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

by Hicks, Michael R.

  When the queen’s warriors drew near, just within shrekka range, they halted. Keel-Tath half expected that Shil-Wular would be at the lead, but he was not.

  “We come for the white-haired one,” the leader, an unusually tall and slender male warrior, said in a voice that was at once soft, and yet filled with steel. “So wills Syr-Nagath, ruler of these lands.”

  “She is under the protection of my mistress, Li’an-Salir of Ku’ar-Amir,” Wan-Kuta’i said as she stepped forward a pace. “If your queen desires to take the child, she must negotiate with my mistress. I have no power to release her into your hands.”

  The warrior gave Wan-Kuta’i a disgusted look. “Then we will take her.”

  Before he could say anything more, Wan-Kuta’i shot back, “Is your queen prepared to make war upon Ku’ar-Amir and the rest of Ural-Murir now, this day?”

  “She is. But there will be no Messenger to your people. They will know war has come when the swords of our warriors pierce their hearts.”

  Keel-Tath gasped. Wars always began with one side first capturing a warrior of their would-be enemy, then returning the warrior bearing tidings of the war that was coming. The Messenger was marked, so that forever he or she would be known to both sides as sacrosanct, untouchable and inviolable. It was a tradition dating back to the time of the First Age, and to be a Messenger was the greatest of honors. To make war without a Messenger was unthinkable.

  And yet, it did not surprise Keel-Tath that Syr-Nagath had dispensed with that tradition. What did surprise her was that the warriors who had sworn their honor to the Dark Queen followed her in blind subservience, and did not balk at such a fundamental departure from the Way. In the past, leaders who strayed so far were cast down in dishonor, for the obedience of those who followed was earned in blood and maintained by the ancient code that had sustained their people through the ages. If leaders acted with dishonor, their lives were forfeit.

  Looking at the warriors arrayed against her, she saw and sensed in her blood both determination...and fear. Syr-Nagath was destroying the foundation of the Way one soul at a time, replacing honor with terror. Warriors fearing those to whom their honor was pledged was nothing new, for not all warrior leaders were kind or enlightened. But this was on an altogether different level. The warriors here who had come for her did not bear the evil of their queen, but the bone-deep fear of her displeasure. They were afraid of being cast into eternal darkness, or perhaps worse. Keel-Tath wanted to somehow reach out to them, to help them return to the Way and to honor, but there was nothing she could say. Not here, not now. If their leader gave the word, as she knew he would, they would take her.

  “When I say,” Dara-Kol whispered beside her, “run for the nearest boat, and do not stop. Do. Not. Stop. Do you understand?”

  Keel-Tath gave a jerky nod. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the four warriors carrying Drakh-Nur, with Han-Ukha’i still at his side, moving toward the incoming boats. She realized that the enemy warriors must not have realized Drakh-Nur and Han-Ukha’i were with her, as they were both shielded from view by the warriors carrying him. And Han-Ukha’i certainly blended in better without her healer’s robes. They must have thought the two had belonged to Wan-Kuta’i.

  “We will make sure she reaches the boats,” Ka’i-Lohr said, bowing his head. Tara-Khan only gave a sharp nod.

  “Is this how wars are to be fought?” Wan-Kuta’i asked the leader of the queen’s warriors, taking another step forward. “Without the honor of a Messenger? This is not the Way.”

  “It is as the queen wills it, and that is all that matters.” He brought his magthep forward a few paces and his expression hardened. “Yield now and proclaim your honor to Syr-Nagath and join us, or hand over the white-haired one and depart. Your only other choice is to die, and we will still take her.”

  Wan-Kuta’i was silent, a thoughtful expression on her face. On the shore behind them, the first boat grated onto the sand and a pair of warriors leaped out to hold it steady while others reached out to help pull Drakh-Nur and Han-Ukha’i aboard. On either side of her, the warriors were tense, hands on their weapons.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Keel-Tath saw the ship turn about, coming perilously close to the shore before again swinging parallel to it, nearing their position. She could hear the big sails flutter for a moment before the booms on the mast swung and the sails again caught the wind. As the ship reached their position on the beach, Wan-Kuta’i bellowed, “May your queen rot in the eternal dark!”

