Chains of a Dark Goddess (29 page)

Esha’s vision ended. She shook her head in confusion, frowned a moment, then ran to him. “Yes, master?”

“Come, we have work to do and I could use your help.”

“Okay!” she piped.

The ground quaked violently. The wall trembled and the rampart cracked.

“Esha!” Breskaro shouted, reaching out for her as the stonework crumbled beneath them. 

But his hand missed her.

Then rampart under him crumbled and collapsed, and he tumbled along after her.

Chapter 42

Breskaro slammed into the ground with rubble battering down on him. Dust billowed out from the collapsed rampart. His Knights of the Dark, having been stationed nearby, were running toward him. Aleui-Harmulkot stared down in surprise, the collapsed section ending right at her feet.

Breskaro growled as he stood, throwing the broken stonework clear of his bruised body. He staggered to his feet. 

“Esha!” he cried.

He spotted her, lying in a pile of debris. She wasn’t buried, but she was motionless, bleeding. As he stepped toward her, the earth quaked again. The street beneath him heaved. The cobblestones cracked from the pressure beneath them.

A section of the street exploded upward, sending a cascade of rock and debris into the air. The Knights of the Dark were thrown back. Breskaro was knocked down and lost sight of Esha. 

A horror rose out from the earth. A beast like a mythical dragon, only without wings. But it was not a living thing. It was a machine, scaled in metal. Gasps of aether and steam spurted from its joints, its giant ruby eyes, and its maw which was embedded with a dozen sabers. The beast was the height of a horse and the length of five, not counting its jointed tail which extended another six paces and bore a spiked mace on its end. Its scales were rusted. The beast creaked as it moved. 

Breskaro drew his sword. The metallic beast spotted him and charged. Harmulkot shouted a warning as Aleui leapt down from the wall.

Breskaro met the metal beast head on. He slammed his sword into the creature’s face. Sparks flew. But the attack didn’t hurt it. Breskaro vaulted off the thing’s nose and leapt onto its back. The creature stopped short of where Esha lay. It shivered but couldn’t dislodge Breskaro.

The beast paused when it spotted Harmulkot-Aleui. It took a step toward them and Harmulkot ghosted back into the qavra. The beast paused again, looking at Aleui with its head cocked to the side.

Breskaro stood and struck the back of the beast’s head, but his sword clanged against the metal uselessly. The beast bucked and threw Breskaro from its back. Breskaro rolled to his feet and rushed back into battle.

Aleui began chanting a spell.

The beast struck Breskaro with its snout. He flailed backward as the beast surged toward him. Larekal attacked, swinging the hafted-axe he favored. The blade smashed into the creature’s snout and dented it. Larekal staggered back, his hands numbed from the impact, but he had succeeded in distracting it. 

Breskaro recovered, struck again, and circled out of reach. The beast snapped its jaws at Larekal. Perolo leapt in and tried to throw a javelin into its mouth. The javelin struck one of the teeth and bounced away. The beast’s jaws snapped down on Perolo’s arm. It tore away the limb and part of his chest as well. There was single murmur and Perolo fell.

Breskaro chanted the
spell of the darkfire blade
. Black and purple flames writhed down his sword blade. He struck. The blade scored into the metal but not well enough to pierce it.

The creature spun toward him reflexively, but as it did so, it swept its barbed tale outward, striking two of the Knights of the Dark as they rushed in. Both fell.

Aleui finally finished her complicated spell, and Breskaro felt a wave of energy wash over him. For a moment he felt dizzy and disoriented. He recovered in time to deflect a claw and dodge away from another bite.

“What was that?” he yelled.

“Nothing!” Harmulkot returned. “Aleui cannot harm this thing using my qavra. It is protected against my magic. This problem is all yours.”

Breskaro struck a claw with his dark-flamed sword. Again, it scored the iron but didn’t sink in far enough to have an effect. 

“I can’t do anything either.”

“Try to bind it!”

While dodging the beast’s attacks, Breskaro tried the
spell of binding lesser entities
, but as he did so, the dark-flames on the sword flickered out. Knights of the Dark were rushing in to strike the creature, but to no effect. It wasn’t even paying attention to them. It had trained its gaze on Aleui. 

Breskaro finished the binding spell.

Nothing.

“It’s useless! Harmulkot, think of something!”

Breskaro moved between the beast and Aleui.

“We will have to batter it into submission with the troops! Bind it in chains! That is all we can hope for.”

“That’s not much to—”

Breskaro’s guard failed. The creature’s jaws snapped and one of its teeth bit deep into his shoulder. As he pulled away, a paw slammed into him. He struck the wall, slumped, tried to stand, but then immediately dropped to avoid a claw that struck the stone, tearing away bricks and mortar to rain down on his head. 

He hit the beast again and climbed to his feet. He cast the
spell of the forceful ram
. The spirit ram struck the beast head-on, knocking it back half a dozen paces before disappearing. Breskaro summoned another one. It struck again and knocked it farther away. He could hear the clatter of hooves. His Valiants were coming.

Another spirit ram charged in from above him, summoned by Aleui. This one struck it but nothing happened. Breskaro, beginning to fatigue from the spell casting and the wounds, his heart pounding within his chest, summoned another ram. But the beast vaulted over the ram which continued onward until it crashed into the Valiants a hundred paces away, toppling men and horses.

The beast fell onto Breskaro and pinned him beneath its claws. The jaws snapped at his head and he barely managed to duck out of the way. Another snap, and the beast would tear his head off. The Valiants, if they could do anything, would be too late. The Knights of the Dark who yet stood weren’t phasing the creature at all. They needed artillery to deal with this thing.

The beast’s eyes sparked and its gaping jaws sped toward Breskaro.

