Mistress Of The Ages (In Her Name, Book 9) (39 page)

“Our time approaches,” the First said, nodding to a crystal display upon the wall that showed a three dimensional map of the terrain below and the incoming ships above. The flagship was to pass directly over Ka’i-Nur and drop Syr-Nagath and her warriors into the courtyard, while the other four ships were to land and have their warriors standing by in case Syr-Nagath needed them.

“Let it be so.”
 

The hundreds of warriors in the compartment, standing in perfectly ordered ranks, crashed their left fist to their right breast and bellowed, “
Ka’i-Nur!
”

A few brief moments later, the sides of the ship irised open. Syr-Nagath rejoiced in the sight of the Homeworld below. The magenta sky, the white-capped mountains and fertile valleys in the distance, and even the Great Wastelands that lay directly below, all belonged to her. Not only that, but the entirety of the Settlement worlds were also hers. Never since the First Age had a single warrior been able to make such a claim. Once Keel-Tath’s warships were wiped from the skies and this ridiculous attack upon Ka’i-Nur put down, the entire Kreelan race would kneel before Syr-Nagath. Even if she failed to gain the power of the Crystal of Souls, she would still be the most powerful her kind had known in hundreds of millennia. But the Homeworld and Settlements were only the beginning. She planned to extend her reach far, far beyond what any of her forebears had ever considered. A handful of star systems were a paltry holding. The entire galaxy would one day be hers.

The ship slowed, then came to a halt above the obsidian edifice, and Syr-Nagath leaped into the air, followed by the warriors of the cohort. Long had it been since she had indulged in such an act. Adrenaline raced through her body as she plunged toward the earth like a flying predator, which was exactly what she was. The smile vanished as she saw the bodies of the warriors in the vast courtyard.

Arrowing for the entry portal, she came to a graceful landing, the other warriors swooping down to land beside her. She frowned at the thick layer of sand that crunched beneath her sandals, wondering from where it had come. With a practiced motion she released her flying apparatus and drew her sword. “With me,” she called to the nearest warriors, who quickly formed up in a wedge formation behind her and followed her to the main door of the portal.
 

Moving inside, she was furious at the carnage she found, and her rage grew with every step she took down the great stairway. Bodies, hundreds of them, were strewn over the steps and on the landings at each level. While the small body of an honorless one could be found here and there, the vast majority were Ka’i-Nur, and not just warriors: many robed ones had also been slain, just as the keeper aboard her flagship had said.

Shivering with rage, she led her warriors deeper, already thinking of ways she could torture those responsible, inflicting the greatest possible pain while keeping them alive indefinitely.

“Stop,” she growled, holding up her free hand. Her warriors instantly froze. Kneeling down, she looked at the steps just before her. They had been transformed into a smooth, curving ramp. The surface glittered. Running a finger over it, she found that it was so glossy smooth that it was slick, just like ice whose surface had just begun to melt. Just ahead, the railing was gone. “They are using builders,” she whispered to herself, conceding a small bit of admiration to the attackers. Getting back to her feet, she moved over to where the massive central column stood. “Beware,” she told the others. “This is a trap. The steps are gone and the floor is slick. If you lose your footing,” she gestured toward the edge of the stairway and the missing railing, “you will fall to your doom.” To her First, she said, “Send out a pair of warriors at each level. I would have builders attend us.”
 

“We shall do our best to find some,” the First whispered uneasily. When Syr-Nagath threw a scathing look, the First added, “Recall, mistress, that you took away all but a handful of the builders to create the fleet…”

“
Find them!
” Syr-Nagath shrieked, slashing the First’s face with her talons.

“At once, mistress.” The First, blood pouring from the deep gashes in his cheek, got to his feet and, summoning a pair of warriors, raced up the stairs to the landing above to begin the search.

Growling in disgust, she sheathed her sword. The floor nearest the column was still passable. Gripping the stone of the column with her talons, she edged downward to the next section where the steps again could be found. Her warriors followed close behind.

She cursed the ingenuity of the honorless ones. Until her imbecile of a First found some builders to repair the stairway, the rate of her advance would be reduced to a crawl.

***

“You realize that what you propose has never been done.”

