In Her Name: The First Empress: Book 01 - From Chaos Born (32 page)

“We can discuss that later.” She reached over and took his hand in hers. “Vow to me, Ayan-Dar, that you will never, ever force me to do such a thing again. Every strike of the whip tore at my heart.”

“I seem to recall making a similar vow to you not long ago that I managed to break,” he said, lowering his eyes. “I meant you no dishonor, T’ier-Kunai. But I would have suffered such punishment a thousand times over to save that child’s life.”

“I know.” She squeezed his hand. “That is why I respect you so, you old fool.”
 

With a wistful sigh, he looked into her eyes. “If I were but thirty, perhaps forty cycles younger…”

She smiled and shook her head. “You would be three or four times the fool you are now, and I would have nothing to do with you at all. Now lay down. You have an unpleasant time ahead of you and you need your rest.”

“As you command, my priestess.” Suppressing a groan, he lay down on his thick bed of hides on his stomach.
 

He felt a hand on his shoulder. “I shall look in on you from time to time.” Then he felt her lips kiss his cheek.

Ayan-Dar only nodded as the pain in his back began to hammer against him. As he focused his mind on blocking it out, he wondered about what T’ier-Kunai had said about what she had seen in Ria-Ka’luhr. Torment and madness.
 

The thought followed him into a deeply troubled sleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Kunan-Lohr knew that he was beaten. The Ka’i-Nur warriors were beasts. A group contained him while the others fell upon his warriors, whose last defiance lasted only a few minutes. He had managed to kill two of the brutes, but he suspected that had been more by sheer chance than anything else, or perhaps they had simply underestimated him. They were unimaginably quick, extremely skilled in a form of swordcraft he had never encountered, and brutally powerful. If Syr-Nagath could raise an army of such warriors, she would indeed be able to make her grand designs come true.

“
Kazh!
” Her voice broke through his thoughts. “Stop!”

The warriors surrounding him backed away, wary and with swords held at the ready should Kunan-Lohr try to attack her. The other warriors had formed a larger circle around them, a solid wall of serpentine armor and strange, alien faces.

They parted to allow Syr-Nagath to step forward.
 

“You would challenge me, would you not, Kunan-Lohr?”

“Yes,” he said fiercely. “I would challenge you, Syr-Nagath.”

She drew her sword, but then handed it to one of the warriors. “You cannot challenge a female with child.” She stepped closer, holding her arms wide. “I am unarmed, master of Keel-A’ar.”

He backed away, fearing some sort of trick. “You are lying.” He tightened his grip on the sword, preparing to strike. He knew that the massive warriors behind and to either side of him would kill him before he could take her head, but he would gladly die in the attempt.

“You would not kill your own child, Kunan-Lohr.” She stepped even closer.

The words rooted him to the ground in shock. He remembered with sickening clarity mating with her, her price for letting him depart for home to see Keel-Tath born. It had not been an impulsive demand, as he had thought at the time. He realized now that she had planned this.
But why?

Without fear, she walked up to his sword and gently pushed the tip aside. She took his free hand and placed it against her belly, just below the armored breastplate. “Tell me now that this is not your child, growing in my womb.”

Kunan-Lohr closed his eyes as he sensed the child. It would be months before it was born, but he knew in that moment that what she spoke was the truth.
 

“No,” he breathed, consumed by this horrible twist of fate. He could not imagine what dark plans she had for the child. “Oh, no.”
 

She stepped away, holding his gaze as she did so. “Take him!”

Two warriors grabbed Kunan-Lohr’s arms. The one holding his sword arm forced his hand open, and his weapon clattered to the bloody ground.
 

“I know you would take your own life, if you could, but there is much yet that I wish you to see before you die.”

Knowing that he could not slash his own throat with his talons, Kunan-Lohr closed his eyes and fought to relax his throat. He sought to swallow his tongue and suffocate himself.

“His tongue.”

He heard the queen’s words, and instantly a pair of huge hands was prying open his mouth. He fought as best he could, struggling in the grasp of the giants who held him. Another one took hold of his head, holding it steady.
 

