She lowered her head and closed her eyes, remembering the one time she had met Porcia. The woman hadn't been empress then, just an insane conqueror who had captured Zohar. Atalia had sat in the belly of a galley, whipped, beaten, chained to an oar. Porcia had visited her, smiling thinly, and tossed a head at her feet—the head of Yohanan Elior. Atalia's cousin.
Atalia clenched her fists, opened her eyes, and gazed down at another head—the severed head of this defeated legion's commander. And suddenly, gazing upon it, it seemed to Atalia to look remarkably like Yohanan's head. The same brown eyes. The same strong jaw, proud nose. For a terrible instant, Atalia was sure that it was Yohanan, but of course that was impossible; her cousin had died long ago.
She looked up at Feina, looked at Berengar, looked at the hundred thousand Gaelian warriors who spread across the countryside. Warriors she had brought here, and ice filled Atalia, even in the heat of victory.
Did we commit evil as Porcia did? How can we call ourselves righteous when we too slay men, conquer lands, claim heads as trophies? Are we any less monstrous?
Berengar was holding Feina in his arms now, kissing her, standing among the corpses, and Atalia did not know if to love or fear her new family.
She tightened her jaw and stared back south.
Perhaps I summoned monsters to slay monsters, she thought. But the heroes die in this world. The monsters live. And maybe, if I can get enough monsters to slay monsters, I can still cleanse this world, can still save my homeland.
"You started this, Porcia," she whispered. "But I will finish it."
She mounted her horse, a black stallion, a gift from her husband. "We ride onward." She raised her sword overhead. "To Aelar!"
Thousands echoed her cry. "To Aelar!"
Berengar rode on his great white stag, a beast larger than any horse, and Feina rode on her silvery mare. Many other horses rode behind them, but most of the army walked, swarming across the wilderness like locusts. It was hard to think of the Gaelian hosts as a mere army. Here was a nation on the move. Men and their wives fought side by side. Many children followed them, nobody back home to feed them. Thousands were not warriors, and they bore no weapons. Washerwomen. Blacksmiths. Cooks. Cobblers. Prostitutes. Peddlers selling anything from buttons to cutlery to pewter charms. As she gazed at them, Atalia remembered the old legends from her homeland, of the nation of Zohar leaving captivity in Nur over a thousand years ago, migrating across the desert and back into a homeland of milk and honey. If those legends were true, that ancient exodus must have looked like this.
"The world is changing," she said softly. "Nations are rising, falling, sweeping across the world. The old order will crumble like sandcastles under waves. Once the world falls, it will be our task to rebuild it. Stronger. Better than before."
As they swept south, a town appeared in the distance. Atalia spotted a few temples, a few granaries, a small theater, and clusters of houses. She guessed that several thousand people lived there. As they rode closer, she saw many Aelarians fleeing the town south along the road. The Gaelians saw the town too. They roared, waved their weapons, and ran toward it.
Atalia turned toward her husband. "This is not Aelar. We should avoid this town."
But the Gaelian horde was not known for its structure or discipline. Here was more of a mob than an organized military. At the sight of this prize, they swarmed, howling, hornets roused from a nest. Atalia sneered and dug her heels into her stallion, charging with the host. Tens of thousands rode and ran with her, their roar deafening. Ahead, the Aelarians were draining from the city, crying out in fear. Here were not legionaries but simple townsfolk, carrying their children, leaving their belongings behind as the tidal wave crashed against the town walls, and the rams of Gael smashed the gates.
"Stop this!" Atalia roared, sitting astride her horse outside the town. "Hosts of Gael, rally here! Southward!"
Yet she was only the wife of a single chieftain, and many tribes had gathered here, wyverns and boars, bears and wolves, thorns and stags, only loosely bound and all hungry for plunder. The Gaelians swarmed through the city gates, trampling one another, weapons raised, voices hoarse. Atalia cursed and kneed her horse, charging between the men, knocking them back, until she too entered the town.
She halted her horse and stared, eyes wide with horror, fists trembling.
A boulevard stretched ahead, lined with columns bearing statues of the gods, and between them rose taverns and shops. The Gaelians were smashing doors and windows and tugging out their prizes. Two bearded men lay on the street, holding up jugs of wine, pouring the drink into their mouths. Several Gaelian women laughed as they rummaged through a bakery, pulling out loaves of bread and tossing them to their fellow warriors. A few Aelarian corpses already lay on the street, trampled. Other Aelarians were fleeing deeper into the city. Several men, blood still staining their golden beards, grabbed an Aelarian girl and dragged her behind a smithy. Her screams tore across the street.
