"One prince behind the walls," said Worm, and her voice was no longer the meek whisper of a slave. It was the ancient voice of a nation. "One prince at the gates. The lion cubs battle at Beth Eloh."
Porcia smiled thinly. "Yohanan Elior, eldest son of the dead Rat Queen, skulks outside his mother's hive. Shefael Elior, his younger brother, cowers within the walls. For three years, the spawn of rats have been warring, and still one cannot defeat the other." She snorted. "Not yet."
Porcia stared south as if she could see the desert from here. She had never seen Beth Eloh, but she had heard tales of that ancient city—a city that had ruled the desert mountains thousands of years before Aelar had risen. It was home to rats, to be sure, but its walls were thick, its fortresses great. Here were no barbarians like the brutes of the north, wild men who wore no armor, who scurried between trees. No. These desert rats would wear iron and fight from stone towers.
She tapped her fingers against her hip. Porcia lived for bloodshed, for conquest, for victory, but she was no brute like the northerners, no fool like her brother.
We will rule the world not only with our superior strength, but with our superior intelligence, she thought.
"The prince inside the walls," Porcia said. "The younger cub. Shefael. He would have a lumer of his own."
"Yes, domina." Worm still glowed with the luminescence, her voice ethereal, her eyes like cauldrons of molten metal. The grass crackled around her feet. "I see a light within stone. I see power within the walls. I see a crown upon a cub. I see a sun beside him." Worm grimaced and wrapped her arms around her stomach. The light blazed around her. "The cub's paws bleed. The cub's eyes bleed. The cub is so thin. The cub's bones bleed. The walls crack. The light burns."
Porcia sucked in air between clenched teeth. "Yes, of course. Shefael languishes in a besieged city. His lumer cannot help him." A grin spread across Porcia's face. "But we can. Send his lumer a message, Worm. Tell her that Porcia Octavius, Princess of Aelar, is willing to help her bleeding cub. Tell her that we will vanquish the army at his gates . . . in exchange for some gifts, of course. A few chests of gold, a promise of more lumers, and a royal welcome in the city of Beth Eloh."
The light intensified around Worm. Her eyes sent forth beams. Luminescence coiled around her, crept down her legs, spilled across the grass, then rose as a shimmering apparition. A ghostly figure floated before Worm, woven of light, nearly dispersing in the wind, only to reform. It was a woman—a woman with no body, a reflection of a spirit, dancing like luminous smoke. Two eyes opened in the phantom, emitting strands of light, meeting Worm's gaze, joining the two figures—a woman encased in light and woman with no form.
Worm gasped.
The light vanished. The apparition scattered like moonlight at dawn.
The slave fell to her knees, shaking, clawing at her iron collar as she struggled for breath. The last flickers of luminescence clung to Worm before fading, leaving her tunic crackling.
"Well?" Porcia grabbed the slave's hair and tugged her head back. "What did they say?"
Worm stared down at the grass, daring not meet her princess's eyes. "I spoke to Avinasi, royal lumer to Prince Shefael Elior who styles himself King of Zohar." She shuddered, eyes leaking tears. "The city of Beth Eloh has been languishing for a year under siege, hungry, ill, afraid. The forces of Prince Yohanan the Treacherous attack the gates daily, and—"
Porcia struck her, knocking her down. "I know all that, Worm. Do you think me a fool?" She spat. "Do not lecture me on warfare, you sniveling whore. Did your fellow rat, this Prince Shefael and his bitch lumer, accept my offer?"
The slave shuddered in the grass, blood on her lips. "He accepts, my princess. Gladly. He vows that should you defeat his brother's forces outside his walls, he will open the city gates to your glory, paying for each sack of wheat with gold."
Porcia's grin widened. Perfect.
"We make to Beth Eloh," Porcia said. "We dispose of the rats outside the walls . . . and receive a royal welcome in the city." She bit deeply into her chunk of lion meat and let the blood drip down her chin. "Of course, once in the city . . . there's no saying what three legions of hungry eagles might decide to feed on." She stroked her lumer's hair. "You did well, Worm. You may eat."
