Seven Kings

16

An abiding tranquility replaced the fading thunder. A universe of brilliant flame died away, replaced by warm golden sunlight. Green leaves rustled on the rim of awareness. Vision was a blurred and shifting thing at first, but sound came more easily into focus. The songs of gulls mingled with the trilling of island birds. The sighing of gentle winds rustled the tops of trees. From somewhere beyond the whispering foliage came the rhythmic pounding of surf against sand.

Smells came next, the scents of fresh loam, summer grass, tree bark, honeysuckle… then jasmine and the ripe flesh of hanging fruits.

Vines coiled together beneath a roof of twining leaves. A pair of red plums dropped from a low tree branch. Bits of stone buried in the brown loam shifted toward the surface and joined with the mass of busy foliage. Plant, fruit, and stone merged in a two-legged, two-armed pattern.

A body of living vegetation lay in the dappled shade of the green lawn, soaking in the raw powers of sun, wind, and sky.

I live.

She pulled her leafy limbs together, sent the stone flowing like water through the center of them. The fallen plums turned to glinting emeralds, then opened as a pair of sea-green eyes. The immense power of the earth seethed like an ocean; she floated on the skin of its roiling surface. It flowed into her from the roots and leaves of the curling vines. She wrapped more of the ropy plants about the skeleton that had been the naked stones. Blossoms of darkest purple crept forward to encircle her skull, becoming at once her flesh and the locks of her hair.

Elemental energies converged like stormwinds, and Sharadza wove them together like filaments of silk or wool. Now she stood, flexing vegetable legs and raising her leafy arms toward the sun. The final movement of the song her mind sang with the melodious earth brought a transformation from fibrous green to brown and supple skin.

She stood tall and whole in the body she remembered, and she called forth a second skin of leaf and vine, which became a gown of green fabric laced with a neck design of purple blossoms.

I live, and I breathe.

And I do not thirst.

How long has it been?

A familiar voice interrupted her thoughts. “How do you feel?” Iardu asked.

The wizard stood not far away, beneath the branches of a pomegranate tree. His red-orange robe refracted the sunlight even more than the jeweled rings upon his fingers. His mother-of-pearl eyes narrowed at her without their usual chromatic sparkle. He looked unspoiled yet weary. He rubbed his small silver beard as he looked her over.

Sharadza inhaled, welcoming the sweet garden air into her lungs. Tears smelling of plum streamed from her new eyes. “Alive,” she whispered. “I scarcely believe it. After what happened… after what I had become…”

“A lie,” said Iardu, stepping close enough to touch her shoulder. “Your half-brother twisted your natural pattern, adding his own foul ingredients. I’ve removed them as best I can. But see here the stones that were the floor of the tower chamber where he kept you.”

Sharadza scanned the grassy earth about her bare feet. She stood at the center of a loop of rectangular stones. They were scattered in an uneven circle about the garden, blocks of dark basalt, each one as large as her head. On the exposed surface of each stone sat either an engraved rune, or a portion of a bisected rune. Her gaze followed the line of stones, taking in the intricacies of the sigils. This was the rune circle Gammir had carved all about her bed, where he had stolen and sculpted her first resurrection. Iardu had plucked these stones from the crumbling floor of the tower as his sorcery destroyed it.

“These stones are forever linked to your immortal essence,” said the sorcerer. “I am sorry this has been done to you. Yet your free will has been returned, the curse of the shadow lifted; these runestones are the nexus of your new existence. You have passed through the Gates of Death twice now. This second rebirth marks the beginning of your enlightenment. You no longer wear the chains of the body your mother birthed. You have birthed yourself this time, without interference. I merely brought your spirit essence here, along with the stones that imprisoned it.”

“What is this place?” she asked. Now she looked beyond the mortared walls that enclosed the garden. Three towers of pale stone rose outside the tree-lined enclosure, turrets and eaves decorated by spirals of precious gemstones. She recognized neither the architecture nor the landscape.

“This is my garden,” said Iardu, opening his arms. “I’ve brought you to my island. My home.”

“Of course.” She knew this already, somehow. It would be some while before she could catalog and recognize all the things she now knew. A deep well of secrets yawned in the back of her mind.

“You will be safe here, far beyond the reach of your half-brother and his shadowlings. Whenever you shed this body, through violence or any other means, your spirit will return here to be reborn at the center of these stones.” Iardu’s ageless face darkened. “It was either this fate, or the one Gammir had in store for you. An eternity of slavery and bloodlust.”

