His eyes, full of fear and uncertainty, rolled toward Varis. One of those orbs burst, then the other, leaving behind steaming sockets. Where corrupted blood had burst from his mouth before, now flames sprang forth. In three heartbeats, fire exploded from a dozen tears in his skin. In the span of time it took for him to pitch over and strike the marble tiles, King Simiis had been reduced to a husk of spent ash.
Varis gradually subdued the fires within himself and his radiance dimmed, until he again resembled a mortal man. The assemblage’s stark panic of moments before had been replaced by a soul-freezing distress so deep and terrible that a handful of the feeblest lay sprawled in death. Those who remained could not look at him, and shivered like stricken hounds. As if by some unspoken command, they pressed their foreheads to the floor, weeping vows of fealty.
Pleased, Varis made his way to the dais and climbed to its apex. He looked over the throne for a long, silent moment. By king’s law, no one save the king and the kingdom’s greatest craftsman could come this close to the Ivory Throne. Its beauty, even at arm’s length, was greater than he had expected, for many a wondrous thing lost its allure up close. With a reverence he felt through every inch of his body, he carefully turned and sat upon the sculpted seat. The Ivory Throne was his, and so too was Aradan.
Chapter 31
Kian rode ahead of Hazad and Ellonlef, alert for any sign of Azuri. The mercenary had ridden away from them a half turn of the glass earlier in order to scout the road ahead. The desert was bereft of activity, but Kian refused to let his guard down.
Food, more than anything else, ranked highest on their priorities. All kept an eye out for anything edible, be it desert quail, adders and lizards, or plants, of which there were few enough upon the Kaliayth. Kian had been hungry many times in his life, but this was the first time he could recall that his belly had begun to sink in and his ribs, normally covered with lean flesh, had begun to show prominently. All of them, even their horses, had taken on a slightly gaunt look. Despite persistent hunger, Kian took comfort that Ammathor was not so far distant that he and his companions would starve to death in the desert.
They had ridden from their last camp before sunrise, and now dawn was painting the desert a dirty, bloody red. Indifferent to the unending smoke, a few waking birds called from thornbush and shrub, sage and juniper. The lightly dewed vegetation added a heady aroma to the pungent reek of the burning Qaharadin, now far to the west. Kian did not want to admit that he was getting used to the way the smoke filtered the light of day into an ugly red-brown, but that was a lie. The idea of a blue sky and a golden sun had become a fading, dreamlike memory.
His movements weary, Kian looked back over his small company. Hazad was already sneaking sips from his dwindling supply of jagdah, while Ellonlef rode in stoic silence, just as she had the day before, and the day before that. His was a pitiful band, all the more because their hope of soon reaching Ammathor was a double-edged blade. Food and shelter might well await them, but there was also Varis and, quite possibly, their demise.
Facing forward at the sound of pounding hooves, Kian focused on a rider galloping toward them. He automatically reached for his sword, but the rider proved to be Azuri, who reined in, his tense expression suggesting that he had found danger.
“Did you find anything besides sand and goat droppings?” Hazad asked, easing his mount closer. Ellonlef did the same, her eyes over-bright with hunger.
Azuri nodded. “Men, just over the next rise.”
Kian’s eyes narrowed. “Bashye?”
“No. Pilgrims, following after a begging brother. They are camped right in the middle of the road.”
“Fools all, but harmless,” Kian said, relaxing.
Azuri did not look so sure. “These pilgrims are armed, and I judge that they are not new to the swords and bows they carry. They have the look of warriors.”
Kian again noted Azuri’s edginess, but this time he also noticed the man’s growing disinterest in keeping his skin and clothing clean and tidy. All of them were struggling under the strain of hard traveling across the desert, and their concern for what they would face in Ammathor only made matters worse. anything between was like salt in a wound.
“Even this close to Ammathor,” Kian reasoned, “Bashye pose a threat. I dare say it would be foolhardy for anyone, pilgrims included, to go about unarmed.”
“Perhaps,” Azuri answered doubtfully. “However, I suggest we string our bows and loosen our swords.”
