Halls of shadow, p.18
Halls of Shadow, page 18
"Hear me!" Seneca said. "See my face! See the king risen! Do not fight one another. Let this battle end. Our enemy lies across the sea! Join me, follow me, and an empire will be yours!"
Imani patted his back. She spoke softly. "Clever boy."
Seneca raised his sword overhead. "Kneel before your king!"
And across the field, the bald, tattooed heathens knelt. Thousands of them. A mighty army.
My empire grows, Seneca thought, then nearly gagged at the stench of the mask. I just hope I don't have to wear this damn thing all the way to Aelar.
They burned their dead. They moved on, a united army, complete with horses, chariots, and a hundred elephants. This time Seneca did not need to worry about a bumpy chariot or aching feet. He rode on the black elephant, heading north, dreaming of riding the beast into the imperial palace.
EPHER
They ran.
As the Aelarians poured into the city through the shattered wall, Epher knew that they could not fight, not resist them, not hold back the onslaught of five legions.
As so Beth Eloh's defenders ran. They ran from death. They ran from evil unleashed.
"Fall back!" Epher shouted, running down the city street. "Warriors of Zohar, fall back to the Mount of Cedars! To the mount!"
The legions poured through the city like tar pouring through a labyrinth. They swarmed everywhere, clogging alleyways and avenues, courtyards and markets, chasing, chanting.
"We come, we see, we kill!"
And in the ancient city of Beth Eloh, they killed.
Some Zoharite warriors dared to face the legions; they fell to the spears and swords. Some city folk tossed stones and bricks and clay jugs; arrows and javelins tore them down. The people screamed, ran, fled into homes, onto roofs, cowered behind tombstones, climbed walls, huddled in gutters and wells. The legions paid them no heed, pausing to slay only those who stood in their way. They stormed forward.
They hunt me, Epher knew. They hunt my wife. They hunt my sister. They hunt the resistance of Zohar, those who had risen against them. They will not rest until we're dead.
"To the Mount of Cedars!" Epher cried. "Warriors of Zohar! Make to the Mount! We fight on the Mount of Cedars!"
The Mount of Cedars—the ancient, sacred heart of Beth Eloh. If Aelar had its Acropolis, Beth Eloh had the Mount—the highest and oldest neighborhood in the city, the center of the nation, surrounded by thick walls. Aside from Tarath El, the great desert fortress in the south, the Mount of Cedars was the most heavily fortified place in Zohar. In that inner city, behind massive walls and battlements, rose Zohar's palace, ancient cemeteries, holy groves of olives and cedars, and on its crest—the Temple. Without conquering the Mount, the legions would not have conquered Zohar, for there was the very crown of the nation. From there, the lumers said, flowed the kingdom's lume. And there, perhaps, Epher could fight another day.
And so they ran.
They ran and they died.
With every block the defenders crossed, more of them fell. At every alleyway, legionaries emerged, firing arrows, tossing javelins, cutting warriors down. Rebels of Zohar's Blade. Soldiers who had once served King Shefael. Warriors of Gefen. Simple farmers and tradesmen who had taken up arms. All now fought under Epher's command, organized into a single army. And they fell. With every step they fell, and every cobblestone drank their blood. They wore only patches of scale armor, bore only chipped blades, and some had never trained for war. Against the legionaries they were as children. They could not have been more than a thousand defenders. Tens of thousands of legionaries now stormed toward them from all sides.
The doves fled the city of Beth Eloh that day. Thousands of doves, come here to seek grains around silos and scraps in gardens—thousands rose in a flutter of white and gray wings, calling out, bustling, darkening the sky. Birds of spring and peace fleeing the winter. Across the city, on rooftops, people tore their eyes away from the battles on the streets and watched the doves. Thousands of wings, thousands of souls. The Book of Eloh mentioned doves over two hundred times, more than any other animal. They were symbols of beauty, of peace, of Zohar's ancient covenant with God.
Now they fled the city, and now Beth Eloh bled.
