Seven Kings

13

In a tangle of red foliage Tong crouched amid a band of twenty silent Sydathians. Their pink snouts sniffed at the evening air while he scanned the broad fields beyond the jungle’s edge. A collection of irrigated plantations lay between the wilderness and the black wall of the city. As the sun lowered itself in the west, thousands of slaves walked the dirt roads between the great crop squares. They carried bushels of beans, corn, lemons, and grapes on their heads; others hauled great sheaves of wheat on two-wheeled carts.

The Onyx Guard rode sable horses among the workers, a constant reminder of the Emperor’s power over those who dwelled in the fields. Each plantation was supervised by an Overseer who barked orders and consigned the day’s pickings to the beds of wagons bound for the Southern Gate. The occasional crack of whips in the distance made Tong’s shoulders jump reflexively.

A long line of carts, wagons, and bent-backed slaves filed onto the gate road. Spiked towers stood on either side of the portal, built from the same volcanic stone as the city wall. Sentinels with pennoned spears paced from station to station along the great ramparts. The bulk of the Onyx Guard filed into the city through the crowded gate, where busy taverns and cheap wine would fill their off-duty hours.

In the fields after sundown the Overseers and their personal squads retired to comfortable plantation estates. Crowds of slaves finished their day’s work and trudged back to their rows of ragged shacks. Women started the evening cookfires and prepared their allotted portions of pork, fowl, or beef. Usually there were surplus vegetables for these simple families, the lowest class of Khyrein society. Underfed slaves were useless, and the Overseers ensured that those who worked would eat. Yet in lean times slaves were the first to starve, and they were driven by scourge and club to work until they died. Those too old or sick to be productive were taken from the fields and never seen again. There was no doubt what happened to such slaves: they lay numberless in unmarked graveyards hemming the fertile fields.

A league from the city wall the River Tah completed its long winding journey from the volcanoes of the southern jungles, losing itself at last in the Golden Sea. Bands of women and young girls carried water gourds and buckets to the river and back to the huts. The river’s dark water was the only source of drink for the clustered slave communities. No fishing was allowed in the river due to the venomous predators and vipers that lurked there. How many times had Tong seen a girl-child dying from the bite of a river beast, skin purpling as the poison rushed toward her heart? He had lost count.

The Sydathians ringing Tong sat still as stones. For hours he had watched his nation of slaves complete their daily chores. Patience was the first of his weapons. Surprise was another. Darkness crept at last from the red jungle shadows, spreading across the fields to engulf the black city. The dusky towers of the Emperor’s palace snared the sun’s dying light, burning red and gold above the hidden streets.

Tong could not see the great harbor on the city’s northern side, but a few ships’ masts were visible beyond the reedy estuary, dark galleons bearing the Khyrein banner. Perhaps those ships would return with foreign slaves to break and put to work in these fields. Such captives never lived long: deprivation and exhaustion stole their lives if the brutality of the Overseers failed to do so. If slaves were no better than loyal hounds, then foreign slaves were the most hated of the breed.

As the ships grew tiny against the darkening horizon, Tong made a silent vow. By the time the sea reavers returned to Khyrei, there would be no more slavery here.

Now the Southern Gate rumbled shut for the night. The wall would not open again until the light of dawn touched its parapets. For a few hours all the plantations would be sealed off from the majority of the Onyx Guards. Only the Overseers and their squads of estate guards ruled the fields now. An army of slaves slipped into their nightly respite from constant toil.

Tong wondered exactly where Matay’s body was buried. The graveyards of slaves were mass affairs, rough holes filled with the bones of those who died that week, piled upon those who had died the previous week. He put it from his mind. Matay was in the Deathlands, where none of the blood and fire that was to come would harm her. She would be proud of him for what he was about to do. He had to believe it so.

Vengeance was one thing, but freedom was far more precious. He would see his people free, or he would die in the attempt. A worthy death was preferable to a wasted life. As the rim of the sun disappeared, Khyrei became a mass of glimmering amber lights beside the moonlit river.

The smell of roasting meat drifted across the fields from the nearest slave huts. The Sydathians inhaled and licked their lips with prehensile tongues. He understood their fascination. He understood far more of their world than he had thought possible. Weeks of shared meditation before the Godstone had guided his mind and theirs to a common destination. The creatures had no spoken language other than their curious singing ability, yet Tong comprehended now most of their arm and claw gestures, as well as the quirks of arm and leg and snout that held specific meanings.

The eyeless ones used thought and emotion to communicate the same way Men used words. After living among them he had come to share their thoughts and emotions, as they had begun to share his own. They understood that Tong’s people suffered in bondage. They would follow him into blood and fire in the cause of freedom. They were his brothers, these voiceless beasts from below the world. Tonight began their holy crusade.

