The Truth of Shadows

by Jacob Peppers

  Suddenly, the God of Chance’s eyes lost their supernatural luster, and he looked nothing so much as tired. “In that, at least, you are right. But it is not too late, Paren. You might save them yet, might save us.” He turned, regarding the vague form of the Broken in the distance, marching toward death and destruction like some marionette, thinking his thoughts, his steps, were his own, not realizing he was guided by the will of another. “Even he might still be saved.”

  “No. Not this one.”

  And in those simple words, Javen understood the true depths of his brother’s fall, understood that his words were not just for the exiled Ekirani but for all of creation, gods and mortals alike. “If so, it is only because he refuses to understand what he has become, refuses to give thought to the truth of his…imperative.”

  “And you believe this a weakness,” Paren said. “But in this, too, you are wrong. You would make all men scholars, priests who, looking upon the world and discovering they do not like what they see, might create justifications for it, might fashion from their own desperate fears a hope that does not, that never has belonged. This one will do what is asked of him, will be the executioner’s axe, doing what it was made to do, what it must do. The blade cares naught for such useless considerations as you pose, nor should it. They only get in the way.”

  “And what of him?” Javen asked. “You make of him, your servant, a weapon. And even weapons might be scarred. Might be broken.”

  “He is broken already, brother. The only difference between him and the other mortals is that he knows it. Besides, what happens to him is irrelevant. There is no room for sentiment in war, Youngest.”

  “If it is war, then it is a war of your making,” Javen said. “Yours and Mother’s.”

  “The world is always at war, Javen. It is a war that began the second the first mortal breathed his first breath, one that will not end until the last to remain breathes his final one. We will win. The war will end. There is no chance of any other outcome. Now, I weary of your words. Go,” he went on, hefting his sword, “else Wrath seeks your flesh.”

  Javen stared at his brother, then at the massive sword he held. “You are a fool. Just as she is a fool.”

  The giant snarled, moving in a blur faster than any mortal eye could track, faster even than gods could comprehend, for he was the embodiment of battle, of death by blade and arrow. Yet, when his massive sword fell, it was not accompanied by the familiar sound of blade striking flesh, but instead by laughter. “A fool, as I said,” the God of Chance said from behind him. “And you will lose.”

  Growling, the God of Conflict spun to face his twin, but he was gone. Fled. “Laugh while you can, brother,” he grated. “From what is coming, you cannot flee far enough.” Slowly, he sheathed the massive sword, his twin’s laughter still echoing in his mind. But for all that laughter, he did not miss the single drop of blood staining the grass where his twin had stood. The blood of his brother. The blood of a god. Thunder rumbled overhead, calling to him. “So it begins,” he said, then he too vanished, answering his mother’s summons.

  Chapter Twelve

  The sun was just beginning to rise into the sky when Rion made his way into the woods outside the city. As he walked, he scanned the forest around him for any sign of the patrols they had seen the day before, but was surprised after half an hour of walking to have seen and heard nothing. Had Tesharna pulled her men back, then? It didn’t seem likely, not after only a day or two of searching. But what other possibility was there?

  As he drew closer and closer to the forest cave in which he and the others had taken shelter, a feeling of unease began to come over him. Less than half a day before, when Darl had led him and Katherine through the forest, they’d had to skirt patrols on every side, and he had been anticipating the difficulty of coming back since they’d left. Now though, the patrols were gone, seemingly vanished into thin air, and though he felt some relief that it appeared his trip back would be easy enough, something felt wrong.

  There was no reason for the patrols to have left so quickly, no reason for the troops to have abandoned their search. Unless, of course, they already found what they were looking for.

  He told himself he was being ridiculous, jumping at shadows, but if the past weeks had taught him anything, it was that shadows were not as safe as some imagined, that, oftentimes, they had teeth of their own.

  He was still warring with himself, arguing the point back and forth, when he came upon the bodies. Their red cloaks marked them as Redeemers, as did their midnight black armor. Not that the armor had done them any good against whatever they had faced. At first, he thought they must have been set upon by animals—nightlings, most like—but then he noticed the rents in their flesh, many of which were too smooth, too straight, to have been caused by fangs or teeth.

