Through the Black Veil

by Steve Vera

  The briefing Rashauk had received from his Centurion had been scant and ambiguous; he’d learned more from his cousin than from them.

  What was not ambiguous was the nightmare unfolding in the sky to the north that continued to defy all rational thought. For the fifth time in a minute’s span he mashed the heels of his palms into his eyes as if he could scrub out what he was looking at. But it remained. Rashauk was certain that what he was staring at were myths come to life, ancient legends told to children around campfires to frighten them...the Drynn.

  Uthelio squawked questioningly as they closed the distance.

  “The big ones,” he said and gave his steed a good pet. It had taken a couple of years to learn Gryphon but once mastered, he didn’t even think about it anymore. “The ones that—” A globe of molten rock rained down from the taloned hand of a winged nightmare larger than the others and burst against a gossamer dome erected around what could only be the fabled Shardyn.

  Rashauk counted eleven horses running for their lives. I wish it had been a bet, Markus. I wish you’d just been smoking. Even from five hundred feet up he could see the white foaming mouths of the exhausted horses and their riders as they made their last sprint for the safety of the Eternal City’s walls. “Faster!” he yelled to Uthelio.

  The Flight Sorcerer flew beside him, his war-robes whipping behind him, his long, pale staff clutched in both hands. Using the hand signals burned into the muscles of all Gryphriders, Rashauk gave his orders: Kill the big ones first.

  His command was reinforced by a three-prong bolt of crimson lightning that sizzled through the sky and burst once again against the gossamer field of pale-blue light around the center of the riders. Another rider fell and was descended on by no less than seven Drynn. Even from up here he could hear the screams, could smell the burned air. The riders ran on.

  Rashauk held up his battle-lance over his head, signifying the beginning of the attack, but before he could give it, the pursuing Drynn peeled off. Smart. Though he could see many more shapes in the distance, they were stretched out and staggered. The Pale Gate, according to texts, was a two days’ journey north as the Gryphon flew. For reasons known only to their monstrous minds, they did not press their attack but instead circled just outside of range. He could even see the expressions of their grotesque faces, ghastly and snarling but gleaming with intelligence.

  Thinking. Cunning. Hungry.

  He swept down toward the galloping, frothing horses and did a fly-by, locking eyes for a moment with a man he’d only read about at the academy. In Battle lore.

  Sur Stavengre Kul Annototh, leader of the Seven Apprentices, now only four, hero of the Drynnian War.

  Running for his life.

  Chapter 50

  Caesar Tiberius Au’nauthiatu strode briskly down North Via at the head of his elite Caesarian Bodyguard, eager to learn what he needed. Everywhere he looked, baffled, grim-faced Legionnaires marched or stood post, saluting him as he passed, their long, deadly pikes in the ready position, stabbing the air.

  He could hear the winching of the North Gate rising and the approach of galloping horses. He’d ordered all gates up. Caesar arrived into the courtyard just as they did. A Gryphon scream from above.

  Sur Stavengre dismounted immediately. His eyes were bleary slits in a face both haggard and drawn, blasted by deep purple bruises that sunk his eyes. Every single harness of armor of the riders was battered, soot-stained or congealed in blood. Cloaks and capes were torn, all were bleeding and all of them, save to a lesser extent, the Shardyn, had the listless, vacant stare of those who have seen too much. Caesar counted only eleven left.

  How many had they sent out?

  “A hail to the Caesar,” Roland said, tottering.

  “A hail to you, Sorcerer. Where is the Senator?”

  Roland swallowed. “Dead,” he said in a creaky voice.

  Caesar nodded and looked over at the remaining eleven. Though sunken and hollow, there was anger churning within the eyes of Sur Stavengre. Caesar was not used to people expressing their malcontent so obviously. “Report.”

  The ten-ring Wizard De’mond slid off his horse and was met by two of his crony six-ringers, who tried to help steady him. He waved them off, despite his ghastly complexion. “Raise the king, tell him to assemble every knight, serjeant, lancepaesade and archer from every earl, duke, baron, marquis and count of Vambrace. Tell him to await my word,” De’mond snapped off to the two Red-cloths.

