"We face death in battle," Benshalom said.
Ahead the Aelarians had noticed them. A line of cavalry was turning on the mountaintop to charge downhill. Epher sucked in breath between his teeth. His hand trembled, but he managed to draw and raise his sword.
"I am Epheriah Sela, son of Lord Jerael, heir to Gefen, protector of Zohar. I will not flee from battle. I will face the enemy even should I die upon the heights."
Benshalom growled and drew his twin blades, and Epher realized that this warrior—this fabled, grizzled fighter who had slain so many enemies—was afraid. Afraid for himself. Afraid for those who followed him. Afraid for his nation. Yet he did not turn to flee, even as the horses charged down toward them.
"Sound your roar, lions!" Benshalom cried.
Epher raised his sword. Across the mountainside, two thousand warriors of the hills raised their weapons, raised their cries. Epher ran. Benshalom ran with him. The thousands followed, the lions of light, roaring their rage.
The imperial horses galloped downhill, their riders aiming spears.
Howling, the warriors of the hills ran toward them, swords and shields held before them.
The forces clashed together in a storm of blood and dust and shattering iron.
Horses trampled men and women. Spears and arrows flew and swords swung. A spear slammed into Hania, a woman who fought at Epher's side, crashing through her chest and out her back. A young man named Johan, the son of a potter who had shared grapes with Epher a day ago, clutched his slit throat, trying to stop the blood. All around him, they fell to spear, to sword, to the trampling hooves.
Epher fought among them. His iron sword, the sword his father had given him, slammed into shields, into men, spraying blood across the mountain. He grabbed a javelin from a fallen legionary, tossed it, speared another man. All around him, they fell, and still he fought. A spear slashed across his thigh, opening his old wound, and still Epher swung his sword.
He fought for waves over a gleaming shore, kindled in sunset.
He fought for a house on a hill, for pomegranate trees, for laughter among cyclamens.
He fought for a family, praying, singing, laughing together at a table of plenty, beneath a painting of elephants, in warmth and candlelight.
He fought for those he loved. A noble father. A wise mother. For Koren, a brother with a ready smile and kind heart. For Atalia, strong, brave, fragile Atalia. For Ofeer, broken, haunted, pained, still seeking light in her world of darkness. For Maya, sweetest child, innocent yet stronger than she knew. For a brother buried under the tree, who had shone his light for but a day, whose memory would always be with him. For a million souls across the land of Zohar, all of them his brothers and sisters.
A man screamed beside him, a sword severing his leg. A woman fell at his side, a spear tearing open her belly. As around him they died, Epher saw his family. Koren and him running along the beach, splashing through the waves, seeking sunken gold and treasure. Atalia wrestling him in the sand, crying when he beat her, laughing when she won. Maya reading her scrolls. Ofeer in a rare moment of joy, laughing as she performed with the puppets Master Malaci had sewn for her. His mother and father, embracing him, protecting him from all the evils in the world. He fought in a sea of evil, in a world of blood and death, but their warmth still filled him, and their light still shone upon him.
I am a son of Zohar. I am a son of Sela. Light will always guide my way.
At his side, Benshalom fell, a spear in his chest. Before him they still charged, the legionaries of Aelar, and on the mountaintop she reared on her stallion, laughing—Porcia Octavius. An arrow slammed into Epher's shoulder. He swung his sword, and a spear knocked it aside, then drove into his side. He fell. He lay among the dead, and they stared at him, eyes lifeless, hands reaching toward him, his brothers and sisters even in death, even in the fall of their kingdom.
One hand, still alive, reached out and grabbed his.
Epher clutched it, the hand of a stranger, a fellow warrior.
We will hold each other in death. We will enter the undiscovered country together.
The hand tugged him.
"Go away!"
The voice was high, urgent.
"Go away, whore. Get lost!"
Still she spoke with concern. A face thrust down, framed with wild red hair. Green eyes peered at Epher through the haze.
"Hungry," he whispered, struggling to stay awake, lying in his blood.
"Hungry, hungry." She tugged at him. "Go away!"
She yanked him up. She was surprisingly strong for such a slender thing. They stumbled through a field of death. She dragged him, pulled him toward two horses. Epher struggled to focus his eyes, and he gasped, even as his wounds dripped.
