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

by Michael R. Hicks

  And she had. It was a thin filament to which she now clung, but it grew stronger with every passing hour as the magthep she rode ran westward. The more she focused on her master, on the song of his blood, the easier it became to hear. Its strength reassured her. Kunan-Lohr had been a noble master, and dying in his service would be a great honor.

  But not before she spoke the words he so needed to hear.

  It was night now, and she guided the magthep along the edge of the road. Her side was wet where blood seeped from the wound that the healing gel could not bind. All color had been sapped from her vision, and at night, as now, she was nearly blind. She knew she had little time left. She hoped it would be enough, for she knew that her master was very close.

  Guided by the song of Kunan-Lohr’s soul, she steered her mount away from the road in the direction of a small rise that she could just make out against the background of stars.

  * * *

  Kunan-Lohr did not have to summon his warriors to arms. In three breaths after the sentry’s signal, all of them, weapons at the ready, had disappeared into the trees on the side of the encampment that faced the road. He and Ulana-Tath drew their swords as they watched several shapes approach in the darkness, quickly moving up the slope from the road.

  “Riders from the east,” Ulana-Tath said softly.

  “No, only one. The others are spare mounts.” Kunan-Lohr stepped forward as realization began to dawn that this was the bearer of the gnawing fear he had been feeling.

  The other warriors gathered around him as the magthep bearing the mysterious rider came to a wheezing halt before him.

  “My…lord.” The warrior spoke only those words before she began to fall from the saddle.

  Kunan-Lohr caught her in his arms, wincing at the sight of the ghastly wound in her shoulder, and the equally ghastly smell. He recognized her now as Nil’a-Litan, a very young warrior who had been serving under Eil’an-Kuhr in the east.

  “To the fire, quickly!” Ulana-Tath led him to the center of the camp, and her consort carefully set the young warrior on his bed of hides near the fire.

  While warriors were not healers, they were well acquainted with what could happen if wounds were not treated in time.

  “We must get her to a healer,” Kunan-Lohr said as he and Ulana-Tath carefully removed her armor. He winced at the sight of the infected and necrotic flesh of her shoulder, arm, and upper chest.

  “She has already been.” Ulana-Tath pointed to the unmistakable swirling mass of color that was a patch of healing gel, deep inside the wound. She took a bag of water and carefully drizzled some between the warrior’s parched lips.

  “My lord,” Nil’a-Litan spoke again, pushing the water away as she reached for Kunan-Lohr with her good hand.

  He took it, squeezing it gently. “I am here, Nil’a-Litan. Do not speak. Save your strength. We will find a healer from the road…”

  Her grip, which was very weak, clamped down on his hand. In halting words, she told him, “No…time. The Dark Queen has sent riders, thirty of them, to Keel-A’ar. They are to kill your child and the others in the creche.”

  Kunan-Lohr and Ulana-Tath looked at one another, nearly identical expressions of disbelief on their faces.

  “Child, you are very ill,” Kunan-Lohr told her. “The Dark Queen is not without fault, perhaps, but she would never do such a thing.”

  “I overheard her very words, my lord!” Nil’a-Litan was suddenly overcome with a coughing fit, and a froth of blood streamed from her mouth. She let go of Kunan-Lohr’s hand and reached down to pull something from her belt. “My captain, Eil’an-Kuhr, gave me your Sign of Authority to speed me on my way here.”

  “No.” Ulana-Tath whispered the word that was echoing in Kunan-Lohr’s brain. “Even Syr-Nagath would not contemplate such a terrible deed.”

  Kunan-Lohr tightened his grip around the metal rod that bore his name, inscribed in runes, along its length. He wished it was Syr-Nagath’s neck. “I fear you are wrong, my love. Eil’an-Kuhr would never have surrendered this to anyone unless it was the most dire of circumstances.” Turning back to Nil’a-Litan, he asked, “What of our warriors in the east?”