  Several things happened at once. There was a ripping sound from the ship, and a volley of flying weapons, the likes of which Keel-Tath had never seen, raked the mounted riders, tearing apart warrior and beast alike.

  Wan-Kuta’i’s warriors took advantage of the shock and surprise to hurl their shrekkas at the enemy, inflicting further losses before the queen’s warriors could respond.

  Dara-Kol turned and shoved Keel-Tath toward the nearest boat, and Keel-Tath ran as fast as her exhausted body could carry her, with Tara-Khan and Ka’i-Lohr on either side. They were surrounded by more of Wan-Kuta’i’s warriors, who shielded them from the shrekkas thrown by the queen’s warriors as they regained their wits.

  As she neared the side of the boat, her left leg was stricken with searing pain as a shrekka sliced through her outer thigh. She stumbled and would have fallen had not Tara-Khan deftly scooped her into his arms, barely breaking his stride. As he dashed up to the boat, he tossed her into the boat before leaping in himself. She landed in a tangle of arms and legs among the warriors who had been manning the oars, but who now lent their throwing arms and shrekkas to the fight. Turning, Tara-Khan then pulled Ka’i-Lohr aboard, then Dara-Kol.

  The ship fired again, and more enemy warriors were torn apart by the flashing blades of its weapons. Under the cover of its fire, Wan-Kuta’i and the others made for the boats, holding off the enemy with their swords as they retreated. Keel-Tath could see that most of them would not make it: they were outnumbered at least five to one, even after the ship’s bloody work had been done, and their backs were against the deadly sea.

  Wan-Kuta’i and perhaps a quarter of her warriors made it to the boats as the rest turned to stand their ground in a semicircle on the beach before the boats.

  Warriors pushed the boats back into the sea, but they did not even try to climb in. Instead, they quickly saluted Wan-Kuta’i, then returned to the hopeless battle. Keel-Tath saluted them, too, knowing that their deeds this day would be recorded in the Books of Time, and they would die with great honor.

  Shrekkas whistled overhead and thunked into the boat as more enemy warriors crowded against the surf to get close enough to land a strike against the frantically rowing warriors. Some of the weapons struck home, rending flesh and armor, and warriors fell across their oars, injured or dead.

  Tara-Khan shoved her down and covered her body with his own until they were out of the enemy’s range, Ka’i-Lohr kneeling beside them and sending shrekkas he plucked from the steel-hard wood of the boat back at the enemy. Keel-Tath screamed at the arrogant young warrior to let her up, that she had to see, but he ignored her pleas and threats. As she lay there, struggling uselessly against his bulk, the bottom of the boat ran red with blood.

  ***

  Syr-Nagath bolted upright from a deep sleep. Beside her, the warrior she had taken to bed stirred, but remained silent. So much the better for him. Had she wanted him to speak, she would have commanded him to do so.

  She smiled in the darkness, barely able to contain her jubilation. Ka’i-Lohr had crossed paths with Keel-Tath. Ka’i-Lohr, the product of the union between herself and Kunan-Lohr, Keel-Tath’s father, was her only offspring. Before and after his birth, she had been cursed with nothing but stillborn children until she had finally had the healers, incompetent fools who could not remedy what ailed her body, render her infertile. Not long after he had been born, she had sent him in company with a wet nurse and two warriors to Ku’ar-Amir, both to remove him from potential h
arm and put him in a position to aid her plans in later years. When his body came of age, she sailed in secret to Ku’ar-Amir. Her servants had captured him while his ship was in port and brought him to her bed, where she worked the dark magic upon him as she had the Desh-Ka priest Ria-Ka’luhr and so many others. She had improved on the workings of the magic since she had first used it: Ka’i-Lohr would have no recollection of what had transpired, no knowledge that he was being used as an instrument of her will. She returned him that same night, and since then he had been a window upon the workings of the kingdom and the city that bore the same name. She had learned much in the time he had been her eyes and ears there.

  But this, this was a boon that she never could have foreseen. To have him in company with her nemesis, in a position to tear out the white-haired child’s throat or pierce her heart with a dagger at a mere thought from her, his mother, was a most intoxicating ecstasy.

