Heirs of the Fallen: Book 03 - Shadow and Steel

by James A. West

  “My people will fight until the last drop of our blood soaks the ground at our feet. To the Thousand Hells with you and your false god.”

  “A pity,” Adu’lin said, not sounding put out in the slightest. He emerged from behind the statue of a nightmarish creature of horns, tattered wings, and bony limbs. Once he revealed himself, more armed Fauthians crept from the shadows.

  Adham glanced over his shoulder. The guards he had thwarted stood behind him, looking eager to begin whatever it was Adu’lin had in store.

  “Until the last drop of my blood,” he growled, and feinted toward them. They leaped back as one, but he had already spun around and was running for Adu’lin.

  At Adham’s brazen attack, the Fauthian leader’s smug smile fell off his face. Adham loosed a battle cry and raised his dagger. If a man was to die this night, he meant it to be Adu’lin.

  So great was his wrath, Adham barely noticed the Alon’mahk’lar step from behind a statue. Coarse reddish hide slashed with black, the demon-born moved between Adham and Adu’lin, a great sword held in its six-fingered hand. That weapon, fully as long as Adham was tall, swept upward.

  “Do not kill him!” Adu’lin warned sharply.

  The creature hesitated, and that was all Adham needed. He buried his dagger in the demon-born’s belly, and the Alon’mahk’lar bellowed. Before Adham could wrench the dagger loose, the Alon’mahk’lar smashed a fist against his shoulder. A loud popping noise filled Adham’s head, and fiery agony rushed through every inch of his body. The blow flung him through the air, and he bounced off a pillar. He collapsed to the stone floor, and fought to regain his feet.

  The Alon’mahk’lar stalked close, protuberant black eyes slit by golden pupils. A double set of horns grew from its skull. One set spiraled upward, and the second set curved down around its thick neck. Its belly still bore Adham’s dagger. The beast raised its sword, preparing to cleave Adham in two.

  “Hold,” Adu’lin shouted, arresting the demon-born’s attack. “The Faceless One offers handsome rewards for the living blood of the Valera line. Besides,” he added, “I promised our guest a harsh lesson, which I still mean to deliver.”

  Adham gulped a breath while the Alon’mahk’lar was distracted. Envisioning the course he would take, Adham moved abruptly, teeth gritted against fresh agony.

  He caught the hilt of the dagger, gave it a twist, and tore it from the demon-born’s guts. The Alon’mahk’lar floundered back with an eye-watering cry. In spite of Adu’lin’s command, the creature swung its sword. Adham flung himself aside, cringing at the sword’s fleeting brush over the back of his head.

  He was up again in an instant, clumsy but moving toward the bound Brothers, whose blindfolded heads were turning this way and that.

  The Alon’mahk’lar roared behind him. With the barest measure of caution, he slashed the bindings holding one man’s wrists, then another’s.

  Wild shouts went up all around him, from the Fauthians and the freed Brothers. After the shouts came the sounds of fists pummeling flesh, steel hewing muscle and bone. Screams erupted from the wounded and dying.

  Adham did not waste a moment to see who suffered the worst of the spreading melee. Once he had freed three Brothers, he knew he would never free them all.

  His knife had just started to part another cord, when clawed fingers tangled through his hair and wrenched him off the ground. That huge fist turned him, until he was staring into the Alon’mahk’lar’s face.

  Growling low in his throat, Adham thrust his dagger deep into one of the creature’s eyes, and deeper still, until only the hilt and cross guard jutted from the socket. The Alon’mahk’lar spasmed violently, throwing Adham aside.

  Adham tried to control his fall, but landed in a heap at Adu’lin’s feet. Glaring, the Fauthian jabbed the point of a sword into the hollow of Adham’s neck, freezing him in place. “You try my patience,” Adu’lin snarled.

  “Then we are even, on at least that score,” Adham returned.

  From the corner of his eye, Adham saw the three Brothers he had cut loose: Ulmek, Sumahn, and Daris. They grouped together against a score of hesitant Fauthians. Outnumbered as they were, they were not outmatched, given the scatter of dead Fauthians sprawled across the floor.

