“I cannot rule alone,” he said, and Ishta’eth ignored him.
“I cannot,” he said again.
“The time without an emperor was terrible,” Ishta’eth said. “It cannot happen again.”
Nici looked at her and realized why she did this. Not for power, because she already had that, but to keep the empire safe. She had been freed of custom by the empire’s fall, and was able to make it over, to make it better.
He wondered how long she had planned this. How far back she had prepared for this moment.
He wondered if the empire had fallen as part of some plan of hers to make it better.
He was angry, and trapped, but knew it would all happen as she wished. In hours, this battle would be won, and in months the world would be made to accept Ishta’eth’s imperial child, because that was how she wished it to be. In his heart, Nici did not doubt it either. Her child would rule, and she would die, and Nici could not stop it.
“Is it worth it?” Nici said. “How this will end for you.”
“Of course,” Ishta’eth said. “It is as it must be.”
Nici had no idea what to say to that.
He stood and waited with her, and dawn light became grey, and he saw the palace for the first time, the home of his family since time began.
There was to be a battle today, and after that he would be god-made-man, and rule the world. And after that Ishta’eth would die, and he would miss her, and in time his child would rule after him, forever.
“I will be the last of my kind to rule,” he said. “It is a strange thought.”
“No stranger than a peasant boy becoming emperor.”
“No,” Nici said. “No, I suppose not.”
A silence.
“I will miss you,” Nici said. “Despite all you have done.”
For a moment she took his hand.
Then a roar from below, a shiver of movement in the grey dawn light.
“Look,” Ishta’eth said. “It begins.”
She stood there, calm and unconcerned, and looked out upon the death she had made for millions, and smiled, Nici thought, at the perfect peace it was about to bring.
# # #
The Prince of Fey
They met in the middle of the valley, as they had since time began. All around, tens of thousands lay dead and dying, their bodies heaped, their limbs entwined, their wings severed and scattered across the bloody grass. Prince Ribeag ignored the screams and groans, as he ignored his sister’s crows. He was long used to it. He poked at something bloody on the ground, an ear perhaps, poked with his spear then flicked it away. He looked around. His armor, and that of his family and people, was brilliant white. A thousand paces away, walking nearer, the Tn’trith were the black of night, their helms and capes billowing in the breeze. The ground was red underfoot. It surprised Ribeag that the grass did not simply die from all the blood that was spilled in this place, year after year.
“Why is it always here?” he said.
His cousin, Bahn, looked at him. Bahn the fair, the golden, commander of the left wing. “Cousin?”
“Why here? Why do we always fight here? It’s a terrible place for it. No value in the terrain.”
“It is Caer Trador, the Field of Blood.”
“And why, my royal cousin, is that so? Why must we fight here?”
Bahn shrugged. His wings flexed with his shoulders. His mount, a grey mouse, stirred beneath him. “May as well ask why Tr’nah and Tn’trith fight at all.”
“Why do we fight at all?”
“Cousin…” Bahn sounded uncomfortable.
Ribeag held up his hand, “Never mind.”
He looked around, at blood and death and scorched dirt where the sky-fire hurlers had tried and failed, explosively, as they always did.
“How many did we lose this day?” he asked.
“Our uncle G’nahe, our cousins Treyn and Torou, a few among the household.”
Ribeag looked at a thousand dying men and a thousand dying women and wondered how his cousin could be such a fool. “And how many of those who do not matter gave their lives?”
Bahn shrugged, flexed again. He did that with an arrogant ease that had always annoyed Ribeag, who was of the less ancient, noble, and elegant – yet more powerful – branch of the family.
“Do not shrug, royal cousin,” Ribeag said sharply. “Go and find out.”
Bahn looked at him for a moment, surprised, nodded, and slapped his palm to his chest gravely, and rode across to the nearest group of officers.
Ribeag watched Bahn speak. The dark Tn’trith were closer now, their ravens with them, flocking, pecking and cawing at the dead. And some of the not-so-dead.
