Relieving the magtheps of their burdens and freeing them to graze, Ayan-Dar built a small fire at the center of the circular structure amid the shattered and eroded remains of the columns that had once surrounded it. He liked to think it was a temple to ancient gods in a time when his people still had gods in which to believe. But the only god his people worshipped now was war. It was the only god that could hope to survive in a crucible of endless bloodshed.
With a mirthless smile, he knelt by the fire, holding his hand out to the warmth as night’s chill began to set in. His race was born and bred for war, and he would be the last one to say otherwise. Even the non-warrior castes were tailored for war in their own way, each of them occupying a niche in a system, an ecology, that had evolved over millennia to support the warrior caste. It was a perfect symbiosis of intelligent beings working in harmony in the ultimate endeavor.
But the Way, the code that defined the system by which all but the honorless ones lived, was a closed loop. His race had stopped evolving in the cataclysmic First Age of their recorded history, four hundred thousand cycles ago. The Books of Time from that period were, not surprisingly, fragmentary, but the glimpses he himself had seen showed that very little had changed in all the ages since the first titanic upheavals of those ancient civilizations. For better or worse, they remained the children of their ancient forebears.
In his heart, he wished for more. He felt his race could achieve greatness on a galactic scale, reaching outward for conquest and dominion, rather than continually gutting itself, spilling its own precious blood. He knew that his quest now was not unlike others he had undertaken in the past, seeking some way to upset the ages-old balance. Others, such as T’ier-Kunai, saw his journeys as flights into fantasy. And it was these journeys of foolish self-indulgence, looking for the answer to a question that no other dared ask, that had eventually brought him to his current questionable status within the order.
“There must be more.” His whisper was lost in the darkness beyond the fire as he closed his eyes.
Focusing on the tiny voice that had awakened him that morning before he began his quest, he cast out his second sight, searching the world, and the stars, if need be, with the eyes of his spirit.
* * *
Ayan-Dar sensed them in his mind and blood long before he could smell or hear them. A group of kurh-a’mekh, honorless ones, had surrounded the hilltop, no doubt drawn by his fire.
It had been many cycles since he had ventured beyond the confines of the temple, but he had heard tales from acolytes and his fellow priests and priestesses of a growing number of marauding bands that terrorized the villages and smaller cities of T’lar-Gol. It was a phenomenon that was as easily calculated as the date of the Great Eclipse. When leaders such as Syr-Nagath, the Dark Queen as she was often called (although not in her presence, he surmised), became bent on conquest, they always stripped their vassals of warriors, leaving their homelands nearly defenseless to those not of the Way, or who had strayed from the path.
Ayan-Dar lamented that it was happening so soon after the last great collapse, just after the war with the Settlements in which he himself had fought over seventy cycles before. Their civilization ebbed and flowed in a pattern that stretched back to the First Age, with continents and even entire worlds rising from prehistoric savagery to a certain plateau. Then, like a great tree, it rotted from within as cities and nation-states began the inevitable conquest of their neighbors. Eventually, the fragile system would collapse back into chaos.
The rise of kurh-a’mekh, like maggots on carrion, was a flag that the next collapse would occur soon. Food supplies would dwindle as the non-warrior castes were ravaged, the armies that grappled in their pointless struggles would starve, and whatever progress had been made in crawling out of chaos would be wiped away. Some of the cities would survive, as would the orders like the Desh-Ka, who would resow the seeds of civilization for the next rise.
Civilization had not had much time to rise again since the last collapse. On the one hand, that usually meant that the next collapse would not be so catastrophic, for they did not have far to fall. On the other, it was highly unusual that the honorless ones had arisen so quickly, and in such numbers.
But that was a mystery beyond his desire to contemplate.
“Leave now, and I will spare your lives.” Ayan-Dar’s deep voice boomed across the hilltop, startling the magtheps, who had moved close to the fire after grazing, fearful of the predators that roamed the wilderness. They, too, were another sign of the coming fall, for there were too few warriors to police the edge of the Great Wastelands, and the wicked beasts that lurked there were expanding their territories into the western realms of T’lar-Gol.
His warning was met with a round of hisses.
“And we will spare yours, if you drop your sword and armor, then walk away.”
Opening his eyes, Ayan-Dar stared at what he took to be the leader of the thirteen brigands who now surrounded him. The female was younger than the others and badly scarred. But they were not the proud scars of battle that warriors had the healers carefully preserve as living trophies. They were simply the legacy of her butchery of unfortunate warriors and, no doubt, those not of the warrior caste, as well.
“Do you know what I am, daughter?” Ayan-Dar did not need to gesture at the rune on his breastplate, for it gleamed in the flickering fire light like a thing alive. While he did not fear them, he was surprised that they did not fear him. It was nearly unheard of for honorless ones to attack a warrior they knew to be of the priesthood.
“I know that you will be dead, old priest, if you do not do as I say.” She stepped closer, a glittering sword in one hand.
Looking closer, his eyes widened with recognition. Every weapon was unique, hand-crafted by the armorers, and he knew this one quite well. It was the object of the final quest of a promising young acolyte, Ria-Ka’luhr, whom Ayan-Dar had sent into the mountains of the north several months before. It was the last thing he had to complete before he would have been selected to become a priest. And a fine priest he would have made, Ayan-Dar knew.
