Echoes of light, p.1
Echoes of Light, page 1
ECHOES OF LIGHT
KINGDOMS OF SAND, BOOK SIX
by
Daniel Arenson
Table of Contents
MAP
CHAPTER ONE: ATALIA
CHAPTER TWO: EPHER
CHAPTER THREE: ABISHAG
CHAPTER FOUR: CLAUDIA
CHAPTER FIVE: ABISHAG
CHAPTER SIX: EPHER
CHAPTER SEVEN: SENECA
CHAPTER EIGHT: EPHER
CHAPTER NINE: TIRUS
CHAPTER TEN: OLIVE
CHAPTER ELEVEN: KOREN
CHAPTER TWELVE: ATALIA
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: OFEER
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: SENECA
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: OFEER
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: ATALIA
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: OFEER
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: CLAUDIA
CHAPTER NINETEEN: EPHER
CHAPTER TWENTY: ATALIA
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: OFEER
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: SENECA
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: ABISHAG
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: EPHER
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: SENECA
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: EPHER
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: VALENTINA
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: EPHER
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: CLAUDIA
CHAPTER THIRTY: IMANI
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: KOREN
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: SENECA
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: VALENTINA
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: KOREN
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: ABISHAG
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX: OFEER
AFTERWORD
NOVELS BY DANIEL ARENSON
KEEP IN TOUCH
Full-sized map: DanielArenson.com/Map
ATALIA
"Lioness! Lioness! Lioness!"
As Atalia stood in the dark tunnel, the muffled chant rose from outside.
"Lioness! Lioness!"
She grunted. She wore the helmet her husband had given her; it was shaped as a lion's head, complete with fangs. Her grunt echoed inside the iron, sounding like a true lion's growl.
A heavy hand slammed down on her shoulder, and a voice rose from behind her. "Ready to die, desert lioness?"
Atalia turned around. Uro stood there, grinning. The burly giant wore only a loincloth, a manica of iron scales across his right arm, and a lion-pelt cloak. The poor lion's head was still attached, forming a toothy hood. The scar Domina Leyla had given Uro, a gift of her whip, had faded to a thin white line across his face.
"Soldiers always are," Atalia said. "But I don't intend to die today." She lifted her helmet's visor and spat. "When I die, it will be as a soldier, not a gladiator."
Many others stood farther back in the tunnel. Some were trained gladiators: Breeana, the foulmouthed she-demon with red hair. Kasran, a smirking brute missing half his face. Bura, a dwarf with massive arms and two axes across his back. Others in the shadows. They all wore lion pelts, the animals' heads snarling above their brows. All but Atalia. She still wore her iron lion, her helmet from the war.
Deeper in the tunnel stood others doomed to fight today, but they were not gladiators. These men were prisoners condemned to death. They had received no training, and they wore nothing but subligaculi around their loins. Rather than costly lion pelts, they sported lion figures branded onto their chests, still raw. To them, the arena would not present a battle but an execution.
"So do I look whorish enough to pass for a Zoharite?" asked Breeana. The red-haired gladiatrix grabbed her crotch. "Don't have enough Aelarian cock in here, I think."
Atalia stared at her, stared at them all. They were all dressed as Zoharites—at least how most Aelarians imagined Zoharites looked. Of course, Atalia was the only true Zoharite here. The others gladiators came from lands around the Encircled Sea, from far northern Elania to the deep southern lands of Nur and beyond.
"You look—and smell—like no cock has fucked you since the fleas moved in," Atalia said.
Breeana howled and leaped toward her, drawing her sword, only for Uro to hold her back.
"Calm yourself!" said the scarred giant, clinging to the wild woman's arms.
Breeana thrashed and spat and hurled her sword. Atalia pulled her head aside just in time, dodging the blade.
"Watch your back, kitten!" Breeana laughed, still caught in Uro's grip. "Watch your back in the arena. Might be one lioness will bite another."
The chanting died down outside. Atalia stepped toward the end of the corridor. She peered through a hatch worked into the heavy bronze door.
