War of the Magi: Azrael's Wrath (Book 2)

by Lewis, Joseph Robert

  Edris heard the falconer panting and groaning as the sword clashes rang on and on.

  “I cannot reach you,” Veneka said. “I cannot let go of Edris or he will fall.”

  “I’m bleeding… quite a lot,” Zerai muttered.

  Edris kicked his legs desperately, hoping to find some foothold or ledge, but his feet only swung through empty space, and the motion only tore at his burning shoulder a bit more.

  “Edris? Edris?”

  He stopped kicking. “What?”

  “I am sorry. I do not know what else to do. I need to help Zerai.”

  This is it. She’s going to let go. I’m going to fall, probably not far enough to die, but far enough to break something. And they’ll leave me here, in the dark, broken, bleeding, to die in the dark, all alone.

  “Please, there has to be a way,” he sputtered.

  “There is.” Her hands dug down even harder on his exhausted fingers, pushing several splinters deeper into his skin, but he barely noticed that pain at all because the entire left side of his body was suddenly on fire, and being torn apart, crushed, and sliced open by razors. The pain was more than he could comprehend, it was everywhere and so deep that there was no corner of his mind where he could try to hide from it.

  He thrashed and kicked and screamed in the darkness as his body went on shredding and burning itself, the pain lancing and firing his skin and nerves and bones from the bottom of his spine up to the top of his skull.

  And then it stopped and he felt fine. Better than fine, he felt strong. Even his aching shoulder felt solid and powerful. But something was wrong. The dim outline of Veneka’s hair against the starlight was blurred… doubled…

  “My-my eye!” Edris blinked and shook his head and blinked again. “You healed my eye?”

  “And your arm,” Veneka said. “Can you give me your other hand now?”

  “My other hand?” He looked down and in the darkness he could see almost nothing, but he could feel the change in weight, the pressure on his left shoulder. A shiver ran down his side and he felt his new arm move as he flexed muscles and shifted bones that had become a dim memory in the years since the night when the leopard tore him apart. His left arm rose up, naked and clumsy, like a drunken snake. With a grunt and a twist of his shoulder, he reached up and grabbed the broken steps with both hands, and then with Veneka’s help he pulled himself up to safety.

  As soon as he was sitting on the stairs, the healer dashed to the top to tend to her lover, leaving Edris to stare through his new eye at his new hand. He smiled as he curled the soft brown fingers in the faint light. Just a few paces away, Veneka prayed to God and Raziel to close Zerai’s wounds, and Zerai fought desperately against two armored soldiers, but Edris could only sit and stare at the lines across his palm.

  It’s a miracle. An actual miracle. It’s real.

  Still smiling, he leaned forward and stood up, and nearly fell off the stairs into the abyss as the weight on his left shoulder tugged him off balance. Frowning, he made sure he was steady and then took his first step toward the stars. His new arm brushed his side, and the sensation of skin on skin made him shudder.

  Something’s wrong.

  He paused to look at his left hand. It looked fine, it looked like a perfect mirror image of his right hand. He tried rotating his shoulder to get used to the weight, but every little shift of cloth against the virgin skin and hairs made him shiver, made his head swim, made his stomach lurch. Leaning against the cold stone wall, he squeezed his eyes shut.

  What the hell did she do to me?

  Opening his eyes, he tried lifting his arm and curling his fingers again, but every motion was either too sluggish or too fast.

  Maybe it’s not done yet, maybe she stopped too soon.

  Edris looked up. “Veneka?”

  “Let’s go!” Zerai bolted out the door and Veneka dashed after him into the night, into a dark cacophony of men shouting and fighting and dying.

  For a moment, Edris could only stare out at the bright glimmers of swords and arrowheads and shields beneath the stars, and the shining ripples in the reflecting pool around the boots of the men fighting in the fountain. Bodies lay in piles all across the courtyard, their arms and legs twisted into strange shapes where they fell.