Keel-Tath looked up at Sian-Al’ai, who was staring at her with unabashed concern.
 

“I have already done many things that have never been done, great priestess,” she said softly. “All I know is that if I do not do this thing, all may be lost.”

The others around her wore guarded expressions, but Keel-Tath could sense one common emotion in the Bloodsong: fear. It was not fear of death, she knew, but fear for her. That she might fail in what she intended.
 

“There must be another way,” Dara-Kol pleaded. “We could summon other ships to take us off, then pursue Syr-Nagath.”

“That was never an option,” Keel-Tath told her. “We would arrive too late. Her ships have nearly reached Ka’i-Nur, and once they secure the fortress, we will never stand a chance.”

They all glanced up at a chorus of muffled voices, screams and shouts, that echoed through the corridors of the great ship. Enemy warriors, most of them not born of Ka’i-Nur, fortunately, had boarded, and her own warriors were fighting a pitched battle to buy her time. While they fought valiantly, it was clear from what she had seen with her second sight that they would not hold much longer. The boarders had no interest in surrendering their honor, even though her warriors had asked it of them. Fear of Syr-Nagath prevented them from doing so.

Then they must perish
, Keel-Tath thought, saddened. She had gathered her closest companions and as many warriors as she dared to spare from the ship’s defense near one of the main airlocks. Closing her eyes, she saw the Homeworld, watched as Syr-Nagath’s ships sailed over the ancient fortress atop the volcano. Hundreds of tiny figures fell from the lead ship, while the other ships moved off to land.

“It is time,” she whispered, opening her eyes and looking at those who stood before her. “Remember: you must get to the portal as fast as you can. Dive for the earth, as your very life depends on it.”

“We shall,” Ka’i-Lohr pledged. His eyes locked with hers for a long moment, but for once the smile was absent from his face. He was deeply worried.

“May thy Way be long and glorious, my mistress,” Dara-Kol whispered.

“And thee, Dara-Kol.” Kneeling down, Keel-Tath put both hands against the soft stone of the deck. Closing her eyes, she focused on the hulk of her flagship, which was slowly tumbling, helpless. She saw the ship, saw its essence as might a builder, down to every atom and beyond. Then she imagined Ka’i-Nur, picturing it in her mind. Summoning all the power within her, she willed the ship from
here
to
there
. Her body shivered and grew hot, her skin and flesh burning, her bones molten steel as she bent the universe to her will. The ship, like a great stone, resisted…resisted…and then finally broke away. Sailing now, light as a feather, through the space that was not space, she hurled it toward its final port of call.

“Now,” Keel-Tath said before leaping through a portal in the hull that had just irised open. Sian-Al’ai followed, using her natural powers to control her fall, while the others used flying wings.
 

Syr-Nagath’s flagship, which was just entering its landing cycle beside the other ships near the base of the volcano, opened fire on the hulk that hung motionless in the air. Gouts of flame and debris erupted from the hits that tore through the living metal of the hull.
 

Keel-Tath reached for the ship with her mind. The ship moved, rapidly gaining speed. Another enemy salvo slammed into it, then another, as the hulk flew ever faster, angling down toward Syr-Nagath’s ship.

The other enemy ships began to open fire as the shipmasters and shipmistresses saw the nature of their doom. Syr-Nagath’s flagship aborted its landing and struggled away from the Homeworld’s embrace. The warriors of the other ships had already disembarked, and their orderly ranks came apart as Keel-Tath’s stricken flagship flew toward them. Most tried to get back to their ships, but were left behind as the vessels began to lift. The other warriors simply ran for their lives.

All in vain. Just as Keel-Tath’s warriors began to land in the courtyard, opening a pitched battle with the warriors Syr-Nagath had left on the surface, the hulk of the flagship slammed into two of Syr-Nagath’s ships. A blinding flash lit the sky, temporarily blinding those fighting in the fortress, as the three ships exploded as one. The other two ships trying to lift were caught in the titanic fireball, adding their own explosions to the temporary sun that burned bright over the Great Wastelands. Despite the frantic efforts of its crew, Syr-Nagath’s flagship was swatted from the sky by the shockwave. Rolling and tumbling, it slammed into a deep cleft in the desert and exploded.

