Preludes to War (Eve of Redemption Book 6)

by Joe Jackson

  Kari paused as she saw something she couldn’t explain. It hadn’t been an actual presence that she could tell, but she had clearly seen a vision of two orange mallasti eyes opening. There was no voice, no encouragement that accompanied it, but she did feel something: hope. Had she just “seen” Be’shatha awaken? Had it in fact been Be’shatha that had given Prince Fesarri a taste of her power, pushing him away from his hold on Kari?

  “Epaxa chi’pri!” Kari shouted almost without thought.

  Prince Fesarri whirled on her, his expression equal parts anger and fear, but Seanada drove one of her blades deep into his side before dashing away and out of range of a return strike. Before he could even react to it, though, the entire area was suddenly flooded with warm, bright sunlight, even in the depth of night.

  Kari couldn’t explain it, but she had a frame of reference to compare it to. She was glowing just as Katarina had when she’d faced the shadow demon in Barcon. It was not a light from within, but from without, reflected into and onto the world by her faith. Now, Kari had somehow tapped into that power as well, and her declaration of faith in Be’shatha, whether she was alive or dead, asleep or awake, had triggered it. She stood now in the center of the land of her enemies, wearing the beautiful white coat of a vulkinastra, reflecting the light of the gods as a beacon to all.

  Prince Fesarri faltered, and Seanada made him pay yet again. Her blades bit into his side once more before she was away from retaliation. He hardly paid her any mind, simply slithering to the side to keep her and Kari before him. “It cannot be,” he muttered. “It cannot be.”

  Kari glanced over her shoulder to find the syrinthian driver on his knees, prostrating himself in her direction. She turned back to the prince. “Oh, I’m afraid it is, Your Highness,” she said. “Your father’s reign is coming to an end, and all of you who have enforced his will on the people will meet a similar fate.”

  Working in tandem, Kari and Seanada began to take the prince apart bit by bit. His power over the land was cut off, his hopes crushed under the realization that the prophecy had indeed come true. He tried to flee, but was too injured to outpace the two mallasti women, who kept him hemmed in and fighting to defend himself from both sides. After several minutes, he had lost all hope, and looked resigned to his fate. Kari almost pitied him, but she recognized he was still a dangerous opponent no matter how harmless he might appear.

  “Terms?” he asked at last, his breathing heavy, bleeding from dozens of wounds.

  “There will be no quarter given,” Seanada replied coldly. “You and your kin have long since exhausted any hope of mercy.”

  Kari was indecisive. She was supposed to embody the tenet of Love justice, but do mercy, but she wasn’t acting as a demonhunter here. If she let Prince Fesarri live, she might be jeopardizing everything she had worked towards, and all to uphold a doctrine that he and his kind would never respect anyway. He may not have deserved mercy, but that wasn’t the point of it in the first place.

  It hit her after a moment. She couldn’t let him use her own beliefs against her. He had been abducting the real Mastriana to be taken before Sekassus and likely killed. She thought of the way Se’sasha had looked when they bartered for her life before the demon king. Kari remembered the backhanded blow she’d taken from Amnastru, and the way the king and his retainers had laughed. Had Prince Fesarri been there? She couldn’t remember exactly, but he was part of it. He was a part of everything – everything Kari was now working to tear down.

  “We can’t,” Kari said at last.

  The Prince nodded in resignation. “You realize that I will fight you to the death, then?”

  “We expect nothing less,” Kari said, and she brought her blades to bear.

  The prince tried to summon every last ounce of strength he had, hoping for a second wind of some kind, but he was already too far gone. Every overpowered swing he took at Kari opened his defenses to Seanada, and the reverse held true as well. Piece by piece they cut him apart until he stood wobbling in place, barely able to keep his serpentine body upright, blood streaking his sleek form from one end to the other. Gone was the magnificent prince who had bested Seanada and held Kari to a stalemate. He was now a shell of what he once was, unable to stand against the two women when Kari brought the strength of a goddess to bear against him.

