Gronchard’s pikemen breasted the breach. Three fireballs whooshed down from the temple roof. Orange flared as human fat combusted. More soldiers pushed through the mayhem and the fear and rage braided into a noose that seemed to constrict Zenobia’s skull.
Zenobia pointed her fingers and started to chant.
Current form 5. Performing Wizard at level 30. 1 of 27 Potestas remaining.
Her gaze flicked to the Marshal’s armoured back as he waded through the mayhem. Their…private exercise regime had kept her fitter and tougher than the average queen.
The world sharpened even as her body ached and her shoulders sagged.
She barely heard her Demon’s commentary as she went through the familiar spell.
Before her eyes, nearly two dozen men in front rank of Gronchard’s legionaries dropped their weapons, clutched burst hearts or simply collapsed with blood trickling from their nostrils.
Her empathy left her naked to the splash of pain and terror.
You are Empathic.
Will 13. You have avoided acquiring the issue Guilt.
“Let me be cold hearted in my next life!”
The last of the arrows buzzed overhead and added to the disorder.
You have 0 of 27 Potestas remaining.
Vitality 5.
The stench from her pyre was overwhelming now. She must give herself to the flames while they were hot enough to truly consume her, otherwise her remains would end up in Gronchard’s Mausoleum, and her next incarnation would see her soul flayed back to the woman Gronchard had once loved.
But she could not turn away from the Marshal.
The big man cut down any of Gronchard’s soldiers in his way. There was no drama; they simply fell before him. He did not seem to defend himself, only shrug his way into attacks so that blades drew sparks from his armour and spears slipped past. Then, with an economical pivot, he would whip his sword around and dispatch the threat. It was like watching a servant prepare the table for a feast, laying out plates with brusque efficiency, tidying displaced napkins in passing.
Her Demon settled back into its usual role.
Influential Courtier. Master Diplomat. Master General. Queen’s favourite. Loyal.
Behind him followed the heavily armoured Bannerman, one armoured hand on the Yinksi sunburst banner, the other brandishing a mace as he clambered over the corpses.
A champion reared up out of the press like some hellish beetle shod in gilded steel and Zenobia felt the presence of another warlock; not just the presence, the tug on her soul.
Gronchard!
God Emperor. General. Diplomat. Flayer.
Zenobia put a hand over her mouth, steeled herself to watch.
“GIVE US SPACE,” ordered Gronchard, in words that rang in the mind.
The men of both sides left of fighting and formed a loose arena around the Marshal and Gronchard.
Gronchard made a sweep with his golden sword. With its spikes and flanges it looked far more imposing than the Marshal’s simple blade. Then he raised his visor. He was middle aged, younger than Zenobia, but his eyes burned with passion and the hellish thing was that even in the midst of this death and horror, she felt her heart leap.
Charismatic Presence. He is a level 11 magical challenge.
Zenobia relaxed a little. The Marshal’s amulets would at least protect him from that.
“Angelica my love,” said Gronchard. “I have come for you.”
“Go home, Gronchard,” said Zenobia. “Angelica died long ago.”
Gronchard shook his head. “You were stolen by a shell self before I could flay it away. Come with me now and I will keep you always.”
“I am that ‘shell self’,” said Zenobia. “Marshal, my love, kill this man for me.”
The Marshal raised his sword.
Gronchard took up the same stance. He laughed. “You should not be here. I have killed you before.”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
The Marshal came forward with all the speed of a young man.
The blades clashed, whirled, sparked.
The two armoured men switched grip to hold their swords like paddles. They hooked and wrestled, thumped with the pommel, curled legs and evaded trips.
Then Gronchard’s helmet came off. Blood sprayed from his throat.
The Marshal merely flowed past, left the other warlock dying on his feet. Cordinus followed stepped into the arena, banner aloft and bellowed, “For the Queen!”
The corpse of the god crashed into the dust. Zenobia blinked, trying to make sense of what she’d seen.
The other combatants unfroze. The Yinksi men yelled and surged against the attackers.
Cordinus’s banner reached the breach, and there was the Marshal in his golden armour, legs bracing and unbracing, driving the hips that in in turn drove his great sword. Zenobia had always considered her courtier lover handsome but ungainly. Now, in this fatal hour, she saw that he had been like a storm-wreathed mountain seen from the stork pond of a formal garden. Here, in his natural element, he had a terrible, elemental grace.
At first the enemy swirled past the Marshal and his bannerman, and he merely took a tithe as they passed. Then a couple of Yinksi soldiers fought their way to his banner, then a dozen, then dozens.
The flow of Gronchardian soldiers cut off. The surviving Yinksi men gathered to the Marshal’s side. The priests chose this moment to come out of the temple and start ministering to the wounded of both sides.
Crowd of 154. Loyal. Angry.
