In Her Name: The First Empress: Book 01 - From Chaos Born

by Michael R. Hicks

  Nil’a-Litan was just reaching out to draw back the cloth that formed a doorway to the queen’s quarters, intending to peer inside to gain the attention of the First, when she heard Syr-Nagath say, “Ignore my command at your peril, Kanur-Han. Defy me now, and I will shave your hair and release you into the Great Wastelands.”

  A stab of fear lancing through Nil’a-Litan’s heart and she froze. To have one’s hair shaved was the worst of all punishments, worse even than death: it was a sentence to eternal darkness. She had no idea what horrible sin one could commit for Syr-Nagath to even consider such a punishment.

  “I did not say I would not obey, my queen,” she heard Kanur-Han say in a voice that betrayed no emotion whatsoever, not even fear. “I simply suggested that there was no need to take an entire legion. While we could spare the warriors easily from our campaign here, I believe it would make the task much more difficult. A single legion would not be able to take Keel-A’ar. I also know the captain of the guard there. He is no fool, and would not open the gates for trickery or bluster. Only the word of his lord and master, spoken from his very lips, would open those mighty gates for an approaching army.”

  “And one warrior, working alone, might be too easily stopped.” Another voice, she was not sure which of the other two captains it was, spoke. But in this voice, there was indeed fear. “But perhaps three tens of warriors could move quickly, far faster than an entire legion. They could ride into Keel-A’ar under the guise of warriors returning home from the campaign, in need of food and rest on their journey. Such happens all the time, and the captain of the guard would see no reason not to allow them in.”

  “And once the gates were opened and our warriors let inside,” Kanur-Han continued, “they could take and hold the gates while some of their number rode for the creche to kill the child before the warriors manning the walls could interfere.”

  “Then our warriors would simply ride out again,” the other voice said. “The city’s warriors could not pursue in force, for they have barely enough to defend the walls.”

  “But should the plan succeed, my queen, you will have a rebellion on your hands here,” Kanur-Han warned. “Even after we kill Kunan-Lohr and his consort, the warriors here will sense something is wrong. And when word reaches them of what has happened in the creche…”

  “It should be a simple enough matter to ambush Kunan-Lohr and Ulana-Tath on the road by which they must be returning even now.” Syr-Nagath spoke slowly, thinking aloud. “That can be made to appear the work of a band of honorless ones. As for the creche…kill not only their child, but all the children. Only a band of honorless ones would ever consider such an act.”

  “My queen…” Kanur-Han’s voice faded into silence. “Our warriors will not do this. I could gather enough to kill the child, for they could be made to see the reason for it, as the child is clearly a threat. But they will not massacre an entire creche.”

  “Send them to me.” Syr-Nagath’s voice was colder than the frigid winds that howled in the Kraken-Gol, the frozen wastes at the southern pole of the Homeworld. “But send me fifty, not the thirty you had planned.”

  “As you command, my queen.”

  Realizing that their discussion was over, Nil’a-Litan, moving as silently as she could, fled the pavilion, the pain of her mauled shoulder completely forgotten.

  * * *

  “Are you certain of this?”

  Nil’a-Litan knelt before Eil’an-Kuhr, the senior captain of Keel-A’ar’s forces fighting under the Dark Queen’s banner. Drawing her dagger, Nil’a-Litan held it to her own throat, the blade drawing a thin line of blood. “With my blood and honor, all that I have told you is true, exactly as I heard it from the lips of the queen and the others. You have only to command me, and I will take my own life that you would believe my words.”

  “Put away your dagger, warrior.” Eil’an-Kuhr spoke quietly now. They were in a small grove of trees on a rise that overlooked the raging battle in the valley below. It was a place of some privacy, but not much. The queen’s army was spread out as far as the eye could see on this side of the valley, and there were warriors within a stone’s throw of where they stood. But this would do. “I believe you. I confess I have difficulty believing what the queen said, for such an abomination is unthinkable to one of the Way. But I do not doubt that you have repeated faithfully what you heard.”