With his jaw held open, he felt a finger stab into his mouth, the talon lancing into his tongue. He struggled even more, but to no avail. The brute pulled his tongue out past his lips, and then shoved a spike through the end so he could not pull his tongue back into his mouth.
 

Kunan-Lohr did not scream, for he would not give the Dark Queen the satisfaction. He glared at her, his hatred a raging torrent in his soul.

That was when he saw two more warriors coming toward him, bearing two metal plates. The plates were a hand’s breadth in diameter, glowing red and smoking with heat. The warriors held them by means of a handle that was wrapped with thick cloth to insulate their hands from the heat.

“We have far to go for you to see what I wish to show you.” Syr-Nagath spoke softly, having stepped closer. Her lips brushed his ear. “I can never trust you not to somehow escape and slash your throat with your talons, or take your life with a dagger or sword.”

Knowing in that instant what she planned, he screamed. Not in fright, but in fury and helplessness.

The warriors holding his arms shifted their grip to his forearms. Two more stepped forward, swords at the ready.
 

With a nod from the queen, the warriors with the swords sliced off Kunan-Lohr’s hands.

He shrieked in agony.
 

Then the warriors bearing the red-hot irons stepped forward and pressed them against the stumps of his wrists, searing the flesh and closing the wounds.

The last thing he would remember was the sight of Syr-Nagath, watching him with cold detachment.
 

Then, mercifully, he passed out.

* * *

When he awoke, he found himself staring down at the floor of a wooden wagon. It was moving, bobbing side to side and rattling as the wheels turned over the cobbles of the ancient road.

Lifting his head, pain surged through him. His tongue was aflame and his wrists throbbed. It took him a moment to remember what had happened, that his tongue had been spiked and his hands taken at the wrists.
 

Fighting against a wave of nausea, he opened his eyes. He was naked, held upright by a thick metal collar bound to a rough wooden post. His arms were held out to his sides, strapped to a crosspiece attached to the post.
 

Ahead of him marched a legion of the queen’s warriors. Turning his head, he could just see more legions behind him, trailing away into the distance. The air was filled with the sound of tens of thousands of marching feet.

He recognized this stretch of the road, and knew that they must have been on the march for at least three days. That was how long he had been unconscious.
 

“You are awake, I see.” Syr-Nagath had appeared beside him, riding a nimble
magthep
with an immaculately groomed coat. “You do not look well, master of Keel-A’ar.”

The only thing he could do was to fix her with a glare of venomous hatred.
 

“Just imagine, Kunan-Lohr.” She swept her hand around, indicating the legions around them. “All of T’lar-Gol is now mine. The southern kingdoms have already pledged their honor to me after sending emissaries to challenge me to ritual combat.” She glanced at him. “Even though I am with child, I accepted their challenges, and sent the heads of the emissaries back to their lords.

“Along the shores of the Eastern Sea, my builders are preparing a fleet of craft that will carry us to the continent of Urh-Gol. After that has fallen, I shall take the continent in the south, Ural-Murir.” She paused, her eyes focusing on something far beyond the deep purple mountains in the distance. “By the time Ural-Murir has fallen, the builders will have the first of the great ships ready, ships that will carry us again to the stars to begin the conquest of the Settlements.” Turning to him, she said, “In a way, I wish that you could be there to see it. You would have made a worthy consort. But that is not your Way, is it?”

Kunan-Lohr, of course, could make no response.
 

Baring her fangs in a smile, the Dark Queen laughed and then rode ahead.
 

He watched her go, his heart heavy and his spirit crushed.

* * *

While Syr-Nagath had not told him directly, Kunan-Lohr had no doubts as to the destination of her army: Keel-A’ar. For him, it was a long, agonizing journey, strapped to the crucifix in the cart. He quickly lost weight, for he was fed only gruel and water that the alien Ka’i-Nur warriors forced down his throat in a tube. They left him in his own filth until they could no longer stand the smell. Then they would douse him with buckets of freezing water.