“You,” Ribeag called to one of their heralds, waiting nearby. “Go tell your masters to dismiss their birds. Leave the dead in peace.”
The herald looked at him, puzzled. Traditions wore heavily on all of them, Ribeag thought. It made even the thought of something new bemusing.
“Or shall I use your tongue as a quill and your wings as a parchment and tell them myself?” Ribeag said. “Go.”
The herald mounted his rat and went.
“Make haste,” Ribeag shouted, and watched the herald ride. To one of the guard, nearby, he said, “Find an archer and kill that man if his steed drops below a run between here and there.”
“Sire,” Bahn said at his side. “I have our casualties.”
“Good.”
Bahn sensed his mood and waited, and it amused Ribeag to remind Bahn of his place. One did not tell a Prince of the Tr’nah a piece of news he had not expressly asked to hear, for it implied he did not have his own ways of finding out.
“Do you ever find it odd,” Ribeag said, “that I stand here and you stand there and for all that you resent me, it could never have been any other way?”
“It could have,” Bahn said. “Once.”
Bahn spoke softly, gently, and Ribeag almost decided to pretend not to hear. Then he said, “What was that?”
Bahn was brave. A fool, an arrogant clot, but brave. “I said that it could have been different once, sire.”
Ribeag looked at him and smiled and saw the hate in Bahn’s eyes. Ribeag wanted that hate. It was a fire that kept Bahn alive. So many of their kind became plump and satisfied and shriveled to husks in their beds.
Bahn could not raise a hand against Ribeag, could not even indirectly plot, once his oath was given. That was an endless frustration to him. Since nothing angered Bahn more than Ribeag’s obliviousness to his hatred, Ribeag took some care to make his obliviousness clear. And his contempt for the old ways and old customs that Bahn lived by and which Ribeag alone could alter at will.
“Why is it we fight on our feet when we have perfectly good wings?” Ribeag said. “I wonder if I ought to change that. We ride butterflies and sparrows to joyous celebrations, and rats and mice to war. Why is that?”
“It is how it has always been done.”
“And perhaps it is time that changed. We have wings, after all.”
“And so do the dark Tn’trith.”
“But they are fat and lazy and no doubt fail to exercise. Or so my advisors tell me.”
“Of course.”
“So no doubt our men could out-fly them should they wish.”
“No doubt.”
“What think you, cousin? Should I make this change? I have the Tn’trith princeling almost here, I could tell him of my decision right now.”
“That would be unwise, sire.”
Ribeag looked up. That was a careful insult. A Tr’nah prince was never unwise. He may be uninformed by underlings, or knowledgeable in a manner that was unclear to those beneath him, but he was never unwise. And Bahn knew it too.
“I should have you beheaded,” Ribeag said. “Or dewinged.”
“If my prince wishes it.”
Ribeag stood there, thinking, and after a moment Bahn drew a slow breath. That was enough.
“There are times when I wish it,” Rib
eag said. “So I wonder why I do not?”
“What would a battle be, sire, without our wit afterwards?”
“Yes,” Ribeag said. “That must be it.”
He looked at Bahn and smiled, and let Bahn know he would keep his wings another day. Bahn nodded and bowed, but stayed close. He must stay close. He was still waiting to deliver the report of casualties he had been sent to collect like a common errand boy. It was unthinkable to speak without permission, but it was equally impossible to walk away without having fulfilled his task.
Ribeag waited, amused to make Bahn suffer.
He looked out toward the Tn’trith. The herald he had sent had reached their main body. He was dismounting a dozen paces from his masters in order to crawl forward, prostate. A nearby guardsman nodded. An archer, further off, began to draw his bow. Ribeag remembered his order. The herald had dropped below a run before he accomplished his errand.
It was this kind of literalism that held all of then back. Not that Ribeag didn’t encourage it, at times requiring obedience to the letter on a whim.
“Leave him,” Ribeag said to the archer, and watched the herald lie, face down, in the blood and dead, until the Tn’trith general chose to notice him. He noticed quickly, by Tn’trith standards. He must assume the message carried weight. In a few minutes the ravens croaked and flapped into the air and went back towards the Tn’trith camp.
