by K. J. Coble
“Excellent.” Chords of muscle stood out along his jaw as the Emperor’s stare lingered an extra moment on her. Brightening so suddenly the mood could feel nothing else but false, he went on. “Our White Guard will create an opening, and we will press through on the heels of it.”
“As you say, Your Highness,” Duke Veridas said in voice that could either be exhausted or sarcastic.
“I do, Veridas,” the Emperor replied in a note so chill the nobles around him shivered. “See to your preparations. Show celerity, my lords. We don’t have much time. Urius will be on the move soon.” He scanned them one last time. “Go.”
The nobles broke up with the clank of armor and kit, but little other noise. They had the look of men waking up to doom.
Bazul was gesturing impatiently and Strayden realized he was being summoned. Harald tugged and the pair of them hurried close, stopped a few feet shy as a pair of Guardsmen hovering near tensed and gripped their swords. Lyssa was hovering just within earshot, but a scowl from one of the Guards chased her off.
Harald rushed to kneel, pulled Strayden down with him. “Scintallos’ blessings upon you, my lord!”
“And upon you,” the Emperor echoed. “Though the Resplendent One’s blessings have certainly been sparse these last hours.” He chuckled at that. “You may rise.”
Both Vothans grimaced and labored to get up off their knees. Strayden leaned hard on the banner, too tired to be ashamed as he used it to lever his way aloft. The motion caused the twists of fabric to unspool and drape in the dirt.
Bazul didn’t seem to care as he regarded him. “That was solid work yesterday. You probably prevented a panic.”
“Thank you, sire.” Strayden didn’t recognize his own voice. So damned tired...
The Emperor’s brow furrowed thoughtfully. “I know you from before, don’t I?”
Strayden managed a nod. “You decorated me with the Medallion of Your Favor last year, for helping put down the Convergence Eve rebellion.”
“That’s right. Strayden of Starad.”
A jolt went through Strayden and he had to admit to being impressed. “I am, sire.”
“Well, Strayden of Starad, I fear I have need of your services, once again. You no doubt overheard that deliberation?”
“I did, sire.”
He looked at both Harald and Strayden. “The work will be desperate and deadly. I will have need of my Vothans, this day.” He stepped a little closer, pitched his voice low. “The Scintallans fight with spirit—the Spirit of Scintallos—but...this day will require an especial fury.” He grinned. “The sort that can only come from a barbarian heart.”
Harald was grinning through his whiskers at that, almost beaming, but Strayden couldn’t help a prickle of anger. Barbarian heart...what the hells is that supposed to mean? Knuckles crackled about the shaft of the Imperial Standard. The high and mighty Scintallans do the lying and the Vothans do the dying.
Bazul hadn’t noticed his mood, however, favored him with a brilliant smile. “And it’s because of that, Captain Strayden, that I’m granting you a special honor. When we counterattack the Xyxian heathens, you will bear Our Colors at the fore.” The smile spread till all the Emperor’s teeth gleamed. “What say you to that?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Strayden could see Harald’s smile slip ever so slightly and the corners of his eyes pinch tight. He could feel the other Vothan urging him, threatening even—don’t screw this up, the glower said, for you or me.
And Strayden was so damned tired, couldn’t even find a response. The stupid banner felt increasingly heavy as he fingered its shaft. He wanted to throw it in Bazul’s smiling face. Let’s see the Spirit of Scintallos, for a change! Let Gruzh and His followers sit back and enjoy the show.
It was more than exhaustion, fogging Strayden’s brain, more than anger; it was a kind of despair. He thought of Ivar and Vidar, the former’s death still a fresh wound, the latter’s a squirming, hideous memory. He thought of that Son of Arr’s head, left on its pig pole outside their camp, remembered his words to Durrak: will we end up that way?
We will. The realization sparkled through the fog. We’re going to die. And it’s going to mean nothing. The Empire means nothing, another inbred, corruption-ridden aristocracy waiting its time to decay and collapse...maybe right here, right now...this afternoon. It means nothing. Nothing means anything.
