Legacy of Kings

  Closer and closer to that gate Nasaan rode now, desert blood singing in his veins. Then the first of his men passed through it, ululating in triumph as they entered the city. Nasaan’s agents inside Jezalya had done their job well. He glanced back over his shoulder to make sure all was well behind him—

  And saw death bearing down upon him.

  A vast mounted force was coming up swiftly behind his men, and it did not look friendly. Where it had come from he did not know, but its witches must have been touched by the gods, to be able to obscure the presence of so many men. Judging from the cloud of dust this new army was raising, it was several times the size of his own, and it was bearing down upon them with the speed of a sand-spawned whirlwind. The bulk of Nasaan’s strike force was about to be trapped between the great wall and this furious army. And now sounds of battle were starting to ring out from inside Jezalya’s walls; without timely reinforcement, Nasaan’s men inside the city would not stand a chance.

  Even as he cried out a warning to his men, arrows began to fly at them from behind. Those who were holding shields had not positioned them to defend against a rearguard action; arrows pierced both human and equine flesh. One horse reared up as it took two arrows in its side, nearly throwing off its rider; another went down with its rider still in the saddle, and both were trampled underfoot. One of Nasaan’s witches quickly cast a spell to protect them, but there was little she could do other than fend off the arrows one by one as they arrived. There were no natural obstacles here that could be manipulated to greater purpose, no sunlight to be angled into the enemy’s eyes, not even cloudy skies to help provide a bolt of lightning . . . only an empty, barren landscape, devoid of any tool that a witch might use to lend added force to her efforts.

  As the human whirlwind bore down upon them, Nasaan’s rearmost ranks wheeled their horses about to confront it. Feverishly Nasaan prayed for the war god Alwat to favor him and his warriors as he braced to meet the enemy head-on. It was said that Alwat favored those who had the courage to fight against impossible odds; if so, then Nasaan’s situation right now was sure to please him.

  Suddenly something massive and dark swooped down out of the sky, right over the enemy’s front line. The men attacking Nasaan seemed to falter, with no visible cause. It was a strange thing to witness, as if a wave of uncertainty were somehow rippling through the enemy ranks, man by man. Even the horses seemed to grow confused, and several stumbled, becoming dangerous obstacles to the men behind them. Never in all his life had Nasaan seen anything like it. But he was not one to question a gift from the gods. Voicing a war cry that echoed across the vast plain, he signaled for his men to charge.

  Whatever the dark creature was, it hovered overhead as the battle was joined, its vast wings barely visible against the dark sky. Nasaan could not spare a moment to look up at it, but he could sense its presence overhead even as he braced himself for impact. It was watching them. Waiting. He knew that instinctively, just as he knew instinctively that this was not a natural creature, and that whatever it was doing to the enemy was not a natural act.

  Steel continued to ring out against steel in the barren plain as the two armies fought, and dust arose in great plumes all about them. But there was clearly a sickness in the soul of the enemy now, and they could not stand their ground. The first man Nasaan engaged seem to move lethargically and could not manage to turn aside Nasaan’s sword, nor could he swing his own powerfully enough to make his blow count. From what Nasaan could glimpse out of the corner of his eye as he dispatched the man, others were acting similarly. The enemy’s horses were stumbling about like untrained colts who had never seen a battle before. Several reared up in panic and tried to flee the battlefield, colliding with others as they did so, fostering utter chaos. All semblance of military formation among the enemy had been lost. Even as Nasaan thrust his sword into the side of a third enemy warrior, he wondered what sort of terrible power could have caused such a thing.

  And then he saw a vision. Or maybe it was not a vision. Maybe there really was a woman standing in the middle of the battlefield, in a circle of utter calm. Maybe the tides of violence really did part around her like a rushing stream, without any man being consciously aware of the process.

  At first glance she appeared to be a woman of the desert, with the golden skin and the finely chiseled features of a tribal princess, but her bearing proclaimed her to be something more. Her body was wrapped in layered veils of fine silk, and the long sleeves beat about her body like restive wings as men fought to their deaths on all sides of her. And her eyes! They were black and faceted, like gemstones, as inhuman as they were beautiful.

  She was staring straight at him.

  Nasaan knew that there were demons of the desert called djiri, wild spirits who sometimes aided tribal warriors in battle. He also knew that their help did not come without a price. Tales were told around the campfire of warriors who had been saved from the brink of death by such creatures, only to discover that that the price demanded was their firstborn child, a favored wife . . . or even their own manhood. The djiri were capricious and cruel, and notoriously unpredictable. One of Nasaan’s own ancestors had supposedly received the aid of such a demon, back when he had led his tribe in battle against the Tawara, and the ancestral songs hinted at a price so terrible that he became a broken man as a result and ultimately took his own life.

  None of Nasaan’s men seemed to be aware that the djira was present, nor did the horses appear to see her. Yet the tide of battle parted as it approached her, like rushing water parting around an island. Men fought, bled, and died on all sides of her, but no matter how chaotic the battle became, they did not move into her space. Blood spattered across the ground not far from her feet, and clods of earth torn loose from the earth by pounding hooves came flying in her direction . . . but men and horses all turned aside as they approached, seeking bloodshed elsewhere. No living thing would come close to her.