Moosh! Teresh! The horses he had lost in the mountains of Ma'oz!
Hungry all but shoved him onto one horse. He slumped in the saddle, head drooping, consciousness fading. Around him they still battled, the legionaries slaying the last Zoharites, already cheering for their victory. Ahead of him, he glimpsed the wild woman climbing onto the second horse. She still wore the tunic he had given her at the beach.
"Go away!" she said. "Go, go away. Go! Hungry!"
The horses began to move, then gallop, fleeing down the mountainside, fleeing the blood, the city, the thousands of dead. Epher's chin hit his chest. He fell. He fell forever, tumbling into an endless darkness, vanishing into a hole he could never climb out of.
SHILOH
"This is madness!" She grabbed Shefael's arm. "You cannot mean to let her enter the city."
They stood on the battlements crowning the Gate of Lions, the largest of the city's gates. The rampart was ancient, the bricks laid here thousands of years ago. These gates had withstood invader after invader. Would they now fall?
Shiloh gazed west off the battlements. In the wilderness she saw them—the legions of Aelar. Few legionaries had fallen in the battle, and they had ravaged the forces of Yohanan and Benshalom. Thousands of Zoharite warriors lay dead across the mountainside. Even as she watched, several legionaries were moving between the fallen, seeking the wounded, spearing them. The crows feasted. The stench filled the hot air.
Did you fight here, did you die here, my sons? Shiloh thought, eyes damp.
Her husband had sent Epher and Koren north—to the wilderness of Erez, to bring aid from Benshalom. The hillsfolk had come. Had died. Shiloh kept scanning the dead, trying—dreading—to find her sons among the slain. Yet all the corpses looked the same from up here. Splotches across the bleeding landscape.
At the head of the forces, Princess Porcia came riding toward the gates, armor splashed with blood.
"Release me." Shefael stood at Shiloh's side on the gatehouse. He tugged his arm free, cringing as her fingernails tore the embroidered blue fabric. "What would you have me do? Face an empire in war?" He shouted down toward the guards who stood below within the city. "Open the gates! Let them in."
"Keep those gates closed!" Shiloh cried down, then spun toward her nephew. "Damn you, Shefael. You saw what they did out there. What do you think they'll do inside the city?" She grabbed both his arms this time. "Fight them. You've been fighting Yohanan for three years, and you remained safe within these walls. If you fought your own brother, you can fight Aelar."
He snorted. "My brother was nothing but a pathetic cub playing the game of kings. No, aunt. There is no stopping the forces of Aelar. We cannot defeat them in war. Even should these walls stand, what aid would come for us? From Gefen?" He scoffed. "From the southern desert barbarians? No, I would not fight these legionaries. I will welcome them as heroes. Porcia has already agreed. She will allow me to keep my throne. Men! The gates! Open them!"
Below in the courtyard, the guards unlocked the gates, removed the beams that secured them shut, and tugged them open. Shefael spun on his heel and stepped down the wall, heading toward those gates.
Yes, you will keep your throne, Shiloh thought, looking down at him. As a puppet to an emperor.
Less a true king than your brother ever was.
Her dress fluttering and her curls bouncing, Maya ran up the wall. She came to stand at Shiloh's side. Shiloh took her daughter's hand in hers. They stood together on the wall of Beth Eloh, tears in their eyes, watching the gates open.
Drums beat. Horns blared.
"Welcome, welcome!" cried Shefael, standing below upon the road, arms spread wide. "Welcome, noble guests, into the City of Gold and Light!"
Through the gates they entered, all in splendor and blood. Porcia rode first, coated in iron, her dark armor still bloody. A thin smile played on her lips, and her horse's hooves clattered against the cobblestones. The Princess of Aelar gazed around at the city, eyes narrowing with amusement. She held a spear, and upon it gaped the skewered head of Prince Yohanan.
"Mother," Maya whispered and embraced her. "Is that . . . is that Cousin Yohanan?"
"Look away," Shiloh said, gazing down from the gatehouse, jaw locked. She held her daughter's face against her chest. "Keep your eyes closed, my sweetness."