  Relieved that Eil’an-Kuhr believed her, Nil’a-Litan sheathed her dagger and stood beside the battle-hardened captain of warriors. “What are we to do?”

  Eil’an-Kuhr’s face reflected the bitterness in her blood. “We can do nothing until nightfall, when the end of the day’s battle is called.” Pointing to a long stretch of grappling, screaming warriors in the battle line, she said, “Save for the wounded, all our warriors are committed, and I cannot simply withdraw them. The line would collapse and the enemy would pour into the rear behind us. It would be nearly impossible to disengage without extremely heavy casualties.” Letting her arm fall to her side, she inclined her head, drawing Nil’a-Litan’s attention to more warriors, tens of thousands of them, encamped along the ridge line on either side of, and behind, the queen’s pavilion. “Those who serve the captains you saw in the queen’s pavilion have been held in reserve since the beginning, and would stand between our own warriors and the roads leading west, even if we could break free from the enemy and withdraw.”

  “The queen bleeds us!”

  Eil’an-Kuhr gave her a dark look. “You see in one glance what we did not realize until the week after our lord departed for home. Yes, the Dark Queen now puts our swords on the line during the hardest fighting, and those of her favored warriors only enough to blood them and preserve the illusion of honor.” She looked again at the battle line, where the banners of Keel-A’ar flew proudly. “Our numbers have been greatly diminished in the time since our lord departed. I fear there will be few enough of us left alive by the time he returns.”

  “So even if there was a rebellion…”

  “It would be crushed all too quickly. Were it to begin at all, which it will not.” At Nil’a-Litan’s confused look, she went on, “None of us have the power to break the covenant of honor with Syr-Nagath, child. Kunan-Lohr pledged his honor to her, and through him, our own. Our lives are hers to spend as she wishes. Were she to order us to slit our own throats for no reason other than to serve her pleasure, we would be honor-bound to do so. If she wishes to bleed the legions of Keel-A’ar to the last warrior, that is her privilege. We live and die to serve those to whom our honor is bound. That is the Way.”

  Nil’a-Litan lowered her head, ashamed. “Yes, mistress. Please, forgive me.” She felt very small at that moment, helpless.

  She felt the elder warrior’s hand on her uninjured shoulder, and looked up.

  “While we cannot rise against the Dark Queen,” Eil’an-Kuhr told her, giving her shoulder a reassuring squeeze, “we shall not let this wretched and dishonorable deed come to pass. I will assemble a group of warriors to ride home and warn our master.”

  “It may already be too late. Look!”

  Eil’an-Kuhr turned, following the direction of Nil’a-Litan’s gaze in time to see a group of warriors, fifty, by her estimate, file into the pavilion. A handful of others had split off and were heading toward the nearest grassy field where a herd of magtheps, some of them already saddled, grazed.

  “Can the queen truly make them do this thing?” Even though Nil’a-Litan had heard the words herself, she still could not bring herself to believe that any of their kind would massacre an entire creche.

  “We cannot afford to doubt it,” Eil’an-Kuhr told her, “nor can we wait. If we are to warn our master, we must ride before they do. Otherwise, a rider or even a small group could be intercepted and stopped.” She looked into Nil’a-Litan’s eyes. “I cannot leave. It is up to you, young warrior.” She withdrew a rod, half the length of her forearm, from a sheath on her right arm. “Take this. It is the tla’a-anir, the Sign of Authority, o
f our master. This entitles you to all privileges and honors that would be accorded him, but beware how you use it: Kunan-Lohr bears the burden of its use. With this you can get fresh mounts and food, whatever you need on your journey. You will have to ride now, this very moment, before the queen’s assassins set out. I will send a party of warriors to trail them, but they may be ambushed, so do not depend on them to reach you.” Eil’an-Kuhr gripped the younger warrior’s arms in the way of parting, mindful of Nil’a-Litan’s injured shoulder. “The greatest duty of your life now lies before you. You must warn our lord and master.”

  Nil’a-Litan bowed her head, unable to salute with her left arm. “I shall not fail, mistress.”

