Blood and Iron: The Book of the Black Earth (Part One) (39 page)

“Is Night still here?” she blurted. “In the city?”

“He is not.” His voice was calm and light. He had always been kind to her when passing along her instructions. She had never heard him angry or upset. Before, that had been comforting, but today it was irritating.

“The Order raided my home less than an hour ago. I need help. They took Horace. He may be dead before long if we don't do anything.”

Cipher nodded several times as if this was all expected, but his mouth bent into a frown. “This is troubling. But the queen's First Sword is no longer your concern. You have new orders.”

“New orders?” She put her hands together to keep them from shaking. She had to stay calm. Horace needed her. “No, we have to rescue him. If they're taking him to the Order barracks, there's still time to intercept—”

“Menarch Rimesh is taking the First Sword to the Temple of the Sun.”

“You know? Did you know about the attack, too? Of course you did. When did you know?”

“The network hears many things—”

Alyra grabbed him by the shirt collar with both hands. “When did you know?”

He smiled at her without a trace of alarm. “Word of a possible encounter reached us last night, not long after sundown.”

She released him.

They knew. They knew and they did nothing. Not even a warning.

“You approve of this. You want Horace out of the way.”

Cipher smoothed the front of his shirt. “There has been a change of plans. Since his elevation to the position of First Sword, the Arnossi has become an unpredictable variable that we cannot—”

Alyra walked out of the room, not waiting to hear his answer. She got as far as the street before her defenses crumbled. She leaned against the house, crying into the sleeve of her tunic. As much as she hated tears, she was powerless
to stop them. The thought of Horace dying was like a knife through her chest.

If the network won't help, then there's no one who will. Emanon's band left the training camp. Lord Mulcibar is missing. And the queen is tied up with her impending nuptials. No one else cares if Horace lives or dies.

A new thought came to her. She dried her face as she considered it from all angles the way she had been trained. It was a long shot. He had no reason to help, and she had no reason to trust him. And yet, it was the only chance Horace had.

Alyra pushed away from the wall and hurried back the way she had come, through the gloomy streets toward the city center. With a silent prayer on her lips, she made her way to the palace.

The clacking of the winch echoed against the chamber's circular walls. Horace winced as he was lifted off the floor, the
zoahadin
cuffs digging into his wrists. The Order sorcerers who had been holding him upright stepped back and watched him hanging there. Horace stared back at them.

After being taken from his home, he had been placed in the back of a wagon and transported through the city. He wasn't able to see or hear much, still rolled up inside the carpet, but eventually the wagon stopped and he was carried into a building with a dry, musty smell. His bearers took him down several flights of steps, through heavy doors that boomed when they closed behind him, and along a dark corridor. The carpet was unrolled in a large, round chamber without windows, illuminated only by torches set on the stone walls.

Horace flexed his fingers, which were growing numb. He considered begging for his life, but he didn't think they would be receptive. Whatever they were going to do to him, there wasn't much he could do to stop it, not with these shackles blocking his access to the
zoana
. He just hoped that Alyra got away. She must have.

Horace looked around the chamber. They were clearly underground, and he had a good idea where. This had to be the Temple of the Sun, in the catacombs Queen Byleth had mentioned. There was a single door, a slab of dark iron that looked like it could stop a charging buffalo. Then he noticed a flat circle of bronze set in the floor beneath his feet. It was about three feet across and etched with some kind of markings. They were difficult to make out in the flickering torchlight, but he thought the designs might be some kind of script. Yet it wasn't Akeshian or any other language he knew.

The door opened, and a stocky man in a crimson robe entered the chamber. Horace took a deep breath as the former Lord Isiratu approached. With an imperious gesture, he motioned for the other sorcerers to leave, and they did, shutting the door behind them.

Horace braced himself for anything—for torture, for a slow death, even for a tirade of accusations about how he was a savage and therefore unworthy to breathe the same air and so forth. Instead, Isiratu spoke in a low tone, almost a whisper. “The temple contacted me after I was stripped of my title. I had planned on returning to my ancestors’ home to end my life, the last dignity afforded to me. However, the menarch convinced me that I might still have a place of honor in this world, if only I would assist them in eliminating you. I was pleased to accept.”

Isiratu started to pace around the chamber. “Life is amusing, yes? Just a short time ago, I had you in my power. I could have put you to death anytime I wished. You escaped me for a time and rose to great heights. Yet now you are here, once again in my power, and I will have the privilege of sealing your doom. Thus, we will close the circle together.”

