“I brought my own,” the human said with a smile. “Besides, given our conditions, you are more my guest than the other way around.”
Boris meandered across the open space, set down the lantern and sack, and then sat cross-legged across from him. He pulled a skin from his jerkin, and popping the cap, tipped it back and took a sip. When he offered up the skin, Ceredon took it without hesitation. The liquid inside tasted of cinnamon and was harsh, burning his throat as it went down. But there was also a certain sweetness to it that caused warmth to spread in his belly.
“What is this?” he asked.
“A drink my father liked to brew. Fermented potato rinds mixed with rosemary, birch sap, and cinnamon.”
“It is quite good. Sweet, yet potent.”
“Thank you.” Boris squinted at him, shaking his head. “Prince Ceredon, I must apologize for the last time I called on you. It was presumptuous of me to think that you could trust me without my proving trustworthy. I was out of line.”
“I almost broke your neck,” Ceredon said, thinking it terribly funny. “It was the bowl of water you brought that saved you.”
“I count myself lucky, then.” Boris chuckled. “I’ll make sure I carry a drink with me at all times.”
Now they both laughed, and despite their exhaustion, their stress, it felt good to do so. Even then, he kept the sound quiet, for he could only guess at what ears listened in, and what Darakken might think of their nighttime meeting.
“Your question,” Ceredon said, wiping tears from his eyes. “I have had an excess of time to dwell on it, and I fear I still have no worthwhile answer.”
“My question?” asked Boris with a smirk.
“You asked me why Darakken has kept me alive.”
“Ah, yes. That. No answer, truly? Consider me disappointed.”
“Yet you appear to know,” Ceredon said, shaking his head. “Which convinces me you haven’t told me everything yet. What is it you know that I don’t?”
Boris hesitated.
“Come now,” Ceredon insisted. “If we are to play this game, we should play it fair.”
The human tsk’ed and wagged a finger.
“Not just yet,” he said. “You see, I brought a gift for you, one that should keep you from snapping my neck anytime soon.”
“And what might that be?”
Boris squeezed his lips together, uncoiled his legs, and rose to his knees. Untying the string binding the sack at his side, he opened it and tipped it over. From within rolled a bundle with tangled white hair that sank into the sand. Ceredon’s heart rose into his throat. The human leaned over the thing, positioned it in the sand, and smoothed aside the hair. Iolas’s face stared up at Ceredon, his bulging eyes milky and his mouth opened wide in an eternal scream. Ceredon could do nothing but gawk.
“Know that he suffered greatly,” said Boris. “Cactus needles beneath the toenails, open wounds covered with salt, that sort of thing. His cries would have awoken the dead had I not gagged him.”
Ceredon sighed. “Put it back in the bag.”
The human appeared surprised, hurt even, but he did as he was asked. Soon the head of the last of the Triad was safely tucked away.
“I apologize if I offended you,” Boris said, “but I thought you would be happy.”
“It is hard to explain,” Ceredon said, looking the man in the eye. “It is good to know he is dead, but it wasn’t by my hand. He didn’t stare into my eyes, knowing his betrayal cost him dearly.” He jabbed a finger at the sack, which was dark and sodden. “Iolas and the Triad brought so much suffering to the Dezren, and they deserved a horrible death. But forgive me—I cannot gaze upon another severed head and smile. Not when the heads of Orden and Phyrra Thyne stared back at me while Darakken kept me imprisoned in Dezerea.”
“Again, Prince Ceredon, you have my apologies.” Boris heaved the sack toward the tent flap, where it landed with a squishy thud.
“Call me ‘prince’ no longer. Ceredon will do.”
“Very well.”
“It is settled then.” Ceredon sat up, pulling his fetters tight, and stretched his legs out before him. He jutted his chin toward the wayward sack. “Now you’ve given me your gift, so answer my question. Why am I still alive? What purpose does the demon have for me?”
Boris slowly nodded. “You must understand, the two are still linked. The knowledge I have, the reason for your continued existence, was spilled to me by Iolas while he . . . suffered. But first I must ask you . . . what do you know of Neyvar Kilidious?”
