Mortal

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

FIVE MILES SOUTH OF THE SEYALA VALLEY, the scales of a vast serpent twined along the Andros Plain. Twelve thousand strong. Two thousand cavalry. Ten thousand heavy infantry.

Two standard-bearers carried red flags that rose like two crimson eyes set in the head of the winding army. One standard bore the compass of Order, which was the insignia of the world and of the Sovereign, transposed from its former white background to the crimson of Saric’s new World Order. The other bore the scaled phoenix-a winged and serpentine creature, an evolved version of the firebird-a symbol of reborn life once revered by the alchemists of ancient Chaos.

The army was twice the size of the legions in the history books of Chaos. Appropriate, because it was comprised of those who were doubly alive, each of them beautiful works not only of alchemy, but of their Maker.

The vanguard’s two thousand cavalry rode black stallions so eerily uniform that one might think they had all sprung from the same bloodline or even the same genetic code.

Which they had.

The cavalry carried spear, sword, and smaller round shields. They rode in black saddles skirted in leather armor to protect the horses’ flanks-at first glance one might not know where man ended and horse began. Their black helmets reflected no light from the sporadic sun.

The ten thousand on foot wore the black leather armor of their leader, the polished sheen dulled by the dust of eight hours’ march. It covered the toe and heel of boot to midthigh, giving each man the appearance of having sprung up out of the earth like a dark specter.

They carried spears with iron heads. Short, straight swords rode their left hips. Rectangular shields were slung across their backs like giant, obsidian scales. The weapons of a former age had been remade-reborn-in factories deep to the south of the peninsula, first under the orders of Pravus, and most recently under Saric.

They marched twenty columns wide, with five on either side of the supply train in the middle. Their formation was perfect. Mathematically precise and alive.

The ground shook beneath their feet like the beat of a new heart, the anthem of a new, living age.

At the head of the vanguard between Brack and Varus, Saric closed his eyes. The cavalry’s rattling tack was its own kind of song. Primal. Beautiful. Like the violins of Chaos-refined beyond mere sound.

Only one being could threaten the harmony of his new era.

The boy. Jonathan.

His stomach clenched, as much with anticipation as with outrage. There were two things he could not abide. One was any threat to the supremacy of the life in his veins. The other was his own need to discover and consume the greatest life.

Since the notion that the boy might possess superior life in his veins had first presented itself to him, no amount of reason had yet dislodged it. Saric had spent half of the night in preparations with his generals, considering every possible approach to the Mortals’ valley and every tactic to ensure crushing victory. He had rehearsed them all relentlessly. That he harbored any concern despite his army’s massive advantage was somewhat of a mystery to his officers, he knew.

In reality, it was the conflict raging in his mind regarding the nature of Jonathan’s life that motivated his anxiety, something his children could never know. The questions had kept him awake until their predawn march.

In the end he submitted himself to a simple resolution. His need to rule superseded his need to embrace any potentially greater life. And yet even the thought of opening the boy’s jugular haunted him. One Maker, slaying another. What source of life might he extinguish, never to be seen again? What if he was making a terrible mistake?

Saric’s reverie was broken by the sound of drumming hoofbeats, approaching from the north. His eyes snapped open.

One of the scouts, returning. Urgency pulled at the warrior’s face.

Saric raised his arm. Behind him, the machine of his army ground to a halt.

The scout dropped from his horse before it stopped, took five long strides and dropped to one knee, head bowed.

“My Lord.”

“Rise.” The scout stood. “Well?”

“The valley’s been evacuated. They wait on the plateau.”

So the Mortals were not unaware. They’d expected as much; Nomad scouts would have seen their approach in time to make hasty preparations for retreat or for battle.

“No sign in the valley?”

“They’ve swept it clean, though there are some ruins that appear to have been recently used for a blood ritual of some kind. It’s all over the stones.”

Little was known about secretive Nomadic custom, but Saric had little interest in how they lived. It was the blood that interested him. Could it be the boy’s? Had it been spilled in the making of more Mortals?

