Path of Blood

by Diana Pharaoh Francis

  ~We will wait.

  Baku turned his head to gaze down into the valley, the tip of his tail lashing back and forth.

  ~We will wait.

  Chapter 5

  There was a sound of agonized suffering, like a mountain lion trapped halfway beneath a mound of crushing rock, its back broken. The thin, high-pitched squeal went on and on. At first it was heartrending, then tedious in its unending agony. Hours passed before Kedisan-Mutira recognized that it was not some tormented animal causing the infuriating noise, but herself. And she was beyond the ability to stop. It was taking all the strength she had left not to die. She had passed the final trials of her penakidah. If she survived her victory, then she would at last be free.

  Her body knew it felt pain. It had been stroked and massaged, then beaten and tortured. It had been pleasured past insensibility and then brutally raped. It had been fed deliciously and then starved. It had been given fine wines and then been given over to thirst. Now it craved water with an insanity of need. Bones were broken. Muscles and skin torn. Organs had shut down. She could not see through the swelling on her face, could not make words with the pulped flesh of her mouth, could not move her toes or fingers. But the agony was far distant, so great that her mind had fled from it. Her best, her only defense. The reason she yet lived. The reason she had not failed her testing.

  “Should I fetch healing charms?”

  “Let the abi take care of herself.”

  “She might well die, and we have declared her penakidah. Are we not obligated? Will the Kilmet not find fault with us?”

  “He will not. The moment she became penakidah, we relinquished all duty to her. She’s on her own. Let her find her own way. Let her show us what she’s made of.”

  “Haven’t we seen? I’ve never tested anyone so rigorously. She ought to have died.”

  “Yes, she most definitely should have. But perhaps it is not too late. Let us go. We’ve left the Regent on his own long enough. Best go see what he’s about.”

  The voices wandered away. Kedisan-Mutira was left with the echoes, stretching and distorting inside her skull. The first was Waiyhu-Waris. A toad. He’d taken the most lustful pleasure in her. The other was Menegal-Hakar. He was a man who liked to crush others under his heel, to gloat over them as they writhed and begged. The muscles around her mouth twitched as if to smile. She had not begged. She would heal. And then she’d teach them what fools they truly were.

  Soon the charms she’d set into the bed frame and woven into the sheets would begin their work. All she had to do was not to die in the meantime. Her last coherent thought for some time to come was of a man with curling brown hair and a face she believed in with all her soul. She clung to his image like a tether in a storm, kept company by the unrelenting keening of her own agony.

  Chapter 6

  Reisil glanced back at Yohuac. His face was haggard beneath a layer of grime. He hunched in his saddle, one hand clenched around his pommel, the other knotted around his reins. He lurched from side to side with every jolting step. Reisil pulled up, easing back down to a walk as she turned Indigo up a steep path out of the defile.

  The sun had sunk down behind the mountains, and fat drops of rain spattered her skin. Soon there would be a downpour, and the tiny creek running at the bottom of the narrow notch would turn into a raging torrent. Reisil shook her head, pulling her hood up. With any luck, it would catch their pursuers in its grasp and wash them down the mountain.

  Her skin prickled, and she swiveled her head, smelling the clean tang of pine, cedar, and birch, and the rich scent of the damp loam. No sign of Tapit or his four companions. She’d glimpsed him just after dawn, following their trail down a ridge, only a league or two behind. She had increased their pace. But then the nokulas had interfered, scattering the wizards like dandelion fluff in the wind. Reisil could hardly regret their help, though the closer she and Yohuac came to Mysane Kosk, the more apprehensive she grew.

  It turned out she could see the nokulas with her spellsight. She didn’t know if that was a blessing or a curse. All through the day, she caught troubling glimpses of nokulas to the side and behind. Beams of moonlight wrapped around mosaics of colored glass. They were being herded.

  Reisil shivered and stroked her hand down Indigo’s neck, taking solace in his warmth. Sodur’s warnings rang in her ears. She swallowed the dryness in her throat and pulled Indigo to a halt, waiting for Yohuac to catch up.

  “Maybe we should split up,” she said. “It might be they’ll keep following me and you’ll be able to get through to the others.”