"Stop this!" Atalia shouted. She galloped forth, knocking people back. She made her way around the smithy, seeking the Gaelians who had grabbed the girl, but she could no longer see them. A scream rose from behind her, and she whipped her head around to see an Aelarian brandishing a razor, his back to his barbershop. A Gaelian warrior laughed as she swung her hammer, driving it into the man's head, shattering the skull. A few other Gaelians rummaged through the corpse's pockets, pulling out coins.
"Enough!" Atalia demanded. She rode her horse toward the killers. "Do not steal from the dead!"
But the brutes only snorted and wandered down the street, vanishing into the crowd. Every doorway had been shattered, every shop looted. Atalia rode farther down the street, finally reaching a courtyard in the town center. A temple rose here, its marble columns capped with silver. Gaelians were already scaling the columns and chipping at the precious metal. Others were tugging a towering statue of Marcus Octavius, then cheering as it slammed down and shattered. More Gaelians were racing up a pale staircase, between columns, and into the temple. Screams rose from within.
She kneed her horse, and the animal charged up the stairs, and they burst into the temple.
A vast hall awaited them. A mosaic sprawled across the floor, and pastel frescoes adorned the ceiling. Marble statues of the gods stood between columns. A sunbeam fell through an oculus, shining upon an altar. In this hall of beauty, the horror unfolded. Hundreds of Aelarians had fled here. Elders. Children. Mothers clutching crying babes. Fathers holding bread knives and staffs. Most of the Gaelians ignored the civilians; they were busy plundering gold and jewels. But a few barbarians, scarred and tattooed and clad in fur and iron, laughed as they swung their weapons, cutting down Aelarians. One man tore a babe from his mother, tossed the child into the air, and swung his axe. The mother screamed, only for another Gaelian—a laughing woman, her blond hair flowing from under her helmet—to lash a sword across the mother's neck.
"Don't kill the women, damn it!" shouted a Gaelian man. "They can birth good Gaelian babes." He and his friends grabbed screaming Aelarian girls, tearing their stolas, and dragged them off.
Atalia had seen enough. She kneed her horse and rode through the temple. With a swing of her sword, she sliced open the neck of a Gaelian.
The bearded man fell, blood spraying the woman he had grabbed. The young Aelarian fled, weeping.
"Anyone else want to taste my blade?" Atalia shouted, wheeling her horse around. The Gaelian's blood had sprayed her face, hot and sickening. She spat. "You will not plunder and murder and rape! Not so long as I'm your chieftain's wife. You will obey me, or I will kill you all."
The Gaelians lost their mirth. They stared at her. One man spat. These were no warriors of the Galdurin tribe to which her husband—to which she herself—belonged. Their symbol was not a stag but a wolf, and like true wolves, they were hungry for flesh, and their eyes blazed with bloodlust. They surrounded her, beefy men—each large enough to have dwarfed even Jerael Sela—and women as tall and w
ild as she was. Tattoos snaked across their arms, and dents and stains covered their shields and patches of armor. Their weapons rose around her—axes, spears, swords.
"So the schaten dezin reveals her true nature," rose a voice from the crowd, and a woman stepped forth. She wore a wolf's cloak, the hood formed from the animal's head, its teeth still attached. Beneath that hood snarled a face just as beastly. The woman's own teeth had been sharpened, mimicking the teeth of her hood, and her eyes burned. Iron disks had widened her earlobes, and decorative burn scars spread up her arms. In each hand, she held an ugly curved blade. Atalia recognized her.
"Stand back, Helegrad, chieftain of the Osgoth tribe." Atalia stared down from her horse. "Your tribe is mighty, but you bowed before my husband. I am your mistress."
The wolf chieftain laughed and spun in a circle, her blades raised. "Hear the swarthy foreigner! She protects her kind. Zoharites, Aelarians—they're all the same scum. And I will not take commands from a brown-skinned, cock-sucking, foreign whore."
Before Atalia could react, the chieftain leaped forward, moving at terrible speed, and swung her blades.
