “You have the line here,” Ghrasia said.

  “You–”

  “I will be on the wall,” Ghrasia said. “I won’t let those parajistas die alone.”

  “Ghrasia, this is–”

  “Hold here,” Ghrasia said. “This Tai Mora army will crash into Kuallina from the east, and their other army from the harbor will hammer Kuallina from the north. They’ll catch them in that fist and crush them hard. You understand?”

  “Last stand.”

  “This is ours.”

  Arasia nodded.

  Ghrasia marched back into the hold. The feral girl found her again as she crossed the courtyard, and Ghrasia yelled at her to go back.

  “The people who hurt you are coming,” she said. “You understand me? You may not speak, but you know what I’m saying, don’t you? I will hold them. But you must go.”

  The feral girl sat on her haunches, head cocked.

  “Understand?” Ghrasia said. “We are not all supposed to die here.”

  The girl gave a jerk of her head, something very like a nod, and scampered back off toward the woods.

  Ghrasia let out her breath. Of all of them, that girl deserved to live.

  She mounted the steps while the hold roiled around her, climbing up and up, back to the top of the wall.

  The parajistas were sweating and trembling. One was already on her knees, vomiting.

  Ghrasia asked permission and helped her up. Ghrasia bent, and whispered in her ear, “Hold them. I need you to hold them while we organize the militia. Give me another twenty minutes. Can you do that?”

  The woman nodded. She was Ghrasia’s age, maybe a little older.

  Ghrasia went down the line, asking them each to hold for twenty more minutes, and in twenty minutes she went down the line again, asking for twenty more.

  The two men on the end were sobbing, great heaving sobs tha
t Ghrasia felt more than the shaking of Liona.

  She went to the edge of the parapet again and gazed down at row upon row of parajistas at the front of the enemy’s lines. There must have been sixty or more of them. The fact that her five had lasted nearly three hours was extraordinary.

  Another woman had joined Madah on the rise. Ghrasia peered at her as she pulled the great crimson helm from her head. A confident thing to do, in the middle of a battle. It confirmed what Ghrasia already suspected – this was not a true battle, just an exercise, for these people.

  The woman raised her head to the wall and stared right at Ghrasia. Though there was a great distance between them, the recognition was as stark and immediate as it had been with Madah.

  It was Kirana, Ahkio’s sister, former Kai of Dhai. Come to destroy Liona.

  Ghrasia had felt little of anything for an hour, just exhaustion. Emotion had drained from her body like pus from a wound.

  Now she was angry. Deeply, bone-chillingly angry.

  She raised her voice. “Hold your barrier and prepare a second spell,” she said. “Prepare a vortex. At my order, drop defenses on the wall and deploy the vortex at the center of the army. Understood?”

  Weak calls of acknowledgment.

  The parajista nearest her gave her a wide-eyed look.

  Ghrasia pressed thumb to forehead. “An honor to stand with you,” she said.

  “And with you,” the parajista said.

  Ghrasia leaned over the edge of the wall. “Drop and deploy!” she yelled.

  A rush of air filled her ears.

  She saw the vortex open up at the center of the great army, just as a blast of air walloped the wall. The shockwave blew her clear across the parapet and over the other side of the wall.

  Ghrasia had four seconds to experience the rush of the fall, four seconds to see the wall crumbling down after her, four seconds before her body hit the courtyard, and the wall of Liona buried what was left of her.

  37

  “Is he dead?” Zezili asked. “Fuck you to Rhea’s eye, just tell me if he’s dead!” She slumped against the wall of the closet they’d thrown her in – in the panic, no one had seemed sure what to do with her – and roared herself hoarse, but no one came for her. They’d ripped the skewer from her arm, and she felt her whole face puffing up from the surprisingly solid hit from Natanial Thorne, the man she intended to murder in his bed.

  She huffed herself against the door once, twice – and much to her surprise, it burst open. She tumbled to the stones and scrambled up. She ran past startled servants and one man fondling himself in front of some old painting, looking for an exit. Her body protested mightily, but it could rest when it was dead.

  Zezili broke out a side door, past a scattering of chickens, a horrified stable boy, and a young woman cutting up the body of a boar.

  She made for the kennels and slammed her right shoulder into a man leading a bear across the yard. He fell. She kicked him so he stayed down and stood on his body to get the leverage she needed to mount the bear.

  She slapped the bear with her good hand, keeping her seat entirely by clenching her thighs tight while gritting her teeth hard enough to make her face hurt.

  There was shouting behind her. Something zipped past. Arrows, already? The bear plunged down the muddy streets. Waves of civilians scrambled out of her way.

  She knew nothing of Tordin, but she knew the sky. She looked up, found the suns, and turned herself north. She rode for hours until the bear frothed at the mouth, its great forked tongue lolling.

  She had not heard any signs of pursuit for miles. Zezili came upon a little farm with a dog tied up out front, and exchanged the bear for the dog. The owner appeared on the stoop just as she whistled it forward. She took off again at a lope, following a dirt track she hoped was a road.

  Zezili camped that night well off the road in some abandoned barn. It worried her less than the woodland, which was treacherous, more treacherous than anywhere in Dorinah. The vegetation was dense, full of snapping, biting plant life. Her skin burned with dozens of bites.

