City of Wonders

by James A. Moore

The last two times she’d done this, she’d wounded her own. That thought wrapped around her neck like a slaver’s collar and crushed her down.

  Nolan danced aside as the great head of the beast whipped around and it came for him.

  That little digging blade of Vonders’ punched through one of the great, colorless eyes of the Mound Crawler. Vile fluids blasted out from the wound and painted half of his body.

  And the great beast slapped him aside as it screamed and did what it could to get free of the newest pain.

  Vonders bounced across the floor of the ledge and clutched desperately at the edge, his eyes no longer wide, but closed in desperate prayer as the bulk of the monster moved toward him and the lower half of his body vanished over the edge, hanging into the darkness.

  * * *

  Drask watched the Mound Crawler as it moved, the seemingly infinite hands of the beast clutching at the wall and holding as well as a spider would.

  The Fellein on the ledge reacted much as he would have expected, with screams and wild flailing swings of weapons.

  It didn’t look like the ones he’d seen in the past. Then again, the damned things were like the Broken: no two were the same.

  He did nothing. It was not his place to do anything. The gods had told him to watch and nothing else. If the Daxar Taalor told him to kill the beast he would do all that he could. If they told him to kill the Fellein the response would be the same.

  Instead he watched as the first of the men was cut into pieces and cast aside. He allowed himself a small smile when the sword of the man who died impaled the roof of the Crawler’s mouth.

  His head still ached from the last great noise. The air had shook before him. His eyes had grown blurry, as if he’d been watching vibrations in a previously still pond. There had been a moment when he’d thought his bones might grind themselves into powder and then Ydramil’s voice had soothed him and a moment later the pain had gone away.

  Just in time to let him avoid the Mound Crawler. It had been descending the side of the chasm and had stopped for the great sound. Once the noise had run its course the thing had started moving again. Drask had slipped sideways along the narrow lip of stone where he’d been perched and watched as it moved past him and straight for the fools chattering away on the ledge.

  Tega was in there. He knew the girl, knew she was apprentice to the wizard, Desh Krohan, but she did nothing to stop the Mound Crawler though he had seen her do tremendous damage to one of the Broken.

  The one who kept picking at the dirt was knocked halfway from the ledge after striking the first significant blow against the Crawler. He did not try to crawl back up the ledge, but instead held on and closed his eyes.

  Perhaps he was praying to one of his gods. If so, Drask doubted the effort would do him much good. The Daxar Taalor would have ignored that sort of desperation. You took care of your challenges yourself or you died. That was the way of the Sa’ba Taalor and their gods.

  The other man in the group let out another scream and jumped on top of the Mound Crawler’s neck. He planted his feet wide apart and drove the axe’s narrower blade into the top of the Crawler’s head.

  Then he got lucky, and as the Crawler reacted by driving its head upward in an effort to shake the pain loose, he fell to the side and rolled toward the distant wall instead of falling the other way and rolling off the ledge.

  Lucky. There was no skill in the action. In fact the young man seemed less like a fighter and more like an animal. He was losing control of himself. Tuskandru and a few of his people would argue the advantage of going battle-mad, but Drask preferred to remain calm. Also, Tusk had the skill to carry off an occasional moment of berserk rage. This one? No. He was lucky.

  Luck seldom lasts forever.

  Drask watched on, assessing the skills of his enemies.

  When the time came, if he had to, he would strike and he would kill using all that he learned by observing.

  Assuming any of them were left to kill, of course.

  * * *

  Nolan felt no pain. He was too angry to feel much of anything.

  His father, Wollis, had always warned him about losing control. All his life he had learned to use weapons on the rare occasions when his father was home and he’d practiced regularly, the better to show the man what he had learned when he came back to visit, and when they’d sparred, Wollis had easily beaten him again and again. There were words of encouragement and words of caution and the latter always focused on keeping his calm when he fought. It was a lesson Nolan had never really learned very well.

  The problem was simple enough, really: there was no one to spar with on the farm, save his mother. And while Dretta March could hold a sword and fight well enough, she would always let her son win in their tests. She never quite had it in her to fight him with all she had.

  So when Wollis came home, Nolan tended to expect an easy win and his father never let him win to soothe his ego. His father fought as if his life depended on it.

  Nolan was beginning to appreciate his father’s philosophy. His axe was currently sticking from the scalp of the nightmare that had just thrown him. The handle, long enough to allow a proper two-handed swing, looked like a twig while sticking from the damned thing’s scalp.

  He drew the short sword at his side. There was no choice. He preferred the axe, but it seemed unlikely that the beast would let him take it back without trying to kill him.

  Vonders was slowly pulling himself back to the ledge, his eyes once again open and wide. His face was a shade of white that might have been from the nasty paste from the monster’s eye or simple shock from the combat, but either way the man was trying to gain his footing.

  Nolan intended to help if he could.

  He let out a battle cry and charged at the demon. It lunged and snapped at him with its bloodied maw.

  Nolan managed a decent cut across the thing’s brow and it turned its head to better see him with its remaining eye. His position didn’t allow another effective sword stroke, so instead he drove his knee into the exposed eye of the thing as it moved toward him.