Sharadza wrapped her new arms about Iardu. “Thank you,” she said. “I will never be able to repay what you’ve done for me. It was like a nightmare… I knew that what I did was not of my own intention, but I could not… I could not…” She lost her voice as the memory of hot, sticky blood in her throat returned. She saw for a moment the face of a boy she had killed and fed upon, then the faces of a harlot, a tradesman, a father, a cobbler. More. Ranks of nameless slaves without name or number bleeding and dying at her knees.

The red, lingering kisses of Gammir…

The breath rushed from her lungs and she fell at Iardu’s feet. Her stomach roiled and would have emptied itself if it had contained anything at all. Yet this new body had eaten nothing but sunlight so far. She retched and heaved, drooling spittle into the grass. She wept.

Iardu bent down to wrap his arms about her.

“It’s all right,” he told her. His hands were gentle on her shoulders, warm against her back. “It’s all right.”

“No!” She pulled away, rubbing at her tears. She stared into his kindly face. “You don’t know the things… the things I’ve done. The killing… feeding on innocence like some wicked beast! He used me, Iardu. He made me do terrible things. I’ll never forget them. And I’ll never be able to forgive myself.” She shuddered as she wept, cupping her face in her hands. Her skin smelled of ripe leaves.

Iardu stood in silence while the waters of sorrow drained out of her. A bottomless reservoir of shame, guilt, remorse, and, beneath it all, an impotent anger. How could she? She should have killed herself rather than endure the filth of that dark existence. She did not deserve this liberation… this enlightenment of which he spoke.

“I should have…” she stammered. “I should have…”

“You should have never gone to see him,” Iardu said. “Yet you did. What happened was not your fault. We cannot change the past, Sharadza, but we can learn to live with it. You may think what Gammir has done has destroyed you. But hear me when I say this: it has only made you stronger.”

“I’m a murderer!” she shouted at him. “A thousand times over! And worse!”

“You are a sorceress!” He shouted back, startling her with his vehemence. “I tried to sway you from this path many years ago, but you were determined to walk in your father’s shoes. So you have. Tragedy and sorcery are no strangers. You are the daughter of Vod. You will endure. You must!”

She shook her head and stared about the garden. Between the slim fruit trees a shallow pool glimmered. Swift shapes glided in the crystalline water. A trio of brightly plumed birds flew down from the branches to drink from it.

“How can I live on, knowing the horror of what I’ve done?” she asked. She sounded like a child seeking advice from her father.

“If you have done ill,” said Iardu, “then overcome it by doing the opposite. Balance the scales of your heart. This is the beginning of your journey, not the end. You carry the greatness of the Old Breed inside you. Do not let the darkness that enslaved you destroy what you truly are. You are Vod’s daughter. You will endure.”

She walked to the pool and watched the fat fish moving through the water. Their scales flashed gold and white, crimson and silver. The birds flew back into their trees, squawking and singing. A mass of white blossoms grew about the pool’s edge. Luminous dragonflies buzzed between the petals.

Suddenly she realized that someone watched her from between the trees. She raised her head, Iardu’s voice still ringing in her ears, and met the face of her silent observer. The face was that of a lovely woman with tawny skin; her eyes were a mix of ebony and sparkling amber. A necklace of opals and amethysts hung below her slim neck, and below that swelled the broad chest of a golden beast. The watcher’s body was that of a lion standing tall as a pony, complete with black claws and a swishing tufted tail. Tiny wings with white feathers grew from between her leonine shoulder blades; they were far too small to carry her majestic bulk, yet they unfolded and spread themselves wide as her human face smiled at Sharadza. Behind her ruby lips gleamed a set of lion’s fangs, but there was no threat in their display.

“Greetings,” said the creature.

Sharadza had no words to respond. Iardu spoke instead.

“This is Eyeni,” said the mage. He spared a loving smile for the creature. “She watches over my home when I am away.”

Sharadza bowed in wordless greeting. She was still not in command of herself.

The lioness nodded its woman-like head. “I recognize your sorrow,” she said. “Know that in this place all wounds can be healed. Trust in the wisdom of the Shaper.”

“Thank you,” Sharadza croaked. She felt foolish and weak.

Can I truly live with these memories?

Eyeni paced around the pool and approached Iardu.

“How fares the island?” asked the sorcerer. He rubbed a hand over Eyeni’s glossy coat. She purred for a moment as a true lioness might, then answered him.

“All is well, Father. Will you stay for a while?”

