by K. J. Coble
And Urius realized, then, how he’d been too damned clever by half. The men didn’t know this was a ruse, didn’t know his schemes, his plan to draw them back. The Xyxians didn’t know it, didn’t care, likely thought the Scintallans mad for not making a break for it. And they were; ignoring everything around them as they hacked their way up to Bazul and let the enemy close the escape route behind them.
The plan had been to pretend to rescue Bazul, and give it up on it when it became hopeless—not to actually drive for him.
But that’s exactly what desperate men were doing.
And Urius was being carried along with it, while Scintallos and whatever other deities there might actually be jeered him for his arrogance.
Something glanced off his shoulder, an arrow that didn’t pierce his corselet, spun away. Impact wrenched him about a quarter turn with fists clenching the reins till they bit. He made a superb target, still in the saddle in the midst of battered, dying infantry. Most of his entourage had vanished in the hours of melee. Even Junios had gone down at some point. Urius’ destrier was frenzied and foaming with terror, but somehow hadn’t thrown him off. The crazed beast was doing damage to everything around it, though, lashing hooves taking down Scintallan footmen at every thrash, every wheel.
Resistance uphill seemed to stiffen. Somehow, Urius’ men had battered all the way up to the outskirts of the Zadam ruins. Fighting raged amongst slabs of rubble, crags of wall, over toppled obelisks. The sky darkened with arrows, but with the deepening of dusk, too. Fading sun shone yellow-red off the single, remaining Spire, its point seeming impossibly high above them as shadow crawled up its length.
“Rally!” Urius bellowed, tried to wave his sword by way of directions. The destrier lurched one more and he thought he’d be thrown for certain. Somehow clinging to the reins, he kept the sword swinging over his head. “Rally, right here!”
Astonishingly, enough discipline remained that the men did it, one line coming together facing downhill, a second facing the opposite direction, uphill as desperate attacks tumbled against them. Urius’ course had carried them high enough that the way had narrowed, cliffs and drop-offs to either side, only a rocky, sandy corridor to attack along now. The Xyxian waves frothing from uphill, obviously seeing this, were slowing, pulling back to regroup, rethink. Some parties could already be seen breaking off, knowing further pressure this day would achieve little.
The attacks from above, however, warriors now trapped between Bazul and Urius, floundered against their shields with frantic abandon. Urius’ men fought with equal desperation, butchering them as they came on in disorganization. The tone of their battle cries had the high keen of terror. They threw themselves upon Scintallan steel as though it held no worse fear for them than whatever they’d faced above. It was madness. It was massacre, Urius’ troops required to do little more than stand there and slay, sand gushing with blood up to the ankles.
“More men!” Urius roared, pointing uphill with his sword.
Warriors from the second and third ranks facing downhill turned and rushed to help their comrades above them, closing any gaps, simply lending the weight of their bodies against the terrible press. The Xyxians were pleading with them, it almost seemed, even as they went down in foaming gore. They didn’t even appear to be fighting, anymore, just pushing against the Scintallan shield wall with maniac strength.
An arrow cut the air beside Urius’ head and he ducked, too late, but needlessly as it sailed wide. The harassment from downhill continued to lessen, the attacks falling back. But they weren’t withdrawing, even seemed to be readying an impromptu line of defense, as though they expected an attack. That was lunacy. The afternoon of fighting had cost Urius fully half of what he’d had left. Out of water, out of food, and out of blood, his Scintallans had no recourse now but to breakthrough to Bazul. Only together might their forces have the numbers to counter attack once more—to survive.
The irony of it scorched Urius’ soul.
The attacks from uphill kept coming, even as the light began to fail. The din of panic and mania intensified, as did the ferocity of the assault. Through dust and deepening dark, Urius looked for some sign of Bazul pressing the trapped Xyxians from the heights. The Imperial banner fluttered briefly against the deepening red of dusk, but too far away and surrounding by the steely flutter of swords and axes. Bazul’s detachment looked no closer to breaking out than Urius’ to reaching it, both groups bristling metal islands in a steaming sea of attackers and death.
