Wild Magic

Chapter 29. The Last Dance

On the Iron Bridge the Rite began.

Adjoa Prime and Anaxoa Prime were slick with sweat again as they brought the Great Hammers down on the Sacred Anvil:

Iron Father, come and bless us

Giver of Strength and Might

Come O Lawgiver, make this wrong right… Anacho Drummers stroked the tall Drums of the Dead doom da doom da doom…

The hand drums the pages held rattled tank t tank t t t tank tank…

The small bronze hammers of the kassos beat against their small bronze anvils, the tinka fink; sinking into the chant and emerging from it, sinking again…

A wall of SOUND funneled along the Iron Bridge, hammered at the Barrier.

At the rim of the South Eka Kumata, the attack of the army began.

Swordsmen from the hostas spread along the Barrier, poked and slashed at it; when they tired, others took their places.

Heavyarm Lancers rode their warhorses at the Bar-

rier. The horses reared, slammed their armored fore-hooves into it, reared again and again. They withdrew. Came at it again. Hammered at it. Hammered. Others took their places when they tired. Hammered and hammered.

Lightarm Lancers slammed butt and point against the Barrier, rode the rebounds, slammed at it again and again; when they tired, others took their places.

The hosta Captains prowled along behind their men, followed by drummer pages counting cadence to keep the blows thumping together to set up a resonance in the Barrier and crack it that way.

More impatient and hostile, the Cheoshim Commanders mixed with their men; even Champion Om-mad, the Commander Prime of the Lancers, swung down from his warhorse, tossed the reins to his page and took his saber to go the Barrier.

On and on. Endlessly hammering. Slicing. Thumping. On and on.

On the Northbank of the River, Riverman stood under the Camuctarr Gatt and shook water from his ears. He climbed the bank, hesitated on the edge of the weedy wasteland that was the lower slopes of Mount Fogamalin, then began toiling upward, a small brown shadow in the dessicated dead landscape.

In the Great Grove at the center of the Low City, teeth grinding in anger, fighting her NEED to wrench free of the god’s claws, Faan leapt and turned on the damp earth, in and out of the arching, embracing Sequba roots, threads spinning out from her, calling to her side the Honeygirls, calling among others Ma’teesee and Dossan.

A sword hacked at the Barrier. She grunted with pain and kept on dancing, a red line running across her shoulder. Hooves slammed down. Red curves bloomed

on her thigh and she whined through her teeth-and danced.

She drew strength from the Earthfire. From the Honeygirls who came and danced with her, weaving through the Grove. From the Wild Magic swirling in a silver mist about her. And almost none from the god.

The moththeries that belonged to the trees came dripping like rain down the Sequba trunks and flittered about her, drawn like mundane moths to a flame.

Blood bruises lacing every inch of her body, swaying and groaning, goddriven through an endless wheeling Dance, she fought to HOLD.

While the Prophet ranted and strode back and forth across the High City Sok Circle. Juvalgrirn drifted among his memories. It was difficult to breathe; the pressure from the straps and plates of the cage on his head numbed his skin and made his tongue swell. And he was thirsty. The heat from the punishing sun made that worse with every breath he drew.

There was nothing he could do, no way he could escape this, and he was no longer waiting for the Change to rescue him. There was an odd comfort in this passivity. A rest from the weariness that had weighed him down. He’d been working so hard for so long.

He blinked, watched with contempt as the Prophet threw his arms out, flung himself to his knees.

“BURN,” Faharmoy howled, head back, eyes shining red,.a red glow about his wasted body, “BURN AND RETURN TO THE FATHER.” Eyes like furnace holes fixed on the hot, dust-whitened sky, he began to mutter the Praises.

Manasso Prime patted down his vestments and sent acolytes scurrying to form up his kassos so he could get the rite started. The Manassoa kassos were more familiar with balance sheets than music scores, but they fumbled themselves into the proper order, cleared their throats, settled raggedly into the basic chant CHU MA VAY YAL CHU MA VAY YAL.

Juvalgrim let his eyes drop shut and once more he was playing games in the back courts of the Camuctarr, swimming in the River, sweating and breathless in the bed of the first woman he’d had.

He refused to think of Reyna; it was too painful. He wanted nothing painful now.

Reyna’s head ached. His body was one great bruise, but no bones were broken and his skin was intact. Lots of crackling when I fry. His swollen lips twitched into a brief painful smile at the thought.

He could feel Juvalgrim’s back against his hands. Crackling together. They say if you breathe the smoke, you won’t feel the fire… gods!

Faan, my Faany, my honeybaby, take care of yourself…

Weary and so dry his skin was beginning to crack, driven by a summons he couldn’t break free of, River-man reached the Jiko Sagrada and flinched from the searing heat of the black iron tiles. “Please,” he said aloud. “You’ll kill me. I can’t… I can’t…”

The summons intensified.

He shuddered, then sat on a rock and began wrapping strands of tough, sun-dried grass about his webbed feet.

Chumavayal swings his Hammer about his head, faster and faster until it whistles through air that glows red with the heat of its passage, round and round, then he looses it, sending it wheeling about Abeyhamal, wrapping a chain of fire about her.

Cursing the South Eka boys jigging unreachably in front of him, Champion Onunad brought his saber round in a powerful circle and for the first time felt the Barrier quiver, then yield beneath the edge. He shouted and struck again. Again. The fourth time the saber sank in and stuck; it felt like slicing through muscle into bone.

He wrenched it loose. “Here,” he cried. “Wallal, Famkon, Uchovu, come here. Coordinate with me.”

He brought the saber down through the softening Barrier.

In the Great Grove Faan screamed. A bruise on her arm broke open, blood sprayed over the clotted Wild Magic.

The Sequba moththeries screamed and fell like wetted thistledown onto the churned black earth.

A strand of the silver motes flew at the Honeychild, pasted themselves over the wound, holding it closed; when the healing was done, they peeled off, leaving behind a silver scar that wound like a snake about her forearm.

She screamed again. Bruises burst. Blood soaked her blouse and skirt, but she kept dancing. Round and round she danced, spraying blood on trees and earth and the Honeygirls dancing with her.

Her eyes rolled back; her mouth stretched wide in a soundless howl; she fainted.

The Barrier fell.

At South Eka, the attackers collapsed into confusion as the resistance they’d been fighting melted away. Warhorses stumbled, Lancers went to their knees, swordsmen staggered.

At the Iron Bridge the blowtorch which the Primes had evoked whooshed into the warehouses and the rambling low tenements of the Edge, burning to ash everything in its path until it beat against the rim of an Abey Grove and fell apart.

Stunned by a success they hadn’t really expected, the kassos let the beat fall to silence until the Macho Prime threw up his arms. “Drummers, follow,” he cried and plunged in the path of the fire.