12
Colossi
Above the surging tides of metal and flesh a ring of sorcerers converged on the Feathered Serpent with light and flame. Khama’s flashing coils drank in their light and his eyes cast it back at them in flaring volleys. He grabbed them in his fanged jaws, cracking their crystalline spheres one by one, tearing their bodies to ribbons. The black stinger at the end of his tail flashed like a spear, piercing globes of light to impale chests and bellies. Still they came, shredding his hide with blazing whips of sorcery.
The rest of Zyung’s silver-robes hovered above the battleground like sunbursts, dropping columns of stellar heat to disintegrate Men and Giants. Khama broke free of his assailants several times to allay the slaughter as best he could. Yet always a cadre of silver-robes converged to smother him again, pummeling him with bolts of brilliant agony. Most of his feathers were burned away, and his scaly skin was charred and blistered. It hung in tatters like the torn banners of the desperate Kings below.
The death of Undutu had nearly felled Khama as well. The young lion died instantly, caught in a blast of sorcery from above. Khama’s foes were too thick in that moment, or he might have saved his King. Later he managed to spare Tyro from a similar fate, obliterating the Sword King’s would-be slayer with a reflected torrent of power. Tyro and D’zan fought their way toward the heart of a Manslayer legion. Khama lost sight of both Kings as the silver-robes swarmed him yet again, lacerating his flesh with their cruel magic. Their sorcery had no finesse or creativity; they were trained only to be destroyers, murderers, bringers of death.
Vireon tore them from the sky, crushing sorcerers like beetles in his fists. More than once the Giant-King saved Khama from a blast that might have been the end of him. Vireon stood tall as a mountain above the bay, his feet planted among the wreckage of dreadnoughts he had stomped to twigs. Piles of pulped Manslayers lay about him like a range of red hills, even as more of Zyung’s legions streamed across the heaps of dead to join the fray.
The Giants fought in the shadow of their titanic King, yet even they were helpless against the flashing bolts that incinerated flesh, bone, and metal in the blink of an eye. Hundreds of Udvorg had already been slain by the silver-robes, but the bulk of them remained, smashing Manslayers into heaps of pulped flesh and steel. When the sorcerers had eliminated Khama, they would turn all their efforts to burning away the rest of the Giants.
The Giant-King’s flesh was blackened from the same searing spells that tore at Khama’s body. Yet Vireon’s great mass was infused with a dense sorcery that these petty wizards could not truly harm. Where the Vodson’s skin had gleamed bright as polished bronze, it was now soiled with blood and ashes. Yet Vireon himself did not bleed, or cry out in pain. He had broken a dozen dreadnoughts, crushed at least forty sorcerers, and trodden ten thousand Manslayers beneath his boots before Zyung’s eclipse stole the sun.
The gloom of early night fell across the valley and the world beyond it. The only lights were those of sorcerers locked in combat with Khama, or flitting between Vireon’s mighty fingers, or raining devastation upon the ranks of Men and Giants.
The valley filled with a flood of deeper darkness, and the howls of dying men grew louder. A second horde, one of blood-hungry shadows, invaded the battleground. They pulled men down and drank their lives, ripping flesh and shattering bone as they feasted.
Bloodshadows! Remnants of Ianthe’s sorcery!
Khama had not expected this danger in the middle of the day. Yet Zyung had outsmarted him by ridding the sky of sunlight. The God-King had awakened these nocturnal beasts by offering them a red feast with the blessing of a false night. His Manslayers must be protected by charms engraved into their armor. This was his true reason for choosing the ruins of Shar Dni. The blood-shadows were an extra weapon in his arsenal.
Blots of darkness flowed up the legs of Giants, pulling them down among the dying Men. Neither sword nor spear could touch the bloodshadows. Only Khama had the power to end this attack against which there was no defense but sorcery. The battle would be lost right here and now if he did not dispel the swarming shadows. Every second a hundred more men died beneath masses of writhing darkness. One tiny light persisted in the false midnight of the battleground: D’zan with his bright sword, somehow slicing shadows to bits. Again the Feathered Serpent wondered at the Yaskathan King’s powers. D’zan was no sorcerer, but he surely carried sorcery in his body, and in his blade.
