Embers of a Broken Throne

by Terry C. Simpson

  On her left flank the soldiers had finally noticed the archdaemon’s massive form. The beast seemed to stretch to the sky. Not one of them veered off their path or shifted position. The orders had been to hold the lines no matter the circumstance.

  At nine, the archdaemon was a miniature mountain of leathery wings and rancid flesh. It stopped, threw two massive arms to the air, roared a challenge, and stomped the ground. A ripple of earth shot out into a section of Pathfinders and Dagodins, decimating them. The beast snatched shadelings from its body and flung them toward her army.

  The majority of the kentens Shimmered.

  Irmina connected with her zyphyl once more to view the aftermath.

  Some Dagodins and Pathfinders had managed to evade the attack or lessen its impact. They fought in pockets against wraithwolves, darkwraiths, and grogs. Outnumbered, they were making a good account of themselves, but the outcome was inevitable.

  The archdaemon stood its ground, spikes of shade sweeping out every time it flung its hands out. A few Pathfinders were brave enough to lead a charge toward the creature, Shimmering to avoid its Forges. They landed on its arms and neck, stabbing and slicing with their swords. They had as much effect as if they beat their weapons against massive steel pillars.

  A laugh resonated from the creature, deep and terrible. It snatched two of its assailants and bit them in half.

  Trails of fire and light shot toward the creature. The black tentacles on its head lashed out. Small spheres appeared where each Pathfinder’s Forge struck and was rebuffed.

  Searching, Irmina finally found those she sought: the group with Locracia and the others. As she watched, the spikes launched by the archdaemon cut them down.

  Locracia’s body burst apart. So did over a dozen other Pathfinders. Black, reflective, chitinous armor replaced skin. A multitude of appendages and tentacles appeared on each body in conjunction with a dozen eyes. Parts of the armor spun away from the netherlings, and fell into their hands. Each creature now bore four blades.

  Irmina grinned, the sudden sense of exhilaration near overwhelming.

  Screeching, the netherlings flitted through the air toward the enemy that had dared to break the ancient pact. The real fight had begun.

  She broke contact with the zyphyl as her mount Shimmered down into a valley. After a moment to get her bearing, she focused on the run ahead, calculating where they might be ambushed by stray shadelings.

  Chapter 37

  After the fifth encounter with shadelings, they reached Hydae’s Gorge, a river of lava flowing beneath them. They crossed the last bridge standing, Kajeta’s walls finally in sight. Seamless, black, and glassy, they stretched up against the backdrop of the Flaming Reaches and its smoking peaks. If not for movement between the crenels Ancel would have missed the soldiers. Their armor matched the fortification’s color. Numerous arrow ports and murder holes dotted the walls. With slow, deliberate movements, he climbed from the kenten’s back and unwound the scarf from his head.

  “Ancel?” Irmina exclaimed.

  Ignoring her and the gasps from nearby Pathfinders and Dagodins alike, he strode toward the massive stone gate. “Halvor,” he said under his breath, “it’s time for introductions.”

  The earth in front of the gate shifted. It formed a hump and then flowed up. Stone and dirt fell away as it took shape, chunks becoming arms, legs, a torso, and a head until Halvor stood before the vast metal structure.

  “Delesden already knows we are here,” Halvor said. “Do you not, brother?”

  A section of wall next to the gate bulged outward. Solid stone poured forth like sand, forming a great mound. The mound grew in size and shape, striated with grays and blacks. Amber eyes looked out where the head became visible. Within moments another Svenzar with chipped rock marring its features stood in front the gate.

  “I am surprised to see you, Halvor. Even more so that you called me brother.” Delesden’s musical voice was a mixture of low and high tones. His gaze roved over Ancel. “And you, I sense you are a Guardian. What is your name?”

  “Ancel. Ancel Dorn.”

  Delesden cocked his head to one side, eyes narrowing. “Stefan’s son? But the chance to reproduce again was—”

  A roar cut him off. Ancel turned toward the sound.

