Siege of Stone

CHAPTER 85

Even after the conflagration burned the front ranks of his army, General Utros was not willing to admit defeat. But with Ildakar entirely gone, he no longer had a city to conquer. Despite his losses, he still had more than a hundred thousand brave fighters. They stood on an empty, burned plain without an enemy to face.

He stared at the remnants of his stunned army and knew that he needed to give them a new goal, another reason to exist. His separate expeditionary armies were already on the march to find other lands to conquer. Utros had hoped to use those victories to get back into Kurgan’s good graces, yet he had less and less respect for the man to whom he had sworn his loyalty and his life.

Loyalty is greater than love. Was that even true anymore? Majel, his love, had been destroyed, and his loyalty toward her murderer was frayed and full of questions.

Utros returned to his makeshift command tent beyond the fringe of the great fire, where the tall oval lens to the underworld stood out in the open. Ava and Ruva were with him, determined to support him, whatever he should decide to do.

First Commander Enoch had also miraculously survived, much to Utros’s relief, but he would never know the names of all the dead. A good commander owed that much to his fallen soldiers, but there were too many. Far too many.

The first commander sat on his warhorse, bowing to Utros. “The soldiers await your orders, General. They will follow you wherever you may lead.”

Utros stared across the empty plain, still unable to believe that the city had simply vanished. Without Ildakar, the orders Iron Fang had given him were no longer valid, though in truth the emperor had never understood the situation on the ground, had never grasped his own empire. Iron Fang knew how to make people fear him, but he didn’t know how to rule. He was a pompous, self-absorbed man who achieved power only through others, like Utros.

The general didn’t know how he had been so blind before. No wonder Majel had sought love in someone else’s arms. If it hadn’t been Utros, would it have been another man? She had been so beautiful, so perfect, yet even after Kurgan had inflicted his horrific punishment upon her, she had gone back to him. Utros couldn’t understand it, nor did he need to. His duty was to his hundreds of thousands of soldiers. He was their leader, their general, not some spirit that spoke only through a bloodstained lens.

Utros stopped in front of the scorched but still functional lens to the underworld. At his command, the sorceresses activated the glowing runes, and the greenish mists cleared, letting him see through to the realm of the spirits. Utros stood bravely before the glass, staring at the ravaged landscape of the dead, which looked all too similar to the blasted landscape of his own camp.

Emperor Kurgan appeared before him again, grinning to show his hooked iron tooth. Majel was beside him, her face a raw mask. Her brown, lidless eyes stared at Utros, but now he saw her more clearly. No love remained there for him.

“You summoned me again, Utros,” Kurgan said. “If you have finally conquered Ildakar, then I am ready to issue my first orders. Execute all those who defied me, and when they come here to the underworld, we will punish them further.” He seemed to relish the idea.

“Ildakar is gone,” Utros said. “Vanished.”

“Gone?” Kurgan was taken aback. “How do you lose a city?”

“How do you lose an empire?” Utros retorted, allowing the harsh tone to erase all the awe and respect he had once held for this man. “How do you lose your wife, the most beautiful woman in the world? How do you squander all the lands I conquered for you, while I continue to fight for your foolishness?”

Kurgan was outraged. “I forbid you to speak to me like that. I am your emperor.”

“You are dead. You are no longer my emperor, and I no longer follow your orders. Neither loyalty nor love is strong enough. I am strong. I have my army, and I will conquer the Old World for myself. My soldiers are loyal to me, and we will create a new empire, a worthy empire. You corrupted everything you touched.” He lowered his voice as the emperor snarled, unable to form words. Utros shifted his gaze and spoke to the other image inside the lens. “Majel, I did love you, but our love was doomed from the start. I should have been wise enough to know that. Maybe I could have saved you, but I will not mourn for what happened fifteen centuries in the past. Instead, I will make my own future without you.” He turned back to Kurgan. “And without you, Iron Fang.”

Leaving the emperor fuming behind the veil to the underworld, General Utros stepped back from the lens. He picked up a heavy war hammer he had taken from one of his soldiers, a weapon that felt solid in his hand, real and heavy and deadly. With a cry that encompassed all his rage and despair, Utros swung the weapon and smashed the center of the blood lens.

Golden magic crackled and flared around the fissures that shot through the glass. The central impact left a white crater, and the cracks spread, branching out toward the edge. He heard a final echoing howl of Iron Fang’s rage before the blood lens shattered, crumbling into chunks of glass that fell in a pile on the scorched ground.

Ava and Ruva smiled at him with satisfaction and relief. First Commander Enoch pressed a fist to his heart in a salute and then shouted, “For General Utros!” The twin sorceresses took up the cheer, as did thousands of voices from his army.

Suddenly, unrelated to the shattering of the lens, Utros felt a strange force vibrate through the air like a magical lightning storm, a distant shock wave that rang through the fabric of the world. He instinctively clutched his chest, and his half-stone skin crawled.

Ava and Ruva stared at each other, then spun to him for answers. First Commander Enoch grasped his arm, touched his face, grimaced. The soldiers began to mutter. Some cried out, staring at their hands, bending their waists, flexing their arms.

Utros felt a shudder, and his skin tingled, warmed. The feeling was similar to what he remembered when he had reawakened from the nothingness of stone. But now he felt restored, even more human. The stiff petrification faded away.

His skin softened. His muscles loosened. With a sigh, he felt the dust go out of his lungs. He reached up to touch the gold half mask on his face, then ran his fingers over his other cheek. His beard was softer than before, silky. He looked at Ava and Ruva and saw that their pale, chalky skin had become warm flesh once more.

“The stone is gone from us!” Ruva said, holding up her delicate hand.

The twins touched each other, stroked their skin, caressed their faces. Ava said, “The spell is broken. Completely.”

Utros listened to the rising murmur of wonderment throughout the camp. One soldier leaped into the air and kicked his legs in joy. “We are human again!”

Whatever wizard had created the ancient petrification spell centuries ago was gone now, likely dead. There were no lingering remnants of the spell. They were free again, completely free.

Utros raised his hand, clenched his fingers into a fist. “We’re alive!” A resounding roar rippled across the hundreds of thousands of armed men camped on the burned plain.

The general allowed himself a moment of satisfaction and tried not to let them see the deep concern on his face. They would realize it themselves soon enough, and come to the same conclusion.

More than a hundred thousand warriors were camped in the middle of a vast, burned plain, far from the nearest city. They had no supplies at all, no Ildakar to defeat, and all those mouths to feed.

With gnawing dread, General Utros realized that he was hungry.