  All this Nasaan absorbed in a single instant, and then an enemy warrior engaged him, and he was fighting for his life once more. Not until he had dispatched the man—an easy task, given the enemy’s confusion—was he able to look back at the woman.

  She was still there. Untouched by battle.

  Her eyes were as black as the desert night and filled with promise.

  A wounded horse staggered by Nasaan. Its rider, a young man in brightly polished scale armor, took a swing at his head. Nasaan caught the blade on the edge of his shield and turned it aside easily; the man’s blow was as weak as a child’s.

  She did this, he thought, as he gutted his opponent with a quick thrust and watched him tumble to the ground. Overhead the great beast was beating its wings steadily, driving dust down into Nasaan’s eyes. He blinked it away just in time to meet the attack of another assailant, decapitating the man with a single sweeping blow. Even as he did so, the man’s horse fell to its knees, so swiftly one might think it had been hamstrung.

  Magic.

  Even without looking at her, he knew that she was smiling. He could feel her presence against his skin, cold fingernails of promise pricking his spine. You want Jezalya. The words were like ice against his flesh. I can give it to you. Had his ancestor experienced something like this? Had the offer of his own djira been simultaneously terrifying and seductive, casting his soul into such confusion that he could barely think straight? The touch of a desert spirit should not be cold; Nasaan knew that. But that observation was a distant thing, and his focus right now was the immediate picture. As he turned aside the blade of yet another attacker, only her offer mattered.

  I can give you victory, she whispered into his brain.

  If he refused her, did that mean the enemy would suddenly come back to its senses? Perhaps even gain a magical advantage in turn? The thought of his own warriors being infected with that strange mental sickness was daunting. Courage alone could not shield an army from such a power. No human effort could.

  He took advantage of a moment’s respite to look
out over the battlefield. His men were doing well; they had taken advantage of the enemy’s strange weakness to decimate its ranks, despite the odds against them. They might be able to carry the day even if the djira turned against them now. But time was everything inside Jezalya, and every minute they wasted made the situation more precarious for his people inside those walls. Any minute now the great gate might start to close, so that his men in the city were left isolated. He could not allow that to happen.

  Gritting his teeth, he looked back at the djira. Dead men and horses were piled around her in a perfect circle, like some ghastly siege wall. Fresh blood, gleaming blackly in the dim morning light, soaked the ground surrounding her feet.

  He waited until she met his eyes, then nodded.

  Go, then. The words resounded in his brain as clearly as if she had spoken them aloud. Ride to Jezalya. Take the city.

  For a moment he hesitated . . . but only for a moment. Then he wheeled his horse about to face the city once more, and cried out for his men to follow him. A few looked at him as though he were mad, but something in his manner must have convinced them he was not. Or else they were just willing to follow him anyway. One by one they worked their way free of the battle’s chaos to join him. Stumbling, confused, the enemy did not pursue them. The last living strength had been drained from their limbs, the last vital energy from their hearts. Whatever power the djira was using on them was truly fearsome, and Nasaan was glad he had not given her reason to turn against him.

  Hooves pounding, his small army thundered toward the city, ranks reforming as they rode. This time there were fewer arrows to contend with; clearly Nasaan’s agents within Jezalya had been dealing with the guards. The gate was still open, and through it he could hear the sounds of battle—human cries and collapsing defense structures and the ringing clash of steel-on-steel—while the sun breached the eastern horizon at last, sending lances of harsh golden light spearing across the plain, crowning his men in fire as they rode.

  He passed through the city gate with his sword raised, the names of his ancestors a prayer on his lips. And Alwat’s name as well, a prayer of gratitude for this improbable victory.

  And he rode into the fires of Hell.

  And glory.

  Jezalya’s surrender was finalized in the House of Gods. Nasaan had disdained the splendor of Dervasti’s palace as well as the grand plaza where his predecessor had staged official celebrations. The grandeur of such places seemed empty and artificial to him, bereft of true power. Here, in a windowless temple at the edge of the city containing all the gods of the region, was where the true power of Jezalya lay. And Nasaan meant to make it clear to all just who controlled that power now.

  Standing in the House of the Gods in his blood-spattered armor, surrounded by several hundred idols, the conqueror of Jezalya received the city’s leaders one by one. On all sides of him ancient gods watched silently, gold-chased statues sitting side by side with crude tribal totems, sacred rocks, and even a handful of artifacts whose precise identities had been forgotten long ago. Every tribe in the region had placed an image of its deity here at one time or another, every merchant his patron god, every pilgrim his protector-spirit. Jezalya honored all the gods of the world, and in return, it was said, all the gods of the world protected Jezalya.

  Even now the priests would be struggling to work Nasaan’s invasion into that narrative. Some were now whispering that the fall of the city must have been the will of the gods all along; Prince Dervasti had displeased the ancient deities, and so they had brought him down. Perhaps it was because he had moved the city’s sacred business from the House of the Gods to his grand but soulless palace. Or perhaps he had offered some more subtle insult to the desert deities, out of sight of his subjects. One thing was certain, all the whispers agreed: The city would not have fallen if the gods had not willed it to happen. And if the gods had not wanted Nasaan to take over Jezalya, then he would not have been able to do so.

