In Her Name: The First Empress: Book 01 - From Chaos Born (12 page)

Nil’a-Litan lowered her head, ashamed. “Yes, mistress. Please, forgive me.” She felt very small at that moment, helpless.
 

She felt the elder warrior’s hand on her uninjured shoulder, and looked up.

“While we cannot rise against the Dark Queen,” Eil’an-Kuhr told her, giving her shoulder a reassuring squeeze, “we shall not let this wretched and dishonorable deed come to pass. I will assemble a group of warriors to ride home and warn our master.”

“It may already be too late. Look!”

Eil’an-Kuhr turned, following the direction of Nil’a-Litan’s gaze in time to see a group of warriors, fifty, by her estimate, file into the pavilion. A handful of others had split off and were heading toward the nearest grassy field where a herd of
magtheps
, some of them already saddled, grazed.
 

“Can the queen truly make them do this thing?” Even though Nil’a-Litan had heard the words herself, she still could not bring herself to believe that any of their kind would massacre an entire creche.

“We cannot afford to doubt it,” Eil’an-Kuhr told her, “nor can we wait. If we are to warn our master, we must ride before they do. Otherwise, a rider or even a small group could be intercepted and stopped.” She looked into Nil’a-Litan’s eyes. “I cannot leave. It is up to you, young warrior.” She withdrew a rod, half the length of her forearm, from a sheath on her right arm. “Take this. It is the
tla’a-anir
, the Sign of Authority, of our master. This entitles you to all privileges and honors that would be accorded him, but beware how you use it: Kunan-Lohr bears the burden of its use. With this you can get fresh mounts and food, whatever you need on your journey. You will have to ride now, this very moment, before the queen’s assassins set out. I will send a party of warriors to trail them, but they may be ambushed, so do not depend on them to reach you.” Eil’an-Kuhr gripped the younger warrior’s arms in the way of parting, mindful of Nil’a-Litan’s injured shoulder. “The greatest duty of your life now lies before you. You must warn our lord and master.”

Nil’a-Litan bowed her head, unable to salute with her left arm. “I shall not fail, mistress.”

“Go then, child, as fast as you can. And may thy Way be long and glorious.”

* * *

The fifty warriors who knelt in Syr-Nagath’s chambers within the pavilion stared at her with horrified expressions after she had told them what they must do.
 

As one, eight of them stood without a word and slashed their own throats with their talons. Each of those eight, who truly valued honor above their lives, stood until their eyes rolled up into their heads. One by one, they collapsed to the floor, which was now soaked in blood.

Syr-Nagath approached the nearest of the forty-two who remained. The warriors now had their eyes fixed on the rug. She knew that nothing she could offer in terms of rewards or riches would make them do the thing she demanded. Only fear would be sufficient motivation. She stood before the first one. “Will you do my bidding?”

The warrior silently shook her head.

The dark queen’s sword sang from its sheath. In a glittering flash, the blade sliced through the first of the warrior’s braids, the Covenant of the Afterlife. Screaming, the warrior fell to the floor, writhing in spiritual agony. Her soul had been isolated from the empathic and spiritual bond with the rest of her bloodline, and would be consigned to eternal darkness.

The Dark Queen gestured to a pair of warriors who stood behind her, and they quickly bound the still-screaming warrior in chains.
 

Syr-Nagath spoke to the remaining warriors, who did not lift their heads. “I will ensure that she lives a long life, waiting for the darkness to take her.”

Then she stepped to the next warrior and repeated the same question. “Will you do my bidding?”

In the end, she had thirty-one warriors who pledged to commit infanticide, the most unholy of acts, in Syr-Nagath’s name. The eleven who had refused were now bound by chains, their souls barred from the Afterlife. She ordered them hoisted on gibbets before the pavilion as examples of the price of disobedience.
 

For the eight who had committed ritual suicide, she commanded they be given the last rites and burned on funeral pyres as tradition demanded. Although they had defied her, they had done so with honor. While the Way she followed was not theirs, their self-sacrifice was one that she could respect.