Atalia shouted, and her horse reared. One blade sank into the horse's leg. Another sliced through its neck. Blood sprayed in a curtain, and Atalia fell. Her back slammed onto the ground.
At once—by God, the woman was fast—the chieftain plunged toward her, blades dripping. Atalia screamed and rolled. The blades slammed into the mosaic floor, chipping stones.
As Atalia leaped to her feet, one of Helegrad's blades tore across her hip. Atalia screamed. She lashed her own sword, but the chieftain blocked her blows. Sparks flew. The Gaelians formed a ring around them, roaring and pounding their fists.
"We Zoharites might appear as Aelarians to you." Atalia swung her blade again and again, trying to land blows. "But we are not murderers. We fight for life."
Helegrad laughed. "Even the life of your enemies."
The chieftain's blades thrust, and Atalia raised her shield, catching one blow. The other blade sliced across her arm, and she grimaced.
"The legions are my enemy." Atalia pressed forth her attack. "Not these people. Not you. Lay down your swords now, and stop this madness."
Helegrad laughed, parrying every blow, and soon Atalia found herself on the defensive. The chieftain's blades flew with a fury. One blow cracked Atalia's shield. Another chipped her breastplate and thudded in her chest.
"I'm going to crack your skull open and piss inside it." Helegrad laughed and lashed her blade, and the blow slammed into Atalia's helmet. She cried out, fell back a step, and barely raised her shield in time to block another blow.
The swords kept swinging, and soon Atalia's back hit a column, and the twin blades rose. Atalia raised her shield, and the blades slammed through it. The shield shattered, scattering wooden fragments. Atalia fell to one knee, crying out, bleeding. Helegrad stood above her, sneered, and spat on her. Atalia stared up, eyes narrowed, sword held before her, panting, her own blood dripping.
Helegrad raised her swords, then screamed.
A young woman rose behind her, pulling a dagger out from the chieftain's thigh—the young woman Atalia had saved from the brutes.
Screaming, Helegrad spun around. One of her blades lashed, and the woman's arm flew across the hall. The second blade plunged into the young Aelarian's chest.
Atalia swung her own sword, screaming. Her blade severed one of Helegrad's legs and sank deep into the second one.
Helegrad crashed to the floor.
The crowd of onlookers roared.
Trembles seized Atalia. She panted. She stood above Helegrad. The chieftain had dropped her blades and clutched her stump. The blood gushed out. The Gaelian stared up at Atalia, face ashen, eyes full of pain, of fear, but also of fury.
"Go ahead," Helegrad hissed. "Kill me. Do it. Do it or you are a coward. You—"
Atalia sheathed her sword. She shook her head sadly. "Fuck you." She raised her eyes and stared at the others. "Now leave this place! Follow me—out of the town. I command you now. I defeated your chieftain."
They all stared at her, sullen.
One man spat at her. "You're nothing but a fucking coward."
Another Gaelian—an ugly bastard with one eye—snorted. "You don't even dare slay your wounded enemy." He reached toward an Aelarian boy who cowered in the corner. "I'll take my plunder. I—"
A dagger flew across the temple and slammed into his throat.
Atalia spun around to see Berengar and Feina ride into the temple, he astride his white stag, she astride her mare.
"Enough!" Berengar boomed, towering above all other warriors, the sunlight breaking into beams around him. "Wolf tribe, leave this temple, and leave this city. We continue south."
A few of the wolves left the temple, but others remained, glaring.
"Will we not claim our prizes?" shouted one man.
"Will a wolf take orders from a lion?" cried a woman.
More voices rose in protest.
"You will take orders from me!" Berengar said. "Or you will die at my blade. You will not take women or boys from among the Aelarians, and you will not murder mothers or children. Take the gold and grain. Take your wine and steel. Take the lives of any men who rise up against you. But take no more."
Atalia opened her mouth in protest. "I won't let them plunder and—"
"You will be silent!" Berengar roared, turning toward her, face red. "You will not question my command. Leave this town. All of you. And don't think, Atalia, that I will hesitate to slit your throat too if you disobey me."
She glared at her husband, shock and pain pulsing through her. She wanted to spit at him, to shout at him, to curse and cut him, but tears stung her eyes. She turned away. She rode out of the town.
