The Seared Lands

by Deborah A. Wolf

  “You worry that a soft heart is a sign of weakness.”

  She looked at him again, white teeth flashing in a grin.

  “I? I have nothing to worry about.” She laughed aloud. “I am already dead.”

  Ismai led his horde to the river Dibris, and the Atualonian ships that had been dragged upon the sand until such time as the river serpents might subside, allowing them to return to Atualon. But crews had been slaughtered by Ishtaset and her Mah’zula before they could use their vessels to escape.

  The great vessels had been dragged from the river and onto the sands where they lay forlorn. Ismai watched as they were now eased back into the water, the striped sails rigged and readied, and strode up the gangplank onto the deck of the bold and beautiful dragon-headed ship.

  It seemed large enough to Ismai to carry an entire village up and down the Dibris, but even such a large craft as this would be vulnerable to the great serpents that swam the waters of the river, let alone the sea, and they had none of the red-cloaked sorcerers on board to keep them safe.

  Never fear, little prince, Kal ne Mur reassured him. I created the Baidun Daiel, and there is nothing they can accomplish with their sorceries that I cannot. They amplify my power, it is true, but the magic is my own.

  I am not sure whether I should be relieved by this, Ismai responded, or frightened.

  Soft-hearted, as Sudduth says. He smiled to himself. He rather liked the boy, and that was just as well, since they shared a body.

  The ships were poled groaning and creaking to the river deeps. Striped sails fluttered, settled, filled, and the vessels began to make their graceful way north.

  “Do we sail for Atualon, then?” Sudduth asked.

  “In time,” Ismai answered. “We sail first to Min Yaarif, that I may send messages to the queen in Quarabala. Long have the Kentakuyan owed me fealty, and now is the time for me to call old debts due. Quarabalese assistance will be essential in reclaiming Atualon. Our numbers are great, and with living Quarabalese warriors among us it is certain that we will overwhelm the Atualonians. After all”—and he smiled at her— “my last and most beloved queen, and many of my best fighters, hail from that land.”

  “Ah, to see my home again…” Sudduth shook her head. “But no, the land of my birth is no doubt as dead as the Zeera I remember. Not to mention the ancient alliance. Friendship is strong if it lasts a season, let alone many lifetimes of men.”

  “Friendship is fickle, this is true,” he allowed, “but hatred runs as deep and cold as this river. The Quarabalese, I understand from young Ismai’s memories, have endured many miseries since I… went to my rest. Surely they will be eager to join with me in common enmity. And if they are not eager, well…” he shrugged. “We will burn that road when we come to it.”

  Far away, river serpents bellowed in alarm. No Baidun Daiel would be necessary to keep the beasts from destroying the ships, after all—the leviathans’ natural fear of the Lich King would suffice. It was a silly thing over which to feel regret, but Ismai sighed. It would have been marvelous to see the river serpents and the sea-things, and listen to their songs at sunset.

  As the ships picked up speed, a young vash’ai queen wailed from the riverbank.

  There is no room for love, Kal ne Mur reminded Ismai. He closed his heart, his mind to Ruh’ayya. No time for regret. We have a world to conquer, or to destroy.

  Again.

  The setting sun streaked the sky with claw-marks and turned the river red as shared blood.

  It was glorious.

  THIRTY - TWO

  Sulema and Hannei flanked the shadowmancer, and Rehaza Entanye brought up the rear. Keoki strummed his lute as they trotted on, humming under his breath even as his companions struggled to breathe the thin, burnt air. So powerful was the sorcerer’s eagerness to reach his homeland that the air about them seethed and groaned under the weight of spun darkness. The shadows beneath their feet urged them on.

  His shadowshifting protected them from the worst of the heat but Akari soared high, withering the Seared Lands with his hot and angry glare, searching for those who had dared deny him his love, that he might smite them. The world might have forgotten the Quarabalese, their shining cities and poetry, songs and shadow-magic, but Akari Sun Dragon would never forget, never forgive. Those who had traveled this road in days past had left sign of their own desperate struggles as they shed their earthly possessions and fought for their lives.