Strayden stiffened his spine. That’s Gruzh’s Lesson of Steel, after all, isn’t it? Deeds matter; all else falls away with time. His thoughts flitted briefly to Asyra. He hoped she was alive, accepted that she might not be. And luck to her, if so. But the Fifth—and Lyssa—at least they were close, still. They’d all face this last hideous, glorious moment together.
“Well?” Bazul asked, impatience obvious in his voice and Harald’s side glance at Strayden becoming increasingly alarmed.
Strayden shifted his grip on the flag staff and didn’t have to force the smile that crinkled his face. “Sire, there’s no place I’d rather be!”
MODYN HAD THROWN UP a strip of canvas, propped against a broken spear, as a shelter for Lyssa and she withdrew to it, settled down, cross-legged in its meager shade. She tried to find a moment of piece amidst the creak and clank of the survivors preparing to fight for their lives, again. It was futile. Mind would not steady into a trance. Whispered phrases meant to bring on meditation came out rasping. She gave up.
This place, she thought. The foulness of it emanated from the very granules of sand, whipped into stinging vortices by the hot breeze teasing the escarpment. The evil of it glowed off slabs of ruin further uphill as the sun warmed them. We have to get out of here. Have to. She could almost feel the wickedness quickening beneath them, the Wards meant to keep it smothered unraveling with every moment the Scintallans squatted here. It’ll be coming for us. She swallowed once, winced at the soreness of her throat. Coming for me.
And some voice, something in the wind, seemed to cackle at her misery. She thought, inexplicably, of Asyra in that moment. Strayden had had no word. She could no longer sense the Mirror. Guts squirmed into a sick mass. There was no longer even a faint vibration of that nasty ring the Eyes had gifted her. What could that mean?
One thing. But Lyssa would not let it enter her mind. Could not.
Modyn, caring for his gear nearby, stiffened suddenly and sprang to his feet, hastened to bow. Lyssa didn’t have to look up to know what had stirred him. “If you’re worrying, know that I will be ready for this day,” she said.
“Will you?”
Lyssa looked up at her father. With the sun at his back, shadows hid some of the crags written into Bazul’s face by the last twelve hours of disaster. But his eyes shimmered with a mad light—the lunacy that comes at the end of despair and utter breakdown.
“Of course,” she replied, too tired to worry over the defiance in her voice.
“Because you were ready before” he gestured around at the wrecked remnant of his army “and here we are.”
Lyssa scowled at him. “I warned you. You asked too much of me.”
“Or maybe there just isn’t enough to you?”
Lyssa felt her lips peel back from her teeth. She hated him. Probably, she already had, across the years of his neglect, of his complete disregard for her existence. But now, with him a real thing in her life, her hate had composition, had focal points. He was a brute, a nasty, conniving thug, holding on to his position through cruelty and death.
She hated him.
But there was no other way out, other than together.
“You do not understand our work” she paused with deliberate venom “sire. Therefore, I realize you don’t understand what I’ve already done for you. But know that I am up to the demands of the coming day.”
His eyes smoldered. “That’s good. Very good. And as you are doing so, I’d remind you whom it is you serve.”
“How could I forget?”
The baring of his teeth was no smile. “Have a care how you address me,
Adeptus.”
“I have no other care than figuring out how I get us out of this.”
Sweat speckled his brow, beneath the iron circlet he wore in the field. He was trembling and his nostrils flared with rage. Glancing over his shoulder to ensure none were close enough to be hearing them, he rasped, “How dare you? Witchery or not, shared blood or not, I am your Emperor. And more...”
“No more.” Lyssa met his glare. “You were right when you told me so, Highness. Neither of us can impose upon that bond. Ever. We have our roles. We cannot be more.”
Trembling had become a full-body shiver of fury as Bazul clenched his fists, one of them about the handle of his sword. Lyssa realized with a brief snap of fear, that he’d likely killed for such defiance before—maybe even could now. But she didn’t care.
She hated him.
The moment passed, the shivers receding as the Emperor took a calming breath. A smile as false as his control over the situation wormed across his lips. “It is so. Then, knowing your role, Adeptus, I presume you have a plan to assist in our breakout from this place?”