  To Caesar’s dismay, the Collector had survived. His face was ash, his lips cracked and bleeding and his right shoulder was hanging at an awkward angle. His tattered robes were stiff with blood.

  “Now! Or I’ll flay the skin from your bones myself!” De’mond roared at his two frozen underlings. “I want every Vambracian out of this city by dusk!”

  They scattered and rushed back to their tower, tripping over their robes as they ran. It would have been amusing had the circumstances not been so ominous. Caesar Tiberius Au’nauthiatu felt a foreign and unpleasant sensation.

  “The Pale Gate has been opened,” Sur Stavengre said. His voice was like an empty husk, devoid of either emotion or timbre. “Had we been given adequate resources we might have been able to close it while Asmodeous was still on the other side—we could have ended this war before it began.”

  “I don’t think I care for your tone, knight.”

  “Fuck what you think,” Sur Tarsidion the giant dared to blaspheme in the Caesar’s presence. It was said with such vehemence that even the Caesarian Guard tightened their weapons. “In less than one day this city is going to be besieged and we could have stopped it. What you do now will dictate the future of your city...and your legacy.” Tarsidion’s voice was inappropriately loud, alarming both citizens and Legionnaires.

  Caesar pointed at Stavengre with an accusatory finger but didn’t know what to blame him for.

  Stavengre gave the giant a look, and with a scowl Tarsidion fell back. Like some creature of the Undead, Stavengre then bore his eyes into Caesar’s and spoke very quietly. “From this point further, if you want your city to survive, you will do as I say.”

  * * *

  “Gavin!” Amanda cried.

  He looked like a cadaver; Skip hardly recognized him. Still, at Amanda’s voice their fearless leader lit up, the cobwebs of fatigue and horror pushed back for just a moment. She ran right up to him, pushed aside the Nu’romian Legions and grim Sorcerers of the Parthenon that ringed him and flung herself at him in a squeal.

  “Thank God you’re alive!” Kiss-kiss-kiss. “I was so worried about you!” Kiss-kiss-kiss. “Oh my God, you look terrible!” Kiss-kiss-kiss. “Are you all right?” Kiss-kiss-kiss.

  Gavin held her tight, eyes closed. Tears of exhaustion, pain and emotion leaked through and spilled in a continuous rivulet down his cheeks. “I’m all right, baby,” he said. “I gotta go talk to these guys but when I’m done—” he touched her cheek with his soot-stained, bleeding fingers, “—you’re the first person I’m coming to see.”

  Skip looked hard at Noah, trying to catch her eye. He succeeded. For a second she stared through him, but her vision sharpened and for just a blink, she gave him a sad, exhausted smile. And then she faded back to being a statue. Tarsidion looked like he was going to topple. Of them all, Cirena looked the least scarred. Pale, gaunt but standing. Unbroken.

  “Promise?” she asked.

  “Promise.”

  Amanda nodded and stepped back. The Legionnaires closed ranks around the survivors and then they were marching, probably someplace official. Gavin caught Skip’s eye and gave him a quick nod as they filed past.

  I got you, buddy.

  Skip put his hand on Amanda’s shoulder and Dwensolt stepped to her other side, boxing her in protectively.

  “Hang in there,” Skip said. She tipped her ear
toward his hand and nodded with tight lips. “We got the best in the world on the case.”

  * * *

  From up here, Gavin could see the mass exodus. People had two choices—to leave or to accept the protection of the city and be herded into the Sanctuaries. Those who had a stronghold to go back to—the rich, in essence—made a break for it; Gavin had never seen so many haphazard entourages. The rest nervously accepted the usually sure-handed gauntlet of Nu’romian security and began making their way to the Sanctuaries.

  The result, of course was an enormous, entangled traffic jam at all four entrances and three harbors.

  Gavin shook his head. If anybody could untangle it, it would be the Legions.

  “What words of wisdom do you have for us, Shardyn?” Somehow, despite the idiocy of his words, Forges Ironhand, the Moor D’worf Ambassador, managed to sound indignant.

