She ignored her consort and stroked the sack again as if it were a pet. “We do not wish war,” she said. “For we have had enough blood spilled before your arrival. But you must bow to your queen.”
“If you are a queen, you are a queen of wolves, and in your path I hear the footsteps of an even greater wolf queen than you, who will put her claws upon your skull and crush it. Give me the staff of the gray priests of Nahhash. It was not cut from their bones that you might keep it in your jaws. Wolves cannot carry the shepherd’s staff, but must be hunted from the pen and driven back into the darkness.”
“You—a devil—are not a wolf?”
“I hunt as a wolf, but my greatest prey are other wolves.”
“If you hunt as a wolf, then I am your queen, and you will bow before me.”
“Who has ordained you? These shadow priests?” I asked. “For I recognize you only as a sad maiden I once loved, who has abandoned the good and the pure and the true and turned to bog magick and a dark goddess for her worship.”
She grabbed the Disk at her throat. “I worship the Virgin of Shadows, who saved our lands—and many other countries—from the plagues!”
From the foot soldiers came the shout, “Hail the Virgin of Shadows! Blessed is the Disk and those who dream it!”
“Yes, blessed are they who dream of the Disk,” Enora said, like a cat with a mouse in its jaws.
“This Virgin of Shadows—she brought the plagues, as you well know, Lady White-Horse. She is the Dark Madonna who has transfigured your wolf-women, and released the Myrrydanai hounds that you call White Robes. It is she who made you murder your brother and drink from his heart. It is she who has brought you the alchemist who seeks destruction of mortal life. It is she who has torn love from you and replaced it with the ice of winter. But I wonder why you don’t have your men attack me. For I stand within your circle.”
“We do not wish more bloodshed. The Akkadites are nearly slaughtered, and the woodland heresies are burned,” she said. “I am a peace-loving queen. Call off your demons, and make your oaths of fealty to me, and pass me the staff and the sword you hide, which are sacred to the White Robes, and I will allow you to exist, devil. But if you bring this war to us, I will personally rip your unborn baby from your mistress’s belly with my bare hands. And when I have that bloodied thing in my grasp, I will feed it to my wolves.”
“Your hell will begin if these things come to pass,” I said. I closed my eyes, and called to the Serpent within me: Come now, through me, through my arm, through this bone of the Nahhashim priests.
I opened my eyes again.
“You have held this stolen staff too long,” I said. “It was broken from the white bone of the Nahhashim, who are the gray priests of Myrryd. Their bones grow as a tree in a garden, guarded by the Akhnetur. It was meant only for one—and that is I. It brings you sorcery, and strength to your shadow-masters, my lady. But to wield it you cannot dig up that sorcery in a bog, nor call it from the dead with your Chymer wolves. You know this—as Artephius knows it. As Ghorien knows it.” As I said the name of the White Robe priest, I quickly sensed that one of them had moved slightly. Not the dozen who stood nearest Enora, but one of the ones farther back. He is hiding from me. He knows now that I know his name. He knows I have taken the Nameless, and carved my own staff from the Nahhashim. He knows I am dangerous now, where I was merely an annoyance before. I kept my eyes on Enora, but tried to draw back in my mind and see if Ghorien would move again and reveal himself. “As with all weapons of sorcery, the Nahhashim staff calls out only for the one who is its master.”
“You are the wolf come to us from the woods, devil. If you do not surrender to me, your children will die. All of them. In pain,” she said.
I thrust the staff forward and leaned into my mount. The blast of it vibrated through my being as I felt it explode forward—a wave of vibration in the air, a heat magick. A sound like an enormous crashing of rocks boomed from it as Enora raised her staff against this assault. All of the power was invisible, but her staff seemed to catch it in midair. Then it was sent back to me in a blast that knocked me back, and I clutched at my horse to remain upon him.
“Do not use sorcery on me, devil!” she said. “Will you surrender now? Your word is good to us, and your demons will do as you wish. If you allow my guards to take you to our dungeons, we will release your demoness.”
Rather than answer her, I leapt from my horse. My wings erupted from the back of the Raptorius, thrusting at full expanse along my shoulders.
