Finally Candlemas picked out the most elderly, grizzled, and scarred sergeant in the ranks. He introduced himself, stumbling over “Colonel” Candlemas, and told the sergeant to take complete command. The old man sighed in gratitude. He had had enough of idiot officers changing their minds by the minute.
Candlemas watched the preparations and got his first good look at the empire’s finest troops. He was shocked. He’d imagined what he’d seen three centuries before: tall, square-jawed men and women scarred by training and battle, cool and steely-eyed, capable of slaying men or monsters. The Netherese Empire hadn’t been built on dreams, after all, but by plying effective tools such as hard trained, capably led, and well rewarded soldiers.
But here were either gangly, underfed youths who’d fled farms and alleys, or else fat, slovenly “veterans” who’d found a soft life in the barracks.
The officers were mostly bored nobles’ sons seeking adventure and an eye-catching uniform. The only hope for the empire were the sergeants, but while most had combat experience, the empire’s last thrusts had occurred decades ago. Worse, soldiers and officers were cocky, confident of success, eager to fight, happy to be doing something instead of gambling and arguing in their barracks. Candlemas watched the sergeants shake their heads and mutter portents of doom.
But eventually the troops were marched aboard, the landing ramps drawn up. The small navy crew called orders, and the ships drifted, ghostlike, from the docks without a bump or tremor.
In less than half a minute, disaster struck.
Candlemas never knew what hit them—some kind of heat ray, probably—but the sheet metal sail overhead suddenly blistered and curled. A horizontal spar burned through, and the sail snapped and ripped the other spar off its mount. The ship plunged.
Candlemas gagged, prayed, screamed, and cursed Karsus in tones that would have shocked a mule skinner. No one heard him, for they all screamed too.
Safeguards, he thought. There had to be built-in safeguards to rescue them. He’d been sitting at the stern, now the highest point, for the ship fell nose first so steeply that soldiers were wrenched from their seats. Swords and spears pinwheeled among the ranks, cutting flesh and chipping wood. Helmets clattered, shields bonged, and a battle pennant unfurled to flap desolately over the chaotic mess. Candlemas tried to guess whether or not to shift out, now that he was free of the enclave’s wards, or stay put. To shift was dangerous because he was traveling so fast. He’d be moving just as fast at the other end and likely collide with a tree or the ground. He felt so seasick he couldn’t think straight.
Then magic shields kicked in like a giant pillow to cradle the craft, so it hit the ground gently, relatively speaking. One second they were falling, bodies free as birds, the next they were wrenched to a halt so hard Candlemas’s molars bit through his tongue. A grinding smash came next, and a tree branch punched through the hull like a treant’s fist. Men and women suffered broken limbs, shattered jaws, and multiple cuts when they fell into the nest of unsheathed weapons. Men were groaning, cursing, swearing, crying, when the shouts of the sergeants cut through the noise. A grizzled veteran kicked out the door chocks and the landing ramp fell away. Soldiers crawled or ran to get out of the wooden death trap.
Almost crying from the pain of his punctured tongue, Candlemas hobbled down the ramp. Outside were trees with broken branches and shed leaves, for they’d crashed in the forest. The pudgy mage saw sergeants kicking, hoisting, and slapping the stumbling soldiers into line, ordering the hale ones to stop whimpering and bandage their comrades. The puking, crying officers they simply ignored. Spitting blood, Candlemas looked to see whom he could help.
Screams. A charred smell of scorched flesh filled the air, an autumnal whiff of burning leaves. There was nothing to see, but soldiers died where they clustered. Barely visible heat ripples tickled the air as men and women felt their clothes, then their skin and hair, ignite. Painted K’s on their breastplates curled and smoked, then each person became a ball of writhing flame, then a melting pool of blackened fat.
The heat ray, the mage knew. Firing from Ioulaum on high. Someone up there didn’t know this war was only supposed to be a game.
The broken wooden hull beside him smoked and burst into flame. Men and officers died like flies under a burning glass. Candlemas stuck out a hand, latched onto a screaming soldier’s shoulder, flicked his hand in the air along with a chant, and shifted.
