One of the figures next to the stone differed from the others in the way his light shimmered, flaring bright one second then dark red another. The flicker made it difficult to discern any features, but Vaelin gained the impression of a tall man, a man with a beard. The Ally.
The figure at the Ally’s side was shorter and, judging by the stoop of his back, considerably older. Unlike the Ally his light was constant and bright, the hue a warm shade of blue. Vaelin watched as the Ally placed his hand on the older man’s shoulder in respectful assurance then stood back. The older man stood still for a moment, head lowered as if gathering strength, his light dimming slightly, then he took a step forward and touched his hand to the absolute void of the black stone.
For a second nothing happened, but then a red circle appeared in the centre of the stone. It was small but glowed with a fiery energy, pulsing rhythmically like a heart. The glowing hand of the old man reached for it, fingers extended to grasp it … The circle gave off a sudden flare, its pulsing increased to a rapid thrum, and the old man reeled away as something erupted from the stone, cascading up and out in a multi-coloured fountain, rising high into the sky as a circle of pure energy spread out from the stone at ground level, expanding and streaking away to the horizon like a wall of flame. Most of the lights it passed through without apparent effect, but here and there one would flare even brighter as the wall touched them. The power, Vaelin recalled. Burned into the bloodline …
The spectral fountain faded slowly, the fiery circle in the stone diminishing in size until it was no more than a pinprick, whereupon it vanished. The old man rolled on the ground beside the stone, jerking in obvious agony, his light shimmering now, but pulsing brighter than before. His agony subsided slowly, reaching up to take the Ally’s hand as he knelt at his side. The Ally, however, made no move to take his hand, staring down at the prostrate old man, his light now more red than white.
Abruptly he reared, raising something dark above his head and bringing it down with all his strength. The old man’s light flared then seemed to fracture, dimming into two faint glows, one big, the other smaller. His head, Vaelin realised. He took his head.
The Ally bent to retrieve the head, raising it up until the stump touched his lips whereupon his light instantly turned a permanent shade of red, a dark crimson glow that pulsed with the same rhythm as the fiery circle in the stone.
The Ally cast the head aside and turned to the crowd of onlookers. They had all retreated from him in evident fear, many turning to flee. Then, as one they came to a halt, all standing frozen and immobile. For a long moment the Ally regarded the crowd in careful scrutiny, then he began to walk among them, pausing next to a frozen man of athletic build and a yellowish glow, touching a hand to his head. The selected man’s back instantly formed a rigid arc as he voiced a silent scream, his light turning the same shade of red as the Ally in the space of a heartbeat.
The Ally moved on touching a dozen more men in quick succession, then striding from the crowd and standing to watch as the reddened figures began to murder their white companions. Some were strangled, others clubbed with rocks or branches for these people seemed to possess no weapons. All the while the Ally stood and watched the massacre, head tilted slightly in dispassionate observation. When it was done, every white glow snuffed out, the Ally walked off towards the north and the red men followed him.
Dahrena gripped Vaelin’s hand tighter as they flew higher, time accelerating beneath them, the Ally’s cluster of red blossoming in the north and spreading, issuing smaller clusters that spread like spores across the length and breadth of the Unified Realm, white lights snuffing out everywhere they went.
“The Ally’s gift,” Vaelin said.
“No,” Dahrena told him, “never a gift. A sickness, a plague. Like the Red Hand.”
“This is but a dream. How can I know this?”
“We know it.” She floated away from him, spreading her arms as more people appeared out of the surrounding blackness, forming a circle around them. They were mostly strangers but he recognised some. The sister from the Seventh Order who had conspired with Alucius in Varinshold. Marken was there too, smiling grimly behind his beard, and Aspect Grealin, still fat even here … And one other.
Caenis wore the garb of a brother of the Sixth Order, even though he had died Aspect of the Seventh. “Brother,” Vaelin said, reaching out to him but Caenis only smiled and inclined his head in fond recognition.
“We who lingered when you drew him from the Beyond,” Dahrena said. “It is not just his will that can bind us there. We spent our remaining strength in crafting this vision. It was all we had left to give.”
