Lhaurel looked away, hoping that no one had noticed her breech of protocol.
Jenthro gestured and a number of warriors surrounded the man. They were careful to avoid the sailfin corpse. Even dead, the small genesauri was not something anyone wanted to be close to.
“What are you about?” Jenthro repeated, his tone hard.
“Well, I thought you should know the Migration has started.”
He said it so unconcernedly. Lhaurel blinked, looking for humor in his expression. Who would joke about something like that?
“The Migration is over a fortnight away,” Taren spat. “Everyone knows that.”
“But where’d the sailfin come from, then?” Lhaurel said quietly.
Taren yanked on their bound arms to silence her, nearly knocking her from her feet.
Lhaurel stumbled but caught herself as Marvi voiced the concern Lhaurel had already expressed. No one stopped her. She was the Matron and above all but the Warlord. Lhaurel swallowed her anger, fighting the onset of a strange dizziness.
“I killed it, obviously. Where else do you get a sailfin corpse? It’s not as if I could trade for one down in the Oasis, could I?” The man’s tone made more than one of the assembled warriors finger their swords.
Taren snorted. “You expect us to believe that pile of goat leavings? Few can boast of killing a genesauri.”
The red-robed man smiled, an expression that didn’t come close to reaching his eyes, and stood resolute, so different from the impression he had given during his entrance. His young face was plain, his hair the standard shade of brown, but his calm while being completely surrounded and heavily outnumbered belied his youth. Lhaurel doubted he was much older than her own seventeen years, but he acted as if he were the most senior warrior present.
“We can argue about that until we all turn back to sand and dust, but it doesn’t really change anything. Open your ears. Can’t you hear them coming? The faster ones will be here in just a few minutes.”
Silence killed the soft hum of voices with the effectiveness of a plague. Even the smallest child in the group lay still, listening for the terrifying keening of the wind passing along a sailfin’s spine. Lhaurel glanced at the people around her, seeing the same fear in their expressions that she felt within herself. Saralhn, standing by her husband, was as pale as bleached bones.
“I don’t hear anything!” Taren snapped after a moment. Lhaurel tried to ignore the irritated tugs on her wrist as Taren gestured for the warriors to grab the Roterralar man.
“I hear it!” Someone in the crowd shouted.
“Me too!”
Other shouts joined in, but Marvi hushed them with a forceful command. The warriors who had been stepping forward to grab the man hesitated, listening again.
Lhaurel heard it then, a soft sound carried on the back of the winds outside the warren. The keening notes of a sailfin pack. Terror washed over her.
“Everyone to their tasks!” Marvi shouted, her thunderous voice echoing throughout the chamber and making everyone jump. “Cobb, take three warriors and secure the water urns.”
Everyone hesitated, frozen in the moment of fearful, stunned recognition. Lhaurel blinked, her mind refusing to comprehend what was going on. Her world had come crashing to an end wrapped in blood and leather, and now the genesauri were coming? Sands take her, the genesauri were coming.
“Move!” Taren yelled, pulling Lhaurel forward by the tethers on their wrists.
The crowds burst into motion, scurrying into the warren like ants into their hole. Lhaurel watched in detached amazement as mothers grabbed their children, herding them toward rooms to gather their possessions while their husbands assembled with the other warriors. She noticed Saralhn turn to leave only to be yanked back by her husband, who shouted something unintelligible at her before shoving her back toward one of the cavern exits.
Lhaurel watched it all with strange curiosity while being pulled along by her left wrist. She wondered if loss of blood was affecting her thinking.
“Get me out of this thing,” Taren demanded, dragging Lhaurel over to Jenthro. He reached for the sealing dagger in Jenthro’s hand, still wet with blood.
Jenthro backed away, holding the dagger out of Taren’s reach. Lhaurel stumbled forward, righting herself with difficulty as Taren tried to snatch the dagger anyway.
“Tradition dictates an entire night need pass to seal the bond,” Jenthro said with a grin that bore no humor. “Figure it out yourself.”
Lhaurel blinked. Was the Warlord seriously suggesting they run all the way to the Oasis bound like this?