After the last of the thirty-one warriors filed out to begin the long ride west to Keel-A’ar, Syr-Nagath summoned her First, who knelt before her and saluted.

“Yes, my queen?”

“Should any of those cowardly carrion-eaters survive,” Syr-Nagath gestured in the direction the warriors had gone, “kill them upon their return and feed their bodies to the scavengers in the Eastern Sea after our victory here. I would not set eyes upon them again.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Ayan-Dar restrained the temptation to kill the keeper, who still hovered in the air a few paces from the top of the column, in easy reach of a
shrekka
. Killing a member of a non-warrior caste stood next to killing a child in terms of dishonor, although the old crone was hardly an innocent.
 

Below, six warriors, including the two massive guards that had accompanied the keeper, had reached the base of the column. They watched him with baleful stares, their swords held ready, as they quickly rose to meet him.

While they had the advantage of numbers, he held the high ground. He again restrained himself from trying to use his powers. If they worked when he truly needed them, they might save him. If they did not work now, the Ka’i-Nur would know for certain, and be emboldened in their attack. Even with his superior skills, their greater physical strength and numbers would eventually weigh against him.

Unlike a physical platform, whatever force was lifting the warriors did not allow them to spring up toward him. All of them tried as they neared the top, but there was nothing but air beneath their feet. They kicked out as if they were swimming in water, but without changing the steady pace of their climb. For just a moment, it confused them.

It was a small advantage offered in a very small window of time, but it was enough. With a series of lightning quick jabs and thrusts, Ayan-Dar killed five of them before they reached the top of the column. He derived some small sense of satisfaction when the ancient keeper was spattered with their blood, and she wailed like a frightened child.

Only the sixth warrior, one of the two massive brutes, survived, but not for long. He was a powerful and skilled warrior, but Ayan-Dar had faced far better. In a brutal but brief clash of steel, the warrior gasped as his left arm and half his chest fell away from a clean cut by Ayan-Dar’s sword. Blood frothing from his mouth, the warrior fell backward off the column, to be borne slowly toward the floor.

Seeing his way out, Ayan-Dar jumped, straddling the warrior’s body. As he did so, he lashed out with his sword at the keeper’s feet, taking off all her toes. Screaming, she pressed shaking hands to the bloody stumps, as she, too, began to descend. His act was not out of cruelty. He had wanted to focus her attention on something other than signaling to whomever controlled this mysterious column of air (builders, he surmised) to let the body he was riding plummet to the hard floor below.

The keepers throughout the great cavern had been watching the spectacle, and now many of them began to panic. They fled toward the only exit, so far as Ayan-Dar could see, that led to the great stairway. He grinned as the mass of keepers, thousands of them, formed a solid blockage against the warriors outside who were trying to make their way into the chamber through the same doorway.

“May you be cursed by the ancient gods!” The keeper spat at him. She floated in the air as if she were sitting cross-legged on the floor, blood running through the fingers she had clasped around the stumps of her toes.

“Those gods perished at the end of the Second Age, mistress of the Books of Time. And I pray the honorless Ka’i-Nur will soon follow them into oblivion.”

He was now close enough to the floor that he could safely land if he jumped. Deciding that now was a good time to test his powers, he slid off the body of the dead warrior and willed himself to float to the ground. He could not rise without some motive force, if only the power of his legs, but once airborne, he could sail through the air as he willed.
 

His cloak fluttering behind him, he flew across the floor to land in the exact spot he had chosen. Then he tossed his sword in the air to momentarily free his hand. Looking at his palm, he was rewarded with a fierce cyan glow, sparks of raw power that danced across his fingers.

Snatching his sword from the air, he headed toward the screaming mob that crowded the narrow stairs to reach the door and safety.
 

He ignored the wails of the ancient keeper behind him.

