Heirs of the Fallen: Book 02 - Crown of the Setting Sun
Page 12
By the time he gathered his wits, Zera was there, pulling him to his feet. They made several more jumps in quick succession, until they had gone as far as they could.
Zera hunkered down, gazing into the depths of a wide breach created by a crossing street. Nothing stirred, but the calls of the beasts that hunted them sounded nearer.
“They have found our scent,” she announced. “We have time only until they reach the first rooftop. After that, they will be upon us.”
Leitos did not need her to explain the ease and speed with which the loathsome creatures would follow. He scanned ahead, struggling to separate merged shadows, until he found what had to be the southernmost portion of the city wall. It was not very far now.
“We must go down.”
Zera searched around. “There,” she said with a measure of relief, and strode to a pair of thick vertical rails joined by a rung, jutting a foot above the building’s rear side.
Leitos gave the ladder a critical appraisal, then made to climb onto the uppermost rung. Zera stopped him.
“Due caution does not make you a coward,” she said gently, and eased him aside.
Taking the vertical rails in hand, she heaved against them. Heavily rusted cleats affixed to the building held them in place. The ladder rattled, but seemed sound. Next she tested her weight on the top three rungs. They creaked, but held.
“This will not hold us both at the same time,” Zera warned. “Come at my signal.” Then she was gone.
Leitos leaned over to watch her descend. The cleats groaned in their settings, and a rung gave way with a dusty crunch, momentarily leaving Zera dangling by one hand.
“Hold on!” Leitos hissed.
“I’m fine,” she answered, regaining a secure hold. She scrambled farther down and jumped clear. With her back pressed against the building, she looked first one way then the other, head cocked to catch the slightest sound. Only then did she motion him to follow.
He mounted the ladder, and in doing so caught sight of a pack of Alon’mahk’lar on the first rooftop. They gathered too far away to make out individual characteristics, but without question they sought the scent of their prey. Suddenly one of the beasts raised its muzzle skyward, baying. The others turned, silvery eyes glimmering like dull stars. As Leitos started down, the first one bounded across to the next rooftop.
Leitos flew down the ladder. Splinters gouged his palms, rungs cracked, and the by the time he was halfway to Zera, several cleats had given way. The ladder’s upper length sprang loose from the wall, swaying like a tree caught in a high wind. A loud popping noise heralded the ladder’s demise, and while still ten feet up, Leitos flung himself clear, landing with a pained grunt. The ruined ladder crashed down around him and burst into a cloud of dust and bits of flying wood.
“Time to run,” Zera said, again with that disturbing, overeager light in her eyes.
Leitos did not wait for her to take the first step.
Chapter 17
The road out of the bone-town rose steep and winding for a mile or more, then crested a hilly plateau home only to rock, stiff thorn bushes, and sand. The familiar barrenness could not temper Leitos’s joy at escaping, but Zera’s words did.
“They follow,” she said in grim tones, head cocked in a listening posture. Leitos heard only the wind rattling through the nearby brush, the gentle hiss of sand swirling against itself. Nevertheless, he believed her. Not only could she see well in darkness, she also seemed to hear better than anyone he had ever known.
“I can still run,” he said, but worried about how long he could continue. As far as he could tell, Zera suffered no ill-effects from the chase.
They set out at a brisker pace than before. The road carried them south over low hills, and brought them to a wall of overhanging cliffs. The roadway passed through a narrow gorge. In the night it had the aspect of a bottomless chasm opening onto Geh’shinnom’atar itself. Leitos peered into that darkness. What waits down there?
“Maybe we can go around,” Leitos suggested.
Zera disagreed. “The cliffs are high and wide. We will make our stand here. Rather, I will make a stand. You continue on until I catch up. This is no fight for you.” Not a hint of doubt or fear lived in her voice.
“You cannot face these things alone. I can fight,” he added, unwilling to leave her behind. He was no warrior, but he was done bowing to the fear in his breast. If their fate was to face the enemy and perish, at least he would go to his grave with a clear conscience.
