Seven Princes

by John R. Fultz

  Two thousand archers marched behind the spearmen, their great bows of horn and cedar hung with the pale feathers of seabirds. Quivers stuffed with barbed arrows hung on their backs and bronze blades at their belts. They were Fangs of the Sky God, elite bowmen whose skills were legend across the continent.

  A train of wagons bearing servants, supplies, fletchers, armorers, and weaponsmiths rolled after the archers, pulled by two hundred oxen and three hundred dromedaries. The rearguard was another legion of mounted cavalry to protect the precious caravan.

  Priests of Sky, Sun, Earth, and Sea walked among the ranks, blessing warriors and speaking ancient parables. The six Adjutant Generals rode at strategic points among the legions, each reporting twice a day to Lord Tsoti. Since passing through the remains of Zaashari, the Mumbazans had craved priestly comfort more than ever.

  In three days this massive force had been assembled under Lord Tsoti’s supervision. The Boy-King must remain in the city, so Tsoti was his eyes, ears, and hands in the field. D’zan learned quickly that the man was a hero to his people, a figure of nearly divine esteem. Tsoti stood taller than any man D’zan had seen, excepting the Giants of the northlands. His muscles seemed hewn from onyx, and the gray at his temples was the only sign of his age. Although Mumbaza had avoided war for a century, Tsoti had earned fame as a mercenary fighting in Trimesqua’s armies during the Island Wars. They said he slew a flesh-eating monster on some deserted island where his ship had been wrecked, saving hundreds of lives. D’zan met him in the Boy-King’s throne room, where he reported the readiness of his legions. He looked upon D’zan, the son of his old comrade, with fatherly eyes.

  “Prince.” He greeted D’zan with a bow and a voice smooth as molten iron. “I knew you only as a babe in your mother’s arms. Now you are a man… and soon you will be a King.” He embraced D’zan, and the Prince could only smile and thank him. Tsoti asked for word of Olthacus the Stone. His wide grin turned to a frown when D’zan gave him the news. That day had begun the trek southward, and D’zan was proud to ride in his company.

  Four days later the vanguard discovered the mass of debris and wasted ground where proud Zaashari had recently thrived. There was nothing left of it but piles of crumbled stones. Tsoti pointed to where the hill-fortress had stood. The ground there now was flat and littered with black dust.

  As the sun fell low beyond the sea, rotted corpses rose dumbly from the rubble and dirt. They stumbled toward the Mumbazans with gleaming dead eyes, and their grave-stench poisoned the air. Some were Zaashari folk, and some were the remains of Yaskathan soldiers. They grasped at the necks and limbs of living men, jaws snapping like vicious turtles. Tsoti sent warriors among them with spear and sword, but the dead men refused to die again.

  “Flame,” D’zan told the High General. “We must burn them. Only flame will set them free.”

  Tsoti drew his forces back and called for a cohort of archers, their arrows dipped in pitch and set alight. The Fangs of the Sky God never missed their shambling targets. In less than an hour every walking corpse was pinned and flaming. The reek of corrupt flesh was smothered by that of burning flesh. The dead things fell into heaps of ash and bone.

  “This place must have been the center of the earthquakes we felt,” said Lyrilan from his saddle. He never strayed far from D’zan, and his presence was a steady comfort. “There is nothing left here.”

  “Nothing but the dead,” said Tyro, “who now have truly died.”

  “What forces must have been unleashed on this place…” Lyrilan mused.

  D’zan shook his head. “The same forces that stole my father’s kingdom. This place has the stink of Elhathym. They must have faced him here. There was a great battle, and these cursed dead were the result.”

  “Then where are Khama, Sharadza, and Iardu?” asked Lyrilan. “If they were triumphant, we should find them here. If not, where is Elhathym?”

  “He’s gone back to Yaskatha,” said D’zan. “I saw him in a dream last night, as I often do, sitting on father’s—on my throne. If he were dead, I would know it. He was weakened here, not defeated.”

  “He will march north again,” said Tyro. He pulled his horse aside as a flaming revenant stumbled past and fell to the earth.

