Mistress Of The Ages (In Her Name, Book 9) (29 page)

“I am a priestess of the Desh-Ka,” she told him, “and of the five other orders not of the Ka’i-Nur, and have been blessed with their powers, as I already told you. I am but smoke and mist upon the sands.”

“Then I shall be as the storm wind that scatters you into oblivion,” he growled as he stalked forward. He carried his axe in his left hand now, and as he swung his free right arm, he snatched a shrekka from his left shoulder and hurled it at her with a powerful flick of his wrist.
 

She did not even blink as she used her sword to deflect the deadly flying weapon, which went spinning off into the crowd where it struck down one of the warriors.

Kurlo-Urukh leapt forward, his powerful legs driving his body toward her. His left hand drew back, then thrust the head of his axe at her midsection, using the barbed point at the top of the axe head like the tip of a spear.

Using her sword to deflect the axe to one side, she pirouetted clockwise, keeping Kurlu-Urukh’s arm pinned as his momentum carried him forward. Whirling behind him, she brought her sword down, slashing through the leatherite that protected his right calf and cutting deep into the thick muscle.

With a roar of anger as much as pain, Kurlo-Urukh collapsed to his knees as his wounded leg gave out beneath him. But he turned the blow to his advantage, extending his arm and whipping his axe around in a side cut to the right as he fell, the blade whistling through the air toward Keel-Tath’s sword arm.

As if she had known all along how he would react, she continued her pirouette. Reaching out with her free left hand, she grabbed the handle of his axe and yanked it from his hand with a strength born of the fire in her veins.

Kurlo-Urukh hissed as his right wrist snapped, and the leatherite palm of his gauntlet was left smoking from the friction of the axe handle being stripped from his grasp. He fell to his back on the sand, then looked up at Keel-Tath, his mouth agape with disbelief. A deadly silence had fallen over the onlookers. “What trickery is this?" he rasped as he struggled to his feet. “No warrior your size could possibly be so strong.”

Tossing the axe aside, Keel-Tath strode toward her opponent, coming to a stop just beyond his reach. “Yield to me, Kurlo-Urukh. Surrender your honor to my First. I will give you an honorable death should you wish it, but I would much rather have you by my side. I have need of such a fearsome warrior.”

“You flatter me, little one.” He grimaced, then sagged to one knee, his right leg completely unable to support his weight. “But for as long as I draw breath, I will
fight!
” In a blinding motion, he drew his dagger, which was long enough to be a short sword in the hands of an ordinary warrior, and whipped it toward her.
 

She easily knocked it aside with her sword, then did the same as he threw his remaining two shrekkas.

“You leave me no choice but to grant your wish,” she said sadly as he tried to launch himself at her with only the power of his left leg. Stepping to one side, she brought her sword down in a blazing arc that intersected with Kurlo-Urukh’s neck. The headless body, spurting crimson, slammed into the ground, the head bouncing twice on the sand before it came to rest, the face staring at her now with a surprised expression, frozen in death.

Flicking the blood from her blade, she sheathed her sword and turned to face the glowering crowd. “Your master died with great honor,” she said in a quiet voice as she met the hostile gazes around her. “But with his defeat in battle, your honor belongs now to me. My First, who is of Ka’i-Nur blood,” she nodded to Drakh-Nur, “would accept it in my stead.”

A female warrior stepped forward, shouldering her way past Drakh-Nur. Her face was a patchwork of cross-hatched scars. She looked at the body sprawled in the sand before turning her stony gaze to Keel-Tath. “I served as First to Kurlo-Urukh. I speak for all sworn to him: we choose blood before dishonor.” And with that she threw back her head and raked her talons across her neck.
 

Keel-Tath had, of course, seen ritual suicide before, but she had never seen it on this scale. As one, the entire crew followed their First’s lead, turning the arena into an abattoir of fountaining blood as the warriors and robed ones of the crew took their own lives.

“Come, Drakh-Nur,” she said after the last had died. “There is nothing more for us here. We shall give them the last rites after we return home.”