  Idiots. Killing and being killed, for what? Money? Crowns? Where’s the fun in that? They should all be asleep, or making love to their fat wives, or drinking their regrets away. And so should I, for that matter. But not this. Anything but this.

  His left arm brushed against his side again, and he recoiled from it, lurching back into the wall again. Frowning, he wrapped his cloak firmly around the new limb so he could barely feel it, took a deep breath, and charged out into the darkness.

  He dodged left and right, nimbly dancing around swinging blades and shields, ducking under spears, and leaping over bodies that threatened to trip him in the dark. Twice he felt a fist close on his cloak, and twice he ripped free, and ran on. After the first few moments, he saw Veneka far ahead, beyond a small skirmish, and he charged after her.

  No sooner had he left the square than he heard the thunder of hooves racing into the square from the far side and he glanced back just long enough to recognize the beaded headdress of General Digna riding at the van of the cavalry, raising his heavy spear high over his head. Then the imperial soldiers swarmed the riders, and Edris ran for his life.

  Chapter 15

  Iyasu

  The young seer saw the shadows moving along the rooftops, but by then he only had a brief moment before the arrows began to fly. He grabbed Faris and Jengo, but when he tried to tell them about the ambush, instead of running they both turned to look for their attackers. Which was a mistake.

  As the first wave of Captain Alara’s men fell bleeding and crying to the ground, Jengo lowered his shield from Faris’s back and glared at the three arrows he had caught. “Run!”

  The warrior and the seer grabbed the prince and ran as quickly as Faris could move, and by the time the second wave of arrows slammed into the front of the temple, they were safely behind an ancient obelisk covered in wind-worn glyphs.

  Where is Veneka? And Zerai?

  Iyasu peeked out at the square, but Jengo pulled him back before he could see anything clearly. “It’s all right, I think. Samira and her friends are moving up to the roofs. The archers will be disarmed in a moment.”

  “You think she can save us?” Jengo asked.

  “I do, actually. Why? You’ve seen what she can do. Don’t you think she can save us?”

  “Perhaps. She’s not what I expected of a magi warrior. There’s something strange about her.”

  “There’s something strange about everyone.” Iyasu grimaced as he glanced around for some other avenue of escape from the square.

  “Are we safe here?” Faris continued to wheeze after their brief dash to find cover.

  “No.” Jengo slammed his bow down in a crack in the street and deftly strung it. As he placed his first black arrow on the string, he said, “We need higher ground.”

  Iyasu pointed at the side of the temple where a short flight of steps led up to a darkened doorway. “There. If we can get inside, we’ll be safer. The temple is a like a fortress.”

  Jengo frowned. “All right, let’s try it.”

  “Wait!” Faris grabbed Iyasu’s shoulder. “Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe we should surrender and see if Darius will be willing to talk.”

  Iyasu shrugged sadly. “I’m sorry, but that will only get us killed. We’re committed. Our only hope now is to keep moving forward. With any luck, Digna and Taharqa will get here soon.”

  “If we live that long.”

  The seer nodded. “That’s the idea.”

  The three of them darted across the narrow lane and up the stairs to the temple door. Jengo loosed three arrows and Iyasu saw five men fall, four of them impaled against the walls of buildings in pairs. He also saw the familiar shadow-blurs along the rooftops where Samira, Bashir, and Petr
a were making short work of the archers.

  I hope they can spare a few lives. Most of these men are just soldiers, just following orders, just doing their jobs to feed their families and keep themselves safe. They may be on the wrong side, they may even be cowards or fools, but they’re not evil, not mostly. They shouldn’t have to die.

  No one should have to die.

  He massaged his right hand absently.

  As Jengo attacked the temple door’s lock with a small knife, Iyasu continued to survey the battle as a hundred of Darius’s foot-soldiers poured into the square from the south and fifty men on horses charged in from the east behind a very angry-looking General Digna. The remains of Captain Alara’s men had formed a small defensive line by the front of the temple, and the noise of steel and wood slamming together, over and over, echoed through the cold city streets.

  “I hope more are coming,” Faris muttered.