“Please,” Lhaurel stammered, part of her terror cutting through the mental slowness caused by loss of blood. “Please, take it off.”
“Oh, enough!” Marvi snapped, walking forward with a drawn dagger. “We need him.”
Without turning to face her, Jenthro backhanded her across the face. Taren growled in frustration but stopped reaching for the dagger. Marvi spat blood into the sand.
Lhaurel felt a fleeting moment of pity for the woman. Marvi outranked everyone there and could even speak for the Tribe in meetings in the Oasis, but not even she could hold a weapon. Lhaurel wondered what they’d do to her if they ever found out she practiced the sword forms in secret on her own. Still, she was grateful Marvi’s actions had overshadowed her own pleas, but both were unimportant with the genesauri coming.
The Roterralar watched them from next to the sailfin corpse, running a stone over the edge of his blade. The steady rasp was an eerie accompaniment to the swelling screams of the approaching sailfin pack.
Lhaurel struggled to focus, shoving aside the growing dizziness and mental slowness just as warriors began to return to the greatroom.
Old Cobb limped forward, leading a small group of warriors who bore the water urns affixed to wooden poles between them. Women returned with their children, bearing heavy packs of all their possessions. Even the smallest child carried something, be it a favored toy or a sack of meal. Lhaurel caught a glimpse of Saralhn at the back of the group, carrying a pack that was far too large for her small frame.
Taren tugged at their bound wrists with a frustrated growl. Red blood dripped into the sand.
“Alright, everyone!” Jenthro shouted. He drew his sword and accepted a light pack from one of his sons. “Make for the stoneways! If the Migration has started early, maybe the rains in the Oasis have passed as well.”
From the back of the room, someone screamed.
Sailfins burst up through the many caverns that opened into the greatroom. Their massive dorsal fins shone sickly grey, each of the supporting spines a deep, rich red tipped in yellow. A prick from one of those spines was death. Hovering a few feet off the ground, the monsters crashed into the assembled group like sandtigers among sheep.
A woman screamed and disappeared amidst a storm of flashing, twisting teeth and flesh. Long, serpentine sailfin bodies twisted around victims, massive maws taking limbs or torsos in a single bite.
Chaos took the group. Taren leapt to his feet, cursing, and yanked Lhaurel up behind him. He shouted out unintelligible orders as he yanked the dagger from Jenthro’s stunned grip. With barely a pause, he slipped the dagger between their bound wrists and cut the bonds free, cutting into Lhaurel’s already-wounded wrist in the process. Grabbing a sword from a passing soldier, Taren dashed into the fray, not looking back at Lhaurel.
Lhaurel struggled to her feet. Her limbs shook and trembled. Blood pooled everywhere, staining the rust-colored sand a deeper, more vibrant shade of red.
A sailfin flew by her, skimming across the ground and then back up into the air with a strange crackling noise, grabbing an old man by a shoulder and taking him to the ground beneath its massive weight. Lhaurel couldn’t help but scream, her mind and memories shouting at her to run.
Lhaurel stumbled toward one of the exits, trying to ignore the chaos and carnage around her. A single thought kept her moving, pushing past the dead and dying around her. The stoneways.
We’ve got to make it to the stoneways. Run!
Someone crashed into her, knocking her to the ground. She fell hard, cutting her hands on the rocks and sand. The wound on her wrist added to the red on the sand.
Must get up. Stoneways. Make it to the stoneways.
She froze halfway to her feet. Saralhn stood directly in front of her, struggling with her massive pack. From the side, a sailfin turned and, spotting the struggling woman, flashed toward her, mouth agape. Lhaurel shouted a warning, but the sound was lost in the chaos and confusion. She looked around, hoping to spot anyone who could help. A nearby warrior dashed by, glanced at the scene, and ignored it, fleeing down the cavern with a stream of others. To face the genesauri was death. To flee—run—that was the only chance at life.
Lhaurel glanced to her left, toward the narrow passage only a few paces away. She could make it if she ran quickly enough. The narrow passage would slow the sailfins’ pursuit, giving her a chance. From there she could make it to the safety of the stoneways as fast as her legs could carry her.
