Forged In Flame (In Her Name: The First Empress, Book 2)

by Hicks, Michael R.

  Before Keel-Tath could respond, Ayan-Dar turned to the east, where the forest crept to the edge of the lifeless wasteland around Keel-A’ar. A full cohort of mounted riders was thundering toward them, a plume of dust rising from their magtheps’ clawed feet. Ayan-Dar snorted in derision. “It took them long enough. I wager their leader will lose his head for being so slow to react to our appearance. They would have been better off posting their watch within the city, but so far as I know no one, not even honorless ones, have set foot within its walls since the slaughter. The spirits of the dead are restless here, I wager.” Looking back at Keel-Tath, he said, “We should probably move along, for I doubt T’ier-Kunai would be happy if we slaughtered them all.”

  “No.” Keel-Tath moved up beside him and drew her sword. Her blood was on fire, and her body shook with rage. She shifted the sword to her left hand and drew one of the deadly shrekkas, an edged flying weapon, from where it was clipped to her left shoulder. “I would like to pay my respects to Syr-Nagath.”

  “As you say, child.” He also unclipped a shrekka, but did not draw his sword. Unlike Keel-Tath, he only had one arm. “The high priestess did say to let you blood your sword if the opportunity presented itself. And so it has.” He leaned over and whispered in her ear. “But I think taking on a full cohort, almost five hundred warriors, on our own is a bit ambitious, is it not?”

  She looked into his eye. “Not for you.”

  He huffed. “Perhaps in my younger days, child. And that was a very long time ago. But we shall at least give them something to think about.”

  The two of them stood there, facing the charging warriors who quickly closed the gap. Keel-Tath’s heart beat faster, fear mixing with the anger that raged in her soul. But she would not run. She would not. Not until she had blooded her sword in battle.

  Ayan-Dar grunted, and she felt a wind at her side. Something flashed across the distance to the attacking cavalry, and the head of the warrior who carried the queen’s banner fell from his shoulders. The body toppled from the magthep, causing the warriors behind to dance out of its way, lest their own mounts fall.

  Twice more did he throw a deadly shrekka, and twice more did enemy warriors fall. Keel-Tath looked up at him in wonder. The enemy warriors had not yet closed to throwing range.

  The priest drew his sword. “Shield your eyes!”

  Keel-Tath, trusting that the elder warrior could protect her, threw an arm over her eyes as a hail of shrekkas flew from the leading rank of the queen’s warriors.

  The weapons disappeared in bright flashes and claps of thunder, caught in a tight web of cyan fire that erupted from the blade of Ayan-Dar’s sword to form a shield. Keel-Tath peeked out just enough to see what was happening, and was rocked by the explosions as the metal of the weapons disintegrated.

  The cyan web vanished to reveal the first rank of warriors. The magtheps and their riders, blinded by the flashes and disoriented, stumbled. The cohort’s orderly formation and fearsome charge was blunted and thrown into utter confusion. Braying magtheps and screaming riders in the first ranks tumbled to the ground, some of them trampled by the warriors coming up behind.

  “Now, child!”

  With a howling war cry, Keel-Tath followed Ayan-Dar right into the center of the maelstrom. Remembering that she still held her shrekka, she hurled it at a nearby rider who was coming to her senses. The weapon slashed through the enemy warrior’s throat, and she fell from her mount as a gout of arterial blood spurted from the wound.

  She turned to see Ayan-Dar, and stood for a moment, transfixed, as he whirled around her like a sword-bearing tornado. His blade was barely visible, so fast did it move in his old but powerful hand, hacking and stabbing their enemies.

  A warrior on a magthep charged her. She feinted to one side, then deftly whirled to the other as the warrior’s blade flashed down. Her own blade cut through his upper thigh, and with a scream he fell from his mount.

  Another warrior lunged at her, and she parried his blade. He was far larger and more powerful, and quickly drove her back, separating her from Ayan-Dar. Glancing behind her, she saw other warriors, on foot now, moving in.