  Iyasu closed his eyes to listen more closely over the din. “There are.”

  “I know their legions had been reduced, but this?” The prince shook his head.

  The door clanged and Jengo grunted with satisfaction as he slipped away his knife and propelled Faris into the dark interior. Iyasu hovered in the doorway for a last moment, watching the men in the square hacking each other to pieces, and just as his stomach was ready to churn, the young seer stepped back and closed the door.

  It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the lack of starlight, but soon he could see well enough to lead the others through the narrow halls to the central chamber of the temple, a place of meticulously designed and constructed pillars, mosaics, and screens, where tiny square tiles and small wooden beams had been assembled in enormous number to create dazzling displays of engineering and artistry.

  He ignored it all to focus on the front doors, which were closed and barred, but also shook and groaned from time to time as the soldiers outside collided with it. “Jengo, help me.”

  Together they moved a handful of benches and tables to further brace the doors, and then they sat together on their makeshift barricade to rest.

  “What happens now?” Faris asked.

  “We wait,” Iyasu said.

  “For what?”

  “Victory.”

  Jengo crossed his arms and scowled in silence.

  Faris sighed. “I suppose that’s all right then.”

  “Is it?” Iyasu glanced at him. “We’re just going to sit here in the dark and wait for hundreds of complete strangers to poke each other with pointy metal sticks, until enough are dead so you can either become their king or their last victim.”

  “Well, when you phrase it like that…”

  Iyasu closed his eyes and rubbed his hand.

  It’s the little things. There used to be a smooth scar there, and a dry patch there, and a little bump there. All gone now.

  He opened his eyes and looked at the gray shape of his fingers.

  Strange. It’s been hours since I really thought about it. It doesn’t feel so wrong anymore. I guess if I just ignore it long enough, I’ll forget altogether. And maybe that’s for the best. I can’t spend the rest of my life afraid of my own hand.

  He chuckled out loud and the sound echoed through the temple.

  “What?” Jengo said.

  “Nothing.”

  They sat and listened to the clangor of metal and stone and flesh for a quarter hour before the noise began to fade as the rhythm of battle slowed, and then stopped. Iyasu leaned closer to the door to listen. “It’s Taharqa. He’s out there.”

  “Really?” Faris stood up.

  “Yes.” Iyasu smiled sadly as he heard the general’s muffled words. “We’ve won.”

  They cleared away the barricade and emerged onto the temple steps, which earned them a few surprised looks and brandished swords from the men below, but they quickly recognized the large prince and his tall bodyguard, and the commanders converged on their sovereign to congratulate him on his victory in the square and to plan their next move.

  Iyasu stood by the prince, only half listening and making occasional eye contact with the grim old men around him. His gaze kept sliding away to the small gaps between the men through which he could see the bodies of the dead lying all around him, slowly painting the stone tiles of the square in horribly dark shades of red.

  All these men were alive an hour ago. They had wives and children. They had favorite songs and foods. And now…

  They’d be alive right now if I hadn’t come back, if I hadn’t…

  “We should go,” he said abruptly, cutting off General Digna. “Every moment here is a moment for Darius to summon the rest of his armies to find us, or for him to escape us. We need to reach the palace immediately.”

  “I agree.” Taharqa nodded. “We’ll form up and move out, and continue this conversation in the royal audience chamber with His Majesty upon his rightful throne.”

  Iyasu nodded and started walking away by himself, stepping carefully over the bodies.

  “There he is, Iyasu!” Zerai and Veneka ran up to him and the healer gave him a quick hug. “We were so worried. Where were you?”

  “Hiding.” He looked over their shoulders and saw a two-eyed Edris standing just behind them, looking queasy and unsteady. “Is he all right?”

  Veneka sighed. “Mostly.”

  As they headed across the square, she explained how she had restored the singer’s face and arm, and Iyasu felt a small surge of pity and kinship with the Vaari man for a moment, and maybe in another time and place he would have felt more, but Iyasu was tired and his mind raced with visions and thoughts of violence that made him feel ill.

