Path of Revenge (50 page)

‘The hole is narrowing,’ she said, avoiding his gaze. ‘I want to see what happens.’

‘You could see perfectly well from the cliff! The hole has you as a target. Why put yourself in its eye?’

She snarled angrily at him. ‘All right, I’m coming so you don’t get killed, and I want you to live because I…because I want you to live and not die.’ Her face threatened to crumple. ‘I don’t think I like you when you won’t let me lie to you.’

‘I like you when you tell the truth,’ he replied. ‘Everyone else is dishonest.’

They left the sandy oasis and ran across the sun-hot stones towards the battle. The circle of Amaqi had shrunk considerably in the few minutes it took them to reach the encircling Marasmian warriors. Torve guided Lenares up a small hill to partial shelter behind a large rock. ‘There is nothing we can do; we cannot break through the encirclement. We can only wait. Something may present itself.’ Lenares bit her lip, but allowed Torve to guide her to the hiding place.

The battle was the most complex thing, the most beautiful and terrible thing, Lenares had ever seen. She found herself able to separate out her fears, her tiredness and the sun-inflicted pain from her perception of the events surrounding her. The shapes, sounds and colours that made up her objective reality poured into her mind so swiftly she was not able to convert them to numbers. All the better to see the underlying patterns, evidence of the godly hands that directed—and interfered with—the battle.

The hole in the world swirled above the valley. Still drawing inwards, like a knot being tightened, it screamed at her, a roiling mass of purple with jagged, bleeding edges. The Marasmians, standing in a circle of their own directly below the hole, drew strength from it somehow; Lenares could see the linkages, but could not understand how they had been established or how they worked.

A greedy, hungry presence radiated from the hole. By a simple process of elimination Lenares knew now who he was. She had sat on the Daughter’s seat in the house of the gods, and had heard her voice; this was not her. The Father was the missing god, driven out of Elamaq by his two ungrateful children, so it could not be him. That left the Son, the most respected by the Amaqi of the three gods, at least until the Emperor had spoken against god-worship.
Her enemy was the Son.
What she did not yet know was why the Son would lend strength to the enemies of the Amaqi.

But lend it he did, and at the same time the hole drew strength from the Amaqi army. Lenares watched as armoured soldiers cast down their swords in despair, to be slain by knife-wielding Marasmians who ought not to have stood a chance against them. The camp followers put up a more spirited defence—the god did not oppose them—but were being killed in their hundreds. In places brave Amaqi commanders rallied soldiers behind a few chariots or a defensive formation, and there had the upper hand against the desert warriors.

Another presence flowed through both armies, confounding much of what the Son tried to accomplish. The Daughter, her presence as sweet as a spring bloom, lent her courage to the pockets of Amaqi resistance, and sowed confusion in the Marasmian ranks. Yet she could not counteract the strategic—and supernatural—advantage owned by
the attacking warriors. Nor could she, seemingly, confront the hole or the god within it directly. A delaying tactic at best.

Two other people registered as important nodes in the ever-changing tapestry Lenares beheld. One, a tall, blond-haired soldier, she recognised as Captain Duon. To her senses he glowed, a conduit for magical power: certainly none could stand before his sword. The captain wore a surprised look on his face, as though he could not believe the prowess he exhibited with the blade.

Beside him stood a soldier, shorter in stature, but, if anything, more of a lodestone of power in the battlefield. So much magic poured into the man that Lenares could not recognise him. Most disturbing was that both the Son and the Daughter were attempting to infuse their will into him; he coruscated with a swirling blend of purple and gold, masking his face and wrapping him like a shroud. So much seemed to depend on him, so much effort being expended, and yet Lenares knew nothing of him.

As she watched, one of the warriors, a chieftain with braided hair, burst through the Amaqi defences and threw a knife at the unknown soldier. Captain Duon knocked it out of the air with his sword, then turned and engaged the warrior, who used his spear as a staff. The exchange was a brief one. The captain parried the spear and thrust the man through before he could recover.

‘It’s time!’ the unknown soldier called, his voice supernaturally amplified by one of the gods, Lenares could not distinguish which. ‘Abandon the field!’

Captain Duon bent his head to speak to the fellow, but received only a shake of the head in reply. The captain waved his arms in remonstration, which brought a further shake. The remnant of Amaqi soldiers formed around the two men, then began
marching towards where Lenares and Torve had hidden. Before they realised what was happening, the Marasmians had given way before the Amaqis and the two observers had been enveloped by the army they were observing.

‘I will not abandon the larger part of my expedition!’ the captain roared as he passed the rock that hid Lenares and Torve. ‘They will be killed!’

‘They are dead already, Captain,’ said a voice Lenares recognised. ‘Unless we disengage now we will join them in a graveless death.’

‘But all we have left are a few hundred soldiers! What of our chariots?’

‘Toys for the Marasmians to amuse themselves with, ma sor,’ said the soldier.

