The Dark Queen

by Michael Williams

  Fordus looked around him. Forty Istarians dead, but twelve of his own, as well. Even more rebels wounded, though these were rising to their feet, preparing for yet another assault.

  It did not matter. Reinforcements were coming soon.

  * * * * *

  From the Kingpriest's Tower, Tamex looked out across the city, past the walls and onto the plains, where the skirmish unfolded. There, banners tilted and nodded as Istarian troops attacked and regrouped, then attacked again, each time suffering grievous losses, it seemed, but each time whittling away at the rebel numbers.

  He could not believe the easy foolishness of this War Prophet, this Prophet King. Assaulting the Istar-ians with less than a hundred men.

  He scanned the ranks of the entrenching rebels. Plainsman and bandit had gathered the shields and armor of the fallen Istarian pikemen. The desert robes were lost in a swirl of leather cuirasses, of bur shy;nished bronze shields so bright that the glare made the rebels hard to number, their leaders hard to identify.

  Surely not Fordus, Tamex thought. Surely this is a scouting party only, and the War Prophet waited behind the lines, safe in an encampment from which he could direct the battle.

  With the sight of a god couched in his crystalline eyes, Tamex scanned the horizons, his gaze reaching as far as a small rebel camp, twenty more miles of plains, and then the beginning of the forests.

  Nothing.

  No concealed forces. No rebel reinforcements, except for that huddled handful in the mountain pass, led by the jilted bard.

  Still, the dark general refused to commit his troops. Perhaps Fordus had surprises planned, was waiting for the full assault to unleash a veiled and dangerous tactic.

  The woods themselves could be bristling with rebels.

  Tamex would wait. He would hurl attack after attack at the entrenching company of Plainsmen, losing ten men, twenty, even a hundred for each fallen Que-Nara.

  What difference would it make? The rebels were gravely outnumbered. Eventually, the numbers would win out.

  From his balcony, Tamex signaled the herald. The mounted messenger guided his horse to the foot of the tower. Scrawling a hasty message on a scroll, Tamex dropped the missive to the young man, who took it and galloped to the gates of the city, bearing orders for Celeres, the commander of the celebrated Sixth Legion, whose soldiers waited impatiently, hidden from rebel eyes inside the city gates.

  Hold ranks, the message said. Wait until further orders.

  They would hold until he found Fordus Firesoul.

  * * * * *

  Weary and battle-shocked, the Fourth Legion withdrew and regrouped in the milling Istarian ranks. Again the archers drew and fired, and then for a moment the battlefield stilled, as if neither side were willing to engage again.

  Then slowly, not as if they had not been ordered, but prodded or pushed or cajoled, the spearmen of the Second Legion surged over the beaten plain, two com shy;panies of the finest Istarian swordsmen following.

  In a ragged semicircle, their numbers reduced to about fifty, the rebels braced for the attack. In the center of the line, Aeleth nocked his bow, and a dozen Que-Nara readied their slings. On each flank the officers waited-Rann on the left and Fordus on the right.

  It was the old tactic, straight out of the Battle of the Plains. First the rebels salted the legion with arrows and stones, then Aeleth's troops turned and withdrew, the angry Istarians charging after. At the right moment, when the Second Legion was spread out and overextended, Fordus and Rann attacked, and the rebels converged on the hapless Istarians, who turned, broke ranks, and ran under a withering assault.

  Fordus, eyes alight and head high, whirled across the battlefield like a deadly wind. An arrow passed inches from his head, ripping away his kaffiyeh, and bare-headed, his auburn hair blowing back and tan shy;gling, he urged his men to pursue the fleeing Second Legion.

  The enlivened rebels surged around and past him, and the War Prophet whooped ecstatically. He had turned the Istarian army, and behind his charging forces, he thought he saw wavering shapes rising out of the bloodied ground.

  The dead. The army of the dead had arrived.

  Hear the word of the Prophet.

  From his vantage in the Tower, Tamex saw the kaf shy;fiyeh fall from the auburn-haired warrior, saw as well the gold collar at the man's neck.

  It was all he needed to see.

