Upon a Burning Throne

by Ashok K. Banker

  Beside him, Mayla was walking as well, and she unsheathed her sword when he did. She looked as scared and determined as he did.

  “Shvate?” she asked uncertainly.

  He nodded. “The only way to stand up for what one believes in is to act.” And with that, he raised his sword and struck down hard at the awful thing.

  The sword struck the last man at the end of the monstrosity. It hit him in the chest, which was coated with a layer of ichor. As the ichor seeped into the man’s body, dissolving and melting flesh and bone, the slimy substance hardened into a congealed mass of pinkish brown. As Shvate’s sword stabbed the thing, he felt as if he had just struck a very soft tree, one that was rotten in the center, but still dense and damp. The sword stuck in the mass, and though he pulled at it with all his might, he could not get it free.

  Mayla raised her sword and struck at another spot on the man’s torso—resulting in the same wet soft sound, like an axe striking the trunk of a damp, rotten tree. Like Shvate’s, her sword also held fast.

  “Shvate, my sword . . .”

  “Yes, mine too.”

  They both struggled to free their swords but could not.

  Suddenly, a shudder rippled down the length of the monstrosity.

  Shvate felt the vibration through his sword, up his arms and into his body, down to his bones, to the soles of his feet.

  A deep rumbling echoed down the tunnel, setting off oscillating echoes. The ground trembled beneath his feet, and loose sand fell on the side of his face and left shoulder from the ceiling of the tunnel.

  The man’s torso burst open, spewing out ichor, blood, pieces of flesh and gristle, stomach acids, offal . . . the horrible mixture of foul fluids and viscous slime splattered Shvate and Mayla. Mayla cried out, letting go of her sword and reaching for her face. Shvate released his sword too, covering his eyes and face instinctively.

  A tiny head emerged from the gaping hole in the man’s chest, pushing past the shattered ribs and the throbbing lump that Shvate realized—with horror—was the man’s still-beating heart. The tiny head was that of the child that had accompanied the woman, a little boy no more than nine or ten years of age. His face and neck had been melted down and disfigured by the ichor, though his head and features were still recognizably human. But when he opened his mouth to speak, he revealed a mouthful of blood. There were no teeth, no tongue, no throat. Just a hole filled with dark, thick blood. The sound he made next appeared to be formed from the blood itself, gurgling and bubbling. There were things in the boy’s throat, Shvate saw, tiny moving things like insects, and they bubbled and squirmed in the blood-filled throat as the voice emerged.

  Shvate of the Krushan!

  Mayla turned and clutched at Shvate’s arm. He caught hold of her and pressed her close. From behind, he glimpsed General Prishata with the torch, staring and reacting with the expression of a man who had just seen the door of the underworld, Nrruk, thrown open and the face of the lord of the nethermost demon-realm revealed.

  Your line has plagued me too long—

  The creature that spoke through the boy’s throat spoke with liquid sounds, the words somehow forming and bubbling through the frothing blood in his open mouth. His lips did not move, nor did his throat muscles, and as far as Shvate could tell, the child had no tongue to speak of. Whatever this was, it was no longer human. Merely an instrument of some arcane force.

  And now you dare to invade my sacred sanctum? You lay siege to my homeland? I will have done with you. Today is the day I will send you back to the womb from whence you came. Begone, spawn of Vessa!”

  And before Shvate could move or turn away or do anything at all, without even a twitch of warning, the boy’s throat released a spume of blood as wide around as Shvate’s own arm. The blood struck Shvate full in the face, drenching him from head to foot in an instant, cold and viscous and foul-smelling as a cesspool. So cold that it was like ice water, freezing cold. Mayla cried out as the freezing foul blood washed over her as well, drenching them both and spattering in all directions, for yards all around.

  You!

  The rumbling began again, this time loud and fierce enough to dislodge entire chunks and showers of loose sand from the ceiling of the tunnel. Shvate felt the sand stick to the disgusting bloody mess coating his body.

  Will!

  He forced himself to move, back down the tunnel, toward the torch held by General Prishata. He pulled Mayla with him.

