The Storm's Own Son (Book 3)

by Anthony Gillis

  Against those formidable defenses, Talaos had nearly fifty thousand men in his besieging force. Here at hand arrayed nine thousand light and two thousand heavy cavalry, twenty-five thousand heavy footmen, thousands of irregulars and archers of all sorts, siege engineers, hillmen, and his various special troops.

  Even now, as he watched, Aro and Tescani had the initial encirclement under way. With many years of experience between them, it was unfolding with precision. Light cavalry patrolled both at the innermost and outermost perimeters while the formations of heavy foot slowly took up their places surrounding the city.

  Engineers were already measuring the first of the inner siege trench lines. That first one would be safely far from even the longest ranged artillery. Others surveyed the outer trench line that would guard them, along with a palisade, in the event of an attack by a relieving army.

  He'd had good news from the north, from Lazla, Drenic, and the large town of Caunea between them. All three allies had held fast and were now implementing his call to exile the Prophet's followers. Only Drenic had them in any numbers, but it seemed they’d been driven out after bloody street fighting. Kossos, further north, was another matter. The city was now dominated by followers of the Prophet, and had formally renounced its previous alliance. However, neither had it declared for anyone else.

  To the northwest, Maxano had faced some tough fighting from partisans of the Prophet, but had emerged victorious as Dictator of Kyras. Word was he had an army on the way. Mileno, former ally of Kyras and Idrona, had never had more than a handful of the Prophet's people. It had quickly switched sides, and without much trouble implemented his call to exile.

  All across the countryside, the local warlords and leagues of towns had come around, and leaders opposed to doing so had usually soon found themselves out of power, or out of life. That left Savaric, the farthest northern city in Hunyos, as Idrona's last declared ally. They had killed Talaos’s messengers and refused any further entreaties, even through neutral parties. A rumor spread that they'd sent diplomats north, to the plainsmen kings in old Dirion.

  All this Talaos considered as he sat astride Honor. The Madmen, Wolves, wives of his heart and numerous officers and messengers stood ready around him. Behind were standard bearers and musicians, on hand to give signals as needed.

  As he watched and reflected, tough general Gavro rode up on a sturdy brown horse. His weathered green cloak was thrown back behind him, and his lined face was tense. They exchanged salutes.

  "Gavro, what news?" hailed Talaos.

  "I have a report from a deserter on the other side that the magus Belios, in Idrona, has agreed to support the Prophet's cause."

  "A magus? I'm surprised he hasn't been burned already," replied Talaos blackly.

  "I talked to our Idronan renegades to find out more about him, and it sounds like he's famous enough that the Prophet's people were afraid of the backlash," answered Gavro.

  "Then I wonder what made him convert to the cause so late in the game," said Talaos.

  "Who knows? Unless he already was, in secret. Can't be too sure these days."

  "True. So what can he do?" asked Talaos, leaning over close from his saddle.

  "They said he is an expert in doorways, paths, and travel, whatever that means in practice," replied Gavro.

  Talaos considered that, and the possibilities. "Well, at least he likely won't be hurling eagles of fire at us, but it could still be bad."

  Gavro nodded, seemed to reflect for a few moments, then added, "It's a rare thing for a magus to get involved in war or politics. Still, one thing I could do is send a messenger to see if old Larissa in Imperi thinks the situation is serious enough to do something."

  "Larissa?"

  "She's a magus of the same order as Aradion of Kyras. Having killed him won't help your cause, but won't necessarily hurt either. She's a difficult woman either way, and at least ninety years old. Still, she knows a lot about magic, and that couldn't hurt."

  Talaos nodded, "Then let's find out."

  14. Vengeance

  The late afternoon sun shone through sluggish clouds, as they lingered in a windless sky. There were torches on the walls and towers of Idrona, and many thick trails of smoke rising from what Talaos knew pyres burned in the great plaza of the city.

  He walked with the Madmen through the vast camp of his army on his way to the command tent for the meeting of commanders that closed each day. With him were several, including Aro, Kurvan, Gavro, and Megaras.

