Heirs of Destiny Box Set

by Andy Peloquin

  Four Indomitables came—two to haul away the wasted body, the other two to drag the wailing, weeping children along. No one in line so much as moved. Most barely spared a glance at the commotion.

  Evren’s jaw clenched. He had never felt as helpless as he did before that pitiful sight. He’d spent so many years focused on surviving that he’d never once stopped to think about the people around him. What happened to the merchant whose purse he lifted? How did the man buy food for his family? And what of the goods he’d stolen from the stalls of Vothmot’s Grand Bazaar? He’d put bread in his belly, but had it come at a cost to another child?

  That was the thing about a fight for survival: it shifted the focus inward, until thoughts of oneself became all-consuming. The rich could afford to think about others, but the poor had to scrap, scrounge, and save for everything. It was impossible to consider lofty things like piety, generosity, and altruism with hunger gnawing at your belly or cold cutting you to the bone.

  But those days were behind Evren. The Hunter had given him a purpose, had helped him to look beyond his own needs and desires. Evren had come to Shalandra not for himself, but on a mission that would save all of Einan. That mission was so grand—sustain Kharna in his fight to stop the Devourer of Worlds—yet it failed to account for the misery that would continue to exist long after the threat had passed.

  Somehow, Evren vowed, I will find a way to make this right. He didn’t know how—he was a thief, not the Pharus or Keeper’s Council—yet he knew he had to try. This cannot continue. No one should be forced to live like this.

  Movement down the street snapped Evren from his thoughts. A hulking man with sloped shoulders, thick-fingered hands, and heavy features twisted into a scowl moved toward him at a steady pace. Evren had no doubt that he was the target—the thug looked right at him. Only the Ybrazhe would be hunting him down here on the Slave’s Tier.

  Icy feet danced down Evren’s spine, but he forced himself to calm. Without apparent hurry, he stood and slipped in the opposite direction, west along the Way of Chains. He’d just taken his first step when another slope-shouldered thug appeared from the west, blocking his escape.

  Damn! He sucked in a breath and cast about wildly for a way out. Toward the Indomitables? The black-armored soldiers wouldn’t protect him, but the Ybrazhe wouldn’t dare attack with the Indomitables there, would they?

  Before he could move, two more bull-necked thugs shoved through the lines of people near the Lower Wellspring and two others came from near the Hall of Bounty, cutting him off from that direction.

  Evren’s heart sank. There’s no way out. His back was literally against a stone wall, with six thugs hemming him in from all sides. He clenched his fists and steeled his courage. I won’t go easy.

  The six men moved toward him in unison, slowly tightening the noose around him. They closed the distance and stopped two paces away from him, just out of striking range, and twitched aside their ankle-length shawls to reveal hidden swords.

  Evren sucked in a breath. He couldn’t fight his way past that many. Even if the Indomitables saw the scuffle, he would be dead long before the soldiers reached him.

  One man with a face like crushed rock snarled at him. “Blackfinger sends his greetings.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Issa wanted to weep, scream, and shout her rage into the night sky, but she couldn’t spare the energy. The moment she stopped moving, stopped barking orders to the Indomitables around her, people would die.

  The rising sun shone on a scene of chaos, violence, hatred, callous cruelty, and wanton brutality. All along the back streets of the Slave’s Tier, Indomitables kicked down doors, clubbed at the protesting Mahjuri, and barked their repeated demands for answers. Bloodlust drove them to terrible things—far too many innocents had died already, yet their thirst for vengeance had not yet been sated.

  Helplessness threatened to crumble Issa’s resolve. She faced the savagery with only the forty Indomitables she’d managed to shout into submission. Her rank as a Keeper’s Blade gave her seniority over the Dictators and Neophytes—provided they never discovered that she was a trainee. Unlike the Indomitables, the Blades’ armor bore no badge or symbol to denote their rank.

  For now, the façade of authority held. Four patrols moved at her back, obeyed her orders, and helped her to quell the violent turmoil on the Slave’s Tier. When they had been unleashed upon the people with their fellow comrades, they had been free to act as they saw fit—just like everyone else around them. Yet once singled out and forced to answer for their actions, reason returned and discipline was restored.