Ria-Ka’luhr had disappeared without a trace. And yet, here was the sword.
The girl, for she was little more, by age, looked down at the sword she held. “He died bravely. He killed four of us before he fell.”
He suspected her words were a lie. Ria-Ka’luhr had been a skilled swordmaster, and would have killed more than four of these vermin before falling to their ill-treated blades.
“And how many of you will die at the hands of his master?” Ayan-Dar, the fire of bloodlust rising in his veins, stood, his left hand clenching tightly at his side.
“None.”
Many cycles of training, even before he had become a priest, had given Ayan-Dar an exceptional sense of hearing. Behind him was a soft whine and click, that few other than a priest or priestess would have heard.
In a blur of motion, he whirled toward the brigand who stood behind him, holding a projectile weapon. It was ancient, a relic from before the last fall, a type of weapon that was regarded with contempt by the warrior caste. But it was quite effective at its intended function of killing.
Before the brigand could pull the weapon’s trigger, the hilltop was bathed in a searing flash of cyan as a bolt of lightning shot from Ayan-Dar’s outstretched hand, vaporizing the brigand with a deafening boom.
Continuing the turn of his body, he took the three shrekkas in turn, hurling them at the three opponents who were farthest away. The whistling blades took the heads from all three. The bodies, fountaining blood from their severed necks, collapsed to the ground and twitched.
Coming back around to face forward, Ayan-Dar’s sword sang from its sheath. With blinding speed he lunged forward and first cut the hand from the girl that held his acolyte’s sword, then he took off one of her feet.
Disarmed and immobilized, she fell to the ground, screaming.
Five of the remaining honorless ones charged him, while the other
three ran away. Or tried to.
Flinging his sword into the air to momentarily free his hand, Ayan-Dar leaped in a somersault far over his attackers’ heads, stretching out his arm toward the three who were attempting to flee. Bolts of lightning erupted from his palm, and the three kurh-a’mekh vanished in clouds of white ash.
He caught his sword in mid-air before landing in the midst of the five surviving brigands. In a single breath, their bleeding corpses lay at his feet, their armor hacked and pierced by his great sword.
Flicking the blood from his blade, he sheathed it before returning to the fire and the young female who lay writhing there. The burning in his blood cooled to melancholy sorrow as he watched her agonized struggles.
“It did not have to be this way, young one.” He knelt beside her and put his hand on her forehead. He was not a healer, but with his powers he could ease pain. In a moment, her thrashing ceased, and her breathing slowed. She stared up at him as he removed his hand. “You could have walked away, and I would have shown you mercy.”
“I could not. She would have known.”
Ayan-Dar shook his head slowly. “I do not understand, child.”
The girl’s eyes had a haunted look. “I am bound to the Dark Queen.” She held up her remaining hand, and Ayan-Dar saw a deep, ugly scar across the palm.
He narrowed his eyes in shock and anger. The Desh-Ka and the other orders had an ancient ritual. It was known as drakash in his own sect, and by different names among the others. It was the blood bond, when an acolyte was accepted into the priesthood. Blood was shared through cut and bound palms of master or mistress and acolyte in a very sacred ceremony. It was the ultimate act of acceptance. Part of its purpose was also to bridge the void between the seven major bloodlines, for none of the orders demanded that acolytes be from their particular bloodline, but any member of the priesthood must be able to sense those of their own order.
It was a way of accepting a new priest or priestess into the body of the priesthood, but there were also ways it could also be used to bind a servant to a master. Those ways were beneath the contempt of the ancient orders, but there had always been those rogues beyond the temples who would use it to their own ends. Once such a bond had been made, the Dark Queen could not see the greater bloodline, but would be able to sense the feelings of those who were bound to her in such a manner.
It was the ultimate act of control.
This young female who lay dying could not have let him go, even had she wanted to, for the Dark Queen would have known. From what he had heard, Syr-Nagath would not have turned a blind eye to such a transgression.
Far more troubling was that these brigands served her at all. The queen should have been hunting down such bands, not employing them for her own unfathomable purposes.
The dying girl answered his unspoken question. She raised her hand to his chest, brushing her talons over the gleaming rune of the Desh-Ka. “This is what she seeks.”
Before Ayan-Dar could ask her any more questions, her eyes closed and her hand fell to her side. He felt her spirit pass from her body, and whispered a prayer of mercy, that she might find peace in the Afterlife.
For a long time afterward, he sat next to the child’s lifeless body, staring into the glowing embers of the dying fire and wondering at the meaning of her words.
This is what she seeks…
CHAPTER THREE
Syr-Nagath, the Dark Queen, brooded in the great pavilion that served as her home while on campaign. The enormous white stretch of canvas of her palace sat on a hill overlooking the battlefield, and the city of Taliah-Ma’i beyond. She was covered in blood, for she always fought at the head of the growing horde of her army, to satisfy her own bloodlust as much as to inspire fear in those who served her. Crimson spatters and streaks covered her face and armor, and dripped from her talons to the floor. She breathed in the heady scent, the fire in her blood momentarily rekindling as her right hand strayed to the hilt of her sheathed sword.
