Vengewar

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Mandan didn’t want to get his own hands bloody, so Cade ordered his soldiers to use sharp knives to stab them behind the knees and sever the tendons, then painstakingly flay the skin from their backs. The remaining prisoners were forced to watch.

  When the screams grew too loud, Mandan said, “Cut out their tongues so we don’t have to hear any more of this.” The guards did as they were commanded.

  Utho watched in silence for two hours, after which his satisfaction faded to dull disgust. This was a waste of his time. “We must return to Convera, Sire. We are done here.” He clamped the ramer around his wrist until the golden points drew blood. He pushed and ignited the circle of fire that engulfed his hand. “Many more Isharans need to pay for their crimes.”

  Gant touched his own ramer, as if considering whether to join his fellow Brava, but Utho didn’t wait. He struck swiftly with the fiery blade, executing all four Isharans and putting an end to their misery. The air smelled of blood, burned wood, and roasted meat. Mandan looked pleased.

  Cade nodded. “Your justice has been served, my konag.” He turned to his soldiers. “Wrap Lady Almeda’s body in sheets so that our sweet daughter does not see her mother like this.”

  “She will be grieving,” Mandan said, “but we’ll distract her from the sadness of her mother’s murder with plans for our extravagant wedding. There will be no delay!”

  31

  THE window of solid ice was as transparent as tears, and Birch peered across the white expanse of the north from the high palace tower. When he pressed his palms against the pane, his body warmth did not melt a drop.

  A herd of caribou dotted the snow-covered landscape, pawing among the rocks, eating lichens. He remembered once when a caribou herder had brought a few animals into Lake Bakal. He and Tomko had petted them, while their father negotiated for the meat.

  Now, he watched the caribou shift uneasily, then bolt as large white shapes bounded after them—shaggy oonuks, several of which carried frostwreth warriors. The pack of wolf-steeds lunged after the fleeing caribou, driving the animals into mad flight.

  Birch could do nothing but watch. He heard the distant snarls of wolf-steeds, the shouts of wreths, and the bleating panic of the caribou. The frostwreth warriors hurled crystal-tipped spears to kill their prey while riderless oonuks brought down two large bucks, splashing blood across the snow.

  The frostwreths hunted for the meat, but also for practice; most important, they did it for sport. Wreths liked to kill helpless things. Sick in his heart, Birch turned away from the frozen window to find several drones watching him. The drones muttered, speaking their own words for meat, skins, bones. Birch knew the caribou wouldn’t be wasted. The drones would use every scrap that the wreths discarded.

  Sharp caribou antlers would also make good weapons.

  Queen Onn had been occupied with her new lover for days and had no time for Birch, but as he crept past the doorway to her chambers, he heard voices talking rather than the animal noises of sex. He crept closer. He had been growing more confident, tricking the wreths in subtle ways. Birch wanted to learn what the queen planned, because someday he would need to tell King Kollanan. His grandfather was a great hero, and Birch wanted to be just like him.

  Peeping around the doorway, he saw Onn crouched naked on the floor, her long hair loose around her shoulders. Irri, also naked, strolled across a large map the queen had fashioned on the frozen floor. She had sculpted the ice into mountains, roads, hills, and rivers, including Lake Bakal and the wreth ice fortress there.

  Onn touched the sculpture. “Our fortress should have been a stronghold for our progress south, but Rokk failed me.” She stretched her hand over the hills and fashioned a large walled city. “This is a human settlement called Fellstaff, I believe. Their so-called king Kollanan lives there.”

  “If it is in the way, I can crush it.” Like a giant, Irri walked among the mountains, taking in the shape of the terrain. “We will move our armies through their lands and down to the sandwreth deserts. Why not use Fellstaff as our new beachhead, then keep going until we eradicate our enemy?”

  Onn stood and turned to the far end of the room, where she hadn’t fashioned any landforms. “The deserts are unknown terrain, but that is where the bitch Voo lives.” Unconsciously, she touched the scar on her cheek. Gliding on bare feet to the opposite side of her map, she lifted both of her cupped hands and raised a line of rugged mountains. Frozen steam drifted about the peaks like fog. “These are the Dragonspine Mountains.” She shifted her hands, and the mountains shook until the range itself split like the rind of an overripe fruit. “Ossus is deep below.”

