Wars in the Storm Age

The wind driven ahead of the storm was heavy and smelled of war, and in among the ruins it gathered up dust and whirled it into the shapes of devils out of the past. All around reared statues and reliefs cut by the hands of men who were almost gods, and now carved again by the wind and the sand of the desert. Al’kirr stood in the shadow of giants and the dying sun glinted on the spears of her warriors. She stood ahead of them, on a point of sand-blasted stone, and looked north to where the dark shadow of her enemy came over the earth.

Riding ahead of the storm, below a darkening sky that flickered as though the lighting itself lashed them on, came the riders of Masur the Dragoncrowned. His men rode behind him in a sweep of black-robed riders, cloaks billowing in the hot wind. She saw the gleam of storm-fire on spears and swords, heard the thunder of hooves beneath the growl of the storm. Two hundred men at the least, each of them a hardened desert hunter and killer, each with blood on their hands and on their swords.

Al’kirr awaited them with her bow in her hands, sword sheathed at her side. Her men wore red, in honor of their ancestors who once ruled this place. She wore red and gold, for she was their Queen, the Heir of the Stormriders. Above her veil, her eyes were wide and glinted like gold, rimmed with kohl and indigo. She crouched down and put her hand on the rock, felt the vibrations of the horses. She had less than a hundred men, all of them weary and thirsty. A moon of battles, a moon of blood, and now this remnant of her army waited here to die, in this place where once her bloodline were as gods.

She gathered up a handful of sand and felt it sift through her fingers, then she stood and let it fall, judging the wind. It was chaotic, swirling and eddying on the forward edge of the storm. Al’kirr had hoped to lose him here, to shelter in the ruins while the storm came in and drove him away, but he would not stop, and now it seemed they would spill their blood upon this ancient sand while the skies thundered and cast down fire.

The riders came closer, thundering along the great avenue between the fallen towers and the pillars that jutted skyward like bones. Al’kirr set an arrow to her string and bent her slender bow, feeling the power in it, feeling it tremble in her hand like a hawk waiting to fly. Her archers lifted their bows as well, and she closed her eyes a moment, uttered up an invocation to those who ruled here, when this city was the jewel of the world. Then she opened her eyes, held her breath, and loosed.

o0o

In the elder days the sky was a blue like the azurite crystals of the great dome where the Emperor dwelled, and there was no desert but a land of green and many rivers. The great towers of the city of Zamla rose up into the perfect sky, and the lords of the Empire were masters of the sky upon their giant eagles. Where their shadows crossed the common men flung themselves upon the earth and worshiped, for it was the great birds that made them safe, who ruled sky and earth below.

It was the Storm Age when the Dragons came from the north. Under a black cloud rode a great army, dark and grim-eyed, and over their host flew the dark shadows of scaled and terrible beasts, and on their backs rode dark lords with crimson eyes and swords of hungry steel. Lightning scarred the green earth, and wind ripped down the forests, and rain flooded the rivers and washed away villages and bridges. The Dragon Lords drove all before them, and lesser men fled to the gates of Zamla and begged the lords of the sky to succor them.

And so the winglords rose up on their great steeds, and their armies flooded forth upon the land, and in gleaming steel and burnished shield they marched to meet the dark lords, and the very sky seemed ready to split apart and crack the earth in two. The sound of the two hosts when they met drove men to madness, the very sound of it. The war-drums and the battle-horns, and over all the bellows of the dragons, and the screams of eagles. Lightning lit their swords with storm-fire, and the clash of arms was like the crashing of a great wave upon the shore.

o0o

Al’kirr sent her arrows into the storm, one after another, while her archers followed and sent shafts sleeting into the foe. She saw men among her enemies go down, saw horses stumble and be crushed beneath the charge, saw dead men trampled to pieces, but they did not slow. She sent her last arrow into the onrushing wave, and then she cast her bow aside and drew her sword. The slash of lightning and the red glow of the choking sun reflected in the steel, and she gripped it in both hands even as her men drew in close and braced their spears. Their horses were dead, their blood drunk to keep the men alive; now they set themselves among the rocks and fallen pillars, ready for war.

