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

by Hicks, Michael R.

The Tale Of Dara-Kol

  Keel-Tath’s eyes fluttered open. She was lying on her side on a soft warm bed of animal hides, with one of them wrapped around her as a blanket. The light in this place, wherever she was, was little more than a soft glow. The walls were of carved stone that bore a mosaic, but she could not tell what it was. The stone of the walls was cracked and crumbling, and most of the tiles were missing. Turning her head slowly, she looked up toward the ceiling, which disappeared into darkness. She could make out the vague form of arches supported by columns, but little more.

  Taking a deeper breath, she noticed that there was no pain. Looking at her hands, the terrible cuts made by the manacles were gone, as was her torn skin and flesh from being dragged behind Shil-Wular’s magthep. Her skin was smooth and unmarred, bearing only the scars she had carried with her as she left the temple. She also noticed that she wore a black undergarment now. Someone had dressed her as she slept. And next to her was a neatly arranged pile of leatherite and metal armor, along with a trio of shrekkas, and a long dagger. They were not her weapons, and the armor was worn and dented.

  “You are awake.”

  A shadow approached and knelt beside her. Keel-Tath had expected it to be Han-Ukha’i, but it was not. It was the cloaked warrior who had taken her from Shil-Wular, and Keel-Tath wondered what had become of the healer.

  As if reading her mind, the warrior said, “Han-Ukha’i is asleep. Healing you taxed her greatly, but she is well. She only needs rest and food, which she will have.” The warrior was holding a plate of neatly cut meat, some fruit, and other food that she set down on the hides next to Keel-Tath. “You, too, must eat and regain your strength.”

  Curiosity outweighed Keel-Tath’s sudden ravenous hunger. “Who are you, warrior?”

  The warrior pulled back the hood that shadowed her face. She must once have been very beautiful, but now was badly scarred, and Keel-Tath could tell that no healer had ever tended the wounds. Half of the warrior’s left ear was missing, and an ugly weal, a burn scar, crept up her neck from beneath her breast plate.

  “My name is Dara-Kol,” the warrior said. “I served your father, my lord and master Kunan-Lohr, and now do I pledge my honor to serve you, his daughter.” She bowed her head and rendered the ritual salute.

  Keel-Tath gasped as a sudden burst of emotions — relief, joy, love, and anguish, all jumbled together — flooded into her blood from Dara-Kol. Her mind reeled at what Dara-Kol had said. She reached out with one hand, lifting Dara-Kol’s chin until their eyes met. “You served my father?”

  “Yes, my mistress. I was young then, not much older than you are now.”

  “But I thought that the Dark Queen had hunted down all who hailed from Keel-A’ar, all who had served my father or mother.”

  “She did.” There was no mistaking the hateful bitterness in Dara-Kol’s voice. “There could be other survivors, but the last of whom I heard tell was killed seven years ago.”

  “Then how…how did you survive? And how did you know to rescue me?”

  “I will tell you these things, but first I have something for you.” From the folds of her cloak she produced a sheathed sword. She drew it partway out of the scabbard, and Keel-Tath could see that the blade was long and graceful, the handle beautifully ornate. The only swords of such beauty that she had ever seen had belonged to the priests and priestesses of the temple. It could only be from a high warrior. “This was your father’s sword. His last command to me was that I should deliver it to your hands.”

  As Keel-Tath took the weapon, she could see, even in this light, the mourning marks under Dara-Kol’s eyes. “You waited for me all this time?”

  Dara-Kol nodded. “You were the most precious thing to your father and mother, the pride of Keel-A’ar. Just before he was taken at the end of the battle of Dur-Anai, he gave me this and bade me to get it to you.” She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. “Leaving him to die was the most difficult thing I have ever done, my mistress. Since that day have I wandered T’lar-Gol, from the Eastern to the Western Seas, even the Great Wastelands, staying one step ahead of those who hunted me, of those who would give your father’s sword to the Dark Queen. All that I did, I did for him, and for you, even though I knew I might never see you, that you might never know I existed.”