  Here was an ancient waterskin, so desiccated that it turned to dust beneath Hannei’s heel. There was a knife, long as a short sword almost, its edge glowing faint blue in the filtered light of Akari’s wrath. Infrequently—but not nearly infrequently enough for Sulema’s peace of mind—they would pass the desiccated corpse of one who had not, nor would ever, reach her destination.

  These last were by far the worst. Some lay curled on their sides, hands tucked beneath their cheeks, as if they had only just fallen asleep and might rise again and join the travelers. Only a bit of exposed bone or a shriveled foot, still in its sandal, gave lie to the dream. Others lay with backs arched, throats torn, mouths and shriveled eyes wide in endless screams of dusty agony as they stared despairingly into the hot maw of death.

  At one point they passed the huddled figure of a mother with her arms wrapped about a tiny child. One arm was upraised as if to protect the fragile white skull that she held pressed against her breast. Sulema averted her eyes but knew the sight would stalk her dreams forever.

  “Why does nobody care for them?” she asked no one, but knew the answer even so. The small effort it cost her to speak was too much to have spent. To attempt this shadowed road was to make a final, desperate attempt at life. Never so much as a breath or second glance would be left to spare for the dead.

  At Sulema’s words Hannei cut her eyes sideways, and that look was as heavy as a slap to the face.

  You know nothing, she said, as clearly as if she still had a tongue. You are weak. Sulema knew it to be true and felt herself shamed.

  The shadowmancer stumbled just then, jerking Sulema’s attention away, and then his trot turned into a lope, long legs stretching so that the others had to pick up their pace as well, lest they be left behind to become landmarks for future traveling fools.

  “What…” Rehaza Entanye began, panting the word, but grunted in surprise even as Sulema herself saw what had caused their sorcerer to pick up the pace. Ahead of them, at the very slice of the horizon, she could see that the ground was rent with deep fissures. They were harsh, these wounds in the earth, dark and sharp as if they had been drawn upon the burnt ground with a quill dipped in ink, and they gaped like thin, angry mouths, ready to swallow the mean flesh of unwary travelers.

  They had nearly reached the Edge of the Seared Lands, and it was the most uninviting sight Sulema could have imagined. Part of her wanted to grab the shadowmancer by the nape of his neck and demand they turn back.

  “Run,” Rehaza Entanye groaned between gritted teeth as she passed Sulema. Her eyes were wide as a spooked horse’s.

  Sulema glanced over her shoulder and then wished she had not. Through the boiling air behind them she could see what at first appeared to be an advancing storm of some sort, a roiling line of darkness. Through this, as if through the thin veil of a shy lover, she could see a horde of pursuing reavers.

  In their midst was a horror.

  It was man-sized and roughly man-shaped—if a man might have as many arms as a spider had legs—but the chill that stabbed through her heart and grabbed at her reaver-infected shoulder was born of a terror that no mere human could induce. Eyes red and burning as old coals stabbed at them through the cover of false night, and when the thing raised its many twitching arms, bidding the shadows to its will, Sulema could see the tiny glint of a million stars set into its char-black skin.

  It was an Arachnist, she knew, a spider-priest, one who worshipped the Araids as gods. She had never in her worst dreams imagined that a shadowmancer might become such a creatur
e.

  “Guts and goatfuckery,” she spat, turning back and increasing her pace. Just moments ago she had been weary enough to lie down and die. Now every fiber of her being shrieked at her to run, to live. “What is that?” she croaked painfully. “I have never heard of an Arachnist shadowmancer.”

  Keoki, though still deep in his trance, turned his head and glanced behind them. His dreamful eyes widened, widened, and the shades about them writhed as his music faltered.

  “Run,” he rasped in unconscious imitation of Rehaza Entanye. “Run!”

  Sulema sucked in a deep breath of seared, corpse-smelling air, and ran, certain it would not be enough. Her body flooded with the false vigor that came with dreadful fear; she shed fatigue and felt, in that moment, that she could have outrun Atemi. But the cracks ahead of them lingered teasingly at the horizon’s edge, while behind them she could hear the rustling, buzzing, and occasional screeching laugh of the swarm of reavers. Chillflesh raised painfully as she imagined them falling upon her from behind, rending her flesh.