  "Fordus!" he whispered. Then, aloud, "Messenger!"

  The next courier galloped to the city gates, where a thousand men stood ready.

  Celeres and the Sixth Legion got their order:

  March. Attack. Take no prisoners.

  The gates of Istar opened, issuing forth the Sixth Legion, their strides quickening with the loose, con shy;fident movement of veterans. The other Istarian sol shy;diers parted ranks as the crack troops moved into the open field. Spears raised, shields glittering, in a matter of minutes they closed with the remaining rebels.

  Twenty of Fordus's troops fell before they could return a single blow. The rebels reeled back, turned, and routed, their destination the camp, the forest- anywhere.

  High in her marble perch, masked by the face of Tamex, Takhisis laughed softly. She leaned against the wall, her masculine, faceted body as hard as the stone against which it rested.

  And so it would have been over, were it not for the storm that lifted out of the sandy fields and bore down upon the armies.

  For Sargonnas had not waited and brooded and plotted to let this moment pass.

  When the Sixth Legion surged through the rebel lines, the landscape burst with a hundred geysers of fire. Borne on the rising wind, the glowing ash rained havoc on the Istarian rear guard. The red ban shy;ners smoldered and caught fire, and the vaunted troops scattered, screaming and burning, unable to fight what they could not understand.

  In the front of the little battle the Sixth Legion slowed, uncertain. The firestorm rushed at them, passing over them in a deadly wave of fire. The stark hexagonal standards erupted in flame, and Celeres himself fell in the inferno.

  On the far flank of the rebel forces, Fordus and Northstar scrambled clear of the storm. Behind them, Istarian and rebel burned on the blasted battlefield-Rann and Aeleth, the vaunted Sixth Legion fell quickly, engulfed in smoke and fire.

  "The Prophet King . . ." Northstar began. He blindly searched for Fordus in the rolling murk of the smoke-filled sky.

  "This way," Fordus shouted, and began to run.

  "But, Fordus!" Northstar coughed. "I can't see you…"

  The Prophet vanished in a curtain of smoke.

  Spiraling to the ground, the great young guide of the Que-Nara crawled the tight circle he had already passed over, then circled it again. Cries burst from the smoke, and at the edges of his awareness, North-star could catch the dance of flames, shadows flit shy;ting back and forth through the smothering, twilight country.

  "Fordus?" he called. "Fordus?"

  No answer returned from the thickening smoke.

  Choking, sneezing, the Plainsman fell flat on his face. Stay low in a fire, someone had told him when he was a child. So he lay in a flat, barren clearing, clutching his rescued medallion and praying for the fire to pass, for the smoke to spare him.

  When three Istarians, swords drawn, stumbled into the clearing a moment later, they found him facedown on the ground-guttering, gasping, drowning in smoke. And though they, too, were seeking refuge from the fire-storm, passage through the flame and through the strangling smoke, they were veterans and merciless, stopping long enough to follow their general's orders: "Take no prisoners."

  Northstar's hand at last relaxed on the medal, and he found his way to death with no trouble at all.

  * * * * *

  Using his extraordinary speed, Fordus burst clear of the smoke. Behind him the plains were ablaze from one horizon to the other. Istarian legionnaires raced toward the city in panic, but Fordus passed them by, his thoughts no longer on strategy and tactics.

  He was bound for the ci
ty gates, for the Temple.

  And for the Kingpriest.

  On whose head he would rain the fire of vengeance.

  * * * * *

  Upon the Tower's highest balcony, reeling in dis shy;belief from the sudden turn of the battle, Tamex saw a solitary figure spring clear of the holocaust.

  "Fordus!" he breathed, alarm changing slowly to a silent exultation as the man raced toward the gates of the city.

  Oh, this is better, Tamex thought, his faceted fea shy;tures suddenly feminine, reptilian.

  Rain on, Sargonnas. Rain on, you petty fool. May the smoke of your torment ascend for ever and ever, and may you have no rest in day or night. You can shy;not send fire enough to burn me, storm enough to make me seek shelter.

  Now, across the burning plain, Fordus comes to Istar. He will be mine, and I shall keep my promise.

  I will show him who he really is.

