Excerpt: Prologue

The Tithing of NOROSHAN

Go forth, sons and daughters of Azrithar, with my Spears at your side, and bring back what is ours by right and ruin. All shall bear witness to the might of the Silver City. As they have always done, so they always shall.
—Decree of His Excellency, Grand Regent Sythor-Kaahn Abban VII

Year 6,799 after the Founding of Azrithar

It was the first time Sira had ever seen the sun. It was bright beyond brilliance, her eyes narrowed to slits just to keep it from blinding her. They had said it would be magnificent, that going back to unending dusk could drive even the strongest of wills to madness. Their words fell far short.
      Her silver robes caught the light and spilled it back across the stone concourse that ran through the heart of the city. She ran a finger over a button, the pearl smooth under her touch. They fit her perfectly, tailored by practised hands over many months, and adorned with shimmering filigree that not a soul in all of Noroshan could afford in ten lifetimes. To her, this was simply tradition.
      The crest of the Grand Regent shined brightly on her chest, below her talisman of brilliant white, as she followed the procession through the upper districts. Banners caught high in the breeze, the crest of Azrithar over bone-white cloth atop engraved poles of silver. The bannermen numbered in their hundreds, and before her were the other delegates, thirty two in all, surrounded by the lesser ranks—clerks, financiers, advisors, scribes. Then the artisans—bards and acrobats, dancers and jugglers—as they sang of victory and revelled in the streets. Behind her, like rolling thunder, marched the Spears of Abban, the silver-armoured personal guard of the Grand Regent himself. Two legions, he had sent, nearly ten thousand men, when but a dozen would have been enough. Finally, pulled along in a carriage of impossible opulence, sat the envoy. Hand-picked by the Grand Regent, they were the most senior officials in Azritharan politics, and they had led every tithing personally, as they had done for over four thousand years.
      This was the 191st tithing of Noroshan, and yet Sira’s first. She had grown up hearing the stories about them, of course, as all Azritharans did. The heroic tales of sacrifice, the songs of battle, and the celebrations of victory as each envoy returned with the wealth of distant cities. There were but nine cities in all of Tha’Shoran, yet it was Azrithar that was the first, and inarguably the largest and most powerful. For millennia the Silver City, named for its grand towers that shone under moonlight, had brought culture, structure and order to all others. To the lesser cities. They should be grateful, Sira had been taught. And yet, as she moved with the procession, the uncountable faces of the Noroshani cityfolk that stared back at her looked anything but grateful. She picked out scowls, brows furrowed with worry, even tears—they were simply spectators, watching her people celebrate. The air reeked of fear. This was nothing like the stories.

