The City of Iron and Bone

The red sun cut the far horizons of the sea, and the sky was alive with ten thousand stars when Shath rode over the crest of the hill and looked upon Zur, the black city of the emperors once again. He had come to it as a prisoner, and now he came to conquer as he had sworn he would on that long-ago day. The wind was cold out of the sky, seeming to blow from the desolate places between stars, and he smelled the hot, reeking smoke of burning corpses.

The city was changed from his last vision of it. The walls were still towering and polished, black as obsidian, but the sky above the city was dark with the murk of many fires, pillars of smoke rising up from below to gather in a cloud that glowed from the light of the city cast against it. Motes wheeled in the darkened sky, and he knew they were the Skylords Kurux still commanded. They flew high on their leather-winged beasts and awaited the command to strike. Bolts of violet lightning lanced down from the smoke clouds and touched the tips of the innumerable towers, scrawling them with fire.

It was a city out of the ages, a city of ancient noble houses and depthless intrigue. It was a city older than memory, and its walls were mortared with the blood of slaves and those ground beneath the hell of the imperial might. The great gate stood shut, the bars of the portcullis like fangs stained red in the dawn fire. Zur slumbered like a great demon, hungry and fearless. It did not know that it would break today before the sun fell.

He reined in his war-steed as the mass of his Urugan warriors came up around him. They sang a low, echoing song of longing for battle, and they parted around him and rode down onto the plain around the black city. Already he saw specks of people fleeing from the ragged shantytowns outside the walls, clinging to the path of the rover where it flowed past the towering fortifications. He knew Kurux would not allow them inside the gates. The city was already fitted for war, fires blazing on tower and battlement.

The footfalls of the dragon echoed, and he looked up as Ashari rode to take her place beside him. Her beast was taller, fire dripping from its maw, and she sat on her shaded litter high on its back, her face veiled so only her eyes and horns showed what she was beneath her gilded silks. There was a sword sheathed at her side, but she would not draw it today. Today her battlefield was in the mind.

“Do you sense him?” Shath said, wondering what that inner world looked like to her, what she saw with her mind’s eye.

“I do,” she said. “He is not yet roused, but he is here, hanging like a shroud over the city. I cannot guess what it must be like to dwell here in his shadow. Day and night, year after year. It would break the mind of an ordinary man or woman. They will be like slaves to him, and there will be no slave mind here for him to channel his will. Here he will master them himself.”

“And you will face him,” Shath said. “You will not grapple with some devil he has made from flesh, but with his own strength. Can you match him?”

Her yellow gaze flickered. “That I cannot know. Were it only his strength, then perhaps, but I know it is not.”

“So you have said. You glimpsed some other power behind him. Something ancient and fell.” Shath believed it, but he waited to see it for himself. The world was full of ancient things, and many of them were no more than shadows.

“Something has guided him, made him great in his way,” she said. “No mortal man ever commanded this kind of power. It was given to him. Some black power lurks behind him like a shadow, and we will see it soon.” She narrowed her eyes at the glow as the sun rose before them. “He has not called forth that power fully. Not yet. We must all hope we are equal to it.”

“I fear no darkness.” Shath looked up toward the sky, and among the stars he knew there hung the hand of power that cast down his sword of fire. This was the moment for which it had been forged, this was the day that he had carried it to for this single moment of battle, and he would not be denied what he had so long awaited. The shadows of the eagles above flew past him, lightning arcing between them, and he smiled. “On this day, it is not for us to fear.”

o0o

The war-horns blew and the drums sounded the call to battle. The legions of the Urugan gathered in their ranks, hundreds upon thousands, and Ashari’s army stood to their spears behind a wall of shields, her riders on the flanks with their long, glassine lances. Ashari herself awaited behind the lines, seated on her dragon and watching the walls. She sensed the mind of the emperor awaiting there, hiding his intentions, refusing to show himself until the appointed moment. She remembered the glance of his terrible counselor, half-seen in the dark, and she wondered what awful power he had called forth. Very soon she would meet that power, and she did not know if she could withstand it.