Khama whirled in a spherical pattern, releasing the energies at the core of his being. He ignored the hail of biting, burning bolts his enemies cast again and again through his spinning body. In seconds his light had grown bright as the sun, as it had done above the Jade Isles. The silver-robes recognized his power and glided away from him. They had seen Damodar and several dreadnoughts reduced to nothingness when his sunburst erupted over the Golden Sea.
Zyung had stolen the true sun, so Khama took its place.
He spun faster and faster, losing all sight and sound, retaining only a core of formless awareness. His golden light flooded the valley, but he did not see it. Neither did he see the bloodshadows curdling and disappearing in the glow of his cleansing light, or the thousands of lives he saved from their clutches. Yet he sensed the dark spirits burning away like torched parchments. He burned and spun until the last of the bloodshadows was gone.
Then his coiled body slowed, warped, and fell.
His inner fires were spent. He plummeted into the corpse-choked valley, striking the ground like a felled tree. The many agonies that he had kept at bay now washed over him. His great eyes closed. About him Men and Giants cheered and picked up their blades, charging once more into the Manslayers whose numbers dwarfed their own. Khama lay among the piles of dead as the battle coursed around him.
A number of silver-robes descended to stand upon the mounds of corpses. Khama could not raise his head or open his eyes, but he sensed them closing in on him. If they killed him, his spirit would return to his hidden sanctum in distant Mumbaza, although manifesting a new body might take days, weeks, months, or even years.
Yet he knew they would not kill him now. They would capture him for Zyung’s pleasure, keeping him trapped in this powerless, broken body that was little more than a tube of shredded flesh. Soon Zyung would tear Khama’s spirit from this ruined shell and trap it inside some sturdier prison. Or, Zyung might choose to devour Khama’s essence, granting him oblivion at last. This was how the Old Breed, who could not truly die, warred upon their own kind.
The silver-robes wrapped him in chains of congealed light, searing his flesh further. Like spiders spinning webs of flame, they encased his helpless form. Perhaps this had been the true reason for summoning the shadow horde. Zyung knew Khama would spend the reserves of his power to drive out the bloodshadows. And Khama had done so, sacrificing himself so that Vireon’s legions were free to fight on.
A fair trade.
Consciousness faded as the silver-robes carried him above the swirling red chaos.
The shadows devoured Chygara and Alisk alive while Dahrima watched, unable to help either of them. Neither her blade nor her fingers could find purchase in the non-solid flesh of the devils. She waved the Sky God’s amulet among the clawing shadows, but it did not drive them away. It had not saved mad Pyrus either, when he had taken it from his own neck and shoved it into her hand. The stone’s protection extended only to the one who grasped it or wore it.
Dahrima tried forcing it into the Windcaller’s hand as Pyrus had done to her. She would gladly sacrifice herself to save her dearest spearsister. But the devils pulled Chygara’s hand into shadow and Dahrima could not find it. The snapping of Uduri bones rang louder than the clangor of steel and bronze. Many of the Udvorg, also, died screaming in the grip of shadows. Dahrima could do nothing but watch Giants and Men die together, while the Manslayers laughed and brandished their blades in triumph.
She looked toward the mountainous Vireon. His steaming, blackened fists clutched at the sorcerers who assaulted him. The greatsword in his scabbard had grown large enough to slice a city in half, yet he had not drawn it. If not for the ever-present threat of the sorcerers he might take that massive blade and sweep it across the legions of Manslayers still charging up the beach. Yet even Vireon could not rid the valley of the bloodshadows that stole the life from his legions with such terrible speed.
