Chapter 18

The Ruins of Suluk

There were survivors, though for many that was no great mercy. They lay beneath rubble, mantled by a pall of dust that never seemed to settle, crying out for rescue or pity. What was left of the city resounded with their groans and wails, even a day after the battle’s disastrous end.

Those few who had escaped the devastation intact—and they were few, for even among those left alive, many lay broken and bloody, waiting for the too-few surviving Mislaxans to care for them—dug through the wreckage, trying to reach those trapped below. Common folk used pry bars and shovels and bare hands, scraping their knuckles raw; the remaining wizards cast spells the lifted blocks of stone into the air and cast them aside, drawing moon power until it depleted them. Every now and then, they pulled someone out, white-faced with dust, eyes hollow and haunted from the ordeal. But many of those were maimed or crippled, and quite a few died very soon after. And for every subdued cheer that arose when someone dragged a survivor free, three muted, plaintive voices beneath the rubble fell silent and were never heard from again.

Hult dug through the night, working by torchlight along what had been the wharf. The harbor was utterly smashed, its piers sundered, its waters choked not just with the burned ships of the Suluki and broken hobgoblin rafts, but also with taverns and storehouses, temples and shops, half-sunk and jutting at weird angles above the surface. He toiled alongside soldiers who had, miraculously, escaped the shockwave, the killing wind that had blown away both armies. A few hundred had been so lucky; the rest were gone. They scratched in the wreckage, trying to find their shield-brothers, but mostly what they found were pieces—red rags and bodiless limbs that were all that remained of Suluk’s defenders and the horde they had fought. The whole night through, Hult found bits of what seemed like a thousand men, dwarves, and hobgoblins, but only six who still breathed. Of those, one died while Hult was trying to pull him free, suffocating with lungs full of dust; two others were so badly broken, he knew they wouldn’t see the sunrise. He left them for healers he knew wouldn’t come and moved on.

One more was a hobgoblin with a broken leg. Hult cut its throat with his talga but took no pleasure from the act. That left two real survivors, a man and a dwarf, who stared at the remnants of the city with deep and abiding horror before setting to work with him.

When dawn finally came, yellow and sickly through the clouds of debris, it had been three hours since he’d heard a single voice beneath the ruins. Exhausted, his maimed hand bleeding from the stubs of its fingers, he sat down on a hunk of what had once been a pillar—from the gilt, it must have tumbled all the way from Suluk’s upper tiers—and surveyed the destruction. All across the city, barely one building in fifty still stood, and many of those were too badly damaged to be safe. As he watched, a cracked and listing old mansion halfway up the mountainside gave a shuddering groan and collapsed, rattling all the way down to the bottom, nothing more than shards at the end. Men stumbled like ghosts all around him. High above, the fingers of Sevenspires were jagged stubs atop a jumbled mound. He shook his head, feeling sick, and a thought rose in his mind that was alien to the Uigan, to everything he’d known, everything he was, but it was no less true.

I am tired of war, he thought. I am done with fighting.

Sighing, his eyes stinging with dust, he bowed his head and fell asleep.

“Hey,” said a voice.

Hult snorted, coughed, and glanced up, blinking. The sun was high, almost to midday. Shedara stood next to him, looking down with troubled eyes. Her face was pale and weary, her hands filthy and raw: her magic long since exhausted, she’d kept digging in ordinary fashion like everyone else.

“What is it?” he asked. His voice scratched in his throat.

“I’ve been looking for you,” she said. “His Majesty wants to see us. All four of us.”

“His Majesty should be digging.”

Shedara shook her head. “He has been. Hooked himself up to a harness and dragged away rocks bigger than you are, six hours straight. But it’s done for now, Hult. The wizards will start again tonight, once they have the strength to cast new finding spells.” She waved a hand at the ruins. “There aren’t enough people left alive under all this for it to make sense to dig blind, so Nakhil ordered the people to rest.”

“Which is what I was doing,” he grumbled. He lowered his face into his hands. “What does he want?”

“To wish us well when we go.”

Hult stiffened, snapping upright. “Go? Where?” He already had an idea what the answer would be.

Sure enough, Shedara pointed west. “The blast came from that way. Someone has to go see what caused it. I volunteered us.”

