by Grace Draven
She pivoted slowly so that all the arena might see her, before halting to face the pavilion where the emperor lounged in shaded splendor to view the events. The chair beside him was empty. Where was the empress?
A voice rippled across the arena, rising above the crowd’s murmurs. “Burn! Burn for us, Flower of Spring!”
The audience took up the call, their chant rising ever louder until it was a one-word bellow. “Burn! Burn! Burn!”
Confused guards approached the platform, pausing at times to look around them for the wagon full of women they expected to arrive instead of this single girl. They stopped and edged back when Gilene lifted her hands. Fire ignited in her palms. The crowd roared its approval, demanding more.
Gilene turned her focus inward, to the ebb and flow of magic purling through her body and her spirit. She spooled it out slowly, reining in the surges of power so that the flames dancing merrily in her palms spilled through her fingers to splash across the platform and ignite the kindling. The planks beneath her feet vibrated with the cheers from her audience. The guards sprinted away.
This immolation would be her final one, the last desperate effort to end the Rites once and for all. She would burn up and burn out, use every last drop of magic inside her, fuel it with her life force until she was drained of both. Far better this than years of pain and slow disfigurement and a duty to pass on this hideous burden to another Beroe fire witch.
The flames grew, bursting upward with a roar that rocked Gilene back on her feet under a scorching wind. She stood within a whirlwind of fire that twisted and spun like a frenzied dancer. Power spilled out of her with every pull of her will, building layer upon layer until the entire floor of the arena transformed into a fiery lake. This was no illusion, but true fire, and it surged toward the arena’s lower tiers in a wave of blistering heat.
Cheering changed to screaming as people closest to the arena floor abandoned their seats and fled up the steps to the higher levels.
Strength flowed out of Gilene like blood from a wound. In previous years she would have abandoned her place atop the pyre and fled the arena as an illusion of flame herself until she reached the questionable safety of the catacombs. Not this time. This time she stayed.
The fire climbed the high walls and hopped over, licking at the fleeing crowd as its flames galloped up the steps, grotesquely sentient in its movements as it consumed more and more of the arena.
Gilene’s vision blackened as she poured her life force into her magic and nurtured the beast devouring the Pit. The flames had reached midway and seemed to slow. People jammed together in a tightly packed ring that huddled along the highest tiers. They began shoving each other to make room, and bodies tumbled down the steps and into the flames, their shrieks instantly lost in the inferno.
The seating, carved from stone, turned black and scorched, and anything cloth or flesh that succumbed to the fire was reduced to char. Still, it wasn’t enough. Gilene snarled her frustration, and the fire leapt briefly in response, swallowing an entire section of the arena up to its highest point.
Tears filled her eyes only to evaporate instantly. For the first time since her magic manifested, she truly prayed.
“Agna, hear this woman you have named handmaiden. Your children die before the gates of Kraelag, and the Empire would burn its own to defeat them. I ask for your strength, not your mercy, because I can’t do this alone. Make my death not a vain one, nor the deaths of those women who died here before me. There is vengeance, and there is justice. This is justice.”
She didn’t wait for an answer, didn’t hope for some celestial recognition of her pitiful cry for help. The gods weren’t deaf. They simply didn’t exist, not even the one Azarion so fervently worshipped.
Gilene called on the tattered threads of her strength to make the fire hotter. Her lungs burned and her chest hurt, as if her heart struggled to push the blood through her body.
The arena seats drowned in fire, its spectators gone or immolated. She hated those who attended the Rites, hated them for slaking their thirst for agony and death under the guise of religious fervor. She would die unburdened by guilt over their demise.
A stray thought flitted across her bleary mind, of plume grasses murmuring in the wind while a Savatar ataman twined her hair through his fingers and kissed her lips with the passion of a lover and the reverence of a votary.