Iardu shook his head. “I cannot. Already I have lingered too long. A battle rages on the shore of the Golden Sea, and the fate of nations spins like a tossed coin.”

He looked toward Sharadza where she sat on the grass near the pool. Tiny green monkeys with curious man-like faces scrambled through the treetops now, staring down at her and darting away like phantoms. They made no sound at all.

“This is Sharadza, Queen of Yaskatha,” Iardu told the lioness. “Prepare a chamber for her. Something with a nice sea view, and not too far from the garden. She will stay here as long as she wishes.”

“No.” Sharadza raised her eyes from the sunbright water. “You’re going back to face Gammir and Ianthe. So am I.” She stood and breathed in the garden air, the tears drying now upon her cheeks.

Iardu shook his head. “Have you learned nothing?” he asked. “You rush blindly into danger like a farm boy eager for a sword fight. Elhathym imprisoned you in stone. And now Gammir-”

“I broke out of that stone prison,” she reminded him, “and pulled you out of the empty void, as I recall.”

Iardu sighed.

“You said I must earn redemption for the things he made me do,” she said. “My redemption starts now.”

“You do not understand,” said Iardu. “There is far more at stake. The slaves of Khyrei are rebelling. The black city lies under siege. The future of Khyrei and all kingdoms will be defined by what happens next. And there is yet more… much more that I have not told you.”

“Zyung,” she said. Gammir had shown her the other side of the world in his enchanted glass. The monolithic empire of the one called the God-King. “I know what he is. I have seen his forces. And I know that he comes soon.”

Iardu’s eyes flickered like twin prisms. “How?”

“Gammir has allied himself with Zyung. He told me his plan to serve the Conqueror and one day replace him. Now Ianthe stands at his side again. You cannot go alone.”

Iardu’s shoulders tensed. He paced across the green lawn and rubbed his chin, lost in thought.

“You didn’t know about Gammir’s alliance until this moment,” she said. She could almost read his mind. “You fostered this rebellion. You’re trying to liberate Khyrei before the invasion comes.”

“Yes, child,” he said, staring at the pathway of green marble that wound through the garden. “Time is short. Zyung is eager to take this half of the world.”

“Your half,” said Sharadza. He looked at her, but his ageless expression was unreadable.

“You need to rest,” he told her, pleading now. “You have suffered much and require time to heal.”

“Only by returning to Khyrei and facing Gammir will I find any kind of peace,” she said. She walked to him. Eyeni lay upon the grass where the sunlight bathed her glossy pelt. The tiny white wings lay folded on her back. Her clever eyes followed their faces, as a child watches its parents engaged in an argument.

Iardu sighed and threw up his hands. “You would walk through flames to take a swim,” he said.

“What else will Gammir do?” she said. “Kill me?”

Iardu’s brow lowered, casting a shadow over his gleaming eyes. “Oh, there are far worse fates than death for those like us.” And she knew he had accepted her insistence.

“Sorcerers,” she said.

“As good a word as any,” he replied. “We must go now.”

“Shall we fly?”

Iardu shook his head. The blue flame on his chest leaped and writhed. “There is no time. Even as eagles the flight would take too long. The slaves of Khyrei need help immediately.” He paced to a clear section of the marble path and motioned for her to join him.

“To bring you and your runestones here, I opened a dangerous gateway,” he said. “A realm of living fire that lies between our own world and many others. It was the only way to transfer ourselves and the stones at once. The light and flame that slipped through this gate destroyed Gammir’s tower; it burned away his army of wraiths and bloodshadows. I will need to open it again, so that we can slip through that fiery dimension and step out once more into Khyrei. It will not be without pain.”

“I am ready.” Pain. How could simple physical pain ever scare her after the horrors she had endured? She would never fear pain again. Flesh and bones were ephemeral, a suit of clothing to be worn or shed at will.

She no longer wielded power. She was power.

How she longed to unleash it upon the heads of Gammir and Ianthe.

“Farewell, Father,” said Eyeni, raising her head from her paws.

“Farewell for now, Eyeni,” said Iardu. “See that Sharadza’s quarters are established for our return.”

“It shall be done.” The lioness loped through the garden toward the trio of pale towers.

Sharadza kissed Iardu’s cheek. Then she stood back and spoke to him with her eyes.

Take me to Khyrei.

Iardu raised his arms and sang the ancient worldsong of light and flame.