  “Our swords!” she gasped, wiping away the blood from her face.

  “Leave them!” he cried.

  All!

  The tunnel shook and rattled from side to side, shaking like a wagon rolling at full speed down a sharp incline. Shvate felt the vibrations in his bones. A keening sound rose from behind as he reached General Prishata. The general was shouting something, but the rumbling was so loud that he could only see the general’s mouth move without hearing a word. The senapati’s crisp white uniform was also splattered with the foul blood. The whole tunnel was drenched with it, the ceiling dripping. Sand was falling from the walls in pieces. The ground shook beneath Shvate’s feet, and he felt loose sand heaving underneath as he began to run.

  Die!

  “Faster!” he cried. “Run faster!”

  Mayla and he sprinted up the way they had come. Soldiers were holding torches and shouting their prince’s name. Shvate glanced back over his shoulder and saw the general following them, sword drawn, guarding their rear. Behind the general, Shvate saw the monstrosity writhing and lashing like a snake in a frenzy, spewing blood and ichor, smashing into the sides and ceiling and floor of the tunnel, breaking the perfect rectangular form of the tunnel.

  The tunnel itself was dissolving around them. Whatever force had held the sand in its impossibly immaculate shape had released its power, and the sand was now behaving like sand again, collapsing, raining down like a monsoon shower on them all.

  Shvate saw the light of several torches ahead and, beyond them, the blessed starlight of the night sky.

  He pushed Mayla ahead of himself, turning back to reach out a hand to the general—

  But the tunnel collapsed in upon itself.

  The senapati’s torch was extinguished as the sand tunnel closed around him, capturing him from the waist down. The elderly warrior cried out and flailed.

  Shvate grasped hold of his hand. “Hold on!” he cried out above the deafening noise.

  The desert was filled with raging wind and sand, like a sandstorm risen out of nowhere.

  The tunnel closed like the maw of a snake upon the senapati’s body, pulling him down into the earth.

  Shvate pulled. He felt Mayla’s hands beside his, grasping hold of the senapati’s arms above his elbows pulling with all her might.

  Both of them pulling together, they exerted all their strength. The general burst free, flying out of the sand to tumble and fall beside them on the desert floor.

  They lay gasping, shielding their faces and eyes against the sand and the wind.

  They were safe, and whole, and alive. For now. Shvate thanked his ancestors—

  Suddenly, everything fell silent and still.

  The wind died out completely. The sand stopped swirling. All sound was extinguished. The reverberations and noise from the tunnel ceased, and there was a moment of deafening silence and stillness.

  Shvate saw the soldiers who had been waiting aboveground rise slowly to their feet and look around fearfully.

  He rose to his feet as well, helping up Mayla, while she helped General Prishata to his feet. The general appeared to be shaken but unharmed. They were all unharmed, except for the vile stuff that had drenched them. Shvate rubbed at his hand and saw a patch of pale white skin emerge. He bent and picked up a handful of sand and rubbed at another bloody patch. “The sand scours it off,” he told Mayla. She began doing the same.

  They were almost clear of the awful blood when the rumbling began again. This time it was a long, slow sound that rose from somewhere to the sout
h and west, the direction of the camp . . .

  No, not the camp. The city.

  It was coming from Reygar.

  The rumbling grew and grew until the entire world seemed to be vibrating and shuddering, on the brink of some terrible calamity.

  4

  The reverberations died down, the desert stopped shuddering, and the wind ceased blowing.

  There was a brief period of utter stillness during which Shvate realized that he didn’t have a sword, and neither did Mayla.

  “Soldiers!” he snapped. Half a hundred faces turned at once to look at their commander and prince. “You and you, give me your swords!”

  They complied at once.

  Shvate tossed a scabbarded sword to Mayla, who caught it deftly with one hand and drew it with the other, all in a single motion.

  What they had seen in the tunnel would have unhinged any person, soldier or civilian. Yet here was Mayla, with that horrifying experience already shaken off and ready to fight. But what were they fighting? Shvate didn’t know and didn’t care to guess. All he could do was be prepared for the worst. A sword in hand helped.