I held up the staff and when I opened my mouth, words in the language of the Great Serpent came forth, undecipherable even by he who spoke.
From my wrist, I felt a snap as if a muscle had torn from bone, and the staff in my hand flew out into the air. I leapt for it, and as I grabbed it, I saw the White Robe priest whose hand had lifted in the air, as if calling some sorcery from it.
Ghorien.
I marked him in my mind—there was little to distinguish him, but upon the hand that had gone up, I saw a stain at the palm, as if the dead whom the shadow priest had robbed of skin held a birthmark that ran from his thumb to the center of his hand.
I crouched on the ground, my wings spread. In another moment, the trap might be sprung and all the fighting would begin.
Enora raised her staff to silence all, and from her pommel she drew the sack of black cloth, and threw it to me.
“We did not think you’d surrender to us before the slaughter began,” she said. “But here’s a special offering we’ve made in your honor.”
As the sack rolled at my feet, I saw the small curl of fair hair from beneath its opening.
I took a deep breath, not wishing to see what was within it.
Yet, I could not help looking.
I drew from it the fresh-cut head of my son, Taran.
Enora’s own son.
In a heartbeat, I remembered the words of the Briary Maidens: “Only one of your children may be saved, though you will not know which until the last battle has been fought.”
Another female spoke from a memory vision, the voice of Datbathani, the Lady of Serpents, speaking of my twins: “One of fire and one of blood, one to tear the Veil and one to mend it.”
Taran had been the child of blood, sacrificed by his own mother and the Myrrydanai to tear the Veil.
“To the Virgin of Shadows, his blood was spilled at birth, and in fulfillment of all she has offered, he has been sent to her in spirit,” Enora said, as if she were talking about sending our son into the next room to retrieve some tunic or cap. “To be her messenger in those shadow lands and tell her that the Maz-Sherah has come to fulfill ancient prophecies written upon the pages of her skin.”
I dropped to my knees before the boy’s head, and anything that was left of mortal feeling passed swiftly from me. “You sacrificed your own child to tear the Veil,” I gasped. “To follow the ritual laid out upon the scrolls of her flesh. To draw her blood from his blood. You have murdered your own son to bring destruction upon yourself!”
I leapt to my horse and rode back swiftly down the line of soldiers, to the army that had followed me to this snowy field. In a quarter hour I stood before them, for my horse had been swift and my spirit true.
“Blow the horn of war!” I shouted, my fangs long and sharpened like daggers. “Take them! Take them all! And leave none standing!”
The Akkadites blew the great horns, and the drums of the towers sounded as they had before our descent.
4
The smell of blood filled the air as our roaring company came down upon them. Swift were the vampyres with dragon wings spread as they met the fearsome Morns in midflight, tossed and bludgeoned by the whirling winds were they. Ophion and the warriors of the skies tore the throats from those eel-skinned creatures. Many of our company were bitten and fell, but many more took down Morns into the burning canals and emerged unscathed—but not so their victims. Upon the white frozen ground, the kings and queens of Myrryd brought r
azien and sword, spear and claw, tooth and talon, into the horde of Disk knights who had poured forth from the gates of Taranis-Hir at our thunderous approach. No match were the Chymer wolves for our tribe, though Akkadite mortals they brought low. Many horses cried out to the heavens as if they had human voice, as the Lamiades snapped at their flanks and tore their withers and crests, as the White Robes drove swords into the Akkadite riders. Still, the vampyres of the sky fell down in a flock of dark angels upon these robed priests, and tore at the cloth that hid them, and scored their rotting skin with their talons.
Foot soldiers, the fodder of Taranis-Hir, came at us with spear and shield, arrow, and ax, and I joined many in leaping from my mount and bringing a cudgel against those who had felled the Akkadites. I looked to Calyx to see how she fared, for we had no stratagem in this war, but merely the will to slaughter. She had broken her lance into a knight’s visor, tearing him from his steed; and with her sword, she jabbed and cut another who brought his ax against her.
