Chains of a Dark Goddess (34 page)

“Clever, eh?”

“I would expect nothing more from you and Breskaro. How many of these undead warriors can you raise?” he asked Harmulkot.

“About five to ten thousand, depending on how much quality he chooses to give each animated corpse.”

Kedimius took a step back as the metal monster lumbered up to them. Esha patted it on the nose, but without taking her eyes off the southern debris barrier. “This is Mot,” she said. “He’s my friend.”

“My brother Mokelmot created him to kill me if I should ever return to Mûlkra,” said Harmulkot. “Esha convinced him I was not his enemy any longer.”

“How?”

“No one knows,” Aleui said.

“Esha is our great mystery,” said Whum.

“I’m just a girl,” she replied. “A normal girl. Well not entirely normal, apparently. Weird things just keep happening to me. But all I want to do is save my master.”

“Your master?” Kedimius said.

“Master Breskaro.”

“Why is he your master?”

“The Seshallans crucified me and Breskaro saved me.”

“It’s true,” said Larekal. “He saved me and eleven of my brothers as well.” Larekal explained to Kedimius how they had come to serve Breskaro.

“They should not have done that to your people.”

“It happens all the time,” said Larekal. “The crusading, it never ends.”

“I’m sorry,” said Kedimius. 

“Come,” said Harmulkot. “Breskaro is almost finished.”

“Is Orisala with you?” Kedimius asked. “Can I see her?”

“She is not here,” said Harmulkot, “but if you live and you fight with us, you
may
be reunited.”

With that the ghost of Harmulkot disappeared back into the qavra. 

Aleui reached out and took Kedimius’s hand. “Come,” she said. “You’re one of us now. We need to get you cleaned up and check on those injuries.”

Dazed, he allowed her to lead him on.

Chapter 49

General Togisi paced. Every time he looked at the rockslide blocking access to Kerokar Pass he would shout a curse and pace harder. His engineers were organizing teams of soldiers, mostly culled from the remaining volunteer forces, to remove the debris. They estimated the effort would take three or four days if shifts were employed night and day. The only alternative was to go around the plateau and descend through the mountains and Olgoliol Wood, a trip that would take three weeks and require him to abandon all their warhorses and their supply train. 

The first scout to reach the top of the debris pile without being shot returned. They had heard strange metallic sounds during the fighting, noises almost bestial in nature, and soldiers had screamed in terror. How Breskaro had gotten troops inside, he had no idea. 

“General, there were two rockslides. One at each end. They must have been triggered at the same time.”

“How did Breskaro get troops in there?”

“No idea, sir.”

“So we have another rock wall to go through after this one?”

“There’s more, General,” the scout said nervously. “The number of bodies lying in the pass ... less than a thousand.”

“Nearly six thousand troops passed through!”

“There’s blood everywhere. The only corpses left are mangled. Mauled, as if by some beast.”

High Priestess Blasidia who was in the meeting with them sat down suddenly, as if all the energy had drained from her at once.

“More undead?” Togisi asked.

“What else?” she replied. “If he could raise the Valiants, perhaps he can raise more. We have no idea what his capabilities are.”

Togisi closed his eyes and muttered a prayer. “Any sign of what was causing those strange metallic noises we heard?”

“No, General.”

“As soon as you get someone over into the pass, let me know. You’re dismissed.” Togisi turned to Blasidia. “Can you counter these undead soldiers? Breskaro probably has a lot more of them now.” 

“I’m certain that we can using the matrixes. According to Ilsimia, Breskaro himself can be harmed with them. But how many can we counter before our matrixes burn out?”

~~~

The scouts returned that evening after climbing over the rocks to tell General Togisi how Breskaro had entered.

“There’s a section of rock wall, General, where all the footprints lead. We can’t get it to open and it looks no different than the rest of the wall. The craftsmanship is extraordinary.”

“If we can break through that, we will have a passage into Mûlkra,” said Blasidia.

Togisi shook his head. “We will place stones there to block it off. Breskaro knows that we will have figured it out. He will have laid traps or have collapsed the tunnels. We will not dare that route unless we become desperate.”

~~~

Once the Issalian army cleared the rubble from the first rockslide and began stacking rubble against the section where they knew the secret door opened, the Mûlkran attack began. Togisi was not in the pass when the first stone came hurtling over the rockslide and landed in the midst of a crew of workmen, killing three and injuring a dozen others. 

From the opposite end of the pass, Togisi watched the second stone come hurtling over and began to count. The stone crashed into an empty space, hurting no one.

“Trebuchet,” he said to his attendant officer. A few minutes later, another stone came streaking over. He kept counting and after yet another stone crashed, he announce: “Only two machines. Sergeant, send the teams in immediately. Each man moving rubble is to have a shield on his back and a companion with a shield up beside him.”

“Yes, my lord.”

As his work crews began, a storm of arrows flew over the rock wall in a high arc, falling amongst his crews. A few men groaned and fell as the arrows found their way between shields. It slowed them down, but they had no choice but to keep at it. The trebuchets were the bigger problem. The stones they launched were getting in the way and were killing a dozen men each hour, sometimes more.

Three days had already passed since the trap was unleashed in the pass. It would take four more at this rate to gain an entrance through the rubble.

Chapter 50

With a fur-lined cloak over his shoulders to block the icy wind, Kedimius stood on the wall staring out across the valley toward Kerokar Pass. His wounds had been washed and tended. None were severe, only scrapes, shallow cuts, lots of bruises. He was lucky. Five thousand men had not been so fortunate. Those trapped on the Mûlkran side had been slaughtered like the rest. Out of the roughly four thousand that had been trapped within the pass, Breskaro had raised over thirty-two hundred that were in good enough condition to be effective. He managed nine hundred more from those trapped in the valley.