Porcia kept riding, nodding to the roadsides where knelt the people of the city, starving after a year of siege. Mockery filled the princess's eyes. Behind her the horns blew a fanfare and the drums played, no longer a booming chant of war but a jaunty, victorious beat.
"Welcome, savior!" cried Shefael, standing on the roadside like a commoner. He bowed before Porcia, dirtying his blue robes in the dust. "Welcome, Porcia Octavius, who delivered us from evil."
Behind the princess followed the cavalry, rider by rider, armor bright, helmets crested, shields painted red and gold. After them marched the infantry, holding aloft their standards, wooden beams topped with golden eagles. The trophies of their conquest they held too—swords and cloven shields of the enemy. They snaked through the city, thousands of them, marching as one.
All across the roadside, the people of Beth Eloh wept and prayed. Some knelt. As Shiloh watched from the wall, one man raced onto the road, his beard long and gray.
"Leave this place, filth!" He tossed a stone. "This is holy ground."
Porcia's horse never even broke stride. From its back, the princess shot an arrow, knocking down the man, then trampled over him. The other horses followed, leaving nothing but shattered flesh upon the road.
The tears flowed down Shiloh's cheeks, and she thought of home—of her husband, of her children. She imagined them dead like so many here, imagined the Aelarians marching through Gefen, invading her home, destroying all that she had ever loved.
"I love you, Maya," she whispered, holding her daughter close, and their tears mingled together. "I love you so much. I will never leave you. Never. You and I will be together always."
Even if we never see our family again, she thought silently, the pain too great to bear. Even if this kingdom never rises from the darkness.
"Greetings, sons and daughters of Zohar!" Porcia cried from her horse, riding through the city. "Welcome to the light, the splendor, the glory of Aelar! Kneel before me, and praise my name, sons and daughters of the Empire."
The procession continued, line by line of troops entering the city, sandals clattering with the drums, spears held high, a cavalcade of triumph, of victory, of a fallen kingdom.
The wind gusted, blowing sand across Shiloh and her daughter, and as she stood on the wall, it seemed to Shiloh that all of Zohar, that all the lands around the Encircled Sea, were but kingdoms of sand, blowing away, crumbling under the storm.
That evening, the city feasted.
For the first time in a year, farmers from parsa'ot around delivered grain, fruit, and even meat—normally eaten only by the wealthiest Zoharites—into the city. Wine flowed from jugs, and the people sang, and Shiloh's heart twisted to see that under Aelar's yoke the city bloomed.
In the palace upon the Mount of Cedars, the Aelarians dined. In the manner of Aelar, they set out low tables, and instead of chairs, they reclined on tasseled pillows which they grabbed from bedchambers across the palace. Cooks—the same who had once prepared Shefael's feasts—now served the conquerors the bounty of the kingdom. Porcia reclined at the head of the table, and her generals lounged around her, raising mugs of wine. Shefael himself ran from Aelarian to Aelarian, clad in lavender and gold, his crown wobbling, like some fool hired to play the role of a king for his masters to scoff at.
Finally Shiloh could bear the spectacle no longer. As a legionary tripped Shefael, as the disgraced king attempted to laugh with the crowd, Shiloh took her daughter's hand in hers. Both slipped out from the palace, walked across the courtyard, and stood outside in the night. Below the hill, countless lanterns lit the city, and thousands of legionaries marched along the streets.
Maya shuddered. "Mother, I'm scared. What happened to Father? What happened to my brothers and sisters?"
Shiloh gazed across the city, but she could no longer see the wilderness beyond, nothing but shadows. "We must pray for them. We must keep hope."
A gale of laughter rose from the palace behind. Below in the city, the sandals still thumped and an Aelarian song of conquest rose.
Maya lowered her head, and a faint glow appeared on her fingers. "Mother . . . I don't know if I can hold it. I don't know if I can stop the luminescence. What if they see me?"
"They must not." Shiloh grabbed her daughter's hands, stifling their glow, and the luminescence faded. "You must fight harder than you've ever fought. This is our war, Maya. A new war. A war to remain hidden in plain sight. A war to survive. This war we will fight with all our wits and will, so that we may live to see our family again. You are so precious, Maya. You must stay with me always. I will keep you safe. I promise. I promise."
