Blood of the Gods

by David Mealing

  “My corps is with you, High Commander,” Royens said. “Not a man or woman among us would stand for any other leader. We would follow you into the Nameless’s arms, if you gave the order.”

  “It means two campaigns at once,” she said. “I intend to order the Second and the Third Corps and the Gand Armies to take Cadobal together, then board our ships and sail for the Old World. The First marches to secure New Sarresant with as much strength as you can spare.”

  “We’re spread thin,” Royens said. “Defending the border against the beasts of the New World. It will take some weeks to marshal our divisions. And winter is almost on us; it will be a hard march, with the Verrain frozen over.”

  “And in the meantime,” Tuyard said, “Lerand and Casanne will be in control of the city, raising militias and turning out muskets to arm them. Better to strike now, with whatever you have, Marshal. The last thing the city needs is a second battle for New Sarresant.”

  “No,” Erris said. “We take the time to plan. The armies in the south are well supplied; between their stocks and whatever they can raid from the Thellan granaries, they’ll be provisioned to cross the sea and deploy on the shores of Old Sarresant. The Prelate has the initiative, for now. We can’t know how many militiamen she has mustered in the city. Moving before we have the First Corps assembled is risking defeat. I intend our action to be swift, but swiftness takes preparation, and that action begins now.”

  Voren gave a slight nod. The others stood in solemn quiet, save Tuyard, who broke into a wolfish grin.

  “Very well, then,” Tuyard said. “We’ll conquer the Old World and install you as Empress by springtime. Gods damn me if I thought I’d ever bend knee to a commoner, but then—what are you doing, d’Arrent?”

  She’d already closed her eyes, searching the leylines for flecks of gold. “A precaution,” she said. “Our enemy has the advantage of working Need through every one of his generals. I intend to be as certain, with mine.”

  Royens gasped, and her vision leapt into his frame, suddenly taller, watching her own body from the opposite side of the tent.

  She released Need and turned to Tuyard.

  “Wait,” Tuyard began, “what does it mean, for—?”

  He fell silent as the connection snapped into place.

  She released it again. She’d do the same with every general, every brigade and regiment commander in the army. Then again with every high-placed bureaucrat, priest, and magistrate. Her enemy faced none of the uncertainty that had driven her from the city today, and she intended to remove every obstacle that kept her from the same degree of surety. She had a war to win, and another on its heels, against an enemy more dangerous, more terrifying and implacable than any foe she’d ever faced. Gods send she was equal to the task. Even as an Empress—and the word seemed unfit for her, as misplaced as a uniform cut for someone twice her size—she couldn’t help but feel small, overmatched, and out of place. But then, victory demanded power. The freedom to act without restraint from fools who imagined they knew better what she had spent her life studying to master. Gods send it was enough.

  57

  SARINE

  Tower of the Heron

  The City of Kye-Min

  Bavda Khon’s words hung in the air as Lin, Tigai, and Dao spun to face her. Anati’s warnings hadn’t worked since they’d climbed to the fifth level of the tower, where pockets of calm resisted the light push of Green she’d used to detect the presence of magi among their enemies. Thirty at least, here in the tower. But from her words, it was clear the orange-robed woman facing them had to be the Herons’ leader. And somehow, she knew Sarine by name.

  “Lady Khon,” Lin said, confirming it as she bowed. “We came from the front to deliver news of a new weapon in the enemy’s hands.”

  Lin was cut short by a smile, visible only in the lines above Lady Khon’s veil, and a sharply raised hand.

  “A charming lie, Captain Lin,” Bavda Khon said. “But I heard every word your companion said. I urge you to consider my offer. Stand down, and I may let you leave this tower alive.”

  The Veil surged hate, and fear, mixing with her own emotions to keep her rooted in place. She’d crossed the world to reach this tower, to find the Regnant’s would-be champions. And now, faced with the prospect of unleashing the Veil by killing, she hesitated.

  “This is a misunderstanding,” Tigai said. “What you heard was no more than my brother and I quarrelling. Whatever you imagine, I assure you we intend—”

  “Enough,” Bavda Khon said, and the air seemed to shimmer in a pulse extending from her fingertips. The sphere struck Tigai, knocking the pistol from his hand and sending it skidding along the floor. Red came from Anati at the sight, and Tigai vanished, reappearing five paces behind them, his pistol still in hand.

