CHAPTER 43
Relentless
“Where has everyone gone?” Mala asked casually.
“Do I care where everyone has gone?” Drakis answered back, soft warmth in his voice.
They walked as one along the sloping sands of the bay’s shore, their bare feet digging into the residual warmth of the sand as the cool offshore breeze flowed past them. The sun was setting on a perfect day in the first place of peace that Drakis had ever known. The totality of its experience was almost painful to the human warrior who had never known tranquillity-never even had the ability to imagine it. Yet here they were, Mala’s arm wrapped around his waist and his around her shoulders, walking beside the gently lapping waves of Nothree Bay and looking in awe at the encircling mountain peaks, fading to purple under a vibrant orange sky at sunset.
“But I haven’t seen anyone all day,” Mala said.
“What do you mean ‘haven’t seen anyone?’ ” Drakis spoke through a crooked smile. “Look. . over there behind that corsair galley. There’s a whole group of ‘someones’ working on those nets. And just up there. . entirely too many ‘someones’ who are trying to keep those children out from under foot while they cook dinner. The whole village is absolutely lousy with ‘someones.’ ”
Mala slugged him in the chest with the boots in her hand just hard enough so that he would not let go of her. “You’re terrible! That’s not what I meant and you know it. Where’s the dwarf or the Lyric. . or either of the manticores from our old House for that matter?”
“You forgot the chimerian.”
“Well, I’d just as soon forget the chimerian altogether.”
“Can’t argue with you there.”
“But seriously, Drakis.” Mala stopped walking, pulling him around to face her just before they came to the beached prow of one of the Sondau ships. “Where are they? Don’t you think it odd that they follow you all this way and then run off without a word to you? They’ve been gone more than a full day now. It’s like they all vanished at once.”
“Mala, stop worrying,” Drakis said, turning toward her and taking her by her shoulders. She looked so beautiful to him in the soft light of the closing day that he nearly forgot what he was about to say. “I spoke with Elder Shasa this morning. He said that most of them went off to try to find RuuKag. . who apparently had gotten it into his mind to return to the Hak’kaarin on his own. No one knows where Ethis went, and to be honest, I’d be just as glad if he remained lost.”
“But, Drakis. .”
“Mala, listen to me. . there’s something I want to talk to you about.” Drakis took her hand and led her higher up the beach just short of the seawall. He gestured for her to sit and then sat next to her as they both looked out over the waters of the bay. The evening was deepening but through the narrow channel that entered the bay between the towering rocks could still be seen the fading remnant of the sunset illuminating the northern horizon.
“What is it, Drakis?” Mala asked quietly.
Drakis sat still for some time before he spoke. “Have you ever enjoyed quiet like this?”
“Quiet?” Mala laughed. “I hear those pots in the kitchen behind us. . I hear the laugher of those men mending the net. . those children squealing up the beach-and the birds around here can be downright obnoxious.”
Drakis smiled. “That’s not what I mean. I mean the luxury of being quiet. . of just holding still and looking out over the water with someone next to you to share that stillness. To not have to say a word and know that no one needs you to speak because the quiet around you speaks for you.”
Mala leaned toward him, resting her head against his shoulder. “I’ve never known that quiet before here. . it’s painful.”
“Yes, that’s right,” Drakis nodded. “Painful because we never knew it existed and now the thought of losing it is unbearable. Mala, I’m tired of running toward a horizon that is always getting farther away. . tired of pretending to pursue some destiny that isn’t even mine.”
“What are you saying?” Mala asked.
“I’m saying that this. . right here. . is everything that I want or could ever want out of my life.” Drakis reached down and pulled up a handful of the white sand from between his feet. It glittered slightly in the fading rays of the day. “This place. . this peace. I don’t want or need any great destiny that may not be mine to begin with. All I want is this quiet. . right here. . with you.”
“But, the song in your head. . the music that calls you. .”