  No. A man had done this. A man with a sword, and it was too much to hope that there was another sharing these woods, another who would give battle to the Redeemers. It had to have been Darl or Alesh, but the Ferinan—from what Rion had seen—did not prefer a sword but a spear. Alesh, then. Rion scanned the bodies for any sign of the man but found none, only one red-cloaked corpse after another. Yet as he gazed at them, his gorge rose in his stomach, and despite the fact that the man had clearly walked away from the encounter, Rion was not comforted.

  For the bodies he gazed upon were not the product of a battle but a massacre, not a fight, but butchery. Though he was no swordsman, Rion could see that each corpse possessed far more wounds than would have been necessary to bring the man down. It was as if Alesh had not been satisfied with their deaths, and had meant to carve contentment from their flesh with blow after blow from his sword. Rion had never considered himself a man easily disturbed, but he pulled his gaze away from the ravaged bodies, swallowing hard.

  He half-walked, half-stumbled into the trees, away from the massacre, and soon, he came upon the cave. More dead men, but many of these, at least, had died clean. If a man could die clean, that was. Rion walked past the bodies, not daring to examine them too closely—his stomach was lurching dangerously—until he came upon the cave entrance. Two more dead Redeemers lay broken and battered, and, between them, a form he recognized. “Shit,” he cursed.

  He knelt beside the Ferinan, putting his finger under the dark-skinned man’s nose and was relieved to feel the almost imperceptible touch of his breath. Alive, then. Lucky, considering the blood running down the man’s head and from one ear. Clearly, he had taken a beating. Suddenly, Rion felt very exposed, but more than that, he felt…haunted. It was as if the forest around him still echoed the violence that had taken place here, as if it was not yet done. “Darl, wake up,” he said, giving the man a shake.

  The Ferinan did not respond, and Rion found himself wishing he had taken the time to learn anything of healing. He was just about to shake the man again when leaves crunched behind him. With a shout of surprise and terror, Rion spun, sliding one of his blades from its sheath, and his face heated when he saw Katherine standing a few feet away, her eyes wide with terror.

  “What happened here?” She asked.

  Rion grunted, sliding his knife back into its sheath. “Nothing good.”

  “I saw others,” she said, walking forward, “in the trees—” She cut off, her eyes widening further as she saw the Ferinan lying prone on the ground, and she let out a shocked sound, rushing forward and kneeling beside him. “What happened to him?” she demanded.

  “How in the name of the gods should I know?” Rion said. “I only just got here a few minutes before you did. He’s breathing, at least.”

  She nodded. “I’ll see to him. Go check on Sonya.”

  Rion nodded, leaving her to it, and drew his knife again before heading into the cave. He knew at once from the heavy silence that it was empty, but he moved inside anyway, crouching to avoid hitting his head on the cave’s low ceiling. He turned over the bedroll. Nothing. He hissed in frustration, looking around. A small, open cave, with no tunnels or i
ndentions big enough for anything larger than a rat to fit in. Nowhere for the girl to hide when they’d come. The air inside the cave began to feel oppressive, and Rion quickly stepped back outside.

  Katherine was still crouched over the unconscious Ferinan, and she looked up at him, a question in her gaze. Rion had a hard time meeting the desperate hope in her eyes, but he gave his head a shake, “I haven’t found the girl.” He saw her jaw tense as she gave an abrupt nod, turning back to the dark-skinned man.

  “A bad head wound, but there hasn’t been too much bleeding. He should recover soon.”

  Desperate to distract himself from what they had found, from the girl’s absence, Rion said, “The man’s got a tendency of getting hit over the head. Were I him, I think I’d walk around with a helmet on.”