  “We will not give him the chance,” said General Tsoti, riding back from his parley with the archer captain. “This usurper has wiped Zaashari from the map. There were five thousand citizens of Mumbaza living here, and three thousand soldiers garrisoned in the citadel. It is all gone… This is a war not of defense… but vengeance.”

  “He has killed even more Yaskathans,” said D’zan. “Death is the wine he drinks, the wind he breathes across the world. We fight him not only for Yaskatha’s liberation and Mumbaza’s sovereignty, but for all of civilization.”

  General Tsoti blinked his eyes beneath the brow of his golden helm. “You are your father’s son, D’zan,” he said.

  The Mumbazan host made camp in the ruined valley. D’zan spoke with the High Sun-Priest about the ward on his greatsword. “This is an ancient symbol,” said the ecclesiastic. “It is indeed a symbol of the Bright God, and we can mark it upon the shields and spears of our warriors. But the secret of its magic has been lost to us for centuries. I cannot say if it will have much power over these shadow demons.”

  “Perhaps if the men believe in its power,” said General Tsoti, “that power will manifest. I have found that, in battle, what a man believes gives him the power of life or death.”

  So the Sun Priests worked their antique sigils on the shields and blades of the army. D’zan saw wisdom in Tsoti’s words. He prayed to the Bright God to invest these marks of ink and ash with all the power of the one he carried on his own blade. Either way the Mumbazans would face whatever evils Elhathym cast at them. He made sure that Tyro and Lyrilan were also marked with the sun symbol. Lyrilan wore his gilded mail; now he carried spear and longblade instead of quill and parchment.

  D’zan remarked on this when morning broke over dead Zaashari. The Mumbazans pavilioned in round tents assembled from hide and wooden hoops. He entered Lyrilan’s tent as the Prince was pulling on his mail shirt.

  “You no longer carry a manuscript,” said D’zan. “Have you given up on writing my life’s story?” He smiled to show his good humor.

  Lyrilan strapped the longblade to his belt and tied his long curls behind his head. “Not at all,” he said. “I simply realized I was going about it all wrong. The story has grown, D’zan. As much as I tried to stand outside its pages to chronicle its characters and events, I could not do it. I am a part of the story now, whether I like it or not. My mistake was in trying to write the thing down as it was happening. I need to live the story first, as you do. When it has finally ended, only then can I go back and write it. The Sea Beast taught me that. I will not ignore its lesson.”

  D’zan clapped him on the shoulder. “You are a good friend, Lyrilan. You could have walked away from this at any time. Yet here you stand. I will never forget what you and Tyro have done for me.”

  Lyrilan splashed cold water on his face from a bowl. “How could I walk away from such a compelling tale?” he said. “As for Tyro… well, he loves a good fight.”

  Four more days along the coast and the brown hills became the green plains of northern Yaskatha. Groves of cypress grew infrequently about the rolling landscape. Directly south, another two days’ travel, lay the seacoast city where Elhathym sat on Trimesqua’s throne. The tyrant would not allow a siege; instead he sent the Yaskathan legions northward to secure the border plains. From the crest of a high ridge, D’zan, Tyro, Lyrilan, and General Tsoti observed the massive host sent to thwart their advance.

  Twelve legions of Yaskathans were assembled in vast four-sided formations spread across the green tableland. Their colors were silver and crimson. At their head flew the tree-and-sword banner, which Elhathym in his cunning had not sought to change. These men would fight for the flag of their nation no matter who sat upon the throne. If he h
ad replaced that national emblem with one of his own creation, it would only dampen the morale of his troops. Their cavalry were as mighty as the Mumbazans’, and more numerous: three-thousand mailed lancers mounted on chargers bred for battle. Thousands of footmen with pike, sword, and shield comprised the bulk of their forces, and a great cohort of archers was stationed as expected – in the rear of the host, where they could send volleys arcing over the heads of the forward ranks.

  Advance scouts had reported these formations, so seeing them arrayed across the field was no surprise. Here would be the killing ground, the blood-soaked theatre of war. D’zan looked across glittering legions of his own countrymen and felt a pain in his heart, a sickening in his stomach. These were his people, and he rode against them today. If only they would break and rally under their true monarch, none would need to die. If he could win them over, with word or deed, thousands of Mumbazans and Yaskathans might live to see another sunrise.

