by Ted Dekker
Roland.
She lowered the glass and leaned as far forward as the window would allow. Horns from the field. Two flags rose from the southeast and west quadrants. Her Dark Bloods had begun to shift, amassing at the southern edge of the battlefield like black water running into a broad basin.
The Immortals came. Three blocks away from the barricade.
Two.
The riders behind rode low in the saddle, racing to close the gap between themselves and the horses before them so their mounts rode nose to tail.
Just before reaching the barricade, they closed rank. Feyn’s body went rigid as she watched a spearhead form with blazing speed—two and then four and then six, ten, twelve riders abreast. Crashing through the opening in the barricade, those on the farthest edges of it leaping the rubble. Straight toward the bulk of massing Dark Bloods waiting to engulf them still fifteen lengths away.
Torches went flying as the leading Immortals tossed them aside and reached not for swords but for knives, hands flashing, steel glinting in firelight. One of the Dark Bloods on the front line buckled, grabbing at his face—and then another, as blood gushed from a gash in his side.
They dropped back against their comrades as the Immortals rushed toward them. The second line of Dark Bloods struggled to push past the first.
And then the Immortals were in their midst, Roland getting as deep as the fifth line. She waited for the crash, the clash of steel and armor as the Dark Bloods fell on them.
But before they could press in and crush Roland’s force, the spearhead split into two. The commander angled east; Roland veered west. They curled off, churning in opposite directions, each leading hundreds of Immortals, like twin snakes striking for opposing ends of the battlefield.
She pushed back from the window with a slight gasp, unable to take her eyes away. Roland was dividing her forces.
Both columns of Immortals suddenly coiled around, their white chests pale against the milling black. They took the fight into the edge of her pursuing Bloods, like deadly vipers that slashed into her men, cutting them down along the flanks before curling back out into open ground, never once slowing, never allowing themselves to be pressed by sheer numbers, captured in melee.
Maker. He was brilliant.
Her warriors in the thick of formation couldn’t get close enough to fight. They shoved forward, hungry for battle, as the Immortals kept coming, curling off in either direction, chewing through her army as they did. She watched her Dark Bloods begin to fall as the Immortals sawed their way through the once-orderly lines. Fifty. Seventy. A hundred. Only a dozen Immortals had fallen.
And still the Immortals came, streaming through the barricade, driving down the middle, curling off and away.
A gap opened in her force directly in front of the gate.
Feyn clawed at her hair. Roland was taking the battle to opposite sides of the field, one east and one west.
Throw the lights!
Banks of bulbs mounted on the walls beamed to life, turned outward, flooding the massive clearing in stark white light. The Immortals would not be allowed the advantage of darkness.
And yet the Immortals fought on, never stopping, always in motion. On the northwestern side riders were visibly stumbling over the fallen, the carpet of bodies heavily one-sided: Dark. Within minutes they had cut down at least a thousand of her men to their—what? Twenty losses?
And still the Immortals kept coming. They raced through the barricade, down the broadening corridor of the field, fanning out in either direction. Roland had already completed one wide arc and was coiling in and through his own line. They were herding her army like sheep!
Horns somewhere from the far side of the Citadel. More Dark Bloods flooded to the south from the east and west sides, rushing in like black waves. Feyn pressed against the window, searching for the red chest and sash of Roland. There! He was up in his stirrups, sword arcing downward even as the Immortal nearest him cut down the Dark Blood slashing at his mount. Roland swung wide. Not one but two heads of those Dark Bloods closest flopped back on their necks as though on hinges, necks opened to the light. His mount reared up, hooves churning at the air—only to come down on the closest Blood before him.
A dozen Immortals blazed past the edge of the rubble, leaning low, sweeping the torches near the ground. Feyn grabbed the looking glass, raised it again. Now she could see the saddlebags hanging on either side of their horses, limp and nearly depleted, an obvious gash in each of them.
The street ignited in a highway of fire.
Something went flying. A saddlebag? And then there was another, thrown up like a bladder into the massive army of black. One of the Dark Bloods reached up and caught it—just as a torch came flying at him.
It exploded in a burst of flame.
Another explosion—and then another, lobbed into the mass of Dark Bloods.
Feyn pressed against the window, eyes tracking Roland, already veering out in a new and broadening arc. Her army was now evenly split in two sides. Their lines were disrupted, horses penned in, those on foot falling beneath sword and hoof—some of them trampled by their own men.
Something niggled. She knew the Immortals to be at least a thousand, and yet not all were accounted for here. And even these were making meat of her minions, sawing into their flanks like a chainsaw before curling back into the open ground at the center, now nearly a quarter-mile wide.
Still, her Dark Bloods would prove too many. It would be her victory. It had to be.
Just then a horn blared from the other side of the melee. Feyn turned, almost stumbled against Rom, and then stared at him.
Tears slipped down his cheeks.
She glanced past him, through the southern window. Something was shifting in the darkness beyond the rubble. Something….
And then she saw them in the distance. More Immortals. Flying toward the Citadel, streaming up and over the barricade like ravens.
Right into the backside of her army. She spun to the east and saw it was the same. She lowered the glass and glared at Rom, who was silently weeping.