Porcia tossed the gobbet of flesh at her lumer, splattering her with blood. The girl knelt in the grass, feeding on the raw meat, lapping at the blood, her first meal in two days.
"Legions, march!" Porcia cried. "To war, to conquest, to victory!"
"To victory!" the legions cried.
They marched, moving line by line, shields at their sides, spears raised. The road to Beth Eloh was still long; it would be three days before they reached the desert. But what were three days to an eternal empress? Beth Eloh, Porcia knew, was not merely the capital of Zohar, not merely the world's reservoir of lume.
It was the throne of an empire.
"Go forth," her father had told his children. "Seneca from the sea, Porcia from the hills. Conquer the ancient land of lume. Whoever brings me this prize shall be my heir."
As Porcia marched at the head of her legions, Worm scurrying at her side, she imagined the glory of it: the falling walls of Beth Eloh, the great palaces of Aelar, the Encircled Sea under her command, and Seneca—weak, whimpering Seneca—groveling at her feet, begging for life before she tossed him into the arena.
"The world is ours to devour, sweet Worm," she said. "We will feast upon its flesh."
They marched onward, moving downhill. Behind them, the lion carcass rotted, and the vultures finally fed.
JERAEL
Again they die.
Fire lit the darkness, and around him they fell. A night of blood. A night of flame. A night of death, of memory, of war.
"Father, they're tearing us down!" Atalia cried somewhere in the distance.
Jerael, they've got the children! Shiloh cried in his memories.
"Lord Sela, the eastern turret has fallen!" shouted a young soldier, instants before an arrow slammed into his neck.
Lord Sela, our fleet is gone, they're on the beaches, they're slaying the children! cried a soldier from his past, instants before a spear drove through his neck.
In the darkness, the two wars mingled. A war Jerael had fought as a young father at sea. A war he fought as the great lord of a crumbling city.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Atalia. I didn't want you to know. He looked at his daughter. She screamed at his side, firing her arrows from the wall, as all around the flames burned, as the boulders of the enemy kept sailing overhead. I didn't want you to know what war is.
He fired his arrows at the enemy. He slung the wounded across his shoulders, carrying them to shelter. He comforted the dying and grieving. The eyes of the fallen stared, accusing, crying out to him. Why, Jerael, why didn't you surrender? Why didn't you peacefully let Aelar into this city?
"I could not." He turned away from them. He kept firing his arrows from the wall.
We could have lived!
"You would have lived in chains."
Now we die. We die again! We die because of you.
Jerael roared, guilt and fear pulsing through him. No. No, he could not give in to guilt, to fear, to rage. He had made his choice. He had chosen to stand and fight. He was Lord of Gefen, ruler of these people, and he would stand tall at their lead. He would hold back the enemy.
"Hold them back!" he cried. "Send them back into the sea!"
Yet the bloodshed continued throughout the night, the walls trembling, and fire raged through arrowslits, and buildings crumbled in the city. A night of blood. A night of memories. Until the dawn rose.
Jerael had always loved the sunrise, had loved to stand on Pine Hill, to gaze upon his beloved land in the dawn. This morning the sun rose over ruin.
For a brief moment in the sun, the battle lulled as soldiers raised their eyes, blinking out the smoke and tears and blood, and gazed at what they had wrought.
Hundreds of buildings across Gefen had crumbled,
burying families within. People bustled across the ruins, pulling off bricks, pulling out bodies. Scattered fires burned, and the city's few wells could not draw enough water to extinguish them. Around the city, many of the battlements had crumbled. Merlons, turrets, fortified towers—they lay in ruin, smashed by the catapults. The corpses of soldiers still lay on ramparts and behind arrowslits, burnt by the enemy's oil. Beneath the battlements, however, the walls were thicker and sturdier. They had survived the assault as the trunks of great oaks might survive a storm that shatters their branches.
"Father . . ." Atalia whispered, standing at his side on the wall. Tears filled her eyes, and a gash bled on her cheek. Suddenly she seemed so young—no longer a segen in Zohar's hosts but just a girl. "So many dead."
She stepped closer to him, and Jerael wrapped her in his arms. She was a brave warrior who commanded men in battle, yet she seemed so fragile in his embrace, a trembling sparrow. He remembered how he used to hold her in her childhood, comforting her after a nightmare.
