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

“Keel-Tath, the white-haired child. Where is she?”
    The others paused at his words.
    “She is gone.” A bloodied warrior stepped from the group of Desh-Ka survivors. Sian-Al’ai recognized her as Dara-Kol, the First to Keel-Tath. Beside her two young warriors shouldered their way forward, whom Sian-Al’ai recognized as Tara-Khan and Ka’i-Lohr. The pair had already acquired a fearsome reputation. Dara-Kol held the two back and said, “She is beyond your reach, you honorless fools.”
    “Mind your tongue, whelp,” Ulan-Samir snapped, and Dara-Kol fell to her knees, gagging, her hands at her throat as if trying to prevent unseen hands from strangling her.
    She is gone . Dara-Kol’s words echoed in Sian-Al’ai’s mind. For the moment, at least, Keel-Tath must be safe. That was small reassurance given the situation, but she would seize upon any good fortune. She would need it in the time that must now come.  
    Her sword and those of her fellow priests and priestesses already drawn, Sian-Al’ai did not hesitate as the other priesthoods moved toward the huddled Desh-Ka. Flashing through space to take up positions around the beleaguered survivors, the priests and priestesses of Sian-Al’ai’s order, the Ima’il-Kush, faced outward in a defensive circle. “Brothers and sisters,” she called to the others, “return to your temples and contemplate the wrongs we have done and how we may return to the Way. No further harm shall come to those of the Desh-Ka. They have suffered more than enough. This I swear upon the blood of my ancestors.”
    “I have already laid claim to the robed ones!” Ulan-Samir protested, drawing his own sword and baring his fangs in rage. The others of the Nyur-A’il followed suit. “You will not have them!”
    “They are not property for any of us to claim!” Sian-Al’ai responded in a frigid voice.  
    “We have first right,” one of the other most-high growled, “to their blood!”
    “It is one order against four,” Ulan-Samir warned as he and the others took a step closer, having formed a ring around the defending Ima’il-Kush. “You shall not prevail.”
    “The four of you stand together this moment,” Sian-Al’ai shot back, “but you will fall upon one another like carrion-eating wo’olarh the moment you find you have no common purpose.”
    “All of you are wrong!”
    They turned at Dara-Kol’s rasping voice, having been released from Ulan-Samir’s invisible grip. They followed her raised arm.  
    “Look to the sky,” Dara-Kol shouted, “and behold your true enemy!” The circling airships had just fired another salvo of the deadly globes, and hundreds of enemy warriors were dropping from yet more airships passing directly overhead. While the other priesthoods had their own special powers, none could produce a defensive shield as powerful as that of the Desh-Ka, and certainly not in the seconds they had until the latest salvo arrived. The priests and priestesses had only moments to choose to flee or die. “Syr-Nagath has made fools of you all!”  
    ***
    Standing atop the great pillar, which Keel-Tath was sure had risen at least a full league into the moon’s sky, she watched the sea of dark matter that now surrounded her transform itself. Great curved structures, like the gleaming petals of a gigantic flower just blooming, began to rise. Like all the constructs favored by her kind, function and grace were intertwined. The great outer walls rose higher and higher, and from them sprouted stairs and floors, mezzanines and chambers that were soon too many for her to count. Curving walls and arches, spires and buttresses rose and bent to their purpose as if the growing structure were a thing alive, rising from the ocean.
    Perhaps it is, in its own way , Keel-Tath mused as she stared wide-eyed at the spectacle from her lofty perch. The base of the structure continued to expand outward as it rose, expanding to cover as much of the moon’s surface as might a small