Brian McCLELLAN - Promise of Blood

Ka-poel’s dolls melted as Privileged died. Some wavered and dropped, still others drifted away. She twirled her hands, and the remaining dolls rotated. Taniel recognized Julene’s doll.

Julene laughed fiercely as Ka-poel massaged the air above the doll. Ka-poel opened her mouth.

“Taniel, run!”

The voice had come from Julene, yet it had not been her voice. It was a girl’s voice, a voice tinged by desperation.

“Get out now!”

Julene didn’t seem to notice that she’d spoken. She put down her head and charged Ka-poel, fire flinging from her fingertips, setting alight all it touched – stone and flesh alike. It sprayed some of Ka-poel’s dolls, and two Privileged wailed in agony.

Taniel found his rifle in the other corner of the balcony. The remaining Privileged didn’t even seem to notice him. They had backed away as far as they could from Ka-poel, spread out, and threw their hands up frantically to fend off her magic.

No, he would not run. He’d not leave Ka-poel to fight alone.

Taniel snatched up his rifle. He checked the barrel. The bullet had come out in his fall. He cleared the barrel and loaded one, then another, both redstripes. He rammed cotton batting to hold the bullets in. A Privileged stumbled toward him, hands raised. He rammed his bayonet through the Privileged’s eye.

He found a place at the railing to line up his shot. The glow he’d seen earlier was descending from the heavens. It looked like a cloud, falling swiftly as it grew closer.

The cloud flew past, lowering itself into the center of the coliseum below. Taniel licked his lips. He cleared his throat. He tried to steady his hands. A pinch of powder helped to clear his mind and sharpen his eyes.

The coliseum was too far away. Six miles, at least. There was no way he could make a shot that far. He took a deep breath. The cloud touched the ground.

A foot emerged from the cloud, followed by a person. Taniel fought off the darkness of a fainting spell.

The man from the cloud was more beautiful than anyone Taniel had ever seen. His skin was perfect, his golden hair long and lustrous. He wore a tunic, something out of a play depicting the Time of Kresimir. He stepped from the cloud and paused. His perfect face was marred by a frown.

Taniel blinked the sweat out of his eyes and pulled the trigger. The crack echoed in his ears, and he lowered his rifle. He didn’t so much see as he felt the two bullets speeding toward Kresimir. Long after they should have fallen to the ground, his will kept them in the air. His mind began to hurt from the effort, his hands began to tremble. Pain blossomed in his head as he burned through his powder horn to keep the bullets flying. Still he held on.

One bullet entered Kresimir’s right eye. The other hit his chest and pierced his heart. Taniel watched the god’s body crumple and fall.

Taniel felt a sob wrench itself from his chest. He’d killed a god.

He dropped to the balcony floor.

He couldn’t bring himself to care as Julene’s roar of fury tore at his brain. He heard a mighty thump, and then the world began to shake. He cradled his rifle, trying to pull himself into a fetal position. The building was falling. I killed a god.

Ka-poel. Was she still alive? He staggered to his feet, casting aside his rifle. Ka-poel was nowhere to be seen. Julene was gone too. The building creaked and swayed beneath him. Another quake? Outside, in the middle of Pike Lake, a great geyser sprayed into the air. Taniel could feel the heat from it. He forced himself inside.

Ka-poel lay near the arched doorway to the throne room. Blood leaked from her mouth and nose and from the corner of one eye. She stared up at Taniel, still gripping one of her dolls. It was Julene, clear as day, and the doll wore a mask of absolute rage.

Taniel fell to his knees beside Ka-poel.

“I can’t take you anywhere safe,” he said. “There’s nowhere safe left. I killed a god.”

Ka-poel blinked. Taniel choked on his own sob.

“Pole?”

She smiled, reached up, and grabbed him by the back of the neck and pulled him close to her, stronger than Taniel could have imagined.

That’s when he felt the building fall out from under them.

Bloody pit , Olem thought as they brought in the bodies and laid them before Tamas.

Rain beat down and wind whipped at the canvas tent over their heads. The sounds in the air – screams like banshees that came from no mortal throat – and the smell of sulfur that clogged his senses and made him want to spit every few minutes.

He could see South Pike from time to time through the swaying trees. The whole mountain, no, the whole southeastern sky, glowed like the hillside behind a fire. It made him nervous being this close, no matter what the field marshal said. The mountain had changed. Its familiar rimmed top had collapsed on the southern side, spilling out its fiery guts onto the Kez plains.

Olem hoped it swallowed the whole damned Kez army.

Plumes of ash and smoke as big as Adro floated in the air above them, reflecting the harsh flow of the mountain. The ash rained down, requiring every man to wear cloth over his face. A plume of fire spurted from the southern rim and disappeared, heading toward Kez. Olem shuddered. That one plume was probably big enough to cover a city.

Shouldercrown was gone, swept away when the mountain’s side gave way. The last of the evacuees had just come into Tamas’s camp. It seems that they’d gotten all of the Mountainwatchers out in time. They’d brought with them the survivors of the mountaintop battle along with rumors that could shake a man’s soul.

“Are they dead?” Olem asked. He touched a new cigarette to the brazier and brought it to his lips, pulling in the sweet smoke. Dr. Petrik shot Olem a dirty look. Olem grimaced. He should watch himself. This was the field marshal’s son he was talking about.

There were three bodies, all bundled head to toe to protect them from the falling ash. One of them was alive for certain. He was a medium-sized man, emaciated and frail-looking. He was carried in on a stretcher, and his hands and feet were very clearly bound. His arms stuck out from his body, propped up by a forked stick so that his bare hands could be seen at all times. Privileged Borbador, Olem guessed. The last of the king’s royal cabal. Bo’s eyes searched the room. His mouth was not gagged, yet he did not speak.

The two other bodies belonged to a young man and woman. Soldiers unwrapped the coverings so that Dr. Petrik could examine them. The woman – no, girl, from her size – was a savage with freckled skin and hair that might have been fire red had it not been singed to hardly anything. Olem couldn’t tell if she was breathing. The boy was Taniel. Olem recognized him well enough. All of Tamas’s soldiers did.

Olem sidled up beside the Privileged’s stretcher and pulled up a stool.

“Bad up there?” Olem said. He grimaced at the pain from his chest. The wound from Charlemund had been straight and clean, making it possible for Mihali to heal it with sorcery Olem couldn’t comprehend. Healed it might be, but it still hurt between his ribs.

Bo gave him a glance.

“Cigarette?” Olem wrapped a new cigarette and put it between Bo’s lips. He lit it with a match. Bo breathed in the smoke and coughed. Olem caught the cigarette, put it back in Bo’s mouth. Bo gave a slight nod.

“I hear we got all of our boys out,” Olem said. “Before the mountain fell. That’s lucky.”

Bo said nothing.