In ancient brick markets under awnings. In courtyards where children used to play with apricot seeds. In gardens of olive trees and cypresses. Around wells where women often came to laugh and share tales. In bakeries were righteous men served grain to the poor. On holy streets where prophets had once walked. In these sacred places where for thousands of years, the Zoharites had lived and worshipped, they died.
As I died, Epher thought as he ran.
He remembered nothing from his death, only blackness, only emptiness. But he remembered seeing the great light, feeling his sister's hand, seeing her face, feeling her pulling him back. And he remembered seeing the evil that rose, a towering demon like a great shadow cast by a temple. It was impossible. It was beyond what Epher could believe. And yet he had seen him rise—a cloaked man in black, skin gray, growing taller, becoming a creature, tearing down the gatehouse. Epher had seen, lived through, a miracle and the rise of evil. And he could not pause to pray, not pause to try to understand this. Only run. Only run through this death and blood. The path of his life, between ancient stones, heading toward the Temple, toward hope, perhaps the path he had always run, had been running since that day Claudia had sailed away from Gefen.
It seemed hours before they reached the inner city, before they ran—Epher, Olive, Maya, the soldiers who still lived—through an archway in the wall that surrounded the Mount of Cedars. Only a few hundred Zoharite soldiers remained, a thousand at most. The hill sloped upward before them, rising toward the palace and Temple. The hive of the city streets lay behind.
"Epher, we must close the doors!" shouted Ramael, bleeding from a gash on his cheek.
Epher spun around. He saw the legionaries there, storming along the road, flowing through alleyways, heading toward him.
"Close the doors," Epher whispered, staring, eyes damp. He raised his voice to a shout. "Close the doors! Lock the gates!"
Men shoved the bronze doors. They closed with a thud, sealing off the Mount of Cedars from the rest of the city. At Epher's side, Maya started at the sound, shivered, and stared with damp eyes. Olive wept. Invisible doors seemed to close around Epher's heart. He lowered his head, and his eyes burned.
The screams still rose from the city.
Out there, his people were still dying.
I abandoned them, Epher thought. Hundreds of thousands. My people. I shut them out. I left them with the eagles.
And he knew that the thud of those doors slamming shut would forever haunt him.
The city's last defenders, they climbed onto the walls that surrounded the Mount. These walls were older, thicker, gazing out onto the city that spread around them. And through that city, the legions were spreading out, roaring for victory. Five Aquilae gleamed, five golden idols. Quickly the legions opened all seven gates of Beth Eloh—seven portals to Ashael, allowing in the demons. More and more legionaries poured into the city, draining from the mountainside, storming down the streets, closing in around the Mount of Cedars in the city center.
"The Rat King flees!" shouted a legionary.
"Fuck Zohar!" shouted another man.
War drums beat. Horns blared. Horses thundered down the roads. The people of the city vanished from the streets, crowding in homes and shops, squeezed together, boarding their doors and windows. Those who stood in the way of the legions were trampled and slain. It was only the slightest of comforts, the faintest ray of relief, to see that the legions were focusing on the Mount of Cedars, closing in on the walls. For now, they were not slaying the people. For now, they only wanted to slay Epher and his warriors.
But if we fall, Epher thought, once we are slain . . . if their thirst for blood is not quenched, they will slay every man, woman, and child in these streets.
The city's defenders had only a few quivers of arrows left, only a few sling stones. As the legions pounded at the Mount's bronze doors, Epher and his comrades began to fire, to try to hold them back.
Yet for how much longer can we resist? he thought. The myriads of Aelarians surrounded them, only these walls separating the forces.
"The rats cower in their holes!" shouted a legionary below.
"We'll nail them all onto crosses!" cried another.
Aelar's battering rams rolled down the street. Already their ladders rose. Epher drew his sword, not knowing if he'd live to sheathe it again.
ATALIA
"Fuck, fuck, fuck." Atalia tossed back her head and howled. "Why does this keep happening?"
She howled until she was hoarse. She pounded the walls. She yanked and clawed at her iron collar. She climbed onto the bars of her cell, dangled like a monkey, and screamed into the corridor. She paced her cell, kicking, screaming.
"Fuck!"
