“I am not fit for battle with the Ka’i-Nur,” Nai-Shureen protested, “but I am not helpless.” He reached into the folds of his hide bed and pulled out a wicked short sword. “I will use it upon myself if need be.”
Tara-Khan bowed his head. “If that is your wish. But if this is to be your last night, I will not let you die cold.” Getting up, he gathered dry wood, cutting and splitting it with his sword, to keep the fire burning bright throughout the night, piling it beside Nai-Shureen. Then, setting a few of the logs in the stone ringed pit, he set them alight with a flickering web of cyan fire from his fingers.
“You have the powers of a priest,” Nai-Shureen whispered in awe. “Only the Desh-Ka can do such a thing.”
“Your eyes do not deceive you,” Tara-Khan told him as the flames took hold, their light and warmth peeling back the darkness and cold of the night.
“Never in my life have I met a priest.”
“And you still have not,” Tara-Khan told him quietly. “As you said, I have the power, but I do not wear a collar or a sigil, and I never will.” If Keel-Tath cannot be bound to a single order, then neither can her consort, Tara-Khan told himself. Someday, I will stand at your side, my love. Someday soon.
“Perhaps not, but you have a chance to regain your honor, as shall those who follow you.” He smiled. “Much would I give to see that day. Had I anything left to give.”
Tara-Khan knelt down and put his hand on the old armorer’s shoulder. “I hope to see you again when all is said and done.”
“Go with grace and glory, great warrior,” Nai-Shureen replied in a solemn voice.
With a nod, Tara-Khan stood and looked toward where he knew Ka’i-Nur to be. Closing his eyes, he called into his mind’s view the canyon near the ancient fortress where he now hoped the separate clans of honorless ones would be gathering.
Nai-Shureen watched with wide eyes as Tara-Khan vanished, then turned back to the fire as the creatures of the darkness drew closer.
***
“We are nearly there.” Sar-Ula’an’s whisper was repeated down the line of warriors crouched in the moonlit darkness. The most skilled of the warriors of his honorless clan, he had led his small host from their home along the river to this rocky, barren canyon that cut through the wasteland only a few leagues from Ka’i-Nur. The robed ones had come, too, not simply to remain under the protection of the warriors, but to do their duty in whatever was to come. All had been skeptical of Sar-Ula’an’s vision, but he had convinced them of his purpose. Even the chance at redemption, however remote, was better than any alternatives. And if their actions could aid Keel-Tath, who was beloved among them, their lives would be a small price to pay. He gestured for the others to remain where they were.
With the stealth that had made him his clan’s best hunter, he crept forward, climbing to the top of a narrow fork in the canyon, beyond which lay the destination he had seen in his mind, given him by the water. They had left behind the magtheps that had brought them this far, turning them loose to make their own way. Their braying and the dust they raised would have given away their masters. Lying prone on the rocks, he searched the dry riverbed with his eyes while his ears listened for any sound that did not belong.
Other than the far distant trumpeting of a genoth, the frigid night was silent, and all his keen eyes could see beyond the mist of his breath was darkness upon darkness, for the moon had already set.
Once he was satisfied that nothing threatening awaited him, Sar-Ula’an began to explore further. At times he moved in a wary crouch, while at others he crawled on all fours or slithered on the ground. All the while he moved slowly, silently.
He saw nothing but silent darkness. He knew in his soul that this must be the place, but nothing and no one was here.
Frustrated, he turned around to retrace his steps back to his clan to report the disappointing news.
A shadow appeared out of the air before him. “Greetings, warrior.”
With a startled yelp, Sar-Ula’an stumbled backward, tumbling over a small boulder to land hard on the reverse slope of the rocky ground such that he was nearly upside down. He was struggling to draw his sword when the shadow warrior again appeared out of thin air, this time beside him.
“Be at ease,” the shadow said with a chuckle. “I mean you no harm.”
Sighing, Sar-Ula’an gave up trying to draw his weapon. Had this mystery warrior wished to do him harm, he could have already a dozen times over. “And who are you?”