"You are brave, Atalia." He tucked a strand of her bloody hair behind her ear. "You are a lioness of Zohar, a warrior of God."
She looked up at him. Her tears drew lines through the ash on her face. "I failed you, Father. I thought I was a warrior. I thought I could slay them all. I thought that I would lead a charge into the enemy's ranks, would slay Seneca on the battlefield. Like in the stories! Like in the old stories I used to read. But I'm so scared." She leaned her cheek against his chest, sobbing. "I'm so scared."
He stood, holding her as the sun rose around them, as smoke curled up from burning corpses.
I'm so sorry, my daughter, he thought. I never taught you about war. You grew up thinking battle a thing of splendor, of glory, of light. You saw war for the first time, my daughter. You saw entrails ripped from men's stomachs. You saw babies crushed with stones. You saw mothers burn in flame. You smelled the blood and cooking flesh. You will never more be whole. I never was.
Looking at her, Jerael realized that war killed more than those it buried in graves. It killed the living too. Even those who survived this siege would never truly live again, only as ghosts of their former selves.
Atalia pulled back from him. She stared toward the hills and fields. "They're mustering for more."
Jerael gazed with her outside the city. As devastating as the destruction within the walls was, the true horror still lurked outside Gefen. Throughout the night, while bombarding the walls, the Aelarians had completed their invasion of the coast. Three legions now surrounded the city, fifteen thousand men in all, forming a ring of iron that stretched across the fields and hills. In the distance, a parasa north, Jerael could just make out his villa on Pine Hill. An eagle flag now rose from it.
Not only legionaries were out there. Slaves too spread across the hills, as many as their masters. Unlike the legionaries who wore armor and bore swords, the slaves wore only burlap, and chains hobbled their ankles, letting them walk but not run. While the soldiers stood in formations, the slaves were busy felling trees, constructing palisades, raising tents, and assembling siege engines of wood and iron. Watching them toil, Jerael could not make out their faces, but many of the slaves had darker skin than the Aelarians—some with olive skin like his own, others mahogany. Here were slaves from foreign campaigns, taken captive from battlefields, forced to labor in the continuing wars of Aelar.
Jerael wondered how many among them were Zoharites, seized in the war nineteen years ago. He thought of that war, of his friends and brothers who had fought at his side. He had never found the body of Eriel, his younger brother; of Shiloh's brothers; of so many boys he had grown up with, had fought with at Cadom. Jerael had raised monuments for their honor on Pine Hill, had declared them dead, given their families the closure they needed. Yet now he wondered: How many of those boys lost nineteen years ago now labored outside Gefen, toiling for those they had once fought?
As Jerael stared, he sought Ofeer in the crowd, but he could not see her. He thought back to that day, eighteen years ago, when Shiloh had given birth to the child of Marcus Octavius, the cruel general—now emperor—who had captured Shiloh's sons, who had raped her, who had slain thousands.
I thought that I would hate the child, Jerael remembered. But when Ofeer emerged, I loved her at once, as if she were my own daughter. Where are you, Ofeer? Are you hiding in this city? Are you out there with the legions, with those you think of as your countrymen?
"What do we do, Father?" Atalia asked, turning toward him. "Do we meet them in the field? Do we ride out?"
He shook his head. "No. We cannot face Aelar in open battle. Not few as we are. We are fewer than three thousand troops, nor are we as skilled at war. Look at the legions of Aelar, daughter. See how they move as one, contubernia within centuries, centuries within cohorts, cohorts within legions. Every shield, every spear at just the right angle. A machine of war that has conquered the Encircled Sea."
"But they did not conquer us," said Atalia. "Not yet."
He smiled thinly. "Not yet. These walls are thick, my daughter. True, the boulders of the enemy knocked down many of our battlements. Merlons, turrets, towers—all went crashing down. Arrowslits cracked, and fire raged through them, and their archers fell. But the walls beneath the battlements . . ." He stamped his feet against the wall they stood on. "They are thicker. A merlon is two feet thick. A turret even thinner. But the walls supporting them are wider than I am tall, and no catapult can shatter them. And so we wait. We wait for our family. For Epher and Koren to return with an army of hillsfolk. For Shiloh and Maya to return with the armies of Beth Eloh, uniting the two princes to fight with us. We must only survive behind these walls for a few days, and then Aelar will see the true wrath and might of Zohar."
