The incantation stopped. A flurry of breeze flicked the hangings as Adrastes emerged. “Where?” he demanded.
Declan pointed to where most of the waiting folk had gathered on a low hill, watching the light-mottled shapes of the battling armies. “A page said the messenger is over there; come, I will guide you.”
The high priest stalked off, his robes fluttering behind him, the pectoral dark on his chest. Declan cast one wide-eyed glance at where Chryse huddled and followed.
Chryse threw herself frantically around the corner and at the tailboard of the wagon, climbed in, slipped and fell, blew out the lamp, and grasped the figurine in a trembling hand. She peered out; Declan had lost Adrastes in the throng and was circling back. “Here!” she hissed as soon as he drew close. “Take the accursed thing!”
Declan took it, groaned, and helped Chryse climb down.
A few moments later, before the gilded shrine in Chryse’s cart, Shandir removed the lead pellets, picked out the beads, the flax, the shred of wool, and molded the soft clay into a small round disc. With the point of her dagger she incised a many-pointed star upon it.
Chryse and Declan, using two embroidery needles, pried a flake of gold leaf from the shrine. Shandir pressed it onto the shape of the star. She laid the miniature shield before the image of the god.
She looked up at her fellow conspirators with a sigh. “Now we pray,” she said.
Declan took one of the women’s hands in each of his hands. “Harus,” he began, “Ashtar, we beseech you; as you love your son and your daughter, they need you now; obviate this evil spell …”
Shandir and Chryse closed their eyes and bowed their heads. A tear sparkled on the Sardian woman’s cheek.
The glided image of Harus shifted, its feathers ruffling themselves. And the tiny star flared with a clear radiance.
*
“Mother!” Danica gasped. She summoned her strength, letting it pour, hot, stinging, through her body. And like a sodden cloak lifted from her shoulders, the spell vanished. She was still clumsy; she still bore a heavy weight. But she could move. “Atalia!” she cried, but the woman lay unmoving. The officer scrambled over her body, trying to reach the queen. Too late; Ilanit was on him, and Lyris with her; cursing him they struck, one after the other, and the water in the stream flowed suddenly crimson.
Danica leaped from her perch and leaned over Atalia; the woman’s sightless eyes gazed toward the sky, her faith at last united with her god.
Danica settled her shield on her arm, set her teeth together. I shall avenge you, my mentor, I shall make them pay, Adrastes and Mardoc both … She stood, calling the remaining Companions. The shield flamed, a clear radiance driving the shadows of root and branch rushing upward, driving the dawn gloom to shatter against daylight. And the light of the sun spilled over the crest of the plateau, flooding the ravine with brilliance.
The imperial soldiers quailed, looking about them, hesitating.
Danica called again, and a breeze came from nowhere, whistling up the defile, gathering dirt and leaves into tiny, angry spouts of spinning wind. The Sabazians drove forward, their swords flickering red. The astonished Sardians gathered up their arrows and followed. The star-shield sang, one high, sustained note of power.
The surviving imperial soldiers scrambled over the rim of the defile and fled. Danica designated two Companions and a Sardian to gather up the dead and wounded; she refused to count how many Sabazians lay dead, but they were many. I cannot mourn you now, my friends, she thought. Later, your shades will be laid to rest, I promise you. She hesitated just below the brink of the ravine and with a weeping Ilanit looked back to Atalia’s still form. She, too, died for me—Ashtar! Give me the strength to avenge them all!
A falcon fluttered down from the sky and perched on a branch overhanging Atalia’s body. The shield snapped. “Harus is also with us.” Danica sighed, oddly comforted; Ilanit swallowed her tears and saluted the messenger of the god. Stained with mud and blood, the Sabazians clambered out of the ravine and stood upon the crest of the plateau.
A distant blue-green shimmer on the horizon, the gleaming spread tail of a peacock—Iksandarun. A smudge against the sky beyond—the sheltering mountains.
An archer stumbled, and Danica turned to glare at him. “This way,” she said. “Follow me.”
*
The imperial chariots made one deadly sweep through the Sardians and then spun back into the pass. The imperial archers loosed one more volley and faded into the infantry. The elephants stamped and bellowed, shaking their tusks, but they, too, soon turned back.
