Kings of Ash

by Richard Nell

  The sky above the battlefield again cracked with thunder, and Ruka clenched his jaw. Clouds from every direction blew towards it as if from a circular gale, yet not even a breeze touched Ruka’s face. The dim sun darkened further, light flashing as the clouds came together. Lightning flared, then blasted the Ascomi’s left flank.

  Many screamed. Some flew from their feet, others collapsed where they stood as if struck instantly unconscious. The sea behind the enemy stilled. Sand swirled into life before them, slashing at the men in coiling strands like swinging rope. Ruka watched his brave warriors walk forward and meet their enemy regardless. They stayed together and did not charge, and soon the lines came together in cries and clashes of iron and bronze, flesh and wood.

  Ruka turned to the skald at his side. Egil was older now, as they both were, and a father of four sets of twins. All had survived to join a generation of ash with one fifth the deaths of children than any before it.

  “We have traveled a long road, you and I,” Ruka said. Egil met his eyes. His black beard was touched now with grey, the lines and wrinkles on his face somehow enhancing his fine looks, and showing his wisdom. His face twisted with a mix of emotion Ruka expected could never be untangled.

  “Wait awhile longer, lord. This sorcerer will tire.”

  Ruka smiled, wishing he could say so much more—how grateful and sorry he was, and how much he would miss his timid, talented, wonderful friend. Instead he turned to what was left of his cavalry.

  A hundred-odd ‘Sons of Sula’ remained from over two-hundred. Some were his kin, or at least Beyla’s—the great-great-great grandsons of Valdaya, who had stepped foot on paradise in the four hundred and twenty ninth year of Galdra, in a special trip just for her, two weeks before her death at the age of eighty-three.

  Many of the men were already wounded, some so badly they’d been strapped to their horses. But their eyes still held fire.

  “We go to this sorcerer, cousins,” Ruka shouted so all would hear. “We go for our kin, and their future.” He met his retainer’s eyes, and perhaps saw a wetness there. Whether it was joy, or grief, he did not know.

  “You asked me once how the story of Ruka, son of Beyla should end, skald. Do you remember?”

  Egil nodded very slowly. His expression slackened, as if he had heard some great and horrible truth. Ruka looked to the battle, the swirling storms of magic, knowing behind it all stood a man who thought himself a god. He lowered the iron bars of his visor, and smiled.

  “One last task, Egil, and your work is done. Tell our people how the son of Beyla dies.”

  * * *

  Ruka raced across the white sand of Sri Kon, warm breeze drying the sweat on his brow. He had tossed his helmet to the beach perhaps to serve some bold and clever crab. He would need to see his target clearly.

  The Sons scattered now in many directions. Most would charge Kale alone, getting through the line any way they could. Twenty remained and rode at Ruka’s back in formation towards the islander’s East flank, and would help clear him a path.

  Ruka hoped the prince was too distracted to stop them all. He slowed Sula to a cantor and glanced at the sea, seeing many Ascomi warships already in flames. Others still closed with the larger ships trying to board. Pontooned scouts swarmed them like flies, and the skies above them looked unnaturally darkened and hostile. Thank you for your sacrifice, Ruka thought, expecting they were doomed. I will redeem your courage, or die trying.

  On the coast, his infantry were faring far better. Despite the magic ripping many apart, already they were breaking the islanders on both flanks as they cut a path towards the sea. Half-naked marines and poorly equipped Tong spearmen still fought desperately for their lives, but were uncoordinated and weaker, both individually and as a group. The Ascomi shieldwalls bashed and hacked them to pieces whenever engaged, and the sand churned red with island blood.

  Ruka waited and waited until he saw some of his riders breaking through the line, hurling spears at the rear of the Mesanite block. Those that did fell instantly, and Ruka knew where the sorcerer was. His breath quickened because the moment had arrived, or it never would—all of Ruka’s life sharpened to a single jagged point.

  “Ride, men of ash! Give me my enemy! Show the gods the strength of their sons!” He raised his spear, and the warriors around him cried out, surging forward behind Eshen, who refused to leave Ruka’s side.

