by G. D. Penman
The tower of flame abated, leaving behind a black plume of smoke. The reek of molten fat swept over the city as sooty bones began to rain down. Kaius pulled himself up out of his bunker beneath the battlefield, one of a half dozen that had been dug out in a circle around the city, so that no matter where Walpurgan approached, there was a way to take her by surprise.
Only Ochress’ army remained. Though some of them had succumbed to instinct and given chase after Vulkas’ fleeing soldiers, the Chosen were whipping the rest of them into shape and readying themselves against a counter attack from the army within the city. An entire army held in reserve as their enemies slaughtered one another. An entire war turned on a lie.
Kaius looked around himself at the desolation. A crater of blackened earth, sharp outcropping of glass where there had been enough sand trapped beneath the surface and the ruined bodies of his enemies. Most of the bodies were just twists of molten metal wrapped around a few bones, some were not even that. They had simply exploded in the face of the sudden heat.
The only body that still had human form was that of Walpurgan. One of her arms had been charred clean off her body, as had half of a foot. The injury on her eye had been sealed by the heat. The rigid surface of her skin was thick with soot where it had not been melted clean away. The light that had been pouring from her body before was reduced to a dim flicker emerging from her countless gaping wounds.
Kaius’ face was locked in rapturous joy. Walpurgan did not move, but he had his suspicions. He lashed more flames across her back and delighted as she moaned and tried to drag her ruined body away from the heat. He called his sword and crept across to her. He leaned down to the blackened nub that may have once been an ear and whispered, “See how feeble its defenders.”
She whimpered, whether in pain or fear he did not care. It filled him with vigour. Across the connection, he called out to Lucia, “Come down. Bring out our army. Let them face off against Ochress' little remnants. Let them feel the victory too. Quickly my beloved, before some other fool tries to take our prize.”
Chapter 17- The Divide
The city gates had been cobbled together in the last week from pieces of furniture and ancient bones but they swung open smoothly as Lucia's army emerged. The Chosen worked furiously to keep them in formation but it was a struggle. Each of the noble household's guards had their own agenda. Each one of them was still trapped in the old mindset and they intended to win glory and favour on the battlefield, blissfully unaware that killing for Lucia was the last thing that she would have wanted. Added to that press, were all of the citizens of the city, driven into an adoring fervour, that had snatched up anything that could be used as a weapon and formed their own militia.
They were at the rear, by Lucia's direct command, kept as far from the fighting as possible despite the more experienced commanders' suggestion that they be used as a human shield on the flanks. Once the army had emerged it wheeled about to face Ochress’ army. The pirates and ravagers that were left of Ochress’ army were forming up into a loose formation, ready to break apart at any moment to pour around the flanks of any group that pressed their luck too far. Lucia walked away from them with pronounced disinterest. She was not concerned that the battle would turn against them now, not after so much had happened. Besides, if Kaius did not care, then she wasn't going to concern herself. He was standing at the centre of a huge blackened dip. The impact was centred on the only solid object that remained, other than his shining form. The limp body of Walpurgan.
His grin had not abated when he turned to Lucia and in a rush of excitement he swept her up in his arms and spun her around. It was the sort of thing that he would have called undignified if any of her Chosen saw them. He set her down with a flourish. Walpurgan hissed at Lucia and tried to lash out with the blackened stumps of her massive clawed fingers, only to find her hand sliced off at the wrist for her troubles.
Kaius tutted at her like she was a spoiled child. Lucia took in the ruined mass of flesh with a pained sigh, “What shall we do with it? How do you keep something like this captive?”
Kaius smiled slipped, “You do not, Lucia. You destroy it before it can regain its strength and seek vengeance.”
Lucia looked out over the roasted flesh of her enemy and shook her head slowly. “We can put it down in Negrath's hole for now. I can bind her, I think. Keep her powers contained.”
Kaius stared at her in dismay as her pupils divided and she began to weave strands of will together. He reached out a hand but the heat radiating from her gave him pause. Long slim coils of flame encircled Walpurgan. Flickering between the threads there was a cobweb of tiny searing filments, so fine that a human eye could not have seen them. As Lucia's weaving was completed, it snapped into place on him. He felt before he saw the long leash of twisting, living flame leading to his hand. Lucia turned to him, “Can you drag her in by yourself?”
He looked at Lucia, then at Walpurgan. There was no expression on his face, he had reverted to that blank mask that had been a necessity for his years of service in the name of Negrath. He whispered, “No.”
Lucia frowned at him and said, “Do you need me to give you more strength? Or shall we call over some of the Chosen to help you?”
He raised his free hand and she stopped speaking. Then he said more emphatically, “No. I will not bring a viper into our home. I will not let you do this. It is madness.”
He called fire and it poured down the length of the leash. Walpurgan thrashed and shrieked as the mesh tightened around her. She threw out her power in any form it could take, but each time the coils of flame dragged it back within her. Walpurgan burned and wailed and wept while Lucia just stared in horror. The net tightened as there was less and less of the old Eater still intact. The roar of fire was still not as loud as the inhuman noises Walpurgan made while she was burned but it was close. Lucia panicked and tried to close the connection between her and Kaius but by then Walpurgan has stopped wailing and was making a wet warbling sound as she was crushed within the net. Lucia severed the wrong connection as she panicked and the net fell apart, letting the charcoal remains to crumble out across the ground.