“Just as we thought,” Bellasteros said to Patros. “They feign a retreat through the pass.”
“The real battle will be above. Where Bogazkar waits, I wager.”
The conqueror shouted orders, sending pages scurrying. His horse reared and pranced and Solifrax magnified the sunlight tenfold. The Sardians moved forward, marching in good order. The imperial army sucked itself through the pass, leaving a few outriders who were soon overrun by the advancing troops.
Mardoc watched from beneath his standard, his eyes shifting again and again to the side, down the rocky slopes of the plateau to where the ravine was lost in a haze of dust and sunlight. His seamed face split into a smile, but his eyes still burned.
*
Adrastes struck Declan down into the dirt and kicked him where he lay. “You turned your back for an instant! You took your eyes from my wagon! You fool, you damned moronic jackass!”
Declan crouched, unmoving. A woman’s robes swirled near his eyes. Chryse’s voice, thin, quavering, and yet tautly intense, spoke: “Your Eminence. I called him to my side. If I did wrong, forgive me …”
Disgusted, Adrastes abandoned the crumpled form of the priest. “No, you did no wrong. I beg your pardon, my lady …” He was gone.
Shandir hurried from concealment to lift Declan’s head into her lap. “He will be all right,” she assured Chryse.
Chryse glanced tensely over her shoulder, watching for the feathered robes of the high priest, watching for some message from the battlefield.
*
The reserve imperial troops waited, hidden in the ruined fortress atop the pass. They peered through whatever cracks they could find in the shattered stones, watching their army stream from the pass and re-form on the plateau. They did not notice the Sardian archers climbing up behind them.
The Sabazians waited outside the tumbled gates of the fort to pick off whatever imperial troops escaped the bowmen. Danica climbed up the stump of a watchtower, finding toe and handholds between the great weathered stones. At the top she stopped, muted the shield, caught her breath.
The view was magnificent, even without her extended senses. With them, casting her thought over the battlefield like a circling falcon, she saw the exact lie of the armies. There, to her right, the imperial army filled the fields of winter wheat and barley that stretched to Iksandarun. Bogazkar himself was there, wearing the gold diadem of the emperor over the long black curls of his hair. His beard, too, curled long and shining black. An attendant held an embroidered parasol over his head, protecting him from the sun, and his charioteer held taut the reins of two white horses.
“Ah,” Danica said. She turned. Ahead of her were the Sardians, just breasting the top of the pass. Bellasteros and his warhorse were in the lead, the red plume streaming in the wind, the wings of the falcon standard outspread. Solifrax emitted a light of its own, a solitary flame brighter than any other weapon. Her shield rang in response.
“Ah,” she said again.
Bogazkar signaled. An officer close to the fort turned, raising his hand, drawing in his breath—the Sardian commander spoke first, and the officer fell pierced with an arrow.
Arrows rained into the fort and the imperial troops ran shrieking for the gates, only to be driven back by the waiting Sabazians. Danica clambered down and joined in, her sword dancing in the forefront of the fray. It was a savage pleasure, killing and killing again,
knowing that each man who fell was one less to come in conquest over the borders of Sabazel.
The archers began to shoot fire arrows, directing them skillfully to the splintered and broken braces supporting the walls of the old fort. Flames leaped up, chasing a thick black smoke into the sky.
The Sardians drove forward, into the hesitating imperial army. Bogazkar signaled the chariots and the elephants forward; the huge feet rose and fell, the sharp tusks tossed, the gleaming scythes turned round and round, harvesting bloody death among the Sardian infantry.
But Danica saw, and she summoned the commander of the archers. At her instructions he grinned broadly. Within moments he and his best men had climbed the watchtower and sent their last arrows ripping into the great bodies of the elephants.
The animals shrieked, throwing off their drivers, dashing them into shreds in frantic pain. They seized the charioteers with their trunks, throwing them down among the battered bodies of their other victims; they crushed the chariots with their mighty feet and, cut by the scythes, raged off across the field to send the infantry howling for safety.