* * *

T’ier-Kunai stood on the dais in the center arena, watching the acolytes as they sparred with various weapons. While her eyes saw what was happening in the arenas, her mind was far away, focused on her second sight’s view of the ancient fortress of Ka’i-Nur. She had watched Ayan-Dar disappear through the gate, beyond which she could not see, and now waited impatiently for him to reappear. It was unnatural for her to not feel the echo of his spirit in her blood, for it had been there since she had been a child, a youngling in the
kazha
of her city, where he had once been a master. She had grown to be his acolyte, and the day had come when he had shared his powers with her under the blinding, burning cyan flame of the Crystal of Souls here in the temple.
 

She had risen over the cycles through the ranks of the priesthood, at one point challenging and defeating her old mentor in the arena. That had been a day of tremendous honor for her, and she had knelt at his feet afterward, overcome with fondness for him. He had gently commanded her to rise, and gripped one of her forearms with his own.

Since then, many cycles had passed until she had finally risen to the position of high priestess. None had been less surprised than Ayan-Dar, whose obvious pride in his former acolyte had made her spirit sing.

You should not have let him go
. There had been no choice, she told herself. She would not deny any of the priesthood, even an acolyte, a spiritual quest unless there was good reason.
The Ka’i-Nur are reason enough to have forbidden it. You know. You have been there in that wretched hive.

She sighed. Too much time had passed since Ayan-Dar had been swallowed by the gate of the fortress after the pathetic attempts by the Ka’i-Nur to dissuade him. Even though she could not sense him, could not see into that evil place, she knew that something was wrong.
 

When she had told him that she was not prepared to risk war with the Ka’i-Nur, she had meant it. But she was not above paying a courtesy visit. Although the orders had all become so insular that it was rarely exercised, the right of visitation by the high priest or priestess of any order to any other was an ancient tradition, to which even the Ka’i-Nur had subscribed in ages past. Tradition demanded the most high be accompanied by no more than six of the priesthood, making seven in all, the number of all the ancient orders, including the Ka’i-Nur.

She did not know if seven would be enough to save Ayan-Dar, but such a number would hopefully be few enough to avoid open war with their sister order. While she had no doubt the Desh-Ka would prevail, there was no way to predict the repercussions. It was a dark path that was best avoided.

Her decision was made. “
Kazh!
”
 

The acolytes instantly stopped their sparring and knelt on the sands of the arena, facing her and saluting.
 

Returning their salute, T’ier-Kunai turned to her First. “Have the seven senior-most of the priesthood join me in my quarters immediately, and dismiss the acolytes from training.” She paused, contemplating the worst of what could happen in the hours to come. “Once that is done, gather the priesthood and acolytes to the armory and prepare for battle.”

* * *

When Ayan-Dar had reached the mass of panicked keepers trying to escape the great chamber, he had been content to find a defensible position in the corner of a pair of the titanic walls that rose high overhead. In that way, he could not be surprised from his flanks or behind. He was near enough to the front of the chamber that he had a clear view of the entrance, but was not so close that he was within easy range of an attack by
shrekkas
or other throwing weapons the Ka’i-Nur might use.

But his presence there, in clear view of the keepers, prompted a stampede. They trampled one another and tore at those in front of them, sinking their talons into the unarmored flesh of their peers to try and escape the priest of the Desh-Ka who stood, horrified, behind them.

“Stop! I mean you no harm, keepers of the Books of Time!” His bellowed words failed to calm them, and in fact had the opposite effect, throwing them into a frenzy.

What happened next brought him to the edge of being physically ill. From the doorway through which the keepers were trying to flee, he saw the glint of swords rising and falling. The blades were covered with blood, and cries of panic were joined by shrieks of pain and agony as the warriors coming for him began to hack their way through the keepers they were there to protect.

Dark streaks fell from Ayan-Dar’s eyes, marks of mourning that turned the cobalt blue skin of his cheeks black as he watched the massacre. He bemoaned the fact that his people had forsaken the ancient gods, for he wished now that he had someone, something, to pray to, to relieve his soul of this dreadful burden.
 

“I did not wish this,” he whispered. He knew, deep in his heart, that even had he known this would happen, he would still have come. The information he sought was too important. But this, even though he had not intended for any such thing to happen, was a blight upon his honor that he could never fully erase.