She glimpsed a sliver of the Amphitheatrum, this massive theater in the heart of Aelar's Acropolis. Rows of seats spread outside, crammed to capacity. Atalia tried to see the sandy arena—had the opposing team emerged yet? But from this angle, she couldn't see much.
Atalia leaned hard against the locked doors, shoving them as far as they'd budge, changing her view. Now she could see Tirus's imperial box, a veritable palace worked into the tiers of stone seats. The emperor rose from his throne, stepped forward, and stood between red columns topped with golden eagles. The bald, stocky emperor seemed unconcerned with the Gaelian horde that still ravaged the countryside and besieged the city walls. With the city's port still open, and with his daily raids devastating the Gaelian hosts, Aelar was still enjoying the festivities of Tirus's ascension. The emperor wore a resplendent purple toga trimmed with gold, a garment finer than anything he'd ever worn in Gefen, and a golden laurel. He cried out to the crowd. His voice boomed across the theater and entered the tunnel where the gladiators stood.
"People of Aelar!" Tirus held out his arms as if he could embrace them all. "We live in a time of war and victory. Our brave legionaries continue to decimate the barbarian horde outside our walls. Our legions prepare to smite the Southern Empire, which has fallen from our light, and they will bring us the head of Seneca the Serpent. My own daughter, blessed Claudia Valerius, smites the rebels in Aelaria Orientalis, our great eastern province."
Aelaria Orientalis. Atalia spat. The name they had given Zohar.
She shuddered. Was Tirus speaking truth or mere propaganda? Was Aelar pushing back the Gaelian siege? Was her husband still alive, still able to fight? And in Zohar, were her people truly dying, her brother among them? Atalia clenched her fists. More than anything, she wanted to be with those she loved. With her husband outside the city walls. With Epher in the desert. Anywhere but here, about to fight a mock battle for the mob.
"In this time of new glory," Tirus continued, "let us also remember our past victories! Twenty years ago, our brave legions—I myself fought among them—smote the Zoharites at Cadom, sinking their fleet and bringing the island into our light. People of Aelar! I give you again, brought to glorious life—the Battle of Cadom!"
Horns blared. Drums beat. The crowd cheered. Keys jangled in the lock, and Atalia steeled herself and drew her blade.
Whatever enemy awaits me in the arena, she thought, I will slay it. I will live to kill Tirus and Seneca.
Guards opened the doors, and Atalia rushed out into the arena, screaming for battle.
She skidded to a halt.
She gasped.
"Fuck me," she whispered.
Uro smirked and slapped her on the back. "What happened, lion cub? Never seen a naumachia before?"
"They flooded it." Atalia rubbed her eyes. "They fucking flooded it."
Normally, a dozen steps led down from the tunnel to a circular, sandy arena. Today that sand and those steps were invisible. Water filled the arena, rising to the tunnel's archway—deep enough to drown a man. An island rose in the flooded arena, topped with a wooden fortress that bore a Zoharite flag. Somehow—Atalia could not even imagine how the engineering worked—the bastards had turned the Amphitheatrum into a miniature Encircled Sea, complete with a mock Cadom in its center.
Even more astounding were the ships. Actual ships—complete with oars, masts, and sails—floated in the water. Three ships docked right before Atalia, bearing lion banners. Six other ships docked across the arena, and they bore eagle standards. A second archway loomed open there, allowing a second group of gladiators to enter the arena, these ones dressed as legionaries. They weren't true legionaries in armor but gladiators in elaborate costumes, their muscled bodies bare but for loincloths and crested helmets.
The amphitheater was full to bursting, some people even sharing seats, women and children sitting on men's laps. A hundred thousand spectators—by God, it was twice the population of Gefen before its fall—filled the stone tiers. Every man, woman, and child was roaring. Some called out for Atalia, the heroine who had slain the lions. "Lioness, lioness!" But most cried out for Aelar.
"Slay the desert rats!" shouted a woman in the crowd.
"Fuck the lions!" shouted a man. At least this one used the proper animal, which Atalia found somewhat encouraging.
"Let the battle begin!" cried Tirus from his imperial box, and guards blew silver horns.
