‘This is madness,’ one of the strategists said.
Then Tyba asked in wonder, ‘Can you really control a conjuration for that long?’
‘I think so,’ I replied. ‘But you have to hold the real conjurer captive and conscious for all that time.’
‘And what about handling the spirit circle at the same time?’ Tyba added.
‘I can handle it if there is one, but I’m willing to chance they don’t have one,’ I said. ‘Why bother when they don’t see our ground troops as a threat? They’ll have dragons circling the camp to protect it from aerial attacks, but that won’t affect me if I’m in disguise.’
‘It is far too risky,’ said Sigthan. ‘You do not even speak Reltic, for one thing.’
Then Ciera added only to me, ‘I tend to agree, Talon. It’s a brave idea, but I do not want to lose you.’
He didn’t have to say it, but I was reminded that I would be holding his life on the brink, too. My resolve crumbled.
‘That’s true,’ I admitted, making my statement more towards Ciera than the strategists.
Commander Varal continued moving pieces about on the stone replica. Numbers were scratched into various lumps of wood, representing the placement of Defender warriors throughout the realm. Blue paint indicated the squadrons originating from Centan. These were spread out across the realm now; some 2,400 were on their way to Highford; 6,400 were nearing Lantaid, to my great relief; roughly 4,400 had travelled to Condii with only 4,300 remaining in the Cascade City. So we had divided our army… but what choice had we?
Tyba and I sat down; the backs of our knees were aching from standing for so long outside on the shrouds. Servants came to take away our armour for cleaning and offer warm water to wash our faces and hands. A pair of servants even removed our boots and washed and massaged our aching feet.
‘Thank you,’ I said when they had finished.
The middle-aged woman who had served me bowed politely. ‘My pleasure, Astor.’
‘Sooner or later I might learn to accept my new class and rank,’ I whispered to Tyba.
He grinned. ‘I’m the wrong person to confide that to. I’ve been royalty all my life.’
‘In Jaria everyone is afforded the respect and dignity of a child of Krii,’ I replied, wincing as I realised I still spoke as if Jaria still existed. ‘Not one person is considered higher or more blessed than another, even if they have more of the Astor gifts.’
‘But what about the people with none of those gifts?’ Tyba asked. ‘Would they not automatically feel less accepted? And if they are humble people, would they not be honoured to serve those with more abilities in battle?’
I nodded, realising that I myself had been in that position prior to meeting Rekala.
‘The servants do what they can to make you more effective, Talon,’ Tyba went on. ‘They know that you, and the others, with gifts, are the most powerful weapons we have against the Zeikas. That is why I cannot understand the position of the Wavekeepers.’
‘I agree with you,’ I said, ‘but imagine it from their point of view. They are mostly ungifted people, or have only one of the gifts, Sleffion, Tolite or Rada. They are jealous. What’s more, they find it threatening to think that an Anzaii with enough experience might actually be able to read their thoughts the same way their own beloved kin can.’
Tyba nodded. ‘And judging from the Zeikas’ drive to capture you alive, they have figured out a way to harness that telepathic power and use it to intercept our long distance communications.’
‘Tyba!’ Amadeus interrupted, allowing me (and therefore Ciera and Tiaro) to hear him on the waves, ‘Jaalta’s squadron has been intercepted. Reen has been knocked in the head and is fighting to stay aloft. He is no longer responding through the waves.’
My heart sank.
‘Can you reach Jaalta, Talon?’ Tyba asked.
‘I’ve never initiated contact before with a human,’ I replied. ‘But if she is open to me…’
‘Jaalta,’ I called. Tiaro joined her senses to mine in the waves, questing out over the mental landscape, searching for the pin-points of light indicating another’s awareness. There were tens of thousands of them and enough voices to make me go insane. Thoughts and emotions rose off them like steam invading my sense of purpose.
‘Jaalta,’ Tiaro reminded me. We searched.
I began to focus on those thoughts and feelings that were the most harried, the most threatened, the most desperate. A whirlwind of presences, floating up into the sky, caught my attention. These were Jaalta and her personal guard.
