Faerie Knight 170

170 - The Battle of Maʿīn III: The Living and the Dead

Return swiftly, my beloved sister.  I’ve a gift for you.

• Letter from Avitus to Cecilia

☀

17th Day of High Summer’s Moon, AC 297

As the plague ravaged every man within her sight, Ismet rolled across the broken earth and scooped her sword up by the hilt.  She only just managed to get to her feet before Valeria, wounded and maddened with pain, leapt at her.

At the beginning of the battle, the infernal Exarch had, without a doubt, been quicker on her feet that Ismet was.  The wound to Valeria’s thigh, though not enough to kill her, had clearly slowed her.  She moved with a limp, and, Ismet noted with satisfaction, no one had ever trained the woman to fight past pain.  It had been clear from the beginning that Valeria was never drilled as a soldier, and that might just be enough to salvage this fight.

The other woman’s right arm was injured, from where Trist had cut her - that was something Ismet was going to have questions about, later, if they all survived.  That meant Valeria swung at her with her left hand, no longer using a knife, but now only an outstretched hand that boiled with the sickly blue threads of an infernal Boon.  More plague, perhaps, or something even worse.

Ismet dodged to Valeria’s right side, past the injured arm, and drew the curved edge of her blade along the woman’s unarmored torso, just above the hip bone.  Blood sprayed as she continued moving, then pivoted for another pass.  That made three wounds to slow her enemy down, none of them minor.  An Angelic Exarch could have pushed through it all, of that Ismet had no doubt - but infernal Exarchs focused on raw physical strength, which nearly exclusively was useful for aggression, rather than survival.  And now that Valeria had been hurt and slowed down, Ismet had no intention of letting the woman get hands on her.

Valeria lurched forward again, swiping with that left hand, but her footwork was nonexistent, and she clearly had no experience telling a feint from a genuine attack.  Ismet leaped back, this time, just out of range, then lunged forward and cut down at the woman’s head.  Valeria was wearing no helm, and had no weapon with which to parry; worse, she was overcommitted and off balance.  The curved blade of Ismet’s sword shattered her unprotected skull, sending chips of bone flying and immediately matting that beautiful red hair with blood.  

The edge of the sword stuck, and Valeria collapsed to her knees, eyes wide and mouth hanging open.  Any mortal would have been dead already, and Ismet doubted that even an Exarch could survive such a wound, but she had no intention of leaving anything to chance.  She planted her boot on Valeria’s chest, and used it for leverage to yank the blade free of the woman’s skull.  Below the yellow of shattered skull and the wine-red of blood, something pink could be seen that should never have been exposed.  

Falling back, Valeria gasped for breath, trying to choke out words.  Ismet didn’t know what the woman intended to say, and didn’t care.  She stabbed her blade down into the woman’s heart.  All around the battlefield, strands of blue light flickered, died, and began to curl in on themselves.

A burst of power shot up from Valeria’s heart, into Ismet’s sword and then up her arm, as Tithes poured out of the dying woman’s core.  With a wordless shriek, Agrat manifested above the corpse of her Exarch, spreading leathery wings dark as the dregs at the bottom of a cup of wine.  Ismet, exhausted, stumbled to one side just fast enough to turn a claw-swipe that would have gutted her into a blow that glanced off her armor.

“Foolish to expose yourself,” Epinoia said, her form coalescing, lashes of fire whipping out to ensnare the daemon.

“You should have fled,” Nāshiṭāt agreed, appearing on the other side so that the two Angelus and Ismet formed the points of a triangle, penning the daemon in.  Another set of burning whips shot forward to wrap Agrat like a fly in the webbing of a desert spider.

“I will destroy you all,” Agrat promised, flexing her arms and nearly tearing herself free.  Ismet could see the monster’s core, blazing pure blue, fat on all of the Tithes that Valeria had reaped from the plague-ridden city.

“Strike!” Epinoia cried.  “We cannot hold her for long!”

Ismet yanked her sword free of Valeria’s shattered chest, leapt forward, and before the monster could use her fearsome strength to get free of the two Angelus, swiped for the exposed neck.  The sword flashed, and a gout of black ichor flew into the air, some of it hitting Ismet’s face in a hot, stinking spray.  

Her arms jerked with power as a flood of Tithes rushed into her, and Ismet collapsed under the weight of them.

“Here,” Epinoia said, wings closing around Ismet to shelter her.  “Let us carry the load.  It is too much for you all at once.”  In some way that she could not define, Ismet felt a connection open between her and the two Angelus, the torrent of Tithes flowing not into her core, but through it and out again into Epinoia, and then into Nāshiṭāt.

“I will care for these souls,” the Angelus promised.  “And shepherd them on their way, as is my duty.  As I promised to do, long ago.”

The overwhelming pressure eased, and Ismet sucked in a breath.  “There,” Epinoia said, lifting Ismet’s helmet off her and laying a cool hand to her forehead.  It felt like a cool cloth at the height of a fever.  “It is done.  You did well.”

Finally, Ismet was able to raise her head and see what had become of the battle.  Epinoia lifted her wings, and faded into the air.  The sky had broken open, and the sun returned: not just in a single beam, but now in full force.  After so long in a world of cold desert nights, the return of warmth and heat was shocking.