  "Tescani joining us tonight?" asked Kurvan, voice rolling cheerfully.

  "He's coordinating the placement of siege equipment," replied Talaos. "He should be with us later."

  "Glad he likes that kind of thing," mused the hillman. "It'd put me to sleep."

  Talaos smiled. He turned to Aro, "What's the word from Lurios?"

  Watching Aro, Talaos thought the general had gained some additional gray hair lately. He worked almost as hard as Talaos, but without the same lack of need for sleep.

  Aro replied, "Lurios is pleased, though I doubt his men know it. He's taking several companies of foot on a long perimeter patrol tonight to remind them they've got more to learn. What about Adriko?"

  "He got back from patrol earlier," replied Talaos. "He's dug up a few more nests of the Prophet's people in the towns west."

  "Not one to pull his punches, Adriko," said Gavro, with approval. "I like the sharp edge under that easy talk."

  Those who'd known Adriko longer smiled and nodded.

  After meeting with the commanders, Talaos planned to have a talk with Miriana. He'd noticed his inner sight was less clear today beyond the immediate area surrounding her, and the mists and veils of the Prophet were thicker. To his inner sight, they gathered over Idrona like an impenetrable green-black fog, and he doubted it could mean anything good.

  They reached the cleared square in front of the command tent. It sat flanked by dozens of banners of cities, towns, leagues, and warlords. His personal standard now stood with the others. It bore his insignia of a sword with six radiating lightning bolts in silver on a black field. Around the square were tents with logistical and administrative functions, as well as personal tents of the senior commanders. He thought with a smile that the wives of his heart now shared his each night.

  However, the smile vanished as he again considered the Prophet's fog. There was something else as well, some edge that seemed wrong. Things had been too quiet in Idrona.

  They approached the command tent itself.

  "You all right?" asked Kurvan, shaggy brows furrowed.

  "Something's wrong," answered Talaos, "though I can't place what."

  The commanders took on grave expressions. They looked at Talaos, and then around.

  Commotion could be heard, off to the left.

  Talaos and the commanders turned that way.

  Miriana came running at a full sprint. She wore her short, practical dress of Hunyos over pants and boots. Behind her trailed Auretius and nearly the entire hundred Stormguard. She shouted to Talaos, her lilting voice high and loud, "They're coming! Tal! I don't know how I missed it! They're coming!"

  Talaos acted with instant decision. He thundered in a voice that carried across the vast camp, "To arms! Wolves, to me! Commanders, to me!"

  Aro, drawing his sword, shouted a question to Miriana, "Who is coming? Where?"

  "Assassins, coming here by magic!"

  All around drew weapons, for none doubted her. Armed soldiers rushed to join them. Sorya came sprinting from a meal hall further out in camp, almost too fast for the eye to follow. Katara burst from Talaos's tent in a chain shirt. She had her sword in her right hand, and the Prophet's book of history in her left. She seemed to remember it was there, and cast it aside.

  On instinct, Talaos summoned his whirlwind shield. The disc of roiling arc-lit black began to spread and spin forth from his open left hand.

  Far away, on the walls of Idrona, there were shouted orders, and dozens of siege artille
ry fired at once. They fired with flashes of verdant light. Green-flaming stones and bolts soared across the fields, farther, much farther than any should have been able to fly.

  A faint shimmer filled the air, and all around now seemed to share Talaos’s sense that something was wrong. Some men reeled unsteadily on their feet. Directly facing the command tent, the air before them parted, rent open like a curtain.

  Stones and bolts blazing with green fire crashed with great explosions amidst the camp.

  Before them, a hole opened in the world.

  Talaos leapt forward, turning his vast-spreading shield to face it. A wave of searing green flames roared out, as if from a newly-opened furnace. It blasted against his shield, raging against the rage of his own power. Yards out, beyond the edges of the shield, more fire blasted in all directions. There were screams as men withered and died.

  His power and the Prophet's contended, wearing at each other. At last, the flames ceased, even as his shield faded and dissipated. Beyond loomed a vast opening in the fabric of the world, the size of a city gate. Through that gate came warriors, men and women shrouded in verdant fire, with eyes like emerald suns.