The engines of war drew up in long ranks and began to batter at the towering walls. She watched as fire and stone and iron were hurled against the fortifications. Flaming missiles and stones and steel-headed bolts hammered at the smooth black walls and the horned gate. In answer the defenders of the city loosed their own machines, and the air filled with the scream of missiles and the smashing of stone and the roar of flame.

Ashari cast her mind outward, seeking the power she knew awaited her. She felt his mind there, like water running beneath the ground, controlling his legions and directing the battle, but that was not the greater part of his strength. She sensed it like a pillar of darkness hidden from her eye, a greater weight ready to be unleashed, and she knew she must draw him forth and not allow him to choose his moment.

She lashed out and cut the strands that bound the defenders in obedience, and she saw the hail of arrows falter at once. She expected a retaliatory strike, but none came. She drove forth her power and pushed the men on the walls into fear that made them flee from their posts. The defense upon the gates dissolved in her grasp, and nothing came to oppose her. That was when she knew that he had no desire to defend the gate, and she felt fear blossom inside her.

In desperation she reached beyond the gates, through the thousand towers of the city, to the great black palace where Kurux awaited, his strength gathered about him like a storm, and she struck for the heart of it with a blazing lance of her inner strength.

Pain arced through her as her attack shattered against its target, and then her mind was caught in a terrible grasp that crushed in upon her like the coils of a serpent. She fought against it, but the strength was too great, and she cried out, unheard, as the enemy mind began to strangle the life from her.

o0o

Tathar watched for the sign, and he saw the host of the imperial Skylords circling above the city, coiling about the great spires of the palace itself. If they came to attack the army, he would gladly strike them, but if they did not oblige him with an attack, then he would carry it to them.

He watched the army below attack the gates, engines of war trying to batter through. He doubted any power could force the great gates, but perhaps Shath’s sky-sword could accomplish what mortal strength could not. He saw the defenders roil and stream back from the walls under Ashari’s mental assault, and he wondered if the walls could be taken by a simple attack after all.

Then the legions came rushing back, and he knew Ashari had failed. He looked out over the smoking city that had once been his home, and he hated Kurux as never before. He had taken an empire built on honor and conquest into a place of death and slaughter. Now the legions marched and killed and nothing was built from the ruin but more death. Now there were piles of skulls and incinerated bodies where there had been memorials to the slain.

The Skylords did not come, and so Tathar tired of waiting. He pointed his lance forward, and Zakai screamed as he threshed the air with his crimson wings. All his warriors came in his wake upon their eagles, and he felt a joy in his limbs as he had not for years. They were the Skylords now, riding to war as of old, and no host of slaves on repulsive beasts would take from him the name he had borne all his life. Now lightning would scourge the unclean.

The eagles swept into the city, weaving between the massive, reaching towers, scattering lightning from their lances, and now he saw the enemy form into triads and come to meet them, their beasts braying into the wind as they flew, lashing their stingers. The armored forms of the riders were faceless, but he despised them no less. He led his eagle riders onward, and the two forces met in the sky amid clashing spears of fire.

o0o

Shath watched the attack unfold. He saw the flights of arrows slacken, and he ordered Ashari’s legions forward, dragging their siege weapons behind them. They worked in close and began to blast the walls with gouts of fire and the gate with projectiles that exploded in flashes of green flame. Tathar had promised him that no weapon would breach the great gate, and now he thought perhaps it was true. All the weight of fire hurled against it made no impression on the gleaming dark fangs of the portcullis, and the walls looked down on them, unmoved by whatever was sent against them.

Then the arrows sleeted down in a hail of death, and the defenders swarmed the walls again. They hurled down flaming bolts and burning oil, turning the earth into fire and sear, so that the walls themselves seemed to float on a billow of black smoke. He looked to where Ashari sat on her beast, wondering what had happened, but she was only a shrouded form to his eye. He could not see the inner war she waged. If she was losing her battle, he could not help her, he had to fight his own.

