Empire of Grass

by Tad Williams

  The coach hit a stone or some other obstacle and the wheels on one side leaped high in the air before crashing down again. Jesa fell back, clutching baby Serasina. The duchess lay crumpled on the floor, and by the light of the flames that were now devouring the roof of the carriage as well as the walls, Jesa could see a bloody mark on Canthia’s head. Little Blasis screamed and pulled at his mother’s arm. At that moment a dark shape pulled abreast of the carriage on the outside, then an arm rattling with bone ornaments and metal bangles reached in through the window, grabbed the boy by his collar, and jerked him out into the darkness like a snake taking a baby bird from a nest.

  The coach hit something else and tilted high, then plunged downward. Jesa heard a terrible crunch, and suddenly the coach lurched off-balance, leaning to one side, making a rasping, dragging noise as it tipped ever farther. A wheel had come off. Jesa had no time to think, but clutched Serasina against her breasts and clambered to the window, then pushed her upper body through until she hung in blackness and rushing shadows. Before she could decide to jump, the coach lurched again and sent her spinning through the air.

  The child! Save Serasina! was her only thought. She landed in a crackling pile of underbrush, poked and scratched as she rolled through it, clinging to the baby as though nothing else in the world mattered—and at that moment, for Jesa, nothing else did.

  She came to a stop at last, so deep in prickling branches that she could not move. Serasina stirred against her, somehow still alive, and Jesa heard the infant take in a breath that would surely end in a howl of outrage. She put her hand over the child’s mouth and pulled her close so that she could whisper in her little ear. “Don’t cry. Don’t cry. You are with me. Don’t cry.” Her own body hurt in so many places she could barely tell one from the other, but she heard the drumming of hooves on the road only a few paces away and was terrified to move for fear of making noise.

  She stayed silent and motionless in the brambles for what felt like an hour, smelling smoke and seeing orange, flickering light through the branches, listening to the incomprehensible shouting of the Thrithings-men riding back and forth as they searched for anyone who might have escaped.

  She Who Waits, Jesa prayed over and over, do not come for me yet! Let me keep this little child safe. Let me keep her from these evil creatures. And, as if touched by the gentle hand of a kindly god, Serasina did at last fall back into squirming, uncomfortable sleep.

  The noises ranged all around Jesa in the darkness. Once she heard heavy footfalls just a few steps from where she lay hidden, but she stayed as still as any rabbit or mouse until the footsteps moved away. At last, after what seemed like hours, she heard the men ride away, but she still did not dare fight her way out of the undergrowth. She hid on the cold ground until the first light of dawn showed her it was safe to emerge.

  With Serasina still clutched against her belly and beginning to stir again, Jesa crawled out through the scratching twigs until she stood on the road once more. Something small and limp lay in the middle of the road behind her, and she trudged toward the spot until she was close enough to recognize the tunic Blasis had been wearing. The boy’s head was flung back and his eyes were open, his limbs tangled as though he had been flung aside like an apple core. His throat had been cut down to the bone.

  Her eyes dry, but her heart so filled with horror that she could barely breathe, Jesa turned and walked forward along the road until she found the royal carriage, or what was left of it. It had run against a tree, and lay on its side by the road. The two wheels still on the axles were broken and scorched, the body of the carriage a smoldering, blackened shell with spots of glowing red like dying stars. She looked into the wreckage only long enough to see the charred thing that had once been Duchess Canthia, but then had to turn and be sick.

  Afterward, she wiped her mouth with her tattered, filthy sleeve, then made her way down the hillside and through the trees with Serasina still held tightly at her breast. The baby was hungry and complaining about it. Jesa did not know where they were or where they were going, but she wanted nothing more to do with roads.

  54

  Dead Birds

  Tzoja knew that they had entered the fortress called Naglimund and had been waiting inside the gates for several hours, but from inside the wagon she could discern little else. The shutters had been pulled and secured before they passed through the gate: other than the acrid scent of recent fires and the occasional birdlike calls of Hikeda’ya sentries, she could not guess what was happening outside.

