Unbroken Chain

by Jaleigh Johnson

  As soon as it was clear of the woman, the nightmare immediately charged the fence, slamming its body against the iron. Ashok felt the bars rattle under his hands.

  When it was clear the fence wasn’t going to give in that spot, the nightmare cantered back and charged again, searching for a weakness in the fence it could exploit. Its headlong rush brought it only a few feet away from where Ashok stood, close enough that he could smell the burning hair scent of the nightmare’s mane. Its steamy breath heated the air.

  “Well met, again,” Ashok murmured. “You’re no happier here than you were in the cage, are you?”

  The nightmare saw him and snorted, its red eyes so dark they were almost black. It strode up to where Ashok stood and slammed its head into the bars in front of his face.

  Ashok leaped back, the nightmare’s bloody breath in his mouth, the burnt hair scent all around him. The change in the air temperature was a palpable thing. He began to sweat, as if he were standing in the middle of a bonfire.

  “I think he likes you,” said a teasing voice from across the paddock.

  Ashok met the gaze of the shadar-kai woman. “He’s beautiful,” Ashok said.

  The woman shook her head. “He won’t be tamed, no matter what Uwan wants,” she said. “He tries to kill anyone who comes near him, and when someone does get close enough … Well, there are the dreams.”

  Ashok approached the fence again. The nightmare backed away and regarded him with his steely crimson gaze. Unable to dislodge him from the fence, the beast blew a steamy, impatient breath and pranced in place, threatening with his burning body.

  Ashok smiled grimly. “You don’t scare me,” he said.

  The female shadar-kai came to stand beside Ashok. “I’m Olra,” she said, offering him her hand.

  Ashok clasped it briefly. “Where did they capture him?” he asked.

  “Out on the plains,” Olra said. “He’d been in a fight with something bigger than him—got cut up bad enough that the caravan was able to get him in a cage while he was unconscious. Otherwise they’d never have been able to take him. He’s too wild, even for his kind.”

  Ashok looked at the nightmare, the eyes burning with red hatred. He understood the feeling.

  “What did you mean when you said ‘there are the dreams’?” Ashok asked.

  “The nightmare sends them,” Olra said. “It’s the scream that does it. Works into your mind somehow and roots out what you’re most afraid of. After a few days, even a shadar-kai can’t stand the horror.” She nodded to the nightmare. “He makes them think they’re fading.”

  “He knows it too,” Ashok said. “Look at him.”

  The nightmare paced back and forth before the fence. Flame roared down his mane and fetlocks, scarring the ground an oily black as the beast took one stride after another across the paddock. He marks his territory and dares anyone to invade, Ashok thought.

  “Are you all right?” Olra asked abruptly. She was looking at how Ashok’s arm dangled at an awkward angle.

  “I was on my way to Tower Makthar for healing,” Ashok said. Taking one last look at the magnificent beast, Ashok stepped away from the fence.

  Olra was looking at him curiously. Looking at her face, Ashok realized how heavily scarred she was.

  Puckered flesh from burns, and a web-work of claw slashes decorated her collarbone. The marks were not self-inflicted, that much was evident. Her left cheek looked like it had been bitten and healed slightly off-center, giving her face an asymmetrical appearance.

  “You’re the one everyone’s talking about,” Olra said. “Uwan’s ghost.”

  “A ghost?” Ashok said. “Why do they call me that?”

  “Because no one knows who you are or where you came from. You came to us a prisoner, yet you walk among us as if you were an ally. But no one questions it,” Olra said. “If Uwan has a reason for you being here, that’s enough.”

  “You trust your leader that much?” Ashok said. “What if he’s wrong?”

  “Uwan is never wrong,” Olra said.

  The simple confidence in her voice kept Ashok from uttering the retort he wanted to. He changed the subject. “Will you break the nightmare yourself?” he asked.

  “I’ll try,” she said.

  “More scars,” Ashok murmured.

