Aneirin bowed his head in thanks. He advised, “It would be best to have your men retreat to your stronghold; draw the Regiment out into the open and stretch their ranks thin, and they will be less dangerous when the time comes.” He looked at each of them and cautioned, “We have surprise and the gods on our side, but be warned, this will not be an easy battle. The Regiment will not fall easily, and I know that Derek will never surrender. Prepare yourselves; we shall leave in an hour.”
*
The 2040th year of the Sixth Era
The fourth of the month of Dekamen
Late in the first hour
Fintan and Einar had been separated from their fellow slaves. While the others were dragged off to the battle lines, carrying weapons and shields for Leonite soldiers, the two friends were held close to Derek and his entourage. Fintan was forced to carry the warlord’s shield, and Einar his helmet and sword. It was base humiliation.
They were led along the western edge of the city until they reached a broad river. Fintan suspected that it was the same river they had crossed two weeks earlier, after leaving the valley. Derek was greeted by two captains, Cassus and Alfeal. After Lochan’s report, Alfeal had been ordered to pursue and attack Hector immediately; because of the tracker’s desertion, Alfeal had not received the orders in time.
“When we arrived,” he was reporting, “the boy and the locals were all gathered around this point in the river. We moved to a better position and were about to attack when the boy suddenly dove into the water. We launched arrows at everyone else and drove them off, so that we could kill the boy when he surfaced, but... he never did.”
Derek did not look happy. A scowl distorted his features as he glared at the man with disdain. Alfeal withered under his gaze and protested, “But surely he could not have survived underwater for so long!”
Derek turned to Cassus without being mollified. “Captain, take your troop, dive in here, and find the boy’s body.”
The warlord turned away to proceed deeper into the city when Cassus stopped him. “Milord,” he said cautiously, “if the boy drowned, then he would surely have been washed out to sea by now.”
Derek turned back. Fintan thought that he looked astonished. He commanded sharply, “Then swim the whole length of this canal, Captain, checking every crack in every wall from here to the sea until you find that body!” His voice reached a feverish pitch by the end of his tirade. He waited for Cassus’ subtle reaction, then pressed him, “Was there something else, Captain?”
Cassus glanced very briefly at Alfeal and took a deep breath before speaking. “With all due respect, milord, my men have been serving you without reprieve for weeks. We should not be punished for Alfeal’s failure in this matter.”
Derek glanced pensively between the two men. After a few long moments, he nodded slowly. “You’re right, Captain,” he said, “it was Alfeal’s mistake.” He grabbed Alfeal by the collar of his breastplate, then drew the other man’s sword from its sheath. Swiftly, he ran the man through with his own blade, then pushed his breastplate away. With a gurgle of anguish, Alfeal toppled backward into the river, his sword still piercing his gut.
The Leonite warlord turned back to his most faithful captain without a hint of remorse. “I know that you have been serving me faithfully,” he said, his voice dripping with sickly sweetness, “for many days. But you will continue to serve me for one day more. Is that understood, Captain?”
There was no mistaking the tyrant’s tone. Cassus nodded curtly, and made the sign of Ariane, placing his right palm at his hip, then bisecting his face, then across his left breast. “Yes, lord!” he answered curtly. He bowed, stepped back, and turned on his heel before marching off to deliver the orders to his troop.
Derek left the river behind and went to Brosne, who was now in charge of the western arm of the invasion. The man bowed at the approach of his liege. Derek cut the formalities short. “Report!” he demanded.
Brosne, after watching the execution of Captain Alfeal, spoke without trepidation. He was confident in his own abilities and fealty. “The locals have retreated into a stronghold across the river, along with their civilian population. Our archers have clear shots, but their arrows cannot penetrate the windows of the fortress. If we get a boomer in the right place, we could take down the whole structure with one hit.”
“Drystan was the only one who could set off the boomer,” Derek reminded the captain, “Do you have a solution to that particular problem?”