And there, Danica thought in grim satisfaction. And there. Bellasteros, blood enough even for you—she was dizzy, her thoughts spinning, hard to grasp—blood and death and destruction now … healing after, after …
For a moment her knees trembled, a prickling cold chill flowing down her back, across her abdomen, through her legs. The child leaped and was pressed back as her muscles went into a quick, involuntary spasm.
Then the Sardian horse master was there, leading the Sabazian beasts safely through the battle. He said something, some compliment, perhaps—Danica did not hear it. Now, she thought, flinging away the chill, now to his side, the gates of Iksandarun and the end. I come, Bellasteros, I come, Mother …
She jerked her mare’s head around, pressed her knees into its side, and raced down the slope from the burning fort, plummeting into the battle so swiftly that Ilanit and Lyris and the Companions had to spur their beasts to keep up. They laughed and sang in a fell delight; the Sardians looked up at their voices, saluting them with smiles and comradely jests and upraised scarlet swords.
Except for Mardoc. From far across the field he saw the gleam of the star-shield, he heard the voices of the Sabazians. And his fever burned away, evaporating into the sunlight; his face drained of color, his eyes glazed, gray and frozen, the creases in his cheeks deepened themselves into icebound crevasses. “Death,” he cried. “For Sardis and for Harus, death …”
Imperial soldiers issued from the ruined fort on the side of the pass opposite the one that burned. Mardoc spun his troop of cavalry about so suddenly that his horse stumbled, its hooves seeking purchase in the stubble of the field. He waved the standard and the image of the falcon circled against the sky; he led his horsemen against the enemy soldiers as they sought to outflank the Sardians. The imperial soldiers fell beneath the falcon’s wings and were trampled into the churned and bloody ground, for Mardoc had ordered no quarter be given.
“Well met!” Bellasteros shouted to Danica. “Well done, indeed, my lady!”
Aveyron hoisted his standard. Patros saluted Ilanit with a grin. The horses of the king and queen met and curvetted about one another. Danica wiped the soot and blood and sweat from her face and cried in an incandescent fury, “We were betrayed! The enemy waited for us—they knew even to look for me. I was enspelled, but Atalia saved me. Atalia is dead, my king …” Her voice choked in her throat and she struck out blindly with her sword.
Bellasteros heard. His dark eyes, already burning with the fierce joy of battle, sparked into an even greater flame—rage, violent and implacable. “So they would murder you and all your warriors with vile treachery? So they would even imperil our victory?”
“Mardoc told the archers to stay back,” Danica said. “He knew, he knew, Bellasteros!”
Bellasteros screamed, the cry of a falcon falling upon its prey. Solifrax sliced the air into sparkling tatters. “Harus! Harus, attend me …”
“Ashtar!” shrieked Danica. “Take me, now …” And the power filled her to overflowing, melding her body and her shield into one blinding, gemlike flame.
Solifrax dipped and turned. Its point touched the shield. A star exploded upon the battlefield, and a wind pealed down from the azure dome of the sky. The bronzed falcon, ensorcelled, launched itself from its standard and shot upward, shrieking through the smoke, the stench, the screams of battle. It turned its blazing eyes toward the sun, and the sun flared.
As one, berserk, Bellasteros and Danica drove straight for the center of the imperial line. The Sabazians came behind them, their voices ringing in the paean. The Sardians flowed in a deadly wave across the field.
Bogazkar spun and fled, his parasol abandoned; it was crushed beneath the running feet of his soldiers as they fled behind him. And the ringing wind carried the Sabazian song of victory even to the walls of Iksandarun.
Chapter Sixteen
The westering sun lingered above the battlements of Iksandarun, bathing them in light; their enameled bricks shone blue, green, gold, as if they were freshly painted, not scratched and faded with years of neglect.
The gates stood open; a delegation of imperial generals awaited. Their battered weapons lay in the dirt before them. And something else lay there: the bloodied form of Bogazkar, black curls matted, embroidered robes torn and stained.
“So.” said Bellasteros. “His own officers killed him.” He looked to his right, to the gray and shrunken figure of Mardoc, and to his left, to the hooded, malignant form of Adrastes.
