The Sacred Hunt Duology (122 page)

She was tired; sleep had eluded her these past three days, and this was not the first battle—in those scant hours—that she would at least see the start of.

Be honest
, she told herself wryly, as the mists shuddered and thickened within the crystal sphere.
It is not the battles which exhaust you. It is the hope of an end to them.
Could history be cheated? That was her folly; that she could, after all that she had seen, believe the answer was
yes
.

“Seeress.” It was the Lord of the Compact.

She nodded coolly in reply to the question he did not ask. “The halls round here,” she said, “into small apartments, and offices for lesser dignitaries. Ignore them; follow the hall to its end.” Speaking as if she had not already given these directions several times, she added, “The Cathedral here has no nave—it has a coliseum. The halls that we are traveling form the interior wall to the pens. The coliseum itself is four stories high, and in its day—” She stopped speaking. “We must enter as the—as the combatants did.”

The halls trembled as the beast roared in the darkness; they shook as the darkness answered.

• • •

Sor na Shannen heard the beast's roar, and she knew it for what it was: the cry of Bredan, Lord of the Covenant. Centuries, she had worked so that she might hear that cry on her own terms, and in the fullness of a power that might see the God brought low. She realized, listening to cries of the enraged multitude rebound in the hollows of the coliseum, that that had been a futile endeavor. Spear or no, this creature was a
God
.

Had it been so many millennia that she had forgotten what it was like, to stand
on the darkened field and wait for the charge of such a creature? Had it been so full an existence that she had forgotten that deep and perfect joy that came of standing by the armies of her Lord in the battle against His ancient, eternal enemies?

For her Lord was One, but they were many—and they had never succeeded in laying him low, no matter their numbers or their advantage. She threw back her silken, flowing hair and laughed, loud and long, as Allasakar made his response; as the multitude spoke through the masque of darkness and shadow. Fire she called, and it came, wreathing a face so fair, and so painfully lovely in its newness that no soldier could dare to strike it without at least pause for concern. She gestured, and her clothing dissolved into a patchwork of artfully bloodied shreds, revealing less than desire would have and more than dignity declared. Her lips were pale, her chin weak, her hands small and soft.

Ah, the battle, let it come, let it come soon. Of all the things that she desired, it was this: to fight again across the length and breadth of this world, with all its visceral pain and pleasure, its weakness and strengths, its savagery and its unutterable beauty.

As the voice revealed her Lord in His glory, she began the dark dance, both as homage and for her own pleasure—for she was a creature of the later abyss and understood well the value of both. Her power was a spiral of times forgotten as she called it fully for the first time in the last four decades. Only in the presence of the Lord of the Hells could such a dance
be
. How could she have forgotten it?

He spoke her name—her true name—and she shuddered with delight to be so noticed, so set apart, raking her claws in simple spasms across the legion of the dead.
Lord I have served and served and served; I have graven Your name across the mortal night. This is all that I desire.
Almost, she thought He smiled; she could not know for certain as His form was not yet whole.

It was the enemy who answered her prayer.

Light, harsh and alien, shattered the doors that led to the coliseum.

Dancing in the fires of the void, Sor na Shannen bowed to the ground as her Lord took His first steps across the firmament. The Gods warred among themselves as equals; they were beyond even the greatest of the demon lords in stature and power. But at the back of the beast, in the tunnels beyond, her enemies were hurrying to witness her dance—and their deaths.

• • •

There was no meeting of heralds upon this field; no observers to watch the standards of the great waver and fall, no bards to keep lists of the dead. No parley was initiated by either side, no lines drawn, no terms—however ludicrous or inflated—offered. These were civilities placed upon the face of battle, and that mask—for better or worse—had been removed. Only the killing remained.

These were the killing fields, these chaotic mounds of dirt and flesh beyond which the darkness swirled. They stopped here, those who followed the Hunter's
Death, banked as if they were fire and this a width of river that tongues of flame could not cross. The dead, faceless, had faces for those who could see them; each one, slack or rictus-touched, spoke in silence of their failure.