Tong climbed high into the branches of a tree to get a better view of the dark fields. The eyeless ones followed, and soon they all squatted among a welter of branches. He pointed toward the nearest houses of the Overseers, stone-built manors encircled by low walls of rock and gates of barred iron. Each house hosted a squad of at least fifty Onyx Guards, half of whom were on night duty at any given time. Across the maze of plantations he estimated at least a hundred such manor houses.

A hundred well-guarded Overseers. Tonight they all must die. The Sydathians must cleanse these fields. Only then could his people rise up and take what they deserved. The road to freedom ran though a forest of death, beyond a roaring sea of blood and fire.

Tong closed his eyes and reached out to his horned brothers.

All those who wear the mask must die.

The eyeless ones nodded and snuffled among their branches.

All those who carry the whip must die.

They waved claws and arms in the signs of agreement.

All those who carry the sword must die.

The Sydathians shuffled anxiously. They knew these things already. They had seen a vision of all this terrain, this darkling city and its vast fields, in the mind of their newest brother. Tong shared their eagerness. They shared his anger, his need for vengeance, his lust for liberation. They longed to see the rebirth he had promised them, to be a central part of it. A reborn Khyrei that would welcome Sydathians inside its gates. They had dwelled in the dark long enough-they knew all the subterranean secrets the underworld could teach.

Tong was their key to the world of sun and sky. A whole new existence in a realm they hardly knew. They sought a remedy to the long-borne loneliness of their race, and an end to ancestral isolation. They craved a place among Men, the fresh liberty of the upper world. Theirs would be a kinship born in this struggle for freedom.

He sent ten of them back into the jungle, there to reconnoiter with the others who had climbed out of deep Sydathus at daybreak. Six thousand strong they lurked in the deep jungle. Now let them come forth.

The night grew blacker; the day’s heat faded beneath the rapid chill of evening. In the bunched huts slaves finished their modest meals and fell into slumber, or sat about dwindling fires telling tales of ancient days. Inside any one of the manor houses an Overseer might be entertaining guests from the city, or enjoying the charms of a young slave who had caught his eye. Others would be lost in bowls of wine or lying helpless in their soft beds. Let them dream. They would awake in the Deathlands, where the Gods dispensed punishment, dividing the just from the wicked and casting the latter into the Outer Darkness forever.

A raven flapped out of the darkness and perched in the tree next to Tong. It spoke with Iardu’s voice.

“What I feared is true,” said the bird. “The Claw has returned. Seven nights ago.”

“What does this mean for us?” asked Tong.

The bird ruffled its black feathers. “Her power is great,” he said. “And she will certainly take a hand in the city’s defense.”

“What of the girl?”

“She is still there… a slave to shadow… a drinker of blood.”

“Will you kill her?”

“Not if I can free her of Gammir’s trap. She could be of great aid to us.”

Tong nodded. The jungle rustled behind him. “They come.” The raven turned its ebony eyes at him and blinked. “Will you not reconsider?” Tong asked. “Stand with us tonight?” The raven shook its head. “I must seek the girl.” “Is she your daughter?”

The raven did not answer. Instead it spread its wings and flew back toward the steaming city.

Tong climbed to the ground and watched the jungle come alive with pale, emerging forms.

Come, my Brothers!

They responded to his unspoken call. He ran into the fields, followed by a loping horde of Sydathians. They rushed soundless and without light across row after row of leaf, stem, and stalk. The first of the manor house gates loomed before Tong now. To his east and west throngs of Sydathians moved toward similar structures. The Overseers did not even lock the gates of their outer walls. How could they expect to be assaulted here in the very center of their power? Tong’s heart raced as he pulled the long sabre from its sheath. The knife was gripped in his other fist, point downward for quick stabbing. His eyeless brothers needed no weapons. Their claws and fangs were far more deadly than his two lengths of Khyrein steel.

Tonight is for you, Matay. And for our son.

The Sydathians outpaced him with their apish running gait. The first one to reach the manor house crashed through the front door as if it were a paper screen. A second later three more hurdled through the low windows of murky glass. When Tong entered the doorway, the blood had already begun to fly. The eyeless ones tore apart a roomful of off-duty guardsmen before they could even draw blades to defend themselves. They had been dining with the Overseer. Tong was not sure which one was master of the house, but it did not matter. All were guilty. All would die. Fresh crimson splattered across the feasting table.

