Mam loved to tell stories about Da by the fire at night, and one of the most exciting was the time he walked right into a cave demon’s web.
But I don’t need much light to see. The dim glow of the wards is more than enough for me to spot the heavy thread. Da had powers like I could only dream of, which is probably why it never occurred to him to just turn slippery. No need for a coward’s trick when he could just light up his wards with power and burn the webs to ash.
But in my slippery state, I pass through the sticky silk easily as a bead curtain, gently holding some of the strands aside for the others to slip through. Above I can hear the cave demons shifting, but with nothing adhering to the thread, there are none of the sharp motions that would trigger an attack.
No sooner are we past this latest defense than I pick up the scent I’ve been dreading since this began.
Blood.
* * *
—
A figure detaches itself from the shadow of a large stalagmite. The others tense, but I know who it is before he even moves.
For the first time I’ve seen—perhaps the first time in his life—Arick is wrapped in his father’s motley cloak with the hood drawn up. I can see the magic dancing along its concealing wards, hiding him much as Mam’s cloak does me.
Arick is covered in sweat, ichor, and blood, but little of the latter seems to be his own. He’s lost his hora spear and shield, but has scavenged others, still sticky with the blood of the Majah warriors they once belonged to.
Rojvah rushes to her brother, embracing him without missing a note of her song. Her eyes are wet with tears.
“What happened?” Selen asks, while the rest of us maintain the musical shield.
“We were ambushed,” Arick says. “They knew we were coming. Expected it. When the melee turned chaotic, men lost their helmets, and the mind took them.”
“Took them?” Selen asks. “What do you mean took them?”
Arick makes a spitting noise. “They became slaves to Alagai Ka, and turned on us. We were not prepared to defend against our own spear brothers. It was all the opening they needed.”
“Night,” Selen breathes. We’ve all heard tales of mind demon possession, but it’s one thing to hear an ale story and another to live one. I wonder if there’s still time to run away.
“Where’s Olive?” Selen demands.
Arick takes us down a narrowing path. “We had no choice but to flee, and the alagai herded us this way.” The tunnel opens up on one side to a great cavern. The way ahead is a narrow ledge clinging to a high cliff face. Ahead, part of it has collapsed.
“That is where Olive fell,” Arick says. Selen slaps a hand to her mouth at the words and I miss the next few notes, fumbling to find harmony again.
Olive can’t be dead. Could we have come all this way, only to lose her because I was gullible and let her go down here without us?
All of us look over the edge, peering into the darkness below. It’s a long way down. Even with wardsight, it drops farther than any of us can see.
“There was no way to go after her.” Arick’s voice is cold, but I can smell his shame. Indeed, the slope is too steep for an armored warrior to climb without proper gear. I could do it, but I’d have to leave the others behind. It would take time to do it safely, and Creator only knows what’s waiting down there.
“What happened to the others?” Selen asks. “Why were you alone?”
“Taken,” Arick says. “Iraven was one of the demon’s slaves all along. Perhaps before he led us down here in the first place. He turned on us, pulling helms from the strongest fighters and trapping us on this ledge. Before long, half the men had lost their helms, and the rest were driven over the edge. I…” He swallows, breathing deep to steady himself. “I killed my spear brothers.”
Selen reaches out, squeezing his shoulder. “That wasn’t them, Arick. Ent your fault.”
Arick nods, but still there are tears in his eyes. “When I was the only one who had not been taken, I hid in Father’s cloak, and the demon looking through their eyes could not see me.” He points farther down the tunnel. “After they gave up the search for me, Iraven marched the others below.”
Rojvah stops singing at that. “Ever do you speak ill of our father, but here on the road to Nie’s abyss, his spirit protects you where your grandfather’s strength of arms could not.”
I hear it before I see it. A slight breeze blows through the cavern, hitting Arick’s face and exhaling through a tear in his hood. I walk around him, as if to peer again over the edge, but glance at the back of his hood as I do. The large embroidered mind ward is torn.
