by D. P. Prior
The clans formed jumbled lines close to the water, voices raised in a hundred questions.
The Archmage seemed to have gotten a grip on himself. He was making placating gestures with his arms, trying to get everyone to calm down. And still the High King stared out at the ships, face impassive. His hand strayed to the pommel of the broad sword sheathed at his hip.
Tey dampened her scars and instead sent the thread of energy from her well outward, toward the crowd, searching, questing, seeking out Snaith. And embedded in its nebulous strand, the simplest desire of her will: Come, my husband.
With a shock as impactful as her old belief in the Weyd’s lightning-fast retribution, Snaith called out to her, then emerged from the panicking clans.
Had it been her summons, or was it merely a coincidence? Had impending danger drawn Snaith to what he was familiar with, his one-time sweetheart, his only real friend?
He approached self-consciously, with reservation and caution, his uncertainty about who she was now written on what she could see of his face beneath the hood. And he was doing his best not to look at her directly. Probably he didn’t want to be sick.
Tey left the water’s edge to meet him, more aware than ever of the imbalance caused by her clawed foot. Its strength alone unnerved her. That the scales were spreading, slowly consuming her, was more horrifying than the worst kind of wasting disease.
“Is Vrom with you?” Snaith asked when he stopped five feet from her.
Her cracked lips stung as she uttered her first words in days. “In a way.”
His look was sterner than she’d seen from him before. She read in it some inkling of the dark things he’d done, darker still he was fated to do. If he had guessed that she’d murdered Vrom, he shoved it to one side, as if it were of no consequence. Instead, he looked askance at the galleons drawn up in a broad pincer two hundred yards from the shore. He had nothing to say to her, that much was obvious. And while he tried not to show it, he was as frightened of the situation as the rest of the sorcerers and warriors pressing around the High King.
Already longboats were being lowered over the side—eight from each ship, and there were more than twenty ships. Men were clambering down ropes to get aboard them. The light of the newly risen sun glinted from helms and breastplates and circular shields.
“Don’t worry, husband,” Tey told Snaith. “You are mine, remember. I won’t let them hurt you.”
Snaith looked at her as if she were crazy. But like it or not, he was in her. Had been since that night at the Copse.
The clans had gone quiet, mesmerized by the longboats, oar-strokes churning up the surf. It was the warriors rowing. Two dozen to a boat. Tey could see them more clearly now: shields strapped to their backs, steel breastplates with the Wyvern crest, full-faced helms with almond-shaped eye-slits and inverted crescents for the mouth.
Looming darkly at the prow of each oncoming boat was a gigantic figure, taller even than the Valks and twice as broad. Somber-colored cloaks. Heads hidden beneath conical helms of black metal, with only the narrowest of slits for vision. Was it a trick of the early-morning light, or were there tongues of flame licking over the knuckles of their gauntlets, gripped tightly to the gunwale?
[Warlocks,] the Shedim hissed.
One of them stood out from the rest, fully clad in ebon armor like the others, but with a blood-red cloak and what looked like the horns of a bison rising from the sides of his helm. A crimson dweomer radiated from the eye-slit.
[Imtep Khopeth.] There was malice in the Shedim’s tone this time, and a trace of what Tey took for fear. [Sorcery is coming, Tey Moonshine. Stolen but real. Remember what I told you: gain their interest.] A sudden urgency entered its voice. [See! He prepares to strike. Beware!]
A hand gripped her shoulder. Snaith’s good one. He dragged her back from the sea, onto the incline.
Imtep Khopeth raised his arm, the longboats mere yards from the shore. Argent danced between his fingers, balled upon his palm. Lighting ripped across the water and hit the beach with a colossal boom and an incandescent flash. Black smoke plumed. Pebbles flew, showering back down in a clattering hale. Men and women screamed.
For a moment, the entire beach hung frozen in time. Tey could do nothing but watch as the first longboat beached and warriors started to climb out. She was aware Snaith was no longer gripping her shoulder. Had a dim sense of him moving away. Then the smoke cleared, revealing the charred remains of more than a dozen clansfolk.
A cry went up. People turned, sprinting for the incline: Malogoi, Valks, Wolvers, Skaltoop—it mattered not. There was no more division. Terror unified them.