  Ruka urged Sula into an impatient run, rising over the small crest he’d hidden behind, straight for the crumbling flank of the enemy.

  Many brave islanders stood before their approach, and all of them died. With spears and iron beasts the Sons trampled over the outer edges, breaking through to race along the coast behind them. They sprinted hard through the shallow water, flinging wet sand from heavy hooves as they maintained their charge. The perfect square of the Mesanites loomed, spears sticking out from every angle like a well-built palisade.

  Ruka saw the prince behind them now. He was floating again, his arms outstretched, air shimmering around him in seething waves. Ruka readied a spear.

  Again as he came closer the moment froze as sound seemed muffled—sand shook and leapt to the air, this time ahead of them, swirling like a living thing as it transformed into a cyclone of grit.

  Every horse reared up in panic. They screamed and turned away from the roar of air and sand before them, scattering and skirting the edges into the sea, or into the rear ranks of men.

  Every horse panicked, that is, except one. Ruka snarled and raised his shield, feeling Bukayag’s excitement to feel the sand tear at his flesh. Sula ran straight into the storm.

  Chapter 75

  Osco could no longer hear the battle over the sound of Kale’s magic. His summoning of a monsoon had been impossible and terrifying enough. Somehow, this was different.

  Kale’s head lolled in exhaustion, or maybe rapture. He floated a man’s height from the ground, pulsing with a blurry miasma of maybe steam. Behind him, the sea had stilled. The sky cracked again and again, the battle shrouded in unnatural darkness from clouds that leapt and surged like living things. Osco’s breath frosted in the air as if he stood on a mountaintop, and the rear ranks of his square shivered from the cold. But he had little time to worry.

  The giants had now engaged three sides of his square as the islanders crumbled. For now the Mesanites held, though the huge enemy bashed against them almost heedless of counter-attack—partly due to their armor, partly because they were stark, raving mad.

  The enemy fought like demons. Covered in mud and blood—sometimes while being torn apart by invisible magic—they pushed on, as if all that existed was the next foe. Despite their obvious tiredness they fought with fury, hacking at Osco’s men and breaking apart shields. The fight, Osco realized, would go to total exhaustion. Or at least it would have.

  Kale’s magic raked the beach in horrifying waves. The enemy sometimes flew back, thrown by the hand of an angry god. Others collapsed, blood and bone bursting from the cracks in their armor, or burning alive as lightning struck them from above. Sometimes the sand itself opened and swallowed them, vanishing into the earth without time to scream. Still their brethren continued the assault.

  “Hold,” Osco yelled, not knowing if any could even hear him properly. “Your city’s honor stands behind you! This ground is your oath! Not one step back!” He turned, not yet joining the rotating formation, eyes scanning the beach for riders.

  “Be ready,” he called directly in the ear of his Second, who nodded, and managed by gesture to break off a small pack from the rear to move closer to Kale’s painful aura.

  Beast-riders were breaking through the islanders, and Osco’s men took turns bringing them down with javelins as they charged. The giant mules were fast, but predictable, and like anything else did not run far with four feet of bronze and iron spike plunged through their necks and legs. The Mesanites killed the fallen riders on the ground.

  Again Osco turned to the beach, this time as the ground beneath hi
m trembled. He could not know if it was Kale’s magic or a charge like before, but he scanned with every speck of battle awareness hammered into him since childhood.

  “West flank,” he shouted as he saw them, “second unit!”

  The unit leaders screamed and shoved at the giants until twenty more men could break loose from formation to stand between Kale and the riders. Osco counted the enemy as quickly as he could.

  It was a packed cluster like before, hurtling at impossible speed straight through the chaos, islanders bouncing away from them like nothing. He looked to his already hard-pressed infantry and knew he could spare no more without risking collapse. It wasn’t enough.

  “Islander,” he screamed, pressing into the freezing air towards Kale. “There’s too many! West flank!”

  Kale’s lips didn’t move.

  “I see them.”

  Air rushed off the sea, and sand swirled into life to protect the flank, covering the ground all the way from water to the edges of Osco’s square like a wall of cyclones.

