The gate crashed open with a sound like thunder in the mountain passes. With a roar, the attacking force surged like a tidal wave into the city of Sepulvarta as the sun began its descent below the horizon.
“A fornication!” Anborn dragged his horse to a shocked halt. The Alliance forces quickly followed suit behind him. As they came to a stop in the center of the Pilgrim’s Road, the force that had assembled with the greatest of speed and had ridden with alacrity to the rescue of the holy city could only stare from atop horses dancing in place at the sight that unfolded before them.
Black smoke billowed from the towers and rooftops of the city, clogging the sky with ash and oily grit. Flames could be seen ascending from the rooftops, dancing off the tower of the Spire and lighting the night sky for miles around.
In the shining reflection of those fires, black winged beasts circled in the hazy air above the city proper, diving occasionally with the snap of an adder striking. And even from where they were, five miles or more off, the sound of screaming could be heard, rending the night.
“Lord Marshal—”
“Silence!” Anborn thundered, shifting atop his horse.
The Patriarch rode to his side and stopped next to him. His great craggy face, hidden within a peasant’s hood, was white as the ceremonial robes he often wore. “What are those figures flying above the city?” he asked, his thunderous voice strained. “I’ve no idea,” said Anborn, “but their presence changes everything. We are going to need a new plan of attack. I was prepared to break a simple siege, which we could do, even outnumbered. But with the enemy attacking from the air—”
“Contemplate it no further,” the Patriarch said, his voice stronger. “The city is lost—to intervene now would be to condemn every one of these men, and us, to death.”
Anborn’s eyes flared in fury. “That is your assessment as a battlefield commander?” he asked icily. The Patriarch shook his head, his eyes burning with angry fire. “That is the assessment of the Ring of Wisdom,” he said. He held up his hand; the clear stone in the ring was glowing as intensely as the sky above Sepulvarta. “I am now consigned to exile; if by turning myself over to the attacking force I could spare the city, I would do so. But that is not their intent. They have just moved the border of Sorbold north by the distance of my lands.”
“Indeed,” murmured Anborn. “And they no doubt expect to use the city as a base to annex as much of the southern Krevensfield Plain as they can.” He yanked back on the reins, ignoring the terrified whinny of his mount. “That area is too vast, too spread out to defend. All the people of those farming settlements and villages are border fodder if we don’t evacuate them to Roland immediately. Take one last look at the citadel, Your Grace; I expect the next time you come through here the place will be in ashes. And if they take the Spire, who knows what they will use it for.”
“I know,” replied the Patriarch. “And the horror of it defies description.”
Anborn was not listening; he had already turned and ridden the line, shouting orders to the troops for the mass evacuation that was to follow.
When daylight came, after a night of pillage and sacking, Fhremus called a halt to the hostilities. “Empty the basilica and seal it,” he ordered; Minus saluted and passed along the command. “Truly it is one of the wonders of the Known World; I’m sure the emperor does not wish to see it damaged any more than was necessary to subdue the city.”
He looked around at the remains of Sepulvarta. The historic white buildings were smeared and marred with soot; whole sections of the city, especially the pilgrim sites, were still in flames, and in the cobbled streets, blood ran in rivers between the stones. “Where is Faron?” he asked Trevnor.
The aide-de-camp shook his head. “I saw him last within the garden district, sir. He broke open the doors of the Patriarch’s manse, as directed, but then he went off on his own; we could not follow him in the smoke.”
“The Patriarch has still not been found?”
“No, sir. And the priests and acolytes in the manse swear they do not know where he is, even under pain of torture.”
“Hmm. Well, keep looking for them both. There is only one gate in the city wall— and Faron did not come back to it, so he must be in here somewhere. He’s rather large to overlook; I’m certain we will find him sooner rather than later.”
Fhremus’s certainty changed a short time later, when a massive hole was found in the wall at the northern edge of the city, torn through by what appeared to be a hand. When finally the earth beneath his feet had cooled sufficiently, Faron stopped. The battle had meant little to him. Destruction sometimes was a primal pleasure, but there was little of that in the sacking of Sepulvarta, though Faron had no idea why. Perhaps it had been the parsimoniousness of the commanders and the soldiers, the troops who were following him like a great pagan or animist god, not realizing that the great animist god was once a quivering pile of pale dying flesh, gelatinous and pathetic, until Talquist had sealed him within this body of Living Stone on the Scales of Jierna Tal. Faron had found the transformation ironic at best, child of the demon spirit that he was, he had come to be sealed within a Vault of Living Stone just as his father had once been.
Titan or no, soldier of incomprehensible strength or carnival atrocity, Faron missed his father deeply. In spite of the abuse he had suffered at his hands, he had been for the most part lovingly cared for by the man whose body the demon clung to, a man that had been called the Seneschal later in life, but in earlier times had been known as Michael, the Wind of Death. He had regaled a fascinated Faron with the exploits of his days as a soldier, had made him long for a body that would allow him to follow his father on such exploits, such joyful outings of murder and pillage, but nature had not been kind to him.
And ironically, now that he had the perfect housing for a soldier, he was alone, being directed by men he cared nothing for, who he could crush with a mere thought. Somewhere on the wind there was a hint of dark fire. Faron had no idea how he was aware of this, but in the depths of his solid being something had stirred, had called to him off to the north, something he recognized from the time before everything had gone sour. Faron reached into the huge leather belt at his waist, once the harness for a team of horses, and clumsily pulled out the blue scale.
It was his favorite, he thought, the card that allowed him to see hidden things, or objects at great distance. He loved the picture that had been drawn on it as well; one side bore the image of a clear eye, the other one an eye shrouded in clouds, much like his own milky blue ones. He could not see anything yet, but there was enough invisible ash on the wind that the scale hummed with life when he held it in a northerly direction. Whatever was there was too far away to be seen yet, but he could follow its path.
And maybe find one of his own kind.
Faron turned his primitive head in that direction and followed the faint whisper of evil creosote, leaving the noise and chaos of the burning city behind him.
31
The dragon extended her claws in her torpor, reveling in her ease and the dimming of the pain that had been chewing on her since the turn of the moon.
With the partial healing of her body came a similarly partial revival of her memory. Deep in slumber, she was dreaming now, and in those dreams she did not inhabit the draconic form that was her current reality, but rather she was a woman, the Lady of legendary beauty and power that she had been only a short time ago.