“I am the one you seek,” the warrior said, kneeling down that Sar-Ula’an might see him better from his inverted perspective. “Mine was the face in the water that you saw, my thoughts were what brought you here. I am Tara-Khan.”
Looking closer, Sar-Ula’an saw that it was so. “I bid thee welcome, Tara-Khan. As you can see,” he spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness and grinned, “you have not exactly caught me at my best.”
Tara-Khan laughed as he reached down, taking Sar-Ula’an’s hand and helping him to his feet. “Your secret is safe with me, my friend. Come, bring forth your people. You are the last to join us.”
Doing as he was bid, Sar-Ula’an fetched those of his clan, who moved quickly and quietly into the arroyo where Tara-Khan waited. Once there, the others who had gathered emerged from the shadows where they had lain hidden and still.
After gathering the senior warriors, Tara-Khan told them, “You have all willingly answered my call. While we are all without honor, I must ask for your obeisance. Should any wish to challenge me, let it be now.”
The others shook their heads. “We came to fight at your side, Tara-Khan,” Sar-Ula’an told him. “Our swords are yours to command.”
“I am honored,” Tara-Khan said, bowing his head. “Before us stands the fortress of Ka’i-Nur. Within it, kept in a place secret even from the Ka’i-Nur themselves, is the seventh Crystal of Souls.” Those gathered around him let out a collective gasp.
“But the crystal of the Ka’i-Nur was destroyed long ago!” One of them protested.
“So the ancients led us to believe. But in truth it was only hidden, locked away so that the Ka’i-Nur themselves could not harness its powers. The ancients, the old gods, did not destroy it, for they believed that someday it would again be needed. I believe that day is now upon us.”
“But how are we to attack the fortress?” One of the others asked. “We will be slaughtered outside the walls.”
“How are we even to approach it?” Another asked. “They will see us coming long before we reach the gates.”
“I have scouted the fortress already, and those warriors on watch will not see our approach,” Tara-Khan reassured them. “When the hour comes, I will open the gates for you.”
“And then?” Sar-Ula’an said.
“And then you will all follow me down to the lower levels of the fortress. I must open the vault where the crystal is stored, but to do so will require my full attention. In the meantime, you must keep their warriors at bay.”
“A daunting task,” one of them said with mirthless humor.
“A task for heroes,” Sar-Ula’an replied in a quiet voice. “When shall we attack?”
They all looked up as bright streaks of crimson and emerald crisscrossed the dark of the heavens, followed by several blinding flashes.
“Soon,” Tara-Khan told them. “Very soon.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“The enemy ships are destroyed.”
Syr-Nagath did not bother glancing at the shipmistress, for she need not acknowledge what was plainly visible to all on the bridge’s main viewing display. The small squadron of vessels Keel-Tath had left in orbit about the Great Moon were now nothing more than glowing clouds of debris. They had tried to attack, breaking orbit from around the moon to sail toward her fleet after it had jumped in. They had come on, weapons blazing, before falling to the overwhelming barrage from her own ships. The efforts of Keel-Tath’s warriors had been in vain, but they had died with great honor. She
would grant them that much. “Deploy the fleet.”
Her First saluted and passed her orders on to the keepers, who in turn sent word to the other ships of the fleet.
It is not merely a fleet, Syr-Nagath reminded herself. It was an armada, the greatest that had sailed since the Second Age, and even larger than the fleet that had attacked the moon during the Final Annihilation. Her builders had transformed entire asteroids into the black matrix material from which the ships had been built, for even Syr-Nagath had not wanted to draw so much raw material from the Homeworld or the Settlements. Over five thousand ships, a constellation of stars made by Kreelan hands, were now converging on the Great Moon. Many, she knew, would be destroyed in the coming battle, but of her victory she had no doubt.