“I do,” she replied in a voice as devoid of emotion as the rubble strewn around them. “And it will go something like this...”
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE WINDS SEEMED TO whip into greater fury up as the Eyes of the Emperor climbed, howling against the east-facing crags of the Zadam escarpment, scathing any exposed skin like a thousand blades.
Asyra’s arms and legs trembled with the effort. Hand-over-hand, she kept going, spidering up cracks between cliff faces, seeking moments of security where her hand-spikes fastened tight and she could pause. Thirst ravaged throat and mouth. Desperation drove her to fresh spurts up the rock. The wind bit and roared and got stronger. They couldn’t keep this up. They had to find some kind of shelter—or make the top.
She found a good spot, wedged between two slabs, and halted. A glance over her shoulder showed her the wastes and the sun, partially dimmed as wisps of dust lashed across the sky. Smudges darkened the horizon, sinuous, spreading. Storm, she thought with a flutter of panic. Came out of nowhere. But she wondered if that was even true.
She knew what awaited her above—what it could do.
Asyra looked down, tensed with even greater panic when she couldn’t find Clover below. But a flutter of movement revealed the other spy, whose route up the escarpment had hidden her for an instant. She’s flagging, Asyra thought. Her wounds are sapping her. She can’t keep this up. We’ve got to stop, somehow, rest.
She adjusted her grip on the rock faces, twisted so she could scan the crags above. The crack she’d found and occupied ran up for another hundred feet or so before merging into rock folds. The hammer of the sun through flutters of dust gave everything a red-brown shimmer. Her eyes burned and she had to blink to clear tears from them. When she did so, a detail sprang out at her, something she hadn’t noted before but seemed utterly obvious now.
A lip of boulder poked out about fifty feet above her perch, not exactly easy to reach, but maybe close enough for Clover, before her strength gave out. That would have to do. She pivoted again so she could see the other spy and whistled. Clover paused to look up. When she did, Asyra signaled her intent. A nod told her she’d been understood.
With a last burst of energy, Asyra scaled the fifty feet to the outcropping, hand-over-hand, scrambling, slipping once, but hardly pausing. She reached the lip of rock, just as the wind seemed to intensify to a scream. Dust whipped her as she got a hand, and then a whole arm up over the edge and hoisted herself up. Muscles roaring from the hours of effort, she still forced herself to roll over, away from the drop off, until she was clear. She lay in half-shadow, breathing hard and listening to herself in what was a sudden stillness and quiet.
Slowly, Asyra became aware of the darkness stretching beyond the crag upon which she lay. Sitting up slowly, she stared into what was obviously a cave mouth, the lip of rock its entry point. A glance about at crumbled edges left her wondering if there’d once been stairs leading to this spot. And judging from their position, the cave entered the escarpment face directly below the Great Pyramid’s perch at its high point.
This way, the voice seemed to whisper from the shadows, honey, candy words that tickled Asya’s mind. They seemed as real and intense as the moment in Lyssa’s tent when Thyss-Ulea materialized before her. This was always the path you’d follow. I know you feel it. Don’t delay.
Asyra started forward a step before she even knew what she’d done. A curse and a crackle of fingers gripping the uncertain edge of stone held her up. Turning back, she found Clover struggling to lift herself over. With a hiss that was both impatience and also self-scolding, she rushed to the other spy’s side and helped her up.
Groaning as she sagged onto her back on the stone, Clover said, “I...I think I’m going to have to stop.”
A glance showed Asyra little bright spots of red on Clover’s forearm bandages. “It’s all right. I don’t think we’re going to have to climb much more.”
“What are you talking about?”
Asyra gestured at their surroundings.
Clover rolled onto her side and propped herself up on one elbow, stared into the gloom. “What the hells...?”
“I think it’s part of the tomb complex,” Asyra said. She vaguely noticed the step she took into the cave—drawn, as though not completely of her own will. “I think it goes on, into the rock for a way.”
“Or it’s a dead-end,” Clover said, “or caved-in.”
Asyra shook her head, knowing that wasn’t the case. “It goes far.”
