Winter King

by Carl, Lillian Stewart

  Raksula sat beside Vlad at the head table. He wore the plaque of the khan, and the lion skin now waved above his head. But he paid no attention to them; Raksula plied him with delicacies, candied figs, lemon curd, roasted lark. “Imperial foods for an emperor,” she told him with an ingratiating smile.

  A nuryan bowed before Vlad, inquiring about the posting of the guards. His mouth full, he nodded toward his mother. Her smile glistened as she gave the orders herself. Odo started to amend the order and was quelled by an evil look from Raksula. His face tightened and darkened like an overripe plum. He handed Vlad another skin of kviss, asking with exaggerated courtesy, “This, my lord, or some of that wine?”

  Vlad muttered some sneer at Odo, spraying Raksula with particles of fig. Her smile froze into a bare-toothed snarl. He grabbed the skin, drank, wiped the dribbles from his chin.

  Something gleamed in the folds of his tunic. Raksula’s eyes widened so far that the whites glistened. With an oath she lunged, seized the object, held it up. It was a necklace, a gold crescent moon with a gold star at its tip. “So,” she breathed, “you have it.”

  Vlad tensed. The voices stopped. A sudden wind moaned about the great yurt. With one clawed hand Raksula seized Vlad by the collar. “Where did you get it!” Realizing that the Khazyari watched her, she softened her voice, smiled again. But her eyes were points of jet. “Where?”

  “My father,” he glowered. “He carried it in his tunic and talked to it. It is pretty, so I took it; I am khan now and it is mine.” He scrabbled at the necklace but she whisked it away from him.

  Odo’s stubby fingers opened and closed in midair. Raksula thrust the necklace into her own bodice and hissed, “That weakling Baakhun, bleating over the necklace his precious Tembujin wore. But he is gone now, they are both gone, and my time has come!” She scrambled up, dragging Odo with her. He quickly wiped a sullen expression from his face and replaced it with obsequious eagerness. Raksula giggled with malign glee and issued new orders, a surprise attack on the imperial camp to coincide with her sorceries. The chieftains of the Khazyari leaped up with new energy.

  Raksula stalked from the great tent, Odo bobbing in her wake, and hurried to her own yurt. From charred bags she took herbs and arranged them in an arcane pattern around a tiny lamp. Odo began a chant, spitting rough, harsh words at the flame. Raksula lifted the necklace. She was a wizened gargoyle, teeth glistening, talons grasping a sparkling cascade of gold. The gold passed through the fire and dimmed.

  * * * * *

  Andrion was dreaming of the full moon, and Sabazel, and Dana’s enlaced limbs warming the chill of the night, when the moon seemed to waver and wink out. He shifted, his senses crawling with dread. Something, somewhere, had gone terribly awry . . .

  He awoke. The camp was silent, the wind chiming softly around his tent, charcoal settling with little creaks and pops in his brazier, Miklos’s steady tread outside marking the cadence of the night. The moonlight was a hazy corona between the flaps of the doorway, fluttering as if shadowed by sinister dark wings. He sat up, alarmed; then the alarm dulled, his mind sinking into lassitude, his thoughts moving painfully, slowly, through a cold torpor. He fumbled for Solifrax, every muscle groaning.

  There. The sword, hard in his numbed and heavy hand. For a moment he saw himself, a reverse reflection in still water, clear and distant; then the water rippled, disturbed by a touch, and his image melted away.

  The coals in the brazier hissed, smoked, flared into life. Fangs of flame, of ice, leaped before his eyes. He could not blink. He could not speak, his tongue frozen in his mouth. His ears rang with an infinite silence; no, a faint chant hung like a mist about him. He struggled to remember his own name—an important name, he had heard it before . . . Valeria, he thought suddenly, enspelled with cold fire like an icy venom. Like this. His thoughts faded again, sucked from him by the chant.

  The brazier seethed with flame, but no heat emanated from it. He fought against the torpor. Think, he ordered himself, try to think . . . the something wrong was within himself, writhing like a great snake in his heart, in his belly. His mind steadied, spun, steadied again. He saw Bellasteros’s drained eyes, imagined his own eyes as blank and hollow. With a moment of clarity he thought, They found my necklace. He raised his hand to throat and snatched it away, his own flesh burning cold.