Brosne bowed his head. “Yes, milord, I believe I do,” he answered with a conspiratorial smile.
Derek nodded slowly. “Very good, Captain. Anything else to report?”
“Two individuals,” Brosne continued, “were spotted escaping the stronghold and heading north, a man and a woman. We are currently tracking them. They will not get far.”
“Contact Captain Geapp in the eastern contingent,” Derek ordered, “Have him send five troops out on patrol. You do the same over here. No one else gets through.”
“Of course, lord,” Brosne answered. He hesitated for a moment, then said, “One final issue, milord: since the locals have retreated so completely, do you want us to focus our forces on the stronghold? Our superior numbers might lead them to surrender and give up their allies.”
Derek stroked his chin, thinking over his options and analyzing his opponents. His eyes fell on Fintan and Einar as he mulled things over, which seemed to spark a memory. “No,” he said, “They are trying to draw us into one place and deceive us. Have your men surround the fortress and lay siege to it, but do not let your guard down. For all we know, there may be tunnels under this place, and the enemy could come from anywhere.”
Brosne knew that questioning his chieftain was usually unwise, but he felt secure enough to ask, “How do you know, milord? These locals do not seem very clever to me.”
Derek pointed sharply at Einar. “Because that one’s Guardian lord was not at the valley, and deception is the very nature of those silver mongrels. He’s here somewhere, and he’s trying to trick us.”
Thinking better of having slaves nearby, he took his helmet, sword, and shield away from Fintan and Einar, donning them quickly. He turned back to Brosne. “Take these two with you,” he commanded, “Use them however you see fit—they’d likely even make fine human shields. I have no more use for them.”
Brosne smiled; he, too, remembered Fintan and Einar from their time in the Regiment. Bowing to his lord, he did not look away from his new slaves. The wickedness in his eyes turned Fintan’s stomach.
“Yes, sire.”
Chapter Seventeen
The 2040th year of the Sixth Era
The fourth of the month of Dekamen
At the turn of the second hour
Hector had again begun to doubt his path. Perhaps this was not the secret route to the Library, he supposed, but was rather a maze to induce madness in the prisoners of the Fylscem Empire. Maybe Fornein had read the obelisk wrong, and he was supposed to be somewhere else entirely. Maybe someone had tricked the Guardians, lied to them—or maybe Aneirin had lied to him.
Far ahead of him, he saw lights of a different color, a diffuse blue glow that was starkly pleasing to his eyes after the intense, white brilliance of the great beams. There were other shapes visible by that light, but he was still several hundred feet away, and could not make them out. Looking down, he saw that his line led him directly to the glow.
Except for one strange gap.
Not far ahead of him, the series of lambent stones disappeared in the darkness, then appeared again, perhaps twenty feet later—though judging distances was almost impossible down here.
After hours alone in the dark, he had started ignoring the repetitive thumping of his own footsteps, but as he neared the gap in the line, he heard a noise in the background that he could not pinpoint. The closer he walked, the louder it became. He shortened his steps until he was inching toward the last luminescent stone.
Finally, he identifie
d the sound: trickling! It sounded exactly like a stream flowing over a rocky course. That made perfect sense—water could have eroded the top layers of the ground here, causing the glowing stones to disappear. The thought of quenching his thirst pressed him forward. He dropped to his knees and reached out with one cupped hand. He wondered if the stream were several inches or several feet deep—but he never found it.
Leaning out too far, he slipped and went over an edge! He scrambled to grab hold. His fingers found a groove and he clamped down tight. When the dust settled, he realized that he was hanging over the edge of a cliff! Looking down, he could see the river far below; it glowed green and yellow and orange, as though the water itself were gleaming in color.
With great effort, he climbed back up to the precarious ledge over the chasm. Kneeling at its edge, he took a loose stone and dropped it over the side; he heard it hit the walls four times before splashing down five seconds later. This was not the work of a few centuries of erosion, he realized; possibly millennia had passed since this cavern was built.