“Do not be a fool,” Zera chided gently. “If I must defend you and myself, at the same time, we will both die. Go, now, before it is too late. Run and do not halt ... no matter what you hear.” It was not an invitation, or a plea, but a command.
Leitos looked back along the road they had run, its length indistinguishable from the rest of the landscape after a few paces. He could now make out the braying calls of the Alon’mahk’lar.
His lips parted to protest, but Zera held up a hand. “Go, Leitos,” she ordered, a lithe silhouette, sword bared, framed by an aura of night and stars. “Go, and do not look back!”
Leitos ran just far enough to escape Zera’s exceptional sight and hearing. Lost in the gorge’s deep shadows, he slowed to a halt. Where the racket of the Alon’mahk’lar had grown louder the closer they came, now an abrupt silence held sway. Unnatural, oppressive, full of dire portent, it seemed to smother the land.
He drew his knife and headed into the litter of boulders beneath the gorge’s towering walls. He lost himself amid the fallen slabs, creeping and climbing his way back toward Zera.
A shriek, inhuman and swollen with fury, ripped apart the tense stillness, reverberated back through the gorge, crashing over Leitos. He froze. Gods good and wise, what creature could have made such a cry? Zera could not face such a terror alone.
He scrabbled over the boulders, flung himself from one to another, bruising and scraping his flesh in his haste. He had made it most of the way back when he drew up short, perched atop a massive stone block.
Distorted shapes leaped and careened in a maddened frenzy at the feet of a towering, winged creature of swirling mists. Even as he watched, the thing changed, grew larger, humped of back, thick of limb. It lashed out at its foes, and howls of pain followed. The winged creature swept a knotted arm at an attacking Alon’mahk’lar, colliding with the sound of snapping bones. It sprawled in motionless silence. Another Alon’mahk’lar fared worse, seemingly torn in half amid a shower of vile blood. Instead of giving pause, the sudden destruction riled the attackers to greater frenzy.
They have turned on each other, Leitos thought, momentarily pleased, until he remembered that Zera was caught in that madness!
He slithered down the rock and dashed toward the enemy, knife held before him as though it were a weapon of mystic lethality. As he reached the edge of the fray a great, yielding mass buffeted him to one side with a leathery slap. He tumbled over sand and jutting rocks, and fetched up against a thorny bush.
“Run!” Zera cried from very near the winged creature, her voice throaty and strained from the labors of battle. Head spinning, Leitos bounced unsteadily to his feet.
“Damn your foolish hide, flee!” Zera commanded, sounding nearer. Then he saw her, just a hazed shape amid the swirling mists of the winged creature. Her sword slashed and stabbed, a fury of motion driving back the Alon’mahk’lar. As soon as he saw her, she was lost from sight, and the winged creature screamed into the face of the night. As that eye-watering cry raced over the desert, Leitos heard Zera once more. “LEAVE!”
His feet carried him away before he registered that they had turned. His shoulders hunched defensively, as another of those shrieks rose above the din and cascaded into the black depths of the gorge.
The road dropped precipitously, and the raging tumult lost much of its ferocity, sounding as if it were far above him. Leitos ran on, his treacherous heart pumping the searing poison of shame through his veins. It did not matter that he could n
ot have done anything, save get himself killed. What did matter was that he had left Zera behind, abandoned her to a fate worse than death. She had commanded him, but in this instance obedience was unforgivable. Just as he was about to turn, a prolonged keening wail, no more human than any of the other sounds he had heard this night, pushed him onward.
After another mile, Leitos’s legs gave out, dropping him to the roadway. He lay curled in the dust, taking bitter solace from the blanket of darkness covering him. He wished the night was a black sea, churned by impartial tides that would sweep him away … away from all regret and fury and trouble.
Zera’s words came to him then. “There is no place for weakness and self-pity in this world. You die or you survive. Life under the rule the Faceless One is struggle and pain and sorrow. If you are favored by the Silent God, you may enjoy a rare and fleeting moment of joy. Lying down, surrendering, leads to death—slow or fast it may come, but it is death all the same…. Decide, Leitos, because there are many others who would chance all the remaining moments of their lives for the opportunity you have been given.”