Now he and the boy stood at the edge of the forest with grain fields running away from their feet toward a central road. High in the sky, at opposite ends of the valley, floated the sister cities. A quarter of a mile up in the woods, flames marked the destruction of the troop landing. In a rye field another ship landed successfully, and soldiers ran helter-skelter for cover behind rock walls, ignoring the shouts of their sergeants. The crew manning the troop ship waved frantically to lift before the heat ray found them.
Leaving the soldier to join his comrades, Candlemas aimed, shifted himself alongside the ship just before the landing ramp was hauled up. “Wait! Wait for me!” A brawny arm caught him by the tunic, hoisted him aboard to drop on his face in the bottom of the empty ship.
All the way back, he kept his fingers crossed lest the heat ray strike them, all the while praying to Amaunator, Keeper of the Sun. If he got back safe, he promised, he’d drop a year’s wages into the temple coffers, and never fly again.
* * * * *
Wulgreth gave a shout and hurled at Sunbright the first thing that came to hand. In this case, Knucklebones.
One hand entwined in her short dark hair, he caught her by the neck, grunted, and flung her. She gave a shriek of fright, terrified her neck would snap, then flew through the air like a rag doll.
But she slowed in midair, hung suspended, then gradually drifted to earth near the sundered campfire.
Sunbright helped her rise. His brawny hand caught her small, calloused one, and she felt a queer thrill run through her breast that had nothing to do with magic.
“How did you—what was—”
“Feather fall,” Sunbright answered. “I thought of goose down and applied its magic to you, and the spell took. I don’t know how I did it.”
Standing, leaning on his arm, Knucklebones noticed something odd. This was the real man, returned alive and well, but his face, eyes, skin, and fingernails all glowed with a bright green tinge. It reminded her of the first blush of leaves in the emperor’s park. He looked like a paper lantern lit from the inside, bright as any campfire.
“What’s this glow?”
“Nature magie,” he said simply. “I’m infused with it. I don’t think the effect will last, but it should keep us alive. Watch out!”
Wulgreth’s tribe, exhausted by their debauchery and night of torture, had crawled from their huts and grabbed up crude stone and iron weapons. They ran to the edge of the fire circle, then stopped and stared. One man pointed a seven-fingered hand at Sunbright and grunted. Children hid behind their parent’s legs.
The man they’d tortured to death had returned as an avenging angel.
Only the magic-user was not awed. Wulgreth let out a bellow, snatched Knucklebones’s black knife from his belt, and charged.
Several things happened at once, too fast for the thief to follow.
The black knife disappeared from Wulgreth’s hand and appeared in Knucklebones’s. Blinked there, obviously, by the will of Sunbright. At the same time, the barbarian drew his sword, and Harvester of Blood had never shone more brilliantly. Light flashed from the blade like a sunrise. Suddenly empty-handed, Wulgreth snatched up a log as thick as a man’s leg from the fire pit, but that limb too was spelled. As Wulgreth swung it overhand to crush Sunbright’s skull, the barbarian stroked his hand in the air, aiming for the log. Wulgreth lost his grip as the log aged a hundred years in seconds, snapped, crumbled to punk, and rained down as splinters and dust.
Waving empty hands, Wulgreth charged with brute strength and blind fury. Brushing Knucklebones gently a
side, Sunbright reached over his head, then skipped back.
Immediately there came a snap and creak, then a groan as dirt and roots ripped and popped as if caught in a hurricane. A long shape loomed over Knucklebones’s head, then a crash jarred her to her knees. Dust and cinders whirled around, stinging her eyes, tickling her nose and making her snort. Sunbright carefully lifted and propped her up, and made an idle swipe with Harvester. A giant branch hung over their heads to trap them in a leafy prison, but the keen sword lopped it off so they could pass.
Knucklebones rubbed her eyes and stared. “Wh-What—” she stammered. “What happened?”
“I pulled down a tree,” Sunbright said simply. “It was diseased, and can return to the soil faster this way.”
She stared. Smack across the center of the camp lay a tree that been leaning to one side. Sunbright had merely gestured, and brought the thing toppling like a dying forest god.
Now he waggled Harvester so the gleaming blade bobbed in the air. He was calm as an oak tree himself, despite the fact that they were surrounded by enemies. Knucklebones wondered at his calm air of certainty and lack of fear.
She breathed, “You’ve changed!”