Now that the gloom of the Sun Eater had lifted, the devastation worked on the gates by Valeria’s uncontrolled strength was clear to see.  Not only had the gate itself collapsed, and the parapet above, but a length of wall to each side long enough to lay open the entire city.

Corpses lay everywhere.  Many had fallen to violence: Ismet saw men pierced by lances or arrows, hacked by swords or axes.  Some were missing limbs, and still moaning; others still and gray.  Those who had not been cut down in battle bore the telltale signs of plague: pale skin, slicked with fever sweat, and black swollen pustules on their bodies.  Ismet was surprised to see fewer soldiers dead or dying of plague than she had expected.

“I did what I could to shield them,” Samara ibnah Arif said, coming up on Ismet’s right and laying a hand on her shoulder.  “I wish that I could have helped you more.”

“You did enough,” Ismet said, accepting a hand to help her back onto her feet.  “You and Nāshiṭāt, both.  Did Fazil survive?”  She wanted to ask about her father, as well, but right now she needed to speak to the man she’d left in command.

“This way,” Samara said.

Ismet was somewhat surprised that they found no further pockets of fighting on their way into the Medina.  There were small groups of men in the armor of the caliph’s personal guard who had given up their weapons, and were sitting on the ground under the watch of her men from the desert, or the soldiers who had joined them at the pass.  Wherever the two Exarchs passed, Ismet’s soldiers bowed their heads to her.

Fazil ibn Asad and Arkan had set up a command post at the first garden they came to, and Ismet smiled when she recognized Rayan ibn Aadil standing guard at their side.  The man’s broad shoulders were slumped with weariness, but his eyes brightened when the Exarchs approached.

“Report,” Ismet called out, as soon as she was within earshot.

“General,” Fazil greeted her with a nod.  “I will have casualty numbers for you in a few hours, but I can already say it will be high on both sides, between the collapse of the wall and the plague.”

“Is anyone still fighting?” Ismet asked, but the men shook their heads.

“They surrender wherever we find them,” Arkan answered her.  “The wall coming down broke them, I think.”

“If not that, then realizing they fought for a daemon,” Rayan broke in.  “I saw men throwing down their weapons during your duel.”

“The caliph’s son?” Ismet asked.  “Did he survive?”

Arkan and Fazil exchanged heavy glances.  “We had men pull him out of the wreckage,” her second explained.  “But the physicians do not think he will last long.  They are treating his pain as best they can.  Your father is there, also, General Ismet.”

Something in her throat dried up, and she could not swallow.  After a cough, Ismet forced the words out.  “Will he live?”

“They do not know,” Arkan admitted.  “He was trying to get closer to help you, when the plague struck.”

“I see.”  Ismet kept her voice steady.  “Accept the surrender of any man who offers it, and take the enemy wounded to be treated by the physicians.  Any man who shows sign of plague must be separated.  See to it.”

“Yes, General,” Fazil and Arkan echoed.

“I can escort you to the physicians,” Rayan offered, but she refused.

“No,” Ismet said.  “Stay here to protect Commander Fazil.  It is still possible someone could try to take revenge on us.”

“I need to go to those who are dying, in any event,” Samara said.  “I will walk with you.”

☀

The physicians had set up their tents long before the battle began, to the rear of Ismet’s army, behind even the siege engines.  The field hospital was easy enough to find, in the light of day: a constant parade of men carried the wounded there, in the hope their friends and comrades could be saved.

Past the largest tents, Ismet found a smaller space set aside for officers and hostages of importance.  It was perhaps half full, and two of the men within she recognized on sight, though they had not been placed next to each other.

Nasir al-Rashid’s legs had been crushed by the falling wall; they were covered by a cloth, but Ismet could see where the stumps of his thighs gave way to nothing.  The physicians must have cut away what they could not save in an attempt to stop the bleeding, but the man looked pale as unbleached linen anyway.  His head was wrapped in stained bandages, and one of the surgeons was picking shards of bone out of his left arm.  The son of the caliph was, mercifully, not awake.

“Will he live?” Ismet asked, out of duty.  She found that for her own part she no longer cared one way or the other, but it would be politically easier if the man passed on.

“It is hard to say,” the physician answered, not looking up from his work.  “We have done what we can, but there is swelling of the brain.  We had to make an incision in the skull to drain the fluid, and if the swelling does not recede…”

“I understand,” Ismet said, and moved past the bed to the man she truly wished to see.

Salah ibn Yassar was clearly feverish, but his eyes fixed on his daughter the moment she stepped up to his bed.  “You should stand back, daughter,” he said, then coughed so violently she was worried he would never breath again.

“I am an Exarch of the Angelus,” Ismet said.  “Plague will not be the end of me.”  She dragged over a collapsible camp chair, and sat down on it, then reached out and took her father’s hand in hers.

“I pray that is so,” Salah said, groaning, once he could breath again.  “The victory is ours?”

“It is,” Ismet assured him.

“Good.”  Her father allowed his eyes to close.  “You will set things right, now.  You must tell your mother, Ismet-”

“I will,” she promised.  “You just rest now, Yuba,” she said.  “Try to sleep.”

Ismet remained at her father’s side until he stopped breathing.