“Orogang is Orogang, the capital of my empire.” Utros straightened. “Of course it is grander.”
Fixing his gaze on the line of mountains still many days’ ride away, Utros said, “I have often imagined what would happen when I returned to Orogang with the report of my triumphs. I was sure Emperor Kurgan would praise me for the victory.” His heart felt heavy, and he couldn’t speak the words. Regretful thoughts surrounded him. “I did it for him. Loyalty is greater than love.”
“You also did it for Majel,” Ava added. “Do not fool yourself, beloved Utros. We know you, and we know your heart.”
Utros stared ahead as his black stallion toiled onward. “Yes, for her,” he whispered. “Keeper and spirits . . .”
Though he knew their passion was forbidden, even on the bloodiest battlefield he thought of her, the soft skin, her long black tresses, her brown almond-shaped eyes. Iron Fang had been his emperor, but Majel had been his love.
He lifted his chin and spoke with a raw edge. “I also did it for him. I swore my loyalty, and I served my emperor.”
Honor had been his armor, a shield that protected him from indecision, but his honor had also blinded him to Iron Fang’s incompetence and petulant evil. No wonder the man’s own wife had sought solace in the arms of another man. Majel had truly loved him, but centuries in the underworld had changed her. Through the blood lens his sorceresses had created, he had seen Majel stripped of her skin, her face peeled off to expose her teeth and staring bloodshot eyes. Speaking to him through the veil, Majel’s spirit had spurned Utros and reaffirmed her devotion for the very man who had done those horrors to her. Utros knew that his dear Majel was not just dead, but dead to him.
Now he couldn’t shake away the thoughts. After the last battle at Ildakar, when his army had suffered such devastating losses, the sour spirit of Emperor Kurgan had taunted him from the underworld, and Utros had smashed the blood lens, forever breaking contact with Iron Fang and with Majel. Now he was on his own, and his determination had not faded, merely shifted. He still intended to conquer the land, but it would no longer be for Emperor Kurgan.
“I don’t know what we will find in Orogang,” Utros said as they rode into the hills. “I’m a soldier of the empire, whatever remains of it. Iron Fang was a terrible leader, but if the current emperor is worthy, then I will swear my loyalty to him. If he is not worthy . . .” Utros looked at the two women, who gazed at him with yearning expressions. “If he is not, then I will claim the throne for myself, as I should have done all those years ago.”
*
That night, when the army camped in a sparse birch forest, Utros tried to sleep in his command tent. As he closed his eyes, he pondered Orogang. The capital city had surely grown over the centuries, but he would recognize the towers, the looming buildings. Would anyone even remember General Utros from so many centuries past? The wizard Nathan had said that his name was legend, but what else had transpired in the empire after all that time?
Ava and Ruva remained outside by the fire, adding powders to the smoke, shaping and sending wisps among the sleeping soldiers to reinforce the preservation spell. Foraging hunters had killed deer, goats, rabbits, and squirrels, anything to feed the ravenous troops. Some of the more intensely desperate soldiers stripped leaves from trees, ate the fleshy stalks of plants, even tall grasses. Once this escort army reached Orogang, they could feast and resupply. That was what Utros held on to.
Orogang . . . In his mind the capital was breathtakingly beautiful, home to the lavish palace, the throne, banquet halls, meeting chambers, and high balconies from which Iron Fang had commanded his subjects. He also remembered the hidden rooms where he and sweet Majel had spent hours reveling in each other, touching, kissing, without fear of discovery. . . .
Now, as Utros lay on his sleeping pallet, he touched the hard scar that was the left side of his face. His gold mask rested on a nearby wooden table. His hideous face made him think of the mangled horror Majel had become, but in his memories, she was as beautiful as ever, and he was just as handsome.
He slept, but woke in the dead of night after the moon had set and the camp quieted. Outside his tent, he heard only the low rustle of sleeping soldiers and stirring horses. When he opened his eyes, he was startled to find a woman standing before him. He could see her silhouette in the dim light of low campfires that penetrated the fabric of the tent. Long dark hair fell down over her shoulders. He recognized her shapely figure, the curve of her hips, the narrow waist.
