by K. J. Coble
Lyssa.
Asyra couldn’t think on her more than seconds, not with the waste winds moaning out of the southwest and the sun throbbing brassy and unforgiving against her back. No. Distraction, thinking of the ebony-skinned Adept of the White Guard, those haunted green eyes, was not something Asyra could afford.
Stone crackled away as she planted her left foot and its spiked sole into a curve of stone coil. Shit! Weight gave way and, for a terrible, dizzying instant, Asyra hung only by her hand spikes, shoulders roaring with effort as she swung. With a grunt of effort, she kicked out her right foot, caught, and wedged its ball into a crevasse. So snared, she brought her momentary crisis to an end and perched like a beetle, breathing hard with the wastes—and an army—hundreds of feet below.
“Watch that!” a voice squawked.
Asyra looked down at her companion, a slender woman, clad as she in leathers, with spikes and tools and spare rope. She wasn’t sure if the words had been a belated warning or a curse at the rubble kicked loose by her near-plummet. The former was as possible as the latter; there was little love lost between Asyra and the other spy, the improbably-named Clover—fellow Eye of the Emperor, Scintallos’ secret service.
“Sorry!” Asyra replied, meaning it. For all that she couldn’t stand the woman, she was glad to have company and a second set of eyes—or Eye, as the case would be—on this lonely, perilous task.
“Is that a self-description?” Clover snapped back.
Asyra decided against a retort, refocused upon her climb.
She felt like she’d always been climbing. Life had started with a climb, over the benighted walls of a Pasha’s compound in Ybbasid, after a bloody night in the harem when she decided she’d had enough. She’d climbed through the cities and slums of the Inner Sea basin, through the windows of the high and mighty and out their front gates, undetected, the most notorious burglar in ten nations. She’d climbed to the highest jobs, her notoriety bringing her at last to Scintillard, the Golden City of the Resplendent One, and the fattest purses in the world.
The climb had changed there, brought her into a wizard’s web and the terrible intrigues of an Order supposedly tasked with protecting the world from the horrors of the Outer Dark. The climb had nearly become a fall, Asyra pulled into the weirdest heist imaginable, crossing the sea, plundering another dead city, and bringing out a foul artifact of that very netherworld. Only the family she’d found along the way made any of it seem worthwhile—Strayden and his Vothan louts, the Eyes and their spy network among whom she felt almost a part...
...Lyssa. Always, Lyssa.
A flap of stone popped away as Asyra gripped and she nearly lost it again. Focus or you’ll never see her or anything again! A gust of hot wind muffled Clover’s curse from below. Asyra gripped close to the Spire, waited it out, closed her eyes against the scrawl of dust. When the current fell once more to a murmur, she resumed her climb.
The Dead City spread out below and to her left as she scaled. The ruins poked out from sand and rock in patterns that gave the hint of the metropolis it had been, faint outline of streets, squares, and temples—always the temples. Xyxia had worshipped a pantheon as varied and vast as Scintallard’s was singular. But both had ended at One. Of course, Xyxia’s choice had been reverence not of a deity, in the end, but of a Tyrant who refused to die for centuries.
The wind shimmied down amongst the broken domes and fallen columns and pyramids, whipped up towards Asyra with a moan that could have come from a living throat, almost could’ve spoken her name. She froze and looked to the crest of the city, the highest structure, the great Pyramid of Thyss-Mallik, himself. Stories abounded of its contents, jewels and plunder beyond the wildest avarice of her former life—but tales of horror, too.
Even in the scathing sunlight of a wasteland morning, her blood chilled. She was glad for a fresh racket rising up to her.
Clank of metal, neigh of horses, rumble of feet and hooves; the cacophony of thousands rolled across the plains below and beyond the valley. She halted her climb and looked down. This was the real reason for her strange scramble to the top: reconnaissance. From the heights of the Spire, she had a panoramic view of the battlefield.
