“It will be all right Kuwari, I promise,” she said as she glanced down at the cubs in her arms. Decision made, she sprinted toward Ahassunu. She would deposit the two cubs in the boat with their mother, and then guard their escape.
By the time Iltani reached the nearest group of Shadows, they’d finished with the nearest batch of invaders. Seeing Iltani and her precious burden, they formed up around her and together they rejoined the consort and her guard.
Iltani spotted a large gash running along the consort’s hip and she favored that leg heavily, but she did not look defeated as she walked up to Iltani and nuzzled at the two cubs. Iltani gently placed them on the sand, already knowing that even a mother’s love could do nothing for the oldest cub. The cub’s heart fluttered feebly along Iltani’s blood-link.
Her own heart breaking, Iltani withdrew and walked toward Burrukan.
The invaders would pay for the crime of spilling innocent blood. The sword in her hand pulsed brighter, its magic flaring and dancing along the blade with renewed anger.
Ishtar, goddess of war, agreed.
Chapter Fourteen
Iltani only made it half way to Burrukan’s location when one of the tiny threads of her blood-link snapped and blinked out of existence—a tiny life going with it. She’d only known the cub for a day, but its sudden absence left an aching hollowness which took up twin residences in her mind and heart.
Halting at water’s edge, she focused on the first thing she saw—the boat and its crew where they were lowering three smaller boats into the water. Iltani narrowed her eyes and raised her sword. Her magic raced over her body, an outward sign that didn’t even begin to cover the depth of Ishtar’s rage seething within her.
Screaming, she lashed out with power, giving it no direction other than to destroy. Ocean water boiled away as steam, the smaller boats disintegrated, nothing more than bits of fire and ash raining down into the waves. Ishtar’s power collided with the larger ship, racing over it, consuming it. A convulsive ripple raced through the growing cloud of magic and with a large crack the boat shattered, vanishing into smoke, fire and ash.
Swirling motes of magic drifted slowly down upon the waves.
A sudden fierce roar of pain jerked Iltani away from the sight of the ocean. Whipping around, she spotted Ahassunu fighting fresh enemies, but it was Kuwari’s panicked cries over the sound of the surf and the shouting of men that made ice run in her veins.
Swiftly, she scanned the area. The Shadows guarding Kuwari were battling six times their number, and more of the enemy was climbing over the rocky coast to join in the fight. There must have been a second ship out of sight, just around the harbor wall.
The how or the why didn’t matter now.
Iltani ran. She was halfway there when one of the Shadows guarding Kuwari was overwhelmed by sheer numbers and the enemy dragged him down, stabbing swords and axes into his body. The remaining three closed ranks around the frightened cub. Even as Iltani raced closer, another Shadow was taken down by an arrow through his throat.
Coming up behind her, Iltani heard Burrukan and the other Shadows with him gaining ground.
Iltani reached the battle first, cutting down enemies as she forced her way through to get to Kuwari’s side. Every instinct told her that Kuwari was the target. Kill him and they came that much closer to ending the line of the Gryphon King’s.
Ahassunu was still on her feet, fighting to reach her cub. The fierce mother dragged down enemy after enemy.
In a still moment between kills, Iltani found herself facing off against an enemy with the wildest hair and beard she’d ever seen. But it was his eyes that held the greatest wildness. A look that said he knew there was no surrender for either of them, that he wasn’t going to make it off this island alive, and he might as while do as much killing and ravaging as he could before he fell.
She held her ground, looking past him to the boat just steps away where Kuwari was cowering.
The big man spat something in an ugly foreign tongue as he grinned and ogled Iltani. She returned the man’s grin with a savage one of her own.
“Is this what you want?” Iltani held her arms wide, daring the fool.
Again he spoke in his language, the words unknown, but the meaning clear enough.
“Look your fill,” Iltani laughed. “It’s likely the last thing you’ll see.”
Ahassunu lunged, grabbing him from behind and shaking him like a dog.
