I felt a cold jolt of surprise through the smothering blanket of the drug. The demons had been the ones to ask for adults? My head was so fogged I couldn’t imagine how that made sense.
Gavila strode away from my mule, calling out to her kin. They straggled to a halt in the shadow of the great arch and reached for waterskins. A pair of burly warriors headed my way, and I groaned, knowing what was coming. More drugs. Damn it.
Something small and metallic tumbled off the arch’s top, glinting bright as it fell. Clanfolk yelled, scrambling back. When the charm thumped into the sand, a thick orange cloud like the leading edge of a sandstorm billowed outward to swallow us all. I choked, grit thick on my tongue and blinding my eyes. My mule brayed and backed hard against its lead. Gavila’s voice soared high, shrieking furious orders.
Grunts, thumps, and a gurgling cry sounded beside me. A blurred figure loomed out of the cloud. A blade swept dark through the hazy air, once, twice, and I slid from the mule, my bonds cut. I tried to get my feet under me and failed. The world was all dim, smoky orange. I squinted through watering eyes at the shape leaning over me. My rescuer was dressed like a Kaithan in a flowing pale robe and slitted headwrap.
Thrown back into memories of Vidai, I feared to see furious amber eyes glaring at me, feel the sledgehammer blow of his demon-borrowed power. This time I hadn’t Melly to save me. I rolled away, but hands closed hard on my shoulders.
“Hold still, you idiot, and let me carry you.”
Not Vidai’s voice but Bayyan’s. My offer to Yashad had worked? Mother of maidens, let this be real and not another drug-induced delusion!
Bayyan jerked me up and threw me over his shoulder. Jouncing along head-down, I glimpsed hazy, running figures. The orange fog grew lighter, the air easier to breathe. Beside a ragged rockpile, a rangy, proud-necked palomino mare stood snorting and pawing the sand, her bridle held by a nervous-looking Arkennlander.
More hands on me, lifting, and then I was astride the mare. Bayyan settled behind me and locked his arm around my waist. A sticky ball was rammed into my mouth.
“Chew. It’ll counteract the drug. And hang on.” Bayyan barked a command at the Arkennlander, who released the mare. She bolted forward, sand flying from her hooves. We charged through thinning veils of orange into the blaze of the sun.
Gods, the mare was fast. Nothing like the sturdy little mountain ponies I was used to riding on convoy jobs; this felt like clinging to a sweating, heaving bolt of lightning. Bayyan must’ve taken her from the Zhan-davi’s stables and gambled he could set an ambush in terrain gentle enough for a horse to run without breaking its legs. A gamble that had paid off. The black-daggers were all on foot. They’d never catch us.
As long as we didn’t fall off. I was in no shape to grip the mare properly. Thank Khalmet, Bayyan was a far better rider than I’d ever dreamed of becoming. His body moved in perfect harmony with the mare’s gait, his grip around my waist rock-solid.
The mare pounded farther, faster down the canyon. The wind of our passage ripped new tears from my eyes. The yells of the black-daggers receded, and I wanted to laugh in victory except I was too busy trying to choke down the herbs Bayyan had stuffed in my mouth.
Bayyan cursed and yelled in my ear, “Black-daggers on the slope!”
I squinted against sun and rushing air. Not far ahead, a dozen lithe figures were scrambling down through the rocks littering the canyon’s righthand wall. A band of Gavila’s scouts, maybe, who’d spotted the commotion. But I didn’t see why Bayyan was so worried. If they had crossbows with longsight charms, that’d be a problem—the wash was narrow here, nowhere to dodge, and the horse made a big target. But I saw no glints of metal, and the scouts weren’t stopping their descent to fire. The mare was running fast enough we’d be well past them before they could reach the canyon floor.
Bayyan cursed again and kicked at the mare. She strained harder, foam flying from her mouth to spatter me. Bayyan might well kill the horse, pushing her this hard in the heat, but I couldn’t argue with the desire to get the fuck away from the black-daggers.
High on the canyon wall, livid green flashed beneath a trio of balanced boulders. The boulders groaned and toppled. Rolling ponderously downhill, they crashed into more rocks and knocked them free, until the whole slope was sliding.
Not at us, but ahead of us. The scouts had figured out how to use a charm to block the entire canyon. They’d force us off the horse and then hunt us down. I howled a curse of my own, my voice lost in the thundering roar of the rockslide.
