Heirs of the Fallen: Book 04 - Wrath of the Fallen

by James A. West

  “Speaking of executing,” Adham said, “she will consider it vital to kill anyone who stands in her way.”

  Leitos nodded grimly. “Doubtless.”

  By now they had moved within sight of Armala, laid out like a dark blade over a high plateau surrounded by green-forested hills and peaks. Even from afar, Adham saw nothing beautiful in its design.

  Up ahead, Ulmek, Belina, and Daris walked beside Sumahn and his burden, Nola. With the way clearer, they had picked up their pace. The dark city waited for them, a silent, festering growth upon the land.

  Adham did not want to go any farther. He had no reason to. All he knew was lost, and the will to fight abruptly fled his heart. He and Leitos could salvage wreckage from the Kelren slave ships, the Night Blade and the Bloody Whore. They could cobble together a raft, and let tide and wind take them far away, maybe to lands in which Peropis had no interest. Maybe they could find a tiny isle, a speck in the sea that would never draw her attention.

  “I must tell you something,” Leitos said, slowing to a standstill.

  The skies had grown darker with the approaching storm. Lighting stroked the mountains across the plateau, and thunder rumbled.

  Adham halted, the desire to explain his plan to Leitos locked behind his teeth. He let that fool’s desire slowly perish. There would be no running, at least not toward freedom and safety. Guessing he would not like anything Leitos had to say, he waited in silence.

  “I told you I saw the shade of Kian’s soul ... but I also saw him, just as I see you here beside me. He was real, and so was the place he had created, but it was not this world.”

  “I do not understand,” Adham said, unable to disguise his weariness. All this talk about souls, Peropis’s wrath, and the like, exhausted him. In one way or another, such had been his entire life’s experience. Now his son was going on about different worlds. It was simply too much, and he wanted no more of it.

  “He said we were dead, all of us who had been washed in the Powers of Creation.”

  Adham perked up a little. If any doubt remained that Leitos had actually spoken with Kian, it was gone. His interest quickly withered. “Yes, well, that was some gibberish he dreamed up a few years before I left Cordalia with you and your mother.”

  Leitos fixed him with an unreadable expression. “You never told me that.”

  Adham snorted. “Why would I? It was madness.”

  “Are you sure? I grant you, it might have been a turn of phrase, but perhaps he learned some secret.”

  “My father was many things,” Adham said dismissively, “but he was no poet enamored with his own flowery words. Truth is, Kian had a special dislike for such folk. And as for secrets, it was Varis’s hidden desire, his secret, to rule all the world that led us into this mess. Most times, secrets are harmless enough. Other times, they’re deadly poison.”

  “But maybe—”

  Adham abruptly caught Leitos’s hand, and nicked his thumb with a dagger.

  Leitos wrenched loose and leaped back, his sword half-drawn. “What’s the matter with you?” Outrage shone in his son’s icy gaze, and for a moment Adham expected the boy to attack him.

  Instead of retreating, he caught Leitos’s wrist and yanked it up between them. “That’s blood you see running over your skin,” he growled. “The dead don’t bleed, now, do they?”

  Leitos pulled back so hard Adham staggered. “And until the Well of Creation was ripped apart, the living did not linger on the world for hundreds of years, now, did they?”

  Adham sighed heavily, tucked away his dagger. “I suppose we didn’t. But, even so, you cannot believe we are dead.”

  “I don’t know what to believe,” Leitos said.

  Adham looked after the others. “Our friends are getting away from us.” Another bolt of lightning stabbed down from the sky, closer now. A gust stirred the greenery around them, and carried with it the scent of rain.

  Adham began walking, unsure how to tell Leitos about the madness that eventually afflicted those who were blessed by the Powers of Creation, a madness that he had seen growing large and uncontrollable in Ba’Sel when they had been captives of Adu’lin.

  Leitos fell in beside him, sword once again buried in its scabbard, his fingers restless around the hilt. His gaze flickered from bush to bole as if he wanted a fight—bloody, hot, and deadly against those he hated.