Of the beautiful Hunter, he was certain she had given her life for him, as had Adham. He owed them more than surrender.
“Get up,” he commanded himself. He shoved his hands under his chest and pushed up, struggling through the oppressive weight of the night, and all the troubles it had brought him.
He stood in the middle of a forgotten road that led north to a forgotten city, and south to a haven of the Alon’mahk’lar. Unless some living horror came out of the north, he committed himself to wait until dawn for Zera’s unlikely return. After that, he would proceed to Zuladah, using the denizens of that city to confuse his trail for those who hunted him, be they men or Sons of the Fallen….
At a rattle of stone, Leitos whirled, ready to defend himself. Zera came into view, looking none the worse for wear.
“You are alive?” Leitos said in a breathless murmur.
“You expected otherwise?” she replied.
“I—I,” Leitos sputtered. Then burst out, “How? There were so many … and the one, it … it—”
“It died like the rest,” Zera said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Swords kill, when wielded properly.”
“But how?” Leitos persisted. He had fled knowing she would die, yet here she stood.
Zera sighed heavily. “Anything that has blood in its veins can lose that blood, if the proper means are used.” She frowned then. “Of course, had you heeded me, I would have dispatched those demon-spawn all the sooner. You and I need to talk about your failure to obey orders.”
“I did not want leave you,” Leitos said.
“Since things turned out well, I suppose you can be forgiven.” She offered him a smile that blurred the recurring images of the battle in his mind. “Come, we have many leagues to go before we can take a proper rest.”
Leitos stifled a groan, but knew they could not stay put. She had destroyed a number of Alon’mahk’lar, but more could come. Running was out of the question for Leitos, so they ambled along. Inside Leitos’s exhausted mind, he saw again that last battle, wondering how any one human could harbor the deadly skill needed to best such a dread host. In the end he decided it was a blessing beyond measure that Zera was a friend and not a foe.
Chapter 18
Morning found Leitos bleary-eyed and hungry. Zera directed him off the road and into the waiting desert. She followed, carefully obscuring their tracks. After a hundred paces, she announced that would have to do, and brought them to a hill comprised of rounded boulders that might have once been part of the large pillar of stone rising from their center. Similar formations jutted all around, making it anonymous.
“We will rest here for the day, and travel again tonight,” she said, circling around to the far side of the outcrop, and coming to a tiny opening. “We should reach Zuladah just after dawn.”
Zera took up an old dry stick, and used it to poke at the shadows beyond the opening under the boulders. Leitos recalled his first day away from the mines, and the snake he had killed and eaten, before stealing its shelter. He hoped that if Zera found a serpent, she did not want to eat it. He would, if he had to, but would rather have more of the dried meat she carried, along with a hunk of bread. Thinking on that, he almost laughed at his choosiness, after a lifetime spent eating thin porridge and the occasional beetle.
Still probing under the boulder, Zera dropped down and disappeared into the opening. Leitos waited until she called for him to follow, then crawled after her, careful to hide their tracks at her direction.
After a making his way on hands and knees for several paces, he came to a set of steep, narrow stairs leading down.
“Hurry,” Zera urged from farther down, bringing out her tiny firemoss sphere. “I’m starving, and filthy besides.”
Leitos descended the ladderlike stairs cut into the rock. Straight away he caught the scent of clean dampness on the air. They still had plenty of water, but after sloshing in a goat skin for any amount of time, it tasted of wet hide. The idea of having fresh water sent him rushing downward until he reached a sandy-floored cavern.
Leitos moved next to Zera, who was kneeling at the edge of a large pool. She had placed the small firemoss lamp in the crotch of a tripod made by strapping three sticks together near their tops, and splaying the legs. Its presence told him this was not her first time here.