“What is happening here?” a wide-eyed soldier yelled. Without their monstrous masks, they were little more than frightened boys. Tong answered with his sabre, skewering him cleanly through the heart. He died before his body hit the lush carpet. Now the entire house was in an uproar, men shouting for blades and armor and horses. The Sydathians poured in through doors and windows like a white flood, a tide of surging destruction. The masked sentinels rushed forward to die two by two, their swords and spears unbloodied as they fell. The Sydathians were too fast for the men’s blades, probably even too fast for speeding arrows. Time would tell.

The first manor house fell easily. Tong killed four panicked guardsmen with sabre and knife. He grabbed a brand from the hearthfire and set the house aflame as he fled with his leaping brothers. A small corral of perhaps fifteen horses stood behind the manor. Tong kicked down the gate and let the beasts run free. They galloped into the fields in all directions, fleeing the conflagration. Yet one of them lingered in the pen as if it were afraid of liberty. Tong approached the stallion, stroked its nose, combed its black mane with his fingers. It was a young horse. In his boyhood he had dreamed of riding such a fine creature; but only the Onyx Guard was permitted to ride south of the city wall.

The Sydathians rushed onward, striking down any man who fled, converging on the next manor house. The same scene played out across the length and breadth of the plantations as the eyeless ones invaded the sanctuaries of the Overseers. They ran on all fours, bounding white spiderlings. Slaves came rushing from the field ghettoes to cheer and weep in the face of the destruction. The Sydathians did not touch Tong’s people. They recognized the slave folk as brothers and sisters. They sought the tender, fleshy faces behind the metal masks. They tore apart the bones and sinew of their enemies with a ruthless ease.

Tong, inspired by the madness of the moment, leaped atop the timid horse’s back. It responded to him instinctually, like one of the Sydathians would. An understanding beyond the use of words. There was no saddle; it had likely burned with the house. The horse whinnied when he pulled at its mane. He grasped its back between his muscled legs, and it raced toward the next plantation. Tong found himself smiling, caressed by the cool night winds. His dripping sabre gleamed bright as silver in the glow of burning manor houses.

He held the blade high and rode like a mad specter through the hordes of rushing Sydathians. They swarmed the estates of the Overseers, pulling the wicked lords from their houses and feeding the earth with their blood. More structures went up in flames as the eyeless ones tore flaming logs from stone-built hearths.

The wails of slaves and fleeing guardsmen filled the night. The sounds of slaughter would soon reach the city walls. Tong rejoiced as he cut down armored men who ran like frightened boys from his army of monsters. As far as he could see across the fields, manor houses burned and leaping shadows hurled themselves ever closer to the great sealed gate of the city.

How many men he killed from the back of the horse, he could not say. Either he trampled their bones into the dust when the stallion overtook them, or his blade hacked off their heads and arms as he passed. They must have thought him a demon, slaying in the company of demons, wreaking the vengeance of some dreadful God. A God of slaves come to liberate his people.

A patina of shining blood covered his body by the time the stallion ceased its headlong flight. The chaos of slaughter churned about Tong like a storm. He eyed the watchtowers of the black wall, where sentinel fires grew brighter and the horns of alarum pierced the night with urgent wails. Now the city’s defenders knew that its fields were under attack. Now the battle would truly begin.

Brothers!

Dropping from the horse, he rubbed its charcoal neck in admiration. He called to him a throng of his eyeless brothers. Thousands more stalked the fields, chasing down and ending the lives of anyone who was not a slave.

Stay near to me, Tong signaled with mind and hands. I must speak with my people.

With a band of the beastlings at his back, Tong led his stolen horse toward a group of shacks deep in the midst of the fields. The slaves regarded him with suspicion, naked fear gleaming in their eyes. Mothers grasped children to their bosoms, while fathers and their half-grown sons brandished clubs and stones. Before this moment none of the inhuman invaders had paid them any attention. All across the plantations, slaves watched their masters torn to bits while they stood unmolested, shocked into silence by the strangeness of their liberators, who neither spoke nor looked at them. How could they look? They had no eyes with which to see. Now Tong brought a pack of them like friendly hounds to sniff at the huddled families.

“Friends!” shouted Tong. “Cousins and Brothers! People of Khyrei! You are no longer slaves. Tonight your bondage ends! I am one of you-Tong, Son of Thago and Omita. My uncles are Soth, Dorno, and Phialmos.” He gestured to the white forms crouching about him. “These… are my brothers from the red jungle. They have looked upon our slavery and seen the wrongness of it. They have pledged to aid us. Throw off your chains and join me in freedom! Death to the Overseers!”

The congregated slave families muttered nervously and stared at the horned Sydathians. The cries of dead and dying men filled the air, the smoke of burning manor houses. The smells of burning flesh and wood mingled into an unpleasant reek. The forward slaves passed Tong’s words to their fellows at the back of the crowd.