  “The Dark Queen bleeds us, my lord. Eil’an-Kuhr said as much. Since you left us, our warriors have been used as fodder, nothing more. But Eil’an-Kuhr said she would not lead a rebellion while the honor of Keel-A’ar was pledged to the Dark Queen.” She took his arm, the tips of her talons sinking into his flesh through the thin black undergarment. “My lord…you must ride home. Now. The queen’s riders are perhaps only hours behind me, maybe less. Eil’an-Kuhr dispatched more to follow them…but they are too few to stop those who come to harm your child.”

  Another coughing fit took hold of her, but this time she could not stop. Bright arterial blood suddenly gushed from her nose and mouth.

  In but a few seconds, it was over. Nil’a-Litan’s body relaxed, and her hand fell away from his arm. Her sightless eyes now stared up at the stars.

  “May thy Way be long and glorious, my child,” Kunan-Lohr whispered as he gently closed her eyes with a brush of his fingers.

  “What are we to do, my lord?” Ulana-Tath’s words were spoken as his First and a senior warrior, not his consort. “Could we not set an ambush for the queen’s riders?” Her eyes were ablaze with fear and rage.

  The other warriors had formed a circle around them, kneeling in respect for Nil’a-Litan’s passing as they waited for Kunan-Lohr’s orders.

  He stared at the dead warrior’s face for a moment, trying to imagine the agony and suffering she had endured to bring him this warning. Then he thought of the Dark Queen, and his blood began to burn.

  “If we had time, perhaps,” he said. “But there is nothing but open road here, and so many groups of warriors travel upon the road that it might be difficult to make them out. We cannot take such a chance.” Looking up at Ulana-Tath, he handed her the Sign of Authority. “You are to take ten warriors and return home to warn Anin-Khan and safeguard the creche. Go now and prepare, for you will leave at once.”

  Her expression hardening, she did not question him, but saluted and stood, choosing the warriors she would take with her.

  From those who remained, Kunan-Lohr chose the two most junior warriors. “I would not leave Nil’a-Litan’s body here to feed the beasts of the forest. She died with great honor, and deserves a warrior’s funeral. When you have seen to her last rites, you shall ride as fast as you can for home.”

  “We shall build a pyre for her that will be seen from Keel-A’ar, my lord,” the elder of the two said. They both saluted, then immediately disappeared into the darkness to gather wood for the pyre.

  “As for you three,” he turned to the warriors who remained, “you shall ride with me. We shall head east as fast as we can.” He looked down at the Nil’a-Litan’s body. “My captains there do not have the authority to break a covenant of honor with the Dark Queen.” He bared his fangs in anger. “But I do.”

  * * *

  “She will not let you live.” Ulana-Tath’s words cut through his soul, for he could not deny that they were true.

  “I have no doubt that will be her plan once I announce my intentions,” Kunan-Lohr told her as they both quickly donned their armor and weapons, “but I do not intend to succumb like a witless steppe-beast.” He caught her eye. “Nor do I intend to face her in the arena.” Both of them knew that to do so would be nothing less than suicide, although it was a path he would gladly take if it was the way of greatest honor for the people of his city. “An army is bound to me, and I would not have them beholden to that evil creature, even if we have to fight the other legions.”

  “But that is exactly what may happen.” She could picture it in her mind, Kunan-Lohr and the other warriors under the banner of Keel-A’ar, encircled and crushed by the Dark Queen’s hordes.

  “Do not worry about me, my love,” he told her. “Your concern is by far the greater one, the safety of our daughter.”

 
“If there are only thirty riders, they cannot hope to get past the gates once Anin-Khan has been warned.”

  Kunan-Lohr frowned as he finished strapping on his chest armor. “Do not underestimate her, my love. As on the field of battle, she moves some pieces in the open for the enemy to see, and moves others they cannot. What she lacks in honor, she makes up in vicious guile. Do not forget that she wears the eyestones of a genoth that she killed with her own hand, a feat that few warriors beyond the priesthood may claim. There may be more to this plot than we know, or that Nil’a-Litan overheard.” He took her by the shoulders. “Keep this in your mind: if something goes wrong, take Keel-Tath to the Desh-Ka.”

  “But they will not involve themselves with affairs beyond the temple!”

  He nodded. “Exactly so. That is why I said for you to take her to them, to the temple, if you must. The Desh-Ka will be obligated to take her in, and I believe that Ayan-Dar would see to her safety.”