He had no idea how many days the agony had gone on before they finally emerged from the forest to the east of the city.

There, looking as if it had the day he had last left it, was Keel-A’ar.

The sight would have lifted his spirits, save that the city was surrounded by more of the queen’s legions, no doubt sent from the nearby provinces to the south.
 

It was, he had to admit with a leaden heart, an impressive sight. The city was ringed with orderly formations of warriors, their glossy black armor glistening in the sun.
 

But what caught his eye were the strange machines that were placed at intervals around the city. Each sat on a wheeled chassis, and at the apex of the roughly triangular base was a long arm on a pivot, offset with a massive counterweight. The machines were huge, with the arms as long as fifteen or more warriors were tall.

“I have never seen one of these war machines in action,” Syr-Nagath was again riding beside him, enjoying his reactions, “but the builders assure me the results will be spectacular.”

They continued forward, the newly arrived legions deploying off the road to take their place on the eastern side of the city, facing the main gate. The warrior driving his accursed wagon continued forward until it was at the head of the legion and Kunan-Lohr had an unobstructed view. The warrior silently dismounted and stood there, holding the
magtheps
still.

Kunan-Lohr could see the figures of warriors along the parapet behind the walls. Some of them pointed at him. Then, as one, they saluted him.

“They recognize you, I see.” She spared him a glance. “Say your farewells to them, Kunan-Lohr.”

With a nod to her First, a set of horns sounded.
 

Behind the war machines, Kunan-Lohr saw warriors with torches move forward. They set them against giant spheres that sat in metal chain slings that, he saw now, were attached to the end of the long arms of the war machines.
 

Throwing arms
, he realized with a sick sensation at the pit of his stomach.
 

The giant spheres caught fire. When they were fully ablaze, the queen nodded.

The horns again blared.

As one, the war machines surrounding the city fired. The counterweight at the front of each machine pitched the throwing arm up and forward. The flaming spheres were snatched upward and thrown in high, graceful arcs toward the city.
 

Moaning in horror, Kunan-Lohr wanted to squeeze shut his eyes, but did not. The fire bombs rained down upon his city, upon his people. He could sense their terror in his blood, and he cried out in anguish as they began to die.

In mere seconds, Keel-A’ar was wreathed in flames within its protective walls, walls that could do nothing against these weapons. While the builders would do what they could to assist the warriors in protecting the city, they had no defense against this type of attack. The only thing that saved the city from rapid immolation was that most of the structures were built of stone and roofed with metal or ceramic.

The Dark Queen had taken that into consideration, of course. The next volley fired by the infernal machines comprised huge rocks that smashed through the walls and roofs, allowing the liquid fire of the spheres to spill inside.

The air was filled with flames, smoke, and the terrified screams of the dying or those who were about to die.

That is how the day wore on, with the machines alternating between the burning spheres and rocks. None of the tens of thousands of warriors who ringed the city ever took a step forward.

By early afternoon, Keel-A’ar was a caldron of flame that soared above the walls. Kunan-Lohr, his heart utterly broken, stared as the main gate finally flew open. Thousands poured out, all of them of castes other than warriors. They, he knew, would never surrender. But they had hoped that Syr-Nagath would show mercy upon those who did not live by the sword.

They were wrong. Every last one of the robed figures who fled from the conflagration was slain right before his eyes, even the children from the creche, carried in the arms of the wardresses and wet nurses.

Every one of their cries for mercy and screams of pain and fear echoed in his dead heart as he watched them die, cut down by the merciless warriors of Ka’i-Nur.

After the last of them had been killed, the queen had their bodies hauled back to the gate and thrown into the flames. Still, the infernal war machines fired into the city, even though Kunan-Lohr was certain that not a single soul remained alive.

Tens of thousands of people, dead. Beyond the roaring flames that soared into the sky, a huge pillar of smoke rose above the dead city, bending away to the west as it met the winds aloft.

“This shall be the new Way, Kunan-Lohr.” Syr-Nagath’s eyes were alight with the flame that burned within her own twisted soul. “This is the power of the future, that I shall bring from the distant past.”