They made it over one of the great dunes that hemmed Idib in from the east by early evening. The Nikea glittered red and orange below them, like burnished bronze in the light of a forge, and the fields surrounding the city writhed with shadow. The central pyramid blazed, its golden tip gleaming like a beacon in the burning glow from below, beckoning them home with haste like a lighthouse seen from sea.
But this was no reassuring sight, and Heshtat felt his heart quicken in his chest. Idib was aflame. Fires danced in the night, spilling from foundries and shops and homes, spitting their caustic embers high to spread their ravenous hunger to nearby sources of fuel.
With his enhanced eyesight, he could see figures running to and fro in the gloom, could hear the screams and cries of his people. He stood transfixed for a moment, lost in shock as he watched his city burn, and then old instincts kicked in and he spun on his heel.
“Hear me,” he commanded, and if he infused a trace of essence into those words, just enough to shock the others from their reverie, then it was without thought. All eyes turned his way, and he grimaced. Harsiese was practically vibrating in place, eyes darting between him and the besieged city behind. “Go,” Heshtat said with a nod to the big man, and he rocketed off, sprinting down the dune like an arrow cast from a god’s bow.
“Now,” Heshtat said, clapping to get the attention of the other three. “I want you three to stay together. We’ll meet in the outer district close to the edge of the city. Harsiese and I will get there far faster. Ahhotep—can you signal me when you arrive? A wall of shadow up into the sky, or some such?”
The priest inclined his head, skeletal fingers rippling along the grip of his staff in a clack-clack clatter of bone on wood.
“Good. Stay safe and signal me when you arrive. It seems we will not be allowed an easy path to the palace after all.” He took a moment to hold each of their gazes before turning to the smouldering city beneath the horizon. “Blood will spill this night.”
Then he was off. Down the dunes, great leaps carrying him a dozen or more yards out into the air, only to thud down into rolling sands below. His eyes drank in the meagre light, pupils dilating beyond what should be possible, narrowing into slits and taking on some of that feline temperament he had inherited from his goddess. His muscles felt lithe and light, supple and strong. Each step propelled him further, and in what felt like mere seconds he was hitting the hard packed dirt and gravel below the great dunes.
The occasional boulder or shrub whipped past in his vision as he blurred across the open ground, the shacks and dilapidated houses that ringed the city resolving themselves as he drew closer. Many were aflame, others nothing but blackened remnants, and he felt his chest tighten in worry. The wind tried to obscure all sound with its howling as he moved, but here and there he caught snatches of screams and harsh laughter. Shouts and whooping as men with their blood up played out their vicious dreams on the populace.
Heshtat felt his worry harden into anger, his panic into rage. He was close now and could see men and women running through the smoke-choked buildings, fear evident in their movements. Through them crashed others—mostly men—Wearing grins that flashed in the gloom as bright as their blades.
He poured on more speed, willing his legs to pound faster, his arms to pump quicker, his breath to fill his body with vital energy for his hungry muscles. He spied a man—no, a boy, no older than seventeen if he had to guess—tower over an old, wizened man who held up his shepherd’s crook in supplication from where he lay on the ground, blood blooming from a cut across his forehead.
The youth’s grin was hungry, his eyes wide and bright reflecting the fires all around, and he laughed wildly in that unrestrained way that people did when finally given power they had always craved. Heshtat heard it all around him now as he closed in; that hyena laugh, that sickly braying of men and women that had let their bestial nature slip the leash of their soul.
He didn’t know where they had come from, whether they were native to the city or foreign soldiers, mercenaries, spies… it didn’t matter. They wielded the weapons and torches, and Idib’s people did not. That was the only distinction that mattered now, and Heshtat knew that this night would see a massacre.
Houses and shacks whipped past on either side of him as the boy lifted his blade high. Then Heshtat hit him like a charging buffalo. The boy’s exultant cry turned to a wet squeal as Heshtat ploughed through him, shoulder crushing the boy’s ribs and blade parting his leg from his hip. And then he was through, weaving between frightened people, letting the youth bleed to death in his wake for his crimes.
He spied a woman, crossed bandoleers filled with strange alchemical flasks strapped across her chest, chatting casually to a man next to her as she threw one on a nearby building. There was a tinkling of glass that Heshtat’s enhanced hearing just about picked out beneath the screams, and them a cloud of green smoke billowed out into the night, similarly sickly flames rising up behind it. The man laughed, and then turned and caught a fleeing girl by the throat, raking his eyes up and down her form.
“Finish up here,” he ordered the alchemist, “this won’t take long.” And then he shoved the young girl towards one of the still-standing houses, his intention clear.
Heshtat felt the rage in his chest burn higher, a righteous reflection of the burning chaos unfolding around him. He almost bellowed at the man, imagining a challenge to slow his hurried steps and allow him to face both enemies at once. But no, he was experienced enough to know what that would bring; a dead girl and another burning building. He dearly wished for his sidearm then—a single throw of his old hyksos axe could kill the alchemist, then he’d be facing the man before he could turn.
