Ainslen peered across the distance to the enemy. What could be their reason for collecting the kerin? Uneasiness crept through his gut.
“Sire,” Lestin said, “I think they intend to launch a full attack.”
Cavalry divisions, consisting of men on horseback, formed ranks on the westerners’ flanks. The infantry parted like a ravine. Through the space poured hundreds … thousands of Soulguards in their glittering armor, riding yuros. Some of the warriors were massive, their mounts as large as a byaga. Upon The Soulguards’ backs were great rectangular shields.
“Are the firebreathers ready?” From sheer experience Ainslen settled on there being at least thirty thousand Soulguards on yuros. He’d thought men with such ability would be few in number, so rare that their primary task was to be the High King’s Royal Guard.
“Yes, but I would advise caution until we learn their strategy,” Kurosh said.
“Did I ask for your advice?”
“No, you did not.”
“Then only offer it when I do. They couldn’t stop the tiny kerin balls, and they won’t be able to do anything against the larger ones. This.” Ainslen nodded toward the massing army. “Is a desperate act to overwhelm us by sheer numbers. I anticipated this.” Kurosh responded in his tongue, the tone unflattering in any language.
“Either speak to me in Kasinian or not at all.” Ainslen glared at the Warleader.
Kurosh bowed. “I will tell my men to be ready.”
“Good.” The king dismissed him with a wave. “Lestin, pass the command. We bring everyone. We end this once and for all.
C hildren
S eligula, Cortens Kasandar, and Vasys Balbas were one and the same. And he was coming for her. She repeated Thar’s message. A weight lifted from her shoulders. She’d waited a long time to confront the man responsible for the destruction of all she knew, of all she’d loved. Soon enough, the moment would arrive. The long quest for justice would end. Closing her eyes and breathing deep, she savored the thought, relished the scent of wet earth and the cool breeze upon her face.
At last the time had come. From today she would cease being Elysse, Terestere, or any of the countless personas she’d crafted over the years. She cast aside her masks. She became her true self, Elin-Lahnim, Queen of All, Giver and Taker of Souls, the First Broodmother.
Below her, ten thousand women filled the courtyard, separated in three divisions with as much precision as the best armies. Each one had been a courtesan. Each one was Kheridisian. Many had been the Mistresses of whorehouses in cities, towns, and villages across the Kasinian Empire. Those last stood at the head of their groups, every one of them a broodmother. For too many years they had been her secret army, using their feminine wiles and the weakness of men to bend minds, to help keep her hidden. And to revive a semblance of the Dracodar line. She owed her success to them.
“Your children fight out there.” The queen pointed beyond the battlements. “Your children’s children, your children’s children’s children. You have persevered, year after year, century after century, seeding the world for this day.”
Bright, expectant eyes watched her, filled with devotion. Many of the broodmothers nodded.
“You’ve been overlooked, treated as property and worse. You endured. You’ve stood by meekly, sometimes to see your husbands and daughters and sons die. But through it all, you stayed true to the goal: to make certain Dracodar blood flows in the veins across Mareshna. No longer are you simply Ganhi , Sarhi , or Bashi . Those names will pass into the night. You are people. A people. Whether you see yourself as human or Dracodar or half-breed, it doesn’t matter. One thing is of consequence. Life.
“Today, you will prove your worth. Today, many of you will die. For those of you who live, cherish it. Give thanks to those who perish to pave the way. Tell your story and theirs as you’ve told all the other tales throughout the years. Let everyone know we suffered yet we made the world better.
“Now, in the name of your Mother, Elin-Lahnim, Queen of All we shall conquer the final challenge and claim our place. Go forth and be the warriors that you are.”
The tumult of exultation beat like a storm. She swelled with pride. Transformation swept through at least a quarter of the Kheridisians. Gold scales. Silver scales. Bronze scales. Dracodar, Aladar, and half-breed stood together as one. Her lips twitched. As much as the coming vengeance had been a dream, so had this. Silent and swift, they trotted toward the castle gates.
