“My sisters march where they will,” said Dahrima. “I do not command them.”
Varda smiled. Her crimson eyes widened a bit. “Yet they follow you,” she said. “They flock to you like great, golden birds.”
Dahrima’s fist tightened about the haft of her spear. Was the witch trying to make her angry? Did Vireon truly summon her, or was this some trick meant to humiliate and chasten her?
“We march with the King’s forces,” said Dahrima. “We have fought and died for him. We will fight and die again. We are his true servants. This we have sworn.”
“Yes, I have heard tell of this oath. The Ninety-Nine they call you. Yet how many are left?”
“Twenty-nine marchers,” said Dahrima, “and forty guarding the walls of Udurum.”
“So few…” The words of the shamaness were full of mock sadness.
“What does His Majesty wish of me?” Dahrima asked.
“He wishes for you and your twenty-eight sisters to go home,” said Varda. “Enough of the Uduri have died in his service. Vireon does not want to see more death among the spearmaidens. Take your sisters and return to Udurum. Keep its walls strong and unbroken. Leave today.”
Dahrima could not prevent a growl from escaping her throat. “I do not believe you.”
Varda’s eyes blazed red while the flame atop her staff flared a deeper blue. “You will hear it from his own lips when he returns. You should be grateful. We are to face untold dangers from this invading horde. Perhaps you think the Uduri are expendable because they are incapable of childbirth. I can assure you Vireon does not share this view. He wishes to protect the last of you.”
Dahrima spat upon the carpet. “We are warriors! A single Uduri is worth three Uduru. We march where we will, and we have sworn to march with Vireon. We will fight.”
“Will you defy the orders of your King?”
“If we must.”
Varda stepped closer. Dahrima’s knuckles itched. She longed to pull her axe and cleave the witch’s skull. “Listen to me,” said Varda. “Vireon is done with you. Take your sisters and go now, or lose the honor that is all you have left.”
Dahrima gritted her teeth. Her breath came heavy and loudly. For a moment, she could not speak.
“I know what you are doing,” she told the witch. “You seek to rule Vireon’s mind as you ruled that of Angrid. I will not allow it.”
Varda laughed in her face. “You are mad and hopeless, Axe. Vireon has made his choice. Go now, or risk my anger.” She turned her back to Dahrima and walked toward the bed of furs. The crown of iron and sapphire glittered there, waiting for its King to return and set it upon his head. It was Varda’s tool, the keystone of her spell.
“First you steal our mates,” breathed Dahrima, “and now you try to steal our King.”
The witch whirled about and waved her blue flame. A blast of wind and ice caught Dahrima in the chest, encasing her in a thin layer of frost that burned like fire. Dahrima grimaced and slammed the haft of her spear against her breastplate, knocking the frost loose.
“Witch!” she cried, moving closer to Varda. “Poisonous harlot!”
Varda’s staff moved again, knocking the spear from Dahrima’s grip.
Another blast of cobalt flame sent Dahrima clattering to the ground. A thick and heavy sheath of ice engulfed her chest and upper legs. Varda stood above her now, staff raised as if for a killing blow.
“Beg my forgiveness,” said the witch. “Or die.”
Dahrima swept her leg across Varda’s knees. She shattered the ice about her middle with spear and fist as the witch fell upon the carpet. Dahrima rolled into a standing crouch and pulled the great axe from her belt.
Varda screeched like a bird of prey, pulling herself upward with the black staff. Dahrima kicked it across the tent. The blue flame extinguished itself. Varda leaped upon the furs and pulled Vireon’s greatsword from its scabbard. The blade gleamed silver-blue as the two Giantesses faced one another. Rain pelted hard against the canvas ceiling.
“I do not need the cold flame to take your life,” said Varda. “I will cut out your heart and feed it to the wolves.”
“You would cut out the heart of Vireon,” said Dahrima. “But I will not let you.”
Varda lunged forward. The greatsword clanged against the axe’s double blade. Purple sparks flew across the tent.
Someone pulled back the tent flap and Dahrima saw the faces of the Udvorg guards peering at her. One of them shouted something. Varda sprang forward again, blue flames streaming from her open mouth.