  Yohuac’s brows slashed downward, his jaw jutting. “I’ll not leave you.”

  Reisil sighed. “One of us needs to get through—”

  “You need to get through,” Yohuac corrected. “I’m not leaving you to face them alone.”

  Reisil looked away, her eyes burning from lack of sleep. When the nokulas attacked, she didn’t know if she would be able to protect him. And she wanted him safe. She thought of Sodur, of the metallic bite to his communications, of his alien difference. She couldn’t let that happen to Yohuac. She didn’t know if she could stop it.

  “We’d better hurry. It can’t be far now,” she said brusquely.

  She urged Indigo up the ridge into the thickening rain. Soon dusk gave way to night. Reisil pulled up and dismounted, wordlessly taking one of Yohuac’s reins. Her wizard-sight allowed her to see in the inky blackness where neither the horses nor Yohuac could.

  “I should walk,” Yohuac said softly when the path narrowed and Reisil was forced to lead each horse separately through a maze of giant tree boles.

  “So that you’ll faint when it comes time to fight?” Yohuac did not answer, his silence hot and grim. Reisil pinched her lips together. That wasn’t fair. His weakness wasn’t his fault. If anyone’s, it was hers. He’d never have been caught by the wizards if he hadn’t come looking for her. He’d never have been tortured if she could have figured out a way to rescue him sooner.

  “I won’t slow you down,” he said tonelessly.

  Reisil stopped short. “What?”

  “I will be able to look after myself. You need not worry about my weakness.”

  “I didn’t say that!” she protested sharply.

  “Didn’t you?”

  Reisil shook her head, saying nothing, starting to walk again. She knew how strong, how stubborn he was. But even at full strength, he could do little against nokulas. Unless he used his magic. And that was one thing he would not do.

  On the other side of the trees, she unhooked Indigo’s reins from a fallen log where she’d tied him and began up a steep, rocky deer track. There was a ledge just to the left. Trees thrust like hulking giants up from hundreds of feet below, their leaves pattering and rustling with the falling rain. Below, at the bottom of the steep drop, nokulas moved in a great horde. In Reisil’s spellsight, they appeared like a river of moonlight and shattered glass. More trailed up the ridge on the right. And behind . . . Reisil swung around. Still more.

  They were converging.

  A shudder rippled down Reisil’s spine, and fear porcupined in her chest. She handed Yohuac’s reins back to him and mounted Indigo. “Gather your magic. I don’t know how to fight the nokulas, but swords are going to do little damage against their numbers.”

  Reisil didn’t wait for his reply. She trotted up the crest of the ridge. Indigo pranced and shook his head, sawing against the reins as he sensed her tension. Yohuac kept his gelding hard behind her. The rain hid the rustle and crack of their passage. Not that it mattered, Reisil thought. Neither Tapit nor the nokulas seemed to have any trouble tracking them.

  Reisil pulled up inside the tree line at the top of the ridge. She stared.

  The ground dropped away in a steep, rocky slope, gentling at the bottom and smoothing into a long, verdant valley. Six hulking stockades dotted the valley floor. A road ran east to west, curling amid the six stockades. On the east end of the valley, fields of grain and vegetab
les washed up against the road like a lush ocean. Juhrnus, Kebonsat, and Metyein had had a hand in this. How had they managed to do so much in so little time?

  Reluctantly she looked past the stockades to the ruined city beyond. A mist hid the ruins themselves. Spreading out from it was a lattice of what looked like delicate blown-glass sculpture. The falling rain muted its crystal brilliance. Reisil wondered—

  She blinked into spellsight.

  The air went out of her in a whoosh and she jerked back. She pushed down her hood, feeling suddenly trapped inside its sodden folds.

  The valley was on fire. Unformed magic eddied and whirled in jewel colors, pulsing and flashing as it undulated and bulged. It was not beautiful. It was bruised and bloated. It was angry and unbalanced. It was gravid with an evil that turned her stomach and made her skin feel as if it were crawling with maggots. Reisil recoiled, pressing her fist to her throat.

