The Blind King's Wrath

Ashok K. Banker

• Publisher: Harper Voyager
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN:
  9780358451341
• Print ISBN:
  9780358451334
• Subtopic: Science Fiction

The final chapter in Ashok K. Banker’s acclaimed Burnt Empire Saga, The Blind King’s Wrath depicts the climactic battle between Krushni and her father, the Demonlord Jarsun, for the Burning Throne and the fate of the Krushan dynasty

The Demonlord Jarsun is poised to claim the Burning Throne and cement his rule over the Burnt Empire. Standing in his way is his daughter, now reincarnated into a new avatar named Krushni, who is determined to avenge her mother’s death by his hand—and put an end to her father’s reign of terror once and for all. Aligned with him is the vast army of the Empire, the One Hundred children of Emperor Adri, and their former guru, the legendary warrior Dronas.

Krushni has allies too. Also opposing the tyrant Jarsun are the children of his nephew Shvate—the supernaturally-gifted quintet known as the Five. But Krushni and The Five are vastly outnumbered, while other rogue individuals like Ladislew, the warrior-witch, serve their own secret agendas.

In this final volume of Banker’s epic saga of the Krushan dynasty, the land of Hastinaga will be torn asunder as the final battle for the empire rages between father and daughter, uncle and nephew, lover and enemy. And the Burning Throne will revel in the violence of it all.

Part One

Reunion

YEAR 210 OF CHAKRA 58

Yudi

1

THE MOON WAS A raised scimitar poised overhead as Tshallian cursed the oarsmen with both their mouths, their two heads scanning the dark river while berating the rowers.

“Faster, whelps. Did your mothers not nurse you long enough as babes? Put your backs into it!” the Vanjhani hissed, their four arms matching action to their words as they pulled powerfully on two pairs of oars.

Even with their strength added, the boat barely moved forward. At this narrowed point, the Anusya River was still a good half mile wide, its sluggish yet vigorous current thickened by the sheer quantity of silt it would carry hundreds of miles further down south to deposit at the mangroves of the delta.

The oarsmen said nothing, grimly applying themselves to the rigorous task of rowing across the formidable river. Despite the near-moonless night that made clear vision impossible, Yudi judged they had drifted further downstream than hoped. At this rate, he estimated, they would be miles past the landing site by the time they reached the opposite shore, delaying them more on this night when every moment was precious.

“Yojanas past,” Arrow corrected him. “We’re already over ten miles past the landing site, and a yojana is just over—”

“Nine miles. Yes, Arrow, I know the length of a yojana, just as I’m sure you know the exact length of the ideal bowspan for a person of your height and reach. No, don’t tell me what that bowspan actually is. Right now, I’m more interested in calculating how long it will take us to reach the ambush spot at this rate.”

“It would take no time at all, if you had let me row to start with, Yudi.” The careless drawl of Brum’s lazy voice was softer than her siblings’ tones, yet carried farther on the humid night air. She lay on her back in the bed of the longboat, keeping her hefty bulk low to avoid capsizing the vehicle. Even though Brum was the same age as her siblings, she outmatched them in size and weight, belying her seventeen years.

Yudi had emphasized to Tshallian that they find the most robustly constructed longboat for the crossing only because of his concern that an older, weather-worn boat might not be able to sustain Brum’s weight. It wasn’t just her size—at a glance, it seemed unlikely that Brum could weigh more than a Vanjhani like Tshallian, who was nine feet tall and more than half as wide at the shoulders—but her short stature and girth were not merely that of a well-fed woman. Brum weighed over half a ton, and when she lost her temper and forgot to watch herself, she could expand instantly to three or four times that weight, and at least on one occasion they had witnessed her increasing her weight to a massive three tons, just by inhaling a deep breath.

For this reason, Yudi said nothing to Brum now. She was always on a shorter fuse than usual just before a fight, and he definitely did not want to rock this boat.

One of the oarsmen said something in his local tongue to their captain, a heavily tattooed woman who had kept up a steady stream of curses since pushing off: without breaking the rhythm, she responded to the complainant with what sounded like even more obscene curses.