Horace turned his head around to follow the fallen noble. Part of him wanted to shout,
Then get on with it, you miserable fuck!
But he wasn't so in love with the idea of dying that he was willing to throw away a chance to cling to life for a little while longer. He licked his dry lips. “So this is all about revenge? The queen took you down a few pegs, so now you use me to get back at her?”

Isiratu walked around to stand in front of Horace again. His brows came together in a dark line across his craggy forehead. “You wear the robes of a
zoanii
and have rank in the royal court, but you know nothing of our ways. Revenge is immaterial. The universe knows your crimes, whatever they are, and it will punish you according to your path. What I do now, I do to restore the balance between our lives.”

Horace's brain was spinning as he tried to make sense of Isiratu's words. There must have been a problem in translation because he still didn't understand why this was happening.

Yes, you do. You always knew it had to end like this. You're a foreigner, a savage, at war with their country. What would Good King Fervold have done if an Akeshian soldier washed up in Wyr Bay? Give him a big house and a pat on the head? No, he would've had the man marched to Truficant Square and chopped his head off while the city cheered.

Isiratu raised his hand, and the bronze circle on the floor lifted away to reveal a black hole underneath. A cold draft rose from the pit, stinking of death and decaying things. Horace strained with his eyes, but he couldn't see what lay below. The darkness just kept going down and down. The winch began to unwind again, lowering him inch by inch.

“There are many things you do not know about our ways,” Isiratu repeated. “How we deal with rogue
zoanii
, for instance. Now and again one of our rank decides to break away from his liege lord, to plant the seed of rebellion or seize by force what he has not earned. Such persons usually die violent deaths, as you can imagine, but when one is caught alive a problem is created. A
zoanii
cannot be executed like a common peasant. They can be stripped of rank.” He touched his crimson chest. “And dismissed like an unwelcome guest, but public execution would send the wrong message to the people. The Temple of the Sun has a better way of dealing with undesirables.”

The nobleman stepped to the edge of the pit. “This prison has been imbued to keep you alive without sustenance. I've been told that there are prisoners down here in the abattoirs that are almost as old as the temple itself, dwelling in darkness for centuries. They never perish, but they will live forever in solitude. I wonder, Lord Horace, how long will your mind survive before it snaps under the weight of an eternity spent alone?”

Horace's lower half was submerged in the pit. He looked up, trying to devise a clever insult that would haunt Isiratu for a long time to come, but all he managed was “You'll see me again.”

Isiratu watched without comment or expression as Horace continued to drop.

The descent seemed to take forever as the chain clattered and the circle of light above Horace's head grew smaller. He tried pulling himself up with some half-formed notion of climbing the chain back to the surface, but his arms were too numb and his shoulders not strong enough to lift him that high. In the darkness he couldn't tell how far he was dropping, but it felt like miles before his toes touched something solid. He let out a deep breath as the strain on his aching wrists lessened. The chain stopped. Then something made a metallic clicking noise above him, and Horace's arms were released. He tried
to reach up and grab the hook, but his shoulders were too tired and numb to react. By the time he could lift his arms above his head again, his fingers found nothing to grab. The chain rattled as it was swiftly drawn back up, taking the last of his hope with it. A few minutes later, the spot of light above him winked out as the pit was covered again.

He wanted to yell. Instead he collapsed on the hard ground, which turned out to be cold, slick stone. He sat cross-legged and let his head droop. Thoughts of Alyra and Sari and Josef, and even Jirom for some reason, floated through his mind, but mostly he thought about Isiratu's words.
I wonder how long will your mind survive before it snaps under the weight of an eternity spent alone?

He didn't want to believe the man, but there hadn't been any malice in Isiratu's voice. Just cold, hard certainty. His stomach growled, reminding him that he hadn't eaten today.

Not today and not ever again. Will I just get hungrier and hungrier as the days pass by?

It was a horrible thought, and he couldn't help but imagine himself as an emaciated, pale beast slavering at the bottom of this pit. He was trying to put that image out of his head, too, when something moved behind him.

