There were cries and shouts of surprise and anger from the opposing armies as their warriors were dazzled by the massive mirrors. Ayan-Dar and T’ier-Kunai could see the rectangles of light overlaying the lead ranks of opposing warriors along their entire line.
The curved surfaces of the mirrors began to slowly flex, focusing the full energy of the sun on their targets, and the cries and shouts of the enemy warriors suddenly turned to screams of agony. The kings and queens were reduced to smoldering piles of burned meat, and the warriors in the lead ranks, those most senior in each of the armies, went down, their bodies charred and smoking. Their leatherite armor burst into flame, and the breastplates melted into their flesh.
By the thousands did they die.
The warriors operating the queen’s weapons swept the blazing focal points of the mirrors over the packed masses of warriors with methodical thoroughness. With their leaders and senior warriors gone, and never having seen such weaponry before, many of the warriors simply stood rooted to the ground in shock and disbelief.
“It is a massacre.”
Ayan-Dar did not need his emotional bond with the high priestess to sense her revulsion. He could hear it in her voice. “This, my priestess, is but a glimpse into what is yet to come.”
* * *
From her vantage point, Syr-Nagath watched the carnage with clinical detachment. Her nose wrinkled at the stench of burning flesh and seared metal carried by the smoke that began to pour from the dying and the dead.
“Once the smoke becomes too thick,” the old builder warned, “the mirrors will no longer work as well.”
“There will be more than time enough.” Syr-Nagath gestured toward one of the massive phalanxes of warriors opposite them. Fully half had been reduced to crumpled heaps of burned meat, or were flailing on the ground in agony. The remaining warriors were kneeling and saluting. The Dark Queen turned to her First. “Lift the fire from those who wish to surrender. Send runners to them to bring their senior warriors here, that I may bind their honor to me.”
After saluting, the First turned to a group of other warriors, relaying the queen’s instructions. Runners immediately dashed forth down the slope toward the first group of enemy warriors who had surrendered.
One by one, the other groups of warriors, entire armies, began to surrender. Others, despite the loss of their leaders and senior warriors, charged forward. Those were met by the queen’s warriors and quickly overwhelmed.
Long before the sun had reached its zenith, the battle, and the war for mastery of the continent, was over. Syr-Nagath was now the undisputed ruler of all T’lar-Gol.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The mountain trail to the pass at Dur-Anai led Kunan-Lohr and his warriors along the edge of vertical cliffs that, at their height, dropped nearly half a league to the river below. The trail had been cut into the mountain very early in the First Age, even before the great east-west road had first been laid. It was a narrow, twisting path that was perilous under the best of times. The rock was brittle, and often fell from the mountain face above without warning or crumbled along the edge. The trail had been widened many times, so much so that in some sections it was more like a tunnel dug into the mountain, save that one side was open to the cliff.
He had lost more than a few warriors to the perils of falling stone, and some had plunged to their doom when part of the trail gave way, or slipped and fell on the water-slicked rock. This was a path that was usually only taken by a few hardy souls at a time, traveling with great care and in good weather, not by several thousand warriors moving at desperate speed through a storm.
And speed, above all, was of the essence. Kunan-Lohr drove himself and his warriors without mercy. They ran through the morning until exhaustion overwhelmed them. He gave them a time of rest when the sun finally emerged, driving away the rains. Then they staggered and shuffled until nightfall when even their acute night vision could no longer make out the weakened areas of the path. Only then did he let them rest against the cold stone.
They could build no fires for warmth, nor had they food, and precious little water. Where the trail rose high enough to touch the snow line, the parched warriors grabbed handfuls to melt in their mouths. It was all they had, and so they made do.
The warriors of his rear guard, trailing the main group by half a league, were watching an entire legion that had been sent in pursuit. The enemy warriors were still at a distance, but were closing the gap quickly. Unlike the warriors of Keel-A’ar, who had been forced to flee with nothing more than their weapons and armor, the legion sent by the queen were provisioned with food and water, and were not suffering from acute exhaustion.
When Kunan-Lohr called for a stop to rest each night, he and Eil’an-Kuhr, who now acted as his First, had made their way along the line of warriors, offering encouragement. A few words and a bit of humor from their lord and master helped to keep the warriors in good spirits.
But this day had been different. While Kunan-Lohr and his First had made their way along the line as they had the morning before, but their mood now was somber. For today they would have to cross the much-feared tributary of the Lo’ar River.
The trail descended rapidly from their previous night’s stop. Kunan-Lohr, who was always at the head of the column, heard the rush of water long before he saw the river. He was relieved that the torrential rains that had swamped the battlefield to the east had already passed through, leaving the water in the river at a normal level.
“At least we need not face a raging current,” he said grimly as he stepped to the edge of the path at the river’s edge.
Eil’an-Kuhr looked at him with a carefully controlled expression. She had never shown fear on the battlefield, but he could sense it in her now. Fear had wrapped its icy fingers around the hearts of his warriors, and himself. But he would not let it rule him, or his army.