  “Why are we here so far from Hikeda’ya lands?” she asked Vordis. “Did any of the Anchoresses tell you why we came here?”

  “If they know, they said nothing. There was a battle. But it seems the queen and her armies have been victorious. A great triumph.” There was an odd flatness to her words.

  Tzoja had no such divided loyalties, although she knew better than to say so. When she thought about the mortals who must have been slaughtered she could not forget they were her own people. But more than anything else, she was frightened that her daughter Nezeru might have been involved in the fighting—might even now be wounded, or worse, while her mother was kept in darkness and ignorance.

  Keep her safe, all you gods, she prayed. And protect Viyeki too, wherever he may be. She wondered then whether her master and lover and might be here in Naglimund—she had never been told where the queen had sent him—but that possibility only added to her fear.

  As the two women sat, ordinary conversation exhausted after so long in captivity together, Tzoja heard a strange sound from outside the wagon. At first she thought it was the wind, which had been fierce, but the noise seemed too deep for that—a single peal of distant thunder that would not end. She could feel it in her body as well as hear it, a rumble like the hoofbeats of many horses galloping and galloping but never passing by. She heard a second sound then, the squeaking of heavy wheels, and moved to the wagon’s single window. The wooden shutter had been tied closed from the outside, but when she pushed it the shutter moved a little, and she could see purple evening sky around the edges. She went back and picked up her wooden supper bowl.

  “What are you doing, Tzoja?”

  “Seeing what I can see.” Back at the window, she pushed against the shutter until she had opened it as far as she could manage, then wedged the bowl into the gap to hold it open.

  “Be careful!” said Vordis. “We will be punished if we are caught!”

  “I know.” She looked quickly from side to side through the narrow space to make certain none of the guards were standing close by, but it was hard to be certain: something blocked most of her view, a large gray shape like a stone wall, but it was slowly moving past them. Then an immense wheel rotated into view—for a moment the squeak of its axle was almost as loud as the rumble—and she pressed her eye against the gap.

  “Something’s out there!” she whispered. “Something big!”

  She could feel Vordis standing behind her now, clutching her arm. As the great wheel circled past Tzoja saw that something long was tied to the wagon bed—the gray wall she had first seen. It tapered down as it passed, from an obstruction higher than the window where she stood to a massive shape like a monstrous snake.

  Her heart fluttered as she realized that what she was seeing was a vast tail. A moment later, when the rest of the wagon had passed, she saw the creature that was pushing at the back of the wagon behind the monstrous tail—a manlike shape, but far bigger than any man. It turned its huge, hairy face toward her, and for a moment the gleaming, yellow-green eyes caught her own. The giant bared its teeth in a snarl and Tzoja’s legs gave out from under her.

  Vordis kneeled above her, chafing her wrists. “Tzoja! Tzoja, what happened? What did you see?”

  She tried to explain but could only summon fragments. “There were monsters,” she said at last. “One pushing another on a great wagon. Monsters.”

 
“But why are they here?” Vordis asked in an ecstasy of fear. “And why did they bring us here? With such creatures?”

  Tzoja felt empty and cold. Her own words seemed to come out of someone else’s mouth, someone who had stopped feeling. “All the world is full of monsters now,” she said. “Everywhere.”

  * * *

  Jarnulf looked down at the splayed bodies of the two Sacrifices, their blood turning transparent as rain washed it away. He had spent so many years killing Hikeda’ya soldiers that it had become hard to think of them as anything but bundles of cooling meat. He had killed both of these with arrows, one shot in the neck and the other in the heart when he came to his fellow’s aid, but all Jarnulf really wanted was the armor and cloak from one of the corpses. After he had pulled it off, he dragged the two bodies deeper into the forest and rolled them into a ravine, then wiped the blood off his hands with the fronds of some ferns.

