The arena seats drowned in fire, its spectators gone or immolated. She hated those who attended the Rites, hated them for slaking their thirst for agony and death under the guise of religious fervor. She would die unburdened by guilt over their demise.
A stray thought flitted across her bleary mind, of plume grasses murmuring in the wind while a Savatar ataman twined her hair through his fingers and kissed her lips with the passion of a lover and the reverence of a votary.
The fire was dying, as was she, when the sense of being watched overcame her. She peered into the flames surrounding her but saw only the hazy outline of the burning arena. Her eyelids were heavy, and an anvil rested on her chest, crushing her breastbone and making it so very hard to draw breath. Still that feeling of being observed didn’t lessen. Gilene closed her eyes and gasped at the image filling her mind.
A woman, but not just a woman. This was something else, something so vast and ancient, Gilene’s spirit shied away with a whimper. She comprehended an ever-changing face whose eyes were the gathering of stars and whose body was woven of sky and meadow. The being was all that was both supernal and earthly, all that was young and old, frail and vigorous. Eons of time had passed through her fingers, and her fluttering hair reminded Gilene of a horse’s mane.
“The Great Mare,” she whispered.
The goddess tilted her head in a curious gesture. Mountains shivered in response. “You called me, handmaiden. I have heard you.”
“Agna.” Gilene tried to lift her hand and touch the hem of the goddess’s gown, but she lacked the strength. “Help me,” she said on a weak sob. “Make it all stop.”
The goddess stared at her for what might have been a moment or a year or a century. Gilene shuddered at the sudden rush of possession, a surge of otherness that filled every part of her being. She fell to her knees, helpless before the onslaught, feeling every thought, every memory and emotion picked apart, examined, and judged.
When it was done, she fell forward and retched. Her empty stomach brought nothing forth, but the weakness was gone, as was the crushing pain in her chest. She raised her head, wondering whether her eyes were truly open or if she only beheld the goddess of the Savatar in the throes of a dying dream.
“Stand, Gilene of Beroe.” The goddess’s command usurped Gilene’s will, and she didn’t so much stand of her own accord as she was lifted to her feet. Agna’s shifting features reflected a divine wrath. “There is vengeance, and there is justice,” she said, repeating Gilene’s words. “This is both.”
Power, unlike any of the feeble magic Gilene commanded, struck her with the force of lightning bolts, sending her body into a convulsive dance even as her spirit splintered under Agna’s touch.
Gilene, who was no longer Gilene, but the crumbling avatar of an angry goddess awakened by an unbeliever’s desperate prayer, screamed in triumph and despair.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Azarion wrenched the spear free from the impaled Kraelian fighter just in time to block another’s sword strike with the haft.
A thunderous snap followed by a bellowed “Look out!” from a nearby warrior made him and his opponent look up to the terrifying sight of a stone the size of a cart hurtling toward them from above.
Azarion leapt out of the way, skidding through the battlefield’s churned mud. A hard strike to his leg made his toes go numb for a moment before shooting pains ricocheted from his shin to his thigh. A spray of mud shot skyward before pelting him in a rain of droplets, and the ground shook under his feet.
The rock had grazed him as it fell, denting his greave hard enough to pinch skin and cloth at its crease. He was lucky, far luckier than the Kraelian fighter he had fended off moments earlier. The man hadn’t dodged as fast as Azarion and paid the price. All Azarion could see was a boot and part of a leg, bent at a strange angle, under the boulder.
He glanced at the ramparts where the long-armed skeletons of catapults suddenly rose above the walls. Around him, men and horses from both sides fled the field. His squadron of heavy horse, however, hadn’t yet noticed the danger. They engaged the Kraelian infantry in a vicious battle, the gleam of bright steel flashing under the morning sun as they fought each other with sword and spear.
Azarion clambered to his feet, half limping, half running toward his mount and the men under his command. “Fall back!” he shouted. “Fall back now!”
Too late. A second booming snap followed by whistling heralded another hail of crushing shrapnel, this time a mix of stones, broken wood, and nails that ripped into the clusters of fighting men and horses. Human screams joined equine squeals of agony as death fell from the sky.
Azarion covered his head and raced for his horse, stopping once to drag a wounded Savatar fighter with him. When he looked once more toward his mount, it lay in the mud, dead.
Trumpets sounded from the horde perched on the low rise above the city, and soon a swarm of horse archers descended onto the field, despite the danger from the lethal catapults. Azarion shoved the man he helped toward the rider bearing down on them. She stretched her arm out as she rode past, and the soldier grabbed hold, swinging himself up behind her, the horse never slowing pace.
The light cavalry swooped in, rescuing those in the heavy cavalry either injured or without their horses. Azarion leapt onto the back of Tamura’s horse as she nearly ran him over to save him. They raced back to the safety of the Savatar camp, where the catapults’ range couldn’t reach.
Azarion met Erakes at the entrance to his qara. “If we want to breach those gates or take down the rest of the infantry, we have to destroy those catapults.”
That the Kraelians had employed the catapults in their defense of the capital didn’t come as a surprise; still, Azarion had hoped they’d wait until the Kraelian ships arrived from the east and it no longer became necessary to engage the ground forces already defending Kraelag.
Erakes, still in half harness from his own earlier foray onto the field, motioned him inside the tent. He scowled at Azarion. “Number of casualties?”
Azarion shrugged. “It’s anyone’s guess. I’d say I’ve lost half my squadron. If we send in the other ones, the same will happen to them. Krael is willing to crush its own men in the effort to stop us. Heavy horse is useless against catapult fire.”
Erakes paced, stroking his beard in thought. “The archers can still do plenty of damage and keep the Kraelians pinned in that square of theirs. They’re mobile enough and fast enough to avoid the worst of the catapult’s projectiles. And remember, we don’t need to breach the gate. Not today. Not this battle. The treasure inside is worth warring over but not worth a defeat. We just need to fight long enough for the Kraelian ships to arrive with their eastern garrison soldiers.”
“Or until our supply of arrows runs out.”