Tey saw Snaith striding across the beach toward the High King. He’d made a choice, same as he had at Coldman’s Copse, and true to her word, she set off after him to keep him safe.
The High King stood his ground, his bodyguard a circle around him ten men strong, white-knuckled hands gripping their axe hafts too tightly. The Archmage insinuated his way inside the protective ring, shaking his head as if he knew resistance was hopeless. Or had he been in on this from the start?
Shouts rolled down from the top of the incline. Cries of despair.
Not slowing her pace, Tey glanced toward the ruins of the forgotten town. Bird-masked Lakelings were streaming from behind the stacked rubble, launching spears, firing bows—straight at the clansfolk fleeing the Hélumites. Scores dropped in the first volley, even as more and more Lakelings poured from the ruins and swarmed the beach.
The clansfolk turned back, but already there were dozens of boats drawn up on the pebbles, Hélumite warriors forming disciplined ranks, shields overlapping, shortswords a bristling wall of death. A second volley from the Lakelings. More clansfolk fell, and then the rest were pelting across the beach between the two forces.
Snaith extended a hand from within the circle around the High King, brought Tey through the axemen. Anathoth Xolor acknowledged her with a nod. He was pale-faced and quivering, the pupil of his yellow eye an expanding void.
“It’s the Copse all over again,” Snaith whispered, not letting go of her hand. It was his maimed hand he’d clutched hers with. A stiff and rigor-locked claw. She raised it to her lips. Kissed it. Noticed the fingers twitch in response, grip a little tighter.
Drulk Skanfok drew his broadsword, a grim set to his jaw. Here was a man who’d known since his coronation he was to be cruelly sacrificed. The chance to die in a hopeless battle must have seemed a blessed reprieve.
“Nobody say a word,” the Archmage said. “I’ll handle this.”
A hundred or more Lakelings fanned out behind them, corralling survivors from the clans, all of them sorcerers, utterly cowed and timid. No potent curses, no balls of fire. Nothing. Finally exposed for the charlatans they were.
Beyond them Tey could make out the bloodied pelts of Wolvers in among the slaughtered Krosh, Skaltoop, northerners, savages, Malogoi… Chief Crav Bellosh was with them, face down on the incline, a gushing hole in his back.
Not a single Lakeling was dead. The clans had been routed then mercilessly cut down.
And then her eyes fell upon a clutch of Valks lying broken, crimson stains stark against white skin. The Spirit, guts spilling from her ripped-open belly. She was meat, after all. Same as they all were.
From the other side, the Hélumites came on at a disciplined march that even the pebbled beach could not disrupt. A broad front of glinting steel, a dozen ranks deep. Unyielding. Impassable. They drew up ten yards from the High King’s men, parted down the center.
Dark-armored warlocks were visible at the rear of the phalanx. A murder of crows. From their midst came the Legate, Imtep Khopeth, striding to the fore of the Hélumite troops with no thought for his personal safety. Each step of his iron boots was a thunderous crunch. An aura of black flames wavered around his frame. Silver sparks spat and fizzed from his gauntlets, exuding the stench of sulfur.
“Quickly, Snaith Harrow,” the Archmage said. “No time for deception. Theurig is de
ad, yes? You don’t need to tell me you did it. Just confirm: yes or no.”
Snaith’s hood bobbed in affirmation, and the Archmage nodded like a man with a plan.
The closer Imtep Khopeth came, the more the pressure built in Tey’s ears. She felt the sensation of a shrill scream that was beyond hearing. Building, building.
And then it abruptly passed.
The Legate came to a stop before the ring of axemen. The murderous glow of his eye-slit sought out and settled upon the Archmage.
“The artifact, Anathoth.” A gentle voice, though rasping, as if it issued from a shredded larynx. No resonance from within the helm. Not in the least bit muffled. “Give it to me.”
THE FIFTH INVASION
“Artifact?” the Archmage said, voice booming like it had at the Conclave. It carried across the beach to the massed Hélumite soldiers in front, the Lakelings behind, maybe even as far as the galleons staring down the shore. “What artifact?”
To Snaith’s eyes, honed by a lifetime in the circles, Anathoth Xolor was posturing like an overmatched fighter. Within the defensive cordon of the High King’s axemen, the Archmage was puffed up with bravado, yet the barely discernible shift of his weight onto his hind foot gave the game away.
