Heart of Black Ice (Sister of Darkness: The Nicci Chronicles Book 4) Read online

  Nicci stepped away from the sliph well, angry and confused. Her body ached, as if the abortive journey had wrung her like a washrag. “Sliph!” she shouted, but the quiet was so deep and intense that it buzzed in her ears.

  The spiteful silver creature had dumped her here and abandoned her.

  In the middle of a central plaza, a waist-high stone barrier surrounded the enigmatic well. The sliph had simply retreated down into the depths after lashing out at Nicci, leaving her alone. She had no idea where she was.

  As Nicci caught her breath and her balance, she felt uncharacteristically weak, disconnected. She had never felt like this when traveling in the sliph before. She called to the deep, empty well. “Come back! This is not my destination. I wish to travel.”

  Her words resonated in the deep black gullet and whispered back at her from the high stone buildings, but no other sound came. The silvery creature refused to respond. This particular sliph, a determined adherent of Emperor Sulachan’s long-lost cause, had finally realized that Nicci did not, in fact, serve the same master. When Nicci had revealed that Sulachan was dead, defeated not once but twice, the silvery woman had broken her bonds of duty and stranded Nicci in this forsaken place.

  “Sliph! Where am I?” Nicci’s voice vanished into infinity below. She could do nothing to help fight General Utros if she was trapped . . . here.

  As her head rang and throbbed, Nicci wondered how much damage she had suffered in the dangerous passage. She remembered that the sliph had said one other intriguing thing before leaving: “Ildakar is gone. Ildakar is no more. I cannot take you there.” Clearly, the sliph had also been damaged when she tried to reach her destination, and failed.

  How could Ildakar be “no more”? Maybe the sliph well in the lower levels of the legendary city had been destroyed or sealed somehow. What else could prevent the sliph from traveling there?

  Then Nicci recalled something else. Before she’d killed Kor, the Norukai captain, he revealed that King Grieve had launched a massive attack against Ildakar. How could the great city defend itself against the invincible army of General Utros as well as a second threat from the Norukai? Was it possible that the wizards’ duma had raised the shroud of eternity as their only recourse? Would they have left the rest of the world to face the scourge alone? Yes, the wizards of Ildakar would have done exactly that.

  And if that were the case, Nicci would be on her own.

  First, she had to find out where she was. Her close-cropped blond hair was dusty from hard travel. She still had blood on her skin and black dress from fighting the Norukai in Serrimundi Harbor. Her body felt shaky and sore, an aftereffect of the sliph passage. Her gift was weak.

  Exploring her new surroundings, Nicci studied the massive pillars and stone buildings, huge monuments, temples, or governmental halls. As she moved across the plaza, her feet whispered on the uneven flagstones. The city was littered with looming stone towers and fallen arches, long-dry fountains, intricate decorations weathered into indeterminate lumps.

  The structures were immense and ostentatious, designed to inspire awe. The imposing grandeur reminded her of Emperor Jagang’s palace in Altur’Rang or the Wizard’s Keep in Aydindril. This place had once been a large population center, a capital, or at least a major trading hub. But all the doorways and windows were sealed or bricked up, like crypts. This was a city of the dead.

  She heard a rustling sound and saw a pair of wild deer wandering through the empty park, eating the shrubs and flowers. Startled to see Nicci, the deer skittered off, but halted not far away and went back to grazing.

  In another magnificent square, Nicci came upon the enormous statue of a man, which now lay broken on the flagstones. The raised marble base was the size of a building’s foundation, and originally the titan must have towered three stories high, but only the sturdy boots remained attached to the base. Someone had smashed the legs, intentionally toppling the statue.

  She absorbed the scene and felt an undertone of violence and destruction here. The stone arms had broken off, and now the remnants lay overgrown with vines.

  She stepped up to the toppled statue and regarded it, ignoring the moss and dust. The man’s haughty face had a heavy brow and hooked nose, and his hair hung in snakelike braids beneath a blocky crown. The carved mouth was open in a weathered smile, showing one prominent pointed tooth, clearly an affectation.

