Heart of Black Ice

CHAPTER 33

Weak from blood loss and utter exhaustion, Nicci fell into a sleep as deep as a coma. Mrra remained in the cool bedchamber, protecting her sister panther from danger. The big cat curled up beside her, and Nicci took comfort in the dense, soft fur, the powerful feline body.

The bloodthirsty zhiss were bottled up, dwindling and starving, and the Hidden People could at last reclaim their city and emerge into the sunlight again.

In the depths of her sleep, though, loud sounds reached her. Nicci awoke to turmoil inside the stone buildings. She sat bolt upright despite her lingering weariness. Mrra sprang to her feet and faced the splintered remnants of the door she had shredded with her claws in order to break free the night before. Nicci slid off the bed, her head throbbing with pain, her knees shaky. Thanks to hundreds of the biting zhiss, her pale skin was mottled with maroon blood blisters. She tried to shake off the fuzziness. “Come, Mrra. Let’s go see.”

With the cat loping along beside her, Nicci ran down the torchlit corridors toward the main entrance. The Hidden People were crowded at the high doorway, staring out into the daylight as if still fearful of the sun.

Crouching in the shadows, young Asha turned to her with an expression full of hope and desperation. “Nicci, we need your help!” When the girl clutched her arm, Nicci winced, feeling the bruises and bite wounds across her skin.

She felt intensely weary. “I already saved you. Have the zhiss escaped?”

A man nearby shook his head. “No, not the zhiss—an army! He’s come back!”

She was surprised and confused by the statement. “What army?”

“A thousand soldiers bearing the emblem of Emperor Kurgan! Cyrus said it was General Utros.” Asha hung her head. “He’s dead now.”

That made no sense. “General Utros is far away. Why would he come here?”

“This is his capital,” said another man, hiding in his gray robes. “He has two sorceresses with him. Cyrus and a dozen followers went out to greet him, but the sorceresses blasted them to bones and ashes.”

At this news, Nicci felt her strength return in a surge, though her ears still rang and her head throbbed. She worked her way past the drab people and stood in the towering doorway. “Two sorceresses?”

Out in the sunlight, she saw the glare reflected from countless shields, swords, chain mail, and armor plate. Hundreds of mounted troops filled the main plaza. Riding a black stallion, General Utros wore his distinctive horned helmet and golden mask. Beside him, dismounted, stood two bald women with designs painted on their skin.

Without hesitating, Nicci strode out into the bright sunlight to challenge them.

The stench of roasting flesh wafted into the air. Utros held the reins as he looked down at the gray-clad bodies his sorceresses had blasted. Now he needed new captives he could interrogate.

Ava looked downcast that she had disappointed her general. “Surely, they meant to attack.”

Ruva said, “Look in the shadows. Many more are lurking here. They infest your city, what is left of it. We must eradicate them.”

Fine swords were clutched in the blackened skeletal hands of the strange victims. Utros wondered if the furtive, gray-clad men were the remnants of some lost army left behind in the ruins. Wary now, he looked around at the great towers, the carved monoliths that depicted the exaggerated glories of Iron Fang. The city seemed more ominous now that the sorceresses had destroyed the first attackers—or were they merely emissaries? Curiosity seekers? They shouldn’t have been killed so quickly.

He shouted out to the shadows. “I am General Utros, and I have returned to Orogang. If your emperor is not worthy, then I will be your new ruler.”

His words were loud enough to startle pigeons from the high eaves. His soldiers flooded into the plaza, lining up their horses in ranks. He heard the jingle of tack, the rustle of leather armor, the sliding musical note of swords being drawn from scabbards as they waited in the ominous silence.

“Show yourselves!” Ava cried. “Bow down before General Utros.”

Ruva muttered, “Like beetles hiding inside a rotted log.” In disgust, she looked at the blackened corpses on the flagstones in front of them. “We will eradicate them all so we can take back your city.”

Since the pale figures seemed frightened of simple daylight, Utros decided they must be mere scavengers, human leftovers who did not belong in this glorious capital. Utros turned to his troops. “Break into companies and move through the major buildings. Sweep them clean. Round up those people. We will interrogate them.”

He faced the still-imposing palace that had been Iron Fang’s seat of power. He remembered the towers that stretched toward the heavens, the supporting buttresses, the arched windows that were now all bricked up.

The main palace entrance was open, though, and figures huddled inside. They must have seen Ava and Ruva blast the first group of emissaries, and he planned to strike greater fear in their hearts. He would ride his black stallion through the gates and directly into the grand throne room like a conquering hero.