  “Go!” Issa thrust a finger toward a nearby house, where two Indomitables were beating a Mahjuri man into unconsciousness. Three of her small company raced toward the rabid soldiers, drawing swords as a fallback in case logic failed to restore order.

  A scream from up the street snapped Issa’s head up, just in time to see a full patrol of black-armored soldiers dragging four young Mahjuri men from a house.

  This, she’d have to deal with herself.

  She broke into a run and a roar ripped from her throat. “Cease this at once!”

  The ten Indomitables looked up, recoiling at the sight of her charging toward them. She stood taller than them, the spikes on the shoulders, elbows, and knees of her armor making her appear far broader in the shoulder. She barreled toward them with the speed of a runaway horse—only this beast wielded a two-handed blade every soldier in Shalandra would recognize immediately.

  One Neophyte seemed to regain his senses first. “Sir!”

  “What is the meaning of this?” Issa demanded. She stopped an arm’s length away from the Indomitables. “What have these men done?”

  “Suspected Gatherers,” replied another soldier. “We’re hauling them in for questioning.”

  Issa glanced down at the four Mahjuri. Blood stained their faces from cuts on their foreheads and cheeks, broken noses, and split lips. One had a dislocated jaw, a bruise forming as a clear mark of where he’d been struck. Another cradled a broken right arm to his chest, and the other two seemed mere moments away from collapsing into unconsciousness.

  “Hauling them to Murder Square, more like!” Fury burned hot in Issa’s gut. “Release them at once. I will question them.”

  “But, sir—”

  “Now!” Issa’s voice thundered off the stone walls of the houses around her. “Or by the Long Keeper, I’ll haul you in front of Lady Callista to answer a few questions.”

  The ten men flinched at the vehemence and intensity of her voice. Whatever protests they’d intended to raise died unspoken on their lips and their hesitance faded when they caught sight of the black-armored reinforcements at Issa’s back. Their fingers unclenched, their grip on the four Mahjuri youths relaxing.

  Issa jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “Fall in, soldiers!”

  There was a single moment of hesitation as anger-fueled bloodlust warred with logic and discipline. But the presence of Quen and the other three Dictators made Issa’s authority plain.

  “Sir!” The ten men snapped a salute and hurried to join the ranks formed up behind Issa.

  Issa glared down at the four Mahjuri. The youngest appeared to be a year or two younger than her, the oldest no more than twenty. Naked terror shone in their eyes, turned their already emaciated faces pale.

  “Are you Gatherers?” Issa asked them.

  Bitter animosity cracked their masks of fear. “No.” One spat on the ground, while the other three shook their heads vehemently.

  “Are you in league with the Gatherers or conspiring with them against peace and order in Shalandra?”

  Again, the zealous denials.

  “Good.” Issa nodded and lowered her sword. “You are free to go.”

  For a moment, they simply stared at her, incredulous. Relief asserted itself long seconds later. They no longer cowered, but managed to climb to their feet, supporting each other.

  The realization that they wouldn’t
be executed on the spot seemed to restore the oldest’s courage. “Go where?” he snarled, eyes ablaze with anger. “Your Indomitables are running wild all throughout the Slave’s Tier. There is nowhere safe, nowhere to hide!”

  Issa’s jaw muscles worked. “If you want the violence to end, help us. Help us find the Gatherers and all this will be over.”

  The man cradled his broken arm tighter against his chest. “This will never be over. Any time the Dhukari or Alqati need someone to blame, we suffer. Any time there is a shortage of food, we starve. Any time disease ravages the upper tiers, we are rebuked for our filth and squalor.” He spat a gob of blood-tinged phlegm at her feet. “Misery or death, those are the choices you lot have condemned us to.”

  “Sounds like Gatherer talk!” growled an Indomitables from the ranks behind Issa.

  “Then maybe the Gatherers are right!” The Mahjuri glared defiantly at the black-armored soldiers. “If they offer us something better than hunger, thirst, disease, and abuse, then perhaps we would be better off with them.”

  Issa’s fists clenched. “Go,” she growled, “before you force me to arrest you.”