  Adham knew something about hate, and the need to destroy one’s enemies. Seeing it in his son pained him. Yet, that was the world humankind had been given by the Faceless One—Peropis, according to Leitos. He saw no reason to doubt his word on that score. And it fit, for Kian had spoken on occasion of the curse Peropis had laid on him, and all his line, while standing in the shadow of the Ivory Throne of Aradan, after Prince Varis died.

  Deciding to speak the truth about Kian, plain and ugly as it was, Adham began, “There was no reason to burden you with my father’s madness. I saw the same in my mother, Hazad, Azuri, and eventually in Ba’Sel.”

  Leitos cocked his head, giving Adham his ear. A brief patter of rain drummed down, and thunder rolled closer. The storm would be brief, but the streaky gray sheets falling from the clouds promised more than the usual wet.

  “It came on them slowly,” Adham continued. “Sometimes I’d catch them speaking to themselves, but it always seemed as though they were talking to someone they had known before the Upheaval.

  “Other times, after hours of searching, I’d find that they had wandered far from safety. Hazad was often deep in his cups—that huge bastard loved his jagdah. Kian and Ellonlef were usually near each other, but separate, staring at a rock or a tree or patch of snow—never at anything of consequence, and appearing as lost as I’ve ever seen a person look. Azuri ...... well, his peculiarities favored scrubbing his skin until it was raw, or ceaselessly washing his clothes in an icy stream, thrashing them against the rocks until they were naught but threads.”

  Leitos glanced at him, curiosity and doubt having a spirited battle across his brow.

  Well enough, Adham understood that conflict. Over sixteen summers spent in the slave mines, Adham had often told Leitos stories about those left behind in Izutar, humorous tales to ease the sting of the slavemaster’s whips, to make one forget the ache in the hands from swinging pick and maul, and the deep burn of the sun across their shoulders. Laughter, furtive as it had been, had helped pass days, months, and years, gave them something to cling to beside the shadow of death. Adham went on.

  “I had almost forgotten about their strange behavior, until I saw that the same seed of madness had taken root in Ba’Sel. It was more drastic with him, to be sure, but I expect it’s a common fate shared by all who live too long upon this accursed world. One day, like as not, I’ll start babbling gibberish ... same as you.”

  “We’ll see,” Leitos said, as though stubbornness could stave off the inevitable.

  Adham began again. “I expect each of them built fortresses in their minds—ideas, imaginary places, what have you, which helped them cope with all that had happened. In my father’s imagined sanctuary, he never met Varis that day in the Chalice. He named it a debauched quarter of Ammathor, a place no self-respecting prince would go. Kian knew he should have refused to heed the secretive missive, but as he often said, ‘Gold speaks with a powerful voice, and Varis promised enough to buy an Izutarian throne.’” He chuckled cheerlessly at that, but Leitos only stared in confusion. Adham continued with a dismissive shrug.

  “And so Kian met with the princeling, and agreed over tankards of ale to escort Varis across Aradan. By the time his suspicions had proven accurate about Varis having something more in mind than sowing his royal seed in every backwater keep and stronghold in the realm, it was too late. And in the Qaharadin Marshes, the hope of men died.”

  Leitos remained quiet, lost in thought.

  They came to a ridge that led down to narrow path paved in dark cobblestones. On either side, tall grass and brush danced in the stiffening breeze. Rain fell stead
ily now, soaking them to the skin. Far ahead, the others were nearing the gates to Armala. If danger awaited, it was keeping out of sight.

  Ulmek will see any threats, Adham assured himself. Damoc, for all his bluster, was also a man of great fighting skill. The same held for Belina. Sumahn and Daris, as well, were no fools fresh to warfare.

  “Kian mentioned something else,” Leitos said at last. Before he could finish, a crash of thunder tumbled from the dark skies, hurried along by a sharp gust. Where Adham ducked against stinging rain, Leitos strode with head held high, eyes narrowed.

  Raising his voice, Leitos continued. “He said shattering the Well of Creation joined the realms of the dead and the living, making two sides of the same coin one, yet separated by the barest width. Understanding that, Kian told me, was the key to defeating Peropis.”

  Adham threw his hands in the air. “I told you he was mad, and such blather proves it.”

  Leitos was undeterred. “He told me to remake the coin to how it was before, with two distinct sides.”

