by Ted Dekker
“Go ahead.”
“Initiating phase one.”
“Initiating phase one,” came Charlene’s reply.
Sandra tapped a key on her board. Other than a slight hum, nothing seemed to change, but the work was already under way. Specific neurons were now being switched on and off, some stripped of their charge completely, others overcharged to deepen their connections. Once initiated, the two-hour process couldn’t be stopped without risking permanent brain impairment.
Steve watched, pacing, rubbing his chin, eyes on Rachelle. Always eyes on Rachelle. Sandra reminded him that he didn’t need to stay for the entire procedure. He thanked her and sat down. Eyes still on Rachelle.
For the first twenty-two minutes, all went as expected. No errors, no anomalies.
At twenty-three minutes and eleven seconds, Rachelle jerked violently and began to scream.
4
THOMAS SPUN to Chelise as the Horde’s distant thunder closed in. “Head north, two children to a horse. Ride!”
She grabbed his arm. “Sound the retreat! It’s not too late!”
He flung off his ceremonial robe and sprinted for his stallion. Talya had already vanished with his lion.
“Thomas!”
“If we all retreat, they’ll follow,” he snapped, spinning back. “We distract them here to give you time. Run! Go!”
She dropped onto her mare beside the boulder and slapped its rump.
He leaped into his saddle and jerked the reins free of the tree. “No blood!” he shouted, spurring his mount. The pale beast bolted. “No blood!”
The order was relayed by Marie and Jamous, then by a dozen others, making it clear that, as was their customary way, they would engage but not kill. Their close-fitting leather armor stopped most arrows and all but a direct blow by a blade. Their necks, heads, arms and legs were bare, but they’d learned to maneuver in ways that favored their armor.
Thomas took the stallion over the boulder he’d conducted the Gathering from. The horse landed on the sand below with practiced ease and galloped into the shallow valley. Already, half of the fighters who remained were mounted and streaming up the hills. They knew what to do. Buying time for the children and elderly would be their primary objective.
“High ground, Marie!” he cried. His daughter was ahead of him, calling to those fighters just now mounting the last of the horses they’d corralled in the side canyon. If the Scabs reached them before they could reach the hills on either side, they would become caged in to be plucked off.
Not today.
The warning cries had sounded south and west. The children were north. They would be safe.
“East!” he roared, pulling his mount abreast of Marie’s as they tore up the slope. Neither of them had withdrawn their swords from their scabbards. They would if needed, but only to defend blows or discourage with a nonlethal wound. At least to the best of their ability. Even so, more than a few Horde had died at their hands.
If you live by the sword, you will die by the sword. Talya had quoted Justin. You suffer the same fate you inflict in all walks of life. Give and it is given. Take and it is taken.
Marie reached the crest two lengths ahead of him and pulled up hard, eyes fixed on the desert. His mount stomped to a halt three paces from her.
“Elyon help us,” she breathed.
No fewer than three thousand Horde thundered toward them, heavy with armor, battle axes, swords, and hammers. Rising dust from their horses fogged the deep dusk.
Thomas quickly surveyed the desert. A rocky hill to the east; beyond that, open sands. The guards they’d placed on the eastern hill were gone, but they’d issued no warning. So . . . the east was open.
He reined his mount around. The valley was now vacant—they’d all made it out. Of fifteen hundred warriors, roughly five hundred were grouped across the valley on the western flank. The other thousand spread out on this crest with him.
“They’re too many, Father!” Marie cried, eyes wide.
Vadal pulled his horse abreast of hers.
Thomas turned his mount to face the approaching Horde. “Johan?”
“She’s right. Too many for engagement without bloodshed.”
“Then we split them. Right down their throats with guns blazing.” None in this world knew of guns, but they knew what he meant by the term he’d brought from his dreams of ancient Earth, where he’d been Thomas Hunter from Denver, Colorado.
