Nate noticed the gilintrae was glowing in the harsh daylight, a rainbow of lights traveling counterclockwise in the air above the ring of jewels on the outer circumference of the bracelet.
“I choose you, the Narixtlal, to be the messengers of T’naritza, now and for all time,” Bithia said with suitable gravity.
In response to some signal from her, the circle of rainbow lights lifted away from the gilintrae and flashed across the open space. The illumination settled on the old man’s head, gleaming brightly for no more than ten seconds before blazing like flames and winking out. The aged patriarch was so moved, he practically fainted. His remaining sons had to hold him on his feet.
“We’ve heard how you unleashed the blue fire on Nochen and destroyed the city in one afternoon,” said the younger woman. “I wish I could have beheld the glorious sight. I lost two brothers and a sister to the altars and the well in past years. The priestesses came time and again for more innocents to sacrifice.”
“No more slaughter of innocent humans,” Bithia said sternly. “Rooting out the remnants of the evil will take time and many good people such as yourselves working together.”
“Time to go,” Nate said as Thom rode up, leading his kemat. Taking the reins, Nate swung into the saddle and wheeled his restless mount in the direction they were heading. “Good luck to you on the rest of your journey.” He kicked the animal into a trot and left, trusting his people to follow obediently and promptly, which they did.
He knew the refugees watched them until the road finally took a gentle curve to avoid a rocky outcrop, obscuring them from view.
Bithia spurred her mount to draw alongside his. “Are you angry with me?”
“I’m not sorry Thom and I intervened. I’d have preferred the family not see you. I don’t want word to spread that T’naritza is riding in the countryside anointing messengers, in case Sarbordon or Lolanta are still alive. You must be number one on their list of people to hunt and either recapture or kill.”
“You don’t think the enemy’ll be too scared of her powers to want to mess with her again after she destroyed Nochen?” Thom asked.
Nate shook his head. “Remember, I had an uncomfortable interview with Lolanta, whose view of reality was seriously askew. If she survived the blast, she’s going to be thinking about revenge and blood sacrifices to rebuild Huitlani’s power. She’s a true believer.”
“I agree.” Celixia, who’d listened intently, nodded. “Lolanta has powers of persuasion beyond the blatantly obvious. She can influence others to follow her, to do her bidding and believe as she does. I’ve seen her at work enough times, in Nochen. Her royal husband depended on her abilities heavily.”
“We’ll have to stay out of her path. Hell, we don’t even know if she made it out of Nochen.” Thom injected a cheerful note into the discussion. “What are we worrying about here?”
“We need to be even more circumspect from here on out. I wish we didn’t have to keep to the damn road.” Nate checked with Atletl. “Are you sure there’s no alternative route to our ship?”
The Githholz shook his head in regretful denial. “Your ship crashed in the meadows of the lower Golhant Plateau. There is only the one scalable path to the top of the plateau, and this road paved the trail many centuries ago. Hundreds of men died under the overeers’ whips to grade the incline enough to make it easily passable for trade. No other approach to the plateau from the south exists, unless you wish to assault the cliffs themselves, which no man has ever done.”
“And which we aren’t going to do,” Bithia declared in a tone brooking absolutely no argument. “I could hang on long enough to sort of slide down the cliff at the beach, but I could never manage to climb the sheer face of the plateau.”
“You know the area?” Nate was surprised.
She nodded. “It’s a major feature of this part of the continent. My father’s crew mapped it all, remember?”
He shook his head. “Sorry, sometimes I forget you were a member of a scientific expedition. I’ll take your word for it that we’re stuck with the damn road. How many days’ ride to get to the top of the plateau, and how far is the ship from there? Can we at least leave the confines and perils of the road and go cross-country to the ship once we’re on the plateau?”
“Yes.” Atletl’s confirmation eased Nate’s fears about possible ambush and the danger of their recapture by enemy forces. “We’ll be on the road for the rest of today and part of tomorrow, probably until past the midday sun. There’s a village at the foot of the incline. I am assuming you’ll want to be unobserved as much as possible, which means waiting until nightfall tomorrow to make a detour?”