The black riders rushed up the long slope, but then their attack broke up among the tumbled stones of the ruins. They sent arrows in clouds, and then men with sword and spear tried to rush in and break their line. Al’kirr stood upon a rock at the center of the line, like the prow of a stone ship, and she did not cringe or shy from the arrows that slashed around her. Horsemen rode up, spears reached for her, and she cut down at the enemy as the battle lines crushed together.

In a moment she was engulfed in the storm of war. Horses screamed and plunged, spears flashed like lightning among dark clouds, and blood spattered and fell like rain upon the thirsty earth. She struck great blows with her deadly sword, the keen edge sundering mail and flesh alike. Her men thrust their spears into the tumult and drew them back red. Horses died among the rocks and men fell dead atop them, and the corpses choked the rocks and blocked the way of the attack. The dragon warriors rode up and over the heaps of the slain, trod upon the fallen to reach their enemies, and the wave of the battle built up and fell like a cresting swell.

o0o

On that far-off day the giant eagles screamed and the dragons swooped between pillars of cold lightning beneath the black iron sky of the storm. Armies clashed below upon the plain, among the trees and green grass, and they flooded the soil with dark blood even as the rain began to pour down upon them. Lines of spearmen crashed together, and the sounds of steel upon shield was like the clangor of drums or the hammers of a forge. Horsemen collided, and sword and axe beat upon bright helms and burnished armor.

In the sky the true war was made, and the great eagles threw themselves upon the scaled minions of the storm-bringers. They stooped on them as they might hunt wolves or serpents, and their long dread talons ripped deep into the mailed flesh, drawing the burning blood of the great wyrms. Beaks hard as bronze slashed and the great birds screamed their fury. The dragons twisted beneath them, rearing back their coiled necks, and they snapped their dagger jaws and breathed fire into the black sky.

The eagle-riders loomed like the idols of war-gods on their great saddles. Armored and implacable, they struck with their long lances, spearing the rune-etched steel into dragonflesh. Even as eagle and wyrm tumbled over and over in the air, rending at one another, the riders reared up and smote one another with lance and great sword and two-handed axe. The dragonriders wore masks hammered into the faces of monsters, and they showed no fear. They struck with poisoned steel, and the wounds they gave bled and did not cease. The eagle-lords hewed them and shed their black blood, hacked off their arms and their heads and let them fall to the surging battle below.

The storm encompassed them, and the winds whirled bird and beast alike in a gyre without end. Unable to see, they smashed together, clung to the bodies of their foes even as they slew and were slain. Dead men fell from the sky and crashed down to the armies below in a rain of blood. Lightning slashed the sky and great eagles were suffused and blasted apart by the fire. Even the great dragons were seared and blackened by the power of it.

It scoured the earth, and ally and enemy alike were slain by the bolts from above. Rain gushed down until men were blinded, and could see nothing but the men before them as they killed and killed and finally died in turn, dragged down and butchered in the mud. Even as the battle raged, the fallen hurtled down from the sky, blazing, to crash among the warriors, drunk and blinded by war, deafened by the thunder like great battle-drums at work.

o0o

Al’kirr was in mid-stroke when the rain fell and the storm struck like an axe-blow. The wind smashed across the lines, pushing men off their feet, and after days without water she was suddenly half-drowned by the rain. It poured over men and over the dry earth and washed about their feet like waves on a sea. It knocked men over and swept them away. The rain fell sideways in the terrible wind, driven like arrows, and from the blaze of sun they were all plunged into darkness under a black sky, lit only by the frantic fire of the lightning.

The battle faltered under the very force of the storm, and Al’kirr spat rain and blood from her mouth and seized the bridle of a horse. She pulled the great head down, saw the rolling white eye close to her own, and then she swung up into the empty saddle. From her seat she looked across the field of war and under the flash of the storm it looked like a war of insects or of worms, all writhing mindlessly beneath the rain. She felt a tightness across her skin, a lifting of the hairs on her arms, and when she lifted her sword green fire blazed from the tip and seemed to flicker across the whole battle, illuminating spear-points and helms and the rims of shields.