“It’s still there,” Drakis replied, looking through the narrow passage to the north. The light on the horizon was rapidly fading. “If anything it is stronger than ever, but, Mala, that doesn’t mean I have to follow it. Let it just be a song in my head. . from what Elder Shasa tells me there are plenty of other humans who have heard the song, too, and they didn’t have to go out and become this great prophecy fulfillment either.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I don’t want to run anymore.” Drakis turned to Mala. “I’m saying I want to stay. . right here with you as my mate or wife or whatever the Sondau call it, bury my sword, have a family of our own, and live a quiet life.”
“I. . I don’t. .” Mala stammered. “Is it possible, Drakis? I mean, we’ve run for so long, and we barely know ourselves who we are. .”
“We can be whoever we choose,” Drakis persisted. “If anything, I’ve learned that over the last months. It doesn’t matter who we were, Mala; we can become who we want to be. We can forget about our past; what we cannot forget, we can forgive and start anew.”
“Can we, Drakis?” Mala said, looking up into his face. “I don’t know. . if people can change. Maybe we’re so broken that we can’t change.”
Drakis smiled down at her. “How will we ever know if we don’t try?”
“It would be wonderful to try,” she replied softly.
An unwelcome shout behind Drakis shattered the moment. “Drakis!”
“It would be him,” Mala said distastefully.
Drakis pushed himself up from the sand and turned toward the voice. “Yes, Ethis, it is me. Now that you have completely ruined my evening, I’m sure you’ve thought of some way to ruin my night as well. What is it?”
The chimerian paused, glanced at Mala rising to stand next to Drakis, and then took in a deep breath.
“Yes,” Drakis urged, “You’ve got my attention. What is it?”
“I. . I thought we might discuss our next move.”
“Our next move?” Drakis responded. “Just what move would that be?”
“Why. . northward, as you said,” Ethis spoke, choosing words as a warrior might choose his weapons in battle. “The Sondau have these corsairs that are legendary in the open sea. You might prevail upon them to take us farther on-perhaps across the Bay of Thetis into Nordesia or even. .”
“No,” Drakis said flatly.
“They might take us along the coast to the west, or we could travel by land to Point Kontantine but we would still need the corsair ships to. .”
“No, Ethis,” Drakis repeated more firmly. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“But. . your destiny. .”
“My destiny? You’ve been repeating that lie so long that you’ve started believing it yourself.” Drakis shook his head. “It’s not me! Even if it were me, I wouldn’t want it! It was all just a story the dwarf told, Ethis, so that gullible folks along the way would feed us and give us a bed! It got us here and that’s enough. . I’m not going anywhere!”
“So that’s it, then,” Ethis spat, his blank expression vanishing for the first time that Drakis had ever known him into what passed for a scowl. “You just give up, tell the rest of the world to jump into the Chaos while you play in the sand?”
“Yes!” Drakis shot back. “It’s my life. . for the first time it is mine. . not yours. . not the dwarf fool’s. . certainly not the Empire’s. . and I’m not giving it up to anyone else, either!”
Ethis shook his
head. “You selfish, blind, narrow-minded idiot! It’s gone way beyond time for you to hide! You think the Iblisi will just give up. . that they’ll wake up one day and say, ‘This is too hard, let’s just let this one go?’ They never give up, Drakis, and they never, ever forget. They will hunt you down and murder you, you and anyone who has been with you. The very first they’ll take will be those closest to you. The safest thing you can do is get off this continent-across the sea-somewhere they can’t reach.”
“Oh, please,” Drakis sneered. “You’re scaring the women.”
Ethis growled under his breath in frustration. “You have no idea who these Iblisi are. . or who I am for that matter!”
“Oh, I think I have a pretty good idea about you,” Drakis snarled. “I’ve seen what you’re capable of. . just how honest you can be!”
“I’m trying to help you, human!”
Drakis looked behind the chimerian. There came a rising tide of shouts from the village. Suddenly one appeared, then three, and then entire families were running frantically about. Soon a number of them ran toward the various ships beached along the crescent of sandy shore that marked the edge of the harbor.
Drakis eyed the chimerian. “What did you do, Ethis?”
Belag and the Lyric appeared behind the dwarf, all of them running directly toward Drakis and Mala.
“Well,” Mala sighed to herself. “It looks like everyone found us.”
