Ellonlef drew back, hissing each time her weight fell on her bad knee. Eyes locked on the gap the Bashye would have to come through to get her, she kicked sand on the fire arrow. Almost at once, another cut a flaring streak across the darkness, then another, and another.
The men were so close now she could hear them breathing. She swallowed dryly as her palm brushed the hilt of her dagger. With arrows laying all around, she had plenty to ward off her enemies until the very end.
A despairing chuckle climbed up her throat. If she waited for them to take her, a fate worse than death was certain. Her only choices were a quick end or a prolonged one.
She chose the former, and dragged her dagger free … then slid it back. It will be easier for me to empty my veins if I am already dying, she thought.
Despite the demise of the Three, she prayed to their spirits for strength. Then she prayed to Pa’amadin, the Silent God of All, given to leave humankind to their own devices. Lastly, and with the least conviction, she prayed to any god who might grant her miraculous strength and cunning, for she did not want to die, not here on the edge of a sun-blasted wasteland so far from home.
As more arrows rained down around her, she calmly collected up a double handful and placed them into the quiver on her hip. With a last calming breath, she stepped forward, placing herself into the stony breach.
Her first arrow slammed through a man’s eye socket, not ten feet away. He was the Falsethian warrior, marked out by his colorful robes.
The other Bashye roared in fury. An arrow hissed by Ellonlef’s ear, tugging her loose hair. Another slashed at her side, slicing a burning streak across her ribs.
She did not flinch or falter, but fired another arrow. In her heart, she knew it would be her last.
The Bashye were nearly on top of her, and her capture was not written on their faces. Her actions, as she had hoped, had put a killing frenzy into them.
~ ~ ~
“Look,” Hazad said.
Roused from his nap, Kian reined in and glanced up. The road ahead was dark. “I don’t see anything.”
“There!” the big man said, as a flaming point of light climbed skyward, then arced down to land amid a tall hill of boulders. “That was a fire arrow.”
“Who lobs fire arrows into a rock pile in the middle of the night?” Azuri asked, coming abreast of Kian and Hazad.
“A pack of Bashye dogs,” Kian growled, tugging his short bow free of its leather case. He kicked his mount into a gallop.
Azuri and Hazad shouted hasty commands, and a moment later the thunder of hooves filled the night, and above that rose the battle cries of the Asra a’Shah.
Halfway to the outcrop, its stony crown now alight with fire arrows, Kian saw a woman in white robes using a bow to fend off her attackers. Following her lead, he put arrow to bowstring, drew, and released. The shaft ripped through the air and buried itself deep into the back of his target. The yowling man fell into the boulders, clawing at the deadly barb piercing his flesh.
The Asra a’Shah warriors sent nearly two dozen arrows whistling into the night. Those Bashye who did not fall, scattered.
Then the mercenary company was charging past the outcrop. They spread apart and wheeled in two separate columns, and came thundering back.
Kian called a halt just out of bowshot. Nothing moved amid the boulders. Up high, the fire arrows had gone out, and the woman was lost in darkness.
“Hazad, Azuri, with me. Ba’Sel,” he said to the Geldainian mercenary, “have your men spread out. Follow us until you are within range, then halt. If you see anyone moving besides us and the woman, end them.”
The black-skinned man was nodding before Kian stopped speaking. He used hand signals to position his men.
When Kian was satisfied that any Bashye foolish enough to show himself would die, he motioned Azuri and Hazad to move. The pair angled their horses away from Kian, but he continued to ride straight down the road. Across the road from the towering pile of boulders, he heard horses shifting around in the gloom. Doubtless, they belonged to the Bashye. Rather, they had belonged to those brutal bastards, for now a pair of Geldainian mercenaries were securing the horses.
Kian decided they had come close enough, and he halted Hazad and Azuri. Other than a gentle breeze rustling bushes and carrying acrid smoke from the marshes, all was quiet, motionless. Bashye, for all their ruthless ways and renegade hearts, were brilliant fighters. He would not take them lightly.
