Echoes of light, p.5
Echoes of Light, page 5
A living eagle of metal, Abishag thought, shuddering. She knew him from countless tales. The Iron Eagle. General Constantius.
"Hail Legatus!" said the legionaries, saluting him. "Hail Aelar!"
Constantius dismounted, walked toward Abishag, and examined her. He was a tall man, his eyes cold. He reached out his iron talon and caressed her cheek. The metal was hot and sharp and smelled like blood.
"Pretty," the legatus said, voice like metal on gravel. "What's your name?"
"Abishag Bat Naeem," she told him.
Constantius turned back toward his men. "Domina Claudia commanded we capture five thousand slaves. You brutes have butchered too many. There might not even be five thousand left in this hive. This one's pretty enough to serve in a brothel or bathhouse."
"She said her cunt's made of stone," said the red-faced legionary, then seemed to gather himself and lowered his head. "Dominus."
"As is your brain," said the Iron Eagle. He turned toward Abishag and stroked back a lock of her hair. "This one is intelligent. She knows how to play the game. I saw how you let the children escape. Are they yours?"
"All the children of Zohar are mine," she replied. "For I was consecrated, and I bear the word of our savior."
Through the holes in his helmet, his eyes narrowed in amusement. He looked back at the legionaries. "Chain her up with the others. And don't touch those stone nethers of hers. If your cocks even stray near her, I'll wear them around my neck."
The general mounted his horse and rode off. The remaining legionaries bent Abishag's arms behind her back. A man struck her again, and white light exploded into a thousand stars. They marched her through the city, jeering, tearing at her clothes and skin. As they herded her into a courtyard full of slaves, and as they closed manacles around her, Abishag trembled with more fear than she had ever known.
EPHER
He stood on the rocky field, gazing back north toward the city. Beth Eloh was but a haze from here, but Epher could see the fire rising, hear the distant screams, smell the death.
"We have to go back." His voice was hoarse, and his eyes stung. "Olive, we have to go back. She's killing them." His fingernails dug into his palms. "Claudia is killing them all."
Olive grabbed him. She pulled his face toward hers, and she glared, teeth bared. Her red hair lay across her brow, caked with sand and dried blood.
"If we go back, she kill us too," Olive said. "But not you. Not at first. She take you back to Aelar. She torture you in arena. We not go back! We not help them by dying too." Her voice softened, and she held his hand. "It too late to save them. We tried. We fought good. Now we must go. We must fight other day."
Several hundred of them—all that remained of Zohar's warriors—stood here on the hills. It was a small force, but Epher could have slain a few more legionaries. True, it took ten Zoharites to kill a single legionary—Aelar's armor was too thick, its weapons too sharp, its soldiers too ruthless. But Epher might have killed a few more, might have died with honor.
History will remember me as a coward, he thought.
"What awaits us out here?" he said. "Death in the wilderness? I would not let Claudia take me alive. I would die fighting her."
"Then all Zohar die too," said Olive. "You our king! You must lead fight long as you can. There are other Zoharites! Many live other countries. But Zohar still their home. You still their king. Come, Epher. Hold my hand. Walk south with me. We find Tarath El. Behind its walls, we find more warriors. We find hope."
Epher nodded. This was the path he had set them on, the choice he had made in the Temple. If he had chosen to remain and fight, then Olive—all of them—would have remained with him, died with him. But he had led them through the Gate of Tears. He had chosen this. The path of a coward, perhaps. Of a traitor. A path he would never forgive himself for taking. Yet Olive was right—a path he could not turn back on now.
The Gate of Tears indeed, he thought.
When he looked toward the distant city again, he frowned. It was hard to tell from this distance, but he could make out glints on the path outside the city, a mere sliver, a thread of shimmering metal, barely there, soon vanishing.
"Soldiers on the road." He squinted, trying to see more details. "A legion is leaving the inferno. They're following us."
Olive began to walk south, sand rising around her. "Then we walk fast."
"I think," Epher said, "that we better run."