Elin-Lahnim turned back to the battlements. From the southeast, banners displaying the Star of the Dominion and the Crown of Souls pricked the horizon. Winslow and Keedar was somewhere out there also, leading the new beginning of her great people. She smiled. The Eternals had shined on her after all.
The Longing’s distant throb threatened to rise to the forefront. She stiffened and forced it down to a dull pulse. Just a little more time. A little longer before I seek you out.
A horn’s wail drew her eyes to the distant battle. From her earlier assessment she concluded that the armies of the western kingdoms were doomed. They had no answers against the firesticks. The firebreathers would be worse. The situation on the field proved her judgment to be sound. The westerners were charging en masse, a sweeping wave of soldiers, horses, yuros, armor, and weapons that blotted out the grass. A last desperate act. The thunder of hooves and boots was a harbinger of their advent.
A different thunder boomed from among the king’s forces, this one the discharge of firebreathers. Smoke vomited from the weapons’ mouths. The black balls launched were the size of a man’s head, and if not for her magnified vision, they would be little more than blurs when they screamed through the air.
The first strikes smashed through the westerners. Explosions tossed men and animals aside like twigs. The large kerin balls gouged the ground when they skipped like flat stones tossed across a lake, and tore apart anyone or thing in their path.
Blazers shot their firesticks, the discharges like distant pops. A few Soulguards fell, but their yuros continued to run.
This was no battle. It was a massacre.
As if on cue with her thoughts, the abnormally large Soulguards took the lead, the shift smooth and practiced, their rectangular shields on one arm. When the firebreathers belched their next burst, the Soulguards’ nimbuses flared. Power gushed from the men. They launched from their mounts with such violence they became silver streaks, shields held in front of their bodies. Like shooting stars, they sped through the air to meet the big kerin balls.
Elin-Lahnim stiffened, awaited the impacts, anticipated seeing the shields ripped asunder and blood, bones, and guts splatter the field and men toiling upon it. Clangs rang out, echoing like bells. The kerin balls flung back the first group of Soulguards, but the warriors’ shields held. Several Soulguards crashed to the ground in an explosion of stone and dust. They did not rise again. However, their sacrifice had rendered those kerin balls ineffective.
On the next barrage, another set of Soulguards soared into the sky. An instant before collision, they shifted in the air, and swung their shields around to strike the balls at angles that avoided the projectiles’ full velocity. The balls veered away from their intended targets to crash harmlessly beyond the army in a spray of grass and dirt.
The Blazer division tracked the Soulguards’ flight and fired. Even as the elite western melders dropped toward the ground, the tiny kerin balls raced to their marks. Moments before the projectiles tore into them, the Soulguards brought their shields up. The kerin balls pinged off the metal. Sparks flew where they struck. A few left small dents. Upon landing, the Soulguards dashed toward Ainslen’s oncoming army, magnified arms and legs pumping, shields swinging as if weightless. Behind them, the ocean of westerners swarmed forward, wave after wave, a frothing mass she knew wouldn’t break.
Searching among the combatants, she sought and found the banners of High King Taakertere Hemindel. In gilded armor, the fair-haired man sat atop a yuro, his Royal Guard around him. He wore no
helm, as was the custom of Berendali monarchs in war. The enemy should know who had defeated them. With his sword he pointed toward Ainslen’s ereskar.
Movement to the northwest caught her eye. Caradorii poured from ships along the coasts of Lake Humel. She hissed. More than half their number rode yuros. They charged.
F ight or F lee
S itting astride Shags at the ridgeline, Winslow took in the view of the ten Swords of Humel. Even with magnified vision the city-fortresses were miniatures that drew an angled line northeast across Thelusia’s undulating greens, greys, and browns into Helegan’s white carpet and cloud-capped peaks. The western armies streamed toward Despora, the third Sword. The Empire’s forces waited outside the city, a blue and yellow stripe facing the glinting ocean that was the westerners, fish about to be swallowed by a giant lida worm. Farther east, in the middle of the Wetlands hidden by a depression, another army had massed. Winslow was uncertain to whom they belonged, but Martel insisted it was the Order’s wisemen along with Count Leroi Shenen’s Blades.