  The thing let out a yowlp and he skipped back, swinging the sword. If he could blind it completely he might be able to do something with it.

  Too fast, it was out of his way and that great head was coming for him again. Nolan dropped to the ground, his back slamming into the hard rock as the massive open mouth snapped shut where he had been standing.

  A beard of heavy barbs ran under the chin, thick needles of cartilage and scales, and he rolled to the side rather than let himself get impaled on the points.

  The thing let out a bellow of steaming hot air through its nostrils and blew a gout of bloodied mist out at the same time. Tolpen’s sword was still jammed through the inside of its mouth causing harm. Good. Let it fester and kill the bastardly thing.

  Only let it happen sooner rather than later.

  He crawled to his hands and knees and scrambled toward the back wall of the ledge, as the thing started coughing and then looked for him with its one good, if watery, eye.

  Nolan stared at the wounded beast. Perspective was a curse in this case, not a blessing. The monster was wounded, yes, but the wounds were tiny in comparison. Though it had lost use of one eye, and was bleeding in several locations, there was no danger of the damned thing dying any time soon.

  He looked toward Tega.

  “Will you kindly kill this thing?” It was as close as he could be to polite at the moment. In response to his voice the great head of the thing shifted and the one working eye scanned around him. The functioning eye was half-closed and watering heavily. Still, that teary orb focused on him and the great mouth under it opened again.

  Behind the great beast, Vonders finally managed to pull himself back to the ledge and scrabbled away from the precipice, eyeing the beast warily and saying nothing. He had no weapons left on him that Nolan could see.

  He was alive. That was something.

  Tega moved her hands in a gesture th
at looked almost like she was brushing crumbs from her blouse. A moment later the monster let out another tremendous shriek and backed away, shaking its head. The flesh on the thing’s muzzle was changing color, and parts of that altered skin were frozen, motionless despite the panicked expression on the rest of the vast face.

  The thing backed further away and let out another loud noise as more of its bulk slipped from the ledge and it retreated, shaking its head from side to side in the narrow area. Vonders was knocked from his feet and sent stumbling but happily did not fall in the wrong direction this time.

  Gravity might well have done the rest. The vast shape of the thing vanished from sight, and a cascade of rocks and dirt fell down again. Nolan couldn’t tell if it had fallen or merely retreated.

  He looked into the darkness beyond the ledge but did not follow.

  “What did you do to it?” Vonders asked as he rose to his feet. Nolan could now see that his body was covered in whatever passed for blood and the fluids from the monster’s eye.

  Tega looked at him for a moment and shrugged. “The same thing I did to our rope anchor and arrow. I made it harder than it was.”

  Nolan shuddered at the very notion. She’d turned the damned thing to stone, or close enough at least.

  Vonders was staring at Tega as if she had answered all of his prayers – and perhaps she had.

  Nolan chose not to look at her for a while and instead focused on what might come at them from the darkness. He wasn’t sure which scared him more, the girl or the unknown.

  He wasn't completely certain there was a difference.

  EIGHT

  Desh Krohan looked around the chamber and struggled to remember why he was there.

  Grief was a crippler, to be sure. He hadn’t felt completely himself since Pathra’s murder and now, with Pella gone, he felt drained of all vitality.

  Mourning was a luxury he wasn’t certain he could afford.

  “Desh?” Nachia’s voice cut through his clouded thought.

  “Yes, Majesty?”

  There were only a scattered few in the room. All of them were looking at him with expectant expressions.

  “You were going to tell us of Trecharch?”

  “Ah. Yes. The kingdom has fallen. Queen Parlu and Lemilla, her heir, are both dead. The Mother-Vine is gone. Destroyed. Pella is on her way back. She’ll have more details. She observed the entire affair.” His lips felt numb. He expected that was a bad thing, but couldn’t seem to make himself care.

  Goriah was dead.

  He’d have to see if he could do anything about that.

  All around him the people in the room stirred, shocked by the news. They’d known it was a possibility, but, really, no one had expected the Sa’ba Taalor to be so damnably efficient at overthrowing an entire nation.

  “My troops are still three days out at the very least, and that’s with a forced march.” Merros Dulver looked around the room at the other military leaders under him. None of them were happy with the current situation. How could they be? The first major campaign of their military careers had just ended in a savage defeat.

  Nachia spoke from her seat on the throne. “This is unacceptable.” Her voice trembled with suppressed emotions. Rage, sorrow, shock. “Find the Sa’ba Taalor who did this. Destroy them.”

  Her anger was enough to drag Desh from the grief that was pulling at him.

  “There are other considerations, Majesty. We will soon have more refugees coming here. They’ll be running from the Sa’ba Taalor and they’ll come this way seeking safety and shelter.”

  Merros spoke up. “They’ll also be followed by the enemy. There’s every reason to believe the war will come to us sooner rather than later.”

  “Are you sure about that, Merros?” Desh frowned. “Aren’t there other areas they might consider?”

  “They might very well, but why would they? Do they intend to cut off our food supplies? No. There are too many accesses to this city. They have black ships on the waters of the Freeholdt, according to the latest reports. I don’t know if their ships can actually ride the Freeholdt all the way to the Jeurgis, but even if they can’t, if those ships are carrying supplies, or even worse, troops, they’ll be able to come at us from at least two different directions.”

