Down here, perhaps thirty feet below ground, it was strangely quiet. For a while, that hadn’t been the case. When the djinn and dragon had been involved, muffled explosions had been heard and, when the wall came down, it had seemed like the entire chamber might collapse. But the more prosaic noise of battle couldn’t penetrate this deep; if Myselene heard the sound of swords clashing and revolvers firing, it would mean her reign was about to see its end.
Rexall came forward to press his case for flight. She scowled at him but that didn’t shake his resolution. The man’s determination was to be admired but he didn’t show sufficient deference. She was, after all, his queen, regardless of whether he identified himself as a citizen of Vantok or Obis. The lack of respect for authority must have had something to do with his upbringing. If an officer had spoken to her father with such familiarity, he would have been stripped of his rank and publically lashed - or worse.
“Your Majesty, you must consider moving from this location. We’re surrounded by the enemy. The reports say things are bad in the streets and the invaders could make their way onto The Citadel’s grounds. If that happens, your safety…”
“We’ve been over this many times, Captain. My place is here, inside the city with my people.” It was what her father would have done. Of course, her father would have been dressed in full battle armor with a giant broadsword in his hands.
“Your place may be here,” conceded Rexall. Myselene raised an eyebrow at this; it was the first time he had agreed with her about this matter thus far. Of course, he wasn’t done. “But the baby’s ain’t. He, or she, is in line for the throne of Vantok with no claim on Obis. Your primary duty, as queen of Vantok, is to protect Azarak’s heir.”
Damn. It was a new argument, although she had wondered how long it would take Rexall to use it. He was, of course, correct. Duty was one thing she couldn’t afford to ignore. No one would gainsay her right to stay to the end and even die for her people. But when it came to her offspring… It was also interesting that Rexall had referred to the baby as “Azarak’s heir” rather than “Azarak’s child.” Considering the father’s identity, it was more than a case of semantics. Rexall, rarely a master of tact, was being surprisingly subtle in letting her know what he suspected.
“You have a point,” she admitted. “But I won’t leave until all is lost - until the city has fallen to Justin and The Citadel’s walls have been breached. If it comes to that, if there’s no chance…” Myselene’s voice faded as she felt a slight trembling in the floor beneath her feet. For a moment, she thought it was the beginning of an earthquake.
Sorial’s entrance was anything but grand, clothed as he was in only a threadbare soldier’s tunic and leggings. His skin, healed by his wife as best she could manage under dire circumstances, showed some of the blisters from his encounter with Justin but it looked worse than it felt. Next to him, hand clasped in his, was Alicia. Her appearance was equally bedraggled, although she wore her clothing better than he did.
The queen’s initial reaction was a raised eyebrow that quickly gave way to a wide smile. Rexall, standing protectively by her side with a hand lingering near the hilt of his weapon, was dumbfounded.
“Justin’s dead, killed in his camp to the south,” said Sorial, making the momentous pronouncement without preamble. “But his army doesn’t know it and they’ll keep at what they’re doing until they’re driven off or they take the city. We have to act fast. What’s the tactical situation?”
“Dead…” Myselene’s voice was wondering, almost as if she couldn’t process the change in events. “How?”
“Sorial killed him in a duel.” Alicia offered no additional details. There would be time enough for storytelling later. Like Sorial, she was tired to the bone. She just wanted this all to be over so she could rest. Dispelling the void had been more taxing than she had anticipated.
“Of course,” said Myselene. “You both look… older.”
Sorial knew at some point he was going to have find a looking glass to examine his features. He dreaded what he might see, but that was the price of magic. Used sparingly, it would age a man rapidly, transforming him to a stooped codger by middle age. Used with the lack of restraint Sorial had recently exhibited, its impacts could be devastating. He could see it in Alicia - in the silver streaking her golden hair and the wrinkles around the corners of her eyes and mouth.
“Time is short,” said Sorial, the timber of his voice refocusing the queen’s attention. “What do your generals tell you about the situation?”