  With growing suspicion, Nicci walked around the toppled statue to the front of the base, where engraved letters were worn down but still readable.

  EMPEROR KURGAN

  Nicci turned back to the head of the fallen statue. The pointed tooth must be the iron fang Kurgan had worn to intimidate those in his presence. He had been a violent and capricious emperor who skinned his wife alive and fed her to flesh beetles when he learned of her affair with General Utros. Outraged at what he had done, Iron Fang’s own people had overthrown him and dragged his body through the streets. They had even smashed his statue.

  Even now, after fifteen centuries, Nicci took grim satisfaction at seeing this evidence of his demise. Given the broken figure of the despised emperor, as well as the immense buildings and monuments, Nicci had a good idea of where she was. This city must be Orogang, capital of Kurgan’s vast empire, which had collapsed after his downfall.

  She turned slowly as the pieces fell into place, but she still didn’t understand why the city itself was a graveyard. Even with Kurgan dead and the empire torn apart by political turmoil, why would such an important metropolis have been abandoned? Why would the population have left these impressive buildings to the rats and spiders? Where would the people have gone? Had a plague wiped them out? A famine or drought?

  And why were the doors sealed and the windows bricked shut, as if to seal something inside?

  She passed a sunken amphitheater, a deep round bowl with circular tiers of seats leading down to a central stage at the bottom. Kurgan must have addressed the people from there, his voice resounding up the walls of the deep bowl. The seats were empty now, many of them crumbled, the stage overgrown with weeds.

  Beyond the amphitheater, Nicci found a second towering statue, but this one looked barely weathered, as if someone had maintained it over the centuries. The figure was a muscular, broad-chested warrior wearing a helmet and ornate armor once emblazoned with Kurgan’s stylized flame, though the symbol had been defaced, leaving only a white scar on the stone. The handsome, broad face beneath the helmet’s scooped cheek guards had a firm jaw, piercing eyes, strong cheekbones, a regal-looking nose.

  Nicci knew this man, had faced him on the battlefield. General Utros—Iron Fang’s greatest military commander, who had been dispatched from Orogang to conquer the Old World in the name of his emperor. Utros had accepted the mission without questioning the worthiness of his leader, because Utros was a man who didn’t question orders.

  Judging by the condition of the sculpture, the people of Orogang had revered the general. It seemed odd to her that the Utros monument was even now clean of debris and stains, not dilapidated like the rest of this empty city. She froze when she spotted fresh flowers strewn on one corner of the base.

  Someone had been here, and recently.

  Suddenly wary, she looked around. The buildings remained silent, some of them collapsing, but others deceptively intact. Maybe some hermit or devotee had placed a flower at the statue of his hero. No one here would possibly guess that Utros could still be alive after fifteen hundred years.

  Nicci sensed something more than the loneliness of this place, but a presence, eyes watching her. Orogang might not be as abandoned and desolate as she had thought. Staring into the shadows cast by the moon, she heard a rustle of movement. At first she thought it might just be the wandering deer, then realized it was a different kind of furtive sound. Footsteps.

  Nicci spun, reaching out with her gift, though she still felt weak and strange. “Who is there?”

  The hush fell again after her words faded. She turned toward the lar
gest structure that dominated the main plaza, a massive building with tall fluted columns at the grand entryway. The doors were now open, though they revealed only darkness within. Beyond the Utros statue, she saw more movement, a shadow darting into deeper shadows, multiple gray-clad human figures melting into the murk.

  Nicci turned cautiously, alert. “Reveal yourselves! Come out and face me.” Her voice sounded as loud as a gong in the empty city. She touched the daggers at each hip and prepared to defend herself.

  At last, she was able to discern human silhouettes as they emerged from hiding places, darkened doorways, narrow alleys. The strangers moved with trepidation, whispering among themselves. They refused to answer her.

  “Who are you?” Nicci turned in a slow circle and realized the figures were all around her, but she could barely sense them, as if they were only spirits. She saw many more people than she expected.

