“Did you see my daughter?” Andrew burst.
“She’s dead, sir.”
Andrew sank to the ground, mouth open in a silent scream.
Shayna stepped forward. “Sir, I –”
Mykel’s hand stopped her, and the gaze that met her was fiery. Don’t. He’s already suffered enough.
“I am sorry,” Lazarus whispered, crouching to lay his hand on the other’s shoulder.
“She was my everything,” Andrew whispered. He looked at the warriors three, and his eyes were of pain and desperation. “What will I do without her?”
“Live, Andrew. That’s what she would have wanted for you.”
“I don’t know,” the old enshou kept saying. “I just don’t know.”
“Give me a moment.” Lazarus said to the pair. He took Andrew by the shoulders and guided him away. Mykel looked at them, at the way their heads bent close in the way old friends did. All I ever wanted is that. The thought was sobering. All his life the librarian dedicated his life to isolation because it seemed the natural choice for a cripple with little prospects. But then John came into his life, and Shayna and Matt and all the rest. Now Lazarus was setting Andrew atop a horse, old friends sharing one last handshake before they parted ways forever. Guess I am a hypocrite after all.
“Do you think he will make it?” Mykel asked as Lazarus rejoined them.
“He’s an old man at the twilight in his life,” the Khatari answered. “But he’s strong.”
“No, he’s not.”
Lazarus glanced at the librarian and chuckled. “No. I don’t suppose he is.” He turned to Shayna. “And you? How are you faring?”
The Companion blinked. “Me? I’m fine.”
“You are most certainly not,” the Khatari replied. “Speaking about ending life is not the same as actually doing it. Even if it is done out of mercy.”
Shayna’s eyes were as wide as moons. “How did you –”
“Death and I are old friends,” Lazarus answered.
“I just...” Shayna’s body trembled; she would have twisted to the ground had Mykel’s arms not been there to support. “I keep seeing her face...”
“This isn’t your fault,” Mykel said. “The ones who did this to her, to them, it’s their fault. Its they who should pay. Not you.”
Shayna nodded, and after a moment could stand up on her own. She’ll be all right, Mykel thought. The guilt was still there, but there was anger as well, burning the restraints she put on herself. Won’t she? Mykel glanced at Lazarus.
The old man shrugged. Only time will tell.
Aloud he asked, “What about John?”
“He rode off to aid in the war effort. He has his job to do, just as we have ours.”
Oh. “Wait a minute. What about Matt?”
“He is safe. There is no time for the specifics. We must hurry.”
Iga Aithru. I hope it’s worth all the sacrifice.
To that, not even the stars would answer.
XXXIII
The heavens wept and thunder roared in denial. Raindrops played a crescendo upon weary shoulders, and the chill of a lazy fog pierced the very bone. It was a horrible place to be sent off into the dark. No raft to carry the departed to the underworld, or a flaming arrow to turn the soul to smoke, to twist ever upward into the stars and the gentle embrace of creation. Just the rain. The dark, cold rain.
Almost immediately after the rangers traded farewells with Mykel’s company, it began to rain. A day later, snow fell in tandem. Eventually the rangers found themselves caught within a hailstorm, more dangerous than the slick ice they had darted across that night of the fifteen ranks of versi.
They could not afford even the briefest of delays. Stromgald often thought that if this was the worst run of luck they suffered, surely there could be nothing to top this gloom.
Stromgald was wrong. The funeral dirges showed him that.
Ronald hosted the final services. A poorer choice could not have been divined. It was clear to all Ronald was the slimmer, shorter substitute of his father; a boy thinking himself a man by the presence of peach fuzz on his cheeks. To be fair, the lot was not entirely Ronald’s fault. Stromgald’s sneezes had the temper of the thunder above; each time venomous stares cut through the speech and focused upon the ranger, as though the interruption placed the blame upon Richard’s death on Stromgald’s shoulders. The things men will do to douse their fear.
