As Iron Falls

by Bryce O'Connor

  The Dragon, though, wasn’t done.

  In two steps he stood over the convulsing form of the Tash, reaching down with his now-free hand to grab the man by the little that was left of what must have once been white-and-purple robes, hauling him from the mess he was half-buried under. He dragged him up the heap and over the bodies of the dead Hands, the old man choking and writhing as he tried vainly to fight through his shock. From the top of the pile Arro took a single great step onto the side of the upturned cart, heaving the Tash up behind him, and pulled the man around so that he settled awkwardly onto his knees between the atherian’s clawed feet.

  Now raised some four feet above the throng of soldiers and slaves that penned them in, Arro settled the hook of his axe head under the Tash’s weeping, blistered throat.

  “Listen well, soldiers of Karesh Syl!” the Dragon announced in a carrying roar, not even bothering to look to the generals now as he gazed down on the footmen of the army. “Your city falls, and your sovereign has fallen. Your Tash will die. There is no stopping that now, and over the next few days the slaves you have so diligently oppressed and abused for generations will rise up and repay you all your cruelties twice over. You have a choice to make now, and it is a simple one: live, or die.”

  “Do not heed him!” Enaro Sulva roared, pointing his sword at the man. “Soldiers of Karesh Syl, it is our duty as sworn protectors of—!”

  “Of WHAT?” the Dragon snarled in response, cutting him off so viciously the front line blanched. “Protectors of WHAT, Lord General? Of the borders of your city?” He smirked, raising his eyes to the fading plumes of smoke still lingering over the rooftops that hung over them. “You have already failed there. Protectors of this man?” He jerked the axe back a little, causing the Tash to spasm and choke in his grip as the beast’s amber eyes continued to scan the army. “He will die regardless of what you might do. Steel is a mercy now, to say the least. No… You are protectors of nothing, of no one. There is no more left for you to stand for, to die for. It is for this reason, I say, that the choice is simple. Fight here, now, and you may certainly win. The odds are in your favor, I admit. If you do that, none of you will live to see the next Moon rise. What men survive the battle will be nothing more than a pest to be eradicated by the greater will of those you have only ever shown cruelty and contempt towards. You will be hunted, like animals for sport, scattered and disjointed as you and those you care for are hounded and slaughtered.”

  He grinned grimly, then. “Or… You can take your lives and flee. You can come to the same understanding the palace guard did when I told them there is nothing to die for here, and much to live for somewhere else. You have my word I will do all in my power to guarantee you safe passage from the city. You will have the chance to start anew, to leave this place behind with your families and hopes and desires intact before I see it all turned to ash and rubble.”

  There were several seconds of harsh silence after this, the sounds of fighting echoing overhead like an omen.

  Finally, a voice from the middle of the ranks called out.

  “What of the nobility?” the soldier asked, lost among his brethren. “What’s to become of our lords and ladies?”

  Arro had just opened his mouth to answer when Enaro Sulva cut him off.

  “ENOUGH!” the Lord General howled in outrage, the outburst from one of his own men apparently the very last straw his nerves could tolerate. “It is not for us to choose how our lives are to end! If we are to die in defense of His Greatness and Karesh Syl, then SO BE IT! I will not stand by while—!”

  Shlang!

  Once more, Arro moved so fast, most didn’t catch the throw. The axe was a blur of silver. It ripped through the air in a rush of wind before taking Sulva between the eyes, splitting the steel and cloth cushioning of his plumed helm like paper. The Lord General’s body keeled back, getting hooked for a brief second on the straps of his saddle as blood coursed darkly over the black skin of his nose and cheeks.

  Then the straps slipped, and Sulva’s corpse fell to the plaza floor with a thud.

  “I make the same guarantee for your nobility.” The Dragon boomed on as though nothing out of sorts had happened, utterly ignoring the shocked expressions on every face before him. “If anything, let us see how they fair among the cruelties of a life without means and wealth.”

  There was a rumbling of assent at that.

  “You may live,” the Dragon pressed them, still holding tight to the dying Tash. “There is no need to die here, today. Karesh Syl is no more. Before week's end, I will see it burn.” He looked around then, almost imploringly. “I would ask you not to force me to bury you and your families among those ruins.”

  At this, Arro reached down and pulled the Tash up with both hands by the collar of his tattered robes, half-turning as he did. For several seconds he stared into the man’s wide eyes, taking him in as though burning the triumph of the moment into his memory.

  Finally, he addressed the soldier one last time.

  “The choice is yours, now,” the Dragon of the North boomed over the silence, never looking away from the Ekene Okonso’s terrified face. “Live… or die broken and alone.”

  And with that, he flung the old man fifteen feet back off the cart, into the waiting mob of freed slaves, who fell on him with howls and roars of glee that were pierced only for the briefest moment by a single horrible scream of pain and fear.

  CHAPTER 59

  “Of one kind, and yet of another,

  wings and wind bear him forth.

  From chains comes his second birth

  and never shall he stand for them.

