Authors: Michael A Stackpole
into another man’s vitals. The sword came free with a wet sucking sound. Pyrust kicked
the thrashing man away from his feet, then moved on.
Around him, the Golden Hawks moved through Meleswin’s main street, slashing and
stabbing anything that moved. Most of the Helosundians in the city were drunk and
exhausted. When they’d taken Meleswin, they had spared none of those left behind. The
men died, the women were raped, and the children sent away as chattel. Delasonsa had
accurately predicted what would happen, but even Pyrust had not expected to see streets
littered with bodies. Rats and dogs fed on them even as raucous laughter came from
windows shuttered against the cold.
The plan to divide and slay the Helosundian leadership had needed little encouragement.
The Council of Ministers had been split sharply over who should be chosen prince and
settled on Eiran—a minor noble with modest ambition and a comely sister to whom many
looked as an avenue to power. Eiran fancied himself a military genius, having waged
many wars with toy soldiers. The retreating Desei troops had offered less resistance than
his fantasy armies ever did, so he and a horde of undisciplined troops had poured into the
city.
Pyrust had planned to counterattack later in the Festival, but stories of fights between the
factions provided the impetus to strike sooner. General Pades, who had been passed over
as prince, had laid claim to the warehouse district on the river, locking up the storehouses
of goods. Eiran had sent troops to open them back up, drawing them from the garrison at
South Gate.
The half-trained boys and cripples left there had not even been able to raise an alarm. The
Shadow Hawks slew them, then moved into the southern quarter. They went from house
to house, slitting throats until there was no resistance left. The Golden Hawks, Mountain
Hawks, and Silver Hawks then entered the city and spread out. The Golden Hawks, with
the Shadow Hawks moving through the city on both flanks, drove straight to the city center
and the mayor’s palace, while the other two units swept around east and west to contain
Pades and his people in the north.
Fighters began to appear as the Desei closed with the palace. Most, it seemed, had barely
enough time or sense to pull on some clothing and draw their swords. They had no idea
who they were fighting or why, and some screamed that they had been betrayed by
Pades. Others, limping back from the fighting in the north, laid down their arms expecting
mercy.
They got none.
Pyrust strode through the streets. His shield had been strapped to his half hand so firmly
that he’d lose the limb before it would come off. His black armor had a Golden Hawk
emblazoned over the breastplate, and he’d even instructed that it be rendered with the two
clipped feathers. His advisors thought that rather unwise, but he knew the Helosundians
were unlikely to understand the significance of the ensign. But still, it gratified him to see
that a number of the Golden Hawks had defaced their armor to hide those same feathers,
providing the enemy with a multitude of targets.
More warriors appeared in the streets, half-naked and bleary-eyed. The wisest of them
took one look at the battalion of armored Desei filling the street and fled. The Shadow
Hawks would get them. The rest, with typical Helosundian belief in the virtue of their
cause, shrieked out a war cry and charged.
Their cries became whimpers, then rattles and silence.
A knot of them stood on the palace steps, brandishing spears and swords. They’d set
themselves for battle, but shivered like the curs feeding on corpses. If they’d had tails,
they’d have been tucked firmly over their genitals and bellies.
For a moment or two, Pyrust pitied them. Prince Cyron was responsible for their deaths.
And perhaps, as they faced his men, they realized it. The soldiers Cyron brought
remained in Nalenyr. The best of them, the Keru, never ventured into combat. Had the
Naleni Prince freed them to fight, there would have been a true battle for Meleswin.
And I might even fear what I face.
Pyrust clanged his sword off his shield’s rim. “No quarter.” He gave the order in a low
voice, and word passed quickly back through the ranks. Another clang set his sword to
shivering, then he took off at a sprint.
As he raced in, Helosundian spears arced out. A few, thrown weakly, landed in front of
him. One spitted a warrior running beside him. The rest passed over him harmlessly.
Those who had thrown them slowly began to realize, as the Hawks came on
undiminished, that their spears would have been more effective had they been used to
stab.
Pyrust raised his shield to intercept an overhand blow. It shivered his arm and splintered
part of the shield, but the rim blunted the blow. The warrior wrenched his sword free, but
by the time he had, Pyrust’s blade had cloven his left shin in two. The man screamed and
fell, knocking another man down. Quick thrusts finished both of them. Their limp bodies
slid down the marble steps, painting a red carpet for Pyrust’s advance.
Soldiers who had flanked the knot of Helosundians ripped the palace doors open. Bows
twanged from within and men spun away, arrows through throats, arms, and legs. More
poured into the building, and by the time Pyrust fought his way to the entrance, the half
dozen archers lay dead.
Pyrust helped a leg-stuck man to his feet. The warrior reached down and snapped the
shaft off, casting it contemptuously aside. “It is nothing, my lord.”
“It is a blazon of honor.” Pyrust mounted the stairs and marched up slowly, matching his
pace to that of the wounded man. Other Golden Hawks streamed up the white marble
stairs before him and spread out on either side of the brass doors to the main audience
chamber. The Prince held a hand up, and the men who were preparing to draw the door
open relaxed.
Pyrust approached and hammered the doors with the hilt of his sword. “Prince Eiran, I am
Pyrust, come for my city. Open this door and no harm shall befall you.”
He heard no response and frowned. He spun, then waved his sword to clear the soldiers
from the direct line of the door. “Do nothing for the moment.” Turning back to the door, he
got out of the way, sheathed his sword, then nodded to the soldiers waiting there. “Open,
now.”
They tugged on the ropes they’d attached to the handles, and the doors slowly opened
like theater curtains drawing back. A rattle of arrows skipped off the doors and floor.
Pyrust stooped and picked up one of the arrows, then laughed. Holding it in his right hand,
he stepped into the doorway and through.