Only the amulet kept Dahrima from death in that moment. She contemplated casting it aside and giving in to the hungry shadows. Her eyes caught a gleam of sunfire in the unnatural darkness. The King of Yaskatha moved alone through the shadows, slicing them apart with his gleaming greatsword. A pale fire ran along the edges of the iron blade as he saved soldier after soldier from death. In the heat of panic, Dahrima considered taking the enchanted weapon away from the Yaskathan and using it to aid her sisters.
Yet she never had to make that terrible decision. A new sun erupted into life above the valley. Dahrima stared into the glare with a bloodstained hand shielding her eyes. The after-image of the Feathered Serpent swam at the heart of the blazing orb. Its light fell across the valley and made the shadows howl. In a blinding instant every one of the formless devils was obliterated. Men and Giants rose up bleeding and grasping for their swords. Yet far too many would never rise again. Dahrima did not recognize the faces of Chygara and Alisk when she saw what a ruin the blood-shadows had made of their bodies.
Now the Khama-sun dimmed and fell from the sky. The Manslayers renewed their mad onslaught, and Dahrima clove a man in two with her axe. Vantha, bloody and smiling, lopped off a silver-helmed head. These Manslayers were enemies they could fight. Dahrima’s grief turned to rage as she waded into an armored mass of Zyung’s warriors. There was no more sign of the Feathered Serpent in the dimming sky, but the sorcerers in their flying globes of light darted above the slaughter, releasing blasts of death wherever they chose.
Dahrima killed eleven men before she heard the metallic thunder of Vireon’s greatsword leaving its scabbard. Her eyes looked up through a red haze. The monolithic Giant-King marched forward, moving deeper into the bay, smashing dreadnoughts against one another and sending waves against the arriving hordes with every step.
The true sun returned to the sky as Zyung’s eclipse faded. A strange hush fell over the battling legions. Every living eye–Men’s, Giants’, and sorcerers’–turned toward the sea. A second colossus towered now above the armada in the bay, facing Vireon and matching his gargantuan stature.
Zyung the Conqueror was a titan draped in silver, his hair a nimbus of dark light, his face terrible to behold. His eyes pulsed like violet stars above his face of chiseled marble. He raised a great blade of licking flames, pointing its tip at Vireon’s heart. Dahrima could feel the heat of that burning blade even from where she stood.
Vireon’s greatsword glimmered blue as ice to match the GodKing’s fiery weapon. Thunder split the sky above the two colossi, and a sudden deluge of rain washed the soot and gore from Vireon’s body. The Giant-King stood whole and gleaming before his enemy.
The great moment of reckoning had come.
The storm washed over the valley as Zyung struck his first blow. Vireon’s blade met the flaming sword with a crack of thunder. As if this were an unspoken signal to resume the slaughter, Men and Giants fell to battling once more in the shadow of their dueling lords. Dahrima watched the clashing behemoths between blows of her axe. She took more cuts and wounds than she should, but she could not tear her eyes from the Giant-King’s duel for long.
Vireon slashed at the God-King’s chest. Zyung caught the blade in his fist and hurled it back. The flaming sword thrust at Vireon’s head, but his knees bent and the weapon failed to touch him. He countered with an upward swing but the God-King was no longer standing before him. Zyung had somehow repositioned himself behind Vireon.
The Giant-King whirled to parry the arc of the flaming sword, and he spat thunderbolts into Zyung’s face. The dreadnoughts at their knees moved out of the way as best they could, canvas wings carrying them above the churning waters and away from the colossi.
The clashing of the mammoth swords sent fresh thunders across the valley. Men killed and died in the tempest, while sorcerers cast rays of deathlight into their midst. More Giants perished, caught by the falling beams of sorcery. They died now as easily as Men.
Soon Dahrima would find herself trapped inside a burning column, and she knew her amulet would not protect her against such magic.
If not for this legion of sorcerers, we might win the day.
The silver-robes were specifically targeting Giants now, letting Men fight Men. The sheer numbers of the Manslayers would guarantee a victory as soon as the last of the Giants were gone.