* * *

The dusk returned the next cycle. Dark skies churned over dull cobbles. At least her eyes didn’t ache. There was a little melancholy in her, not least for having to abandon the sun so soon to enter into negotiations with the Noroshan council. It would be another twenty-one years until it came again; she would be an old woman when next she looked upon it.
      The Spire of Noroshan was the tallest building in the city, as all spires were, and a bastion of scholarship and learning in the arts of veilcraft. It rose two thousand feet high, the tallest of its towers piercing the low clouds as they threatened rain. To Sira, it appeared quite insignificant against the Spire back in Azrithar. Beside it, a fleet of silver-hulled airships formed a line that stretched a full mile, like a giant metallic serpent in the sky, each one waiting to make berth. The veilcraft that kept them airborne filled the air with a hum she could feel in her bones. The Spears of Abban would no doubt be busy stacking the holds of each airship high before the long journey back. The offering was impressive for such a small city. Sacks of grain, chests of gold and precious gemstones, and plentiful food all grown naturally in the rich, dark soils of Noroshan’s vast stepped gardens. And then the drink; the men would not go a moment without cheering it—the same tilled earth gave the finest crop of sylberry and stone root. The wines and ales they bore were known throughout all of Tha’Shoran, and five thousand casks were taken with much excitement.
      The tithing negotiations had concluded far faster then she had anticipated. In fact, it barely seemed to be a negotiation at all. Every demand from the Envoy had been met with a nod from the Noroshan Seer’s Council, though with two legions of the Spears’ lining both the streets and the edges of the council chambers, what choice did they have? Stranger still, nothing was offered in return. Wasn’t hers a city of influence, of culture? Her own idea of inviting Noroshani students to exchange their research had been waved away by the Envoy with a look of utter contempt. She could still hear his slurred words, drunk on stolen wine and revelling in his own authority over these people. This was not what she had been training for.
      The first reports of unrest came three days later. What had started as a total capitulation had grown, through rumour and hearsay, into whispers of protest, the first seeds of rebellion. Nothing she had not expected, though bearing witness to it first-hand was a considerably more unpleasant experience than reading about it on parchment in the safety of an Azritharan archive. She had to see it for herself.
      She stood back from the gathering crowd as angry shouts rose, faces leering, scrunched in disgust as fists were raised.
      “You should leave, Madam Delegate,” came a voice from behind. A Spear of Abban stepped beside her, his face hidden behind a helm of polished silver, a long spear gripped firmly at his side.
      “I shall do no such thing,” she replied. “These people are free to speak their mind.”
      The warrior nodded. “They are. And we are here to keep order.”
      Sira eyed his spear as he pointed it forward.
      “You shan’t keep order with that, soldier.”
      “Our orders come from the Envoy, ma’am.”
      She knew that. The other guards were moving into formation as the crowd approached. Perhaps they would see sense and let them pass.
      “Madam Delegate, I’m afraid I must insist.” The guard took her arm, but she twisted away, pulled herself free, a strip of silver cloth torn and hanging from his gauntlet.
     “Stop!” She fixed him with her gaze. “I am a delegate of Azrithar. Any protest shall be resolved peacefully. You must—”
     A sudden, sharp pain in her side. She gasped. A purple stain under dripping chunks of rotting fruit. The smell was rancid.
     “Get out!” came a shout, repeated at once by a chorus of voices.
     “Fuck off!” came another. Then, “Get the silver bitch!”
     She turned away but several men broke from the crowd and dragged her back. She stumbled, falling hard. Hands pulled at her hair. Boots stamped at her face. One of the men knelt beside her, clawing at her robes, tearing them away until her breasts were exposed, the chill air biting at her skin. She raised her hands, tried to push the crowd away.
     A man above her held a fist ready to strike, but before he could land the blow a silver gauntlet clamped around his neck and lifted him clear off his feet. The guard threw him aside like a child’s doll, his body laying in a crumpled heap on the cobbles. The crowd swarmed the guard, but it was too late. His spear was already arcing through the air. The blade passed through men like they were made of water. Gobs of blood streaked over her, stinging her eyes.
     The crowd erupted and rushed forward. The guard grabbed her arm, pulled her to her feet then dragged her back, stepping into the wall of silver steel.
     She was swallowed by the formation, pushed and jostled back until a row of spears and shields stood between her and the mob.
Her breaths came in ragged gasps, bruises welling up over her face and body. Her robes were stained with red, her hands wet with the blood of men she didn’t know. What was happening here? Why did he have to kill them?
     She turned, watched in stunned silence as the crowd crashed, hopelessly, against the unmoving wall of the Spears of Abban.
     “Stop!” she cried, her words lost in the storm of voices.
More guards were coming up the street as the row of shields gave way to the tip of spears.
     “No!” She was not going to let violence be done to these people. She raised her hand, traced a pattern in the air with a fingertip and whispered an incantation under her breath. The words were a familiar comfort, drilled into her from a decade of rigorous study, practised until they were as effortless as taking a breath. She focused her mind as her talisman erupted with light. The Veil was an elusive thing, but she found the shallow edges where she could draw its power and wield it as her own. She released her will, the sheer force of it rippling outward, like the very air itself were passing through a great prism. A flash of white light split the crowd from the line of spears. It spread until a shimmering barrier stood between them, faces lit harshly in the dark. Men pressed it with their hands, beat it with sticks and rocks, yet it held firm.
     A guard turned toward her. “You stop your spell immediately, delegate!” he boomed.
     Another guard tried to wrest the barrier from her. His own talisman, mounted in his vast breastplate, glowed as he recited words of control, but it was useless. She had sealed the spell. There wasn’t a guard in Azrithar powerful enough to break it. Spears were thrust into it, but may as well have struck steel.
     “Damn it! Stop, now!” said the guard, stepping toward her.
     “I shall do so once your men move aside,” she replied, her face twisted in concentration. “You shall not harm—”
     A sharp pain. Her world lurched.
     The barrier!
     It was too late. Her focus had lapsed for only a second, but that was long enough for the guardsman to pluck the spell from her grasp. He held the barrier for a moment, fist clenched, before releasing it. It faded from this world like smoke in the wind.
     Sira held her head, the pain throbbing down to the back of her neck where she had been struck.
     “Left me no choice, Madam Delegate,” called a guard from behind.
      The warriors advanced. Their weapons flashed, and men, women and children fell, until the streets ran red with blood.
     Above, as if a herald of death, the darkening skies cracked and rain fell.
      Sira dropped to her knees and wept. There was nothing else she could do.