  “Go then, child, as fast as you can. And may thy Way be long and glorious.”

  * * *

  The fifty warriors who knelt in Syr-Nagath’s chambers within the pavilion stared at her with horrified expressions after she had told them what they must do.

  As one, eight of them stood without a word and slashed their own throats with their talons. Each of those eight, who truly valued honor above their lives, stood until their eyes rolled up into their heads. One by one, they collapsed to the floor, which was now soaked in blood.

  Syr-Nagath approached the nearest of the forty-two who remained. The warriors now had their eyes fixed on the rug. She knew that nothing she could offer in terms of rewards or riches would make them do the thing she demanded. Only fear would be sufficient motivation. She stood before the first one. “Will you do my bidding?”

  The warrior silently shook her head.

  The dark queen’s sword sang from its sheath. In a glittering flash, the blade sliced through the first of the warrior’s braids, the Covenant of the Afterlife. Screaming, the warrior fell to the floor, writhing in spiritual agony. Her soul had been isolated from the empathic and spiritual bond with the rest of her bloodline, and would be consigned to eternal darkness.

  The Dark Queen gestured to a pair of warriors who stood behind her, and they quickly bound the still-screaming warrior in chains.

  Syr-Nagath spoke to the remaining warriors, who did not lift their heads. “I will ensure that she lives a long life, waiting for the darkness to take her.”

  Then she stepped to the next warrior and repeated the same question. “Will you do my bidding?”

  In the end, she had thirty-one warriors who pledged to commit infanticide, the most unholy of acts, in Syr-Nagath’s name. The eleven who had refused were now bound by chains, their souls barred from the Afterlife. She ordered them hoisted on gibbets before the pavilion as examples of the price of disobedience.

  For the eight who had committed ritual suicide, she commanded they be given the last rites and burned on funeral pyres as tradition demanded. Although they had defied her, they had done so with honor. While the Way she followed was not theirs, their self-sacrifice was one that she could respect.

  After the last of the thirty-one warriors filed out to begin the long ride west to Keel-A’ar, Syr-Nagath summoned her First, who knelt before her and saluted.

  “Yes, my queen?”

  “Should any of those cowardly carrion-eaters survive,” Syr-Nagath gestured in the direction the warriors had gone, “kill them upon their return and feed their bodies to the scavengers in the Eastern Sea after our victory here. I would not set eyes upon them again.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Ayan-Dar restrained the temptation to kill the keeper, who still hovered in the air a few paces from the top of the column, in easy reach of a shrekka. Killing a member of a non-warrior caste stood next to killing a child in terms of dishonor, although the old crone was hardly an innocent.

  Below, six warriors, including the two massive guards that had accompanied the keeper, had reached the base of the column. They watched him with baleful stares, their swords held ready, as they quickly rose to meet him.

  While they had the advantage of numbers, he held the high ground. He again restrained himself from trying to use his powers. If they worked when he truly needed them, they might save him. If they did not work now, the Ka’i-Nur would know for certain, and be emboldened in their attack. Even with his superior skills, their greater physical strength and numbers would eventually weigh against him.

  Unlike a physical platform, whatever force was lifting the warriors did not allow them to spring up toward him. All of them tried as they neared the top, but there was nothing but air beneath their feet. They kicked out as if they were swimming in water, but without changing the steady pace of their climb. For just a moment, it confused them.

  It was a small advantage offered in a very small window of time, but it was enough. With a series of lightning quick jabs and thrusts, Ayan-Dar killed five of them before they reached the top of the column. He derived some small sense of satisfaction when the ancient keeper was spattered with their blood, and she wailed like a frightened child.

  Only the sixth warrior, one of the two massive brutes, survived, but not for long. He was a powerful and skilled warrior, but Ayan-Dar had faced far better. In a brutal but brief clash of steel, the warrior gasped as his left arm and half his chest fell away from a clean cut by Ayan-Dar’s sword. Blood frothing from his mouth, the warrior fell backward off the column, to be borne slowly toward the floor.