Anger broke over Hult, coming out of nowhere, born of sleepless grief and frustration. He lurched to his feet, stepping toward her with a curl in his lip. “Us? What makes you think you speak for me, elf?”

Shedara ducked back, startled, and tripped over a fist-sized hunk of serpentine. She went down, sprawling backward with a yell. Hult took a step toward her. A knife appeared in her hand.

“Don’t come any closer, barbarian,” she said.

Hult stopped, blinking, his heart hammering in his ears. Of its own will, his hand had started to stray toward his sword. He forced it to stop and shut his eyes, his face burning with shame.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m tired. I can’t take any more of this.”

Chips of marble rattled as Shedara rose back to her feet. He heard the soft snick of her dagger vanishing back into its wrist sheath. Her hand touched his cheek, cupping it, and he opened his eyes again. She was close to him, very close. He could smell her, even through the dust. Her thumb scrubbed his face, wiping away a tear he hadn’t known was there.

“I know,” she said. “Why do you think I told Nakhil we’d see what was out there? All this death… it’s more than I can handle, either. Now will you quit being stubborn and come with me?”

Hult took a deep breath and let it out. He looked around. Suluk was tomb-quiet—a dead place. Skyfishers circled above, and wild dogs nosed through the wreckage, occasionally snatching something from the rubble and skulking away. It was going to get worse, he knew; he’d seen enough battlefields to know what was coming. The Rainwarders were burning their dead on great pyres of broken timbers, but they couldn’t get to them all, probably not more than two in three. And the sun was out, warmer than yesterday. It wouldn’t take long before the whole city started to stink.

He didn’t want to be around for that, not for one moment.

“All right,” he said. “Lead the way.”

They walked in silence, wending among the stones and shingles and scatterings of brick. They headed toward the city’s dwarven quarter. It was the only part of Suluk left even slightly intact: the bearded folk’s stonework had withstood the blast better than anywhere else. Hult stumbled along, then stopped and looked back as they drew near the dwarven ward’s embattled walls. The bones of the city lay bare behind him, mile upon mile.

“I never even saw this city,” he said. “Not really, with the fog and all. Now there’s nothing left.”

Shedara coughed. “I didn’t see it either. That might be what’s keeping me from losing my mind right now, actually. If I knew how beautiful it was…”

She stopped, her voice tightening. Hult glanced up at her and noticed her eyes were shining. She saw that he saw, and didn’t look away. He took her hand. She let him and squeezed his a little in return.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go see the king.”

There were only four Rainward Kings left alive, four of nine, and five viziers as well. Hult found he was oddly glad about that; even though Suluk’s destruction wasn’t their fault, he would have been angry if they had all escaped the devastation. Nakhil, Calex, Pharga, and Talkash had survived; the others still lay buried beneath Sevenspires. No one was trying to dig them out.

They had gathered in the headquarters of the Masons’ Guild, the largest building in the dwarven ward, in a dim, barrel-vaulted chamber lined with statues of famous stonecutters. Most of those had toppled and shattered on the ground, their heads and arms lying in pieces. Nakhil, Roshambur, and the others were on the dais where the guild masters once had conducted their business, the centaur standing and the rest in low chairs, running the length of a long table. Hult saw, as he crossed the chamber, that Essana and Azar were there too. Essana looked old and tired, spent. Azar had aged ten years since he’d seen him last: anyone who didn’t know him would have taken him for a man of forty summers, with frost at his temples and lines etched into his forehead and at the corners of his eyes.

The kings were speaking in hushed voices as Hult and Shedara approached the dais but fell silent as they drew near. Not all of them looked up, though Nakhil and Roshambur did, and Essana and her son as well.

“My friends,” said the centaur. “It warms a heavy heart to see you alive.”

“I’m glad,” Hult replied evenly, “but you won’t get much more warmth in this city. Not from what I’ve seen.”

The kings gasped and muttered together. Nakhil looked stung. It was Roshambur who stepped forward, his brows low.

“His Majesty does not need you to remind him of Suluk’s condition,” the dwarf growled. “And you are no one to judge, you whose people have sacked cities since time out of mind.”

Hult trembled, his face growing red. It took all his self-control not to draw his talga. There were archers there too, as there had been at the palace—not as many, nor so cleverly concealed, but his blade would never leave its scabbard.

