In Siege of Daylight

by Gregory S Close

  Orange-red fire licked at the obstinate stone, and the sigils came alive, glowing with hellish heat as they redoubled the energies Dieavaul had cast upon them, weakening the gate’s formidable wards. Molten rock rolled sluggishly down to the cave floor, pooling and solidifying in a shiny mass at Dieavaul’s feet.

  Even as he watched the slag cool, he knew the spell had failed to breach the entrance. Dieavaul eyed the gate with a growing sense of resignation. It was clear that his own resources were not up to the task at hand. Given time, perhaps, and adequate rest, he could prepare a spell more tailored to the situation. He had neither, however, which only added more credence to the course he must now take, despite his reservations.

  A century or so earlier, he would have thought little of tapping into the power of his sword, allowing the black unliving energies of its maker into his being and twisting it to serve his own designs. But with age came wisdom, and Dieavaul recognized the price he paid for such frequent, careless use of so great a power. For every instance he drew too deeply upon the artifact for strength or aid, a growing piece of his innermost being, his will, even his soul, became less and less his own and more the domain of the Dark God of which the weapon was irrevocably a part. Deathbringer, some human had called it. An apt appellation if not a little trite – for its wielder as well as its victims.

  Dieavaul thought back to the wilhorwhyr he had slain, the boy called Jasper. The image of the boy’s young, young soul writhing in the inside-out torture of ilnymhorrim’s thrall gave him genuine pleasure. No mortal could conceive the level of suffering in his prisoner as, despite all that he ever held sacred in life, he was compelled to obey and assist in the betrayal of those same beliefs in his eternal death-within-death. Strong or weak when of the flesh, it mattered little once sent to dwell in the Bone Tower. Once within that small corner of the Dark God’s twisted soul, enveloped in the celestial miasma of all that philosophers called evil, there was no sleep, no respite, no escape. Whether king, hero or peasant, hope perished swiftly.

  Jasper had tried to resist, as they all did at first, under the false illusion of hope his preconceived notions of justice inspired. In the end he simply had no choice but to obey, just as all those who had fallen before him. The dead boy had vomited up his knowledge of this Two-Moons, his aulden bitch, and the soul-thief called Bloodhawk.

  Dieavaul had never felt a wilhorwhyr’s torment before, and it was like a draught of the finest vintage, so pure and noble his angst and so bitter the despair of his treachery. Many more long days of indulgence awaited with that one.

  Dieavaul exhaled, shrugging off such thoughts and resigning himself to the inevitable. Ilnymhorrim would be hungry; it had not fed after the Shadow-walk. His gaze swept over the hrumm warriors pressed against the opposite wall of the cave. Not its meal of choice, but options were limited, and he had no intention of sacrificing any of his own life force for the deed.

  Two should suffice.

  “Shaa has need of a sacrifice,” he said in a grave near-whisper. “He bids only warriors come. Which of you here will send your souls to his aid?”

  Dieavaul watched as they stepped forward, eager for their place of honor in the Host of the Accursed. He acted with speed and certainty, selecting the two strongest of the survivors before they began killing each other for the privilege of sacrifice. He found himself amused at the irony. Where he sent them, there would be no god waiting for them, no glory, no war. They would have eternity to contemplate their mistake.

  Captain Sul Vaujn looked over the men and women in his command with respect and genuine fondness. They were like family, out here on the fringes of the known world, hundreds of leagues from civilization and a mere hundred feet from the surface world. He took their care seriously. Many of these same soldiers had fought with him under Captain Fruenh in the Deeping Wars. Of course, until that dringli arrow in Vurdann found its mark, he had been merely Lieutenant Vaujn, and damn happy about it. Command had its downfalls. He would lay down his life for them, as they would for him – and this day he might well have to ask it of them.

  His company numbered twelve, himself included, which according to his arithmetic, didn’t stack up well against the flame-spewing demigod blasting at their door. Fortunately, this stronghold had originally been built to fend off the andu’ai, back when their kind was troublesome, and so it could be dealt a fair number of blows, magical or otherwise.