The pool, a deep turquoise blue fading to black deeper down, dominated two-thirds of the rocky hollow. Sacks of what Leitos guessed were provisions rested against the base of one upward curving wall. The opposite wall loomed over a crude cot made from more sticks lashed together. Between the two sat a stone fire ring, a pile of twigs, and dried flakes of dung. Points of light pierced the vaulted ceiling, and Leitos reasoned that was how smoke from a fire escaped, filtering through those small holes and cracks, and dissipating before it drifted aboveground.
“It has little enough of comforts,” Zera said, dipping a cupped hand into the pool, “but it is adequate.”
To Leitos, it seemed a perfect sanctuary, save for one thing. “If someone blocks the entrance, how do we get out?”
Zera sipped water from her hand, then nodded approvingly. “Guarding your trust and finding an escape route are the best ways to stay alive and whole.” Leitos flushed at her praise. If Zera noticed his embarrassment, she did not let on.
“If it comes to leaving here undetected,” she said, pointing to the far side of the pool, “swim to the wall, then dive deep and—” She cut off. “Better that I show you, rather than try to explain.” With that, she began undressing.
Leitos’s mouth worked around dumbfounded silence. Just as she cocked her head in his direction, he whirled around. “I do not need to see it,” he blurted in a choked voice.
“Of course you do,” Zera said.
Quiet hung between them, growing more uncomfortable the longer it lasted, at least to him.
“Do you mean to swim with your clothes on?” she said after a time, her voice husky with what Leitos guessed was suppressed laughter.
He turned slowly, and his averted eyes involuntarily climbed from her toes to her legs, past her smooth belly, and finally came to rest on her face. He had expected her to be naked, and she was, save for a loincloth and a narrow band of cloth wrapped around her breasts. In the firemoss’ amber light, her skin glowed; her hands, neck, and face made a few shades darker from the sun.
Despite himself, what he noticed most were her wounds. Bruises, scrapes, cuts, and old scars mapped a tapestry of past battles over her skin. They did not detract from her beauty—he had spent his entire life seeing scars on the men of the mines—but it pained him to consider her suffering so.
“I suppose not,” he answered belatedly, shucking Pathil’s cloak. Next, he pulled off the itchy tunic the Hunter had given him. Though he had spent almost his entire life clad so, he felt self-conscious in just his skin and a loincloth.
“Can you swim?” Zera asked.
“You ate bugs?” Zera said, wrinkling her nose in playful distaste.
Without waiting for a response, she spun on her heel. Too late Leitos looked away from the rounded, curving flesh of her backside, a sight that burned into his mind, left his mouth dry and his heart stuttering. She hit the surface like a well-thrown blade, barely disturbing the pool.
Leitos jumped in feet first. He popped up, breathless from the unexpected cold. Where she swam effortlessly to the stone wall, Leitos paddled awkwardly.
“This wall is the foot of the pillar you saw outside,” Zera said. “A little way down, there is an opening. Follow it a short way, then swim toward the light.” Leitos, doing all he could not to inhale water, simply nodded. She offered a slow, coy smile, then looked down. “Follow me.” In a graceful movement, her head and feet reversed themselves and she was gone.
Leitos floated amid rising bubbles, took a deep breath, then imitated her dive. Once underwater, he swept his arms back and kicked, the movement unpracticed, but familiar enough to give him confidence.
Darkness fell over him quickly. He kept kicking and reached out with one hand to touch the smooth stone wall. As Zera had promised, an opening presented itself. He swam into it, uncomfortably aware that it was akin to swimming into a yawning mouth. Just as his lungs began to ache for want of a fresh breath, he noticed a hazy glow ahead. He kicked harder, suddenly sure the immense weight of the pillar above him had waited eons for this exact moment to crumble—
He broke the surface before panic set in, and splashed to the edge of the second pool. This one was much smaller than the first, as was the cavern under which it hid itself. A lone shaft of sunlight sliced through the darkness from on high, lighting swirling motes of dust in a golden, enchanted glow. Leitos swam to a thin crescent of sand, climbed out of the water on his hands and knees, then rolled to his back, relishing each breath. The air was warmer in this cavern, and fresher.