They turn their thoughts to her, inspecting her, seeking her out. They parse through her mind, her soul, and slowly, slowly, slowly believe her to be who they wish her to be. And as more and more of them believe, she begins to grow.
The ground falls away below her. She feels the plate mail on her shoulders, the metal boots upon her feet. She feels her neck creak with the weight of the helm upon her brow, and she peers at the world from behind a cold, steel face.
Her face.
***
SDC Security Chief Lem watches, haggard and pale, as the endless line of citizens and SDC workers toil up the mountain paths. The bay beyond is already bright with the queer, spectral light of the warships, and he knows they’ll be here soon. Though could there even be a safe place now, with so many ships filled with those monsters?
Then someone screams: “Look! Look!”
They look westward, just west of Fort Thinadeshi, and stare as a huge, dark figure swells up against the night sky. The figure is lit from below by the lights of the ships and the flaming wrecks on the waters, but even with these wavering lights one can still see that blank, metal face, dark-eyed and pitiless, and the enormous, terrifying sword in its hand—its one and only hand.
“No,” whispers Lem. “No, it can’t be. It simply can’t be! She’s dead! Everyone knows she’s dead!”
There is a new sound beyond the cannons and the flames and the screaming civilians: a chanting from the bay as the countless warriors aboard the ships sing one word over and over again, or rather one name: a primitive, syncopated chant like the beat of a war drum:
“Voortya! Voortya! Voortya! Voortya!”
***
The soldiers in the westernmost watchtower stare in horror as the giant figure swells until it almost completely blocks out their view of the western seas. It seems to have come from nowhere, sprouting out of the rock itself. Its back is covered in broad plate mail, each segment carved with horrific illustrations of violence and depravity. The burning bay beyond makes the sight even more hellish, a Saypuri nightmare come to life.
The goddess of war, the Divinity of death, reborn upon these savage cliffs in Saypur’s darkest hour.
“By the seas,” whispers Sakthi. “By the seas…It simply can’t be!”
One of the technicians turns to Captain Sakthi. “Should we…ah, fire, sir?”
“We can’t fire on her!” says another. “She’s much too close! We don’t have the right angle!”
They all turn to look at Sakthi.
He sighs. “Oh, dear.”
***
Mulaghesh faces the fleet of warships and the warriors chanting her name—or what the sword says is her name. It’s hard to tell….The sword says many things to her, whispering to her, urging her to be glad, to be filled with bright, hot, happy fury at this moment, for she is reunited with her army, with those who built her empire.
Yet all Mulaghesh can think of is the body at her feet, and all those she has left in her trail.
She takes a breath and howls out to the sea, “Children of war! Children of Voortya!”
The warriors scream and howl in celebration.
She screams, “Look at me! Look at me and know me!”
The bay falls silent as the warriors await her words.
She cries out, “I am the Empress of Graves! I am the one-handed Maiden of Steel! I am the Queen of Grief, I am She Who Clove the Earth in Twain!”
The world keeps distorting itself around her. She feels huge, gigantic, a titan standing underneath the sky—yet she knows she feels tears on her cheeks, hot and wet and real.
“I am war!” she screams to them. “I am plague and I am pestilence! In my wake is an ocean of blood! I am death, I am death! Listen to me, look at me and know me, for I am death, I am naught but death!”
***
The Voortyashtani citizens watch in horror as the booming words echo across the waters to them. The figure on the clifftops extends its arms to the sky, as if begging lightning to strike it.
The voice cries: “I have killed countless soldiers! I have left them rotting in the fields, and their mothers never learned where they came to lie! I struck them down even as they begged me to stay my hand! I have broken open the gates of great cities and listened to the citizens weep! I have done these atrocities. I have! Do you hear me?”
The crowd of Voortyashtanis is silent, and yet for some reason they begin to weep as they listen to the figure scream to the seas and the skies. Lem himself finds it strange—these words do not have the ring of a declaration of war, but rather they sound like a confession, full of agony and sorrow.
The voice howls, “I have killed women! I have killed children! Do you hear me? Do you hear me? I have done these things! I have burned down their homes, I have killed them in their beds! I have walked away as they screamed for their loved ones! I have abandoned children to freeze in the dark winter nights! I have done these horrors and countless others!”
The figure holds its sword high in the air and screams, “I am warfare and I am death! I am sorrow never-ending! Look upon me! Look upon me, I beg of you, look upon me!”
***
Mulaghesh raises the sword. She feels as if it is pulling her, like she is merely its vessel, its instrument. She knows it wants her to turn and bring its edge down upon the fortress, to strike it so hard the very cliffs are sundered beneath it, and then once this is done she shall lead these warriors forward, through Voortyashtan, down the Solda, across the face of the Continent, and from there across the world.
Just as she said she would. Just as she promised them. Just as she swore, just as they are owed.
Yet some part of her resists, thinking only, I am so very tired of this.
And as this thought goes skittering through her mind she suddenly understands that she does not hold the sword: rather, it holds her, imprisoning her like it is a massive, dark cavern, and she is just a tiny creature lost in its darkness, trapped inside of it.
She feels the destruction gathering in the sword.
No, she says to it.
It wants to fall. It wants to cleave flesh from bone. It wants to split the earth in two.
No, she says to it.
She feels all the thoughts and desires of all of her warriors pulling at it, wishing it into movement, forcing her to be the force they expect her to be.
Her arm trembles as she resists. No! No, I won’t let you!
Their thoughts rise up to her in a muttering wave: You must! You must, you must! We did as you asked. We became the warriors you wished us to be! Now give us what we are owed! Give us what you promised!
Her elbow strains against the sword. It’s so heavy it’s as if she holds the moon itself in her hand, her will against the will of the countless dead.
Then she thinks, The warriors I wished them to be…
She remembers Villaicha Thinadeshi in the City of Blades, telling her: … you of all people should know that war is an art requiring decorum and formality. It feverishly adheres to rules and traditions—and that can be used against it.
Yes, she thinks.
She twists her wrist, points the sword down, and diverts all its power, driving it into the cliff at her feet. The stone parts as if it were made of cotton.