Undaunted, Kaius started pouring fire directly out of his hands onto the tattered flesh that remained, scorching it down smaller and smaller, blasting away everything that had made it look human until there was only a twisted leathery hunk of flesh left. Lucia stumbled as the torrent of flame drew strength from her then managed to pinch off the thread of power leading to Kaius. He reached into the broiling mess with one hand and tore a hole in the withering sac of flesh. He pulled something tiny and brown from inside. It was a heart, cooked through but still beating. He bowed down before Lucia and held it out to her. She backed away from Kaius with horror etched on her face.
Across the field, the two armies clashed head on. with the raider's screaming and the noble soldiers setting their stances as they had been trained through agonising rote. The Chosen of Ochress were powerful and skilled but the Chosen of Lucia had been watching them fight all day. When Ochress’ Chosen launched themselves into the air, they were slapped back down to earth by Lucia's, armed with heavy hammers. Crushing armour and dashing them back into their own lines. When the rest of the army came on into the lines of the Ivory City's defenders, it was with a clash of steel but no movement. The defending soldiers did not take one step back towards their home. They held the line. As more and more of the marauders pressed in against them, so tightly that they were crushing their own men, so tightly that they could not swing a weapon. Still, they held the line.
This was war at its most simple. Two lines with an army behind them, pushing for all that they were worth because the line to break, would be the army opened up to their enemy. It was why soldiers did not train for strength or skill at arms above all else and instead trained for endurance. The weight of Ochress’ savage killers against the shield wall grew heavier and heavier as more of them flung themselves against the back of their companions. It was a game that t
hey would likely win. Even weary from their clashes with Vulkas' forces, each and every one of them were trained killers. They had been making good use of that training for years when all that Negrath's armies had done was drill and practice. The armies of the Ivory City would look far more refined on the battlefield, they would look far better organised and far more polished, right up until the moment that they began dying.
The Chosen were each worth a dozen men but Ochress' army had more than a dozen men to spare. Every time Lucia’s Chosen burst out of their formation to try to break the enemy lines they were dragged down under a mass of bodies and butchered. More bodies pressed in. Each side had to expand their lines to stop the enemy from slipping around their flanks. On this open plain with no obstructions, the lines could keep on expanding out until there were no men left. Each expansion brought more death as the few moments before the lines reformed gave enough leeway to cut a few of them down.
In a war of attrition Lucia's people would win. Ochress army had fewer numbers. But war is not a game of numbers, and the militia could not hold the line against Ochress’ raw brutality. They were kept away from the fighting until the line stretched too thin. Then in desperation the untrained civilians were flung into the fighting, armed with only chair legs and devotion. The militia fought bravely. They fought with joy in their hearts to be serving Lucia. They died in droves. Ochress’ army swept around the flanks and in a lethal pincer movement they drove into the heart of the defenders. The line broke.
The front lines tried to fight their way free and failed. A second line formed further back in the formation, behind the pincer point, with everything ahead of it left for dead. The raiders bellowed their triumph and trampled over the scattered defenders, striking the new line with renewed vigour. The new line had fresh men but they were already frantic. They glanced back over their shoulders, they considered defeat for the first time since they took the field and they moved in little steps back towards the city gates. Ochress' army could smell their fear, they were practically salivating as they pressed against the line of shields. Victory was close enough to taste. The servants of Ochress could not take their eyes off of the flinching defenders and the rich city of spoils peeking out tantalisingly from behind their banners. The invaders did not look back. They did not even glance at their rear ranks. If they thought that their training in stealth was impressive it was nothing compared to the talents of the dark lands’ ghuls.
The ghuls had not just killed the rear ranks, they had already started dressing their corpses for an evening meal. The press of flesh made their work easy. The armies of Vulkas and Walpurgan were scattering across the land. Some were reforming with their camp followers, hiding at the distant edges of the farmlands, while others scattering in little groups to try and make a life for themselves, far from the disgrace of defeat. It would have taken the ghul hunting parties a long time to seek them out and round them up and this battlefield was a buffet.
A cheer of victory from the ranks of Lucia's army would have been enough to draw attention to the attack from the rear but Lucia's army did not know if these were allies at all. They watched the invaders fall beneath the rough stone axes of the ghuls and did not know if they would be next.
Lucia heard her people crying out in pain. She turned her back on Kaius and all the confusion that he carried with him and fled, stumbling across the battlefield. The press of bodies was too tight for her to fling bolts of fire as she had before. Not without the risk of incinerating her own soldiers. With a flick of her wrist she threw out a line of that searing thread once more, a simple trick now that she knew how. It ran between the press of shields and left a charred line along them. She wove a quick, fine net of power and then called strength into her throat and bellowed out, “Stop!”