For the first time since the siege began, Zenobia’s heart truly lifted. A future opened up, one in which she ruled with the Marshal at her side. In a reborn empire, she could do away with masks and conventions. In the autumn of her life, she would make a consort of her lover.
The Marshal’s voice rang out over the carnage. “Charge by all the Gods! Charge! Charge! For the Queen! Kill them all. Charge!”
The Yinksi men let out a roar made terrible by its very humanity. Gronchard’s Myrmidons had devastated their homes, winnowed them as they fled, enslaved their sons and daughters. Now those same Myrmidons routed, presenting their backs to the wrath of her subjects…and thanks to her empathy, Zenobia could feel that wrath like poison in her veins.
The banner went forward, down off the breach and out of sight into the trampled pastures beyond.
Zenobia left the temple and climbed one of the bastions. She looked on as her men slaughtered the enemy in droves, overreached, fell back, job done. The worst of it was that they were laughing and brandishing heads on pikes.
They left behind their casualties, except for the Marshal, whose limp body returned over the shoulders of two strong men.
She did not go to him, for she knew it would be her unmaking and the city needed a Queen, not a woman. Instead, she managed the aftermath from her bastion, her Potestas trickling back to her.
Gronchard’s army sent a priest offering a twenty-four-hour truce in return for their master’s body. She knew that they would take it to his mausoleum as a bate for his next avatar, that they would capture the poor child and flay his soul back to expose the personality of their God Emperor. Even so, her duty to her people forced her to agree.
By the time they carried away her enemy’s remains, the sun was sinking behind the temple, dyeing the city’s marble a warm pink. It was the time of day when she would retire to her chambers to prepare for the evening meal. Courtesy of a secret passage, she and the Marshal would have a precious two hours. Sometimes they would slip out in disguise and wander the city, pretending that they might simply walk away, take on false names and buy a small estate on which to grow old together.
A pillar of fog appeared beyond the Conclave siege lines. Eerie chanting echoed through the warm evening air.
The fog folded in on itself to let in the glare from another land where it was still full daytime. Still chanting, a column of grey-robed figures emerged from the portal.
33 Humanoids. Unknown. Supernatural.
The Grey Cortège—they were real.
The late Gronchard’s forces parted to let them through. Servants unpegged tents and dragged them aside. Soldiers wheeled away mobile shields.
Zenobia half-sprinted, half-tumbled down the stairs. Attendants streaming behind her, she rushed to where they had laid out the Marshal’s body.
The monks were already stripping him of his armour.
33 Humanoids. Grey Cortège. Supernatural.
“Wait!”
They ignored her. She pushed between them.
Form 2. Performing Virago at level 22.
No single wound had killed the Marshal. Rather, his pale old flesh was punctured in a dozen places, his undershirt soaked crimson.
A cold hand caught her shoulder.
She twisted.
There were no faces under the cowls, just a hazy grey-white glow. She could not tell whether they were daemon, or humans in the grip of some spell.
33 Humanoids. Grey Cortège. Unknown challenge.
She decided to risk all and gathered up her presence.
Using Virago, Commanding Presence +10 5/6, cost 1 Potestas, 1 of 27 remaining.
“I know who you are,” she said. “But I shall say farewell to my Marshal, and you shall not stop me.”
The monk released her.
Result = 22 (Performance) +12 (Feat) +1 (Luck) -32 (Challenge) = Tentative Practical Response for a few moments.
Virago, Commanding Presence +10 advances to 6/6 and is secured.
The demon made no effort offer to unlock another Virago feat.
Zenobia let out a bitter laugh.
Until this very moment, she had been walking in the footprint of dead selves—but then she had always dreamed of ruling over strange lands; how could she not have been a queen or an empress before? Now she had exceeded every other person she had ever been, and—despite the grief and fear—it felt liberating. She understood now why the Marshal wanted to end his cycle of reincarnation. She brushed the grey hair from his brow and kissed it. “I am sorry, my love,” she said.
If her demon said something at that moment, she chose not to hear it.
Then she stood aside so the monks could finish their task. They shrouded the naked corpse. Still chanting, they returned to the portal.
Under cover of night, the Gronchard’s army pulled back from the walls of Yinkesia. It could have been that they were incapable of fighting on, now their God Emperor had been temporally slain. However, Zenobia liked to think that in summoning the Grey Cortège, The Marshal had somehow saved the day.
# # #
Zenobia never again wore her golden mask.
Nor, though she had many lovers to warm her final years, did she again press lips to flesh; she had left her royal kiss on the forehead of the Marshal.
Nor did she plan an Imperial mausoleum.
In her next life, she vowed, there would be neither throne nor protocol.
On her deathbed, she ordered trusted retainers to bury her under the desert sky, with a book of magic, a bag of coins, and her true love’s sword.