The army defending Taliah-Ma’i had fought bravely, but had fallen in a day. After a brief but brutal fight, she had offered the right of Challenge to the master of the city, to allow him to die with honor and spare the destruction of his lands and people, who would then be honor-bound to serve her.
Luckily for them, he had accepted. But he had not died quickly. Few of the many who had been forced to face her in the arena did. It was his blood that stained the animal pelts at her feet. Every Challenge she fought was yet another example to instill fear in those bound to her. For fear was one of the few emotions that she truly understood.
She turned, taking in the panorama of her army. Over thirty thousand were encamped here, with another four hundred thousand arrayed to the north and south as her warriors swept across T’lar-Gol toward the great Eastern Sea. And every city and village that was taken added their warriors, their resources, to her campaign. It was part of the Way, a code of life and honor that she so fervently wished to destroy.
But to do so would take more than armies of warriors. That was the simple part, and one that many leaders in the past had used to control a continent, or even the entire Homeworld, if only briefly. A very few had even reached toward the stars in the time since the Settlements had first been founded, seeking to unite their race under the Way.
Unification was not Syr-Nagath’s dream. She did not want her race to rise to something greater, but wanted to utterly destroy it. She wanted to sever it completely from its past in an orgy of destruction, before rebuilding it according to her own design. The conquest of T’lar-Gol was only the first part of her plan. But before she could span the stars, before she could fulfill her desires, she would need more than mere warriors. She would need to control the powers of the ancient orders.
To do that, she would have to destroy them.
“My mistress.”
Syr-Nagath turned to find her First kneeling at the entryway, sensing the excitement in her First’s blood. The Dark Queen flicked a velvety tongue over her lips, tasting the blood of her last victim. “Bring him.”
With a quick salute, the First stood and disappeared.
A few moments later, Syr-Nagath heard the clank of chains and watched as a prisoner was led in, escorted by six warriors and the First. Bound by the hands and feet, badly beaten, the captured male was forced to his knees before her, cursing with anger at his captors through swollen, bloodied lips.
“Leave us.”
The guards and her First saluted before marching from the room.
Stepping forward, Syr-Nagath took hold of the prisoner’s hair and forced his head back. One of his eyes was swollen shut, while the other was blood-red, staring up at her with undisguised hate.
Ignoring his baleful gaze, she looked at the Collar of Honor around his neck. There was no sigil, but she saw the outline of the Desh-Ka rune on his breastplate. An acolyte.
“What is your name?”
He only glared at her.
“There is no point in denying me that much, acolyte of the Desh-Ka.” Kneeling before him, she reached out and drew the tip of one of her talons along his face, from his ear to the tip of his mouth.
He made no reaction beyond the glare with which he favored her as blood welled up from the wound.
She sat back, licking his blood from her talon. It had taken all this time, over ten full cycles, for her to capture one of them, an acolyte, alive. She could not confront the Desh-Ka directly, but she had bound an army of honorless ones to her. Setting them to cause the mayhem expected of their kind had merely been cover for their true purpose, which now knelt in chains before her.
The young acolyte spat on her, the blood from his mouth mixing with the stains on her armored breast.
She entwined the talons of one hand in his hair. As with all who followed the Way, it was carefully braided into seven braids, each representing a different covenant. The two most important were the first, the Covenant of the Afterlife, and the third, which was the Blood Bond. His third braid had been s
evered, the roots of it bound in a black ring. He had been cut off from the empathic link to his bloodline, and could not sense those who shared the blood of his forefathers. Nor could they sense him. To all who had known him, he had simply disappeared.
With a snarl, she took hold of his hair, her talons tearing into his scalp, and hauled him up by his braids. Her grip was far more powerful than seemed possible for her lithe frame.
As the acolyte opened his mouth in a gasp of pain, she brought her lips to his. He clamped his mouth firmly shut until she sank the talons of her free hand deep into his side.
His mouth flew open, screaming at the pain, and her tongue darted in to tease and violate him, retreating as he tried to bite it off.
He shoved himself against her, trying to throw her off balance with the mass of his body in an attack born of pure desperation.
With a snort of contempt, she deftly stepped aside, allowing his momentum to carry him into a thick wooden table. His face struck the smooth, polished surface, and he slid to the floor, dazed.
“A priest, you clearly are not.” She stripped out of her armor, letting it fall to the floor beside her in a bloody heap before kneeling, nude, to straddle him. As he groaned, she began to unfasten his armor. “Not yet. But you shall be.”
“No!” He struggled against her as she stripped him of his armor, then his clothing, just as she had already stripped him of his dignity.
She kept him pinned, her knees on his shoulders, as she undid the third braid of her own hair. While she despised the Way and all it represented, the hair of the Kreela was more than a mere adornment or vestige of evolution. The bonds were real, even among the honorless ones. With her talons, she severed a lock of hair from the braid, close to her scalp, grimacing at the unpleasant sensation that ran through her core.
In Her Name: The First Empress: Book 01 - From Chaos Born Page 4