Bayyan wasn’t slowing the mare. Mother of maidens, he meant to try and make it past before the slide hit the wash. Somebody had trained the mare well—despite all the noise, she wasn’t panicking, her hooves flying fast and steady—but even as fast as she could gallop, those boulders were tumbling faster, fuck!
Sharp-scented dust billowed out to engulf us. Rock shards pelted down like hail. A dark wave loomed on the right, the roar so loud it swallowed the world. I squeezed my eyes shut, cringing from the expected impact. I was going to die just like my mentor Sethan had, smashed into a mangled red ruin, and oh gods, I hoped I died straight off and didn’t linger in agony like he had—
We burst out into sun again, the mare squealing, blood wet on her shoulder where a shard had struck. Behind us came the rending, gnashing crunch of rocks slamming into the canyon’s opposite cliffs and piling up across the wash.
Bayyan was laughing, deep and wild. He yelled in my ear, “And the black-daggers claim Shaikar as lord above Khalmet—ha! Our good fortune proves otherwise.”
I let out a cracked laugh of my own, feeling a surge of kinship with Bayyan. If not for the damn drug still deadening my blood, I’d be reveling in the same glory he did. Nothing like a dance with death to make the world seem bright.
I twisted to look back. Indistinct through a swirling haze of dust, a crazily stacked wall of rocks blocked the canyon. Wouldn’t be safe for the black-daggers to climb over, either, with boulders still settling and shifting. I hoped Gavila tried and got crushed into paste.
Bayyan eased the mare to a canter. She tossed her head, snorting, as if she’d rather keep running forever. The Zhan-davi sure knew how to breed them tough.
“Nice rescue,” I said to Bayyan. The words only came out a little mushy. Whatever he’d given me, it was working. I almost felt like I could think properly again. “What about the scholars? I hope your warriors stole them away.”
“Demanding little snake, aren’t you? Let me be clear, shadow man. I brought none of my kin here. Only a handful of hirelings paid by an intermediary they believe acts in Sechaveh’s name. I warned Yashad when I agreed to chase after you that I won’t risk being recognized. Not when I hear Gavila can command Shaikar’s hunt. My clan’s safety comes first over all.”
“You intended for the men you brought to be captured.” Bayyan’s ruthless pragmatism was equal to any I’d seen in Ninavel’s ganglords. “They’ll spill their tale about Sechaveh to Gavila, and you don’t give a damn what she does to them afterward.”
Bayyan shrugged. “If they don’t return, their families will be paid enough they’ll never again need to worry over water rations. These hirelings are no warriors, and they know it. They were adequate to distract the black-daggers and let me snatch you away, but nothing more. Now I take you to Prosul Akheba so I can collect the war-charms Yashad promised me as payment for saving your sorry skin.”
I well knew that desperation could drive a man to take all manner of devils’ bargains. Didn’t mean I felt good about Bayyan’s hirelings trading their lives for mine, and that wasn’t the only thing cramping my gut. The drugged, hopeless eyes of the scholars swam before me, accompanied by the echo of Gavila’s confident insistence that she did Shaikar’s bidding. Whatever the demons’ reasons for wanting formerly Tainted adults, I had the deeply uncomfortable suspicion it was nothing Kiran and I would like.
Gods, and speaking of Kiran and demons—“Do you know anything of Kiran? Gavil
a said she sent the red-horned hunters after him, but he escaped them.”
“So he did,” Bayyan said, his voice gone terse. “My warriors sent a bird with a message saying he and Teo are on their way to the city, looking for you.”
So Teo was still helping Kiran. That part was good news, though I didn’t at all like the idea of Kiran going to Prosul Akheba. Far too easy for Yashad to change her mind and send Ruslan news of him. But for Teo to leave Raishal’s side…my heart sank.
“What about Raishal and Veddis?”
“Raishal survived the hunt. She’s asked for help in reaching the Seranthine collegium, which my clan elders have agreed to give. She seeks a healer to care for her in Teo’s absence.” Bayyan paused. “Veddis is dead.”
I scrubbed a hand over my face, feeling about a hundred times heavier. I didn’t want to imagine the nature of Veddis’s death, or what Raishal and Teo must be feeling in the wake of it. And when Zadikah found out…
“Did Yashad send the herbs to Kiran?” She’d fucking better have, and warned him about Zadikah like she promised.