Then one person strode boldly into the daylight, carrying herself with pride. Unlike the tattered gray rags that covered the others, this woman wore a black dress that clung to her shapely form. Her blond hair was raggedly cropped, and her piercing blue eyes stared at him as if his soldiers and sorceresses simply weren’t there. She had eyes for him, and him alone.

“I was ready to defeat you at Ildakar, General Utros,” Nicci said. “Now I will drive you from Orogang as well.”

With the bright sunlight on her blood-mottled skin, Nicci dredged up all her strength. She didn’t dare let Utros or his sorceresses see how drained she remained from the previous night’s battle.

Ava and Ruva skewered her with their glare, and then the two raised their hands in unison, ready to attack. Nicci could sense the waves as they summoned their gift, and she readied her shields. She had every intention of destroying the twins, but her real enemy was the ancient general.

Nicci called back to all the downtrodden Hidden People watching from shadowed doors and windows. “Behold the man whose statue you revered, whose legends you told. General Utros.” She glared at the blackened skeletons sprawled on the flagstones in front of his black horse. “Cyrus and his followers worshiped him, came to offer their swords to him—and he wiped them out. What will he do to the rest of you? General Utros is not your hero. He wants to subdue the Old World for his own gain.”

“We thought you had vanished along with Ildakar,” Utros growled at her. “Who are these people huddled in the shadows of Orogang? Why do they infest my capital city?”

“They are the descendants of those who overthrew Emperor Kurgan and claimed the city as their own.” Nicci took another step closer. “You are not welcome here.”

Ava and Ruva called on their gift, and an angry knot of clouds appeared over their heads. The wind whipped up, startling the horses of the ancient army.

Nicci called up an invisible shield to deflect their initial forays, though it cost her an alarming effort. Showing no weakness, though, she didn’t tear her gaze from Utros. “If the great commander needs lackeys for protection, then the legend of General Utros has dwindled indeed.”

The twins snarled, curling their fingers to build another attack.

Utros halted them with a gesture. “I don’t need them to protect me, but I can let Ava and Ruva play.” He released them.

On foot, the twin women glided toward Nicci like reptiles on a hot rock. She met them with a smile that was sharper than any sword edge. “You tried to kill me and my friends, attacked me with my own hair.” She touched her ragged blond locks. “It’s time I repaid you for that.”

With a thought and a push, she created wizard’s fire, a shimmering and searing globe in her hand, which she hurled into the crowded soldiers in the plaza. The molten flash incinerated five of the warriors and threw the remaining ranks into disarray.

Unexpectedly, the heavy doors of the stone buildings swung open behind her, and crowds of Hidden People emerged, angry at what they had seen and inspired by Nicci’s words. Shouting, they rushed out in a surprisingly coordinated assault, carrying weapons from the armory that Cyrus and his followers had maintained for centuries.

The general’s army swung their horses around in the plaza, and their once-coordinated ranks faltered as they faced ghostly attackers who swarmed toward them from every building in surprising numbers.

Utros lifted his gold-masked face and shouted orders. “Eradicate them! You outnumber the enemy ten to one.”

In a great clash across the plaza, the ancient soldiers fought the cloaked opponents, hacking them down. But more and more Hidden People emerged from the buildings, the force growing every minute.

Ava launched a wave of dazzling light at Nicci, whose shield deflected the blast. The effort made her stagger backward, though, and she shored up her defenses, trying to find more strength in her core as she pushed herself toward the twin sorceresses.

Ruva made a whiplike gesture with her arm, and the black thunderhead overhead swirled into an ominous storm. Nicci retaliated with a curtain of air that slammed the woman into her sister. The general fought to keep his stallion under control as it reared.

Facing the reckless charge of the Hidden People, the ancient soldiers broke ranks and fought in individual battles. Many wheeled their mounts and used the sharp hooves to strike down their pale attackers, while others hacked down with their swords.

The surging Hidden People stabbed the warhorses, chopped at the soldiers’ legs, and pulled them from their saddles. The air rang with screams and the clang of weapons.

Amid the clamor, Nicci heard a primal snarl, and Mrra leaped into the fray. The big panther pounced on the ancient soldiers and tore out throats and ripped open chests.

Pushing forward, Nicci swept her hands apart and sent waves of wind that buffeted the mounted soldiers as if they were game pieces on a har’kur board. The Hidden People darted into the disarray with their sharp blades, while Mrra lunged in with fangs and claws.

Utros kicked his horse into a gallop as he charged to the other side of the plaza. The twin sorceresses each sent searing lightning at Nicci, which she deflected. The ricocheting bolts shattered the flagstones. With her eyes on her real enemy, she focused on Utros.