“Guns blazing or not,” Johan said, turning, “they’re twenty deep. Better to draw them into the canyon where—”
“Too risky. We drive ten abreast and split them up the middle. Once we break through, we lead them south, away from the children.”
Thomas trotted up to Johan, staring past the thousand fighters waiting for orders. Marie was now twenty paces to their rear.
Still the Horde army thundered for them. Still the Scabs cried full-throated. The earth shook with their intentions. They would be upon them in under two minutes.
“We could circle around behind them,” Johan said.
“We could, but they’re familiar with our old tactics. As soon as we move, they’ll do the same. Talya says they’re marching to the Great Divide east. If we go north, they may not follow.”
“Talya, the one who led them to us, you mean.”
“No, Talya, the one who drew me out here because it’s halfway across the desert, far from our home. The Divide is only two days from here.”
Johan frowned. “Crafty old man. Will you go?”
Thomas hesitated. “I have the tribes to consider.”
“Father?” Marie, behind him.
He lifted a hand without turning back. Hold.
“So then, what is it?” Johan asked. “Up their throats with guns blazing, as you say? Or east, the safer route?”
Thomas considered Johan’s preference. Nodded. “You’re right. Signal the far hill to join us. We draw them east and—”
The distinct sound of a blade thudding into flesh cut Thomas short. He twisted in his saddle.
Marie had dropped her reins and was clutching at her neck. He saw the butt of the blade when she turned to face him, eyes wide in terror, mouth stretched in a silent scream. Blood ran between her fingers.
Vadal stared, dumbstruck.
Thomas jerked his mount around in a blind panic, slamming his heels into its flank. He was halfway to her when she slumped over and slipped from her saddle. He dropped to the ground and ran.
Three strides and he was there, and in those three strides, he saw the line of Horde on the crest beyond Marie. A side party of several hundred had circled around from the east.
He slid to his knees and pulled his daughter into his arms. “No, no, no! It’s okay, Marie! I have you. Your father’s here. Just breathe . . .”
But she wasn’t breathing. And she wasn’t moving.
Vadal dropped to his knees, weeping, clawing for her.
“Back!” Thomas shoved him aside, numb. He knew they had to move. The raiding party was holding, waiting for the rest of the army to close. They’d been boxed in. He knew that, but his body had stopped responding. His mind told him it was all a mistake. Her throat hadn’t been cut. She wasn’t dead.
He wanted to say something. Scream his objections. Reverse time. Give her the chance to live and wed and bear children.
But he could only hold her in his arms, grasping for reason. Stunned.
Rage seeped into that dead space and slowly settled over him, pushing aside his initial shock. Anyone but Marie. Why? Dear Elyon, why now?
“I am Campous!”
Thomas slowly lifted his head and looked at the Scab with long dreadlocks and heavy armor twenty paces distant. He sat atop his mount with arms spread wide, holding his ground.
“Slayer of Albinos!” he roared.
It was he who’d thrown the blade.
“Master of Hunter, who defiles our children and wives!”
Thomas let Marie’s body slip from his arms and staggered to hi
s feet, returning the man’s stare. Hunter. Him. Marie had caught a blade meant for him. True or not, it no longer mattered. His only daughter had been slaughtered by this monster.
Vadal was tugging at Marie’s body. Hefting her up. Sliding her onto his horse. Thomas was locked on the man who’d killed her. Those gray eyes. That sickening morst paste slathered on scabbed skin. The warrior was a foot taller than him.
“I avenge Jacob!” the one named Campous rasped. “Son of Qurong, taken captive by Samuel of Hunter beyond the Great Divide. Now, we water the desert with the blood of all Albinos!”
Someone was calling to him. Johan. Saying something . . . But Thomas was hearing Talya’s voice.
If you live by the sword, you will die by the sword. The choice is yours, either way.
He could feel his fingers trembling. Hear the pounding of his heart. Smell the scent of blood on the ground.
