Onslaught

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: SIBLING ALLIANCES

The world devolved into madness.

Zagorka crouched at the head of the slave pits, clutching Chester's huge neck. Before them, the sands of the arena were full of ferocious wood folk-elves, goblins, centaurs, serpents, and strange plant creatures she had never before seen. They held the sands as though they were declaring a new nation. In their center, a huge mound of animate wood had formed over Phage and Kamahl.

Crazier still, the fans had become fighters. They boiled down out of the stands, attacking the edges of the green army. Most hurled only fists or food, but some few had real weapons and laid in with them. Spectators and soldiers died in the tumult.

The literal height of lunacy was Braids. She leaped merrily along the coliseum rim and called out in a brazen voice, "Join the fun! Place a bet or place a kick! It doesn't matter which. The losers will be dead! The winners will be rich!" Her words broke into cackling. The sound echoed throughout the coliseum, as if the hungry stones laughed.

"It's all right, Chester," said Zagorka, her hand trembling as she patted his neck. "I'll take care of you."

The giant mule gusted a dubious reply as Zagorka wedged herself in a corner behind him.

Kamahl lowered his eyes from the cage of wood and stared bleakly at the sand.

His staff was broken. The last of its green magic sputtered away. Lines of force dissolved from the dismembered legs of the angel, which lay in the sand beside him. There was no blood, no torn tissue. Bereft of the spirit that had given them life, those white legs had simply turned to stone.

Not so his sister. Jeska rolled in the agony of her wounds.

Kamahl went to his knees at her side. He reached for her, but she shook her head violently.

"Get your hands away." She gulped a breath. A wound in her chest sucked air. Clamping her fingers over it, she hissed, "You couldn't heal me before. You won't heal me now. I will heal myself… If you touch me, you'll die."

Kamahl nodded. "Heal yourself, Sister, then come with me."

Her eyes flared. "Never."

"I have won. You cannot deny it. I saved you from the angel. I ended the match standing and could have slain you. You must come with me… or does the mighty Cabal renege on its wagers?"

She gritted her teeth and spat. "Yes, you have won. Take me, but I go as a hostage."

"Listen, Jeska-"

"I am not Jeska! I am Phage!"

"Yes, I see you, Phage, your poisonous skin, your bitter mouth and vicious eyes. I see the husk that you are, a leather shell stiff with scars, but I know who lies within that egg. She is the one I speak to. Jeska, fight your way out of this foul shell. Puncture it, tear it, slough it, step free. I know you are alive in there, Jeska. Fight your way out and return to me."

Phage's angry eyes softened, and her lips spread in a smile-an ironic smile. 'Tear this shell, Kamahl, and all you will find within is hungry darkness. This shell is what keeps you and all of Otaria alive."

"We shall see," he replied levelly. It wasn't working. He had won and yet lost. He had to show her that he truly was on her side. "In the meantime, we have work to do."

"Yes, getting out-"

"No," Kamahl said. "We have an angel to kill."

"What are you talking about?"

Kamahl swept his hand out. "She is sworn to kill you. As long as Akroma lives, you are in danger. We need to go find her."

Phage stared, unbelieving, at the man. "If we couldn't kill her here in the coliseum, how will we ever kill her in her own home-land?"

"I have an army," Kamahl said, idly scanning the dome of wood for some means of escape. He walked to the boughs, set his hands on them, and tried to awaken the power of the wood. The fibers felt dead within his fingers. He was drained, tapped out. Without his staff, the power of wood had deserted him. "You have a few thousand under your command."

"I command no one. Only the First commands the Cabal."

Removing his fingers from the branches, Kamahl said heavily, "It's a good thing Akroma fled when she did. I'm drained."

Phage was suddenly behind him, standing, healed. "Weak, are you? I feel suddenly strong."

Stonebrow faced down a platoon of ivory warriors. Tall and thin, with tapered limbs that ended in spikes, the white warriors strode toward him. They made a screeching sound as they came. Their flesh was as hard as tooth, as sharp-edged and merciless.

Stonebrow turned around, but not to run. His hind legs lashed out. Hooves hit the foremost ivory man, cracking it in half. As the shattered chunks fell, Stonebrow took a bounding step backward and kicked again. The next creature exploded like glass. Its razor shards cascaded around Stonebrow's legs, cutting them.

He could not kill all these monsters that way; they would tear him to pieces.

Stonebrow bounded back once more and kicked. His hooves swept among the ivory men, missing them but striking the marble pillar that held up the center of the chamber. With a shot like lightning, it cracked. Stone ground on stone, and the column caved.

