Henry Neff - The Maelstrom

Toby flew off to scout. When he returned and pronounced the palace abandoned, they led their weary mounts across its trampled fields and orchards.

The smee had been correct; the place really did resemble St. Basil’s Cathedral with its painted towers and voluptuous domes glinting beneath the moon. Before its fall, it must have been a wonder. But much of the palace was damaged, its gatehouse a charred ruin while several of the towers had collapsed into the inner bailey, obliterating a handful of smaller buildings in the process.

Much had been destroyed, but there was an uncontaminated well. While the horses drank and the others rested, Max went searching for food. He wandered about the empty palace, stepping over fallen stones and peering into ashy chambers that had been stripped of tapestries and furniture and anything else of value. Crunching through broken pottery, Max climbed a spiral staircase to a rampart connecting two of the towers. Perhaps there would be food in a guardroom.

But the upper levels were little better. They had suffered less damage, but the wind was stronger at these heights and went whipping through the open corridors and broken windows like a troop of lost and lonely spirits. There was an oppressive emptiness to the place, reinforced by the surprising lack of bodies. Someone had either buried the dead or taken them for some other purpose. Max declined to speculate.

He climbed to the top of the tallest tower, an immense rounded structure capped by an onion dome. The doors to the uppermost chamber had been wrenched off their hinges, revealing what had been a luxuriant bedchamber or seraglio. The arched walls were adorned with charred frescoes and mosaics and windows set into the curving walls so that the tower commanded a view in every direction. Most of the windows had been broken, however, and the wind swept through, glittering with snowflakes that settled on the inlaid floor.

Stepping to one, Max gazed down at the central courtyard hundreds of feet below. Madam Petra had started a fire, a tiny flicker no bigger than a candle flame amid the shadowed wreckage. Max could not help but admire the woman’s spirit and resilience. She had just lost everything and already she was coping, adapting, surviving. He half hoped she would decide to settle at Rowan—they could use such a capable person.

Something flashed in the west, an enormous light that filled the sky with a sickly green light. The sound came after, a rumbling chorus of horns and drums that was soon eclipsed by something else … a keening, wailing sound akin to an air-raid siren. Max rushed to another window and gazed out.

The west was ablaze, its skies exploding in wild flashes of light and pluming fire as though the clouds themselves had ignited. Horns sounded from afar, and a tremor ran through the earth, shaking the tower. Down in the courtyard, Petra was calling his name.

“What’s happening?” she cried.

Max cupped his hands. “A battle!” he shouted. “The armies have met!”

More flashes and the earth shook again, the tremors as slow and rhythmic as a battering ram. Far off, there was an explosion, and then a brilliant fireball rose in a mushroom cloud against the night sky. The tremors continued.

Max watched, spellbound, as the battle raged on. The armies were too far away to make out many details. But for the incandescent flashes, it might have been a forest fire, a haze of flames and smoke that stretched all along the horizon. Occasionally he caught glimpses of the army columns gleaming like molten gold. The tremors continued, a percussive thump, thump, thump that shook the remaining shards free from the windows. They fell about the room’s perimeter, shattering like little icicles.

Something to the southwest caught Max’s eye.

He trained his glass on a number of small lights glimmering in the surrounding woods. At this distance, he could not be certain if the lights were torches or lanterns, but they were now converging swiftly on the palace.

Max ran from the room, leaping down the stairs and yelling for the others to pack up. He hoped the appearance of these horsemen was coincidence, that they were merely deserters or refugees seeking shelter. But in his heart, Max knew otherwise. These riders were hunting for them.

Arriving at the courtyard, Max saw the Kosas hastily gathering up their things. Over the din of the distant battle and Patient Yuga, Max could now hear the sound of galloping hooves. He ran to the gatehouse and peered outside.

The riders had passed the orchards and were now racing over the fields. Looking wildly about, Max saw that the outer gates had been broken, but one of the inner portcullises was still intact. Racing into the guardhouse, he found the winch that controlled its chains and spun it about as quickly as he could. With a reluctant groan, the heavy iron grill slid down its grooves and fell into position. From outside, there were several shouts and the hoofbeats slowed. Max ran to Madam Petra, who had hidden the others behind the ruins of a fallen tower.

“What are you doing?” she hissed. “We haven’t seen another way out—you’ll shut us in!”

“No,” he panted. “Sneak the others and the horses back into the keep. Go as far back as you can, as close to the eastern wall as possible. There must be some other exit, a postern gate or something. Start searching.”

“Yes, but how—”

“Just trust me. If I can deal with these riders on my own, I will. If not, the portcullis will delay them long enough so we can find the door and get away. If there is no exit, I’ll make one.”

“And what if they kill you and we’re still trapped inside?”

Max unsheathed the longsword and handed the weapon to the smuggler.

Taking the sword, Madam Petra lifted David and led the others into a dark archway that opened into the main keep. Stealing across the courtyard, Max saw the riders assembled beyond the portcullis, dark silhouettes against the moonlit countryside. Spurring his horse, one of the hooded figures approached the gatehouse, brandishing a torch.

“You can’t outrun the Fates!” the figure called out. “Cease this cowardice and show yourself. Embrace the death that comes for you.”

When Max heard that voice, his heart nearly stopped. From far off, the war horns blared and the western sky flashed with light. Another tremor shook the palace, knocking debris from the walls in little avalanches of rubble and broken masonry.

Smiling grimly, Max walked to the gates and unsheathed the Morrígan blade. He had been mistaken after all. That was no troop of Prusias’s soldiers waiting outside the gates.

The Atropos were here.

And the voice that challenged Max was his own.

The clone leaned forward in his stirrups and studied Max through the heavy bars of the portcullis. He might have been Max’s mirror image, but for his close-cropped hair and more powerful build. The Workshop had evidently tinkered with the source material, as though they had melted Max down and recast him into a form that was bigger and stronger than the original. Beneath his cloak, the clone was armored with a breastplate of polished black steel. Golden runes were traced upon the metal and gleamed like pale fire by the light of his torch. Behind him sat a dozen of Prusias’s malakhim. They formed a horseshoe around the gate, silent executioners whose faces were hidden behind darkly beautiful masks. One rode forward to take the clone’s torch and hand him a heavy, ancient-looking spear. The clone tested its weight and gazed across at Max. His handsome face was composed and cruel as he urged his horse toward the portcullis.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t answer,” he said calmly. “The buyer said you were a coward, that you’d run again and again until we finally caught you. But I told him you were better than that. You and I come from the same place, after all. And I don’t run.”