The shield wall broke to Urius’ left. He wheeled his horse about to face it, the beast rearing with a shriek. When it planted again on its front hooves, the Duke raised his sword, expecting to bring it down upon a raging Xyxian face.
What he found, instead, was a dead one.
The creature had not so much forced its way into the Scintallan line as knocked a dead Xyxian through it. It climbed off the half-gnawed Xyxian commoner and grappled with the Scintallan footman trapped beneath. Claws got a grip on the man’s arm. Tags of some kind of wrap fluttered off bony, half-rotted arms. More of the fabric spooled off a shrunken skull that crackled as the jaw stretched wide for a bite. The teeth were mostly gone; but the nubs that remained were very sharp.
Urius leaned low in the saddle and thrust his blade into the thing’s back. The steel caught and, as the Duke drew the weapon loose, it dragged the creature off with it. But more of the things were boiling through the hole the first had made, trampling the trapped infantryman, making a mockery of the rescue. Once loose in the middle of the Scintallan formation, they turned and attacked anything in sight.
The destrier reared again, nostrils flaring with the grave-stink of the abominations. They were all around, tearing through the terrified Xyxians, crashing into the Scintallans, unconcerned with side; only rending flesh. Formation disintegrated into gobbets of men, desperate circles that formed with death all around, mortal enemies a moment before forming back-to-back to resist this unholy tide.
Luck carried Urius into the midst of one of these pockets. He could no longer tell sides, only living from dead. And the latter were pouring from every shadow, every crack, from the very ground it seemed. Individually, they were no match for armored men and their steel, were bashed down and hacked apart. But those parts kept coming, dismembered hands gripping ankles, lopped off heads still biting, parts tripping up men so they couldn’t defend themselves.
And the dead—mummies, Urius realized with a flood of recognition and terror, many of them the size of children—only kept coming.
Urius’ circle broke, a man yelping as a crawling mummy got a grip on his calf. His voice went shrill as others swarmed over, but was lost in the general wailing of his comrades as panic and frenzy shattered the rest. Urius sawed back on the reins, drove his bleeding, heaving mount through the scrum as his momentary defenders collapsed under the tide.
Bazul’s Imperial banner caught Urius’ eye, still waving, still aloft high up in the ruins. Pride forgotten in his need to live, Urius spurred that way. It was the only way.
The destrier’s grunting course carried them careening off multiple melees, lurching between collapsed slabs of former wall. They were in the open for a moment, dust twining about them as Urius looked up and down what appeared have been a street. More dust churned behind them and from it emerged a scuttling mummy tide. Urius gave the beast the spurs and it wobbled into what was barely a canter, keeping just ahead of the clawing hands.
Fighting spilled into the street ahead, a hard knot of Scintallan men-at-arms struggling to link shields before another mob of undead. The destrier huffed and twitched, resisted Urius’ kicks and nudges as he tried to force the animal off the main road, into what looked like a side street. A few men dashed past them, squalling in mindless fear. The horse seemed to take their example and limped after them.
The stragglers seemed to be taking shelter in the remnants of what looked like a domed plaza. Reaching it, Urius hissed in fury; the entryway arch was too low for th
e horse to pass. Dismounting would be the only way. But a fresh clamor at the intersection of the main street and this lesser one made the decision for him. He started to get down.
And stopped as the air was rent with unspeakable scream from within the dome. Urius stiffened back in the saddle and began to draw the destrier away when one of the stragglers burst from the arch. For a moment, Urius thought the man had stumbled into another pack of the mummies, seeing the scuttling mass plant upon his back. But a closer look revealed inhuman contours, a bulbous abdomen, chitinous carapace, and an eight-set of hideously squirming legs.
With a shriek of horror, Urius ripped back on the reins.
In the same moment, a second shape vaulted over the first, leapt. As Urius’ horse cocked back with hooves lashing, the terrible creature hung in mid-air before him, its undeniably spidery limbs spread in a terrifying silhouette against the dusk-red Xyxian sky.
It struck.
They went down.
Urius heard the crack of bones breaking, wasn’t sure in the shock of impact if they were his or the horse’s. The beast shuddered on top of him, went still. Struggling to breath, struggling to stay conscious over a red tide of pain, the Duke tried to tear himself free. That brought only agony and near-blackout. Giving that up, he fumbled for his sword. Numb, half-working fingers found the grip and he wrenched the weapon to him.