He sat up instantly. “Majel?”
She placed a finger to her lips and came closer. She raised her hands to her chest and undid the laces on the front of her filmy gown. She shrugged it off, letting the garment pool around her feet. Her naked breasts were full and rounded with caramel-colored nipples. Somehow the light grew brighter so that he could see her skin, the familiar mole just under the curve of her left breast, the implanted ruby in her navel.
“Majel?” He kept his voice to an awed whisper.
“Beloved Utros.” She leaned over him, kissing the smooth skin of his brow just above his scarred face.
He could smell her warm breath. “It can’t be you.”
“I am here if you want me to be,” she said. “You should have been dead centuries ago, like me, but the rules have changed. Accept that.” She pressed her hands against his shoulders, forced him to lie back on the pallet. She caressed his chest, stroked the fine hair.
“I saw you in the blood lens,” he said. “Your face.”
“My face is beautiful, as is yours.” She kissed him on the lips, silencing further questions. Majel climbed on top of him, and he wrapped his large hands around her waist, feeling the real solidity of this beautiful woman. A flood of memories came back, all the times they had made love, but this time he experienced only joy and relief, rather than fear of being caught. Majel was somehow back from the underworld, and she was here with him.
He twisted his fingers through her hair so he could pull her face closer to his, and he kissed her again savagely. Majel purred into his ear, then reached down to stroke his thigh. She nudged his legs so she could settle herself on top of him. He groaned as he slid inside, and her smile was filled with delicious rapture. For a moment, just a moment, Utros let himself revel in the dream, sure that it was real but unable to understand.
“This is what you need, beloved Utros,” Majel said as she began rocking back and forth. He ran his hands along her back, coaxing her.
Beloved Utros . . .
Majel had never called him that. Her pet name for Utros had been “my commander.” When they engaged in rough play, she would instruct him to command her. Her actions now struck him as different, her movements not the familiar interchange of bodies they had developed after pleasuring each other so many times.
Beloved Utros.
He grabbed her shoulders and looked intensely at her. “You are not Majel.”
“I can be,” she said.
He pushed her aside. “You’re not Majel!”
The woman slid off of him and retreated. When she raised her hands, her body shifted to become a form that was still slender and shapely, but pale and covered with splashes of color. The long hair vanished.
Ava stood naked before him, tracing one of the painted spell patterns along her flat stomach. “I knew what you wanted, beloved Utros. Through me or my sister, you can have Majel again any time you like.”
“I can never have her again! I do not want an imitation. My Majel was murdered by her own husband. Her spirit is locked in the underworld, and she renounced her love for me to stand by him.”
“I was just trying to give you love, love that you seem to need.” She reached out to console him, but he pushed her hand away.
“I do not need love,” Utros vowed. “I need to conquer, and I intend to do so.” He felt deep anger and disappointment, but he knew what Ava had done and why. He couldn’t hate her for it. “I need you and Ruva. You both are indispens
able to me, but I don’t need . . . this.” He gestured to her beautiful body.
“As you wish.” Ava retreated to the tent opening and stood there in the faint light, naked and achingly beautiful. “Just remember that my sister and I will give you whatever you need.”
CHAPTER 24
As the main body of the ancient army pushed into the rising mountains, Nathan and the group of defenders made their plans for the field of deathrise flowers. General Zimmer’s scouts rode out to reconnoiter the enemy force, reporting on their progress climbing toward the meadow. Thorn and Lyesse indulged themselves by killing stragglers from the giant army, which also provoked the vanguard to surge after them.
While waiting to spring their trap, Nathan scouted the sea of poisonous blossoms and the trees beyond. The flowers were beautiful, their colors as intense as the silence, which was like death. On the other side of the meadow, an expansive forest stretched into steeper terrain.
He remembered when naive Bannon had come upon the deceptively pretty flowers and offered a meager bouquet to Nicci, hoping to earn her favor. Recognizing the poison, Nicci had calmly lectured the young man on the lethal leaves, stems, and blossoms, how even a drop of sap or a crushed blossom would kill him. Terrified, Bannon had dropped the flowers, relieved that he hadn’t accidentally touched any of the juice. He had picked only a few of them, and this meadow contained thousands.