  Irri snorted. “We have to kill the sandwreths before we worry about waking the dragon.”

  She let out a cold chuckle. “We have to worry about everything, so we are not caught by surprise.” She stroked a fingernail along her thin pale lips, then spotted Birch lurking at the doorway. She spun on her feet. “Disgusting creature! Are you spying on me?”

  Irri stalked toward the boy, and Birch scampered away. Suddenly the drones were around him, whisking him down the frozen corridor. As he fled, he heard the queen chuckle behind him, probably amused to see him so frightened.

  The drones moved faster than usual, taking him down corridors and curved staircases, plunging into the tunnels that riddled the glacier like wormwood. Birch realized they weren’t just running blindly. From their earnest expressions and wide blinking eyes, he could tell they had a purpose. “You want to show me something?”

  “Drones,” they said. “More drones.”

  The light dimmed to blue shadows as they penetrated deeper into the glacier. Birch heard noises ahead as the drones led him to a warm creche filled with humid air and the smells of bodily fluids. There, blue-robed mages tended fleshy sacs that sprouted like flaccid fruit from cracks in the ice wall. The pouches were veined with blue but the membranes were the greenish pink of spoiled meat. The drones observed with a kind of reverence.

  The fleshy sacs squirmed beneath the mages’ hands as they traced runes on the outer membrane, then followed the webwork of blue blood vessels. One of the sacs split open like yawning lips. A slime-covered figure dropped out and was caught by one of the wreth workers. It was a drone, already full grown. Its arms, legs, and head twitched and quivered. Wreth workers doused it with water, scrubbed the gray skin with rough rags, and placed the shivering form on a cart.

  Birch remembered stories about how the wreths had created the human race, long ago. He wondered if the first humans had been born in a warm, smelly creche like this one. The frostwreth creators were powerful and dominating and cruel, as he well knew.

  Moments later, two other drones were born from the womb sacs. One came out twisted and misshapen, though—a hand growing from the side of its face and the spine bent in the wrong direction, like a failed pastry from a bakery. The wreth mage grunted in disgust, had one of the wreth workers club the pitiful thing to death, then scraped the mangled body into a bin filled with other bloody refuse.

  Turning to Birch and his companions, the mage sneered, “Help clean up this filth, then tend to the newborns in the training chamber.”

  The drones sprang into action, eager to participate in the work, as if it were an honor. After cleaning the slimy mess from the cold floor, they hurried to follow the newborn drones, with Birch in tow as if he were one of them.

  They left the humid creche and moved to a large chamber where young drones were taught basic skills and made to conform. In the large room he saw the newborn but fully formed drones. The older creatures instructed the younger drones because the wreths would not be bothered to do so. The room was filled with a low hum of their strange language, and now Birch could understand enough words to get the gist of what they were saying. He could also speak to them.

  Since the first moment he saw the cold sweep over Lake Bakal and kill everyone, when Rokk captured him as a plaything, Birch had hated the cruel frostwreths. Now he believed he could convince the
drones to feel the same way. The arrogant wreths would never understand what they were saying.

  Thanks to the creche, drones reproduced swiftly. The frostwreths were in the process of making many, many more. Birch wondered exactly how many he would need.

  32

  UNDER the hot sun, the human captives marched through the canyons, heading to the foothills. The thin sole of Glik’s left boot had worn through, but she had no way to repair it. She often felt sand or tiny pebbles irritating her foot, but she would endure. She had survived many ordeals in her time alone.

  Inside the circle and outside the circle.

  Sitting tall on his auga, Mage Ivun accompanied the fifty workers who were going north to excavate shadowglass. Ten guards led the way on their own augas, their metal-and-bone armor making them look like fierce desert creatures. Reptile beasts of burden towed carts that carried tools for the workers.