Out of the corner of her eye, Iltani noted his head part company from his body, and then she was leaping into the boat. She scooped up Kuwari even as she summoned power, cocooning them both in shielding magic. At least, he hadn’t collected any more injuries.
“Shhh, it will be all right,” Iltani whispered to the cub as she rocked him. It was the only comfort she could give him as the battle continued to rage around them.
Iltani stood with her sword ready and her legs braced, matching the rock of the boat as the first soldier came at her. He made it within two body-lengths of the boat and then he burst into flames. He didn’t even have time to scream. It happened all without any conscious thought on Iltani’s part.
Ishtar roused, stronger than before.
Two more invaders had been approaching Iltani’s location but backed away when they saw their comrade burn. Iltani felt Ishtar’s attention flick across them in a dismissive motion, setting them to burn while she took in the larger battle.
Burrukan and the few remaining Shadows were making their way toward the boat. Consort Ahassunu was finishing off her present opponent when a figure rose up out of the rocks to the right of the pier. He held one of those musket weapons gripped in his hand. A loud boom echoed along the shore and the consort grunted, struggling away from the human she’d been battling. After a few steps, she collapsed on her side. The new angle showed Iltani the bloody mess of a belly wound.
Burrukan screamed Ahassunu’s name as he finished his own two opponents and limped toward her.
Iltani’s own consciousness receded before the greater influence of her goddess. Ishtar adjusted her hold upon Kuwari, and then stepped out of the boat and walked toward the injured gryphon carrying the next generation of the gryphon kings. Iltani was still aware of her surroundings but was content to watch Ishtar. When she reached the injured gryphon’s side, she dropped down on one knee in the sand. Burrukan and the other Shadows, who had been trying to slow the flow of blood backed away obediently when Ishtar motioned them to give her room.
Ahassunu was laying on her side, panting harshly. Gryphons could heal quickly. The consort might yet survive, but the four small flickering sparks of life within their mother’s womb would not.
Those tiny lives were in distress. They would soon flick out of existence if Ishtar didn’t intervene.
The Queen of the Night looked around, taking in the bodies, her ravaged temple, and the one ship still in the harbor, the injured consort, and lastly, the grief-stricken Burrukan. He, too, had an assortment of injuries but was still whole. He and the four remaining Shadows might be enough to get Ahassunu on the boat and away if Iltani stayed and fought off the humans still coming from the south side of the island.
“Go,” Burrukan ordered her. “Take Kuwari and leave. You can’t save us all.”
Ah, noble self-sacrifice. Burrukan was loyal to the gryphon line and she respected that, but no one gave orders to Ishtar.
“No, not all can be saved,” Ishtar agreed, “but I can save four tiny lives.”
Burrukan seemed to understand, but Iltani wasn’t sure if she did.
Then Ishtar showed her.
Yes, the consort was already aborting the unborn cubs—her body gave her no choice. It was abort the cubs or die with them. However, Ishtar knew of another way to save the unborn cubs and honor her pact with the gryphon kings. Unfortunately, it would weaken her Blade and there would be no more glorious battle this day. This battle was lost.
But the war, it could be won another day.
“Save them, m
y goddess,” the consort whispered. “If I know my remaining cubs are alive in the world, I will fight to live, fight to rejoin them. Only give them a chance at life.”
What did that mean, Iltani wondered, as she felt herself nod as Ishtar made a decision.
Reaching down, Ishtar curved her fingers around the consort’s blood covered lower belly.
She could sense the tiny lives through her blood link to Ditanu. Then Ishtar reached into the consort with tendrils of power and scooped up each of those tiny lives and suddenly, Iltani found herself squinting to see with her eyes what her mind told her was clasped in her cupped hands. Looking down, she discerned a ball of bright light.
Four souls. Four tiny lives pulsed between her fingers and Iltani was humbled by the power of the Queen of the Night.
Iltani’s sense of awe changed to surprised shock and then pain as those same hands pressed the ball of light against the bare skin of her abdomen. Iltani gasped. That was all the freedom Ishtar granted her. Had the goddess not maintained Iltani’s steely posture, she’d likely have collapsed, so great was that heat and power and pain.