  Or worse.

  Then Sulema felt the call of the sorcerer who pursued her, calling, calling… He has come for me, she thought, and knew it for truth. The spider-priest’s sorcery pulled at her blood, her bones. It grabbed at her fleeing spirit as a lover might grab at her clothes, stripping away her defenses and leaving the soul naked.

  If I was my mother, they would not dare threaten me, she thought. She would turn his skin into a drum and make him dance to its rhythm. If I was my father, they would run from me in terror—he would call upon Akari and blast them to ashes. But I am just a warrior with a sword, no horse, and no sword-sisters…

  She ran till her lungs seared and legs screamed, till her heart felt as if it would burst from the efforts—and knowing it would never, could never be enough. As the Edge grew near, and her enemies drew nearer, Sulema stretched her legs, pumped her arms—

  So close, she thought. We were so close. The sun was setting. Just a few minutes more, a few strides more, and they might have made it to safety.

  Something brushed her from behind, drawing a line of fire along the skin of her back. Sulema shrieked, ducking her attacker, and then staggered as white agony lanced through her older wound.

  One sword, no horse—

  It is time, little one, crooned a thin and wicked voice in her mind. Sulema slowed, then turned as if in a dream, filled with dread the color of old blood. There stretched a line of reavers, veiled in shadow, insectoid eyes glittering in their eagerness. They were not as near as Sulema’s fear had led her to believe, but entirely too close to lend strength to any hope of escape. The Arachnist-thing rose high in their midst, corpse arms twitching as he raised them toward her. One bloated hand wielded a whip of black fire; Sulema could only surmise that this had been the cause of her pain. The lash flicked out again, and again, hungry for another taste of her.

  Come, the Arachnist coaxed, mocking her struggle. Come to me, to us. Come to Eth, join—

  A hand closed hard on her shoulder and Sulema jumped half out of her soft human skin. Her companions had stopped when she did and stood with her, gasping and desperate.

  “Hhhhaaak,” Hannei growled at her, squeezing again, painfully. Only then did Sulema realize that she had been dragging her feet toward the Arachnist and his promise-threats. She willed her feet to stop moving, and a thin howl went up from the ranks of the reavers. They slowed in their advance.

  One sword, no horse… and one sword-sister.

  It came to Sulema, in that moment, that a warrior with a sword and one sword-sister needed nothing else in the world. She caught Hannei’s gaze with her own. Sister, she signed. Come, sister. We fight together. Mutaani. Hannei hesitated for a moment and then firmed her mouth and nodded. Sister, she agreed. Mutaani. She drew the twin blades at her back, and Sulema pulled her shamsi free. Together they would find the beauty in death.

  Keoki took a deep breath, bent over his lute, and his fingers attacked the strings in a battle-frenzy. Shadows rallied to his call and the world about them faded to near black. Rehaza Entanye, who had been staring at the girls with an unreadable expression on her face, shrugged and took hold of her war hammer, gripping it with both hands. She rolled her head this way, that way, and spat as if readying herself for yet another battle in the pits.

  “It is a good day to die, as you desert sluts are so fond of saying,” she grinned. “Might as well get it over with.”

  Though she was wreathed in shadow and pain, weary and beyond the reach of hope, Sulema felt the world lift from her heart. I am a warrior, and nothing less. She tugged her vest open, baring her breasts at the enemy, raised her sword, and laughed a true, deep belly laugh. It was enough that she would die beside her sister, as a warrior should, she realized. It had always been enough.

  “Show me yours, you rotten sons of churra shit!” she yelled, mocking the reavers and their foul master. “Show me yours!”

  The Arachnist hesitated a moment, and then with a high, thin wail of rage brought his many arms down and pointed them toward Sulema and her companions. The black whip snapped over their heads, urging them on.

  “Kill them!” he shrieked.

  At that moment Akari Sun Dragon folded his wings and dove beyond the horizon. The sky flared bright and hot one last time, and then an indigo veil was pulled across the face of the land. Sulema tipped her head back and took a deep breath, looking up and up and up. By day, the Seared Lands were the stuff of nightmares, but by night they were lovely. And in the end, she had kept her vow.