“The people of Khyrei are no longer slaves!” Tong bellowed. “Let us fight! Let us storm the black walls and tear down the stones of our oppressors. Let us be free! Death to the Emperor!” He raised the sabre to sparkle in the glow of moon and flames. Thickening blood dripped into his hair like a slow rain. He mounted the horse again and renewed his call. “Death to Gammir!”

A single voice echoed his cry. A young slave stepped forward, a boy of no more than seventeen years. He raised a clenched fist, and Tong beckoned him forward. He gave the boy his soiled knife. “What is your name?”

“Tolgur,” said the youth. His face was round and bloodshot.

“Tolgur fights for freedom!” yelled Tong. “Who fights with us?”

“Death to the Overseers!” yelled another slave.

“Death to the Emperor!” cried another.

“Freedom!” Crazed voices rose into the night. A song of hope and rage that became a ceaseless roar.

Tong galloped toward another group of milling slaves, the Sydathians striding after him. He replayed this scene a dozen times. By the time he finished uniting his people, the city’s southern wall was lined with archers. Every manor house had burned to the ground or was still burning. Between city and jungle a hundred great fires danced like wild Giants. Flames had spread into the fields themselves. Entire tracts of crops blazed like massive bonfires. It must have been quite a sight from atop the city walls.

Now the Sydathians gathered at the center of the fields, aligning themselves along the Southern Gate road. At least a thousand able-bodied slaves joined them, picking up the swords and spears and shields of their slain oppressors. Their numbers grew to at least two thousand by the time Tong rode his mount along the unpaved road. He smiled at the irony of the simple math taught to slaves for the counting of bales and bushels of produce; now that same skill served him well in counting the number of soldiers in his army of freedom fighters. No wonder the Overseers limited the education of their slaves to serve practical purposes, yet such precautions gained them little in the end. Knowledge was power, and like water it flowed where it wished and could not easily be stopped.

Few Sydathians, if any, had died in the taking of the fields. By midnight the eyeless ones stood six thousand strong about a core group of three thousand slaves armed with whatever weapons they could find or make from farming tools. Tong sat at the heart of the throng on his tall horse, to which he had given the name Liberty. Other slaves had stolen mounts as well, some with less than satisfactory results, yet some could ride reasonably well. They had worked and lived with these horses their whole lives. A few had learned to ride secretly for years, hiding such activity from the Overseers.

A rain of black arrows fell like stormclouds from the city walls. A legion of archers fired into shadow and the trickery of firelight, but their keen darts fell so thickly that it made little difference. Raven-feathered shafts pierced human and Sydathian flesh as one. Men screamed and scattered. The eyeless ones bore their pain in silence. It would take a score of arrows to kill a single one of them, unlike a human, who could easily die from a single poisoned barb.

A second volley launched as Tong shouted orders: “To the trees! Seek shelter in the jungle!” He whirled his steed around and galloped southward. Slaves would not go deep into that wilderness, but they held no fear of its nearby shallow glades. He rode hard toward the distant line of forest, outpacing even the Sydathians. The runners left dead men lying behind them, twisted bodies rife with feathered shafts. The wounded stumbled along with the help of friends and cousins. Another volley blotted the stars and fell into the fleeing horde.

Envenomed arrowheads killed at least a hundred men before the slaves made it out of bow range. The Sydathians plucked shafts from their dense bodies as if they were no more than bothersome insects. The slaves and their liberators raced into the shadows of the jungle trees. Most of their women and children had already fled there to escape the flames and slaughter.

By the light of crude torches and the shouts of their fellows, they assembled into a single mass. The youngest and strongest among them came forth to smile at Tong and clasp his hand and call him cousin. Whether they shared a common bloodline or not, all these slaves were cousins of circumstance, united by generations of bondage. No more would that be the case. They would die or be free this night.

Tong climbed atop a stone monolith draped in hanging moss. Moonlight glared across his blood-slick skin. From the ancient rock, he spoke again to his people. Sydathians lingered in a great ring about the gathering of slaves.

“Soon they will open the Southern Gate!” Tong shouted. All ears turned to hear him, even those of children whose faces were stained with tears and mud. “Soon they will come for us. They think us weak and afraid. Yet we must fear them no longer, for we have the strength of our Sydathian brothers!” He waved his arms to acknowledge the pale lurking forms that surrounded the glade. “Do not fear them. They will harm only those who enslaved us. The Earth God has sent them to foster our freedom.”

He paused for a moment to let his words sink in. The slaves stared at him, ragged and bleeding, and not one of them questioned his leadership.

