Siege of Stone

CHAPTER 15

Inside his headquarters structure, General Utros brooded in darkness, wrestling with disbelief and dread certainty. The sun fell behind the western hills in the direction of Kol Adair, but even before darkness gathered, Utros pulled the shutters closed. Inside the dim, stuffy building, Ava and Ruva built up the hot coals in the braziers, filling the shadows with orange fire, and then acrid herbs. The smoke that swirled around the enclosed room had a bitter smell, but not as bitter as what Utros had learned.

With so many small kingdoms and principalities in turmoil after his armies smashed them, news would have taken a long time to travel across the Old World. Could it be that Utros had conquered the continent, crossed over the mountain passes and placed Ildakar under siege, in the name of an empire that had already crumbled? How could history be so cruel? How could time have abandoned him after so many unparalleled triumphs?

And yet, in his heart, he believed what Nathan and Nicci had told him. He could not deny the evidence.

For now, with the door and windows closed, with guards stationed outside so that no subcommander would enter with a report, Utros kept only the sorceresses with him, but even their powerful magic could not drive away his doubts.

Iron Fang was truly gone, his empire crumbled into dust by the march of time. Empress Majel, beautiful Majel, was also dead in the most horrible way imaginable. Utros would have mourned his beloved in any case, but to know that her own husband had flayed the skin from her creamy shoulders, her rounded breasts, her flat stomach, her smooth thighs …

Utros squeezed his eyes shut, picturing Majel’s classically beautiful face, and those shimmering dark eyes that had gazed on him with so much love and forbidden passion. When they were together, she had felt such joy to be held in the arms of someone who wanted to love her, rather than possess her.

And then she’d been killed by the man she married, killed by the man to whom Utros had sworn his loyalty.

He was also the man Utros and Majel had both betrayed.

“Can it be true?” he asked aloud, looking at Ava and Ruva. He seemed to be pleading with the sorceresses to tell him otherwise.

The sisters had freshly painted faces, their cheeks swirled with scarlet and yellow, their necks adorned with a smear of indigo, outlined in crimson. “How can it be false?” Ava said. “You feel it, beloved Utros. You know you do.”

Ruva added, “I could not cast a spell to verify the truth when the emissaries were here, but I saw no doubt or deceit in their eyes.”

Ava took a step closer. “Emperor Kurgan is certainly gone, but our loyalty is not. You are, and have always been, our leader. Those hundreds of thousands of soldiers follow your commands, no matter who is emperor.”

“As I follow my emperor’s commands,” Utros said, struggling with his own loyalty. “When we departed from Orogang, I swore to complete my mission, and I did not need to receive any further instructions from Iron Fang. Even with this damnable stone spell, how is anything changed, just because more time has passed? I still have to conquer Ildakar.”

“The city must fall, if that is what you need,” Ava added. “Your soldiers will do what they swore to do. For you.”

Ruva’s voice picked up so swiftly that the twins seemed to speak the same thoughts. “And after Ildakar falls, you can set yourself up as its military leader, a new ruler for a modern empire.”

Utros was troubled by the thought. “No, that would make me feel an even greater traitor.” The image of Majel flashed before his eyes, and he set it gently aside in a different part of his mind. “I am a military man, not a power-hungry despot. I don’t do this for me.”

“But your army needs a leader,” Ruva said. “Command them. Do what you know you must.”

“Perhaps you’re right.” He wrestled with his fists, knotted his fingers, twisted his arms, trying to limber up his stiffened skin. “I am a hunter, and I have my eyes on the game I intend to kill. Before I worry about how I’ll preserve the meat for winter and distribute it among the storehouses, first I must kill the prey.”

“Ildakar,” said the women in unison.

Utros closed his eyes, blocking them out, setting aside all distractions. Ava and Ruva likely thought he was making military plans in his well-ordered mind, mentally positioning groups of soldiers, dispatching huge companies in different directions to overwhelm the surrounding lands. His forces could bottle up Ildakar and press upon the walls, which would perpetuate the terror inside the city, even if Ildakar’s magic-enhanced barriers held against the attack.

But Utros couldn’t stop thinking about Majel. His stony expression masked his disgust at how she had died, so much blood and pain. He should have been there with her. He should have saved her, but he couldn’t imagine how their love had been exposed. What had he and Majel done wrong? They had been so careful! What was their mistake?

Though he longed to write his thoughts every day, he had sent Majel only a very few letters, which he asked her to burn as soon as she read them. Even if she did keep them, who would dare rummage through the private possessions of an empress? And no courier would break the seal to read the letters.