“We can go through the Shifting Stones’ foothills,” Keedar called from atop his ereskar, “head due east, and then north to meet with the wisemen and Shenen. From there we ride hard for Despora. We can have a large force to Mother in a week.”
“That would take too long,” Winslow argued. “By then the westerners would have beaten back Ainslen’s army and laid siege to the city. It’s faster if we head northwest from here in a straight line.” Winslow pointed and drew out his intention. “We continue west of Danalyn, out of sight of the city. The enemy won’t expect us from that direction. Then we cut sharp east in line with Despora. We’ll be past them and able to approach the city without interference.”
“You’re trying to avoid a fight,” Stomir said from beside him. “This is the time your mother would expect you to make a stand, to bring honor to both your name and to all Dracodarkind. You’ll need such accolades.”
“I’m just concerned with reaching her as fast as possible,” Winslow countered.
“Fighting won’t mean much if she’s dead,” Keedar said, scowling in Stomir’s direction.
“Yan-Harin.” Stomir glanced over to the silver Dracodar. “You and the other First-Born should talk some sense into them. It’s best we retake the Swords behind the westerners, cut off any escape, and strike.”
“You may be right, Stomir,” Yan-Harin rumbled. “But we promised Elin-Lahnim we would let her last sons lead. For better or worse, we follow them now.”
Winslow was glad for the support as meager as it was. “Then it’s decided.”
A silver Dracodar from the rearguard rode up next to them on a giant derin, the animal lacking armor so as not to hinder its speed. The scout gave a slight dip of his head to them, said a few words to Yan-Harin, which elicited a low growl from the First-Born, and then returned the way he’d come.
“What is it,” Winslow asked.
Yan-Harin’s face was stone. “The Soulbreaker army ravages the Treskelin behind us.”
Winslow hissed at the news and twisted in his seat. Plumes of smoke drifted up from various points in the Treskelin, one preceding the other. Too many to count. Beside him, Keedar muttered angrily. Prayers spread among the other First-Born.
Turning to Yan-Harin, Winslow said, “I can send some of our men back to fight, some Dracodar too.”
“No.” Yan-Harin’s voice was rough. “Our future is here. We have survived worse than them. We will persevere.”
For a moment Winslow considered giving the order anyway. The moment passed. Stomach turning, he signaled for them to ride forward and down the ridge. He led the vanguard of mounted Dracodar and Aladar warriors, a stream of armor, fur, fang, and gold, silver, or bronze scales. To his left flank rode Keedar, surrounded by the enormous, misshapen Blighted Brothers with their oversized swords. Behind them came Stomir, Martel, the Kheridisians, and the Farish Islanders.
They pushed hard, intent on their goal, avoiding any discussion of the decimation behind them. Not because no one wished to, but to escape the need to deviate, to attempt a rescue. The decision made Winslow’s heart hurt. His mind conjured grotesque images of his people’s suffering. Focusing on positive thoughts was a struggle. At some point they crossed into the unclaimed lands west of Danalyn and then headed north toward Carador and into the heart of the Wetlands.
Winslow found his thoughts drifting. Often, he wondered after Kel-Nasim. Questioning the First-Born about the Longing and Kel-Nasim’s fate was met with scowls. Even from Yan-Harin. Eventually, he stopped asking, but he couldn’t help the hole in his chest whenever he thought of his friend.
******
Days later, they waited at the bottom of one of the Wetland’s few hills, the air filled with the mustiness of unwashed bodies, Dracodarians, and animals. Rolling booms pealed like distant thunder, sounds both Keedar and Martel identified as the Farlander weapons: the firebreathers. The din of battle was a muted roar, the ocean crashing against a distant shore.
Four scouts eased back from where they had been lying at the hill’s crest, climbed onto their mounts, and returned to the First-Born and Winslow. “The true battle has begun,” the Aladar scout leader said.
“Is there any way we can bypass them? Get to Despora?” Winslow asked.
“None. Their numbers are like ants covering the plains.”
Yan-Harin nodded in Winslow’s direction. “This is what you trained for, what we were born for. This battle. This time. You cannot avoid it.”
