A Day of Fallen Night (The Roots of Chaos)

Jrhanyam, the Rose of the South, had stood for twelve centuries. It had risen from the sands of a great plain, unfolding petals of music and trade, nourished by ancient underground tunnels that drew water from the Spindles. Tunuva rode Ninuru east along its streets, past troops of soldiers in masked helmets, through an arched gate to the inner city.

Corpses strewed the ground – scorched or mangled, or both. Here and there, keyhole openings in the walls gave entry to the water tunnels. Some Ersyris were hurrying down those stepways with their children, while others fought on the surface with whatever they could find.

Tunuva breathed hard into her capara. Even through the cloth, she smelled the char and burning hair. If this attack lasted for more than a few weeks – if it went on for much longer than a year – then it would be the end of human life. Not even the Priory could stop it.

Canthe had been right. It will not be a war, but a slaughter.

The wyrms had hatched an army of beasts. On her way from Lasia, Tunuva had seen creatures that had once been cattle and deer, given new life. She had seen lesser wyrms gnawing at carcasses, soaring in flocks over city and sand. All at once, they were everywhere.

Yet what Canthe had told her was lodged at the front of her mind, and for all she tried, for all the turmoil around her, she could not shake it loose. Her breath came sharp and hot.

What if it’s him?

She had mourned him. Twenty years she had lived with the scar, and now it was torn open, bleeding.

What if he lives?

Shoving the thought down, she kept riding, towards the hilltop fort of Jrhanyam. Ashes fell, dark snow on a desert city that had never seen it.

To her left, a wyrm shattered a windtower, which crumbled on to the houses below, throwing up a thick cloud of brick dust. Mounted soldiers charged through it, wielding lances, while the unarmed ran out of their way. Ninuru entered the colonnade of a market circle, where many people had taken shelter from the fire, some grievously wounded.

Screams and roars clashed together. Tunuva kneed Ninuru to the right. As they emerged, a boulder crashed down on the domed roof of a water cistern, cracking it like a skull.

Most Ersyri houses were built of stone or clay. For the most part, they had withstood the fire – but there was plenty more in the city to burn, and not enough water to hinder the spread. The blaze was making its own wind, devouring all it touched, hay and cloth and flesh.

What if he dies in the fires of this war, thinking that his mother abandoned him in the dark wood?

When Ninuru reached the gatehouse, Tunuva rolled from the saddle. The ichneumon grabbed a lesser wyrm that had swooped low, shaking it by its tail, while Tunuva strode for the path that led up the hill. Seeing her cloak, the guards stood back without question, their gilded armour clinking. She marched up the steps to the stronghold and through its cavernous halls, past balconies and fountain gardens. Servants were clustered at the windows.

By day, the throne room shimmered with silver and mirrorwork, its ceiling an exploding sun of symmetry. Now its floor was awash with blood, and a winged serpent, thick as a palm, was slumped beside a shattered window, head severed from its body. Darkness had spilled like pitch from both halves.

The throne itself was an impressive piece. Made of solid gold, its back swept into the feathered wings of a dove, an old emblem of the House of Taumāgam.

Queen Daraniya sat on it, face lit by the silver flame that hovered in the middle of the room. It was the gentlest fire a mage could cast – purposeless, but beautiful, a fire that burned only where it was bidden. Apaya uq-Nāra stood beside the queen, her white cloak wallowed in red.

‘Your Majesty,’ Tunuva said.

‘Tunuva,’ Queen Daraniya said. Her crown was the throne in miniature, white hair scrolling to her shoulders, and she wore a mirrored collar of the Faith of Dwyn. ‘Thank you for coming.’

Despite her calm demeanour, her slim brown hands were tight on the throne. ‘I am here in the name of the Mother,’ Tunuva told her. ‘I swear I will defend your walls.’

‘I’d be grateful. Apaya tells me I should go to my ancestors’ tombs, but that seems like tempting fate, doesn’t it?’

