John Fultz - Seven Princes

Perhaps he should change the city’s name when he rebuilt it. Shar Dni was dead. He might give it her name: Ianthe, City of Shadows. That might please her.

While he sat upon the Sharrian throne and legionnaires poured through the palace looking for loot and prisoners, Ianthe walked the corpse-littered streets and called lightning down upon the Four Temples. The thunder of their destruction, one collapsing pyramid after another, brought laughter spilling from Gammir’s mouth. His chin and chest were stained with the wine torn from living veins. The smell of roasting flesh wafted through the high windows of the palace. He breathed deeply the savory aroma… the tang of overcooked Sharrian pork. Not unpleasant, but his appetite was only for the rich red fluid, and his belly was full. For the first time since he mastered the Power of the Blood, he was satisfied.

She had taught him so much since then. The weeks spent with her in the sanctuary of her High Tower were an interval of dark bliss. Ancient texts and words ohf power he had learned, and the gates of deeper sorceries opened before him. There was so much more to learn… and so much time in which to do it. Tonight they would send the Vakai horde to Uurz, ridding themselves of northland opposition. Not long after that would come the sweet pleasure of draining Udurum dry. He relished the promise of blood from men and giants. His lying mother would die then, or perhaps he might keep her as a slave… Make her pay for betraying his true father. Yes, that would serve his taste for irony – a Queen reduced to serving a King whom she had rejected as unworthy of her own throne. Unless Ianthe wanted her blood… He could deny her nothing.

The Khyreins found the treasure vault of Ammon, and they brought him chests of gold, silver, and jewels, pouring them into mounds before his throne. Caskets of sparkling jewelry, strings of pearl, gemmed statuettes… a hoard of wealth glittered at his feet. Among these treasures they also cast the severed heads of Sharrians found hiding in the palace.

The white panther came stalking through the gates. She picked her way through the treasure-mounds to join him by the throne. He ordered a great chair brought from some other chamber and Ianthe took her human form to sit beside him. It was easy to imagine she was not his grandmother at all then, but his young and lovely queen. All these riches had been gathered for her pleasure. Perhaps it could be that way if he convinced her of his regal presence. His power would grow to rival hers… then he would be her equal. Then he might claim her as his own, just as he did this slaughtered capital.

“How do you enjoy your new kingdom, Sweet Boy?” she asked him.

He met her dazzling dark eyes with his own. One day she will be mine.

“I find it amusing,” he told her. “I quite enjoy this game of blood and fire.”

She laughed and his skin tingled. “These baubles are of some interest,” she said, poking at a mound of jewels with her toes.

“They are yours,” he said.

“You will need most of this to rebuild this pile of refuse into a city worthy of your rule,” she said. “Still… I may take a choice stone or two. To remind me of this day’s sweetness. Did you drink your fill?”

“Oh yes,” he said. “And you?”

“The blood of priests pleases me most,” she said. “Nearly as much as the crumbling of their temples.”

He frowned. “Their Gods came not to help the Sharrians. Why endure the presence of such useless shrines? They should thank you for ridding them of these reminders that their Gods care nothing for them.”

“ We are their Gods now,” she said.

“Well, then…” he reflected. “We must build a temple!”

They laughed loudly, and the sound of it drowned the noise of weeping slaves in the courtyard.

The palace doors exploded as a great globe of white flame crashed into the throne room. Gammir shrank against his tagainst hrone beneath the terrible glare. The sphere broke into bolts of radiance hurtling throughout the hall.

Vireon came leaping from the fireball, greatsword raised behind his head, handsome face snarling with hate.

When Alua’s fireball broke apart, its sorcerous momentum hurled him toward vengeance. Even before his feet touched the floor, Vireon swung his blade in a downward arc at Fangodrel’s head. But the Kinslayer cringed beneath the bursting flames, and Vireon’s sword bit into the gilded chair-back instead of the traitor’s skull.

Vireon growled. The Kinslayer’s mouth was dark with dried blood, as was his black mail shirt. This was no longer his half-brother, no longer even a man at all. It was an evil thing, a blood-drinking demon. As he pulled the blade free of the throne, Fangodrel squirmed like a shadow from the chair.

Alua wreathed herself in white flame and fell upon Ianthe. They shrieked at one another like vicious eagles, and in the corner of his eye Vireon saw the Khyrein become a pale and massive panther, snapping ivory fangs. He did not see Andoses, but heard him in the clang of swordplay at his back. He had refused to stay upon the ridge. Andoses fought the masked murderers with naked steel. The conquering of his city had driven him mad with rage. He shouted a Sharrian war cry, and Khyreins died on his curved blade.

The Kinslayer slithered across the floor like a black eel and rose to his feet, hoisted by shadows spewing from cracks between the flagstones. The demon things glared at Vireon with eyes red as blood and hot as fire, stretching liquid arms toward him. These were the fiends that had drunk his brother’s life. He sliced into them with the Giant-blade, but it was like cleaving smoke. They rushed upon him like a torrent of black water, fangs and claws taking on the hardness of onyx. Fangodrel stood behind them, shouting.

“You saved me the trouble of finding you, Brother!” said the Kinslayer. He spat this last word as if it were venom. “Always too stupid to know what was good for you.”

Vireon dove through the coalescing shadows, aiming the point of his blade at Fangodrel’s heart. But the demons grabbed him and he could not move. A wolf-like maw opened above his throat. A blast of white flame tore the shadows from his body like wisps of crackling paper. They howled and he shut his eyes. Alua’s flame would not burn him, nor anyone she wished to protect. But the demons could not stand it.

He staggered backward as white brilliance filled the chamber. More shadow-things rushed up from the floor, seeking to escape through windows and doorways. They burned away to nothing in less than an instant.

Fangodrel too burned in the flames. His dark mail melted in the sorcerous fire. His pale skin shriveled and blackened. He howled like a wounded child.

Alua screamed, and the flames died instantly. The white panther clasped her in its jaws, tearing and tossing her as a hound rends a captured hare. The flames wreathing her body dripped away, and her red blood splashed the piles of gold and jewels.

Vireon screamed her name. He would have gone to slay the panther, but Fangodrel flew upon him. A crippled husk sheathed in crackling, melting ski, meltinn, the Kinslayer wrapped bony hands about his neck and bared yellow fangs in a desperate hiss. Even the tongue within was charred.

“Your blood will restore me,” rasped the burned thing. “I cannot die…”

Vireon hurled him against the floor with a crunch of bones. He raised the blade high.

“I curse you, Vireon!” spat the Kinslayer. “Your children will be born into shadow-”

Vireon did not hear the rest of the curse. His blade sheared off the Kinslayer’s scorched head, which rolled like a black melon into a pile of bloodied gold.

“For Tadarus!” Vireon stamped the blackened skull into ashes.

The white panther screeched and tossed Alua’s limp body across the room. Andoses rode on its singed back now, his scimitar buried to the hilt in its flank. Crimson gushed from the wound, even as Alua’s blood dripped from the ivory fangs. The great cat bucked and twisted, but Andoses held on, twisting the blade deeper into its side.