Chapter 43

“Stop!” yelled a high-pitched voice. “Leave him alone!”

Esha skittered up, trying to wedge herself between the metal monster and Breskaro. Glancing at her, the creature paused.

Breskaro tried to break free. “Get away!” he yelled at Esha.

But she was undeterred. She raised her hand and pointed at the creature. “Don’t hurt my master.”

The beast stared at her as if mesmerized.

“Release him,” she commanded.

The creature obeyed and she stepped in between it and Breskaro. He crawled away. 

“Heel,” Esha said. 

Reluctantly, the beast did so. Esha put her hand on the beast’s snout. “We don’t behave like this,” she told it. Eyes aflame, the beast shook its head, as if trying to argue with her.

“This creature,” Harmulkot said, “was probably the last measure to counter me should I somehow return. It sensed my presence but didn’t attack me because it couldn’t find me, since I had returned to my qavra.”

“Creature,” Esha said. “You are not going to go after Harmulkot any longer. She is my friend. You are
not
to harm her. Do you understand?”

The beast stared at her.

“Well?” she demanded.

The beast dipped its head until its snout touched the ground.

She patted its head. “I knew you were a good beast. You were just following an old order, weren’t you? I bet you don’t even know why. And waiting all these years with no one to clean the rust from you. It’s not fair, is it? But don’t worry. We’ll get you cleaned up and put you to good use. You’ll be my new friend.”

Breskaro picked himself up, dusted off his armor, glanced at his wounds which were beginning to seal over. He put a hand on Esha’s shoulder.

“Do you have this ...
thing
... under control?”

“Yes, master.”

Another mystery with the girl. Breskaro knew he shouldn’t trust her, but it was hard not to since she kept saving his life. “Why does it listen to you?”

“I don’t know, master.”

“Harmulkot, do you know why?”

“Let me think on it,” she replied in worried tone.

Chentius was sitting up, wounded but not grievously so. The same could not be said for Perolo, who was dead. Breskaro walked over to the other two Knights of the Dark who had fallen, Krotius and Hentor. Larekal stumbled over and joined him. Two soldiers rushed up to check on them.

“Dead,” Breskaro told them as they neared.

“Are you certain?” asked a soldier who bent to check on Hentor. “He’s still breathing. I’m a medic. I think we can—”

Hentor convulsed, gagged, and choked on his own blood.

“I know a dead man when I see one,” Breskaro said. “As for Krotius, he was dead before you arrived.”

The other Rrakans pulled Perolo’s body over and placed it beside Krotius and Hentor. They gathered to pay their respects.

“Was anyone else injured?” Breskaro asked the medic. 

“No, my lord. Some horses belonging to your Valiants. That’s all.”

“Master,” said Larekal. “I have asked nothing of you, but—”

“Bury them, burn them, whatever suits your people, Larekal. You have all served me well, when I had no one else to rely on. I will not reanimate them.”

Larekal bowed. “Thank you, master.”

The others looked equally relieved. Breskaro scanned them, sweating, bleeding, dust-covered, fatigued from battle. He sighed.

“Larekal, take your men and go home. You’ve fought well, kept your vows, and witnessed horrors enough.”

“Home, master?”

“Wherever it is you think your people have gone. Nine men will not make the difference here. It’s not your fight. Your debt is paid. Take me up on it while I’m in a forgiving mood. I’m your master no longer.” 

This mindset wouldn’t last once the war started. The calm before the storm had always made Breskaro feel melancholy, wishing that he had stayed at home with his wife and daughter. Where he should have been.

Breskaro stepped away. Aleui-Harmulkot was watching Esha chat with the metal beast.

“I can’t figure out that girl,” Breskaro whispered to Harmulkot. “She’s not normal. She has too many skills. I’ve seen a Keeper back down from her. And now she charms this beast. Have you seen her use that sling?”

“I have. Breskaro, she may...” Harmulkot’s voice trailed off.

“She may what?”

Harmulkot shook her head. “Nothing. It would only be speculation and it wouldn’t settle your mind or improve our chances. It would be a distraction and I might be wrong.”

Breskaro grunted and narrowed his eyes. He made no other response.

“The metal beast was placed here to keep me out if I should return, to wreck the city, to kill me and force a rebirth.”

“Which Qaiar did this?”

“My mad brother, Mokelmot, the Engineer they called him. Because we were so close, he could make a beast that my spells could not affect. And he does yet walk the earth. He is out there somewhere still, far away.”

“Why did he turn against you?”

“We had a falling out. It was complicated and I will not tell the tale now. You could find histories of it if you care. Some of them are fairly accurate.”

“Will there be any other beasts like it?”

“I don’t think so. That one must have taken decades to construct. Decades working on nothing else, bent on killing me in case I should find some way of breaking the curse.”

“Which you did.”

“I haven’t broken all of it. Not yet.”

General Hugisen came running up to them and they assured him everything was fine now.

“Spread the word, General Hugisen,” said Breskaro. “The power that has caused the earthquakes, the power that sought to stop Harmulkot from returning, has been found and defeated.”

General Hugisen looked to the metallic beast. “I had heard the reports,” he muttered, shaking his head.

As the general left, Larekal approached. “Master, we’ve considered your offer. We don’t feel the debt’s been adequately paid, but we’ve no wish to fight and die here. I shall remain, to see the debt paid in full, on behalf of the others who will go home.”

“This is what you wish?”

“I have no family at home and I believe it’s the honorable thing to do.”

“I don’t care for honor, Larekal. You know that. Stay only if you wish to.”

“Honor still matters
to me
.”

“Larekal, the man I once was, he cared much about honor. Too much. That man would have agreed with you. He would have praised you.”

“Thank you, master.”

As Larekal left, Whum approached, emerging from the shadows.