Robert Vardeman - Istu awakened

She sank to the furs and lay back. Her eyes were wide with expectation. His double erection was impressive, but she was not altogether certain what he intended to do with it.

He knelt between her thighs, took a member in either hand and pushed forward with his hips. Moriana lifted her hips to meet him. 'That way,' she groaned. 'But I've never done that before…'

In a moment, pain and pleasure mingled and overlaid one another. He lowered himself until he loomed over her like an idol supporting himself on muscular arms. Even in the wan emerald light his eyes shone like windows into blackness. He began to move to and fro, slowly. The skin of his members had the slightest roughness. The friction thrilled her almost beyond toleration.

Light began dancing before her eyes. Breath came short. Hot and cold chased tails through her body, touched her with fire, with ice, and the pleasure moved within her, possessing her utterly.

When the icy explosion came within her, she screamed with the fury of her own release.

She drifted from consciousness, floating timeless in darkness and satiety. At length her eyes focused again. Khirshagk still hung over her, and she felt the twinned rhythm of his heart yet within her. She didn't know how long she lay in her daze. She sensed he could have kept that position for hours, days – and more.

He slipped from her. Even the withdrawal gave intense delight. She gritted her teeth as climax seized her lithe body again. Winded, she lay back looking up as he put on his robe. For some reason the black against black figures were clearer to her now. They seemed to move with a life of their own. Or was that only a trick of the emerald witchlight?

'That first Moriana,' she asked. 'How long did it take her to gain the true magic?' He looked down at her, his expression totally unreadable.

'She never gained it at all,' he said, leaving the chamber with noiseless tread.

Moriana stared up at the ceiling. It was concave and faceted like a gem. It focused her mental energies and flooded her with both vitality and unease. She blinked several times and looked away from the disquieting ceiling. 'Ziore?' she asked softly. 'What do you make of it?'

'I know not what.' The voice came from somewhere amid the furs strewn in the pit.

Moriana put her hand to the Amulet, clenching it hard. She couldn't make herself look to see whether the stone shone white – or black.

On that day appointed for battle by forces none living could comprehend, it seemed as if Nature herself rejoiced at the prospect for slaughter. When dawn poured itself over the horizon like soured milk, the Sky City floated some ten miles west of Kara-Est, where it was spotted by pickets posted in gondolas held aloft by ludintip, huge airborne jellyfish-like creatures. As they reported, the City showed no sign of warlike intent. No war birds circled its tall towers or winged in arrowhead formation to meet the aerial guardians of the seaport. To the immense disgust of Parel Tonsho, and Hausan and Suema, Senior General and Sky Marshal of Kara-Est respectively, a number of Deputies immediately expressed relief and demanded that their city's military alert be called off. The alert remained in force.

At ten in the morning, aerial reconnaissance reported ground troops massing on the plain west of the Hills of Cholon. Smiling grimly – largely for the benefit of the court sculptor come to immortalize what the general was sure would be an epic victory with a heroic bust in marble – General Hausan ordered two thousand cavalry and three thousand foot soldiers, including almost a thousand archers, to come forth from the Landgate to meet the foe. Sweating, itching and weak-kneed within her ornamental armor, Tonsho watched the couriers ride out from the Hall of Deputies with considerable misgiving. At her side her covey of youths strutted and made muscles, bragging about how they would deal with the enemy.

Tonsho knew victory would not be so easy. Battle never was, especially battle against the fearsome Sky City. She silenced her chirping boys with an impatient wave of her hand. On this of all days she didn't want their arrogant prattle distracting her from the serious business of worrying, something no one else in Kara-Est appeared capable of doing.

Standing on the skywall beside the huge mandibular jut of the City's forward dock, Rann and Synalon watched the tidal race of armies in collision. Synalon held a heavy white robe closely about her against the wind. Her hair blew like black stormwrack around her pale face. Rann wore the black and purple of the City with the gold brassard on his left arm identifying him as one of the elite Guard. He needed no badge of rank; the blazing crimson crest on the head of the black war eagle was device enough.

'We shall be victorious, cousin,' said Synalon smugly.'I feel it. I know it!'

Rann glanced sidelong at his queen. 'Is this assured by the Dark Ones?' he asked in a monotone.

'The Dark Ones?' answered Synalon, wildly, almost insanely. 'I assure this day's victory, cousin dear. I am the one with the power. I will crush those crawling insects, those larvae, those pathetic creatures daring to oppose my will!'

Rann said nothing of his own preparations, of the army, the eagle riders and the part they would play, the magics performed by scores of mages in the City. For all he knew, Synalon might be correct. This day might belong to her and her alone. Shaking his head at the prospect, he turned attention back to the slow jigsaw merging of armies below.

Ghostly with distance, the sounds drifted to their ears: barking, shouting, trumpets ringing, the beat of drums. The white and azure banners of Kara-Est snapped above orderly rectilinear arrays, heavy spearmen massed in the center with archers on the wings and squadrons of cavalry on the outermost flank. Against them the Sky City ground troops, twenty-two hundred dog riders from the City and her subjugated 'ally' Bilsinx. The attacking force travelled in a shapeless, fluid formation that the regimented commanders of the Estil army thought disorganized.

In advance swarmed the Bilsinxt light cavalry hurling darts and arrows to disorder the close-packed ranks of the Estil. The heavier City riders couched lances and charged through, the skirmishers parting easily to either side like a bow wave from a war galley's prow. The lines met, purple and black against blue and silver. Several seconds later the observers in the City heard the dull hammerblow followed by a many-throated shout as the hours and weeks of waiting were consummated in steel and blood and death.

Rann smiled grimly. His nostrils flared and he imagined the coppery smell of blood. Beside him Synalon stood as pale and stiff as a marble statue, her thoughts alien.

Inexorably, the City floated east. The striving mass of men and beasts passed beneath. Though outnumbered and less massively armored than their foe, the Sky City forces held their army in savage deadlock. The Bilsinxt streamed past the enemy's flanks like quicksilver, driving arrows into the unprotected flanks and rumps of the Estil knights' war dogs. Between the skirmishers surged an inchoate, writhing mass pushing now this way, now that.

Rann nodded. Turning to an aide who stood by, he said, 'Order the artillery to commence firing. It'll give our crews good practice for what's to come.' The aide nodded and rushed away. 'Besides,' Rann said, leaning forward to grip the windworn stone of the wall, 'the Estil must be encouraged to reinforce.'

Less than a minute later, a rain of rocks and ballista darts spattered among the Estil. Dogs screamed and men choked, dying as the two-yard-long shafts pinned men to mounts and mounts to sod. A few riders and footmen fleeing for the rear became a trickle, a stream – and threatened to turn into a torrential rout.