***

Syr-Nagath’s First lay twitching on the deck with a huge puncture through his breast plate where she had driven her sword through his ribs. She screamed again, venting her rage, as she slammed her sword into its sheath and stalked back to her chair on the ship’s bridge. The warriors and robed ones, far larger than she, quailed in fear. The news her former First had brought was most unwelcome, not that she had truly needed to hear it from his lips. In her blood, she could feel the deaths of the armored warriors attacking the Settlement worlds like pricks from a sharp dagger. She had expected some casualties, of course. That was a given. But suddenly a flood of them began to die, as if an entire legion were being ground into dust, and she knew that Keel-Tath and those who stood with her must somehow have been responsible.

Her First confirmed her suspicions when he returned from the keepers of The Books of Time who were in contact with their counterparts on the Settlements. The priesthoods had mounted a synchronized attack on individual cohorts, systematically destroying them in exchange for pitifully few losses. Syr-Nagath had been sure the priesthoods would have still been at one another’s throats, but somehow the damnable white haired child had bent them all to her will.
 

She settled into her command chair, but not before landing a vicious kick to the dead First’s head. She was doubly angry with him because he had, among all those who had thus far served in the capacity, been passably competent, and had been an excellent lover, as well. As she took her seat, a pair of warriors stepped forward and quickly removed the body, while another pair wiped up the blood from the deck.

“Send a message to the Homeworld to deploy the reserve warriors to the Settlements immediately,” she ordered to a keeper who stood near the command chair, head bowed and body trembling. She saw no purpose in holding any of her Ka’i-Nur legions back from the war, for the entire Homeworld, save for a few bands of honorless ones that were even now being exterminated, was bound to her. As the most populous world, it was far more secure against Keel-Tath and whatever remained of the shattered priesthoods. No, it was far more important not to allow her offensive among the Settlements to lose momentum, for they were perilously close to a tipping point that the white haired child might be able to upset. Keel-Tath could not hope to win the war, but she could delay Syr-Nagath from winning it, and that was a frustration Syr-Nagath had no intention of suffering. “And have our ships in orbit open fire on any groups of the priesthoods that are attacking our warriors.”

“But the heavy guns will kill our warriors, as well,” the shipmistress had the audacity to say.

Syr-Nagath leaned toward her, death in her eyes. “I would sacrifice a thousand warriors for a single priestess,” she hissed. “We can make good our losses, they cannot.” Turning back to the keeper, Syr-Nagath snapped, “Send my orders!”

“Yes, my priestess.” The keeper bowed low and hurried from the bridge, just as another came forward to take her place.

At the front of the bridge was a large curved view screen that was filled with the bright blue and green orb of T’lan-Il. Golden icons representing the ships of her attack fleet were strung out in different orbits from where they could best support the legions on the ground. With a flick of a finger on her chair’s control pad, an overlay appeared on the face of the planet below, showing where her legions were fighting. It was easy to see where the priesthoods were giving battle, because rather than those conflict areas being green, they glowed an ugly red on the map.
 

She gasped as hundreds of Ka’i-Nur souls were snuffed from the Bloodsong. Her eyes widened, first with shock, then with burning rage as one of the ship icons flickered from gold to a deep red. Two more flickered, then disappeared, replaced by bright splotches on the display as the ships exploded. She did not need the second sight of a true priestess to know what was happening.

“Destroy that ship!" she hissed, pointing at the red icon. “Destroy it now!”

***

“The other boarding parties failed,” the keeper reported in a solemn voice as she stared at the view screen. She sat at the navigation station, while the builder and the armorer were in engineering.

“No,” Keel-Tath corrected. “They did not succeed in their task, but they destroyed two of the Dark Queen’s ships. I will accept that as victory enough.” They had set foot upon the bridge a few moments earlier, only taking long enough to haul from their chairs the bodies of the crew who had still been stationed here when they committed suicide.
 

“They must know we have taken the ship.” Ka’i-Lohr, who now sat at the weapons station, pointed at the group of enemy ships that were moving out of their original orbital patterns, heading right for them.
 

The ship shuddered violently and the view screen dimmed as the nearest enemy warship opened fire.
 

“We cannot face them on equal terms,” Dara-Kol said, “not without a full crew. We must flee.”