  Chapter 22

  The last morning of the Shinarion was disrupted by the smoke from the battlefield.

  It began as a shifting haze overhead, a sharp musty smell in the sunstruck air. But slowly it thick shy;ened, and the merchants, the drovers, the pickpock shy;ets and vendors took to the northern streets in. curiosity at what could possibly overcome the lin shy;gering smell of dead fish.

  Their golden ribbons, worn in honor of the god shy;dess, fluttered soiled and frayed. Their pockets were empty, their resources drained, for the saying held true that nobody grew rich at the Shinarion. Above all, they felt weary, tired out by the revelry, by the wheeling and dealing and the thick corruption on display in the final days of the festival.

  What they sought in the streets, the air above them bristling with smoke and cinder, offered diversion.

  Something was afoot in the fields outside the city. The rumors were as thick as the smoke.

  So, many of the celebrants, watching the sky and listening and gossiping, missed entirely the strange, quiet warrior that slipped through their midst, borne on fleet foot through the northernmost streets of the city, his head bared, his eyes smoke-stung and ravening, his heart twisted toward murder.

  The city lay before him like a maze of crystals, the tall reflective buildings blinding him, baffling his path to the Tower.

  For long, painful moments Fordus ranged through the baffling marbled streets. Smoke from the burn shy;ing plain drifted over the Istarian walls, and the new, alien landscape of man-made things clouded over, hazy and indistinct.

  At the edges of his sight, just out of focus, dark shapes flitted and dodged like swamplight. The Prophet could see the gold fretting on their robes, the gold ribbons drooping over their shoulders, a testament to some forgotten god. They chattered to each other in a hidden language.

  He knew the army of the dead had come to help him. They had come at last, just as he prophesied. They had invaded Istar at his orders, and were wait shy;ing for him.

  Heartened, the raving Prophet wound his way through the intricate streets, past tavern and booth and vendors' wagons, always moving toward the center of the city where, through the fretted purple smoke, the looming spires of the Kingpriest's Tower dodged in and out of view.

  His city. His Tower. He would meet this usurping Kingpriest face-to-face. As equals, who spoke to the gods, who commanded innumerable legions.

  Into the Marketplace Fordus rushed. A passing squadron of Istarian soldiers startled, dropped their weapons, and dispersed as the haunted, robed man rushed at them silently, like some dangerous wind from the desert.

  It lay directly before him now: the great Tower with its ancient marble foundations, low surround shy;ing wall… and bolted iron gates.

  Muttering distractedly, Fordus rattled the bars across the archway. Then, like a spider, he scrambled over the wall.

  And found himself in yet another maze-this time of thick foliage and lush, overgrown garden rows of evergreen and climbing vine.

  Drawing his throwing axe, Fordus cut his way through the Kingpriest's private wilderness, slash shy;ing and hacking, his anger rising until his hand touched cold marble, his axe splintering with a blind, furious blow against the strong foundation of the Tower itself.

  For a moment the Prophet rested his head against the cold stone, choking and gasping for air.

  Had the smoke come this far?

  He looked up the Tower. Faint murky tendrils encircled the spire, and its looming top was lost in a higher haze, but directly above was the dark of a window. Instantly, resolutely, using only his fingers and toes, Fordus began to climb.

  Through the smoke and the damaged landscape, Stormlight followed.

  Wading through the burning fields, he traced a long, looping path around the flames, the massacred rebels, the ignited Sixth Legion, and found his way to the damaged gates of Istar-to the same portal through which the Prophet had passed.

  Istar loomed inside them, unreal and dark. Trac shy;ing a roundabout path through the concentric pen shy;tagonal walls of the inner city, he approached its epicenter, its heart: the marble tower that housed the Kingpriest.

  For that was Fordus's destination. Stormlight was sure of it. And sure, from the years of affinity between Prophet and interpreter, in which their minds had virtually melded in the search for water, for victory, for hidden dangers, that his old compan shy;ion was still alive.

  Alive, and bound for the end of his journey.