  He still had to be cautious. Far more Hikeda’ya were roaming the forest than he had suspected: from his hiding place in the treetops he had counted Sacrifices from at least three companies whose insignia he did not recognize. Even more strangely, he had seen some of them days earlier, but the queen’s party had only just arrived today at Naglimund on the other side of the hill. Something was going on here in the forest his old masters called Oldheart—something unusual. At any other time Jarnulf would have felt compelled to investigate, but now his task was narrower and much more important. He meant to kill the queen of the Norns.

  Jarnulf still did not know what had brought ancient Utuk’ku out of the mountain on a long journey to the mortal fortress, although he felt sure it had something to do with the dragon he had helped her Talons to capture. The blood of dragons was rare, but useful in many ways, both in the spells of the Order of Song as well as for its more immediately dangerous qualities. Jarnulf still had his own small pot of the stuff scraped from the mummified worm’s claw on the mountainside, and he intended to put it to use. But before Jarnulf took her away from the rest of her kind, Nezeru had also let something slip—this Queen’s Hand, the one she was part of, had recovered the bones of the Storm King’s brother Hakatri from a northern island at Utuk’ku’s order. What the Hikeda’ya might want with a bundle of ancient bones was beyond him, as it had been beyond Nezeru when he had asked her.

  “The queen and Lord Akhenabi do not open their thoughts to Sacrifices like me,” Nezeru had told him, and he had not doubted her ignorance, but the bones and the captive dragon had both been handed over to the Lord of Song, and now he and the queen were both here at Naglimund. Was that why there were so many other Hikeda’ya soldiers roaming the forest? Was Naglimund to be the launching-point of some invasion into the mortal lands to the south?

  Jarnulf pushed these questions from his mind. His own course was set. If he succeeded, all speculation became pointless because everything would change. He had to wait until he found a chance to put an arrow into the deathless queen, then he had to make his shot count—likely the only shot he would get. If he worried only about that one thing, the world became a very simple place.

  * * *

  • • •

  Even with his hood pulled low over his face, Jarnulf knew he did not look much like a real Sacrifice. He had rubbed his skin with white clay from a streambed to make it pale, and could imitate at least a little the liquid, gliding movements of a trained Hikeda’ya warrior, but he knew the imposture would not fool any true Hikeda’ya who came closer than a dozen yards. He not only had to find a spot that would provide him a clear shot, he had to manage it while remaining hidden from the sentries who would be walking the walls.

  Though light or dark did not make much difference to the immortals because their sight was so much better than his own, Jarnulf still waited until twilight began to dim the sky before approaching the ruined fortress from the forested hillside. Rain was falling hard now and wind tormented the trees. He was pleased to see that one of the square guard towers in Naglimund’s devastated curtain wall still stood, though its battlements had been badly damaged by fire. Sentries patrolled the walls on either side, but the tower itself seemed unguarded. Jarnulf kept downwind from any sentries he could see, and stayed close to the ground where he was shielded by thick undergrowth. He watched their movements for no little time until he was certain they were not entering the tower itself, then he crawled downhill through brambles and creepers toward the base of the curtain wall.

  Both the tower and the walls on either side of it were cracked from the siege that had overthrown Naglimund, and gaps in the stone offered Jarnulf comparatively easy handholds, but the height and the wet walls still made climbing difficult. Halfway up, the wind rose in pitch and strength until he could feel it pushing him. He clung in place and waited for the storm to die down, but it quickly became clear to him that he would have a long wait. He resumed his ascent instead, more slowly now, and was buoyed by a sudden, hopeful thought.

  If You have sent this storm to make it harder for the Hikeda’ya to hear me coming, O Lord, I thank You. For a moment, just a moment, he felt protected, God-armored, and it made his heart swell, until the wind almost swept him again from the damp, slippery wall.