Four young women, each with a fall of dark curls – her granddaughters – held each other close in the corner. Their protectors must be out in the city. Apaya stepped over the serpent and kissed Tunuva on the cheek.

‘Tuva,’ she said. ‘I thought you weren’t coming. Esbar said your ichneumon needed rest.’

‘She’s recovered. I had to come. How long has it been?’

‘This is the fourth day.’ Apaya looked gaunt. ‘The Ersyri soldiers can’t stand for much longer.’

‘What needs to be done?’ Tunuva strode back across the room with her. ‘What has been done?’

‘The soldiers who are too exhausted to fight are taking the wounded and vulnerable to the tombs and water tunnels. Esbar is leading our sisters, holding off the wingless beasts that can’t surmount the walls. You’ll find her to the east, outside the Dawn Gate.’

‘Are there any great wyrms?’

‘Just one. We suspect it’s overseeing an attack on Isriq, too, flying between the two cities, keeping a distance. Until we deal it a blow or we all collapse in defeat, this siege will continue.’

‘When does it come?’

‘As the sky darkens. Did Siyu ride with you?’

‘She’ll be on her way soon, but she’s on horseback.’

‘Yes, Esbar told me about Lalhar – terrible. What about the Western woman?’

‘Canthe is still too weak.’

As she spoke, a deafening crash came from above, shaking a curtain of dust from the ceiling. Apaya unsheathed her sword. ‘Go to Esbar,’ she said. ‘Earn your red cloak, Tunuva Melim.’

‘Use our catapults,’ a woman in white robes urged. ‘They will strike wyrms from the sky.’

With a nod, Tunuva turned on her heel and stepped back into the city, unfolding her spear. Time slowed as she wheeled to meet a beast and struck its head with all her might.

In the Priory, battle had always been a dance. War, she soon found, was something quite different. There was no joy in this brutality, no rush of exhilaration each time she landed a blow. There was only sweat and toil, which tired her faster than she had thought possible.

She buried her spearhead in one creature, wrenched it free in a clenching gush of blood, drove it hard and fast into the next. Her enemy was nameless, screaming; it spoke only the tongue of wrath. In the smear of it, she thought she saw a wyrm with half a human face.

The siden in her blood glowed bright, warming her thews. Still, she was graceless at first. The body she had drilled for decades was suddenly heavy and slow, as if she had drained a cup of wine. It took six gruelling kills before she began to understand why.

They had all been trained to fight, but never to contain their fear, for there had been no real threat in the splendour of the War Hall. Keeping fetters on it was draining.

Coated in ash, she hewed her way through the city. Her weapon was one with her arm. As she ran up a steep thread of steps, something landed in front of her. She blocked its tusks with the haft of her spear, catching herself on the step below, and before she could wrest free, Hidat leapt from above and sliced her blade down on its neck. The head rolled away.

‘Tunuva.’ Hidat caught her by the arm, pulling her to the top. ‘Thank the Mother you’re here.’ Her eyes reflected the fires. ‘Tuva, this is beyond us. How are we to defend the whole South?’

‘As best we can.’ Tunuva blotted her upper lip on her sleeve. ‘I’m going to help Esbar.’

‘I’ll join you soon.’

Hidat returned to the rooftops. Tunuva ran on. She saw Yeleni protecting two children, Butnu defending an entrance to the water tunnels, the men darting out to salvage arrows from the corpses.

Ninuru caught up with her as she continued south, finally reaching the deep outer wall of the city. She climbed it, using loose bricks and chips as handholds, and touched down on the other side, close to one of the fortified gatehouses. A throng of creatures stormed towards the doorway of glazed brick, held at bay by twenty women of the Priory.

By the light of the torches on the gate, she saw Esbar in the thick of the fray. Her vambraces shone in the firelight as she sliced with precision, as she had in every duel, every day since her childhood. She cut the head off a howling stag and stabbed another in the heart.

She had cast off her cloak, the better to move without its weight. Her tunic was ripped at the shoulder. Nearby, Jeda clawed among the creatures, a shadow with gore on her teeth.