Stonebrow dropped his hooves amid the clawing soldiers. He leaped away. There was time for one more bound before the pillar failed entirely. The stone ceiling cracked and fell. Stonebrow shot out over the threshold. He was still gathering his haunches beneath him when the great slab smashed down on all those white warriors. Stonebrow glimpsed them and their dementia creator in the moment before they were rubble.

With a crackling boom, the slab smashed to the floor. Dust rose in huge, curling walls on each side.

Brushing off his hands, the centaur stomped over the fallen stone, heading toward the First's private chambers. They remained intact, jutting out above the stands and giving the best views. Stonebrow clomped across the slab and hurled himself through the doorway.

The space within was cavelike, with black walls and dark portraits. At the center of the chamber sat an unmistakable chair carved of obsidian. From that spot, the First would watch the games, flanked by his hand servants and skull servants. No one remained though.

Stonebrow looked for other exits but found none. He approached the throne. Across the seat lay a black cloak, which Stonebrow gingerly lifted. He dropped it again, shaking his fingers.

The First must have slipped out of it only moments before, for the fabric was still cold. Deathly cold.

Braids enjoyed madness, but even it could go too far.

All the bets-millions in gold-hung in the balance if there wasn't a clear winner. Worse yet, if all the fans killed each other, who would bet tomorrow?

"Hey! One on one!" Braids shouted as she vaulted down the steps.

Her fist cracked solidly atop the head of a man, one of five who had been pommeling a lone elf. Braids dropped the man and caused the other four to fall back. She leaped onward, and so did the elf.

Braids took the stairs ten at a jump. Whenever a spectator strayed into the way, she merely turned a shoulder and barreled past. Another spring brought her down atop a pile of rubble-the royal box of the First. Someone had done a great wrong. The First did not lie beneath-somehow Braids sensed that-but wherever he was, he would not be happy. Assassination attempts always infuriated him, almost as much as lost revenue. The First had foiled countless assassins but had not suffered a single day in the red.

Today will not be the first. Braids vowed.

As she flung herself farther down the stands, she let out a new cry. "Return to your seats! You have one minute. Brute squads will circulate. Return to your seats!"

She punctuated the command by bounding off the homed head of a goat man. He instinctively added his own thrust to the jump, propelling her up over the crowd. Braids turned a slow flip, arcing above the front row and the green troops.

A clutch of goblins waited below. They had been hurling insults at the crowd, waggling their swords and tongues and backsides. One goblin pointed toward her, and two dozen eyes came about to see a shadow with snaking hair descend from heaven. Two dozen legs bent to run, but too late.

Braids squashed two goblins outright, innards spraying on the others.

The green beasts shrieked and reached for the attacker. Their claws came away empty.

Trailing goo, Braids leaped over a brake of thistles. A crowd of elves milled beyond. She chose an empty square of ground to land in, bounced up, and slipped through their hands.

No one would have guessed she could leap like that. In fact, she couldn't, not in reality. She built each jump out of multiple jumps in dementia space, selecting only the highest part of the arc to bleed into the real world. It was why, for her, leaping was almost flying.

Coming down on the spine of a giant serpent, she ran. The snake provided a highway toward the mound of wood-an unwilling highway. The reptile lifted its massive head, scaly flanges spreading angrily. In its huge golden eyes, Braid saw hunger and her own reflection.

She saw something else-two feline forms closing quickly behind her.

The snake opened its gaping mouth.

The huge jaguars launched themselves.

Braids did likewise.

She slipped out of reality and into dementia space and plunged again into the flood of time and space. Out she went, and in, weaving for herself a precise trajectory that bore her beyond the translucent fangs. While Braids flew just wide of the snapping mouth, the great cats hurtled within its jaws. One might have been a reasonable meal. Both, though, jammed the throat of the creature.

Braid's leap carried her over the heads of more green monsters. They stared at her in bald incomprehension.

It seemed all the coliseum stared at her. Most had clambered into their seats. Brute squads patrolled the stairs, enforcing her edict. Fights had ceased, and fighters looked to see what the crazy woman would do.

"We will have a winner!" Braids shouted as she closed upon the mound of wood at the center of the arena. How she would penetrate that hill, she didn't know, but one thing was certain-Kamahl and Phage were there. "Hold all tickets. In a moment, we will have a winner!"

A ragged cheer went up from the crowd, malice turned to avarice.

Braids smiled, scrambling up the mound. "Who survives within? Emerge! Let us know who is victorious?"

No movement came, no sound. It was as if the boughs had eaten them up. The last murmurs of the crowd ceased as everyone listened.

"Who lives? Who triumphs?" called Braids, her voice ringing through the coliseum. "Phage, the world demands to know! Kamahl, do you live?"