Even as we watched, one of Jaalta’s guards, Sanka, was knocked from her Sleffion-kin’s back and plummeted to the ground. There was no time for any of the three skyearls to react with a shroud. The light I perceived her mind as suddenly winked out. Her skyearl was driven to the ground after her by four dragons.
‘They’re in trouble,’ I murmured distractedly to Tyba.
Jaalta was dragged from Reen’s back and the skyearl set upon by three dragons. Their demonic jaws opened wide and their unnaturally long teeth stabbed into the skyearl’s neck. Reen fell, back first, towards the ground, wings flapping uselessly. As he perished, Jaalta went limp in the arms of her captors. The emotion that seared from her threw me to the floor. I didn’t care what it looked like to those gathered in the Vista.
‘Jaalta,’ I called. ‘We will come for you. Jaalta.’
There was no response. Then Galtoro touched my mind. Though just a stone, the Anzaii-kin’s mental presence was strong. Perhaps being trapped in an innate body made him completely reliant on, and therefore proficient with, his wave senses.
‘They have not harmed her,’ Galtoro said. ‘This is… a bad sign.’
‘They are taking care not to harm her,’ I relayed to Tyba, reaching up one arm from my position on the floor. ‘They surely mean to use her in the way you suggested.’
‘Go!’ Tyba shouted to someone else in the hall.
Boots clattered on the floor as whoever it was ran to do Tyba’s bidding. Tiaro and I noticed several other presences turn their attention to Jaalta. As one they began to converge on her location. The dragons and Zeikas that were still struggling with Jaalta’s remaining guardian, Amril, drove him further away from her, leaving the one carrying the Anzaii free to retreat. His dragon somersaulted and shot away to the south, bearing the inconsolable Jaalta away.
Tyba, Varal and the strategists were shouting. Pain erupted inside me; the most terrible grief I could imagine, ripping open old and long buried feelings from my own childhood. Jaalta’s reaction to Reen’s death had been entirely different to anything I had ever experienced, and yet the memories it awoke in me were like red-hot daggers stabbing me from all sides. When I opened my tear-filled eyes even more people had appeared in the room. Two servants lifted me up by the arms and patted my face and back.
‘Reen is dead,’ I stuttered. The shouting ceased and all eyes turned toward me. ‘Sanka and her Sleffion-kin have also been slain.’
‘And Amril?’ Tyba asked.
I concentrated for a moment on the waves before saying, ‘He and his Sleffion-kin made it to the ground… fighting off Zeikas with help from citizens.’
My breath came in gasping sobs. Someone pressed a cold swab against my forehead. I closed my eyes and swallowed. Reassuring hands pressed me down into a wooden chair.
‘I must go now,’ I said. ‘We cannot allow our most powerful Anzaii to be exploited by them. Not only will we lose a powerful warrior, but we may also lose our main advantage over the Zeikas…’
Tyba looked long into my eyes—and finally nodded. ‘Talon’s right. If the Zeikas are able to use Jaalta’s wave senses to intercept the communications from this building, they will ambush us at every turn.’
I noticed a hooded figure pulling back his cowl. Standing right before us—daring to be within our midst—was none other than Corypha.
‘Do not attempt a rescue,’ he said loudly. ‘You must send spearskyearls
and slay her now, before they get to the camps. It is the right thing to do.’
The heat that flashed through me was enough to make the food I’d eaten riot through my body. I flew from my seat, bowling Corypha over. Both of us slid several paces across the polished floor. Without even thinking, I had shifted into icetiger form, blue fur bristling like razor-sharp icicles. My claws pressed savagely into Corypha’s chest, drawing blood through his cloak. He shouted and struggled, but nobody moved to stop me. It was only the words of my Sleffionkin, which registered dimly in my hate-clouded, instinct-driven mind that stopped me from biting the traitor’s throat open.
‘…not do anything unwise,’ Ciera was saying.
I panted over Corypha’s face, enjoying the fear that filled his eyes. My finger-length fangs brushed against his cheek, threatening to lay him open.
