He suddenly felt as if he were in a dream. The snakes swam towards him but he did not fear them. He beat his arms in the water to scare them away, not out of fear, but…he did not know why. One vanished. The other latched onto his forearm. He tried to shake it free and the snake flailed through the air. In the next instant, it was gone and he could see the red pinpricks its fangs had left behind, seeping smears of watery blood. He sensed what had just happened was not a good thing, but he was not particularly afraid.
"Were they real?"
"Did you not feel the fangs?"
"I feel fangs just as painful in my dreams. Do you not experience sensations that you know are not real?"
"I do not dream. Neither do I sleep."
"Tell me then: what kind of snakes were they?"
"The one that bit you was a Tygetian asp, a species favored by Mejadym assassins. The other was harmless."
"Then I will be dead soon."
"Who will not?"
"If I die here, do I also die…back there?"
"Dead is dead," said Kunuum.
"Then I will kill you quickly, as I may not have much time."
Kunuum walked down the steps. Hurrus could see its shape through the fog, but could make out none of its features. He was a gray shadow of a bull-man walking towards him carrying a long staff. If not for its horns, Hurrus might have thought it was just a man.
"Why do you wish to kill me?"
"It is what I must do." He was certain of it, though he did not know why. He pulled one of his feet free of the muck and twisted at the waist to grab hold of the solid bank. He was not going to accomplish much mired in the bog. "You know as well as I do," he added, struggling to find purchase for his freed foot.
"You make it sound so easy," said Kunuum.
Now, Hurrus could just make out the shadow of its horned head peering at him over a stand of reeds across the pool - a bull-shaped shadow emerging from a reed-shaped shadow. Over on the jumble of toppled stones, the ibis-man sat writing something in a parchment scroll. His human legs were crossed and Hurrus could see his long, curved beak.
"Perhaps you could help me out of here," Hurrus said, a little impatiently.
"You're doing fine, Eagle Man."
"So you know who I am?" He found a rock lodged in the bank and, grasping tufts of weeds in his hands, put his foot on it and began lifting himself out of the water.
"I know all who come to defeat me."
"Have any ever succeeded?" Hurrus pulled himself up onto the bank. Climbing to his feet, he turned and found Kunuum towering over him. It jabbed Hurrus in the stomach with the tip of his staff. Hurrus fell to the ground, pain coursing through his body. When he opened his eyes, Kunuum's hooves dominated his field of vision. Tufts of fur spilled over the tops of them. The ibis-man was writing vigorously on his seat of jumbled stones.
"What is he writing about?"
"He is recording the day of your death," Kunuum said. He whacked Hurrus across the bridge of his nose with his staff. Wincing in pain, Hurrus rolled away in the wet grass. He bound to his feet and immediately ducked under the staff as it came swinging through the air at him. Kunuum said, "He keeps very precise records."
Hurrus could tell when the ibis was looking at him. It would stop writing and cock its head so that Hurrus could see the shape of his curved beak in full profile.
"Does he say whether I die from asp venom, or your damned staff?"
"He does not record the future, only events as they occur."
"I might yet survive then," Hurrus said with a smile. He could feel a warm trail of blood flowing from his nose, and tasted copper on his lips.
"That depends." Kunuum took a short, hard swipe at Hurrus' face, then with blinding speed whirled and swung at Hurrus' head. Hurrus dodged it, losing his balance and falling to one knee. The blow had the force of death behind it. Hurrus sprang to his feet, backing off.
"On what does it depend?" he asked, going into a defensive crouch.
"On whether or not you have the Creator in you." Kunuum swung again, but this time Hurrus stopped it dead in the palm of his hand. The bull-man tried to pull it free, but Hurrus held it fast.
He grinned. "I am of divine birth," he said, wrenching the staff from Kunuum's grasp. Quickly and powerfully, Hurrus swung but felt his attack shudder to a halt with a dull crack of wood. Kunuum had deflected the blow, once again holding a staff in its hands. From where it appeared, Hurrus had not seen.
