“I never made it through the first year of warrior seminary,” said Tolnían and laughed.
Rogdai struck Tolnían playfully on the back of his head, as if to stop him from becoming too tall in his own estimation.
Rogdai couldn’t concentrate his vision through the throbbing pain. Everything slowed down through his eyes, and objects didn’t focus unless he looked at them with careful intention. But when he did, they became somehow too real, and he had to look away again. When he heard the marrow-chilling cries coming from the palace, he looked up at one of the turrets to see the pale figure of a skeletal Yadovír holding his hands out. Then the terrible focus came, and the horrifying reality struck him.
Yadovír’s hands were covered in blood.
Sabíana was next to him, but she was unrecognizable—white and hardly standing, supported by two of her black-robed guards. They looked like the bringers of death.
“People of Vasyllia,” roared Yadovír. “Fell deeds have been done. The Dumar has been infiltrated by treachery. Every last one of your beloved councilors lies in his own blood. I alone escaped by a miracle. Who could have done such a deed? The Gumiren, you say? No. One of our own people has perpetrated this atrocity. One of those sworn to protect us, to minister, care, and watch over our lives with benediction is a traitor. One of our priests has sold himself to the enemy, for I know not what price. His knife it was that brought death’s swift bite to our own people. A priest! We are betrayed by one of our own!”
Yadovír foamed at the mouth. A young priest, one of those who had just fought at the wall, stepped forward to protest, but his words stopped short. Silence filled the open courtyard where he stood. The priest, fair as a spring lily, was alone, ringed by warriors who looked at him in disgust. His eyes rolled back, and he rattled at the back of his throat. A sword’s point thrust through his chest, and Rogdai, red with fury that he did not realize was there until this moment, held the sword.
“Death to all traitors of Vasyllia!”
Rogdai’s cry was taken up all around him. Swords were unsheathed yet again. He was the first among them, charging at any priest he could find. Some were in mail and fought back, but none could withstand his fury. He no longer felt the pain of his ankle, rushing back and forth, stabbing and slashing and hacking. When three bodies lay at his feet, he pursued the fleeing priests. He ran into homes, broke down doors, overturned tables and ripped off curtains to find the cowering traitors. The shock and pain he saw in their eyes only fed his hatred. He spit on them as he skewered them.
When he had run out of priests to kill, he stopped to look around, finally noticing that his right leg could no longer support his weight. The streets were spattered with red, and everywhere the open eyes of the dead clerics stared at him from dead pates. There were even a few dead women—wives, sisters, daughters—who had tried to appeal with their bodies to the mercy of the sword. There was one in particular, a girl hardly out of her childhood. There were tears on her dead face.
It was that detail, not the blood and carnage, that thrust into his mind the realization of what he had done. He tore at his hair and screamed.
Tolnían, still clutching the banner, ran from the scene of carnage back to the gates of Vasyllia. He had tried to fend off Rogdai himself, but he could not, and nearly everyone else had followed in Rogdai’s madness. Vaguely, he hoped that some of the still-returning warriors might help him. As he turned a corner, he ran into a wall of men. They were not Vasylli.
The Gumiren surrounded him, silent as hunting cats. They crawled out of every street, every shadow in the city. Tolnían thrust the point of the banner into a crack between two flagstones, drew his sword, and sang a challenge. The banner fluttered slightly, showering Tolnían with dappled sunlight. The enemy advanced.
As they attacked, he lost sense of his own arm. It flailed back and forth, striking everywhere with deadly accuracy. Like being possessed by a High Being, he thought. Two of them were at his feet. Another three came down in two strokes.
When he came to, ten mangled figures lay before him. He stopped to breathe, and iron pierced his left side. He fell and his eyesight began to dim. All he saw was five curved blades above his head, rising with the war-shriek of the Gumiren. They waited for the command to hack him to pieces.
Suddenly, light streamed from his banner, striking them like spear-thrusts. They screamed and retreated from him. Leaving him alone, they walked around him, not daring to approach the image of the Sirin in flight. They passed by and continued toward the palace. Tolnían succumbed and fell unconscious.
The despair that followed Rogdai’s madness choked him. At that moment, when the last hope shriveled within him, Gumiren warriors—hundreds, thousands of them—entered the courtyard, and with them came smoke and fire.
The war-wind abandoned Rogdai. He hardly tried to ward off the avalanche of curved blades rising high against him. He fell. He saw his brother-warriors around him fall like wheat cut down by a scythe. All of them—dead or wounded.
Within minutes, not a single armed Vasylli stood against the invaders. Rogdai, blood pouring from three wounds, lay on the ground, trying to rise only with a left arm. His right arm lay near him, hacked off by the Gumir who stood over him now with death in his eyes.
A loud retort of an ox-horn stopped the Gumiren, as though they were one man.
Yadovír, white as death, stood next to Sabíana, looking down on Rogdai and the rest of Vasyllia as though he had just given birth to a stillborn child.
I have long wondered what the fate of humanity is. We have a spark inside, fed by our soul-bond with the Sirin. And it leaves us forever restless, searching for something. But for what? I have heard that some holy men have experienced a change, a transfiguration into something higher, something stranger. Perhaps we have to shed this body of flesh for a body of fire. Perhaps the flame in our heart must engulf us whole. Perhaps only afire can we stand before the throne of the Most High and hear our ultimate fate…
From the personal archive of Dar Lassar the Blessed
Chapter 32
The Staff in Bloom
Voran laid Tarin down by the staff that still had not flowered. Tarin’s face was white, but his arms were streaked with blood, and his breathing was labored and heavy. Voran could not believe that the man who had projected such physical strength for so long could simply wither like a rose struck by an early frost. It hurt Voran, more than the river of fire, more than the sword of the Palymi. It did not help that after the war-wind had passed, it left Voran exhausted, his strength sapped.
Tarin opened his eyes, and still he did not groan or give any other indication of the pain he must be feeling. His young eyes—still such young eyes—were plaintive.
“Where were you when I suffered?” he exclaimed.
Voran leaned back, shocked and struck dumb. Then he realized Tarin was not speaking to him.
“I am your faithful, loving slave.” Tarin’s voice was stoic, lacking any hint of self-pity. “Why did you wait so long to send deliverance in my hour of need?”
The silence that followed was immense and terrible. But then, the voice. The ineffable voice.
“I was waiting, Tarin, by your side. I wished to see your greater victory, to grant you the greater reward.”
Tarin laughed and wept at the same time.
“Tarin,” whispered Voran. “Was that…Adonais?”
The look in Tarin’s eyes was strange. Voran didn’t understand it. He had never seen it before.
“No, Voran. Not Adonais.” He began to cough, and could say no more. The voice spoke again, soft and yet terrifying.
“Come to me, Tarin. I have need of your counsel.”
Tarin burst into flame—a bluish, warm flame that consumed his frail body. But it left behind something greater, an ageless warrior with sad eyes and dark hair. Completely alight, the transfigured Tarin stood up and bowed to Voran.