Atalia's eyes were finally dry. She stared toward the northern fields. "Our walls are thick, yes, Father. But not our gates. And a ram comes to smash them."
Jerael stared, heart sinking. A wooden beast was rolling forth from the hills. Great wheels lined its sides, and wooden panels formed walls and a roof, covered with animal hides. It looked almost like an upside down ship. An opening at the front revealed its innards. Several legionaries stood inside the beast on platforms, and between them a great battering ram hung from chains. The beam was the size of an oak tree, and an iron ram's head was attached to it, the horns curled, embers burning in the nostrils.
Though sunlight fell upon Jerael, the world seemed dark.
"Fetch oil," he said. "Fetch boulders to throw." He turned away from Atalia and bellowed across the city. "Warriors of Zohar, to the Gate of Olives! Bring oil and stone!"
Soldiers raced across the wall and the city below. Shouts rose from the Zoharite camp, while chants rose from the Aelarians, and war drums beat.
"Smash the gates!" cried the Aelarians.
"For the victory of eagles!"
"For empire and conquest!"
A shrill voice rose from the Aelarians, carrying across the distance. "Break into the city and slay every man!" Prince Seneca stood on a hilltop, his armor brilliant in the sun, raising an eagle standard. "Rape their women! Crucify their children! Bring me the Selas alive, so I can crucify those pigs myself!"
Jerael ran onto the gatehouse and stood between cracked merlons. Atalia raced up to his side. Two towers framed the gates, topped with battlements and full of arrowslits. A rampart spread between the towers, and beneath it a stone archway held a pair of thick oak doors banded with iron. The battering ram kept rolling forth, a fortress on wheels, the ram's iron head snorting out smoke.
"Bring oil!" Jerael cried, looking over his shoulder. "Bring stones!"
Across the walls, Zoharites fired arrows. A rain of wood and iron slammed onto the battering ram, peppering the roof and walls. Soon hundreds of arrows rose from the structure like porcupine quills, not harming the legionaries within. Many of the arrows were aflame, but painted animal hides covered the structure, fireproof.
The ram pulled back on great chains, the iron head d
isappearing into the structure . . . then swung forth.
The ram slammed into the gates.
The walls shook. Jerael had to grab a merlon for support.
"Oil!" rose a shout below. "Back, move back, oil!"
Jerael turned to see soldiers hauling a cauldron up the wall, shoving it upstairs along wooden slats. When it reached the gatehouse, Jerael and Atalia shoved the pot, spilling the oil through murder holes at their feet.
The oil cascaded downward.
The water flowed into ships.
"Swift as eagles!" the legionaries cried below, protected within the battering ram's walls even as the oil sizzled across the animal hides and wood. "For conquest and glory!"
The battering ram swung back again, then drove forth with the wrath of a god.
The figureheads slammed into his ships.
The gates shook, and chips of wood flew.
"Stones!" Jerael shouted, hoarse. "Toss down stones!"
Sacks of bricks rose on ropes, and the Zoharites tossed them down, but they could not shatter the battering ram. It swung again, crashing into the gates, and more chips of wood flew.
"Swift as eagles!" the legionaries chanted.
Jerael, he has the boys!
The battering ram swung again.
Marcus Octavius grinned, holding a dagger to Epher's neck, and the toddler cried in fear.
Father! young Epher cried, trembling.
"Father!" Atalia shouted. "Father, they're going to smash the gates!"
No, he thought. No they're not.
Jerael stared across the fields toward the distant hill. His gaze found Seneca. The boy stood there, all in iron and gold. A boy the age of Atalia. The child of the emperor. The child of the man who had crushed Jerael's life.
You will not win, Marcus Octavius, Jerael vowed silently . . . and leaped from the wall.
Kings of Ruin (Kingdoms of Sand Book 1) Page 14