The audience chamber was too small to have ever been considered grand, but the marble
and granite inlaid in the floors and forming the dais at the far end had been imported. They
had been fitted together in the Helosundian dog crest, which Pyrust’s father had left intact,
since the artistry did give the room some majesty. The murals on the walls had been
repainted to depict glorious scenes from Desei history, and it amused Pyrust to see that
the portrait of himself on the east wall had been defiled. His face had been obliterated by
repeated pounding with a dented brass urn.
The sprawl of young and very drunk Helosundian nobles between the crest and the dais
echoed the corpse-strewn streets outside. Out there, bodies lay in pools of blood, urine,
and excrement; inside, the nobles lay in spilled wine and their own vomit. Their armor—
none of it showing battle wear—had been cast aside. Whatever robes they had worn
beneath now gave thin shelter to cowering women who looked up at Pyrust with haunted
eyes. A half dozen of the nobles, including the new Prince, had managed to stand and
shoot, but none of them had nocked a fresh arrow, and only two fingered shafts in their
quivers.
Pyrust lifted the arrow he’d plucked from the ground. “Care to try again?”
Bows clattered to the ground in reply. Archers soon followed, their ashen pallor
deepening. Only Eiran remained on his feet, but he wavered and swallowed. Pyrust stared
at him as he advanced, slowly spinning the arrow between his fingers. With each step he
took, the Helosundian’s trembling increased.
Pyrust looked past him to the woman sitting in the mayor’s chair. She could have been a
Keru, were she taller and heavier, for she had the blonde hair and the icy eyes and the
hardness that came with pure hatred. He quickened his pace, sweeping past the Prince
and up the three steps to the throne. He threw the arrow aside and grabbed her by the
throat, lifting her roughly, but she did not cry out.
Blood from his glove streaked her neck. She swallowed, and he felt it. He felt her life in his
hands, the thrumming of her heart. Only the shrinking of her pupils and the slight flair of
delicate nostrils betrayed her feelings.
She spat in his face.
Pyrust released her and wiped the spittle from his cheek, then flicked his hand out in a
backhanded slap. It snapped her head around and rocked her back against the throne, but
she did not go down. Rising redness marked her right cheek. She straightened and her
eyes narrowed.
Pyrust held his hand before her face. “Don’t spit again. I would be disappointed if you
could think of no new outrage.”
He turned, deliberately presenting his back to her, then stalked down the steps to where
her brother still stood. Pyrust let his hand fall heavily on the Prince’s shoulder. With the
slightest pressure, he could have driven him to his knees. Instead, he tightened his grip
and kept Eiran upright.
He whispered in the Helosundian’s ear. “Your sister has bought your life. That is who she
is, isn’t it? You could never attract someone with that much spirit, no matter the crown you
wore.”
“And you, Jasai.” Pyrust spun and looked back up at the girl. “When they made your
brother a prince, did they make you a princess?”
She glared at him. “No.”
“Then I shall.”
Eiran shook off his hand. “No.”
Pyrust hooked his shield arm out and turned the young Prince around. He kept his voice
low and cold. “Understand something, Eiran. You are a fool and a coward. You say no, but
you can do nothing to enforce it. In fact, if I chose to take your sister right now, right there, on that throne, you would hold her for me. Look, she knows it.”
Eiran’s head came up and his sister’s stare impaled him. He sank to his knees and
vomited over Pyrust’s boots.
The Desei Prince nudged him onto his side, less to move him from the puddle than to
wipe his boots clean. He again mounted the steps to the throne. “You, Jasai—duchess,
countess, whatever they in their foolishness made you—shall now be a Princess of
Deseirion. You purchase one thing immediately: your brother’s life. I’ll have his court
sobered, saddled, and escorted south to where they can reach Nalenyr without incident. A
second thing you purchase when we wed: a truce in this province. No more raiding
against your people. No more forced resettlement.”
Jasai shifted her incendiary gaze to him and he hesitated for a moment. There could be
no mistaking the fury on her face, but flickers of ambition also flashed there. Her foolish
brother had become drunk with his success and the spoils of battle, but she’d remained
sober. She had positioned herself to rise to power.
“You don’t think you can trust me. You’re wise in that, but you will learn you can.” Pyrust
reached up and took her hand in his. “You will buy one more thing. Give me a son, and he
shall rule Helosunde as your brother should have. You will be his regent.”
Her brow furrowed for a moment. “Why would you offer me Helosunde?”
“If I do not, you will hate me forever.”
“I assure you, my lord, I
will
always hate you.”
“But you will tolerate me to save your people. Life will be better for my people. It is not
much of a dowry, but I shall accept it.”
Jasai raised her chin. “I think, my lord, you leave unnamed the greatest gift I will give you.”
“Do tell me.”
“My rule of Helosunde will free you to pursue other ambitions.” She smiled. “You make me
a princess, you give me Helosunde, but I will make you an Emperor.”
Pyrust bit the inside of his cheek to kill his smile. “In a Festival of new beginnings, this may be the best beginning of all. The new year will be full of portent, indeed.”
3rd day, Month of the Tiger, Year of the Rat
9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court
163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty
737th year since the Cataclysm
Stormwolf,
in the South Seas
Since finding the
Moondragon
and the odd creature aboard it, the expedition had known
little joy. In part that could be blamed on their traveling further south with the prevailing
current. The seas became more hostile and the weather significantly cooler. Shimik began
to grow a thick coat in response, and the treachery of ice on the decks added to the
dangers of shipboard life.
Though Captain Gryst was content to leave the sea devil to Jorim for study, he quickly
brought the scholars on the
Stormwolf
in to study the thing. They all dissected it and
preserved pieces in various jars. Drawings were rendered of its overall physiology from