Across the arena, the opposing group of gladiators—the ones dressed as legionaries—stepped into their six galleys. Men grabbed the oars and began to row. This group outnumbered Atalia and her friends, and they had a higher ratio of actual gladiators to condemned prisoners, and even the latter were towering beasts.
Atalia still stood frozen, staring, blinking, scarcely believing what she saw.
"Get out of the way." Breeana scoffed and shoved past Atalia, jabbing an elbow into her ribs. "Your mouth hangs open like you're ready to suck Tirus's cock. Get into a gal ley or fucking drown yourself."
The tall, redheaded gladiatrix leaped into one of the galleys and grabbed an oar.
Uro slapped Atalia again on the back—hard enough for her to yelp in protest.
"Heard you already fought one naval battle." He grinned beneath his lion's head hood. "This should be like a night in a whorehouse." He too stepped into a galley.
"But are we the patrons or the whores?" Atalia muttered.
Other gladiators, all wearing their lion pelts, shoved past Atalia into ships. The small galleys were shaped like warships but built no larger than dinghies. The first one, carrying gladiators in Zoharite costumes, began to row toward the island in the arena's center. Guards thrust spears, goading condemned prisoners into a second galley. Unlike the eager gladiators, the prisoners were shivering, some weeping. To them, this was no glorious battle; it was their showy execution.
Most big shows, Atalia had learned during her time in the Ludus Maximus, included both gladiators—trained showmen and crowd favorites, some famous across the Empire—and criminals or slaves condemned to die alongside them. True gladiators rarely died in the arena; they were too costly, too popular among the people. To give the crowd some death and decapitation, wretches were pulled from dungeons to die alongside the prized warriors. Most had no military training, and most were weak from long days in the dungeon; their deaths were all but certain.
Unless they're like me, Atalia thought, still standing in the archway. Condemned to die but elevated to gladiatrix.
"Move it, scum!" A guard shoved Atalia forward. "Into a galley! Let the crowd see a real Zoharite."
Reluctantly, she climbed into the last galley. It was smaller than the ship that had carried her from Zohar, of course—a true warship would barely squeeze into the arena—but large enough for six people. She shared the galley with Uro, a seasoned gladiator, and four prisoners in loincloths. The lion brands on the prisoners' chests denoted them as Zoharites, doomed to death. The other galleys, also filled with gladiators and slaves, were already moving toward the island.
"Kill the lions!" shouted the crowd. "Drown the Zoharites!"
Atalia gave Uro a crooked smile. "Let's kill some eagles." She turned toward the four slaves in the boat. "Grab the oars! Row!"
The galley lurched through the pool. Atalia stared at the artificial island, teeth bared. She grabbed an oar with one hand, held her sword with the other. Other undersized warships were navigating through the water around them. Jagged iron spikes and boulders rose from the water, forming obstacles across the mock sea. One ship, manned by Atalia's teammates, tried to skirt one boulder, only to hit the stone and crack its hull.
"Veer left!" Atalia shouted. "Left!"
A spike rose ahead from the water, lined with blades. Green slime gleamed on the iron—poison, Atalia surmised.
"Left!" she shouted. "Port rowers, stop your fucking rowing!"
The galley creaked. It tilted left. Atalia grimaced, leaped to the starboard, and oared mightily.
The metal spike grazed the hull, etching a line in the wood. It shattered one oar. The galley kept rowing.
They were close now to the island. Two galleys had already navigated the last obstacles, but they slammed together with a clash of wood and swords. Another galley, this one not far from Atalia, slammed into a boulder and shattered. As its rowers spilled into the water, another ship plowed over them. As men floundered, crocodiles—real damn crocodiles—emerged from underwater. Men screamed and blood spurted and the reptiles feasted.
"Right!" Atalia barked. "Row right! Starboard, stop oaring!"
A boulder rose ahead from the water, bristly with metal spikes. The galley veered too slowly. The boulder slammed into the hull, cracking a plank. Water began flowing into the ship—thankfully just a trickle.
"Keep rowing!" Atalia shouted. She pointed her sword toward the island. Several corpses already lay strewn on its banks or floated in the water. "We're almost there."