  Child of the Daystar, he will speak the language

  and be the speaker of his people.

  To leave and then return,

  bearing a woman of ice and snow on his arm.”

  —Uhsula of the Other Worlds

  Raz looked down the sweeping expanse of the hill from atop Gale, feeling the cool caress of the wind whisper through his wings and armor. The breezes of the cooler seasons were calmer here, gentler, he realized. Perce was, in so many ways, a much milder world than the harsh sands of the South.

  As the others caught up to him, though, the collective hammer of their horses’ hooves thudding over the grasslands, he felt his enthusiasm waver and fade, and he frowned down at the sight far, far below.

  The sprawl of the city could not have been more unlike the towering wonder of Karesh Syl, but was no less impressive. It spread, seemingly without pattern or purpose, over the swaying terrain of southern Perce, its broad encircling wall snaking itself into a loop up and down and around the land, cutting the carefully knit buildings within off from the plains that surrounded them. Within the eastern swell of the city a structure rose, familiar in its build, a pattern of geometric structures surrounding fragile petal-like constructions that curved inward toward a central tower.

  The Sun, the Moon, and all Her Stars… Raz thought to himself, grimacing as he remembered Akelo explaining to him how the palace of Karesh Syl had been a tribute to the Twins.

  “Looks like they’ve spotted us.”

  Akelo himself pulled his mount up beside him, then, and Raz glanced around at the man just long enough to take in the now-familiar white-and-gold leathers that had become the kuja’s habitual armor. Akelo, though, wasn’t looking at him, his eyes somber through the slots of his spiked helm as he, too, took in the city below. Following his gaze, Raz saw that a great gate in the northern façade of the wall had opened, and that a swarm of figures—too far away to distinguish individually—was pouring out of the city to form up in ranks a hundred yards into the plains. Indeed, as he listened, the sound of blowing horns and ringing alarm bells reached his sensitive ears.

  “Looks like it,” he agreed with a humorless smirk. “Guess we’ve lost the element of surprise.”

  On his other side, Syrah chuckled darkly.

  “If you think that’s ever going to be an advantage we can count on again, I’d rea
ssess a few things.”

  Raz snorted, turning to eye her for a moment.

  Syrah was bedecked in the swath of grey and black silks several of their freed slaves had cobbled together for her from the supplies they’d pilfered from Karesh Syl. Her dark hood was up, but as the cooler seasons had started the Sun had grown kinder, and she’d only rarely been forced to shield her face. It made Raz sad, in a strange way. When the days grew too bright, Syrah had no choice but to don the pale veil the Laorin had gifted her, nearly seven months ago now.

  It was the only time she ever touched any of her old things.

  “They want to meet us in the open field?” Karan Brightneck asked from Syrah’s far side. “That seems foolish…”

  Raz smiled at the comment. He’d grown fond of the young atherian over the last several weeks. The female was smart, quick-thinking, and fast on her feet. Best of all, she wasn’t human, and she wasn’t male. It made her the perfect companion for Syrah, and Raz didn’t think he ever saw the two far from each other when the Priestess wasn’t with him.

  “It’s a greeting party,” Raz replied, indicating the gathering soldiers below them with a steel claw, drawing parallel lines in the air. “There can’t be more than five hundred, and see how they’re lining up on either side of the gate? It’s a presentation. If you give them a moment… There.”

  As he said it, one last figure exited the city, this time on horseback. Raz still couldn’t distinguish the details of the man’s armor or face, but he was fairly sure even Syrah and Akelo on either side of him could make out the massive strip of white cloth, cut into a decorative triangle, waving along atop the spear the rider had thrust skyward in one hand.

  Karan cursed in disbelief at the sight, slipping into the guttural tongue of the atherian. The female had been teaching Raz and Syrah the language, and while Raz was having ironic difficulties mastering the enunciations, the Priestess was picking it up with rapid ease, claiming it wasn’t so different from the throaty syllables of the Northern wild men.

  “A truce?” Karan demanded derisively. “They want a truce?”

  “Ultimately, it’s possible,” Akelo answered her from Raz’s left. “For the moment, it’s more likely they’re looking to simply parley.”

  “But we’re not going to parley,” Karan said, her confidence in the statement betrayed by the pleading look she gave Raz, who was still watching the antics at the gate below them. “Right? Tell me we’re not going to offer them terms…”

  Raz, for his part, didn’t look away from the scene of the city, studying its walls and the lounging drape of lavish buildings that covered the swaying land like a stain across the face of the world. In his mind, he tried to imagine what erecting such a wonder must have cost, what the toll of lives had been to raise such magnificence from nothing but dirt and grass.

  He didn’t even realize how long he stayed silent, gripping his reins so tight they were on the verge of tearing, when Syrah’s hand settled on his arm.

  He turned to look at her, taking a steadying breath. She was watching him with her one good eye, the warmth in its rose depths drawing him back to the moment.

  “What do you want to do?” she asked him.

  For a few seconds, Raz didn’t look away from her, taking what strength he could from her gaze. Then, straightening himself in his saddle, he pulled Gale around to face north, looking out over the fields on the other side of the hill.