“Soon they will come for us,” he said. “But it is too late. We are already free!”

Most of the pale slaves cheered, while others wept. Already the fighting had claimed too many lives. Men died so their families would be free to fight on.

“Cast aside the fear that lives in you heart. You are the true People of Khyrei!” Tong told them. “This is our land. How long have we worked it, coaxed life from it, bled for it, been buried in it? Khyrei is ours! Let us take it!”

“Death to the Emperor!” someone cried out.

“He will come!” said Tong, and the anxious voices quieted. “Gammir the Undying… the Reborn… the Drinker of Blood. I say let him come!”

Tong raised his arms toward the high trees, and the former slaves gasped as they looked skyward. A woman cried out. A little boy laughed.

Silence fell upon the glade. In the high branches of the jungle canopy, silent as moss on twigs, another ten thousand Sydathians waited with clever claws and zealous snouts. The eyeless ones sat thick as leaves among the trees. A second, far larger force had joined the six thousand who had taken the fields. Here was an army that could and would take the whole city; the true heart of the Sydathians’ might had been held in reserve.

Now the slaves saw the depth of Tong’s ambition, and they cheered his name.

He was the Hope-Bringer, the Brother of Beasts, the Onyx-Killer.

The light of their gnarled torches glinted in his eyes as he spoke.

The Sydathians did not speak his language, but they understood his every word. They felt the fear and desperation of these people turn to wonder and delight. They knew what lay at stake here. Tong had shown them all in his mind.

Let the Emperor and his bitch come and try to stop them.

“Let the Emperor come forth!” he bellowed. “Let Gammir know the taste of our vengeance instead of our blood!”

The slaves cheered him on.

None saw the Southern Gate open, or the armored legions that rode into the burning fields.

As always, she awoke to hunger.

The Great Thirst coiled like a viper in her belly.

She arose from the wide bed and stretched her limbs, then stepped beyond the circle of runes that enclosed it. Soon a body slave would enter and pull back the black drapes that hid the daylight while she had slept. She might feed upon the servant if she wished, but she preferred to hunt her prey. Some instinctual urge deep inside her demanded it. Besides, if she drained her body slave, who would pull back her drapes each evening and tend to the mass of night-blooming flowers that decorated her chamber? After slaking her thirst on the streets of the city below, she would rejoin her Master and Mistress. The plans for a lavish wedding had begun.

As she called forth the substance of shadow to weave herself a dark gown, a rustling at the window drew her eye. Hers was the topmost chamber of the western spire, so it must be some bird or bat flown into the billowing drapes. A spark of annoyance fueled her hunger. She bounded across the room and pulled back the curtain. There on the casement perched a solemn raven, wings glossy with twilight. The last of the sun’s ruby glow lingered on the horizon. The raven stared at her with eyes even darker than her own.

She grabbed it in her clawed hand and stuffed it into her mouth. The bird was no substitute for human blood, but it made a fine appetizer. Black feathers fell about her feet as the creature writhed between her fangs. The bird was now a poisonous viper, shifting and slithering in her jaws, tail and neck hanging level with her waist. She spat it upon the flagstones, wiping at her mouth. Not a drop of blood lined her lips; she had not broken the viper’s scaly skin.

She crouched and hissed at the reptile, but now it was the black hound she had seen weeks ago, staring at her from the shadows of an alley. Once again she stood transfixed by its mysterious eyes.

“Sharadaza.” It spoke her name in a voice that rang familiar.

Iardu!

Now the sorcerer stood in his manly form between her and the open window. He held a crooked staff of umber wood. His eyes were chromatic stars.

“Listen to me,” he said. “This is not you. You are the Daughter of Vod, not a slave. Remember this!” His eyes sparkled with forgotten colors.

“All Is One,” she said. “There can be no distinctions.”

Iardu smiled. His teeth gleamed white in the gloom. “You at least remember the principles I taught you. It is true… the only distinctions are the ones you choose for yourself. However, in the form you now wear, you let Gammir choose for you. The time has come to reclaim yourself.”

Yes! Let the nightmare end…

Her right hand lashed out, claws slicing across his chest. The blue flame burning there was cold, and its power drove back her talons. She would feed now. There was no need to roam the streets tonight. This fool would do just fine.

She pounced like a jungle tiger, and black wings spread from her back. Iardu staggered back as the weight of her fell upon him. Her fangs snapped at his face. He held the staff against her throat, keeping her mouth away from his neck. Her red tongue lolled as her skull elongated to wolfish proportions.