The sword would have taken off Dahrima’s head if she hadn’t ducked below its arc. She raised the axe to counter a downward slash and kicked at the witch’s flat belly. Varda flew backwards across the tent and the canvas tore from its moorings. The shamaness lay in the mud with the demolished pavilion wrapped about her body. Dahrima could have rushed in and finished her at that moment, but she stood fuming instead. The witch used Vireon’s blade to cut herself free of the canvas, then stood to face Dahrima.
A ring of grinning Udvorg surrounded them now. The blue-skins clapped their hands, stomped in the mud, and shouted to their fellows. This was a fine sport for them, watching two Uduri–the blue-skin and the pale-skin–battle in the rain. Where was Vireon? Dahrima could not see the Sword King’s pavilion; a wall of grunting, drooling Giants closed her off from everything except her foe and the driving rain. Thunder shook the High Realm.
Varda rushed her with the big sword raised high. Dahrima side-stepped the blow and brought her axe down instinctively. She felt the shock of a meaty impact before she realized what she had done. The world seemed to slow in that moment, as if time itself were frozen beneath the witch’s ice. The greatsword splattered into the mud, followed by Varda’s limp body. Her head, sliced cleanly from her spouting shoulders, rolled across the ground to rest at the toe of Dahrima’s boot. The bloody eyes stared up at her. A whisper of blue flame died inside the open mouth.
Varda’s blood was the deep purple of Udurum cloaks. It mingled with the brown mud, turning it black. A swathe of violet spray stained Dahrima’s legs, but already the hard rain was washing them clean. The Udvorg looked on in shocked silence. The sound of the storm filled Dahrima’s ears until a familiar voice cried out from beyond the ring of gawkers.
Vireon came shoving his way through the blue-skins, his black tunic and hair drenched by the rain. His crownless head lowered to examine Varda’s corpse, then rose to meet Dahrima’s gaze. He looked upon her with a wordless sorrow.
“Dahrima?” He said her name once, but she barely heard it beneath the pounding rain.
She could not bear to see what emotion would flood Vireon’s face next, so she turned and pushed her way through the mumbling Udvorg, knocking many of them into the mud. She ran while thunder and lightning tore open the sky above the cliffs. Horses and Men rushed to get out of her way. She passed the green-gold pavilion of the Sword King without looking back, running north along the shore.
The words of Varda rang in her head as she fled: Vireon is done with you.
She came to a high crag and leaped from it into the driving wind. She seemed to fall forever, sinking toward the gray ocean. In her right hand the great axe was already washed clean of the witch’s purple blood. A reflected flash of lightning danced across its blades as she fell.
Finally the frigid water accepted her; she plunged into its dark depths.
She contemplated death by drowning. She might let herself sink to the bottom of the sea and stay there forever, a proper penance for her crime of rage. She had betrayed her King. She had seen it in his eyes as Vireon stared at her over the corpse of his lover.
She sank deeper into the peaceful bliss of the waters below the storm. It was so quiet down here. Yet now she heard herself thinking, and her thoughts were loud as thunder.
Vireon is done with you.
No. Varda will not haunt me in this way.
She earned her death with those words. Let the Udvorg moan
the loss of their shamaness. Vireon will be free of her spells now. Free to rule both his kingdoms as he thinks best.
With a single stroke of her axe, Dahrima had freed him.
With her crime and her shame, she had restored his liberty. Her feet met the sandy ocean bottom. The last bit of breath escaped her lungs as she pushed herself upward. Her head and shoulders broke the surface, and she sucked in rainwater along with precious air. She swam toward the rocky shoal. Far above and beyond the lip of the precipice, the morning smokes of the camp rose into the sky and disappeared.
Dahrima walked out of the sea and ran northward along the beach, axe in hand.
I have disgraced myself. Yet I have sworn the oath.
I will serve Vireon.
Let my sisters return to Udurum if they will.
I will not.
I cannot.
Neither could she march with the Udvorg any longer. They would hate her now, and they would call for her head to pay for the witch’s. A life for a life, that was the way of justice for both Uduru and Udvorg. Vireon might even give it to them.
Perhaps the blue-skins would indeed have her head someday. But not today.