  Looking beyond the city, she saw a faint glow of dawn outlining the mountain crags and revealing more figures scuttling out of their stone-walled lairs and converging on her.

  Nicci let her hands rest threateningly on the daggers. “I don’t want to attack you, but I will.”

  The brightening dawn seemed to agitate them, and she heard urgent voices rising, but the few snatches of words made no sense to her. Nicci backed toward the base of the Utros statue and stared up at the stone face that merely gazed ahead.

  Then, as if they heard a silent signal, the shadowy people lunged forward to surround her.

  CHAPTER 3

  After the wave of fire had incinerated thousands of his brave soldiers, General Utros saw how the battlefield was devastated. The sour smoke of burned grass and roasted flesh lingered in the air for days, and he doubted he would ever get the taste and stink from the back of his throat. The loss of so many loyal men felt like a hot knife through his heart.

  Elsa’s transference magic was far more powerful than he had ever imagined. Too late, Ava and Ruva had realized that the defenders were marking boundary runes to unleash terrible magic. Too late, Utros had seen the individual strike forces encompass part of the valley around his army. Too late, he had watched the gifted Elsa lay down the anchor rune at the center of camp and trigger her devastating spell. The twins had barely shielded him in time.

  His thousands of soldiers hadn’t had a chance.

  Even with the breathtaking losses, though, his army was still more than a hundred thousand strong. His warriors were incensed, ready for blood, hungry to conquer the land from horizon to horizon, and he would lead them to victory. That was what he had vowed to Emperor Kurgan, even if his emperor was long dead.

  In the late afternoon of a troublesome day, Utros adjusted the golden mask that covered half of his face. His helmet bore the horns of an enormous bull, an Ildakaran monster that he himself had killed. He stood outside the pavilion his soldiers had erected, a replacement for his burned-down command headquarters. The fabric was a patchwork of salvaged pieces, and the wooden posts were roughly hewn from charred trees, but General Utros did not require the ostentatious trappings Iron Fang would have demanded. The tent provided shelter and shade, which was what he needed.

  Standing out in the open, he smelled ashes in the wind. Ava and Ruva stood close, stroking his heavily muscled arms, the copper wristbands. “We are ready to receive the Norukai king, beloved Utros,” said Ava.

  “And we are ready to conquer the world,” replied her twin sister.

  The identical sorceresses were beautiful in their blue gowns. They had shaved and scraped every trace of hair from their bodies, then painted their skin with swooping curves and angular designs that invoked arcane powers. Instead of their usual multicolored pigments, Ava and Ruva now marked themselves with black soot and dried blood, which was more powerful than paint.

  “We will impress our new allies with the strength of our army,” Ava said, “but our hospitality is sorely lacking.”

  Her sister added, “We cannot offer King Grieve a feast.”

  Utros clenched his jaw, knowing their situation was far more serious than that. Once Ildakar had disappeared in front of them, his army no longer had hope of raiding the city for food and matériel. He had counted on that for their very survival.

  He looked toward where the plain abruptly dropped down to the Killraven River and the extensive morass of swamps below. “King Grieve will bring provisions from his raiding fleet. It will be enough for now.” Utros did not manage to convince himself. “Keeper and spirits,” he whispered under his breath.

  From the river drop-off he watched a party of the Norukai raiders trudging forward as if they meant to conquer the valley. He knew this was only a small delegation from the serpent ships on the river. The big raiders were hideously scarred, clad in vests of sharkskin leather or reptilian hides. Even from a distance he recognized King Grieve and his prancing albino shaman, the gangly scarred man known as Chalk.

  Behind them came a group carrying crates, barrels, and sacks—enough supplies to feed a small army. Unfortunately, Utros had a large army, and now that the stone spell had entirely worn off, they were a hungry army.

  Just after Ildakar vanished beneath the shroud, the lingering remnants of the stone spell had suddenly and inexplicably faded from his troops, and they became entirely human again, flesh, blood, and bone. At first, the army had rejoiced at being able to feel again, but Utros quickly realized that their restored humanity also brought them vulnerabilities. When they were still half petrified, the numerous regiments had experienced no hunger or thirst; now, though, they all felt the needs of the flesh. He had a hundred thousand mouths to feed, out here in the middle of a vast valley with no city to raid and no supply train.