Keel-Tath shook her head. “Not before we get what we came for. Ka’i-Lohr, return fire!”

The ship shook again, more violently this time, and red lights began to appear on the status board at the bridge engineering station. But the incoming fire was answered by a series of deep thrums as their ship’s weapons fired back, scoring hits on their attacker. Unfortunately, he could fire only those of the ship’s weapons that were largely automated. The larger weapons, which required firing parties to serve them, remained silent.

Dara-Kol turned to her mistress. “We are taking damage, but we have no repair parties!”

“Prepare to jump,” Keel-Tath ordered the keeper.

“The coordinates for the Great Moon have been entered into the machine,” the keeper replied.

“We are not returning home. Not yet. Reset the coordinates for…” With her fingers, which flew with eerie familiarity over her command seat’s console, she brought up coordinates on the planet below. “…this place, half a league in altitude.”

The keeper gaped at her. “Mistress, that is deep inside the gravity well! The ship could be torn apart.”

“I understand, but I also understand that there are many warriors there who are now bound to us, but who will be sacrificed for nothing if they are not extracted now. That was the whole purpose of this quest.”

“But we do not have pilots for the attack ships to bring them aboard,” Dara-Kol protested.

“No, but this ship can land, can it not?”

The builder, her eyes wide with fear, nodded slowly.

The ship rocked again, and more red icons appeared on the damage display, and more enemy ships were coming into firing range.

“Do as I command!” Keel-Tath shouted.
 

“Yes, my mistress.” The keeper turned to her duty, resetting the coordinates in but a brief moment. The ship’s weapons were firing at a frenetic pace now as Ka’i-Lohr sought to hold off the enemy as best he could with the ship’s secondary armament. “Jumping in three…two…one…
now!
”

***

Alena-Khan looked up into the night sky as a titanic shape thundered into existence, blotting out the stars. It fell toward where she and the legions that were now pledged to Keel-Tath were preparing to defend themselves against a counterattack by Ka’i-Nur warriors who were moving in their direction. Alena-Khan’s scouts estimated that at least five cohorts, half a legion, of silver clad warriors were advancing upon them, and there was little doubt as to the outcome. The Desh-Ka would be able to extract a fearsome toll, but not before the Ka’i-Nur had virtually exterminated the T’lan-Il warriors. They would die with great honor, facing such a terrible foe, but die they would.

Sending forth her second sight, she felt a flood of warmth through her veins as she saw that it was Keel-Tath’s ship. But then she realized that she and the others were directly underneath the enormous craft as it plunged toward the ground.

A tooth-rattling hum, so low that she could feel it more than hear it, filled the air, and the ship began to slow its reckless descent. The sound became so loud that she had to put her hands over her ears, and the vibration became so intense that she feared her very body might be torn apart. Thousands of warriors fled from beneath the ship, and Alena-Khan followed suit, flicking herself into existence a quarter league away, where she was joined by the other surviving Desh-Ka.

The collective multitude watched in awe as the great ship descended to the field of battle, its rakish lines giving it the appearance of an unspeakably huge, sleek predator. The stomach-wrenching sound faded to a nearly sub audible roar as the vessel came to a stop, hovering just above the highest point of ground. Alena-Khan had difficulty appreciating just how large it was. A good sized town could have easily fit inside it.

Along both sides of the lower hull, huge ramps began to lower. And on the nearest to where she was standing, Alena-Khan saw a pair of tiny figures standing on the ramp’s edge. One was huge, easily recognizable as Drakh-Nur. Beside him was the unmistakable young female warrior with white hair, who raised a hand toward Alena-Khan both in greeting and invitation.

“Come aboard,” Drakh-Nur bellowed at the legions of frozen warriors, his voice carrying over the thrum of the ship’s engines. “Quickly, if you value your lives!”

“Come!” Keel-Tath urged them.

A lance of star-bright energy that speared into the midst of one of the legions, fired from one of the lead scouts of the approaching Ka’i-Nur, got them moving. An answering blast from one of the ship’s defense weapons, one of the smallest the vessel carried, but far more powerful than the guns of the Ka’i-Nur warriors, vaporized the nearby hilltop from where the scout had fired.