  Miles from where they stood, beyond the final city before Kajeta, an archdaemon slammed its fists into the ground. A cloud of smoke and debris billowed up. The distance belied the daemon’s girth. It appeared the size of a two-story house rather than a hundred foot monstrosity with fangs the size of a man. Several smaller forms flitted around it like flies. Netherlings.

  “Come, it is best we speak inside.” Delesden glanced toward the army of mounted Dagodins and Pathfinders. “A good trick using the kentens. I never thought to see them ridden again.” His gaze found Irmina. “Ah, a true tamer. Almost as rare as seeing kenten in the world once more.” Behind him the gate rumbled open. Delesden shrunk to a size a little over ten feet. “Follow me.”

  Ancel turned to find Irmina still staring at him with flinty eyes. He strode to her. “I’m sorry, but you should understand why I needed to do it this way.”

  “You could have told me,” she said.

  “It was better I didn’t. You might have felt the need to protect me when the archdaemon attacked, as I almost did with you.” Ancel searched her face, hoping she understood.

  Her chest heaved long and slow, and then she nodded. “How did you do it?”

  Relieved, he said, “We only sent a portion of the Svenzars’ army. I had the most adept among them create constructs, including replicas of myself and Halvor.”

  “But I felt your Forges.”

  “So did they. That was the point. Every Forge originated from us, but was extended to the fakes much like we do the message maps. Open a portal on a construct, Forge, and then close it. After the Primasurge, I Materialized from the Riven back to the Rotted Forest. There, my kenten waited.”

  “The one that lagged behind,” she said.

  He nodded.

  “And Halvor?”

  Ancel shrugged. “The Svenzar have ever been renowned for their ability to travel through stone, appearing where no one expects.”

  She gave him a rueful smile and a shake of her head, before gesturing toward the city. “I think they’re waiting for you.”

  Delesden and Halvor were standing several feet inside the gates.

  “Mirza, Cantor,” Ancel called, “find a place for our soldiers. Irmina and Trucida with me.” He mounted his kenten and headed to the Svenzar.

  Clattering hooves echoed behind him as he passed between walls at least several hundred feet thick with too many murder holes and window slits to count. He marveled at the fortification’s construction. There was no hint of mortar or joints. It was as if a stonemason carved the walls from a single stone.

  Soldiers lined the passage to either side, hard-eyed Desorin in leather armor, bearing swords and shields. Markings that tried to prick a memory adorned their armor. Frowning, Ancel focused ahead.

  The road between the walls opened onto a wide avenue that split off into numerous directions from which the sound of marching feet and shouted orders abounded. Similar to the rest of the Broken Lands, the air smelled like rotted eggs. Ancel kept the tiny Forge going to help with his breathing. Judging from the walls, he’d pictured Kajeta to be filled with spires and sprawling structures to match those in the citadels ruined by the shadeling advance. Instead, not a single building was more than one floor. Each was identical, near impossible to tell apart, and carved from the same stone as the ramparts, black and smooth, the sun’s rays glinting off its surface.

  “Not what I expected,” he said to Irmina.

  “Agreed,” she replied.

  “Kajeta and the cities closer to the Flaming Reaches are built low to the ground because of the frequent earthquakes said to originate from there.” Trucida nodded toward the mountain. “Some worship that as if it were Humelen himself. The fools th
ink it responsible for the Broken Lands’ creation.”

  “It isn’t?” Ancel asked.

  “No. Constant wars between the Desorin, the Harnan, and the Sven caused the land to be what it is today.”

  “Why were they fighting?”

  Trucida shrugged. “Why does anyone fight? Power? Belief? The conviction that one god is better than another or one territory should rule another? It has been the same since the world began. The original Matii who descended from the Eztezians were no different. The gods themselves fought amongst each other for supremacy. Why wouldn’t we? In the end, a Svenzar Eztezian conquered the Desorin.”

  Ancel offered no answer, but all he’d learned and witnessed supported Trucida’s statement. Men fought for power, for what they believed in, whether it was right or wrong, good or evil.