Finally, when her voice broke, she fell to her knees. Again. Again this was happening! First that fucking Seneca piece of shit had imprisoned her in the galley, chaining her to an oar. Then Berengar, that big brute, had tied her to a tree in the Gaelian forest. Now, for a third time, Atalia found herself a prisoner—this time in a dank cell deep underground.
"Tirus, you cocksucking son of a whore!" she screamed, throat raw, tearing. "Come back here! I'll bite your balls off!"
No answer came. Atalia sighed and slumped down to her backside, legs stretched out between the cell's bars. Everything still hurt. She had been here for a while now. She wasn't sure how long. It could have been days, maybe weeks. A healer had arrived the first day, cleaned her wounds, poured ointment into them, and stitched them up. The scars now rose across her, ugly and red, the stitches bristly. Several times, a slave had come with a bowl of gruel. The first few times, Atalia had tossed the bowl at the slave's face, but after a while the hunger had gnawed, and she had eaten.
Mostly, here in the darkness, she remembered.
She remembered her journey here to this dungeon—the legionaries dragging her, chained and beaten, through the streets of the city as the crowd leered and pelted her with refuse.
She remembered Feina dying in her arms, remembered Tirus gloating over the corpse, his gladius red with Feina's blood.
She remembered Berengar, her dear husband, lying wounded in his tent, pierced by three arrows, perhaps dying.
She remembered Daor, the first man she had loved, dying in the forests of Gael, slain by legionary spears.
She remembered her father, whipped, chained, and Seneca nailing him onto the cross.
She remembered herself in battle, sweeping across the Aelarian countryside, slaying all in her path, staining her hands and soul with blood.
So many memories of death. It was hard to remember any light in the shadows, but as she lingered here, Atalia screwed her eyes shut, trying to remember more than desolation.
"We played as children on the beach," she whispered. "My brothers and I. We ran and wrestled and played with swords. We ate pomegranates and pretended the little beads were magical, that they turned us into great warriors who could smite our enemies." She wrapped her arms around herself. "We all sat around the Restday table, and Ofeer sang sad songs, and Maya read from her scrolls, so small, so innocent." Tears now flowed down Atalia's cheeks and onto her lips. "We ate the bread Mother baked, and we lit candles, and Father always read to us from the Book of Eloh, the stories of our old heroes."
With her eyes closed, Atalia could almost imagine that she was back home. She could smell the baking bread, the honey, and the lantana flowers in the windowsills. She could hear the turtledoves cooing in the garden, hear Ofeer's beautiful voice as she sang, hear Father's deep voice as he recited those words he read to them every week, words of old tales, comforting as home. Atalia missed that home. More than anything—more than glory in battle, more than love, more than victory—she just wanted to be there again. To see that scarred oak table and the painting of elephants. To walk in the garden, to rest under the pine tree where mother planted her cyclamens. To embrace Mother. To be with them all again.
"I miss my family," Atalia whispered. "I thought I was a warrior, that I wanted victory, but I just want to be with them again."
Perhaps that was what all true warriors fought for. To embrace their families again. To break bread and drink wine and light candles in a warm home. Only fools fought for glory. The wise fought for the embrace of a loved one, a crackling hearth, and a path through a garden leading into a home.
She was sleeping, curled up on the humble cot they had given her, when a clanking woke her. She opened her eyes to see a guard unlocking her barred door.
Atalia leaped up, sleep leaving her at once, and snarled. She bounded forward, out the door, and onto the guard. She grabbed the man's helmet, yanked it off, leaned in to bite, and—
Pain bloomed on her back. Hands grabbed her, yanking her off, and she spun to see a second guard, this man too in armor. He hefted a club.
"Calm yourself!" the guard said. "We're only taking you to the bath. You stink like your mother's crotch."
Atalia screamed and launched herself toward this guard too, but the first man—the one she had almost bitten—yanked back her arms. Atalia flailed, kicking the air, screaming.
"You fucking cowards! Pull off your armor, put down your clubs, and face me like men! I'm going to cut you open and choke you with your guts!"