“It’s confused. Once the enemy penetrated the walls - or what’s left of them - we couldn’t hold them. They flooded in like rats off a plague ship. Fighting is uneven. The arrival of the reinforcements gave them something to think about and many of them have become… distracted… by the spoils of war, forgetting that plunder and rape are supposed to come after a victory not during the battle.”
“Issue orders that the men are to move as far away from the broken wall as possible without ceding large portions of the city. Have the reinforcements retreat outside. Give the enemy free run of the eastern quarter. I need an exclusion zone in which citizens and members of our army have been evacuated. Then stay in here and keep your head down. This will all be over soon.”
He released Alicia’s hand. She reluctantly let him go. A shield of earth would keep him safe from mortal attacks but her water powers were limited in scope and capability in this environment. So she would stay with the queen and keep her safe from any harm that might approach either in the form of enemies who managed to get into The Citadel or from a collapse if collateral damage from Sorial’s actions reached this far. Not for the first time, she wished Obis wasn’t landlocked. If it had been a port city like Basingham, she could have ended the battle with even less effort than her husband, but there was no practical way either to bring that much water this far inland or to bleed it through the ground.
Sorial raised a dirty, calloused finger and allowed it to trace a line across Alicia’s cheek. She smiled. It was a sad smile but it made her seem years younger. He grinned in return although he feared, with his scarred features, it might look more like a grimace. Then, steeling himself for what was to come, he slipped under the ground with the grace of an expert diver parting the surface of the water.
After her husband’s departure, Alicia turned to face the queen. Myselene was distracted, already giving the orders demanded by Sorial. Rexall, however, was watching her, his expression less brash than usual. Like everyone else, the war had transformed him.
“Is it really over?” he asked. His tone lacked the sarcasm it often held when addressing her.
“Depends on how you define ‘over.’ Justin is dead and Sorial is about to put an end to the invasion.” But that’s only the beginning. “Where’s your girl?”
“The temple. Safest place in the city right now.”
“And you’re going to marry her?”
Rexall shrugged. It was an uncomfortable subject for him, she knew. He wasn’t the “marrying kind,” but he had entangled himself in a situation from which the only reasonable means of extrication was death. Given the time and opportunity, she would enjoy watching him squirm. Unfortunately, she didn’t think she would have either. The sands that had begun slipping through the neck of an hourglass with the death of the gods might be close to running out.
Conversation died after that. Myselene received messenger after messenger and, at some point, Alicia learned that her father was missing. It was a cruel blow, especially to hear of it in such an offhand manner, but there was hope he might still be alive.
“No one has seen him, but they haven’t found a body, either. He could be trapped under the wreckage,” said Rexall. If not for his commitment to Myselene, he would have joined the group of men on the building’s uppermost intact floor, trying to clear the way to the top.
It was something Alicia would attend to as soon as the opportunity allowed. Much as she wanted to seek him out Carannan now, i
t would be foolhardy, dangerous, and likely fruitless. For maximum effectiveness, Sorial’s help would be needed. She chafed at the delay but knew her father would be deeply disappointed to know she had abandoned the queen to search for him. Carannan, like her husband, was addicted to duty. She preferred doing what felt right in the moment.
The fingers of her left hand itched. She was reaching to scratch them when she remembered she no longer had the hand. At least there was no pain anymore, but the sense of loss was profound.
Most of the couriers provided similar reports: attackers overcoming pockets of resistance deep in the city; the reinforcements taking back ground in the eastern quarter; archers, no longer fearful of attacks by the djinn or the dragon, moving into rooftop positions to pick off the enemy from on high. Everything bespoke a stalemate. That would change when Sorial acted. Or so Alicia hoped.