‘Ez,’ Tunuva shouted.

Esbar looked up, and Tunuva saw at once how tired she was, how long and hard the fight had been.

‘Tuva.’ A laugh of relief. ‘I thought you might not make it.’

‘Washtu was watching over me.’

They fought together, the sword and the spear. Each time a creature lunged for the gate, they rebuffed it. Each time anything clawed up the walls, the ichneumons pulled it down and killed it. Each time a lesser wyrm flew overhead, Tunuva used a warding to protect her sisters from the outbreak of fire, drawing on her fuller stores of magic.

They fought on and on as the sun disappeared, and the sky became a wash of red and grey on black. Archers rained arrows from the walls. Still there was no end to the onslaught. At last, they heard a familiar and chilling sound, which echoed across the whole of Jrhanyam.

‘The great wyrm,’ Esbar said. Her blade dripped. ‘No arrow or spear has yet broken its hide.’

‘The catapults. Shatter its bones,’ Izi said, coughing. Her tunic was dark above the hip. ‘That’s our only chance.’

‘Yes, go. Tell them to aim true.’

Slinging her bow across her back, Izi skirted the flock and made for the cliffs, where the catapults were being loaded. Tunuva whistled for Ninuru, who came loping back, bloody from muzzle to tail. ‘Esbar,’ she said, reaching into the loops of the saddle. ‘Try this.’

Esbar caught what she tossed. The spear gleamed in her hands. ‘Tuva, this is a relic,’ she called over the din.

‘No.’ Tunuva grasped it with her. ‘Suttu the Dreamer dipped Mulsub in starlight. I never understood what that meant before now. What if she used the same magic as Canthe?’

Esbar looked at it, her expression resolving. ‘Hold the gate,’ she ordered their sisters. ‘I need higher ground.’

Tunuva ran towards the cliffs with her. Royal tombs were carved into their western face. In their wake, the gates cracked open to let out a flood of Ersyri soldiers, roaring as they made a last foray.

Those operating the catapults went up and down the cliffs on a wooden platform, pulled by chains. Esbar and Tunuva climbed on to it. Feeling their weight, someone above began to hoist them up, and as the platform swayed above the tombs, they saw the whole city, on fire from one end to the other. Below, their sisters grew smaller, beating away the horde at the gates.

‘They’re coming from the north,’ Esbar said, watching.

Tunuva nodded. She looked down at her cloak, once white, and found it soaked in blood.

At the top, they stepped off the platform to find the city guard cranking down the arm of the largest catapult, Izi observing them. From here, starlight could be glimpsed through the smoke. ‘Izi, get to the tombs to recover,’ Esbar told her. ‘You’ve fought enough.’

‘I’m fine, Prioress—’

‘That was an order.’

With a nod of defeat, Izi went to the platform, holding her side. Tunuva craned her neck to see the catapults, which stood as tall as old bone towers. A stab at her senses drew her gaze north.

‘There,’ she announced, seeing the shape in the distance. ‘It’s coming.’

‘Release on my command,’ Esbar called to the soldiers. ‘Not a moment before or after.’

Tunuva crouched on the edge of the cliff. When the great wyrm came into the glow of the burning city, she said, ‘It’s the one that killed Lalhar. The one that led the slaughter in Carmentum.’

‘Dedalugun,’ Esbar said, as it moved closer and closer to the palace. ‘That is what the Ersyris have called it.’

Begetter of ashes.

‘It’s too near the Royal Fort,’ one of the soldiers warned. ‘We have to release, or—’

‘Wait.’ Dedalugun lifted itself with a sweep of its wings, and Esbar bellowed, ‘Now!’

The soldiers pulled on a rope, releasing the weight. It hurtled downward, and the long arm of the catapult swung up to hurl the boulder high over Jrhanyam. It tumbled over and over before it struck its mark full in the flank, hard enough to obliterate a building.

The soldiers roared in triumph. Dedalugun banked away from the Royal Fort with a sound that made the cliffs tremble. Below, the lesser wyrms and beasts echoed its cry.