“Neyvar Kilidious?” Ceredon asked. “Why?”
“Humor me.”
Ceredon rolled his eyes. “Kilidious Sinistel was the youngest Neyvar in the history of the Quellan. He was a mere nine years old when he was crowned toward the end of the Demon War, after the deaths of his father, Kardious, and brother Rentious. Hen eterunas vi, they call him in my tongue: ‘the boy who saved us.’ It is said that after the last of our defenses were shattered after the last of our winged horses were slaughtered, it was his prayers that brought Celestia down from the heavens to cast the demons into the void.”
“You are a direct relation to him, no?”
“Separated by many generations, but yes.”
“I see. And how many other families of the Sinistel line were alive during the time of the great war?”
Ceredon laughed at the absurdity of the question. “None, of course.”
“And why is that?”
“Because it is law among my people that no child of the Neyvar shall bear children until they themselves become Neyvar. A child born of the sovereign is a child born with inherent knowledge of how to lead the people to greatness. Any child born before their father is crowned is henceforth forbidden to receive the crown.”
“And the Neyvars all obeyed this edict? None had children before their crowning?”
“Obviously,” Ceredon snapped. “What ruler would suffer his children to be forbidden their birthright?”
Boris held his hands up. “No need for snippiness.”
Ceredon shook his head. “Then start making sense, human. What does my family history have to do with Darakken keeping me alive?”
To this, Boris grinned. “It’s blood, Ceredon. It’s history. And to something that is for all intents and purposes timeless, such as Darakken is, history is all that matters.”
That got Ceredon’s attention. “Explain.”
Boris began playing with the sand by his feet, picking up handfuls and letting it trickle between his fingers. “Iolas’s version of the end of the Demon War is very much the same as yours, with one significant difference. According to him, it was not Kilidious’s prayers that called Celestia down from the heavens, but the blood that flowed in his veins. Your history says that two thousand years ago, when the elves were first created, Celestia molded a single family from each race that she loved more than all else, two families to rule the separate races for all time: the Sinistels for the Quellan, and the Thynes for the Dezren. Is that not true?”
“It is.”
“All of which brings us back to Neyvar Kilidious.”
“In what way?”
Boris’s grin became wider. “The Dezren have always been a more . . . liberated people, unlike your Quellan, who hold tight to their rigid tenets. There is Thyne blood sprinkled all throughout Dezerea and the Stonewood Forest, and has been for centuries, while, by your own admission, your family is singular. When the Demon War climaxed a thousand years ago, and Neyvar Kardious and Rentious were killed, Darakken and Velixar burst into the Great Hall of Kal’droth—”
“To find young Kilidious on his knees. The goddess then came forth, swallowing the demons in a vortex and banishing them from the realm.”
“Precisely. Only the goddess did this not as an answer to Kilidious’s prayers, but because he was the last of his family line.”
Ceredon stared at him doubtfully.
“Think on it,” said Boris. “Celestia created the Sinistel fa
mily to rule the Quellan for all time. That was her decree, as written in your ancient scrolls. Celestia might have allowed you to fight your battles, allowed thousands of your kind to die, but if she had let Kilidious perish, her own word would have been proven false. For all time would not be.”
“This feels wrong,” said Ceredon, his breathing heavy. “Iolas insults our goddess with such a belief.”
“Perhaps, but whether it is right or wrong is irrelevant, at least for the time being. Darakken believes this. That is why he has kept you alive. He does not do you mortal damage for fear Celestia will come down from the heavens and banish him again. And it is this fear that we will use against the demon when the time is right.”
Ceredon gaped at the human. “Who are you? What is your purpose here?”
“I am but a humble servant,” Boris said with a bow. “I am Boris Morneau Marchant, son of Francois Marchant and Gillea Connington, sworn to protect the house that bears my mother’s maiden name.” He stopped talking and glanced over his shoulder, looking suddenly cautious before leaning in close and saying, in a hushed voice, “I am a mutineer, Ceredon, a wolf among wolves. I am one of many infiltrating the army of the Eastern Divinity and spreading falsehoods, sparking desertion, and casting a seed of doubt into all who stand with Karak.”