Imtep Khopeth towered above the warriors between him and the Archmage. The conical helm, the carapace of black plate armor inscribed with linear patterns, the banded iron sabatons encasing his feet only added to the man’s massive stature. Over his shoulder poked the hilt of an immense greatsword. Dust motes seethed around his frame in streams and whorls, a blurry aura of virulence. They lashed out in tendrils, scenting, probing, inspecting.
“You mean you don’t know?” the Legate said. “Anathoth Xolor, Archmage of Branikdür, Servitor of the Seven of Hélum, doesn’t know? And nobody told you?”
Give him his due, the Archmage resisted looking at Snaith or Tey. Nevertheless, when he next spoke, the booming sorcerous voice was forgotten, replaced by the timid whine of a scolded child.
“All I know is what was communicated in the Seven’s missive. The Egrigorean script was precise but lacking in detail. How could I be expected to know more?”
Snaith felt Tey’s grip on his clawed hand tighten.
“Say nothing,” she hissed, barely moving her lips. She frowned then cocked her head, listening. “If the Archmage implicates either of us, deny it. Without my blood, they’ll never enter the burial mound. They mustn’t gain the Hand.”
Imtep Khopeth swiveled his helm in Tey’s direction. “You have something to say?”
Snaith released her hand, and she flashed him a look of startlement, shock that he was distancing himself from her. Her expression swiftly turned to hurt then spite, as if she’d read him for what he was and branded him a coward. And she’d have been right to. The acknowledgment shamed Snaith into action. He was going to push through the cordon of axemen, confront the Legate man to man.
One step forward and the crimson eye-slit turned on him. He licked his lips, racking his brains for something to say, but the words clogged in his throat. Confront the Legate! He was being impetuous, compensating for his fear. In the circles, that would have earned him a beating. He glanced at the Archmage, who came to his rescue.
“This woman is a simpleton, Legate. Insane, but not ungifted. Her master was Slyndon Grun.”
“A name known in Hélum,” Imtep Khopeth said. “Some say he has ambitions you should be wary of.”
Anathoth Xolor stiffened. “Slyndon Grun is dead.” His yellow eye settled on Tey.
“This hag killed him?” Imtep Khopeth said.
Snaith rankled at that. Tey was filthy, covered with grime. She stank like the Nethers. But he wasn’t about to let this Hélumite scum get away with calling her a hag. Before this had all happened, before the bear and Theurig and Slyndon Grun, she’d been a huge part of the life he’d mapped out for himself, the woman he was to marry. He opened his mouth, tongue wrapping itself around a retort, but a strong hand on his shoulder stopped him.
Drulk Skanfok had slipped to Snaith’s side without him noticing.
“And succeeded him,” the Archmage said.
Imtep Khopeth chuckled. “As is her right.”
The High King stroked his beard, muttering behind his hand to Snaith, “You know of this artifact?”
“As does the Archmage.”
Drulk Skanfok clenched his jaw and gave the slightest of nods.
A shadow fell over the beach, causing Snaith to look up. The sky was darkening with clouds scudding in from the sea. It had been a clear dawn, a striking one, but Gosynag the Grey was already back to his old ways.
Imtep Khopeth strode around the outside of the axemen’s circle to where the clan sorcerers were hemmed in by bird-masked Lakelings.
“Your Archmage knows more than he is letting on,” the Legate said. “I cannot speak to the wisdom of that strategy. To you sorcerers, however, I appeal for more… transparency. The missive sent by the Seven to Anathoth Xolor stated a sorcerous disturbance had been detected. Something powerful. Something ancient. A disturbance someone on this dismal isle must know something about. One of you.”
Did he know? Did Imtep Khopeth already know about the Hand of Vilchus? Was he putting them to the test? Finding out who was loyal and who was not?
The sorcerers exchanged glances. A few of them watched the Archmage intently, as if seeking permission, or hoping for some indication of what they should do.
The brush-tailed shaman of the Wolvers started to prowl. “Enough talk!” she said.
The man with the crooked hat and patchwork robe Snaith had seen at the Conclave put out a hand to calm her. Nearly lost it when she snapped at him with teeth filed to fangs.
Calzod Murcifer spoke up with measured indignation. “We asked Anathoth, and he refused to tell us.”