  At the very window toward which Fordus climbed, Takhisis waited, breathing cold life into the crystalline form of Tamex. Her hours as a warrior of salt and sand were dwindling. Already Tamex crumbled at the edges, two of his fingers broken off in the mere act of opening the door to this sparely appointed guest chamber.

  Yes, the both of them waited there-the translu shy;cent warrior and his animating spirit.

  But there was another as well. A blue-eyed, bald shy;ing man who cowered in the corner of the chamber, nervously fraying the lace on his high priest's robes.

  Tamex had wakened him from his unsettling mid-morning slumber, where he dreamt trees as things with daggers, brooks and streams thickening and darkening in the red moon. He had almost been grateful to awaken, until he saw his visitor, translu shy;cent and eroding, at the foot of his bed.

  He whimpered once, most unroyally. Fumbling for the broadsword in which the druid had instructed him all these years, he clutched the pommel desperately, but it was as though his arms had failed him-the sword was heavy and his hands trembled.

  Tamex had dragged the Kingpriest from his sump shy;tuous quarters, imprisoning him in this room to wait out the last of the night, the sunrise, the first blood of the battle. Then, coming down from the walls, the crystal warrior had joined his captive in a meeting he knew would be brief.

  Now Fordus climbed the last few feet toward the window. Tamex glanced once at the Kingpriest, whose sea-blue eyes widened at the sound of some shy;thing scraping beneath the sill.

  Good, the goddess thought, swirling slowly in her body of salt.

  Good. It is time for them to meet.

  * * * * *

  Fordus climbed through the window.

  Moving quickly, his eyes adjusting to the shadows of the room, the Prophet saw two figures at the far door. One was Tamex, the man in the salt flats-the dark and menacing warrior who had trifled with Larken in the battle's aftermath.

  Fordus crouched, prepared for battle. But then he noticed the other.

  The older man-the balding, robed dignitary-he had seen somewhere, he was certain. The face lay half-shadowed, but the curious sunlight in the room illumined the man's eyes.

  Sea-blue. The color of Fordus's own.

  Cautiously, the Prophet approached them, draw shy;ing his dagger.

  "At last," Tamex said, with a voice that resonated out of Fordus's memory-a voice he recalled from a vision, a dream.

  He shrank from its sound.

  "At last," Tamex repeated, raising a cracked and crumbling hand. "I have brought us all together."

  With astonishment, Fordus saw that the warrior- the crea
ture-before him was a thing of rock and crystal, a breathing stone with a stone's heart.

  The thing gestured toward its white-robed com shy;panion. "Bow before the Kingpriest of Istar, Fordus Firesoul."

  "The Prophet bows to no man," Fordus replied coldly, knuckles whitening as his grip on the dagger tightened.

  "But honor is due the Kingpriest," Tamex insisted melodiously. "A natural honor that rises . . . from a forgotten time."

  "You talk in riddles, false warrior," Fordus replied.

  "Who is this man, Tamex?" asked the Kingpriest nervously, and the pale man turned his faceted face to the cowering ruler.

  "This is the one who would have your throne, such as it is," Tamex announced. "This is Fordus, the Desert Prophet."

  "Wh-What do you want of me?" the Kingpriest stammered, backing hard against the wall and the nearby door. "I intend you no harm, no slight. Stay away from my throne!" His fingers fumbled vaguely for the latch.

  "You will remain!" ordered Tamex, a new, cold authority in his voice. It delighted and amused the goddess within him to humiliate the ruler of a vast empire, but the cravenness of the Kingpriest was sometimes . . . inconvenient.

  In disgust and contempt, Fordus watched the robed man grovel. Why, the Kingpriest, his chosen enemy, was nothing but a coward! A thing of robes and her shy;aldry and high renown-no more than a figurehead, an elegant glove for his general's iron hand.

  "And are you any better, false Prophet?" asked Tamex, his glittering amber eyes turned toward For shy;dus. "You accuse me of speaking in riddles . . . you! The mirage of the desert, the mockery of a Prophet!"

  "You dare call me a mockery?" Fordus asked men shy;acingly, taking a long, aggressive stride toward the warrior.

  "Oh, yes, Fordus Firesoul. You are a mockery. And many other foolish things."