The Blasted Lands (41 page)

Desk Krohan spoke. “Empress Nachia Krous of Fellein, ruler of the Twelve Kingdoms, this is Tarag Paedori, Chosen of the Forge Truska-Pren and King in Iron.” He stepped forward and moved next to the Empress. “We meet here on this morning to discuss the difficulties between the Sa’ba Taalor and the Empire.”

Nachia Krous spoke clearly. “You have called for parley, is that what you and the other kings seek?”

Tarag Paedori spoke just as clearly, his voice holding that odd echoing quality that all of the Sa’ba Taalor shared. “Empress Nachia Krous of the Fellein Empire, your representatives sought to capture and hold a King of the Seven Forges against his will. He was within his rights to defend his honor and struck down the agents sent against him.”

He looked to Merros. “We had your men delivered back to you. Should we see more of them we will do the same.”

Nachia’s face remained calm, but Merros could see the tension under the surface as it rose. “Your people came to us as guests. One of them, a woman called Swech, murdered the Emperor, my cousin, and killed several others before fleeing the palace and the city. At the very least we demand her return to us, so that she may be punished in accordance with our laws.”

The man loomed over her and let his arms rest at his sides, far too close to that insane sword of his for Merros’ comfort. “Swech Tothis Durwrae followed the orders given to her by the Daxar Taalor. If she killed your cousin it was because the gods decreed it was his time to die. In addition she had not been within the Taalor Valley or within the Seven Kingdoms of the Seven Forges in well over a month.”

“Then where is she?”

He could not see the king smile, but Merros could hear it in the man’s voice. “She remains among your people.”

Nachia lost a bit of her composure. “Should we find her, we will kill her. She will suffer for what she did.”

“You will not find her unless she wishes to be found.” A gesture with one hand, a dismissal of the conversation and just exactly causal enough to be insulting. No one missed it, least of all Nachia.

“If you do not seek parley, why do you come here, Tarag Paedori?”

“I offer you the mercy of a surrender. Should you offer yourself to me as a bride your Empire will be spared the pain of being destroyed by the Sa’ba Taalor.”

Desh Krohan made a noise. Merros knew for a fact that he made a noise of his own. Neither was precisely polite.

Nachia Krous shook her head. “Go back to your Seven Forges and your kingdom in the dust.” She turned her back on him, the insult very clear in her dismissal. “You and your filth are no longer welcome here.”

The behemoth laughed at her, and Merros felt winter bloom in his guts.

“Tuskandru said you were a fool, Nachia Krous. He was right. I have offered you the only mercy possible and you have denied it.”

“You have offered
nothing
!” She jammed one finger toward the King in Iron. “You have offered me a chance to grovel at your feet! I should have my men kill you where you stand as a lesson to your people. We are an Empire! Run back to your foolish gods and hide in the cold and dust, you swine!”

Merros stepped closer to his Empress and let his hand rest on his sword’s pommel. There would be no bloodshed and if there were, he would die defending her.

Behind her the priests and the soldiers and the entourage that had come along stood and watched. The soldiers at least were prepared to stand with him and kill or die as their Empress demanded.

“Here is my offer to you, Tarag Paedori.” She stepped closer to him and Merros moved with her. Desh Krohan watched on, but there was a presence about him that rivaled that of the Iron King and even the monarch noticed it. For the Empress herself, she held her temper at bay and stared coldly at the man who stood before her without an army, without support of any kind. “Lay down your sword and surrender. Offer me your fealty and I will spare your life and that of your people when the rest of your kingdoms are foolish enough to attack my Empire. That is the one mercy I will offer you.”

When Tarag Paedori spoke again his voice was calm, but low with menace. “Mock me if you will. Mock my fellow kings and our people, but mock the Daxar Taalor and you risk their wrath.”

The King in Iron drew his sword and raised it high above his head with both hands. Merros stepped toward him, pulling his weapon, looking for any weakness in the heavy armor the man wore. He prepared to strike and stepped between Empress and King.

And Tarag Paedori drove his sword into the ground before him, breaking the hard soil with ease.

The King in Iron spoke in his own language, but the words were understood by Merros and likely by Desk Krohan as well. “The Daxar Taalor are not kind to their enemies.”

The ground shook.

Not close by, but far away.

Tarag Paedori pulled his blade from the ground. If he so much as noticed Merros standing before him and ready to fight he hid it well. He stepped back four paces and Kallir Lundt moved with him.

Kallir Lundt said, “I am sorry for this, Merros Dulver, but they gave me back my life.” His voice was heavy with regret.

And the ground shook on, a growing vibration that reminded Merros of the Mounds deep within the Blasted Lands though the vibration came from the wrong direction.

“By the gods, no!”

He turned his back on Tarag Paedori and stared at the column of clouds rising into the sky in the distance.

He did not need a map to know, of course. He knew even before he looked, knew it in his heart and felt a sorrow that could not be turned back.

Great gouts of flame and smoke ripped into the sky, but from several days away.

From the direction of Tyrne.

***

The ground shook only once and then exploded.

The black rock punched through the ground as easily as a dagger through a heart. Tyrne screamed as it died and burned.

The Winter Palace shuddered and the stone and mortar that had formed the walls broke, falling and crumbling even as the first tide of magma boiled from below. The heat was enough to melt steel, to incinerate paper and to boil flesh from bones. There were many people left in Tyrne when the eruption started, but for most of them death was quick.