  Slowly she became aware of the gathering nokulas. All around the valley like a living wall of menace. Nokulas piled together like a heaving, squirming tangle of rats. More poured down the hillside to the right and left, a steady stream of glowing bodies trickling down to swell the numbers below. As Reisil watched, the center softened and opened, giving away into a long gauntlet that led into the heart of Mysane Kosk. A dare? A taunt? Most definitely a trap.

  “What do you see?” Yohuac asked.

  “Trouble. This is going to be harder than I thought.” Nearly impossible.

  “We’ll have to try to break through and get to one of the stockades,” Yohuac said, when Reisil described the massed nokulas below.

  She shook her head doubtfully. “There are so many of them. If we split up—”

  “It won’t help. The entire horde will just focus on you. If I’m with you, at least I can distract a few of them. It could make the difference. You must get through. I don’t matter.”

  “You matter to me,” she muttered. He didn’t hear. “What do you suggest?”

  “We go down the slope slowly. No sense breaking our necks tumbling down the slope. If you can find one, angle toward a thin spot in their defenses. Try not to be obvious. When we’re close enough, kick the horses into a gallop and try to break through to a stockade. I wish we had some sort of diversion.”

  Reisil dashed her fist at the rain runneling down her forehead and cheeks. It wasn’t much of a plan. But she didn’t have any better ideas. She drew her sword, watching the jumble of beasts below as they congealed together in hungry expectation. It was a fine line she walked. Though she wouldn’t resort to tapping into the magic that gave them life, she didn’t have any compunction about trying to kill them if necessary. She had a right to protect herself. She glanced at her sword. It wasn’t much, especially with her feeble skills. Still, it felt good in her hand. Like she wasn’t just a mouse surrounded by an ocean of cats.

  She reached over to brush Yohuac’s hand with her fingers, biting her cheek and tasting blood. He wouldn’t be able to see the nokulas coming for him. Please, Lady, watch over him.

  Reisil faced back down the hill, setting her chin. “All right. Let’s go.”

  They picked their way down slowly, Yohuac allowing Reisil to guide their course. His gelding walked stiff-legged, its head high, its nostrils flared. Indigo twitched and snorted, but remained steadfast beneath Reisil’s hand.

  Every step twisted the wire through Reisil’s entrails tighter. Suddenly the nokulas were mere yards away, divided from Reisil and Yohuac by a narrow creek at the bottom of a short, steep bank. Across it opened the mouth of the gauntlet.

  “We’ll have to jump,” Reisil said huskily. “Ready?” Yohuac nodded. Reisil gripped her sword more tightly, eyeing the distance over the creek with trepidation. Holding the reins and the sword, she was just as likely to lose her balance and fall off as not. Still, she was no cavalry rider who could make the horse obey by weight and leg alone. And she wasn’t going to sheath her sword. She sighed. Stop dithering and get on with it. No sense keeping the nokulas waiting.

  She glanced up into the night. She would see Saljane again.

  Clutching the thought close, Reisil shortened her grip on the reins and clamped her legs tight around Indigo’s barrel. Instantly he exploded. His hooves dug hard into the rocky soil. A spray of pebbles and mud spattered up behind. He bounded down the incline. At the top of the bank, he bunched himself into a tight spring and heaved himself aloft with a braying neigh.

  They landed with a jolt. Reisil rocked forward onto the pommel and then back as Indigo launched into a desperate gallop. Beside her, Yohuac’s bay gelding thudded to the ground and careened forward. Straight up the waiting gauntlet. Behind them, nokulas filled in the gap of their passing, closing the door on any escape.

  All around her Reisil felt the pulsing magic of Mysane Kosk. They were down in it now. It pulled at her with a furious current, like storm-whipped ocean waves. The magic coiled and skurled, dragging against and swelling over her. Reisil cried out in primitive panic. It thrust into her mouth. She gagged and grappled at it with invisible fingers. It rose over her again, pushing into her ears and muting sound. She clung to Indigo, urging him faster.

  They raced between the lines of invisible nokulas. Ahead loomed the crystal lattice and irridiscent mist surrounding Mysane Kosk. Reisil tore her gaze from its seductive beauty. Then she saw it. There, just ahead on the left. A thinning in the fence of beasts. She hunched over Indigo’s withers, urging him faster. She pulled ahead of Yohuac. One breath. Two breaths. Three.