Then he remembered the poem, and an old tale from his childhood. “Pierce the blaze of fire,” the poem said—he had learned about the underworld as a child, and there was a story about a fourth river there, which burned with a great light. When the poem was written on the obelisk, he thought, this stream was shallow enough to cross on foot.
Looking over the edge again, he lamented his lot. Even if he could climb down, the added slickness from the water might make the climb back up impossible—assuming that the current was not too fast for him to cross. That way was a fool’s errand.
Looking up, he decided that this way was no better. Jumping twenty feet was impossible. He glanced up and down the chasm; perhaps, he hoped, the gorge was shallower at some point, a point he could cross. But that would mean leaving the line—in clear defiance of the gods. And what if there was no such point? He might spend hours, even days, searching for something that did not exist. Meanwhile, Derek would come ever closer, endangering Hector’s friends, his family... Bronwyn.
No, he decided. He had no other choice than the path before him—which was really no path at all.
“Oh, my,” he said aloud, his voice echoing around the empty cavern. “That’s it, isn’t it? It’s not up to me anymore.” He stood and backed away from the edge, one step at a time. He placed one foot behind the other methodically, resigned as he was to his fate. At last, he stopped. Running farther, he decided, would tire him out more than it would add momentum to his leap.
He drew in a deep breath, then let it out. “O Carys, queen of the gods,” he prayed, “have mercy on me for your name’s sake. O Astor, far-aiming, give me your strength, and I will build a temple for you in this city. O Kyros, king of the gods, do with me as you will.” Then he charged.
He focused on the far side of the chasm as he ran. He pushed himself to his limits, sprinting across the open ground. As the line disappeared under him, he leapt with all of his strength.
As his leap rose to its zenith, he knew he could not reach the other side. His outstretched arms brought him no closer to the distant crags of the eroded wall. For a brief moment, he knew that he was going to die.
Then his foot struck stone and his knee gave beneath his weight. He landed heavily across a sleek, downward-sloped rock face. His arrival was heralded by grinding and crunching as the stone began to buckle. Looking up, he realized that he had found a half-worn overhang, almost invisible in the dark—but the outcropping could not support his weight. Scrambling across the water-smoothed jut, he narrowly reached the cliff face before the rock broke and crashed down to the water below.
Slowly, he clawed his way up the wall. When at last he crawled over the ledge, he collapsed. He lay there, motionless, gasping for breath. He did not know how long he stared into the blackness.
When his lungs stopped aching and he thought his legs could hold him, he rose to his feet and looked back across the chasm. He sighed in relief. He had made it across—he had pierced the blaze of fire.
He set his face forward once more, and followed the line. The blue glow was clearer now, and became less hazy as he drew near to it. He wanted to leap for joy, but exhaustion arrested his limbs. The place was only a hundred feet away now. Its most prominent feature was a huge wooden door, almost fifty feet tall. On both sides were the two lights, which produced the diffuse blue glow that permeated the space. It was the end of the darkness, and it was beautiful to Hector’s weary eyes.
In spite of his exhaustion, he ran for the door. He gently pushed it open. It creaked and groaned, its hinges moaning under forgotten pressure, but it was not as heavy as Hector had expected. Beyond the door, lit only by the blue glow, he saw a long hallway. Looking beyond that hall brought tears to his eyes: there were rows upon rows of bookshelves, faintly illumined by light from above. Each was filled with a hundred tomes holding all the knowledge that men from before the Wrack had thought it prudent to retain.
It was the Library of the Ancients. Hector grinned broadly at the sight. He had arrived at last.
The Alkimite heir stepped forward in confidence, only to stumble back in fear. That step had opened up the floor to reveal deadly traps, replete with spinning blades and honed spikes. As Hector retreated, so did the snares before him. As the hall faded to normalcy, he sat down hard, his tears of joy turning hot with fear. What was he supposed to do now?
“There he is!”
