The grim sky lightened little with the sunrise. Ivo and Jaeger stood guard at the edge of the trail, their shadowed eyes unreadable in the gray light. The subdued silence was mutual—as natural as breathing for them.
Thunder rumbled, and one of the women shifted behind them. Ivo turned, and his green eyes narrowed as they pinned on Emaranthe as she drew her cloak tighter about her shoulders and rolled over with a faint sigh. He turned back and caught Jaeger’s inquisitive look.
“She’s still asleep.” Ivo grunted. He crossed his arms over his chest.
Jaeger shot a curious stare over his shoulder before turning back and surveying the wide desert valley that stretched out before them. They were high up, so high that they could no longer see the bottom of the gorge. Still, Jaeger figured, there were many hundreds of feet left to climb upwards on the trail.
The plateau was immense, dotted with spires of red rock formations and arches hollowed out by the ravages of time. He watched an enormous windmill far across the valley on the other side. Its colossal green blades spun with lazy indifference, pumping the water from the distant river, no doubt.
“Mirena would have loved it here,” Jaeger whispered, his eyes still on the windmill. “She had always talked about travelling to the south to see the Burning Desert.”
Ivo hesitated, startled by the tumble of memories those few words brought back. Guilt rocked him as he shot Jaeger a sideways look and watched pain tighten his brother’s face into a mask of agony. Unlike many others, he and his brother had never forgotten. Ever.
Empty blue eyes stared ahead, lost in thoughts and memories that had been pushed aside in order to survive a world gone mad. “And here we are in the one place she will never get to see.”
“Jaeger—” Ivo jerked his helm off.
“No, it wasn’t your fault, Ivo,” Jaeger said, his eyes still unfocused, remembering. “I never blamed you, even after all of these years.”
“I should have been—”
“No, I should have been there,” Jaeger closed his eyes. “Mirena was going to make fish soup, remember? She’d been planning it for days.”
“Jaeger—” Ivo swallowed. There were no words for the tortured look on his younger brother’s face.
“—she was brushing Anya’s hair when I left. It had wanted to curl in the humidity.” Jaeger ignored his brother and spoke as the tide of bitter memories consumed him. Anya’s hair, so long and wild —a mane of brown waves, just like her mother’s. He remembered her vivid blue eyes sparkling with mischief as he’d blown her an adoring kiss goodbye. He’d then pulled Mirena close and kissed her fully on the mouth, with an unspoken promise for later —
A promise he’d broken.
Pain—agony—despair.
“Jaeger! Stop!” Ivo snarled. He flung his helm down. It bounced and clattered away, hitting the red sandstone wall and tipping to a halt. “Don’t do this to yourself again!”
“I let them die—” Jaeger choked out. His shoulders slumped as guilt and pain pulled on him. “I wasn’t there to save them. They’d trusted me...”
“Brother, no one could have foreseen that day,” Ivo said. He too, had tried to bury the guilt and pain with little effect.
His brother’s wife, his little niece… their lives traded for a hunting trip.
Almost against his will, he remembered returning to their small village, proud of their manly accomplishments and feats of prowess. Their kills were impressive and would feed their whole seaside village in the distant eastern kingdom of Saro-Shir. Sea and Wind, it meant in Sarhiran, their native language.
So ironic.
Instead of a village full of family and friends, there was a sea of death to greet them. Black water gushed and swirled waist high as they waded into what had been the village circle, their faces pale and voices mute with horror. Sturdy rock-walled homes were tumbled and flooded with foul water. Bloated bodies, very few, floated on the evil current, pushed by a wind that howled from every direction at once. There was no escaping the biting pull of the wind or the seductive tide of water it stirred with angry shrieks.
Crates, chickens, and cracked and mangled wood frames—the brothers shoved past these as they searched, thrashing wildly through the water, screaming against the foul wind for Mirena and Anya. The water kept rising, tugging on them, pulling them… and in the boiling, frothing torrents where the wind and waves met, little maddening whispers could be heard—join us… join us …join us…
The mad voices filled the flooded village, taunting… calling…
Ivo finally found the foundations of Jaeger’s home—even the great stone walls were torn and washed away. Hoarse from screaming, tears blurring his sight, he could only watch his little brother wade through the torrents of water, white-eyed with anguish and horror, as he searched futilely for his wife and daughter.
The flooding waters continued to rise with unnatural speed, but they paid it no heed. Ivo perched atop the remains of a barn, wrapped in the loathsome wind, his body bent against the unnatural urge to flee from it and vanish into the churning water below. It was no use in the end. The brothers were now forced to swim as they searched, struggling to shove splintered timber and sodden, floating carts aside—but the howling wind was strong and the voices in the roiling water were seductive—join us… join us…
As Ivo watched, Jaeger vanished beneath the black water. At first he thrashed his arms, resisted, but as his fingertips slid below the surface, he stilled—as the mad voices grew irresistible at last—join us… join us…
Ivo plunged after him. Howling with rage and grief, he flung himself deep into the cold darkness after his little brother. He’d given it no thought. The black void beneath the water was a swirling vortex and he tumbled and tossed on the violent current. Brief images of other things in the black water… a crate… a beam of wood, a cart wheel… Jaeger’s limp, wide flung arm…
He kicked his feet and lunged after his brother and gripped his unmoving arm. What little light was left faded and the only thing that was left was the black numbness of the dark water churning beneath the wicked wind and his brother’s arm clenched in his fist—and the cruelly laughing voices…
Eternity happened, maddening dark eternity.
Then the water drained away in a rush of light, sound, and motion. Ivo inhaled, felt the weight of death vanish. He gagged, coughed, and sucked air as if his lungs could never fully fill. Something or someone next to him was also choking, gasping…
“Jaeger! Jaeger!” Ivo choked, gagged on more water. It gushed from his mouth and nose in dark trails. He pried his eyes open and blinked at the light. To his left, Jaeger jerked himself upright, his eyes glazed with confusion.
The Immortals Part One: Shadows & Starstone Page 10