Horace turned to a faint sound like dry paper scraping across a brick. Then something heavy landed on his back, bearing him to the floor. Horace barely had time to cover his head before sharp points dug into his shoulders. The low growls in his ear sounded like a bobcat. Horace rolled sideways to throw the creature off and kicked out with both feet. His heels struck something solid, and the attacks let up, but only for a moment before the creature was on him again, clawing at his legs. Horace kicked again and missed, and then a heavy lump fell on his chest. Smooth hands, not furry paws, grabbing at him with long, clawed digits. A sharp point gouged his left cheek.

Horace yelled at the top of his lungs as he punched up with both shackled fists together. The thing grunted and slid off him. Caught up in his fear and frustration, Horace clambered after the creature, rolling on top of it. His hands found a scrawny neck and squeezed down. The creature thrashed about, but it could not dislodge him. As the seconds passed, its struggling became weaker. Hard nails clawed at his wrists, but the shackles protected him somewhat. The
cables of the neck under his grasp vibrated and then went slack. Horace held on for several more minutes before releasing his grip. Then he fell back on the floor. He lay there, bathed in a cold sweat, and listened to the pounding of his heart. A morose curiosity compelled him to crawl back to the thing in the pit with him. It only took a few moments to confirm that the creature had been a person, small and wiry, and very definitely male. It was, or had been, roughly his height, though much thinner. In fact, it was extremely bony as if it hadn't eaten in…

This prison has been imbued to keep you alive without sustenance. I've been told that there are prisoners down here in the abattoirs that are almost as old as the temple itself, dwelling in darkness for centuries. They never perish, but they will live forever in solitude.

Horace scuttled away from the corpse. A scream rattled in his throat, but he clamped his lips together and refused to let it out, afraid that someone might hear.

No, I'll just stay quiet. Down here with the corpse of a magician they threw down here who-the-fuck-knows how long ago. That's what I'll become, a crazed, starving beast of a man. Then, someday they'll throw someone else down here, and I'll
…

Horace cut off the thought and huddled against the wall with his face pressed to the hard bricks, as far away from the corpse as his prison would allow.

“Incoming!”

Jirom ducked as a mule-sized boulder struck the ground not far from him, scattering sand and shrapnel in every direction. A blast of warm air washed over his position.

His unit had only been at Omikur for a day and a night, but it already felt like weeks. They arrived at first light and were marched directly to the trenches on the southern side of the town. An hour later, they were launched at the walls. That first attack was still vivid in Jirom's mind. They had been sent at the battlements in a screaming wave. Chariots pulled by swift onagers swept ahead of the infantry, the archers in their compartments firing on the wall's defenders before retreating. All the while, flaming missiles rained on the battlements.

Jirom got his squad to the base of the wall intact, only to be met by boiling pitch and rocks from the defenders. They tried to set up scaling ladders, but each attempt was beaten back. Eventually, they retreated under heavy fire, and an hour later they were sent to try again. By the midday meal break, the dead under the walls were piled as tall as a man. And so it had gone all day, until Jirom lost count of the number of attacks they'd been called upon to make. Yet he remembered exactly how many men he'd lost. He spoke their names in his head.

Herstunef. Appan. Enusat. Udar the Younger.

Only four men, but each one felt like a personal failure. Throughout the fighting, Jirom had struggled to keep a cool head, even as his body shook at times with the desire to lash out. He held his rage in check for the good of his men and cursed Emanon with every second breath for putting him in charge.

As the sun set, the soldiers found what rest they could amid the trenches. Jirom had been about to visit the wounded when the first boom of thunder struck. It was just like the night before. Storm clouds appeared out of a clear sky to cover the town. The winds whipped up, and within minutes the lightning
began. The display had been disturbing from several miles away; this close to the target, it was terrifying. Soldiers shouted with their hands pressed over their ears as bolts of green lightning shot down from the heavens.

Jirom kept his head down. The past couple days had reminded him of the worst parts of his soldiering days, of the senseless slaughter that filled his brain with bloody images that refused to leave. He didn't notice that Emanon had joined them until he was tapped on the shoulder.

“Where have you been?” Jirom hadn't meant to bark, but his voice was raw from shouting all day and his patience had expired.

“Taking care of business. How's it going here?”

“How do you think? We're getting butchered.” Jirom watched the electrical storm wreak its destruction over the town. “Is this every night?”

“Aye. The lads from the Third say it's been going on for over a week now. The storm arrives every night at sunset, lasts for about a turn of an hourglass, and then—poof—vanishes.”