  “For speaking the truth?” The young man straightened, rage twisting his face. “You’re just as bad as the rest of them. Worse, because you delude yourself into thinking you’re better.”

  The words struck Issa a blow to the gut. She’d just saved the man’s life, yet he couldn’t see past her armor and the fact that she was Dhukari. Anger set her hands trembling but she forced her sword hand to remain by her side.

  “Go.” The single word was all she could muster through her fury.

  The man spat once more and, with a disdainful glare, collected his friends and hurried up the street.

  Acid surged in Issa’s throat as she watched the Mahjuri fleeing the uproar. He had put into words the truth behind why so many of the low-caste Shalandrans sided with the Gatherers. Mahjuri, Kabili, and Earaqi suffered beneath the heel of the Indomitables and the weight of Dhukari excess. They starved while men and women feasted in the Palace of Golden Eternity and the Necroseti grew fat in the Hall of the Beyond.

  “Sir.” Warning echoed in Dictator Quen’s voice from behind Issa.

  Turning, Issa found the Indomitable officer staring down a side street, in the direction of the Way of Chains. She followed the woman’s gaze—what could put a tone of fear in a hardened Dictator’s voice?

  The sight of the gathered crowd sent ice flooding Issa’s veins. Hundreds of Mahjuri, old and young, clogged the avenue. Anger darkened their expressions and they muttered amongst each other. Too many hot-tempered men and women stood in the crowd, fists clenched, violence burning in their eyes.

  The people of the Slave’s Tier had suffered enough. They prepared to fight back.

  Issa sucked in a breath to bark out an order to form ranks, but a voice rang out over the crowd before she could speak.

  “Brothers and sisters, be at peace!”

  Issa’s brow furrowed. Where had she heard that voice?

  A man stepped from an adjoining street and placed himself calmly between the crowd and the Indomitables. Tall, broad-shouldered, he walked with the noble bearing of a Dhukari. Yet he wore no headband, his long, curling hair hanging free around his neck. He wore clothes of simple canvas, rough-spun and as ragged as those worn by the people he faced. His feet were bare, his tunic sleeveless, his shendyt cut short.

  An unmistakable conviction rang in his deep, rich voice as he spoke. “Blessed are you, children of eternity. For though you suffer in this life, in the Long Keeper’s arms, there is a reward for each of you. Peace, plenty, joy forever more. Every misery you endure in this world will be compensated in the next. Every act of kindness, of compassion, of forbearance is even now being marked down by the Long Keeper. When you stand in judgement before the Seven Faces, you will have your justice for this life!”

  The anger and hostility in the eyes of the Mahjuri flared bright as the rising sun. They shuffled forward, snarls of rage on their lips.

  But Aterallis, the one called “Child of Secrets, Child of Spirits, Child of Gold”, had not yet finished.

  “This world is but fleeting.” His voice rang out above the crowd—strong, confident, yet filled with an almost impossible calm in the face of fury. “Yet our actions in this life will dictate our fate in the next. If we raise our hands in violence and hate against those who do us wrong, that, too, will be marked down by the Long Keeper. How will you give answer for that when you stand before him?”

  The crowd hesitated, uncertainty piercing the storm of animosity.

  “The Long Keeper cannot embrace those who are filled with bitterness and hate,” Aterallis continued. “Those who give in to those evils will be condemned to wander the hells for eternity. They will never know rest and peace in the Sleepless Lands.”

  Issa scarcely dared to breathe. His words were working! The crowd had begun to calm, fists unclenching.

  “Blessed are you, children of eternity, for your forbearance and longsuffering.” Aterallis stretched out his arms as if to embrace the crowd. “For when comes the Final Destruction as foretold by Hallar himself, you will be gathered into the arms of our loving god. The cares of this world will be forgotten, all pain and suffering washed away in the endless bliss of forever. I implore you, do not let the wrongs of this world prevent you from basking in the marvels of the world to come. Be at peace, my brothers and sisters.”