"Divine birth," the bull-man scoffed. The creature was expressionless, but Hurrus could hear laughter in its tone. Its eyes were blank orbs of stone. It regarded him coldly, sightlessly. Man, beast or god, Hurrus was suddenly uncertain. He felt fear and confusion. "You are demonspawn," the thing said. "Sired by demons so numerous, no one can trace your true lineage."
"You speak lies!" Hurrus drove the point of his staff into Kunuum's stomach so quickly the bull had no time to react. It doubled over and Hurrus delivered it a blow to the side of the head that knocked it from its feet. He felt the end of his staff clatter against the thing's horn and he saw blood glistening in its ear. Hurrus did not know how he could tell from Kunuum's expressionless face, but he did know: that was not supposed to happen. The ibis cocked its head and then started writing.
"The bird records the day of your demise," Hurrus said, circling the prone bull. His fear had vanished. "That is real blood you feel trickling out of your ear, bull-man."
"You cannot destroy me," Kunuum said. "I have been defeated before."
Hurrus continued to circle him. "Have any ever profited from it?"
Kunuum lashed out and struck Hurrus' ankle with his staff. He sprang to his feet, jerking the staff up through Hurrus' legs. An instant later, Hurrus found himself plunging out of midair to land flat on his back, breathless.
Kunuum slammed his staff down where Hurrus' head would have been had he not managed to roll away from the blow. He wrapped his arm around Kunuum's staff and yanked it from the bull's grasp as he climbed to his feet.
Hurrus threw Kunuum's weapon aside. Was that fear he saw in the creature's blind eyes? "Why do you seek this power?" Kunuum asked, stepping back.
"You don't know?"
"I have seen only one other like you."
Hurrus jabbed at Kunuum's face, then feinted to one side while delivering an uppercut slash that spun the newly reappeared staff from Kunuum's hands. Then he launched a flurry of blows to the thing's chest and head, enough to kill a man. The bull-man fell to one knee.
"You have seen none other like me," Hurrus countered.
Hurrus reared back and swung, but Kunuum caught the staff in its hand and pulled Hurrus in close to its face. Hurrus stood nose to snout with the thing.
"You ask if any have profited?" Kunuum rasped. "I tell you the answer is no." He gave a hard shove and Hurrus, staff and all, fell to the ground. When he tried to reach for his weapon, he found Kunuum's hoof painfully astride his forearm. Kunuum knelt down beside him and spoke close into his ear. "If you look carefully, you will see the shades of men who have tried to defeat me." Hurrus thought of the figures flitting at the periphery of his vision. He thought of the bodies of men with lost souls. He struggled to rise, but found himself pinned to the ground. "Some I spit out for the priests to tend to. Some I allow to remain here with me. They have long since abandoned the fight. But you? I have a feeling you would not abandon the fight. As a Son of Kunuum, you shall live in me. I will keep you here, and you shall live in my belly."
Horrified, Hurrus watched as the bull-man opened its jaws and lowered its head. He felt the flesh of his chest squeezed as if in a vise and then he screamed as it was ripped from his body. When Kunuum looked up again, its snout was red with his blood. It grasped Hurrus' arm in an iron grip and placed his hand between its teeth. Hurrus could not move. Kunuum had only to tighten his jaw muscles slightly and Hurrus would lose his sword hand at the wrist.
"Do you mean to eat me?" Hurrus asked.
"I saved you once, when dark men had
come to kill you. That makes you mine."
"You?"
"You are a Son of Kunuum, are you not?" Kunuum's words echoed inside Hurrus' head. They did not issue from the bull's lips. "I know why you seek this power. It is always the same. It is because you know against what type of men you'll have to fight."
"Yes, but do you?" Hurrus answered. He felt the teeth begin to dig into his wrist. He opened his hand wide, straining his fingers. He felt his hand expand inside the bull's mouth, pushing back at the clenching teeth, until it had grown to twice its normal size. The creature had no inkling of what was about to happen to it. Its blind eyes remained as impassive, as insentient as the stone from which they had been carved. Hurrus' hand continued to grow - three times and then five times its normal size until Kunuum's jaw broke free from its joints and Hurrus' fingers exploded through the creature's skull, showering him in its blood.