  Mother Chloe, his wife and the resident chaplain of Brecholt’s Spur Outpost Number Nine, whistled through clenched teeth. She stared with fixed eyes into a water-filled marble basin. Rippling on the surface of the fluid, normally crystal clear as a mountain spring, was the figure of a pale warrior in dark garb, his hands gripped around blade and hilt of a sword of bone-like steel. The bloody remains of two hrumm warriors littered the floor of the cave at his feet. There was no sound, but it was clear he was speaking. Probably a spell, Vaujn knew, and evidently one that required a blood sacrifice. That made the captain of the watch uneasy.

  “Chloe, what in the Pits is that bastard up to?” he said finally, deciding she wouldn’t volunteer the information soon enough to suit him.

  Mother Chloe shrugged, meeting her husband’s gaze with honest candor. “If I read that spell right, and mind you I’m not sure with aulden magic, I reckon we have about fifteen clicks before he slags that whole door. He’s binding a word of unmaking with words of shadow and fire. It might take two castings, and hopefully that would tire even him out, but he does have a couple extra hrumm back there.”

  Vaujn looked at the troops assembled in the temple behind them. They stared back with typical stolid gravity. They were soldiers of the Upper Watch, and they might be terrified by the power being unleashed at their door, but they wouldn’t show it. That was not the kin way.

  The kin way was to gripe about it, and gripe bitterly.

  “What a mess,” began Corporal Sturng Darrow in a tone that would’ve made his mother proud. “Damn Shaddach Chi was bound to come in and stir everything up. Didn’t I tell you we should’ve played dead, Vaujn? But no, you had to have your fun and tumble the mountain on ‘em.”

  There was a general grumbling of assent.

  It wasn’t kin custom to address superior officers by title; some members of court even got away with calling the king by his childhood nickname, Ruuh. But when a title was conferred on subordinates, that meant serious business, reminding them of their place. Which explained why Sturng shrunk back at his captain’s retort.

  “Shut up, Corporal ! If I asked for your lousy advice every time our backs were against the wall, we’d all be dead three times over by now!” Someone muttered something about it only taking once from the back ranks, but Vaujn ignored the remark and pressed on. “I didn’t ask for this any more than you did, but damn our kind hearts, we’ll just have to handle it. Chloe says that pasty aulden freak’ll blast his way in here real soon, so we have to make a decision quick.”

  Vaujn paused to pass his eyes over the formation of sturdy kin and, in no small part, to figure out what he was going to say next. With a nod to himself, he continued. “Now, as I see it, we have two options. One: we stand our ground and fight like even the Shaddach Chi have never fought, and we burn our names into the slate of history with dignity and valor. A hundred hundred years from now, they will still sing of the courage of Outpost Number Nine!” There was a slight shuffling in the ranks as some of the veterans straightened their backs with pride, and the youthful eyes of the inexperienced lit up with the ignorant fire of the untested. “Or two: we run like hell and don’t look back!”

  There was a distinct silence.

  Vaujn looked at the image of the dark magics being gathered still shimmering in the holy water at his left and exchanged a look with his wife. Her eyes chastised him silently. I should’ve taken it easy on the slate of history bit, he thought. He hadn’t considered that there was the slimmest chance of firing up his troops for battle. It was obvious they were outmatched. Any sane kin could se
e that.

  “Look at the power he wields! We have nothing to combat such magics!” he said. “There is no shame in retreat against such a foe!”

  “Did Magliuk run from the wyrm at Dinnoch?” questioned the aging Sergeant Mueszner without so much as a quaver in his tone, the bushy grey hair crowning his eyes leaping like launching eagles as he raised his brows. He bore his hammer aloft over his head and roared in a strengthening basso rumble. “Did Birijohr run from Asharak? Did Hulgar flee from the Hordes of Uhlmon-zaar?”

  “Yes, yes, your point is taken, old friend,” he soothed. Vaujn felt he was losing control of the situation, but if he lost his temper with Mueszner, he would never regain them. Rumor had it he’d lived in Outpost Number Nine before it even bore that name. “But we’re not the like of Birijohr. We are simple soldiers, and he is Guhddan-kinne!” He nodded pointedly at the image in the bowl.