When the great gate swung open, three thousand slaves and ten thousand Sydathians flooded into the streets of the black city. The fields outside blazed, but the streets were mazes of gloom pierced only by the glow of hanging lanterns. The Sydathian vanguard, five thousand strong, had swarmed the southern wall in a matter of moments, casting down the torn bodies of Onyx Guards and hapless archers. There would be no more arrows raining down on the Free Men of Khyrei. Once over the wall, the eyeless ones had no trouble forcing the Southern Gate open to admit the rebellion.

Tong lost sight of the Emperor and Empress. They had fled the wall when the eyeless ones began to climb it. No doubt they were investigating the fiery destruction of the palace’s westernmost tower. Tong knew it was Iardu’s work, a false sun to burn away the armies of shadow. He blessed the wizard under his breath as he rushed into the gloomy streets.

Earlier he had wondered how many legions still dwelled within the city, since the bulk of them were sent to secure the western border. He still had no answer to this question. His heart sank as a fresh legion of black-masked soldiers charged through the main street toward the ruptured gateway. The Onyx Guardsmen sprinted behind a shield wall brimming with pikes.

The pikemen would have killed hundreds of slaves in the first moments of the battle, except that they could not reach them. Sydathians ran along the horizontal shafts of their spears, bounded past their lacquered shields, and found tender flesh with their razory claws. Tong’s sightless brothers would kill every armored man in the city, but they shared his understanding of mercy for women and children. His bond with them was beyond even his own comprehension, but he felt the city give way beneath the press of pale bodies, felt the warm blood gushing between talons and fangs that were not his own.

The screams of dying men rose to join those atop the wall, where the sentinel towers were forsaken and already full of bodies. Across the roofs of warehouses, granaries, and manor houses Tong saw the barbed spires of the great palace. Never had they loomed so close or so high. He had never been inside the city before this night. A labyrinth of streets and plazas lay between his army and the Emperor’s house.

“Find all slaves!” he yelled to his human brothers. “Free them all! Let them join us!”

This became his mission as the Sydathians rushed through the streets, slaughtering the black legion. Tong, Tolgur, and a hundred other men bearing stolen sabres and spears rushed from house to house spreading the word that freedom had come to Khyrei. Women clutched their babies and shied away from their windows and doors; their husbands and sons came forward to take up the bloodstained pikes and blades of their oppressors. Within every manor house and squalid tenement the rebels awoke, and the numbers of Tong’s slave army grew.

Another legion came marching from the city’s eastern quarter to engage the Sydathians. By then it was too late: Sydathians far outnumbered Men as the city fell into chaos. Someone set a fire, intentionally or accidentally, and now the city’s buildings burned like its fields. Some of the masked ones made the mistake of surrendering to the enraged mob. They were stripped of their fanged masks, then their armor and clothing, followed by tongues, eyes, and finally their lives. Tong could not speak out against this cruelty, and if he did no one would listen. His people had suffered so long that he expected such brutality. He expected more dead slaves as well, but the Sydathians protected the freed men who were brave or foolhardy enough to engage Onyx Guards in combat. As a loyal hound fights for his master, so did the eyeless ones protect the marauding slaves. Still, a few slaves were cut down before their Sydathian wards could intervene. Yet in most instances the eyeless ones ended such uneven fights with the swipe of a single claw.

A man who was slave to a merchant lord of the city came forward. Tolgur brought him to Tong because he claimed to know the city streets well. His ragged nightshirt was smeared with blood and he clutched a spear in trembling fists. His name was Odumi, and a mad joy blazed in his dark eyes.

“Can you lead us to the palace?” Tong asked. He pointed at the black spires.

“Yes!” answered Odumi. “I hear the Empress has returned. Let us welcome her with blood and fire!”

“We have pikes for both of their heads!” cried Tolgur. The lad raised a spear and howled with the throng.

Tong led the bulk of the freed men through the streets with Odumi at their head. What would he do when he reached the palace? He must face Gammir the Undying and Ianthe the Claw. Was Iardu done with aiding him? It did not matter. This rebellion could only end with a free city. Tong would die for the cause if he must. His would be a worthy death.

They ran through shadowed streets and smoke-filled avenues where the flames had not yet reached. Sydathians leaped in their midst. Any guardsmen who showed themselves were quickly speared to death or torn apart. In this way the mob came through the maze of walls, doors, and arches into a great plaza. Stained blocks of stone at the far end of the square were set with iron rings with chains attached. He wondered which of his ancestors had stood upon those blocks and been sold into the fields.

No man, woman, or child would ever stand there in chains again.