Nate nodded emphatically.
“It takes about half a day—or night—to reach the top of the plateau on foot, so we’ll probably make better time with the kemat, although they’ll need to be rested often. You crashed to the west.” Atletl paused, face set in a frown as he spoke of the past. “Your ship flashed overhead, accompanied by deafening thunder, spewing flames in the sky. The officer in charge of the prisoners, Salinaxt, was the king’s cousin. He was determined to investigate where you landed, in case it was something to do with Fr’taray’s return. He was well versed in the family mysteries.”
“He stood third or fourth in line for the throne,” Celixia said. “So he’d been shown the secret chamber of the Sleeping Goddess and was educated on all the prophecies. He was rumored to have fathered at least one of Lolanta’s sons.”
“Salinaxt had us camp for the better part of a day while he took a party of warriors and marched due west to your crash site. When they brought the three of you to the camp, none of us could believe our eyes. At first we expected you to destroy the enemy, setting us all free. But then you behaved like mere men, no different from the rest of us, especially since you submitted to the chains and beatings, as helpless to resist as we were. But I was positive, even then, that this must be part of a grand, complicated plan on the part of Fr’taray to test how things were on Talonque since he left.”
“The situation was complicated,” Nate said. “Not sure there was a plan.”
Thom took a drink from his waterskin. “Poor Haranda. He was so damn scared until we started playing sapiche, and then he believed he’d found the way out. At least he died happy and full of hope.”
“May the Lords of Space keep him,” Nate said somberly.
He rode in silence for a few moments, thinking about the young cadet’s fate at the hands of Kalgitr. Then he sent Thom out to ride advance scout, picking up the pace, concentrating on the journey north.
Two days later, when he should have been flush with confidence, Nate had an unexplainable back-of-the-neck premonition that all was not well. He couldn’t pinpoint any one thing causing his unease. They’d ridden past the village guarding the base of the long, exposed stretch of road climbing the plateau without trouble. As Atletl had suggested, they bypassed the bustling crossroads in the dead of night, the hooves of their mounts deadened with cloth so as not to alert anyone. By dawn, even after allowing their kemat frequent rest stops on the steep grade, they’d ridden into the grasslands atop the plateau. Nate set a fast pace, and the other four kept up without complaint.
The attack came when he least expected it, as the party, with him in the rear, crossed the plains toward a shallow river, heading for the cover of the dense forest on the far bank. Suddenly, a spear whistled past his left side, splashing into the river ahead. Even as Nate checked his six, his kemat screamed, crashing heavily under a fresh assault of short spears.
In retrospect, and while blaming himself bitterly, Nate had to accept he’d let his guard down slightly, riding so close to the sanctuary of their ship. Atletl’s estimate had been perhaps another half a day of riding.
Tangled in the stirrups, Nate was stunned by the fall, his foot trapped under the dying animal. Drawing the alien weapon, he craned his head to shout orders across the stream at the others. “Ride, dammit, we can’t let them get their hand
s on Bithia again.”
A yelling pack of black-clad temple guards raced along the riverbank, coming from the cover of an outcropping of boulders at the stream’s bend a few hundred yards away. Four men on kemat led the attack.
Atletl wasted no time in grabbing the reins of Celixia’s mount and galloped west, disappearing into the depths of the forest.
Bithia screamed Nate’s name from across the river. Standing in her stirrups, she fought for control of her panicked kemat. “I refuse to leave you.”
Thom hesitated, drawing his weapon. He forced his mount into the stream, despite the hail of spears and the oncoming men. “I’ll be right there.” He fired a bolt past Nate, taking out one advancing kemat and rider, then made as if to jump from his saddle. “Swing up behind me.”
“No time, I’m stuck—get her out of here!” Nate swatted at Thom’s kemat savagely as it approached, startling it into a rearing jump in the other direction. As he scrambled onto the opposite bank, Thom slapped the rump of Bithia’s mount, sending her in a headlong gallop in the direction Atletl and Celixia had gone seconds before.