Something smoldered on the nearby boughs.

Braids leaped toward it. "We have movement. Someone conies."

It wasn't smoke but steam, water liberated from wood as it decayed. A narrow cave opened, a tunnel in the shape of a person-a woman. She walked slowly through the boughs, dissolving them as she went. In triangles of space, Braids glimpsed her and fairly danced.

"It is Phage! She lives!"

A thrilled roar erupted from the stands. Phage was the odds-on-favorite. Half the folk thrust winning stubs into the air, while the other half tossed their rickets to the wind.

From beneath a veil of crumbling wood, the woman emerged. Though her silken suit was shredded, the flesh beneath had closed again, solid and whole. She lifted her head and climbed steadily out of the tunnel. Her hand rose, and the ovation deepened. Phage was not giving a signal of triumph, though, but a call for silence.

"She wants to speak!" shouted Braids, even then adjusting her speaking sorcery so that it would sweep out around Phage. "Silence to hear the victor speak!"

Phage lowered her arm and said, "I am not the victor. The Cabal does not renege on its wagers. The victor is my opponent." She gestured down toward the rotten passageway, where another figure crawled. "Kamahl!"

The crowd shrieked-those who had lost and those who had thrown away winning tickets. Even as Kamahl pulled himself from the wooden mound, folk scrambled for discarded paper, and fights broke out.

"I am the true victor," announced Kamahl. Braids's spell carried his words loudly to the throng. They quieted to listen. "I have defeated my sister and driven off our common foe. Yes, our common foe. Jes-Phage and I will march together at the head of two armies. We will go to slay Akroma."

A month later, night lay thick across the swamps.

Kamahl stood at the height of the torchlit coliseum and gazed i down toward the sands. On either side of the arena sat his two armies. War loomed. Kamahl was nominally in charge of these antithetical forces-forest and swamp, growth and decay. He needed both if he were to invade the land of Akroma and slay her.

It was time to join these broken armies into a new and powerful whole.

Kamahl looked toward the northern stands. There the Krosan Legion waited. Serpent and cat, elf and goblin, centaur and dryad, they had captured this grand structure. To do so, the green force had defeated Cabal guards and a vicious angel. In their minds, theirs was total victory. They wished to climb all over the coliseum and pull it down, stone by stone.

Kamahl had forbidden it. He had even allowed the games to continue while the armies mustered. They had not come to destroy the Cabal but to save Jeska, and to do so, Kamahl needed to ally with the First.

The mysterious leader of the Cabal had been all too willing to comply.

On the south side of the coliseum waited the newly formed Legion of Phage. Gigantipithicus apes and shorn rhinos, dwarves and goblins, slaves and undead things of every description gathered beneath the banner of their mistress. They would fight for her against Akroma the Anathema. They had sworn allegiance to Kamahl while he battled the Foe.

The First himself had promised there would be no treachery.

Besides, it would be profitable. Braids had arranged observation caravans to witness the war. Not only would the Legion of Phage put up a great fight, it would also put on a great show. Hundreds of rich patrons had paid handsomely to accompany the troops and watch the war. Even now, brightly painted barges waited on the black waters.

The war tourists weren't in them yet, instead filling the coliseum's luxury boxes. They sat along tables spread with white linens and lit with citronella, and before them steamed delicacies. On this, the eve of the march, they feasted like kings. Tomorrow the show would begin.

Kamahl was appalled at this war profiteering, but he needed the Legion of Phage. Despite hard bargaining, he had to allow the pleasure safaris.

Of course, all of this had been the First's plan from the beginning. Had Phage won their battle, Kamahl would have been slain and his forces scattered. Instead, Kamahl had won, and the Legion of Phage was simply Plan B.

"The Cabal does not renege on its deals," Kamahl reminded himself grimly.

He stood a moment more, gathering all their eyes, then, with stately tread, descended the stairs.

The sand was empty. Gone were the bodies and blood, and gone too was the tangled hill of branches. It had been a miniature Gorgon Mount, a pile of boughs that grew up over someone Kamahl had killed. A riddle lay there, something about festering wounds and martyrs made monsters…

Shaking his bedeviled head, Kamahl strode down the stairs. There was no time for riddles. He had a war to wage. His armies were watching. Unless he amalgamated his forces tonight, he never would.

He needed a symbol of this new alliance-a symbol and a weapon.

Reaching the first row, Kamahl leaped down to the sand. From his belt, he drew the broken halves of his staff and held them high. The green army let out a great cheer, even though these riven stalks no longer held the power of the woodlands. Soon they would hold new power. Gripping the portions of the staff in one hand, Kamahl headed toward the center column of the coliseum.