“Tell me of the dead, cousin,” Ribeag said.
“Fourscore thousand of ours dead, an even hundred of theirs. Twice that injured among either side.” Bahn hesitated, and Ribeag knew what was coming. Traditionalists such as Bahn, the new, young traditionalists, always hesitated before they spoke of such things. It was an affectation, a horror they had only decided to feel a year or two ago that had become the fashion. “And ten thousand of ours who will never fly again.”
“At least they live,” Ribeag said.
“After a manner. And sire,” Bahn looked past Ribeag. “Your sister comes.”
Ribeag swore.
The women of his family were warriors before queens, and always had been, but Aluese was the worst any could remember. She eschewed the glinting, shimmering, moonlight armor he and Bahn and all the others wore. She had no need of it. She had a living armor, her companions. A hundred would die before she suffered a scratch. She wandered the battlefield in her robes, her skin glinting, her hair flowing free like starlit milk, her limbs and wings a glorious array of death. She was covered in blood, from head to wingtip to toe. Not just splattered pink, as Ribeag and Bahn and most around them were, the pink of carelessly cutting a man’s throat in battle. Aluese was dripping crimson red. It dried in her hair and set thick between her breasts, it stained her lips and her hands and splashed up her legs to the knee. The gossamer of her wings dripped, was so clotted she would have been unable to fly, should she wish to, but like Bahn she disdained such things.
She walked forward and bowed elaborately, then kissed Ribeag’s mouth, kissed and writhed and moaned. Her passion was already aroused. In an hour or two the survivors of her set would begin an orgy that would last until the next dawn. Her clothes were torn and the blood on her body hot and Ribeag had lain with her enough to know how very, very good she was. But those were the old ways, and they no longer did things like that so obviously in front of the commoners. The new gods disapproved, apparently.
Ribeag accepted her kiss, though. It was expedient. Her companions watched, approving. She kissed and writhed and smeared Tn’trith blood on Ribeag, then licked it from his face and laughed and said, “So, brother, again we are alive.”
“We are.”
“And our blood are not.”
“For that I thank you.”
“I do it for you, my brother prince, to spare you the effort of raising your royal arm against your dark enemies.”
“And for that I thank you also.” Ribeag said, “However…” And he looked towards the approaching Tn’trith.
She laughed. Her companions laughed. She attracted others like herself, the reckless bloody few who seemed to deplore life. Every battle day she lost four-fifths of her circle, most slain without purpose by a stray arrow or unheeded blow. And those who survived were lean and ferocious and dangerous, among the most lethal troops the Tr’nah had to field. Even Ribeag feared them a little, and Bahn and the Tn’trith most certainly did.
“Their blood is richer than our own, brother dear. Did you know that?”
“You have told me this before,” Ribeag said. “Now is not the time to discuss it.”
“They cannot hear me.”
“They hear as well as we do.”
“Exactly my point. I cannot hear them.”
Her companions laughed. They were drinking already, Ribeag noticed. Some were drunk. On surviving, and on mead. Some were beginning to fondle others. One of the women, one Ribeag recognized from other days – she had a scar down her cheek and was missing the tip of one wing – smiled his way, had one of her hands on herself and the other on a youth next to her. He looked down, found another piece of someone on the ground, prodded that now. A finger. He hadn’t seen it earlier, and wondered if it had dropped from Aluese somehow. There was nowhere in her clothing it could have fallen from, but it might have stuck to her skin. That had been known to happen.
“Do you know how I know I cannot hear them, royal brother?” Aluese asked.
“I imagine you will tell me.”
“Because if I could, then seeing me here, they would whisper and squeak how unhappy they were.”
“Indeed,” Ribeag said. “I imagine they will do so very soon. I imagine they are planning it even now.”
Aluese smiled at that. There were times when there was almost affection between them.
“I don’t suppose you would consider standing somewhere else?” Ribeag said.