“Even if it means my mother may die?”
“Everyone dies.”
Winslow ground his teeth. He glanced over to his brother. “Let’s take a look. Perhaps we can find a way for Keedar and his Blighted Brothers to get by while we fight.”
He nudged Shags forward. Yan-Harin, Stomir, Martel, and Keedar joined him. They dismounted near the top and crawled up the incline until they could peer over the edge. The Wetlands spread before them, grass and dirt and mud, all the way east and north. Despora was a clump of towers and walls, Lake Humel’s green murk behind it.
Mounted and infantry divisions spread for miles in every direction, engaged in a fight straight from a guiser’s tale. Some warriors were four or five times the height of a normal man, swinging weapons half their size, foes tossed aside or sheared in two. Soul magic flared. Men burned. Winds snatched others and flung them up. Manifested arrows or spears pierced the soldiers even as they fell.
The Empire’s red and yellow uniforms were vastly outnumbered by the varied garb of their foes. Leather-clad Blades fought warriors in glittering silver armor, many of whom bore shields. The battle was a roiling mass of chaos rather than the organized incursions he’d expected to see.
Whenever a firebreather discharged, he watched for the impact of its kerin balls. The few that did find their mark exploded beyond the clash of armies and into the mass of westerners surging forward. What happened to those that missed left him dumbfounded. One or more of the silver-armored warriors would leap into the air, use their shield to deflect a kerin ball, and send it crashing away from his allies. The Blazers with firesticks were picking off whomever they could, but none had fired at those warriors.
A gathering of black-clad figures waited off to the rear of the western armies. Reserves of some kind, Winslow assumed. Yet, he couldn’t help the slight trepidation as he took in the hooded robes that not even the whipping wind stirred.
“There’s too many of them,” Keedar said. “There’s no chance they ignore my division. In fact, if we hope to win this, we must all fight together.”
“So we help Ainslen keep his crown?” Winslow scowled at a clump of banners depicting the Hand of Soul.
“It’s no longer just about him. Besides, you’re a king now yourself. Once this is done, we can challenge him.”
“Your brother speaks sense,” Stomir said. “Your mother’s plan was always to have you and your brother be the ones who helped save the Empire. It’s the reason the Farlander reinforcements
were to be delayed. This will be your best chance, perhaps your only chance. If we are to strike and be seen as saviors, it must be now. Then we can rally the others to us.”
“What do you think?” Winslow said in Yan-Harin’s direction.
The silver Dracodar nodded. “Ainslen already owes a debt of blood to Kheridisia and Dracodarkind. Should we be victorious, we will seek its repayment.”
Martel chimed in, “Right now, we have the advantage of surprise. Use it.”
Winslow hesitated. He’d been certain they could avoid a battle before reaching his mother. The idea of men dying at his behest didn’t sit well. Some would say it was part of being a leader, but he was no true general. He’d barely survived his training. And yet here he was with the lives of an entire people, and more, resting on this decision. He’d already failed them once by leaving no one behind to warn the other villages and towns. What if he failed again? He glanced over at his brother. Keedar smiled, and there was an intensity living within his eyes, a confidence. It turned the uneasiness in Winslow’s gut to something else, to a thrill, a surge of anticipation.
“Give the order. We fight.”
B roken B onds
C ommanders were calling out formations and assigning tasks when Eng, Tres, and Chey approached Keedar, grey-scaled faces somber. They strode with an easy grace, almost a glide across the ground, that one might think impossible for Dracodar of their enormous sizes. If not for the scar across Eng’s cheek, the darker patches of scales along Chey’s arms, and the ear Tres lacked, they were identical. Keedar reached out with sera to touch their thoughts but found emptiness. Their minds were closed. As was often the case when the Blighted Brothers were in the presence of people they hadn’t come to completely accept or trust. They stopped before Keedar, towering over him, eyes deep and primal.
“We would speak with you,” Eng said, voice guttural, words a bit garbled.
Keedar’s brows furrowed. “Wait … Did you … You can speak?”
The Quintessence Cycle- The Complete Series Page 86