She saw Masur then across the battle, tall upon his black steed, crowned with the teeth of dragons and his scaled armor gleaming with the stormfire. He lifted his black sword and green flame played upon the steel, and it was an answer. Al’kirr spurred her stolen horse and crushed ahead through the breaking ranks of her foes. Her sword swept down to one side and another, cutting down any who stood in her way, and she left them bleeding in the flood-tide of the storm, the rain rushing in torrents down the dry desert channels and gullies. It was as if she rode over the sea, under the curse of lightning, until she met her enemy in the teeth of the storm.

o0o

It was a broken host that staggered back across the scoured earth to the great city of Zamla. The few winglords who remained rode their wounded, tattered eagles over an army that limped and struggled onward. Many were wounded, their armor rent and their swords notched and seared black. They bore upon their flesh the braided scars of lightning, and the burns of dragonfire. They left a trail of blood and the dead behind them, as those too sorely wounded to go on slit their own throats and fell bleeding to the earth.

Behind them came the storm, unstoppable, inexorable. Lightning walked the land like giants, and the thunder tolled like hammers in the sky. Beneath the blackened anvil of clouds the army pressed onward. Their ranks were thinned, and those dragons that still flew bore the scars of eagle talons, but their battle standards snapped and bellowed in the fierce wind, and they would not stop until the great city fell before them.

When it came in sight, the great towers glowed in the light of the sunset, and the bloody moon stood high before the day was gone. The lords of the sky drew inside the great walls, shut the silver gates, and stood to arms upon the battlements. The last of the winglords rose up into the sky in a widening spiral, even as the wind began to howl. They saw the great cloud of the storm close in upon them, stretching out to the east and to the west like the arms of a great sea, before it closed about them on all sides, and only the sky above the city itself remained clear.

Lightning stalked and turned men’s faces white, left claw-marks on their vision, and the dragons hove in over the city walls. Their tails lashed and crushed in towers, and their fire poured over the battlements and sent men screaming into death as they plunged over the parapet. The eagles shrieked down like arrows, and then there was war in the sky. Tooth and claw and bloody lance flashed in the dying light.

Without, the black host hurled their strength against the seven gates. They battered the silver with war-engines, and climbed the white walls with ladders and hooks. Arrows scythed through the air, and men on both sides fell in multitudes, until the earth at the base of the walls was heaped with the slain.

Wounded unto death, a great dragon crashed upon the great gate, and burst it apart with scales flesh and pouring fire. The war-towers moved in and warriors flooded the walls, even as men rushed through the shattered gate. They trod upon dragonfire as they coursed through into the city and met the last line of defenders in a howling wrath of blood and steel, while fire rained from the sky.

o0o

Al’kirr met the Dragoncrowned there in the night of storms, with fire upon her ancient sword. Their steel crashed and sparked together as they fought, trading stroke for stroke. Beneath his fanged crown his face was hidden and black, and she saw only his eyes burning in the darkness. When their blades met there was a flash of spark as the green stormlight leaped from one edge to the other and back again. The thunder above was a continuous roar, and the rain slashed like daggers so she could see nothing save her enemy.

They spun in their dark circle of steel, striking and parrying, horses spinning and rearing and snapping at each other. His steed was immense and so he smote at her from on high, driving his strokes down with terrible force; she met his blows ringing on her blade, then slashed at him, cutting pieces from his cloak and scoring the dark mail he wore beneath. His horse snapped at her with teeth like fangs and she dashed the pommel of her sword against it and sent it screaming back, bloody-mouthed.

In answer Masur swept his blade down and split her mount’s skull with a single stroke, and she had to leap away as it fell to the earth and thrashed there in the floodwaters. She struggled up as his steed reared over her, hooves slashing, and then she ducked beneath and ripped her blade across its belly, gutting it in a torrent of blood and entrails.

It reared and staggered, legs tangling in its own viscera until it collapsed to the earth, and Masur stood on his feet and held his blazing sword up before him like a torch-flame. Lightning flung its spear across the heavens, and the wind made Al’kirr stagger, but she held her sword up on answer. She could not see her own men, could not see how the battle fared. All she saw was this one, descendent of her ancestral enemies, bane of her bloodline, and she rushed once more to meet him in a steel-edged instant.

o0o

At the last, the Emperor himself rode forth from his azurite palace upon a white eagle, and he did battle in the sky with the great dark lord of the enemy. Lightning struck down and shattered the towers, broke the domes of the gorgeous palaces and flung them to the earth. Eagle and dragon met in the tormented sky, and the dragonlord smote down and slew the eagle with a blow of his sword. They hurtled downward to the earth, and the emperor was cast to the ground in the grand plaza before the gates of his palace.