Carefully manipulating her gift, Nicci found the stone resonance in a granite monolith that loomed thirty feet high above the general. The segmented column shuddered and wobbled as she moved the foundation stones. When she weakened the underpinnings of the column’s base, cracks raced up through the bottom block and crumbled it into powder. The great pillar began to topple toward Utros.

He leaped off his horse and scrambled out of the way while the terrified stallion galloped off. With a tremendous crash, the monolith smashed into dozens of fragments, spraying rock splinters in all directions.

“You are mine, Utros,” Nicci said, stalking after him. “Why bother to run?”

The general turned his golden half mask toward her and drew the long sword at his side. “Run? I will squash you.”

As she focused on him, Nicci was caught unawares from behind when Ava and Ruva threw a combined blow of magic. The fabric of her black dress smoldered and burned her skin, but she extinguished it with a thought. Even though her legs shook with the exertion, she pressed forward. The air burned in her throat and nostrils.

As the increasing battle swirled across the central complex of Orogang, Nicci mentally sneered at the fallen statue of Emperor Kurgan, his arms and head broken off, the features scoured away by time. Not far away, the mysterious sliph well sat empty and silent among the other monuments, and she thought it might be fitting to throw General Utros down the bottomless pit.

Unified against her counterattack, the twins hurled more lightning at Nicci, but she strengthened her shields and turned to face them. Utros was just a man, no matter how powerful or legendary he might be. The two sorceresses, however, were genuine distractions.

Ava sprang onto the body of the Kurgan statue and called another flash of light that dazzled Nicci. Below her, Ruva stomped hard, pounding her heel to send a shock wave through the flagstones, which rippled across the plaza.

At just the right moment, Nicci leaped into the air and landed on the unstable flagstones after the wave had passed. She retaliated with a bolt of lightning, pure energy called from the sky. The twin sorceresses cast desperate shields that crackled and sparked against the barrage.

“I am stronger than you,” Nicci said.

The twins retreated into the next plaza, and Nicci followed, vowing to eradicate them. Without his horse now, the general charged toward them, his sword drawn and ready to fight alongside his sorceresses. They gathered beneath the titanic Utros statue that loomed over the high square.

Ava and Ruva faced her, building their magic to defend their commander. Nicci concentrated the air into a single force, forged an invisible knife, and slashed sideways with a razor of air. Ruva thrust up her shield and blocked the brunt of the attack, though Nicci’s unseen blade sliced a long furrow down her right arm. Ruva cried out in pain, and her sister responded by hurling a shock wave woven with a wall of fire.

Nicci dodged, and the magical hammer blow swept past her and smashed the base of the Utros statue, cracking its pillar legs.

Ruva wailed to see fractures spread through the muscular stone legs. Both women screamed as the enormous statue toppled toward them. Utros and Ruva scrambled away from the impact area, but Ava darted in the other direction. She staggered two steps away as the stone figure thundered to the ground. Waves of dust and rock chips flew in all directions.

Ava stared, horrified, her mouth agape. “Utros!”

Nicci used that moment of vulnerability to call down another bolt of lightning, braided and twisted with both the Additive and Subtractive sides of magic. The fierce energy slammed into Ava like a bright and dark spear, piercing her chest, shattering her spine, and blowing out her back.

Ruva screamed. The agony and dismay in her voice nearly tore her throat open.

Nicci could barely hold herself up after expending so much energy. Her knees buckled.

Ruva bounded over the broken statue and grabbed her fallen sister. Wailing, she dropped to her knees and clutched Ava’s body, holding her sister against her chest.

Next to the sorceresses, Utros raised his long sword, ready to kill Nicci.

In her last moment of life, Ava clasped her sister weakly with one hand, but her chest was burned open, and she sagged into death.

Nicci climbed back to her feet and summoned her gift again, created a ball of wizard’s fire in each hand, and prepared to throw the pair of boiling suns at Utros.

Ruva was absolutely destroyed, emotionally wrecked. “No! You can’t have him!” Wrapping her arm around her dead sister, she grasped Utros and squeezed her eyes shut, invoking some spell that Nicci didn’t recognize.

With her last effort, Nicci hurled both spheres of wizard’s fire, an insatiable blaze that could burn through any substance. Ruva and Utros didn’t have a chance.

But before the fires struck, Ruva, Ava, and General Utros simply vanished, as if they had winked out of existence. The fireballs smashed into the broken plaza, but they burned only emptiness.