  “You have done my parents, and me, great honor, Dara-Kol. I can never thank you for what you have done, what you have suffered in my name.” Keel-Tath set down the sword beside her, but did not let her hand stray from it. Touching the smooth, gleaming scabbard was the first and only connection she had with her parents since they had died. “I wish I was worthy of it, but I am not my father or mother.”

  “You are worthy, my mistress! You are young, yes, but how many would have done what you did, forsaking the temple of the Desh-Ka to walk into the hands of the Dark Queen? How many blooded warriors would have such courage?” She shook her head. “I can feel your strength in the song of your blood. I follow you for who you are and what you shall become, Keel-Tath. I follow you for the sake of the future, not for what is done and gone.”

  Keel-Tath sighed. “You have heard the prophecy of Anuir-Ruhal’te, then.”

  “Of course. I doubt there is any soul alive on this world or among the Settlements who has not heard those blessed words.” She cocked her head. “You do not believe?”

  Laughing with bitter irony, Keel-Tath said, “Why should I? Here am I, an exile from the Desh-Ka, wanted by the Dark Queen, with no power, no army, and no reasonable chance of living for long.” She looked pointedly at Dara-Kol. “Am I mistaken?”

  “You must judge for yourself, mistress.” Dara-Kol moved the stack of armor next to Keel-Tath. “Come. Dress and then I will show you something.”

  Keel-Tath did so, slipping on the leatherite that covered most of her body. It was tight in some places, loose in others, the poor fit a completely alien experience after the perfect craftsmanship of the armorers at the temple. The same, she found, was true for the metal armor, particularly the breast and back plates, which were not quite big enough.

  Dara-Kol bowed her head. “My apologies, mistress.”

  “It is nothing.” Keel-Tath picked up her father’s sword and held it for a moment. It was a heavy weapon, not crafted to her hand and one that she could not wield easily.

  “I have chosen another for you that would be more suited to battle,” Dara-Kol said. “But you do not need it right now. You would honor me if you wore his.”

  Keel-Tath nodded, extending a hand to Dara-Kol, who helped Keel-Tath to her feet. The young warrior swayed as blood momentarily rushed from her head. “I am fine,” she said, waving away Dara-Kol’s hand. After a moment, the dizziness passed.

  After a moment’s consideration, she decided not to strap the sword to her waist belt, for the tip of the scabbard would have dragged on the floor. Instead, she strapped it over her back, the glittering handle showing above her shoulder.

  “There,” she said, the weapon’s weight a welcome burden. “That will do.”

  Dara-Kol led her from the chamber into a corridor that was as wide as a dozen warriors standing shoulder to shoulder. It was dark, save for a handful of torches that marched away in one direction. The most distant of them was but a pinprick of light. In the opposite direction, the corridor quickly vanished into darkness. They turned to follow the light of the torches.

  “Tell me, what is this place?”

  “It does not have a name, for it is so old the tongue is unknown to us. I think it may date back as far as the First Age. Perhaps a keeper of the Books of Time could tell us what the markings mean,” she gestured to strange glyphs lining the walls, now faded to near illegibility, “but no keeper will ever see this.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it is known only to the honorless ones. It has been a sanctuary since ages past, its secret never betrayed. It can only be found by those who have been here before, or brought by another.” Her voice lowered. “And once a warrior has lost her honor, it is
gone forever. There is no returning to the Way. And so the secret has remained.”

  Keel-Tath stopped in mid-stride and put a restraining hand on Dara-Kol’s arm, turning her so they faced one another. “And who is anyone to say that you are without honor?” She stepped closer. “I do not believe in my heart that I am to fulfill Anuir-Ruhal’te’s prophecy. But if someday I rise to become more than a simple warrior, to be like my mother and father, perhaps, the world will know that you have never strayed from the Way.” Shaking her head angrily, she went on, “It is the Dark Queen who is honorless, and the priesthoods who let her rampage across our world.”

  “Thank you, mistress.” Dara-Kol bowed her head, then turned to lead Keel-Tath to the end of the corridor.