  From his angle, Osco could still see the riders, and breathed a sigh of relief as he saw the beasts panic and flee from Kale’s magic, turning aside to stumble into packs of islanders. He left ten men to watch for stragglers, then turned back to support the square.

  * * *

  Bukayag and Sula snarled as the sand whipped against their flesh. Ruka closed his eyes as grit buffeted his face and hands and felt like ice driving against him in heavy sleet.

  The sound and feel of it overwhelmed his senses. Sula stumbled blind, and Ruka knew at any moment he could be struck down by something he couldn’t see.

  But like most fear, in moments it was gone, and the storm with it. Ruka burst through to see Kale floating before him in plain view, bodyguards arrayed in a line. Sula charged without instruction.

  The surprised men scrambled to intercept, wrapping somewhat around the edge towards the water, no doubt fearing he would try to skirt their flank. But Ruka did not intend to go around.

  Bukayag threw their first spear, the weapon flying straight and true until the air itself seized it and tossed it aside. Ruka charged on, picking up speed despite the heavy sand clinging to Sula’s hooves. With every moment he drew closer, hands twitching, body held high in the saddle, ready to jump. The enemy infantry threw their spears.

  Ruka raised his shield and a solid hit clanged and bounced against it. Most struck Sula. The barding stopped nearly all of it, but one entered the animal’s cheek, ripping through the other side to stick and jut like a crossbeam. Others gouged his lower legs and carried off chunks of flesh and bone. Two more struck the leather saddle and lodged deep into his side. Still, Sula charged.

  In a wild rage, the stallion rammed into the spears turned against him, his barding shivering the points, chest hammering men and weapons aside with all his massive weight. His breathing was ragged, his body pierced, but still he broke through the line. Mighty Sula thrashed his head in victory, spraying blood even as he stumbled to the sand. Ruka leapt screaming and ready from his back.

  He banished his armor to his Grove because it weighed him down. He kept his feet and ran on, feeling a pitiful cold in the air no worse than a single moment of Hulbron winter. He felt a weight, oppressive and thick, as if every step now were trudged through the river of tears, swift and unfreezing though it burned like fire. He was only steps from his prey.

  All of Kale’s power turned against him.

  His grove shook as trees all around it burst into flames. Dead men collapsed before his mother’s house as the walls cracked from the fury of a sudden wind. Weapons and armor flew from his armory, caught up in a cyclone to spin and collide with the dead and the walls. Beyla’s statue cracked and broke, and Ruka screamed as it vanished into the swirling mists in a vortex of air.

  In the land of the living, the Mesanites were trying to intervene, but couldn’t. They fell and cried out as they approached, helpless in the aura of the sorcerer’s power. All around him the air seethed with heat, or iced in frost, or crackled with lightning—as if the world tried all it knew to bring Ruka down.

  Bukayag roared, and trudged them forward. Through the weight, through the agony, step by step, impossible but true, he pushed into the flames like Noss leaping into the mountain. The dead seized Ruka’s arms in his Grove, mustering behind him, propping him against the terrible wind, dragging him like a ship to the sea.

  “Why…won’t…you…die!”

  Kale’s voice boomed across the beach, deafening and elemental, ringing from the heavens in the land of the living and the dead, mocking the noise of mortal war. The prince raised his arms and began to move higher, as if he meant simply to fly far above and rain his murder from the safety of the clouds.

  Bukayag snarled, and leapt.

  Ruka’s brother wrapped a four-fingered hand around the ankle of Farahi’s killer, and dragged him down. The sword in their other hand burned so hot it seared his flesh, and Ruka released it, closing his fingers into a fist. Kale struggled and kicked, but with a single pull, Ruka brought the island prince within his reach, and struck with a closed fist.

  Kale’s handsome cheek shattered. His eyes rolled as he fought unconsciousness, and the destruction in Ruka’s Grove ended as quickly as it began. He ran from his mother’s broken house to the fields of his armory, and lifted a knife. His brother seized it.

  Together they turned Kale in their arms to stand wobbling, using his body to shield them from the Mesanites stumbling to their feet. The moment felt so calm. The sounds of battle were almost peaceful as Kale’s power drained from the world.