She lifted her hand and slapped his face, suddenly enraged by such a show of weakness. “You sicken me.”
Below, the muted clash of swords had increased in volume. Rom took one last look toward the battle, tears streaming down his face, and then retreated to the far side of the room.
For long minutes the battle raged. The Immortals’ infuriating tactic—hitting and running, hitting and running—showed no sign of weakening. Like long serpents with teeth on all sides, they continued to cut into her army’s flanks on both sides of the battlefield before circling back to safety, only to curl back in for another swipe.
She cursed and paced before the window, clawing at her hair. In the space of twenty minutes his Immortals had cut down nearly thirty thousand of her own.
But not even Roland would outlast her superior numbers.
She traced his movement again as he fearlessly led his Rippers, sword flashing, his mount barely slowing as he leaned low to slash directly into the middle of one Blood, to slice clean the head of another.
By the Maker, the man was magnificent. And she despised him for it.
To the east, Roland’s commander was nowhere to be seen. She watched as her Bloods hauled two Immortals from their mounts after cutting the equine legs out from beneath them.
Both sides were making the horses a primary target.
The Immortals pressed in with deadly speed, slicing at the necks of Dark Blood stallions. But her Dark Bloods were in endless supply. For every one that fell, three more seemed to take his place.
Across to the west, Roland’s deadly coil had finally broken; only a small band fought behind him. Dark Bloods had gotten between him and the rest of his company. As she watched, his arm flew out as though for balance even as his other slashed down. Too late—his mount buckled beneath him.
Feyn paced, biting at her nails, disgusted by the sweat staining her gown. Within the space of half a
n hour her company was cut in half. Their bodies blanketed the ground, tripping up their infantry comrades as others rode over them. But the Immortals were down to a few hundred.
The perimeter lights suddenly blacked out. The Immortals had found the power banks and cut them.
She pressed against the window, stared out, waiting for her eyes to adjust. The torches along the barricade were still burning, but the battlefield was a nightmare of reflected flame and shadow. She could still make out the white chests of the Immortals against the blackened sea, churning them down, more bodies in their wake.
She searched, tried to make out Roland in the darkness. The lights had been meant to neutralize the advantage of their uncanny sight. But it didn’t matter now.
He had lasted over half an hour. He might yet cut down another thousand. Another ten thousand. He might survive a half hour more.
But he was too outnumbered.
Within an hour at most, it would be finished.
Beyond the field, a part of the city was aglow. But that wasn’t possible—electricity had been cut in every sector, redirected to the Citadel. But as she watched, she realized it glowed only orange. A moment later, a building burst into flame. Beyond it, she could just discern another muted light, and there, another.
Byzantium was on fire.
Feyn let her breath out slowly and stared at her burning city. Billows of smoke rose to seed a churning sky.
She would win. But her reign would go out with those fires.
“My liege….”
She jerked her head and saw that Rom stood to her right, staring out at the night. She followed the line of his pointed finger, belatedly, as though waking from a nightmare. I know, she wanted to say. But then she realized he wasn’t pointing at the fires, but at the battlefield, lit by torchlight.
At two riders dressed in desert garb, halfway up the center of the battlefield between the two main battles raging on either end, streaking toward the Citadel on white stallions.
She fumbled for the glass, lifted it, craning to see through a rising waft of smoke.
She didn’t recognize the first rider. She panned a fraction of an inch and homed in on the other rider. Gray hair, long and unkempt. She knew the line of that cheek, the set of that mouth.
Saric!
She watched in horror as they flew for her gates, seemingly unseen by her own forces. Only two, but one of them was Saric, and Saric did not know the meaning of failure.
“They’ve come,” Rom said with strange wonder. “They’ve come to save us.”
She felt the blood drain from her face.
“They’ve come to kill me,” she heard herself say.
In a sudden uncontrolled rage, she slammed the looking glass into the window. It crashed through, sending glass shards out into the night.
The servant outside threw open the door.
“My liege?”
She took one last look at the white stallions halfway to her gate, swept up the hem of her gown, and strode toward the servant. She spun at the door and glared back at Rom.
“Tell Corban to execute our prisoner,” she said. “Take him down!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
JORDIN LEANED over her horse’s neck, knees tight against its flanks, feeling the roll of its muscles against her thighs, the Citadel gate less than a half mile before her. Saric rode to her left, their two stallions racing down the field like a streak of light.
From beyond the city border, they’d seen the glow around the distant Citadel and known that the battle was under way. Even from there, they’d been able to see the clouds shrouding Byzantium. Maker. Had they ever been so ominous, so low? As they had entered the city, speeding down streets and alleyways gone silent, the roiling darkness had hit her, lifting the hair off her shoulders, sheathing her in chills.
They had flown past the barricade, thundering toward the gate, the battlefield before them divided, strewn with bodies of the fallen. On either side, she could see the tens of thousands of Dark Bloods…. the battered and shrinking Immortals, their white and gore-smattered skin like flotsam in a sea of black.
