Throne of Ruins (The Powers of Amur Book 5) Page 29

  “Leave it,” he said. “You heard what she said.”

  The dhorsha looked at each other. Finally a shape near the door moved—Caupana. He and Amabhu rose from where they had both apparently fainted by the door. Caupana took Srithi in his arms, cradling her like a small child.

  “Help me bring her to the palace,” he said softly. “She won’t have much time to recover.” Amabhu scrambled forward, and grabbing Srithi by her feet they carried her out.

  Daladham dashed after them, out of the incense-thickened air of the tent and into the sunlight. The heat of the noonday sun burned on his face. Ahead of him, he saw the battle lines of the Emperor stretched out against the Devoured. The roars of battle washed over him. The scent of incense mingled with the muddy smell of the river and the metallic odor of blood.

  “We are lost,” he said. “We are all lost.”

  SADJA

  The sun was a disk the color of heated bronze touching the horizon in the east. The early morning haze hung over the parched riverbed of the Amsadhu, turning the sky gray. There was no hint of wind. The riverbed would become an oven once the sun reached its apex, but Sadja did not expect to be in battle that long.

  Either they would return swiftly to the palace in victory, or they would die. There would be no lingering in the noonday sun.

  Bhargasa stood next to him, fitted in bronze armor that gleamed as brilliantly as Sadja’s own. The Red Men, what was left of them, stood behind them twenty ranks deep. Their lines melded with the lines of the rest of the khadir, majakhadir, and kings stretching to the east and the west, a long, sinuous band, broken here and there by the boundaries between companies. The entirety of the muster of the southern kingdoms was deployed. Spears shone in the morning sunlight. Shields and bludgeons clattered in the hands of the conscripts.

  Ahead of them, a half-mile of flat, dried mud, scarred by the long, deep trenches they had built to hold the Devoured. A meandering creek split the battlefield in half, a single pace wide, clothed in green reeds and choked with slime and moss. On the far side of the creek, a shorter stretch of mud, and then the other bluffs.

  The bluffs were black with the Devoured.

  They had no semblance of a line, no banners, no bronze. Peasants as thin as cane stalks, bearing scythes, stones, clubs, and bare fists. They stood in formless groups, as unfeeling and anonymous as locusts, watching the ordered lines of the imperial alliance. Only the very center of the Mouth of the Devourer’s forces, directly across from Sadja, had anything like a military formation. These were the defectors from the Red Men, still wearing the imperial red and gold, formed up in a proper line, fitted with bronze spears and polished helmets, protecting a palanquin sitting atop the bluff. If this were an ordinary battle, Sadja would have laughed at their chances.

  He knew better.

  “Is everything in place?” he asked Bhargasa.

  “Yes,” his commander said. “The men have been briefed. Navran-dar is on our left. The Kaleksha are armed and armored, and they know their role. They’ll lead the feint as discussed. We await the signal blast.”

  “Then bring out the dhorsha and the saghada.”

  Bhargasa gave the signal. A quartet of the Amya dhorsha began weaving through the company behind Sadja, chanting the praises of Am and waving censors among the soldiers, followed immediately by an equal number of saghada. This cooperation between the two holy orders was the immediate fruit of Navran’s council, and Sadja noted the presence of the white clad saghada with satisfaction.

  The censor waved before him thrice in a circular motion, and he bowed his head to accept the dhorsha’s blessing. Once the unit had been blessed, the dhorsha and the saghada continued to each side to bless the other units of the army. Sadja took a deep breath.

  “Men of Amur!” he bellowed. “Take up your arms.” The soldiers in Sadja’s unit were specially chosen, the best that could be gleaned from the muster of all three kingdoms, and they had drilled together incessantly in the five days since Navran had met with the Queen of Slaves. They knew what they were here for.

  The men shouted and pounded their spears on the ground. Hearing the ruckus, roars propagated up and down the lines. Bludgeons beat against shields, creating an ominous boom like thunder. The clamor echoed across the dried floodplain and resounded off the bluffs on the far side.

  “You have received the blessings of Am and Ulaur,” Sadja said. “But there is another Power whom we invoke. For long years I have served Kushma, the bringer of death, the sower of rebirth. Kushma, who slew the serpent in the years of old.”

