Heirs of the Fallen: Book 02 - Crown of the Setting Sun

by James A. West

  “What if it is for us to know?” Leitos questioned under his breath. “What if Pa’amadin places the truth of his will for our lives before us, but leaves the recognizing and care of that truth to us?”

  A hush fell, as if the world waited for him to find a puzzle piece he had not known he sought. No answer came, and he let it go. If there was some plan for him, then it would surely make itself known, one way or another.

  Despite the constant running and hiding over the last many days, he felt refreshed. He walked slowly at first, loosening the stiffness that had settled into his muscles, then strode out. The trail he followed was a trail no longer. Wider than two wagons abreast, the ancient road ran west. Grass and low bushes had taken root in the joints between the paving stones, in many cases cracking or heaving them out of the underlying soil. No matter the overgrowth, the road was passable. Somewhere along it waited Imuraa, the bone-town Zera had mentioned. Leitos peeked over his shoulder. She will find me, he thought, hoping it was sooner rather than later.

  When Leitos turned back, he saw a man under a tree. His feet faltered to a stop. Leitos closed his eyes and opened them, thinking shadows under the tree’s boughs were playing tricks. The man remained, cloaked head to foot in pale, threadbare robes, and huddled against the tree.

  Leitos carefully reached into his satchel, searching for his knife. His hands went still when he remembered burying it in the neck of the wolf that had attacked him. In his mind’s eyes, he also recalled Lakaan’s dagger, flung away from his outstretched hand. In the aftermath of that battle, it had never crossed his mind to retrieve the dagger. I am no more dangerous with a blade than without. The thought was supposed to be reassuring, but fell flat.

  At a distance of over a hundred paces, he did not think the man had seen him yet. By his posture—head bowed against arms wrapped around his bent knees—he might have been sleeping. Leitos had decided to skirt around the man, when he raised his head.

  “You might as well come up here,” the man advised in a slightly familiar voice. A moment more, and a name and face came to Leitos. Pathil!

  He spun away, choosing the path taken by the deer. From the corner of his eye, he saw the Hunter rise up and give chase. Leitos could not outrun him. He halted, caught up a fist-sized stone, and stood his ground. The Hunter stopped not more than twenty feet away. Leitos waited, knowing his aim was not good enough to dispatch his enemy, even if the distance had been halved.

  Moments stretched out while they eyed each other, and Leitos came to the conclusion that the man before him was not Pathil, after all. This man was much taller, nearly as tall as Sandros, though far more slender. With a disconcerting casualness, the man planted the tall staff he was carrying in the ground at his feet and leaned on it. A hood obscured his face, and from a broad leather belt he wore a long, scabbarded sword. Nothing he did seemed overtly threatening, but Leitos felt sure he was dangerous.

  “I am Ba’Sel,” the man finally said, pulling back his hood to reveal a face as dark as Pathil’s, marking him as the race that had given rise to the Asra a’Shah. Shorn of all hair, his head shone in the sunlight. Like Pathil, there was a handsomeness to him, his features unlined and somehow noble. Despite the dangerous air about him, his dark eyes glinted with disarming warmth.

  “I have no quarrel with you,” Leitos warned.

  Ba’Sel flashed a white smile. “That is good, for I can see that you are a fearsome youth. Such a wildness can be tamed—and should be. Given half a chance, I dare say I could shape you into a weapon that any Alon’mahk’lar would fear.”

  Leitos thought the man was mocking him, but he actually seemed sincere. None of that about being turned into a weapon mattered, though. “Will you let me pass?”

  “Of course,” Ba’Sel said amiably. “But then, why would you want to pass? Have you not been seeking my order, the Brothers of the Crimson Shield? I am of the mind that in finding me at last—or rather, in me finding you—it would be foolish to turn aside. Do you not agree, Leitos?”

  Leitos caught his breath. “How do you know who I am?” He thought too late that he should have kept silent, instead of proving his identity by speaking up.

  “It has been revealed to me,” Ba’Sel said evasively, “by someone who would very much like to see you again.”

  “Zera!” Leitos blurted, unable to control himself.

  “I am curious, how exactly did you meet her?”

