“Should they move their forces toward our camp as we move aside, we will allow it, block their retreat, and trap them in the valley. We will defeat all they send against us, and with the gods’ good fortune we may win this war today. I ask you humbly to pray with me to Lord Cosimo, not for an easy victory, nor for anything we do not deserve. Pray for the miracle of utter devotion to our chosen path, so that we may attract the gods’ aid, like a determined flower calling to the sun from a rocky field.”
Lucia mounted her mare again and listened to the proliferating commands directing the bulk of the Rezzian army to move north and leave their camp exposed to their enemy. She looked about for signs of Danato’s presence but found none. Whether dreaming or awake, she was perfectly confused.
~~~~~
Ysa rode directly in front of Lucia, anticipating her devotee’s every movement. The goddess kept her cool gaze upon the distant Pawelon army, and willed the sky to fill with darkness.
Chapter Eight: The Wrath of Athena
THE REZZIANS gave rise to a percussive din: rhythmic crunching of boots, hearts pounding against metal, out-breaths exploding in unison, tens of thousands racing as one, muscling to live another hour beneath the goddess’s baleful sky.
Lucia watched as Duilio ensured the legions advanced in ideal formations. His corps of commanders rode on horseback, giving commands and receiving information, relaying to the Strategos detailed accounts of their movements.
Soon after the council had ended, the legions held their shields and spears close to their bodies, each man turned in place to his right, and they ran north in formation to avoid becoming surrounded by Pawelon’s two armies. Running hard, they advanced further north than Pawelon’s northern troop, which had been slow to respond to their sudden change in direction. That Raf’s cavalry were well ahead suggested their northern flank would remain protected.
Duilio smiled above his caparisoned steed. “Our men are fit. The pigs are slow, physically and mentally. They won’t outmaneuver us today.”
Lucia watched the Pawelon armies falling behind their own. “I hope our men won’t be too exhausted to fight.”
“Oh no, Your Grace. These men yearn to push against impossible odds. They are heroes.”
Swift, grey clouds overshadowed them, flaunting a supernatural origin. Lucia knew that had the legions not been rushing to save their lives, each and every man would have stopped and stood in awe of the waves of lightning streaking across the dark sky.
Confusion still clouded her mind. Was this the obvious stuff of Danato’s dreams, or a harsh reality that looked like a fantasy? She prayed to Ysa to protect them.
~~~~~
Unseen by men, the goddess Ysa’s beast of a horse walked confidently through the Rezzian ranks, its thin rider demonstrating unshakeable poise. Her pointed nose, tight cheeks, and thin lips—with a silver helm framing her jaw—made her fair-skinned face appear sharp with deadly calm.
Ysa willed her horse to gallop and soon halted in the narrowing space between the two armies. A cool breeze swept through the desert plain. She studied the Pawelon army, her blond hair stirring in a full-bodied mass near the center of her back. She looked to Lucia, far in the distance, and raised a fist inside a bright gauntlet.
~~~~~
Lucia spotted a searing burst of light near Pawelon’s army. Once it dimmed she focused on the enemy’s changing positions. She yelled to Duilio, “They’re widening their front line.”
The old man looked intently with an air of disbelief, his vision aided by the fingers of lightning glowing above. Pawelon was creating a wide front line from north to south and stretching its northern flank farther back to the west, toward the nearest canyon wall. They were digging in for a fight and trying to keep the Rezzians from encircling them.
Why aren’t they delaying to bring their armies together? Lucia wondered. By stopping and lengthening their formation, they were cutting off Raf’s attempt to outflank them, but they would soon be engaging Rezzia with only half their strength.
“They’re daring us to engage them,” Lucia said.
“They can dig their graves if they want to,” Duilio said as his horse moved about nervously. “Now pray for glory.”
Duilio unsheathed his short sword and raised it as he screamed, “Advance! For Lux Lucis!”