He saw the circle of souls fading, drifting into darkness, Caenis the last to go, his hand raised in reluctant farewell before the dark claimed it.
“So you are truly gone now?” he asked Dahrena. “Your souls vanished forever?”
“Soul is memory,” she told him, pressing herself to him again, arms enfolding his head. “You are my Beyond now, Vaelin. You and all those I loved, even those I fought. For me to endure, so must you.”
She drew back, hands gripping his face. “Remember, a plague like the Red Hand. And none who caught the Red Hand and lived ever caught it again. And now, you really must wake up.”
He awoke to raised voices. Lonak voices, angry and aggravatingly loud. He groaned as he rolled upright, his fingers instinctively exploring the growing lump on the back of his head. The voices stopped and he looked up to see Kiral and Alturk retreating from one another, the Tahlessa sparing him a reproving glance before moving to stand in front of the Ally’s slumped form. He seemed to be unconscious, head lolling forward as a trickle of blood fell from a gash on his forehead.
Orven stood close to Vaelin, his guardsmen all around, glaring at the assembled Sentar on the other side of the clearing. He discerned it had been but moments since Alturk had clubbed him senseless. Vaelin extended a hand to Orven, who obligingly hauled him upright. He walked to Alturk and gave a shallow bow. “My thanks, Tahlessa. Lord Orven, break camp. We still have a long way to go.”
More towns appeared along the course of the road the farther south they went. They were usually sprawling places, having long outgrown the protective walls of the pre-Imperial age. Most had clearly suffered riot and rebellion, a few were little more than blackened ruins, and fewer still had contrived to remain intact by virtue of newly raised walls and barricades, often held by armed townsfolk happy to launch arrows at strangers who ventured too close. Vaelin avoided them all, having no inclination to embroilment in unnecessary battle, though the Sentar often chafed at the need to suffer an unanswered challenge.
The Ally now rode at the rear of the column, his bruised and partially remoulded features bland and cheerful as ever. Orven’s guards had been given stern instructions to gag him if he attempted to speak again, but he had maintained a continual silence since waking from the beating. Kiral stared at him constantly, hands often bunching on her reins and Vaelin knew she was resisting the impulse to reach for her bow. The song’s guidance is rarely mistaken, he knew, missing his lost gift more keenly than ever. But Dahrena’s vision had held no desire for the Ally’s immediate death, and no inclination he was on the wrong path.
A line of red appeared on the horizon five days later, growing as they drew closer until they paused amidst a vast array of redflower fields and, in the hazy distance, the tall towers of a marble city.
“Volar,” Lorkan breathed at Vaelin’s side, shaking his head in unabashed wonder. “I truly never thought to see it.”
Vaelin called for Lord Orven and pointed to the west and east. “Send out your scouts, we need word of the queen’s whereabouts. We’ll make camp here…”
“You don’t have time!”
Vaelin turned to see the Ally regarding him with cold intent, all vestige of humour vanished from his still misshapen features. The guards on either side moved closer to fulfil their orders but Vaelin waved them back, trotting Scar closer, mee
ting the Ally’s glare. “Why?”
“My servant plays with your sister in the arena as we speak. Or rather, that perverted bitch you call your sister. Delay further, and I suspect she’ll be dead before long, after a suitable period of well-deserved punishment. She did always irk me so.”
Vaelin looked at Kiral, who gritted her teeth and nodded. Reva! His creature has Reva.
“She holds no gift,” the Ally went on. “No place in the Beyond for her…”
Vaelin wheeled away from him, spurring to the head of the column and barking an order at Orven to follow, making for Volar at the gallop.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Lyrna
It seems I have come far to visit justice on a people intent on their own destruction. The city seemed to be ruled by the dead; there was not an avenue, doorway or garden free of corpses. They also hung from the many towers like ragged, long-forgotten dolls. It was clear to her this had been a wealthy district, the opulence of the houses and the extensive walled gardens rich in cherry blossoms and statuary told of great privilege and high status, but whatever had swept through here had little regard for rank; copious enslaved dead told her this was not the product of revolt.
