Chapter 16: The East Wind

If I wanted to avenge my friend and stop these people before they could cast civilization into complete chaos, I needed weapons.

 I picked two swords off of some of the floating corpses and belted one blade at my hip and one on my back. Then I found a mask and secured it to my face, donned a wet cloak, and pulled its hood tight over my head.

 Mass madness greeted my senses when I poked my face through the trapdoor of the ceremonial stage. All around me men were locked in sword fights, and most of the ones in black were quickly crumpling to the floorboards in bloody pools as their opponents (all in colorful civilian attire) slaughtered them with superior fighting skills.

 Were these Bardrakeu’s followers? I wondered, still clinging to the rope hanging below the platform. No, men like this had to be seasoned warriors.

 Soon my question was answered when a brawny man with a blue cloak and emerald tunic drove his steel into another man’s throat. As blood spurted the big man’s blade, I noticed an emblem embossed on the weapon’s hilt-- a crimson eagle with harsh gold eyes and a snake in its beak.

 The Imperial Guard. So, Fodineo had taken additional precautions after all. 

 Part of me thought I could just climb back down into the king’s chamber, collect Mala’s body, and wade down through the catacombs till I reached Bardrakeu’s father’s wine cellar. But, no, Juniusey had mentioned the east wind. The Emperor may have lined the crowd of celebrants with his military muscle, but that hardly meant Medon and his cult were defeated.

 I ducked back down through the trapdoor, unclasped my cloak to let it splash into the waters below, and removed my mask to join the discarded garment. I then pushed my head up just enough that my eyes were an inch above the planks, and surveyed the area.

 Most of the fighters had left, but bloody corpses littered the stage and many wine barrels had been removed, leaving gaps in the barrier. Through those spaces, I could make out the campus beyond. Thick black plumes of smoke rose up past the buildings. I could hear hundreds of people screaming.

 In the time it took me to lose some of the telltale items of the Sepulchral Giant’s legion, the heated battle I’d witnessed just moments before had either moved to the outer rim of the serpent or ceased altogether. 

 So had the Deity Imperator’s guard seized control and quelled the uprising? It seemed that way, but Medon was a crafty one. I hardly thought he would have planned this rebellion so carefully, only to have it smothered in a matter of minutes.

 Cautiously, I pulled myself up through the trapdoor and crept about the bloody stage. There was an Imperial guardsman’s corpse just in front of me. kneeling before him, I undid the clasp of his sapphire cloak and draped it over my shoulders. It was sticky with fresh blood, but that meant little to me. I fitted the red hood over my head and crept to an opening in the barrels.

 Unsheathing the blade at my hip, I peaked around the wooden barrier. The crowd-facing part of the stage had a few sword fights in progress, but here the Imperial guardsmen were outnumbered by Medon’s warriors. One of the black-clad men was weaving through the combatants and raising a blowgun to his lips, unleashing a volley of powder into the guardsmen’s faces. The stricken men instantly clutched at their eyes and went into screaming spasms.

 Beyond this fray were a host of Medon’s people lowering barrels to compatriots on ladders. A few were stabbing wine casks with their swords and stuffing the holes with ripped pieces of their cloaks before lighting the makeshift wicks with a torch. Then they’d roll these alcohol bombs over the edge of the stage to explode and incinerate guardsmen below.

 The blowgun man was not far from where I hid and had his back to me. 

 I stepped out and stabbed him between his shoulder blades. The swordsman he was defending stared at me in shock, giving his guardsman opponent the opening he needed to drive his blade into the man’s chest. Then the shadow-garbed insurrectionist fell to the floorboards, his ribs spurting bright blood.

 The guardsman briefly looked to me, a slight smile on his rust-bearded face. “Thank you, comrade,” he said before turning his attention to another enemy. 

 I sheathed my sword and crouched beside the blowgun man, taking the wooden tube from his hand, as well as the black bag at his hip.

 I was determined to reverse the course of this gory tide.

 Rapid footfalls from behind shook the floorboards under my boots. Instinctively, I fell to the planks and rolled my body to the right to avoid what was certainly an oncoming attack. A dark, hooded figure ran into view, his bloody sword out. The warrior’s momentum carried him forward, though, and he stumbled over the corpse of the blowgun man.

 I inhaled deeply as my shaking hands tried pouring a dollop of powder into the end of the blowgun. Then, angling the weapon so its contents wouldn’t spill out, I placed the mouthpiece to my lips and exhaled.

 Like a cloud of steam the drug blossomed from the wooden tube and enveloped the figure as he tried lifting himself off his fallen comrade. My clumsy efforts were rewarded when a shrill scream from the young man confirmed my hit. He collapsed back onto the corpse, writhing like a wounded animal.

 I quickly pulled myself off the planks and scanned my surroundings.