“My best runner carries them,” Bayyan said. “He’ll find Kiran. He wears a signaling charm, twin to mine. I’ll signal him that I freed you, and he’ll pass that along too.”
It was so tempting to let Bayyan haul me back to Prosul Akheba. If I could just meet up with Kiran again, then whatever the demons were planning, together we could counter it.
Yeah, that was a nice fantasy. If I gave into temptation, I knew with gut-deep certainty that I’d curse my stupidity later. I couldn’t just run back to the city and let Gavila and demons do what they pleased. I had to find out what they were planning.
“Do you know where Gavila was heading?” I asked Bayyan.
“No.” He didn’t sound like he cared, either.
“Zadikah’s mother Nasham said Gavila wanted to take Kiran to some veiled temple. Zadikah insisted the temple is a myth, but Nasham seemed to think it was both real and somewhere near. Any chance the temple’s at the head of this canyon?”
“No,” Bayyan said, surprised this time. “Every child in the clanlands knows where the veiled temple is said to stand, and it’s not here. But Zadi’s right. If the temple was ever real, it crumbled to sand long ago. She and I have walked within the Aduin na Darish and we saw no hint of it remaining.”
“You what? Where is this—what’d you call it? Aduin na Darish?” Zadikah had said nothing of this when she shrugged off my questions.
“The Demon’s Maw, you would say. A few days’ walk west of here, hundreds of rock needles reach to the sky, red as the coals of a dying fire and so tightly packed a man can barely walk the slots between them. The Maw is said to be the haunt of its demon namesakes, and that anyone who enters without their invitation risks their vengeance. We have a hundred campfire tales about men and women who went in and vanished, never to be seen again, though their friends heard their screams in the night. So of course half of the youngsters in the clanlands have dared each other to walk within the Maw’s fangs.”
“You and Zadikah included,” I said.
“Definitely.” Bayyan gave a rumbling chuckle. “It’s how I first met her. She’d come with her cousins to gawk at the Maw, and I with mine. Our clans are enemies, but we knew better than to spill blood on ground sacred to demons. Instead, she and I challenged each other to traverse the fangs. I was determined to go deeper than any mangy black-dagger could manage, but she wouldn’t turn back. We nearly got ourselves lost—it’s a maze in there. Had a bad couple of hours when I thought we’d never find the way out. But we crawled and clambered all through the needles and saw no hint of any temples, or demons either.”
“But it’s called the veiled temple,” I said. “Could be there was a warding spell keeping you from seeing anything.”
Bayyan shrugged. “Could be. I’m no Ninavel man to know mages and spells. Or perhaps the demons stole away the temple when they took the Maw’s water. Our tales say that long ago a river flowed in the canyon that leaves the Maw, but then the demons decided to claim the river for their own and funnel it into Shaikar’s hells. These days, no water ever leaves the Maw despite the many canyons that drain into its fangs. The stream deep beneath the Khalat is said to be a remnant of the Vanished River, sent to succor the city by Shaikar himself, and flows only at his pleasure.”
Stealing a river and sending it underground sounded more like a mage’s work than demons’ work to me. I felt all the more certain that the temple still stood. But I was no closer to understanding Gavila’s plans, let alone the demons she hoped to bargain with.
The canyon had broadened out again. Red-tipped firebranch shrubs and gnarled, stunted ironwood trees dotted the shale of the slopes. The uppermost cliffs were broken by boulder piles that stretched from the rim to the wash. Bayyan steered the mare toward one waterfall of rock that ended in a waist-high boulder leaning at an improbably steep angle over the sand.
He called softly, “Ohe, dashkan adis.”
Two men slunk out of the rocks. The taller was dressed in Kaithan robes like Bayyan, and the shorter was an Arkennlander wearing coarse-woven, grimy clothes not far different from my own.
Bayyan halted the mare beside the leaning boulder. “Off,” he ordered me. “Stay on rock, not the sand.”
I could guess his plan. Our doubles would ride the mare northward toward Ninavel, leaving a nice obvious trail for the black-daggers to follow, while he and I vanished into the desert. Not bad. Assuming I didn’t fall on my face when I tried to walk.