“Yes.” he agreed. “I’m a shaman.” He smiled, and even his teeth radiated light, so she was reminded again of a paper lantern. “Finally.”
Thrown off-balance, stunned by the magical attack, and trapped by the intervening tree, Wulgreth howled in rage and indignation, leaped into the air to crash down on packed dirt, beat his chest like an ape, and hollered his fury. His great hooked hands flexed as he ripped his lizard skin costume from his breast. Sunbright waited, unmoved and unafraid. Knucklebones clutched her familiar knife and crouched behind the newly-risen shaman.
Sense overcoming fury, Wulgreth saw that his antics didn’t frighten his opponent, and quit. Instead, he stooped and latched onto a great rock with his craggy hands, grunted, and hoisted it high over his head.
Knucklebones shrieked, but Sunbright only snapped his fingertips together. The boulder burst into dust, like the tree limb, aged eons in less than a second. It spattered into dust around Wulgreth’s head.
The lich lord stood stunned, blinking grit from his stone dead eyes. His followers oohed and aahed at the display, marveling that Sunbright could so oppose their invincible leader.
Knucklebones trembled. “We should flee,” she told him. “If you can use magic, you could shift us far away, can’t you?”
“No.” Sunbright didn’t look at her as he spoke, but watched his opponent. “I owe the land here for my salvation. I must repay her, make repairs as I can.” He cast about at the dark woods, as if they were more important than a mere battle.
Talk of repaying the land sounded like mystic mumbo jumbo to the thief, the vague mutterings of a priest cadging offerings. But she said nothing, only waited to see what he—and Wulgreth—would do.
The lich lord spread his feet wide, arched his back, tilted his head, and screamed. A long, keening undead screech that went on and on, setting Knucklebone’s teeth on edge and making her spine crawl.
Her fear increased as, sprouting from the ground like horrific mushrooms or dropping from the branches or shambling from the dark, crept a handful of monsters awful to look at, painful to behold, for all were dead like him. Dead and deadly.
From the ground oozed a long skeleton, nothing but spine and ribs and a tiny human head with glittering black eye sockets. Cutting its way free of the earth was a small, dumpy man, but with four arms thin as sticks, blind white eyes, and mandibles clicking in his mouth. From the dark floated a pair of bulbous bags like ruby balloons, though with stinging tails that lashed as if eager to poison the living. Humping from the shadows came a short, stinking zombie lacking legs so it hobbled on hands and stumps. Dropping from the trees came a ball of arms and legs and tentacles and branches that grasped and writhed but had no body to speak of. And from the sundered campfire rose a wisp of smoke no wider than a shadow, a tall gangly thing that changed shape constantly as if unsure what it mimicked, though its hands were always long, scythe-like knives.
Knucklebones’s teeth chattered as the undead things clustered around, weaving and bobbing, awaiting their chance. She’d seen horrors, but never anything to compare with these. More than ever she wished she were back in Karsus’s sewers.
But Sunbright was undaunted, even laconic. In an even voice, he told Wulgreth, “These threats will avail you naught. This forest has suffered enough. Banish your fiends and yourself, get hence and begone. This is an abode for the living, not the dead.”
Beside himself with anger, Wulgreth leveled his arm and screamed, “Attack!”
Chapter 18
“Candy! Candy!”
Candlemas stumbled down a landing ramp, bruised, bloody, singed, and thoroughly rattled. Who was calling him that silly name? He didn’t know anyone—then a warm bundle bounced into his chest. Soft arms were flung around his neck, his sweaty, sooty face was smothered in plump and delicious kisses. Struggling to stay on his feet, he wrapped his arms around the woman’s broad back and hung on. When she paused for breath, he saw who it was.
“Sita! Aquesita?”
“Oh, Candy, I was so worried, I had to come see you!” she sobbed. Tears of joy and relief spilled down her cheeks. “When Karry told me he’d sent you into battle, I couldn’t believe it. But it was true! Oh, I’m so proud of you, my darling. So glad you’ve come back to me unhurt.”
“I’m not quite unhurt,” his words were mushy, his mouth sore. “I bit my tongue when the ship crashed.”
“Crashed?” The word brought on a new flurry of tears, kisses, and hugs. “Oh, my poor, brave soul!”