The Quellan prince found himself taken aback, frightened even by the man’s proclamation. “But why? To what purpose?”
“To reach an end where no more gods walk upon Dezrel, an end where humankind is truly free. Karak and Ashhur are at war, and it is our duty to make sure that neither of them wins.” The man smiled, the teardrop scar on his cheek flaring red in the light from the lantern. “We wish you no harm, Ceredon, not you or your people.”
Ceredon shook his head. “Yet you handed the demon means to remake its true form.”
“True, but don’t think that you will stand alone should the worst come. Please trust me on this. Though we are surely different, we are very similar, humans and elves. We both love, we both hate, and eventually we both die. They are similarities we should ignore no longer. When the time is right, when it is safe, I will free you from your bonds. And when this war is done, should the gods destroy each other and leave us be, you will always have an ally in House Connington.” The man cocked his head and peered once more at the tent flap. “Now, if you will excuse me, I must be going. The prisoners have gone silent, which means dawn is just around the corner. Get some sleep, Ceredon. You will need it.”
Boris grabbed his lantern, stood up, and hurried to the exit. He snatched the sack containing Iolas’s head on his way by.
“Wait,” Ceredon called out to him before he exited.
The human paused. “What is it?”
“What should I do until that time comes?”
“Wait and watch,” Boris said. “And learn.”
With that, the soldier disappeared through the flap. Ceredon sat there for a long while, stunned and frightened by the conversation. Outside, he swore he heard the giant weeping. The night drew to a close, and sunlight brought a glow to the sides of his tent. With the dawn, he ceased thinking of potential, future horrors and focused on the present. His fear and doubt waned. He thought on Boris’s words, on what they meant, and finally his lips curled into a smile. If the human was right—if Darakken believed as Iolas said—it changed everything. Ceredon was no longer a powerless, vulnerable whelp.
By the time the soldiers outside the tent began beating the prisoners from Ang to wake them and begin the march anew, Ceredon finally felt like the mountain he had promised his goddess he would become. You still have your life, Celestia had told him. That is all that matters. There was more truth in that statement than he had realized. And when Larstis came to retrieve him and break down the tent, he stood in the middle of the hot desert sand and stared at the bright blue sky.
“Unyielding, unmoving, forever,” he said, and meant every word.
CHAPTER
13
Someone was watching. Bardiya could see figures in the distance as he sang; black dots that spread out along the desert’s hazy white horizon behind the procession. He could not tell for sure who they were—if they were human, elf, or animal—but he was convinced it wasn’t his eyes playing tricks. When the convoy shifted directions, so did the pursuers. When the column turned about to march back, they hastily disappeared like soldier ants retreating into a threatened anthill.
Even more interesting was that no one else seemed to notice. Even the elves, with their far superior vision, made no mention of their presence. Perhaps they knew of the pursuers and simply didn’t care. Or perhaps, in their overconfidence, they never entertained the thought that they could be hunted.
His foot caught in a shallow hole in the sand, and he stumbled, the song dying on his lips. The ox harness fastened around his neck caused his back to buckle. All thoughts of Ashhur’s grace or secret scouts left his mind, replaced by pain. He fell to his knees, the rear of the heavy wooden harness smacking the back of his skull. Stars burst in his vision.
“Stand up,” someone commanded, followed by a snap and a pinprick of pain in his shoulder. Then came another crack and another small ache. The soldiers were whipping him again. Bardiya lifted his head, peering at them through squinting eyes, and saw a few of them smiling. He wondered if they would get such joy from torturing him if they knew how little it hurt. Truth be told, the ache in his soul was far worse than anything physical they could do to him.
Calloused hands were on him then, and voices shouted for the whipping to stop. Bardiya turned to see Gordo and Tulani Hempsmen grabbing his shoulders, urging him to stand.
“Please, Bardiya,” Tulani said, fear in her eyes. “You must get up.”
“That’s right,” said her husband. “If you stay down, more of us will be hurt.”