  Seeing his way out, Ayan-Dar jumped, straddling the warrior’s body. As he did so, he lashed out with his sword at the keeper’s feet, taking off all her toes. Screaming, she pressed shaking hands to the bloody stumps, as she, too, began to descend. His act was not out of cruelty. He had wanted to focus her attention on something other than signaling to whomever controlled this mysterious column of air (builders, he surmised) to let the body he was riding plummet to the hard floor below.

  The keepers throughout the great cavern had been watching the spectacle, and now many of them began to panic. They fled toward the only exit, so far as Ayan-Dar could see, that led to the great stairway. He grinned as the mass of keepers, thousands of them, formed a solid blockage against the warriors outside who were trying to make their way into the chamber through the same doorway.

  “May you be cursed by the ancient gods!” The keeper spat at him. She floated in the air as if she were sitting cross-legged on the floor, blood running through the fingers she had clasped around the stumps of her toes.

  “Those gods perished at the end of the Second Age, mistress of the Books of Time. And I pray the honorless Ka’i-Nur will soon follow them into oblivion.”

  He was now close enough to the floor that he could safely land if he jumped. Deciding that now was a good time to test his powers, he slid off the body of the dead warrior and willed himself to float to the ground. He could not rise without some motive force, if only the power of his legs, but once airborne, he could sail through the air as he willed.

  His cloak fluttering behind him, he flew across the floor to land in the exact spot he had chosen. Then he tossed his sword in the air to momentarily free his hand. Looking at his palm, he was rewarded with a fierce cyan glow, sparks of raw power that danced across his fingers.

  Snatching his sword from the air, he headed toward the screaming mob that crowded the narrow stairs to reach the door and safety.

  He ignored the wails of the ancient keeper behind him.

  * * *

  T’ier-Kunai stood on the dais in the center arena, watching the acolytes as they sparred with various weapons. While her eyes saw what was happening in the arenas, her mind was far away, focused on her second sight’s view of the ancient fortress of Ka’i-Nur. She had watched Ayan-Dar disappear through the gate, beyond which she could not see, and now waited impatiently for him to reappear. It was unnatural for her to not feel the echo of his spirit in her blood, for it had been there since she had been a child, a youngling in the kazha of her city, where he had once been a master. She had grown to be his acolyte, and the day had come when he had shared his powers with her under the blinding, burning cyan flame of the Crystal of Souls here in the temple.

 
She had risen over the cycles through the ranks of the priesthood, at one point challenging and defeating her old mentor in the arena. That had been a day of tremendous honor for her, and she had knelt at his feet afterward, overcome with fondness for him. He had gently commanded her to rise, and gripped one of her forearms with his own.

  Since then, many cycles had passed until she had finally risen to the position of high priestess. None had been less surprised than Ayan-Dar, whose obvious pride in his former acolyte had made her spirit sing.

  You should not have let him go. There had been no choice, she told herself. She would not deny any of the priesthood, even an acolyte, a spiritual quest unless there was good reason. The Ka’i-Nur are reason enough to have forbidden it. You know. You have been there in that wretched hive.

  She sighed. Too much time had passed since Ayan-Dar had been swallowed by the gate of the fortress after the pathetic attempts by the Ka’i-Nur to dissuade him. Even though she could not sense him, could not see into that evil place, she knew that something was wrong.

  When she had told him that she was not prepared to risk war with the Ka’i-Nur, she had meant it. But she was not above paying a courtesy visit. Although the orders had all become so insular that it was rarely exercised, the right of visitation by the high priest or priestess of any order to any other was an ancient tradition, to which even the Ka’i-Nur had subscribed in ages past. Tradition demanded the most high be accompanied by no more than six of the priesthood, making seven in all, the number of all the ancient orders, including the Ka’i-Nur.

  She did not know if seven would be enough to save Ayan-Dar, but such a number would hopefully be few enough to avoid open war with their sister order. While she had no doubt the Desh-Ka would prevail, there was no way to predict the repercussions. It was a dark path that was best avoided.

  Her decision was made. “Kazh!”