It faded quickly, though, her bodied growing strangely numb. A familiar lethargy settled into her bones, similar to the times her body had assimilated Ditanu’s blood.
“Your body must rest or it will reject the new life I’ve planted there,” Ishtar said in Iltani’s own voice.
Iltani’s vision was blurring, narrowing dangerously. She’d never fainted in her life, but this must be how it felt. Ishtar, still guiding her body, tightened her hold on Kuwari and then she stumbled toward the boat. A thick fog had begun to roll in from the ocean.
To Iltani’s new senses it tasted not of a natural origin, so this was a more subtle version of the Queen of the Night’s power and Iltani was reminded Ishtar was also the goddess of storms.
“The cubs you now harbor will not survive the ravages of my battle magic, so we will need to find a new way to defeat our enemies. But not this day—the last enemy ship will escape for now, and we must let it. Your new duty is to survive and protect the new life you shelter.” Iltani swayed as she stepped into the boat, but Ishtar kept her from falling over the edge.
As she sank down into the bottom, Kuwari hugged close to her breast, she saw Burrukan and the other Shadows holding back more humans, preventing them from rushing Iltani’s boat.
It hurt to leave them behind, the sense of betrayal sharp, but Burrukan and Ishtar were both correct. Her first duty was to Ditanu and now Kuwari and the unborn cubs. She couldn’t shelter or protect any of them if she were dead, she knew that. Yet, still, it hurt her heart to leave her father behind.
Iltani closed her eyes as the boat began to move, slicing through the water with unnatural speed. The boat’s rocking lulled her and the presence of the goddess faded, though not completely.
Chapter Fifteen
Iltani felt time’s passage and the sky turning pink in the east.
Dawn came at last as the boat continued gliding through the water, drawing ever closer to Nineveh and her king.
Iltani’s mind drifted for a time and then Ishtar returned, her presence strong once more.
Between one moment and the next, Iltani found herself impossibly back in the king’s rooms.
And yet not, for the boat still rocked with motion and Kuwari whimpered softly. Somehow her blood link with Ditanu, or another of Ishtar’s gifts, was allowing her to see what he was seeing.
In her vision, Ditanu was sitting on his bed, stroking the still fluffy mane of his second-born cub. It took her a moment to realize the little one’s sides no longer rose with life, that at some point during the battle a second tiny thread in her blood link had snapped and she’d been unaware of its absence until now.
Grief welled up within her soul—mirroring Ditanu’s pain. The blood-link, gift and curse that it was, allowed her to partake in his deeply personal pain.
Iltani wished she could offer him comfort in person, but she was still out in the ocean, in a boat guided by Ishtar’s hand.
Ditanu stroked his cub’s mane as he murmured a prayer to speed his little one’s soul into the afterlife. Iltani sensed he was holding onto his composure by tiny little threads. Each moment that slipped by, her thoughts merged more fully with his, until there were only his thoughts. His mind was a chaotic well of emotions. Grief and rage, mixing into a lethal brew. But above all that pain and despair, was the need to know what happened to the rest of his loved ones. He refused to acknowledge the horrible possibility that they might all be…no he would not…no.
Ditanu choked back a sob and raised his eyes from the body of his cub to direct his cold stare straight at his second in command.
“Uselli, what news have you learned? Surely some of the survivors have news. Someone somewhere knows something. Where are my other cubs? Iltani? Ahassunu or Burrukan?”
Uselli shook his head. “I’m sorry my king. We don’t know what has happened to them yet. More survivors arrive every hour. There is still hope. Burrukan is well trained and Iltani is your most loyal Shadow.” Uselli reached out and rested his hand on Ditanu’s shoulder. “Now that we know she is Ishtar’s chosen…I know she will protect your remaining cubs. Iltani is too stubborn and determined. She won’t let anything stop her. Besides, she has a goddess on her side.”
Ditanu desperately wanted to believe that Iltani was still out there somewhere, his remaining cubs safe in her care. Nevertheless, hope was a hard thing to cling to with each hour’s passing and still no word of his loved ones reached his ears.