Her own soldiers scattered away ,but Ochress’ troops still had their orders and tried to press through. With disgust she pulsed more flame into the line. She stretched and skewed it into a paper-thin wall of flame between the forces. She swept her arms across the field, scorching the earth, and drove Ochress army away from the city. They fled backwards across the field, pursued by the flickering wall of searing light, but even then they did not realise that they were being cut down by the sniggering ghuls behind them. Only when they decided that the day was lost, only when they were down to fewer than a thousand did they turn to the chattering peg teeth, spiked clubs, and ravenous hunger of the ghuls. Then it was their turn to show fear and the ghuls' to show their ferocity. The rout did not last long.
Lucia banked the flames of her wall, building it higher and hotter. She had never knowingly crossed paths with a ghul during her travels. She had probably unknowingly sung for dozens of them. Possibly even slept under their roofs when it was offered. Even so she classified the creatures beyond her wall of flame to be an entirely different species of evil.
These were the haggard, wild ones that lived out their days far from the eyes of humanity. Far from the morals of civilisation. She built up the heat and was ready to wipe them out when Kaius caught her arm. She let the heat abate and turned her face to him, she let him see her fury, “I am busy killing, just like you demanded. What more do you want from me?”
He shook his head, “These are our allies. We promised them that their crimes would be forgiven, and they would be welcome to trade here in the future. They are the reason that we had the time to build defences.”
She burned his hand where it was still clasping her upper-arm. Smoke billowed, and while he did not cry out at the pain, would never cry out at pain, he still let out a loud gasp.
In his unburned hand Kaius still held the throbbing chunk of meat. Hoping to placate her he held it out, “This is all that is left of the old witch. If you eat this, you will gain all of her powers. You will recover your strength by night and day. You will have mastery over all wild beasts. You will call the four winds. With this power, you will crush the other Eaters. You will remake the world. You can free every man, woman and child.”
Lucia backed away. Her concentration faltered and the wall of flame disappeared. She tripped over the naked corpse of a nameless Chosen of Walpurgan, landing heavily on the ground. One hand covered her mouth and she was wide eyed. She whimpered, “Not like this Kaius. It isn't worth anything if we do it like this. Walking through a world of corpses and eating out their hearts? How could you want this? How could anyone want this? This is a nightmare.”
He was pressing against the hindquarters of Lucia’s brain, trying to force his way in, to let her see the obvious truth of his way. With a furious lash of her will she snapped the connection between them. It was Kaius turn to stumble. His turn to fall to his knees. He stared at her, shocked into silence.
“Go away Kaius. Don't come back. I can't spend all of my time worrying that you are going to kill everyone the second I look away.”
“But... you told me that I didn't have to do whatever you said. You told me that we were equals.”
She rose to her feet and glowered down at him, heat radiating off her in waves, “That was before you took the power that I gave you and killed thousands of people with it.”
He stared beseeching into her alien eyes, “For you.”
She spat on the ground in front of him. It sizzled. “I don't want you to kill for me Kaius. I don't want any more death. You thinking that it is alright to kill for me is the problem. So please. Please just leave.”
He lifted up the still beating heart to her and she turned her back in disgust. She walked away, leaving him kneeling in the bloody mess of victory that he had made for her.
Chapter 18- The Wounded Heart
Safely enclosed back in her chambers, far from the eyes of subjects and spies, Lucia wept. Her shoulders heaved and she gulped in air but no tears came from her eyes. Even that had been taken from her now. Night had fallen as the wounded were sorted through. Her own soldiers could not understand why they were sparing the enemy. Her nobles could not understand why she had their expensive doctors looking over com
mon soldiers' injuries. If Kaius had been here there would have been a few barked commands and worrying glares and her will would have been done. Now there was endless debate and interpretation of her words. Every noble was in conflict with every other one, every merchant with enough wealth to register in their estimations tried to slip bribes to get their way. The only thing that they could all agree on was that her opinions were deeply flawed, and her policies were unenforceable.
There had been less than an afternoon and two dozen arguments. She tried to push thoughts of him away but it dawned on her that he would have to be replaced, and soon. She was confident that she was clever enough to be a singer, probably clever enough to run rings around her nobles, but how could she hope to keep ahead of every enemy without some ingenious strategist whispering in her ear every step of the way. Her knowledge had limits. The night was not dark, the city was encircled by camp-fires. Cooking fires.
Lucia had not let the ghuls into the city despite whatever promises Kaius had made but she also could not drive them off, not without putting another knife at her own back. At least now she had the Pontifex on her side. They had come in screaming at her about her unholy alliances until they realised that she was in complete agreement with them. She sat on the bed and buried her head in her hands. More hair came away and she gave a strangled laugh. Just another kick while she was down.
There was a gentle knocking at the door and Lucia frowned, she had given the Chosen clear orders that she was not to be disturbed unless there was an emergency. She pointed vaguely to the door and cast out a fine thread of her will, tugging it open abruptly. The girl outside looked startled but she steeled herself and crept into the room. Lucia was still sitting on the bed, glowering at the intruder through the stringy remnants of her hair.