  As the silence drew on, the sound of approaching hoofbeats grew louder. Shvate glimpsed the silhouettes of riders approaching from several different directions. In moments, they resolved into couriers seeking out the general.

  They all had the same message: strange movements in the other tunnels.

  General Prishata had started to give orders to the couriers when suddenly the desert exploded. Sand flew everywhere.

  “Shaiva!” Mayla cried.

  Something suddenly rose from the desert, erupting from below and into the air. It was as thick as an elephant, and as sinuous and long as a thousand elephant trunks in a line, and it emerged from under the sand dunes, rising up into the air higher and higher, until it stood almost vertical, like an undulating pillar a thousand or more yards—perhaps even a mile—high. Sand sloughed off its length, falling in a shower so dense that for several moments it was like being trapped in a monsoon downpour. Shvate felt the weight of the sand and immediately pulled his anga garment over his head to cover his eyes, ears, nostrils, and mouth. He held his breath, keeping his eyes squeezed shut almost completely, only peering through the thin fabric in brief glimpses. He saw that Mayla had done the same. They waited out the shower of sand until it had died away, leaving only a powdery dust billowing across their numbers. Shvate coughed and hacked out the dust and sand that had gotten past his defenses and struggled to make sense of what he was seeing.

  It was the abomination from the tunnel. Ten thousand human bodies mashed together, merged into a single long, continuous monstrosity, swaying slowly, like a king cobra considering its prey. Shvate heard distant cries and screams, of men as well as animals, and saw that other monstrosities just like this one had also erupted from the desert and now stood swaying around the Krushan camp. There were dozens, perhaps hundreds of them, each with tens of thousands of people joined together in that inhuman chain, like gigantic sandworms.

  Shvate felt something cold and wet splatter on his head and reached up to rub at his scalp. It was the same disgusting ichor-and-blood mixture that had drenched them in the tunnel. The swaying sandworm above him was dripping the combined fluids of its unfortunate participants.

  “Shvate? Are you seeing this?” Mayla asked. Her voice was steady, but underneath the calm resolve of a Dirda warrior caste princess was an undertone of horror.

  “I think—” Shvate began, but was cut off by a gigantic groaning.

  Shvate strained to see in the darkness. It was shortly before dawn, and while the starlight was sufficient to make out the features of his wife and the general and soldiers nearby, he could only dimly glimpse the outline of the jagged mountain and the city that rose alongside it. But even in silhouette, he could tell that something extraordinary was happening. The entire mountain was juddering, shaking like a loose rock in an earthquake. He could see bits and pieces of it crumbling and tumbling down its length, then heard the debris land with resounding thuds on the desert floor far below. The groaning grew louder and deeper, into a kind of keening vibration that hurt his ears and made him grit his teeth.

  Then, abruptly, with a great gnashing and grinding, the entire mountain itself broke free of the ground and lurched away.

  “Mother of gods!” Shvate heard himself say.

  Around him, a hundred voices mouthed a hundred different praises to diverse deities. Many were to Shaiva the Destroyer, favored deity of most warriors, especially in times of calamity. It was appropriate to call upon the Destroyer of Worlds when one’s own world appeared to be on the brink of destruction.

  The city of Reygar staggered away from the place where it had stood for some thousands of years. Shvate saw that the mountain and the city that had been built into it were both one entity now, and that entity was sentient, moving of its own volition, standing like a giant in the desert.

  No, it had legs, but not legs in the human sense. Even in this darkness, across this distance, Shvate could see that the city-mountain was standing erect upon something. It was supported by some means, though he could not tell what or how.

  With an earsplitting shirring sound, the city jerked one way, then another way, then another, turning and twisting, lurching and bending. It was an extraordinary sight. An entire mountain with a city built into its side, over a mile high, stumbling around the desert like a drunken man on shaky legs.

  Then it kicked up its legs.