  The morose group plodded along, leaving the desert and entering dry, scrub-covered hills. Glik had stashed food, supplies, and potential weapons in hiding places around the work camp, but now she was leaving all that behind. She kept her eyes open, looking for an opportunity to bolt and make her escape, but the watchful wreth guards offered her no such chance.

  Cheth strode beside Glik, protective and curious. Her black Brava clothing was smudged with tan dust. Glik said, “Plain of Black Glass is ominous.” She drew a quick circle around her heart. “You’ll feel the power when we get there.”

  “Enough power for us to kill these wreths and escape?”

  “Doubt it.” As they walked, Glik described how she had wandered across western Suderra to the craggy mountains. “Was looking for a new ska.” She sighed, still felt the grief within her, unable to forget the day when her beloved Ori had flown into a storm and never come back. A burn of tears rose up in her eyes. “Wanted a wild ska, so I went hunting for their eyries. Tracked them by following their flights in the sky.” She glanced up at the empty blue vastness overhead.

  “Did you find one?’ Cheth asked. “I’ve never understood how you Utauks can keep those reptile birds as pets.”

  “More than pets. Companions. Scouts.”

  Urged by the warriors, the augas plodded faster, and the captives had no choice but to pick up the pace, though they were already exhausted from the march.

  Glik kept talking. “Found where the skas nest in the cliffs and climbed up there alone. Found my egg … and it was filled with love. Ah, Ari, blue as a sapphire, as kind and as clever as any creature who ever lived.”

  “Where is she now? Did she get away?”

  Glik felt the hot tears again, stronger than ever. Somewhere distant, the faint tug on her heart link was still there. “Ari escaped when the wreths captured me. Still feel her, but she is far away.” She drew a circle around her chest. “I know she still loves me.”

  Ivun pushed the group hard for another hour, then called a halt at the base of a brown hill. The wreths dismounted from their augas as the mage extended his withered arm and grimaced with the effort. He closed his eyes, strained with magic until the ground shifted. The dirt slope split open to spill out a pool of muddy water. The augas drank first, then Ivun pushed the spring wider, calling more water. When the flow clarified, the guards drank their fill, scooping with their hands.

  Cheth watched them take their time, barely managing to contain her anger. Glik shifted with impatience, but knew that if she complained she would only provoke the wreths into lashing out at her.

  Finally, the humans were allowed to drink, taking regimented turns. One man ahead of Glik gulped so much water that he doubled over and vomited it all back up. Mage Ivun scowled at him, and the miserable man did not get a second turn. Glik drank, and felt rejuvenated. She would live another day.

  At the end of the third day of forced march, the crew finally reached a line of barren hills that overlooked the glassy scar of an ancient battlefield. The sun set behind them, casting long oily shadows across the slagged jumble of rocks.

  Glik felt a chill as her companions stumbled to a halt, looking out at the bleak site. Opposing wreth armies had unleashed inconceivable waves of magic here, obliterating one another and hundreds of thousands of human foot soldiers. Shadowglass was the amalgamated residue of rocks and cities, wreth blood and human bones.

  “I can feel it.” Cheth touched her heart. “Perhaps some of my ancestors fought and died here.”

  “Cra, seems like half the world fought and died here,” Glik said.

  The mage raised his voice, forcing the slaves to listen. “Camp here on the fringe. We begin excavations at first light. Rest for now.”

  When Glik was here before, she’d found the empty pavilion of an Utauk prospector who came to harvest the magic-infused obsidian. His name was Bhosus, according to a journal she found. He had accidently cut himself and bled to death all alone on this ghostly plain. Glik had buried him inside a perfect circle of rocks, then delivered his journal to the next Utauk camp, thus ensuring that his life and legacy would never be forgotten.

  Reminded of how deadly the black glass could be, Glik muttered, “We don’t want to be out there in the dark.”

  “Don’t want to be out here at all,” Cheth replied.

  Glik looked across the open landscape as night fell, searching for a way to fight or escape. She tried to take heart, telling herself this place was better than the brutal work camp in the canyons.

  Tomorrow she might feel differently.