They ran. Six hundred men and women. Most had no finer armor than thick leather and some tattered scales. Their swords were chipped, their spears cracked. Many were wounded. Many had seen too many summers, while some were mere youths of twelve or thirteen. Most had not been warriors before this war. They had been farmers, tradesmen, shepherds. Two had been priests and one a singer.
Who are we now? Epher wondered. Soldiers, refugees, or cowards?
The dry hills sprawled before them, leading to the southern desert. A thin arable strip of Zohar lay along the coast. A few forested hills rose in the north. But most of Zohar was this—a rocky desert, all boulders and canyons and hills of limestone and sandstone. While the desert took up most of Zohar, few in the kingdom had ever lived here. It was a cracked, unforgiving land where barely any life thrived.
The hills rolled before them into the horizon, rocky, beige, lifeless and hard. They were not round but elongated, flowing, like folds in fabric carved into a statue. From a distance these hills were indistinguishable from dunes. Only when stepping upon them did one realize they were made of rock, not sand. As the rebels ran, Epher saw no trees, no bushes, no animals, just the crevices and hills and canyons. Epher felt like an ant crawling across a vast, craggy boulder.
It was winter, but the sun still beat down, and sweat still soaked Epher. His wounds kept stinging, worst of all the cut on his leg. He ran with a limp. Around him ran the others, breathing raggedly, covered with sweat and blood and ashes. Their armor clanked, their swords banged against their thighs, and guilt haunted their eyes.
We left. We left them.
Each of these men and women had left friends or families behind. Epher could no longer see Beth Eloh in the distance, but he would never forget those flames rising, those distant screams.
We would have just died with them, said a voice in his head.
Then we should have died!
In the desert we can find hope.
We have already lost!
Zohar still stands so long as we live.
Zohar has fallen!
Again and again, the voices shouted inside Epher's mind. Yet he kept running.
I could not save Gefen. I could not save Beth Eloh. I could not save our people. But there are several hundred warriors here who need me. There is a fortress in the desert where the name Zohar will still be remembered.
Whenever they paused to breathe and tend to their wounds, Epher looked behind him, and the distant army seemed closer. He could see the sun shining off armor and the lines of marching troops, mere threads across the desert. Soon those threads grew, and Epher could make out individual specks—horses, perhaps chariots, and red-and-gold banners.
"They've got a whole fucking legion following us," muttered Ramael. The bearded, crooked-nosed man seemed to remember who he was talking to and bowed his head. "Forgive me, my king. I should speak less crudely."
Weakly, Epher placed his hand on the man's shoulder. "Ramael, I've known you since we were boys. I spent many hours in your grandfather's house in Gefen. I often felt as if Malaci was my own grandfather. We fought together since Seneca sailed into my port. You can curse around me. I'm still the same Epher."
Ramael looked into his eyes. "No, my king. You're not." Then he turned and ran onward, heading south through the desert.
Night fell but no stars emerged. Clouds rich with smoke hid the sky, and the wind shrieked through canyons and over hills. The day's traces of warmth vanished, and they all shivered. Epher's teeth had never chattered in his life, but they kept banging together now, and he felt frozen and feverish at once. He had never known such cold—cold that invaded the skin, crawled through the body, and spread along the bones. Behind them, ever closer, burned lines of light on the dark hills—the torches of legionaries. The smell of fire filled the wind.
"Epher, we need rest," Olive said. "You hurt. We all hurt. We must sleep, heal wounds, running more tomorrow."
He shook his head. "We don't rest. We cannot rest. Claudia draws ever nearer."
Olive panted and shivered in the darkness. They had no lanterns, no torches, would dare light none even if they did. She held his hand and leaned close to him. "We is running for two days and two nights, no rest. Some of the men . . . if they no rest now, they die."
Epher looked behind him. The torches of the enemy were closer now. In the shrieking wind, he thought he could hear the voices. Chanting for death. He thought he could hear Claudia calling to him, laughing, mocking him, promising his death in the arena and the final collapse of Zohar.