Maya nodded. The wind gusted, scented of sand, blowing their hair. Mother and daughter held each other, standing on the hill, gazing at a fallen kingdom.
OFEER
She stood on Pine Hill under her mother's pomegranate tree, watching her family come home.
The villa, the house she had been born and raised in, rose behind her, shaded by cypress and fig trees. Ofeer had moved back into the house a few days ago, sleeping in her mother's old bed, but it had become a cage to her, a place of too many memories, of sweetness and pain and regret battling within her. She had taken to spending her days here in the garden, watching Gefen from the hill, just standing here, just gazing, just waiting for her prince to return here every night, to take her into her mother's bed, to make love to her. Just waiting to see who survived—the man she had once thought her father . . . or the man she had once thought her prince.
But Jerael is not my father. And Seneca is not my prince but my brother. And I . . . I no longer know who I am.
Most of the flowers were gone from the garden now, trampled under the legionaries' sandals. Most of the trees had been cut down. Piles of wooden slats and beams lay across the yard, along with hammers and nails, the scraps left over from constructing siege engines. They formed a strange miniature city in the garden, like the roots of giant trees without trunks.
The day seemed too cool for spring. Most springs in Zohar were hot and lazy, hotter than summers in Aelar, they said, a time when the sun beat down, allowing flowers and grass only a couple of precious weeks of color before the crushing summer wilted them. Yet now a chill wind blew, coming from the sea, blowing Ofeer's hair and billowing her cotton dress. Grass rustled across the hills. Up those hills they climbed, a hundred legionaries, a noble prince, and what remained of Ofeer's family.
They made their way up a pebbly path, around the well, and through the vineyard Mother had always made Ofeer tend to. Finally they climbed the trail to this garden, to this villa on Pine Hill, staining the road with blood. Seneca rode on a horse, glorious in the sunlight, his armor like a second sun. General Remus Marcellus rode at Seneca's side, towering above his prince. Behind the horses they walked, clad in rags, their backs whipped, collared and chained. Jerael, the man Ofeer had hated, the man who had raised her as a father. Koren, his face swollen, his back bleeding. Atalia, the
warrior Ofeer had always scorned, feared, mocked—sweet Atalia, beaten, shuffling forward in chains. Around them marched the legionaries of Aelar, goading the prisoners, whipping them onward.
Ofeer stared.
There they are. The people I hate. The man who never loved me like he loved his true children. The siblings who always looked down at me. The people I love. The people who love me.
Tears streamed down Ofeer's cheeks, but she did not tremble, and she did not look away.
Finally the procession reached Pine Hill and entered the gardens where Ofeer stood, in the shade of the villa and its trees.
"I've brought you a princely gift!" Seneca said from his horse. "Behold, Ofeer, keeper of her mother's vineyard. I caught three of the rats who tortured you."
The prince dismounted from his horse and gave Jerael a kick, knocking the large man to his knees. With a few swipes of his spear, he knocked down Koren and Atalia too. Gags filled the prisoners' mouths. Atalia was shouting something, but the sound was muffled. Chains wrapped around their ankles and hands, and the collars chafed at their necks. All three were bandaged with dirty cloth. All three stared at Ofeer, and she wanted to look away, to look at anything but her family, but she could not. Their eyes were not accusing. They were sad. They were sad for her.
"I slew thousands of the rats myself," Seneca said, pacing the yard. He patted the blade that hung from his belt. "Eagle's Talon drank her share of blood. These ones I kept alive for us, Ofeer."
She whispered to him.
"What?" Seneca stepped closer toward her, eyes narrowing. "I can't hear you."
"Release them," Ofeer whispered again, and now she trembled. "Please."
Seneca stared at her, raised his eyebrow, then guffawed, an explosive sound that snorted out from his nostrils. "Release them? Ofeer, are you mad? Don't you remember those stories you told me?" He took her hands in his. "About how Jerael loved your siblings more than you, how you felt so ashamed around him? Or how Koren always played with his brother and other sisters, not with you? Or how Atalia would mock you so much, how you cried and hid from her?"
Kings of Ruin (Kingdoms of Sand Book 1) Page 27