Kian nocked another arrow, and in an overloud voice he called, “See anything?”
Understanding what he was up to, Hazad and Azuri both answered loudly, “No.”
Kian waited, eyes searching. Nothing moved. The Bashye had probably fled. He glanced up and found a woman’s silhouette. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” she answered. Then, hesitantly, “Well, actually, yes I am.” She sounded young, but she was no wisp of girl.
“Well,” he said mildly, “do you need help?”
After a long moment, she muttered something.
“Speak up!”
“Yes, I need help!” she shouted, sounding ungrateful.
Kian motioned for Azuri to go get her, but the man shook his head. Hazad chuckled as he settled his backside down on a rock.
“Traitorous bastards,” Kian growled, and swung out of the saddle. He ignored their laughter.
Kian hobbled along, his arse sore and legs tight from sitting astride a horse for so long. By the time he reached the outcrop, things were working better. Grumbling, he began to climb.
He was a dozen paces from her, when a shape moved off to one side. He spun to face a Bashye warrior who had a broken arrow jutting from one eye socket. Kian caught the man’s sword strike against his bow. Wood shattered, and he fell on his back, the two ends of his bow held in either hand. The Bashye swung again. Kian rolled to one side, the warrior’s steel clanging against the rock where his head had been a second before. Kian tried to get up, but one of his ankles was caught between two rocks. As he struggled to wrench it free, the Bashye stood straight, grinning.
“Shoot him!” Kian bellowed, but knew his men would hesitate because he and the renegade were so close together.
While Kian struggled to free his sword, the Bashye stepped closer. Giving up on his pinned sword, Kian snatched his dagger free and threw it. As the blade soared past the man’s twisting body, an arrow tore through his neck. The wild fury in his good eye faded. His sword fell away with a ringing clatter, and he toppled out of sight. A relieved gust rushed unsteadily past Kian’s lips.
A moment later, the woman appeared where the Bashye had been. In one hand she held a guttering fire arrow, and in the other she held her bow, using it as a crutch. Kian stared at her, unblinking. Tattered and torn as she was, and covered in road dust besides, he could not help but notice her uncommon beauty.
“You were supposed to help me,” she said, sounding both irritated and out of breath. “Not the other way around.”
Kian glowered. “You could’ve warned me there was a man waiting to take my head off!”
“With Bashye involved, only a fool would assume there were no dangers about,” she replied, taking hold of his wrist and heaving him into a sitting position.
A sudden clashing of swords rang out, then a scream of agony. Just as quickly, all fell silent. Kian and the woman waited, listening.
“That seems to be the last of them,” Azuri called up.
“Be sure,” Kian shouted back, yanking his ankle free. Where the rocks had held his weight, now it fell to the woman. Her grasp slipped, and she stumbled back and sat down with a cry.
Kian went to her, seeing for the first time the blood coating her robes. White robes. “You’re a Sister of Najihar,” he blurted, incredulous. Why would such a woman be in the desert, alone, in the middle of the night?
She looked at him with pain-glazed eyes. “Yes.”
Shaking away his surprise, he took her fire arrow and held it up to check her wounds. The worst was h
igh up on the side of her chest. “Were you stabbed?”
“Arrow,” she murmured through gritted teeth. Shock made her as pallid as an ice-born Izutarian, though her features spoke of southern heritage. Her eyes fluttered, showing the whites.
“Stay awake,” he said.
Her mutters became a drawn-out sigh.
“Damn me,” he growled, and set to work. First he opened her robes to see what he was in for. Feeling like a lecher, he pushed up the cloth binding her breasts, and winced. The wound along her ribs was shallow, but as long as his hand and bloody.
“Gods good and wise,” Hazad blurted, clambering into view. “Have you sunk to taking advantage of injured women?”
“Jagdah,” Kian snapped.
Hazad quickly handed over a skin of the Izutarian spirits. Kian poured the clear liquid over the wound, sluicing away blood. The woman sat up with a scream, flailing her hands. Kian cursed only half as loud as Hazad when a wild blow sent the skin of jagdah flying.