  Before Adu’lin could react, Adham cried, “Run!”

  Ulmek’s dark eyes swung toward Adham.

  “Damn your hides, go!”

  With great reluctance, Ulmek ordered the retreat.

  Adu’lin ordered his men to hold fast. “Where will they go?” he demanded, as if sensing a trap where there was none.

  Willing to play on the man’s fears, Adham bared his teeth in a mocking smile. “Surely you cannot expect me to spoil the surprise?”

  Adu’lin’s thin face writhed as he ground his teeth together. “I have no love of surprises,” he said. “But this night, I will make an exception.”

  Adham had only a moment to wonder what he meant, before Adu’lin’s sword flashed toward him in an arc of silver-edged death.

  Chapter 26

  Blue light engulfed Leitos and Belina as they crept beneath the stern face carved into the cliff above them. Leitos had the uncomfortable feeling that its stony eyes regarded him with malice. Then they were moving deeper into the Throat of Balaam. A vaulted corridor, floored with fist-sized opals, stretched interminably into the dazzling light. Were it not the lair of the world’s bane, he would have counted it beautiful.

  One cautious step at a time, Belina with an arrow nocked, Leitos with his dagger ready, they delved deeper into the Throat. As Leitos grew accustomed to the glare, he brushed his fingertips over the surface of a wall. Where the stone looked uneven, it was smooth and slick. Below the crystalline surface, tiny gems of every hue and clarity, glittered like faceted grains of sand. The beauty of those thousands of individual stones hit him all at once, and he found himself staring in open-mouthed wonder.

  “What are you doing?” Belina hissed. Slowly, understanding shrank her dismay. “Let nothing blind you to the truth of Fauthian evil. Such was the undoing of my people.”

  Leitos offered a noncommittal shrug, but Belina was having none of that. “Give me your word that you will not let what you see obscure what I have spoken of. You must see with your head and your heart, not with your eyes. The works of the Fauthians are as honey to mask the bitter taste of poison. Do you understand—do you promise?”

  “Very well,” Leitos agreed. There was no point telling her that nothing, especially pretty gems, would change his mind about destroying his enemy.

  After a time, Leitos began to wonder how far they had yet to go, and put the question to Belina. “I’m not sure,” she said, refusing to look at him.

  “Not sure? I thought you had been here.”

  “My father came here after … after my mother’s death. He told me what he saw, and warned us all to stay away.”

  “So you do not know what we will find?”

  “Of course I do.”

  Leitos’s concern sharpened, even as his heart sank a little at the possibility of not finding the Faceless One. This Throat of Balaam might well be used for all the monstrous things Belina said, but only by Fauthians and Alon’mahk’lar. “What if your father lied?”

  “He did not.”

  “How can you know, if you have never—”

  “I have seen this place,” Belina interrupted.

  “Your visions,” Leitos said. “Are you sure what you see are not just dreams mingled with things you have heard from others?”

  “Do events in your dreams come to pass?”

  Leitos mulled that, then considered something else. “You said you recognized me—”

  “I did,” Belina interrupted. “I have had visions of you for as long as I can remember. Even from afar, I recognized your face—” she hesitated, then said in a rush “—though it is not entirely the face of my visions.”

  “That makes no sense. If you saw me, but it was not me, how can I believe anything you a
re saying?”

  Belina shook her head. “In my visions you are older, harder. A man scarred, a man—” She cut off abruptly. After a moment, she said, “I will say no more on this matter. You can continue to trust me or not, but I will reveal nothing else about who you will become.”

  “Why?” Leitos pressed.

  “I fear that to tell too much would change what will be to what could be. It is not a risk I am willing to take.”

  Gibberish, Leitos almost retorted, but thought better of it. “Well,” he said, as if he no longer cared about her visions, “let’s go see if your father spoke truth or lies.”

  She glared, but did not bother defending Damoc. “Come along. We are almost there.”

  After walking for what felt like many miles more, Leitos began to question what almost there meant to a Yatoan. Before he could voice his doubts, they came to place where the azure light shone brighter than ever. As they neared the spot, the glow became opaque. Not like light at all, but a curtain of frosted mist.