  “The kin have never run from great battles!” came a confident young voice.

  “If we’re going to die, I’d rather die with a sword in my breast than in my back!” yelled another.

  Vaujn could see the situation was deteriorating rapidly. He somehow had to make them understand, and within the space of increasingly scant time. Then, just before he began to really lose his temper, Chloe stood from her place by the scrying pool and turned around so quickly that her beautiful chestnut warbraids whipped into his face. As he blinked away the sting, he hoped by all that was holy under the mountain that he was misunderstanding his wife’s words.

  “You are braver by half than any of those kin of legend!” she screamed in her best preaching voice. “Let your courage guide you!”

  Vaujn stared wide-eyed as his wife continued to goad them toward suicide with words like bravery and honor. Not a click had passed, and already they were stomping their iron-shod feet on the floor and rapping their weapons against their shields. He felt a cold sweat break out on his palms as his beloved wife raised her voice once again above the motley din.

  “Is our honor not worth the cost of pain?” she asked rhetorically.

  “Pain before dishonor!” they replied with the typical response.

  “Is our honor not worth our lives?” she yelled again.

  “Death before dishonor!” they chanted.

  “Is our honor not worth eternal damnation?” she exhorted feverishly.

  “Damnation before…” Though a few of the younger voices finished the phrase, most of the kin were taken aback, and their mouths hung empty on the words. They were fairly certain that wasn’t the way the verse progressed.

  “What?” asked Mueszner in a tone that reflected their general confusion.

  “Damnation!” raved Chloe. “The sword of the Guhddan-kinne does not simply send you beyond the Veil with a mortal blow! This blade cuts so deep it sunders the strings that hold your soul and binds you to ages of bloody torment at the service of the Dark God!” As a priest, she had somehow managed to spit all that out in one breath with the proper inflection. She took another deep breath, and continued, “Brave beyond words are those who so risk eternity! To your posts, then. He will be through before long now!”

  This time it was Mother Chloe who was answered with silence. All eyes shifted to Vaujn. “Uh, Captain, what would you recommend, sir?” asked Mueszner hopefully.

  Vaujn repressed the smile and wink he so desperately wanted to flash the stout woman next to him. He truly did love his wife. First he had to help them save face, give them an honorable way out of this situation. “Well, I know you’re all eager for battle, but I must disagree with my, uh, with Mother Chloe. I think it best if we retreat under the mountain. We need to warn Osrith that the outpost has fallen. This could put him in great danger. Perhaps we will even be of some service to him. I can’t have you risk so much to gain so little, I’m afraid.”

  “Yes,” agreed Darrow, “Osrith is Shaddach Chi. We owe him that much!”

  “Yes, to the Shaddach Chi! Warn the Shaddach Chi!” they quickly took up the chant.

  “Right then,” said Vaujn in his best command tone, “to the South Passage on Level Forty Two. We’ll take the river. Double-time, now. He’s just made a big dent. One more and the outer gate’s done for!”

  The column of guardsmen streamed out of the temple in the quick and orderly fashion with which they prided themselves. Slightly quicker than normal, perhaps, but still orderly. Vaujn and Chloe brought up the rear of the column.

  “Thanks,” he whispered in her ear, “I was in trouble there.”

  “Mmm,” she agreed, her eyes skeptical, “I noticed you didn’t mention that by following Osrith, we’re going through Mordigul’s Plunge, now did you?”

  Vaujn shrugged, eyes forward. “No, I must’ve forgotten to mention that part.” They marched on for another few clicks as he chewed on his mustache in silence. “They’ll understand,” he said finally. “I know they will.”

  “I hope you’re trying to convince yourself,” grumbled his wife as the boats drew into sight at the underground river dock. Packs of emergency gear were already being stowed as they approached. “Because it’s not working for me.”

  This time, when the smoke cleared, there was no more door. A billowing cloud of ash swept across Dieavaul and the one surviving hrumm warrior, revealing a ragged and uneven gap where before there had been a barricade of implacable rock. Not without cost was the use of magic, like any other tool, and Dieavaul slumped from the effort of casting three greater spells within the half of an hour.

