No blurry black images.
She dropped her power, relaxing tense shoulders. “All clear,” she said to Micfal.
He nodded, but his posture remained watchful, his faded gaze scanning the vicinity. “Best check with the telescope.”
Daria couldn’t help but admire her companion. Micfal’s uniform had grown faded and tattered, the formerly bronze-and-white hair and beard almost entirely white, but his shoulders remained unbowed. She knew how tired the old man must be, the grief he also contained inside a shattered heart, but she’d never yet seen him anything but alert. He channeled all his focus, all his life energy, into guarding her.
Only our vows keep us alive, force us to survive. A bitter reason, indeed, to cling to life.
Several scrub-covered small hills lay behind them and to their left. She fingered the case of the scope and headed her mount toward the top of the largest one. Still lost in her thoughts, she allowed Teifa to canter to the summit.
A shout rang out, jerking her from her musings. Five black-clad soldiers, no more than a hundred yards away, kicked their horses into a gallop at the sight of her.
With a curse, Daria wheeled Teifa around and raced down the hill. “Five,” she yelled at Micfal. “Right on our tail.”
Micfal glanced swiftly around. “No time to run.” He yanked an arrow from the quiver on his back. “Take them as they crest the hill.”
Daria followed his movement, fitting arrow to bowstring.
The enemy galloped over the hill. Bowstrings twanged. Two men dropped from their mounts. The horses jerked back in confusion, causing the men behind to slow and weave. Daria’s next shot caught a second man in the shoulder. Then a third man was on her, his sword raised.
She slung her bow over her left shoulder, tugged her sword from the sheath. Blade met blade in a clash of metal. She glared at her opponent. Young, redheaded, sunburned. Bright blue eyes, narrowed in concentration.
Daria parried his blow, kneeing Teifa into a sharp turn around the spiked brown branches of a chay tree.
In an angry moment of realization, she swore at Yadarius under her breath. The extensive weapons training she’d taken under Micfal’s careful tutelage had been geared for fighting on foot. The pas-sa-ra, given to Micfal’s ancestors in a dream from Yadarius, was meant to be used fighting seadogs onboard a ship or at the docks, or as a defense against a personal assault by some mad or vengeful person who’d dared attack one of the royal family. The SeaGod never had much to do with horses. Once again, Daria realized her former dependence on Him could cost her dearly.
The horses cantered toward each other, and she raised her sword. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the soldier on the ground roll to his knees, his hand around the arrow in his shoulder. “No! Naret, she’s the princess,” he croaked out. “Take her alive.”
Hah. Daria had the advantage. He could only capture, not kill her. She wouldn’t be taken easily. She bared her teeth in a feral grimace. She so concentrated on the red-haired enemy that the grip on her leg took her by surprise.
The wounded man had managed to rise and grab her.
Overbalanced, she kicked at his injured shoulder, knocking the arrow askew.
But he retained his grip.
She toppled sideways off Teifa’s back, right onto the man. He grunted as her weight took him down, his body cushioning her fall.
Daria rolled off, jumping to her feet, prepared to slit his throat, but he lay unconscious. Dead, or near dead.
She whirled, bringing up her sword.
The other soldier slapped Teifa’s rump with the flat of his blade, driving the horse away from them.
Behind her, she could hear the clang of swords. Micfal. But she didn’t dare turn. Even elderly and worn-out, her weaponsmaster was more than a match for any less-experienced swordsman.
The soldier drove his horse toward her.
She leaped out of reach.
He cursed, sawing on the reins and yanking his horse around.
“You want me?” she taunted. “Think you’d better come down here and get me.”
His complexion reddened.
She could almost see the thoughts racing through his head, and her othersense vibrated with his sentence fragments. Must capture her. Reward. Easier to do that if they were both on foot. Just a girl. Stronger. Disarm her easily.
Hatred surged through her, and Daria growled. That’s what you think. She charged, automatically falling into the sideswipe, then lunge, of the beginning pas-sa-ra.
He parried, but not with the inborn grace of having worked this pattern for years. Shifting, he tried to whack her right shoulder with the flat of his sword.