“I agree,” Kian said, glancing at Ellonlef and wondering what to do with her, should trouble come.
“Do not worry about me,” she said, as if reading his mind, her eyes flinty.
Kian considered how she had faced the Bashye before, braving death with the abandon of a seasoned warrior, and nodded. Whether she would approve or no, he intended to remain close to her.
“Let us see what this Madi’yin and his followers are about,” Kian invited, and heeled his mount into a slow walk-there was no point rushing toward potential difficulties. Although the others did, for himself, he did not string his bow. For now, he reasoned that sword and dagger were enough. And if he had need of his bow, which he had skillfully repaired after a Bashye’s sword had cleaved it in two, then it was ready.
A mile farther on, they crested the hill Azuri had spoken of, but no pilgrims waited. On either side of the road, ruddy stone pillars, heaped boulders, and pale sand dunes marched off into the desert until they merged with the hazed north and south horizons. Of men, there was no sign. Nevertheless, Kian’s nerves tingled. For the first time in many days, he forgot about his growling belly, and found himself reassessing Azuri’s uncharacteristic disquiet. Unconsciously, he loosened his sword in its scabbard.
“A fair morning, brothers,” a man abruptly called, appearing from around a boulder resting at the edge of road. Squat and plump, his smallish head was bald, and he wore a forked, dusty black beard, the scraggly tips of which reached to the hempen belt of his grimy robes. A begging brother of the Madi’yin priesthood, no doubt.
Hazad answered, his gruff voice at once mocking and dangerous. “You call us brothers, yet I do not recall suckling at my mother’s teats with you by my side. That makes you either a liar … or a priest. Which is it?”
“All men are brothers-all the more when days darken and the world begins to pass away.” The man’s smile was broad, toothy, and utterly humorless.
“What errand finds you here, alone?” Kian asked, cautiously searching for the man’s companions.
“Once, I was a high priest serving Attandaeus, the Watcher Who Judges. With the death of that false god, I found truth in the shadowed mountain halls of the Madi’yin. Brother Jabolk is my name, and my travels since the Awakening have taken me to every corner of Aradan. Now, I return to Ammathor from the Izutarian border. I bring revelations from the gods for the wretched souls yet sheltering in the king’s city.”
Listening with half an ear, Kian leaned over and spoke quietly to Azuri. “You are sure you saw pilgrims?”
Azuri nodded, his hard gaze never straying from the begging brother.
“Ambush?” Kian suggested. “Or are they hiding from us?”
“Let’s find out,” Azuri said, then spoke to the priest. “Where are your followers, brother?”
The Madi’yin cocked his head to the side as if perplexed. He held his arms apart, looking pointedly in either direction. “I’m sure I do not know what you mean. I’m quite alone.”
Azuri’s lips formed a retort, but Kian dropped a hand on his wrist, stilling him. There was the very real chance that this man’s followers had gone to ground in fear. If so, he did not want to pointlessly goad them into taking up arms.
“I hope for you many blessings,” Kian said amicably. “I regret that we must leave you to your pilgrimage.”
“Look about you,” the begging brother urged, his laughing tone brittle as rotten flagstone.
“The great cities are as decaying corpses. Even villages-those f
ew that remain inhabited-brim with lusts of every kind, unmentionable perversions and murder. The highborn rail against the Ivory Throne, constant skirmishes between Aradan and Tureece spill innocent blood into the sands of the Kaliayth. Kelrens raid from the eastern seas, as never before. The kingless Bashye rage and slaughter, and so too stir the ice-born savages of the Whitehold, taking spoil where they will. Two of the Three false gods are dead and gone, and only the ghost of Hiphkos remains. The world has been afire long months, and continually shakes as will a dying beast. All are omens of doom, promises of worse yet to come, and you do not have time? For the sake of your souls, turn from your wicked endeavors, and join me before it is too late.”
“Stand aside,” Hazad growled.
“Do you deny my divine message?” Jabolk asked flatly.
“You are a thrice-cursed fool,” Hazad snapped.
The silence of Kian and the others proclaimed where they stood.