Urulani came with them but ran past Drakis without as much as a nod, shouting toward the beached ship beyond. “Kanshu! Get up!”
A head poked up over the gunwales, staring blearily back.
“Raise me a crew of twenty!” she shouted, plunging into the water without slowing, then pulling herself up a rope that Kanshu hastily tossed over the side. “We’ve got to get the ship provisioned and ready for sail at once. And I want warriors and sea-crafters only-and pray we don’t need them!”
“Aye, Captain,” Kanshu replied at once, himself jumping over the side and pushing shoreward through the shallows. “How long a voyage, Captain?”
“I don’t know. . bring as much as is at hand,” Urulani shouted as she at once set about readying the ship. “I’ve told the Elders to abandon the village. We’ll hold the beach until everyone is safely away on the other ships.”
“Are we being raided, Captain?” Kanshu asked as he surged out of the water and onto the shore.
“Yes! I don’t know when but soon,” Urulani called out. “We have to get everyone out. . they can’t kill us if we aren’t here.”
“Now what?” Drakis groaned.
“Drakis!” the dwarf shouted, his short legs churning up the sand atop the seawall. “Ah, good it is to see you, my friend, and most blessed by the gods indeed that you are well! We’ve not a moment to waste. . gather all that is needful, and let us away while we can!”
Drakis closed his eyes and turned his face up toward the dark sky. “You, too? I finally find a place where I am content to stop and now all of you want to leave?”
“I am sorry, Drakis,” Belag said. “But we must.”
“We don’t have to do anything,” Drakis protest.
The manticore drew himself up before the human warrior and looked down at him with kind eyes. “Sometimes, friend, we must do a thing or we stop being ourselves.”
“What does that mean?” Drakis asked.
“It means that we have just returned from the mud city south of the Sentinel Peaks,” Belag said. “We tracked RuuKag there. There is much to that tale that we will tell when there is more time, but for now all that needs to be said is that RuuKag is dead. . and so, too, is the city of the Hak’kaarin.”
Ethis caught his breath sharply. “Dead? All dead?”
Belag looked curiously at the chimerian. “Yes. . though we know that most of the mud gnomes escaped thanks, I believe, to RuuKag. He found his heart at last.”
“But,” Mala struggled to find her words. “Who would do such a thing? I mean. . the mud gnomes weren’t a threat to anyone and had nothing anyone would want.”
“They had Drakis,” Belag said, his gaze fixed on the human warrior.
“No,” Drakis said, closing his eyes as he shook his head.
“There were seven robed elves among the dead,” Belag continued. “Nearly a full unit of what the Iblisi call a Quorum. It took only seven of them to destroy perhaps a thousand of the gnomes, but RuuKag managed to help stop them at last-stop them to protect you, Drakis.”
“No, please,” Drakis moaned. “Not for me.”
Beyond, among the huts of the village, the shadows were moving swiftly. Men emerged from the edge of the jungle forest, all rushing with sacks and chests shouldered as they charged down toward the ship behind Drakis. Elsewhere along the shoreline, the other ships were being readied in haste to depart.
“They tracked us to that city,” Belag said. “They tracked you. Perhaps the death of their Quorum was enough to give them pause but if there is more than one Quorum pursuing us. .”
“They’ll know where we went,” Ethis finished. “They’ll come directly here.”
They won’t stop, Drakis thought. They’ll never stop.
Mala started to ask, “How much time do you think. .?”
An explosion rocked the ground. An enormous ball of flame shot into the sky south of the village. The heat of it burst against their faces as they watched it roll upward into the night.
“How much time?” Ethis drew his sword. “I would say. . not enough.”
CHAPTER 44
Fury
“The Ancients!” Urulani swore from the deck of the ship as she watched the fireball climb high into the night. “Those are the inner defenses. They slipped past the outer two!”
“How close are they?” Drakis called up to Urulani.
“One hundred yards from the edge of the village,” she replied. “They are very close, prophet-man!”
Belag turned at once to Drakis. “They know we have ships, and their objective is to destroy every breathing thing here. Their first move will be to cut off our escape.”