  The two great hosts lined up along the northern and southern ends of the plain, and D’zan looked down upon them both. Generals and Princes would observe the fight from the ridge-top, sending commands to their captains with horn, drum, and signal flags. He watched the plumed Mumbazans flow around him to fill the plain below, a flood of bronze and flesh.

  The commanders were quiet. Tyro had determined to lead the northern cohort of three hundred men, but Tsoti bade him wait until the greater mass of the host was in position. Tyro sat patiently on his warhorse, eyeing the orderly rows of military splendor that would soon become a pit of seething, bleeding chaos. Lyrilan sat in silence near D’zan, his disciplined steed gnawing at the scrub-grass. D’zan spurred his own mount and it trotted toward the High General where he consulted with the six Adjutants. A flock of ravens from some distant grove scattered into the sky.

  “General!” called D’zan. “Let me ride forth between the hosts before the battle. Let me fly the standard of my father before Yaskathan eyes. When they see me alive, some of them may join us.”

  “Too risky,” said the general. “Stay on this high ground, Prince, where arrow and spear cannot reach you. It would not do to win back your throne and have you killed in the process. You must fight this war like a King, D’zan… not a foot soldier.”

  D’zan watched Yaskathan banners flapping in the breeze; they rose at regular intervals from the massed ranks of silver and crimson. Tsoti spoke with wisdom, yet his heart could not bear doing nothing while others fought for him. What kind of King would he be if he did such a thing? He sat brooding in his saddle when Tyro and the six Adjutants rode down the slope and took their places among the legions. Tyro’s cohort guarded the southern flank.

  Now there stood only Tsoti, D’zan, and Lyrilan upon the ridge, and a few mail-shirted servants bearing horn, flag, and flask. Well behind the ridge two legions of spearmen and a legion of cavalry lay in reserve. “Let them think we are weaker in forces,” Tsoti had explained. “Never show your enemy everything.” Although perhaps enemy scouts had already counted their exact numbers.

  D’zan shifted in his saddle.

  It was true that he must live through this to claim his throne. Yet he must do something now, or he would never be worthy of it.

  He spurred his horse, galloping down into the corridor between the central formations. He ignored the shouting of the High General behind him, and the desperate voice of Lyrilan calling after him. If he would be a King, he must act like a King.

  Riding at full speed he broke past the front cavalry lines and entered the no-man’s-land between the two hosts. Grass and sod flew from his stallion’s hooves as he pulled forth the Stone’s great blade. He hoisted it toward the sky with his right arm. Alone, he rode toward the gleaming wall of Yaskathan soldiery, the emblem on their round shields also blazing on his chest.

  In the heavy calm he reined his horse a short distance from the silver-crimson front line. In the shadows of symmetrical helms, ten thousand eyes blinked at his approach. A High General in armor of burnished plate sat upon a black charger at the line’s center. D’zan could not recognize the man through the closed visor of his silver helm. A black cloak billowed from the commander’s metal shoulders, and the legions sat restless and attentive at his back.

  D’zan stood high in his stirrups, the greatsword’s blade casting sunlight across their eyes, and he shouted: “I am D’zan, Son of Trimesqua, returned to claim what is mine by right of blood! You need not serve the tyrant usurper! Come across and join your King! I am D’zan! Rightful King of Yaskatha!”

  He galloped north along the line and doubled back, riding south now and shouting his message twice more. A nervous mumbling grew among the Yaskathan ranks. Like a soft wind it began, gathering strength and volume, spreading from the vanguard toward the heart of the host.

  The Yaskathan High General raised his right hand, sheathed in a bright gauntlet. In an instant an unnatural and pervasive silence fell across his legions. His black steed walked forward as if to treat with D’zan, and diamonds glittered along its mailed caparison. D’zan reined again to face him, and the general pulled up his visor.

  D’zan nearly fell from his horse. The gaunt face of Elhathym stared at him from within the silver helm. The eyes were black without luster, as if they devoured the sunlight. He smiled and revealed white teeth, and D’zan thought of a lizard’s smile before it devours its prey.