  She wanted to live. Oh, how she wanted to live.

  But it was a very good night to die.

  The reavers hissed, and laughed, and leapt.

  Shy, sweet Keoki, who had been shooting Sulema adoring glances since first they had met, dropped his mantle of impotence and strode toward the swarming attackers. His voice rose in song, a clear, sweet tenor that blended perfectly with the rippling music of his lute—and the shadows along the path rose to do his bidding. Like a sandstorm of lost souls, borne upon the wind of his passion, they crested toward the foul, pale shapes. The reavers halted, and Sulema’s heart lifted to see them pull back.

  We are so close, she thought, casting a longing glance over her shoulder. She imagined that she could see, deep in the nearest crevice, the faint, encouraging wink of fire. If we ran—

  A shout rang out from the swarm’s midst. The enemy’s shadowmancer raised a multitude of writhing, twitching corpse arms as if he would pull down the moons. The shadows around him leapt at his command. Sulema could almost hear them howling, hungry for flesh and the breath of the living. The two darknesses met with a clap as of thunder. Black lightning—that was the only way Sulema could describe it— burned through the air and smote the ground, blasting holes deep enough to swallow a horse, sending chunks of bone and salted earth high into the air.

  Every hair on Sulema’s body stood on end, and a buzzing filled her head with such pressure it felt as if her eyes would pop. She ignored this, and ignored the stench of the battling shadow-storms, as well—burnt blood and hot metal, an angry red smell. Instead she concentrated on choosing a target.

  I cannot kill them all, she realized, but I can surely take out some of the goatfuckers before they get me. I think… that one, first.

  “You!”

  The reaver she had targeted turned its face toward her and hissed, showing rows of inward-pointing teeth embedded in a wide, round maw.

  “Yes, you, you turd-spawned abomination!” Sulema shouted, pointing her sword. Even though the land about them was cooling, the air was hot enough to burn her lungs. She ignored that pain, too, and laughed in her enemy’s face.

  “Are you hungry, asshole? Eat my sword!”

  Hannei glanced at her, surprised, and then grinned and shook her head. The battling storms howled about them, and the reaver Sulema had singled out crossed the distance between them in a series of deathly quick bounds. Sulema drew herself up into a fighting stance and let all
the tension of a lifetime drain away.

  I am coming, Azra’hael, she promised the one who had been meant for her. Soon I will join you on the Lonely Road. And I will bring this one’s head with me.

  Then there was no more time for thinking.

  Sulema had fought before, with fists and staff and feet, with sword and knife and bow. She had trained with her sword-sisters, fought her enemies, had slain a lionsnake by herself. This, she was certain, would eclipse it all.

  The reaver did not move like a natural thing. It flashed this way and that, twitching and jumping, so rain-and-lightning quick it might have outrun its own shadow in broad daylight. It was strides away, and then it was upon her. Sulema twisted away from the monster and brought her shamsi down, expecting resistance as her blade bit deep into its neck. She overbalanced, however, and stumbled forward as she sliced through the night air. Years of training saved her hide as she followed through with a crouch and whirl, taking the reaver full in its chest with the point of her sword.

  Bright-sharp as her blade was, it skittered sideways off the thing’s body with a scraping sound as of metal on naked rock. Black ichor oozed from a deep wound—not nearly deep enough, not a killing wound—as the thing reached clawed fingers for Sulema’s face. It bared venom-fouled fangs at her, insect eyes hungry and mocking as it opened that horrible mouth wide, wider.

  A spear stabbed over Sulema’s shoulder and pierced the reaver’s face. It exploded in a rain of brains, blood, and clotted gore, drenching Sulema with viscous, stinking dead-man-bug guts.

  “Pfaugh!” she spat, stomach heaving in protest. “Oh, that is just—”

  The spear retracted, leaving the reaver to collapse twitching upon the dead ground. A man brushed past, darker and taller than any Sulema had ever seen. Black as shadows, silent as death as he ghosted past, hardly sparing a glance as he hefted a wicked iron-tipped spear and jogged into the maelstrom. Another passed her, and another, and then a woman, tall and proud and bald as her companions, and as beautiful.