That evening, she stood on a hill, watching thousands of wolf warriors leave the camp and travel back north, returning to the forests of Gael. Thousands of killers. Thousands who would have stormed the walls of Aelar, cut through the legions, and stormed the Acropolis where lived the empress. She watched them desert, and she spat and cursed them.
"Fuck them." She thrust two fingers toward them, a Zoharite gesture of scorn. "We still have our other tribes. We'll destroy Aelar without those cowardly pups." She turned toward her husband who stood at her side. "And fuck you too."
Berengar stared at the defecting tribe, eyes dark. "You are a fool."
She sneered and drew her blade. "This fool can still cut off that cock you love to fuck me with. We did not come to Aelar to plunder, to pillage, to act like barbarians. We came here to . . ."
Her voice died as he turned his gaze upon her, for she saw a deep, simmering rage in his eyes. Not the rage of a warrior. Not the heat of battle. A cold fire. It scared her.
"What did you think that war is?"
She gestured at the town below, thousands of its people slaughtered, thousands others taken as slaves, its temples and homes looted. "Not this! Not mindless brutality. We came here to topple a tyranny." She pointed her blade at him. "How are we different than Porcia if we do this?"
He grabbed her wrist and twisted, and she grimaced and dropped her sword. She tried to pull back, but he held her arm with an iron grip.
"Did you think war is noble heroes slaying cackling villains? Did you think war is light banishing shadow? War is bloody, my wife. War is butchered mothers on the streets. War is babes impaled on spears. War is plunder, war is rape, war is everything they leave out of the old tales. Poets don't sing of those details. Children grow up thinking war is glorious and noble, entertaining as a play or song." He gestured at the town below. "This is war."
Atalia lowered her head, and tears stung her eyes. She remembered growing up reading such tales—tales of heroes slaying villains in legendary, bloodless battles of glory. And she remembered herself on the walls of Gefen, fighting her first battle, ending the day on her knees, weeping and vomiting, surrounded by disemboweled, dismembered corpses.
She raised her eyes. She
blinked away tears, and she whispered to her husband. "We can be better than that. Zohar is better than that. Zohar never plundered. Zohar never destroyed."
"Is that so?" Berengar stared at her steadily. "When Zohar returned from captivity in Nur, did she not slay every Kalintian, Sekadian, and wandering tribe who had taken residence in her land?"
"That was different! Our land had been stolen."
"All lands were stolen at one point or another," said Berengar. "All we men do—all we've ever done—is conquer, destroy, kill, and build upon the ashes, only for other men to someday take our place."
"I am no man." Atalia raised her chin. "And I refuse to play your games."
"And what will you do when we reach Aelar?" Berengar pointed south. "When we break the walls, and when we storm the city, and when the horde of Gael swarms through the streets—will you try to hold us back? Will you prefer to see Porcia on the throne than the city burn? Tell me honestly. If you cannot stomach war, then you should not have started one."
"I started nothing!" she shouted, and now her tears flowed, and her body shook. "It was Seneca who invaded my home, who butchered my father! It was Porcia who cut off my cousin's head! It was Aelar that started this war! I never wanted this. Any of it! I only wanted to . . ."
To become a soldier, she thought. To lead men in war. To fight. To slay enemies. To do what now I cannot stomach.
She lowered her head, all her words gone, and wept.
That night in his tent, they made love as they did every night, for the warriors of Gael had great appetites, and they believed that sex gave warriors might in battle. Every other night, Atalia had lain on her back as Berengar had mounted her, and she would wrap her limbs around him and moan into his neck. But this night she laid him on his back, and she rode him, her back arched, her eyes closed, as his hands grabbed her hips. She surrendered herself to their lovemaking, her eyes closed, her head tossed back, yet as she rode him in the darkness, she was riding her horse through the burning town, and as he clutched at her breasts, his hands were like the hands of dying children, reaching for her, seeking help, drowning soldiers, drowning slaves in the sea as fire blazed all around. With every thrust of her hips, she rode through devastation, watching them die—trampling them, killing him. She dug her fingernails into her husband's chest so deeply that she cut him, and that only seemed to increase his pleasure as he bucked below her, his face contorted. And she saw the face of her father on the cross. And she saw Daor drown. And she saw all the Aelarians she had killed, and the blood covered her hands—the blood of her husband, the blood of countless souls, crying out to her, cursing her. When she climaxed above him, she screamed and wept.
Temples of Dust (Kingdoms of Sand Book 4) Page 10