  Keel-Tath found herself standing in front of a door that was at least as big as the one at the entrance to the great coliseum of the Desh-Ka temple. Unlike that door, which opened at the touch of a priest or priestess, this one required all of Dara-Kol’s considerable strength to swing open. When Keel-Tath touched the wood, she was shocked: it was completely petrified, the wood turned to stone.

  This place is old, indeed, she thought.

  “We are in the foothills of the Kui’mar-Gol mountains,” Dara-Kol went on as she pushed the door open enough for them to squeeze through.

  “In the Kui’mar-Gol?” Keel-Tath was shocked. It would have taken days to reach them from where they had started. “I was unconscious all that time?”

  “Yes, mistress. Han-Ukha’i feared that you would die, so she kept your body in a deep sleep to rest and heal.”

  “I had always wanted to ride to the mountains.” Like her other dreams, that one, too, small though it was, had been taken from her.

  “You did not miss much, mistress, save the constant fear of being captured.”

  “Shil-Wular pursued you?”

  Dara-Kol shook her head. “No, the others drew him away to the south, where they were met by a full legion of the queen’s army. They died well, as warriors, even honorless ones, should.”

  “How many of your warriors were there?”

  “Enough.”

  Dara-Kol stepped through the doorway. On the other side stood four warriors, also clearly honorless ones, for their armor was poorly fitted and badly maintained, their weapons poorly matched to their hands and bodies.

  As Keel-Tath stepped through, all four knelt as one and saluted her.

  She returned the salute, overcome by a sense of unreality. She was nothing but a genetic aberration, a child-warrior who had only faced a single Challenge. True, she had blooded her sword in battle at Ayan-Dar’s side, but she had no other honors, seen and done nothing yet in her life to distinguish herself.

  A sudden wave of anger rose within her, that these warriors, honorless ones or not, made their obeisance to her not because she had earned their respect, but because of what they believed she would someday become.

  She said nothing as Dara-Kol led her up a set of curving steps, terribly worn by age, that widened as they rose higher, lined on both sides by torches on the walls.

  At the top, they stepped out into a massive domed chamber. In the center was a huge fire pit that provided both warmth and illumination, the smoke wafting up through a fissure in the ceiling high above.

  Keel-Tath stopped in her tracks at what she saw in the fire’s glow.

  Facing her, in orderly rows every bit as precise as had been the disciples and acolytes of the Desh-Ka temple, knelt hundreds of warriors. They were unkempt, battered, and ill-equipped. Many bore the scars of improperly healed injuries, and some were missing limbs or eyes. It took Keel-Tath a moment to realize that they must be this way because there were no healers to tend them. But she could sense their pride in her blood. And love. It took her a moment to realize that it was directed toward her.

  There was another emotion, too, fluttering like the tiniest flame alight in a handful of tinder.

  Hope.

  “I do not deserve this, Dara-Kol,” Keel-Tath whispered. “I am not worthy!”

  Dara-Kol said nothing as she, too, knelt on the ancient stone floor at the side of her mistress. As one, the warriors, heads bowed, saluted Keel-Tath.

  Somewhere deep in their ranks, a low voice began to speak:

  Long dormant seed shall great fruit bear,

  Crimson talons, snow-white hair.

  Others quickly joined in, and by the end of the first verse, the words were spoken by hundreds, loud and strong:

  In sun’s light, yet dark of heaven,

  Not of one blood, but of seven.

  Before she was conscious of it, Keel-Tath’s lips were moving as she joined the others in reciting the final verse of the ancient prophecy of Anuir-Ruhal’te, an oracle who had lived and died at the end of the Second Age, who had foretold Keel-Tath’s birth:

  Souls of crystal, shall she wield,

  From Chaos born, our future’s shield.

  She was overwhelmed by the passion that had ignited in the hearts of these warriors as they recited the prophecy. The intensity of their emotions in her blood nearly drove her to her knees.

  Yet she forced herself to stand tall, heartened more than she could have imagined by the words and feelings of this band of outcasts. She tried to remember all that Ayan-Dar had taught her, things that she had not understood at the time, that seemed of little value to the simple warrior she had wanted to be. She desperately needed his wisdom and strength now. Her heart ached in that moment as she thought of him, the old priest, the great warrior, who had given her so much, and whom she had, in her own way, betrayed by obeying her conscience.

