to ravish her and satisfy his inhuman lust. So the Prince went down into the Torture Garden alone to distract himself with blade and tongs, screams, and bits of torn flesh. He had no wish to dwell on what was happening in Ianthe’s lofty sanctum. Even among the wails of the dying slaves, he heard the moans of the Empress as her ecstasy spilled like a faint stink throughout the palace halls.
Not long after this tryst, the Vakai came flowing through the mirror like a deluge of black water, flooding out the sanctum windows, into the courtyard and the city beyond. They sank into the shadows and stones until they were called forth to flock behind the war fleet.
Four admirals commanded the Khyrein navy, but Ianthe set Gammir above them all. Now the Talon was his own ship, and she stood at his side calm and cool as marble. His thirst was rising… Nearly a full day since he drank the blood of nubile slaves. Tonight, Ianthe and he, and the host of shadows that followed like a black storm, would drink Sharrian blood.
There… The green coast came into view at last. The Valley of the Bull with its verdant slopes, the reedy delta thick with flocks of white birds, the city of white towers and azure pyramids, the cloud-painted ramparts. The smoke of temples rose into the evening sky like futile dreams… Their Gods would not help them this night. The sun kissed the western horizon. The inky waters in the fleet’s wake steamed now as if boiling.
Gammir saw the ghost of Tadarus standing near the rail, wrapped in his purple cloak, unstirred by the wind. Tadarus stared at him with eyes as blue as the Sharrian temples.
Brother…
Ianthe must have sensed something, for she turned her feline face toward the phantom. Yet it was gone. Perhaps he had only imagined it.
She leaned against him, her slim body wrapped in a crimson cloak and little else. She placed an arm about his waist and they eyed the blue-white city together. “Their King is already dead by your hand,” she said. “Whoever they have placed on his seat will be fearful and inexperienced, and they have no warning of our attack. This night Shar Dni belongs to us, Gammir. We will tear it to shreds, drain it dry as sand, burn it from the earth. We will build a new city on its ashes – your city. Its temples will worship us with blood and pain.”
She kissed his lips, stealing his senses. When she pulled away, the last rays of sunlight burned blood-bright across the Golden Sea. The Sharrian Navy rushed forward to meet the assault. A hundred gold-painted galleons flew the Sign of the Bull on their silks. The Khyrein warships crushed hapless fishing vessels caught in their path. Less than half the Sharrian ships had launched when night claimed the sky.
Now the legions of shadow rose from the waters like a wave of black clouds, roiling above the Khyrein vessels. Ianthe threw off her cloak, baring herself to the dark, and shouted into the mass of whirling shadows.
“Blood, Vakai!” She pointed her clawed finger at the Sharrian sails. “Your mistress offers the blood of all those aboard the golden ships! Take them! Feast, children of the void!”
A dark storm, lit by a mass of tiny red fires, rushed toward the Sharrian warships, which came boat after boat into the banks of howling shadow. Ianthe’s sorcerous wind fell away, and the black fleet crept slowly now toward the dark fog that consumed its enemies.
As the Talon moved closer at the head of a triangular formation, the shrieks of dying men reached Gammir’s ears. Famished Vakai swarmed the decks and rigging of his enemies, rending flesh and spilling blood. He licked his lips. Perhaps he should summon the phantom horse and join the blood-drinkers on those slippery decks.
“Be patient, Grandson,” said Ianthe, stroking his chin. “In the city beyond these meager ships runs a deep red river. We will sip from it soon.”
The black ships slid across the waves toward the wall of darkness. No golden galleons emerged from that writhing storm of shadows. Only the cries of dying men and the smell of steaming blood. The moon rose, a horned sickle between guttering stars.
At last the legions of Vakai rose back into the sky, leaving a hundred red-stained ships floating aimlessly with tattered sails. Their decks were littered with drained white bodies, trails of crimson spilling over the rails… a forest of unmanned ships waiting to be fired and scuttled.
A great war-shout went up among the Khyreins, and they sailed among the dead ships, torching and ramming them to make a path for the Talon. Gammir and Ianthe sailed through a corridor of burning ships, and the walls of Shar Dni loomed near. The black cloud of death hovered and writhed above the Talon. Clusters of flame-red eyes stared at the ripe city, thirsty for more slaughter.
Along the city wall the flames of sentinels burned bright, and legions of foot soldiers gathered to repel a siege. Gammir pictured in his mind the legions of cavalry inside the wall, forming up to ride forth and meet the invading Khyreins at the docks.
Doomed fools…
It mattered not whether they hunkered within those high walls or rode out to meet death like heroes. They were all going to die.
As the Talon left behind the forest of burning galleons, it entered the wide Sharrian bay. Trading ships and fishing vessels sat abandoned at the docks. It seemed everIt em›y Sharrian citizen had fled to the Southern Gate. Now that gate opened and ranks of cavalry charged out to defend the docks. They poured forth like bronze ants, thousands of spears glittering in the glow of stars and their own blazing ships.
Gammir watched them gallop toward the wharves and form their lines of battle. They were children playing some absurd game. He laughed at them from his perch behind the devil-head on the Talon ’s prow. His laughter spilled across the dark water like blood from rent flesh.
Ianthe raised her lithe arms toward the black cloud again, and the legions of Vakai fell like a black rain upon the legions of Shar Dni. Khyreins cheered, waving their swords and axes as their enemies were smothered by a pall of mutilating terrors. By the time the Vakai rose to hover above the heaps of slain men and horses, the Talon and its vanguard had seized the docks. Armored Khyreins bounded from the rails and raced among the scattered dead, falling into formation before the Southern Gate, now closed again and no doubt well barricaded.
Gammir took Ianthe’s hand and escorted her along the quay. They stepped between the shredded corpses of two thousand soldiers and the remains of their hapless mounts. The smell of blood filled his nostrils, filled the night itself, drowning even the stench of the burning galleons.
Beyond those gates… a red river to spill at our feet and quench our thirst.
Gammir smiled as the shadow legions floated over the mighty walls and sank into the city streets beyond. He waited only a moment for the symphony of screams to begin, and then it came.
He stood there, a Prince among his warriors, listening to the sound of a city being murdered. After a while he called forth from the feeding shadow legions a band of his own Vakai. They followed his orders gladly, blood-drunk as they were.
A sound of thunder came from behind the bronze gates. And again. A third time and the portals burst open, shadows flooding outward and upward.
As the Vakai moved across the maddened city, the Prince and Empress of Khyrei entered its streets in a haze of crimson glory.
The red river was indeed sweet.
And so very deep.
27
Atop a green hill stood the walled fortress of Zaashari, built of gray granite with a central tower overlooking the sea. Between the waves and the fortress lay the town of the same name. Its roads, residences, and warehouses spread from the citadel ramparts to the white-sand beach. Outlying farms girded the settlement in fields of ripe corn and olive trees. The sun blazed high between scattered clouds, but Zaashari lay in deep shadow. Riding on the back of the Feathered Serpent, Sharadza looked down upon the unnatural gloom that smothered the town. In the midst of that eerie dark, the armor and spears of Yaskathan legions glimmered like shifting constellations.
Khama’s flight from Mumbaza was shockingly fast, and only his sorcery kept her and Iardu from being swept