  Kari killed him as mercifully as she could, deflecting his last, desperate attack and driving the end of one of her waushims up under his ribs. The blow blasted the breath from him as she ripped through his lung, and he dropped with a sigh as her blade continued into the heart.

  Forgive me, lord, she thought in prayer to Zalkar. I couldn’t give him proper mercy and risk everything we’re doing.

  No confirmation or rebuttal came in response, so Kari closed her eyes, took a deep breath through her nose, and then blew it out in a long sigh. “That’s two,” she said.

  “Hmmm?” Seanada asked as she paced past Kari toward the syrinthian, still kneeling in the patchy mud of the road.

  “I will explain later,” Kari said, aware that she’d almost let her accent slip through in the beshathan tongue.

  “What do we do with this one?” the assassin asked, gesturing the syrinthian up with the business end of one of her longswords.

  “Please, mistress, don’t kill me,” he begged.

  “What else is in the wagon?” Kari asked, ignoring his pleas.

  “Just travel supplies for the road. Please, mistress, don’t kill me.”

  Kari nodded for Seanada to check the contents of the covered portion while she held the syrinthian under an impassive stare. She didn’t threaten him with her waushims, instead putting them back on her belt. After a minute, Seanada jumped down from the wagon and nodded her confirmation of the syrinthian’s words.

  “We will be commandeering your wagon,” Kari said. “Take some food and whatever you need to travel and return to where you came from. While you do, I want you to tell everyone what you witnessed here, do you understand? If any of the king’s people, or even his princes or he himself ask you, tell them that Mastriana Te’Dastra has now killed two of his princes, and will continue to kill more until her people are freed from Sekassus’ rule. Will you do that?”

  “I will, lady, I will.”

  “Then you are free to go. Great Mother watch over you.”

  The syrinthian knelt before her again briefly. “Be safe, mistress. The king’s vengeance will not be long in finding you. May…may you give him and his sons their just desserts.”

  The syrinthian male took only a moment to grab what had to be his own satchel from the wagon before he made his way north along the road back to Saovonn. Kari wondered if he would meet up with the elestram again.

  “Do you know how to drive one of these?” Kari asked, looking at the mousivas warily. They may have remained docile during the fight, but they had a dangerous air to them, and Kari wasn’t sure she’d know the first thing about caring for them or commanding them as a driver.

  “Eh, Aedrien would be better suited to it, but I can manage,” Seanada said. She frowned after she said it, but seemed to shake off the uneasiness of speaking of her brother. Clearly, she was still perturbed about her family believing her to be dead, no matter what stony façade she might keep up on such matters. “You should climb up in the back and get what sleep you can, and I will get us underway to Haestronn. How are those wounds? Healing quickly as usual?”

  Kari shrugged. “So far as I can tell. What do we do with him?” she asked, indicating the prince with a nod of her head.

  “Leave him like the garbage he is,” the assassin answered coldly again.

  “Hmph,” Kari muttered, making her way to the corpse. He was far too heavy for them to move anywhere, and too big to bother burying or trying to burn. She rolled him out of the way of the wagon, at least, and took his dual-bladed spear. “I may have to start collecting these.”

  Seanada regarded her with an amused but predatory glance. “Is that what you meant when you
said that’s two?”

  “Not quite. I made a promise, when we fled Sorelizar after rescuring Se’sasha, that I was going to kill one of Sekassus’ sons for every person he hurt trying to capture me. Trouble is, I lost count of how many people were hurt or killed helping us escape the realm. So maybe I’ll just have to kill all of his sons and hope it covers my promise.”

  “I expect that is going to happen eventually, whether at your hands or not.”

  “We’ll see,” Kari said. She and Seanada returned to their makeshift camp and collected the remainder of their things. Once everything was stowed in the wagon, Kari got settled in the back and tried to find the stillness to sleep. With a barked command from Seanada, the wagon got underway, and after the initial jolt, Kari found the ride smooth enough to get some rest, if not true, deep sleep.