Too late.

Despair was sharp and swift, anger swifter still; across the darkened ring of the coliseum, the Allasakari readied for battle.

“No quarter!” a voice cried, from deep within the Kings' ranks. “Accept no surrender!”

“None will be given!” the Allasakari cried back, voices so laden with their Lord's power they seemed almost demonic.

The pale beast shed a brilliant light that should have illuminated the coliseum. Instead, it cast a longer, darker shadow for all its power. Into this shadow, with a hunger that could be felt if not seen, the Lord of the Covenant charged. The Lord of the Shadows roared as they met.

Thunder and lightning.

• • •

“Jewel?”

The Terafin sat upon her rooftop haven, the newest—and most unceremonially declared—member of her House to her left. She heard the trap as it rose and fell in a hush that spoke more clearly of Morretz than his words.

“Terafin.”

“Is it time?”

“It is. The servants have gathered, and the family. They are many this year.”

The older woman turned to gaze at the younger woman's pale profile. “Are you ready?” she asked softly.

Jewel Markess ATerafin swallowed, and then swallowed again, as if for breath. Her dark eyes were wide as she gazed across the bay. She spoke, but the words were a movement of lips with no sound; The Terafin had to lean forward to catch them as they came again.

“Not yet.”

“What is it, Jewel? What do you see?”

The younger woman lifted a shaking finger and pointed to the heart of the city across the bay. She opened her lips again, but this time, The Terafin lost her words to another sound: the trembling of earth.

The land shook.

“Terafin.”

The Terafin nodded once and rose, snapping into a thin, straight line. “Jewel, come. We must attend the Family.”

Jewel rose as well, and they stood a moment, these two, beneath a shrouded sky. It was no longer night, or even dusk, but although the sky was a deep, deep crimson, they saw no sun.

• • •

Gods met; earth shook, wind roared. Where the arch had been, there was now a column twined and braided with magic and pattern that defied the understanding of human eyes. Around the packed dirt, empty seats rose into the darkness, inviting the followers of either God to watch, to observe, and to raise no hand.

False promise.

Meralonne APhaniel stepped over the crushed forehead of an elderly man, planting his toes against an oddly angled arm, the balls of his heels against clear dirt. He raised his whole arm and pointed into the darkness; light seared a trail across the air. Piercing, clear and loud, a shriek responded to its passage.

Sor na Shannen stood above flames sustained by no earthly fuel. Lips soft and pale as a young cherry blossom gathered above her teeth in the beginning of a snarl; they rippled into a smooth silence as her eyes met the mage's.

“Again,” she said, her soft voice reaching the highest of the coliseum's empty seats. “Again you trouble me.”

“Oh, yes,” he replied, calling his sword from the folds of darkness as his voice failed to meet hers in either volume or majesty. “And this time, there is no turning back.”

She stared at him a moment, and then her smile returned, deep and sensuous and oddly innocent. “You have no shield.”

“Against you, I do not require it.”

“And if you do not require it, you will not use it?” She laughed.

“You fled our last meeting, drinker, not I.”

The laughter trailed into an abrupt silence. “At our last meeting, mage, you were not so eager for speech and nicety. Did I not give you what you desired?”

He did not answer her with words, but the lines of his face became so coolly neutral it was hard to believe there was a living man behind it.

“You are too human,” she said, drawing the fires around her into the form and shape of a red crescent saber. “Come, then. Come and dance.”

He stepped toward her as if compelled to allow her the choice of field. Something beneath his foot
snapped
. Leaping up, he brought his sword down, severing hand from arm at the wrist. A dead hand. A dead arm. “Surprise,” she said softly, and launched herself.

• • •

They heard the crying as they made their way to the top of the manse's wide stairs; The Terafin lifted her chin, and did not drop it again. She was slender and hard, like a blade; Jewel remembered her as she had been the night the foyer had been destroyed.