“I stand where I wish. It is my field as much as yours, brother. I won it also.”
“Yes,” Ribeag said. “It is.”
“My kingdom, too.”
“Indeed.”
She looked at him and licked the blood from her lips. “Would you care to exercise your rights over me, brother? I feel a certain tingling of the blood.”
“Not now, thank you, sister.”
“It was the way in olden days.”
“They are called old for a reason.”
“And yet you and cousin Bahn and all else around are admiring my attire.”
“Yes,” Ribeag said. “Of that, dear sister. You should wear armor.”
“Twas done this way in the olden days.”
“And now we have armor,” Ribeag said, and prodded the stray finger on the ground a little more. “So perhaps it should be used.”
“I prefer to be free.”
“Indeed then. Never mind.”
“But you had to ask.”
“I did.”
Aluese looked around. Looked at the Tn’trith, closer, but still a ways away.
“Do you know,” she said, in the voice she used at parties, to reveal something both odd and thrilling. “That in this world they find us fetching and adorable.”
“We are smaller than they.”
“But still. They tell stories of us to their children.”
“So I am told.”
“Their children. I would not speak of Tn’trith to my own children, had I any. That’s disgusting.”
“It is fortunate the matter has yet to arise.”
“Pixies, they call us. Fairies.”
“Sometimes gods and angels.”
She laughed, made a span with her fingers, close together. “But only when they think we are large. When they see us very, very close.”
Ribeag nodded, becoming bored. It did not matter. The people of this world could not see the battlefield, or know of its works. Ribeag looked around. The field of blood had been built up over the centuries. Figures loomed, like giants, nearby, lumbering about their works. These people had lost their magic centuries ago. Had given it up. Now they
were enslaved and did not know Tn’trith and Tr’nah fought among their feet for their world, or that Ribeag had saved them from the slavery of the Tn’trith, once again.
“Sometimes we capture one and eat his dreams and then he becomes mad,” Aluese said.
Ribeag nodded, distracted. The subject was distasteful, but her companions did, and Ribeag was powerless to prevent it. “Indeed,” he said.
Aluese was becoming bored. She looked at Bahn, and smiled, which meant he was about to suffer. “Cousin Bahn,” she said. “Have you counted for my brother? The dead commoners?”
Bahn stirred, stretched his wings, glanced at Ribeag and awaited his nod before answering. “Indeed I have, cousin.”
“Like a clerk. Like a counting creature. Something grey.”
“As you say, cousin.”
There was an edge to his voice that made her companions stir. Some looked over, and stepped a little closer. They had killed before, like a pack, upon perceiving an insult to her. Killed noblemen as well as others. Especially now, after battle, when lusts were high and Ribeag, or whoever he chose to attend the family honor, would be unlikely to hunt down the culprits.
“How many did we lose today, cousin? And how many did they?”
Bahn looked at Ribeag, and smiled, and took his little jab at brother as well as sister. “I forget, cousin. Twas merely commoners, after all.”
Aluese looked back at her companions to make her jest. “And not even a very good counting creature, after all.”
They laughed.
“No wonder your father was fed to the Tn’trith,” Aluese said. “And mine became emperor.”
Ribeag looked up, interested again. These two prodded often, and he had never quite decided if their jibes hid hatred or real affection. Not that the latter would help Bahn if her companions chose to protect her, and not that she would probably care. Ribeag was a little curious to see how Bahn responded. The Tn’trith were still walking. They would be a while yet. There was time to be amused.
Bahn was deciding how to react. He was a political enough creature to decide, not to simply be angry. He needed to take some care. He was away from his own men, all but a captain or two. He ought to be safe, among Ribeag’s royal guard – and would be safe, in the sense his murder would be punished instantly – but there were occasions when Aluese’s companions forgot details such as that.
Ribeag considered a lesson. To Aluese as much as her friends, and to Bahn, and the Tn’trith too, watching as they walked closer. All needed to remember who Ribeag was, and why he was here, and what those ancients sworn of his office could do.