~~~~~
At the front of the Rezzian line, Atius heard the fierce pounding of drums ordering the onset of the charge. Across the desolate battlefield, distant rows of round enemy shields waited motionlessly. Behind them, Pawelon’s archers hid like cowards.
He set his feet for the charge, pointing at the heart of the enemy.
Gods, grant that I may gut ten pigs before I fall. And take me before you take my brothers.
Atius banged his throwing spear against his shield. His brothers did the same. Their clangor rolled across the desert and rose to the dark heavens.
“March!” he bellowed.
He made long strides into the open field, his men following in ranks beside him. The muscles in his arms clenched with excitement, yearning for the slaughter to come. With his body protected behind his shield, he’d rush past Pawelon’s outstretched spears, ram his own shield against his enemy’s, and surprise the first pig with a stab to the gut. With his brothers at his side, he’d push further into the wall of spears, lashing out with his sword like a snake’s tongue whenever his enemies least expected it.
They drove onward, silent and focused, within range of Pawelon’s bows.
The first volley of Pawelon’s black arrows took flight, soaring up against the backdrop of the red cliff walls.
Atius issued the command, “Tortoise!”
He raised his curved rectangular shield in front of him, covering himself from knees to nose. His brothers along the front and the flanks raised their shields with him, overlapping as a bulwark against the falling arrows. The remaining shields formed a tight ceiling above them. The soldier to his rear rested the forward edge of his shield on Atius’s head, restricting and focusing Atius’s vision forward.
“For Lux Lucis!” he yelled as they marched steadily onward.
The hissing of arrows filled the air. The shield above Atius blocked his view of the arrows above him, but across the field more volleys were loosed.
Atius’s heart jumped. Arrows cracked against the shield over his head and at his front.
“My shield!” one of his men shouted.
A sudden pain ripped through Atius’s leg. He screamed, agony arresting his mind and vision.
An arrow stuck out from his calf. His broken greave fell to the ground.
He drove on in agony, unable to do anything but march alongside his brothers. He yearned to grab at his wound, but his mind held strong and he refused to lower his shield.
The shafts rained in front of them as a black blur. Some lodged into the earth, some skidded along the ground, others shattered upon impact.
His gritted his teeth and thrust his wounded leg forward, forcing it to move.
More arrows crashed, like a swift explosion of hail on a rooftop. His men screamed in horror.
How is this happening? On other occasions, he’d seen the volleys loosed by ten thousand Pawelon archers. Now ten times more arrows were falling. The ground became a sea of black wooden shafts.
Their sages …
He saw his wife before his eyes, her long, thick hair and full lips above soft breasts and shoulders. She’d wear black for him when he died, and pray to Lord Danato to guard his soul.
“Aaargh!”
A second arrow pierced his wounded leg. He reached down reflexively, lowering his shield and leaning forward for just a moment.
An arrow whizzed past his ear and the soldier behind him screamed and crumpled. The soldier behind the fallen one tripped and fell
forward, knocking against Atius’s legs as the man’s shield rattled against the ground.
Atius turned to look at the fallen warriors. An arrow ripped into his left shoulder. An uncontrollable scream escaped his lungs.
In horrific pain, he tossed his spear as far forward as his muscles allowed. He tried to raise his shield to protect himself, but his arm refused, trembling.
More screams.
More arrows falling around them.
He stumbled and collapsed, choking as blood filled his mouth.
A final pain shot through his heart.
~~~~~
Frowning creases appeared on Duilio’s dry face as his mouth pursed closed. “It's some sort of trick by their sages. They’ve multiplied their arrows.”
Lucia watched the chaos around her, faintly hearing terrible screams in the distance. Would this prove to be a nightmare, or her end? She knew if she died today, her father and brother would bring such a fury against Pawelon that nothing would remain of their fortress and army.
As she contemplated the worst, a distant whining turned into a terrifying howl. A fiery light burned its way across the sky, from the west above the Pawelon citadel and all their distant lands. The object arced its way downward, flying toward her and the Strategos.
“Think of Lord Cosimo now, Your Grace.” Duilio spurred his horse toward the conflict. Lucia followed.