“Arisai, Highness,” Brother Sollis reported, his horse’s iron-shod hooves a jarring intrusion into the silence covering this place. He clattered to a halt nearby, pausing to offer Aspect Arlyn a respectful nod before addressing her. “We found twenty or so in the neighbouring district, killing all they could find. We dealt with them but I’ve little doubt there are more.”
He shifted in his saddle as his fellow brothers reined in a short way off, clearly impatient to be off. “The route to the arena?” she asked him.
“Clear, Highness. There appear to be no other Volarian soldiery in the city. I believe you have sufficient protection to proceed there.”
Whilst you ride off to save the people we came to destroy, no doubt. She was about to order him to form up his company in escort when Murel abruptly leapt down from her horse and ran towards a pile of bodies lying near the arched entrance to one of the larger houses. She pulled the topmost corpse away, a slender woman in a red robe with a gaping wound to her neck, and reached into the bloody mess beneath, emerging with a small, half naked figure. She clutched it in a tight embrace as Lyrna trotted Jet closer, dismounting at Murel’s side as she wiped fresh blood from the face of a girl perhaps eight years in age, alive but oddly still, staring about with wide, dark eyes. Murel was weeping, the first time Lyrna had seen her do so since the day of her ennoblement at the Wensel Isle.
The girl blinked at the lady then looked up at Lyrna with a curious frown. “I know you,” she said in a somewhat prim voice.
“You do?” Lyrna moved closer, going to her haunches and reaching out to tease back a stiff strand of matted hair from the girl’s forehead.
“My father told me,” the girl went on, pouting a little in defiance. “You’ve come to burn everything down. You’re the queen of fire.”
Lyrna closed her eyes. A breeze played over her skin in a gentle caress, carrying the scent of cherry blossoms, the perfume delicate but rich enough to mask the stink of gore and bowels voided at the point of death. She tried to recall another odour, one she knew so well, one that choked the throat and stirred bile from the gut, the stench of her own flesh burning. But she couldn’t find it, not today.
“No,” she told the girl, reopening her eyes and pausing to cup her cheek with a smile. “I’m just a queen.”
She rose, touching a hand to Murel’s shoulder. “Take her to Brother Kehlan.” She turned and strode back to her horse. “Brother Sollis, take your company and hunt down any remaining Arisai. Volarian citizenry found alive are to be conveyed to safety if possible. I’ll send word to the Battle Lord to allocate forces to assist you.”
He bowed in the saddle, his face betraying a sense of gratitude she hadn’t seen before, nodded again to the Aspect, and wheeled about, his rasping voice calling out orders to his brothers as he galloped off.
“Don’t like it, Lerhnah,” Davoka said as she climbed into the saddle, casting a critical eye over the surviving Queen’s Daggers. “We are too few.”
Lyrna turned at the sound of a multitude of voices at their rear, causing Iltis to wheel about with sword drawn. He calmed as the first Cumbraelin came into view. A well-built man, as many archers were, running with his bow across his back and hatchet in hand, pausing to offer her the briefest bow before running on, making for the unmistakable bulk of the arena, now only a half mile distant. He was quickly followed by hundreds more, the surrounding avenues filled with their panting prayers, the words “Blessed Lady” most frequent among them. Al Hestian couldn’t hold them, she surmised. I hope he was wise enough not to try.
“I think we’ll have enough, sister,” she told Davoka, spurring Jet to a gallop.
The head stared down at her with sightless eyes, mouth slack and tongue lolling from between its teeth. It had been fixed on to the stump of the statue’s neck with iron nails, hammered through bronze and flesh alike, streaks of dried blood covering the metal down to the plinth where the original head lay.
“These people are never short of horrors, it seems,” Iltis observed in a disgusted tone.
Lyrna guided Jet past the statue and on to the arena, the Cumbraelins now streaming through its arches. She had caught a glimpse of Lord Antesh urging them on before disappearing inside, but had no opportunity to impart any orders to him, not that she expected him to follow them now with the Blessed Lady so close.