“This will kill a lot of the enemy,” he said to Prelate Verna, “if we can trick them into running across the meadow.”
“I understand it’s a horrible death,” she said.
“The most horrible imaginable,” Nathan mused, stroking his chin. “And I can imagine many horrible deaths.”
“It’s what they deserve,” Renn growled. Sadness still hung heavy in his eyes. “I want to march them all through this meadow so that they die screaming. I hope General Utros is with them, along with his sorceresses. They killed Lani.”
Zimmer stepped up to them, frowning. “General Utros and both sorceresses have gone elsewhere. According to my scouts, First Commander Enoch is in charge of the army right now.” He flashed a dark grin. “We know this because our two morazeth friends enjoy asking harsh questions of any scouts they capture.”
Nathan and Verna stood at the edge of the deathrise field. “The army will stream through this hanging valley. We can provoke the vanguard, try to get them to chase us, and lead them right through this meadow. They’ll be exposed to the poison, cover themselves in the deadly juices.”
“As will we,” said the freed slave Rendell with a deeply worried look on his seamed face. “How will we avoid dying?” Though ungifted, the old man had done everything he could to assist them in their flight. Rendell was remarkably skilled in finding edible roots and berries, even shelf mushrooms that grew on trees. Each night he managed to make a palatable meal with whatever he had scavenged.
Oron joined them. “If we can get through to the forest on the other side, a deep swift stream runs out of the mountains. We could wash off the poison—if we can get there in time.”
“The poison would penetrate,” Nathan said. “We wouldn’t last that long.”
“Then we will have to wear protection on our exposed skin,” said Olgya. “With wrappings of the special silk I brought with me from Ildakar, we can cover our hands, faces, and any exposed part of our legs or arms. It is wispy thin and impenetrable.”
Perri looked doubtful, her face creased with a worried expression that marred her otherwise pretty features. “Why not just go around the field without risking ourselves? We know the army is coming this way, and they are sure to stumble across the meadow. Some of them will die anyway as they cross it.”
“They might even eat the flowers,” said the wizard Leo. “The scouts say that the army is stripping the grasses and leaves as they march, as if they were yaxen.” He rubbed his flat stomach beneath his robe. “How I miss fresh yaxen meat. When I worked the slaughterhouses, I could have a fine bloody steak whenever I liked.”
The soldiers nearby mumbled wistfully with their own hunger.
Verna shook her head. “Those ancient soldiers may be familiar with deathrise flowers. We can’t give them a chance to think. If they’re chasing us, they’ll fall into the trap.”
“They want us,” Nathan said. “We have given them more than enough reason to want revenge for all we have done. We need to let them see us and then run, leading them directly through the flowers. We are protected, and they are not. I believe the rest will take care of itself.” Riled up by the constant hit-and-run tactics, he was certain that once the ancient army spotted their harassers, they would charge recklessly ahead into the field of poisonous flowers.
As the great army marched ever closer, the two morazeth would taunt the soldiers into pursuing them at full speed, but with so much exposed skin, Thorn and Lyesse could not be allowed near the meadow. Rather, they would vanish into the surrounding forest as soon as the enemy warriors spotted Nathan and his handful of gifted defenders waiting at the meadow. Zimmer’s soldiers could not help with the trap; they retreated around the meadow and into the forest beyond, where they would wait for the group at the fast stream, and they would help dispatch any of the enemy who happened to make it through.
In preparation, Nathan put on his high boots, ruffled shirt, and black pants, with his ornate sword strapped to his side. Over those garments, he donned his wizard’s robe, which protected more of his skin. After that, he wrapped Olgya’s silks around both hands up to his elbows and made a scarf for his neck and face, leaving only a slit for his nose and eyes. He bound his long hair in a ponytail. Verna, Renn, Oron, Olgya, and six of the gifted scholars wrapped themselves in the same fashion, using all of her remaining silk fabric.