  First Commander Enoch arrived at the command pavilion, grim-faced with his report. Utros wanted his majordomo to join the discussions regarding their new alliance. The veteran pressed a fist against his heart and then looked at the supplies carried by the Norukai. With only a glance, he made his assessment. “That stockpile will be enough to feed the officers down to the squad commanders. We can ration carefully.”

  “It won’t be enough for all of us,” Utros said, keeping his voice low.

  King Grieve, Chalk, and six more raider captains approached the pavilion, trudging across the burned grass. Facing the general, Grieve clacked his jaws together. His cheeks were slashed all the way back to the hinge of the jaw and sewn up again. Tattoos covered his face, symbolic scales of his serpent god. The king’s chest was enormously broad, as if he had an extra set of lungs so he could dive deep and wrestle sharks. Implanted bone spurs protruded from his shoulders. Instead of a belt, an iron chain encircled his waist.

  “We brought food, as you requested. Let us have a celebration feast!” Grieve gestured to the downtrodden slaves who served as beasts of burden. The slaves piled the supply crates, sacks, and barrels outside the pavilion, near large cook fires that had already been lit.

  “My hunters also provided three deer they killed in the hills,” Utros offered. “We will roast them as part of the meal.”

  “You can have all the fish,” Grieve grumbled. “I am sick of fish. I’ll take the venison.”

  “Fish, fish!” Chalk capered about. “Suck the bones and chew the heads. I like how the eyeballs pop.” He bent his elbows at odd angles as he hopped from one foot to the other. “My Grieve, King Grieve! They’ll all grieve!” He wore only a loincloth of sewn-together fish skins, leaving his skin bare, as if he wanted to show off the bite marks that covered his body, thousands of pocked holes from tiny fanged mouths. His mangled lip made his grin horribly twisted.

  Ava and Ruva regarded the shaman with displeasure. In unison they lifted their chins, haughty and beautiful, as if to emphasize the inferiority of Grieve’s companion.

  “Today is more than just a celebration feast.” Utros tried to sound diplomatic as he led the Norukai party under the stretched fabric of the pavilion. He used his best skills of diplomacy, because he needed this large fighting force and their shi
ps. “We must plan our war, together. My army needs to move, since we have many mouths to feed.” He gestured out to where the soldiers had set up rough tents and bedding in the blackened valley. “Our numbers may be unwieldy, but we are invincible. My army will conquer any lands we encounter.”

  Grieve chuffed out a loud laugh. “You mean, any lands the Norukai leave for you!”

  Utros spoke firmly. “The Old World is ours.”

  “Yes, ours. Mine and yours.”

  Utros remained firm, businesslike. “Together, we have to contemplate strategy. We can’t simply rampage across the continent. We must conquer and use it.”

  The Norukai king was impatient. “As you wish, but we can break the continent just a little. I need the exercise.”

  Ava and Ruva watched Grieve and his albino with intent gazes. The Norukai king openly leered at the two women, but they did not respond. Utros knew the twins didn’t need protection. The sorceresses could kill anyone who bothered them.

  As the deer carcasses roasted over the fire and the fish cooked on smaller spits, First Commander Enoch oversaw the distribution of Norukai supplies among the army, stretching the food as far as possible.

  Later, while he gnawed on bloody meat from a joint, King Grieve frowned at the emptying crates. “That is the rest of our supplies from our ships.” He did not sound upset. Rather, his voice had an insulting undertone. “You worry too much about food.”

  “My soldiers must eat,” Utros said. “My challenge is managing the supplies and stockpiles.”

  “Then your soldiers are weak.” The Norukai king reached inside his wide mouth and used a fingertip to dig a morsel of meat from his back molar. “We don’t worry about supplies. We raid to take what we need, then we move on.”

  “They’ll all grieve!” Chalk said.

  “We will have to follow your example,” the general conceded, though the empty foothills and the great valley offered few resources.