The blue flame on his chest flared again, blasting forth to engulf her body. She leaped away from him, chilled by the cold fire. He waved the staff and she fell to the floor, twitching and mewling. He mumbled ancient words and her form shifted once again. Now she lay as herself on the floor, the gown of shadow tattered and singed. Iardu’s hand waved above her and black chains grew from the stone floor to encircle her. She stared up at the wizard, gnashing her sharp teeth. The thirst raged in her belly, burned on her brow like a fever.

Kill me, Shaper.

Death is preferable to this.

He stood over her and looked into her eyes. “Calm,” he whispered. His hand touched her brow gently. She struggled against the mystic chains but could not move. “I am speaking to the one inside this shell of shadow. I know you can hear me, Sharadza…”

Yes…

Iardu sighed. “Once again you leap before you look. You should never have come to this place. Your half-brother has stolen your old life and built a new one for you. His blood magic has infected your physical self. The longer you live this way, the more permanent it becomes. There is a way to restore you. Yet it carries its own price.”

I don’t deserve it. I am worse than a murderer.

Kill me now, if you can.

“No,” Iardu said. Her body craved release, violence, rent flesh. Hot sweet blood. Yet her spirit cried out in anguish. She had betrayed everything she believed. Stolen the lives of men, women, children. Gammir had made her like him. He had won.

“Killing you now would only allow him to bring you back as his slave again,” said Iardu. “Unless… unless you bring yourself back. Cancel his influence with the purity of your intentions. I can help you do this, if you let me.”

I deserve death…

“I am afraid you have forfeited that privilege,” he said. “You have only two choices here: remain the plaything of these dark forces, or cast this untrue life aside and rebuild your own. You are still a sorceress, as years ago you wished to be. Now you know the depth of this path, and something of its nature. Make your choice.”

I want my old life back.

Somewhere far beyond the window, orange flames lit the night. Great fires burned beyond the southern wall.

“That you may never have,” said Iardu. “But I can give you this.”

He raised the umber staff. Its lower end was pointed, whittled to sharpness. He held it above her chained body like a spear. Three times he sang a strange refrain, then plunged the weapon into her ribcage. The wood steamed as its point punctured her heart. A spray of red blood, none of it her own, sprinkled a row of potted flowers and the wall behind them.

She squirmed and struggled against the confining chains as the wood burst into flames. Iardu continued his low song. The staff flared and melted like wax, sinking into her body. Soon it was gone and so were the magical chains that held her. She lay still now, eyes open and staring at nothing. The gown of shadow ran from her corpse like polluted water, and her pale flesh melted like the staff had done. Now she lay fleshless, a pitiful skeleton, until that too dissolved. It became a mound of gray dust along the floor.

An unspeakable lightness filled her conscious mind, and she realized with a flash that she was no longer linked to shadow flesh or dusted bones. The Great Thirst was gone, only a terrible memory ringing like an echo.

Iardu’s thick fingers enclosed her. She was a sphere of dancing light caught in his palm. If she had lungs, she would have sighed with the greatest relief she had ever known.

“Our time grows short,” said Iardu, his eyes flashing as he studied the scene beyond the window. He brought the globe of light to his face, and Sharadza looked into the glowing orbs of his prismatic eyes.

“You have made the journey that all sorcerers eventually make,” Iardu said, “trading your mortal body for one of your own making… the product of your sorcery. I tried to spare you this, but Gammir has left us no choice. When the body born of woman has been shed, the sorcerer must rebirth himself, creating a new shell for his lifeforce to inhabit. In your case, Gammir has interfered with this process. Now your immortal essence, your undying spirit, is tied to the very stones of this chamber where your new body manifested. See the runes about your bed? They are Sigils of Rebirth, the nexus of your power on this layer of reality. These inscribed stones are as much a part of you now as were the bones of your earthly body. If you manifest here again, creating another new shell from blood and shadow, you will be again as you were… a mindless predator addicted to the blood of the living. Gammir’s slave.”

No! It cannot happen again. Anything would be better.

Iardu scanned the walls and floor of the chamber. “Yes, these blocks of basalt are forever linked to you now. Yet I sense that you would rather face annihilation than be reborn as a fiend of Khyrei again and again without end.”

Yes. Annihilation is what I deserve.

“This rune circle is the seat of your power, Sharadza. Now and forever. The only way to escape the curse of this place is to move the stones themselves. This can be done once only, and my options for aiding you are limited. If you wish it, I can transport them to a place of safety and peace.”

I beg you, Iardu. Do this for me.

If you will not destroy me once and for all… then do this thing.

Iardu nodded.