* * *
Sorial surfaced amidst the rubble of the eastern quarter behind the remnants of what had been a tavern. There was no fighting in the immediate area, although he could hear it from every direction. This looked nothing like the Obis he had gotten to know over the course of his sojourn here. It was a ruin, as devastated as Ibitsal, although in this case, the bodies were still in evidence. Some wore the garb of soldiers but there were other, plainly dressed corpses. Sorial wondered what would be revealed when the debris was cleared away. Such much death, so much waste. And this was in victory.
A thin man wearing mismatched leather armor was approaching him with a hungry look, hefting a crude club. With his half-wasted face, stone arm and leg, and ill-fitting clothing, Sorial probably presented an appealing target of opportunity for anyone whose goal was murder rather than robbery. With barely a thought, he dispatched the man with a stone through the skull.
He couldn’t begin immediately. It was strange to be patient at a time like this, with every passing minute increasing the death toll, but it would take time for Myselene’s orders to filter to the men in the field. Sorial could attack now but the result would be many more dead friendly soldiers. Even the enemy deserved an opportunity for salvation. Whether they would take it when offered was another matter. Maybe, knowing that The Lord of Fire was dead, they might give up the fight. This might especially be true of those pressed into service as a result of the surrenders of Basingham and Syre. If the tyrant was dead and their families were safe, what was the profit of continuing?
Sorial spoke slowly and distinctly, although not especially loudly, but every word was transferred and amplified by the ground beneath him, repeated throughout the city, reverberating until it was loud enough to be heard over even the din of battle. Invader and defender alike disengaged to hear the voice that couldn’t be ignored.
“The Lord of Fire has fallen to defeat. His magic and his creatures are no more. I stand here as the one who vanquished him and, in the name of peace, I demand that all under his command cease hostilities and vacate Obis. This is your only warning before I visit upon you a rain of death. You have twenty minutes. Thus speaks The Lord of Earth.” It was perhaps the most florid speech he had ever made. He hoped he got the words right. Without Alicia to coach him, it was difficult to be sure.
Sorial’s ears informed him that the battle had rejoined once the echoes of his words had faded, but his earth senses told him that at least some of the invaders were heeding his warning. He could feel footsteps moving in the direction of the east wall and out of the city. He also sensed a general pulling back from the portion of the city Myselene had ordered evacuated. When the time came, he hoped most of those remaining would be Justin’s troops, too busy looting to invest his words with meaning or to notice the retreat of their opponents.
As he waited, Sorial saw other men but, if they noticed him, they ignored him. Certainly, no one thought to connect a crippled beggar with The Lord of Earth. He was nearly ready to begin when Rotgut and his company located him.
“Right where you said you’d be,” noted the grizzled veteran.
“Don’t start your sweep until I tell you. Stay by my side till I’m finished. I don’t want you getting caught in what’s going to happen.”
“No need to worry ’bout that. After what I seen, I ain’t about the challenge your magic. Not everyone’s out, you know. There’s still complete chaos.”
Sorial grunted. “No choice. I ain’t got fine enough control to be able to pick and choose who this takes. Anyone in the zone will die. I can’t help that. I wish I could but I’m just a wizard, not a god.” He knew it sounded cruel but the alternative was to let the armies battle until a winner was decided through force of arms. More would die that way - including a large contingent of women and children in other parts of the city who would now survive because of Sorial’s action. He had become the arbiter of who lived and died; it didn’t sit well with him but he had developed the fortitude to make the determination. A long-ago admonition by Ferguson haunted him: Perhaps I was wrong about you. Perhaps you are ruthless enough.
He knew what he was about to do would become a thing of legend in future generations. For Sorial, it was a necessity. He reached deep into the soil and rock and ripped. At the top, the earth churned and bucked like a living thing. With the force of a massive till, his powers pulverized everything that stood atop the ground, forcing houses and inns, streets and gutters, men and beasts, and all manner of objects far below the surface, buried forever in an inescapable tomb, while fresh dirt and stone emerged from below. Less violent than an earthquake to the surrounding environs, this devastated the portion of Obis where it occurred, obliterating the skeleton of a city. Justin’s men were killed by the hundreds and thousands. By the time an exhausted Sorial released his power and declared to Rotgut that it was over, the fall of Obis had been averted. The war was done.
