The army marched behind the wall of water and stayed dry, barely touched by its refreshing mist. No one could see through the rain. The army of Lux Lucis followed the goddesses’ miracle until the storm halted, waiting …
King Vieri bellowed the commands to begin the charge, swinging his falchion in circles through the air as if an ancient spirit possessed him. For the first time in her life, Lucia saw her father in his primal element, red-faced and roaring, commanding his legions like the storied kings of old. For once, she felt proud to be his daughter.
“Pray, children! Beg your gods for victory. Give strength to our men. Disrupt their sages. Destroy their arrows. When the enemy turns to retreat and reposition, finish them all.”
The shock troops rumbled forward and disappeared through the watery plane first by the handfuls, then like a tidal wave crashing forward and swallowing the sands.
Vieri’s eyes homed in on the battle. “Tell your goddesses to stop the rain. Now!” He kicked his chestnut steed into a gallop. “Follow me!”
For one moment, Lucia watched her father ride off into the crowded desert. His sword hung again at his side and he carried the glorious golden shield of Lord Galeazzo, a relic wielded by most of Rezzia’s kings. He yelled a guttural yawp and raised the brilliant disc above his head. He stopped to pray, and Lucia pulled up beside him.
She asked Ysa to dissolve the storm.
Invisible to all mortals, Lord Galleazzo strode beside King Vieri, standing taller than five men. The body of the most commanding god was protected with a full suit of golden chainmail, though he wore no helm. Furry eyebrows and wild, white hair accentuated the aging god’s possessed face. A thick vermilion cape billowed behind his shoulders, bearing an august image of the sun.
Ysa, carry me forward and watch over me.
Albina shot ahead at an extraordinary speed.
Not again.
Lucia leaned forward with one arm against her mare’s right shoulder, keeping her shield close to her body. She sped past her father and rode under the waterfall. The refreshing sensation lasted only a moment. As she moved beyond the rain, the downpour vanished and a strong gust covered her face in dust.
Her vision shook as tremors rattled the canyon. From beneath the red dirt, the ten fabled lions of Lord Galeazzo emerged with full-throated roars, five males and five lionesses twice the size of their natural counterparts. They shook their bodies, sending clumps of red dirt flying in all directions. Lucia raised her shield to cover her face. She looked back to see her father holding his god’s shield over his head, commanding the divine beasts: “Kill their foul sages!”
The lions bounded past Lucia and surged ahead of Rezzia’s legions.
Pawelon’s northern defenses were thin. Instead of clogging the area in front of the trail with long spear formations, the pigs crouched and waited behind the long mounds of dirt stretching across the wide trail’s mouth. Following the lions, waves of Rezzian troops raced up the defensive hills and charged over the top, breaking formation and fighting man to man. Arrows flew from the rear of the Pawelon positions and from the cliffs, dropping a small number of Rezzian bodies to the ground.
Albina galloped with a ferocious spirit, putting the other horses far behind her. What’s gotten into you? Lucia pulled on the reins with all her strength and screamed for the animal to stop. It was either too scared or too possessed to listen. Charging soldiers flew past and behind them.
Ysa, you are The Commander of Horses. Stop her!
Deep, conch-like horns blew from within the Pawelon ranks. An eerie tension crowded the atmosphere. Around the leading Rezzian soldiers, sandy air swirled up into small tornadoes, choking men and forcing them to cover their eyes.
Albina raced into the sages’ dark magic.
A shower of tiny stones pummeled Lucia’s armor. A dirty cloud infiltrated her helm, forcing her eyes closed and sending dust up her nose. Albina screamed, but the mare only raced harder.
Further ahead, the lions bawled carnal roars. Terrified Pawelons screamed. The tiny sandstorms dissipated. Lucia opened her eyes. As the Rezzians advanced again, the army’s rowdy cheer must have soared to the citadel itself.