Rojvah has resumed her song, but now I stop playing, tucking my pipes away in my satchel. Rojvah and Micha turn to me in surprise as I drop out of our trio. “Hiding doesn’t sound like you.”
“Even I am not fool enough to fight an entire hive alone,” Arick says.
The words make perfect sense, but there is something wrong about them. I remember the night Arick fought in the desert, the berserk rage that consumed him, blinding him to all sense of self-preservation in his drive to kill.
Red curls have fallen onto his brow, though I watched him carefully tuck and bind them with turban cloth so there would be no chance of them coming loose while he masqueraded as a full-blood dal’Sharum.
Looking closer, I can see from the shape of his hood that his helm is missing from beneath the black wrappings. My eyes flick back to Arick’s scavenged spear and shield. Without hood or helm or hero’s bone…
“What really happened to Olive?” I demand.
Something changes in Arick’s eyes. “You’ll see her soon enough.”
Arick lunges for my head, attempting to knock my hood and helm askew. Fast as he is, I am faster, and expecting the attack. I turn slippery, quickstepping to the side. His grasping hand misses, so he attempts to tackle me, instead.
In my slippery state, the second attack is as simple to avoid as the first, but then Arick whips the spear off his back and into my path as I slide out of the way. I step back to avoid it, and my feet meet open air. I try to grab the shaft of his spear, but my hands are still slippery. I solidify, and Arick uses the grip to pull me close and grab my helmet before push-kicking me off the ledge.
“Darin!” Selen screams, dropping her spear to reach out her hand to me. Arick moves to take advantage of her distraction, but I don’t see what happens next as I slam against hard stone and tumble end over end, picking up speed as I bounce down the slope.
58
LONG WAY DOWN
Moving too fast to stick, I draw a sharp breath and suck in, pulling the particles of my body closer together. I shrink, becoming tougher, harder, as I am battered and bashed.
My spear snaps and the bone tip shatters, tearing my robes but unable to penetrate my toughened skin. The shoulder strap of my shield is designed for quick removal, and cannot withstand the rigors of the fall. It clatters away long before I hit bottom, slamming to a hard stop.
My ears are ringing, and the ground seems to spin beneath me as I try to work the dirt from a mouth gone dry. I smell blood, but it isn’t mine. I expect most folks would have broken a couple of bones in that fall—if not their necks—but I’m just dizzy and a little achy. Olive is tougher than most folks, but if she came down this same way, she might be hurt.
When I am able I put my hands under me and push up, seeing a bright glow of ambient magic flowing through the cavern. Wherever I am, it is close to the center of the ward. Ahead I hear a ruckus, but I’m still too disoriented to sift out the sounds.
I throw on the hood of Mam’s cloak, wrapping myself in its protective folds. Still I keep to the shadow of the stalagmites as I get my feet under me and creep silently toward the noise.
The space opens up around a bend and I find the source of the blood smell. Prince Chadan lies in a pool of bl
ood on the cold stone, aura snuffed.
After the slaughter of the Warded Children and Hollow Soldiers, I should be able to look on a dead body without losing my lunch, but the prince’s head is cracked open, his brains scooped out like a soft-boiled egg.
Close to a hundred Sharum are on their knees, with Prince Iraven standing at their head in full armor. None of them wear their helmets, just as Arick said, though many still carry them.
A few feet away, Olive is in the grasp of the mind demon—a creature even more terrifying in reality than in paintings and Mam’s ale stories. I can sense the demon’s age, his overwhelming power, and I know in my heart this is the coreling Mam and Da kept prisoner all those years ago. Alagai Ka, the Father of Demons, who tried to kill me while I was still in Mam’s belly. The very sight of him makes me want to run far away.
But the demon has Olive.
Slowly, I draw Mam’s knife beneath the folds of the cloak, inching my way across the floor.
Prince Iraven laughs. I glance his way, seeing the prince looking right at me, even wrapped in my cloak. “Do you think yourself invisible?” Iraven asks incredulously. “Even if I cannot see you, my slaves can.”