The speech was plain. Richard Jekai, in his usual mastery of command, took Fort Onnara, transforming the old ruin into a bastion of defense. From the fort Richard waged battle after battle with the mortal Coicro. It was not known if he received the pigeon Stromgald sent three days before, warning not only Richard but the rest of Solvicar officers stationed at key points of defense, of the demonic danger the Coicro unleashed upon the land. Received and ignored, Stromgald thought. It had been he who had taught Richard the sword. Even at four-and-ten the Jekai possessed an adamantine will. He would not have believed, Stromgald feared, as well as the other officers in command. The Versi were a myth. No, they would not have believed.
That stubbornness cost Richard his life.
After, Stromgald caught the sleeve of a random servant. “Where is Lord Jekai?”
“Lord Jekai is right there, milord.” Stromgald let out a deep demonic growl that sent all the blood racing from the servant’s skin and bugged the eyes near out of the sockets. “That one.” He shook like a leaf dangling from a branch, his finger a slim arrow pointing towards a side path. The damn fool practically melted into the funeral party, the gloom a shroud in which to hide from the monstrous stranger with the devil’s voice.
No matter. Now that Stromgald knew what to look for, it was child’s play to find the older Jekai. A tent that wore no baubles, no insignia, nothing dividing it from any common soldier’s quarters. Just leather, hammered continuously by the ceaseless rain.
For an eternity Stromgald hesitated. Beyond the tent flaps the sound of slurred singing stumbled through the air, joined from time to time with the crash of glass and oaken wood. Stromgald was not sure he wanted to see beyond the leather veils. Then he remembered the times in youth when the old man had been his mentor after Father and the rest of his family died. I owe him much. I cannot let him destroy himself.
The picture unfolding before him was a near mirror to his imagination. Robert Jekai slumped on his cot, his tunic hiked up to his hips. The bed’s cotton was soaked bright yellow, and the unmistakable stench of offal choked the air. The ranger was whisper silent, and yet the half-legend warrior-priest jerked ramrod-straight. A puppet hauled up by its strings, Stromgald thought painfully. This...this encounter...needed delicate care. Perhaps more than I possess.
“Milord?”
Robert’s head whipped upward at the word, bloodshot eyes darting franticly before finally settling on the jord ranger. “Richard?”
Stromgald felt his heart plummet from his chest. Robert Jekai was a sharp tactician, a brilliant warrior, a charming leader. All of it destroyed by grief and liquid courage. The fates must be laughing their asses off. “No. Lord Jekai, It’s John. John Stromgald.”
“Oh, Richard. You had me worried.” The old man staggered forward with surprising speed despite his drunkenness. Slender arms, brittle as a crumpled leaf on an autumn tree, folded around the young ranger. A single whisper could send the man flying. “They said you were gone, though I never believed. I knew you would come back. I knew.”
Stromgald knew he had no choice. Jekai slipped into sleep from Stromgald’s precise touch. The truth would only hinder here. Best to let him rest; tell him when he regained some strength.
T
he speed at which the man consumed the alcohol worried him, though. Robert Jekai was never a heavy drinker, yet the bottle seduced him with astounding speed. Once that seduction dug its hooks, it was nigh impossible to get free. Stromgald made the sign of Divinity’s blessing and walked back into the rain, all the way back to Ronald’s side. Together they watched the foremen fill the grave, and for long minutes afterward. Ronald spoke only once. His words were soft, as though the sky had ears to betray a secret.
“I hated him.”
“I know.”
“He was the favorite. Father loved him best. I tried to be like him. I tried so hard. I wanted him dead. I didn’t mean it. I...I...”
“You didn’t do this.”
“But I –”
“You didn’t.” Clasping Ronald’s shoulders Stromgald locked gazes with the younger Jekai. “Your father needs you now. He will depend on your strength. Go to him. Go to him and grieve.”
Slowly Ronald nodded. “I hate you too. He loves you more.”
“I’m not his blood.”
“You came here out of loyalty for my father. I ask that you give me the same loyalty in our time of need.”
“Do you still hate me?”
Ronald’s face twisted with suffering. “Yes.”
