Heart of Black Ice

CHAPTER 65

Renda Bay burned uncontrolled for two days before all the fires died out, leaving nothing more than ashes and foundation stones. The main Norukai fleet had closed in outside the harbor, while several of the vessels pursued the three sailing ships that had fled the destruction. Eventually, they returned.

Meanwhile, Utros ruled only ruins.

During the worst of the blaze, First Commander Enoch sent scouts back up the river, keeping to the water to make it through the fires to reconnect with the main body of the army, which was trapped on the other side of the conflagration. Thousands of troops rushed to cut firebreaks with axes and swords and formed lengthy bucket brigades from the river, but still the town burned.

Despite their best efforts and inexhaustible manpower, the army saved only a few dozen homes and shops, a pale victory since the buildings were empty anyway. Afterward, while ransacking the ruins in search of any scrap of food, they discovered more than two hundred charred bodies caught in the backwash of the fire, their bones mingled with ashes. More losses.…

Ruva combined her gift with Ava’s spirit to clear some of the burned buildings in order to fashion a command camp, and General Utros used one of the intact houses as his base. He looked at the devastation and said in a low voice that only First Commander Enoch and the sorceresses could hear, “I had hoped to feed my soldiers here. Are they supposed to eat ashes?”

Ruva glided up against him. “My preservation spell will last. The soldiers can keep marching all the way to Tanimura.”

Utros rounded on her, glaring through his gold half mask. “And what if they burn Tanimura to the ground, too? And every other town on the way? What if those people are willing to devastate every city in the Old World just to deny me a victory? How long can we last?”

Ruva gently stroked the skin on his intact cheek. “We will last as long as we need to, beloved Utros. We are loyal to you.”

Shimmering in front of them, Ava said, “I stayed with you even through death, didn’t I? Your soldiers are with you instead of in the underworld because they have sworn loyalty to you. This war will not end until you decide it ends. Victory is in your eyes, depending on how you define it.”

Surrendering, he reached up to press Ruva’s palm against his cheek. For just a moment he let himself remember Majel’s delicate touch, the one time in his life that he had felt love and happiness, a time when he had believed in a perfect future for himself, for his lover, and for his emperor … a time when he hadn’t needed to choose between loyalty and love. Now Utros made all choices for himself, to take from the Old World until there was nothing left.

The core of his huge army camped up the river road on the other side of the holocaust, because there was no place for them in the soot and ash. Waiting to receive orders from the general, Second Commanders Halders and Arros pressed Enoch for answers, and he told them to wait. The first commander presented himself in the general’s makeshift command structure. “The soldiers are ready, sir. You need only issue orders. Do we continue our march? Do we leave Renda Bay behind and press on? What will we do with the Norukai ships?”

After a long moment, Utros said, “What I truly need are maps and scouts, and then I can decide where to go.” He squeezed his hand into a fist.

“You are a legend to us all, sir,” Enoch said. “Whatever you decide will be the correct tactical choice. We have lost many fighters in many skirmishes, and the enemy has proved to be far more troublesome than we expected, but your army can still overwhelm any city. Especially if the Norukai help.”

Utros stepped out of the building and looked across the blackened city, where his people waited for his guidance. He looked toward the bay, where he saw many serpent ships gathered, including Grieve’s flagship, he assumed.

He narrowed his eyes and nodded to himself. “Perhaps I need the Norukai more than I thought, at least right now. We can use their charts, their supplies, their manpower. Then King Grieve and I can plan our attack on the rest of the land. I need to speak with him.”

Ava’s spirit hovered in front of them. “In my spirit form, I can travel out to the ships and tell King Grieve that you request a meeting.”

“Yes,” Utros said, “but make certain he knows it is not a request.”

The serpent ships dropped anchor outside of Renda Bay beyond the stone siege towers, as if wary that unseen defenders might still rain down projectiles and flaming arrows upon them.

After Ava had communicated with the king, the Norukai dispatched a landing boat to retrieve General Utros and Ruva. They waited together while four Norukai warriors rowed up to the intact dock. The men gruffly acknowledged Utros while leering at the slender, painted form of Ruva.

She responded to them with a cold look. “You may want to have me, but you should be afraid. The intense pleasure you would experience is bound to burst your hearts.”

Two of the Norukai grunted, but one bold warrior guffawed. “That would not be a fighter’s way to die, but it is a man’s way to die.”

The last of the men taunted her, “Or maybe the pleasure you receive from a Norukai would kill you first!”

Utros had no patience for the banter. “Enough! Take us to King Grieve. We have a war to win.” These subhuman raiders appalled him, and he hated the fact that he needed them—for now—to accomplish his goals.

The raiders admired the burned remnants of Renda Bay. “You made your mark here already. We have left many villages like that ourselves.”

One snickered, “You may have Norukai blood in you after all.”

Utros snapped, “Just row us out to the ship!”

The landing boat reached the lead vessel, where a group of brash Norukai greeted them on the deck above. King Grieve crossed his arms over his chest and received them. “So, our armies have joined together after all! I am eager for this war you promised me.”

Utros climbed aboard. “We need to plan the best strategy for victory. Bring a meal, and we will talk in your cabin.”

Grieve sniffed the air, relishing the stench of smoke that hung like a black fog over the harbor. “I enjoy the smell of a successful raid, and the destruction of a weak town. I hope you plundered Renda Bay of everything those people had before you burned it to the ground.”