  She yanked on the reins and Indigo swerved. He bowled into the thicket of nokulas. Reisil windmilled her sword, chopping a swath toward freedom. Her sword glanced off bony hide, sending needlelike tingles up her arm. She swung again. This time her blade cut into flesh and stuck fast. She shouted triumph. The sound turned to a scream as her arm was twisted behind and under as Indigo lurched sideways. Her arm wrenched and gave a stomach-churning pop! Pain erupted in her shoulder; tears blinded her. Indigo staggered, heaving himself around on his haunches. She heard thudding crunches as he struck out with his forelegs. All around them an unearthly, mind-curdling screech rose, hammering at her mental barriers. An instant later, warning bells clanged from the stockades.

  Reisil scarcely heard it. Thirty nokulas crouched in a circle around her, with more closing in rapidly. Others surrounded Yohuac a dozen feet away. He slashed mightily with his sword. His muscles corded, and sweat and blood ran down his forehead and arms. Hardly aware of her own danger, Reisil shouted warning as a great nokula reared up, its mouth gaping, its claws cocked to shred Yohuac’s exposed back.

  She saw it in slow motion, as though the world were caught in syrup. Reisil forgot about her own danger. She snatched at her power. It rose in a volcanic flood. Without taking time to think, she released it, sending a bolt of burning magic into the nokula looming behind Yohuac.

  The beast . . . shattered.

  Reisil froze, stunned, as it simply exploded into shards of magic. Patterns appeared in the fragments, like phrases of rinda, the magical language of the wizards. Only mixed in with the rinda were characters and words she didn’t recognize.

  But there was no time to think. The nokulas around her paused a bare second. She could almost read the progression of thought in their blank expressions—if they couldn’t have her for themselves, they’d not let her free to destroy them. In concert they turned on her, hunching against the ground, gathering themselves to sweep her off of Indigo. A school of vicious fish, Reisil thought wildly, recalling Sodur’s description. Rip. Tear. Kill. It wasn’t her imagination. She heard the words like a shout in the dark. Then she thought nothing at all, as the nokulas surged.

  “We cannot send men in search of a fiction,” Metyein said, pulling Kebonsat into a hollow between two buildings. “You have to tell Emelovi the truth.”

  “And what if she decides she wants to hightail it back to her ganyik brother?” Kebonsat demanded in a low voice. “You know he’ll kill her.”

  “Are you s
uggesting we persist in the lie? To what end?”

  Kebonsat blew out a harsh breath. “Of course not.”

  “Then what?”

  Kebonsat looked away, unable to meet the condemnation in Metyein’s gaze.

  “Then tell her. And if she tries to go back to Aare, we’ll stop her. But I doubt she will. Once she thinks it through, she’ll realize she can’t go back. She’s a strong woman. She’ll pull herself together and help us to rally the people here as no one else can.”

  Kebonsat rubbed his tongue across the inside of his lower lip, considering Metyein’s inexorable expression. At last he nodded. “I’ll do it.”

  “I’ll be in my study if you want company after.” Metyein gripped Kebonsat’s shoulder sympathetically and then strode away.

  Kebonsat had plenty of time to consider his words. An officious maid prevented anything but the most trivial conversation. The girl was the daughter of some minor Basham. She did not feel it proper that the Vertina should be left alone in the company of a man. Especially a Patversemese man. She tucked a blanket around Emelovi, brought a seemingly endless offering of food and drink, lit a fire, dusted a table in the corner, trimmed candlewicks . . . endless fidget work. All the while, Emelovi watched Kebonsat, her eyes dark and desperate. Much to Kebonsat’s discomfort, she radiated an absolute faith that he would make everything all right. It made him want to slit his own throat.

  It was too soon when Emelovi at last dismissed the maid. The girl left with a sniff and a swirl of skirts, promising to be “just a whisper away, Dazien.” The look she turned on Kebonsat could have flayed the hide from a crocodile.

  “Gelles thinks you will take advantage of me,” Emelovi said, blushing.

  Kebonsat smiled weakly. Something in his expression alarmed her.

  “What is it? Is something wrong? My father?” Her voice rose breathlessly, her face turning gray.