Namtaryn upon her mount, chased down the wolf-women as they scattered to the wintry woods, and in one moment she seemed to be hunting them, and in the next, she carried three pelts in her hand, while swinging her double-headed ax down into a knight’s back as he skewered one of our tribe upon his silver-tipped spear.
Athanat had leapt from his horse, and carried several men in his arms up to whirling winds, and there ripped at their bodies until the earth below was sprayed with their blood. Nekhbet led her warriors against the gatekeepers and their guards, and I saw her slit the throats of many before the guards at the battlements above began pouring molten lead down upon any who drew too near to the gate.
Many were heroes of this fight, and many its fallen, but no matter whom I slaughtered, I thought only of that son I had not known, stolen from me by the Myrrydanai. As we fought, some of the dead Disk soldiers rose up, possessed by those spirits that Calyx had warned me of. And to these, I brought second and third deaths, and took their swords and sliced them so that even if they rose again, they could not return to combat. I felt the pressure of spirits all around as I flew down among the White Robes. Drawing out the Nameless, I sent many into the Veil that was their home, but I knew this would be temporary, for the Veil was thin, and if Medhya came through, all would be lost. I tore a White Robe from his Lamiades mount, singed him with that Nameless fire, and as the shadow separated from the robe and stolen skin and whispered into nothingness, I glanced to the other riders among the White Robes. Ghorien was my only goal, though it felt good to take down the other whispering shadows.
Snow and ash mixed along the high walls of the city, and from the watchtowers of the North and East Gates, stones rained down upon those who stormed against the great broad doors. Knights of the Disk, their standard raised high to show the circle of their faith and its Virgin of Shadows, rode beside the canals, driving handfuls of the Akkadites who fought alongside my tribe into the oil fires. Hundreds of flaming arrows flew in graceful arcs through the snow-illumined sky.
All was lit by the fire canals that flowed between and among us. The shadows of men and horses and vampyres were like burning ghosts through the smoke, backlit by flames. There was no visible moon, but the earth itself gave up light, and those ancient kings who fought this day brought the pale-blue light of death with them.
If this were the last day of the Earth, I would believe it. I felt a trembling between this world and the next, and the interplay of red and blue and green light in that terrible, dark place made me feel as if I were again in Myrryd itself, but at the height of its glory and horror.
Then it all stopped—all movement—my brethren of the air seemed to hang from the sky with their wings spread and cupped. The horses at a gallop seemed pinned to the earth through their hooves. Lances that flew in the air froze, held by invisible hands. Arrows in the sky, stopped in the arc of their aim; the fire in the canals distilled into jagged and perfect bits of yellow glass.
Ghorien, I commanded the momentary stillness in my mind. Show yourself to me.
In a whisper at my ear, he said, You will find me in the place of your visions.
Quickly, all movement returned, and I pressed my boot into the Lamiade that I rode.
The lizard screeched and snarled, trying to turn its head to tear my legs off, but I kept to the saddle and drew on the reins, pressing the talons of the Raptorius into the creature’s shanks. I raised the staff and the sword to many—shaping it by will into the long, curved blade with its sharp teeth, or into a double-bladed long sword that cut to the left and the right as I swung it between the oncoming soldiers. The lizard wished to turn around and go with the others of its kind, but I drove it forward. When it refused to budge, I thrust the sword into its skull to stop its life. I shouted for the vampyres to take out the Lamiades—to aim for their legs with their swords, or to push the blades into the skulls as I had done. I did not want the remaining White Robes to have the creatures for escape.
Our enemy poured oil across the canals, and fires burned upward, their flames licking the roof of the sky, which in the dark of solstice night seemed white from the falling snow.
All along the watchtowers, the quicksilver arrows were shot among us, and some found our tribe and slowed them down. The best of the Disk knights found the hearts of our warriors and jabbed into them, for they knew of that method to send us to the Extinguishing. But we fought long and bravely, and Enora and her remaining wolves went into the city, protected by the walls and guard, and as I looked up along the battlements, I saw a White Robe upon a Lamiade, signaling to others of his kind to follow him. The lizards moved rapidly up the walls, crushing the crenel above as they went.