  When the echo of the final words faded away, the only sound in the chamber was the crackling of the flames in the fire pit. Keel-Tath tried to think of words to say, words that might grace a great leader’s lips, but at last decided that the only words that truly mattered were those spoken from the heart.

  “You believe that those words, written so long ago, foretold my birth. I stand before you now, with white hair and crimson talons, just as Anuir-Ruhal’te saw in her vision, but I cannot say that I yet believe it myself.” She took a step forward, drawing the sword from the scabbard on her back and holding it high. “What I do believe in is this. It is the sword of my father, the last master of Keel-A’ar, who was outcast and died at the hands of the Dark Queen.”

  A low, ugly rumble echoed through the chamber at the mention of Syr-Nagath, and Keel-Tath felt a wave of black hatred and revulsion sweep through her blood from those before her.

  “In all our long history have there been honorless ones, outcasts such as you…such as me. Those who have betrayed their honor, or been abandoned by their masters or orphaned by fate. Perhaps in past times those warriors truly were without honor, but not in this age, not in this time. The honorless ones are the Dark Queen and all who would do her bidding, who have fallen from the Way, whose hands are covered in the blood of the robed castes, of defenseless younglings in the creche. Honorless, too, are those who have the power to bring justice to the world, but who turn a blind eye to the darkness that blankets our world, and if left unchecked, will spread across the stars to the Settlements.”

  She paused, lowering her father’s sword from above her head to hold it out before her, laying the blade across her open left palm. “Many of you are victims of the Dark Queen’s evil. But if you have done wrong, if you fell from the grace of your master by your own hand, to you I say this: leave your sins behind and stand again upon the path that is the Way. Stand with me, and let us walk the path together. I have nothing to offer you, any of you, but the promise of painful suffering and death. But it will be a death with honor, a death — and life — with meaning. This I swear upon the names of my father and mother. Those who follow me may die, but they will never be forsaken!”

  The roar that filled the chamber was deafening, just as their emotions were a tidal wave that washed through her blood. But this time she was more prepared, and she let the power of their feelings carry her higher,
making her feel like she was a giant, like she could accomplish anything.

  A sudden hush fell over the assembly as a pair of warriors dashed into the chamber, having come from one of the six other corridors that were like spokes from the main chamber. They fell to their knees at Keel-Tath’s feet and saluted.

  “My mistress,” one of them gasped, “they are coming!”

  Dara-Kol rose to her feet and demanded, “Who? Who is coming?”

  “Warriors of the Dark Queen!”

  “How many?” By Keel-Tath’s count, there was roughly a cohort of warriors here, about five hundred, perhaps more. She knew they were not as well organized or equipped as the warriors who served Syr-Nagath, but they had something the queen’s warriors did not: a cause truly worth fighting for.

  “A full legion approaches, mistress. Their foot warriors are yet distant, but a mounted cohort is nearly upon us!”

  “Her warriors approach both the main and mountain entrances,” said the second warrior. “We are trapped.”

  The hopes that Keel-Tath had that they might be able to stand and fight vanished. They could easily hold off a cohort and perhaps manage a victory. But they could not stand against the six thousand warriors of a full legion, and it sounded as if the enemy had them boxed in. She looked at Dara-Kol. “How did they find us?”

  “They are led by honorless ones,” the first of the two scouts said through gritted teeth. “We have been betrayed.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Call Of The Ancients

  Keel-Tath felt a rising sense of panic among the warriors as word spread that one of the queen’s legions was approaching.

  “Can our warriors escape?” She asked Dara-Kol.

  Dara-Kol made a slight motion with her head. No. “Not with this many,” she said quietly, “not if the queen’s warriors are in position to block the two main entrances.”

  “There is no chance?” Flames of anger, of rage, roiled in Keel-Tath’s heart. For the first time since they had fallen from grace, the warriors who still knelt before her had been given hope. She had been given hope, not just that she might survive, but that she could do some good for her kind. Now, even before she had a chance to learn any of their names, that hope had been stripped away.