The Scintallan army arrayed to her right, at the mouth of the Khayaz Valley. By the churn of their formations, she could tell they were still shaking themselves out. There’d been skirmishing since dawn, sounds of it rising to her as she’d begun her climb. These preliminaries seemed to be over now, though. The Emperor’s standard, the Sun and the Crown on a field of crimson, was up, his glittering block of elite super-heavy cavalry, the cataphracts formed around him. It had to be hell for those men and horses, sheathed in mail and plate, roasting as the sun rose and scorched them.
Directly in front of the Emperor’s personal guard detachment a far less resplendent formation stood. Asyra smiled, knew these men, even from a distance. Up close, they’d be giants in mismatched mail and helmets, mixing gear brought from their far-off hinterland homeland with the finest from Scintallan armories. They’d growl and brawl and stink, drinking too much, jostling and joking and seeming not at all like the Emperor’s personal weapon—barbarian foreigners with no loyalty to Scintallos, but to the Emperor, himself.
The Vothan Guard.
Asyra wondered what Strayden of Starad was doing. Judging by the dust stirred in front of their formation, it was his usual; trouble.
She hoped he’d survive what was coming.
To left and right of the Guard, units of Scintallan regular infantry settled into place, professional spearmen in mail, conscripts in lighter, leather armor, and mercenaries raised by local lords. The forces on the left came mostly from the north and west of the Empire, poorer nobles raising levies of shepherds and hardscrabble farmers who had to be armed at their expense—and, therefore, poorly. But they were numerous. The right came from the wealthier southern and eastern realms, less numerous, but in far better kit, men raised and trained under the frosty gaze of the Emperor’s cousin, Urius.
A darker, more subdued force settled beyond Urius’ right flank. While impossible to catch details from the opposite side of the valley, Asyra had seen these up close on the march, the Xyxian traitors of the rebel prince, Xass Kham. Many were poor, desperate men, clad in boiled leather caps, hardened linens, and rags, bearing spears, if they were lucky, staves if they weren’t. Only their numbers made them formidable. The prince, himself, rode at the head of a hard knot of real soldiery, Xyxian noblemen in shimmering gold plate, lured to his cause by the promise of Scintallan support.
And out beyond the wings of either side, more steel flowed, the rest of the Emperor’s heavy cavalry, not the metal men of his bodyguards, but hard, fast riders, long-accustomed to the charge and the flanking maneuver. These gathered in quivering anticipation, waiting for the dust to clear, waiting for the order to slash.
The wait wouldn’t be long, Asyra saw with an indrawn breath of shock.
Beyond the dust, which seemed to form its own ranks of brownish swirl between the foes, the Xyxian horde rumbled out of the wastes. At its heart came the gold and steel wedge of the Deathless Throne’s savran—elite cavalry to match against Bazul’s cataphracts. An insect swarm of outriders buzzed ahead of these, was already plunged in and out of the dust, stinging at the Imperial lines as they formed.
To either side of the savran came the dread Sons of Arr, noblemen pledged to the Deathless Throne through terrible rites of blood and sacrifice, trained to the long bow and the chariots they now rode, tearing up fresh plumes of haze as they trundled into position. All reputedly selected for height and strength, they fought as easily from their speeding charges, loosing missiles that could pierce plate, as they did on foot, wielding huge, two-handed swords.
Behind the Sons seethed masses of Xyxian commoners, contingents raised by each, whipped into religious frenzy, drunk on fermented goats’ milk. The most affluent had armor and steel weapons; the rest bore the armor of their numbers and wild courage, dirty, clu
b- and cudgel-armed hill folk looking for an excuse to plunder.
And barely in sight in the haze, but darkly-steeled and numerous, blocks of professional infantry formed behind them all, at the center-rear. These would be the Immortals, the Royal Family’s elite footmen, supposedly ten thousand in number, crack slayers tasked to follow the savran in and exploit the breaks the cavalry charges would leave.
These sent a thrill of fear through Asyra. The Xyxian aristocracy would wait behind these, the coolest, most professional killers on the field.
“Look at that!” Clover exclaimed from below.
A second surge of fear cut its way through Arya’s nerves. The weird dust, clotting and billowing with almost conscious-seeming intent, was moving up into the valley. Its march seemed slow, but seen from their height, steady. No wind moved a dust storm with such uniformity; no natural gust propelled it without stirring it into wild vortices and eddies. But this weird fog held together, dense as a thunderhead, billowing up into the faces of the Scintallans, choking and obscuring.