Albina lunged forward like an elegant machine, climbing the first hill even though Lucia pulled on the reins to stop her. From the hill’s vantage, she looked back and saw Ilario on his horse racing toward her, with Caio and her father following him.
Crack!
An arrow shaft smashed against her shield, knocking Lucia sideways. She squeezed the reins and held on, raising her goddess’s shield. Ysa, protect me and my soldiers!
Her crazed horse surged down the first hill, into the little valley between the first two long mounds. Here, the Rezzian warriors enjoyed a great advantage against a dwindling number of Pawelons.
Albina began climbing the second hill. Having no control over the animal, Lucia pushed off and dove for the ground, clutching Ysa’s shield. The ground knocked the wind from her lungs. Her fingers dug into the dirt, finding no purchase. She tumbled into the second trench, her armor bruising her skin. More dust and dirt coated her mouth and tongue. Unstoppable momentum spurred her down.
She looked up at the pigs.
In the second trench, enemy soldiers still outnumbered the Rezzians. Luckily most were far from her position. But not all. Ilario felt so far away.
Gods! Will they even be able to find me?
She unsheathed Ysa’s white sword as two bearded Pawelon warriors approached and taunted her with feinting short spear thrusts. A Rezzian soldier ran down the hill behind her, yelling “Your Grace, come toward me!”
A spear cut across her cheek with stinging pain. As the Pawelon pulled his spear back, she stepped forward and bashed his weapon with Ysa’s shield.
The attacker shifted back, keeping his grip on the spear. He threw his weapon into the charging Rezzian soldier’s gut.
The second pig came at Lucia from her shield side.
She swung her arm to block his spear thrust, and he lost his balance. With Ysa’s sword leading, she lunged forward and slipped the blade past the edge of his shield, into his gut.
Deep pangs of betrayal came over his brown face as he dropped his shield and weapon. They fell together, her shield between them, his disgusting body beneath hers.
The other pig jumped on her with his knees digging into her back. He pounded her face with his rocky fists.
Her nose stung, her cheekbones felt crushed.
In a mindless rage, she swung an elbow at him, and he dodged toward her shield arm. With a yell, she brought the shield up with a crunch against his head. The pig’s weight left her back.
Lucia rolled over. She tried to push herself up, but the Pawelon grabbed her arms and pinned her flat to the rocky ground. He came up on his knees, straddling her body and dominating her with his strength. His rotten breath engulfed her. His venomous face screamed. She twisted her body and struggled with all her rage.
You will not win!
She swung her sword away from her body, freeing her arm. One quick motion brought her sword around his back and through his body above his hip. He screamed, eyes stretched wide.
The pig released her other arm and swayed before her.
She removed the blade and scrambled to her feet.
She stabbed his chest.
Pulled out the sword.
Stabbed his heart.
Stabbed!
Stabbed!
Stabbed!
She backhanded Ysa’s shield across his face and knocked him onto his back. Forever.
Lucia screamed involuntarily, releasing tension. Only madness helped her to ignore the pain. Her eyes watered. Her breath heaved.
More footsteps approached.
Three more brown men raced down the next hill.
I can’t fight three. Ysa, why did you bring me here? Do something!
She looked to the other slope, hoping to see a miracle. Two Rezzian soldiers scrambled down. Behind them, Ilario on horseback.
Metal clanked against metal. Men screamed, dying. Bodies crumpled with thuds.
The Pawelon fell off to her side.
Ilario pulled her up and into his arms.
He pressed his jaw up against the uninjured side of her face. “You’re safe, Lucia. I’m here.”
She panted and squeezed his sides. Get me out of here. Carry me away from this nightmare and never let me go.
A mysterious bright light flashed near them, rising up to the sky. Lucia’s chest clenched with an oppressive sense of terror.
“Their prince is here with us. I feel his presence. It’s evil. It’s him.”
Relief washed over Ilario as he embraced Lucia. The metal of Ysa’s armor felt strangely supple against him. He smelled the sanctified oil used to polish her helm. His duty fought back against his reprieve, commanding him to look for Caio and rejoin the fight.