"If we rest, we all die," he said. "If some remain behind, then they remain behind."
Olive gasped and glared at him, but when he wouldn't look away, she nodded. They kept running.
Epher judged the night halfway through when the first man fell. His friends called out in the darkness. "Jorah has fallen!"
"Then we will carry him," said Epher. He approached in the darkness, nearly fell into a chasm, and finally reached the fallen warrior. Jorah lay on the rocky ground, panting, feverish, vomiting. Epher slung the man's arm around his shoulders. "Can you walk like this?"
Jorah nodded. They continued, moving slower now, but the enemy behind did not relent. Always the torches moved closer in the night, and Epher could hear them now. Drums. Horns. A distant voice calling out. "Epher! Epher, do you hear me?"
Claudia's voice.
Epher ground his teeth, hefted Jorah, and they kept trudging forward. Another man fell. His friends lifted him and carried him onward.
The land became more treacherous. The hills rose steeply, plunged down, and thrust up jagged boulders. Still the clouds did not part, and the moon was but a smudge, soon vanishing. In the darkness, screams suddenly arose, and Epher rushed toward them and learned that several men had fallen in the darkness, tumbling into a canyon. The clouds kept thickening, hiding the moonlight, and finally Epher was forced to call them to stop.
They set camp in the miserable, cold darkness, and several men scaled down the canyon walls to seek the wounded, only to find that four men had perished in the fall, and the fifth had shattered both legs. All night the wounded man moaned and screamed, until they were forced to gag him. All night the lights of the legionaries grew closer.
"How the hell can they track us in the night?" Epher muttered.
Olive huddled closer to him, shivering. She tried to gnaw on some old bread but spat it out. "Hard like rock." She shoved her hands into her armpits. "Tracking easy. I used to track animals even in desert. The legionaries have torches. They see our trail."
The man with shattered legs let out a muffled cry, and Epher winced.
"I'm not even sure we're on the right path." Epher smiled wryly. "We might be leading them into Sekadia."
Olive was silent for a long moment, aside from her teeth chattering. Finally she said, "Maybe that no bad idea. Maybe we yes go to Sekadia. Find shelter there. Maya healed Sekadia king. Maybe king help us, give us new life. In . . . how you say? Not home?" She thought for a moment, then found the word. "Exile."
Epher had spent the past two days considering that very idea, but he shook his head. "No. Even if we found life in exile, what kind of life would that be? The life of cowards who fled from battle, leaving their people to die. I'm not ready to stop fighting. I abandoned my city, but I won't abandon my country. In Tarath El we can fight on. For Zohar. For what remains of our kingdom."
Olive leaned against him and closed her eyes. "We maybe die there."
Epher wanted to speak to her of hope, of Aelar's weakness, of Valentina fighting to restore the Republic and call back Claudia's forces. But Olive was right. It was likely they marched toward their deaths, a final stand in the last stronghold in the kingdom.
He stroked her hair, as wild and red as flame. "You can still travel east. Take those warriors who would go with you. Seek shelter in other lands."
Olive grabbed his shoulders and snarled. "I never leave you. Your warriors never leave too. We fight with you. Always. For our kingdom. For our king." Her eyes dampened. "For the memory of all who died."
And still the legions marched closer, horns blaring.
Epher did not mean to sleep, not with the enemy only hours away, yet soon he found himself trapped in a dream. He was navigating the dark streets of Gefen on a starless night. He held a swinging lantern shaped like a man's head, seeking Claudia's villa. He had walked these streets countless times, had visited his beloved on many secret nights, yet now he found himself lost, delving deeper and deeper into the labyrinth. Crosses rose on the roadsides, and each held a dying figure, stripped of skin, burned black yet still moaning. Each figure had Maya's face.
Finally he found Claudia's home, only to discover that she now lived on the Mount of Cedars in Beth Eloh, not her old villa by the sea. She greeted him with smiles, wearing an azure stola.
"I feel like I'm wearing the sky," she said.