Overhead, lightning illuminated the sky, throwing the clouds in stark, negative relief against the electric light of the Citadel itself. This wasn’t a typical Byzantium storm. It was darker. Deadlier. As though evil itself had come in one last bid for those who would be left.
“Ride!” Saric roared. “Ride!”
Jordin leaned low, loosened her grip on the reins, and let the horse have its head.
They were a quarter mile away when sections of Bloods began to break from their main bodies on either side, two black hands reaching to seize them before they gained the gate.
Twelve hundred warriors, Roland had said. A quick glance right and left told her that more than half, perhaps many more, had been cut to strips. She searched for a sign of Roland…. prayed he wasn’t among the fallen.
Lightning streaked to the east, a jagged finger piercing the darkness. The thunder, when it followed, rumbled up through the ground, jarring mount and rider to the bone.
Another day, she would have reached for bow or sword.
But being was Jordin’s greatest weapon now.
A hundred lengths. Eighty.
Their stallions’ hooves rumbled above the din of clashing steel and death cries. The dust of battle. The metallic bite of blood in the air.
Jonathan’s last words after kissing her whispered through her heart. “Remember,” he’d said gently. “The flesh and blood you see is like a dream. Don’t let your mind play tricks that lead to fear and rage. See light. Be light. I am with you always.” He’d placed his hand on her chest. “Always.”
She’d spent an eternity with him beyond the veil. Together they’d plunged deep into his waters and breathed its elixir of raw love. She had laughed with unrestrained delight, unknown in the world of dreams where she’d dwelled for far too long.
They’d walked the shore, hand in hand, as Jonathan spoke more secrets than she could possibly remember.
Even now, blazing toward death, his words bubbled up from deep inside her being. “A lake within you. An eternal spring of life-giving water as vast as an endless ocean.”
Fifty lengths. Jordin scanned the battlefield again, searching for Roland. How she would be able to pick him out in such a furious sea of bodies, she didn’t know. Only that he would come; a way would be made.
Ahead of them, the Dark Bloods were closing to cut them off, and for a brief moment, Jordin felt an instinctual stab of fear. But the moment the emotion cut her mind, she recognized it. Remembered the truth. Jonathan, smiling at what could not hurt him. Jonathan with her. Jonathan, impervious.
With the memory of Jonathan’s kiss, she leaned forward and chuckled beneath her breath.
Saric glanced at her, but only for a moment, intent on his own mission. He’d met her on the other side of her waking, two horses saddled, prepared, and waiting for a mission he’d been saved to complete.
Twenty lengths.
The time had come.
Strange how such peace embraced her. No shred of concern for her own life—only for those she must save. If, in her attempt, her body was cut down as Jonathan’s had once been, she knew she would wake in his lake once more.
A part of her dared—invited—any to make an attempt on her life. She knew her reward! But then they were nearly on the Citadel, the battlefield open ahead.
Ahead and far to her right, a red-chested Immortal raced along the front edge of the Dark Bloods, leaping up onto a riderless horse. His black hair whipped the air as he raced forward, sword flashing. With one vicious swing of the blade, the Ripper took the heads from two Dark Bloods before arching his back to narrowly avoid a spear slicing in from another.
Roland!
She couldn’t see his face at this distance, but she could hardly mistake the movement that lived up to the Immortal name.
“There,” she said.
Saric followed her eyes.
No f
ewer than fifty Bloods broke from the main line behind Roland, rushing to cut him off. She knew that he could sense them coming after their Immortal prize. Knew also that he would escape the obvious trap.
With a blood-chilling roar, he twisted to the side and buried his blade into the head of a horse pulling abreast. Rider and mount crashed heavily to the ground, tripping up two others directly behind.
The Citadel gates loomed ahead, thrown open to give Feyn’s hounds easy access in either direction.
This prince wasn’t backing down. He might very well fight his way clear of the Bloods sweeping in behind him, and on another day, she would have watched him evade and cut them down in awe, but she wasn’t taking any chances.
“I go,” she said.
“Do what you must.”
She veered to the right, angling directly for the Bloods closing on Roland, who was fully intent on taking advantage of the distraction.
Or was his intent to save her?
He charged his mount into four Bloods on foot, knocking two on their backs. Then, dropping over the side of his saddle, he took the leg off another with a low sweep of his blade.
Fifty meters.
She pounded toward him.
Thirty meters.
Roland was in a dash for the gate. But the Bloods ahead of him were too thick.
When she was only ten meters from him she turned into the outer line of Dark Bloods. Only when the first spun and roared his warning did she scream her own.
Jordin wasn’t prepared for what happened at the sound of that cry. She saw it, a slight distortion in the energy field rippling out before her into a shock wave sent out by her entire being.
It struck the closest Bloods like an invisible wall, sending them flying back into those behind them.
She saw it in real time, but her mind saw more slowly—not as an Immortal would see, but with even greater clarity. The force slammed into Bloods five meters from her horse as she swept in behind Roland. She cut through the edge of the surging horde, passing only paces to Roland’s right flank. She cut short her scream and threw a command over her shoulder. “Follow!” She then veered back into the battlefield, leaving a mass of stunned Bloods behind her scrambling to their feet.