When Hurrus stood, he towered over the diminutive form of the headless bull-man. He cast his eyes upon the ibis, who stopped writing and cocked its head to peer at Hurrus out of one of its eyes. "Put that in your ledger," Hurrus said, and stepped back into the chamber of the two Kunuum's, the sower of stars and the Deathbringer.
He found that he needed no torch now. The tunnels through which he had fearfully groped just moments before were bright as day. He found his own footprints, skid marks in the dust, and he retraced his steps back the way he had come. Seeing the faint torchlight from the opening in Jhar's wall, he walked toward it and the meager light of the flames faded in the radiance that preceded him down the corridor. Xandros' face appeared in the opening, his eyes widening in fear and amazement. He backed away slowly and Hurrus kicked through what was left of the wall.
When he saw him, Jhar let his torch fall to the floor and he pressed himself tight to the rough stone wall, his arms splayed. "By the gods!" he gasped. "What have I done?"
Hurrus looked down at Xandros. "Follow me to Epiria," he said, and Xandros knew he had no choice but to leave the temple with him.
Chapter 35
Menleco's eyes darted from the figure of the archer on the ridgeline to the rider in the valley below. The horse trotted heedlessly across the valley floor while the archer above drew her bowstring. He knew what was about to happen, but was helpless to prevent it. He also knew who the archer was, even from across the valley.
She made such a perfect picture - the mounted archeress targeting some distant foe - that he felt he might be watching a scene staged by the famed Cleonander himself: Veronysia lighting the sky with a shaft of gold.
Only the shaft she fired did not inspire love in the heart it pierced. Far from it.
The horse's back legs buckled and the beast fell to its knees. In a cloud of dust, the rider disappeared under its bulk. Menleco imagined he had seen the arrow arcing all the way down into the horse's haunch, though he knew he was too far to see any shaft just as he was too distant to hear any sound. It seemed strange to him to witness the death of the horse and the toppling of the man in silence. Yet no sound reached his ear. From his point of view, the horse had simply been trotting up the long slope one moment and falling onto its side the next, its legs kicking up a cloud of roiling dust. It would have seemed pointless and surreal had he not glimpsed the mounted figure on the ridgeline opposite him.
The Huntress.
In one way, her presence hearkened him back to a simpler time when he could still be moved by a skillful playwright, when the mythic could be made to seem real and beautiful. In another, more urgent way, the Huntress filled him with a presentiment of doom. He imagined not only the arc of her deadly shaft, but also the line of her vengeful gaze that stared him straight in the eye. If not for an unassailable range, he knew her shaft would have flown at his heart rather than at some nameless scout who had carelessly ridden within the reach of her bow.
The rider rose out of the dust thrown up by the black heap of his dying horse. He began scampering up the slope on foot, casting anxious glances behind him as he ran. To him, death fell unseen out of a clear blue sky. How terrifying, Menleco thought. The Huntress did not string another arrow, but just sat there, looking…
…at Menleco. He was sure of it - hearkening back to a simpler time, indeed. To a time when it had been her life or his. Only now, he was certain it would be his. He watched her ride away, first her horse's head and then hers vanishing below the ridge.
"They know we are here," Raulon said.
Lost in thought, Menleco heard the sound of Raulon's voice, but failed to catch the words.
"They know we are here," Raulon repeated. "What are your orders, sir?" He paused, waiting, but receiving no answer, asked again, "General, your orders?"
"Coronea is with them," Menleco answered, shaking off his reverie.
"So?"
"So, it bodes ill," Menleco snapped irritably. "I delivered her into the hands of the Irrylians, and yet here she is opposing us."
"She is slippery. I will give her that."
"Slippery enough to escape the Irrylians' witch - and that is slippery indeed."
"Good for her, I say. We were lucky to escape ourselves, if you ask me."
Menleco cast his captain a sidelong glance. "We have not escaped yet," he said.
"Then maybe we're on the wrong side of this valley," said Raulon. "Did you ever think of that?"
"I have thought of everything, Captain. If Coronea is over there, then so is Xanthippus…and so is Lyssa."
"But isn't that what you wanted? Xanthippus you will kill, and Lyssa you will take as your queen when Prathia spreads her legs for you." Raulon chuckled darkly, enjoying his own imagery.