The dragon reared above him, deathly and boiling with fire, but the emperor drove his white sword into the scaled belly and rent the sizzling flesh, and the dragon fell dying upon the stones, breaking them in its death-throes and scorching them with fire and black blood. The storm-bringer rose up from the wreck of his beast and did battle with the emperor, and their swords met with a singing sound that drove men to their knees when they heard it.

The two sovereigns fought desperately in the eye of the storm while the city was scourged and bloodied around them. They hacked and clove until their armor was rent and each of them staggered from small wounds, painting steel and stone with their royal blood. In the end the emperor faltered, and the dark lord struck him a terrible blow on his helm, and the crown of the empire sundered apart and lay in pieces where the last emperor’s lifeblood poured out upon the stone.

Thus ended the Storm Age.

o0o

Al’kirr and her enemy fought in the sweep of floodwaters and the cry of the wind. Their swords crashed and sang against one another as they sought one another’s blood, blinded to all else. The rain soaked them and their clothes clung to their bodies, water poured over their helms and armor, ran down their swords. They waded in the wash in among the blood and bodies and broken stone, and neither of them gave way. Half hidden by the storm was a clash of skill and hunger that had not been seen for long ages, and they did battle like gods from the lost dawn of the world.

Masur shoved her back and her foot turned on a submerged stone, and she fell. He leaped in to finish her, but his over-eager stroke missed and cut into the wet stone beside her. She lost her sword as she struggled to rise, and before he could free his blade she drew her knife and leaped upon him, stabbing for his heart.

They went down in the waters, and thrashed there like fighting snakes. His scaled armor turned her dagger-strokes, and then he drew his own fanglike knife and she had to catch his wrist to hold it away. He caught her knife arm and they strained together, gasping and snarling, each seeking to free their weapon and strike a killing blow.

He was stronger, and Al’kirr knew she would never overcome him. Moment by moment he was closer to tearing free of her grasp, and so she turned and used her weight to force his head beneath the water. He thrashed as the floodwaters closed over him, and he found he could either hold her dagger back, or hold his head above the tide. He tried to get free with a final convulsion of strength, but she wrenched her arm free and stabbed down, felt her blade bite through his mail before the blade snapped.

He threw her off, and she clawed backward through the water as he rose. His dagger gleamed with stormfire, illuminated by the curses of lightning. His eyes flamed in the darkness of his crowned helm, and he came towards her.

Then her hand closed upon the hilt of her sword beneath the flood, and she grasped it tightly. Even as he came down upon her she rose up, sword scattering water in a light-shining fan, and then she struck him hard on the shoulder. The edge bit through his mail and loosed a bright gout of blood, black as night under the pallid light of the storm. She ripped her blade loose as he stumbled, and then she raised it so far her hands touched her back between her shoulders before she brought it down.

The shining edge struck the front of his helm, and it shattered the dragon crown in a flash of green fire that burst it apart. The stroke dented in the helm and sent Masur to his knees, blood pouring from beneath his helmet, covering his face like a mask. He fell back against the stone, and Al’kirr struck him a third time, and her blade cut through his neck and then clove the stone before it snapped in two, and the broken steel fell into the water where his blood poured out in a darker flood.

Even as he fell, the storm began to break. The lightning faded and receded, as though it fled, and the sky began to open up above her. Al’kirr stood in the waters that washed about her feet and looked up as the storm front coiled and tattered and shattered apart. She stood in a kind of awe as the rain slackened, and the winds died, and the water began to drain away into the empty places in the desert.

She looked up as the light returned, and she saw her men, and among them the enemy. So many lay dead in the fleeing waters, but when they saw their lord slain they cast down their weapons and bowed to their knees, and such of her men as still stood stared at her, amazed. The storm died, and the last light of the setting sun touched the lost remnant of a dome once girded with azurite. Al’kirr held up her sword, and her followers shouted in answer as they felt the coming of a new age.