“Rippin’ idiot!” I curse as Iraven leaps for me, surprisingly quick in his scaled armor. Arick told the truth about the Sharum and their helmets, but lied about the protection of the cloak. I’ve walked right into the demon king’s waiting talons.
The father waits below.
I go slippery and slide past Iraven, bolting for Alagai Ka. If I cannot sneak, I will trust to blind speed and Mam’s blade. Indeed, the hilt throbs in my hand as if hungry to avenge her.
My hood falls back in the mad dash, along with its protective wards. Immediately, I feel the demon’s will try to latch on to me, much like Mam does when she forces me to dissipate and drags me into a vent. I can see the power rippling from Alagai Ka’s throbbing cranium wash over me.
Warded Children have a rule—no one with less than sixteen summers can be inked. In part because young bodies can distort the tattoos as they grow, but mostly from the belief that folk should consent as adults before making a permanent choice.
But Mam was never one to follow rules, especially where I was concerned. As soon as my skull bones fused, she used her special electrum ink to tattoo a mind ward atop my head and touch it up over the years as I grew.
The silvery ink is nearly invisible, and hidden beneath the thick curls of my hair. Most wards won’t activate when hidden, but mine Draws power from my own innate magic, and is always charged.
I feel the demon’s will hammering against the forbidding around my mind. The ward grows warm, then so hot it burns. I fear my hair will smolder, but the barrier holds. The mind demon can no more force his way into my mind than Ella Cutter could punch her way out of the Bunker.
I pick up speed. The wards on Mam’s knife glow fiercely as I lunge for Alagai Ka’s bulbous head.
Fast as I am, I ent fast enough. I nick the flesh of his forehead and feel the blade come to life in my hand, but before it can penetrate far, the demon tosses Olive at me. I’ve gone solid to attack, and she hits me hard. I fumble the knife, trying to keep from stabbing her.
I remember cowering as Mam told stories about fighting Alagai Ka. How every moment they survived seemed a miracle.
Underestimate a mind, it’s the last thing you’ll ever do, Mam said. Might look scrawny, but they’ve magic enough to be as strong or fast or tough as they want. Anything doesn’t kill ’em, they can heal in a blink.
Olive and I hit the ground in a tangle, but I can’t waste time on her. The only hope we have is to kill Alagai Ka here and now. I roll away and spring back to my feet, ready to charge again.
Olive grabs me from behind, putting me in a submission hold and twisting me back down. I go slippery and pop from her grasp like a leapfrog.
I rush the demon before Olive can catch up. He seems more than willing to meet me head-on, batting Mam’s knife away with a slender wrist, then swiping with sharp claws. I twist away, but somehow the demon’s talons find purchase, cutting deep into my flesh.
I stumble back and cry out, as much in horror as pain. Nothing has ever caught me like that when I’m slippery, but this monster has been using magic for thousands of years. My tricks must seem like a hound rolling over and playing dead.
Mam’s knife is glowing fiercely. I draw an impact ward in the air with the point and watch the knife’s wards dim as the power forms and streaks through the air toward the demon.
Alagai Ka remains unimpressed. Holding up a clawed hand he absorbs the magic without effect, advancing on me with malice in his black eyes.
I fumble for my pipes, and the demon hisses as I put them to my lips. He ceases his approach, covering his earholes and opening his maw to let out a piercing keen. His human slaves get to their feet at the sound, and I shiver in fear.
They ent as quick as Arick was. The mass of warriors shuffles slowly, like marionettes in a Jongleur show. They’re blunt instruments, but there’s a hundred of them, and they quickly form a circle, cutting off any chance of escape as Iraven and Olive advance on me with grace and speed the others lack.
I’m forced to drop my pipes to hang from their strap as the Sharum charge. I turn slippery, but they’ve stopped trying to grab me. Punches and kicks glance off me, but though I can lessen the impacts, I can’t avoid them entirely. Not with a ring of spears and locked shields tightening all around me.