  With her blood rising, she took her lover by the shoulder and rolled him over toward her. Straddling him, she bent down to kiss him as he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her tight against him. She pulled back enough to stare in his eyes, promising both pleasure and pain. “Please me,” she commanded.

  ***

  Keel-Tath watched from the ship’s side rail as the queen’s warriors unceremoniously dumped the bodies of the dead of both sides into the sea. The water began to churn as the vicious smaller fish came in to feed, and the water turned a dark, ugly color. Larger creatures swam in to join the feast, eating both the flesh of the fallen and the smaller fish that did not get out of the way in time. Even in the murky water, she could see shadowy shapes swim under the ship, speeding toward shore. Most were small, but some were longer than the boat she had ridden to the ship. In short order the water near where the queen’s warriors stood watching the spectacle was roiling with living death.

  She was about to turn away, sickened, when something, a creature at least as large as a full-grown genoth, exploded from the water near the beach. It had a long, spiny neck and a head that was mostly tooth-lined jaw. In two rapid undulating movements of its body, which had flippers where a genoth would have had legs, it reached the nearest warriors and their magtheps. Using its head as a club, swinging it side to side, it bowled over three mounts and their riders before gobbling them up, swallowing them whole while the other warriors and magtheps ran screaming in terror.

  “A kalakh-hin’da,” Ka’i-Lohr said from beside her. “That one is still young, not full grown. But even the full grown ones are far from the largest beasts to be found in the sea, although they are among the most dangerous. They are cunning and swift, hard to kill, and can leave the water for brief periods of time.”

  “We killed one,” Tara-Khan boasted. “It attacked one of the ship’s boats. Ka’i-Lohr and I slew it before it could feast on the boat’s crew.”

  Keel-Tath said nothing as the beast attacked another warrior, who had been wounded by a shrekka and was unable to escape. She ran a hand along her thigh where she had been struck in the escape from the beach. Han-Ukha’i had healed the wound and preserved the scar, but in her mind Keel-Tath could still feel the pain as she listened to the warrior’s screams, and imagined the sounds of his bones crunching as the beast ate him. Sated for the moment, the thing turned and slowly wriggled back into the water, snapping at the smaller creatures that continued to feast.

  The scene made her shiver, and she felt a comforting hand on her shoulder. She covered Ka’i-Lohr’s hand with her own, a sign of thanks. Knowing she should not neglect Tara-Khan, she turned and offered him a smile. His mouth turned down into a frown, but he acknowledged her expression with a slow nod.

  “Tara-Khan,” she said, “I think you smile upside-down.”

  He only stared at her as Ka’i-Lohr burst out laughing.

  Dara-Kol emerged from the hatch that led below decks and came to join them.

  “How is Drakh-Nur?” Keel-Tath wanted to know. Their other two companions were down below, where Han-Ukha’i had been nursing the giant warrior back to health and tending the other warriors who had been wounded, for the ship carried no healers. While the spaces below decks were clean and tidy, Keel-Tath had hated the strange sensation of her body telling her she was moving and rolling while her eyes told her she was not. Here on deck, the sensation and discomfort in the pit of her stomach disappeared.

  “He will be well, but the sea does not suit him.”

  Keel-Tath cocked her head, unsure of Dara-Kol’s meaning.

  Tara-Khan snorted, and this time he did smile. It was a cruel expression that Keel-Tath thought might break the chiseled stone of his face. “Even the greatest of warriors can be felled by seasickness.”

  “Let us hope it does not take hold of you, mistress,” Ka’i-Lohr said charitably, shooting Tara-Khan a despairing look.

  She looked up at a fluttering sound. More sails were unfurling from the tall masts, and as they snapped full of the wind she could feel the ship pick up speed. She was standing close enough to the bow to feel the spray kicked up as the hull cleaved the waves below. The sun was full overhead, and the Great Moon, a massive silvery crescent, was rising in the east. The coast was a lush green paradise rising from the white beach, while on the other side, toward where the ship was turning, was endless ocean as far as she could see.

