XIII. Sarom

A dim, red sun started to rise over Sarom, glaring down on the charred earth and pillars of smoke rising from the garden city. It might have been called an omen by the priests, if they were not all dying, choked by pools of their own draining blood. Ekundayo crept through the silent halls after his father's bodyguard, the only memory of the royal family left in the palace. His mahogany skin was covered in a fine sheen of nervous sweat. Even the boy knew that their time was fast running out, if not gone already, and he only had nine summers to his name. He could hear it fading with the night, with the distant screams of the dying that lingered on the air like the cries of the sea gulls.

The sky had fallen on Ethilir.

It had happened so swiftly that not even Ekundayo's father, King of Ethilir, had realized it. The columns of smoke that had blown across the water for months had vanished. Suddenly, the world was quiet again and the fears of something happening in the west eased for a moment. It lasted until the fleet landed just north of Sarom. There was no end to the ships, the people said. Each one that landed was parted out into timber to make room for the next, quickly and expertly being assembled into engines of war. Ekundayo remembered the panic. People tried to keep it inside when they were around him, but he heard their voices come out as strained as reed flutes and their eyes wide and white. His mother had been so afraid when the news came that she hadn't even reacted when he tugged at her tightly coiled, black hair.

We stand and fight, Ekundayo the Elder had said. We must fight. We must delay. The east is still preparing.

But Sarom was not a fortress city—it was a sprawling trade metropolis right on the sea, rich from the flow of gold and resources. The roads were its veins and there were many of them. All roads led to Sarom, all coins passed through Eth hands at some points or another. Ekundayo's family was powerful, rich, and respected. They did not squabble amongst themselves like the Leyans, play pretend like the Talinese, obsess over caste like the Genevais, or pride themselves on brutish force like the Yssans. They were thoughtful and urbane, sophisticated and cultured. Sarom was the first place that the light of Sol, god of men and the sun, had ever touched.

The demons came in the night.

When Ekundayo the Younger had crawled up onto the roof of the building, it had only been to see that the stars had fallen. The skies above were black like pitch, but the stars burned hot and countless on the fields below the city. The moon was bloody and red, wreathed in smoke. Then, slowly at first, but with growing speed and number, more stars flared to life on the fields. Then they streaked at the walls like comets and he heard the explosions hitting the stone.

His father had told him once that even without Yssan fortifications, it would take months to breach Sarom. And yet, here they were, three days later, among the wreckage of his father's kingdom.

It was a wicked dedication of the demons. The bombardment of the walls and city had been constant, unrelenting. They did not stop to sleep or eat or pray. Their missiles that struck the walls exploded into hellfire, giving nothing for the Eth soldiers to fire back except fragments of their own fortifications. When the walls had finally fallen low, there was no unsteady charge into the gap where his father's men waited.

The armor of the enemy, flat and black, had given no glint in the light of the dying sun when they made their push. They did not rush. They marched in perfect step, their boots so many that they shook the ground, pounding their spears against their shields with a deafening roar that put the thunder of summer storms to shame. It looked like a chessboard as far as the eye could see as formations marched on Sarom. These were not an untidy, impassioned horde of rampaging raiders. They were cold and cruel and calculating. They hit with surgical precision that left his father's men scattered and reeling. And it never stopped. He could hear the shrill scream of their whistles every few minutes, reliable like clockwork. If the man at the front of the demons' formation wasn't dead, he would suddenly break contact and withdraw. A fresh one stepped up in his place, and so the demons ground away at the Eth warriors until they broke. Above, sigils in hellfire flashed signals between the legions of the damned souls bound to the will of the Princes of Iron.

Ekundayo didn't know where his family was. All he knew was that his brother, Abioye, and his father had left in their armor. His father's bodyguard, Olujimi, had stayed behind to see to the protection of Ekundayo the Younger by order of the King. Now, it was just the two of them. The clashes that had wracked the palace had come to a sudden end, a tomb-like quiet blanketing the halls disturbed only by the distant groans and sobs of the dying.

Olujimi was a big, burly man with skin only a shade lighter than onyx and soulful, dark eyes. Ekundayo thought of him as a gentle giant, but he had seen the man crack melons with his hands and heard tell that he could do the same to a head. He was wearing unembellished lamellar armor, his curved sword already drawn and his circular shield held out in front of him. His saffron sash marked his office as one of the Kingsguard, but it was stained with blood from the man that he'd cut down right before Ekundayo's eyes. At the moment, his dark eyes were hard like basalt.

"Where are we going?" Ekundayo whispered softly.

"Losena." Olujimi's answer was serious and quiet.

Ekundayo was confused. He hugged the little bundle he was carrying closer to his chest. Losena was months away on the far end of the country, a great fortress-city on the border of Ethilir and Leus. "But I thought we were fighting."

"Not you." The big warrior heard a sound ahead and grabbed Ekundayo, pulling him back through a side door that lead into a storage room. The two crouched behind crates, listening to smooth voices speaking in a language they had never heard before.

Further down the hallway, the two conferring Imperial legates took a chance to remove their helms and catch their breath, slightly removed from the men who were finishing off the Eth wounded. The palace steps were wet with crimson, staining through the beautiful rugs.