As gently as he could, Kian pushed her back down. “I have to stop the bleeding,” he said, trying for a kind tone, but failing. He was used to dealing with wounded men. If a warrior lost his wits to pain, you could use a fist to knock him unconscious. Not so with women.
After a moment, she stopped struggling and closed her eyes, breathing hard. Kian looked around for something to use as a bandage. All he had were her robes. Using her dagger, he cut off a few strips of cloth, then set to binding her wounds.
“This will have to do until we get you to Oratz,” he said when finished.
She muttered quietly, forcing him to lean in close.
“What did you say?”
Her breath was warm against his ear, but her halting words chilled his veins. When she stopped speaking, he sat up.
“What is it?” Hazad asked.
Kian looked out over the darkness to the south. What is happening? Is this all because of one idiot princeling, or something more?
“Kian,” Hazad said, looking uneasy, “what did she say?”
“She is from Fortress Krevar,” Kian said, voice hollow. “From Yuzzika to Oratz, she said, and all along the road between, everyone has been slaughtered."
Chapter 15
Kian woke before dawn, having scarcely slept. The desert was cold at night, and the bed it provided was all stone and grit. He sat up and scanned the desert, searching for threats. Three Asra a’Shah formed the points of a broad triangle around the crude camp. All was quiet and still.
To the east, the sky was a muddy crimson he was getting used to seeing. To the west, fires raging in the swamp glowed a dull orange. Those fires were growing larger by the day. Of any threats, he saw none, but felt them in the air, felt them under his skin.
Sensing eyes on his back, he turned to find the Sister of Najihar looking at him. Her dark coloring was back, which had to be a good sign. Best to get her back on her feet and gone from him. She was not the first Sister of Najihar he had ever come across, but there was something about her that made him want to jump in the saddle and ride away, as if from a coming storm.
“How are you feeling?” he asked brusquely.
“Better,” she said. “Do you have water?”
He tossed his dusty blanket aside and retrieved a waterskin. She drank deeply, dribbling some over her chin and chest. “I am Sister Ellonlef Khala.”
“I’m Kian Valara.” He dug through his panniers for something to dry her off. The best he could find was a dirty tunic. When he straightened, she was staring at him.
“Something wrong?” he asked, irritated. He dropped his tunic into her lap, gestured at the spreading damp on her robes.
Instead of answering right away, she blotted the spilled water while scrutinizing the camp. One by one, men were rising and stretching.
“For a man seeking to usurp the Ivory Throne,” she finally said, “you seem short of soldiers.”
Kian’s mouth fell open. “The way you fought the Bashye last night, standing out in the open and making a perfect target of yourself, I knew you were mad!”
“I faced certain capture by the Bashye,” she said slowly and precisely, speaking as if to a lackwit. “I would rather die in battle than become their slave—something I should not have to explain to an Izutarian.”
“She has you there,” Azuri said, coming near with Hazad at his side. The big man handed over the dagger Kian had thrown at the Bashye the night before.
Tucking the blade into its sheath, Kian looked between the two men. He had spoken before thinking, which was not his habit. Still, the accusation she had leveled at him was ridiculous.
Before he could come up with a retort, Azuri bowed at the waist and introduced himself, followed by Hazad, who settled for a wide grin and a nod.
“If you need anything,” Azuri said to her, “you have only to ask. Hazad may be ugly, and Kian rude, but some of our number are cultured.” He finished with a wink that brought a grin to Ellonlef’s lips.
Kian glared at his friends. They had betrayed him over a pair of pretty eyes. It was disgusting.
Ellonlef’s grin became a captivating smile that momentarily set Kian back on his heels. “Thank you all,” she said.
Kian pushed that aside. “Why would you accuse me of seeking to depose King Simiis?”
Ellonlef’s smile faded. “I am not your accuser, rather the messenger.”
“Then who is my accuser?”
“Your former charge, Prince Varis Kilvar.”
“Varis!” Azuri hissed, voicing the surprise of all three.