  “These?” Olra said as she held up her hands, which were covered with slowly healing blisters. “All were earned for Ikemmu,” she said, with pride in her voice. “The beasts we train will either defend the city, or we’ll sell them to the other races, which brings us coin. There is honor in both. There are also these.” She bared her left arm for Ashok. From shoulder to wrist, the beasts of the Shadowfell stared back at Ashok in tattoos. Shadow hounds and ravens, nightmares and serpents—one picture blended into the next.

  “Are these the creatures you’ve broken?” Ashok asked.

  Olra nodded. “They’re all a part of me. I own them, and they own me,” she said, indicating her scars.

  Ashok nodded. He could think of nothing to say.

  “You’d better go on, get your shoulder looked at,” Olra said. She walked away from him along the fence, her hand trailing against the bars. The nightmare measured her progress, but he didn’t attack the fence again.

  “Aren’t you afraid of him?” Ashok called after her. “Afraid of fading?”

  Olra stopped and turned to look at him. “Of course,” she said. “I had a predecessor, head of the Camborrs, just like I am now. How do you suppose he died?”

  Behind the fence, the nightmare breathed and stamped the ground black.

  Ashok went to the temple to accept Tempus’s healing, but he couldn’t shake the image of the nightmare from his thoughts. Maybe he’d been doomed from the moment he heard the beast’s scream, for when he’d been healed, Ashok found himself walking back to the Camborr pen. He spent time watching all the creatures as they were brought out: the shadow hounds, the jaguars, the serpents—any beast the caravan could capture.

  But the nightmare was a creature apart from them all.

  Ashok stood at the fence while Olra put the horse—it wasn’t right to call him that, Ashok thought, the name was demeaning—through his paces from a distance with a long whip. She never actually struck the creature; she couldn’t, unless her whip was iron-tipped. The flimsy leather end would burn to cinders if it got too near the nightmare’s flaring mane.

  “It’s not going well,” Olra said when she saw Ashok. “No one’s going to be able to ride him. He sets fire to the ground whenever anyone comes near him, so we peck at him from behind the fence. It’s all we can do.”

  The nightmare reared, biting at the whip that snapped near his face. Olra tried to jerk it free, but the nightmare yanked it out of her hands. Cursing, Olra backed away as the beast came at the fence and banged against the bars.

  Olra dusted off her hands and went to stand beside Ashok. “He enjoys it,” she said, “knowing he’s the one in control. It’s all sport for him.”

  Ashok shook his head. “It only makes the imprisonment bearable,” he said.

  Olra blew out a sigh. “Well, whatever it is, it’s going to get him killed,” she said.

  “What?” Ashok said. It came out sharper than he’d intended.

  “What else would I do?” Olra said disgustedly. “The shadar-kai can’t use him, because of the nightmares. His screams would throw them off balance in a battle. I told you he was too wild, even for his kind. That’s what I’ll tell Uwan too.”

  “Sell him,” Ashok said. “He must be valuable in coin.”

  “Oh, he is,” Olra said. “Trained, he’d bring in a heap of coin. But wild as he is now, it would take just the right mix of wealth and crazy in a buyer to take him on, and I can’t wager on that person striding up out of thin air. Meanwhile I’m losing time trying to wrangle the beast, time that could be spent training the shadow hounds or the panthers. Them I can work.”

  “Set him free, then,” Ashok said. He clenched the fence bars in agitati
on. “Take him up to the plain and release him. It’s a waste to kill him.”

  Olra shook her head. “I can’t risk any of the Camborrs on that kind of mission. If something went wrong, I’d never be able to justify the loss of life to Uwan.”

  “Yes, because Uwan protects his people,” Ashok said bitterly. “Except those he enslaves for no reason.”

  He pressed his forehead against the iron bars. When would he outlive his novelty to the shadar-kai leader? Ashok wondered.

  He stared at the nightmare for a long time, then he turned to Olra. “Let me break him,” he said.

  Olra scoffed. “You’re out of your head,” she said. “Warriors in training don’t come inside my fence. You’ll be eaten alive.”

  “And you’ll have lost nothing,” Ashok said. “You said yourself I’m not a Camborr, so my death wouldn’t matter to your work. But if I did make progress with the beast, then you’d be able to sell him for a great profit. Ikemmu would benefit from that coin—isn’t that what you want?”