  Holding her close, he kissed her. “My heart is forever yours, my love.”

  “And mine, yours.” She caressed his cheek, then pulled away. There was no more time.

  “Ride now, my love,” he told her, “as fast as you can. And do not look back.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Ria-Ka’luhr, acolyte of the Desh-Ka and slave to Syr-Nagath, had been well on his way back to the temple when he found himself changing direction, heading back toward the great road that he had only recently left behind.

  With every day that had passed since Syr-Nagath had taken him, he felt more like a helpless vessel that was being filled with the vile queen’s poison, and perhaps that was not so far from the truth. He could see himself, as from afar, as his body and mind seemed to act on their own, according to her will.

  His mind was flooded with the vision of a child, a mere infant, in a creche. But this child was different from any he, or any of his kind, had ever seen, for her hair was white and her talons were the color of crimson. The vision was so powerful that he wondered for a moment if he was not actually standing before her. It was the first pleasant sensation he had experienced since becoming Syr-Nagath’s slave, and he seized upon it.

  It was a beautiful moment, right up until he saw a dagger, held in his own hand, slit the child’s tender young throat. He could feel the muscles of his arm going through the motion of the strike, feel the handle of the dagger in his hand, and the warm spray of blood on his face.

  He wanted nothing more in the universe than to take that same dagger, the one now sheathed at his side, and plunge it through his heart. But he could no more do that than he could will his hands to keep the magthep heading for the temple, where there was some small chance the priesthood might be able to save him. Or at least stop him.

  The part of his mind, his soul, that remained to him screamed in helpless rage as he cut loose the pack animals. Kicking his mount’s sides, the magthep carried him at a full run back to the great road.

  Toward Keel-A’ar.

  * * *

  Riding as fast as they could, Ulana-Tath and her ten escorts fled westward along the great road, desperate to keep ahead of the queen’s riders. She was merciless on her warriors, the poor beasts they rode literally to death, and her own body. If the focus of Nil’a-Litan in her last days had been on finding Kunan-Lohr, Ulana-Tath was no less focused on reaching her daughter in time. None of them had slept and they had only had enough to eat and drink to survive when they changed mounts. Even for battle-hardened warriors, it was a grueling test of will, and Ulana-Tath marveled at the strength of young Nil’a-Litan, who had ridden so hard and long, injured and alone.

  Your death shall not be in vain, my child, she told herself. And you shall be remembered with the greatest honor in the Books of Time.

  As they stopped at cities and villages for fresh mounts, they sought to take as many as they could. She did this both to keep moving as quickly as possible, and to deny the queen’s riders replacements for their own exhausted magtheps. She suspected the gambit may have been partly successful, because in a fleeting glimpse of their pursuers two days out from Keel-A’ar, Ulana-Tath saw that only twenty-five remained.

  Her party had maintained their lead until the night before Ulana-Tath and her escorts were to reach Keel-A’ar, when the queen’s riders had somehow closed the gap. She suspected they had taken a very dangerous shortcut through the deep forest east of the city, where they had lost another handful of riders.

  Now, as the first rays of the sun broke above the trees, she saw that the enemy riders were right behind her.

  Above the thundering of the magtheps’ feet and their labored breathing, she heard the distinctive whirr of a shrekka through the air. One of her escorts cried out in pain, falling from her saddle to be trampled by their pursuers.

  “My mistress!” Her First, an older warrior she had known for many cycles, cried out. “Ride on! We will hold them here!”

  Before Ulana-Tath could say a word, he and her other protectors wheeled about, letting loose an ear-splitting war cry. The air was filled with shrekkas and the ring of sword against sword as the two groups of riders crashed together. The magtheps, normally docile and humble beasts, snarled and leaped at the commands of their riders. They tried to disembowel one another with their talons, and snapped at opposing riders and beasts alike with their flat grinding teeth.

  Ulana-Tath could not help but pause a moment, just long enough to see the other warriors of Keel-A’ar who had been following the queen’s riders thunder along the road to join the fray. She was nearly overcome with bloodlust, desperately wanting to charge into the mayhem, her sword singing through the air to bleed those who had come to kill her child.