“He arrived in Krevar several days ago—exactly how many, I cannot be sure, as I have been riding hard and sleeping little since Lord Marshal Otaker sent me north. And, just so you know exactly what you face, Varis’s followers now call him the Life Giver.”
“Life Giver,” Hazad said. “Lord Marshal Bresado said something about that right before he—”
Kian cut the big man short with a hard look. He wanted to hear what Ellonlef knew before he shared anything in return. It could be that she was in the service of Varis.
“Are you sure that’s what Lord Marshal Bresado called Varis?” Ellonlef asked.
Hazad shrugged. “Well, he never mentioned Varis, only the Life Giver.”
Azuri added, “He accused Kian of wanting to overthrow the master of the Mahk’lar, who is also the Life Giver.”
Kian cleared his throat, seeing no reason to hold anything back, now that Azuri and Hazad had both spilled their guts. “That was before he went on to say that this Life Giver isn’t actually the true master of the Fallen. Best I can tell, it was the ravings of a madman.”
Ellonlef bowed her head in thought. When she looked up again, her eyes glinted with unshed tears. “If....” Ellonlef trailed off, voice cracking. After composing herself, she said, “If what you say is true, then Lord Marshal Otaker Racote is dead … or changed.”
“Changed?” Hazad blurted.
Before Ellonlef could elaborate, Kian said, “You claimed everyone between Yuzzika and Oratz are dead.”
“I made no claims. I saw the dead. Hundreds of them, perhaps thousands. Most were too far gone to guess what had killed them. In Oratz, though, it was obvious that something had torn out their throats before they died.”
Taking that as an invitation, Hazad and Azuri began spewing everything they had seen since Varis stepped out of the temple looking like a walking corpse, and finished with the demons under Bresado’s command, creatures only Kian could kill.
“It wasn’t easy at the end,” Kian said, remembering how the once vibrant sparks of blue fire had grown faint. “Before you and Azuri dragged me out, my steel didn’t seem to hurt them anymore. There at the end, I was sure death had found me.”
Ellonlef mulled their words. “Lady Danara, who Varis brought back from death, told that she had been to Geh’shinnom’atar, and that the Fallen had been freed.”
“Well, she was right,” Hazad said, taking a gulp of jagdah.”
“Gods g
ood and wise,” Azuri said. “It’s barely dawn. Do you ever stop drinking?”
“If there was ever a time to get good and truly drunk,” Hazad said, “it’s now.”
Azuri’s mouth worked, then his teeth clicked together. “I suppose you’re right,” he said, snatching the skin away and taking a generous drink.
“Why is it that you believe Lord Marshal Otaker is dead?” Kian asked Ellonlef.
“The message Otaker intended to send to the king and all the lords marshal along Aradan’s borders was a warning about Varis. There was nothing about you, a mercenary vying for the Ivory Throne. That was the story Varis told Otaker and myself, which we did not believe. The only way Bresado could have suspected you might arrive at El’hadar is if Varis sent him a different message. The only way he could have done that is if Otaker is dead or turned.”
“I still don’t understand why Varis would claim I want to usurp the Ivory Throne,” Kian said.
“I believe that Varis fears you.”
“Fears me? If we hadn’t escaped, he would’ve burned me to ash, along with everyone else.”
“He claimed that you stole the Powers of Creation, long ago hidden by the Three within something he named the Well of Creation.”
Kian shook his head. “I don’t know anything about any Powers of Creation, let alone a Well of Creation.”
“What about the temple?” Hazad asked.
“Not the temple,” Azuri said. “But the basin Varis was so interested in.”
“And the blue fire,” Kian said, just above a whisper, “was that the Powers of Creation?”
“I see no reason to think otherwise,” Ellonlef said.
Azuri gazed at Kian. “Just before Varis came out, you were struck down by that thread of blue fire.”
“Gods good and wise!” Hazad said. “The Powers of Creation—that’s how you were able to kill the Mahk’lar.”
The God King (Book 1) (Heirs of the Fallen) Page 11