The sailfin drew closer, a faint keen sounding from its vibrating fin.
Lhaurel got to her feet, a surge of adrenaline shooting through her, rushing through her veins like early morning frost, pushing her up despite the fear. She looked up at Saralhn and then back at the narrow tunnel to her left. Lhaurel was not a warrior, despite her clandestine training. She didn’t even have a sword. But she wasn’t going to let Saralhn die undefended. She wouldn’t abandon her.
Lhaurel raced across the ground, spraying up sand. To the side, the water urns burst, spilling their contents across the sand and mingling with the blood. Saralhn looked up, finally dropping the pack so she could stand. Her eyes went wide with fear, terror freezing her where she stood as her gaze fell on the sailfin bearing down on her.
Lhaurel wasn’t going to make it. She was going to watch Saralhn die, and there was nothing she could do—
Suddenly the Roterralar was beside her, his red robes the exact color of blood. He matched her pace, a sword in each hand.
“Here!” he shouted, tossing her one of the swords.
Lhaurel snatched it out of the air without thinking. Tradition and rules be damned to the seven hells. The man spun to the side, tackling Saralhn out of the way just as the sailfin would have struck. Lhaurel kept running forward, sword tip leading the way.
The blade dug into sailfin flesh, the momentum of its forward progression tearing the sword from Lhaurel’s grip. Lhaurel crashed into the rest of the creature’s long, muscular body, spinning and dropping to the rocks and sand. She got to her feet almost instantly, adrenaline still pulsing through her, terror giving her a mental acuity she never would have had otherwise.
She found her sword still sticking from the sailfin’s body. She ripped it free as the creature twitched, writhing on the ground and threatening to stab her with one of its poisonous dorsal spines. She brought the sword down on the sailfin’s back, cutting deeply into the flesh until it struck something hard. Again and again she struck, terror, adrenaline, and fear driving her, cutting into the beast long after it had stopped twitching.
Heaving lungs forced her to stop. She paused, sword held in front of her with a shaking, trembling hand. There was red on the hilt, lots of red. She didn’t know if it was hers or the sailfin’s. She looked down at the broken, mutilated corpse in front of her and immediately felt sick.
She looked away, and her gaze fell on Saralhn and the Roterralar man, standing on the other side of the sailfin corpse. His expression was unreadable. Saralhn’s was a look of horror.
Something cracked against the back of Lhaurel’s head. Pain exploded through her consciousness, and she fell, sword dropping from her hand. She blinked once and then faded into darkness.
Chapter 3: Desperation
“There was a time when these people would not have let one of their children come within a thousand spans of me. Now they provide me with one, Briane. One whose presence is a constant reminder of their desperation.”
—From the Journal of Elyana
“Well, you’ve gotten yourself into a fine old mess.”
The voice resounded as if from a long distance away, though upon reaching her ears, it echoed in them like a beating drum. Her thoughts bounced around her head and left her swimming in confusion. Eyes fused shut, sight and senses gone, Lhaurel struggled to form a coherent thought.
Where was she?
Lhaurel tried to think but couldn’t focus. The salty tang of blood and sweat hung heavy in the air. She tasted blood on her lips. All she could feel was pain, pain everywhere.
Boots crunched against sand and sounded against the rock as someone approached. She tried to move but was restrained. Someone pressed a waterskin to her lips, and she drank gratefully, regaining some clarity of thought despite the pounding, throbbing pain in her temples. She took another drink, and the pounding faded slightly. Whoever was there turned and walked away a few steps.
She noticed, for the first time, the orange glow behind her eyelids. Realization hit her with the force of a storm. She’d been strung up on the rocks—bait for the coming genesauri horde. Those sun-blasted, fever-stricken Sidena had finally done what they’d threatened to do all these many years. Lhaurel had finally pushed their tolerance too far. She tried to fight down the terror, though she didn’t have the strength left to fight her bonds. Her head throbbed every time she tried to move.
The footsteps grew closer. Maybe they were here to watch.