  The men grew still.

  “The serpent rises again in our day. Do you not see the banners which the Mouth of the Devourer raises above his army of rebels?”

  A hiss passed through the gathered men. Their energy grew turbulent and dark. Sadja smiled grimly.

  “So we call on Kushma. Even now the dhorsha blessed for Kushma’s service performs the sacrifice, invoking the Destroyer’s name. May he slay again the serpent which he trampled at the dawn of the age. Now unite your prayer with mine, as we call upon the Power who threw down the serpent, who reaps the flesh of men that new life may bloom in the rot of the old. May the Amsadhu run red with the blood of our enemies. Come Kushma, come destroyer.”

  The men responded to his chant. Come Kushma, come destroyer.

  He turned and nodded to Bhargasa. “Blow the horn.”

  Come Kushma, come destroyer, the chant continued.

  Bhargasa raised the ram’s horn to his lips. He blew three long, piercing blasts that sounded over the cracked riverbed. Responses sounded from the commanders of the other companies all down the long line. The men of Sadja’s unit pounded spears against the ground and stamped in wild fury.

  Come Kushma, come destroyer, they chanted.

  “Come Kushma, come destroyer,” Sadja whispered. He turned to face the Mouth of the Devourer, and they began to move.

  The riverbed shook with their marching. The Red Men on the far banks had already arranged themselves in a defensive block, protecting the tattered palanquin at their center. There was frantic, disorganized movement in the Devoured on either flank, but the Red Men were as solid as a stone.

  Sadja’s men stopped just behind the pits, still hidden from view of the opposite shore by the woven reed blinds. There was a narrow gap between two of the trenches where a small force could slip through. Sadja heard Kest’s voice bellowing.

  What followed was the most dangerous part. They counted on the lack of discipline among the Devoured and the valor of the Kaleksha. They must goad the Devoured into charging, and that required bait. The Kaleksha would be the bait, the only ones with a chance to meet the Devoured in open battle and survive a retreat.

  Kest’s band of Kaleksha giants slipped through the gap between the trenches. With roars of anger they charged across the reedy creek and up toward the line of Devoured on the far side.

  Sadja moved so he could spy their progress toward the far bank. They reached the first of the Devoured, still thirty yards from where the palanquin and its red-clad guard waited. They were not sure at what distance the Mouth of the Devourer might unleash his power to rot the attackers. But they had to risk it.

  The Kaleksha reached the first of the Devoured. There was a moment of furious melee. And the Kaleksha began to flee.

  If Sadja hadn’t known it was part of the plan, he would have thought they were beaten. They looked exactly like a band of over-eager attackers driven back at first contact with the enemy.

  And the Devoured took the bait. They began to charge across the mud plains toward the trenches.

  “Ready!” Bhargasa shouted. “Drop the screens at my word!”

  Soldiers took up positions next to the cane stalks holding up the giant screens. The Kaleksha approached. Behind them, he saw the Devoured running—and not just those directly in front of Kirshta, but all up and down the line. The whole teeming mass charged across the dried mud.

  The first of the os Dramab slipped
through the gap between the screens.

  “Now!” Bhargasa shouted.

  The cane supports were yanked free, and the screens fell backward, covering the trenches.

  The Kaleksha surged through the narrow gap where the ground was solid. Shouts came from Navran on Sadja’s left, and Kest bellowed in response, directing his men to join the Uluriya king. The Devoured surged forward, running onto the reed screens as if they were solid ground.

  The reeds groaned and cracked. The first of the Devoured fell through.

  For a moment there was confusion and chaos. The soldiers on either side of Sadja bellowed and pounded their shields, and the charge of the Devoured faltered. Those at the front of the charge had disappeared into the trenches, and now the second rank of the Devoured looked down on their comrades impaled on spikes and trapped in the pits. The soldiers behind the trenches continued to bellow and dare the Devoured to cross.

  But with the fall of the first ranks through the screens, the gaps between trenches were also revealed. In a moment the Devoured began to push through them.

  “A moment longer,” Sadja said. Bhargasa nodded.

  Melee was met. The soldiers with shields and bludgeons began shoving, beating, and hurling the Devoured into the pits as they attempted to cross. They held their ground. The advance was slowed.