“Your willful arrogance and mockery condemns you,” the priest said, diving behind the boulder at his side.
Kian flinched at the telltale hiss of an arrow slicing through air. Azuri grunted at a sharp thud, and stared down at the quivering shaft protruding from the center of his pommel. Without command Kian, Azuri, and Hazad bared their swords, while Ellonlef brought her bow to bear. Arrows began to fall from all directions, but the archers remained mostly hidden. Kian twitched away from the fiery pain of an arrowhead scoring his cheek, and all at once, his mind seemed to catch fire, burning away the lethargy born of his fatigue and hunger. He raised his blade with a murderous snarl, then slapped the flat of the sword against the rump of Ellonlef’s mount. The horse squealed in alarm and bolted back the way they had come, with Ellonlef holding on for dear life.
Satisfied that she would not be able to halt the horse until she was well away from danger, Kian kicked his mount into plunging leap. As always when the battle rage fell on him, his sword hilt felt hot and alive against his palm, wrapped leather melding with the creases of his fingers and palm until flesh and weapon became one.
In a spray of sand and pebbles, he reined the horse around the boulder hiding Jabolk. The bald priest popped his head up, eyes bulging with stark surprise. There was no question that he had believed Kian was dead already. The begging brother jumped up and ran into the open, robes flapping like the wings of vulture. Gone was his self-righteousness, the confidence in his cause; now he was but a man seeking to survive. Kian rode him down, keen sword parting Jabolk’s head from his neck with a ringing clang. The fool’s skull slapped into the dust and rolled under a thornbush. Kian took no further notice.
Dragging the reins, he wheeled toward the road. Ahead, a howling Hazad and grimly silent Azuri assailed attackers emerging from behind bush and stone. At the frightful slaughter the pair made, many of Jabolk’s new converts threw aside their weapons and ran.
The fire in Kian’s mind froze hard, and all became preternaturally clear. His horse trampled one man as if he were no more than a shrub. Another loosed an arrow that missed skewering him by a hair’s breadth. Kian furrowed his assailant’s skull with a single, crushing blow. More foes rose up. All fell. Steel rived life from flesh, and before one corpse found its resting place in the dirt, he was off after another enemy.
Another arrow narrowly missed Kian’s throat. He ducked low, putting heels to the horse’s flanks. His mount took him in a wide arc just out of range of the archers. Still riding hard, Kian slammed his sword into the scabbard. With his knees, he guided the horse back the way he had come, all the while drawing his bow from the wooden case hanging from the pommel. With the skill acquired over a lifetime of earning his way in treacherous lands and against ruthless enemies, Kian deftly strung the bow, drew a steel-headed arrow from the quiver, nocked it to the bowstring, and fired. The shaft whistled as it sped away, and his target turned at the last instant, the arrow ripping through an eye and bursting out the back of his skull.
Before the man fell, Kian had already shifted his aim, searching out other targets, riding and firing. He skewered enemies without hesitation. The wider battle rapidly became a slaughter, then a bloody rout. He had not asked for this fight, but he would finish it.
With the enemy facing decimation at the hands of but three men, confused panic set in.
Kian reined in, breathing easy. Far afield, a lone man fired a last arrow in his direction, then ran in a half-crouch, trying to use brush and boulders for shelter. Kian nocked another arrow, drew fletching to cheek, raised the bow high … and thought of Ellonlef. The assailant would have killed her, given the chance, just as he would have killed any of them. The days of easy mercy had become a memory.
“You should have stayed in your blankets this morning, friend,” Kian whispered.
The string slipped off his fingertips, the arrow sped upward, then began its long descent. Eyes narrowed, Kian watched the running man, not the falling shaft. The arrow buried itself into the base of the fleeing man’s neck. His arms flew wide, his feet tangled, and he fell dead, falling to vanish amid a scatter of stones.