  Merros stood up and spread his arms. “The nearest area we could draw reinforcements from was Tyrne, but those troops are already here. That would give us an advantage if I hadn’t been obligated to send so many to Trecharch. Even if they turn around now, they’ll only be a day or two ahead of the refugees and the enemy.”

  Desh nodded.

  Nachia frowned. “So what do we do now? You’re my advisors. Advise me.”

  Merros answered immediately. “We have to prevent them from reaching us from every possible angle. If they lay siege to us, we can hold out for a very long time, but the people in the areas outside the city walls will not last, and while we have food for the city proper, we can’t feed refugees from three separate areas and the people of Canhoon, too.”

  Desh interrupted, “We have… surprising levels of food supplies. I shouldn’t worry too much there. We are also doing what we can to prepare for extra people. A lot of extra people.”

  “The city is large, Desh, but it is not large enough to accommodate all of Trecharch.”

  Desh looked at the general for a while and suppressed a smile. “You’d be surprised, lad.”

  Merros, who looked as old as Desh but knew better than to think he was anywhere close to the same age, bit his tongue at being called a lad.

  Desh gave him credit for that, and also reminded himself to afford the man the proper respect, especially in front of his peers. It was all right to be friendly in private, but in public Merros Dulver was in charge of the entire Imperial Army. That afforded him a great deal of respect.

  Nachia stood up and started pacing. Her hair was loose and moved like a cloud around her head in the high humidity. She was, once again, dressed for comfort. Part of the sorcerer wanted to chide her about appearances but he was wise enough to keep his opinions to himself. This was neither the right place nor time for it.

  “Desh, find the latest news. Use your Sooth or whatever they are called. Merros, take his advice into consideration and prepare for a siege. I would rather avoid a siege, but we will prepare for it nonetheless.”

  She skewered the general with her glance. “And while you are doing that, devise a good battle plan. If we’re at war I have no intention of sitting here and waiting for the bastards to come to us. Find out where they are. Find out where they are going. Find out how to kill them.”

  She paced a few more small circuits in front of the throne and then looked at them. “Now. Do it now.”

  That ended the meeting. Desh left to head for his chambers and to call upon the Sooth, dreading the very idea.

  * * *

  Merros wandered down the streets between the palace and Dretta’s place with his heart thumping too hard in his chest. The last time he’d been by to see her, he had not found her at home. He had no right to fret over such things. They had not made plans of any sort, and yet he found the idea of her not being home worrisome.

  He found he thought about her far too often.

  That was a problem.

  He was supposed to be considering how best to repel the enemies of the Empire. He had armies to move and command and prepare for battle. The majority of the infantry he dealt with were hardly in any shape to fight and kill the Sa’ba Taalor. Most would more likely be cut down before they were old enough to grow full beards.

  On that and a few other subjects he could not easily speak to Dretta. He had grown to trust her, of course, that was not the problem. The problem was that her son was one of the young men under his command, and neither Nolan March nor Tega had been reachable by any means, not even sorcerous, for over two days.

  He wanted to see Dretta.

  He wanted to be honest with her.

  He also did not like the idea of bei
ng in the same room when she found out that she had effectively lost her only son.

  The woman was enchanting – he pushed that thought down roughly. She was Wollis’s widow, after all – but she was also a bit on the terrifying side. He could take her in a fight. No worries there. After seeing Swech and Jost and Ehnole and a few other women of the Sa’ba Taalor, he understood all too well that the tendencies in Fellein to shelter women from harm were probably not the wisest. The enemy had twice as many soldiers automatically and their women fought as well as their male counterparts.

  Dretta could handle herself. He had no doubt of it. She’d been with Wollis and he’d made his son learn to do so at an early age and his wife, too. The northerners from his area were brutal. Stonehaven raised only strong people, and when the army took the younger men it wasn't uncommon for the women in the area to work the quarries. Dretta was strong and capable.

  The problem was not whether or not he could actually handle her in a skirmish if she decided he had taken enough from her with her husband. No, the problem was he didn’t think he could raise a hand against the woman no matter what the circumstance.

  That notion merely made him more uncomfortable.

  The hairs on his neck rose.

  The air was not precisely cold, but his flesh goosepimpled just the same.

  Likely he was being watched. First rule of surviving in a war or a skirmish was simple: trust your instincts.

  Instead of moving toward Dretta’s house and checking on her, Merros moved on, his hand resting easily on the hilt of his sword.

  It was possible that he was being paranoid. He might even be finding excuses for avoiding Dretta, though he doubted that.

  It was just as likely that someone was waiting for a time when they could find the general alone and do him harm. There was a war going on and a lot of the people thought the war was his doing. They didn’t say it to his face, but he’d heard about it just the same. Merros brought the Sa’ba Taalor to Tyrne. The same grayskinned foreigners assassinated Emperor Pathra Krous. They were destroying Trecharch (had destroyed it already, though few knew that yet) and the victims of the Sa’ba Taalor were already overflowing the streets in some parts of Canhoon.