And she remembered the darkness. Today, it lingered in the small pockets of room not exposed to light, waiting. Morretz was as neutral in expression as she had ever seen him, and she had come to understand that this was the face he wore
to battle. Both he, and the master he had chosen to serve for life, were preparing for combat.

She did not understand why until they reached the stair's height and she could look down.

There, gathered in the foyer as if seeking shelter—and they were, they were—were the servants and the men and women who bore the name ATerafin into the world beyond the gates. She had never seen so many people gathered in the manse at one time. They huddled together, a press of bodies, their uncertainty and their exhaustion writ clear across their faces; women carried children, crying, in their arms, and men cried, too; some in the crowd carried bags.

“Terafin!”

“TERAFIN!”

“Amarais.” Morretz pitched his voice above the crowd's voice, although he would not be able to do so for long. He knew his master well; better than Jewel, it seemed. For The Terafin did not hesitate at the height of the stairs. Instead, regal, she began her descent as if such a descent were as natural as breathing. There was about her both power and determination, and her expression was serene.

She wore plain cloth and no jewelry; she bore no shield, no sword, and carried none of her possessions. It was First Day, yes, but each and every man and woman here knew that the Dark Days had not yet passed. But what she did carry was enough to silence, for a moment, the panic of her people. Pride. And strength.

One man caught her arm, and the crowd seemed to stop breathing, for on this day, this First Day, there were no Chosen to stand between The Terafin and her Family. But she turned, and said simply, “Come to the shrine.” And his fingers fell away, as if nerveless.

She led them out, into the uncertain morning.

And Jewel knew, as the doors opened before this woman, and she gazed out into the unnatural shadow that lay across the bay, that she would follow The Terafin forever.

For The Terafin did not blanch, or blink, or bow.

Instead she turned to her people, and spoke into their shocked horror, their terrible silence.

“This is First Day, as we have never seen it and we wait—as our ancestors waited—for the coming of the Kings.”

• • •

The dead rose before the ranks of the Allasakari like a shield-wall, forming a line three deep. Naked, disfigured, partly dismembered or jarringly whole, they were as they had been at their death—but this time, unarmed, they were not weaponless.

In the third row, nestled around the Allasakari, the dead linked arms, planting their feet into the earth as if to take root there. But in the second row, and the
first, they moved forward, awkward in their gait where limbs were broken or missing, but no less determined. Unseeing, they saw.

They know our weaknesses well
, Devon ATerafin thought, as he watched the lines shuffle into two distinct groupings: the men and the women fell back into the second row, the children and the elderly stepped into the first. Dispassionate, he wondered if the smallest of the corpses had even possessed the ability to walk—or if this macabre shuffle represented its first steps. At Devon's back, the intake of breath was sharp, and words of horror unmuted; he was afraid that the Kings' Swords would disgrace themselves by some further show of weakness. If they did, they were mercifully silent.

The Exalted were committing to light and shadow the First Day blessing. Their power was strong; the God's was stronger. The dead barely flinched before they continued their shamble.

“ATerafin,” a voice said to his right.

Dark hair rose and fell, a subtle flick of chin and forehead. He threw his hands up into the air; from a distance it might have been a gesture of despair, because at a remove one wouldn't be able to see the cold, grim line of his mouth, the set determination of his eyes. The hands that he lowered held knives, each heavy and unairworthy. Worked in a metal that seemed at once to glimmer with three different sheens, the hilts of each dagger were traced in gold, with opal, diamond, and aquamarines to set off runes that Devon ATerafin did not pretend to understand.

It was enough that he knew their effect.

The dead, he noted, did not walk quickly—although perhaps they would if they were substantially whole. Men and women—the corpses of men and women—could easily be dealt with when the need was clear. But the younger corpses were a thing of nightmare, their faces contorted into expressions of fear and helplessness that demanded justice for the failure of the powerful to protect them in their need.