"Then why do I feel death approaching?"
Raulon shrugged and Menleco watched the dismounted rider continue to scramble up the hillside. The threat to him was long gone, but he still ran a zigzag course, peering over his shoulder.
"I fear one of the Huntress' arrows is destined for me," Menleco said.
Raulon's laugh was clipped short by Menleco's hard look. "Is there anyone who is not trying to kill you?" he asked dryly.
Before Menleco could answer, an Irrylian officer galloped over a crest behind them.
"Deploy your troops, General," he called, riding towards them. He reined up and handed a parchment down to Menleco. The aging general opened it and saw the deployment order scribbled in Nachtus' clumsy hand. No writing instrument would fit comfortably in his gigantic fingers, so his written orders were often an impenetrable scrawl. Menleco folded the note neatly and slipped it under his leather cuirass.
His Prathians were to occupy the extreme left of the Irrylian line, a dishonor to which his men were ill-used. Yet Menleco would not complain. They had been traveling inside Prathia for three days now and during their long march through Epiria, Menleco had done all he could to avoid the giant, remembering the feel of his thick fingers around his throat.
"Then I will be facing the Prathians," he said, knowing Xathippus' troops would occupy the enemy right, the place of honor. Coronea's appearance on the ridgeline confirmed it.
"Facing, but not fighting," the officer said, glowering down at him. Menleco knew the Irrylians hated him. During the coming fight, he vowed to watch his back as well as his front. "General Nachtus expects the Prathians to lay down their arms - as you promised, General."
"Lay down their arms? They will run to me. They are my men." He recalled how the Guard had ceased their attack on his Shadow Rider camp at the mere mention of his name. Surely, they would not allow themselves to be commanded by the low-born usurper Xanthippus when Menleco stood before them. Turning their arms against the Riders was one thing - perhaps he did not even blame them - but they would not turn on Menleco. Not the Guard. They had been his for twenty-five years, and all had profited under his leadership. What greater profit would they know when they were commanded by the king himself? King Menleco, that is. This was what he would convey to them.
"And they will fight for Irrylia?" the officer asked.
The ma
n's question was a challenge. Menleco saw only sneering disbelief in his expression. He itched to tell him the truth, that he would first turn the Guard on the Irrylians, if he had a chance, and be rid of this oaf officer and his dolt of a giant commander as well.
"Of course," Menleco said.
After the officer had gone, Menleco ordered Raulon to bring the troops forward, a bare 2000 men, a meager force with which to face Xanthippus' Guard, 20,000 strong. When he saw the rest of the Irrylian army boil over the hillside - blocks of spearmen, archers and javelineers, wedges of cavalry and wave upon wave of implacable Bearded Men - he felt like a captive, caught between poor choices. Nachtus alone, he thought, would have deterred most armies from taking the field against them. Even among the throngs of soldiers, the giant was impossible to miss as he tramped down the hillside at the head of his force. The sword he carried was as tall as some men, and the Irrylians' peculiar Bearded Men followed faithfully behind him like a huge pack of hunting dogs. Across the wide field, the ill-equipped Epirians seemed to gaze upon him in awe. Menleco could feel their fear.
He did not begin to feel his own until he saw the great black mass of the Prathian Guard filling the slope before him. They recalled a swarm of hornets, he thought. He would not have liked to be the one to plunge his hand into their nest, as to a man he knew they were seasoned killers. But they were his killers, by gods, and he would have them back.
"They will see in a moment that they are opposed by Menleco," he said. The valley was full of sound - the clatter of arms, the tramping of feet and hooves, the barking shouts of officers. Nachtus' voice seemed to rise above them all, a deep booming thunder like the beating of a war drum. Amid such a clamor, Menleco did not blame Xanthippus' Prathians for not noticing him yet. They continued to sort themselves out on the sloping ground, arranging themselves into bristling lines. Their steel spear points reflected the sun amid a sea of black armor and cloaks. Menleco had never been on the business end of the Prathian array, staring down the point of Prathian spears. He realized that he had never fully appreciated what it felt like to stand against them.
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