As she kissed him, he saw that the lantern in his hand was a real man's head, dripping, expression ghastly. The head of his father. Epher dropped it. He wanted to run, but Claudia was kissing him, pulling off his clothes, and they made mad love in the darkness. Her fingernails dug into his back, but no matter how hard he took her, he could find no release, as if he were lost inside her, trapped in another labyrinth.
"I loved you once," he whispered.
She laughed and bit his face, ripping off skin, muscle, feasting, drinking, until he hung from a cross, flayed and dripping before her, dying in the Valley of Ashes as the city burned around him and the Temple fell.
A cry roused him, and he blinked. The first hints of dawn rose in the desert like a line of fire on the eastern horizon.
Epher cursed and leaped to his feet. Olive, who had lain at his side, blinked and rose too, rubbing her eyes. The rest of their camp spread through the darkness. The cry had come from the man with shattered legs; he was shivering, and his gag had fallen out. All was gray and black in the shadows, though the clouds had finally parted and the last stars of night shone above.
When Epher spun toward the north, his belly twisted.
Claudia and her legions were close now, only several hills away. They were close enough that he could make out the Aquila at their lead. They had many horses and chariots and thousands of infantrymen. The terrain was still rough, all folds and canyons like dunes turned to stone, which trouble their horses and slowed their pursuit. But they were still moving. They must have moved without rest since leaving Beth Eloh.
"Epher!" rose the hint of a voice in the distance, though Claudia was still too far to make out from the crowd. "Epher!"
He turned away from them. "Run."
They continued in the dawn, traveling south as fast as they could. They carried their wounded. They trudged on, raising dust. Rocks tumbled beneath their feet. The hills grew larger, leading to mountains. The morning spilled across the desert, painting the world gold and yellow and shimmering bronze. In every direction Epher looked, he could see no life but for the two forces. No greenery. No animals. Just this dead, rocky world. Just boulders, crevices, cliffs—a dead land.
At times, he passed by flat stones that bore strange markings, etched into the rock with crude tools. Some runes resembled the sun, others animals, and a few were marks he couldn't comprehend. Thousands of years ago, before men had nations or tribes, ancient wanderers must have ventured into the desert, had marked the stones. If some ancient civilization had risen here before Zohar, they had left nothing but a few runes, a few dolmens in the north, a few bones in caves. Nothing more. Epher wondered if, many years from now, that was all that would remain of Zohar. A few marks on rocks. A few whispers. Then nothing at all.
He looked behind him, and she was closer, so close he could see her in the crowd, riding at the lead of her army. Claudia wore the fine armor of an Aelarian legatus, complete with a crested helm of command, and she held the Aquila of her legion, the golden eagle of war. Horns blared, and Aelar's horses began to gallop, raising clouds of dust.
"Faster!" Epher said. "Run!"
They ran. Even carrying their wounded, they ran. They had not had water in two days, yet they ran. The slopes grew steeper. They were climbing desert mountains now, deep in southern Zohar. Epher knew this place. He had been here as a child, visiting with his parents. Few ever dared enter this land, not Zoharites nor invaders. The Great Death, some called it. They were near.
It was a steep climb. At times they had to use their hands for purchase, cresting a slope or canyon wall. The mountains rose before them, rocky, tan, baking in the heat of the sun. All the chill of night passed, and sweat washed Epher, stinging his wounds. Many men carried the wounded, falling, rising again, grunting with effort. When Epher looked behind him, he saw that the legions were struggling too. They had abandoned their horses and now were clambering up. Closer. Always closer.
She was climbing below, and she gazed up, crouching, smiling. Across the distance, he could imagine that Claudia met his eyes.
Epher turned and kept scaling the mountain. Olive climbed at his side, hissing and dripping sweat. The hundreds of rebels spread across the mountain. A man lost his grip, cried out, and slid down the slope. Epher reached out and caught him. They climbed onward, struggling for purchase.
Finally they crested a cliff and reached a small plateau, just large enough for their camp. They stared ahead, and Epher lost his breath.
"By God," he whispered.