  The man’s words had a dramatic effect on the throng. The fire in their eyes faded, the naked hatred on faces draining away. One by one, a trickle at a time but slowly increasing to a flood, the crowd dispersed. Men and women returned to their families, to what remained of their homes. A few—mostly young men, but a few grey-haired Mahjuri among them—remained, their gazes fixed on Aterallis. Reverence and adoration shone in their eyes.

  More men appeared from the side street and thronged toward Aterallis, surrounding him in a protective wall. They greeted the Mahjuri that had remained, embraced them, and spoke quiet words of comfort and acceptance.

  Issa let out a breath. Bloody hell, that was too damned close!

  The Indomitables behind her seemed to relax as well, and armor clanked as the men and women released half-drawn weapons.

  With a gesture for her Indomitables to stay in formation, Issa strode toward Aterallis. “Thank you,” she called when she drew within speaking range. “That could have gotten out of hand. You saved a lot of lives today.”

  Aterallis turned toward her. Issa was struck by the light shining in his eyes—a light of joy, compassion, peace. A beatific smile split his face. “From what I hear, so did you.” He glanced at one of the men beside him—the Mahjuri Issa had saved mere minutes earlier. “You are not like the others. You may carry the weapons of war, but you have a heart of peace.”

  He held out a hand to her. “Lay down your arms, shed your armor, and join me. Lend your voice and the strength of your presence to save the people of Shalandra from the woes of this world. For you are a light shining in the darkness, all that stands in the way of the evils that threaten the innocent.”

  The words caught Issa by surprise. The last thing she’d expected was an invitation to become one of his followers. Yet the conviction in his voice, the air of peace that hung like a refreshing breeze about him, it almost made her want to accept his offer.

  But she had her place. He had spoken the truth about her: she wielded weapons of war to bring about peace in Shalandra.

  He seemed to see the truth written in her eyes, yet his face revealed no disappointment. Instead, his smile grew. “Your path is yours to choose. When the Final Destruction comes, the Long Keeper will welcome you into the Sleepless Lands.”

  Issa felt at a loss for words as Aterallis allowed his followers to lead him away. Damn! Her mind reeled beneath the force of the man’s presence. He really is as powerful as they say.

  Nysin had explained why this man, the one the Mahjuri called “Hallar Reborn”, could prov
e such a threat. He offered the people hope of a better afterlife, and the people hailed him a messiah, a savior. He wielded a power that Lady Callista, the Pharus, and the Necroseti never could. Lady Callista ruled through military might, the Pharus through the power bestowed to him by right of birth. The Keeper’s Priests had their Dhukari wealth and prestige. Yet Aterallis had forsaken it all, chosen to live among the poorest of Shalandra.

  He had the people’s love and respect. A few gentle words had calmed the angry crowd. A shudder ran down Issa’s spine. She could only imagine what he could do if he wanted to rile up the populace.

  Turning, Issa strode back toward her Indomitables. Curiosity burned within her at the sight of Nysin, Rilith, and Viddan standing beside Dictator Quen. One look at their dour faces told her they hadn’t had any luck finding the Gatherers’ cart.

  Damn it! She gritted her teeth.

  “Sorry, Issa,” Nysin muttered as she reached them. “We’ve been looking for hours, but it’s like trying to find the single piece of corn in a pile of horse droppings.”

  Viddan shook his head. “Worse. We’ve found close to a hundred carts, each more rundown and decrepit than the last. But none with a cracked rear left wheel.”

  Issa growled a silent curse. Mahjuri were the Wretched, outcasts, yet they served one critical function in Shalandra: they collected debris, emptied troughs, and hauled away the contents of chamber pots from the three lowest tiers. Enterprising Mahjuri could almost earn a living comparable with the lowest-paid Earaqi, and their hand carts were the key to their meager livelihood. There would be thousands of carts on the Slave’s Tier.

  “Keep looking,” Issa growled. “That is the only thing we have to lead us to the Gatherers.”

  Her three Indomitables exchanged tired glances. Issa’s fatigue matched theirs—she hadn’t slept in close to two days—but they had to keep looking. The situation had very nearly turned ugly; the sooner they found the Gatherers, the sooner the Indomitables would cool down and peace would return to the Slave’s Tier.