 Near the edge of the stage, several parties were sparring with swords. It wasn’t hard for me to wind my way between warriors and unleash the powder onto the Giant’s minions. Many of them soon toppled off the platform as the Imperial guardsmen fatally stabbed or cut them. 

 As the bloody bodies bounced off the metal coils below, other black-clad men at lower levels stopped what they were doing and looked up at us. That’s when I noticed many were in the process of pouring wine from the barrels into round shield-sized openings in the serpent. Beside the gaping portals were hinged metal doors that had either opened when Mala had turned the key or been flung wide by Medon’s people. 

 It was no wonder the guard had chosen this point in time to attack.

 When the stage had been cleared of living combatants, the Imperial guardsmen all gathered with me at the front of the platform to stare at the tableau beyond. 

 Crowds of civilians had moved away from the snake and the Siblings and were huddled in large masses, staring back at us like a rapt audience at a pit fighter tournament. A few of the barrels used to fry Imperial guardsmen had shattered onto the flagstones surrounding the automaton and were now smoldering bonfires belching black smoke.

 I felt a heavy hand rest on my shoulder and turned my head to see the rust-bearded guardsman I saved earlier.

 “Who are you?” he asked.

 Tucking the blowgun at an angle under my belt, I dropped the powder sack into the larger bag at my hip and touched my hand to my sword hilt before saying: “Syndeeka of the Ushe. I was sent by the Deity Imperator to destroy the Sepulchral Giant.”

 “Come with me, then. The snake's head is just a few paces to the left of us on this top coil.”

 “Do you think that’s where he’ll be?”

 The guardsman shrugged. “I don’t know. But the head should be where this device’s controls lie.”

 I looked back at the other guardsmen. “What about them?”

 “I’m ordering those men to go down to deal with the Giant’s people below us.”

 The prospect of confronting Medon and his followers in a party of two did nothing to inspire confidence in me, but the guardsman was right to send the others down to stop those fueling this engine of war.

 I briefly closed my eyes and inhaled a long, full draught of air. “Very well. What are a couple of people compared to millions?”

 The guardsman smiled. “Have faith, Syndeeka. You’ve gotten this far.”

 Yes, I thought, but how many good people did I have to lose along the way?

 It was only a five foot drop from the left end of the platform to the  serpent coil. I was hoping for a stealthy approach to the beast’s head, but then the clanking of my boot soles on metal scales alarmed me and turned my skin to ice. Sliding my bloody blade back into its sheath, I fished out the powder sack and pulled the blowgun from under my belt.

 “How far now?” I asked in a low voice.

 “We’re almost there,” replied the guardsman. “Do you want to make the first strike then?”

 “I think blowing the drug into their faces might give us an advantage.”

 As we circled the snake six darkly attired men and a woman in gray who could only be Juniusey came into view. They were crowded together onto the serpent’s head (which was half the size of the stage front) and fiddling with tall metal levers that jutted out of the creature’s muzzle like spikes.

 Almost immediately, one of the cloaked men turned in our direction, pulled a crossbow out, and fired at us. Seeing his weapon alerted my instincts and I dropped on all fours. I heard the briefest of swishing sounds as something sailed over me. Then the guardsman gasped.

 Looking back over my shoulder, I saw my comrade doubling over, a bloody arrow shaft penetrating his shoulder. He crouched down beside me, chuckling dryly, and said: “I underestimated them, I’m afraid.”

 “Are you okay?” I asked.

 Stooping next to me, he leaned over my ear. “Let me just charge them,” he whispered. 

 “What?”

 “The others are armed, too. I’m dead at this point, but you can beat a retreat and try something else.”

 Before I could reply, he stood his full height, waved his sword in the air, and charged forward, screaming. He quickly passed me and plunged in the direction of the crossbow-wielding men, who had stepped off the serpent head and were now moving towards us. As they riddled his body with arrows, he managed to slam into several of the men and knock them off the coil. The victims of his collision screamed themselves as they briefly became airborne and plummeted to their deaths. 

 With his last bit of strength, the guardsman staggered onto the head, bringing his sword down on a rebel. The blade cleaved into the man’s shoulder, which sprayed blood. Both warriors then crumpled to the scaly ground in blossoming red pools.

 How I regretted not asking the guardsman his name.

 There were now just two men and Juniusey. I didn’t know if she was armed, but her companions had swords and were desperately fidgeting new bolts into their crossbows.

 This was my only opportunity. I hardly cared if I died at this point, but I couldn’t let that death be in vain. Not with stakes this high.

 The blowgun was too risky so I flung it into the courtyard below and dropped the powder sack into my bag. Then I grabbed the blade at my hip while I used my other hand to undo my cloak. The garment fell from my shoulders as I reached for the sword on my back, all the while pumping my legs forward in a rapid run.

 From under her hat brim Juniusey’s eyes widened at the site of my now exposed face.