Jirom grit his teeth as a bolt of lightning flashed outside the walls, only a spear's throw from the trench where he sat. The thunder was immediate and deafening. “I've never seen such a thing. How can they survive in there?”

He hadn't meant for the question to be heard, but Emanon answered. “Those western lads are half-crazy to begin with, coming all this way to fight over a desert. But they won't crack.”

They must be men of iron, with molten steel in their veins.

Jirom shot a glance back through the lines to the sea of tents where a large portion of the legion was camped, safely out of range of the town's defenses. It hadn't taken the dog-soldiers long to realize they were being fed to the invaders in droves while the “real” soldiers were kept out of the fray. He couldn't help himself from adding, “Is this all part of the plan?”

“Not exactly.” Emanon looked up at the opaque sky. “I was hoping they would—”

Thunder crashed above them as a barrage of lightning strikes illuminated the town.

“I was hoping they would wait a little longer before throwing us at the walls,” the rebel captain finished. “This is too soon.”

“Too soon for what?” When Emanon didn't reply, Jirom leaned closer until their noses were almost touching. “What have you got planned?”

Emanon's lupine grin faltered. “All right, but keep this to yourself. It was all part of the scheme—to convince Queen Byleth to send as many of her legions as possible out here in the open desert.” The smile returned. “And now we can crush them.”

Jirom's mouth fell open. He couldn't believe what he had just heard. This man, whom he had chosen to follow, was obviously insane. “Crush them?! Didn't you hear me? We're getting massacred out here. We won't last another day! And the queen's army must number in the—”

Emanon put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently. “Calm down, Jirom. Trust me. I'm working on it. Just stay put for now. And remember to be—”

“Go play nursemaid to somebody else,” Jirom said without looking at the captain.

Emanon left as quietly as he had arrived. The storm continued for an hour before it departed. Jirom watched the disappearing clouds, wondering what could be causing this occurrence. He had lived in Akeshia long enough to know that such storms were unpredictable, striking anywhere at any time. He had never heard of a storm that reappeared night after night at the same location.

It must be the gods of this land, trying to drive out the foreigners.

Czachur appeared above the trench. Jirom grabbed him by the arm and hauled him down behind the wall of wood-reinforced sand. “Keep your head down.”

Czachur plopped down on the ground and removed his iron helmet. Jirom opened his canteen, and they both had a drink of tepid water. Jirom was tempted to upend what little was left over his head to wash away the grime and sweat, but he capped the container and put it away.

“It's damned hard to find you guys out here, especially in the dark,” Czachur said. “I wish they would've given me a torch.”

“If you had a torch, someone would've put an arrow through you by now.”

The rebel laughed. “Huh, yeah. I didn't think of that.”

“What's the news?”

“You won't like it. The Lord High-And-Mighty General has ordered another assault.”

Jirom didn't need to look at his men to know their expressions. They were beyond exhausted and almost beyond caring at this point. He had been in too many sieges, on both sides, to hold much hope. They were fodder, meant only for wearing down the enemy. They would be flung at the walls again and again until they were all dead. Then the real assault would take place.

“How long do we have?”

“There will be a signal. They wouldn't tell me what it was, but they said to watch the sky. When it comes, we're supposed to charge with everything we have.”

Back into the maw of death.

Jirom looked to the ramparts again. They looked as unassailable as before, an impossible mountain to climb without proper siege equipment and a few months to invest in more extensive siegeworks. A nighttime charge would be suicide. “All right,” he said. “Head back to the command tent.”

The youth looked over, his feathery eyebrows raised in a steeple. “What? I just got here.”

“So turn your ass around and go back.”

“No! My place is here with the platoon.”

Jirom gave him points for loyalty, but he didn't care. He glanced away so he didn't have to see the kid's eyes, like moons of polished onyx. “Fuck your place. One of us is going to survive this battle, you hear?”

“What if I won't? What if I stay here no matter what you say?”

Jirom drew the long dagger sheathed at his belt and slammed it into the ground between them. “Then I'll kill you myself for refusing to follow an order.”

Czachur took a deep breath like he wanted to continue the argument, but he held his tongue. Jirom let him say good-bye to the others, most of whom just nodded without saying anything, before chasing him off. He felt better seeing the youth's willowy frame disappear into the gloom.