Marie, who hadn’t lived by the sword, had still died by the sword.
Thomas stood with his hands by his sides, blind to everything but vengeance without remorse.
Talya’s teaching returned to him. I condemn no one.
“But I do,” he breathed.
He reached for the scabbard on Marie’s mount. Placed his hand around the hilt of the sword fashioned after his own. Pulled the blade free and let it hang to the desert sand, light in his grasp.
He took a deep breath, lowered his head, and roared for all of the Forest Guard to hear.
“Blooooood!”
For a moment none took up the cry as his fighters assimilated the first such charge to them in many years. Campous the Scab slowly lowered his arms, reconsidering his enemy.
But for only a moment, because now the Circle Guard took up the cry as one, like a parched army reaching the shores of a life-giving pool. Only this pool did not hold water.
“Blooooooooood!”
Thomas grabbed the horn of Marie’s saddle and swung into it, staying low and to one side as he took the mount into a full gallop, directly toward Campous and his line of Scabs.
With catlike quickness, Campous bounded for his mount. Not to run, but to attack with the rest of his men who were already charging past him. Running wasn’t in the Horde mind. Their pride was in victory or death, either or both.
A horn was signaling the fighters on the far ridge. Johan was crying out his orders. Hooves thundered as the bulk of his warriors launched themselves south, at the main body of the Horde. Up their throats, guns blazing.
Behind Thomas, archers would be covering his charge. If they did not, he would die. Either way, many would die. Many Albino. Many Horde.
But all of this remained distant in Thomas’s mind. He knew only one aim. Reach the one named Campous.
Kill Campous.
He was only a horse length from the Scabs’ forward charge when the first Guard arrows slammed into them. Two of the arrows sliced into throats; the third sank into the right eye of the closest warrior.
Each was thrown back, dead already, toppling from their mounts with axes still raised into the path of those behind. Thomas nudged his mount left, toward the gap created by the falling Scabs. Immediately a volley of arrows from behind followed his lead, firing into the same side, widening the gap.
Typically the archers would have aimed to wound.
Today the arrows found vital flesh—heads and throats of both horse and Horde.
Thomas drove deeper into the wedge made by his archers, ignoring the impulse to engage the line himself. He would trust his fighters. He had only one objective.
Campous.
Who was now three horse lengths away and roaring. He meant to take Thomas with a raised battle axe heavy enough to fell a horse. But Thomas had agility on his side.
He released his reins and his sword as one, planted his right palm on the saddle horn, threw his legs up and behind his body, and twisted as he vaulted high.
The move came too quickly and too late for Campous to react with more than a slight shift upward. His axe slashed the air under Thomas’s twisting body, now vaulting over the Scab warrior’s head.
A head heavy with long dreadlocks, the same locks Thomas grasped as he completed his half twist. Using the much larger man’s weight as an anchor, he bent at the hips, tucked his body, and landed on the beast’s rump behind Campous, facing his back.
Jerking the Scab’s head back, Thomas palmed the man’s own blade from his waist and slashed at his throat through to his spine. The man’s massive body went limp.
“You live by the sword, you die by the sword,” Thomas muttered in the man’s ear. He shoved him off the mount. The Scab’s body landed heavily and lay dead, left behind.
Thomas found the mount’s reins, brought the troubled beast to a stop, and stared at the unfolding battle, head pounding.
A familiar shrill cry ripped through the air. Mikil had rejoined them and taken the head off a warrior who’d been knocked off his horse.
Vadal was mounted on a Scab’s stallion, screaming, swinging his blade like a man possessed, eyes red with anguish and rage. He took down two Horde in the space of as many breaths, one through his breastplate, another by cutting off his right arm.
Ahead, the archers raced, standing tall in their stirrups and firing at will. Seven Albinos lay dead already in this small skirmish. Dozens of Horde.