  “She did not tell you?” Leitos asked, surprised. When Ba’Sel shook his head, Leitos said, “She took me from two Hunters. Since then, she has kept me out of their hands on the way west. Last night, she went after a pair of wolves in the mountains—Alon’mahk’lar wolves—but they got around her and came after me. The man who was with us, Lakaan, he … he fell to one.” Leitos did not see any reason to bring up the man’s cowardice at the end, when he had offered Leitos up to the wolves. “After that, I fled.”

  “We should go,” Ba’Sel said, as if nothing Leitos had explained carried any great significance. “This land is not so abysmal as the dark reaches within the Mountains of Fire, but it is just as deadly.”

  “How can I believe that you are who you claim to be?” Leitos demanded.

  “I should think placing your name with a face I have never seen is enough,” Ba’Sel said dryly. “Also, I know your purpose.”

  Leitos could find no argument to counter that simple logic. Viewing humankind as less than animals, Alon’mahk’lar did not acknowledge the names by which people called each other. While the slavemasters had surely passed his description to every Hunter in Geldain, they would not have attached his name to it. He scanned the low, rounded hilltops, but saw nothing to indicate he was near his goal.

  “If you search for the Crown of the Setting Sun,” Ba’Sel said, guessing Leitos’s intent, “then you seek in vain.”

  “Has it been destroyed?” Leitos asked, dismayed.

  “Many years gone,” Ba’Sel admitted.

  “I do not understand.”

  Ba’Sel tugged the end of his staff from the ground and signaled for Leitos to follow. He hesitated only a moment, then joined the brother. As they walked, Ba’Sel explained.

  “We remain hidden by moving to new safe havens. If Alon’mahk’lar patrols come too close, we move. If any of our brothers are captured, we move. If there is any indication that our secrecy has been breached, we flee without hesitation. Sometimes our refuge is a mountaintop bastion, as was the first of its name, other times not. Moving so frequently, and finding suitable places to hide and train ourselves, makes for a difficult life. However, it has ensured that the servants of Faceless One have never found us after that first time. And like all others, he still looks in vain for the Crown of the Setting Sun, unable to accept that it no longer exists. At some point, he may realize his folly, but not—”

  The wail of an Alon’mahk’lar horn cut him short. More followed suit, dozens, screaming like wicked spirits far back in the Mountains of Fire. When the horns fell silent, howls and guttural roars took up the cry of the hunt.

  “And here I had planned to spend a pleasant day with a new friend,” Ba’Sel chuckled, strapping his sword belt across his back.

  “It is time to run,” Ba’Sel said, repeating words Leitos had long since grown accustomed to hearing.

  Chapter 25

  Ba’Sel trotted back to the road, then headed straight for the Mountains of Fire and the hunting Alon’mahk’lar. Leitos was about to question the man’s judgment, when they splashed to the center of the stream and turned south.

  “The water will mask our scent,” Ba’Sel said, as if teaching an apprentice. Leitos only nodded. He had run enough since fleeing the mines to know he should conserve his breath when he could.

  Where Leitos fought the maddening urge to take flight, Ba’Sel calmly stooped and brought a cupped handful of water to his lips. Only his dark eyes, scanning the wooded hillsides for any sign of movement, indicated that he felt any sense of alarm. Save for flitting birds and r
ustling leaves, nothing moved.

  When the horns wailed anew, closer now, Ba’Sel set out downstream. Leitos splashed along in his wake, wondering how long he would be able to keep the pace after having run through the night. Soon enough he stopped thinking anything, except that he despised the sound of horns and the baying of demon wolves.

  For many miles, the stream meandered slow and shallow. Moss slicked the stones below the surface, and more than once Ba’Sel had to pluck Leitos from the water. Soaked as Leitos was, he did not at first realize that the stream was getting wider and swifter. Fed by other streams coming down off the mountains, it was becoming a river.

  “Can you swim?” Ba’Sel asked, raising his voice above the river’s deep, watery gurgle.

  “Enough to keep from drowning,” Leitos said.

  Ba’Sel eyed him askance, no doubt wondering how a slave had learned the skill, then nodded in acceptance. “That is enough.”

  A flurry of howls went up, closer than ever, driven to a frenzy by the horns.