“Their prince is here with us. I feel his presence. It’s evil. It’s him.” The gash across her cheek still bled.
“I’m here. I won’t let him hurt you.”
Lucia fell against his body, moaning.
“What’s wrong?”
“Help … help me,” she said, her voice quiet and pained.
Approaching shouts came from both the Rezzian and the Pawelon sides. “Stand strong,” he told her, not knowing what to say. “Focus.” He held up her body with one arm and used his other hand to squeeze her fingers around the handle of Ysa’s ancient sword.
Lucia’s eyes closed. Her mouth hung open and she whimpered. Her unconscious body collapsed against him.
Ilario hoisted her up and over his shoulder, turning toward Rezzia’s forces. King Vieri appeared at the top of the hill on his chestnut horse. Caio rode up beside him on his grey steed.
Ilario waved to them. “I’ve got her. She felt that same presence again before she collapsed.” As he spoke, her body’s weight lessened until she felt like nothing at all.
She was inexplicably gone.
Ilario searched for signs of her on the dusty ground, down the trench, and up the hills.
King Vieri and Caio rode toward him. “I saw you holding her. Where did she go?” the king demanded.
“I was—she said it was their prince. She begged for my help—she vanished. She was in my arms.”
Caio’s voice was weak, his conviction strong. “We must pray to our gods to help us find her. Now.”
Lord Sansone, I’m no good at praying, but help me find Lucia. She was in my arms, in my care. Sacrifice me if you must, but take me to her …
Chapter 26: The Rape of Persephone
Moments earlier.
RAO AND AAYU DREW UP behind the first mound, beside a few sages already directing their powers at the dogs. The twangs of bowstrings and the swift flights of arrows peppered their ears. Their closest guards formed a square around them, shields and spears at the ready.
“Let’s find the Haizzem.” Rao stood on the balls of his feet, bent his knees, and rested his hands on his thighs. He exhaled a long breath, shaping the sound like a deep whistle to attune Aayu’s mind with his own.
Aayu faced him and matched his posture. Each one gazed at the center of his partner’s forehead, recognizing the self in the other, connecting his consciousness with the essence within his bhai.
Rao led, closing his eyes and relinquishing all sensory perception, embracing pure and untethered awareness. He returned to his body and his senses. The chaos of hustling bodies blurred around them. Dying screams arose from the trenches near the front. Above the heat and violence, the blue sky spanned calm and vast.
Rao lowered his eyelids with great mindfulness and focused on a bright point of light in the black void for seven breaths. The glow expanded over his inner vision and drew him fully into his subtle body.
The world transformed, as if painted over by one magical brushstroke, into a jumble of bright colors, audible thoughts, and tangible feelings. Rao’s essence hovered, lighter than rarefied air.
Aayu’s orange energy field expanded, nearing the same state. Rao reached out in his insubstantial form and touched Aayu between his eyebrows to quicken his transmutation. Once on the same plane of awareness as Rao, Aayu appeared much as he did in his physical body. Most of the thousands of other men appeared as red fields of energy, concentrated near the wide mouth of the trail.
Rao only needed to project his thoughts to communicate to Aayu: Let’s find him.
His consciousness floated above the battle and scanned the areas thickest with fighting. He propelled himself forward until he found two unusual beings in the second trench leaning against each other. The first was an enormous black and red field, with intermittent yellow and white pulses. The second had a more regular aura, curved like an egg, a color between brown and gold. Rao visualized a flare of light around the two to signal their position to his men.
Go there. We’ll capture the larger one.
The two bright Rezzians seemed to be embracing each other as Rao and Aayu surrounded them. Because of the colors, Rao realized he must have found the royal daughter again.
See her energy field shrinking and powerless. We’ll bring her to us. The Haizzem will come looking for her if he’s here.
Her colors dulled and her aura diminished briefly—before her spirit battled back, expanding and flashing its many colors again.