“Then I will stay by your side.”
Slowly Ronald nodded. “I will see you upon the morrow.”
Stromgald sighed. He wondered if Ronald truly had it in him to fill his father’s shoes. He was afraid the answer would come all too soon.
XXXIV
Mykel was alone with the campfire. Shayna was off scavenging for food, and Lazarus didn’t need an excuse to disappear. At least, he didn’t give one, only vague grunts about nothing. Whatever the reason was, Mykel was glad for it. He was an expert at being alone, had trained for it, in fact. The hero always suffers; it is only right that he exchanged human contact for the solitude of aloneness. It was going to happen anyway, so why extend hopes and dreams? A hero with no story at all; that was his legacy.
But now his thoughts were coiling around his brain, painting vivid memories in the banner of soul-crushing fear. Sutyr’s mark on him, stretching across time and space to touch him in some indelible way. Running a high tally, aren’t you, boy? The sand statutes of Nedlyh. The mystic slaughter of its people. Mykel thought he was protected, thought that distance would free him from Sutyr’s hunting. But in the end the protection was a lie. The demon knight reached forth to pluck his prize, and he did it with the world between them.
What if it happens again? The thought terrified him. If Sutyr could do it once, then he could do it again. And if the second time was just effortless as the first time, then what destruction could be wrought? Nedlyh was just a town. What if he was in a city? A port? The labyrinthine capitals that were the hearts of all nations? Not even Lazarus’ machinations could bring him hope. His magical voodoo would put a stop to Sutyr’s mental possessions, but to Mykel the truth seemed hollow. The old man might have talked a good deal, but he’d never experienced it. Mykel’s dreams might be protected, but they fared little against the apocalyptic visions spinning in his head, and no amount of denial could blunt the efficiency of their savagery. Mykel pushed them to the back of his mind, but it was always humming. Perhaps for the rest of his life.
The true villainy of the nightmare was that it was a blade that cut two ways. The machines lying deep in those submerged caverns were so advanced they might as well be part of another world. Yet somehow, from wells of knowledge he never knew were his, Mykel had worked those machines like they were second nature. How do I know how to work them? He did the right sequence of things to deliver the right outcome flawlessly, the first time around. The first time. Scholars would spend decades trying to puzzle the simplest connection of the machines’ power, but the librarian achieved his result on the first time. What were the odds of that happening?
None, thought Mykel. Yet he defied the odds.
Mykel clutched his cloak tighter, though there were no chill. He hadn’t told Lazarus about any of this. It was one of the first things he spoke to Shayna after their escape from that mechanical madness. She understood perfectly, perhaps because of her own shock. The creatures she tried to save turned on her, forced her to destroy them. No, that wasn’t a wound Shayna wanted to expose. They shared the horrors together, and the fact of their sharing lessened the burden of carrying it. That was a debt to Shayna that he would always be grateful.
Grateful for Shayna the Companion, or grateful to Shayna the singer?
Mykel winced from the memory. Singer and Companion. Companion and singer. There had to be a connection. Companions don’t just fall from the sky; much less Companions chosen to be a queen’s right hand. Granted, the Citadel was destroyed, and in the interim of ten years no one moved to rebuild it. Why hadn’t Shayna taken up the responsibility of forging a new Citadel? Everything he knew of her said she wouldn’t shirk her duties. So why hadn’t she done it? How had she ended as a singer?
Two mysteries with no clear answer. And with no answers Mykel was forced to push them to the back of his mind. But the siren’s call of the questions would be right next to Sutyr’s fiery manipulations, and it would hum all the louder because there was no clear resolution. Just the question. How had he known what to do? And how did Shayna the Companion come to be a singer in a decade’s time? How?
A crack of a twig underfoot scattered the librarian’s attention. Shayna. And then, appearing from shadow like the wraiths legend said of him, was Lazarus. Carefully Mykel wiped clean the despair from his face. Little good hiding would do if the act was plain as day. But Lazarus spoke little during dinner, and when he did it was for a simpler reason.