  He took in Delesden and Halvor as they strode ahead side by side. People they passed bowed their heads in deference. Not once did he see a single person not of Desorin descent, the distinct ashy tint to their skin, bodies like banded sinew, disconcerting milky eyes, and the strange membranes covering their ears that opened and closed like the mouth of a beached fish. Every person along the streets bore weapons, and each of them carried themselves with a practiced step that spoke of soldiering. The men were bare-chested, and most wore little in the way armor: leather vambraces on their forearms, leather gaiters, a single pauldron on a shoulder, each with peculiar markings. The women, heads shaved bald on one side, seemed as deadly, or in some cases, more dangerous than the men. Rather than the long-hafted hammers favored by their male counterparts, short swords adorned their hips.

  The Desorin soldiers seemed to give the Pathfinders and Dagodins little more than a cursory glance, but when he studied them, Ancel picked out a tightening of a hand on a hammer’s haft or straying near a sword hilt. Many looked at his small army with dead eyes, eyes that said the person behind them had seen much suffering and loss.

  In his periphery, shadows flitted along the ground. Frowning, he looked up and almost yanked on his reins.

  A dozen Desorin in full leather armor were leaping over him. Squinting, he noted the heat essences pushing the men upward. Metal essences formed a counterweight. The two combined in perfect balance. The balance shifted to metal’s dominance, and the soldiers dropped to the ground. They landed on their feet around Delesden and Halvor with a dancer’s grace, and without breaking motion they dropped to bended knee, heads bowed.

  The two Svenzar halted.

  “What news?” Delesden asked.

  “Cohere has fallen, my lord. We are all that’s left,” said the lead soldier, a barrel-chested man with an angry scar across one cheek, his armor adorned with similar yet more complex markings than his counterpart. He raised his head slightly to regard his master. Pain radiated in his expression.

  Delesden’s body hardened, stone forming metallic fragments with sharp edges. “Activate the traps. Pass the word to the docks for immediate departure. Children and young women first.”

  “But more than half the people in the city—”

  “Will be trapped here and most likely die with us.” The music fled Delesden’s voice. “I loathe this as much as you do, Lord Menerene, but we must save what we can if a semblance of the Desorin are to live on.”

  Menerene bowed, said a few words to his soldiers, and they took to the air again, headed toward the mountain.

  Seeing a perfect opportunity from the exchange, Ancel said, “Stay with the others.” He urged his kenten to a trot and caught up to the Svenzar. “I couldn’t help but overhear your warrior. I can help you save the majority of your people.”

  “So Halvor claims, but that remains to be seen.” Delesden stopped and cast a hand out. “I doubt you understand how many Desorin will still be trapped here when the shadelings and Amuni’s Children finally breach the walls, but even if you do have a way to help, what is it that you expect in exchange?”

  To the point, Ancel thought. He respected that. The question deserved a similarly direct answer. “First, I need you to relinquish your guardianship of heat to me.”

  Delesden’s head turned ever so slowly. His amber eyes grew steely, brows forming stony mounds. “Even if you proved yourself worthy I cannot do as you ask. I will need every bit of my power to hold off the attack long enough for my people.”

  “Cannot or will not?” Ancel felt along his link to judge his distance from his sister. “What if I told you my people here will assist in your fight, and that I have twenty times their number on ships within the Lost Sea, less than a week from your port. The same ships that will assist with your people’s exodus.”

  “You have seen what the shade accomplished,” Delesden said. “It will take the gods’ blessings to survive more than three days.”

  “Not with netherlings on our side,” Ancel countered. “You’ve seen the ones battling the archdaemons. Look to the Pathfinders with me. The ones lacking an aura are netherlings.”

  “But the accords—”

  “Can be circumvented,” Ancel finished.

  Delesden focused on the men and women behind Ancel. After a few moments, his eyes widened, a glimmer of hope crossing his features. “I—How—Come, I will take you to the docks, then you can say how many you think you can save.” The Svenzar set off at a much brisker pace than before, forcing Ancel to make his kenten gallop.