Beyond the open mall the ebony palace loomed nearer. Yet Tong could not see all of the structure due to the massive statue standing at the head of the slaving square. Carved from gleaming onyx, it stood taller than a sentinel tower, draped in the semblance of a sable robe that mimicked the starry sky. His jaw dropped as he gazed upon it. It wore a face of cruelty and wickedness, with eyes of solid ruby set below a seven-pointed crown. One clawed hand hefted a mighty spear, while the other held aloft a globe of murky crystal. The army of slaves stood in awe of the construct, having never seen anything of its proportions. The blind Sydathians largely ignored it, rushing up the broad steps to fill the plaza with their sniffing, bounding bodies.

In that instant of wonder which seemed to last hours, a great rumbling shook the flagstones. Nearby garden walls collapsed, and several of the plaza’s columns fell over and splintered into rubble. A great moaning came from the sandaled feet of the statue, each one large enough to contain a granary if it were hollow. A wave of fear passed across the slaves then, and Tong felt it like a poison shot into his veins by some hidden dart. The Sydathians felt it too, and they grew still in the grip of the trembling earth.

The mighty statue lowered its head, ruby eyes glowing brighter than blood.

Some men went mad and fled shrieking from the plaza. Tong stood transfixed by the impossible vision. The colossal figure of stone and jewel raised one of its legs with a horrible sound of grinding stone. Baring its black fangs, it stamped down upon a mass of scrambling Sydathians. Dozens of eyeless ones were smashed to a greasy pulp of blood and bones. Others climbed the gargantuan legs trying to dig claws into its stony flesh. The gigantic effigy quivered and tossed them like vermin across the city.

Again its great foot rose and descended, flattening more Sydathians, shedding more from its living stone legs. The scene reminded Tong of the day he had trod upon an anthill in the fields. The insects had swarmed up his leg while he struck at them with palm and sandal. He had escaped the angry ants’ fury only by running to leap in the River Tah. He did not think the great statue would head for the river. It would stomp here until every last slave and Sydathian was dead.

This must be the work of the Emperor’s sorcery. Kill Gammir and the monstrosity would also die. But how to kill a sorcerer? And how to find him? The jewel eyes of the statue sparkled with a fresh blaze of light, and Tong realized that sunrise had broken over the Golden Sea. The night of blood and fire was over, but the battle for Khyrei was only beginning.

The statue bellowed a hateful word and tossed the crystal globe into the midst of the crowded plaza. The sphere exploded like glass, showering Sydathians and slaves with razor shards. Tong felt that brittle rain and sheltered his head with his arms. When it was done a host of bleeding lacerations covered his skin, and that of the men about him. Those closest to the sphere’s point of impact had been cut to shreds. The minced bodies of Men and Sydathians were mingled in a ghastly pile.

Still a throng of eyeless ones tried to climb the hem of the statue’s glimmering robe, and still it swatted and stamped them into oblivion. The beastlings might slay every guardsman in the city, but they could not harm the Emperor’s terrible likeness.

Tong’s blood dripped on the flagstones, and he considered for the first time that his rebellion and his death might change nothing. This was still Gammir’s city. The morning sky was obscured by black smoke. The dawn of freedom looked nothing like Tong had imagined it.

The Emperor’s statue raised its great spear. It might easily strike down one of the palace spires with that colossal weapon if it chose to do so. Tong shouted to his fellows; they ran for their lives toward the nearby palace while the eyeless ones fought and died for them. Any second now the head of that great spear would strike the earth and the city would quake again, its very walls collapsing like mounds of sand. The stones of the crumbling city would crush the rebellion as quickly as the foot of the titan crushed Sydathians. Gammir would destroy his own city rather than see it freed from his grasp.

Tong heard the crashing of a thunderbolt. Above the looming palace another false sun erupted, exactly like the one that had vanquished a horde of shadows.

This time its flames blossomed directly above the barbed crown of the central tower. The Emperor’s Tower.

Iardu!

Golden rays shot across the city, bright spears piercing a canopy of oily smoke. The freed men rushed toward the palace gate, which stood closed to them as had the city gates. The statue of Gammir brought its terrible spear down in the midst of the Sydathians. The resulting earthquake scattered the eyeless ones like pitched pebbles. The city shook, and structures near the plaza fell into shards, claiming more lives.

Thousands of Sydathians rushed to replace their dead brothers, spilling toward the palace in a white wave as the second false sun faded from the sky. Two massive golden eagles soared above the spires now. Tong lost sight of them as his rebels reached the palace gate, which the Onyx Guards had already deserted. The freed men banged on its surface with the butts of spears and axes, hammered at it with jagged stones.