Daria leaped back, and before he’d recovered, her sword pricked his side.
He blocked quickly enough that her point skipped across the skin. A painful wound, but not disabling.
Her othersense shifted with his dawning knowledge that she was no pampered princess to easily disarm. This was a fight to the death. She saw the horror of his choice in his popping blue eyes. Then they narrowed, determined. He slashed forward, then feinted toward the left.
She followed with a block and twisting strike of her own.
They thrust and parried for a few minutes. He showed strength, agility, but his strikes were ragged, not flowing.
The unbalance took the edge off her smoothness. Sweat dripped into her eyes. She blinked away the wetness.
One of her blocks slowed, and his blade sliced across the side of her thigh. Fire burned into her muscle, but she retained movement. A shallow wound. He’d expect her to favor that leg.
Daria did the opposite. She forced him into the delt-tay. She spun and jabbed, crouched low to avoid a high blow, then continued in a pattern woven into the very muscles of her body. Halfway through the delt-tay, he dropped his guard enough for her sword to pierce his heart. He folded to the dirt.
Silence descended, and the dust settled.
Micfal gave a hoarse cry of victory; he’d also vanquished his opponent.
Her breath wheezing in her chest, Daria stared down at her enemy. Crumpled on the ground, he didn’t seem so fearful. Blood trickled from his mouth, and he closed his eyes.
As his blood drained into the sand, her hatred oozed away. Hand-to-hand death differed from remaining at a distance and shooting arrows into raiders. She knew those pirates had only the wickedest intentions to all they encountered.
But this man…. Once probably an innocent boy who wanted to grow up and become a soldier. He joined good King Stevenes army. She bet he’d thought the worst he’d fight was the sea reavers. Instead, Thaddis had changed his life—taken his life—as surely as that evil king had taken her brothers’. Only Daria’s hand was his instrument. Sickened, she watched her enemy pass to Besolet’s Hall.
Her soul smudged by Thaddis’s contamination, Daria looked up and met Micfal’s gaze. The power of fighting had hardened his features into hawk-like fierceness. Danger radiated from him. He strode over to her.
As he moved, the battlelight faded from the old warrior’s eyes, until he looked his age. His step faltered. A cut on his arm leaked blood over his sleeve. Micfal stopped in front of her, dropping an understanding hand on her shoulder. “The killing is never good. But there is the consolation of dispatching the villainous to their just afterlife. However, this…fighting with former allies.” He turned and spat into the sand. “This is a very insult to the Gods.”
No. The Gods insulted us!
“Come, Daria. We must bind our wounds, toss them—” Micfal jerked his head toward the cliff “—over. But first, best check for more. And this time, keep out of sight.”
Guilt drove her to blurt out the words. “They weren’t thinking of me, Micfal. That’s why I didn’t sense them. I was careless. This is all my fault.”
“Would have happened anyway. Only shallow gullies to hide in up here. They’d have caught up with us sooner or later.”
His words slightly assuaged her guilt. But she had no time to s
it around and ponder useless feelings; filthy work remained to be done. And if these men could find them, perhaps Thaddis could too. They must hurry to reach Zacatlan before he caught up with them.
Holding her sword, Daria trudged to the top of the hill. Still stirred by the fight, her heart thumped a running pace, and she barely felt the pain of the wound in her thigh. But as she walked, the fighting spirit receded, leaving her shaky.
Before she reached the summit, she dropped flat, crawling the last few feet on her knees and elbows. Her injured leg protested the movement, but she ignored her pain. Once at the top, Daria surveyed the area both with her othersense and her telescope. As far as she could tell, the land remained empty. Collapsing the telescope, she retreated down the slope.
Below her, she could see Micfal dragging one of the men toward the cliff and tossing the body over. When he’d finished, he met her at the base of the hill. “I’ve taken their supplies. We’re lucky. Seems like they’d recently replenished. The extra waterbags will help us get through the dessert.”
“What about the horses? We can’t let them run free and be found, and…” No! Unthinkable to run them off the cliff.