Too late.
A pair of glistening, dripping fangs flashed out as hairy darkness smothered him and Eddar Urius screamed his last.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THYSS-ULEA TOOK ASYRA’S hand and led her through a tunnel into almost blinding sunlit brilliance. The air smelled damp and heavy with vegetation and fruit. The marble under her feet emanated with midday’s warmth. Children’s voices echoed from somewhere. It all seemed, felt very real.
The queen paused as they came to stand upon a balcony, looking out across a teeming city, smoking with hearth fires, shimmering with life. Spires shined white. Pyramid and blocky, columned temple and dome jumbled in amongst one another along ordered, bustling streets. A body of water stretched out beyond white-washed walls, shimmering under a sky so blue it hurt to look upon too long. The grandeur of it took Asyra’s breath.
The enormity made it false.
“Yes,” Thyss-Ulea purred. “It’s not real. This is my memory. This is Zadam, two and a half thousand years ago, before my husband’s lust for power brought the dark times. Our lands—all of Xyxia—weren’t always the Nightmare Kingdom. We worshipped life; not death. But death...ah, it snuck up on us.”
“It sounds as though you welcomed it,” Asyra said with a touch of remaining suspicion.
The queen nodded thoughtfully. “Perhaps we...embraced it.” She gave Asyra a playful tug and led her from the view, out of the glare and into a smoky gloom lit with candles and flavored with incense. Gauzy curtains fluttered within, hiding side rooms from sight, though hints of motion could be sensed. More obvious were faint moans and sighs that could be from either pleasure or pain.
A large, circular bed occupied the center of the chamber.
Thyss-Ulea released Asyra and sauntered to it, sat slowly, and half slouched upon it, balanced on an elbow. There was no denying the raw power of her body, her flowing, welcoming motions. She was heat and flesh and desire. And she knew it, winked playfully and patted the space on the cushion beside her.
Asyra drifted to her and sat, couldn’t say the impulse was even her own. Her head felt stuffed, foggy. Part of her ached from injury and hours of crawling fear. Another part of her ached for release—and for the thing beside her on the bed.
“We saw death coming,” Thyss-Ulea said, brushing Asyra’s thigh casually. “All mortals do. We felt age’s weight upon us, dragging us down. Many fight it. Some accept it.” Her near-black eyes sparkled. “We studied it. There has always been knowledge, forbidden—supposedly—to mortals. We learned in secret, first with priests expelled from the kingdom for their heresies, then with a growing underground society. Ah, we were such fools!” She grimaced momentarily, almost seemed to regret. The moment passed. “But we learned quickly. We learned that death is only one possible path through Infinity.”
Asyra nodded slowly. “I’ve heard of this, but usually only from the streets and back-alleys...from lunatics...the cult of Uunath the Undying.”
“No,” Thyss-Ulea said with a chortle. “No, what we learned was not the gift of some fraudster god.” She snorted. “Gods...bah! What liars, themselves, hoisting themselves up on high. Mortals are fools. The believe Creation is set and time is linear. But all things are fluid. The darkness is fluid.” She locked gazes with Asyra. “Do you know why the learned refer to the Outer Dark as such?”
She didn’t, but mention of the words reminded her of another—one of the learned, as Thyss-Ulea might say. Strangely, Asyra couldn’t think the name, couldn’t see that face that she knew she knew. It was as though one of the curtains writhing around them, hiding the pleasure-torments of whatever lay beyond, had been drawn across the room of her mind.
“Even the dark of night is touched by some light,” Thyss-Ulea was going on. “But at greater distance, beyond even the stars, there is not even that. There, the laws that bind the world together break down. Things beyond imagination dwell in those spaces. And what you think of as gods are mere cosmic vagabonds, scraping for connection back to the light. In the Outer Dark, there is power to bend all the rules of the light to your will, because Out There, there are no rules.”
“Isn’t that just more theology?” Asyra asked. “Order and Chaos?”