  She pushed herself into a corner of the barn, and the dog curled up next to her. She slept badly, plagued by nightmares. Anavha, beautiful Anavha, bleeding in her arms. If he was dead, what did she have left but revenge? This was the Empress’s doing. She kicked awake sometime in the blackest part of the night, and sobbed. Sobbed for the loss of many things – the loss of her legion, her health, her hand, the loss of her dog Dakar, and Anavha. She had spent her life trying to convince the world she was worth something, and in the end, she had nothing.

  Zezili slept in the barn for two days, nursing her aching body, living on young plant shoots and dandelions and a hare who made the mistake of coming into the barn within the length of the dog’s lead.

  Then she rode out – north, stealing what she needed along the way. In a little town four days out she stopped to barter for a map, but found that her reputation had preceded her.

  She heard her own name whispered as she got off the dog. So she took what she wanted – with a look and sneer – and used the map and supplies to get her to the spot on the map Storm had given her. The final resting place for the Empress’s weapon was nearer than ever.

  A week and a half alone on the roads, talking only to her dog and frightened village people, gave her too much time to think, and to dream. But the longer she was on the road, the less she dreamed, and the less far-ranging her thoughts. Her focus was a searing brand.

  Saradyn and his people were a menace, yes. But it was the Empress who had called her dajian, who had made her dance like a puppet on a string. It was the Empress who had killed Anavha. The Empress who had taken her hand.

  And she would destroy everything the Empress wanted her to save. Burn it out as surely as she would a cancerous weed.

  When she came within sight of the circle of mountains that marked her final destination, the fist of her drive loosened. She took her time picking out the track the army must have taken. They would have arrived here weeks before, but the trail was still fresh. New plant life curled about the edges of crushed wildflowers.

  She followed the broad track around the towering deformity in the ground that marked her final destination. They were not properly mountains, but some kind of spongy matter, like a single great tree stump that ran for miles along a circular border. She followed the track around the anomaly for half a day before she found the hole.

  Masses of dirt were piled up outside the hole. It looked like someone – or something – had tried to burrow under the ridge of the “mountains.”

  Zezili dismounted. She saw dog and bear tracks, human tracks, too, and further on from the hole, a ragged line of abandoned tents, already curled in little tufts of moss and fast-growing vines.

  “Anyone here?” she yelled.

  Nothing.

  She tied off the dog near the hole and kicked around the abandoned camp. The supplies were all intact. She found packs of dried meat, rice, hard bread, and tubers.

  Then she saw the first and only body. A crumpled, partially rotted figure, hunched against a tree. Zezili recognized the armor. It was Jasoi.

  Zezili knelt in front of her to inspect the gaping wound in her side. It looked like the bite of some monstrous animal, but if that was so, why hadn’t it eaten the rest of her? Wherever the others had gone, they hadn’t intended to go long, and yet… She gazed over her shoulder, over at the hole. Shuddered.

  She stood. “We’re going to eat,” she told the dog. “You remember real food?”

  The dog whined.

  “Me either,” Zezili said. She put Jasoi’s name onto her very long mental list of the dead. She had killed hundreds of people in her lifetime, but it was her foolishness, her neglect, her poor choices, that murdered most of them.

  The weather was warm, but she wanted cooked rice, so she used one of the flint kits to make a fire. She yanked the vines off one of the tents and got it set up properly again. She kicked out a mean little rodent a
nd two snakes. She stepped on the head of the biggest snake and mashed its head in. Rice and snake meat sounded delicious.

  She had gotten adept at skinning and gutting animals with her three good fingers and her teeth, and she did it now, throwing together a meal for her and the dog. When they were fed, she lay there with him at the center of the abandoned camp and stared up at the moons. She sucked in a breath of warm air while the insects buzzed around her, snapping and biting, undeterred by the smoke.

  It was a good final night.

  She woke at dawn covered in dew and dozens of shiny green beetles. They were harmless and beautiful, like being covered in jewels.

  With cool resolve, she spent nearly two hours tying a dagger to her left arm with a long string of cord pulled from one of the tents. The stump had healed well enough that she could wrap the cord from the stump around her elbow, so that if she kept her elbow crooked, it gave her the proper leverage. She shoved the blade into the wall of the surface anomaly a few times to test it out. Then she untied the dog’s lead and yelled at him to clear off.

  He loped a few feet away to the edge of the camp, flicking his ears forward. At least he had a better chance at survival than Dakar.

  Zezili went to the edge of the hole and peered in. She got down on her belly to try to see the other side, but all was blackness. And in that blackness she saw Anavha’s pained face. The mirror exploding in the other world. The end of the fucking world.

  Fuck it.

  She crawled down into the blackness, pushing dirt and insects, and Rhea’s eye alone knew what, past her as she went. It wasn’t high enough for her to walk, so she moved along on her elbows and knees, huffing in the smell of the dirt.

  The darkness stretched on. She was descending slowly. She felt the descent in the curve of the floor.

  What kind of weapon was down here?

  She crawled and crawled. The air still felt fresh.

  A flicker of light.

  She squinted and crawled toward the light. The hole was curved upward again.

  Thank Rhea.

  As she rose, she began to smell something bad. The unmistakable stench of rot.