The trail on this side of the river ended on a flat shelf that was as far across as five warriors with their arms spread wide. There was nothing left of the simple suspension bridge, which had been rebuilt countless times over the ages after being washed out by torrential rains. On either side of the river, the sheer face of the cliffs rose above them, disappearing into wispy clouds that moved rapidly across the sky, blocking what little sun made it into the great crevasse.
Flocks of flyers circled above, periodically darting toward the surface of the water, where their clawed feet snatched out wriggling fish.
But the fliers did not have full sway. As Kunan-Lohr and the others watched, one of the fliers, with a wing span as great as a warrior stood tall, swooped to the surface of the water, intent on snatching its prey. A much larger fish burst from the water, snapping its jaws shut on the flier’s lower half. With a shriek of pain, the flier disappeared into the water, dragged down by the fish. A long smear of crimson on the water’s surface drifted by the watching warriors.
Kunan-Lohr stared at the river, acid welling in his stomach. The river was small, tiny in comparison to the downstream segment that ran through Keel-A’ar. His strongest warrior could throw a stone to the far bank, and with the water running as it was now, the deepest part here would only reach the waist. The water was swift, but not so much that it would carry a warrior away too far downstream.
No. The water itself would not have given him the slightest pause were it not for the things that lived in it. He saw flashes of silver just below the rippling surface. Some seemed to hang in place, while others darted in and out of sight. Some, he could tell, were small, glints that were no longer than a finger. Others, like the one that took the flier, were much larger, as big as a warrior’s arm or leg. And all of them, even the small ones, had formidable teeth.
He turned to his senior warriors, whose eyes were locked on the water and the horror it contained. “We will not have much time before the queen’s warriors arrive, so we must hurry.” His expression hardened. “I will need some warriors who can swim.”
* * *
Dara-Kol stood n
ext to three other warriors along the edge of the river. Like those standing beside her, she had the great misfortune of knowing how to swim. The dark water swept by a mere hands-breadth from their toes. She and the others were nude, and the four of them shivered, but not from the chill air. They had removed their armor, weapons, and black undergarments, for their weight and drag would slow them down in the water. And every moment in the water was a moment spent with Death.
Around their waists were tied lengths of rope, the ends of which were held loosely in the hands of warriors behind them. The job of these first four warriors was to reach the far side of the river, then pull the rope across. The first rope would be used to pull others, and in a short time they would have a functional, if very primitive, rope suspension bridge.
That assumed, of course, that any of the four survived. There were more warriors waiting to take their place, but not many. Few who lived on this continent ever learned to swim, for rare was the body of water that did not have fish willing and able to kill them. And wading across would be nothing more than suicide.
More warriors stood in two lines on either side of the swimmers, stretching back to the entrance to the trail. Each of them held two rocks, about the size of a fist. At the rear of the two lines, more warriors hurriedly piled up even more such rocks. Each warrior had sliced open one of their palms with a talon, drizzling a few drops of blood onto each rock.
Dara-Kol felt her master’s hand grip her shoulder, and she fought to suppress the tremors that wracked her body.
“Force your fears aside, warriors,” Kunan-Lohr told them. “This is a battle, with the creatures in the water as our enemy. As battles we have fought before, we will win by fighting together, as one. Not all of us will survive, but those who die, shall die with great honor.”
“Yes, my lord.” Dara-Kol and the others saluted and bowed their heads, and Kunan-Lohr returned the honor.
“May thy Way be long and glorious,” he told them. He reached down to take a pair of rocks, smeared with his own blood, that he had set aside. “Let us begin!” He flung one rock as far as he could upstream, the other as far as he could downstream.
The warriors in the two lines beside the swimmers did the same. After the front rank of warriors had thrown their rocks, they turned and ran to the back of the line to pick up more. The next pair of warriors quickly stepped forward to throw theirs before they, too, ran back to the end of the line. It was the same technique they often used in battle when facing an organized opponent, with each rank rotating to the rear after a short time fighting the enemy. In this way, they could fight for hours without becoming exhausted.
Plumes of water shot up where the blood-stained rocks landed in the river. In mere moments, the surface of the river up- and downstream from where the swimmers waited was churned into a froth as the predatory fish went into a feeding frenzy, drawn by the scent of blood.
“Go!”
At Kunan-Lohr’s shouted command, the four swimmers, arms outstretched before them, leaped into the water, the ropes trailing out behind them. A third line of warriors rushed forward with yet more rocks to add to the confusion of the ravenous fish.
Dara-Kol swam for her life. Her heart hammered in her chest as she kicked her legs and drove her arms into the water as she had been taught at her kazha when she was a child. She had not grown up in Keel-A’ar itself, but in a small village in the mountains of Kui’mar-Gol that owed its allegiance to the master of the city. Near her home was a lake that the priest had told her had once been a crater made by an ancient weapon, that over time had filled with rain water. It was inhabited by small aquatic creatures, but none of them were dangerous, let alone deadly. She had spent much of her youth in and near that lake, but knew that after this terror, she would never again willingly take to water.