  Ba’Sel glanced at Leitos’s pack. “If there is anything that cannot be replaced, take it out, and give the rest to me.”

  Leitos handed over the pack. “I have nothing.”

  “Swim where you need to, but let the current do the work of carrying you downstream,” Ba’Sel advised, his eyes on the steep, forested hillsides overlooking the river. “I will rejoin you shortly.”

  Leitos’s heart sped up. “Where are you going?”

  In his instructing tone, Ba’Sel said, “I am going to spread your scent through the forest. That will gain us some time to get ahead of these accursed beasts.” He paused, then said, “Are you afraid?”

  Leitos saw no reason to lie. “Yes.”

  “That is good,” Ba’Sel said, offering a comforting smile. “Let that fear into your soul, but do not let it run free. It will lend you strength. You must harness fear, and all other emotions, Leitos, bend their consuming, chaotic power to your will.”

  “I will try,” Leitos said doubtfully.

  Ba’Sel gave him an encouraging nod, then waded toward the eastern shore. Leitos waited to see if Ba’Sel would look back, but he never did. Once on shore, he vanished into the forest. Another howl convinced Leitos it was time to leave.

  Swimming the river proved far easier than walking, and floating along easier still. And as long as he was moving, harnessing his fear, as Ba’Sel had suggested, did not seem so hard. While he was not exactly sure what that meant, or how to do it, every time a horn shrilled through the forest, or a howl sent birds winging toward the sky, he found that his tired arms gained enough strength to keep propelling him downstream.

  When the sun hovered directly overhead, Leitos realized that the sounds of pursuit had stopped. He tried to remember if they had ceased all at once, or gradually fallen behind, and decided on the latter. Stroking along and drawing deep, even breaths, he looked for Ba’Sel, but saw only trees overhanging the rippling blue-green river, its surface dancing with sunlight. He could almost imagine there was no danger.

  Ba’Sel gave Leitos a start when he materialized on the riverbank up ahead. He looked around, spotted Leitos, then slipped into the water. When he was close, he motioned for Leitos to swim toward the opposite shore.

  “The wolves are busy hunting ghosts for their Alon’mahk’lar brothers,” Ba’Sel said with a broad grin, “but as they are not strictly Alon’mahk’lar, they are more cunning beasts than the slavemasters you faced in the mines.”

  “What do you mean the wolves are not Alon’mahk’lar?” Leitos asked in confusion.

  “What they are is of no matter, at the moment,” Ba’Sel said, leading them on.

  After climbing back onto dry land, they trotted themselves dry, heading south and west until late in the day, climbing one hill after another. The forest of cool shade and dappled sunlight thinned to groves, separated by wide fields of sparse grass and jutting rock.

  Having come to appreciate the cover provided by the forest, being exposed left Leitos continually glancing in all directions. In doing so, he found that the forest was only a thin green band, perhaps a league wide, following the river near the base of the Mountains of Fire. Beyond that, the desert began to impose itself again.

  By dusk, the rugged hills had become sandstone plateaus. It was a familiar landscape, but Leitos felt no love for it. Neither did he want to run any farther. He struggled to remember a time when he had not been running and hiding.

  Ba’Sel paused amid a patch of dusty green sagebrush, plucked a handful of foliage, and vigorously rubbed it on the soles of his boots, instructing Leitos to do the same. “Wolves can track far better than their predecessors—those you would know as slavemasters. But with a little help,” he said, holding up the ruined bit of sage, “we will become just another stinking weed in their noses. Come, we still have many miles to travel before we can rest.”

  That was the last thing Leitos wanted to hear, but he plodded after Ba’Sel. As it always did, the sun fell fast over the desert, and the black of night followed just as swiftly. Jackals took up the hunt, calling out to one another in voices that seemed to speak of struggle and hardship. The waning moon rose, highlighting the slumbering landscape in a weak glow.

  Leitos was asleep on his feet when a horn’s wail jerked him and Ba’Sel to a halt. For the first time since meeting him, Leitos thought he saw something besides calm in the man’s demeanor. It was not anxiety that showed on his face so much as outrage.

  “How could they have found us so easily?” Leitos asked, dismayed.