Alas, Heshtat had not been expecting a siege, and he was unequipped for open warfare. All he had was his enchanted khopesh, his cultivation, and his skill. It would have to be enough. He would make it enough. No more failure.
Heshtat dashed forwards behind the man, watching as he twisted around to face him, pulling the young girl between them as a shield. Heshtat had expected something similar though—the way the man carried himself showed him to be a warrior, and while others seemed infected with the battle-lust, this one seemed calm. That spoke to experience, and when it came to war, experience implied cultivation.
Instead of tumbling into them, Heshtat leapt up and over the man and girl both, his feline grace coming to the surface as he twisted, blade snaking out with enviable precision to cut through the man’s arm where he grabbed the young girl roughly by the neck. The warrior screamed even as Heshtat landed, legs splayed and bent to absorb the impact. He wasted no time, sprinting at the man, who recovered fast and pulled free a brutal-looking war-axe from his belt.
Heshtat duked aside at the last moment, shoving the young girl into an alleyway next to him before spinning around the warrior’s first slice. He continued past, eyes locked on the alchemist who had turned their way, a faint look of surprise on her face. She was a danger—could torch dozens with a single throw—but she lacked the advanced cultivation of the warrior she answered to, and so her only defence against Heshtat was a feeble thrust of a dagger and a quiet exclamation.
“Oh,” she said, as Heshtat stabbed her in the belly. Then he spun, eviscerating her as she slid from the preternaturally sharp obsidian blade to tumble into the warrior that had pursued Heshtat.
Who spared little thought for her corpse, treading on her even as she reached out for him—another sign of his brutal experience—and then it was just him and Heshtat. Alone, facing each other in a crossroads between rundown and burning shacks.
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“Who are you?” the man asked, circling to his right, axe held in the white-knuckled grip of his left hand. His right hung by his side, dripping blood to the floor from the wound Heshtat had dealt. And yet he didn’t seem concerned, holding the weapon with familiar ease.
Heshtat tracked the steps he took, how he crossed his back foot behind his front as he circled, how his weight was not quite even at the zenith of each step.
“I am Akhenaten, known as the Woe. Who—”
“I don’t care,” Heshtat growled.
And then as the man was mid-step, he moved. The little street echoed with the sound of bronze and volcanic glass meeting. Akhenaten let out a furious roar as he was driven back, essence rippling in the air as the man pushed out a great working on the soul. His axe glowed with unearthly light, letting out a keening cry as it cut through space far faster than it should have. But Heshtat was not there, and his khopesh was even then whistling towards the man’s open neck.
A squelch of blade against flesh, a thunk as bone was severed cleanly, then a thud as the bastard’s head hit the ground.
Heshtat gasped in air, more from the adrenaline than the exertion, and looked around. This small section of the city was empty now, but he heard screams and shouts echoing from further in, closer to the outer wall, and he soon dashed off. There were plenty more targets deserving of his blade, and it had only been bare moments since he had arrived. His companions would take time still to reach the city.
Until then, there was work to be done.
***
Heshtat fought beside Harsiese, the big man an unyielding wall as enemies swarmed them. He lacked most of the armour he had worn when they had reached the temple, but he still had both bracers, a single greave, and the gorget about his shoulders and neck. That was seemingly enough to use when one was as skilled as the Harsiese evidently was.
He was good with his weapon, too, there was no denying that. He laid about to either side with a heavy two-handed hammer he’d snatched up from a labourer’s corpse—more a sledge than anything resembling a real weapon-—but each swing was devastating. He caved in chests, cracked limbs and stove in the heads of any that came too close or moved away from his lumbering charges too slowly. Considering he was an adept of Khet in a sea of petty criminals, that was most of the men and woman he targeted.
Heshtat had recognised a few of the violent attackers personally. Men and women he’d seen once in that dingy room with the red door. Senusret’s men. Others he recognised solely by their gang affiliations—small strips of cloth tied around weapons or woven into their clothes. They wore no armour, most of them. These weren’t professional soldiers, after all.
That was what let him and Harsiese cut through them like a hot knife through sharbat. They had precious little organisation, were mostly rank cowards content to live out their tyrannical dreams through violence on their own neighbours when given the chance. When they met hardened opposition, they fell apart.
Harsiese rampaged through the groups, flinging men and women aside with each brutal swing. Heshtat darted in and around him, hamstringing fleeing enemies, separating limbs and parting heads from shoulders. It was a brutal dance, and one he knew well. None earned his sympathy despite their cries. Their protestations fell on deaf ears when they were backed into corners. All he needed to do was open his eyes to the flames roaring around him, to hear the screams from nearby, and he would once more feel the hot rage settle in his heart.
He'd lived among these bastards, worked with and for a few of them over the last decade. He knew their type, but he still found himself surprised by their boldness. They were mostly smugglers, drug-runners and extortioners. They ran protection rackets, fought their rivals in mostly bloodless skirmishers, and generally strutted about the streets they owned with contempt and arrogance. Never had he thought they would rise to open rebellion.