  “Prince D’zan, the long-lost heir,” Elhathym greeted him. “Welcome back. Many times I have tried to bring you hence, yet you resisted every one of my invitations. It pleases me that you have come now of your own will instead. Now you may accept your inheritance… by joining your ancestors in death.” A metallic note rang loudly as he drew from his side a greatsword of black iron with a hilt of blazing silver. The sound of it wavered in the air above the hosts, so that every man on the plain heard it like the peal of some mystic gong.

  It was like a clarion of thunder that begins a dreadful storm. War-horns sounded from both hosts. Legions of archers let their volleys fly. As the sky turned black beneath a rain of criss-crossing bolts, Elhathym’s blade crashed against D’zan’s sword. The shock of the blow traveled through D’zan’s body, rattling his bones. He gritted his teeth against the pain. There was far more than human strength in Elhathym’s arms; it was the strength of sorcery that drove his iron. D’zan turned his two-handed parry into a clever thrust, but Elhathym’s silver breastplate turned away his blade. The sorcerer laughed and hacked at him. D’zan ducked beneath the killing arc.

  Their horses spun in a circle as the blades clanged between them. D’zan breathed through gritted teeth while Elhathym laughed, his mouth a feral grin. The sound of arrows raining down upon upturned shields hung over their battle. Then both sides launched a second volley, and metal rang like a million drums.

  Now the great cavalries charged. The Yaskathans galloped past D’zan and Elhathym, speeding to engage the Mumbazans in the center of the plain. The thunder of hooves rocked the earth and the odor of torn grass filled D’zan’s nostrils. A fresh shock along his blade knocked him from the saddle. He landed on his back in the mud and pulped grass. His horse squealed as Elhathym hewed it down with a single stroke. It nearly fell on top of him, but he rolled away. The rushing hooves of a Yaskathan cavalryman almost brained him, but instinct jerked him backward. When D’zan regained his feet, Elhathym had dismounted as well. The clanging of bronze on bronze and the cries of men killing and dying joined the thunder-song of the horses’ hooves. The field was a swirling chaos of spear, shield, and sword.

  D’zan faced Elhathym in the eye of this mad hurricane.

  He raised the Stone’s blade high and brought it down on Elhathym’s head. The sorcerer’s blade was there to catch it, fast as lightning, and suddenly D’zan knew he could not win this duel. He had trained hard, but not for long enough. He had grown strong, but was not mighty. He had defied the wisdom of General Tsoti and now was beyond hope. He parried another strike from Elhathym’s blade and screamed his guttural fury. Wor
ds were long gone; there was only the sound of his anger, tempered by despair.

  Elhathym laughed and drove the point of his blade through D’zan’s mail, a bolt of lightning through his heart. D’zan stood motionless for a single moment that seemed an eternity, impaled on the cold metal. It burned through his breast and burst from his back. The cold spread throughout his body, and his arms fell limp. They were useless things, hanging at his side like pieces of meat, but his right hand refused to let go of the sword hilt he had clutched so tightly for so many nights. The point of the greatsword lodged in the mire at his feet.

  Elhathym drew back his elbow, and his black blade exited D’zan’s body. The sorcerer’s eyes blazed, twin stars of triumph swimming in dark lakes of malice.

  D’zan’s chin fell upon his breast, and he watched the crimson flow of his lifeblood spilling to the earth, staining his black-and-silver mail to gleaming red. Then he fell, face down in the muck at Elhathym’s feet. His eyes somehow still functioned, and he saw clearly the silvered iron of the sorcerer’s boots as one of them rose to his shoulder, flipping him onto his back. The cacophony of battle, the shrieks of wounded men and horses, the ringing of bloodied metal… all these things faded from his ears.

  “Now, Prince of Yaskatha,” said Elhathym, staring down at him. The world faded to eternal night and silence, but his words echoed with clarity. “Time for you to embrace your destiny, as you always wished. Rise now, D’zan, Son of Trimesqua, and lead your armies to victory over the Mumbazans. Your living soul I cast off like a heavy chain, Your bones and flesh now belong to me. Rise up and serve your King…”

  In the mute darkness, D’zan rose away from blood and dirt and pain. He was no longer even cold. Elhathym’s words faded. Something called him onward through the dark, toward a constellation of lights… a glimmering fog into which he fell with a great sense of contentment.