  That night as she lay on the hard ground and listened to the dry wind moaning like lonely ghosts, she stared into the sky. The wreths were silent, so she could not tell whether they slept. The augas grunted, munching on dry grass and thistles.

  The brooding magic of the surroundings intruded on her dreams. Even if Ossus did sleep under the mountains, his evil was not dormant. It had seeped out and diffused into the hearts of these wreths, building hatred for one another, and fostering violence among humans.

  That was one reason Glik liked spending time alone.…

  She dreamed of the dragon’s huge dominating form. When she snatched Ari’s egg from the ska eyrie, she had seen an enormous reptilian eye stirring inside a resinous barrier in the mountains. What was that?

  She woke in the middle of the night and looked up to see the stars eclipsed by a tremendous shape, looming over the world with great wings, but when Glik blinked, she realized it was merely a bank of clouds. She felt a heavy ache in her heart, hoping it was just a nightmare.

  When dawn came, small shapes flew overhead in the brightening light. She rolled off her blanket and stood up, waving at the skas. “We are here!”

  She had no heart link with these wild reptile birds, but Ari sometimes liked to circle and fly free with wild companions. Knowing the skas could sense her, Glik waved again, trying to draw their attention.

  The wreth guards reacted differently to the skas. “Little dragons!” they snarled.

  Ivun raised his good arm and curled his fingers. Wind whipped up, a howling blast that swept the wheeling reptile birds into disarray. Wreth warriors strung their bows, nocked stone-tipped arrows.

  The wild skas pumped their broad wings to fly higher. The wreth arrows streaked upward, higher than seemed possible. One projectile struck a reptile bird’s tail, knocking loose a burst of feathers. The ska beat its wings frantically to get away. Two more arrows struck their targets, and a pair of dead creatures tumbled out of the sky.

  “No!” Glik lunged toward the warriors, but Cheth seized her shoulder and held her back. Glik moaned again. “No!”

  The next arrows missed, but the wreths kept shooting until they brought down three more skas. The feathered carcasses tumbled onto the Plain of Black Glass. Satisfied, Ivun nodded to his warriors. “No more spies.”

  Sobbing, Glik pressed her hands against her chest, feeling the heart link there as she reached out for Ari. She had been longing to see her beautiful ska, but now she just hoped her companion would stay far away.

  33
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br />   WHEN one of the warships sailed back into Serepol Harbor, its banners signaling victory, the people rushed to the docks to hear how the enemy had been driven from Fulcor Island. People clustered along the waterfront, filling the warehouse and fish market districts. “Hear us, save us!”

  In the open market square, worshippers had gathered, eager to welcome their godling and their priestlord home. Fishermen, carpenters, and merchants usually frequented the harbor temple to make their sacrifices, but the temple had been empty since the departure of the expedition.

  The warship approached the main dock, its red-and-white sails stretched tight with enhanced breezes generated by Ur-Priest Xion and his godling. The iron fist of the battering-ram prow stretched forward like a gesture of triumph.

  Accompanied by several ur-priests, Key Priestlord Klovus hurried to the docks. He had expected nothing less than complete victory, and he was pleased to see that the hull and sails showed little damage beyond a few smudges of smoke. He chuckled. The battle must have been a complete rout! The harbor godling had done its work.

  The other six warships would have remained at Fulcor Island to consolidate their hold on the fortress, as planned. Even so, Klovus would dispatch reinforcements to ensure that Fulcor never again fell into the hands of the godless.

  Klovus knew that the harbor godling in the hold would be hungry, and it deserved to be rewarded, after what it had done. The people would feed it with their sweat and toil, their prayers, their blood. He had already dispatched some of his lesser priests to the harbor temple, so they could collect sacrifices.

  At the prow of the ship, the captain wore a bandana of rank wrapped around his head. Sailors and soldiers crowded the rails, rubbing shoulders as they raised their hands to accept cheers from the ecstatic crowd. Klovus could feel excitement returning to Serepol, enough that the people might even forget their concern about Empra Iluris and their prayers would no longer be misdirected.