A great invasion was coming. Vireon still needed her. The first battle would be fought at the ruins of Shar Dni. She sprinted north along the strand, leaving behind the twin armies that crept along the cliffs.
He needs me.
She ran against the sea winds, and the rain pelting her face mingled with salty tears.
4
The Feathered Serpent
Khama missed the days when he was a simple herder of goats. For twenty years he had enjoyed that blissful existence on the yellow plains west of the Pearl City. During that time he had been only a Man, with a loving wife who bore him four perfect children. He missed the sweet winds playing over the tall grass, the bleating of his docile herd as he led them to water, and the serenity of the open sky. He missed Emi’s brown face and soft lips, the laughter of his children and their warm hugs.
Goats were so much easier to guide than Men.
He might have lived in domestic bliss on his tiny farm for decades more, might have forgotten his ancient past completely, if the two hawks had not come south from the Land of Giants. One of the hawks was Iardu the Shaper, the other his disciple–daughter of the dead Giant-King. It was Iardu’s prismatic eyes that made Khama recall the truth he had hidden from himself. Iardu’s soft voice woke him from the dream of tranquility he had woven so carefully about his family.
All dreams must end eventually, as all dreamers must awaken.
Khama stood upon the forecastle of the Bird of War, wrapped in a fluttering cloak of scarlet feathers. The calls of sailors and soldiers mingled with the songs of low-flying seabirds. A powerful wind filled the white sails of four hundred Mumbazan swanships, a wind Khama had summoned himself and kept steady for three days. Three hundred Yaskathan galleys glided among the swanships, the silver Sword and Tree insignia bright upon their crimson sails. Nearly two hundred black-sailed reavers, newly pledged to the Slave King of Khyrei, served as rearguard for the southern fleets.
Soon the emerald hills of the Jade Isles would dot the eastern horizon. Khama hoped the combined fleet was not too late. The Hordes of Zyung approached the island chain even now from the far east. If the Jade King were a wise man, he would surrender to Zyung immediately and accept the yoke of his rule. By doing so, he would save thousands of lives. His island folk, never a warlike race, might prefer slavery to slaughter. They were more like goats in that way than the people of Mumbaza or Yaskatha. However, the Jade King would have little choice in the matter if Undutu and D’zan reached his court before Zyung. They would persuade him through mighty orations, chests of gold, and implied threats if necessary, to join his small fleet with their own. Khama sighed and breathed deeply of the marine air, dreading the battle that would ensue.
Since that day eight years ago when Iardu had caused Khama to remember his own history, the herdsman had given up his agrarian life for a palatial estate near the palace of Undutu. There his family dwelled in luxury and privilege. All save Kuchka, his oldest son, who had attended the College of Sages before joining the cavalry legions of Undutu. Khama was thankful that his warrior-sage son had not joined the royal navy, or he would be on one of these ships right now, and sailing toward a grim fate.
In the past eight years Undutu the Boy-King had grown into a strapping young man, a brash lion eager to prove himself by cutting down foes and winning glory. Two years ago his mother’s regency had come to an end as Undutu reached his seventeenth year. On that same day Khama’s position was elevated from Chief Advisor to Prime Vizier. Undutu had needed his advice more than ever as his mother’s fading health kept her from the throne room. The voices of generals and diplomats filled the young King’s ears constantly, but always he came back to Khama when making important decisions. Undutu had never known his father, a victim of the plague while Undutu was yet an infant, so he came to view Khama in a paternal light. Khama, too, saw the King as more than his liege. At times Undutu seemed more like Khama’s son than the fiercely independent Kuchka. The King of Mumbaza was often called Son of the Feathered Serpent, but only Khama knew the irony of that honorific.
Tuka and Bota were both well into their teenage years now, strong boys showing much promise. And little Isha, Khama’s only daughter, was twelve. All three spent most of their time with tutors, or in the company of other highborn children. Khama wished he knew them better, as well as he had come to know Undutu.