  The big warrior made a sweeping overhand cut aimed at her head. She knocked it to the side with her left gauntlet, then made a lightning swift lunge with her sword, driving it into his abdomen just below his breastplate. She shoved the gasping warrior backward, twisting her sword free with both hands as he fell.

  Looking around, she saw that she was completely surrounded. Gathering her courage, she charged the nearest warriors.

  But her blade found only a spray of blood. The torn bodies, some of them cut in two, collapsed before her. Ayan-Dar stood there, sword in hand and covered in the blood of his enemies.

  In Keel-Tath’s eyes he was the vision of a war god from the ancient days, the stuff of legend, and she ran to him.

  “It is time for us to leave, child,” Ayan-Dar shouted as a solid ring of warriors closed in. “Take hold of my belt!”

  As she did as he ordered, she turned to the warriors, now rushing toward her and Ayan-Dar, fearing they would escape. “Let the blood we spilled here be a message for your honorless queen!”

  Then there was only darkness.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Coming Of Age

  “The priestess will no doubt be upset with me for placing you in such danger, but she will be very pleased with you, child.” Ayan-Dar’s smile was gruesome, with blood smeared over not only his face, but his lips and teeth, as well. He hawked and spat. “You did well, and I may take some small measure of satisfaction in your training.” After flicking most of the blood from his sword, he withdrew a soft cloth from a pouch on his belt and wiped the blade clean before replacing it in his scabbard. “And I suspect the Dark Queen will be most upset with those tasked with guarding Keel-A’ar.”

  Keel-Tath, still shaking with the rush of fire through her veins, took out her own cloth and cleaned her sword, her movements a reflection of those of the priest. She had expected him to return them to the temple, but she was confronted with unfamiliar surroundings. They were in a small clearing among trees the likes of which she had never before seen. They were huge, twice as tall as the trees of the forests in the lowlands beyond the temple, with widely spaced leaves that were as large as Ayan-Dar. One end of the clearing was bare of the enormous trees, but she could not tell what lay beyond; the ground seemed to open onto the sky. She heard a deep rhythmic sound coming from that end of the clearing. She had never heard such a sound before, but found it very relaxing. She also noticed that the temperature was somewhat cooler than it had been in the lowlands of Keel-A’ar, and the air was more humid. “Where are we?”

  “We are at the southernmost tip of the island continent of Ural-Murir, in the kingdom of Ku’ar-Amir,” he told her. “I was born in a village not far from here, and used to spend my free time in this place.”

  “But you are Desh-Ka!” Looking around them, she could not understand why he would want to spend his precious free time here, in the middle of a forest of strange trees. “I thought you were born on T’lar-Gol.”

  “Yes, my bloodline is pure Desh-Ka, but the seed of that great tree long ago spread across the world. I was born of porters of water here, and after I left the kazha as a warrior, my liege lord took me north to T’lar-Gol to fight in the wars back then.” He smiled, but she could see in his eye that there was neither humor nor pleasure in the recollection. “Our army was destroyed and my lord killed. The few of us who survived were scattered, and rather than declare my honor for the victor — the one who started the last war we had with the Settlements, I might add — I found myself standing at the threshold of the temple. It was either that or become an honorless one, and I would have rather taken my own life. It is strange, though. I had never really thought before then about becoming a priest. That was simply where my Way led me.”

  “I am glad it did.”

  He snorted. “You are in the clear minority in that, my dear, a
t least if you were to know the thoughts of my peers.”

  “That is not true! They all respect you.” She fell into step with the elder warrior as he walked toward the opening that led from the clearing, although she still had no idea where it led to.

  “They respect my sword, child, but little more. I am a heretic, and I suspect that if any other than T’ier-Kunai were high priestess I would be stripped of my collar and banished to the Great Wastelands.”

  Keel-Tath was stunned. “They would not dare!”