He’d reverted to his human form, but he could feel his gryphon in his mind, pacing, always pacing, wanting to go find his true mate and cubs. The need was nearly too much to battle, but he did. He couldn’t allow his gryphon self to win. His people needed their king thinking and reasoning, not one who was raging mad.
“What else have you learned? Who are these mercenaries working for and to what extent have they compromised our defenses?”
Uselli gave his report, and Ditanu clung to each detail, hoping to fight the growing wildness within himself.
*****
The king’s mind vanished from Iltani’s consciousness as Ishtar dragged her attention elsewhere.
“No, wait,” Iltani pleaded with the goddess. “Ditanu is in danger. If he thinks his family is dead…”
Therein lay the true danger to the king—himself. If he thought his entire family was dead, he would succumb to a gryphon’s grief madness, like his father before him.
Please, go back, Iltani begged.
Ishtar didn’t listen and the world shifted and spun away.
In another moment, Iltani found her mind thrust into another body. This new body was female. There were people flocking around her. After a moment, Iltani recognized them. Priests and priestesses in service to Ishtar. Iltani was within High Priestess Kammani’s body.
She stood in the throne room, on the stairs leading to the throne where King Ditanu now sat, as stone-faced as she’d ever seen him.
He was holding a war council, gathering information so he could mount some form of retaliation. Priestess Kammani was there to offer support, but Iltani could sense the deeply rooted fear Kammani had for her nephew’s well-being.
Ditanu sat, listening as the reports came in, but he was so still it was as if he wasn’t even breathing.
Other survivors had made it back to the king’s city, but all their reports were equally unhappy. When asked, none of them had heard anything about Burrukan, Ahassunu, or Iltani. No one knew what happened to the king’s other cubs.
Burrukan’s second in command, Uselli, had sent out search parties to learn what happened. Now all anyone could do was wait.
Iltani, trapped within the priestess’s mind could feel her despair, but was unable to talk to her, to reassure her—she couldn’t give the priestess so much as a glimmer of hope to share with the king.
Time crept by. Iltani’s drifting mind returned to the boat, but her connection with th
e priestess was still strong, and some time later, when Uselli returned with more survivors, she was thrust back into the priestess’s body.
The court fell silent as Ditanu ordered Uselli forward. He came and placed a small cloak wrapped bundle in Ditanu’s outstretched arms and then prostrated himself on the floor.
“I am sorry, my king,” Uselli whispered.
Priestess Kammani placed a hand upon Ditanu’s shoulder. “Why don’t we retire to your personal quarters for this?”
Ditanu ignored her and unwrapped the bundle.
It was the oldest cub, Humusi. The one Iltani had failed to save and been forced to leave on the beach.
The king ran his fingers over her delicate head and whispered a prayer, then with such gentleness Iltani started to weep, Ditanu covered his cub back up and held her small body to his chest, as if the sound of his heart might still somehow comfort her.
If Uselli had managed to get there and back already, perhaps they had found and rescued Ahassunu and Burrukan? Maybe they were with healers even now?
Uselli’s next words destroyed Iltani’s naïve hope.
“By the time our troops had gathered and made the crossing to Uruk, it was too late. The surviving invaders had already abandoned the beach. We combed through the temple and rubble.” He drew a deep breath before continuing. “We are still in the process of bringing bodies back…however, there was a large pyre on the beach…”
Iltani saw a muscle twitch in the king’s jaw, but he gave away nothing else. “Continue,” he ordered.
“Evidence shows the enemy dragged many of the bodies there and burned them before they left.”
“To dishonor the dead and inflict more pain upon the living,” Ditanu’s sharp retort was pain etched but he motioned Uselli to continue. “You have more to report?”
“We were unable to identify Ahassunu or Kuwari among the dead, but…”
“Burrukan?”
“No sign, my king. I’m sorry.”
“Iltani?” Ditanu uttered as his voice broke. His jaw flexed again. “I would know if Iltani was dead. As long as she draws breath, there is hope my Kuwari still lives.”
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