  Gavin turned around. They were all here. Both D’worven ambassadors—Crag and Moor—the Legatus Legionis, a.k.a. the supreme commander of all Nu’romian forces, the Wizard De’mond, who had not yet changed from his bloody and charred robes, face pale and listless, a black-and-silver cuffed Olympian Judge, the Arch-Sorcerer of the Parthenon and the Collector. Centurion Tremar was in the Healing Rooms down below on the first floor, but at least Roland was here.

  “I have already spoken my words of wisdom,” Gavin said.

  “What dare do you imply?” Ironhand demanded. “Do you dare—”

  “If I hear one more word from your mouth, D’worf—”

  “Cirena,” Gavin said, raising his hand to stop her from the curse she no doubt was about to utter. “Please.”

  She silenced herself but pierced the D’worf with dagger-eyes. Gavin was so exhausted that if God decided to pull the plug on him that moment so that he slumped to the ground, never to move again...that was fine with him. Instead he kept his back ramrod straight and regarded the Caesar. He didn’t like what he was seeing there. The Caesar had the look of a politician desperate for a way out, the bright gleam of self-preservation.

  “Tell us what transpired,” he ordered in a low voice. Roland began to speak, but Caesar cut him off. “No. I want the Shardyn to tell us.”

  Gavin obliged them.

  This wasn’t the first time Gavin had been in the War Room of the Parthenon. He’d been here for exactly the same dire reason a hundred and thirty-seven years ago, before a single one of the presently assembled were even itches in their great-grandfather’s pants. It was spacious but filled, plush rugs, a great oval table brimming with decanters of wine and juices, plump grapes and wildberry tortes as well as a dozen chairs arranged around it. Heavy curtains were pulled back from giant windows, letting in the deceptively inviting sunshine. They could see the entire city up from up here.

  When he was done telling them of the fate of the Second Army of Light, Gavin approached the Caesar. Unsure of what he was going to do, a ripple of tension went through the two twin ten-ringers standing by his sides. It wasn’t the Caesar that Gavin was approaching, however, but the great, mural-like map of the entire continent behind him. There was a cluster of figurines representing Legions and Equitis within the city, but there were also two other clusters outside the city.

  “When do these forces arrive?” Gavin asked. There was a long, heavy silence.

  “Three days,” the Legatus replied.

  Gavin turned to him. “What did you just say?”

  “Three days, Sur Stavengre,” the general said without inflection. His face was carefully neutral.

  “And when were they recalled?” Gavin demanded in a voice so low it was almost gentle.

  This time it was the Caesar who replied. “Word went out when you returned from your failed excursion.”

  “What?” Gavin said, lower yet. “You only now have recalled your forces?”

  “We saw no reason to interrupt their campaigns until a legitimate reason manifested.”

  “Until a legitimate reason manifested?” he said, voice breaking in midcrescendo. “Did you think I was speaking to the wind?” It was beyond his strength to contain himself. Ropes and twine began to snap inside his brain.

  “How dare you speak to me as thus—”

  “I will speak to you any way that gets through the thick shell of skull that has forbidden intelligence to enter! Have you any idea what you’ve done? Your city faces the worst crisis of its history and half your forces are three days away!” Gavin yelled the last words.

  “Guards! Remove these—”

  “Stay that order,” the Legatus barked clearly. The Legionnaires within the room halted. “I would hear what the Shardyn would say.”

  “As would I,” the Grand Sorcerer said, looking out of the northern window. The vanguard of darkness and thousands of devil wings approached with the inexorability of a slow moving tidal wave. Doom was coming and it was there for all to see.

  “I will not be defied in my own demesne, Legatus. You are relieved of command. And you, Sorcerer—”

  “I have something to say,” Taksony said in a soft but clearly heard voice. His formally golden hair was greasy with sweat and blood, his surcoat torn and his once-gleaming armor dented, torn and battered.

  “Then speak, fable,” Caesar snapped.