“Call them back,” he commanded, and the battle drums sounded to pull the men back from the walls. The Urugan knew what was coming and they set up a terrible chanting, beating their spears and axe-hafts against their shields. They watched as Ashari’s forces drew away from the wall, leaving behind the siege weapons that would now have no purpose. Shath did not intend to leave anything standing that such a weapon would strike against. He would obliterate the great barrier of the gate with a power out of the ancient days.

He looked up, lifted his arm, and called forth the power. He saw again the paths of the stars etched upon his vision and felt a flood of knowledge that he could only partly grasp, and then he saw the flare high above in the starlit deeps, and he knew his hour had come round at last.

There was a glow, like another sun being born in the ashes of the sky, and then a distant thunder grew, shaking through the earth, rattling teeth and bones. Shath raised his iron fist into the air and shouted forth the war-cry of his destroyed people as a column of fire burned down from on high and smote upon the gates of the city like a hammer of the gods themselves.

o0o

Tathar swooped around a tower and blasted an enemy from the sky with his lance, sending the blackened form to hurtle down and smote upon the city below in his ruin. Zakai screamed in defiance and his wings carried them both higher, looking down upon the city streets that he had once known so well. Now Zur looked like an insect hive to him, filled by little burrows where drones slaved in darkness and fear.

He heard the thunder, and then the sky above lit with new fire. He looked, and there he saw the sword of Shath blasting downward from the heavens. He knew what that power would do, and he lashed the sky with lightning to signal his people to turn and flee with all their speed. Nothing that flew could endure the pressure wave from that terrible stroke, and if they did not escape, they would be torn from the sky.

Even as Zakai lowered his head and strove for speed, Tathar could not resist looking back. The flash of fire seared his vision and made him shy away, and then there was a terrible, crystalline moment when the pillar of white destruction stood still, as though it were made of something material and not an ephemeral moment of death.

And then the moment broke and the gates of the city vanished in a moment, transformed into dust and ash, every defender turned to fire. A wall of dust and ruin rose up and came rushing outward, and before it came a call like thunder that cast people to the ground and sent eagles flipping over and over in the sky. Towers cracked and fell in shattering majesty, and then the shockwave tore through the city streets, raising a storm of wreckage that glittered like knives as it washed outward.

Zakai screamed as two of the sky beasts fell on them, and claws drew blood and tails lashed. They tumbled through the air, Tathar striking with his smoking lance, dealing death with fury until they could break free, but it was moments too late.

Tathar held on as Zakai fought to get ahead of the wave, but it washed over them, and then he was torn from the saddle and cast outward into the maelstrom, reaching out for something to stay him from falling, anything. His hands clutched in vain, and the fire came and swallowed him up.

o0o

Ashari was moments from falling into darkness when a blow fell upon the power that held her, and then she took that moment of weakness and tore herself free, snapping back into her body with such force that she reeled in the saddle. Before her rose a wall of dust and smoke, and she covered her face as a wind like a storm lashed across her, knocking half her army to the ground, even the Urugan struggling to control their beasts in the sudden fury.

When the storm had passed, she looked upon the city and saw it was transformed. The gates had vanished into a crater from which a column of smoke boiled upward to the sky, and the city beyond was marked by the blast, with towers cracked and even now slumping and collapsing upon themselves. The streets were filled with debris and the shredded remains of the defenders of the wall, scattered like dead leaves. The air blew hot as fires rose, and the air still echoed with the sound of destruction, like thunder fading away into the far horizons.

War-horns called, and drums beat out the commands for war. The Urugan, fearless and savage, threw themselves back into their saddles and surged forward, a tide of bloodlust and ferocity such as few had ever seen. The horde of them swept toward the ruins of the gate, flowed fearlessly down into the hollowed crater and then back out, through fire and smoke, and they began to pour into the city itself. The gates of empire had been breached, and no power to could keep them out now.

Ashari ordered her own armies forward, but the Urugan so choked the breach that they could not advance all at once. They stood in their ranks as the feral tide of riders flooded into the streets. She could see a ragged horde of defenders trying to block the path, but the Urugan were unleashed at last, free to vent their battle-fury upon their enemies, and they stained the city red with blood in a crush of sword and axe and spear.