Now it was time for the real work to begin.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: THE FUTURE LORDS AND LADIES
“I’m fine. Really. Stop fussing!” Carannan scowled at the healer who was hovering by the side of his bed. Suitably chastened, the man shrugged and retreated from the room, leaving the overcommander alone with his daughter and son-in-law, the city’s resident heroes.
All things considered, Carannan was in excellent physical condition thanks to the healing work of the wizards. When they had discovered him in the wreckage of The Citadel’s shattered upper stories, he had been delirious from blood loss and nearing the point beyond which no magic could have restored him. While Alicia had worked to rehydrate him and repair tissue and organ damage, Sorial had mended his crushed legs and three broken ribs. Their work was imperfect but it had saved his life and left him in possession of a working body with two functional legs.
Now, a week later, he was extremely sore but ready to escape from his convalescence and return to work. For him, that meant marshaling the forces that would accompany the queen on her trip to Vantok. She was eager to re-establish her rulership over that city and allow the refugees, all of whom were currently camped in Sussaman, to go home. She had already sent a message to Justin’s viceroy commanding him to be prepared to surrender the city upon her arrival. She didn’t expect there to be any resistance. If Justin had left one-hundred fighting men behind, it would be a lot. No match for even a minimal army, and Myselene intended to bring more than a few token troops with her. Fully half the surviving military would accompany her to Vantok, where they would be put to use restoring the city. Carannan had little doubt that, after experiencing real war, these men would be more than happy to put down their swords and take up tools of construction and farming. Battle was an appealing concept only from afar. There was nothing glorious or romantic in the butchery and destruction that Justin’s army had visited upon Obis before Sorial had struck the blow to scatter them.
“Patience, Father,” counseled Alicia.
Carannan hid a smile and suspected that, beneath his hood, Sorial was doing the same thing. Few things were more ironic than his notoriously impetuous daughter advising on the virtue of patience. He might have chuckled if
it didn’t hurt his chest so damn much.
Carannan regarded the wizard couple. They were nothing like the two love-struck, desperate young people who had come to him pleading for his blessing of their union. Hidden beneath his voluminous robes, Sorial was as inscrutable as he had been since the acid burns had forced him to conceal his features. Alicia, who favored snug-fitting, custom tailored garments in pastel colors and preferred to have her hood down, looked older than his sister. While Carannan was glad that she was alive and, except for the loss of a hand, in good health, it saddened him to see her so changed: only a few weeks shy of her seventeenth birthday trapped in a prematurely aged body with the bloom of youth faded. At least she was happy. He could see it in the sparkle of her eyes. She had her Sorial and that was all that mattered. But he would be a fool to believe the war was over for the two of them. They hadn’t said as much but he realized there was some unfinished business. Alicia was reluctant to plan beyond the immediate future.
“The queen says we’re leaving in four weeks’ time. I’m not sure why there’s such a rush. Better to wait until Planting, when the roads will be better, but she wants to be re-established on the throne by the first of Summer. How she plans to get through Widow’s Pass in late Winter is anyone’s guess.”
“I can help with that,” said Sorial. He didn’t offer any details and Carannan didn’t ask. He had learned not to question wizards. They kept their own counsel.
The overcommander wondered if Sorial was still beholden to Myselene. Technically, when taking the oath to serve Azarak, he had accepted the king or queen of Vantok as his liege in perpetuity. Things had changed, however. With Justin’s death, Sorial was now the Magus Prime. And Myselene was no longer queen of one city. Obis and Vantok were hers. There were no better cornerstones for an empire. She may not have started her reign with the goal of unification but it was hard to imagine that not being her current plan.
Shadow of the Otherverse (The Last Whisper of the Gods Saga Book 3) Page 48