  He eyed her carefully. “It is a rare, rare thing, but such has happened before. Remember, child, our people, our entire species across the Homeworld and the Settlements, is held in stasis by the priesthoods. They were formed as a check against our self-destructive nature, to hold us in a balance that would allow us to fight like the animals we are inside, but never let any of our worlds become so powerful that they could destroy the others.” His blood-covered face twisted into an expression of sadness and frustration. “They believe that what we are now is all that we ever will be, and that to deviate from the path we have taken since the end of the Second Age is to court our doom. There is nothing but blood for the warriors and toil for the robed castes, forever until the universe itself dies.” He spat again. “The old gods were cast down and forsaken when we nearly destroyed ourselves in the Final Annihilation, but no one ever thought to put anything in their place. Since then have we been lost. We have nothing but kings and queens, wise or foolish, in which to put our faith. There is nothing for our souls but emptiness.”

  “I have faith in you,” Keel-Tath told him softly. “And in Ria-Ka’luhr. And the high priestess.”

  “The faith of which I am speaking is spiritual, child. It is not something that is taught anymore, but only read about in the Books of Time, should one dig deep enough. Most of us believe we have souls, and that there is an afterlife. But without faith in something higher than ourselves, there has been no way for us to bridge the gap between this life and the next. We hope. We wish. But we have no faith that there is truly anything but darkness beyond the veil of death.”

  “I do not understand.

  “I know.” He put his hand on her shoulder as they neared the opening to the clearing. “Few do, even among the priesthood, for to contemplate such things is to stray onto questionable ground. Those of the priesthoods are too busy focusing on their sword craft and powers to wonder what awaits them beyond the funeral pyre. Yet to me, it is an important subject, and yet another aspect of my heresy.”

  “I wish you would not say such things,” she said, fear taking root in her heart for him as the two of them stepped through the opening between the trees. The ground changed from dark loam to white rock, and the sound she had been hearing grew much louder. “You shouldn’t…oh.”

  They had stepped out onto a great ledge of rock, beyond which lay the ocean that surrounded Ural-Murir. And rising from the water were dozens of tall rocky spires, with more of the strange tall trees clinging to them.

  Beyond the spires was nothing but the ocean itself, stretching to the far horizon. Just setting — or rising, for she wasn’t sure which way she was looking — was the Great Moon, its glowing silver face reflected in the countless waves of the sea.

  Stepping near the edge, she looked down. Far, far below, the waves crashed against the rocky face of the sheer cliff on which she stood. That, she now realized, was the source of the sound she had heard in the clearing.

  Leaning a bit farther out, she was nearly overcome by a sense of vertigo and would have fallen had not Ayan-Dar clapped his hand on her shoulder, gently pulling her back.

  “Watch your step, child. It is more than a full league to the waters below. And in the quite unlikely event you should survive the fall, the things that dwell in the waters would make short work of your flesh and bone. The water of the oceans means death. Remember that.”

  She came away from the edge, but only by a single pace. She was captivated by the view, her breath coming in shallow gasps as she periodically forgot to breathe. Her life had been spent within the temple walls, and while the view of the lowlands and the mountains of Kui’mar-Gol was beautiful, it was nothing like this, and nothing in the Books of Time could have prepared her for such a sight. “I understand now why you came here for your free time.”

  “I still come here sometimes, when I need a moment of peace.”

  “What are those?” She pointed to small objects, in garish shades of red and green, floating on the ocean.

  Ayan-Dar laughed. “Those are ships, child! Merchantmen mostly, but warships, as well.”

  “But…they are on the water! Are they not in danger?”

  “Every moment of every day,” he answered, his voice grim. “I rode on such a ship to reach T’lar-Gol, and would lop off my remaining arm before I did so again. But the fools who sail those ships have something no one else in the world does.” He turned and pointed at the huge trees behind them. “The a’in-ka tree. Their wood is tough as iron and more durable, and they secrete a natural repellent that insults the senses of all but the most terrible sea creatures, driving them away. They grow only here, in the kingdom of Ku’ar-Amir. Such is their value that more than one war has been fought over them.”