But what if Iron Fang had questioned why a military courier would bear a secret sealed message from his general to his wife? Had Kurgan intercepted and read one of his letters? The courier was sworn to deliver it only to its intended recipient, but would a courier defy a direct order from his emperor? No.

Utros knew his ruler all too well. Kurgan was the man who sat upon the throne in Orogang, but he was capricious and reckless. What Nicci and Nathan had said about how history viewed Iron Fang was correct. Emperor Kurgan had achieved greatness only because of the victories and wise leadership of his greatest military leader. Utros had conquered the Old World, and Iron Fang had been left to rule it, despite his inability to administer such a vast realm.

Perhaps Kurgan had understood that himself. Maybe he’d felt inadequate, jealous of his talented general. He would have realized in his heart that the victories belonged to Utros, and his army and his citizens knew that also. When the volatile ruler discovered he was an inadequate lover as well as leader, Kurgan would not have been able to endure it. It was another victory General Utros had won over him. Iron Fang would have exacted his revenge on someone weaker than he, a person whom Utros loved. Majel.

Yes, he could very well believe Kurgan had skinned his own wife alive, then fed her still-living body to flesh beetles.

Utros winced, struggling to bear the vivid portrait his fears painted for him. Had Majel cried out his name, holding on to her love for him even as her body was torn apart? Or had she begged her vile husband for forgiveness, denouncing her betrayal and swearing her loyalty to him again? It would have done her no good.

Utros knew the clash of honor and need in her soul. He himself could barely stand the constant tug of war between his loyalties. He had made a sacred vow to serve Emperor Kurgan, and that was the core of his being, and yet his heart had gone over to Majel. How could he reconcile that? Loyalty or love? So long as Kurgan hadn’t learned of their passion for each other, Utros was able to compartmentalize his duty to Iron Fang as separate from his love for Majel.

But now, if his beloved was murdered and their affair revealed, and if the very empire had fallen, how could Utros balance anything? What was his reason to exist? What about his orders, his mission to bring down Ildakar?

He squeezed his eyes closed and felt the tears burn there. He remained deep in thought until he purged the emotions, turned them into stone so that they crumbled into dust within his heart.

Finally, he opened his eyes to find Ava and Ruva waiting intensely, their eyes locked on his face. He couldn’t even hear them breathe.

Utros said, “We still have to bring down Ildakar. I must complete my orders.” He thought about how he had challenged the legendary city fifteen centuries ago. “The wizards of Ildakar were very powerful once, but if the stone spell has faded, then we know their magic is weaker than it was before.” He narrowed his eyes at them. “And yours is still strong, I hope.”

Ava and Ruva nodded. “We have the gift as before, and now we are enhanced with the strength of stone, as well as flesh and blood. That makes us more powerful.”

Ruva added, “We know secrets that others don’t.” Outside the headquarters, twilight thickened, but the brazier light remained a dull, throbbing orange. “Nicci and Nathan may have inadvertently left something behind, something we can use against them,” Ava said.

Her twin smiled. “Yes, they were not careful. They don’t suspect the power that resides in every scrap of themselves. But we do.”

Before the two representatives had arrived for the parley, the sorceresses had tended to each other, using a knife to scrape their eyebrows, scalps, arms and legs, every patch of skin, removing the tiniest bit of hair, which they burned in the braziers. Then they clipped their nails, also feeding each bit to the fire. They had made sure that not the slightest speck of their bodies could be found by an enemy.

But Nicci and Nathan were careless.

Ava and Ruva intensely scoured every place where the sorceress and the wizard had stood. The women crawled about, scanning the rugs on the floor, the edge of the door, any place the two visitors had touched. Utros didn’t ask why. They were searching for something.

Ava combed her fingers over the rough wood of the doorframe, squinting in the light of the braziers. Then, with a cry of triumph, she produced a single golden hair caught on a splinter in the wood and snapped off. Their faces filled with delight and anticipation, the two sorceresses inspected the fine yellow strand, which obviously belonged to Nicci.

“Now we have what we need.” Ruva’s eyes shone.

“Nicci may be a powerful opponent with great magic of her own,” Ava said. “But she is a fool to leave us a weapon such as this. My sister and I would never make such a terrible mistake.”

Holding the strand, Ruva carried it close to the brazier so the ruddy light sparkled along its delicate length. The hair looked as fine and ephemeral as a spiderweb. She dangled it over the glowing coals, and her sister bent close, both of them looking hungrily at the single hair.

Utros could sense the magic building between them. Though he didn’t have the gift himself, he had watched the twins perform for him before. They would not let him down.

Ava lifted the strand high. “We have a day or two of preparations to make, but with this single golden hair, we can work great magic. And we can target Nicci.”