“It’s time for the remedy, girl.”
Mykel winced. He hated that word. Absolutely hated it. It wasn’t a remedy, it was a curse. But the need of it was undeniable. “Do it.”
Shayna nodded and cradled the dead arm in her hands. “This will only hurt for a minute, Mykel.”
“Just get it over with.”
Shayna stripped off the forearm glove.
Fire exploded from every pore. Shayna’s focus reminded Mykel a rule often broken by amateur street-mages. See a trick one too many times, and the magic withers and disappears. Shayna’s hands glowed, and her fingers were encased in blue-white Frost. She laid her hands on the flame, and the Fire wilted, struggled, then disappeared into tendrils of smoke. She coiled the leather wrappings back upon the arm. For Mykel, there was an irritation on his flesh; the fire rolling up his arm, licking and pinching like the bite of a thousand ants. Then they, too, were gone.
“It will not stop there.” Lazarus added. “The leather is only a temporary restraint. We need something more...permanent. Hence we go to Iga Aithru.”
Shayna heard enough. “I must go to bed.” With that she wrapped herself within her cloak and was instantly asleep.
The silence separating the two men seemed thick with the crackling wisp of fire. Finally, Mykel said, “Do you think there’s someone who can help me in this Igone Pathru –”
“Iga Aithru.” Lazarus corrected. “And yes, I do.” Lazarus continued before Mykel could respond. “You’d best get some sleep. Twill be night by the time we reach the next village.”
Mykel nodded, and in the five minutes it took to unfold a bedroll under a half-hazard tent he watched his mentor make his own tent and belongings. Lazarus seemed confident. Mykel, snuggling into the bedroll, hoped that the old man was right about it. After a time, he could sleep, but the doubts were not done with him yet.
From above, situated within the treetops, Drake watched his prey. The ability to cling to substances he’d gotten from an old wizened Eastborn. The old man looked surpris
ed at the knife Drake plunged into his heart. The fool’s death was necessary, so that no one else could challenge him on that regard. He knew several other techniques from a dozen different masters, and all of them thought him their heir at the arts. One master let him run the business for three days before Drake snapped his neck. Secrets were aplenty in this business. Secrets kept a man alive.
He scanned the three people, mainly because he had time before they slept. He recognized the old man. Lord Lazarus. The “Lord” part was honorary; it was skill, instead of birth, that raised him to that title. That was all Drake knew about him. There was not a singular speck of history to the old man. Only heresy. Secrets. Drake would have loved to peel the old man’s skin from his bones, for his secrets were beyond price. But there was not enough time between slayings, and Drake deeply regretted it.
The boy seemed the weakest of the three. Underneath the flowing cloak Drake could see a bracer of some sort, banding over flesh like a gauntlet. Drake had seen enough of the world to know the bracer was the mark of invalids. Strange. With the cripple’s kind, it was brains and limbs that were lost, yet the young fool possessed the wits of a normal man. Well, no matter. Half-man or not the boy would still die first. And of course, there was the girl. Her white linen robes left no doubt in the assassin’s mind. She was the one he had to kill. Drake didn’t know why, but the questions were beyond him. An assassin with too many questions was a dead assassin.
Smoothly Drake pulled a flute from his garb. Shaded in the blue of a cloudless sky, chased with silver moons and snow-white maidens dressed in seaweed, it was the craft of a master. It was Drake’s first shiisaa. The sounds fell slowly like the white stems of a spider’s flower, caressed the ears of its victims with a lover’s sensual touch. Siren’s Song, it was called. There were dead men who could account for the shiisaa’s true power.
At last the boy went to sleep. Rising without a sound, Drake dropped from his post, gliding like a shadow from tree to tree. Carefully he drew daggers from his sleeves and whirled them soundlessly, careful not to angle the steel so as the moonlight would not reflect them. And at long last he came within striking distance to the three. He neared the boy, watched him breathe for long moments, before finally raising the blade. The night, Drake thought, would be a glorious one.
Chased By War Page 33
