The Black God's War (39 page)

The melee zoomed into Lucia’s vision, leaving her feeling bodiless and dizzy as she watched. The body of Pawelon’s prince lay bruised and discolored. Caio’s eyes glowered with vengeance.

My goddess Ysa, I pray for the greatest good.

Another Pawelon appeared out of nothing, the girl from the forest. She’d trimmed her hair, but looked just as beautiful.

Caio jumped back and began conversing with the girl.

Lucia could barely feel her lips, and mumbled as she spoke, “There is another Pawelon there.”

“Where? I don’t see it,” her father answered.

“On the ground by their prince. It’s his lover, the one we told you about. They’ve broken the agreement.”

“I don’t see her.”

“I am telling you, she is there. Caio is talking to her right now. He is telling her to go.”

“You don’t sound well, Lucia. You are imagining things.”

Caio raised his spear again above the body, and the girl threw herself over the prince.

“One,” Caio said.

“Two.”

Ysa, may this act bring peace.

“Three.”

Pawelon’s prince underwent a miraculous and instantaneous healing, no doubt to Lucia a product of the dark magic wielded by him and perhaps the girl as well. Caio dropped the spear as he slumped to the ground and convulsed. His chest and arms heaved as if in dying spasms. Caio’s moans curdled Lucia’s blood.

The Rezzian crowd gasped and screamed in disbelief. The prince and his lover spoke to each other in their language.

Lucia called out to her father, “She has used some dark magic to conceal herself. She is there!”

Pawelon’s prince picked up Ilario’s spear—
don’t you dare touch that, you bastard
—and stared for a moment at the metal.

The prince strode to Caio’s body and raised the spear.

“Rao, no!” the Pawelon girl screamed.

The prince swung back the spear with deadly force as the sun glistened off his bare chest and, with two hands, he drove the blade into Caio’s heart.

In the briefest of moments as the spear came down, Lucia’s heart called out,
Ysa, take me instead!

Lucia’s head and vision rattled like a pounded drum. The arid desert pressed flat against her back, and then Ilario’s spear entered her chest, under her right breast.

The prince’s exposed teeth and gums showed his horror. Caio and the Pawelon girl were gone. Her enemy pulled the spear from her chest and Lucia fell into darkness.

The Third Stanza:

To Heal the Score

Chapter 61: In the Hands of the Enemy

INDRAJIT STOOD BESIDE HIS RAJAH, searching for the combatants with his bleary vision. Between them and the single combat stood the bulk of Pawelon’s great army: pockets of sages, archers in square formations, spearmen in rectangular groupings along their front and at their flanks.

Indrajit elevated his plane of vision to the Rezzian army beyond. His heart fluttered with twinges of excitement.

Briraji had used a power to gain extraordinary sight. “Something has happened.” The sage’s hands formed a vault to keep the sun from his eyes. “The Haizzem falls and … Rao rises again.”

Indrajit noticed the gasp of hope on Devak’s face.

“Rao picks up the spear. He pauses, raises it. He stabs the Haizzem—wait—the Haizzem is gone. Rao speared a woman instead, one with dark red hair—”

“The royal daughter.” Devak simply spoke the fact.

“Dogs!” The word exploded from Indrajit.
No honor
.
They sacrifice a woman instead.

“Rao has disappeared. He must be using Aayu’s
sadhana
. And now the royal daughter is gone.”

“None of them are there? No one is there?” Indrajit asked.

“No one.”

“My Rajah,” Indrajit said, “there
must
be a price to pay for their treachery.”

“Rao won the combat.” Devak crossed his arms over his massive chest. “We’ll wait for their next move.”

Narayani’s world spun around her dizzy head, blinded by the red ball of the sun. Fighting the throbbing in her temples, she placed her hands on a smooth, hard surface and raised herself to look at her surroundings.

Below the raised platform, the Rezzian army spread out farther than her eyes could see: long-haired, dirty men bearing shields, many of them dressed in crimson shirts and capes around their armor; bald men in loose, white tunics; decorated officers upon horses.

Two men sat in chalky white thrones before her, the Haizzem and a man that could only be Rezzia’s king. The king’s golden armor reflected the sun as he stood. He glared down on her with unkind eyes framed by his thick hair. Narayani fell flat and clung to the wooden floor, fearing the crowd of soldiers would spot her and tear her to pieces.

The king’s gaze shot to the Haizzem. The young man writhed in agony.

“Healers!” screamed the trembling, red-faced king. He placed a powerful hand on his son’s shoulder. “What happened?”

The Haizzem spoke with his eyes closed, clenching his teeth in pain. “He defeated me. He stabbed me. I should be dead. I don’t know how I came to be here.”

The king put his other hand on Caio’s forehead. “Lucia was in your chair. She said a Pawelon woman interfered with your combat. Was it this pig?”

Caio opened his eyes and fixed them on Narayani. “This girl, she told me to kill her if I was going to kill the prince.” Caio spoke slowly, breathing painfully. “I couldn’t do it. Father, where is Lucia?”

“She took your place. I saw her hair. She took Ilario’s spear in her chest.” The King nearly choked as he uttered the words, “She is dead.” He pointed at Narayani, flinging his arm toward her like a whip. All of his exposed skin seemed flexed and hard, from his fingers to his neck and forehead. “She’ll be the first one to pay
the price.”