  “There is no such coin,” Adham snapped. “Gods good and wise, boy, you cannot put faith in a lunatic’s prattle. As to defeating Peropis, all we can do is fight until not a drop of blood remains in our veins, and our breath fails.” Before he could stop himself, he admitted a secret belief. “Trust me in this, boy, if nothing else. Our fighting will avail us nothing, save to add long, dark days to what remains of our lives.” He took a deep breath. “Better to run while we can, hide where we can, and live the last years of our lives in what peace we can find.”

  “Believe what you will,” Leitos said, his cool tone stinging Adham, making him feel as if he had been found useless, and thoroughly dismissed.

  Leitos marched on ahead. Adham followed, head bowed, regretting his admission and shamed by it, all the more because his son must now consider him a craven weakling. Worst of all, Adham knew that fear had not prompted him to speak, but truth. The age of man had ended the moment Prince Varis Kilvar sundered the Well of Creation. Soon, even the memory of humankind would cease to exist.

  Chapter 12

  Leitos walked faster, needing to get away from his father. He trusted Adham’s wisdom, but could not understand his sudden turn toward bleakness and doubt. Seeing Kian as the Faceless One must have staggered his wits. And even after he told Adham that the Faceless One was actually Peropis, Adham still had to contend with the truth that Kian was dead and gone, along with everyone else he had ever known in the far north. No easy thing, that.

  The storm pressed closer, driving rain against his cheeks. Leitos began running, swiftly catching up to Belina and the others. Adham shouted behind him, but the wind snatched away his words, and Leitos made no effort to catch them. Right now, getting away from his father’s dismal convictions was all that mattered. Under these considerations came another: What if everyone thinks the same way?

  He pushed the thought away. Belina would side with him, and also Sumahn and Daris, both who were as eager as he was to join battle against the enemy of humankind. He was sure most of the Yatoans would feel the same. That the Faceless One had turned out to be Peropis, the ruler of the Thousand Hells, might trouble a few, but the game had not changed, nor the rules. They would either beat back Peropis’s hordes, or they would cower and die. In truth, death might come either way, but Leitos would rather fight as he had been taught, than hide like a mouse in its hole.

  At the sound of his feet splashing through muddy puddles, Belina spun, dagger leaping into her hand. Seeing no danger, she favored him with a quick grin and put her blade away.

  “Where’s Adham?” Ulmek asked.

  “He’s coming,” Leitos answered.

  Belina gave him a strange look. “You left him by himself?”

  “He’s a tough old root,” Daris assured her. “He had wandered for weeks in the Mountains of Fire before Sumahn found him. I think he can handle walking back to this blighted city.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Belina said. “None of us should be alone right now.”

  “He’s fine,” Leitos assured her.

  Belina’s study intensified. “Are you?”

  “Of course.”

  “What happened, Leitos, in the Throat?”

  “We’ll have time for that later,” he said, just short of curtness. He molded his features into a calm, reassuring expression. “Right now we need to get Nola back to the palace and patch her wounds. Afterward, I’ll tell everyone what happened. Then, together, we can decide how best to bring war against our enemies.”

  Ulmek glanced his way, a shadow of trepidation scrawled across his angular face. Something about that expression triggered in Leitos a memory of a lightless plane, a place where monstrous shadows danced, and the Faceless One sat upon a great obsidian chair. The throne room. Ulmek and Adham had been pale as specters to Leitos’s eyes, yet they had claimed it was he who had turned gray as death.

  “I’m fine,” Leitos said, voice tight with impatience.

  No one said anything after that, but Leitos still had the feeling that Belina and Ulmek were eyeing him as if he were dangerous. Let them fret, he thought irritably, and passed by a hobbling Damoc to catch up with Sumahn.

  “How is she?” he asked, and winced when his eyes found Nola.

  Sumahn, who looked so much like Ulmek that they could have been father and son, did not slow or glance his way. Rain dripped from his stern face. “I ... I don’t know, little brother.”

  As though hearing the concern and wanting to put Sumahn at ease, Nola muttered softly.