Even now she felt the pull of the rune circle, a strange gravity drawing her essence closer to itself. Iardu carried her to the ring, but did not step inside. He waved a hand and the bed with its pile of pillows and silks slid across the chamber to block the doorway. The Circle of Rebirth lay empty before him now, a yawning whirlpool threatening to draw her into itself forever.

The sorcerer raised his arms. The light of her immortal soul blazed, a sphere of sunlight captured in his hand. He sang an ancient incantation and the black tower began to tremble. Shadows were snuffed out by the glow of his luminescent eyes. Gradually the chamber grew brilliant with white light flowing from nowhere. As if the very air itself had caught aflame, the great glow drowned all sensation. Iardu’s voice rose louder, mixing with the rumble as mortared stone tore itself apart.

Sharadza would have screamed then if she possessed a mouth. Since she did not, she merely endured the terrible pain of his spell. His own bellow of agony came unexpectedly.

The tower erupted in a globe of swirling flame.

Black stones rained upon the city like burning coals.

At the heart of the rushing mob, Tong ran alongside his freed companions. About them ran fifteen thousand Sydathians. They spewed from the wall of jungle as the legions of Onyx Guards from the Southern Gate rode in formation across the ruined farmland. Nine thousand devil-masked horsemen bearing lance, shield, and sword met the beastlings at the center of the smoking fields. Walls of roaring flame lined the gate road on either side. There would be no fleeing this battle.

Fight or burn.

Tong and his people chose to fight. The Sydathians raced ahead in their hound-like fashion, falling upon the legionnaires with silent fury. They plucked the lead cavalrymen of the host from their saddles like slaves picking fruit. Most of the killing would be done by the talons and fangs of the eyeless ones. Taking the fields had been easy, but the original advantage of surprise was now gone. Tong’s crude legion of three thousand slaves with stolen blades was the beating heart of the invasion force. Yet the eyeless ones were their true weapons. He watched the Onyx Guardsmen die beneath the furious speed and flailing arms of Sydathians, and he thanked the Earth God they were his allies.

A great band of women, children, and elders took their shelter beyond the treeline, guarded by a thousand horned beastlings. They would be safe there until the fighting was done and the city liberated. Until every last Onyx Guardsman was put to death or lay helpless in chains. The city’s general had underestimated the full strength of the rebellion, just as Tong had intended. The black legions were greatly outnumbered by the Sydathians, each of whom possessed the strength of ten men. The carnage in the fields was only a prelude. The true slaughter had only begun.

Sydathians and legionnaires clashed between walls of leaping fire. Tong wished he still rode on the back of Liberty, but the slaves could not convince their stolen mounts to enter the blazing fields. Even the calvary horses, trained to endure the chaos of battle, were skittish and frightened beneath the Onyx Guard, who whipped their flanks to drive them forward. Many of the armored ones abandoned their mounts for the steady feel of dirt beneath their heels. They drove forward on foot, only to die under a mass of leaping Sydathians.

Tong made his way through the ranks of warriors and beastlings, striving always to reach the southern wall. He came face to face with a dismounted captain as the warrior pulled his greatsword from the body of a dead Sydathian. His thrust had impaled it through the chest, and it died like a withering insect in the blood-soaked mud.

Tong’s sabre collided with the captain’s blade as he raised it.

Through the eyeholes of his fanged mask, the captain’s eyes were slits of darkness. His heavy blade moved quickly, battering away at Tong’s limited defenses. The escaped slave was no trained swordsman; yet the captain was exactly that. As the tip of the broad blade slashed a red line across his chest, Tong realized that this warrior would soon take his life. It was only a matter of seconds until his weary arm could no longer stop the greatsword’s arcing blade.

The press of soldiers and beastlings about them was tight. There was no disengagement possible. Tong raised the sabre again, his right arm gone numb as it absorbed the shock of the greatsword’s latest blow. A few more strokes and the blade would either slip into his bowels or take off his head. Tong sweated and screamed and beat his own blade uselessly against the captain’s armor. He chipped black lacquer from the bronze, but drew no blood.

The greatsword flashed sideways, and the sabre’s narrow blade broke in two. The useless hilt fell from Tong’s fingers.

The captain raised his blade again for a death blow that never fell. A pair of long white claws grabbed him from behind and tore the helmeted head from his shoulders. A gout of crimson rose up like a fountain, raining down upon Tong’s head and shoulders. He laughed at the death that had almost claimed him, gave a wordless thanks to the Sydathian brother who saved him, and took up the fallen greatsword as his own. He hoped it would serve him better than it had the headless captain.