Keel-Tath saw the tremendous wave of lethal energy that would vaporize not only the enemy warriors, but hers, as well. Forcing time to a standstill, she formed a shield on that side of the fortress out of the air itself, compressing it until it was, for the briefest moment, as dense as the heart of a star. Allowing time to again move forward, slowly, she watched in her mind’s eye as the blast wave reached for the fortress, the devastating energy and heat diverted to the sides and overhead. Stout as the ancient walls were, they would have been blasted to shards by such a tremendous force.
 

Sure now that those within the fortress would survive, she let time resume its march. Turning to Sian-Al’ai, who stared at her with openmouthed awe, Keel-Tath drew her sword. Together, the two of them went through the closest enemy warriors like a genoth through a herd of hobbled meat animals. The killing held no honor or glory for them. It was simply necessary.

Dara-Kol, Ka’i-Lohr, and Drakh-Nur rushed to Keel-Tath’s side, but they were hard pressed to keep up with her as she slaughtered her enemies.
 

As she whirled, slashed, and stabbed, Keel-Tath began to feel stronger, as if killing her enemies added to her power. It was something she had not felt before, and the sensation was both exhilarating and terrifying. In a moment of clarity, she suddenly saw herself as Syr-Nagath, a spirit of limitless evil endowed with equally limitless power.
 

Yanking her blood soaked blade from her latest victim, she stood at the center of the raging battle, utterly confused.
 

“Mistress?” Dara-Kol took her by the arm, her voice tinged with concern. Behind them, Drakh-Nur roared as he slammed his war hammer down on the head of one of his kin, one of his enemies. “
Mistress?
”

Keel-Tath stared at her, and it took her a moment to even recognize the blood streaked face staring back at her. “The crystal,” she whispered as realization dawned. “The Ka’i-Nur Crystal of Souls. It calls to me.”

“Why? How?”

A Ka’i-Nur warrior smashed his way through several warriors nearby and charged toward Keel-Tath. Raising her hand in a casual gesture, a blinding bolt of cyan flew from her palm. The warrior never even had time to cry out before death took him. His charred body, encased in white hot armor, fell to the ground in a smoking heap.

“The walls.” Keel-Tath struggled to focus on anything but killing, as if that were the sole reason for existence, the only thing that would satisfy her. “The walls are a barrier to our powers. They must also have shielded the crystal from me. Or me from the crystal.” She closed her eyes, trying to shut out the crystal’s silent call. When that was not enough, she gripped the blade of her sword with her hand, squeezing tight. The blade sliced through the leatherite of her gauntlet, biting deep into the flesh of her palm.
 

“Mistress! What are you doing?”

Ignoring her, Keel-Tath slowly drew her hand across the blade until it began to cut through bone. The pain was excruciating. She could not imagine how powerful must be the crystal if it was affecting her so by mere proximity. What would happen when she actually touched it? She had to control it, harness it to her will.
You are the child of prophecy
, she reminded herself, focusing her entire being on the pain of the blade against her palm.
The power of the crystals, even that of the Ka’i-Nur, is yours to command. Bend it to your will
.
 

“Beware!”

A pair of Ka’i-Nur had smashed through half a dozen of Keel-Tath’s warriors, slashing and hacking them to death like the killing machines they were. Drakh-Nur, Ka’i-Lohr, and Dara-Kol met them with swords red with blood. But the Ka’i-Nur, fierce veterans who had survived the war since it began, drove them back under a relentless flurry of blows from sword and battle axe. Ka’i-Lohr ducked in low, trying to take one of them in the leg and bring him down, and was knocked to the ground. His head slammed into the sand-crusted obsidian where he lay still.
 

Dara-Kol called for Sian-Al’ai, who was a whirlwind of death among the enemy warriors, but on the far side of the battle.
 

The two warriors came on, and were joined by three more, then even more as the ring of defending warriors surrounding Keel-Tath was broken, shattered. Dara-Kol was driven back, then bodily thrown to one side. Drakh-Nur crashed into the wave of attackers with mindless ferocity, his war hammer rising and falling, shattering bone and rending armor until a trio of Ka’i-Nur seized him and drove him to the ground in a frenzy of slashing talons.