  Andrion tried to call out, but his voice was only a shallow breath, a shallow wind devoured by the night, dying before the implacable face of time. But time slowed, halted, froze into bright glittering moments like jewels forever beyond his reach. Fangs of cold flame opened before him. His hand pulled Solifrax from its sheath, and the serpent skin slithered away, slow viscous scales absorbed into shadow. The blade of the sword was crystalline ice, reflecting no flame, as cold and remote as the face of the moon, a perfect death’s head. Ashtar! he thought, and for a moment the name cleared his head. Ashtar, Dana, Ilanit, Danica, help me!

  His mind fell through echoing nothingness and spattered into sparks. His hand stroked the sword. A thin trail of red glinted across his palm. He leaned his face into his hand and tasted the sizzling sweetness of his own blood. Blood and fire and the blade, sharp and sweet, compelling—it would pierce him through—no, it would be like a woman receiving a lover, filled . . . his blood would flow crimson over the blade and it would dissolve, it would be seized by clawed hands in some place filled with a gibbering darkness . . . Of course, he told himself. I shall no longer want it. I shall be free of it. Andrion turned the sword, pressing its curved tip against his chest. It cut the linen of his chiton, each individual thread parting with a tiny snap.

  The icy flames illuminated his face, his eyes hollows of desire and despair. Death, deliver me from the harsh borders of this world . . . The blade pricked his flesh and his mind convulsed, screaming, Dana!

  * * * * *

  Between one moment and the next Dana started into tense alertness. Something, somewhere was terribly awry. She jumped from her bedroll and stood trembling. The moon, she thought, the moon wavered oddly, barred by a floating mist as dark and dense as Andrion’s black cloak. A cold wind rippled through the grass and brush, rippled through the stars, swinging them like bells. Faint on the air she heard a cry, Dana!

  Andrion! She seized her bow and dagger and screaming a warning ran from the camp. The Sabazian sentries leaped up. Danica thrust aside the hangings of the cart. Lyris and Ilanit tumbled out of their tent, grasping their weapons.

  Dana plummeted into the imperial camp. Dana! came the cry again, sharp and urgent, dying abruptly. She brushed aside several surprised sentries and almost trampled Miklos at the door of Andrion’s tent. She burst inside.

  He sat on the edge of his bed, staring into the sullen red coals of his brazier. But his dark eyes reflected leaping white flame, cold flame, fangs of ice. He held the shining blade of Solifrax reversed against his own chest. He leaned into the blade, his face suffused with a grim ecstasy, and a coiling trickle of blood smoked down the brightness of the sword.

  “Andrion!” Dana cried. “Gods, no!” She seized his hands, trying to pull the blade away. She realized then that a miasma hung about him, the chill sour odor of sorcery, sorcery turning the power of sword on its bearer. His flesh burned her fingers, but she did not let go.

  He looked toward her without the least hint of recognition. His lips drew back in a snarl. With uncanny strength he knocked her to the floor, leaped up and raised Solifrax over her. Like a frozen lightning bolt the sword fell. She rolled away, knocking into and spilling the brazier. “Andrion, in the name of Ashtar!” He struck at her again, his face that of a mindless demon.

  Miklos leaped at him from the side, bearing him down. The sword flew from his grasp and he howled in outrage and terror mingled. He fought, scratching and biting at Miklos, and the young soldier, his eyes rolling with uncomprehending terror, tried only to avoid him.

  Dana scrambled up. Together she and Miklos pinned Andrion to the floor. The prince stared beyond them to the roof o
f the tent, through it to the darkening sky, his body jerking in uncontrollable spasms. Strange syllables issued hoarsely from his throat, the echo of some evil chant. Solifrax lay among the ashes of the spilled brazier, its brightness stained with blood, muted.

  Ilanit stood in the doorway, the shield a fiery disk on her arm, her eyes and mouth circles of appalled comprehension. “Mother!” she gasped. “Not him, too!”

  Andrion’s chiton gaped, his chest smeared crimson, his bared throat pulsing with an angry red image of his necklace. “Mother,” Dana repeated, not knowing if she called on the goddess or on her own mortal parent. Andrion’s body trembled in her arms, his familiar body strange and distant.

  Ilanit knelt and laid the shield over Andrion. His voice stopped with a gurgle. His eyes closed and he became suddenly still. Then Danica, too, was there, her strong but delicate hands resting with her daughter’s and granddaughter’s on the rim of the shield. The three faces, avatars of the same bone, the same flesh, set in the same intentness, were sketched in vivid relief by its clear light. A cold wind purled through the doorway, drawing the spilled ashes into swirls of luminescent particles. The sword hissed, flared, and faded.