  She dozed off thinking of the vision she’d had, and whether it might have truly been some revelation of Be’shatha. The beshathan people had long clung to the hope that their faith might one day awaken their sleeping goddess, but after ten thousand years, many were losing that faith. Now, Kari seemed to have rekindled it to some degree, more so simply by being an outsider who embraced the Great Mother.

  Epaxa chi’pri.

  Light from without.

  Kari turned the thoughts over and over in her mind. They spoke of light from without, and as Kari understood it, it was a reflection of the light of the gods, not a light from inside of herself. Was it that simple? Had the beshathans failed to awaken their goddess because they were trying to do so with their own light, instead of with those of her holy siblings, maybe? It was an intriguing thought, one that kept Kari barely unconscious as her mind refused to go completely to sleep.

  Epaxa chi’pri.

  Was it perhaps because Kari carried a piece of Gori Sensullu, or Arakiel as he was properly known, that she had made some contact with the sleeping Be’shatha? And could she do so again? Was Arakiel, in fact, the light from without that was needed to reawaken Be’shatha? Was that the truth behind Salvation’s Dawn…?

  Kari sat bolt upright in the back of the wagon as it came to a stop, and whispered, “Epaxa chi’pri.”

  *****

  The damage in Haestronn seemed more obvious even from a distance. Seanada had stopped the cart well back in the woods before making the final approach to the town. The smells of fire and burnt flesh were strong, and Kari feared they were about to find a massacre. Once Kari was fully awake and dressed for trouble, they donned their cloaks and approached the town as nonchalantly as possible.

  It wasn’t as bad as they expected, but the effects of Amnastru’s visit were apparent even at first glance. Though thankfully there were no crucifixes here, there were a dozen or more elestram and mallasti in hastily-constructed stocks around the city perimeter. Several buildings had been burned to the ground, and the closeness of the town meant that other nearby buildings showed scorch marks or even partial destruction where the fires had spread. Most of the windows Kari could see had been shattered, and she was glad for this area’s more consistently warm temperatures.

  There was no prince here that Kari could see. It occurred to her after a moment that they had slain Prince Fesarri before he could come take control of Haestronn and tighten the noose. Still, if the people locked in the stocks hadn’t been released yet, that suggested one of two things: either there was another prince here, or there was a considerable force of soldiers keeping the will of Amnastru in effect until Fesarri’s arrival.

  Which won’t happen, Kari thought with grim satisfaction.

  She glanced briefly at Seanada before they returned to the wagon and climbed aboard. With a short command and lazy flap of the reins, Seanada got them moving again. No one halted them as they drove into town, bringing the wagon to a stop near the central intersection, much like the one in Saovonn. The inn’s upper floor had been collapsed by fire damage, and Kari doubted that was coincidence. Most of the individual homes were intact, but all the places of business or hospitality were destroyed, or at least heavily damaged. Amnastru had done just enough damage to make the town unwelcoming, without leaving all its residents homeless.

  Once the wagon was stopped, Kari realized why no one had halted their entrance. Armed soldiers – mostly elestram, but also some syrinthians – came out of their tucked-away places and approached the wagon from both sides. They didn’t have their weapons drawn, but each wore the expression of someone expecting trouble, something Kari was now more accustomed to on both beshathan and syrinthian faces. They penned in the two mallasti women and their wagon, but made no move to approach until an officer stepped out of the inn.

  He was a tall, dark-furred elestram wearing a decorative set of armor with a number of symbols down his left shoulder. He cocked his head when he beheld the two mallasti women, and walked around the cart, inspecting it. Kari felt her hackles rise when he lifted up the ramp from the back of the wagon and said something in syrinthian to the snake-folk at the rear of the cart. Kari hadn’t thought much of stealing the prince’s wagon, but now she was wondering at the wisdom of having done so.

  The officer came around to the front side of the wagon again and fixed the two women with a suspicious gaze. “Where is Prince Fesarri? We expected him this morning, if not last evening, and it appears as though you were supposed to be transporting him.”