‘They’re bonded,’ Tunuva murmured. ‘All of them. Dedalugun is the master, the sire.’

‘Good.’ Esbar grasped the spear. ‘Let’s hope they all die together.’

Dedalugun had seen the threat. Its eyes brightened like a pair of red suns.

‘Move,’ Tunuva shouted to the soldiers, who ran for their lives just as the wyrm breathed explosive fire over the catapults, engulfing them in a roar of light. Esbar chased after it, Tunuva hard on her heels, until it disappeared into the moonless dark beyond the city.

They stopped at the edge of the cliff. Esbar hefted Mulsub. ‘Last chance to change our minds,’ she said. ‘Should we be throwing away one of our most treasured artefacts?’

‘Ez, it’s a weapon. It was made to be thrown.’

‘I know.’ Esbar gave it a forlorn look. ‘It’s just . . . such a beautiful spear.’

‘Honour it with a beautiful throw.’

Esbar pursed her lips. Her face hardened, and she drew the spear back, aiming into the desert.

Dedalugun returned from the shadow, wings spread wide as a storm, and opened its mouth, fire rising within. As Tunuva cast a warding over them both, Esbar hurled Mulsub, so it hit the creature in the breast, penetrating its thick armour.

Its scream was a thousand blades clashing, so loud and terrible it seemed to break the very substance of the air. Tunuva dived on Esbar, and they slammed to the ground just as Dedalugun swooped overhead, close enough that one of its scales nicked Tunuva. Roaring its fury, it flew back into the night, heading the same way it had come, northward.

They crawled to the edge to watch it leave. ‘Well,’ Esbar sighed, ‘I enjoyed the few moments I held it.’

Below, Jrhanyam burned and smoked.

****

That final roar ended the siege. Everything stained by the Dreadmount retreated, leaving the survivors to emerge from the water tunnels, find their dead, and lie down to sleep wherever they could. Soon they would need to move elsewhere, to seek out food and sanctuary.

In one of the burial chambers, twelve warriors of the Priory recuperated from days of fighting. Most of the ichneumons had wounds from rancid claws and teeth. They picked at what little meat could be found while their sisters cleaned and closed their hurts, working by candlelight.

Tunuva dozed against a stone coffin with Esbar. Jeda and Ninuru slumbered on either side of them, already tended. After almost a week on her feet, Esbar slept like the long-dead king at their backs, her cloak spread over her knees, her head leaden against Tunuva.

She had proven herself a firm and fearless leader. Saghul had chosen well.

It was hard to tell when night became day, the smoke was so thick over the plain. At some point, Tunuva stirred to find Esbar gone, and Hidat crouched beside her.

‘Something to eat, sister?’

‘Thank you.’ Tunuva took the flatbread and dried lamb. ‘How much food is there in the city?’

‘Not enough. The wyrms burned half the granaries and carried off most of the livestock. The people have had to use the cisterns meant for drinking water to put out the fires.’

‘By the Mother.’

‘The Royal Council wants to use the water tunnels to move the people towards the Spindles, where there’s more shelter. Queen Daraniya will go to an old refuge castle there.’ Hidat glanced at the entrance to the tomb. ‘With luck, Dedalugun hasn’t found the Wareda Valley, but when he does, I fear for the Ersyr. This is not a land that can bear much more heat.’

The Wareda Valley was its most fruitful region, a taper of rich green between the sands and the Gulf of Edin. ‘I was only on the field one night. Is there anywhere I could be useful?’

‘I think Ez is managing. You get a little more rest, Tuva.’

Tunuva nodded heavily. She would have sprung back from that fight when she was thirty, but her body craved sleep.

They had narrowly saved the city from destruction. Now Esbar would have to decide whether to send all her warriors to one settlement at a time, or spread them between several.

The ichneumons pressed close. She leaned against Ninuru, smelling blood and wet fur, and slipped back into a drowse.