I’m out of tricks as the noose closes, but then a scream pierces the din, and again Alagai Ka puts his clawed hands over his earholes, shrieking.
* * *
—
The Sharum stop advancing and go limp, dropping bonelessly to the ground. Even Olive and Iraven slump to their knees and tip over.
“Darin!” Selen appears, shield-bashing her way through the collapsing ring that surrounds me. Warriors tumble like tenpins as she makes it to my side. “You all right?”
“Ay.” I throw my cloak over the bloody slashes the demon left across half my chest. This ent the time for distractions. “But none of us are all right for long. Demon’s already got Olive and the others.”
Arick stands before Micha and Rojvah, a new helmet secured around his chin with turban silk. The women are singing with power and passion, the wards on their chokers glowing brightly in the darkness. Arick’s spear and shield shine once again with the protection of heroes’ bones, and the demon hisses at their advance.
But Alagai Ka does not flee. Like I did a moment ago, he sketches impact wards in the air. I cover my ears as the ground explodes at Micha and Rojvah’s feet. They are knocked to the ground as their singing turns to shrieks, and then silence.
The impacts kick up a cloud of dust, and the demon draws another ward, blowing it in their faces. As Micha and Rojvah attempt to resume the song, both get a mouthful of dirt and choke on the words.
Arick’s veil is up as he charges through the cloud, but with the singers silenced, the mind demon’s slaves reanimate. Iraven leaps to his feet, and Selen pushes in front of me, spear and shield at the ready.
Iraven ignores her, rushing to block the path to the Father of Demons. The other Sharum are a little slower getting to their feet, but they mass around the rest of us, closing in once more.
“Show no mercy!” Micha’s voice is hoarse as she hooks one of the shuffling warriors’ legs and twists, sending him stumbling into a pair of his fellows. She kicks herself upright, bashing in another of the Sharum’s knees and darting through the opening as he falls away.
She slips a hand in her robes and pulls out a sickle of hero’s bone. Her movements are precise as she locks the blade into fighting position with a flick of her wrist, and uses it to open the throat of the next warrior to face her. “Whether they will it or not, these are servants of Nie. We must not let Alagai Ka escape!”
59
SHEDDING BLOOD
Micha’s scream pierces the void, bringing me back from whatever corner of my mind Alagai Ka imprisoned my consciousness.
I hear the demon king’s shriek in response as he pulls back from my mind to face this new threat. For a moment, I feel safe. Micha has come to rescue me, as she has so many times in my life. My loyal nanny, looking out for me no matter how awful I am in return.
My eyes open as I hit the ground, and the bubble of safety bursts. Inches from my face, Iraven stares back at me. I signal my limbs to move, but they are stiff and numb, coming back to life as slowly as my thoughts.
Iraven, too, spasms without getting hands and feet under him. The withdrawal of Alagai Ka’s will is like being shaken from a deep sleep.
“Darin!” Selen cries, shield-rushing through my brothers, equally disoriented by the demon’s sudden lapse of control. I look up as she leaps over my body, seeing Darin standing right in front of me.
What is he doing here? How did he get so close? What was Alagai Ka forcing me to do to him?
I feel sick at the thought. I don’t think the demon had time to alter my mind, but he had complete control of my body. Could I ever forgive myself if he made me hurt my friends?
Alagai Ka lifts a delicate talon, drawing impact wards in the air like Mother with her hora wand. Micha, Rojvah, and Arick are scattered, and I realize even together, we are outmatched. What hope do we have, when even our mothers and fathers failed to kill the demon king? He took over my will effortlessly. Any moment now, he will turn his attention back to me, and I know I will not be able to resist.
But then I see it, lying on the cold ground.
My armlet.
At first a bauble, then a shackle, now it is an instrument of hope. A chance to finish what our families started, all those years ago. A chance to take a step closer to fulfilling their dream of a world without demons. Without Alagai Ka, the queen will no longer be able to mate. We can find Safehold and end the hive once and for all.
The Desert Prince Page 65