“Aleui says you’re one of us now,” said a high-pitched voice.

“It certainly looks that way.”

Esha joined him. She was dressed in her battle armor but was barefoot and seemed oblivious to the cold. “You were master’s squire, right? That’s sort of like being a shield-maiden, isn’t it?”

“In a way. But I was also learning how to be a knight like him.”

“I don’t want to be a knight.”

“No? What do you want to be?”

She shrugged. “I just want to get through this and help master. I
owe
him. And he’s a good man.”

“He
was
a good man.”

“He still is. You’ll see.” Esha patted him on the arm. “You’ll have my back if it comes to it, won’t you? If we get in trouble, you’ll be there for me, right?”

“What? Oh, yes.” He smiled despite himself. Her enthusiasm was infectious. “Yes, I’ve got your back. We’re comrades in arms now. Both students of Breskaro.”

“I like you, Kedimius. You’re a good man.”

“You think so?”

“Master likes you, and you’re fighting on the right side now.”

“I hope so.”

“Evil is a power, not a shape.”

“Where did you learn that?”

“Harmulkot.”

Kedimius nodded and restrained a smile. “So while Mûlkra looks evil with its animated corpses...”

“We’re really the good guys. The Issalians are bad people. No offense.”

“None taken. My people crucified you. I can’t argue against
that
.”

“Good! I’ve got to go clean some of master’s equipment! I’ll see you later. Don’t forget! You’ve got my back!”

“I won’t forget.”

~~~

Kedimius dined with Whum. They pretended everything was normal. They drank wine and laughed, reminiscing about their old exploits. It was late in the night when Breskaro joined them.

“We have food left,” Kedimius said.

“I don’t eat any longer, Kedimius, but thank you.”

“You used to call me Ked.”

“You’re a man now.”

“I still prefer Ked ... from my friends.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t live to see you finish growing up.”

“I never meant to let you down,” Kedimius blurted out. “Orisala disappeared one night. I don’t know why. I thought she had run away. There was no sign of a struggle. No one had seen her leave. I searched for weeks and then on and off for months. I never gave up. Even when Ilsimia forced me to stop searching, I never gave up hope that Orisala would turn up somewhere. I wish I could see her. I don’t understand why she isn’t here.”

“She’s not here because here isn’t safe. Kedimius ... Orisala can’t even speak. She is paralyzed, unable to move. The priests who take care of her were only barely able to save her life. She answers me only in blinks. Yes and no questions. No one knows what happened.”

“Where is she?”

“Southeastern Issalia. At the Temple of the Rose of Keshomae. Well off the beaten path. Some fishermen found her floating in the Ayre, her back broken, and they thought the priests could heal her.”

Kedimius cursed. “I rode through that area a year afterward. I wasn’t far away. I asked around.”

“It’s not likely that people in the area had seen her. And there was nothing you could have done. You would have been more miserable. The priestesses of Seshalla can’t heal her. Only Harmulkot can, and only if she wishes to. She holds all the power here.”

“She could betray you.”

“She could, but if she does her bloodline dies out. She doesn’t want that, believe me.”

“You killed Deltenya, though, didn’t you?” Kedimius said. “She was of the same bloodline.”

“That was not my intention. And I will not go into the details of how it happened. Deltenya was obsessed with me. She had been since we first met. Before I married Adelenia, there was an indiscretion one night with Deltenya. Much that has happened was because of that.”

“You don’t think Harmulkot will let her line die out even to save her people?”

“No.”

Whum poured another glass of wine. “We live in strange times. Stranger than I ever expected. But we are together again. And Breskaro is as glum as ever. More. It’s as if—”

“I were dead?”

Laughing hard, Whum spurted wine. Kedimius grinned and shook his head.

“Whum, I wish that death had given me the ability to enjoy laughter. It did not.”

“Then you are not much changed,” Whum snorted.

“What’s death like?” Kedimius asked.

Breskaro told him of the Shadowland. “I can’t speak of anything else. And as for my return to life, it’s not the world I once knew. You still enjoy the world as the living thing it is. To me now ... It’s like a painting is to you. It’s a representation of life. Not fully real. The Keeper warned me this would be the case, but you know, I think it was worth it for the chance to save Orisala and to see the two of you again. And it will be worth it to break Seshalla’s power over this land and extract my revenge for what she and Magnos took from me.

“Now, gentlemen, I must go and work on my sorcery.”

Breskaro left and Whum said, “Well, that was a downer.”

“Does he not sleep?”

“Doesn’t need to. He works constantly. I’ve spent very little time with him. I stay busy organizing supplies, ferreting out traitors, mobilizing citizens in case the city comes under attack.”

“In case the city comes under attack? Isn’t that a given?”

“Has no one told you yet? These walls can’t withstand a concentrated attack. They haven’t been repaired in generations. Under a barrage of siege weapons they would fall in a week or less.”

“He’s going to make his stand at the pass? But that’s suicide. The pass is too big, your forces ...
Our
forces are too few.”

Whum downed another goblet of wine. “Suicide indeed.”

“But I’m sure Breskaro has a tremendous plan.”

“Oh yes, it will be
glorious
our suicide.”

~~~

Breskaro did not go to study sorcery as he told Whum and Kedimius he would do. He went to the entrance to the tunnels below the palace. Esha and Aleui were there with Mot.

“I’m worried about leaving the city,” said Aleui. “It is an honor to carry your qavra, my Lady, and an honor to spend time with you. I am truly blessed, but I worry about the people in my absence. Can Esha alone not carry your qavra there?”