Yudi looked at Saha, who had a natural gift for languages, human as well as animal, in addition to his extraordinary speed and endurance.

Saha shrugged. “Grumbling about the weight.”

Yudi supposed the oarsman was right: looking at the six of them, nobody could have guessed their combined weight would be that of a party at least twice their number. He said nothing; if the captain knew of Brum’s peculiar “weight problem,” she might be inclined to throw them all overboard, cursing all the while. Well, she would try.

He saw Arrow looking at him and shrugged. Let her grumble. We’re paying her well enough.

His sibling’s attractive face twitched in an ambiguous smile. Arrow was neither male nor female, gifted with a chameleon-like ability to shift genders at will, while presenting exclusively as no specific gender identity. This often confused lovers but proved very useful in the right circumstances, especially since Arrow’s talents altered slightly yet significantly with each identity shift.

Yudi turned his attention to Kula, Saha’s twin, yet about as different from his sister as twins could possibly be. He was leaning over the side of the boat, trailing his hand in the ink-black river, whispering too softly for human ears. He knew Kula was speaking with the fish, turtles, dolphins, and Jeel only knew whatever else dwelled in these waters. That was Kula’s special gift, being able to speak to and secure the cooperation of animals of all species. All Yudi’s siblings had the same gift in varying degrees, but the four of them combined couldn’t match Kula when it came to perfect fluency and communication. He could get the most unlikely creatures to do the most unexpected things.

He looked fondly at his siblings. They were all special in their own individual ways. Empowered by their divine forebears.

Except for Yudi.

He was painfully, almost embarrassingly, powerless. He didn’t possess Brum’s strength, Arrow’s keen aim, Saha’s speed, or Kula’s powers of communication. He was just . . . Yudi.

“Why am I even part of this family?” he had asked their mother more than once. “I’m not like the others.”

Karni had hugged him close and asked, “Is that the voice of your heart speaking or the voices of strangers?”

“The other children in the gurukul said it,” he’d admitted. “But it’s true, isn’t it?”

Karni had looked at him with her large, sad brown eyes. “Do you believe it’s true? Is that how you feel when you are with us, like you don’t belong?”

“No.” He dropped his gaze. “I feel like . . . we’re all parts of a single being. Like five hearts beating in a single body.”

It was true. That was how it felt, not just when all five siblings were together, but even when they were far apart, as they had been in the past. Even when they fought bitterly with each other, as siblings often did, he always felt as if he was fighting only with himself. And because of their emotional and mental bond, Yudi could think and feel everything his siblings were experiencing, just as they could. Even now, he knew what each one of them was thinking and feeling, just as they knew his thoughts and emotions, sensing his sadness even in their sleep and sending back reassuring pulses of support and solidarity.

Karni had smiled then, and brushed an errant lock of hair off his forehead. “Remind me to cut your hair,” she said absently.

After a moment’s thought, she’d added, “You are the wise one, remember that. Even the most powerful body needs a steady, calm head that can think wisely in the most challenging circumstances. Like a commander who must see beyond the individual pains and wounds and suffering of her soldiers to view the entire army in perspective, in order to be able to direct and command its actions for success and for survival. You are the head of the body that is the Five. The head cannot carry, lift, run, or do anything physical on its own; it can only think and process what the body experiences and make decisions to ensure the body’s success and survival. That is your purpose, your gift, your genius. You can command and direct your siblings to act individually to achieve a common goal, in perfect synch, with brilliant foresight, and lead them to achieve not just the improbable or the seemingly impossible, but even the unimaginable. Yours is the hand that holds the reins and the goad of a four-horse team. Without your hand and will to unite and control them, the team would run awry, or amok, and topple the chariot. You are the one who leads, and more importantly, Yudi, my eldest, my beloved, my beautiful, perfect son, you are their brother, and that itself is all in itself. Anything more that you happen to be is a gift. You yourself are enough.”