His mind flashed back to Feyn’s turning, there on Corban’s table, as the alchemist pumped her full from the reserve he kept of Saric’s blood. She’d screamed as Saric’s blood had replaced the last of her own, and then she’d collapsed for an hour. Waking, she’d been calm and resolved, apparently unchanged from her former self.

Later, when they had spoken, she seemed quite sure they suspected nothing and would be caught unawares, but then, she knew little of the ways of war.

For a moment, he wondered what else she might have been mistaken about. Or if she’d knowingly delivered erroneous information to him. No. Impossible. His power over her was absolute and she’d been guileless. He would have seen her deception.

Or had the boy found a way to change her in ways beyond Saric’s understanding?

He would soon know. She would either betray the boy as she’d detailed late that night, or she would attempt to betray him-inconceivable, considering her state.

She’d insisted she go alone, fearing that the presence of any guard would be detected and her opportunity lost. He’d rejected the notion immediately, but she’d been adamant that Jonathan must suspect nothing at this so-called summit of theirs.

“I don’t like it,” Varus murmured.

Saric’s attention returned to the present.

“There is nothing to like about what is uncertain,” he said. “How many on the plateau?”

“From what we could see, less than a thousand,” the scout said. “But full surveillance isn’t possible-they wait on the higher ground.”

“What side?”

“The north.”

Strange relief seeped into Saric’s veins. This much of Feyn’s report was true. It gave him confidence in her ability to deliver on the rest.

“Weapons?”

“Standard fare,” the scout said.

“Horses?”

“Most.”

Again, as expected.

“They’ll outrun our infantry,” Varus said. “Unless we can bring our infantry to bear, they might outmaneuver us or run.”

“If they meant to run, they would have already,” Saric said. “They wait for us. And so we will not disappoint them.”

“Could it be a trap?” Varus said.

Saric looked at the scout for an opinion.

“No sign that we could see. A canyon lies to the north, best to be avoided.”

Saric lifted his eyes and studied the horizon. The valley lay beyond the hills ahead, quiet in the late morning sun. It was odd to think that the fate of all living and dead could be decided in one historic day. His name would be remembered to the end of time.

This was his destiny.

And the boy’s blood?

“We can lose half of our number and defeat them still,” Saric said. “We’re not here to save lives, but to end every one of those that threatens our own. Send three hundred cavalry north along the western flank to cut off any escape. Another three hundred west with a full division of infantry to hold for my signal. We box them into their own graveyard without a single Nomad warrior left standing by day’s end.”

There would be no one left to protect the boy.

“Send the bulk of our infantry led by two cavalry divisions up the middle,” Varus said. “We’ll drive them to the cliffs. Send the order.”

Brack nodded and wheeled his horse round. Within moments an entire left column broke away and reformed itself, twenty wide, one hundred deep. Two thousand infantry. They were moving northwest within minutes, and Brack was back by his side.

Saric gave him a curt nod. “Double time.”

Brack swung his arm forward and the dark and beautiful machine that was his army broke free and started forward again, this time at twice the former cadence.

The plain began to narrow within three miles between two rising cliffs. From here one could follow the winding of the river that flowed between them up toward the canyons and mountains farther north. Saric’s army surged along the plain, veering west as the ground began to rise. Not until they reached the mouth of the valley did he signal.

“Stop.”

He eased his mount’s pace to a halt, and the heavy crush of boots on the ground ceased behind him. Still no sign of the Mortals on the cliffs. Save the ruins, the valley appeared empty, as reported.

“Bring him.”

Orders were issued and four Dark Bloods wheeled a long, shallow cart forward. Saric considered the Mortal gagged and bound at the neck, waist, and knees to a thick pole in the middle of the cart. He was naked except for the cloth around his waist-covered now in sweat and dust. His eyes were wide, wild. Corbin had done well to keep the prisoner they’d taken at the Authority of Passing alive. Triphon, he was called-Saric knew him as one of those who’d conspired with Rom Sebastian to bring him down nine years earlier.

Now the Mortals would see the fate of any who defied him.

“Do it in front of the ruins.”

The two pulling the cart dipped their heads and started forward at a jog, followed by two others. The air hung heavy and still as the party separated from his army and angled toward the ruins a quarter mile ahead along the eastern cliffs.