As the crowd cheered, Atalia, Uro, and the prisoners behind them kept rowing. A final obstacle rose before them—an archway of rusty spikes and circular blades, each dripping poison. By some underwater mechanism, the blades kept thrusting and retracting. The way around the archway was blocked. A ring of blades rose underwater, their tips skimming the surface. The only way forward was through the archway of blades. The mock island of Cadom rose just beyond.
"Careful," Atalia said. "Careful . . . Bit to the left . . ."
Their galley's figurehead, shaped as a leaping lion, nosed through the metal archway. The blades thrust forward and backward, moving on hinges. Atalia had to lean sideways as a blade reached into the galley, nearly slicing her face.
"Forward . . . Bit to the right . . ."
They continued passing through the gauntlet. The rowers behind her ducked, scrambled left, then right, dodging the spinning blades. The galley's port side scraped against the archway. The blades cut into the wood, nearly piercing the hull.
Atalia winced. "Almost there. Keep rowing. Almo—"
"Fuck the lions!" rose a cry behind, and another galley—this one with an eagle ram—plowed into the stern of Atalia's ship.
She screamed as the ship was knocked to the left. They crashed into the side of the archway. The blades thrust out. One blade tore into a man's head, perforating one cheek and emerging from the other. Another blade thrust out, as fast as a striking asp, and disemboweled a rower. Two gladiators with legionary helmets leaped into Atalia's galley, swinging swords, cutting rowers down.
"Keep rowing!" Atalia shouted, racing from prow to stern. "Take us through this archway!"
She leaped between rowers. She vaulted off a corpse, soared and swooped, and drove her sword into a gladiator's shoulder. She shoved the blade deeper, into the lung and heart, then yanked it out with a shower of blood. A bearded gladiator leaped toward her, swinging a shield. The disk slammed into Atalia, knocking her down. One of the blades on the archway scraped along her manica, spraying poison and chipping the iron scales. Atalia sneered, jumped to the starboard, and tilted the vessel. As the bearded gladiator lost his balance, Atalia pounced and shoved, impaling him on a poisoned spike.
"Row, damn you!" Atalia shouted at the prisoners in her galley. "Row!"
The enemy galley was still ramming into them, tearing through their hull. Water came gushing in. With cracking wood and showering blood, they made it through the archway. Their boat limped onward, taking on water fast. It began to sink, and the water rose up to Atalia's knees. Dark shapes moved underwater, snapping teeth. A gladiator fell overboard, only for the reptilian jaws to tear him apart.
"Kill the fucking desert rats!" rose a voice from the tiers of seats. "Cut them down!"
Atalia turned her head and saw Tirus standing between bloodred columns, staring down at the battle with mad eyes, a cup of wine in his hand.
She turned away. She would save her rage for him. The galley she stood on kept sinking, and another vessel approached, full of enemy gladiators. All around the island, ships slammed together, the two teams—lions and eagles—hacking at each other. Blood filled the artificial sea.
"Uro, you hear me?" she said.
He nodded and hefted his spear. "I hear, lion cub."
She pointed her sword toward a ship. The miniature galley, its ram shaped as an eagle, was moving through another gateway, heading toward the island. "That galley. That one is ours."
He nodded. "I do believe it is." He looked at the slaves who remained in their sinking ship. "Row, you sons of dogs!"
As water kept pouring in, they rowed toward the enemy vessel. The crowd roared. A few men were trying to swim toward the island, only for arrows, spears, and crocodile jaws to tear through them. Atalia's ship kept sinking, and she rowed madly toward the eagle vessel.
With a shower of wood, they slammed into the other ship.
"For Zohar!" Atalia shouted. She leaped out of her sinking galley, grabbed the enemy's hull, and hoisted herself upward. She parried a sword, then landed in the enemy ship. Uro leaped in after her. Several of the more brazen prisoners followed. Their waterlogged ship finally collapsed and sank behind them.
Atalia fought in a fury, cutting through the mock legionaries—mere prisoners with crested helmets—in this new ship. She tore through them like a hound through a henhouse. These were not trained soldiers nor gladiators, simply prisoners pulled from the dungeons, frail, half-dead already.