  “For five hundred years I stood as a pillar of stone in the heart of darkness, within the very pits of the Pass of Almitra, afflicted with her dark magic. These four Knights of the Shard, the last of their kind, braved the horrors of the Undead realm, a feat that has never been done before, freed us, slew the Necromancer—a plague upon Mankind since the earliest texts—and came here first before even going to their own homeland, and this is how you dare treat them?” His ire and indignation was withering, despite the low intonation of his words. “What has happened to honor and valor in our absence?”

  Caesar’s mouth curled into a sneer. “Guards, remove these wretches from my presence before I have them thrown into the dungeons. The Eternal City has never fallen and it most certainly will not now, despite your failure. Failures,” the Caesar said in a sneer. He glared at them balefully. “Remove them from my sight.”

  * * *

  “So this is what Armageddon feels like,” Amanda said as she stared out the window, stroking Pyrk’s back with the tip of her forefinger as if he were a Coton de Tulear. He liked it. And it made her feel better. Not even the breaking of the surf or the call of the gulls could calm her nerves. In fact, the birds themselves were as distraught as the throngs of people passing their window, circling around the harbors in great flocks in front of the wall of darkness slowly approaching from the north like the ninth plague.

  “No,” Skip said, polishing the middle prong of the trident he’d acquired back at the pass. “If it was Armageddon we wouldn’t stand a chance. We do.”

  Somehow the Rolling Creek Police Chief always made her feel better. Amanda reached out and grabbed his hand, startling him with her sudden emotion. “Whatever happens, I’m glad you’re here with me.”

  Skip beamed her a smile, a patch of sunny blue in a stormy sky, and put his beefy palm on her knuckles. “Ditto, but don’t you start getting all morbid on me. If there’s one thing I’ve seen from Gavin is that he’s clutch. He’ll figure this out.”

  Amanda tried to smile but she couldn’t. She was too scared.

  * * *

  “Well, that didn’t go very well,” Noah said in her best rendition of Jack.

  “Pay no heed to that fool,” the Legatus said. “This city will not fall because of one idiot’s obstinance.” The supreme general had relieved their escorting troops of command and escorted them to the Grand Sorcerer’s personal chambers. He was decked out not in his ceremonial Olympic armor but in no-nonsense battle armor. His eyes gleamed like a falcon’s as he looked out the north window. “Can we win?” he asked.

  “Have you no
t been relieved of your command, Legatus?” Cirena asked.

  The Nu’romian general let out a snort. “I will vacate my office when I deem it necessary.”

  The Grand Sorcerer nodded in assent. “The general has the full support of the Sorcerers of the Parthenon.”

  Gavin rubbed his eyes. All he wanted to do was sleep. He didn’t even know how he was still standing. “What do we have available to us?”

  With a single syllable, something very close to a hologram appeared in the middle of the room, an exact replica of the city of Nu’rome. “Four full squadrons of Gryphriders, fifteen gryphons for each, the 57th and 3rd Legionary Cohorts, the 3rd and 8th Equitis Legionis and...” The general glanced at the Grand Sorcerer and Roland to his left. “One hundred and twenty-nine Sorcerers of the Parthenon—two ten-ringers, myself, four nine-ringers, nineteen eight-ringers, twenty-four seven-ringers...”

  “As well as twice as many apprentices if they are needed.”

  “They’re needed,” Noah said.

  The Grand Sorcerer nodded and then joined the Legatus in looking back at Gavin to await his instructions. The sudden urge to smack them both for their misguided trust flared. Now you want to listen.

  “If I may, Stavengre?” Tarsidion asked.

  Oh, thank you, God. “Please, Tarsidion.”

  The great plainsman approached the hologram. “All right, General, if we’re going to have a chance, this is what we must do...”

  Chapter 51

  Gavin could have slept for another eon but something outside his senses summoned him. He kicked up from his dreams and battered against his eyelids until they opened.

  Fingertips. Gentle. Amanda’s voice.

  Light.

  “It’s time, baby,” she whispered.

  He tried his best to focus on her mouth but he kept seeing triple. She helped him sit up. One by one his systems went back online—smell of rose petals, a tray of fresh pink peaches and honeyed crepes, distant but audible military growl of Arnaut’s distinctive baritone.