  Bavda Khon’s eyes widened above her veil. “That is Dragon magic,” she said. “I am betrayed.”

  “No,” Lin Qishan said. “No; Indra wouldn’t—”

  MOVE. Anati’s voice.

  Reflex overrode the fear throbbing in her veins. She dove, weaving Shelter and Mind, as another sphere of force enveloped Bavda Khon and shot outward in a shock wave, lifting Dao and Lin off their feet and sending them hurling into bookshelves and scroll racks arrayed along the outer walls. Papers flew from the shelves as wood cracked; her Shelter withstood the bubble, but only just, dimming from a vibrant blue to a sickly white haze.

  In an instant, the room had been warped into chaos, shelves and furniture upended and knocked to the floor. Bavda Khon rounded on Sarine, bringing both hands together as the air rippled, driving a column of pure force through her Shelter, striking her chest with a sound like a church bell ringing in her ears. White flared around her, a cocoon so thick she couldn’t see through it.

  Gunshots went off in rapid succession as she tethered Body and called on mareh’et. Anati’s shield held as she scrambled to her feet, every moment sending flickering tendrils of white into the air like splinters as Bavda Khon’s stream of force kept up, unabated. She charged through it. Anati’s White would hold only for a brief moment, but bolstered by her gifts, it was enough.

  Mareh’et’s claws sheared through the stream of force, landing a cut that severed both of Bavda Khon’s hands at the forearm, leaving raw red stumps leaking blood from the sleeves of her robe.

  A scream sounded, and the world blurred as another wave of force pulsed outward, this time lifting her from her feet and sending her flying back. Even with Body she felt the impact in her lungs as she slammed into a pile of bookcases. Glass shards cracked and splintered to her left, where Lin Qishan had armored herself; now, without White she could see the room, though her head spun from the impact. Bavda Khon stood alone, bleeding where her hands should be, both severed chunks of flesh lying at her feet. Tigai leveled his pistol and kept firing, blinking a step back between each shot. Another ripple was her only warning, this one shimmering like a mirror as it enveloped the wounded magi from head to toe.

  Wardings came, the blue sparks setting an anchor around Tigai, Lin Qishan, herself, and where Dao lay crumpled among the scrolls. Shelter pulsed through her warding as Bavda Khon’s bubble erupted, and the floor and ceiling exploded.

  Her feet lurched as stone and wood burst, the tower groaning around them as essential beams buckled, cracking and snapping as the Heron magi’s force expanded outward in a violent surge. Shelter kept her from the worst of it, shielding her from the blast wave itself, but the floor stones cascaded inward, and she fell.

  Screams sounded as stone collapsed, raining from above and beneath their feet on the grand chamber full of generals and magi below. Searing pain spread in her left leg, but she ignored it, shoving with Body and mareh’et-enhanced strength as she clawed through the rubble, throwing another shield of Shelter over her head. What had been a placid chamber of books and scrolls above a wide expanse of tables and planning had become a nightmare of rubble, blood, and death. Around her Shelter she could see three levels up, where Bavda
Khon’s magic had torn loose the guts from the tower, leaving ripped and ragged wounds in the stonework. Lin Qishan had survived the fall, a glass hulk already on its feet nearby, though there was no sign of Tigai or Dao. Bavda Khon herself knelt at the center of the room, hunched over beneath a dome of force that shimmered as it turned aside the stream of rocks and dust pouring over her from above.

  Lakiri’in granted his blessing, and she freed her leg from beneath two stone blocks, ignoring the pain throbbing in her knee and calf. Bavda Khon had already seen her, the magi lifting her eyes above a veil torn away to reveal pale skin decorated by red lacerations over her mouth. Sarine staggered to her feet as the Heron formed another column of force, the stumps of her hands shimmering as she brought them together.

  No, Anati thought, and a black haze flared at the edge of Sarine’s vision.

  Bavda Khon’s lip curled beneath her broken veil, a snarl that held for a long moment, until it gave way to horror.