She kept screaming and kicking as they dragged her down the corridor. Atalia was a tall, powerful woman, able to beat most men in battle, yet now she was wounded and weak, and these were hulking guards. Each stood as large and wide as her father, covered in iron. They dragged her down the corridor, and Atalia peered into other cells at her sides. She frowned.
Fuck me.
The prisoners in these cells were massive brutes too, as large as the guards, all muscle and grit. None were Aelarians. She saw burly Nurians, Elanians with red beards, a bald Phedian covered in tattoos, and other races she did not recognize. Each one looked powerful enough to defeat lions bare-handed. But Atalia didn't have long to stare. The guards dragged her from the corridor, up a flight of stairs, and into a bathhouse.
Sunlight streamed in through windows high above, too high to reach. For a moment Atalia paused, basking in it; she had not seen sunlight since her capture. The beams illuminated tiled walls and a pool. Slaves stood in nooks along the walls, nude but for iron collars, holding baskets.
"Go on, wash off the stink," said a guard, shoving her forward. Atalia nearly slipped on the wet floor.
"Then leave." She spat at the guards. "Get the fuck out of here. I'm not bathing in front of you."
Yet the guards remained where they stood, guarding the corridor.
"This is not Zohar," said one man. "There's no shame in Aelar, and we bare our naked bodies to the gods. Go on, we've seen our share of tits before."
She grumbled, but yes, there was truth to that. Ofeer had often spoken of how Zoharites were prudish, how in Aelar men and women bathed in public bathhouses, no shame to their naked bodies. As the guards had first dragged her here through the city, Atalia had seen the nude bodies of marble gods, even nude women and men watching from the balconies, taunting her.
With a curse, she pulled off her coarse tunic, remaining naked—aside, that was, from the goddamn iron collar the brutes had snapped around her neck.
The slaves rushed forward from the nooks. They helped Atalia step into the steaming pool, and they rubbed her skin with soapy sponges, and they washed and oiled her hair. Atalia had to admit: the hot water felt good, easing the tension in her muscles. When she stepped out of the pool, the slaves took her to a white chamber, and here they removed whatever hair grew from her body, massaged her muscles, brushed and braided her hair, and rubbed scented oils into her skin. Atalia's wounds from the battle still ached, still stitched and raw, but slowly she began to feel like a human again.
She looked at her naked body in a tall, bronze mirror.
Who am I now? she thought.
She still looked like she always had. Tall, strong, her skin light brown, and her smooth black hair hung down to her chin. A warrior's body, muscular, scarred, hairless and gleaming with aromatic oils. She had grown lanker over the past year, but otherwise she was the same Atalia from Zohar.
But the eyes . . . The eyes were those of a different woman. Still round and deep brown, but windows to a different soul. Only a year ago, she had been a brass, cocky youth of nineteen, a commander of a hundred men in Zohar's army—a commander who knew of battles only from old scrolls. She was twenty now, but she felt decades removed from that youth in Zohar. None of the youthful eagerness remained in her eyes, none of that joy, none of that stupid heroism. There was pain there now. The ghosts of all those she had killed, all those who had died in her arms, now danced in those brown eyes.
Three slaves stepped toward her, demure young girls with downcast eyes. One held out a helmet shaped as a lion's head, complete with fangs. Atalia recognized her old helmet, but somebody had gilded the iron and painted the fangs red. A second slave held out a manica—a sleeve of scales topped with a pauldron, armor to cover a single shoulder and arm. The third slave held out a trident.
"What are these?" Atalia said.
"Gifts from the gods," said a girl. She strapped the armor onto Atalia's right arm, hiding one of her scars.
"You will look resplendent for the crowd," said another slave, placing the helmet on Atalia's head.
They gave her no armor for her body, only thin bands to cover her nakedness, leaving her belly and legs exposed. When Atalia looked into the mirror, she did not see a warrior. The armor covered only her loins, her breasts, one arm, and her head, leaving the rest of her body bare.
"This is not armor for war," Atalia said. "This is just . . . a show."
The slaves nodded. "The gods themselves will watch you perform, lioness of the desert. The games are not about keeping you alive. They are about looking splendorous as you die in battle and rise to the gods."