More Udvorg burned to death every second this conflict continued.
Yet Dahrima knew that the true outcome of the battle lay in Vireon’s great hands. If he struck down the God-King, these sorcerers might flee and abandon their invasion.
The world shook again beneath the titanic blades.
Dahrima leaped away from a shaft of deathlight meant to end her. The Manslayers fleeing her proximity had warned her just in time. A great mound of bodies turned to ash in the glow, and she ran toward the thickest ranks of Zyungians. If the sorcerers became desperate enough, they might start burning away their own men in order to slay Giants. Until that moment, Dahrima would continue her death dance in the very midst of her smaller foes.
More of the flying wizards converged above her. They had taken special notice of her and awaited now the perfect moment to strike. Without Vireon or Khama to occupy their attentions, that moment would not be long in coming. In a matter of moments the Manslayers would realize what was happening. They would run from the raging Giantess in their midst, leaving their sorcerers free to incinerate her.
Her axe was a spinning wheel of death. She would take as many of them with her as she could. It was all up to Vireon now. She would not live to see his victory.
She saw the Giant-King’s cobalt blade plummet toward the God-King’s head. A gout of seething light erupted from Zyung’s eyes, catching the greatsword in mid-arc. The steel turned to molten scarlet, pouring along Vireon’s arm. The Giant-King roared in agony as his flesh steamed and bubbled.
A grin empty of mirth spread across Zyung’s face. His flaming blade shot forward to take Vireon in the gut. It emerged from the seared flesh of the Giant-King’s back. Impaled on the great fire-brand, Vireon’s head fell back on his shoulders.
A last peal of thunder rocked the valley. The sword’s unnat ural fires were quenched as Zyung pulled it free of Vireon’s body. The God-King’s blade gleamed black as night now, and constellations of stars glimmered in its alien metal.
Vireon staggered backwards, his right foot finding the debrislittered beach. His great form dwindled, growing somewhat smaller. Black blood poured smoking from his terrible wound. The stormclouds parted above him, the rain ceased all at once, and Dahrima screamed as the Giant-King began to fall. Men, Giants, and sorcerers rushed from his looming shadow as it cast the valley once more into darkness. When his gargantuan body met the earth, thousands upon thousands would be crushed.
Dahrima stood still among the carnage. The battle was replaced by running, howling men. Even the Giants ran from the teetering colossus. She did not move.
Let me die with him.
I will perish beneath the mountain of his greatness.
Yet Vireon was not wholly dead yet. She knew this as he fell because his size continued to change. His great body contracted, shrank, reduced itself to the size of an Uduru so that the last half of his fall was through thin air, his legs having left the earth and sea. He fell upon a pile of charred bones and torn corpses, no larger now than any other Giant.
Zyung too seemed to shrink, but still he towered above the valley. He stepped onto the beach, his blazing eyes searching for Vireon’s diminished form. By his keen gaze, and the burning intent of his face, Dahrima knew that Vireon was still not dead.
Dying, yes, but the God-King would finish him with a final blow.
Again the battling armies became spectators, captured by the spell of Zyung’s greatness, awaiting the final blow that would end all resistance to their invasion.
Zyung raised his starry blade, his eyes fixed upon the fallen Vireon.
No!
Dahrima raced across the scattered mounds of dead to her dying King.
Zyung’s voice was a new kind of thunder. He pronounced a final judgment of death in his own language as his arm raised high the dark blade.
A tiny figure appeared out of nowhere at Vireon’s feet. A lone Man, his face turned up to meet the God-King’s terrible eyes. Dahrima did not stop to consider his courage, but scrambled on toward Vireon. She would either carry him from Zyung’s wrath, or die at his side.
The stranger wore a black hood and a dark robe set with flashing emeralds. He raised a thin arm at the same moment that the God-King’s blade began its descent. He spoke a single word that rang as loudly as Zyung’s own voice.