‘You dare to show yourself here,’ Tyba roared at him. ‘Murderer! Betrayer of the crown!’
‘But not a betrayer of Krii,’ Corypha sputtered, trying to shove me off.
The crowd in the room seemed to have thickened. I could not see a path out of there. I had decided… whatever these people might say… the right course of action was not to kill Jaalta. It was to rescue her and destroy those oil barrels. I could do both.
I clenched my claws even tighter into Corypha’s flesh. He sobbed in pain. But it was nothing compared to the pain in which many of the strike force Anzaii had died. The pain that assailed me now. It was suffocating. My chest ached and stung… it burned… and a terrible weight pressed down upon me. It dawned on me that I was sensing my enemy’s pain. I slowly released Corypha. I did not enjoy being the author of that sensation after all.
Ciera cocked his head at me. Something important had just happened, but at the moment I could not bring myself to think about it. What now would we do with the traitor? I morphed slowly back into my human form and unbent from a crouching position to stand over him. Corypha remained on the floor, pressing his hands against the gouges in his chest. They weren’t serious.
Nobody spoke.
All eyes were on Tyba and myself.
Even Amadeus, who was usually so quick to speak, remained silent, waiting.
‘It was you who poisoned the food supplies of the strike force,’ I accused Corypha. ‘You will tell these people everything you have set in motion, who you were working with and for how long.’
Tyba nodded at me. Behind him, High Commander Varal made a dismissive gesture as if he knew there was no stopping me.
‘I am leaving now,’ I said to the crowd, turning my back on Corypha. ‘To rescue Jaalta and prevent the Zeikas from invading our lines of communication and forging ones of their own.’
The Tanzans parted before me and someone ran from the back of the room carrying a set of Zeika armour for me. I glanced at Tyba and Amadeus.
‘Krii go with you,’ Tyba said.
‘Our aims are much the same,’ Corypha stammered desperately.
I turned to him with a glare of such loathing that several people drew their breath and looked away.
‘But where you give deceit and death, I will risk everything to save her.’
‘You will be captured along with her,’ Corypha shouted maniacally. He had crawled to a sitting position. ‘Stop him!’ Two guards stepped in to lift him to his feet and hold him still. ‘Then where will we be?’ he cried desperately.
‘You live in fear,’ I retorted. ‘Fear is from Zeidarb. I serve Krii. We will make light.’
With his lips curled up in a snarl, Ciera shook his head at the cowardly traitor and followed me out of the room.
Chapter Eighteen—Infiltration
After the encounter with Corypha in the Vista, Ciera and I made contact with a group of citizens in Condii city who had a lone conjurer trapped inside a house. His death hawk was wreaking havoc inside, but so far the Condiites had managed to board up all the windows and keep them both contained.
A handful of Defender warriors and civilians made way for Jett and I after Ciera and Ptemais touched down. I strode into the house in full Zeika garb, including a faceless, green helm. My features were deliberately obscured by two shallow scratches over one eye, which had dribbled blood down over the right side of my face.
The conjurer screwed his ugly face up at me when I appeared. He garbled something at me in Reltic, which I ignored. He didn’t realise I was a Kriite until the moment I interrogated the connection between him and his conjuration.
My confuse ability made it seem as if I stood on the bank of a river holding the Zeika’s hand in one of mine, and on the other bank was the death hawk. As long as I held tightly to the Zeika’s hand, he could neither control nor dismiss his conjuration.
With the death hawk in tow, Ciera and I flew with all speed toward the Egg Basket Range and the closest promontory he could get to without being spotted from the Zeika encampment. Despite his anxiety, his thoughts toward me were suffused with an air of pride I had not sensed before.
It took all of my concentration to know what I was doing in the waking world as well as keeping hold of the Zeika in the spirit realm. Every now and then the death hawk veered sharply towards me, snapping its jaws. The black eyes glinted fiercely, as if the demons inside were ready for the slightest lapse in my concentration.