  “Now,” Sadja said.

  Bhargasa raised his sword in signal. Sadja’s men leaped forward. The chant thundered on their tongues: Come Kushma, come destroyer.

  There was a gap between two of the trenches which the forward soldiers cleared, letting Sadja, Bhargasa, and their unit slip through. They pierced the remainder of the Devoured, making no effort to engage in battle, but only pressing forward, and pushing aside whatever forces got in their way.

  Toward the Mouth of the Devourer.

  Their feet splashed through the muddy water of the creek. Two hundred yards until they reached the bluffs where the Red Men waited. Sadja glanced back once and spotted Navran’s white banners behind the pits, Navran’s soldiers still frantically pushing the Devoured into the traps.

  Come Kushma, come destroyer. The chant matched the pace of their marching.

  A hundred yards to the bluffs. Fifty.

  They charged up the slope toward the faithless Red Men. Then the battle was met, and like all battles it melted into chaos.

  Men with spears clashed on either side, red-clad traitors meeting the green livery of Sadja’s unit. Sadja waded into the melee, swinging his sword wildly.

  “Forward!” he shouted. “To the Mouth of the Devourer!”

  Sadja and Bhargasa did not bother to cut down the injured or press their advantage. Swift, straight, they drove for the palanquin.

  Spear and sword. Men grunted on each side of him. The screams of the dying. The lines grew crooked and bloody, but the Red Men fell back and he and Bhargasa advanced.

  “Forward!” shouted Bhargasa. “Almost there!”

  On Sadja’s left, another company of the Red Men was gradually turning to meet them. He had charged too far ahead, and his small company was in danger of being encircled. But that, of course, was the plan.

  The core of the Red Men guarded the palanquin ahead of them. An open space of ten yards separated it from Sadja. At Bhargasa’s command, the men around Sadja reformed themselves into an actual line.

  “The Mouth of the Devourer lies ahead of us!” Sadja screamed. “Charge!”

  They ran. Spears met shields, bones, and flesh. Bellows of rage and screams of pain. Sadja’s sword hacked. He slashed limbs and pierced throats. Red Men on every side—his own and his enemies. Blood splattered him. The palanquin grew near. His men crouched behind shields and hurled themselves forward against the defenders.

  And they broke through. He caught sight of their targets in a blur of motion: a thin, bent man atop the palanquin, two women cowering next to it, and a personal guard standing with spear at the ready. Sadja lunged forward and thrust his sword into the gut of one of the men holding the palanquin.

  “Kirshta!” he roared. “The destroyer comes!”

  At the sound of Kirshta’s name, the Devoured men holding the palanquin flinched. He had barely moved at the blow of Sadja’s sword, but the Mouth of the Devourer’s name made him recoil.

  Sadja’s men knew the signal. He had whispered the name Kirshta to them as they waited for battle. It was their last weapon, the blade that Sadja hoped would weaken the Mouth of the Devourer’s flesh.

  The cry leaped from mouth to mouth. The destroyer comes! Kirshta! The destroyer comes!

  Bhargasa and the others surged forward. The women by the palanquin screamed. Sadja hacked at the men holding the palanquin. The first one he had stabbed tumbled to the ground. His partner tried to catch the tipping vehicle. Sadja leaped forward and cut his hand off at the wrist. And the palanquin tumbled down.

  A man within it sprawled out to the ground. Then he curled into a ball, his hands over his ears. He was a small, pitiful figure, a few years younger than Sadja himself. He bore wounds on his ears and his stomach. The skin of his face was flaccid and creased with lines.

  Kirshta! The destroyer comes! The chant of the army thundered around them.

  On every side of him, Sadja could see the traitorous Red Men fleeing, and his own men closed around him like a glove. A pair of his men hacked at the Devoured guards and seized both of the women. One of them was Basadi, Sadja noted grimly, while the other was that woman Navran had talked to. The Queen of Slaves. They left the Mouth of the Devourer to Sadja.

  Sadja stepped forward. “Kirshta.”

  The man screamed. He bent over and reached out a hand to Sadja. “Stop,” he begged. “Make them stop it.”

  Kirshta! The destroyer comes.