The silver colossus slowed and stiffened to a dull shade of black. Even the glimmering sword lost its shine. The God-King and his blade stood completely immobile above the battleground. Zyung was an effigy of dark iron, like the statue of a grim God built too large for any of the world’s temples.
The stranger was gone.
Gleaming sorcerers buzzed like flies about their petrified God-King.
Dahrima grabbed Vireon’s body into her arms. Now he was only the size of a Man, yet the wound in his gut was a mortal one. She ran toward the river, clutching him to her chest like a sick child. The battle resumed behind her, the clashing of metal replacing the stunned silence. Now, while the sorcerers were distracted from pouring out their deathlights, she must escape with Vireon’s body.
The Uduri gathered about her, unwilling to let their spear sister bear this burden alone. They hacked through a formation of Manslayers and gained the riverbank. When the Udvorg had first arrived, they had constructed a crossing out of great, flat blocks of masonry. Dahrima and her sisters ran across these uneven stones toward the slope of the western ridge.
Bodies choked the sluggish red river as it spilled toward the crowded bay.
Dahrima’s great axe lay somewhere among the heaps of dead. She did not need it. Her sisters cut down the foes who charged into her path.
She ran from the valley of death, Vireon’s blood spilling along her arms and legs.
Khama.
Awake, Feathered Serpent.
Khama opened his eyes. A blur of colors and shapes.
A man’s voice.
“Listen to me. We must be quick. I cannot free you from this cage while you wear this form. You must become a Man again.”
Khama tried to focus. There was no strength left in him. The furnace of his heart was a flickering candle. The unsteady shapes refined themselves. An orange glow filled a wide chamber of smooth, yellow substance. It felt and looked like wood, but there were no seams or boards.
A hooded figure stood facing Khama’s disfigured snout. Khama’s coiled body was a mass of agonies. The scent of his own blood filled his flaring nostrils, as well as the scent of the one who spoke to him. He smelled southern perfumes and the fragrant oils of nobility. And the salty tang of brine underlying it all.
How can I smell so superbly when the rest of me lies senseless and broken?
Two piles of silver cloth lay in the chamber, each with a heap of white sand (or salt) at its center. About the walls stood barrels, crates, and chests. He lay aboard a ship; they had carried him into the cargo hold of a dreadnought. A prisoner to torment and pry for secrets when the battle was done.
The orange glow came from the chains of clotted light twisted about his serpentine frame, trapping and sustaining him at once. Their links were instilled with sorcery. He smelled that indescribable odor as well.
“Do you hear me, Khama?” said the hooded man. His cloak and robes were sable, with the green glint of emeralds about neck and sleeves. “Take the form of a Man once more. Do it now. Zyung will soon break the spell of iron.”
Khama did not understand. He closed his eyes again. The magic of the spellchains was drawing him back toward a deep slumber.
“Khama!” A small hand slapped his great, torn jaw.
“Too weak…” he mumbled. His forked tongue rolled out of his mouth.
The stranger placed his hands upon Khama’s great eyelids. He sang an ancient refrain, and Khama’s inner flame rekindled for a moment. His eyes reopened, but he could not see the face hidden in the shadows of the hood.
“Now, Khama,” said the stranger. “You must become a Man, if only for a few seconds.”
Khama seized the borrowed flame and drew upon its power. His ragged, bleeding flesh warped and shrank. His skin once again acquired the rich brown hues of a Mumbazan man. Yet the red wounds across his body remained. The gleaming chains fell to the deck about his smaller form. They were made of a size to encase his Serpent body, not his human aspect.
Khama coughed and spat blood across his bare chest. He could raise neither arm nor head. The energy lent him by the stranger was used up by the transformation.
The stranger sang another incantation, lifting Khama lightly in his arms. Khama recognized the old language now, though he had not heard it in ten thousand years. The walls of golden wood faded, and the world shifted in some imperceptible direction. He was not falling, but something very much like it.
The urge to sleep was still heavy upon him. Or perhaps it was the urge to die.
He had little choice but to accept it.