Kian turned at the sound of hooves and found Ellonlef cantering toward him, her features taut with indignation. Other than her irritation, she appeared unharmed. Despite himself, Kian felt a rush of relief, and he began laughing. Ellonlef reined in some distance off, her ire replaced by a mystified look. When he continued to laugh, giddy as a boy, her lips twitched toward a grin, then she shook her head and rode off toward Hazad and Azuri, who were searching the dead.
After a time, Hazad raised a large leather pack. “We have food!” he called in triumph.
Kian laughed again. It felt good to laugh, despite the grave danger they had been in just moments before. Mirth of any sort, he reasoned, with what was coming between him and Varis, would soon be in short supply. He tried not to think about that, as he again took up the lead toward Ammathor.
Of the begging brother and his followers, he thought no more.
Chapter 32
The bridge crossed the Malistor, running wide, deep, and a sickly reddish brown that matched the sky for ugliness. All the world seemed the hue of dried blood. The constant veil of smoke, the dire aspect of the landscape, and the unnatural solitude of their surroundings left Kian deeply troubled.
The Kaliayth was always absent plentiful life, but this near Ammathor there should have been merchant trains moving to and from the king’s city, along with peddlers and crofters bringing their wares to the city’s bazaars. Neither did barges nor fat-bellied trade ships ply the river’s waters. Even with such hard times, there should have been some activity. Instead, it was as if the entire living world had perished.
Pushing aside his foreboding, Kian eyed the wide expanse of land known as the Pass of Trebuldar. The pass rose and narrowed toward the Two Brothers, twin mountains now seen only faintly through a hazy shroud. In all that gloomy redness, the few trees and scrub scattered amongst wind-worn boulders looked a startling, sickly green. He imagined Varis somewhere ahead, looking back at him with his goggling white eyes.
“Varis will expect us to come this way,” Kian said.
“Doubtless he will have sentries posted on every road leading into the city,” Azuri agreed.
Kian glanced at his companions for any suggestions.
Hazad shrugged, then took a sip from his depleted skin of jagdah.
Ellonlef offered, “There is the trade road that passes through the fishing village of Teeko to the south, and leads into the Chalice.”
Kian shook his head. “Varis will have that road watched, like all the others.”
“Perhaps,” Ellonlef said, “but he cannot hope to put guards on all the smuggler trails that branch off the main road. Even if he has, their numbers will certainly be thin enough for us to sneak by-there are simply too many paths to watch with any effectiveness.”
Kian appraised her. “What would you, a Sister of Najihar, know of smuggler trails?”
“To know a kingdom’s strengths, you must also know that kingd
om’s weaknesses,” Ellonlef countered. “If we chose to enter the Chalice in order to reach Ammathor, I also know someone who can help.”
“You sisters really are spies,” Hazad said in appreciation.
Ellonlef offered a tight smile.
“Very well,” Kian said, bowing in the saddle. “We put our care into your hands.”
Ellonlef nodded graciously, and led the party south along a rutted wagon track following sweeping river bends.
As the day lengthened, gusty winds out of the north and west picked up. Instead of warming, the day grew colder. The sun climbed, giving off a thin ruddy light, but offering no hope of warmth. Miles passed and the wind increased, sending streamers of grit rushing low over the ground with a steady hissing sound. In a bid to stave off the choking dust, everyone wrapped swatches of cloth torn from a tunic around their faces, leaving only their eyes visible.
Sometime around midday, a loud and erratic banging drew their attention to a sturdy mud brick home set far off the track. Kian surveyed the abandoned crofter’s home through squinted eyes, noting a shutter had come unbolted and was slapping against the wall. Much longer and the shutter would splinter, or the wind would rip it off its hinges. He thought nothing of it until they passed a second crofter’s house.
Here, the front door creaked open, then slammed shut, creaked, slammed. Kian reined in with a frown. It took a moment for him to realize the problem was not in what he saw, but rather what he did not. Like the last croft, this one had been abandoned some time gone. Summer-yellowed weeds grew in place of crops; the doors to low-roofed barns that normally sheltered goats and sheep, pigs and chickens, oxen and burros, stood empty. In distress, he imagined that people had sought each other out, congregating for safety and solace. Teeko, he considered, might well be a bustling town.
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