  Talaos roared and unleashed the full might of his rage in a gout of lightning from his open right hand at the first of them. It arced blue-white and a foot thick into a tall Eastlander warrior in green-glowing, scaled armor. The foe waded forward into the storm of it; a step, then another, as his green light faded and flickered out. Then he ignited in blue-white flames and fell dead. The others, dozens, poured through all around. Defenders moved into action to face them.

  Through the gate in the world, past the invaders, he saw a great plaza. Dozens of pyres burned there. An army of heavily armed soldiers advanced behind the green-lit invaders. There was also something else…

  Then he was interrupted.

  A corrector, a woman with a white staff radiating brilliant emerald light, charged his way. He blasted her with lightning. She advanced a step as the first foe had, then toppled in ruin.

  To his left, Aro fought with sweeping parries and stabs against a warrior of Dirion wreathed in green fire. He matched his enemy's powerful magic with his own tremendous skill. The skill, Talaos considered, that had made him the Champion of Mesion Hill. The sigil on Aro's sword glowed crimson red. Aro got past his enemy's guard, and his sword suddenly blazed with red fire. He cleaved the green fire of the enemy and cut the man down.

  Talaos wielded his lightning to cut down a third charging enemy, another corrector, and then a fourth, a giant in chain armor wielding a great axe. More foes came on. Hundreds of enemy warriors with faint flickers of green about them followed behind. Most were of Hunyos, but there were at least a hundred Eastlanders among them.

  And then he recalled what else he’d glimpsed. There they were…

  Among the Eastlanders strode three Hands of the Prophet, their steps in perfect unison. As they walked, spheres of emerald fire, bright as the sun, ignited in their upraised right hands.

  How could both he and Miriana have failed to see them?

  No time now.

  All around him, the Madmen and Wolves fought the invaders. An Easterner in scale armor ran a Wolf through in a blaze of green fire. Another Wolf cut the leg from a corrector at the knee, and his fellows pounced on the fallen foe, stabbing and chopping.

  Talaos blasted lightning with both hands against the oncoming Hands of the Prophet. Verdant light shimmered. The lightning splashed, crackling in arcs around the enemy, yet not touching them. In perfect step they continued forward. They stretched their hands toward Talaos.

  Katara arrived to his right, wearing her torque and swinging her sword with a wild northern war cry. She cleaved the head from a green-lit warrior of Hunyos. Two correctors turned to her, and with flashing staffs moving fast as thought, forced her back.

  Aro and Gavro together fought a superhumanly swift warrior wreathed in verdant flame and wielding twin long swords. Then, as if from nowhere, a masked assassin of the Prophet appeared behind Aro and thrust a dagger carved with skulls and twisting worms through the gap between his armor and helm. The general's flesh rotted outward from the wound, as if decaying weeks in an instant, and he fell dead. Talaos snarled in fury.

  The three Hands of the Prophet advanced in the face of the full power of Talaos's wrath. He poured all that he had into stopping them, and still they stalked forward. Then they cast the radiant fire from their hands.

  Great spheres, flying green suns, hurled past his lightning and into him. Instead of blasting outward, the flames coursed around him, eating inward, withering and searing his flesh. Still, the three Hands came onward, and their steps were as one.

  Agony. His body ignited in the flames. He fought even to think, let alone to move.

  To Talaos's left, Sorya appeared behind the Prophet's assassin, as previously unseen as he had been. She struck like a snake, but far faster, and ran her dagger through the other's throat three times in an instant.

  To his right, Kyrax and a Wolf dueled a flame-wreathed warrior of Hunyos till the latter's light began to fade. Kurvan arrived roaring and growling. He brought his great axe down onto the beleaguered foe's helmed head and split the man nearly in half.

  Talaos was still enveloped in an emerald inferno. He mastered himself and drew swords. He poured power into them till both he and they blazed and arced with lightning. It mingled and battled with the enemy's fire as his flesh burned and healed, over and again.