The fire was dying, as was she, when the sense of being watched overcame her. She peered into the flames surrounding her but saw only the hazy outline of the burning arena. Her eyelids were heavy, and an anvil rested on her chest, crushing her breastbone and making it so very hard to draw breath. Still that feeling of being observed didn’t lessen. Gilene closed her eyes and gasped at the image filling her mind.
A woman, but not just a woman. This was something else, something so vast and ancient, Gilene’s spirit shied away with a whimper. She comprehended an ever-changing face whose eyes were the gathering of stars and whose body was woven of sky and meadow. The being was all that was both supernal and earthly, all that was young and old, frail and vigorous. Eons of time had passed through her fingers, and her fluttering hair reminded Gilene of a horse’s mane.
“The Great Mare,” she whispered.
The goddess tilted her head in a curious gesture. Mountains shivered in response. “You called me, handmaiden. I have heard you.”
“Agna.” Gilene tried to lift her hand and touch the hem of the goddess’s gown, but she lacked the strength. “Help me,” she said on a weak sob. “Make it all stop.”
The goddess stared at her for what might have been a moment or a year or a century. Gilene shuddered at the sudden rush of possession, a surge of otherness that filled every part of her being. She fell to her knees, helpless before the onslaught, feeling every thought, every memory and emotion picked apart, examined, and judged.
When it was done, she fell forward and retched. Her empty stomach brought nothing forth, but the weakness was gone, as was the crushing pain in her chest. She raised her head, wondering whether her eyes were truly open or if she only beheld the goddess of the Savatar in the throes of a dying dream.
“Stand, Gilene of Beroe.” The goddess’s command usurped Gilene’s will, and she didn’t so much stand of her own accord as she was lifted to her feet. Agna’s shifting features reflected a divine wrath. “There is vengeance, and there is justice,” she said, repeating Gilene’s words. “This is both.”
Power, unlike any of the feeble magic Gilene commanded, struck her with the force of lightning bolts, sending her body into a convulsive dance even as her spirit splintered under Agna’s touch.
Gilene, who was no longer Gilene, but the crumbling avatar of an angry goddess awakened by an unbeliever’s desperate prayer, screamed in triumph and despair.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Azarion wrenched the spear free from the impaled Kraelian fighter just in time to block another’s sword strike with the haft.
A thunderous snap followed by a bellowed “Look out!” from a nearby warrior made him and his opponent look up to the terrifying sight of a stone the size of a cart hurtling toward them from above.
Azarion leapt out of the way, skidding through the battlefield’s churned mud. A hard strike to his leg made his toes go numb for a moment before shooting pains ricocheted from his shin to his thigh. A spray of mud shot skyward before pelting him in a rain of droplets, and the ground shook under his feet.
The rock had grazed him as it fell, denting his greave hard enough to pinch skin and cloth at its crease. He was lucky, far luckier than the Kraelian fighter he had fended off moments earlier. The man hadn’t dodged as fast as Azarion and paid the price. All Azarion could see was a boot and part of a leg, bent at a strange angle, under the boulder.
He glanced at the ramparts where the long-armed skeletons of catapults suddenly rose above the walls. Around him, men and horses from both si
des fled the field. His squadron of heavy horse, however, hadn’t yet noticed the danger. They engaged the Kraelian infantry in a vicious battle, the gleam of bright steel flashing under the morning sun as they fought each other with sword and spear.
Azarion clambered to his feet, half limping, half running toward his mount and the men under his command. “Fall back!” he shouted. “Fall back now!”
Too late. A second booming snap followed by whistling heralded another hail of crushing shrapnel, this time a mix of stones, broken wood, and nails that ripped into the clusters of fighting men and horses. Human screams joined equine squeals of agony as death fell from the sky.
Azarion covered his head and raced for his horse, stopping once to drag a wounded Savatar fighter with him. When he looked once more toward his mount, it lay in the mud, dead.
Trumpets sounded from the horde perched on the low rise above the city, and soon a swarm of horse archers descended onto the field, despite the danger from the lethal catapults. Azarion shoved the man he helped toward the rider bearing down on them. She stretched her arm out as she rode past, and the soldier grabbed hold, swinging himself up behind her, the horse never slowing pace.