Micfal narrowed his eyes at a sorrel mare that had stopped to graze on a patch of yellowed grass. “We’ll take them with us. Use them to spell ours.” He flung his hand in a wide sweep. “But first, we need to attend to these.”
She grimaced, but forced herself to go to the man she’d first shot. He lay sideways in the dirt, the arrow penetrating his heart, his black uniform covered with dust. She turned him over.
Her gorge rose at the sight of the gray eyes staring blindly at the sky. Swallowing down her nausea, Daria grabbed for his arm and realized she recognized him—the young man Setteff had been talking to at that ill-fated banquet. The irony of his presence twisted her heart. One month allies, maybe even potential friends, the next month enemies. Now an ignominious death, his body thrown off a cliff, bones picked clean by scavengers.
Her ever-present anger at Thaddis raged forth, and she wanted to throw back her head and howl. Instead, moved by compassion, Daria knelt and closed his eyes. She bowed her head, only to realize she had no words. She refused to recite any of the death songs of Yadarius, and she’d only heard Besolet’s rituals at Stevenes’s funeral. Did the Goddess even care about this man? Had She somehow been responsible for the silence of Yadarius? The overthrowing of Seagem?
Shaking her head, Daria touched the man on the shoulder, above the blood-soaked heart. “May you find peace in the Hall of Besolet.”
For certainly there is no peace to be found here.
~ ~ ~
Khan floated above the greenhouse in his family’s compound. Outside the glass door, his mother’s rose bushes bloomed in bursting clusters of pale pink. The sweet scent of the flowers pulled him toward the ground.
As soon as his boots touched the sand, he ran to the door of his sanctuary, eager to see how his plants had fared in his absence. He reached for the doorknob. His hand passed right through. Delighted by the lack of a corporal body, he toyed with pushing and pulling his hand through the glass. Then impatient, he stepped inside.
The loamy smell of the air, so different from the desert, caught him full in the face. Inhaling slowly, he allowed the richness to fill his dry lungs, savoring, as if sipping a fine wine.
The aroma of home. How he’d missed it.
Opening his eyes, he took a quick scan around the room. Long tables laden with various-sized pots of growing plants filled the center space. Nothing appeared changed. He smiled in satisfaction. Omar had taken care of Khan’s legacy as he had promised.
In the far corner of the room, Omar straightened, a small trowel in one hand. He glanced over toward Khan, as if hearing something, but then bent back to his work.
I must be invisible.
Khan strode over to Omar, tried to tap him on the shoulder, but couldn’t actually touch him. “Omar.”
His foreman didn’t turn.
Khan pursed his lips, thinking. This might not be so easy. He played several Star Trek episodes through his mind and then skipped to various movies such as Ghost. How had spirits or people in dreams or other dimensions managed to make contact with the rest of the world? All he could remember were the failures.
With a crash, the glass door flew open. His half-brother, Amir, sauntered through, followed by a broad-shouldered, long-armed man wearing dark sunglasses and carrying a gun openly tucked into a shoulder harness.
Khan recognized the gorilla man as Martine’s favorite bullyboy. Moussad, that was his name. Fear for his friend flooded Khan’s gut.
“Omar!” Amir bellowed, stalking down the aisle, the gorilla only a step behind. “Where is my brother?”
Omar straightened.
Khan caught a glimpse of fear in Omar brown eyes, before they changed to deliberate senility.
Moussad grabbed Omar, pinning his arms behind him.
Amir swept his arm across a table. Small clay pots of herbs clattered to the cement floor, shattering. Soil and shards scattered underfoot. Amir ground a seedling under the heel of his Gucci loafers. “Where’s Khan? Tell us what you know, old man.”
“Nothing,” Omar’s voice quavered. “I’ve already told you. I know nothing.”
With a quick uppercut, Amir punched Omar in the stomach.
The older man doubled over, but, held tightly by Moussad, couldn’t escape.