  Sarine charged, hobbling on a leg that refused to support more than the barest token of her weight. The knee gave out as she called on the storm spirits, discharging a bolt of pure energy as she fell. The shield of force parted, drained by Anati’s Black, and Sarine crashed to the ground, off-balance, as lightning coursed over the grandmaster’s body.

  A hissing sound rose from Bavda Khon’s skin as it changed color from pink to red and black. Moans and falling rock sounded around them, the heavy clink of glass armor and the sobbing of mortally wounded men and women caught in the fall. Sarine heard none of it. She lay beside the smoldering corpse of the Heron grandmaster, shaking as she fought against a mix of pleasure and pain. Black rose from deep within, and she fought against the Veil.

  She fought to escape. The kaas’ containment was strong—too strong; a mistake to let them grow untamed during the long years of her imprisonment. And now the girl had risked ruin. Coming here, breaching the Divide before ascensions had been secured on both sides. It would signal the Regnant that she meant to contest his hold over the schools of magic sworn into his care. All her rage and fury had been spent for nothing. They’d killed one of his prospective ascendants, and brought his attention down upon them.

  She tested her body, rising and falling back to her knees at once. The left leg was shattered. It didn’t matter. She dragged herself to where the Heron lay, rolling the electrocuted corpse over on its back. Doom stared back at her. The woman’s eyes had rolled back into her head. No mark of shock; the Heron communed with the shadow in the moment of death. Panic rose. Her time was short. Already she could feel the girl and her kaas pushing, fighting through the golden mists of Black, struggling to return again. They were dead if they faced the Regnant here, with her weakened, only half in control. She collapsed, letting her body rest atop the dying Heron as she searched the room for salvation.

  There. The Dragon. He must have blinked away and returned, now hovering over his brother, drawn back by the beginnings of a bond neither knew they’d started to forge. More figures came rushing up the stairs into the chamber, crowding around the Dragon as she strained to strengthen the bond. A Wolf, and the Order and Wild mages she recognized from their long journey in the girl’s company. Two more, mundanes, who nonetheless embraced the Dragon as they wept tears of joy. Fools, too ignorant to know the shadows gathering around them.

  Life showed her the pattern of the bond, a tenuous thread linking her to this Dragon, and to every other. There would be no time to wrest the school from the Regnant’s grasp. A shame. If she was to violate their pact, it would have been better to steal away the Dragons’ devotion entirely. But survival had to take priority; it would be enough to take the one, and use him to escape. By now the tower shook, rumbling loose more debris from above, light from its windows dimming as the Regnant manifested through his dying vessel. She strained to stoke the fire of the bond between her and the Dragon, twisting Need through the leylines, braced by Life and every shred of her will. It wouldn’t be enough. She would die here. The girl was clawing back. The Black was gone. She was—

  Sarine gasped, disentangling herself from Bavda Khon’s body. Raw skin left trails smeared across her shirt as blisters burst, the smell of burning flesh filling her nose as she moved away from the corpse. In a moment the Heron magi had gone from wounded to dead, her flesh charred black and flaking from her bones. Only her eyes remained intact, and those had flooded with black ink, leaving wisps of jet-black smoke rising from the sockets.

  “Sarine,” Acherre called. “Oh Gods, you’re all right.”

  She tried to turn and felt a stabbing pain in her leg, but by then Ka’Inari and Acherre were hovering over her. She felt Body tethered through her, and Ka’Inari’s hands searched the spots where blood and pus had leaked from Bavda Khon.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “My leg is broken, but other than that I’m fine.”

  Neither seemed to accept her words, though Ka’Inari helped her sit up, cradling her with a gentle touch.

  Across the rubble, Tigai alternated embraces with a tall man in a brown coat and a woman in a red robe, while his brother rose to be seated between them, their laughter somehow defying the gloom hovering over the rest of the chamber.

  “You found them,” she said.

  “Simple enough,” Acherre said. “Three floors down, then back up again. And in that time you managed to wreck the tower.”

  “Can you stand?” Ka’Inari asked.

  Sarine shook her head. “Not without help. But we should go.”