Suddenly the sun was on her face, warm and amber. She looked down to see her child tucked into a sling at her breast, sound asleep. Love came flooding through the dams that had contained her grief, so unbearably strong she thought it would crush her. She dared not breathe as she stared at her baby, so small and perfect, still wrinkled from the womb.

Sleep, she willed him. Sleep, my happy one, my love. Stay exactly as you are.

Her hand drifted to cup his head. All it grasped was bloodstained cloth, swarming with bees.

She gasped in denial, and then she did wake, as cold as the coffin at her back. This time, it was Canthe beside her, ash in her hair.

‘Tuva,’ she said, looking shaken. ‘Tuva, are you all right?’

Tunuva looked down at her empty arms and stained tunic, paralysed. She had not dreamed of him in so long. ‘Canthe,’ she said faintly. ‘Just a dream.’ A tear leaked down her cheek. ‘When did you get here?’

‘Just now. One of the men let me ride with him. He brought more food and supplies.’ Canthe examined the cut on her arm, which had been slow to heal. ‘Is this from a wyrm?’

‘Yes. The same one from Carmentum.’

‘It recovered faster than I hoped. Did you use the spear?’

‘Esbar did.’ Tunuva leaned away from the coffin, neck aching. ‘Mulsub didn’t slay the wyrm, but it did hurt it – enough to end the siege. You must have been right about Suttu the Dreamer.’

‘I am relieved it worked.’ Canthe came to sit beside her. ‘I suspect Ascalun was another weapon touched by sterren, and that was how it vanquished the Nameless One.’

‘Are there others?’

‘Perhaps.’ Canthe looked at her. ‘Tunuva, I came to ask permission to return to the West. We know the wyrms are there. I could discover what they and the hatchlings are doing, and what is being done to stop them – but as an outsider, I would not be able to go alone. I wondered if you might come.’

Tunuva shook her head. ‘Canthe, I can’t leave my sisters now.’

‘Even if it helps them?’ Canthe said softly. ‘If we were to visit Inys . . . perhaps we could also find Wulfert Glenn.’

Tunuva met her gaze. Scouting beyond the South would help Esbar, but also give her a reason to go to the land of the Deceiver, to the dark wood and the boy who was discarded at its boundary. She could feel the weight of her child in her arms again, as she had in the dream.

An ache filled her throat and her chest and her stomach. The deep ache of loss, and the need to undo it.

‘Tuva?’

Esbar had returned. She stopped at the mouth of the burial chamber, dusted with ash, hands bloody.

‘Canthe,’ she said. ‘You came.’

‘Prioress.’ Canthe inclined her head. ‘I’m sorry I arrived so late. I was weaker than I expected.’

‘We could have used your magic. The same magic as must have been within Mulsub.’ Esbar folded her arms. ‘Dedalugun has flown off with it, so we can’t repeat that approach – unless you know a way to put this mysterious power of yours into another weapon.’

‘I wish I could, but I have nowhere near enough to do that. I do have another way I could be useful,’ Canthe offered. ‘In fact, I was just putting the idea to Tunuva.’

‘Indeed?’

Tunuva wrung her hands and passed her fingers over their backs, restless. The cut in her side burned.

‘Canthe,’ she said, ‘would you leave us a moment?’

When she opened her eyes, Canthe had done as she asked. She stood to face Esbar, who raised her eyebrows in question.

‘Canthe wants to go back to the West,’ Tunuva said. ‘She could scout for us, take the measure of the situation beyond the South.’ Esbar slowly nodded. ‘She can’t go alone, of course, as an outsider.’

‘It’s a good idea,’ Esbar conceded. ‘It would be helpful to know where the wyrms are concentrating their forces, and how many creatures hatched elsewhere, so we can anticipate their movements.’ Her brow furrowed in thought. ‘I could send one of the men with her.’

‘I think it should be someone kindled.’

Esbar grunted in agreement. ‘One of the postulants, then. Siyu, perhaps, since she has no ichneumon.’

‘I could go.’

The silence fell hard, and lasted too long.