  “We’ll take good care of you,” Sumahn promised through gritted teeth, gaze locked on the nearing gates. His arms were trembling, and his step was unsteady, but nothing in his demeanor suggested he would fail the girl in his arms.

  Leitos searched the wall walks, saw no threatening silhouettes, then glanced again at Nola. She stared up into the rainy sky with one slitted green eye. A blade had taken the other, and further destroyed her beauty by furrowing a groove from one eyebrow to the side of her chin. For all that, Leitos worried she had other injuries, something unseen that threatened her life.

  Sumahn’s toe clipped the edge of a loose cobble, and he staggered forward with a grunt. Leitos caught his arm before he could fall. Sumahn’s muscles quivered, and Leitos knew the Brother would never make it the rest of the way unaided.

  “I’ll carry her for a while,” Leitos said sharply, allowing no room for argument.

  Sumahn seemed ready to balk, but relented.

  Leitos took Nola’s weight and set off at a trot, making every effort not to jar the girl. Under the hammering of his heart, hers was light and fluttery as a bird’s. He could scarcely believe this same girl had drubbed him senseless not so long ago, and then helped Belina drag him to the Yatoan camp. It seemed months had passed since then, but the true count was no more than a pair of days, if that.

  Armala’s wall rose dark against the raining sky, and behind it loomed buildings of black stone, all abandoned for long years, save the palace at the center of the city. Adu’lin had ruled the Yatoans from there, but no more. He had died in the Throat, burned to ash, while Leitos made his brief war against the Faceless One.

  A crooked fork of lightning slammed into one of the two southern watchtowers within the city. A deafening boom of thunder rattled Leitos’s teeth. With that crash, the belly of the storm opened up, and a pounding deluge misted everything.

  Leitos ran harder, sure Nola’s heartbeat had grown fainter still. He hazarded a quick look at the girl. She and Belina were Zera’s younger sisters—rather, half-sisters, as their mother, like most Yatoan women, had been bred to an Alon’mahk’lar for the creation of Na’mihn’teghul, an order of changelings that could masquerade as humans, but were nothing of the sort.

  Where Belina favored Damoc, Nola’s resemblance to Zera was close enough that Leitos could imagine he carried the woman he had killed over a year ago. Their two faces melded before his eyes, and he swallowed desperately at the sh
arp knot lodged in his throat.

  “Stay with me,” he whispered, unsure if he was speaking to Nola, or to Zera’s ghost. Rain streamed down his face, diluting his tears. His vision shifted, and then he saw Zera, dying once more in his arms. The throbbing ache of loss and despair spread through him, seemed to wash over Zera—No! She’s Nola!

  The thought brought a brief and staggering weakness, and then he was rushing on again, footfalls once more sure.

  Nola murmured, her voice stronger than before, one hand clutching his robes. He spared another glance to her one good eye, set like an emerald in a mask of blood and pain. She stared at him. Her lips moved, but he could not hear her.

  “Leitos!” Ulmek’s shout cut through the drumming rain, and Leitos stumbled to a halt. Before he could turn, Sumahn and Daris were at his side, bustling him toward the side of a building. Ulmek, Belina, and Damoc were already there, waiting, scanning the sky behind Leitos and the others.

  Just as they ducked around the edge, a hail of arrows streaked out of the storm. A steel broadhead tore a gash in the shoulder of Leitos’s robe. More clattered off the cobbles.

  “Fauthian archers,” Damoc hissed. “I thought sure we had killed all those yellow bastards.”

  “Snakes never die easy,” Adham panted, sliding in amongst the group as another volley rattled against the roadway. It pleased Leitos to see that he looked like his old self. Resolute, fierce, a true ice-born warrior.

  Daris poked his head into the open, then jerked back an instant before an arrowhead shrieked off the corner of the wall. “There’s three, maybe four archers in the watchtower to the west. You’ll have to ask the gods how they survived that lightning strike.”

  Leitos didn’t care how they’d survived, but he meant to change their luck. A quick search of the faces around him showed who was the strongest. He forced Nola into Ulmek’s unwilling arms. “Take her to the palace.” To the others, he said, “Keep them safe.”

  “What are you doing?” Adham demanded, at the same time Belina said, “You cannot!”