With the vanguard of the ancient army fast approaching, Thorn and Lyesse trotted off, eager to provoke the enemy. Everyone was ready. Nathan regarded the silk-covered defenders. “We look like corpses wound in linen strips and ready to be interred in catacombs.”
“We will be nightmares to them, by the Keeper’s beard,” Renn said. He plucked at his silks, adjusting them over his tattered and stained maroon robe.
That afternoon, after hours of unbearable waiting, the shouts finally came, the clash of swords, the rhythmic pounding of marching feet. Running hard, Thorn and Lyesse burst out of the trees to the edge of the meadow. Both women had joy on their faces as they bounded along like fleet deer. When they saw Nathan and his silk-wrapped companions standing ready in front of the deathrise field, the morazeth flashed glances at each other. “We will compare scores later,” Thorn said to her partner. They bounded off to safety, racing around the edge of the meadow and into the trees.
Nathan said, “It’s our turn now.”
He called upon his gift and summoned a great wind that thrashed the branches. Beside him, Verna sent dazzling flashes of light into the trees to blind the first line of warriors just as they surged into the clearing. Oron, Leo, Perri, and Olgya joined forces to call a storm, drawing bullwhip lightning bolts that killed the first twenty soldiers who thought they were chasing only two women.
Oron said, “They have to believe we’re cornered and making a last stand.”
“A cornered animal is the most dangerous,” Renn said.
As hundreds more of the yelling enemy rushed out of the trees, Nathan created a ball of wizard’s fire and splashed it sideways. More of the enemy fell dead, screaming in agony from the incinerating flames.
Nevertheless, the front ranks of the marching army raced ahead like wolves smelling blood. When they saw the vulnerable defenders standing in front of the field of flowers, they howled with excitement.
Beneath the silk wrappings, Nathan smiled and spoke quietly through gritted teeth. “Come and get us.”
For days the ragtag band had preyed upon the army, murdering stragglers, wiping out scouting parties. Even if the death toll was insignificant against the enormous numbers, fear and anger had worked itself into the minds of Utros�
�s soldiers. At last facing their tormentors, the front ranks rushed forward, suspecting nothing.
Renn’s voice was muffled through the silk as he summoned a blazing ball in his hand. “Wizard’s fire seems too clean and swift for them, but I’ll see them dead any way I can.” He splayed his fingers as he threw the crackling ball, which shattered into separate pieces, each fragment striking the face of a helmeted warrior, exploding their skulls. Renn laughed wildly. His grief over Lani had become a vindictive weapon.
The Cliffwall scholars summoned spells that made the ground tremble or hurled hard winds into the faces of the charging soldiers. The first ranks fell dead, but the second and third lines simply trampled over the fallen corpses as they closed in on the silk-wrapped defenders.
Nathan saw they would swiftly be overwhelmed. “Run! It’s time.” He adjusted the coverings on his hands, then turned about to charge into the sea of poisonous flowers.
The ancient soldiers flooded out of the forest, and the line of rebels retreated across the meadow, the beautiful blossoms all around them. The moment seemed surreal as Nathan ran for his life, his boots trampling the leaves, the stems, the colorful petals. Verna crashed beside him, her skirts flowing behind her. Leo, Perri, Oron, and Olgya threw a last wave of storm winds and lightning, just one more provocation, and then they also bounded through the colorful field, giddy and terrified.
A defiant Renn was the last, killing them with whatever spells he could summon, and then he fled just before the enemy soldiers caught up with him.
The meadow seemed to go on forever, and the flowers were an endless wave of fresh color and lingering death. Verna stumbled and nearly fell face-first into the blossoms, but Nathan snatched her collar and held her up, giving her a moment to regain her feet. The enemy soldiers roared in pursuit, convinced they had their victims in full retreat. The first wave charged at a full run, swinging their swords as they closed in on their prey. Oddly, some of the ravenous soldiers paused to scoop up the poisonous flowers and devour them like starving animals.
Heart of Black Ice (Sister of Darkness: The Nicci Chronicles Book 4) Page 14