  Each of them took her by the arm, helping her rise to lean against their shoulders. Pain lanced through her left leg at the slightest pressure. By now the chamber had recovered enough to have some among its generals and aides pulling others out from under the rubble. No sign of any surviving Herons, and just as well. In the moment all thought of enemies had fled; they were survivors, pulling together to tend their wounded and make sense of what had happened. Soon, it would fade. But for now, they struggled together. The tower continued to shake, though her footing seemed solid enough, and the debris falling from above had abated save for plumes of dust and small rocks and splinters. It was enough to dim the light within the tower, transforming the space from bright midday to an echo of twilight or dawn.

  “Sarine,” Tigai said as they approached. “I suppose this cancels the debt between us.”

  “Your sister-by-marriage?” she asked, indicating the woman in red. “And your man-at-arms?”

  “Yes,” Tigai said. She saw the joy on his face. It reminded her of home, of her uncle’s church, of Zi and simpler, better times.

  Yuli frowned, looking around the chamber. It took a moment for Sarine to follow her eyes. It was dimming, more than dust clouds or debris could have accounted for.

  “Where shall I take you?” Tigai asked. “Anywhere in the Empire, so long as you don’t end up across from Yanjin soldiers on a battlefield.”

  “This is wrong,” Yuli said. “Something is out of place.”

  Tigai looked at her as though she were mad—the tower was a shattered ruin, with two floors collapsed down on a third—but Sarine saw it, too. A film of darkness had covered the windows, and the wisps rising from Bavda Khon’s eyes were growing thicker, lingering in the air above her in a formless shape rather than dispersing.

  Her vision lurched.

  For an instant, blackness enveloped her on all sides. An infinite void, without stars or light in any direction. Then her sight snapped back to the tower.

  “It isn’t working,” Tigai said with a note of rising panic. “The starfield and the strands; it’s as though something is blocking the way.”

  He’s here.

  Anati must have said it to all of them; their eyes turned to Sarine as though she’d been the one to speak.

  “The Regnant,” Sarine said, and she could feel the Veil’s fear rising in her gut.

  THIEF. The voice echoed like thunder, shaking the walls more violently than they’d done before. BETRAYER.

  She turned back t
oward the corpse and started backward, almost falling on her broken leg, even with Ka’Inari and Acherre for support. The black cloud hadn’t taken shape; instead it engulfed Bavda Khon’s corpse like an aura, and the body was moving, rising from the ground, its distended jaw moving in time with the words she heard booming in the air.

  Yuli rushed toward the corpse, transformed to her long-limbed, long-clawed shape, and managed two steps before shadow flared in a dome around Bavda Khon’s body, repulsing Yuli’s attack with a flash of pure blackness that sent her soaring backward into the debris.

  YOU RISK EVERYTHING, the corpse said. YOU RISK A PERMANENT BREACH IN THE MASTER’S DIVIDE.

  The others seemed to be splitting their focus between the horror playing out on the floor in front of them, and her. As though she could save them. Dread filled her, hers and the Veil’s. This was why she’d come to the East. She wasn’t ready to face this power.

  I SEE YOU, SARINE, PRETENDER TO LIFE AND THE VEIL.

  At once a cacophony of voices sounded over top of each other.

  I SEE YOU, TIGAI, SCION OF THE GREAT AND NOBLE HOUSE OF THE DRAGON.

  I SEE YOU, ACHERRE, SOLDIER OF ORDER.

  I SEE YOU, KA’INARI, GUARDIAN AND SEER OF THINGS-TO-COME.

  I SEE YOU, YULI, WARRIOR OF THE HOSKAR CLAN.

  I SEE YOU, TWIN FANGS, SOUL OF THE NATARII.

  Golden light flashed, the first sign of a break in the rising tide of shadow, erupting from Tigai like a flash from his pistol, though it stayed, pulsing as the voice continued to speak.

  I SEE YOUR HEARTS. I DISAVOW YOUR RIGHTS TO ASCENSION. EACH OF YOU ARE MARKED FOR DEATH.

  The light drew her attention. Not a weapon. If Tigai knew he was using it, he seemed oblivious, alternating between pleading looks toward her and trying to interpose himself between the corpse and his family.

  She drew it in, tethering it like a leyline, and her vision shifted.