She lifted up her gaze to look beyond the walls and the slaughter to where the palace of the emperors dreamed upon a cloud of blackened smoke. She still felt the power of Kurux there, coiling like a waiting serpent. For what moment did he hold himself? What was his counterstroke, for she well knew he would take one. The city was breached, a horde of mutant fanatics loose upon it, and it seemed he could not possibly prevail now.

Then the earth convulsed underfoot, and Ashari’s dragon shifted and roared, spitting out a pool of fire. The scaled mounts of the Urugan began to scream and plunge, and the earth shook again. Something dark moved on the horizon, and she turned toward the sea with a weight of dread.

She saw the black waves, cold and roiling toward the distant edge of the world, and then she saw it was rising. The waves rose higher and higher, and she felt a wind spring up and whip past her, bearing the scent of the depths and a chill as from far winters. For a long moment it seemed that the world itself was changing form, but then she realized what was happening just as the black tide began to rush inland.

Ashari sent a warning ringing outward with her mind, and then she turned her dragon and rode hard for the hills. Behind her came a thunder as the sea came for them all, flooding through the low places, battering down anything in its path, until it rushed in upon the city itself.

o0o

Shath was in the charge, rushing through the streets of the city with bloodied sword in hand, when he heard Ashari’s warning echo in his mind. As if seeing through her eyes, he beheld the black wave oncoming, rushing in from the sea toward the city, and then the earth trembled underfoot and he had to control his beast. There was a rushing of wind, and he looked back, to the broken walls as the great tide fell upon them.

The first blow shattered the last remnants of the walls where they stood near the destroyed gate, and then the cold waters rushed into the crater, swallowing the Urugan who were still inside it. The water smashed through into the city, flooding the streets, sweeping all before it. Buildings shattered, and the invaders and defenders alike were caught up and crushed in the grip of the sea.

Shath rode through the tumult, his panicked beast trampling anything in its path until the waters began to course around it. Shath was dashed from the saddle and whirled through the flood, smashing down walls and crushed under by falling rubble. Only his iron hand gave him the strength to break through and fight to the surface.

The flood was losing strength as it coursed like blood through the choked streets. The water was filled with the dead and the dying, and other forms moved in the dark waters. Shath caught at the edge of a rooftop and pulled himself above the tide, only to have cold hands seize him and try to drag him back down. Half-formed things with pallid flesh and blank eyes rose from the waters and clawed at him, trying to pull him into the deeps.

He threw them back, and then he cut them down with great sweeps of his ancient sword when they came for him again. They cried out in formless voices as he slew them, staining the water with black blood, leaving them to sink out of sight as they died.

The Urugan fought them in the waters, and he saw the pale things like a tide of their own, pouring in the flooded streets to seize and kill anything that came within reach. He climbed higher on the rooftop as the waters began to slow, and a horde of the unclean things came after him, mouths open to reveal teeth like fish bones. He looked up and the palace of the emperors loomed above him, and he knew his ultimate goal was there, high above these streets of death. He faced the enemy coming for him and he raised his sword and gave himself over to battle.

o0o

Kurux looked down from his tower as the daylight began to fade. The city was a ruin. The gates were destroyed, and black water still flowed through the streets. Smoke rose up and obscured the stars as the red sun died, and he wondered how many tens of thousands had died this day. It did not matter. His armies were destroyed, but so were the armies of his enemies. The people of the city had been decimated, but they did not matter either. All that mattered was the power of the empire, and that he still held it against those who would have taken it from him. He had hungered his whole life for this high seat, and he would not now surrender it.

He turned away and went back to his inner sanctum, walking on the cold floors through the dark that whispered and showed him visions of fell things that lurked beyond the veil of light. He touched the metal implanted on the back of his head, feeling it thrum with the unliving power of the Black City. He was bound to his overlord now in a way he had not been, but it gave him strengths he had not imagined. Perhaps he, too, could become a being greater than human. Perhaps he, too, might live forever.

In the chamber of the black pool, all was quiet, and he closed his eyes, drinking in the cold atmosphere of power coursing in the shadows. He walked to the edge of the liquid that was not water, and he prepared to commune with his master. There was a small sound, and he turned.