  At any other time, it would have been a moment of great beauty, a moment to treasure and savor. Now, it only brought her sadness and a sense of foreboding. T’lar-Gol, the land of her birth, of her family and those she loved at the temple of the Desh-Ka, fell away behind her, lost over the horizon as the ship sailed into the Western Sea.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Ocean Passage

  Despite the ever-present danger posed by the beasts that cruised below the surface of the water, Keel-Tath found that she enjoyed being aboard the ship. It had no name, but Wan-Kuta’i had told her that ships were spoken of by using the names of their masters or mistresses. Wan-Kuta’i had commanded this ship for over three years, and had been sailing since she left the creche. It came as a shock to Keel-Tath to learn that some of the larger ships had creches and kazhas, a tradition that went back to the early days, even before the formation of the Ima’il-Kush priesthood, one of the three ancient orders that long ago had left to be with the Settlements among the stars.

  The weather since they had departed T’lar-Gol had been fair and the winds strong, and Keel-Tath had spent every waking moment above decks, breathing in the sea air and helping the crew where she could. Even though she was still weary from the long trek across the Great Wastelands, working beside the warriors who crewed the ship, especially Ka’i-Lohr and Tara-Khan, pleased her, and she thought it also pleased them. She got to know their names, but could not feel them in her blood, for they were descendants of the Nyur-A’il, a different bloodline than her own.

  The sea, as dangerous as it was, was something she could grasp. The rolling motion of the ship, the sound of the water flowing along the sides of the hull, the wind that filled the sails and caressed her face with saltwater spray; these things were a balm to her soul. For the first time in her life, she felt truly free. She knew it was only a passing sensation, a pleasant fantasy, but she embraced this time with her entire being, determined to treasure every moment.

  Dara-Kol had adapted to their new environment quickly, and it came as no surprise to Keel-Tath to learn that she had spent some time aboard ships during her long exile. She spent most of her time now with Wan-Kuta’i, although she also lent a hand to help the crew. But always, always, she was in sight of Keel-Tath, and rare was the time when Keel-Tath looked at her that Dara-Kol did not return her gaze. In Keel-Tath’s eyes, Dara-Kol had been everywhere and done everything, and would do anything to protect her, just as Ayan-Dar would have.

  Ayan-Dar. Every time she thought of him, she could feel the warmth of the mourning marks start under her eyes, for she missed him terribly. She could sense his song in her blood, but it was low and weak, a flat, toneless melody
that once had been powerful and vibrant, a beacon among all the souls that had ever touched hers. She could not bring herself to regret leaving the temple, but she would have given nearly anything to have him with her. He was the father she had never known, and she vowed that somehow, someday, she would repay his kindness and his love.

  As for her two other companions, Han-Ukha’i, again resplendent in the white robes of a healer, made from the strong and light sail cloth by the ship’s armorers, was treated like a goddess by the crew. Even though life aboard ship was hazardous and many warriors died of injuries at sea, healers were never placed in harm’s way. They were only permitted aboard huge vessels such as those Keel-Tath had seen in Ku’ar-Amir. Han-Ukha’i was the first healer who had ever been aboard Wan-Kuta’i’s ship, and she found herself busy treating injuries great and small, instantly beloved by the crew.

  Drakh-Nur also found a place in the crew’s heart, but for a very different reason: the giant, indomitable warrior, fully healed now, was constantly seasick. Even Han-Ukha’i, as hard as she had tried, had been unable to cure him. He spent day and night hanging over the side rail, and his periodic retching could be heard from bow to stern. The crew howled every time, not in derision, but in good-natured support. They patted him on the back and gave encouraging words as they passed the humbled warrior.

  “We have all suffered at one time or another,” Wan-Kuta’i had said. “Even I, as long as I have lived upon the sea, have been seasick, although that was in the worst storm I have ever endured.”

  Everyone aboard ship (even Drakh-Nur, sick as he was) was given duties to perform. With her keen eyes, Keel-Tath was given the task of a lookout, assisting Ka’i-Lohr and Tara-Khan, who had become her constant companions. Dara-Kol had taken the role of First to Wan-Kuta’i, for the warrior who had been her First had fallen to the enemy during the battle on the beach. Han-Ukha’i continued to tend to those who needed her aid, including several of the crew who had suffered amputated limbs. Under her care, the arms and legs were being regrown.