“You know that how?”
Asyra blinked and came back to herself, gave her head a shake to clear it of the whispers. “I don’t. You’re right.” She turned to the other spy with a smile. “But we could find out.”
Clover shook her head. “We could get lost in that.”
Asyra felt a surge of impatience and more—a flare of anger. But she hid the latter with a smirk and a shrug. “Again, you’re right. I suppose we can resume the climb, then.” She stepped to the edge of the rock lip, felt the dusty wind nip at her face. “It’s probably a few hundred feet more.” She glanced at Clover, at her injured arm. “You’re up to that?”
The other spy scowled and rubbed at her bandages. “Just...give me a few minutes.”
“Certainly.”
While Clover stretched and checked her wrappings, Asyra wandered back into the cave a few feet, running her fingertips along the wall. Several steps in, the craggy, irregular surface took on a more defined, crafted consistency, the walls carved to smoothness, dust-coated floor becoming level. But the dark was so thick, Asyra could barely see where her hand rested.
“I don’t suppose we have a light?”
With another groan, Clover heaved herself to her feet and moved to join Asyra. “As a matter of fact...” The woman did something with her Eye ring, twisted it, then clenched her fist and held it out before her. “Ilumno...”
At the unfamiliar word, Clover’s ring took on a cyan glow that spread from a narrow beam, lancing the dark, to a globe of brilliance, as though the Eye of pewter had stretched wide open with the light.
Asyra had to shield her eyes to avoid being dazzled for a moment. “Damn. Well, that’s a clever trick!” Would’ve come in handy a few days ago, she thought, thinking of the debacle in the dark with the Vothans. “When had any of you planned on showing me how to do that?”
“You can’t,” Clover replied with obvious satisfaction. “Your ring won’t do it.”
“Why the hells not?”
“Seniority has its advantages,” the other spy said. “I have been an Eye of the Emperor since I was fourteen and Shade recruited me from the slums of Scintallard.” The glare of her ring’s magic flashed in her eyes. “You’ve been around a few months.”
Asyra snorted and shook her head.
Clover panned the ring light about. “You’re right, though. This has to be part of the complex.”
> Cyan played off faded markings on the walls. Hieroglyphics marched along one side, lines of script unspooling endlessly across the stone, characters that seemed to grow more jagged and sloppy, the further down the passage they went. One the other side, pictograms displayed a scene. Asyra half-expected spidery awfulness, like they’d beheld below the Dome of Patah. But these pictures detailed what looked like a burial—a mass burial.
Time-dimmed imagery showed men in what looked like the vestments of some priest-caste, marching in columns, carrying linen-wrapped forms up the escarpment towards the Great Pyramid. As Asyra scanned the scene, she followed their course to the base of the structure where the men handed the bodies, one after another, into the depths of a black entrance.
Caught in a sudden morbid curiosity, Asyra re-traced the flow of the scene back to its beginning, closer to the mouth of the cave. Wind from outside and likely sunlight—which would have reached this point every sunset—looked to have eaten away much of the details here. But she could still make out smears of red as priestly blades and grislier, weirder tools worked on bodies, removing organs. Other priests labored to wrap the mummies—so many.
Asyra’s blood chilled.
It could have been some artistic license, but it looked like some of the bodies still writhed, struggled, even as they were cut up and bound tight.
Oh, your eyes don’t deceive you, the voice of Thyss-Ulea growled from deep within Asyra’s skull. Not all had reached their natural end. In fact, a great many should’ve had many years in this world, still, before joining their Lord in his stony rest.
Asyra swallowed noisily. It was hard to tell, but some of the mummified shapes had the size and dimensions of children.
“By whatever deities there might be...” Clover said, looking over her shoulder at the pictures. “I...really don’t want to go in there.”
“Then it’s back up the escarpment face,” Asyra replied. She turned from the wall and started back towards the light at the head of the cave. The sun warmed her face as she reached the lip of rock and the wind howled as it bit her skin. Spreading brown stain ate the horizon, advanced across the wastes to devour all before it. “And we’d better hurry. That storm’s coming.”