“Keep going!” Nate yelled. He fought clear from his dying kemat and managed to squeeze off two shots on the run, burning one mounted guard and one foot soldier before he heard a buzzing sound. Checking the weapon’s indicator light with a swift glance, he found the symbol flickering. Cursing, he threw the weapon into the river and slogged on, making a valiant, if futile, attempt to save himself by reaching the far bank and then sprinting for the cover of the trees.
A well-thrown club struck him in the temple as two cavalrymen thundered past him and across the river. Losing consciousness, slipping into the cold river, Nate hoped Thom and Bithia had gotten enough of a head start to escape.
More cold water thrown at him brought him to consciousness. Cursing, Nate tried to sit, but two spearpoints stabbed into his chest, convincing him resistance wasn’t going to gain him any advantage. He lay on the muddy riverbank, glaring at a ring of soldiers.
“Wise,” came the hated voice of Lolanta. “You’re of no use to me dead. Not yet.” She lingered over the last word, taunting him. “But I’ll order them to kill you, if you resist.”
The guards hauled him to his feet to face the waiting priestess.
“Do what you want with me, but you’ll never get your filthy hands on her again,” Nate spat.
“I wouldn’t be too sure. Even if my mounted guardsmen don’t capture her outright, there may be other ways.” Lolanta nodded with apparent satisfaction. The richly embroidered hood of her black cape fell onto her shoulders. Nate stifled an exclamation. Lolanta hadn’t escaped the destruction of Nochen unscathed. The left side of her head was bald, flame-red, misshapen, scarred, the hair having fallen out in clumps. Lesions and patches of necrotizing skin attested to the radioactive nature of the burns. Her left eye was ghastly white, blinking furiously and independently of its twin, and tearing.
Lolanta flinched only slightly at Nate’s appalled reaction. “Your goddess did her best to kill me and failed.” Running a gloved hand over her head, she said, “My beauty will be fully restored by Huitlani once I make the proper sacrifices. If I bathe my wounds in T’naritza’s blood, the evil will be undone.”
Nate knew this woman was mad enough to expect such a thing to work. He prayed Bithia and Thom could reach the safety of their ship with their head start. Maybe Thom’s Mark One held more charge than his.
“Bind him securely, but don’t harm him.” Lolanta tugged at her hood to hide the deformities. “Lash him to a kemat and let us be on our way.” Turning to Nate, she said with contempt, “It was obvious you’d try to reach the place where you first came to Talonque. I’d no need to follow your travels, although my spies brought me word of your deeds, your progress. I came straight to the plateau, laid my ambush in the best spot, and you rode into the trap.”
“The only one you caught was me, so you failed in your main purpose.”
She didn’t seem distressed by that. “We’ll see. This game is far from finished.”
“Where’s Sarbordon?” Nate asked as the guards tied his hands securely behind his back.
“I assume he died in the greater death of Nochen.” Lolanta didn’t evidence any distress, much less grief, over the probable fate of her co-ruler. “The last time I saw him, he was lying on her silver couch, slashing the mattress with his belt knife, sobbing and raging against you for freeing her. Taking her away from him. I assume he was still there when her father’s powers blasted the entire city to nothing.”
“How did you escape?”
Lolanta laughed. “Huitlani watches over me. I didn’t resign my allegiance to him in wonderment over a useless sleeping girl. I’d gone to oversee the sacrifices at the great altar near the bridge. When the earthquakes became numerous, I understood the tremors were a sign from Huitlani, so I gathered my company and fled. I wasn’t quite quick enough, as you observed from your perusal of my face, but yet I live. And all shall be restored to me, as I’ve prophesied, once the right offerings of human hearts are made.”