Tiaro fortified me with all her strength. In the spirit realm she no longer seemed to take the form of a cat. Rather her spirit seemed layered over my own, a second hand reaching out with my own hand to clench the Zeika tightly. There was an unspoken agreement between us that Tiaro’s concentration would not waver from holding the Zeika for even an instant. This would leave me somewhat more able to deal with whatever happened in the waking world.
Jett and Ptemais agreed, reluctantly, to wait by the promontory with Ciera. If there was anything they could do to help me they would be there, with a moment’s notice. We all knew that, in this instance, there would be nothing they could do. It was the first time, since before I had become bonded with Rekala, that I’d had such a heavy responsibility to bear alone.
In some ways it felt like a test. After having kindred for so long, could I truly do anything useful without anyone by my side? Well, not entirely… Tiaro was still right there on my ear. And a Radakin that spoke Reltic was ready to join with me in the waves and translate anything that was said. I had been warned not to say much or else my pronunciation and accent would give me away.
I squared my shoulders, tried to assume an air of superiority, and stalked down the gravelly hillside. Ciera’s feelings of helplessness followed me down the dark trail. I tried hard to lend a bit of my strength to Tiaro who was struggling to hold onto the Zeika. She was praying non-stop in all kinds of tongues I didn’t understand. The words of angels.
The death hawk followed me obediently. All I had to do was think a specific action towards it and it would do it. Fly in a circle. Turn around. Fly backwards. Perform a somersault and swoop upwards…
I was moving uphill, through a small forest when the faint smell of a Zeika’s herb-washed body came to me. I could wait until he passed, but with daylight swiftly approaching, I needed to keep moving. It would be so much harder to light those oil barrels in the open light of day. I proceeded out of the forest with a supercilious demeanour. A dark figure stepped out from behind a boulder.
‘Identify yourself,’ the voice was harsh, but young.
The death hawk soared back down out of the sky and I made it circle the speaker three times. He had drawn his sword several paces away and stood at the ready.
‘Underling,’ I spat, in Reltic. ‘You will not address me so.’
The Zeika took one look at the death hawk and bowed low. ‘Apologies, Master Conjurer. I am on scout patrol and I did not expect anyone to come from this direction.’
‘Nay, you would not. It is often those who don’t expect the unexpected who end up dead.’
I knew death was a sore point for most Zeikas, who strived to prolong their lives through sorcery.
‘Yes, Master.’
‘Continue,’ I said, hoping he would carry on. Instead he turned to follow me.
Now I’d better not make a wrong turn or he would know I didn’t know where I was going.
‘If I may, Master,’ the Zeika began, ‘what is happening on the front lines?’
I clenched my teeth. The Rada-kin who spoke Reltic was with me in the waves, giving me the words I needed to speak.
‘We are pushing through their pitiful defences even now. It is only a matter of time before Condii falls.’
The death hawk sailed low over my head, missing me by mere inches. I pretended not to be surprised. My fists were clenched tightly by my sides and sweat beaded around the blood on my face.
‘Praise Zei,’ said the boy. I did not echo him, as was expected.
That could be a problem.
‘Just say it,’ the Rada-kin advised me. ‘If it does not come from your heart then Krii will not abandon you.’
‘Not unless I have to,’ I replied stubbornly.
The hawk cawed angrily, flying in tighter and tighter circles.
‘Your conjuration is most restless,’ the boy observed.
I cut him off with a sharp gesture of my hand. ‘That’s because I am in no mood for diversions, boy.’
A wooden palisade came into view, with orange torches gleaming at intervals along it. The front gate was manned by two guards with melee weapons. On either side was a skinny tower with a single bowman in each. The large doorway was recessed with hanging leather instead of a real, fortified gate. They obviously weren’t expecting any enemies to get this close.
I forced myself not to look up and around as I approached the gate. I’ve seen this many times before, I tried to tell myself. I am bored by it. I am tired and angry from battle.
The boy who had been following me kept marching straight past the gate to continue his rounds. He spoke not another word to me, for which I was grateful. The less talking I had to do, the better. The guards sneered as I passed through. The death hawk flitted this way and that, coming very close to one of their heads. He swore at me and made a shooing gesture.
Tanza Page 20