  Miklos edged away, his face struggling with fear and confusion. Then shouts spilled through the encampment, and he fled.

  * * * * *

  Dim shapes crept toward the imperial encampment, curtained by a dark haze. The sentries stirred uneasily, and more than one sleeper muttered in the grip of nightmare. The moon darkened as though veiled by gauze. Lyris, standing with Shandir beside Bellasteros’s litter, watched Danica disappear after Dana and Ilanit into gathering shadow and drew her sword slowly across her thumbnail, frowning, shaking her head. “Sorcery,” spat Shandir. “Evil sorcery.”

  With unearthly shrieks the Khazyari attacked. Some sentries were swiftly and mercilessly overrun. But those who had been startled by Dana’s rush through the camp gave the alarm. Trumpets blared.

  Fire arrows streaked through the air and tents blossomed into flame. Ponies pounded through the crimson-streaked night and legionaries died as they ran from their tents. Patros appeared clad only in a chiton, naked sword in hand, calling his soldiers to him. Nikander hitched up his robe and began organizing the legionaries as laconically as if the tumultuous camp were the parade ground by the walls of Farsahn. The soldiers of the Empire steadied and returned battle.

  Tembujin leaped onto the bare back of his horse and grasped its halter in one hand, his bow in the other. His face was that of an archaic statue, hard planes and sharp angles untouched by the dancing light of the flames. He slipped from light to shadow and back again, and many Khazyari died in terror.

  A cordon of Sabazians stood about Bellasteros’s litter, Lyris cursing with disgust at being saddled with a defensive position. But she stood steadfast. Shandir knelt in the doorway, eyes narrowed, dagger ready to defend the sleeping king.

  Ilanit and Dana roused and started up, then turned back, torn, toward Andrion’s stark, white, pained face. Danica lifted his head into her lap, lifted Solifrax into her own hand. “We choose this man, too,” she said, her voice breaking. The shield sparked. The sword sparked in reply. Dana wiped cold tears from her cheeks and followed her mother into battle.

  Shurzad and Valeria huddled together beside their cart. Khazyari raced with gleeful whoops through the tangle of camp followers, seizing women and booty indiscriminately. The great ursine warrior—he who had escorted Tembujin to his supposed death—leaped from his pony and grabbed Valeria, saying something that even in Khazyari was obviously obscene. She struggled, but his huge hands could almost span her waist.

  Shurzad leaped upon him, screaming, clawing, fighting for her daughter. Ponderously, as if to see what insect annoyed him, he turned. Several other Khazyari paused to watch, shouting taunts at warrior and women equally. Shurzad’s cat scrambled up the man’s felt-clad leg, every hair on end, tail like a brush.

  An arrow cut the night. The warrior, his face set in innocent amazement, looked down at the shaft protruding from his tunic and then up. Tembujin, ghostly on a spectral horse, cursed him in his own language. The great warrior’s eyes bulged. He fell, struck down by fear as much as by the arrow, dragging the women and the cat with him. His colleagues screeched and collided with each other, some rushing forward, some back.

  One of them leaned from his pony and seized Valeria’s arm, attempting to lift her up. Shurzad scrambled after them, wrenched her daughter away, interposed her own body. Tembujin swept the girl onto his horse. She clung to him with one arm, leaned precariously out and reached for her mother.

  The Khazyari grasped Shurzad and threw her like a sack of meal over his horse. One of Tembujin’s arrows struck him but he did not stop. The cat, clinging desperately to Shurzad’s skirts, yowled. Valeria screamed. Shurzad’s stunned face, a white oval tinted with flame, glinted over the warrior’s leg and was gone.

  The wrath of Ilanit’s blazing shield and Dana’s crimsoned dagger, the threat of icily gleaming Solifrax, turned the battle from Andrion’s tent. Legionaries lunged in counterattack, led on one flank by Nikander, on the other by Patros. Bonifacio, clutching the plumed helmet, looked fearfully from his tent, but the shouts and screams of battle were already retreating into murky distance. Dim shapes began fighting the fires, and the ruddy glow faded. The Sabazians leaned on their swords, the sleeping emperor unscathed. The moon cleared and became again a pale orb, remote and silent, drifting to the west and drawing dawn behind it from the east.