Sydathians climbed up and over the gate, claiming it as they had claimed the city wall, and with far less resistance. The masked ones would no longer fight these blind killers of men. They served out of fear, not loyalty, and their fear of the Sydathians outweighed their fear of Gammir or Ianthe on this fateful morning.

An arc of flame swept past the palace ramparts. One of the golden eagles sped toward the statue of Gammir as it thundered across the plaza, pulping the bones of Sydathians beneath its feet, punishing the earth with strikes of its godly spear. As eyeless ones flooded over the palace gate, Tong looked back at the plaza. Gammir’s statue turned its ruby eyes toward the burning eagle. The bird fell like a comet against his black crown with a fresh burst of flame. The great spear splintered and crumbled, showering black dust across the plaza and nearby rooftops.

For one brief second a golden aura limned the mighty idol, and it seemed carved of precious metal instead of sable stone. It groaned and belched thunder, then collapsed into an immense heap of smoking ash. Its great ruby eyes fell steaming through the dusty vapors to crash somewhere on the far side of the plaza.

The screams of slaves drew Tong’s attention back to the palace gate. A terrible brightness stung his eyes from above. A white panther tall as a stallion stood upon the arch above the gate, breathing a gout of pale flames across the Sydathians. Their bodies withered and fell from the wall like charred sides of beef, crashing and steaming at the feet of the rebels.

The panther roared a deafening challenge. It vomited a fresh blast of white flames, burning the last of the climbing ones from the gate.

Ianthe the Claw had come to defend her citadel.

Tong stared into the beast’s open maw, past the ivory fangs, into the dark void from which the white flames would pour again any second.

This is how his rebellion would end.

Scoured from the earth by Ianthe’s flaming ire.

A piercing screech penetrated his deafness, as the second golden eagle burst from rising smoke and struck the panther with tremendous force. Its flaming wings spread wide over the mighty cat as talons and beak dug into feline flesh. The panther threw its head back in agony, and white flames spurted skyward. Eagle and panther clashed atop the wall as a fresh wave of Sydathians climbed the gate. There was no stopping these eyeless warriors who feared neither flame nor death.

An oversized jungle bat flapped now about the barbed tower at the center of the black palace. The first golden eagle raced from its victory in the slaving plaza, trailing a line of golden flames. When these two beings collided above the city, a third sunburst split the leaden sky. A mass of whirling orange flames obscured their aerial duel.

Atop the palace gate, the white panther caught its avian foe’s wing in powerful jaws and twisted back. Now the burning eagle was Iardu in his gleaming orange robe. The beast held his right arm clamped between its fangs. Its black diamond eyes blazed with triumph.

Panther and sorcerer fell backwards into the courtyard beyond the gate. Chromatic light erupted, glinting on the skins of the Sydathians surmounting the gate.

Thunder and lightning flared beyond the black iron portals. Tong stood ready with sabre and knife. Any moment his eyeless brothers would fling open the gate. His freed men waited, eager to storm the halls of luxury and privilege. Eager to bring the empire of Gammir and Ianthe crashing down.

“Open the gate!” Tolgur shouted, but he need not have bothered.

The gates swung open at the hands of the eyeless ones. A courtyard of grand garden walks, sparkling fountains, and fruiting arbors now stood ablaze with flames of a dozen colors. The charred skeletons of Sydathians lay strewn among the fires. Beyond the burning trees and terraced hedges stood the palace proper; yet between its portico and the stumbling slaves stood a pale Giantess with clawed hands and raging eyes.

Leathery black pinions twitched upon her back, where the bones of her spine protruded like a row of thorns. She clutched Iardu’s limp form by the silvery hair of his head, her fangs sunk deep into his neck. She suckled at his opened throat, guzzling vital fluid. The sorcerer’s robe was torn to shreds, and his frail body hung in bloody tatters, white bones protruding from ruptured flesh. The blue flame no longer danced on his chest. A dark stain had replaced it.

Ianthe raised her white-maned head, spilling crimson from lips and chin. Iardu’s lifeblood sparkled on her throat and breasts. Her eyes, shards of onyx gleaming with dark splendor, turned to the mob of Men and Sydathians.

Tong stood foremost in their midst, the Prince of Slaves come to meet his mistress. Her gaze fell upon him, as if he alone had burst through her gate.

She dropped Iardu’s lifeless body to the ground, where it lay twisted and ragged.

“Come here, slave,” she purred. “Feed me…”