And how had they managed it? He’d gotten a better idea of the chaos in the last few minutes, and the violence was at once more widespread and more contained than expected. These outer districts seemed to be aflame, though only in parts. There was wanton violence, destruction, looting… all the hallmarks of a siege reaching its ghastly yet inevitable conclusion, and yet only in a few districts. He couldn’t get a good look beyond the outer wall to the inner districts—the one time he had tried to scale a building and survey the area, he had been dogged by arrows and magic from a pair of particularly adept assassins.
And that was the other thing. The rank and file of this strange diminutive army were petty criminals, most simply awakened of a single aspect, or even mortals. Some of the more senior members were acolytes, and he suspected the lieutenants and crime lords stalked the city somewhere lending their greater cultivation to the chaos, but Heshtat had come across a few powerful individuals that were otherwise out of place. He suspected the Scarlet Feathers, but didn’t truly know. All he could tell is that they weren’t local, and they were far too powerful and focused to simply be opportunists. Something more coordinated was afoot here.
Heshtat ducked beneath a shining spear of ghostly ice, sent his way by a cultivator at the back of the small group they fought. She had dark hair left to run wild, streaming down her back and whipping in the wind caused by the roaring flames behind her. Even as he glanced up, he saw her weave together more ice from the baking air, seeming to pull a glacial spear from nothing, before hurling it at him once more. He slipped aside, smiling grimly as he heard the man behind him, that had been running his way with a raised weapon, gurgle and fall.
He moved forwards, lashing out with his unnatural midnight blade where needed, or simply sliding around and beneath blows aimed his way when he could. His senses were alive, eyes and ears straining, nose twitching. He felt more than saw the battlefield, the enhancements given by Bestat’s blessing enough to paint a picture so vivid he felt like a god of war as he strode through the wave of enemies. Clangs, shouts, screams and more echoed out into the night, and Heshtat moved through it all; a shadow beneath the water, scything through flesh and bone, cutting apart leather and bronze with his enlivened blade.
He saw the cultivator’s eyes widen as he appeared before her, his progress too fast and disjointed to track through the maze of bodies he’d navigated, and then his khopesh was shattering the icy spear she conjured to defend herself with. Blood spurted from her opened throat and he turned, pulling her frost-born spear from her hand and throwing it at an archer on a nearby rooftop.
The spear sung as it arced through the air, blue-white haft glittering in the flames below and sharp head stained red with its owner’s blood. It punched the archer off the rooftop, and Heshtat was once more moving, a wolf among sheep as he tore through criminals and low-lives. They had come to torture the people of his city, and he turned their hatred and contempt back upon them with the edge of his blade and a snarl on his lips.
He fought his way back to Harsiese, seeing the big man lay about with brutal swings and a strange glowing aura. He was an adept of Khet, his physicality monstrous in comparison to his enemies, and also an adept of Sah. However, where Maatkare’s awakening of the Spiritual Body let him conjure funerary fire and direct it at will even in the Waking—though weakened compared to its effects in the Other—Harsiese’s ability was apparently useless unless he inhabited that nightmare realm. This aura must have been his third and final soul art, though Heshtat was ignorant of the specific aspect, and the specific channel. Either way, it seemed to enervate him while slowing his enemies, even dragging some of them towards him as he moved.
Heshtat spied an unnatural pool of darkness behind the Tomb Guard and instantly dove forwards. From that pool surfaced a shadowy figure, all liquid black like a man dipped head to toe in sable ink. The figure reached back with a thin knife, readying to plunge it into Harsiese’s back, though it stumbled when whatever aura the burly man emanated hit the shadow. Heshtat slid forwards in a textbook lunge—the God-Queen’s fury—and felt a moment of resistance as his blade punched through fabric and skin.
The khopesh was a slicing weapon, far more effective on the cut than the stab, but it was unnaturally sharp and wielded with strength far beyond mortal means. The shadow figure dispersed in a gout of choking smoke, but whether the cultivator that summoned it suffered the same fate was unknown to him. He scanned the battlefield for a likely target, knowing they couldn’t risk an enemy as deadly at their backs, and that was when he spied the signal.
The battlefield dimmed momentarily as a great wall of shadow rose up into the sky, fifty yards high at the least, originating from a few hundred yards away. Lacing his voice with essence, Heshtat called out to his companion.
“Harsiese, with me!”
The big man didn’t respond for a moment, too busy ducking beneath a swing and then wrestling with a muscular man in front of him who had managed to grasp the handle of his weapon in two meaty hands. The Tomb Guard simply released it, pulling his enemies own axe from the sling over his shoulder before splitting his skull with it a moment later. Heshtat grinned at the ironic justice of the action, then smiled wider still when Harsiese turned his way. He gestured over his shoulder, the big man nodding to show his understanding, and then they were both running through burning streets once more, in search of their allies.