Focus! We’ll pull her toward us … Now!
The woman’s being collapsed into a tiny point, as if it had been extinguished. An instant later she appeared, lying dazed at their feet in her subtle body.
It is her. I didn’t see her face last time.
Should we send her spirit to another plane? Aayu thought to him.
Not yet. I hope to persuade her to retreat with her army.
She must be too disoriented to think clearly.
Two more unusual figures approached from the Rezzian side of the battle. One looked like the royal daughter, with a giant red and black field, though this one was surrounded with a smooth yellow-white aura. The other burned orange and red, with its edges flickering like flames.
The golden brown being began expanding its energy, attuning its consciousness to subtler realms.
It’s coming toward us, Rao thought to Aayu.
How? They can’t be trained for this.
I don’t know, but look …
Chapter 27: The Fury of Agamemnon
“WE MUST PRAY TO OUR GODS to help us find her. Now.” Caio dismounted. His chest clenched in agony as his feet hit the ground. He sunk onto one knee, then the other, and fell forward onto his forearms and crown. He clenched Mya’s rod as he squeezed tears from his eyes.
Mya, I beg you, help me find Lucia.
“Ilario!” The king’s boots rustled the earth as he spun, searching for the massive warrior. “Where … ?” Ilario was gone.
Caio again buried his head in the inhospitable earth and prayed. Lord Oderigo, we need your answers now.
“Raise your head and read from The Book.” Lord Oderigo’s smooth, deep voice was like polished bronze.
Caio lifted his eyes to a vision of The God of Prophecy. Oderigo lowered the tome with his lustrous arms and slowly opened it. The words glimmered on the gold-trimmed pages, pulsing larger and smaller as if the book were breathing.
Even the most pure intentions are not sufficient to reverse the fruition of forces began in generations past. Only in man’s response to tragedy and destruction, this humbling crucible and cleansing of souls, can he find the power to renew his spirit and all the world.
On this day in Gallea’s history, the gods’ most beloved son would experience immovable denial, a submission to the demands of the past, to the totality of the divine instruments of Lux Lucis, who enforce the restoration of balance and the
coming of the light. The Black One would have his due.
The towering god slammed shut The Book of Time. The vines trailing down Oderigo’s arms slithered by their own power and wrapped around the great work before Caio’s lord vanished.
His father stood over him, covering his son with Lord Galleazzo’s golden shield.
Caio stood and pain sliced through his body again, a crippling he surrendered to and embraced. “Lord Oderigo refuses to tell me where they are.”
Vieri glimpsed a fresh row of brown reinforcements coming over the adjacent western ridge with spears in hand. Dozens of Rezzian troops had already poured into the second trench, but the oncoming Pawelon infantry outnumbered his men.
“Run back, Caio. Go.”
“I can’t, I—”
Vieri unleashed an animalistic yell as three spears flew spinning toward them. He blocked two with his lord’s shield, but the third grazed Caio’s shoulder.
Pangs of horror filled Vieri as his son fell onto his back with a scream. Vieri stood in front of Caio with his shield before him and his falchion pointed to the sky. “I pray in Lord Galleazzo’s name, every pig who comes near my son will die!”
The first Rezzian to make contact with Pawelon's front line deflected two long spear thrusts with his shield and knocked a third away with his sword. He advanced, ducked, spun, and cleaved his blade through the midsection of a Pawelon soldier as the same soldier stabbed down at him and ran his spear through the Rezzian's neck. As their blood spilled on the dry earth, the two armies collided and stabbed each other at close quarters.
Vieri roared with long syllables, “Gal-e-azz-o!” calling to his god’s lions.
With coordinated efforts, the Pawelon spearmen battled their way through the Rezzian infantry and left dozens of corpses in their wake.
Berserk, Vieri swung Lord Galleazzo’s golden shield, hacking down with his falchion on the long spears lunging toward him. His spirit boiled with feral wrath, lost in the brutal dance.
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