  Keel-Tath. Her child’s name echoed in her mind, focusing her attention. She turned her magthep and kicked its sides, urging it to run for home.

  While her First and the others had bought her a few precious moments, they were still badly outnumbered. Despite their heroic efforts, five of the queen’s riders freed themselves from the vicious melee and followed after her.

  * * *

  With a final turn along the road, the magthep panting beneath her, Ulana-Tath saw Keel-A’ar, bathed in the glow of the morning sun against the magenta sky. She was so exhausted now, but the sight gave her a final breath of energy. Home, and safety for her child, was so close, now.

  “Faster!” She smacked the beast’s rump with the flat of her sword blade. Glancing behind her, she saw that the riders pursuing her were only a few lengths behind.

  A glint caught her attention, and she jerked to one side as a shrekka whirred past her shoulder. Another passed over her head just before her magthep squealed in pain and stumbled, a shrekka having sliced through a tendon in one of its powerful legs.

  The beast slammed to the ground and rolled. It would have crushed her, but warriors were trained for such things. Ulana-Tath leaped from the saddle, vaulting over the magthep’s head as it went down. She rolled twice as she landed and came to her feet, one of her own shrekkas in hand. She hurled it at the nearest rider, the whirling blades slicing through his leg. With a cry of pain, he fell from his saddle to slam into the ground.

  Another rider cast his shrekka at her, and she batted it aside with her sword.

  “Anin-Khan,” she prayed, “see me. Please, see me!” The sentries at the wall would be able to see that someone was out here, engaged in combat, but it was a long way for them to ride, even if they sortied now. She would have to hold off the enemy on her own.

  One of the enemy warriors charged his magthep at her. She dodged out of the way as the beast leaped, trying to strike her with the talons on its feet. She slashed at the animal’s side, and with a shriek of pain it staggered and fell to the ground. The rider dismounted, whirling to face her, before he could be pinned by the magthep’s bulk.

  The other three warriors dismounted, quickly surrounding her.

  “You are lower than the honorless ones,” she spat as they moved in. She took a shrekka in her free hand. “A
s outcasts, at least they have a reason for living like carrion eaters. Your souls will rot in eternal darkness!”

  They did not answer in words, but she could feel their shame, their fear.

  “Cowards!” She lunged with her sword toward the nearest warrior, making a feint. As he raised his sword to parry her strike, she whirled and threw a shrekka at the warrior behind her. The weapon tore through the armor of his shoulder, and he gasped from the pain. But it was not a killing blow.

  Ulana-Tath had no hope now that she would survive. While she was a warrior of superior skill, the Dark Queen clearly had not sent neophytes to do her bidding. She could have taken one or two, but not all of them at once.

  That the situation was hopeless did not mean she would surrender to have her throat cut along with that of her child. With a howling cry, she charged the queen’s riders, her sword reflecting the rays of the morning sun as she attacked.

  For a time, she drove them back with sheer ferocity. She drew blood from two of them before a third stabbed her in the back. The blade of his sword pierced the flesh of her hip and ground against the bone.

  With a sharp cry, she gripped the blade in the talons of her free hand and turned, pulling free, just as one of the other warriors struck low, slicing deep into the muscle of her thigh. She realized they were not trying for a single killing stroke. They only sought to weaken her until she could no longer defend herself. Then she, and her daughter soon thereafter, would die.

  “No!” Her cry was not one of physical pain, but of anguish at the knowledge that she had failed her daughter, her precious child.

  She held her sword, raised in defiance, as the queen’s riders moved in for the kill.

  Such was her surprise when the head of one of them fell from his shoulders to land at his feet after a shrekka passed through his neck. A look of shock was frozen on his face as the body, blood pumping from the stump between the shoulders, collapsed on top of the severed head.

  The other three warriors of the queen looked up in time to see an unknown warrior dashing toward them astride a magthep, a black cape billowing behind him. Two shrekkas flew from his hand in a blur. A warrior knocked one of the weapons from the air with his sword. The second shrekka slashed through another warrior’s breastplate, opening up his chest as if he had been cleaved with an axe.