Shath emerged from the darkness like a phantom from another age. He was bloodied and battered, his eyes sunken with exhaustion. His armor was waterlogged and rent by many blows, and he bled from a dozen wounds. His right arm was iron, and it gripped his sword of ancient metal, stained with black blood.

“So at last you have come to bow before me, as you should have long ago,” Kurux said.

“Bow to you?” Shath’s voice was rough and cracked. “Why would I bow to such as you?”

“What choice have you? Your army is beaten, your allies crushed. Your sky weapon availed you nothing. Now you will become my servant.” Kurux held out his hand and extended his power to force the barbarian to the ground. “Bow to me!”

Shath took two great strides and then drove his sword through Kurux’s chest, the point standing out behind him painted red, as blood coursed down the immortal steel. He came close, looking into the emperor’s face as it paled in shock. “None shall bow, not to you. Your empire is done.”

He wrenched the sword free and drew it back to strike off the emperor’s head, but then the pool behind Kurux rose up, and a terrible power forced Shath back like an unseen wind. A coil of metal rose from the hollow and connected to the back of Kurux’s skull with a spark of lightning. Shath saw the man’s eyes go bright with fire, and then he was drawn down and pulled into the pool.

Shath saw a face there, eyes looking into him with malice that stung like venom, and then the animate liquid collapsed and the pool went dead, the power in it gone, leaving only a strange fluid that slowly began to turn black, and harden like clay. The shadows drew away and ceased to speak and move, and then there was silence in the tower of darkness.

o0o

Ashari rode her dragon at the head of what remained of her armies. She passed through the waterlogged and shattered streets of the city, seeing the dead heaped everywhere like seaweed left behind by a flood. So many of the Urugan had drowned, but still some thousands remained, and they were gathered at the palace, tending their wounded and cleaning their war-gear. The broken moon rode high overhead amidst the scattered pieces of its shattering, and the stars blazed deep in the dark.

She climbed the steps upward into the great palace, seeing empty halls and silent chambers, for all the courtiers and servants had fled and even now lay hidden from the invader, who they feared. Ashari knew her way, and yet the palace was changed. It had grown darker in the years since she had fled, more layered with terror and death.

The eagles circled the towers, and she was reassured to see that the Skylords lived, even if it was not all of them. She followed the path upward to the throne hall, which seemed even vaster with no crowd gathered within it. The floor shone and the pillars vaulted high above, and Shath stood looking at the throne. He stood in the place where he had been forced to bow and cut off his own sword-hand, and he looked on the empty seat of the empire.

He turned to look at her. “Will you contest with me now? The empire is broken, and what remains is mine.”

She scoffed. “I always preferred to wield power from behind a curtain. Consort shall be enough for me. I never wished for a throne.”

“Then come,” he said. “I shall be an emperor, yet I have never ruled more than an army or a tribe. I will need your wisdom and your cunning. Promise them to me, and you shall have all you ever wished.”

“Agreed,” she said. She took his flesh hand and pressed it between her own, and then she bowed low, touched her horns to his fingers. “My lord.”

When she rose she saw they had another visitor, and Shath turned as well. A woman stood there in the leathers of an eagle rider. She had skin black as polished obsidian and eyes as blue as jewels, and she looked weary from sorrows. “I am Suara,” she said. “Tathar was my mate, and now he is gone. I am now the master of the Skylords, and we have done all that we could do. We seek only a home, and a place of honor.”

“You will have it,” Shath said. “Yet there cannot be rest as yet. Not quite.” He touched the hilt of his sword. “Kurux escaped me, at the end. Wounded, he did not die, and the dark god he serves took him away. I must press home one last attack. I must seek this demon of the ancient world, and I must cast it down, if ever I am to be called a true emperor.” He looked at Suara. “Rest your eagles, for they ride out again at dawn.” He put his iron hand on Ashari’s shoulder. “And you will come with me as well. There will be an ending, as there must be. A last battle.”

He left them and walked across the shining floor, and then he mounted the steps and seated himself upon the ember throne, and once more there was majesty within the throne-hall of empire.