Undutu’s tutors had filled the young King’s head with stories from the Age of Heroes, legends from the Age of Walking Gods. The King’s martial instructors, General Tsoti chief among them, had honed his gift for swordplay, spearcraft, and war strategy to the point of obsession. This had begun well before Khama had come to court. For years now he had persuaded Undutu to avoid the call to war; the Sword King of Uurz made ceaseless overtures to the King on the Cliffs. Each year it had become more difficult to sway the young lion with the wisdom of peace. When the King of Yaskatha at last joined the Sword King’s crusade to conquer Khyrei, Undutu had gone deaf to Khama’s words. There would be war, and Khyrei would finally pay for its long list of crimes.
Yet the Slave King had arisen before the Legions of Uurz and Udurum had arrived. There was no longer any need to assault the black city, for Gammir the Reborn and Ianthe the Claw were vanquished at the hands of Sharadza Vodsdaughter and an army of vengeful slaves. Word of the aborted siege had reached Khama before the southern navies reached the shores of Khyrei. But Khama remained skeptical until Undutu’s flagship had docked at the Khyrein harbor; then he saw that Iardu the Shaper had been behind the entire affair.
Iardu had awakened Khama to the reality of his own past years ago. And now he had called together the Kings of the Five Cities and awakened them to the reality of what was to come. He showed them Zyung the God-King, Lord of the Living Empire, and his hordes of Manslayers. After three thousand years, Zyung’s mighty hand was finally reaching across the world. A great invasion was coming. It wasn’t until he saw Iardu’s vision that Khama realized how inevitable this war had become. Long ago Khama and Iardu had led their peoples to a land where the Living Empire had no foothold. Khama had fostered Mumbaza, a kingdom based on peace and freedom; he had worked hard to maintain its peace and advised every King of the Pearl City’s lineage. Yet all of it was about to end, unless the Hordes of Zyung were repelled.
Undutu would get his chance to be a hero.
The Son of the Feathered Serpent would not sit idle and await invasion. As any hero from the sagas would do, Undutu must sail his fleet to meet the invaders on the open sea, carry the fight to the aggressors. King D’zan agreed, despite the Shaper’s disapproval. Iardu’s manipulations had come to an end; he could no longer trick the assembled Kings into following his advice. So the fleets had sailed eastward, and Tong the Avenger had contributed his own navy to the armada. The Khyreins were only too glad to avoid persecu
tion by pledging themselves to the Slave King and his allies. The two hundred black warships with their devil-head prows had been scourges of the Golden Sea when Ianthe and Gammir had ruled. Now they would serve well in the coming battle, if only as fodder for Zyung’s dreadnoughts.
This would not only be a battle of Men and metal, flesh and blood. A second battle would determine the true course of events. A battle of sorcery. Khama contemplated the immense sky-ships that carried Zyung’s legions and the flocks of flying lizards that supplemented their numbers. Soon he must begin to weave spells for his King and the double fleet. For now, he stood at the prow of the flagship and watched the fleets slicing through the waves.
Undutu approached from midship. Sunlight glinted on his peaked silver helm, its white ostrich feather dancing in the wind. The King’s dark, muscular arms were bare except for the golden cobra torques wound about his biceps. A vest of pearly scale mail covered his broad chest and midriff. His cloak was whiter than the ship’s sail, and the golden insignia of the Feathered Serpent was stitched upon it.
“What do you see, Khama?” asked the young lion. His right hand lingered on the golden pommel of the cutlass at his belt.
“I see blood,” Khama said. “The Golden Sea stained to crimson. The Jade Isles flaming and littered with corpses. Drowning men and crying mothers.”
Undutu frowned. “I thought you were behind me in this war.”
“I am,” said Khama. “What I see is the truth of war, the reality to which heroes, soldiers, and even Kings, are often blind until it is too late.”
“Ah,” said Undutu. “So it is the future you see. Like Iardu’s golden cloud. Tell me you see a victory for us.”
The wind tore at the feathers in Khama’s headdress. He turned to face the King. In the bright eyes, broad cheeks, and handsome smile he saw the face of Kuchka flash for a moment.
“I cannot do this,” said Khama. “Yet I can tell you that there are many futures, as there are many roads a man may travel to reach his destination. He may find each of these several roads, but ultimately he must choose only one.”
Seven Sorcerers: Book Three of the Books of the Shaper Page 6