  “What is this?” Leitos asked, just stopping himself from brushing it with his fingertips. The mist filled the height and breadth of the corridor, blocking sight of anything beyond.

  Belina favored him with a nervous expression. “I … I don’t know. My father never mentioned this. I think coming here was a mistake. Perhaps the Faceless One knows we are coming, and laid a trap. Come, we will go back and get help—”

  Leitos did not wait for her to finish. He caught his breath and stepped into the wall of light. He heard a startled yelp, but then he was passing through turquoise nothingness. It surrounded him, cold and wet. His skin tingled unpleasantly, and he felt a strange pressure building within him, seeking an escape—

  —and then he stepped clear. The pressure eased, then vanished, though his skin still prickled. The awareness of those odd sensations flew from his mind, as he looked into a dark chamber so immense that it defied comprehension. A gasp drew his gaze to Belina, who would not step far from the misty radiance.

  “Did your father describe this?”

  “Yes,” she breathed. “As well, it is as I have seen. But seeing it now….” Her words trailed off.

  The chamber, all of velvety gloom, stretched as far as the eye could see, and farther still. It was like looking into the emptiness between the stars. The difference was that he stood within those immeasurable gulfs.

  A single source of illumination, a pillar of cold flame, hovered at the very heart of all that darkness. Its presence subdued the expansiveness, somehow dominating all within its sight.

  “W-we dare not go closer,” Belina stammered.

  “I dare,” Leitos said, eyes locked on that pillar and the vague figure seated atop it. The Faceless One. Belina had claimed no mortal weapon could harm him, but Leitos meant to learn for himself if that were true. If nothing else, he needed to see the face of his oppressor, the face that every tale said no living man had ever looked upon.

  Belina tried to catch his arm, but he stepped from the spill of cool light at his back, and into the waiting void. Before his first step fell, he had a moment of doubt, a fear that his foot would drop through emptiness. He did not imagine falling, but ceasing to exist, his being devoured by the void….

  His foot landed on an invisible surface as hard as stone. Only that the pillar of light remained ahead told him that he had not tumbled into oblivion. Belina cried out, whether in alarm or anger, he did not know. He thought to calm her, but could not look away from his goal.

  He continued one ponderous step at a time, his breath coming in puffs. He realized that he did not walk, so much as drift. Upon recognizing that, he halted, but an unseen current carried him at great speed. Or is the Faceless One drawing me to him? An uncomfortable thought that quickly broke apart and dissipated.

  While Leitos sensed himself drawing nearer to the Faceless One, neither the pillar nor the figure grew larger, giving the illusion that he moved not at all.

  Then, with sickening abruptness, he found himself standing within the shadows just beyond the pillar’s luminance, gazing up at the figure seated upon a throne of intricately carved obsidian. The man leaned forward, his head deeply bowed, with thick and tangled strands of long dark hair obscuring his features.

  Nothing about the Faceless One was as Leitos had imagined. Clad in simple leathers and furs, he looked an imposter upon a throne stolen from a mighty king. Usurper or not, strength resonated from his broad shoulders, deep chest, and thick arms, but nothing about him spoke of regal authority. Rather, this figure represented a raw, brutish power.

  “Who are you?” Leitos asked, the sound of his voice thundering in the still. The figure flinched, seemed ready to reveal himself, then settled back. Leitos made his demand again, shouting it.

  The man stirred once more, raising his head listlessly. Leitos clutched his dagger, not sure what good it would do, and not caring. Here was his enemy, and he would strike him down, somehow. He must.

  That terrible head lifted higher, and Leitos felt ice coat his insides. Where a face should be, blue flame teemed over an indistinct skull.

  “Go from this place,” the man pleaded, again at odds with Leitos’s expectations.

  “I did not come here to obey,” Leitos said through clenched teeth, “but to destroy you.”

  “Escape, boy … while you still can.”

  The man’s hands suddenly pressed against his head, as if trying to contain those unnatural fires. His limbs trembled, and he doubled over, groaning.

  Leitos waited, poised to attack.