  “It’s not that easy,” Olra said. “You may be an outsider, but Uwan values you. I can’t do anything without speaking to him first.”

  “Then speak to him,” Ashok said. “I’ll train your beast.”

  CHAPTER

  NINE

  ASHOK’S FIRST TENDAY IN IKEMMU PASSED QUICKLY, FILLED WITH hours of endless training and sparring, first with his own weapons and then others of Jamet’s choosing. At the end of any given day Ashok’s muscles were so thoroughly worked he could barely lift his arms. He fell into his bed, but he’d hardly closed his eyes when it seemed they were open again at the tolling of the Monril bell, and the whole process began anew. The teacher was tireless with his students, and the recruits were eager to learn.

  His second tenday passed more slowly, as Ashok found himself with a bit more time to himself. He spent much of that in his abandoned building in the trade district, copying to parchment as much as he could remember about the city’s defenses and any weaknesses he noticed during his training sessions. By the end of the second tenday, he knew the names of many of the Guardians and their functions.

  Some of them were teachers, like Jamet, but there were others he never saw in the training yard. They kept close counsel with Uwan, on the rare occasions Ashok saw the leader outside Tower Athanon. Once, he asked Skagi about it.

  “They’re planning the next raid,” Skagi explained, as if it were obvious.

  “I thought a caravan just left the city,” Ashok said. “Is there more than one that goes into the Shadowfell?”

  Skagi shook his head. “This party’s going in the opposite direction, into the Underdark maybe—the details are kept quiet. The wealthiest traders coin the expeditions, and in return they profit from whatever goods are brought back and sold. But every raid is done with military support, a mix of sellswords and Tempus’s warriors.”

  “The Underdark?” Ashok said. That was not a place in the Shadowfell, but in the mirror world. Still a place of caverns and tunnels deep underground, but not one that followed the ways of this plane.

  Ashok stared at Skagi, and the shadar-kai laughed. “It’s true we haven’t trusted you with all our secrets,” he said. “In fact, you’ve only seen about half of them.” For some reason, that struck Skagi as intensely amusing. He was still chuckling when Ashok walked away in disgust, having been unable to pry any further information from him.

  By the end of a month, Ashok had recorded as much information as he was going to get without arousing suspicions with his questions, though in truth he wondered if such a thing was possible. Cree, Skagi, and Chanoch, any shadar-kai he came in contact with was more than willing to share what they knew about life in Ikemmu. They accepted him without question, because they trusted Uwan. If their leader decreed it, there must be a purpose for Ashok’s presence in the city.

  Ashok had yet to find out what that purpose was, and the mystery was driving him mad. He hadn’t spoken to Uwan since the day he’d attempted to escape. And every day since, though he’d thought of various ways to distract his captors, to use their trust to his advantage, Ashok found a reason not to try to escape the city. He told himself at first that it was because he hadn’t collected enough intelligence. His father would demand nothing less than a complete report on the city and its defenses.

  When he’d exhausted all possible sources of information, Ashok decided it would be best to take as much training as Uwan offered. He’d been strong before, but he could feel himself changing every day he spent in the city.

  The constant, controlled sparring; the fact that he ingested regular meals of fresh, spiced meat; and so much stimulation that Ashok never felt the need to put the dagger to his flesh, made his body stronger than it had ever been.

  There was also the nightmare.

  A month had passed, and he’d heard nothing from Olra or Uwan with regard to the beast. He walked to the Camborr pens every day, but he never saw the nightmare out in the open again.

  Then one day he saw Olra standing near the fence. She motioned him over, but she didn’t look happy.

  “Uwan gave permission for you to be trained as a Camborr,” she said without greeting him, “with training the nightmare specifically in mind.”

  Ashok felt his heart pounding in his chest, but the look on Olra’s face tempered his excitement. “You don’t want me here,” Ashok said. The unwillingness was plain on her face. Did she resent that Uwan thought Ashok might succeed where she had failed? he wondered.

  “You like him too much,” Olra said, “the nightmare. That feeling might turn into trust. If that happens, he’ll kill you the first chance he gets. It’ll be a waste, and I don’t like waste.”