  “I do not know,” Ba’Sel growled, and sped up.

  Leitos struggled to keep pace, searched for the strength fear would lend him, but he was either beyond such helpful terror, or his muscles simply had nothing left to give. He soon fell behind. Each breath tore at his lungs, and his legs swung in slow, numb arcs. Without question, the Alon’mahk’lar and the wolves were closing the gap.

  Something snagged his toe, and Leitos sprawled in the dirt. He tried to stand, but his body refused to cooperate. His lungs heaved. When he looked up, blood dripped from his smashed lips to his chin. Of Ba’Sel, the man had disappeared!

  As Leitos struggled to his knees, a guttural howl turned his head. Not more than a dozen paces off, two crimson eyes rushed toward him. A heartbeat more and a brutish wolf materialized from the gloom, racing toward him at full speed.

  I am dead, Leitos thought with no surprise or burst of terror. Instead it was a calm musing, vaguely remorseful, and undeniably the truth. He had run his last.

  Chapter 26

  A strong hand caught his hood and dragged him into a hidden cleft in the ground. For the barest moment, Leitos imagined an underworld demon taking him into Geh’shinnom’atar. Where he had been strangely calm before, now he fought, the will to survive giving him a wild, desperate strength. Another hand clapped over his mouth and he bit down. No matter what he did, the creature dragging him down into the earth was relentless and strong. Complete darkness closed over him, and dust clogged his nostrils.

  “Be still,” Ba’Sel snapped.

  Relief poured through Leitos and he relaxed, allowing Ba’Sel to run, carrying him like a sack. The warrior’s labored breathing was harsh and erratic, amplified by the close confines. His footsteps thudded like a drumbeat. A howl from behind seemed to slam into them with physical force, and then the shriek of claws tearing at rock filled the narrow space.

  “We will make it,” Ba’Sel muttered to himself. He kept repeating those words, as if they were a command. All at once he flung Leitos ahead, and he bounced off a rough stone wall and sprawled in the sand.

  Ba’Sel’s figure danced between the advancing wolves’ burning red eyes and Leitos. There came a grating noise that drowned out the wolf’s growls, then a roar of falling stone filled the passageway. Dust billowed, leaving Leitos coughing uncontrollably.

  Rough hands pulled him to his feet, and Ba’Sel wheezed, “We must keep going. They will soon dig their way through.�
��

  Despite his warning, he moved away and rummaged around back toward the rock fall. The sound of metal scraping over stone, followed by a shower of sparks, drew Leitos’s attention.

  In the stuttering light, Ba’Sel knelt over something, his back toward Leitos. The light vanished, leaving a dizzying afterimage. The flickering flash came again … faded … then a small flame burst to life on the end of a torch. Resin-dipped rushes flared bright with a hissing crackle, and Ba’Sel stood up. The natural passage proved no wider than two men abreast, and the ceiling hung a bare inch above the warrior’s head.

  He handed Leitos a pair of unlit torches taken from a niche in the wall near the rock fall. “We are far from safety, and even that refuge may be in question now,” he said without explanation. “We must hurry.”

  Cradling the torches, Leitos hurried after Ba’Sel. The passage twisted and turned, with many new passages branching off into the darkness. Footprints dimpled the sandy floor, but he could not have guessed how old they were.

  Only when Ba’Sel’s torch began guttering out did Leitos see the first indication that people did more than walk these dark ways. At the junction of four passages, two small clay pots sat in a niche in the wall. Both had tops sealed with wax. After lighting a second torch, Ba’Sel cocked his head, listening. Far, far away, the grinding sounds of shifting rock slithered toward them.

  “They are not through yet,” Ba’Sel said, relieved.

  He handed Leitos the burning torch and moved to the clay pots. After studying faint markings on the tops of each, he chose one and went a little way down the passage. Leitos held the torch high, moving his head back and forth in a bid to see what the brother was up to.

  Ba’Sel worked with haste, but carefully. After using a knife to slice away the wax, he set the top aside and poured a measure of thin oil into a bowl cleverly concealed behind a knuckle of stone protruding from the wall. He did the same on the other side, then made his way farther down the corridor, performing the same task a half a dozen times, until he was twenty or more paces back the way they had come.