“No, Calzod, I did not,” the Archmage said, the thunder back in his voice. “If you recall, I told you to ask Theurig Locanter.”
Imtep Khopeth interjected quick as a counterpunch. “Ask him what?”
“What he knew,” the Archmage said. “In light of the missive, it was obvious something had been unearthed within days of the Proving. If anyone should know, it was Theurig. This year’s Proving was at Malogoi, and he was their sorcerer.”
“Was?” Imtep Khopeth’s helm panned over the corralled sorcerers.
The Archmage glanced at Snaith.
“You?” Imtep Khopeth said. “You succeeded him? How?”
Snaith’s mouth felt full of sand. “He died.”
“At your hand?”
Not just Theurig. Velyg, too. Then Graef and Meldred. At first it had frightened Snaith, the thrill he’d taken from their deaths. It was as though he didn’t know who he was anymore. Without his family. Without his long-held certainties about the Weyd. His training to be a warrior. His future with Tey. But then he’d snapped out of it with a simple mental trick. Theurig would have been proud of him. He’d adopted the attitude of a sorcerer as easily as pulling up the hood of his cloak. Cold. Indifferent. Practical. And he’d fed Velyg, Meldred, and Graef to the pigs.
Snaith braced himself for the Legate’s reaction and nodded.
“Then you are to be commended,” Imtep Khopeth said. “But Theurig told you what he’d found first?”
Snaith still hadn’t decided if the Archmage had really been able to discern the truth back at the Conclave, but he did have the strong sense that anything Anathoth Xolor could do would be child’s play to Imtep Khopeth. And he had no doubt the stakes were much, much higher. The good thing was, the question didn’t demand a lie. It hadn’t been Theurig who had entered beneath the burial mound. The sorcerer had been spared that horror.
“He did not.”
For a long moment, Imtep Khopeth stood motionless. A lone rain drop struck the apex of his conical helm and rolled slowly downward. The clouds overhead had clotted into an oppressive ceiling, from which a steady drizzle began to fall.
The Legate thrust a metal
-clad hand forward. Snaith gasped. Felt invisible fingers at his throat. Imtep Khopeth reached for the sky, and Snaith kicked and thrashed as he was lifted into the air, choking for every breath. When the Legate flung his arms wide, Snaith’s were wrenched out to the sides. Searing pain ripped through his shoulders. Ligaments screamed. Then his legs were pulled viciously apart, leaving him hanging spread-eagled ten feet above the beach.
“He told you!” Imtep Khopeth insisted, drawing the greatsword from its scabbard on his back. The blade was as black as his armor, one edge jagged with serrations. A pattern flared along its length in lines of argent. A pattern Snaith couldn’t fail to recognize, given the additions he’d made to his simulacrum. The markings were compressed into a narrow stream, but otherwise they were almost a perfect match for Tey’s scars.
As the legate brought the saw-toothed edge of the blade level with Snaith’s belly, the black flames chilled rather than burned. Snaith fought against his invisible bonds, but there was no give in them. Sorcerous steel touched his shirt, snagged the cloth in its serrations. Imtep Khopeth drew the blade slowly backward, ripping fabric and abrading the skin beneath. Snaith cried out in rage and frustration. And then, when Imtep Khopeth forced the blade the other way, Snaith realized the intention was disembowelment, gradual, torturous, excruciating.
His mind galloped, searching for the right thing to say. The truth wouldn’t stay this butcher’s hand, he was sure of that. Once he’d told the Legate all he knew, there would be no more reason to keep him alive. And Tey’s blood would be spilled to gain entry to the tumulus before she, too, would be cast aside. But what lie would be convincing enough to be believed?
Imtep Khopeth made a third pass of the saw-teeth. Hot blood trickled down Snaith’s belly, soaking into the waistband of his britches. His mind went blank, and he cried out again. Only this time, he screamed.
“Fight!” the High King roared, surging between his encircling axemen and coming straight at Imtep Khopeth, broadsword swinging in a vicious arc.
The Legate spun away from Snaith and caught Drulk Skanfok’s blade on his own. Black flames erupted from the greatsword. He pivoted, came over the top, and sheared through the High King’s arm at the elbow. The broadsword clattered to the pebbles, and the High King dropped to his knees, clutching the stump of his arm. But there was no blood gouting from the wound. The black flames must have cauterized where steel had cut.