I slithered off the saddle and took a few experimental steps on the boulder’s slanted top. My legs wobbled, but they held me. I flexed my hands. Red welts still marked my scorpion stings, but no stabbing pain assaulted me when I moved my fingers. Now the black-daggers’ drug was wearing off, I was a mass of aches, but that I could handle.
The Kaithan-dressed hireling tossed a pack to Bayyan and said something brief and sharp in Varkevian. He and the Arkennlander swung onto the mare and rode off. Bayyan shoved a waterskin and two salted seedcakes into my hands.
“Eat fast. We’ve a hot climb ahead.”
I swallowed as much as my shrunken stomach could hold, eyeing the slope above. Plenty of boulders with crevices between them large enough for a man to hide. Excellent cover for escaping a hunt. Or for doubling back and spying on the hunters.
Bayyan’s stance was all coiled impatience. He wasn’t watching me, but looking up-canyon, his gaze roving ceaselessly from rim to wash, seeking sign of pursuit.
I spoke fast. “You said your clan’s safety comes first. If that’s true, then the last thing you should do is let Gavila keep hold of those two scholars. She means to use them in a bargain to gain a demon’s powers.” Even if I wasn’t sure anymore of the particulars of that bargain.
The headwrap obscured Bayyan’s expression, but his dark eyes flicked to mine, narrowing. “Is such a bargain possible?”
“I saw it happen in Ninavel. One demon-touched man nearly destroyed the entire city despite the best efforts of Sechaveh’s mages. So think, Bayyan. You snake-eaters and black-daggers don’t exactly seem to get along. You think war-charms will do a bit of good against an enemy who can shrug off the strongest of spells and rip you limb from limb in an eyeblink?”
This was reaching him. I could see it in the bunching of his broad shoulders. “What would you have me do?” he growled. “Pit myself in a suicidal solo attack against an entire clan? I had the element of surprise when I took you. Now the black-daggers will be hunting us, and you’re no warrior to help me.”
“I’m no warrior, true. But I’m a shadow man, aren’t I?” The lie came easier to my lips all the time. That bothered me; I was an outrider, damn it, not a cold-blooded profit-seeker like Pello. But I’d once been a thief, and a good one. “Sneaking and stealing, that I can do. You’ve already set a false trail for any pursuers to follow. Gavila will be expecting us to run, not slink after her. Come on, Bayyan. You can’t tell me a man willing to outr
ace a rockslide is too much a coward to ensure his clan’s safety.”
He snorted, and I thought I’d lost him. But he said, “Bad enough that Gavila sent Shaikar’s hunt to my lands. If she intends worse, then yes, as warleader I wish to stop her from it. But forget this talk of thieving. Impossible to get those two scholars free like I did you. Killing them, though…that we might be able to do, if you’re as quick as your tongue.”
My stomach twisted. I’d never knowingly killed an innocent person. I didn’t want to start now, even if Jylla’s ghost was calling me a moon-brained idiot. “Impossible’s an awfully strong word. How about we find a route that’ll let us double back on Gavila, and on the way you tell me what charms you’re carrying? Then we can talk plans.”
“Up to the rim, then,” Bayyan said. “But no more talking until we’re out of the canyon. The black-daggers have sharp ears.” He slipped smooth and quiet as an adder between the rocks. I followed, cursing still-clumsy muscles, and prayed I could come up with a plan clever enough to save those scholars, not murder them.
Chapter Thirteen
(Kiran)
Kiran trudged along a narrow passage bounded by sculpted sandstone walls. The canyon he and Teo traveled had pinched into a sinuously winding slot. The walls were scalloped into striated buttresses that glowed in warm tones of red and orange, as if lit by magefire within rather than by sunlight reflecting off the cliffs above. Another time, Kiran might have marveled at the beauty of the light and the intricate patterns of the stone. Now his attention was all for the canyon floor, which alternated between heaped cobbles of rock and stretches of soft, dry sand the color of fresh blood. Blurred tracks marked the sand, from two pairs of feet—Dev’s and Zadikah’s, going to the city. Or so Idryk had said, before he left them at the head of the canyon.
Teo broke a dark, withdrawn silence to ask, “This demon with the scarred brow, the one who warned you—how do you intend to summon it?”
The Labyrinth of Flame (The Shattered Sigil Book 3) Page 24