Of course, the question now was where Keel-Tath and her fleet had disappeared to. Syr-Nagath had given the white-haired whelp a good bloodletting in their last encounter, after which Keel-Tath’s ships had departed, save for those that had been deployed in orbit around the moon, most likely for repairs. That had been weeks ago. Syr-Nagath had waited with growing impatience for the child to show herself again. So much time had passed, in fact, that Syr-Nagath had begun to wonder if Keel-Tath had not taken those beholden to her and fled to form a Settlement of their very own. That could not be allowed, for Syr-Nagath needed Keel-Tath in order to get what she truly wanted: the Crystal of Souls of the Ka’i-Nur.
And so, her patience finally at an end, Syr-Nagath had decided to draw out her younger opponent by attacking the Great Moon, the only ground the child still retained, and something else that Syr-Nagath greatly desired. She was not worried about destroying the precious Books of Time, for if they had survived the cataclysm of the Final Annihilation, they would likely survive the coming attack. And if not…then so be it.
The squadrons of the armada fanned out into their predetermined positions and began their approach. Neither finesse nor subtlety were part of the battle plan. She hoped to keep the defenses of the palace occupied while thousands of landing craft bearing her warriors were disgorged on the far side. The landing craft would streak across the surface to attack the palace from all points of the compass.
And if that failed, she would reduce the moon’s surface to molten slag as her distant ancestors had done.
“All squadrons report readiness,” her First reported.
“Commence the attack.”
As one, five thousand warships moved forward, and space was filled with countless bolts of energy as the dreadnoughts took the great palace under fire.
***
“It has begun,” Keel-Tath said softly into the silence that had fallen on the bridge of her flagship. She had known the attack was coming, for she could sense the souls of the warriors in Syr-Nagath’s fleet who were not of purely Ka’i-Nur blood. She had felt their surge of anticipation when the Dark Queen’s fleet had jumped into Homeworld space, just as she had felt the fear and determination of those aboard the ships she had left behind. She clenched her fists as she felt their deaths through the Bloodsong, their melodies snuffed into silence. “You shall be remembered,” she whispered, “as shall all this day who die with honor.”
“Your orders, mistress?” Dara-Kol asked.
With only a moment’s hesitation, Keel-Tath said, “Jump the fleet.”
As Dara-Kol relayed the command, Ka’i-Lohr, who stood beside Keel-Tath’s command chair, said, “This will be a day long remembered.”
With a nervous smile, she looked at him. “Let us pray that it is our children who remember it, and not those of Syr-Nagath.”
Reaching out, he touched her cheek. “If we still had gods, I would indeed pray for the day we had our own children. But for now, hope must suffice.”
Keel-Tath took his hand and held it tight as the ship and hundreds of its sisters leaped into hyperspace, the familiar star-filled darkness in the viewing display giving way to a murky gray.
“I hate being on ships. They are so…tiny.”
She turned to see Drakh-Nur, who wore an uncharacteristic scowl on his face. The huge warrior had survived countless battles, and had saved her life more than once, as she had his own. He had discovered claustrophobia while living aboard ship. “Be of stout heart, warrior. We will not be confined in these metal shells for much longer.”
He nodded, but his expression remained dour.
Time dragged on until the shipmistress announced, “We are nearly there. Emergence…now!”
The dull, swirling gray on the viewing screen resolved into the black of deep space and the familiar stars of home. Dead center, filling half the display, was the Great Moon. The flagship’s shipmistress had brought the fleet out at exactly the right position, sandwiching Syr-Nagath’s fleet between Keel-Tath’s ships and the Great Moon. The enemy ships, preoccupied with blasting away at the moon, had come as near as they dared to it, leaving their vulnerable sterns pointing toward where Keel-Tath’s fleet had emerged.
But Keel-Tath’s initial exultation at her fleet’s superior tactical position gave way to despair as the ship’s intelligence tallied up the enemy ships.
“Five thousand,” Ka’i-Lohr whispered, incredulous.
“Your orders, my mistress?” Dara-Kol asked, her voice tight.
“Nothing has changed,” Keel-Tath told them, forcing herself to be calm. “We expected to be outnumbered, and we have not been disappointed. Honor shall be ours.” To Dara-Kol, she said, “The fleet shall advance and close with the enemy. Focus on the ships attacking the palace. Fire at will!”