A party of horsemen rode up, their riding tack jingling as they stopped behind the trenches.
Kapikul
Hazael peered at the city through the gathering
gloom and then turned to his officers. Not wanting to look at the commander, Jirom focused on the walls. They were four hundred yards away—not a long walk, but it felt like miles when enemy fire was whistling past your ears. On the last assault, a firepot had exploded on the battlements right above where Jirom and his unit had been trying to set their ladders. The liquid fire that rained down had enveloped two of his men, burning them alive. Jirom could still smell their roasted flesh. Oddly, though, he couldn't remember if they had screamed before they finally died. They must have, but he had no memory of it.

Partha crawled over to him. His eyes rose to the officers behind them. “Looks like bad news.”

“Watch the sky. We're supposed to see a—”

Jirom nearly bit off the tip of his tongue as a titanic crash boomed over their heads. A fresh bolt of vomit-green lightning split the darkness. Stone burst asunder and men fell from the battlements where a hole as big as a wagon gaped in the town's curtain wall directly across from them.

“Holy god of fucking and shitting,” Partha whispered and touched his forehead.

Whistles blew down the line. Jirom picked up his shield and stood, trying not to wince as the pain in his lower back flared up from sitting too long. “That's our signal! On your feet!”

Jirom shouted to be heard over the cacophony of thunder that boomed overhead as more lightning struck in and around the town. His men, to their credit, stood ready. Clutching their spears, they looked to him. Hazael and his officers made no move to join the attack. They watched from atop their steeds as the infantry troopers poured out of the trenches.

Despite his doubts, Jirom's training took over. Part of him wanted to dive for any bit of shelter until the storm departed, but his men were counting on him. He might not give a damn about the higher-ups and their war, but he wasn't about to let his soldiers down. “Leave the ladders! Stay on my ass and stick together!”

Jirom's boots kicked up clods of sand as he climbed out of the trench. Every sense came into sharper focus as he ran toward the objective. The smell of woodsmoke and sweat, the brush of warm air across the back of his neck,
the sound of his heartbeat in his ears. The town swelled before him, its skyline framed by banks of black clouds, but he concentrated his sight on the breach. If he and his men could reach it, they'd have a fighting chance. Or so he told himself.

He hadn't gone fifty paces before the first arrow buried itself in the sand at his feet. Jirom kept moving, breathing in short huffs through his mouth. Something buzzed past his face, too fast to make out in the dark. He lifted the shield above his head. It would have helped to have decent armor instead of the thin leather cuirass he'd been given. Neither it nor the padded leather strapped to his calves would stop an arrow, but the shield was sturdy bronze over a rectangular wooden frame.

Jirom's heartbeat quickened as he approached the midway point between the trenches and the town. Sweat ran down his chest and back, making the leather shirt slick against his skin. More arrows flew overhead. He started to look back to make sure his crew was still following when a flash of green light blasted his eyes. He was lifted up by an irresistible force and hurled forward. Gravel dug into his knees and elbows as he landed. Blinking away the swarm of tiny lights dancing in his vision, Jirom rolled onto his side. Everything had become deathly quiet. Then he realized he was deaf. Shaking his head, he used his spear like a staff to climb to one knee. His hearing returned after a couple moments with the faint roll of thunder above. Jirom raised his spear to wave his crew onward and looked back to find them scattered around a smoking crater, their armor split open and blackened from the lightning strike. Jirom staggered back. He knelt on the blasted sand and checked them over for signs of life. A pain went through his chest when he rolled Czachur over. The flesh hung from the young man's face in bloody ribbons, his eyelids torn off and his eyes scoured to red patches.

I knew you wouldn't listen, and now you're dead. All of you, dead.

Rage bubbled up inside him like an old friend, threatening to wash away the last shreds of his self-control. The palms of his hands itched. Then a movement caught his attention. An arm twitched on the other side of Czachur's body. It was Partha, half-buried in the sand. Jirom dropped his shield and helped the man sit up.

“What the hell was that?” Partha asked in a hoarse voice.

Thunder bellowed above them as Jirom pulled the rebel fighter to his feet and started to lead him back toward the trenches. “The storm isn't playing favorites.”

“Where are we going?”

“The field hospital.”

Partha dug in his heels, or tried to. Jirom held tight to keep him from falling. “Stand up, dammit!”

Partha twisted back around. Another burst of thunder swallowed his words, but Jirom could see the angry refusal written across his face. “—to the walls.”

Jirom heaved the soldier over his shoulder. “We've done enough today!”