For several long minutes no other movement. The cliffs remained empty, the sky silent, the valley dormant.

The detachment stopped near the ruin steps and quickly went to work digging a hole.

“Anything?”

Brack’s mount shifted beneath him. “Nothing. But they watch.”

Undoubtedly. And they would see.

The preparations took only a couple minutes aided by thick muscle and sharp shovels. They pulled the Mortal from the cart, still bound to the ten-foot pole. The air stirred, lifting something from the top of the pole a banner bearing Saric’s crest.

They hoisted the prisoner up for all to see before moving him into position over the hole and unceremoniously dropping the end of the pole inside.

The Mortal’s body jerked and hung still, like a pig on the end of a stick, arms bound to his sides, feet dangling.

They filled in the hole, tamping down the earth so the pole could stand on its own, then stepped back and awaited his signal. Nomads were too strong to be demoralized by the sight, but planting the body would serve as clear notice: Saric claims this valley.

He nodded. Brack lifted a red flag.

One of his children withdrew a sword, walked over the Mortal, and shoved the blade up under his rib cage. The man on the pole jerked his head back and strained, the cords standing out along his neck, then went limp, a lifeless puppet on a spike.

As he watched the slaying, Saric could not help but consider just how easily life was taken, yet how difficult it was to create. How it was his to give and take.

There could be only one Maker.

The Dark Bloods gathered the cart and left the pole standing in front of the ruins. High above a lone buzzard had already begun to circle in the gray sky.

“Take us up,” Saric said.

The army surged ahead.

In less than ten minutes they were across the small river along the western floor. Saric glanced back at the army winding its way up the slope to the plateau, now only a half mile distant. Numbers, not agility or speed, would win this day. Overwhelming power, bred for war by alchemy. He wondered how many of his children would die today. For him. And he vowed in his heart that for each one that gave up his life, he would mourn and make two more in their stead…

And then four.

A scout at the top of the rise signaled clear.

“You should hold back, my Lord,” Varus said.

“They run. I do not. Form the ranks wide.”

Varus issued the orders and the serpentine formation broke into three, two of the companies veering west.

Like a rising tide of black water they crested the hill and edged onto the plateau that stretched nearly a half mile before falling into distant canyon lands. The grass stood two feet tall. Trees to the west. Cliffs to his right, east.

Still no sign.

Within half an hour, the division he’d sent earlier would be in place to flank the Mortals. With any fortune at all, they had pulled their scouts in to focus on the plateau. Surely they needed every man.

“Hold.”

The massive army fronted by fourteen hundred cavalry rumbled to a standstill along the plateau’s southern edge. To a man, they faced forward, eyes and muscles fixed, waiting for command. The air grew quiet.

Saric felt his eyes narrow. Not with impatience or anxiety, but with strange appreciation.

The Nomads were nowhere to be seen. The field was empty. Nothing except a tall, stripped sapling in the middle of the field, a quarter of a mile distant. Only after a moment’s curious scrutiny did Saric notice one additional detail: hanging from a rope affixed to the top of it was something like a bladder or a large gourd…

Or a head.

The appreciation drained away as the head lolled in the wind, turning so that he could see the gaping mouth and bloodied face even from this distance.

“Janus,” Varus muttered.

Ice flooded Saric’s veins. Not at the thought of the man himself, but because in killing him, the Mortals had struck far more than the man. They had lashed out at the image the man was made in.

At Saric, himself.

So then… the Mortals would neither flee nor die quietly. So be it.

Run with your Maker’s speed, Feyn. Bring me the boy…

He stared a moment longer at the head hanging like a macabre ball from that pole. Black rage bubbled up within him like tar.

It was in that state that he wondered if the lone figure galloping at breakneck speed from the far side of his vision had been conjured by his own wrath. If it had risen up from the ground like the vengeful dead.

But this was no apparition. It was flesh and blood. A feral tangle of beaded braids and leathers with a starburst of metal studs as though Chaos itself had touched it. All that was refined was untamed in the rider. All that was evolved was primal in him.

Roland.

The Nomad slowed his horse to an arrogant, easy walk and stopped next to the pole.