“We are too late now. Stop!” She caught up with Duilio as he halted and looked to her.
“I believe in you, Lucia. Do what you can.”
Lightning exploded and etched its way across the sky like a drunken spider’s web. It disappeared in an instant. As the sky grew dark again, the incandescent object plummeted at an ungodly speed.
Lucia prayed to Ysa and thrust her shield over their heads as if trying to block a hurricane with a hat. A long fork of lightning lit the sky.
A wave of force emanated from the shield. The celestial object exploded well above Lucia, blasting shards of smoldering rock all about and knocking every man within a hundred paces to the ground.
Duilio’s horse reared up as the blast drove it backward, and the old Strategos fell hard. Lucia’s mare went straight down with its legs bent. The earth rippled and split as crevasses erupted across the desert floor.
She threw an arm around Albina’s neck and rolled onto to the ground once the rumbling calmed, many breaths later. Soldiers slowly came to their feet, grimacing and holding their wounds.
Lucia and many more rushed to Duilio’s aid. The Strategos lay on his back mumbling. He tried to stand but fell sideways.
She knelt beside him and touched her black-gloved hand to his forehead. “Cosimo and Ysa saved us, Strategos.” She could barely hear herself speaking; her ears were nearly deaf from the explosion. More aftershocks jostled them and for a moment she lost her balance.
Duilio smiled. The right side of his head was a mass of blood. “Lucia, go. We need your goddess.”
She kissed Duilio’s forehead. “Keep thinking of Lord Cosimo.”
She left the soldiers and warpriests to tend to the Strategos and mounted Albina again. Arrows continued knifing her soldiers. Pawelon’s front line held strong. Though the enemy forces were greatly outnumbered, because of their trickery they were on the verge of routing her army.
Ysa, I beg you, protect us now, before we all perish. I want to see my brother again. And if this is a dream, let me know now. She drew the sword from its scabbard and held it at her mare’s right side. She pulled her shield closer to her body, squeezing the leather-covered metal grip. Ysa, please …
Every warrior in the valley cowered as the goddess’s thunder detonated and assaulted their ears. The boom rolled around them, like a coiling sonic snake. It tumbled, turned in all directions, rose and fell wildly.
Yet to Lucia’s traumatized ears, the thunder sounded muffled. She turned her head sideways and observed her kingdom’s frightened warriors.
Go to them, she heard an inner voice, a firm-sounding woman. Then give yourself to me.
She yelled and spurred Albina into motion, then headed toward the violence at what felt like an impossible speed. Many soldiers and warpriests tried to keep up with her, but their horses fell behind. Her vision went blurry, head throbbing and dizzy.
Without warning, her mare stopped and Lucia pitched onto the compacted ground, her shoulders and head scraping along the desert floor. As she lay recovering for a moment, a burst of intuition told her Ysa’s armor and helm had prevented serious injuries. She willed herself to stand without knowing where she was and raised Ysa’s sword and shield in self-defense.
The sword vibrated powerfully enough to nearly make her arm numb.
Nearby, a band of Pawelons marched forward, using their spears to drive a group of Rezzian soldiers back. The Pawelons’ uniforms were dark blue, their skin deep shades of brown. She hadn’t intended to come this close to the fighting. A tall Pawelon surged forward and thrust his spear through a Rezzian’s shield, into his chest.
The rangy Pawelon spotted her. His snarl deepened as he raced toward her.
With gusty winds eddying around them, she raised her shield arm barely in time to deflect the spear. As the soldier’s momentum carried him off balance, she stabbed the blade across her body and into his chest.
They both screamed, and the Pawelon fell and grabbed her legs. She jumped backward and watched the man clutch his wound. The blade still sent tremors through her body.
She looked down. The white metal dripped with his blood.
She had no time to grasp what she had done before the clouds literally fell down like a sagging belly over Pawelon’s forces. The midday shadows were like night, and the temperature plummeted to freezing. Gusting winds swept waves of hail toward the Pawelon troops, overtaking their arrows for command of the air.