‘You only just came back from Carmentum,’ Esbar said, cool and guarded. ‘Are you so eager to be away from us again, Tuva?’

Tunuva tried to keep hold of her composure. ‘I can assess the situation. You need someone you trust.’

‘Tuva, I’ve known you more than half a century. I can tell when you’re keeping something from me.’ Esbar stepped close enough to touch her. ‘What did Canthe say to you?’

‘She says—’ Tunuva stopped, knowing it was useless. ‘She says he might be alive, in Inys.’

‘Who?’

‘My birthson.’

Esbar turned as still as a sculpture. ‘Tuva,’ she said, ‘how could that possibly be true?’

‘A boy who came from the woods, with strange gifts and eyes like mine. A boy with a fear of bees. The years match.’ Tunuva spoke in a strained whisper. ‘Ez, I know it’s impossible. But what if she’s right?’

‘Tunuva.’ Esbar took her by the arms. ‘My love, this is madness. Your sisters are here, I am here, and we need you now more than we ever have. You left us to go after Siyu, and now—’

‘You gave her my name on the day she was born. You knew that would for ever bind her to me, making her my comfort for that loss. Now I hear it might not be a loss, but a theft.’

‘No. Listen to me. I know you want to stop the pain. I know it never left you. I know how much you want this to be true – but how? How could the child have got all the way to Inys?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Because it makes no sense. Canthe should not have touched this wound.’ Esbar grasped the back of her head. ‘Tuva, please. You have come so far. Do not slide back into that pit. He is dead, my love. He’s been dead for years. It was never your fault. Let him go.’

‘I can’t.’ Her voice was quaking like an arm holding a heavy draw. ‘I can’t, Esbar. I never can.’

It was the first time she had ever confessed it. Those dams she had built – brick by brick, day by day, for more than eighteen years – now crumbled into dust. Grief washed her all the way back into that flooded hollow, and now there was only one way to climb back to herself. Canthe had stretched out a hand to offer it to her.

She could feel him in her arms, all his tiny fingers curled around just one of hers. He was warm and soft and sound asleep, and he was laughing, he was laughing in her dreams . . .

‘Tuva.’ Esbar looked disturbed now, afraid, realising she was serious. ‘Even if, by some wild chance, this boy is your birthson, he will be like an outsider. Inys will have turned him into one who worships the Deceiver. What if he rejects you as a heathen, a witch?’

‘So be it. I would know he lives. Canthe says they have treated him cruelly, that he always wept. You remember how happy he was with us.’ Her cheeks were wet. ‘I have tried. All these years, I have tried. You have, too, to comfort me. But a sister must not cleave to her own flesh. She must always be stone. It has been so hard, for so long, to be stone – to act as if the grief is gone, when I have only grown around the hole that day ripped through me.’

Esbar gazed back at her in pained silence, eyes filled with anger and pity, with love.

‘We must have been betrayed,’ Tunuva whispered. ‘Don’t you want to know who stole a child from us?’

‘No, Tunuva. I want you to live in this moment, with me. You know I can’t follow you this time.’ Esbar tightened her hold. ‘We were meant to face this war together, just as we took our first steps into the world. Don’t leave me again. Please.’

Esbar had only ever beseeched her like this once, when Tunuva had sunk to the lowest point of her grief, into a night that had never ended. All she had wanted was for it to end.

Please, Tuva, fight. Esbar had knelt in front of her and gripped her face, tears in her eyes. Fight your way back to me, my love, or I must go with you into the dark. I will not leave you in the dark . . .

‘I need this,’ Tunuva said. Tears flowed down her cheeks. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t let him slip away.’

Esbar had never looked so empty, so bleak, as she did in that moment.

‘I see that I can’t stop you. Your heart is set on this, as mine is set on fighting for the Priory.’ She turned away. ‘Let the outsider lead you on a hopeless chase. I have warned you against it. When you realise it was all for nothing, and it shatters your heart again, I will be waiting here, with our family – to remind you what you had, and what you decided was not enough.’