  “Neither do I,” Ashok said quietly.

  So it wasn’t resentment for taking her place, but something entirely different. Ashok thought they might be able to work together.

  “I’ll want to go into the paddock,” he said. “Immediately.”

  Olra was quiet for a moment, her scarred face pensive. “One condition,” she said.

  “What is it?” Ashok asked.

  “Bring your companions,” she said. “You’ll need people to be there, in case something goes wrong.”

  Ashok hesitated. “I don’t know if I can,” he said.

  He’d never asked Skagi or the others for anything like a favor. Had he asked his brothers in the enclave for such support, he would have been laughed at. He wasn’t sure how the shadar-kai would respond.

  Olra shook her head, her forehead creased in exasperation. “You two”—she nodded at the nightmare—“are as hard-headed as they come. Those are my terms,” she said, and turned to walk back to the cave where the pens were. “Find a way.”

  At the Tet bell, Ashok climbed the tower stairs to Eveningfeast. Cree stopped him before he picked up a bowl for his stew.

  “Come with me,” Cree said, his black eyes sparkling with barely contained excitement. “There’s better fare to be had tonight. We’re celebrating.” He flashed Ashok a grin and moved off without a sound.

  Curious, Ashok followed the shadar-kai down the stairs and outside, where Skagi, Chanoch, and Vedoran were waiting.

  “Well done, brother,” Skagi said. He lounged against the tower, twirling his falchion. “Did he put up a fight?”

  “Brutal,” Cree said. “I had to set him in his place.”

  Chanoch snorted. “You’ve lost, let’s see,” he said, pretending to stroke his chin, “four sparring matches with Ashok this tenday. Is that right, Vedoran?”

  “It is,” Vedoran said gravely. “And you lost five such against him, little one.”

  Skagi bellowed with laughter. “Then we go to celebrate Ashok’s great victory.” He slapped Ashok on the back. “You’re a Camborr now.”

  “How did you know?” Ashok asked. He hadn’t told anyone about his conversation with Olra earlier that day.

  “You think it’s a secret when any of us go up in rank?” Chanoch said, staring at him incredulously. “Ask
Skagi about his tattoos.”

  Skagi traced the field of tattoos layered across his flank. “Got these the day I entered Tempus’s service,” he said. “Cost me everything I’d earned doing hard labor in the city, but it was worth every coin. Folk in the trade districts mark me now. They say, ‘There walks Skagi, warrior of Ikemmu.’ Someday it will be Skagi, Sworn of Uwan.”

  The absolute conviction in his voice left Ashok with little doubt that Skagi would be successful in his quest. The others nodded in agreement, nursing their own dreams behind their eyes. Only Vedoran seemed subdued.

  “You need your own tattoo to mark this day,” Cree said. “You’re a Camborr; you need ink on your skin to show it.”

  “I say give him flames, since he’s going into the fire with that nightmare,” Skagi said. “Or maybe the shadow hounds?” He grinned at Ashok.

  Ashok looked down at himself. His skin was bland and colorless next to the complex patterns of the tattoos on the others. But he didn’t understand why they would want to celebrate his accomplishment.

  “When one of you goes up in rank,” Ashok said, “the others will be left behind. You’re competing for the same honors.” They should be trying to assassinate him in order to take his place, he thought, not congratulating him on his success.

  “Whether we succeed or fail depends on our own efforts,” Chanoch said. By the rapture in his eyes, it sounded like he was repeating something he’d heard Uwan say. “It’s our own fault if we’re unworthy.”

  “And when we are rewarded for our service”—Skagi threw an arm around Ashok’s shoulder and towed him in the direction of Tower Hevalor—“we drink.”

  The tavern was impressive. It occupied three open levels midway up Tower Hevalor and saw mostly shadar-kai patrons, Ashok noticed. There were no signs marking its name, and whenever Ashok heard anyone refer to it, they called it simply Hevalor Tavern.

  The tavern’s stone walls were lit with enchanted blue torchlight, and the cloths covering the tables were black. The dark colors created the illusion of privacy in a room with no corners.