They backed away from him. Bardiya nodded, dug his fingers into the sand and rose on popping knees. Keisha, Gordo and Tulani’s daughter, appeared between her parents. Her rosebud lips were cracked and peeling, as was her brown skin from too long a time spent beneath the brutal desert sun. Little mute Marna came next, followed by Tuan Littlefoot and the brothers Allay and Yorn Loros, followed soon after by old Onna. Voices both human and elven shouted for the column to keep moving, but the people of Ang ignored them. Before long most of the three hundred stood before him, the chains binding their wrists hanging, their eyes solemn, their posture slumped. It was a brutal sight, one no song could hide: Their hope was gone.
“Why are we not moving?” asked that familiar, grating, inhuman voice. A massive charger approached, Clovis Crestwell sitting atop it. As had become the norm, Clovis appeared sickly, his body losing the heft it’d had when the force first rode into Ang. His neck was now slender as a reed, his eyes sunken into his skull, his lips pulled back to reveal chipped teeth and white gums. The man was wasting away before their eyes.
Clovis approached him, having to look up at Bardiya, though he was on horseback.
“Set your people to march, Gorgoros,” he said, his red eyes leaking pink tears. The appalling man peered toward Bardiya’s throng, who were now huddling close together, surrounded by soldiers with pikes. Clovis’s gaze fell on Keisha. “Or would you prefer it if we tortured another of the children? Perhaps that one, the one with the large eyes and sweet voice?”
“No,” Bardiya murmured. He bowed his head. “We will march.”
“Good. Make sure they all keep pace.”
He tried to do just that, but it was difficult to keep three hundred people from stumbling. At one point Onna’s walking stick caught in his chains and snapped, and he collapsed. A group of the olive-skinned elves with clubs beat the man senseless, then beat a young woman named Nina who urged them to stop. Before they started moving again, five people had been sent to Bardiya to mend their broken bones, their bruises, their internal and external bleeding. But no matter how well he healed their bodily wounds, he could do nothing to repair their fractured souls.
Still they
were kept walking, made to suffer lashes and still more beatings. By the time the sun began to set, Bardiya was exhausted. The amount of energy it took to heal the injured drained him, making it difficult to lift a foot off the ground. Yet he persisted. Yet he went on. My faith in Ashhur’s teachings will not waver. I will be an example to them all.
That night, as the rest of his people slept beneath the cold desert moon, Bardiya wept.
The next day brought more of the same: lashings and insults, flying fists, rapes, and beaten men, women, and children. Bardiya swallowed it all, unwilling to lift a finger in violence. The song will take me home, he thought as air filled his lungs. But even that seemed not to help. As he took one step after another, closing his eyes to let the song fill his soul, what he saw behind his eyelids was the scene in the mangold grove the day his parents were butchered. He saw himself lunging with a tree limb, swatting aside the Dezren murderers as if they were flies, and pinning their leader, Ethir Ayers, to a tree trunk. For the first time since burying his parents, he dared wonder if it had been wrong to let those murderous elves live.
A shrill cry rang out, and the procession came to a halt. All singing stopped. Elf and soldier alike were thrown into a panic, the soldiers running past the cluster of prisoners, with weapons drawn. Bardiya turned about, for a moment believing their stalkers had made themselves known, but when he looked to the horizon, all he saw was an endless sea of white sand. Perhaps it was all in my head after all.
There was a flurry of activity toward the rear of the procession. Even standing at least three heads taller than the largest wagon, he still could not make out what was going on. Forms struggled, throwing punches, twisting and pulling on armor. Clovis galloped past on his charger, approaching the fray, his strange voice booming as he screamed for the chaos to end.
When the fracas concluded, the soldiers and elves rushed back to their positions in the now-stalled convoy. Clovis wheeled his horse around and trotted toward Bardiya. Behind him walked a young soldier with unkempt auburn hair and a small scar marring his left cheek, carrying another soldier in his arms, struggling with the weight. Behind that soldier were seven more who wore Karak’s sigil and were lugging a thrashing, screaming elf.
Blood Of Gods (Book 3) Page 15