The light cavalry swooped in, rescuing those in the heavy cavalry either injured or without their horses. Azarion leapt onto the back of Tamura’s horse as she nearly ran him over to save him. They raced back to the safety of the Savatar camp, where the catapults’ range couldn’t reach.
Azarion met Erakes at the entrance to his qara. “If we want to breach those gates or take down the rest of the infantry, we have to destroy those catapults.”
That the Kraelians had employed the catapults in their defense of the capital didn’t come as a surprise; still, Azarion had hoped they’d wait until the Kraelian ships arrived from the east and it no longer became necessary to engage the ground forces already defending Kraelag.
Erakes, still in half harness from his own earlier foray onto the field, motioned him inside the tent. He scowled at Azarion. “Number of casualties?”
Azarion shrugged. “It’s anyone’s guess. I’d say I’ve lost half my squadron. If we send in the other ones, the same will happen to them. Krael is willing to crush its own men in the effort to stop us. Heavy horse is useless against catapult fire.”
Erakes paced, stroking his beard in thought. “The archers can still do plenty of damage and keep the Kraelians pinned in that square of theirs. They’re mobile enough and fast enough to avoid the worst of the catapult’s projectiles. And remember, we don’t need to breach the gate. Not today. Not this battle. The treasure inside is worth warring over but not worth a defeat. We just need to fight long enough for the Kraelian ships to arrive with their eastern garrison soldiers.”
“Or until our supply of arrows runs out.”
They had brought with them a massive baggage train consisting of hundreds of horses loaded with thousands of arrows. An infantry’s best defense against horse archers was to simply wait them out until the archers used up their arrows. Erakes had made certain such wouldn’t happen with the baggage train in reserve.
They were interrupted from discussing more by a soldier. “Atamans,” he said. “You need to come see this.”
They followed him out of the tent, riding to a part of the ridge where they had a clear view of the battlefield and the city’s defended gate. The Kraelian forces were shouting, cries of “Death to the savages!” carrying over the batter of sword flats on shields. The commanders spurred their horses up and down the lines, raising their arms in victory and encouraging the shouts to even greater volume. While a number of Kraelians kept an eye on the ridge, most watched their leaders or tilted their faces up to the city ramparts.
Erakes watched the tableau for a moment before shrugging. “They just sent us into retreat by hurling giant rocks at us. Of course they’d be celebrating. Why do we need to see this?”
Azarion barely heard the question. He’d followed the direction of the soldiers’ gazes to the top of the city walls. The ringing that started in his ears almost drowned out everything else as his gaze caught on a diminutive figure standing at the ramparts, gleaming bright and golden in the sun. Black fury erupted inside him, along with a hatred so deep, it had etched itself into his bones.
He pointed to the figure. “That is Empress Dalvila on the ramparts,” he said in a voice gone guttural. He guided his new mount down the ridge’s slope, not waiting for Erakes’s reply. “Find me the best archer and have them meet me,” he shouted to the soldier who had brought them here. “Not the fastest. The most accurate.”
The man bolted back to the Savatar encampment. Erakes trotted down the hill, catching up with Azarion, his features avid with the possibility of a quick victory. “Cut off the head, kill the snake?” he asked. “What about the emperor?”
Azarion didn’t care about the emperor. Given enough time, the empress would dispatch with him. His gaze stayed riveted on Dalvila as she called down praise to her commanders. Defiant, flamboyant, she buoyed her troops’ morale with her reckless disregard for her safety. She stood partially shielded by the rampart walls but still vulnerable to a well-aimed arrow.
“The Spider of Empire,” Erakes remarked. He grinned at Azarion’s quick, surprised glance. “You didn’t know that’s what she was called? Herself has many names outside the capital. Most not complimentary.”
“They aren’t complimentary inside the capital either,” Azarion muttered.