 I swung both swords up and down in arcs before me in a scissoring motion. In their panic, the young men fired their crossbows. Two arrow shafts, to my surprise, bounced off my steel.

 One man was standing a few feet ahead of the other so I came at him, swinging my sword at his neck. There was an explosion of blood as the blade severed his spine. I blinked red droplets out of my eyes while the man’s head bounced behind him and across the serpent’s muzzle before tumbling down to the coils below. His decapitated body, still spurting blood,  went down on its knees, then fell back, all the while twitching its arms like the limbs of some wind-tossed rag doll.

 Juniusey was pressed against one of the tall iron levers jutting from the top of the serpent’s nostrils. Her hand was fiddling in a gray bag at her hip, and I could only wonder what concoction was waiting for me when I got to her.

 First I had to get through her last man standing. The hooded fellow hadn’t had time yet to reload his crossbow or unsheathe his sword, so I hopped over his dead comrade and ran at him, my two blades ready. In desperation, he hurled the crossbow at me and it tumbled through the air in an arc. I tried intercepting it with my right-hand sword, but missed. Its metal bow barely glanced off my temple, but the sheer mass of the weapon was enough to knock me off my feet. 

 Clomping on metal scales warned me of the warrior’s approach. Instinctively, I kicked my leg out, hoping my boot would land his leg or crotch and give me time to pull myself up. But his footfalls veered around me and I just barely deflected his sword as it swung at my face. My left-hand blade clanged against his steel. 

 My other sword jabbed into his ribs. He gasped as the blade penetrated his side. I let go my right-hand sword as its hilt was torn from my fingers by the sideways motion of the man’s torso when he toppled over.

 Drenched in his spilling blood, I managed to pull myself to my knees. Just then, out of the corner of my vision, I caught sight of Juniusey as she used a large wooden scoop to fling a reddish powder into my face. There was no burning as I expected, but only an intense numbness. My legs gave out on me and I fell on my back, my remaining sword dropping from my hand and clanking on scales.

 With slow, heavy tread, the old woman came into view, staring down at me with sad, contemptuous eyes. “Mala’s dead, I take it? My condolences, Syndeeka. She was good and loyal to our cause. She was never hostile to us like you always were. I am truly sorry to learn of her passing. But I’m sure it was her sacrifice that has ensured our future success. I’m in her debt.”

 I strained inside my mind to move my hands, but all I could feel was a cold prickling seeping deeper and deeper into the tissues of my limbs. Here this priestess loomed over me and feigned sympathy for my murdered friend, and I couldn’t reach out and grab her wrinkled throat, or cut her flesh, or stab her heart. The feeling of falling through layer upon layer of earth overwhelmed my senses. I tried so hard to focus on the disgust and hatred I felt for Juniusey (something to pull myself out of the dank, icy despair consuming my spirit) but it was like I’d been reduced to a tiny being who could only stare out the vacant eyes of a corpse. 

 Juniusey knelt and touched her hand to my shoulder and a thousand ice shards dug into flesh where her fingers lay.

 “I know you must be hurting inside, Syndeeka,” she said. “The loss of someone you’ve loved so dearly for so long. But now you can understand what I felt when they killed my sister and my brother-in-law, when the Emperor and his court tortured and nearly murdered my poor nephew, and when they brutally violated and slaughtered the woman who held his heart.”

 I’ve known that pain much longer than you realize, you hateful old witch, I screamed at her from behind my eyes.

 Juniusey stood up and smiled warmly at me. “I think mercy is in order. Mala wouldn’t want any harm to come to you. We owe her such endless gratitude. Plus, your condition won’t abate for another fifteen minutes or so, and by that time we’ll be en route to the Imperial palace. Don’t worry; we’ll place you down in the courtyard somewhere out of harm’s way.”

 The silver locks of hair beneath her straw hat fluttered and began plastering Juniusey’s face. With a liver-spotted hand she brushed them out of her eyes. She turned to stare off in the distance, and her intent look bloomed into one of joy.

 She glanced down at me, still smiling. “Praise be to the east wind, Syndeeka. Now he’s coming to finally realize his dream. Medon is coming! And our people have filled the serpent with wine and a potion of my own creation, and they’ve lit the fires within her belly. Look!”

 Juniusey pointed to the side and I was able to pull my eyes in that direction.

 Buoyed in the air by a sausage shaped balloon above it was a black wicker gondola in the shape of a ship. Hooded men in masks were leaning over its sides, dumping large bags of gray powder into the courtyard. Soon there arose a loud cacophony of screams when the falling drug reached the crowds.

 As the aircraft blotted out the sky and cast us in shadow, Jusiusey returned her gaze to my prone form, her smile now stretched into a joyful, toothy rectus. “My dear, dear girl, you are witnessing a new branch in the vast river of history. Today is a new year. Today is a new age.”