The queen smiled indulgently at her and slid closer, till her hip was in contact with Asyra’s. “Except that in Chaos there is opportunity. In Order there is only a cage.”
Asyra looked around. There seemed almost a shimmer to imagery around her. For a moment, she could feel its falseness, see the dusty tomb walls behind the bright illusion. “And all of this is your cage.”
“We all struggle against cages.” Thyss-Ulea put a hand on Asyra’s cheek. The flesh felt warm and not at all false. “Yours is your past. And I am here to set you free of it.”
She slid her hand down from Asyra’s face and cupped it behind her head, pulled her into a kiss. The lips were warm, almost hot, brushing against her own. Tongue flickered out, tickled, tested, probed. Pain, exhaustion, and the sheen of filthiness of the last few days were forgotten. Asyra groaned into Thyss-Ulea’s mouth and let her pull her into her arms, lost herself in the feel of her fingertips working at her skin, at the ties and clasps of her battered, stained leathers.
“The cruelty of your childhood, the abuse, the privation, the uncertainty, they are your prison,” Thyss-Ulea breathed into her neck. “But they cannot hold you. You are not—nor have been—that child in many years. Let the waif perish. Be the woman.”
Lips and tongue began to flutter down the side of Asyra’s neck. A shiver went through her body and she sagged back against the cushion as the undead queen worked her sorcery upon her. She felt the first of the leather ties release with a pop and a little cry escaped her as part of her curved free, body twisting, bowing towards the other. Her arms went around Thyss-Ulea now and a fierce want blazed within her.
“You fought the memories for years,” the queen continued, pausing to let the tip of her tongue glide across a bare collar bone. “You hardened yourself into a weapon, a tool. But still it was to be an instrument to be used by others, wasn’t it?”
Fingernails scrawled into an electric pattern of ecstasy down her back, peeling the leathers down with them. Nails bit, hurt. Something else pinched. Asyra cried out as that something stabbed at her neck. The pain passed in a warm rush. Thyss-Ulea chuckled wetly into her throat.
“You became the burglar, the slayer, the spy, and all for the use of others. It was just another cage, wasn’t it?”
“Yes...”
“All that time, breaking into the homes of the wealthy, raiding the tombs of the wealthy dead,” Thyss-Ulea panted, “it was
just breaking out of that compound in Akbir again, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
The queen wormed up Asyra’s body like a serpent of fiery passion. Asyra felt her legs wrapped around her, didn’t remember when it had happened. The pain nipped at her neck again. Her skin coursed with warm wetness and the air seemed to have gone red. She felt as though she had to fight to breath. Her lips tasted more than the saltiness of their comingling sweat, had a coppery tang.
Thyss-Ulea broke from Asyra’s neck with a pop of released lips, buried her face in her hair. “Did you always prefer women?”
“I...” A pebble of doubt caught in the avalanche of Asyra’s ecstasy. “Wouldn’t say I prefer either.”
“Then just the one...”
Asyra stiffened a little in the other’s arms. Memory, fogged until that moment, crystallized a little. A sad, beautiful face darkened by the kiss of distant Kursh’s sun smiled out of her mind.
“She is a prison, too,” Thyss-Ulea said, wrapping arms about Asyra like a great snake coiling to crush its meal. “She is one more prison you must break free of.”
Fingertips fluttered at skin again, began luring Asyra back from the brink of thought, promising rewards as they struggled at twists of her still-resistant leathers.
“Your cold, stern sorceress, dedicated to her Liar God and his Lying Empire...she’s just another slaver, another pimp, another jealous concubine that will scheme and murder to dominate you.” Thyss-Ulea peeled back from her, propped up on her hands to look down. “If you only give yourself to me, you can do the dominating.”
The dead queen smiled through a mask of blood.
Asyra gasped and put her hand to the other’s face, couldn’t understand through the fog of her mind, where the hurt had come from. Fingers drew tracks through the crimson, traced down to the winkled lips, caught as they touched the teeth. Thyss-Ulea’s tongue darted out, licked them. Asyra jerked her hand away, saw the long, knife-pointed canines, pinkish with blood. She put the hand to her body, her neck, brought it away again, brightly red and wet.