He tried to contain his impatience as they waited for the archer to appear, and prayed Dalvila wouldn’t leave the ramparts before then.
The rhythmic thud of hooves signaled the archer’s arrival. She gave Azarion and Erakes each a quick bow. “You asked for the best archer, Azarion Ataman. That’s me.”
He waved her to follow him farther down the ridge, sheltered among a cluster of stone outcroppings where Savatar scouts kept watch and reported back to the commanders.
“They’re too far away, Azarion,” Erakes argued. “Even for the best archer.”
Azarion ignored him. He pointed to where Dalvila stood. “Can you shoot her from here?”
The archer dismounted and eyed the ramparts, squinting and pacing a short distance one way and then the other. She nocked an arrow and drew back the bowstring to take aim. More pacing and squinting had Azarion clenching his jaw to keep from hurrying her. Finally, she lowered the bow and shook her head. “They’re a good distance away, and she’s a small target. I’d have to just about stand on the field’s edge to guarantee a hit. I’ll never get an arrow in the air before I’m dead.”
“Impossible then?”
She shook her head again. “No, just improbable.”
“Try anyway.”
The archer bowed. “As you wish, Ataman.”
“Azarion, she better get that arrow in the air now.”
Erakes’s warning made him whip around. The empress was leaving the ramparts.
“Fuck!” he snarled before slamming his heels into his horse’s sides. The animal leapt forward toward the open field. He spotted an abandoned shield on the ground, leaned from the saddle, and snatched it up before slowing his horse to a walk. He kept the shield in front of him, a guard against Kraelian arrow fire.
The Kraelian war chant faded away as the soldiers wondered why a lone Savatar rode to the edge of the field to pace his horse before them. The empress paused, staring over the ramparts.
“Come on, bitch,” Azarion murmured. “Come back to the edge.” Behind him, the archer waited. He’d found a way to capture her attention. Now he just needed to keep it.
He pulled off his helm. He’d been beardless when he escaped from Kraelag a year earlier. The one he wore now was neatly trimmed, but it still obscured some of his features and altered his appearance. Distance would also make it difficult for her to see his face clearly, but Dalvila was familiar with more than his face. She’d seen him f
ight in the arena and fuck in her bed. She knew his body language, and he counted on that now, helmless and alone as he stared at her from the edge of the field.
She lunged for the rampart. From where Azarion stood, she was too far away for him to make out her expression, but her one word, venomous and bubbling with loathing, pealed across the battlefield.
“YOU!”
Azarion wheeled his horse around and raced back toward the outcropping. The empress’s shrieks blistered the air. “Kill him! Kill that gladiator!”
He flattened against the horse’s back, making himself as hard a target to hit as he could while they raced for the safety of the Savatar lines. The stretch of a bowstring and muffled thwump of an arrow fired sounded close by. His archer had taken her shot.
Dalvila’s shrieking halted abruptly. Azarion dared not look back as more arrow sounds filled the air, only this time aimed at him.
He galloped past the shielded outcropping before swinging around to where Erakes and the archer waited. “Did you hit her?”
The archer blew out a breath. “Yes, though I’m not sure it was a kill shot. I couldn’t tell if I got her in the chest or the shoulder. The shot knocked her backward, out of sight.”
“It’s chaos on the ramparts.” Erakes pointed to the city. “Look.”
People raced to and fro along the battlement walls. There was shouting and plenty of arm waving. Below, where the Kraelian army stood in formation, the commanders shouted for order. “Hold the line! Hold the line!”
Erakes leaned from the saddle to clap Azarion on the shoulder. “That was either good strategy to damage morale or personal retribution useful to all of us.” He saluted the archer. “Impressive shot. From what clan do you hail?”
She grinned. “Saiga, Erakes Ataman.”
“I’ll sing your praises to Insaza Ataman when I see him.”
The archer’s smile widened even more. She bowed to him and to Azarion as he paused in front of her and waited until Erakes was out of earshot before speaking. “I’m in your debt, archer.”