Utros was annoyed. “I did not burn it—I wouldn’t have been so foolish as to destroy such a valuable asset. The people laid traps before they evacuated and turned the town into an inferno as soon as we arrived.”

The Norukai king guffawed. “Then your men must still be very hungry!”

Utros clenched his fist at his side. He ground his teeth together so hard he could feel his half mask shifting.

The Norukai ships had full stores of salted and smoked fish, seaweed cakes, hard breads, and barrels of ale they had brought from the main islands. Utros wished he could distribute all that food to his soldiers, but he had already made such a request once, and if he asked King Grieve again, he would appear weak.

“It is merely a setback. My army can keep moving. Tell us about the other cities we will find up the coast. Which ones have the best plunder?” Utros said as they entered the king’s cabin. “We need to pillage more. My soldiers must eat.”

Sitting on a sturdy bench, Grieve gnawed on a haunch of some smoked meat. The animal didn’t seem familiar. He didn’t answer the question, preoccupied with eating.

Utros and Ruva each received a block of smoked fish on a pewter plate, which they found satisfactory. The sorceress chewed in silence until she finally asked, “Where is your shaman? Doesn’t Chalk guide your decisions?”

“Chalk is dead.” The expression on the king’s horribly scarred face seemed to fall. “Now they all need to die. They all need to grieve.”

“We still have to plan,” Utros said, impatient. How could the loss of that simpering albino ape come close to the pain he felt upon losing Ava, his precious and beautiful sorceress? “Renda Bay was a disappointment. We need to march and resupply.”

Through the half-open door to the cabin, they could hear the boisterous shouts and angry grumbles of the other Norukai on deck. A squarish, ugly woman named Atta entered the cabin as if she belonged there. She carried another meaty bone, which Utros thought resembled part of a human arm. She ripped off a hunk of flesh and chewed with wet sounds.

The hard bench squeaked under the big king’s weight as he shifted his position. “My warriors are more than ready. Lars has already raided several towns and villages up there, and he can tell you which ones he left intact. There’ll be little to scavenge from the ones he destroyed.”

“The more he destroys, the more we will have to rebuild afterward. Tell him to restrain himself.”

Grieve laughed as if the general had made a grand joke. “We will work together to conquer the Old World, but I still don’t know how we share the land afterward.”

“Let us see what remains,” Utros said, “and then we divide it.”

“Or we fight over it.” The Norukai king focused his attention on the bone in his hand, gnawing another scrap of red meat and gristle.

Utros was glad that the gold mask hid half of his expression, and he struggled to keep his face blank. He set down his fork still bearing a hunk of smoked fish. “There is no need for that.”

All the Norukai disgusted him, and he considered King Grieve to be even more foul than Emperor Kurgan. He planned on enfolding the entire Old World into his new empire, and in doing so he could use the Norukai for their strength and their penchant for destruction, but his mind and his honor could not encompass an empire that included such subjects as these. After the war was won, he would find a way to destroy King Grieve.

Ruva glanced at him with a hard smile, as if she read his thoughts.

“No need,” Atta said, sitting her wide hips on the bench beside Grieve, “but it might be invigorating.” She reached over to touch the gash across the king’s cheek. “I am trying to decide whether I should be your queen, Grieve, or if I should have an empire of my own.”

“You will have whatever I give you,” he grunted.

She blew softly into his face. “I can get what I want from you, my Grieve.”

With his iron-plated fist he punched her in the center of the chest. The blow rocked her off the bench, but she grabbed the edge of the table and kept her balance. She laughed and bashed him on the chin in return. Grieve lurched to his feet, dropping the bone as he spread his shoulders to flare the spiked spurs. He held Atta’s gaze for a long moment, then relaxed. “Later. When I bed down for the night, we will continue our wrestling.”

She laughed. “It will have to be in your cabin, my Grieve. We broke my bunk last night!” With an unsettling flirtatious glance, the Norukai woman sauntered out of the king’s cabin, still carrying her bone.

Utros was impatient, grim and serious. He would make his careful plans every step of the way, but this loathsome oaf did not seem to think ahead. “My army is ready to march. Renda Bay is burned, and we must move soon. With our forces united, King Grieve, we could accomplish exactly what we need.”

Grieve scoffed. “I have more than one hundred forty ships. That’s more than the coast can handle. Your army can march inland along the old imperial roads, while the Norukai prey upon the coastal towns.”

“We need more of a plan than that!” Utros said. “This is a war, not a game.”

Grieve tossed down his bone, which was now stripped of meat. He drained a tankard of ale while looking with displeasure at the general. “All war is a game, or else why bother?”

Utros tried to control his impatience. “We must agree on a target. Our main goal should be Tanimura, the heart of the Old World. That is the best way we can destroy the enemy.”

Grieve crossed his massive arms over his chest. “Is there much to plunder in Tanimura? I’ve barely heard of it.”

Utros’s information was more than a thousand years out of date, but he remained confident. “Tanimura is filled with wealth and potential slaves, as many women as you want. Once we capture and destroy that city, we will have won the war.”

King Grieve grunted. “That is all the plan I need. We will each make our way north. After we strike Tanimura, we can take our time and pick clean the carcass of the Old World.”