Khan grabbed Moussad’s shoulder, intending to yank him off Omar. His hand slipped through Moussad’s body. Desperate, he tried again, pushing at the gorilla from the side. His arms met no resistance. He tumbled through the man, then Omar, and halfway penetrated the table before recovering his balance. He cursed his handicap, then rounded on Moussad again.
Amir shoved his face close to Omar’s. “I’ll wreck this whole place, old man, unless you tell me.” He picked up a flat of pots, newly planted, and threw it across the room, where it hit one of the large containers of roses and clattered in pieces across the table.
“No, no, Amir.”
“Then tell me.”
“He’s in England.” Omar’s voice rose in a creative wail.
Amir slapped him across the face. “He’s not there, fool. He didn’t go.”
Fiery hot anger shot through Khan, and he wanted to wring his brother’s neck.
Omar visibly quaked.
Khan calmed enough to admire Omar’s acting ability. His brother had better not give their foreman a chance to draw his dagger.
Omar aged his face even more. “I haven’t seen him. I take good care of his plants, just like he told me to.” He almost drooled out the words.
Rage crossed his brother’s face. With a shriek, he staggered up the aisle, knocking off pots.
Khan’s heart squeezed with helplessness. His fingers opened and closed, powerless to prevent the destruction of his work, the abuse of his mentor.
Amir tramped back. He wound back his arm and struck Omar’s stomach, and hissed, “You tell me if you hear anything from my brother.”
“Yes, yes.” Omar’s head bobbled.
Moussad shoved his captive.
The old man’s head hit the concrete, knocking him unconscious.
Khan dropped to his knees beside Omar’s limp body. His hands hovered over Omar’s face.
With a jolt, Khan returned to his body. His eyes snapped open. He lay in his bedroom in the new world. He thrust himself out of his sleeping bag, scrambling to his feet, and staggering over to the round window. Leaning out, he grabbed lungfuls of the cool night air. His stomach and face ached, as if he’d taken the blows along with Omar. A damp heat shivered through his limbs, and his head spun with pain and dizziness.
He straightened, fixing his sight on the two moons in the star-brushed sky. Just looking at the orbs floating overhead was a reminder he wasn’t on Earth.
As if I need a reminder.
Climbing into the window, he straddled the ledge. Gradually, the physical pain faded, but the em
otional wounds remained. Khan stared out at the night scene. He’d known when he left his home that his people could suffer, his crops might wither… His new life had been so all-consuming that he’d allowed his worries to slide to the back of his mind. Tried to believe that everyone was safe.
Guilt clenched like a hand against his throat.
Did I make the right choice?
~ ~ ~
Infuriated, Thaddis paced the balcony of the palace of Ocean’s Glory, ignoring how the sunlight sparkled diamond paths over the blue-green water and glittered the minerals in the orange-stone blocks of the building, turning his surroundings to gold. Months. He strode back and forth. He’d searched for Princess Daria for months. To no avail. He balled a fist around the latest futile report from his general.
He should be in Seagem, instead of being forced to return to his kingdom to take care of some business the council insisted was important. Although his soldiers continued the mission, he wanted to be there. And he would. In a few days. When he’d taken care of the more obstreperous members of his council.
Gentle steps sounded behind him. A familiar spicy scent drifted his way. Pasinae.
He whirled, displeased. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.
Her delicate black brows rose. “Hardly a welcome for your beloved.”
“You were supposed to remain in Ontarem’s land.”
She glided to him, placing one hand on his shoulder. “I knew you had need of me.”
“My need is to find Princess Daria!”
“Our God’s need is for you to find Princess Daria. Your need is for me.” She went up on tiptoe and pressed her red lips to his.
A shaft of lust cut through his anger. He pulled her toward him, crushing her soft body against his chest. He ground his hips against her, using her to rid his mind of a blond-haired vixen.
Pasinae responded eagerly, melting against him in a sensuous promise. But soon she slithered out of his grasp. “That’s better,” she purred, looked seductively up at him from beneath lowered lids, and sending him a sultry smile.
He reached out to grab her back, but she evaded him.
Sower of Dreams (The Gods' Dream Trilogy) Page 14