“That means they’ll try to take the beach,” Drakis nodded as he drew his own sword, “probably from the sides-or at least they’ll try to destroy the ships.”
“If they manage either one, we’re finished,” Ethis agreed. “We’ve got to protect the flanks of the beach until the ships are away.”
Drakis turned to the manticore. “Belag, you and Ethis take the east end of the beach. Gather as many of the Sondau raiders as you can. There’s a jumble of boulders about a hundred yards down there just above the seawall. . do you see it?”
“Yes, Drakis,” the manticore nodded.
Two more explosions erupted over the treetops, followed shortly by a third. The beach was getting crowded with people from the village, many of them readying the boats and others tossing supplies and children in as well. The Sondau raiders were just as readily tossing the children back out, shouting for others to wait until the ships were ready to sail. The cries and confusion were both rising precipitously around them.
Drakis kept talking to the manticore. “Take anyone you can gather there. You’ll have a good view of the eastern side, and the position is defensible. Fall back below the seawall if you have to and make your way back here, got that?”
Belag nodded.
“Ethis!”
“Yes, Drakis?”
“It looks like you’ll get your wish after all,” Drakis said. “Don’t let them through. If they close off this beach it’s all over.”
The chimerian nodded; then, drawing his two long scimitars from their scabbards at his back, he followed quickly on the heels of the manticore.
Drakis turned to Mala. “You get the Lyric aboard this ship. Help Urulani get it ready to sail. . do anything she says. . and wait for me here.”
“Drakis, don’t go,” she said, her voice in near panic. “I’ve seen you go off to battle so many times but. .”
“I’ll be back,” Drakis repea
ted. “I’ve got to come back. . you’re here.”
Mala nodded then looked away, unable to watch him go.
Drakis turned, slapping Jugar on the back. “Let’s go, dwarf! Have you ever actually been in a battle or do you just talk about them?”
“Oh, I’ve been in a few,” Jugar chuckled. “Mind you I prefer just talking about them, but I believe I’ll manage.”
With that, the dwarf drew his broad-bladed ax in front of him and charged west down the beach, dodging between the humans rushing toward the edge of the water.
Drakis shouted and followed after him.
Soen stepped through the fold just as an explosion to his left rocked the ground. He lost his footing and fell to his knees.
He cursed again, his eyes wide with anger and frustration. Everything had gone wrong. He had come to the northern reaches of the Empire with a simple plan and, he had hoped, the blessing of Keeper Ch’drei to recapture this Drakis quietly so that they might use him for their own purposes. But Ch’drei was always a devious woman and never made an honest wager when she could concoct a dishonest one. Soen had not been more than a few days out on his journey when he knew that he was being followed and tracked through the folds. It didn’t take him long to determine that he as the hunter had become the hunted-the bait for a rather bloodier and more bludgeonlike approach to solving the problem. The subtlety that Ch’drei mastered in her politics had apparently failed her in execution of policy, and she preferred the finality of death to more delicate influences. Still, Soen had hoped to complete his mission as he had originally intended-confront this Drakis human and determine if, indeed, he was the prophesied doom of the Imperium.
Information like that brought opportunities that he could scarcely calculate-and capabilities that even the bloodthirsty Ch’drei could not deny.
But all of that was crumbling around him. Even as he was making contact at last with the Beacon among these bolters, the Inquisitor who had been tracking him had grown impatient and clumsy. A Quorum had attacked and laid waste to an entire mud city of the Hak’kaarin-managing somehow also to get themselves destroyed in their zeal-and leaving behind such undeniable wanton carnage that even Soen was appalled. Worse, the stories of the slaughter were now spreading like a grass fire across the savanna by the surviving mud gnomes. The two stories were already merging-of Drakis and of the Iblisi Quorums out to destroy him at any cost. Soon, if it had not happened already, these stories would reach the Dje’Kaarin townships around Yurani Keep. Within a week, every ministry and Order of the Empire would know that there was a “Drakis” loose in the northlands who was being hunted by the Iblisi. Their very hunt would give the rumors credit-and what was once a containable flicker of an idea would become a raging bonfire of debate in the courts of the Emperor himself.
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