Dryman, that was the man’s name. Lenares risked a peek from behind the rock, but to her annoyance the gods had withdrawn their power from both men. Were they no longer relevant? Or had their escape been offered and accepted, somehow conceded? She suspected that Dryman had been the one the gods had contended for.

Torve pulled her up by her arm, and they fell in with the soldiers.

Behind them the Marasmians formed up again, closing their circle on the thousands of soldiers and camp followers still alive. Lenares knew what was about to happen, but did not want to watch.
But I have to. I might learn something more about the hole in the world. The more I study it, the more I can analyse its patterns.
So she observed when she could as they hurried fatherbackwards towards the oasis and freedom.

Many of the soldiers had not managed to arm themselves—weapons and armour were carried in wagons for ease of walking in desert conditions—and so sued for mercy on their knees. Others knew more about their adversaries and could guess what was in
store for them; they fought on, but they were few and soon overwhelmed. The camp followers stood in a daze and watched the Marasmians advance, not understanding the depth of hatred that would soon burst over them, but sensing that their time had come.

The day ended as a blood-red sun sank behind evening cloud, sending rays of red-gold light across the desert towards the former valley of the Marasmos River. The few hundred survivors of the Emperor’s great expedition set themselves watchfires on the fatherback bluffs, but the flames could not keep the chill from their hearts as they listened to the screams of the tortured, the raped and the torn. They were forced to endure the travails of their countrymen, on whom the full revenge for the destruction of Marasmos all those years ago was exacted. Taunts and shouts from the victors, along with descriptions of what they were doing to their captives, echoed across the valley. Duon wept, heartbroken at what he had done. Beside him, Dryman watched and listened with an impassive face.

Lenares could hear only two voices. Of course, she knew she could not really hear them, but they haunted her mind anyway. There, in the dark heart of her imagination, Rouza and Palain huddled together as around them the cosmographers were taken, one by one, cruelly tortured and fed to the flames. Nehane, Vinaru, Lyanal, Pettera, Arazma. The two girls, aware of the particular shape the warriors’ vengeance would take upon them, begged and cried until rough hands pulled them apart and took them to separate places where the shadows descended on them and destroyed their worlds. Eventually, as dawn drew near, they were carried to the fire, broken and bleeding, and cast upon it to shriek their last minutes away.

Slow tears leaked down Lenares’ cheeks. She had wanted to hurt them, they deserved it, but this…No
one deserved this. What made it unbearable was the knowledge that the reality would be worse than her imagination. Much worse. And had the cosmographers accepted her, she would be suffering along with them.

No one slept that night, either in the valley of the damned or on the cliff-top above, save the silent dead.

THE LORD OF FEAR NARROWED his eyes to slits. The woman made no move to defend herself, though she held within her an unguessable depth of power. He remained alert for any deception: she had, after all, been the consort of the Undying Man, and might be capable of anything. What his master had done for her had been the talk of the Bhrudwan army. The Lords of Fear had been able to sense the gift he had given her, but he had never told them the reason why it had been given. Galling, when every
Maghdi Dasht
longed to possess the gift for themselves. Yet, for all this, the only thing he could sense from her now was her fear.

Does she not know what she has? Bah, she does not deserve to retain it.

‘I need only a small amount of your blood,’ he hissed. ‘But because I will brook no rival, you must die. To complete your death I must drain you. Do not struggle, or I will make your dying rich with agony.’

‘Please,’ she croaked, holding a hand out in front of her. ‘Please!’ Her screams sent a shiver through the Lord of Fear, feeding him.

Her eyes flickered, as if she listened to an inner voice, then rolled back in her head. She crumpled.

The
Maghdi Dasht
knelt beside her, lifted her chin and went to work with his knife.

Shouting from outside, a man bellowing his pain. The
Maghdi Dasht
turned, distracted in the act of lifting a pewter chalice to his lips. He put the cup, brimming with thick red liquid, down on the table.

The two fools he called sons would receive severe punishment for jeopardising the success of the ritual. ‘I told you both, no noise!’ he growled, moving towards the door.

His eyes widened, then he pitched backwards with an animal cry, narrowly missing the table and landing with a thump on the wooden floor. A sword stood out from his chest. A wild figure, hair giving off smoke, had come through the doorway in a rush.

‘Stella! Are you all right? Has he—’

The figure shrieked at what he saw.

The
Maghdi Dasht
dragged himself to his feet. One hand reached down and pulled out the sword. His mouth opened to emit a guttural cry of rage, and bright red blood gushed out, spattering the feet of the man who had struck him. The wounded magician slumped to his knees.

A second wild-eyed man burst into the room. ‘Conal, have you found her?’ he said, out of breath.

He, too, cried out when he saw what had been done to the woman.

In his extremity the Lord of Fear reached deep within himself, searching, summoning, drawing—
not enough power
—and was forced to reach outwards. Two strong men should suffice. Healing; then the chalice and immortality.