  The Hands of the Prophet stepped toward him, and as one, they drew long, ornate, twisting daggers in their right hands. He snarled, roared with wild primal fury, took a step forward, and then another. He laughed, even as his flesh burned, and charged them.

  A tremendous wall of invisible power pushed back against him. He continued forward, step by slow forced step, as if against a gale, or in a dream.

  In perfect unity, the Hands drew back their daggers, and green light flowed and twisted on the blades.

  Around them all poured dozens of enemy soldiers, with hundreds more behind. Talaos was faintly aware of Miriana, behind and to the left. She stood surrounded by the Stormguard as they fended off enemies. Her father whirled his twin long blades as an assassin leapt through the air at her. With a sudden upward sweep the old general brought both blades through the enemy's green-lit chest.

  Miriana herself was calling something out, over and over, and her eyes blazed.

  Then he heard them.

  Eleven voices in his mind, much like the three cleansers when they had come for him in Carai. These sounded more lofty and remote. They spoke in unison, and not to him. "Eleven are and shall die. Twelve new shall be," they said with varying voices, but words as one. "Three shall make this sacrifice. Eight the rest. So it shall be. The unholy one hears. Soon he will know. Yes, our soul and Prophet, soon he will know."

  He'd heard the voices of the cleansers only when they were coming to claim his soul.

  Talaos had a bad sense, a premonition, and acted instantly. As he pushed slowly forward, he poured power from his spirit into his weapons and his body. As he'd given to those with him, as magi sacrificed to make items of power, so now he sacrificed himself to himself.

  The three daggers swirled with liquid green mist, like poison on the blades.

  Drawn back, ready.

  Three gloved left hands moved simultaneously to their golden masks.

  Somewhere behind, Miriana screamed, as if in surprise or realization.

  As one, in perfect harmonious unison, the Hands of the Prophet removed their masks. The faces underneath were serene, but where their eyes should have been were voids. Not darkness, but nothing at all, receding to infinite, peaceful, empty distances. With their right hands, in smooth simultaneous motions, they plunged their daggers into their own chests.

  They silently fell.

  From the voids of their eyes, swift as thought, came three things like spirits. Not ghostly forms, but coiling wisps of faintest green on the very edge of even his si
ght. They passed from their eyes into his, and his lightning went out.

  He felt sudden coldness, malevolence, a void like death itself, and he staggered.

  Three ghosts, wraiths, shades of the Hands, were in the depths of his own soul, sweeping toward the source, his source of power. However, in doing so, they in part also revealed their intentions. He knew. He understood. They would cut him off from his power, rip his living spirit from his soul, and then, if his body could be destroyed, remove him forever, with a cleansed soul, from the world of the living.

  In his inner depths, he raged and fought them, his spirit struggled with them, held them back, and they began to circle. Relentlessly, patiently, endlessly, they circled.

  He lived, but he was cut off from his source, his magic, his power.

  Then he became aware of something else. The flames around him were subsiding. His cursed armor was still at his chest, and even now soldiers of the Prophet were striking him with many weapons. They fell harmlessly against his impenetrable armor, but stripped of his magic, that same armor would now have struck him dead. It would have, if not for his sacrifice of life and power from his spirit to his body. He had a few sparks of power he could wield, thanks to that sacrifice, but when it was used, he would get no more.

  Still reeling, fighting his inner war, he looked all around as if in a dream.

  Hordes of foes still poured through the gate. Behind the enemy soldiers gathered a vast mob of civilians, with torches or motley weapons in their hands and righteous surety burning in their eyes. All across his camp, enemy artillery struck home again, spreading fire and ruin. There sounded noises of alarm, and cries warning of traitors in their midst.

  On the walls of Idrona, the green fires went out, and there rang a great blast of horns. He thought he saw the city gates open. Around him, his friends and allies had fallen back in a retreating half-ring while the enemy advanced. The Madmen battled hard and fearlessly, each in their way as the mighty men of war that they were. The Wolves fought with snarling fury, yet increasingly, they were cornered.