She walked away from Nate as the guards threw him to the ground to bind his legs. Watching to see what she was going to do next, Nate was puzzled to see the priestess take a few steps into the cold river, oblivious to the water lapping at her knees, drenching the hem of her garment. Raising her voice and speaking forcefully in the direction of the opposite shore, she called out, “There’s an ancient temple nearby, on the edge of the plateau itself. My people constructed it when we first came from the mountains to begin our conquest of Talonque. It is the sacred spot where we beseeched Huitlani to grant us the power of life and death over this land. I’ve reconsecrated the altar in the last two days with fresh blood, new hearts. Huitlani is pleased and awaiting more offerings. At sunset, your captain dies there.”
The guards dragged Nate toward a waiting kemat.
He tried to concentrate on reaching Bithia, mind to mind. He tried sending a thought one more time, wishing he’d taken the Mellurean training so long ago. Don’t listen to her. Don’t do anything foolish like trying to rescue me. It’s a trap. He injected as much strength into the mental sending as he could, but received no response, no flicker of acknowledgment. The tiny flame emblematic of their link burned in his mind as always, but Bithia made no reply.
Lolanta mounted her own, sleek black kemat, and the mixed column of cavalry and foot soldiers moved out. The animal carrying Nate was placed in the middle of the column to foil any attempt at rescue. He made his peace with fate. There was no way Thom could rescue him, not with only one weapon. Nate allowed himself to hope Bithia was safe and wouldn’t risk herself to come after him.
But he didn’t really believe it.
CHAPTER TEN
Nate was dizzy from being carried head down, draped over a kemat like an oversized sack of grain. When the column finally reached their destination at the temple, a laughing guard tipped him headfirst off the kemat. Somersaulting helplessly, Nate slammed onto his back on the hard ground. Blinking to clear his head, Nate found himself at the foot of a massive, crumbling statue, one of a pair guarding the stairs to the top of the temple. Badly weathered and defaced though the idol was, Nate could make out the uniquely horrific features of Huitlani.
One of the guards slashed the ropes at his ankles. Other men hauled him to his feet.
“Climb the sacred stairs under your own power,” said the guard on his left. “We’ve better things to do than carry you.”
This pyramid was smaller than the one at Nochen, but it was a long slog to the top. He couldn’t see much point in resisting, so he climbed as he’d been ordered. Lolanta rushed up the stairs to join him, grabbing his arm to steady herself.
There was something ancient and evil, not quite human, about Lolanta, even before her face had been marked by the radiation. “This place will have to do for tonight’s ceremony,” she said. “We’ve much rebuilding to do, since the shrines in the capital were destroyed by you and your Sleep
ing Goddess.”
She continued climbing the broad flight of easy stairs with him, chatting away the whole time. The guards followed a stair or two behind, keeping a watchful eye on Nate.
“The Githholz no doubt are destroying or defiling any other places of our worship their soldiers find,” Lolanta told him at one point with barely suppressed fury.
As if it’s my fault.
“My network of priestesses tell me the enemy advance through the lowlands, welcomed by the peasants, and those fools, the city governors, are doing nothing to work together and fight the enemy. Too concerned with their own holdings to care about the greater sway of the empire we once ruled. Huitlani will gladly drink your blood and eat your heart, warrior, wherever he can get it—old temple, bare field, anyplace properly consecrated with the rituals. Your part in bringing this ruin crashing upon all our heads must be punished. He’ll reward me well for killing you.”
“Your day is done, and so is Huitlani’s. Killing me isn’t going to do anything but temporarily satisfy your twisted urge for revenge.” Nate considered throwing himself backward, taking her with him in a deadly fall from the top of the stairs.
As if reading his mind, Lolanta disengaged her arm from his and stepped away. Instantly, one of the massive temple guards took her place, his grip on Nate implacable. The brief chance, if ever it had existed, to escape death on the altar by a suicidal plunge off the pyramid was gone.
“Huitlani told me what must occur in order for him to re-establish rule over this world.” Lolanta’s voice held contempt for Nate’s predictions. “Your death is the first, essential step in that process. I follow the god’s plan.”
He studied her for a moment. “Why do you find it so necessary to argue with me, then? I think you don’t genuinely believe your own words. I think you’re questioning your faith and whether your god has deserted you forever.”
Trapped On Talonque: (A Sectors SF romance) Page 24
