“Who?”
Before Olem could answer, Arbor raised his hand and pointed toward the rubble of Sablethorn. Tamas flinched away from a sudden blinding light, and he held up one hand as he tried to see. Slowly, the light faded and resolved itself into a glowing figure a dozen feet above the wreckage. Sorcery swirled around her in white ribbons, and the clothes she wore dissolved beneath her own unveiled power.
Tamas gaped. Never had he seen anything like this. Not from Adom or from Julene or even from an entire royal cabal working in concert. He didn’t recognize the woman, but he could guess all the same; this was Cheris, Claremonte’s other half, the second face of the god Brude.
“Get the people back!” Tamas shouted. “Arbor, bring my soldiers into line. I want everything you can give me. Rifles, artillery. Everything!”
“Sir, we should retreat,” Olem said.
“Blast your retreating. I fight here and I die here. Get to the brigades waiting outside the city. Tell them to sack Claremonte’s headquarters at the palace. Kill everyone wearing a Brudanian uniform. For pit’s sake, avoid Claremonte himself!”
“Sir, you can’t–”
“That’s an order, man. Go!” As Olem sprinted away, Tamas drew his pistol and leveled it at the god, squeezing the trigger. The bullet disappeared into the swirling sorcery and had no visible effect. Tamas threw a powder charge into his mouth and chewed, feeling the power course through his veins.
The god rotated toward him, her face serene. Tamas drew his other pistol, aiming it at her eye, and pulled the trigger.
She was gone in the blink of an eye. Tamas stared hard at where she had just been, his pistol still held warily before him. “Where’d she go?”
“Here,” a voice whispered in his ear.
He whirled, but he was too slow. A hand like a steel vise closed around his neck and he felt himself lifted in the air, the breath choked from him. He was turned so that he looked into the eyes of the god.
“I gave you a chance.” Her voice was silky and feminine, but with an echo to it as if spoken inside the immense halls of a cathedral. He could hear the resonance of Claremonte within it. “I did not want this.” Tamas was lifted higher. He grasped at the fingers holding him, but he might as well have tried to pry away the unyielding hands of a marble statue. He struggled with all his strength, the power of ten men flowing through his veins, but it was as nothing to this god.
Cheris shook him like a doll. “I did not want this,” she repeated. “I wanted to do this the easy way. I would have led Adro to greatness. I would have united the Nine once again, toppled the rest of the monarchies, ushering in a modern era of prosperity and unity. I would have erased all memory of the old gods and created a utopia that Kresimir could never have accomplished.
“I could have done this all with bloodless revolution. I told myself that the people would choose wisely. That they would unite behind a man like Claremonte. But they didn’t, and now you’ve forced my hand. I will unite the Nine. I will unite the world. Even if I have to kill half the people on this planet to do it.”
Tamas felt his eyes bulging, his mind screaming from the lack of oxygen. He could feel his own struggles growing weaker. A bullet hit Cheris in the cheek and shattered without leaving a mark, pieces of lead ricocheting into Tamas’s shoulder.
“You obstinate shit,” Cheris said. “I would have had you lead my armies. What a waste.” He felt her fingers squeeze and he knew any moment his head would pop off his shoulders like the head of a dandelion torn off its stem. He thrashed and tore, and out of the corner of his vision he saw the swinging rifle stock.
Cheris did not.
The stock hit her in the side of the face hard enough to shatter the whole length of the weapon. Her head jerked to the side, if only slightly, and she turned to face Vlora with a look of disgust. Tamas was thrown, suddenly able to suck in a breath for only a moment before he hit Vlora and the two of them rolled across the cobbles of the square.
Tamas gasped, air cutting like knives through his injured windpipe. Vlora scrambled to her feet.
“Don’t you see that this is just a game to me?” Cheris demanded. “Do you not see how insignificant you are?”
Andriya, covered in blood and gravel and dust and screaming like a pit-born devil, ran at Cheris with his bayonet fixed. He thrust with enough force to skewer a bull. The blade struck Cheris in the belly, bending like it was made of rubber. Cheris twitched a finger and Andriya’s head exploded, showering Tamas and Vlora in blood. The body stumbled and fell, neck still spurting crimson.
“Fire!” Arbor’s voice bellowed.
The crack of two hundred muskets shattered the air, and Cheris turned toward the sudden hail of bullets and faced the ranks of Adran soldiers, as unperturbed as a man walking into a gentle rain. She lifted her hands, and Tamas opened his mouth to scream a warning to Arbor.
Taniel ran at the goddess with all the speed he could coax out of his body. She turned toward Arbor and the soldiers, and he knew that it would take her but a wink to do the same to them as she’d done to Andriya.
His fist connected with her chin and he heard an audible crack. The goddess spun fully around from his blow, toppling to her knees. She shrugged off the punch – a punch that might have put down an elephant – and was back on her feet in a moment, her face an expression of shock and outrage.
So he punched her again.
Cheris’s head jerked back. She raised a hand, and he felt a sudden pressure build in his ears, but he slapped her hand away and slammed his fist into her gut. She doubled over and he brought his elbow down on her shoulder, dropping her to her knees. He drew his fist back, ready to come down on the base of her spine.
Her punch to his stomach felt like he’d been hit by the prow of a Brudanian ship of the line. He stumbled, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth as he tried to regain his footing, but her second punch snapped his head back, sending him soaring through the air. It was with great surprise that he found himself still alive, forty feet away from the god. He stumbled to his feet, preparing to run at her again, but he could see that he now had the goddess’s undivided attention.
She flexed one hand, and Taniel felt as if a steel cage had snapped in place around him. His arms could barely move. His legs wouldn’t respond. The sorcery closed in on him. His bones and muscles protested against the pressure and it took all the strength he could summon to take one step forward.
Sweat poured off his brow and into his eyes. How was this possible? Not even Kresimir’s magic was this strong against the sorcery Ka-poel had woven into Taniel’s bones. Was Brude really stronger than Kresimir? What if Ka-poel’s wards weren’t powerful enough to hold off this god’s power?
He took another step forward and felt a scream of agony wrench itself from his lips. His vision blurred. He could feel the sorcery pushing down on him with the force of a mountain, but he knew that he had to end this. It was the only way to get back Ka-poel.
Suddenly the goddess was in front of him. He swung one fist and she stepped out of the way, catching his arm and slamming the tip of her finger into his shoulder. He groaned and she reached out one hand, grasping his face, and threw him away from her with an angry grunt.
She raised her hands and leapt into the air. He waited for her to come down upon him with the force of a mortar shell, but she stayed in the air, hovering well above his head. “Your lives are nothing to me. Surrender this battle now or I will lift this entire city into the air and drop it from a hundred miles up. Everything you’ve ever known and loved will die at once and there will be nothing you can do to stop it. Surrender!”
Taniel bared his teeth and looked toward his father, who was now on his feet, leaning against Vlora.
“Why don’t you do it, then?” Tamas demanded. “If we’re so insignificant, why do you hesitate to kill us? Go to the pit.”