"Letting Avitus have his way was a mistake," the woman said quietly. She was an athletic woman with dark hair cut to her chin and the heavy armor more suitable for an infantry officer. Her face was marred by a long gash of a scar that ran from her right temple to the left side of her jaw. Her grey eyes were soft like smoke, even in the midst of the death and chaos that surrounded them. Lucia Aurelia Silana, Legata of Gabriel, was better known to her people as the Lady of Snares for her prowess in ambush and ploys on the battlefield. She preferred to conduct herself with a subtlety lost on some of her fellow commanders, but her men had been tasked with capture of the palace rather than assaulting the walls. It was a task she had carried out ruthlessly once Ralla's men had battered a way through the city's defenses.

Her companion was a delicate-looking man with a narrow face that hinted at elven ancestry mixed with his human and orcish blood. He was tall and lithe, but he wore his armor as easily as she did. "Ralla is having words with him," Maro said. More properly, he was Gaius Numerius Maro, Legatus of Michael. His forces were still outside the city, sitting on the roads leading into and out of Sarom, but he had been tasked with taking a small group to search for any fragment of the Imperator that might be held in the royal vaults. "His method of burn the city, sift the ashes is rather time consuming, isn't it? Still, it has a certain charm."

Silana scowled. "His lack of discrimination in target selection leaves something to be desired, considering it puts supply at risk. That fire could hit the granaries. We need that food."

"A risk I am certain that Ralla is certainly aware of. He'll put the leash back on Avitus before the mayhem engulfs the whole city. Has your little hunt been successful?"

"No," Silana said. "The king was uncooperative. I suspect that he ordered the shard removed, but I doubt it went far with your people sitting on the gates."

"Fair enough." Maro shifted his weight back and forth, one leg to the other, in a sort of stretch. He was restless. Avitus, Ralla, and Silana were the ones tasked with capturing the city. He was irritated that his legions hadn't been chosen. "We will keep an eye out. The noncombatants in the city, was it decided what to do with them?"

"Fire purifies. Though I'm certain Ralla will make an exception for those that come quickly to understand that our cause is just. They may prove useful."

Below in the city, it was already beginning. The pyres of hellfire were claiming their first victims. When the Princes of Iron ordered that a land be purged, the Imperial legions took the command both seriously and literally. Out with the old, to make room for the new. It was the price of a perfect world. Silana didn't enjoy the idea, but she understood the necessity. It was satisfying to watch it burn after more than a year of slogging through wilderness with only a few beasts to fight. She was disappointed that the resistance was so weak.

Maro glanced towards the storage room. "Something fell in there."

Silana put on her helm, that serene face covering her own. "I'll see about it," she said. Her voice was a bark when she turned to face the closest soldiers. "You two, follow me!"

The two men immediately left their grisly task of finishing off the wounded, their gladii in hand. The short swords were perfect for fighting in the press of formations when a hasta or pilum was no longer appropriate. The weapons did not gleam in the light, smoked to cover the shine. Their shields, both scuta, were tall to protect the body, painted in blue with Gabriel's glyph. Each of the Princes had their own color.

Ekundayo had to fight not to gasp when the blood-spattered legionnaires came in on their commander's heels. He gripped the little bundle he was carrying more tightly. Olujimi grabbed his shoulder. "Ready to run," he whispered. "Stop only at Losena."

The big warrior shoved hard on the high stack of crates that they were hiding behind, slamming them into the two soldiers and pinning them to the ground under the heavy weight. It would have hit Silana too if she hadn't leaped out of the way. She hit the ground in a roll and sprang up to her feet, eyes blazing behind her visor. Olujimi vaulted over the wreckage and immediately charged her, his curved sword hissing through the air. Silana parried with a side-step, well aware that this man was obviously stronger than she was. It didn't take more than a glance to establish that. She'd left her shield standing in the hallway, operating on the assumption that it would be problematic in such a confined space. The Eth man's sword was longer than her own, but that was a problem with a simple solution: get closer.

She didn't see Ekundayo slip out of the room, she was so preoccupied with the fearsome Olujimi. Silana forced her way closer with a relentless assault, snaking her blade around his shield to thrust at his arm. Her blade bit into his armor, but didn't pierce it. Her strike hadn't been strong enough. Olujimi smashed his shield into her and she staggered backwards for a moment. Her shoulder took his blow. It didn't cut through her armor or break anything, but it did hurt.

The hall had emptied out, Maro already on his way to return to his men. That gave Ekundayo a chance to slip out and head for the stables. There were horses already saddled here, like someone had planned an escape. The boy clambered up into the saddle with his bundle and steered the horse out into the burning city littered with carnage. This was his father's fastest horse and Ekundayo did know how to ride like the wind. The city was dangerous. He stuck to alleyways and narrow side-streets, flattening himself against the horse's back and praying.

The gods must have listened to him in a way they didn't listen to the rest of Sarom, because he made it out of one of the secret gates. He followed the footpath to where it vanished into the thick, temperate rainforest. Ferns grew high enough to brush his legs even on horseback. He felt safer amongst the thick foliage, but he knew that he really wasn't. It was going to be a long, long trip to Losena. He just hoped he would see his family there.

And in the little bundle hidden in the saddle bag among the supplies, the obsidian shard of Deus whispered to the boy's ears of a woman with brown hair, hazel eyes, and a brand of script around her neck.

Take me to her and you will be safe, the voice whispered just below Ekundayo's consciousness. I will protect you.

Even without knowing, the compulsion was there.

Behind him, Sarom burned. Pillars of black smoke rose and ash drifted on the air like the snowflakes of the north, painting everything in shades of grey and black. At night, the fires burned so hot and high that they could be seen from miles away. It would be the first of many cities and the world itself.

Fire purified. Hellfire devoured.