Breathe, she admonished herself. She had been holding her breath in fear, but realized that her muscles needed as much oxygen as her lungs could provide. Turning her face to the side, she blew out, then sucked in a great lungful of air before turning her face back into the water as the priest had once taught her.
She could see in glimpses to the side that the other three warriors were falling behind her. She did not know if that was bad or good. She was tempted to slow down, as she felt terribly exposed swimming alone. Swimming together, perhaps the fish would not be so bold.
The warrior who was farthest upstream from her let loose a piercing cry of pain. He floundered for a moment, then went down. A few seconds later his head broke the surface, and Dara-Kol caught sight of a glittering shape the length of her forearm firmly attached to his throat, blood spurting from the wound. In the instant just before she forced her face back under the water with the next stroke, even more glittering shapes swarmed over the warrior. The water around him heaved and turned crimson.
No safety in numbers, then. She drove herself forward, kicking even harder, pulling with all her might with every stroke of her arms.
She felt something brush one of her legs. Then she swept her hand across what felt like a set of prickly spines. It took all her will not to scream in the water. She forced herself to breath, to kick, to stroke.
Something else, much larger than the other things, thudded into her side and bounced off. She moaned, fighting off the panic. She had no idea how far she was from the shore, and was too terrified to look.
There was another scream behind her, but she was not sure who it was. It no longer mattered. Each time her face broke the surface for a breath, she saw a snapshot of horror. Screams and shouts. A torn and bloodied hand rising from boiling, bloody water. A silvery horror leaping from the water, a hunk of flesh clutched in its mouth.
Kick. Stroke. Breathe. That was her existence in a time that dragged on forever. Her arms and legs, already on the ragged edge of exhaustion from the journey along the mountain trail, were burning like fire. She gritted her teeth as she willed her body onward. Do…not…stop.
Something nipped at her leg and she screamed. Before she could stop herself, she inhaled some water and began to gag.
More silver flashes appeared in the water around her. The sleek fish sliced through the water, their wide mouths open to reveal rows of teeth as sharp as her dagger. They were so close that she could see their soulless black eyes.
The fish streamed past her, drawn by the sound and scent of the feast that lay behind her, the sacrifice of the other warriors giving her one final chance.
Holding her breath, fighting against her gag reflex, she shot forward. If she did not reach the opposite side of the river in the next few seconds, it would not matter, because…
There! Her leading arm slammed down on something hard and unyielding. Rocks. Clawing at them with her talons, she dragged herself forward as she fought to get her feet under her. Choking and coughing, she heaved herself out of the water just as a silver arrow rippled across the surface in her direction. With a cry, she yanked her feet clear and rolled away from the water’s edge. The spiny dorsal fin of the fish twitched as it turned away, disappointed.
Dara-Kol vomited, but only a little water came forth. She lay there for what to her seemed a long time, shivering with cold and fear.
She at last became aware of a sound that she finally understood were cheers from the warriors across the river. Getting to her knees, barely able to control the shaking of her body, she turned to face them.
Kunan-Lohr stood next to the water, an unmistakable look of pride on his face. To her amazement, he knelt and saluted her. The other warriors instantly did likewise, their cheers falling into reverent silence.
She returned the salute, her master’s honor warming her. Then, with trembling hands, she began to pull the rope toward her.
Such was the surprise of all when after only a few pulls the tattered end emerged from the water. Dara-Kol felt a spear of ice through her heart.
The fish had bitten the rope clean in two.
* * *
“No.” Eil’an-Kuhr had spoken in a whisper, but her voice
carried far into the tightly packed ranks of warriors behind her. She stared at the bit of rope Dara-Kol held up, a sick look on her face. The warrior who had been holding the other end of the rope quickly reeled it in, then held the tattered end in her hand.
“Stand fast, Dara-Kol!” Kunan-Lohr called across the river, which was still seething with fish snapping at the last scraps of the other three warriors. Turning to Eil’an-Kuhr, he spoke so that all could hear. “The rope’s parting is an inconvenience. Getting a warrior to the far side was the most important task. I need a warrior who can cast a spear to the far side!”
While most warriors preferred swords, some used spears or even exotic weapons, such as the grakh’ta whip. A brace of warriors carrying spears moved forward, the others parting to allow them to pass.
But as they saluted Kunan-Lohr, another warrior came forth. He was smaller than the others, but the other spear carriers immediately stepped to the side.
“My spear can easily reach the far side, my lord.” His companions nodded emphatically.
Kunan-Lohr recognized him as one of the young warriors who had gone with Dara-Kol disguised as a builder. “Even with a rope attached?” Kunan-Lohr gestured for the warrior holding the end of the rope to come forward.
“I can only try, my lord.” The warrior took the rope and carefully knotted it around the shaft of his spear. He hefted the weapon, then moved the knot farther forward to improve the balance.
A cry of warning went up from the rear of the column, which was still trapped on the narrow confines of the mountain trail behind them.
“The queen’s warriors will soon be upon us.” Kunan-Lohr nodded to the young warrior, then stepped out of the way. “We must hurry.”
In Her Name: The First Empress: Book 01 - From Chaos Born Page 18