He shifted his gaze south. Johan and a thousand fighters tore toward the brunt of the army head-on. Hundreds of arrows were already in the air, cutting down the Scabs’ leading edge.
Pushing back dread, Thomas whistled for his mount, met it halfway, and reacquainted himself with his familiar saddle. He dug his heels into its flanks, bent low over the mount’s mane, and raced toward the Horde army.
Live by the sword, die by the sword. All that remained now was the reaping of living or dying in the Circle’s first battle in over a decade.
“So be it.”
THE FUNERAL PYRE roared as its flames consumed the bodies of seventy-eight of Thomas’s loyal. Never break the Circle had been their cry. Now the Circle had been broken for them.
Nearly three thousand stood around the massive fire, fueled as much by bodies as by the wood they’d gathered at the edge of the northern forest late into the night. Not a soul stirred. No one wept, not even the children who’d rejoined them. The only sound came from the fire.
They did not weep, but glistening tears lined the faces of many in that somber moment.
Tortured by screams of pain and rage, the battle had lasted an hour before tempering the Horde’s passion with enough bloodshed to turn any stomach. The Forest Guard had killed at least four hundred Horde, but there was no glory in it. No value even. Only the trading of flesh in an agreement called war. A weak and useless way.
Talya was right, Thomas thought. The Circle had placed their hope in a better life to come while living in fear in this one. Who was to say that running from a storm was any better than joining it? In this life, the way of the Albinos was no more powerful than the way of the Horde.
The way of the Mystics was to find power in this life. Peace in this storm.
Ten years earlier, Thomas and his people would have already begun the dance for the dead, celebrating the union each would experience as the bride reunited with Justin, who had left. That celebration of hope had been waning for years. Now in the midnight hour, no one appeared eager to sing those words of promise, much less dance at the deaths of so many sons and daughters.
His own among them.
They had been pretending for a long time.
What if Talya was right? What if Justin had never left? What if they, the bride, were only oblivious to their true union, blind to their own light as the bride?
What if Justin’s “return” was a return to an awareness of their identity as the bride, one with Justin already, as much as a physical return?
The thought was staggering.
It also had the ring of heresy. And Johan’s assertion that Talya had deliberately led them into harm’s way had a
ring of truth.
Though it was unlikely, Thomas couldn’t shake his anger at the thought. If not for the man’s powerful presence and his pronouncement of love, Thomas would have agreed with Johan.
He had no idea how being one with Justin already was possible, but this much he did know: they had been pretending far too long. And he would be the first to stop.
Thomas stepped away from Chelise and approached the fire, in full view of all. He didn’t look down, he didn’t look to his right, he didn’t look to his left. He stared at the flames and walked toward the fire.
Marie’s fire.
Smoke was ascending to the heavens as if it was her spirit—isn’t that what they’d always celebrated? But now all he could see were the angry, fiery coals left behind.
A fist of anguish rose in his throat and he yielded to it, stopping halfway to the funeral pyre. Waves of heat from the fire lifted his shoulder-length hair. His eyes burned. Tears slipped down his cheeks.
“The man with the lion who called us from our homes told us that we would find true life beyond the Great Divide.” His voice rang out for all to hear. “He told us of a reckoning in which we would trade fear for love, shown to us by the 49th Mystic.”
His throat ached, choked by sorrow, and he breathed deep, calming himself as best he could.
“I have decided that I will follow Talya and seek the 49th as I would seek my own daughter. I will go because I hear her calling to me through Talya’s words. I will be joined by all who so choose.”
He let the statement stand, eyes still on the fire, unblinking.
“But tonight . . .” His voice trembled. “Tonight, I feel no love. No peace. No desire for song or dance.”
His words cut through the night air.
“Tonight, I feel only sorrow. Tonight . . .”
But he couldn’t say more because that grief erupted from deep in his bowels and shook him with terrible pain. Then more—bitter anguish from a deep well, unstopped. And to the rising of those dark waters, Thomas lost himself.