Stunned, and not just from knocks in the head, Candlemas hung onto his ladylove and basked in her praise and attention. Her broad back was comforting, her modest bosom, pressed to his dirty uniform, exciting. Awkwardly he kissed her hair, stroking it with smudged hands, murmuring what sweet nothings he could conjure.
This made no sense; his brain whirled. For days, Aquesita refused him an audience, returned his letters and flowers. Now she ran to his arms because he’d been in danger. Was this love madness, woman contrariness, or male thickness? He couldn’t begin to guess, so he just gave into it and let himself be pampered.
The coddling included a ride in Aquesita’s long carriage, plain white but painted with vibrant, intertwined roses and vines. Lolling on red cushions, Candlemas sipped wine that stung his swollen tongue and watched the hustle and bustle of the city pass his window. He’d done his share. War wasn’t so bad, he reflected, if these were its rewards.
He shifted idly, seeking a muscle that didn’t ache. Moving sent a faint whiff to his nostrils: the stink of burned flesh. Rocking forward, he gagged on his wine, spraying it on the floor and the hem of Aquesita’s blue gown. With the smell came the memory of screams as men and women burned to death, hair and flesh igniting. Suddenly his hands trembled so badly the wineglass stem snapped and cut his fingers. That could have been him, crippled and unable to flee the heat ray. He could be ashes fertilizing a forest right now.
Slowly, head down, he breathed deeply while Aquesita cooed and stroked his back. Best to not think about the raid, the disaster. Hollowly, he said, “I’ll be all right. I just need a minute. And a … bath. What’s—” He stopped himself. No, better not ask about her just yet. Their separation might be a sore point. “What’s the latest gossip?”
“Gossip?” Aquesita laughed uneasily. “You know I don’t follow gossip, dear Candy. I’ve no interest in who sleeps with whom, or who’s gambled away his or her fortune, or who’s lashed whom to ribbons. There are finer things in life to consider, and nobler pursuits. No, there’s—wait! There was one unpleasantness that’s newsworthy. Certainly it’s a scandal. Did you ever meet a silver-haired woman named Polaris?”
“Lady Polaris?” Candlemas snapped upright so fast it made him dizzy. Cradling his aching skull, he said, “I know her—knew her. Worked for her once, long ago.
She’s a cold thing, a heart of ice, single-mindedly dedicated to her personal pursuits, with no concern for anyone else. She could be empress some day.” If she lays off the food, he added mentally.
He kept thinking of the slim, calculating Polaris of old, not the bloated, preening, self-deluded pig he’d met in this time.
“She’ll never be empress,” Aquesita said. “She was assassinated last night.”
“A-Assassin-Assassinated?” Candlemas sputtered as a fresh stab of pain shot through his head. “Dead? Polaris?”
The plump hand caressed his shoulder. “I’m afraid so,” she cooed. “I never knew you worked for her. Yes, she died in a new and peculiar way. Someone devised a spell that injects a sliver of heavy magic into fruit without a trace. The magic turns the sugars into arsenic, or cyanide, I forget which. It was candied dates did her in. How unfortunate. It’ll throw the empire into a tizzy, everyone fretting over new methods of assassination …”
Her pleasant voice droned on, but Candlemas didn’t hear. He couldn’t fathom the concept. Lady Polaris, once the most beautiful woman in the empire, and perhaps the most powerful—she’d bailed him and Sunbright out of hell with two fingers—dead, snuffed out, fit only for worms. It didn’t seem possible.
And Candlemas was partly responsible. The “splinter of heavy magic poison” idea came from Karsus’s new experimentation with super heavy magic, which in a way, Candlemas enabled by uncovering the fallen star. Of course he wasn’t totally responsible, perhaps not at all. He was a victim of the new magic as much as she.
But he felt sorry and unhappy, though he’d never have believed it … and worried, and fretful. The empire, this war, Karsus’s mad manipulations that brought certain disaster, it had to stop. Or else Candlemas had to leave it behind.
Sunbright was right, he realized suddenly. He, they, should return to their own time. It was the only sensible choice. There was no place for him here, no future, not with the empire hurling itself to destruction. He owned nothing, owed nothing, had nothing to hold him.
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