  Ruka held the young prince forward. He felt his brother’s eyes roam the boy and felt his resentment. The prince of paradise had been born alone, but never accused of eating his brother in the womb. He had not been called a monster, nor been forced to become one in truth in a frozen wasteland. His ancestors had not left him a room with all the weight of history sagging on his shoulders. Perhaps he was so small and light because he did not bear the weight of the dead.

  It isn’t fair, Bukayag tried to scream.

  Ruka thought on the words echoed by Kale’s magic—the harsh nature of such a powerful force with its will turned against him after everything. After everything.

  “Why won’t I die?” he hissed. “Why wont I die? he shouted, loudly enough for the Mesanites to hear. “I am not a man, Prince of Paradise. I am a thousand years of children buried nameless in rotten earth. I am the rage of their helpless mothers, weeping beneath an empty sky. I am the bitter fruit of frozen tears.”

  Bukayag took the knife from the prince’s throat, and withdrew his arm. It was not difficult, in the end, for Ruka need only stand aside, and in silence. He need only do nothing.

  “See what they reap,” his brother whispered. It was Bukayag who drove the blade.

  * * *

  Osco watched the blood-slick iron emerge from his friend’s chest and knew it had pierced his heart. The giant threw Kale forward, all the way to land at his protector’s feet.

  The sandstorm collapsed, just as all around his Mesanites islanders broke or fled in panic to the sea. For a moment Osco considered making his last act revenge on this sorcerer—surrounding him with his ten exposed men and bringing him down, searching that damned armor for every chink. But it made no difference. Kale was dead. And even if all his men were next, Osco would not throw away their lives.

  “Formation,” he ordered. The soldiers around him lifted the fallen prince and withdrew to reinforce the square, placing Kale inside.

  Osco could see that most of his allies had already broken, with only a few small packs of the Tong still fighting. Those that could swim dove into the bloody waters of the North Alaku Sea, perhaps just to float there in safety, or perhaps to swim all the way to their ships.

  Safely tucked behind a wall of his men, Osco knelt beside his friend. He met the still-dazed, frantic eyes, and took his hand.

  A small, desperate part of him thought he might see another
miracle—that Kale would rise from the sand, mending his flesh as power surged all around him. But as his friend’s gaze focused, tinged with regret and terror, Osco knew it wasn’t so.

  “Go in peace,” he whispered, “your brothers will join you soon.”

  Thus went the words of all Mesanite commanders to the fallen, but just for Kale, Osco smiled and shed a tear.

  The prince’s eyes relaxed, as if he prepared some final mental effort, and Osco stiffened. In truth he believed it still possible. Perhaps he truly was going to create some final miracle, overcoming death itself. Kale gasped and stared at the sky as he squeezed Osco’s hand. He met his gaze, and seemed now only sorry, and not afraid. He blinked and lay back on the sand, and his grip relaxed. His chest stilled, and Osco closed his lids.

  “What now, other friend?” Asna paced back and forth, thus far safe in the Mesanite formation. Since the battle started he’d been like a caged animal, watching with frantic looks and being entirely useless. Osco stood and flexed his wounded shoulder, strapping on his shield.

  “We die. Or you can swim away like the damned Condotian dog you are.”

  The mercenary frowned and glanced at the roiling sea. “Asna the Great is not murdered by water. No.” He drew his sword.

  Osco nodded because it made as much sense as anything. He dropped his visor and put an arm to the closest back, taking his place in the formation. It hurt to hold his shield, but nevermind. It seemed he would not be the one to save his people. But it had always been a madman’s hope.

  He would not see Liga again, or the children they would have made. These were small, and minor regrets for a man whose whole life had been war.

  “Brothers, it’s my honor to die with you,” he shouted over the din. “You have earned your names. Woe to our enemies!”

  “Woe to the enemies of Mesan!” cried his brave warriors together in strong voices, and without hesitation. Osco of the Magda nearly wept in thanks, for though he had failed, and perhaps his family had failed, his culture had not. He would go to his death with pride.