  He stopped just below the battlements and pressed himself tightly against the stones, waiting for the sentries to complete another circuit of the walls and turn away. When he saw their backs he sent up another silent prayer of gratitude, then scrambled up the last few cubits of the tower. But when he pulled himself over the scorched battlement he discovered that the center of the tower’s wooden roof had mostly burned away, and that he was dangling headfirst over a long drop onto broken spars and sharp stones in the gutted interior. At last he found beams that would support his weight and made his way around to the inner side of the tower where he could peer down into the fortress.

  Jarnulf had never seen the interior of Naglimund, but he doubted it had ever looked as devastated as it did now. Many sections of its great outwall had been thrown down and the inner wall that surrounded the keep had been even more thoroughly demolished. Most of the tall buildings at the center of the fortress were also little more than ruins, a graveyard of doorways and chimneys and rubble.

  How did the Hikeda’ya manage so much destruction? he wondered. Is the Lord of Song really so powerful? But it seemed obvious that far more than even Akhenabi’s formidable skills had been involved in the destruction. The Sacrifice troop that had come to meet Saomeji and his captured dragon had numbered fewer than a hundred fighters, but Jarnulf could see many more soldiers than that just in the courtyard below him, waiting in serried ranks beneath the heavy rain as though something important was about to happen. They stood in rigid silence around a cloth tent that looked more practical than ceremonial, a great expanse of dark fabric bulging and billowing in the strong winds. From what Jarnulf could see, the tent covered the ruins of more than half an Aedonite church, although the destruction had not extended to the steeple, which seemed strange to him. Why bother to tear down the enemy’s church and leave the towering steeple with its golden Tree untouched?

  Jarnulf made the holy sign on his breast and mumbled another prayer. For this and the desecration of so many of Your houses, Lord, lend me strength to avenge You.

  A sudden rattling from below startled him; Jarnulf crouched down before recognizing the sound as a muster-drum. Something was going on where the Sacrifices had gathered below, but most of it was hidden from his sight beneath the great, rippling tent.

  The drum sounded again, but this time the noise was swallowed by a peal of thunder that seemed to come from right above Jarnulf’s head. Black storm clouds were writhing above the keep like worms, but as hard as the wind blew, the clouds did not disperse. Instead, they seemed to draw closer together into a great and growing ink-black knot.

  A movement near the inner keep drew his gaze down from the ugliness of the sky. Something large was rolling across the commons toward the tent and the waiting sol
diers. The cart’s driver and the waiting Hikeda’ya seemed as minute as flies to him, but Jarnulf had no trouble recognizing the monstrous thing strapped to the bed of the long wagon, nor the hairy, manlike creature laboring along behind it, pushing the cart while a team of war-goats pulled from the front. Even Goh Gam Gar appeared childlike in comparison with the serpentine beast on the cart, though Jarnulf knew the giant’s true size.

  Then he saw the wagons following the dragon-cart across the castle commons, all headed toward the great, billowing tent. All other thoughts flew from his mind as if the moaning wind had snatched them away, because the first and largest wagon bore the sacred Hamakha serpent crest.

  Jarnulf lifted his bow from his back and took the string in its oilskin wrap out of his purse. He had practiced stringing the bow hundreds of times, and it was a matter of only a few heartbeats before he finished. The wind was a horror, gusting from different directions, but there were also moments of calm; he prayed God would send him one at the time he needed it. He took out the arrow with a cropped feather and the pot containing a small amount of dragon’s blood and set them beside him on the burnt boards, then took out a second arrow and set it close beside them just in case the first arrow broke, but he did not think he would have enough time to use it. One failed shot at the queen and she would be surrounded by her guards.

  Finished with his preparations, he lifted his head and saw that something was happening at the edge of the tent—a struggle between the dragon, which seemed to be trying to break free of its bonds, and the giant Goh Gam Gar. The door of the queen’s wagon was open, and Jarnulf saw a flash of her silver mask as she moved into the doorway. He snatched up his bow, heart rabbiting. All the time he had prepared, all the years he had lived with his hatred, and now the moment had finally come.