  One, two, three . . . a half dozen, a dozen, a score of flailing long shapes rose and fell in the darkness, breaking free of the sand, falling back with dull thumps, rising again, falling, sand flying everywhere, the city-mountain lurching and staggering around in a wide arc. Shvate saw the Krushan camps being struck by the flailing limbs of the enormous thing, heard the screams and yells and terrible chaos of the soldiers and animals crushed or struck by the long wavering stalks, by the city-mountain itself as it staggered to and fro.

  Finally, Reygar seemed to find its balance, swayed upright one last time, then began moving again, this time with more purpose and intent.

  “The things in the tunnels,” General Prishata cried, “they are its legs!”

  If you could call miles-long tentacled limbs made up of tens of thousands of human bodies joined together “legs,” then yes, they were its legs. That was what the tunnels were for, he realized. They served to gather enough bodies for the city to use to support itself. Once it had sufficient strength to walk upright, it had torn free of its moorings, breaking the mountain and the city itself free of its earthly roots. And now, here it was, stomping around the desert, crushing thousands of his soldiers, horses, elephants, chariots, into the desert sand.

  “General!” Shvate cried, raising his sword. “Sound the call to arms. We are at war!”

  The general turned to stare at him for one brief moment. His bearded face betrayed his shock clearly even in the dim starlight. Then his decades of training and experience snapped him back to his senses. He began yelling orders to his soldiers. An instant later, several of them drew out conch shells from their pouches and raised them to their mouths, lifting their heads, and the sound of the conchs filled the desert night, rising above the mayhem and cries of dying men and beasts.

  It was answered a moment later by other conchs, from a mile away, then five miles, ten . . . In a few moments, hundreds of conchs were sounding out across the desert, filling the air with their mournful plaintive calls. Shvate saw the city-mountain pause and hold still, swaying slowly, as it heard the sound of the war conchs.

  “Krushan!” Shvate cried, raising his sword high. “To battle!”

  “To battle!” cried Mayla beside him.

  General Prishata raised his own sword and roared, “Krushan, to battle!”

  The war cry was echoed by the soldiers, taken up by others, then echoed across the desert, at first in ragged patches, then together, as a single great voice.

  The sound of half
a million voices raised together rose from the desert.

  “Krushan! To battle!”

  With a roar, Shvate’s army began to charge. Whatever it might be, however alien and bizarre, however indomitable and gargantuan, Reygar still represented their enemy, the enemy they had come here to fight and conquer. No speeches were needed to remind them of that, no lashes to bring them back into order, no threats or challenges to force them to fight. The armies of Krushan lived to fight—and for a challenge. Now they had both. A giant mountain city tottering about on tentacles made of intertwined living bodies. Incredible and horrific as it was, this was their enemy.

  And they had a job to do.

  Elephants were brought into control. Horses reined in and mounted. Chariots wheeled about and lined up in order. Infantry resolved into ranks and ready to charge.

  “Sound the charge!” Shvate cried.

  General Prishata seconded the order.

  The conch shell trumpets sang out again, this time issuing shorter, terser appeals, booming bursts that set all the cadres to readiness, then followed with a final single sustained note that broke off abruptly, signaling the charge.

  The army of Krushan attacked.

  Reygar loomed above them, swaying from side to side as it considered these puny beings, the size of ants to a human. Elephants as small as a man’s thumb, horses the size of a fingernail, chariots as small as bugs . . .

  The city reared, its tentacles flailing, lashing out.

  It struck down, sending elephants flying, smashing chariots and the men and horses with them into a bloody pulp, crushing a hundred horses and riders with a single blow. A hundred tentacles struck in a hundred directions, killing soldiers and animals alike by the thousands. The city lurched and cavorted, turning and swaying as it danced the dance of death.

  The Krushan threw spears, loosed arrows by the hundreds of thousands, hacked with swords, axes, blades of every size and description; elephants charged, horses kicked, men lost their lives at the flick of a tentacle or the crashing down of an elephant or a chariot; bodies were cut in half by flying debris. Tens of thousands died. More rushed to take their places.