Yes, in retreat they were, for our warriors had done much damage to our enemy. Fewer than fifty soldiers remained outside the gates as we approached them, and we vastly outnumbered them. Many of these soldiers tore the Disks from their throats and fell forward into the snow, praying for mercy; but others fought us to the death, and all of these fell to the jaws of my tribe and the sword of the Akkadites.
The fires along the canals burned uncontrollably and blackened the sky, which was pierced with lightning, while many knights poured from the south and the north, having come from the farthest gates. Still we took them, and I watched good and bad fall, and what was of our side diminish as these fresh knights came at us with the courage of mortal valor. Yet they had no good in them, and many of my tribe leapt upon these riders and tore through their visors to get to the flesh at their throats.
As the Akkadite men and women raised the great rocks thrown at us and carried them as ramrods to the gates, still more riders came, spear and sword gleaming, like a blur of light and dark in the blistering storm.
There was no dawn in sight, nor did I know the hour, for time had ended here, and we could not retreat, nor could we call a truce. It was a battle to the end of all—and either I would stand with the staff and Asmodh sword raised, a beacon of fire for my tribe, and the walls of Taranis-Hir would fall; or I would be in chains, and my Extinguishing would come when the storm had ended and the sun drew its own fire from beneath the eastern edge of the wilderness.
Fire and blood mingled between the canals and the barren snow-covered land. The clouds themselves seemed tinged with blood, and some dark magick had come to Taranis-Hir, for the light that came up within the dark was not of stars or sun or lightning, but of the horizon of the Veil itself, which sought us.
I knew what it was: a ritual of the Veil, for something was opening from the deep, and within the towers of Taranis-Hir, an ancient sorcery was being called by Ghorien and Enora, using the Nahhashim staff and the blood of my son.
I flew to my horse, which had been stolen by a foot soldier, and I scraped him from it, and rode forward toward the gates.
5
Red was the sky, and red the earth, and what was not red was the yellow-white searing of fire and the black ash of shadow. More knights poured in from all sides, some of who had been hiding in the woods, unse
en by our spies. Others had ridden up from the quarries below the city. From the open culverts they came, splashing the icy water, their horses drenched with the filth of the canals, and soon, the spattering of blood. Several White Robes came back over the walls, their Lamiades leaping to the earth, the creatures’ jaws grabbing whoever was in their path, whether horse or rider, vampyre or mortal, friend or foe. These shadow priests had abandoned the skins, but held to their robes, and the darkness of their hands brought swords deep into the spines of Akkadites as they redoubled their efforts at slaughter.
Horses and soldiers moved like spirits through the towers of smoke rising from the flames around us. From nowhere, it seemed, a soldier would rush my horse. From out of the smoke, the last Morn or two that existed might leap out upon one of my warriors. The screams of men, mingled with the death cries of horses and the Lamiades, pierced the night.
As my sword hacked deep into my enemy’s shoulder, I heard a great clamoring, and shouts from my men—and I saw the gates of the city give way. The vampyres who had taken to the air had flown down into the city, and killed many soldiers there. Many a Myrrydanai blade had been thrust into the hearts of the warriors who had come from Myrryd to serve their kings, and many of these lay extinguished along the clattering streets of Taranis-Hir.
The huzzahs and cries of victory came from the Akkadites, and like a swarm, we rode along the streets, over the arched bridges, swiftly along, slaughtering all in our path. Victory was sure, I felt it, and I smote many with the staff, and by it, some were turned to stone, and others melted at its touch. Still other mortals went to death in calm, and more were touched by it and driven mad—such was the power of the Nahhashim. The Nameless I also used, and I rode ahead of my people, and any who showed resistance went down into the blood-drenched streets. Along the narrow and wide avenues I went, and behind me, the multitude, and above me, Ophion leading the night-flyers. The foundries exploded with fire, as the alchemists and foundrymen no doubt decided to destroy their industry rather than leave it to the conqueror. I felt the spirit of the Great Serpent within me, and held the hope that my daughter still lived, and that even the betrayer—Anguis—Pythia had survived the night, for I could not bear to lose any I had loved, whether they had offended me or not.
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