No sooner had the words left her mouth than her own ship opened fire. The air was filled with a basso thrum as the main weapons discharged. The energy was gathered and accumulated for a fraction of a second before it was released, sending a titanic emerald green globe of searing energy at the speed of light toward the target ship. The globe hit the ship square in the stern, and the entire aft quarter exploded into shards of metal and a cloud of plasma. With its ability to maneuver gone, the ship began to roll and pitch, which in one of the many ironies of war allowed it to bring its main weapons to bear. Bolts of energy from its main batteries lanced out toward Keel-Tath’s flagship.
Keel-Tath put her hands over her ears as a deafening ringing momentarily filled the bridge just as her ship fired another salvo, which struck the target ship dead center. After the glare of the resulting explosion faded, nothing was left but glittering debris.
“Minor damage only,” the shipmistress reported in a calm voice as the ship fired again at a new target. With the range closing rapidly, the ship’s secondary and tertiary weapons had begun to fire, as well, and the hull echoed with thrums and hums as they discharged.
The space between the two fleets had become a hellish no man’s land of searing energy, and Keel-Tath’s ships savaged those of the enemy. Soon enough, the tide began to turn as the enemy fleet reoriented itself to meet Keel-Tath’s onslaught, and ships on both sides danced and died by the score.
“The ships on the far side of the moon are redeploying,” the shipmistress reported. On the screen, thousands of pinpoints of light representing the enemy ships began to swing around the moon toward them.
“If they surround us,” Dara-Kol said quietly, “we will not last long.”
Keel-Tath tensed, her talons digging into the metal armrests of her command chair. “I have no intention of letting that happen.”
The ship jolted to one side as if something solid had slammed into it, and warning indicators blinked into life on the various command consoles.
“Shields are down on the starboard side,” the shipmistress reported in a taut voice. A moment later, the viewing display began to rotate as she rolled the ship to put their vulnerable flank away from the greatest threat, even as the ship’s weapons continued to fire.
Keel-Tath watched the display, her eyes locked on the clouds of ships sailing at full speed around the moon toward them. “Order the second and third squadrons to carry out their attack plan.”
“Yes, mi
stress!”
“You are taking a huge risk,” Ka’i-Lohr whispered.
She glanced up at him, her mouth curving up in a knowing smile.
***
Syr-Nagath cursed as yet more of her ships were wiped from the skies by Keel-Tath’s puny fleet. She had to credit the white haired whelp with great courage to remain in-system against such odds. By her own estimation, her fleet outnumbered Keel-Tath’s by at least ten to one. But Keel-Tath was using the elements of surprise and superior position to the utmost, raking the sterns of Syr-Nagath’s warships that had been concentrating on suppressing the moon’s considerable defenses.
But the young Desh-Ka’s killing spree was already coming to an end as Syr-Nagath’s ships maneuvered to take their tormentors under fire. The other ships that had been preparing their ground assaults were being redeployed, for this was the perfect opportunity to crush Keel-Tath once and for all. The attack on the moon could wait. It would still be there once the fleet battle was over.
As her ships under attack reoriented themselves, establishing a screen facing Keel-Tath’s fleet, the balance of power began to tell as more and more of Keel-Tath’s ships, which were far superior to the best Syr-Nagath had been able to build, took hits and began to die.
“Close with them,” she ordered, pounding her armored fist on the armrest. “Get us into boarding range.” No matter how good Keel-Tath’s ships were, once the fleets mingled and the ships came close enough for warriors to board, the battle would be over.
Her First bowed his head. “Yes, mistress!”
The shipmaster looked up, an expression of shock on his face. “Part of the enemy fleet has jumped!”
Looking at the display, Syr-Nagath saw that two-thirds of Keel-Tath’s fleet had vanished. A moment later they reappeared, shockingly close to the moon, and directly behind the squadrons steaming around from the far side. Before she could utter a word, tiny icons representing her ships began to wink out of existence, destroyed. “Curse her!" she hissed. “How did her ships jump so deep inside the gravity well?” It was a feat that her own ships dare not try.
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