  Through streets and past squares crowded with soldiers they sped, Delesden in the lead, Halvor and Ancel a few strides behind. As they traveled deeper into

  Kajeta, the buildings’ symmetry finally dawned on Ancel. They were all of a similar height, width, and length. What he’d thought to be natural striations in the stone were instead purposeful, curved and flowing in an artistic design. Before he could ponder further, Delesden drew to a halt before a line of tall metal doors set into a sheer cliff face guarded by a cohort or more of Desorin warriors, the designs on their armor matching those on the buildings. And also resembling the markings he noted earlier.

  Ancel dismounted, a memory of a conversation with Ryne sparked by the designs. “The buildings and the armor, they aren’t Etchings, but they do something similar, don’t they?”

  “Correct. They are not Etchings. Only the netherlings possess the skill to imbue into living flesh. Those are Scripts. Once they were common among all Matii, but I doubt if any outside the Desorin still possess the skill for Script imbuement.”

  “What do they do?”

  “They strengthen the Matii wearing them by enhancing the Mater he wields,” Delesden said. “Unlike Etchings, they are restricted to one essence.”

  “Wait.” Ancel turned to gaze back the way they’d come. “You said Matii …” Before he said another word, he allowed his senses to roam. Auras sprang up around the buildings. He gasped. “The buildings are alive.”

  “Not all,” Halvor said. “They are the Sven who decided to serve with my brother.” A hint of regret reflected from his tone.

  “Come.” Delesden strode toward the nearest door.

  Still in awe, Ancel followed. Corridors led deeper into the mountain, and he caught the sound of marching feet echoing from somewhere within. The walls around him held a slight glow, the reek within their confines palpable. Whereas outside had been warm even with his Etchings’ protection, within the tunnels felt as if he’d bake. They continued on through the featureless halls for some time until the smell of sulfur began to abate, and a dull buzz reached them. The sound built into a rumble and then became the din of thousands of voices. At the next turn sunlight beckoned up ahead. They strode through the opening onto sprawling docks crowded with more people than Ancel had ever seen in one place, the smell of salt water threading the breeze.

  Soldiers piled folk onto numerous boats and ships. Babies and children bawled. Mothers wailed. Many adults were desperate, grabbing onto one soldier or another, asking after their children or loved ones. Expressions stoic, the Desorin tried to comfort them as best they could while still herding them toward the vesse
ls already packed to overflowing. Families attempted to stick together. One such group who had to be separated held their hands out to each other as the soldiers led them in different directions. Scores of ships were already out to sea, many at least two hundred feet in length by his estimation. He didn’t bother to count the ships still docked or those bobbing on the waves. At a glance he could tell there weren’t nearly enough for every one.

  “So, tell me, how many more of my people can you save?”

  The pitch of Delesden’s voice made Ancel glance up at the Svenzar. Water trickled from the corner of the giant’s eye.

  Chapter 38

  With his looking glass to his eye, Ryne stood upon the Everlast Mountains’ northernmost slopes, staring toward the Great Divide’s center. Vasumbrals by the dozens coiled lazily in the air, black forms matching the rent’s shadowed interior, fully matured at possibly two hundred feet in length. Their bodies gaped open from head to tail like a gutted fish, hundreds of feelers wriggling. They dived to feed off the shade essences spilling from the chasm where the corruption was most prevalent.

  “Are the others ready?”

  “Yes,” Archrender Anton said.

  “Remember to keep those vasumbrals occupied while I fight Teoden.”

  “I shall do my part, but I worry more for you than I do the Stoneguard. I know you’ve lost much of your power, Ryne. Are you certain you can defeat him?”

  Ryne lowered the looking glass. “Absolutely.” If Anton knew how close he was to the brink, the younger Eztezian might take it upon himself to face Teoden. Too many mysteries surrounded the power the beings in Mater bestowed for him to expose Anton. Even if it means my demise. The thought did not bother him as much as it once would. Death was simple.

  “You know if you die my sister will be upset with me.”

  Ryne smiled. “She would want her chance to exact revenge, wouldn’t she?”

  “She’s always been headstrong, and her hate for you is somewhat … special.”