Mardoc said nothing. Indeed, it seemed as if he did not even hear his king’s words. His cold eyes rested on Danica as she stood just behind Bellasteros, and one corner of his lip rippled in a growl.
But Adrastes heard; he favored Bellasteros with a low bow and a bland smile. “So it seems, my lord. My emperor.”
Declan stood behind him, his face swollen and bruised, escorting a veiled Chryse. Shandir followed, on the periphery of the knot of Sabazians; she glanced at Lyris, at Ilanit and Danica, searching for one more face, and at Danica’s solemn shake of the head she groaned.
Mother, Danica prayed, just a little more strength, I beg you; sustain me a few more moments, it is not yet over…. The shield hummed. The wind licked at the walls of the city, purring, settling around them like a great hunting cat. The wind kissed Danica’s smeared and dirty face, cleansing it.
She was the wind, it seemed, coasting above the crowd, the victorious army and the defeated people; everything was focused in uncanny clarity, each face defined, each object painted with light. The blue and green of the gate, the red of Bellasteros’s plume, the bronze of both falcon standards—each color shimmered before her eyes. Her sinews sang, taut, still angry but no longer berserk. Now she waited, ignoring the brief tremble that stroked her limbs.
And neither was Bellasteros’s anger abated; it was only banked. She saw its embers burning hot in his eyes, in the set of his jaw and the line of his mouth, ready to be fanned again into flame at the first opportunity.
An imperial officer walked forward. He held in his hands the gold diadem of the emperor. “Mighty Bellasteros,” he said with a deep obeisance, “please accept this, the symbol of the Empire.”
Bellasteros did not move. The dark fire in his eyes held the man impaled for a long, breathless moment. A vast silence settled over field and city; even the lathered horses, held in a group to one side, and the distant shapes of the exhausted elephants stilled their cries. Only the wind spoke.
Bellasteros removed his helmet and handed it to Aveyron. He gestured. Patros took the diadem. Kneeling, he offered it to the king.
But the king gestured again. Yes, my lord, Danica said to herself. Let us make it clear, for all to see … It was she who took the crown from Patros’s hand and set it on Bellasteros’s crisp dark hair. The gold gleamed on his brow, catching the light of his eyes. Ah, she thought, how well it suits you. She inclined her head, a brief
movement of respect, but she said quietly, “You have won your Empire. Now you must rule it.”
“I will,” he returned with a quick smile. “I will.”
As one the people of the Empire made obeisance to the new emperor, king of kings, god-king. And many of the Sardians bowed as well. But not Mardoc. Adrastes’s bow was perfunctory; he never removed his eyes from the diadem. Their black glitter did not reflect the light of the crown, they swallowed it.
Bellasteros drew Solifrax, flourished it in a graceful arc against the sky. The falcons on their standards preened themselves. “Thanks be to the gods who brought this day,” he said. “Harus, the patron of Sardis; Ashtar, the patron of Sabazel, our ally.”
Adrastes glared at Bellasteros, realized the hardness of his look, blinked. Mardoc’s breath caught in his chest.
A low murmur went through the Sardian army; the emperor, in his wisdom and courtesy, dares to name Ashtar; the emperor, in his glory, is favored of all gods and may name any one he likes.
Patros ordered a couple of soldiers forward to remove the body of Bogazkar. “An honorable funeral,” Bellasteros said, “according to the rites of his own god.”
The mass of imperial people sighed.
“Centurions!” called Bellasteros. “Any man of my army, Sardian, or other, who takes any object, who damages any property, who forces himself on any woman, will be punished. Rewards will come soon enough; now we are to uphold the honor of Sardis.”
The centurions nodded. The army grumbled a moment in good-natured resignation. The mass of imperial people sighed again, in relief.
“Come,” said Bellasteros to the imperial officer. “Walk by my side into the city.”
Danica elbowed Adrastes aside and followed closely, a half pace behind. Not that the high priest would suddenly leap forward, dagger in hand … His evil glare struck her, and she turned it. You grow weak, she thought, your power wanes. As does mine. Her shield seemed now to float on her arm, buoyed up by its own faint luminescence; the child in her womb, concealed by her carefully pinned cloak, shifted restlessly, settling lower into her body, weighing more and more as each moment passed.
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