  “They will not stop. The destroyer comes. And I am his servant.”

  Sadja thrust his sword through the man’s stomach.

  The man thrashed. With a sudden jerk he surged forward, closing his hand over the blade of Sadja’s sword, and with surprising strength he jerked it out of Sadja’s grip. The blade twisted in his stomach.

  “Kirshta,” Sadja said again and took a step forward.

  The man flinched. “That name was devoured,” he growled. Black oily bile began to bubble out of his mouth, spilling down his chest. Blackened blood poured out of the wound in his gut. The bronze of the sword began to melt and dissolve at the liquid’s touch.

  Bhargasa appeared at Sadja’s side. He held a sword at the ready, its blade pointed at Kirshta’s neck. Putrid blood gushed from the man’s wounds.

  “Bhargasa, give me your sword,” Sadja said. Bhargasa pressed the blade into Sadja’s hand. “The destroyer comes, Kirshta.”

  “Is that what you think?” the man asked. His words were nearly incomprehensible, gurgling up through his wounded throat and the spurting blood.

  Kirshta, the men around Sadja repeated. The man winced and fell, writhing on the ground. Sadja stabbed him in the shoulder.

  “No!” he screamed. “She Who Devours has the name. You cannot take it from her throat just by saying it.”

  He shook. A gurgling, half-choked scream sounded in his throat. Sadja glimpsed the two women sobbing. One of them dropped to her knees and scrambled toward the wounded man.

  Sadja stepped over the writhing form on the ground and put the point of his sword against the woman’s chest. She looked up at him.

  “Basadi,” he said. “What a wicked wife you’ve been.”

  “Call me the Empress,” she hissed. “Mouth of the Devourer, take them!”

  Kirshta pushed himself up on one hand. Black tears trickled from the corners of his eyes. “Her throat is long,” he said. “She will eat you forever.”

  “She will eat no one,” Sadja said. He turned away from Basadi and trained his sword on Kirshta again. “Your wounds would have killed an ordinary man ten times over. Once She Who Devours leaves you, I daresay your body will rot in an hour.”

  “She will not leave me,” Kirshta said. He gagge
d and spat a mouthful of black blood.

  “Kirshta,” Sadja said. The man flinched as if being lashed. Sadja took a step closer to watch the man writhe. “The destroyer is here to ruin you and the serpent. I give you back your name, so you can appreciate your death.”

  “No,” the man said. “You cannot take my name from her. You can pain me by repeating it, but….” He looked up at Sadja, and his lips spread into a black, horrific grin. “Pain is nothing.”

  Screams erupted all around him. Sadja looked to his left and to his right. His breath stopped.

  His men erupted with bile. Black blood burst from their mouths. Their skins split, dripping off their bones like melted fat. Skeletons collapsed into steaming putrid puddles.

  Sadja grabbed Bhargasa’s shoulder. “What—”

  He had just a moment to watch his commander’s eyes pop like bubbles of rot. Bhargasa’s lips shriveled up, leaking oily bile, and he fell forward. In another moment he was nothing but tatters of cloth and rotten flesh in a putrescent mire.

  Sadja was the only one left.

  “Empress,” Kirshta croaked. “Take him. I’ll make him weak for you.”

  Basadi rose to her feet and advanced toward him. He saw a knife in her hand. Her eyes were wide, her face splattered with the oil of the men that Kirshta had dissolved.

  Sadja tried to back away, but his feet felt numb. He looked down and saw black bile oozing out of his sandals. He raised his weapon. His hand was weak. The sword dropped from it. Oil bled from beneath his fingernails.

  “Dear husband,” Basadi said. She raised the knife. “I am going to enjoy this so much.”

  She thrust the knife into his stomach. He had only a moment to wonder why his blood ran black.

  MANDHI

  From Mandhi’s position atop the walls at the eastern edge of the city she saw the battle lines meet and collapse like two serpents touching. Long lines of men pushed forward in sinuous, half-coordinated advances, meeting the disorganized mass of the Devoured. The pits filled with falling bodies. Then the lines dissolved into a chaotic melee. From this distance it was impossible to tell friend from foe once the lines made contact: every body melted into the same mob of flailing flesh.