Shedara stepped forward, glaring at Roshambur. “You’d do well to keep your tongue behind your golden beard, dwarf. Hult and I fought for you on the waterfront. We would have died there if not for Azar’s magic. We’ve been trying to save your people ever since. If you think—”

“Be still, all of you!” Nakhil snapped, his hands rolling into fists. His chest swelled with anger. “I did not call this gathering so we could all play at pointing fingers! We are all grieving, in our way. If you cannot be civil, then leave.”

Hult stared at the centaur and decided he liked him after all. There was something in his temperament that reminded him of Chovuk—when he was Tegin of White Sky, before the Teacher corrupted him. No wonder so many men had gone to their deaths for him. Nakhil bore that knowledge with a deep pain but kept a brave face, as a warrior should.

“I am sorry,” Hult said, bowing. “My wits are at their end. I am not myself.”

“None of us are,” Nakhil replied, then shook his head and sighed. “None of us. Roshambur, will you back down?”

The dwarf’s nose was red; he had been weeping. That was a surprise—dry as a dwarf’s eye, the village elders had said when the Uigan’s wells dried up in the summer. Roshambur’s gaze flicked from him to Shedara. Then he nodded and turned away.

“So I brought him,” Shedara said, jerking her thumb at Hult. “What’s the business? We’re going west, we know that much.”

“If you wish,” Nakhil said. “I do not command you to do so. You are not isle-folk and are not subject to us. But we can spare few men now, when so many are suffering. I ask you to go to the mountains and see what Maladar has wrought there. We must know before we make our next move.”

“What move?” Essana murmured, her voice so soft that they had to lean forward to catch her words. “Suluk is broken, your armies destroyed. This game is ended.”

The kings exchanged grim glances. They all agreed with her—all but Nakhil, who smacked his fist against his open palm. “This is no game!” he said. “We speak of the fate of Taladas. If we give up, who will stand against Maladar? Who will stop him from overrunning all the free lands?”

Silence blanketed the hall. Everyone looked elsewhere—at the ceiling, at their feet, anywhere but at Nakhil. They had all given up. Even Roshambur shook his head, his lips pursed.

Anger bloomed inside Hult’s breast.

“I will try to stop him,” he said. “I haven’t fought so long, traveled so far, seen so many deaths, to quit now. Even if I must do it alone, I’ll find him. And I’ll sheathe my sword in his heart or die in the effort.”

Nakhil smiled. “Good. I knew you would. We are not so different, Hult, son of Holar, though we come from distant lands. And you will not do it alone, for I will travel with you.”

“My lord?” Roshambur asked. “You would leave Suluk?”

The centaur shook his head. “There is no Suluk, my friend. Not anymore. When the last survivors are found—if any remain—they will leave this place and go to the other cities.” He turned to the other kings, who looked just as startled as Roshambur. “I ask you all to give them refuge. And I lay this down.”

With that, he reached up and removed his crown. Its jewels glittered in the firelight as he set it down on the table.

“There shall be no rebuilding,” he said. “Let these ruins be my people’s tomb. As for me… I do not think I shall be much missed, even by history.”

The hall was still. Everyone stared at the crown. Finally, Roshambur cleared his throat. His voice, when it came, was husky. “I will accompany you, Majesty, of course. For I would miss you.”

Nakhil smiled and patted the dwarf’s arm. He looked to Shedara. “And what of you, my lady?” he asked. “Have you nothing to say?”

She shrugged. “I’m sorry. I was letting you have your moment. Are you done?”

The other kings gasped. Roshambur flushed again. “You will not address the king that way!” he barked.

But Nakhil only smiled. “Please, my friend. I am king no longer. And yes, my lady, perhaps that was a bit dramatic, but it’s hard to abdicate a four-hundred-year-old dynasty without a little pomp.”

“Fair enough,” Shedara said. “And as for me… I’m with Hult and you. Maladar needs to be stopped, or none of this will matter.”

“I’m with you too,” said Azar, rising from his chair.

They all looked at him. Hult glanced at Essana, who looked stricken but said nothing.

“Damn right you are,” Shedara said. “You’re a part of this whole mess, boy. But first, there’s something we need to deal with. This power of yours. I’m not going one step further until we find out for certain what it is.”