She dismounted before the tallest arch and proceeded into the gloomy interior, shouts of combat echoing through the vaulted stairs and corridors as the Cumbraelins overcame any opposition. The Queen’s Daggers spread out around her in a protective arc, Aspect Arlyn and Iltis both close on either side with swords drawn.
“If I may, Highness,” the Aspect said, pointing to a stairway nearby, leading down into the depths of this structure. Lyrna raised a questioning eyebrow and he went on, “The cages where the Garisai are kept. They may be of use.”
She nodded and gestured for him to proceed, following as he led the Daggers into the stairwell. The tumult of battle greeted her as she descended, emerging into a long rectangular chamber, lined on each side with cages. The Daggers and the Aspect were engaged in a struggle with a dozen Kuritai. The Aspect moved with the typical fluid grace of the Sixth Order, belying his years as he parried and spun in the melee, cutting down a Kuritai and blocking the blade of another who lunged at one of the Daggers. But the Kuritai were also fearsomely skilled and Lyrna forced down a surge of rage at the sight of yet more of her people falling to the blades of the slave-elite. I am just a queen.
She sent Iltis to join the struggle with a flick of her hand and looked around, her eyes alighting on a corpse lying nearby, a man of considerable girth with a stab wound to the chest, a gaoler judging by the keys dangling from his belt. She bent and tugged them free, going to the nearest cage and drawing up short at the sight of the occupant.
There was no smile on his lips now, no mischief in his eyes, his hair hung limp and greasy over a face devoid of all humour, or admiration. “So you see,” the Shield said, voice barely above a grunt, “you managed to put me in a cage after all.”
She said nothing, turning the key in the lock and hauling the cage open, standing aside with an impatient gesture as he lingered. He emerged slowly, casting a brief glance at the continuing struggle in the corridor, the Kuritai now reduced to three, backed up against the bars of the cages as hands reached from within to claw at them in desperate fury.
“This is the last war I fight for you,” the Shield said.
Lyrna tossed him the keys as the last of the Kuritai was brought down, moving to the stairwell and ascending without a backward glance.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Reva
“Kill her!” Lieza shrieked, thrashing in the Arisai’s grip. “Kill her and it ends!”
Reva’s hand jerked in the sand, i
nching closer to the bow as if by its own volition, her eyes still fixed on the Empress’s smiling face. “She makes a fair point,” she called. “With me gone this war is over, but she will still die and you will remember her end for a long time. I’ve ordered them to spare you, for how could I harm my sister? Wouldn’t you rather give her a quick death?”
Reva tore her gaze away, turning to Lieza, now sagging in the Arisai’s clutches, eyes imploring, her ragged breaths the only sound in the arena, the silence unbroken by the barest murmur as Reva’s hand closed on the bow …
Something whined past her head and thudded into the sand next to the bow. An arrow, the fletching shuddering with the impact. Reva’s gaze snapped up to the top tiers of the arena, finding a line of figures silhouetted there, each holding a bow. She groaned as her despair deepened. Varulek’s Kuritai hadn’t done their work after all. One of the archers raised his bow above his head and Reva squinted, finding something familiar in his bearing, the breadth of his shoulders reminding her of someone she knew, someone surely lost to the ocean. Her eyes went to his bow. It was long with a single elegant curve, so unlike the double-curved strongbows favoured by the Volarians.
Slowly she turned and lowered her gaze to the arrow buried in the sand. Swift-wing feathers, she saw, eyeing the fletching. A bird only seen in Cumbrael in the summer.
She raised her gaze to the Empress, and returned her smile.
She snatched up the bow and Varulek’s arrow, pivoting to the left, notching and loosing in a single motion. One of the Arisai holding Lieza staggered back, staring at the arrow jutting from his chest in gasping amusement. The other immediately drew his sword, raising it to plunge into Lieza’s back, then falling dead as Reva sent Antesh’s arrow into his neck.