  The cold light of day was a shroud over the shattered encampment. Even the wind seemed to moan in pain. Smoking ruins of tents lay in hummocks along the avenues; search parties divided the soldiers lying in the churned, red-stained dirt into piles of bodies like cords of wood, into twitching tortured figures borne away to places of rest.

  Tembujin gave Valeria into the circle of her father’s arm and turned away before she could tell him the tale of Shurzad’s capture. The odlok found Dana sitting wanly beside the bed where Andrion muttered in delirium, starting up in a cold sweat, lying back as still as death. Danica sponged his brow, her face shuttered and chill. Ilanit’s shield hummed beside her, singing some private dirge; Solifrax, silent, lay at her hand. She glanced at it again and again, perhaps in resentment, perhaps in respect.

  “Your barbarians have his necklace,” Miklos said to Tembujin shortly, from his post by the door. “That you gave them.”

  Tembujin scowled. “Can you not stop the spell?” he asked Danica. She looked at him with a terrible patience. “I can protect him from its full force. But I cannot stop it, no. The necklace holds too much of him.”

  “So,” Tembujin muttered, “I owe him life.” He spun, his fists clenched at his sides, and brushed aside an approaching Sabazian without even seeing her. Dana looked after him, frowning, seeking after some nuance of his thought. But it escaped her, and he, too, was gone.

  * * * * *

  The Khazyari camp was traced by the mists and smokes of a bleak, cold dawn. Warriors milled about, quarreling over their booty, binding their wounds. A nuryan, seeing Shurzad huddling numbly by the body of a dead warrior, relieved her of her jewelry and silk gown and delivered her to Raksula. “A lady of quality,” he announced. “Perhaps she has information.”

  Shurzad, clad only in a thin shift, shivered with fear and cold. But when Raksula’s sharp fingers grasped her chin and jerked her face to the watery sun, she did not flinch.

  Raksula’s eyes were bruised with exhaustion and her many braids straggled unheeded. She was a cornered scorpion, sting poised to attack all who came near. She snarled at Shurzad, “I know you. You failed me.”

  Shurzad nodded in dull recognition, unsurprised. “You are she who led me to the betrayal that stains me still.”

  Vlad, puffed with self-importance, prodded the soft curve of her flank. Odo stared sullenly at Raksula. Raksula ignored them both and leaned close to Shurzad, spraying her face with venom. “Ah, but you followed me. You and I are alike,
our plans thwarted at every turn by the power of Sabazel.”

  Again Shurzad did not flinch. A tiny, angry tremor tightened her mouth, perhaps at Raksula, or at Sabazel, or even at herself.

  To the assembled warriors, Raksula called, “Build a fire. This is the lady of the governor-general of Sardis; she will be sacrificed to Khalingu, that our fortunes may be restored.” She smiled, every pointed tooth glinting, and released Shurzad’s chin with an acid caress.

  Shurzad’s face went even whiter. She swayed, caught herself. The cat padded through the watching throng, eyes bright, tail lifted alertly. Slaves brought loads of brushwood and piled it high.

  “So,” Raksula murmured, seeing the cat, “a small Qem, Khalingu as snow leopard. Did you know, Shurzad, that you worshiped the god of the Khazyari?”

  Shurzad stared blankly at her, not quite hearing her, listening to some other voice. The cat folded itself around her leg.

  Raksula pulled the gold necklace from her dress and thrust it into Shurzad’s face. “See my power? I hold the life of your prince in my hands.” Odo’s fingers twitched. Vlad frowned petulantly. The gold was reflected twofold in Shurzad’s somber eyes, a distant brightness like the glow of moon or sun through a rift in cloud.

  On the outskirts of the crowd a sentry fell without a cry, taken from behind. A dark figure quickly assumed his tunic and fur cap and stood watching. Icy rain spattered the morning, and the people huddled closer to the pile of brush. Someone threw a flaming torch into it. With a slow crackle, fire danced among the branches.

  Odo grasped Shurzad’s unresisting form and began a wailing prayer. She closed her eyes, sighed deeply, opened them not on to despair but on to decision. The cat crouched. Unnoticed, Tembujin set an arrow to his bow and then lowered it, grimacing in frustrated loathing as Raksula stepped forward brandishing the necklace, and was concealed by several children. The fire roared upward, smoke and flame licking at the shrouded sky.