Hector twisted around, expecting to see another apparition—but he did not recognize the voice this time. After adjusting his eyes to the entryway, he could see nothing beyond its blue glow. Peering into the darkness, he thought he glimpsed movement across the line.
“Go get him!”
The sound of scrabbling stones, then a scream—cut short by a sickening crunch. Definitely not an apparition.
“There’s some kind of chasm here!”
He was being pursued, and not by one of his allies. The Regiment must have reached the city while he was trapped down in the dark. He wondered how they had known to follow him under the river—and he hoped fervently that they had not captured his friends.
His pursuers began endeavoring to cross the chasm; he did not have high hopes for their success, but working together, they might have better chances than he did. But where could he go?
As if the gods were growing tired of correcting a wayward child, he recalled the poem again. “Abandon Aeron through the passage,” it had said, “leave behind death for the ones who pursue you, leave them behind.” Standing, Hector faced the hallway again.
For the second time, he took a step forward. The instruments of death burst into view, but Hector closed his eyes, bit his bottom lip, and took another step. He could still hear the blades spinning against the stone floor. He prayed, “O Aeron, guide of men, keep me from your hallowed halls,” and took another step. Still unharmed, he cried out, “O Kyros, wide-eyed and far-sounding, keep me safe,” and took another step.
The whirring of the blades ceased. Hector dared not to breathe, and took another step. He nearly leapt from his own skin when it sounded again, but the noise quickly faded into silence. The corridor was left as serene as an open field in early Kyromen, when all the lands were blanketed with snow.
Opening his eyes, he saw the hallway empty. The traps had withdrawn. He strode confidently down the cleared corridor.
When he reached the exact center of the passage, a blinding light flooded over him. He halted, terrified, and shut his eyes tight once more, though his eyelids glowed red with the brilliance around him. He could not hear the voices behind him anymore, but he feared that he would not be alone for long—surely, one of Derek’s men had survived the chasm.
Slowly, he opened his eyes again, squinting against the glare, then wincing, until finally his eyes adjusted enough that he could move. The walls themselves, he realized, were the source of the light—just like the panels in the room with the pool of water. One step at a time, he resumed his pace.
Then, as abruptly as they had been lit, the walls darkened! Enshrouded in sudden shadow, Hector kept walking, his hands held out to guide his way. They struck something cold and smooth, and he could go no further.
The sound of metal being unsheathed brought his attention backward. He turned to see three men standing at the entryway. One had just drawn his sword. All three were heaving, trying to catch their breath. Suddenly, the one man ran his sword through each of the others, killing them! Hector gasped involuntarily in surprise.
The remaining man laughed. “Finally!” he called out, “I finally have you, wretch! I, Cassus son of Heimus, have caught the boy who defeated the Termessians and the Emmetchae, who escaped Martin in the forests, who won the devotion of thousands of men and led them heroically to their deaths, the rival of Derek, the terror of Drystan, and the last puny, pathetic obstacle between me and my power.”
He advanced slowly toward the hall and continued, “You see, before I killed him, Drystan told me all about this place—the passage from the canal, the trap in the vestibule, the line of stones, the danger of the skylights... he even suspected that there would be a gorge in this cave. And after all of that, do you know what he told me about this passageway?” He got close enough for the traps to extend, and he stopped. “It’s nothing but a test of faith. It was never designed to kill anyone. It’s only here... to see if you’ve got the guts to walk through it.”
He took another step, then another. The blades retracted. Hector’s heart felt heavy; for the second time that day, he knew that he was going to die. Cassus continued, “And beyond this hall? There lie the powers of the gods, granted to the emperors of old—for an empire so corrupt, so vile, that restoring it will make you worse than Derek ever was. But you don’t need to worry about that for long. I will have those powers for myself—and you’re in my way, brat!”
He reached the middle of the passage. The walls burned into brilliance. Hector covered his eyes, trying not to be blinded again.
The Chimaera Regiment Page 24