  They marched through the dark city streets with soldiers and archers and mounted warriors all around them in companies and columns, filling the broad avenues from wall to wall as more and more units fell into step at their sides.

  Iyasu counted them in a glance.

  Seven thousand now. I never thought we’d find so many, certainly not at night. Taharqa and the others must be more popular than I gave them credit for. Hm. It’s nice to be wrong, from time to time.

  When they reached the outer gates of the palace, the seer counted more than nine thousand men with the prince, but through the iron bars of the gates he could see a glittering ocean of eyes and blades waiting for them.

  Another battle.

  He sighed.

  More screaming, and bleeding, and choking…

  He closed his eyes and shook his head.

  “Are you all right?” Veneka touched his arm.

  “I didn’t want this. War. Here, Elladi, wherever. I didn’t want to cause more of this.”

  “I know,” she said softly. “But it’s out of our hands now. This is what we need to do to put Faris back in power, to stop the border wars, and to stop Azrael.”

  “Speaking of which, I’m surprised we haven’t seen her yet,” Zerai said. “With this many soldiers in one place, you’d think she’d leap at the chance to punish a few thousand wicked souls all at once.”

  “Be careful,” Iyasu said. “She may still come.”

  The commanders rode with their prince closer to the van of their army and called out to the men behind the walls, “Open these gates, in the name of Faris Harun!”

  And faintly they heard a voice reply, “To march against the king of Maqari is treason, and the fate of all traitors is death!”

  Iyasu rubbed his eyes. All around him he saw men, young men, all of them tense and nervous, scared and anxious, or worse, coldly resolved to the doom of their profession.

  There must be something I can do. There must be… Arrah, sweet Arrah, lend me your eyes, for mine have failed. Show me the third path between killing and dying, show me the way to peace, please.

  He opened his eyes and the first face he saw was that of Samira Nerash. “Samira?”

  “Yes?” She stood wrapped in her dark robes, her black hair gently teasing out from under her headscarf in the brisk night wind.

  “Can you
stop an army for me?”

  “No. Not for you, and not for God himself,” she said quietly. “Fifty men was more than I could manage on my own. An army is far too many.”

  “What if you didn’t have to fight them each, one by one? What if you could just push them aside all at once? That wall you made on the road, the one that Azrael shattered, it was massive. Could you do that again?”

  “A wall? Where? To what end?”

  Iyasu peered up at the gates where the commanders and nobles continued to shout orders and threats at each other. “What about two walls? You could make a corridor straight from the gates to the foot of the palace. Just wall off the soldiers inside to the left and right so we can ride straight through.”

  “Maybe. But their archers would slaughter you as you passed.”

  He frowned. “Not a corridor then. A tunnel. Can you make a tunnel?”

  Samira raised her head and gazed boldly at the gates. “It’s a long way from the gates to the palace.”

  “But can you do it?”

  “Of course I can.” She strode away. “Stay here.”

  The djinn cleric went over to Jengo and spoke to him for a moment, and then she began walking slowly through the ranks of soldiers toward the wall. Jengo dashed to Faris and spoke to the commanders, who stopped yelling at their counterpart inside the palace.

  Iyasu held his breath.

  Please let this work.

  Samira stopped and raised her hands. The iron gates ripped apart and each curled up against its hinges, laying the path through the walls wide open. But before the men on either side could approach the gap, the street began to rumble and shudder beneath their feet. As the men staggered away from the crushed gates, the ground between them began to rise like a serpent slithering up from the depths of the earth. In the courtyard, a long mound of stones heaved itself up, one lurch at a time, with each lurch making the mound longer and wider.

  As the mound rose, the soldiers standing on it stumbled, fell, and rolled off it to either side. Second by second, the mound grew larger as it stretched farther and farther from the gates, reaching out to touch the steps of the palace. And then the front of the mouth groaned and crumbled apart, splitting into a toothless maw of hard clay and soft sand that revealed the long empty tunnel inside the mound.