  “So these people, of all who live on our world, are the only ones who sail ships upon the seas?”

  “No, there are others, many others, on all the continents. There are many who make their livelihood from the sea, catching the smaller creatures to eat and for their oil. But few souls beyond Ku’ar-Amir are brave or foolhardy enough to venture beyond the horizon from land and risk their lives in the deeper realms of the oceans.” He paused for a moment, a thoughtful expression on his face. “There are creatures in the deep that were never tamed by even the greatest of the ancient civilizations before the cataclysms of the Second Age. Creatures that could destroy a warship far larger than any now afloat, or an entire fleet of the vessels you see here, with barely a twitch. To them, even the greatest genoth would barely be worth notice.” He nodded at the ships, most of which were sailing toward the horizon and some distant land, while others were putting into port in what looked like a large city several leagues distant. “Those who sail on Ku’ar-Amir’s ships cross those depths, braving the things that swim below to take what they would to distant lands.”

  “And warriors?”

  “Oh, yes, a great many warriors,” he said. “More than one king or queen has risen from here to expand their realm to the far reaches of the world, for control of the sea conveys a huge advantage over those bound to the land. Ships can move warriors and the robed castes, even engines of war, from one place along a coast to another quickly and in great numbers. They can even take attacking forces up major rivers to attack inland.” He glanced at her. “Something you should perhaps remember when you rise to power.”

  Keel-Tath’s heart sank at his words, and she stared out at the sea. “I wish I could take one of those ships and go far away,” she whispered. “I feel as if the entire world is waiting to crush me, to steal away a life that I have yet to live.” She turned to face him. “I did not wish for this, Ayan-Dar. I did not choose the path you claim that I must follow, written by an oracle who died nearly two hundred thousand years ago.” Holding out her hands, the gauntlets and her armor still covered in blood, she said, “I am content to be a warrior like any other, and perhaps someday, if my will is strong enough, to be a priest like you. But the rest…” She shook her head. “Will anything in my life be as it should?”

  He was silent for a long moment, and she was afraid that she had somehow offended him.

  “Child,” he said at last, “every moment of our history since the Final Annihilation at the end of the Second Age two hundred thousand years ago has led to your birth. And I believe that every moment since you came into the world is leading us to a different life, a new and better Way, with you at its center. Everything about you is different, Keel-Tath. You ask if anything in your life will be as it shou
ld.” He put his hand on her shoulder and leaned closer. “I would say to you that everything has been as it should, even the terrible tragedy that befell your mother and father. You are destined for great things, child. But to unite our kind, here and across the Settlements, we need a sword that is not gently shaped by the armorer’s hand, but forged in flame.” Taking his hand away, he followed her gaze out to the distant horizon. “The things in your life that have been the most difficult have strengthened you the most.”

  “Then I do not wish to become any stronger. It is too much to bear.”

  Ayan-Dar put his hand to her cheek. “You do not bear your burden alone. Never forget that.” With a chuckle, he added, “And perhaps it is not such a great burden after all, since I may be the only one other than the Dark Queen who truly believes it.”

  Keel-Tath tried to smile, but her expression turned into a grimace of pain as a surge of heat exploded inside her. With a gasp, she doubled over as the pain became excruciating. She felt as if her entire body was on fire. The sensation was similar to the heat of the bloodlust that took warriors in battle, that she had felt earlier when fighting the queen’s minions at Keel-A’ar, but this was so much worse. Overwhelmed, she sank down to her knees and bowed her head to the ground as her red talons clawed at the hard-packed earth. Her soul, her blood, was on fire.

  “What…what is it that burns me so?” The words came to her ears like a whimper, and through the agony that wracked her body, she was ashamed.

  Ayan-Dar pressed his armored hand against her forehead, a look of worry on his face. He closed his eyes, and after a moment, his expression relaxed. He took his hand away, then drew her close. She wrapped her arms around him, her body shivering against his as the pain ebbed and flowed, much like the ocean waves far below.