  Nasaan had paid well for those whispers.

  Now, as the city’s leaders came to him one by one to offer their obeisance, he could feel the eyes of those ancient gods upon him. The fact that he was willing to handle this business in front of them should grant him legitimacy in the eyes of the locals, even if there had been no overt oracular signs in his favor. And he would garner the approval of the priests for choosing to stage his business here, rather than in the opulent, hubristic palace that Dervasti had built. Which was no small thing in a city that was the center of worship for hundreds of tribes. The setting could not possibly serve him better.

  One by one his reluctant subjects entered the windowless chamber, bowed to him—with varying degrees of respect—and then approached. There would be no open defiance of him, of course. The row of heads on pikes just outside the city’s main gate was a clear warning to anyone who did not like the current state of affairs that his opinion on the matter was not being sought. Whatever misgivings these men might have about the current situation, they would keep it to themselves. But it was not an easy thing to dissemble in the presence of so many gods, and those who had the most to hide from Nasaan were visibly on edge. He took note of their names for later, even while he accepted their formal protestations of loyalty. A newly conquered city was extremely volatile and he meant to watch this one closely.

  You are a prince now, he told himself. The title felt strange to him, like ill-fitting armor. Maybe when he washed the blood out of his hair and picked the crusted gore out from under his fingernails it would seem more natural to him.

  The lords of the city who had survived his initial purge offered him not only vows of loyalty but generous tribute as well. Some presented him with treasured heirlooms, empowered by generations of tribal reverence. Others brought rare perfumes, precious incense, aromatic spices. Still others placed hemp bags brimming with coins at Nasaan’s feet, a simple but eloquent offering. They were all bribes, of course. Those in high office who had survived the conquest were anxious to keep their heads on their shoulders. Others whose positions were less precarious hoped to win the favor of the city’s next administrator. And there were offerings from outsiders as well: merchants who regularly passed through the city, travelers who depended upon her generosity, tribal representatives who wanted to make sure that Nasaan did not add their ancestral lands to his military agenda. The new prince would keep half of all the treasure for himself, and the rest would go to his men, a reward for their courage in battle. And especially for their restraint afterward. Most of the city was still standing, and most of its women were unviolated. Such things did not come cheaply.

  And then one of Nasaan’s warriors stepped into the sacred chamber, glancing anxiously about as he did so. Many of the tribesmen were nervous about being in the presence of so many gods, and were clearly in awe of their leader for feeling otherwise.

  “Yes?” Nasaan asked. “What is it?”

  “There’s a woman to see you.” The man hesitated. “She came alone.”

  Nasaan raised an eyebrow. The few women who had come to see him thus far had all been accompanied by sizable retinues. When they’d been forced to enter the House of Gods without their attendants in tow they had done their best to mask their fear, but Nasaan could smell it on them. Would this new prince respect their status, their alliances, and their families, or consider them the spoils of war? Jezalya had been at peace for long enough that none of them had been through this kind of thing before. None of them knew what to expect.

  Yet this woman came to him alone.

  “Who is this maverick?” he asked.

  “She would not give a name.” The man paused. “She said that you would be expecting her.”

  A chill ran down Nasaan’s spine. Only one woman would have reason to introduce herself like that . . . or one creature that was not a woman. Would the gods be angered by a djira entering their sacred space? Or would that be deemed an offense only if she claimed to be a god herself?

  Drawing in a deep breath to settle the su
dden tremor in his stomach, he waited until he was sure that his voice would not betray his unease before he nodded to the man and ordered, “Send her in.”

  She looked more like a woman now than she had on the field of battle, but he was not fooled by that. Her eyes were human in color and shape now, and the layers of silk that draped her frame lay still about her flesh like normal human garments, but the power that emanated from her person filled the chamber like a costly incense. Sweet, musky, intoxicating. He licked the taste of it from his lips and felt its power pass into his blood. Desire and dread combined, a heady intoxicant.

  “You know who I am?” she asked.

  The djiri did not have names, at least in their natural form. Only when they took on mortal flesh for an extended period of time did they bother with such human trappings. Was she testing him, to see how much he knew about her kind? Even the legends of these creatures—what few there were—offered little clue as to their true motives. Each djira was unique, with a nature as mercurial as the shifting sands of the desert. That was part of what made them so dangerous.

  “I know what men call you,” he answered.

  She walked toward him, her dark eyes taking in the piles of gold surrounding them, a flicker of a smile playing across her lips. The presence of so many gods did not seem to concern her at all; her gaze passed over them briefly, then fixed upon the treasure at his feet. “So do you require an offering from me as well?” she asked. “Or is my past service enough?

  She was testing him, he realized. Daring him to haggle with her over the price of her aid. But he knew the ancient legends well enough to know where that would lead him. The djiri did not look kindly upon those who tried to wriggle out of their contracts. And he had seen what this one could do to mortal men if she wanted to; he had no desire to be at the receiving end of that kind of power.