So went the battle. Tong had learned to hold back and let the Sydathians do their grisly work. They did it easily and very few of them perished. Yet those slaves who rushed into battle with the trained soldiers fell quickly. Tong barked orders and curtailed the bloodlust of his freed brothers, while the eyeless ones tore the black legions apart. They reminded him of slaves scything down rows of ripe wheat. In less than an hour it was done.

Tong stood amid his fellows waving bloody blades at the stars, their faces red in the glow of untamed flames. The Sydathians did not cheer, they only convened once more in a great circle about Tong and his people. The eyeless ones did not celebrate victory, for they were not human and had no appetite for the butchery that came so easily to them. The Sydathians gathered up the bodies of their fallen; less than fifty of the beastlings had fallen to the war skills of the Onyx Guards. Yet they had slaughtered three entire legions of armored Khyreins.

How many more legions lay hidden beyond those black walls? Even as he shouted victory, Tong feared to see the great gate open and spill forth a fresh host. He knew only what all Khyreins did: that a great number of troops had been sent west recently to fortify the Border Legions at the edge of the Great Marshland. Rumors of war with Yaskatha and Uurz had been growing for years. While Matay had still lived, she and he had stopped their work briefly to watch the long lines of warriors filing into the jungle, following a hidden road toward the distant swamps. Yet Tong was sure the city retained a few legions for its own defense.

Despite a deep cut on his forearm that bled profusely, the lad Tolgur had thus far survived. He stood near to Tong, leaning on a bloody spear. He was the first to raise his hand and point toward the black wall. Between the twin gate towers, bathed in the glow of the burning fields, there stood two winged figures. The flesh of each one burned white, even in the glow of orange night, and living shadows swirled about their bodies. Their wings were pointed, featherless things, folding upon their backs and rustling. At first Tong thought them two great pale bats. Then he saw the bright crowns gleaming on the brow of each figure.

Emperor Gammir had come forth to view the rebellion. His pale Empress stood near to him, raising lithe arms, shedding white flames from her eyes. Gammir the Reborn had returned from death only seven years ago, and Iardu said the Empress Ianthe had returned now as well. They were immortal beings, and their power was not confined or limited by death. Every man knew these things.

As he watched the darkness swirl about the bright couple, Tong knew that Ianthe herself had come to crush his people. Could even the Sydathians stand against her power?

The Empress sang a screeching song, and men grabbed their ears in pain. The Sydathians sniffed the acrid air, sensing the presence of something they did not recognize. Yet they knew enough to fear it. Tong felt their fear as surely as he heard the hellsong of the sorceress.

The flaming plantations were snuffed out in an instant. A pall of smoke hung between the fields and the distant stars. The moon was lost behind dark, roiling vapors. Now these vapors shifted and flowed and joined with the shadows rising from the bloodstained earth. Shadows tore themselves from the stony substance of the black city’s walls and strode like Giants into the ashen fields. Winged shadows arose like great bats from the battlements where faceless guardsmen watched in awe. Serpents of living, seething darkness slithered from the river depths, gliding toward the Sydathian horde and its core of desperate slaves.

The host of crawling shadows fell upon the eyeless ones, thicker than black smoke. It rushed forward like a river of pitch to drown the army of pale beastlings. Some of the shadow horde resembled cobras, bats, wolves, Serpents, or deformed Giants; others shambled forward with no certain forms, conglomerations of talon, tentacle, beak, fang, and claw.

Tong’s forces had stood in the bloody glow of victory moments earlier, but now his brothers cringed before a tide of rushing darkness. In seconds it would smother them all, tear the lives from their bodies, and feed on the mangled debris of their souls.

He squeezed the grip of the greatsword with both hands and prepared to die.

I tried, Matay. Now at last I come to be with you.

Angry thunder split the night. An orb of fire akin to the sun itself erupted over the black city. Beyond the wall of rushing, creeping shadows, Tong saw a tower of the Great Palace disappear in a blast of churning brilliance. Rays from the miniature sun flashed in every direction, piercing the horde of shadows. A great cry rose into the night, the wailing of ten thousand damned souls in agony. The looming shadows burned away like wisps of fog in the glow of a sudden dawn.

A storm of basalt shards showered down upon the city. A few of the flying fragments toppled guards from the city walls or shattered the watchtowers between battlements.

Bathed in the radiance of dispelled horror and reborn hope, Tong smiled.

Iardu.

Atop the great gate, Emperor and Empress turned their heads to stare at their fractured palace, where the westernmost tower was no more.

“Forward, Brothers!” Tong cried, lifting up the greatsword once again. “Make for the gate! Our moment is now!”

Sydathians and slaves rushed forward in a great wave. The eyeless ones dug their talons into cracks between the stones of the great wall, climbing like a swarm of pale spiders toward the battlements.