She heard the woman’s voice again in her ear: Surrender to the ancient implements. Control the storm.
Some buried instinct took over. Her muscles softened and her heart warmed. Every hair on her body stood straight up as an awesome power coursed through her. She began to feel the storm so profoundly that the boundary between her spirit and the sky dissolved. Was she directing the weather, or was it directing her?
She felt the tempest responding to her, and the more she allowed herself to welcome it, the more aggressively it pounded the Pawelon forces with deluges of ice. Her instincts led her inward to even greater exultation. As she went deeper all capacity for rational thought disappeared.
A column of lightning erupted. It streaked down and startled her with its thickness, as it pulsed and rolled all around Pawelon’s forces. Moving by sheer instinct, Lucia squeezed Ysa's sword and her body tingled with divine power from head to toe. She felt flushed with heat, feeling the storm ravaging the Pawelon men with savage power.
Another column of electricity came down. Another. And another.
And then, without warning, the sensations subsided. The lightning columns shrank and then disappeared. Her mind returned to a normal state of awareness, and her profound connection with the natural elements dried up. The clouds turned from black to grey, then chestnut to white, rising into the heavens. She felt a sense of loss, of abandonment, as the sky no longer embraced her.
Looking down at the blood coating Ysa’s white blade, she remembered what she had done.
Lucia sensed an evil presence, and nausea overcame her.
Chapter Nine: A Burial Truce Offering
THE CLOUDS SWIRLED FASTER above Pawelon’s forces and turned pitch-black. A vicious, freezing wind blew down. The deafening thunder drubbed Rao’s ears and seized his heart. He cowered as the boom froze his mind.
The storm goddess’s rage weakened his muscles, his concentration, his resolve. Did Briraji kill the royal daughter?
It doesn’t matter.
With those words, Rao withdrew his attention from his body and physical senses, resting for a m
oment in the spacious emptiness underlying existence.
He returned his awareness to his body: muscles relaxing, blood flowing, breath arising and falling.
He adopted a wide, solid stance and detached again from his thoughts, body, and senses. A single point of light appeared in the black emptiness and it became the focus of his meditation. His attention remained on the tiny light for seven long breaths, until the light expanded and washed over him, giving him glimpses of nonmaterial realities intersecting his world.
Focus on the battlefield.
The chaotic flood of information fell away from his awareness, like light retreating into a tunnel. His physical being transformed into a lighter, subtler body, and he saw the battlefield anew.
The stormy sky appeared as a complex mass of blinding light and shadow, unified as a single field by some greater intelligence. The sky breathed with wild contractions, moving lower to the ground, until it hovered just above Pawelon’s troops.
Rao steeled himself with conviction: You will not engulf my people.
He pushed his awareness into the body of a random Pawelon soldier to witness his experience, finding panic amid the darkness, bitter cold, and biting hail. A moment later, a pillar of electrical force ripped through the man, slamming him like a thousand bricks.
Rao drew his consciousness away and observed the scene. More columns of lightning arose between the ground and sky, moving around like puppets under strings. The deadly clouds sank lower and the Rezzians began racing toward the Pawelons and throwing their spears. If they kept coming, close combat would favor the invaders.
He meditated: How can I stop their goddess?
He noticed then, despite all the dazzling flashes of light, the glowing of a single human soul where the two armies were colliding. The subtle bodies of most men appeared a dull red, but here was a gigantic, swirling field of yellow and white surrounding an intense red and black pulse. Trails of light stretched up from this being to the sky.
The royal daughter is alive!
Each vibrant line between her and the sky was a gossamer trace of psychic influence. Rao poured his awareness into one of the trails of light.
Such a glorious sensation! Expanding light and power, ecstacy and interconnection.
He tried to focus his attention, to sever this connection between the royal daughter and the storm. The light swung around wildly, battling his will, shocking his mind. He recognized the royal daughter’s talent for defense and control.