  Kari glanced at Seanada. “He’s lying on the side of the road several spans back along the way to Saovonn,” the disguised demonhunter answered, drawing some gasps from the other soldiers. They whispered amongst themselves, but the officer silenced them with a glare.

  “What nonsense is this?” he turned back, a laugh coming forth with his words.

  Kari stood up and cast off her cloak. Where there had been muttering only moments before, now there was naught but silence. She looked about the area. There were a dozen and a half soldiers, not including the officer; far too many for her and Seanada to effectively fight. Her best option was to try to either turn these to her cause, or else intimidate them into leaving. If she could convince them, without actual evidence, that she had slain two princes in as many days, they might join her cause or, at least, leave her and the people of Haestronn alone.

  “You insolent wretch, are you suicidal?” the officer balked.

  “You think to try your luck where Prince Fesarri’s failed?” Kari returned evenly. No answer came, and she gestured toward the edge of town. “Send a runner to Saovonn. They will no doubt find your prince’s remains on the side of the road on their way, and once they reach the town, they will find there is another dead prince there.”

  “Take these two into custody,” the officer said with a gesture.

  “Uh, sir?” returned one of the elestram soldiers. When the officer turned, he saw what had already been apparent to Kari and Seanada: the soldiers were now the ones surrounded. An entire town of angry mallasti and elestram had gathered in the streets at the sight of white fur.

  “Eh, belay that order,” the officer said, almost all confidence now absent.

  “Where is Prince Amnastru?” Kari asked in the ensuing silence.

  The elestram officer looked up at her. “He was headed to Gaeshokk, but I believe the news reached him before he arrived there, and he turned back north.”

  “What news?”

  “There was an explosion at the king’s palace,” the officer answered, and Kari gestured for more information. “Not much is known outside of the royal family. Whispers are that a vulkinastra was both responsible for and killed in the blast, but no one aside from the royal family and their messengers know for sure.”

  Kari tried to keep any emotion from her face. Miessa may not have been a vulkinastra in fact, but she was a sister and had given her life to the cause. “And Amnastru has been called back to the palace?” she asked, keeping her voice steady.

  “With the news that Karian Vanador was in the area, it was believed the explosion was the first step in a concentrated attack upon the king.”

&nbs
p; Perfect, Kari thought.

  “Sekassus’ rule is coming to an end,” Kari said loudly enough for the surrounding people of the town to hear. There were looks of incredulity that she would speak his name without his title, but she made no correction. “Already I have slain two of his princes, and I will kill any others who come to harm my people. No longer will I sit idly by while he slaughters my sisters to try to avoid his fate. He has now brought his fate upon himself. Either he will free our people from his rule, or I will depose him. Stand with me, and our peoples can be free of Sekassus and his family. What say you?”

  There was a sudden change to the officer’s expression. Gone was that trace of fear and uncertainty. “I say you are a traitor, and about to die a most painful death.”

  The wagon exploded beneath them, and when Kari found her senses again, she had a loud and painful ringing in her ears. That wasn’t the worst of it. She was also flying, despite the fact that she had no wings. The skeletal wreckage of a burned-out building came at her fast, and she crashed hard through the scorched timbers. A cloud of dust and ash arose all around her, but still she kept her presence of mind. The temptation to shed her shape-changed form and control her fall had been surprisingly easy to resist.

  Ribs and lacerated flesh protested her getting back to her feet, but Kari was amazed at how sturdy this mallasti form was. She brought her waushims to bear as she emerged from the burned-out wreckage to find chaos in the streets. Soldiers and commoners alike were running, many of them screaming in pain, either maimed or impaled by dozens of shattered, burning pieces of wreckage. There was no immediate sign of Seanada, and Kari wondered where her companion had landed after the explosion. But then her eyes were drawn to the sole creature not running or screaming or picking themselves up from the dirt.

  There, in the center of the street, was The Vandrasse.