The berber outriders had been taking advantage of it since sunrise. That couldn’t be a coincidence, and Asyra’s guts tingled with the certainty that magic was somehow in play. In the shadows of a dead wizard-kingdom’s ruins, nothing could be more fitting.
“They can’t see it!” Clover called up. “The mist is blinding them!”
“But not us,” Asyra replied.
She secured herself with one hand hooked on a crack and with the other searched around into the flaps of her backpack. It took but moments to find what she sought and draw it dazzling out into the morning air.
Lyssa had given her the item with careful instructions; use it like a mirror and angle the sunlight back towards the heart of the Scintallan line. Asyra had gasped at the sight of it, crystal cut to such precision, such smooth, angular facets, that it had to be magical. Lyssa had laughed, insisted its sorcery was only its exorbitant cost—but she’d better bring it back!
“Don’t look up,” Asyra warned Clover as she wedged the mirror into a crease of stone for support and pivoted it. Light of a pure, dazzling character flashed out instantly, but it still took her a minute or more of struggle to position the crystal.
“No way anyone will miss that,” Clover said from below.
A fresh roar echoed from the wastes. A glance out into them showed Asyra the cause and her guts shriveled. The horde was on the move, thousands, tens of thousands surging forward as a single beast. The Scintallans might hear them, but there was no way they were seeing them. That jagged, slavering tide would roll out of those mists largely unharried by Imperial archery and slam into unprepared ranks like a tidal wave.
“Let’s pray they see it,” Asyra replied.
“You’ve gotten religion all of a sudden?”
Watching the Xyxian multitudes pick up speed, cavalry shivering from a walk into a trot, chariots breaking into a trundle while their infantry lesser jogged through the kicked-up dust, Asyra swallowed once and worked the mirror as Lyssa had instructed.
“Today,” she answered Clover, “I’m making an exception.”
THE NEARLY CYAN SPARK of the mirror’s reflection wasn’t exactly a surprise. Lyssa had been expecting it ever since the mists rolled out of the wastes. In fact, she’d fretted. She’d seen Asyra scale walls as treacherous as the Tower of the White Guard, a sheer, magically-guarded stone face that would’ve ended anyone else. But the Spire of Zet, atop which the mirror now flared into the morning sky, had seemed a particularly dangerous challenge.
Of course, she’d made it. But the fact that her worrying had distracted her sent a twinge through Lyssa. An Adept of the White Guard, defenders of the realm against the menace of the Outer Dark, couldn’t afford distraction. They faced things of the mind and the soul and the dark corners of the human heart.
She couldn’t afford frailty in her own.
“There it is,” the young man at Lyssa’s side said, pointing needlessly at the glare. He wore the white vestments trimmed in silver that she did, though far less ornate, as befitted a lesser Acolyte of their Order. Shaved-headed, skinny, and nervous in motion, Olvan was not that much younger than Asyra.
But the difference in the short years between them—the hellish experiences—made them as far apart as a baby from a parent.
“Quiet for a moment,” Lyssa ordered, not meaning to sound harsh, but knowing she always did when there was work at hand. “Let’s see what the Emperor’s Eyes have to say.”
Lyssa hadn’t exactly lied when she presented the device to Asyra, but the mirror did hold some sorcery. While its hypnotic shine was simply a product of craftsmanship, it also had the ability to convey the meaning of its wielder with perfect clarity. She’d given Asyra a series of signals, flash patterns she could make by angling the mirror. But mostly these were ciphers to focus her mind. The crystal would pick up on that focus and translate it. Someone watching—properly attuned—would see.
And Lyssa did. With an indrawn breath, she saw through the other woman’s eyes, saw the frightful heights and the endless drop below her. She nearly wobbled, herself, already uncertain in the saddle of the grouchy roan she’d appropriated. But the image sharpened and moved, scanned over the mists and into the wastes...and...