  The Pale Man regarded his newly made entrance with respect. The kin of old had mighty wards, and with the ages, their enchantment had seeped deep into the rock to its very source, no longer protecting but joining it. Seeping down into the very energy of the stone itself, they had become as one, bonded, and the iiyir within this native rock was ancient and powerful indeed. This was no simple matter of dispelling a charm of locking or a spell of binding. This was a test of his il-iiyir, his command of the ur-iiyir, and the strength of his connection to his own source.

  Mormikar himself would have struggled to breach this gate, he thought in satisfaction. Dmylriani, too. Or could she at all? He reconsidered. She was a sycophant, begging at the petty energies of nature to do her bidding.

  He often wondered how his mentor would react if she knew to what purpose he had devoted his knowledge and skill. How her milk-pure skin would flush over her high cheekbones at the betrayal of her trust and his oath to the Collegiate Arcana. How her Lyymiruian blood must boil at the concept of drawing power from the nether world of Shadow. But she had sailed away by then, across the Easerai, on her foolish little quest. Never to return. Never to witness her pupil’s ascendency.

  All the better. One less obstacle in my path, and she’s saved me the effort of removing her.

  Dieavaul shook his head, clearing it of such useless musing. What point in wondering what she would think? He drew himself up again, this time for a lesser spell. It was a relief casting this, a mere flirtation, really, with the bonesword in sheath and distant from his thoughts. A moment later he stepped through the smoking hole, avoiding the smoldering edges, and waited.

  The craftsmanship of the kin betrayed them. They could not fashion their works without leaving a trace of themselves behind. The filaments of kin iiyir ran through the stone around him like veins of precious metals, humming back to tickle Dieavaul’s skin in warning.

  Once again it was hard to feign surprise. Traps everywhere, devious and complex. Too numerous to dispel with any reasonable magics, too dangerous to disarm by hand. This would be a challenge. The kin were notorious as engineers of devices mechanical. And this is merely the outer entryway, he reminded himself. He turned to the hrumm standing respectfully behind him.

  “Come,” he beckoned.

  The hrumm moved forward, its huge meaty hands gripping its battle-axe in either eagerness or fear. “Master?” it asked, its strong jaws laboring over the odd human tongue. The tattoos near its eyes steamed eerily as its sweat met the brutal c
old of the thin mountain air.

  “They’ve gone to ground,” said the Pale Man quietly. “Can you help me root them out?”

  The hrumm must have understood that the question was rhetorical, but responded anyway. “Yes, Gal Pakh. I go first. Clear way for you. Yes?”

  Dieavaul nodded.

  Hesitantly, the hrumm moved into the long passageway, low to the ground and sniffing. Dieavaul’s Host was experienced. This was not its first sortie into a kin-hold. Its eyes were faintly luminous in the dark as it scoured the floor, ceiling, and walls. After a painstaking search, it set its thick fingers to work in an unobtrusive niche on the west wall. The hrumm grunted and bit on its tongue in concentration, eventually rewarded with a satisfying click.

  It turned its head toward its master in triumph. A breath later, a slab of rock weighing tens of tons fell from its seamless perch in the roof. The hrumm had just enough time to look up before it was crushed, but not quite enough to scream. The echo of the impact rattled hollowly in the long corridor.

  Dieavaul sighed, his lip twitching in irritation. It was to be expected that the miserable creature would fall afoul of the kin traps. That wasn’t the issue. He found it annoying that it had fallen victim to the very first trap, however. It could take him hours to work his way through all of them. Though he could sense them with magic, the traps themselves were mostly mechanical, and he could not dispel them with a word and a gesture. He would have to use more complicated magics, spells of holding and slowing and the like.

  This, then, was his limit. He would not storm a kin stronghold single-handed, even if it meant an inopportune delay to securing the dreamstone. Let Turlun hide in the Deeps, he thought. Dieavaul knew Osrith’s intended destination. He could afford patience. Finding him again was only a matter of waiting and watching for when.