  The Faceless One abruptly sat straight, the fires solidifying enough to make out the vague outlines of a face, still unclear, but a true face. A vicious grin played over his lips. “Tell your father that death has found him!”

  That shout fell on Leitos like the breaking of mountains, crushing him flat. The man began to rise, his proportions growing immense. The void’s emptiness came alive with roaring flames of every vile hue, and from those leaping fires sprang Mahk’lar. Terrible beings, creatures born of hate and shadow, their flesh formless, bloated, drooling corruption from gnashing, fang-filled mouths.

  They danced near, their incomprehensible language filling Leitos’s mind with visions of a thousand atrocities. He saw the brutal ends of all those he knew, the destruction of all the world’s peoples. He saw screaming men, their flesh stripped from crushed bones, their living marrow scorched to ash. He saw women and girls savaged by demon-born, their beauty and grace pillaged by abominable lusts. He saw children boiled alive in their own blood, or roasted on spits above black fires, or torn from wombs with flaming pincers, before being ripped to pieces and stuffed into the fanged mouths of demons.

  Howling in dismay, Leitos hurled his dagger at the Faceless One. For a moment all froze, save the twirling blade. For a moment, it seemed the Faceless One’s hellish delights would at last come to an end. For a moment alone, Leitos believed he would prevail against his dread foe.

  The blade struck true, sinking deep into the Faceless One’s heart … and passed through him.

  “No,” Leitos breathed.

  The Faceless One fingered the spot where the dagger had pierced him, and Leitos fled. Roaring hateful mirth, the Faceless One ordered his minions to join the hunt.

  Chapter 27

  After hiding the bulk of his warriors around the entrance of the Throat of Balaam, Damoc strode into the chill light, following two sets of muddy tracks. One set he knew as well as his own, the other belonging to the outlander. He still could not understand why Belina had brought Leitos here. Surely no good could come of it.

  Nola and a handful of others, all armed with bows and swords, guarded his flanks. Washed in the haunting radiance, their mottled garb served poorly to conceal them.

  “Do not hesitate to cut down any Fauthian or Alon’mahk’lar we see,” Damoc told them. Of demonic spirits, neither he nor his people feared their touch. At worst, such were a nuisance, although he had heard it told that other peoples did not fa
re so well against Mahk’lar. In all the Great Councils, no one had been able to explain why the Yatoans could resist being taken by spirits. In the end, it was a small advantage.

  “What of Na’mihn’teghul?” Nola asked. “Is it still your wish to capture any young ones we find?”

  Damoc considered that decree, born of a secret and now forsaken desire to redeem his eldest daughter. His deeper hope was that his people could, perhaps, change the nature of one of those fell creatures, and turn its loyalties against the Fauthians. Or, at the least, use it to crush the sea-wolves who hunted the Isles of Yato. While he knew he could never fully trust such an abomination, it seemed well worth the risks to utilize such a living weapon. If it were not for Belina, who he was sure waited somewhere up ahead, he would have allowed the capture of any and all changelings they came across. But not this night.

  “The time for taking captives is for later,” he advised. “Retrieving Belina and killing Leitos is our only purpose.”

  “Had Belina not stopped me,” Nola said, “I would have cut his throat when we found him.” She searched the empty corridor. Only Damoc among his party had ever entered this domain, and his daughter’s apprehension mirrored that of the others.

  “Do not fret over that,” Damoc said in a placating tone, sensing his daughter’s coming words before she spoke them.

  “When this is over, we must confront Belina. Her decision to betray our trust has endangered the clan, perhaps all Yatoans.”

  The warriors around them gave the pretense of ignoring the conversation, but Damoc knew they sided with Nola.

  “She did not betray us,” Damoc said firmly. “She made a mistake, much as Robis blundered in heeding her.”

  “And how many such mistakes will you allow her to make, before you enforce our laws?”

  He dragged her close. “You are speaking of your sister,” he said against her ear. Nola tried to pull away, and though she was strong, he was stronger. “Trust that I will deal with Belina. Not you, not anyone else. And before you think to pass further judgments, remember that she is your sister—a sister who has, time and again, ensured your safety, when others would have left you in the hands of our enemies.”