“Damn,” she swore and turned to Olvan. The pair of them sat astride horses to the rear of the Emperor’s contingent, well behind the raucous mass of the Vothan Guard and the lesser clatter of archers and bodyguards. They were alone, save the pair of Church Militants, glittering-armored men-at-arms of the White Guard who served the wizard-priests as guards and enforcers. And these would repeat nothing that passed between their sorcerous betters.
“Ride to the Emperor,” she told the Acolyte. “You won’t get close, but you will get one of his seneschals. Pass on the word that the mist is, as we believed, masking the Xyxian approach and they’re coming on now. He should prepare accordingly.”
“Yes, Adeptus!” The youth spurred his horse clumsily and lurched off.
His zeal for recognition, for circulating amongst the high and mighty of Scintallan society worried Lyssa. Olvan did have the gift—curse, however you wanted to see it. The White Guard didn’t have time to fully teach its secrets, needed those already born to the caress of magic. But the youngest son of low aristocracy who couldn’t give him an inheritance, he still craved the recognition his older siblings got by way of the order of their birth.
He couldn’t afford that distraction—any more than Lyssa could afford hers.
Distraction.
Lyssa followed Olvan’s course with her gaze, couldn’t help it when doing so let her sight drift over the Emperor’s retinue, over the man, himself. Bazul II wore a cloak of luxurious purple, the color of his station, draped over lamellar and plate chased in gold and likely burnished to blinding sheen that dawn, right before he donned it. He sat astride a black destrier of the highest breeding, bare-headed and silent. A page held his helmet for him, mounted a few paces to his rear, but a thin gold band adorned the Emperor’s brow.
Olvan’s arrival at the fore of the group sent a ripple through the clutch of courtiers and runners and officers. The motion caused Bazul to glance to his right and Lyssa had a glimpse of his profile. He’d grown in a short beard, the bristles nearly white with his age and a contrast to features darkened to olive by the sun. That same white streaked his dark, similarly short-cut hair. Hawk nose flared once at something one of his hangers-on said, and crinkles about blue-gray eyes deepened.
Bazul sat straight in the saddle, blazed in his armor, and stared with icy intensity. But none of it masked the obviousness of his age. He was an old man.
My father. Lyssa winced.
It was commonly known and never spoken of. Her mother, hardly a memory, a lesser Kurshan princess and brief dalliance of Bazul’s had abandoned her to his court. Scandalized, he had, in turn, abandoned her to the Guard, who saw quickly her sorcerous proclivities. There was no way he didn’t know of her presence among this ho
st. She watched him, barely fifty yards away, ebon-skinned as her mother, blue-eyed as her father, glaringly obvious in the regalia of her Order—
Distraction.
Lyssa winced again and forced it all from her mind. There was work to be done. She reached into the fold of her vestment and withdrew an ancient coin, darkened and pocked from what looked like heat. In fact, it was already warm to the touch, a spell focus she used so often it had become a natural conduit for magic, attracting it as a magnet does metal shavings.
And the air around her was lousy with it. That was no surprise, what with the haunted remnants of Zadam glaring down over them from the escarpment; the very soil writhed with the sorceries that had stained it over the ages. But the mist, too, practically reeked of wizardry, even without the quickly murmured spell of detection she cast. The coin throbbed once between her thumb and index finger as she raised it to the air; confirmation of the fog’s otherworldly origin.
“Amateurs,” she growled, feeling the spells at work.
“My Lady?” Olvan asked, having returned quickly and reined in at her side.
She broke off her spell with a little hiss of irritation and glanced at him. “Your message was received?”
He nodded, but the jostling to the front of the army made it superfluous. Horns called from the Emperor’s coterie, were answered back and forth along the wide lines. Something was already happening in front of the Vothan Guard, some bustle following the last wave of raiders. But it was more than that; the lines of archers to the rear of Bazul’s heavy cavalry escort were shaking out as their officers shouted orders, testing strings, knocking arrows, getting ready.
“They want to know what we’re doing about it,” Olvan said sourly.
Lyssa snorted. “Typical. All right, you know your Words of Warding?”
“I do,” the young man replied with an eager smile—he wouldn’t be so eager soon.
“When I push back on this” she nodded out at the mist “they’ll notice, whoever’s out there. They’ll try to attack me. You must prevent that.”