  His breath caught in his throat, as it had every time he’d taken in the scene at his back over the last four weeks of marching.

  “Akelo,” he said quietly, “send a rider. I have a message for the city.”

  “Aye,” the Percian responded at once, pulling his horse around to peer across the plains. “And what would you have him say?”

  For a moment, Raz said nothing, gazing out over the scene before them.

  A hundred meters across, almost thirty thousand men and women stood at the ready in a trio of practiced columns each nearly half a mile long. At their head, a thousand cavalry riders Akelo and Cyper had personally picked awaited their orders, seated tall and proud atop the stallions and destriers they’d pillaged from the Tash’s own stables. At the rear, some two hundred carts and covered wagons, recovered from the food stores and granaries and the fields around the city, were still trundling along over the uneven surface of the savannah, bearing with them all their supplies. Steel gleamed even in the overcast light of noon, swords and shields and spiked helms pillaged from the barracks and armories after the armies of Karesh Syl had laid down their arms and been routed from the walls. Armor had been salvaged and distributed as evenly as possible, and it had taken Raz some time to get used to seeing the men and women under his command bedecked in the white and gold that had once been the oppressive colors of Karesh Syl.

  Now, the sight only filled him with pride and courage.

  After all, nearly a third of the city’s newly-freed slaves had flocked to the Dragon’s banner when word had spread of where Raz i’Syul Arro was marching on next. A banner that now rose at the very apex of the army, hefted in Hur’s powerful hands form atop his horse, depicting a human woman with long hair that covered her bare breasts, seeming to fly on leathery wings extending over each of her shoulders.

  The emblem, of course, had been painted over the crossed golden spears of a vanquished enemy.

  Finally, Raz spoke.

  “Tell them there will be no parley,” the Dragon growled, lifting his eyes to where the somber glow of the clouds hid the Sun from view. “Tell them they have a choice: free those they’ve bound in iron, or witness their city crumble to steel and flame.”

  From among the ranks of the army, several dozen sets of golden eyes watched the top of the hill to the south, studying the forms of Raz i’Syul Arro and his confidants, outlined against the grey sky atop their steeds. It hadn't taken long after the fall of the Tash for the group to form, for the individuals to find one another and gather. As one—and as they often did when the march came to an end—their gazes lingered on ‘the Dragon’, assessing him, studying him.

  Striving to learn from afar what kind of man he was, had been, and might be.

  In the center of their midst, one male of about forty summers turned to his older female companion.

  “He must be told,” Urlen whispered in their native tongue. “The moment approaches, Zal’en.”

  “No yet,” the female answered with a frown, the greying membranes of her ears twitching as she watched Arro’s third-in-command—Akelo Aseni—break off from the others and return to the main force. “It is not the time.”

  “When is the time, then?” a younger female, somewhere in her late score of years, demanded from Zal’en’s right. She sounded more desperate than impatient, fingers absently tracing the scars about the wrist of the hand that clutched the hilt of the sword at her side. “Zal’en, please. He needs to know.”

  “Not. Yet.” Zal’en’s voice was firm but kind as she looked to the female, giving her an encouraging smile. “We are far from the sands of the Daystar, young one. I don’t know if even Uhsula herself can see us here. It is not our place to speak for the gods. If the First Born wishes Raz i’Syul to know all that he is and could be, He will find a way.”

  “And yet every hour we wait, more of our kind are stolen away and thrown in chains,” Urlen muttered angrily in response. “What would you suggest we do, in the meantime?”

  “In the meantime,” Zal’en answered calmly, eyes lifting once more to the broad form of Raz i’Syul Arro, stoic and powerful atop his great black warhorse, white silk cloak whispering about him in the breeze, “we fight to ensure our Queen has her heir returned to the world from which he was born.”

  EPILOGUE

  “The Monster isn’t what you think. If you pull his strings, expect him to bite, not dance.”

  —Ergoin Sass, to Imaneal Evony

  “Karesh Nan has fallen.”

  The woman’s voice, like silk splitting over a sharpened blade, dr
agged Adrion from sleep so violently he couldn’t help but gasp as he awoke. He knew better than to yell, of course, to call for help or summon the guards. All the same, his heart thudded in his chest, his mind reeling to cope with his sudden consciousness. He floundered in his sheets, pushing himself up and back against the carved oak of the headboard with some difficulty, the stump of his left leg a useless reminder of his own weakness. When he managed to sit up, breathing hard as sweat began to cool on his back and arms against the chill of the evening, the man peered about the darkness, searching the corners of the room.

  To his surprise, he found Lazura easily enough, seated in a chair by his feet, the paleness of her thin silks distinct against the black of the night. Even in the dark he felt a conflicted knot build in his stomach when he took her in. Her face, beautiful and perfect, was partially lost to the shadows, but the fabrics draped about her frame were of that seductive fragility she’d always been partial to, toeing the edge of indecency but leaving enough for the imagination to wonder at.