It was the people beyond the outer wall of Tyrne who suffered. The great clouds of burning ash and fiery gasses scorched flesh and lungs, seared eyes in their sockets and melted hair to scalps. Those who thought to breathe in, the better to scream, filled their lungs with smoldering soot and died quickly before the ash buried them.

Still the ground shook and the skies screamed and the black rocks rammed their way from the ground, rising higher and higher, pushing aside the accomplishments of men and nature alike even as those monuments were incinerated or crushed.

Fire. Ash. Fury. The lands around Tyrne had not been marked by anything so violent since the Great Cataclysm.

The mountain rose slowly, but it did rise, pushing itself from the ground, forcing itself upon the Fellein Empire with no regard for the history for the city or the people who had once lived there.

Tyrne died, and the skies above wept lightning and thunder on the growing mountain to mourn the city’s passing.

***

On the Imperial Highway many people screamed when the eruption took place and just as many found themselves praying to the gods.

Swech rode among them and prayed, but not to the same deities.

***

On the Jeurgis River the boats that carried passengers from Tyrne rode on and Captain Callan thought about how very fortunate he was to be on the water when the fires started. The heat was fearsome but not enough to stop them.

Later he would hear tales of the birds that fell from the sky, poisoned by the very air they breathed, and he would feel a deep and abiding fear creep through him. The closest bird fell dead only half a day from where he was traveling when the city died.

***

Far to the east of Tyrne the Pilgrim stopped in his tracks when the ground split and the fires tore the skies asunder. He was too far away to hear the sounds or to feel the ground shudder, but still he knew.

It was his place to know these things.

It was his place to try to stop these things.

He hoped briefly that he was not too late and then lowered his head and moved on.

There was no time left. No time at all and he had so very far to travel.

***

Desh Krohan shuddered within his cloak. The winds picked up and whipped furiously at every single one of them as he watched the Sooth’s warning come true.

He stepped closer to Nachia Krous even as the Sisters moved closer to him. The same instinct drove them all; there were loved ones who needed protecting.

Merros Dulver looked back toward the King in Iron with a horrified expression. He did not speak. There were no words left in him at that moment.

The winds lashed harder still and several people staggered as the heated air came in a rush.

Nachia Krous was not staggered. She looked at the sky and looked at the place where Tyrne had been and felt her heart clutched in a gigantic fist of sorrow, but she did not flinch.

When she turned back to look at the Tarag Paedori she did not make threats. She marked him in her mind and studied him carefully.

And she vowed to herself that she would see him dead at her feet before she died, no matter how long that might take.

The winds pushed harder still and caught the veil of clouds over the Blasted Lands pushing them aside, scattering them and revealing the land below for the first time since the Cataclysm.

And revealing the vast forces waiting on the fields below.

Tarag Paedori swept one hand back to gesture toward his armies.

Merros Dulver looked down and saw the people that he would be asked to defend his nation from.

There were so many more than he had expected.

They were small from here. They were far enough below that they looked like ants, really. Ants with banners and sigils and weapons and armor. Ants regimented into companies, and battalions and legions.

He could not count them all. There were simply too many.

Even as he stared the clouds took back what was theirs, fighting against the winds and winning. The veil of mists that hid away the Blasted Lands thickened quickly, boiling his view of the enemy into obscurity.

When Tarag Paedori spoke again his voice was bereft of all humor. His tone was a lash across the back, a vicious cutting hiss. He had to bellow to be heard over the roaring winds and the death of Tyrne. “For one thousand years we have trained ourselves. We have dedicated our lives to our gods in preparation for this day.” His eyes sought out Nachia Krous and narrowed with barely restrained hatred. “Your Empire rose on the ashes of our people, on the blood and bones of Korwa and the First Empire. You killed us a thousand years ago, but you did not kill us all.”

He sheathed his sword.

“Gather your armies. Prepare your weapons. If you can even remember your gods, find them and pray to them. You will find the Sa’ba Taalor are ready for you and you will find the Daxar Taalor are unforgiving.”

He stepped toward the Temmis Pass and looked at Merros Dulver. “Like your people before, we came to you and offered gifts. Like your people before, we offered friendship and a promise of peace. And like your people before, we have drawn first blood. As our ancestors were betrayed by the Fellein, so we have betrayed.”

Finally he looked back to Nachia Krous. “Prepare yourselves. We will destroy your nation, your twelve kingdoms and you.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

James A Moore is the author of over twenty novels, including the critically acclaimed
Fireworks
,
Under the Overtree
,
Blood Red
,
Deeper
, the
Serenity Falls
trilogy (featuring his recurring anti-hero, Jonathan Crowley), and his most recent novel
Blind Shadows
. He has twice been nominated for the Bram Stoker Award and spent three years as an officer in the Horror Writers Association, first as Secretary and later as Vice President.

He
cut his teeth in the industry writing for Marvel Comics and authoring over
many
role-playing supplements for White Wolf Games, including
Berlin by Night
,
Land of 1,000,000 Dream
s and
The Get of Fenris
tribe. He also penned the White Wolf novels
Vampire: House of Secrets
and
Werewolf: Hellstorm
.

He currently lives in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia.

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