Free Mistress Of The Ages (In Her Name, Book 9) by Michael R. Hicks

head.”
    Sian-Al’ai drew her sword. “Then take it if you can!”  
    “Stop!” Another of the most high pointed. “Look!”
    Under the pounding of yet another salvo of Syr-Nagath’s weapons, the shield protecting the remnants of the Desh-Ka finally collapsed.
    ***
    Alena-Khan had not known such agony since the Crystal of Souls had transformed her into a priestess and swept her body with cleansing fire. Whatever hellish weapon Syr-Nagath had unearthed from the Ka'i-Nur Books of Time, it was having a telling effect. Alena-Khan’s hands were no more than charred stumps, and the metal of her gauntlets and the plates around her forearms had melted, searing the flesh all the way to her shoulders. Every bit of her skin beyond that was blistering from the heat that washed across the rest of her armor, and her face felt as if she had thrust it into the glowing coals of an armorer’s forge.  
    While the ranks of the Desh-Ka priesthood had never been great, in the short, cataclysmic time since the ill-fated conclave had convened only thirteen had survived to join together in this last desperate defense of those who had called the temple home. Under the onslaught by the airships, that number had been reduced to eight. The other five had died on their feet despite the efforts of the healers who surrounded them, braving the searing heat and deadly lightning discharges with every bit as much courage as any warrior. The others of the robed castes had displayed similar courage in the defense of the temple, and Alena-Khan, in what she knew would be her last moments, was more proud than she had ever been to be a Desh-Ka.
    But it would take more than pride to survive this day. She sensed the arrival of the other priesthoods, moving in like carrion eaters awaiting the death of a genoth. As soon as they turned their powers upon the Desh-Ka, the battle would be over. Perhaps, Alena-Khan thought dimly, if the greatest of their order had survived to stand here now, or had so many not perished in the foolish fighting after the conclave, things might have been different. Her own powers were a mere fraction of what those such as Ayan-Dar or T’ier-Kunai could have brought to bear. She mourned for their loss and her part in it all, her only consolation the grim knowledge that she would soon be joining them in the Afterlife. She would, in the end, die with honor.
    Holding her eyes closed against the savage heat, she used her second sight to look beyond the barrier she and the others stubbornly maintained. She cringed as the airships fired another titanic salvo. Thousands of the dreaded energy globes arced downward. The vessels had long since found their mark, and had maintained precise orbits to preserve their aim points, and all but a few of the weapons hit the shield.
    With a wail of agony, another of the priests collapsed, his body little more than a seared corpse, and the surviving seven were driven to their knees.  
    Alena-Khan, the last of her energy spent, collapsed into the arms of the healers who tended her, ignoring the pain of their own charred skin.  
    As the priestess fell, the crackling cyan shield faded and disappeared. Their last defense had collapsed.
    ***
    For a moment, the entire world stood still. The warrior priests and priestesses of the Desh-Ka, for the first time in all of history, save that known by the Ka’i-Nur keepers of the Books of Time, had fallen. Once the greatest of the ancient orders, its warriors universally feared and respected, the Desh-Ka were now nothing more than a few dazed acolytes and a mass of robed ones and younglings gathered around the charred remains of those who wore the priesthood’s sigil.  
    “The work before us we do not undertake lightly,” the leader of the Ana’il-Rukh said as he and his companions drew their swords, “but we shall do what must be done.”
    “Where is she?” Ulan-Samir asked, ignoring the Ana’il-Rukh and casting his gaze upon the surviving Desh-Ka.