He had stared at his mother, fiercely beautiful in the moonlight streaming in through the gaps in the thatched roof of their forest hut, and thought to himself, And you, Mother, are amazing. Unlike her children, she could not read his thoughts or feelings, so he said aloud, “I love you, Mother.”

“I love you too, my son. Now go back to sleep. You have gurukul tomorrow.”

2

The grinding jerk of the boat running aground drew Yudi out of his thoughts. They had reached the far shore. The captain cursed softly one last time, then finally quieted.

Tshallian turned back to look grimly at Yudi, their massive arms reaching over their shoulders to draw weapons slowly from their leather sheaths: a hammer and a sickle. Their lower pair of arms drew swords sheathed at their waist. They turned forward again and leaped from the boat’s prow, landing with a dull crunch on the pebbled shore. The glint of moonlight on metal matched the sheen of their bald heads.

Arrow was next, then Brum, whose landing produced a squelching sound as the pebbles were crushed to powder and embedded a foot deep in the loamy wet soil. Yudi was next, followed by Saha and Kula. That was their standard order. Like so many other habits and rituals of the Five, it had been set from their youngest years, for reasons none of them had ever examined or questioned. They had an instinctive understanding and acceptance of their respective roles in any situation, and especially so in combat. That was as good a reason as any.

The captain cursed again softly, holding out her tattooed hands—even her palms and the webs of her fingers bore ink, Yudi noticed—in the universal gesture that meant “pay up.” Yudi untied the cloth purse hanging at his waist and tossed it to the woman. He had already given her half its contents before they embarked.

She caught it deftly, despite the dim light, and her cursing ceased—but only for a moment before she turned and began cursing her oarsmen again.

Yudi heard the grinding of the boat being shoved back out onto the water and had a moment of misgiving. Perhaps he ought to ask the boat to wait, just in case they needed to cross back.

He shook his head wryly. That was not how the Five operated. They explored no escape routes, had no contingency plan. When they went into battle, they went all in.

He turned and followed his siblings into the darkness.

3

Tshallian raised the arm holding the sickle, the tip silvery wet with moonlight. Yudi made his way to the Vanjhani’s side, resisting the urge to crouch. The wadi they had followed up from the riverbank was deep enough to conceal even the Vanjhani easily. If the nine-foot-tall warrior felt no need to crouch, then Yudi, who was almost two and a half feet shorter, need hardly do so.

The hand holding the hammer jabbed it forward, indicating a faintly glimpsed shape standing above the wadi.

“Ambush there, Dronas’s border guards do always. Be there that one of them, lazy bastard name of Sanknart. Right proper asswipe that be! Always hang back from main force, he do, that so he not put precious neck in harm’s way.”

Yudi nodded and glanced back at his siblings. Four pairs of eager eyes glinted in the darkness. He could hear Brum already chuffing, drawing in breath after breath to increase her weight.

“Everyone knows what to do,” he said, more for Tshallian’s benefit than the others’. “Remember, quick and deadly. Hit them hard and keep moving.”

Arrow’s white teeth gleamed in a broad grin.

Yudi shot his sibling a sharp look. Don’t make this personal. We’re not here to right wrongs tonight, we’re just passing through, and they happen to be in our way, that’s all. This is not about delivering justice for all the folk who were taken here.

Arrow’s eyes met Yudi’s in a piercing stare. The grin widened. It’s personal to all of them, and their families, Yudi. What these bastards do to the children is unforgivable.

Tshallian grunted softly. “Shift changes in half a watch. Finish this before that, best we do. As it is, numbers against us. No less than twenty border guards now, shift change comes, twenty more there will be.”

Yudi switched to verbalizing for the Vanjhani’s benefit. “Give me a minute, Tshallian. I need to make sure my siblings understand something.”

He turned back to the others. “Arrow, Brum, Saha,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Map
• Dedication
• Contents
• Dramatis Personae
• Prologue: A Knife in the Dark
• Part One: Reunion
• Part Two: The Beginning of the End
• Part Three: The Battle of Beha’al
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Copyright
• About the Publisher