From the opposite side of the arena approached another creature. Within manifold black robes and a tall miter, the First was unmistakable. He too clutched a ruined weapon-the stone head of an ancient axe. He lifted it high. Its razor edges stood in stark silhouette against the inner wall of the coliseum.

The Legion of Phage shrieked its delight to see this ancient blade-the First's own weapon when he had established the pit fights. His strides were the equal of Kamahl's as the First strode toward the center pillar.

There, they met, druid and patriarch, allies against a common enemy.

The night was too solemn for Braids and her antics. She sat silently in the stands beside Zagorka and her asinine friend. Still, Braids had prepared a spell that would bear the words of these men out to all listening ears.

Kamahl spoke: "We come together tonight to forge a new alliance, what might seem a strange alliance, but it is not so strange. That which joins us all is Jeska, is Phage. In every outward way, she belongs to the Cabal. In every inward way, she belongs to Krosan. She is yet one person and as such unites us. We fight for her and against her sworn foe."

Though nothing else Kamahl had said had moved the crowd, the single word foe brought a roar from both sides. They could never be united in love but in hatred-yes.

"Behold!" cried Kamahl, lifting the two halves of the century stalk. "This shattered staff, locus of green mana, was broken by Akroma, but it will be remade tonight. It will unmake her."

Roars turned to cheers.

"Behold!" shouted the First, holding aloft the ancient axe head. "This blade, locus of black mana, was riven from its haft by my greatest enemy. Tonight it will be remade to unmake the greatest foe of Phage."

The crowd's ovation was nearly deafening.

Kamahl and the First shouted in unison, "Power of sand, arise!"

From the ground leaped twin bolts of gray lightning. It jagged into their legs and pulsed up their arms. The strikes continued, rattling in thousands of discharges. Both men began to glow.

Even while pinioned on that terrible force, Kamahl pivoted his broken staff toward the Krosan Legion. "Power of forest, to me!"

Lines of green plasma rose from the foreheads of all seated there and stretched toward Kamahl. From his own hand, tendrils of power reached out hungrily. In midair, the channels met. Energy arced down into Kamahl's fingers and joined the radiance that lit him. The combined force made Kamahl shine.

The First extended the axe head toward the Legion of Phage. "Power of swamp, to me!"

Black mana, darker than the darkest comers of night, streamed in a clotted web from the monsters. The First was a power vacuum, and mana fled into him. It mixed with the energy in his chest, and he burst into flames.

Without seeming to move at all, the druid and the patriarch pivoted. The riven shaft and the haftless blade met. They touched. A second sun arose between them.

North and south, the armies shied from that blazing power. Green and black, they were one in their fear of the blinding presence.

As quickly as the light was birthed into being, it faded and died. In its final flare, a shape shone: a great axe. It was not the blade of the First or the haft of Kamahl, but a new weapon recreated out of them. The head was huge and curved. Barbed along its edges, it was made of a stuff denser than stone and smoother than glass. Its handle was broad and metallic, inset with gleaming gems like Thran crystals of old.

Though none had ever seen that axe before, all who saw it then knew it was destined to slay Akroma.

Kamahl lifted the blade high and gave an inarticulate shout of triumph. It echoed from the stands and came back from the throats of every beast.

He had forged two weapons into one. He had forged two legions into a great army.

Kamahl had won the devotion of every heart in that black swamp-every heart except one.

Phage sat alone in her headquarters. She might as well have been in her cell. She was once again a captive-this time to her erstwhile brother. She had lost and was his slave. There was no escape without breaking the bond of the Cabal. Phage had to submit. She hadn't a single ally against Kamahl-not Braids, not Zagorka, not even the First.

A shadow disconnected itself from one dark wall. It had been no more than a shadow before, but now it was a man-the man.

As if he could hear her thoughts, the First had arrived.

Phage did not turn toward him. She only breathed slowly.

The First walked along the bars, watching her. He was like a man at a zoo, lingering near his favorite beast. "You are troubled."

Phage shook her head. "I am not troubled. I am resigned."

Another step, and the First paused beside the door. "You think I have sold you out. You think I do not care."

Of course he was right. The First was always right.

"Kamahl wants to get beneath your skin and find his sister, find your true soul." The First approached her. He laid his hands on her shoulders. His touch, brutal as it was, brought extraordinary bliss to her solitary universe. "I allow him to take you because he will not stop until he does. He will find your true soul and show it to you. When you see it, you will be rid of him at last, and you will know that you and I are one."

Phage rose. She wrapped him in an embrace. Poison tears rolled from her cheek and fell on his shoulder.

At least tonight, she would not be alone.