Seven Sorcerers(93)
Before we enter I ask Mendices one more question. My voice lowers so that only he and I can hear it. “How many legions does Uurz yet possess?”
“Twelve,” says the Warlord. “Yet there is no King to lead them.” He walks back down the corridor as the big doors open from the inside. An Uduri spearmaiden stands before us. In the rush of thoughts that fills my mind, I cannot recall her name. Sharadza rushes past her. I follow with Alua and Vaazhia in tow. Alua’s steps are hesitant, as if she were a virgin bride walking to meet her ordained husband for the first time.
The chamber is a broad oval, supported by columns of purple marble veined with black. The colors of Udurum. On a great bed at its far end lies Vireon, as small now as any normal man. Twenty-two solemn Uduri stand about the flame-lit chamber, their yellow braids gleaming like strands of gemstones upon their shoulders. Their faces turn to me, then to Sharadza, and finally to Alua. Recognizing the Queen they all thought to be dead, the awed Uduri fall to their knees. All save one, who was already on her knees at the bedside of Vireon. She weeps, but her eyes are fixed upon the dying King. She holds his small hand in her great one.
Sharadza steps near to her sleeping brother. A thick bandage stained to crimson encircles Vireon’s entire abdomen. I recall the name of the Giantess who holds Vireon’s hand. It is Dahrima, first among his household guard. She embraces Sharadza as one of her sisters, and the two weep together.
As I approach with Vaazhia at my side, Alua walks more slowly. She does not know how to respond to these Giantesses who seem to worship her. Ianthe stole so much of her memory, I wonder if she remembers any of the spearmaidens.
Dahrima’s wet eyes look up from Sharadza’s to meet those of Alua.
Whatever emotions glimmer there like doused embers, I cannot name them. Yet the Giantess backs away from the returned Queen, as if in horror. Dahrima cannot long meet Alua’s gaze, so she turns away and leaves the bedside. She takes her longspear from the wall and finds her station among the rest of the Uduri, who have risen to their feet again. They stand solid as statues, waiting for their King to rise up and lead them again into battle. Or waiting perhaps to carry his bones toward a distant tomb.
Sharadza takes Vireon’s hand. She speaks his name, but his eyes do not flutter. His breathing is shallow, his face pale. There is little life remaining inside his body.
Alua looks at her husband with an impenetrable expression. Is it fear, or love, or both? Her eyes are dry, and as cool as black ice. She remains silent. The sobbing of Sharadza and the crackling of flames fills the chamber as I draw near to the one I have failed.
She had run all night long, and well into the next morning. The blood had dried across her lower body in the first few hours, a second skin of brackish purple.
When the sun arose it was a white disk set in a gray sky. A soft, warm rain fell, washing the gore from her hair and skin as she sprinted. Traces of it remained stuck in the grooves of her corslet and beneath her nails. It had stained her leggings and boots thoroughly. The great wound in Vireon’s chest, and the matching hole in his back, had clotted in her tight grip. It oozed darkly now rather than bleeding.
Her spearsisters followed, ragged and exhausted. The ones who had escaped major wounds caught up to her, while the rest fell behind. Twenty-two Uduri had survived the massacre in the valley; six spearsisters had been slain by the killing lights, yet none by the blades of Manslayers.
Dahrima wondered as she ran: How many Udvorg and Uduru had the sorcerers burned alive? Hundreds, at the least, along with thousands of Men.
She had not run toward any specific destination, not at first. She only meant to get Vireon as far away from his enemies as possible. It was a kind of madness that had fallen upon her. The madness of grief.
The soft rains grew into a steady downpour, and the stalks of steppe grass stood as high as the belts of the Uduri. Men could easily get lost in that forest of long grasses, and often they did so. It was Vantha the Tigress who had finally convinced Dahrima to stop and take a moment of rest. Vireon was still breathing, though Dahrima could not get his eyes to stay open. He felt weightless in her arms, and she feared there would be no lifeblood left inside his veins by the next sunrise.
Atha Spearhawk wrapped the Giant-King’s chest tightly with a woolen cloak taken from a passing villager. Dahrima had failed to notice the isolated farming villages that dotted the plain. The cloakless farmer ran back to his collection of tiny huts and roused his folk. They fled southwest toward the gates of Uurz. Atha told the farm folk to spread warning of the bloody horde that would soon cross their plain, and she claimed the cloak as payment for the information.