Sunlight blared down on her, burning her pale flesh and searing her eyes, and she blinked them open. Two involuntary tears leaked down her cheeks and mingled with the dust and sand that clung to her face. There was blood there as well, both old and fresh, but the tears did little to wash it away.
A shadowed silhouette blocked out the sun.
“Who’s there?” she asked. Her voice came out as a rasp.
A man smiled down at her, and even through the pain she noticed he had a wonderful smile. His face was plain, and he was far from the most handsome man she’d ever seen, but his smile was surprisingly endearing. Foolish girl, she thought, you’re about to die and you’re concerned about his smile. Think! Figure out how to get out of this!
“I’m trying to decide whether I should just leave you here.” The Roterralar dropped to his knees on the stone next to her, leaning down so their faces were only a foot or two apart. How had she not recognized him before? He smelled of rust, earth, and sweat, though his breath carried a cloying freshness to it, as if he had been chewing herbs. “In fact, that is what Taren and the others would want me to do. I mean, you’re the one they caught with a weapon. They’d want me to let you get eaten, flesh stripped from your bones bit by bit. I’ve seen the sailfins do it before. They peel the skin off you first.”
His voice was jovial, as if he were telling a friend a favorite tale or even a joke, but his eyes were hard grey stones, locked onto hers, reflecting none of the levity with which he spoke. It left her suddenly cold despite the sun beating down upon her.
Lhaurel swallowed and almost choked on phlegm. It hurt to cough.
“Or I could save you,” he continued in the same light, conversational tone. “Give you the chance to make amends for my intervention on your behalf. The choice is yours. You can stay here and be diced into fodder not fit for swine, or you can let me save you.”
Lhaurel didn’t respond. She had no reason to trust him. No reason to even speak to him at all.
“You’ve got about two minutes before the genesauri get here.”
Lhaurel lay there, torn in the agony of indecision. The stories spoke of the Roterralar as wanderers, nomads that somehow managed to survive the Migration out on the sands on their own. For sands sake, that’s what their names meant. Mothers whispered to their children of strange deaths and accidents attributed to these men. A calf born with two heads was the work of a vagrant Roterralar. A child sick with fever after one passed through the camp was attributed to the evil glare a Ro
terralar had given the child when he’d run across his path. At least, the mother would warn, the Roterralar hadn’t eaten him. They were said to do that. It was also said that the Roterralar could make themselves appear a hundred feet tall and disappear into the sands, or else ride on the backs of the genesauri. And they would kill you as soon as look at you.
The sun beat down, burning her eyes and scorching her flesh. Blood throbbed and pumped from her wrists and ankles where the leather cut into her flesh. The silence was deafening—the silence that heralded the last few moments before the sailfin pack burst up out of the sand and descended upon their prey. The genesauri were coming, sands take them. Her fear of them outweighed any distrust. The indecision passed in a sudden moment of release.
“Fine,” she said finally.
“First, you must swear a blood oath to the Roterralar.”
Lhaurel blinked, though the effect was lost through her squinting.
“You have about one minute left.”
Her clan had left her behind to die to aide in their own escape. Honestly, she couldn’t blame them. She’d violated their laws and traditions. “Fine, I swear by the blood within my veins that my loyalty is now and forever to the Roterralar.”
“You don’t really mean that, but I’ll hold you to your oath.”
The man rose to his feet, appearing for a moment as if he were encompassed by a shroud of red-grey mist from the sun’s brilliant radiance behind him. He pulled out a dagger, knelt, and cut Lhaurel free. Rising and putting fingers to his lips, he let out a shrill whistle that tore at Lhaurel’s eardrums. An echoing response came almost immediately, but from above them.
Blood flew back into her limbs with a rush, leaving them prickling as if she had stepped on the spine-covered shell of a rashelta. The smell of sweat and blood grew stronger when the bonds fell away. She arose on shaky limbs, taking the hand that the Roterralar proffered when the pain threatened to drop her back to the ground. Her head ached, and she couldn’t seem to keep her balance. The man’s grip was like iron, keeping her on her feet
Sharani series Box Set Page 3