“How could it be?” Caio cried out as bald men in flowing cream robes rushed onto the platform to minister to him. Narayani tried to focus on the mantras Aayu taught her, but terror and nausea paralyzed her.

Focus!

“She sacrificed herself for me,” Caio said softly. His eyes seemed to be searching for an answer, then focused on his father again. “Lucia interfered, too.”

The king roared, “By dying for you?”

“My King,” a high-ranking soldier in a crisp red uniform interrupted the conversation from the opposite end of the platform, “soon after the Pawelon stabbed down, he removed his spear. Then we all saw him disappear. Her Grace disappeared soon after that.”

“Then where is she?” the king asked.

“We have not seen her since, nor the prince.”

“Gods damn all of this.” The king lunged forward and grabbed the back of Narayani’s dress.

Narayani fought him, trying to stay down. The king yanked her up onto her knees, then onto her feet. Her wobbly legs would have collapsed again without the king forcing her upright. Thousands of eyes feasted upon her like starving wolves to prey.

“Warriors! The royal daughter of Rezzia has been taken from us. Just now, in the center of the valley, she was stabbed in the chest by the Prince of Pawelon.” His voice then wavered as he said, “My daughter may be dying this very moment, or she may already be dead.”

The king raised his open left hand and turned as he spoke, facing different sections of his army. “Your Haizzem is weak and wounded.” The king’s rough hands pressed against Narayani’s back as he turned her to face each section of the crowd. “This Pawelon pig went into the valley, violating the rules of the engagement, and distracted your Haizzem just as he was going to kill the prince.
She
caused him to lose his combat!”

Wails of hatred and woe arose from the army. Narayani’s heart burned like a funeral pyre.

“Let every one of us get in her!” a soldier yelled from the crowd, quickly joined by a chorus of cheers.

Focus, damn it! Focus!

“Make the pretty pig squeal!” another voice shouted from the throng. Narayani heard ugly voices throughout the mob imitating crying pigs. Terror gripped her so much she couldn’t feel her body.

She twisted her head to focus on the Haizzem as he tried to stand. He collapsed into his seat, but the bald men around him helped him to his feet and held him upright. The army quieted and waited for his words.

“Father, what if Lucia still lives? Perhaps we could still exchange her for this girl.”

The king held Narayani up as she tried to fall again, pulling on her dress with one hand. “You are right, my son, but she will pay for her crime. Now sit and rest.” The king called to some men beside the platform, “Guards, we have a prisoner. Take her away from here and guard her life with your own. One way or another, she has value to me.”

Narayani fell onto her hands and knees as the king released her. Her leather medicine bag lay nearby. Her brain stammered one desperate thought after another, trying to concoct a scheme for survival.

“Now we will have
our
battle!” The king said in Caio’s direction. Caio sat with the aid of the bald men; he closed his eyes again and lowered his head into his hands. “Yes,” the king nodded as he hissed the sound.

He looked to the west and walked to the edge of the scaffold, shaking the floor. “Now we will have
our
battle!” he announced with a muscular arm and clenched fist shaking above his head. “Now we will have
our
battle!”

The crowd raised countless swords and yelled with fury.

Helmeted soldiers with dark beards and hairy arms grabbed Narayani, lifting her off the floor. She squirmed in their grasp. She looked to Caio, but his face remained buried in his hands.

“My bag!” she managed to say in Rezzian. She understood their spoken language better than she could speak it. “I am healer. I can help Haizzem. I need my bag.”

The king turned around. “You lying bitch!”

“Father!” Caio came to life and stood. “She speaks the truth. She is desperate and scared, but she believes she can heal me.”

Narayani nodded repeatedly.

The king seemed to bite his tongue and shook his head. “She will not lay a finger on you with any of her dark magic.”

“You will need me,” Narayani stumbled over the words. “Caio injury from Rezzian magic. Not Pawelon. Your medicine not heal him. Mine will.”

The king clenched his jaw and flared his nostrils.

“She tells the truth as she sees it,” Caio said. The bald men supported Caio to keep him from falling. “And she is definitely a healer.”

“What on Gallea is she talking about?”

“Their prince turned Mya’s divine power against me.”

The king walked back to his seat and picked up a golden helm off the floor. He held it under his right armpit and said to his guards, “Take her bag. Under no conditions will you allow her to get anything out of it. Is this understood?”

The men nodded. A heavy soldier picked up Narayani’s leather bag.

“Make sure she does not come near Caio.” The king looked to the Haizzem. “Go and rest and let our warpriests heal you. Do not fall under her enchantments. She brings only death.”

The king stepped closer to his son. “While you heal, I will command the army. We will fight them and if Lucia is alive, we will find her. Do I have your permission to do so, my Dux Spiritus?” The king leaned his head forward in a bow.

“Yes.” Caio looked down, then winced in pain and rubbed his face again.

“I pray for your swift recovery, Caio. So that you will be able to join the fighting again.”

Narayani tried again to visualize the mantras. Her terror made the effort useless. For now.

Caio collapsed into the arms of the warpriests.

“Lay him down!” one of the warpriests commanded.