  She shot him a quick glance, and he winced, expecting an angry tirade at his flippancy, but she must have seen something of the truth of his own hurt, his own need in his eyes, for she gave him a small, tight smile instead. “Yes, I’ll have to mention as much to him, when he wakes up. And Alesh?” she asked. “Were there any signs—”

  “Nothing. At least, nothing to indicate that he’s still here. He was though…the bodies…”

  “I know.”

  Relieved that she had seen, that he wouldn’t have to recount his own feelings on the matter, Rion nodded. “So what do we—” He cut off as the coin in his pocket began to grow cold, and he had seen enough in the last few days to know what that coldness meant. Javen, the God of Chance, or, perhaps more accurately, Rion himself as the god’s chosen, was at work. Suddenly, an errant wind blew, and something fluttered in front of his face. He reached out, catching it on instinct, and was surprised to see that it was a sheet of parchment.

  Frowning, he straightened it and began to read. “Night take it,” he said.

  “What?” she asked. “What is it?”

  Wordlessly, Rion handed her the parchment, watched her expression grow troubled as she scanned its contents. When she was finished, she looked up at him. “They’ve taken her. They’ve taken Sonya.”

  “Yes. And that crazy bastard Alesh has gone after them. Alone.”

  “But…but why?” she said. “He knew we’d be back before long. Why would he not wait for us? He’ll have a better chance of getting her back with us along, surely he knows that…what was he thinking?”

  Rion pointedly looked at the two bodies of the Redeemers at the cave entrance. Unlike the others scattered nearby, these two had been butchered in the same fashion as those he’d come upon in the woods. “I don’t believe he’s doing much thinking right now. And what thoughts he’s having…I’d wager they’re red ones.”

  She didn’t respond to that, just turned back to the Ferinan and began to wipe the blood from his face.

  “What do we do now?” Rion asked after a moment.

  She went still then, and was silent for several seconds. “There’s nothing we can do,” she said finally, not turning to meet his gaze. “Sigan’s man will be here in a few hours, and then we’ll start out. Leaving before then would be risking ourselves for no purpose, and if we die trying to charge after him, we won’t do Alesh or Sonya any good. Not to mention the fact that we can’t leave Darl, and we certainly can’t carry him all the way south.”

  “So what then?”

  In answer, she moved around to grab the Ferinan’s arms. “Help me carry him into the cave.”

  Rion bent to grab his legs, and after a fair amount of cussing on Rion’s part—Darl was heavier than he had any right to be, so far as he was concerned—they managed to get him inside the cave, and laid him down on the bedroll. Panting from the exertion, Rion leaned back against the cave mouth. “Now what?”

  “Now we wait until Sigan’s man arrives.”

  Rion nodded. “And if the Redeemers come back?”

  She met his eyes, her expression grim. “Then we die.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The wound in his arm still throbbed, and he was aware of the blood dripping onto the ground and marking the path he walked crimson, so that any others, coming after, might recognize it, might know it for what it was. Had he stopped to consider it, Alesh would have thought that fitting enough, for it seemed that the journey of his life had always been painted by such crimson signs. But he did not stop, and he did not consider it.

  For him, the path behind meant nothing, and it was only that which lay ahead that mattered. Blood and more of it, the blood of those who had taken her, of those who had dared to take her. He made no attempts at stealth as he ran through the woods, setting himself a brutal pace that would have long since done him in had he not still been full of that unnatural energy that had come to him when the Redeemers had attacked, the energy that seemed renewed by not just the outer darkness beneath the treetops, but the inner darkness of his own heart.

  Twice they had come upon him, two and three at a time. He had cut them down, taking pleasure in the sounds of their screams, in the looks on their faces when they realized that they had charged when they should have fled, that they had attacked when they should have knelt low, prostrating themselves before the rage which drove him, begging for a mercy that did not exist. He would have killed them anyway—they had earned their deaths and more—but they made it easy by rushing him, drawing close so that he could cut them down without hardly slowing.

  He pushed himself to his limit and past it, running along the trail as fast as he could, hoping to chase down his quarry, but no matter how fast he ran, his prey continued to elude him. Still, he did not despair. He would find him, and when he did, the fool who had dared to take Sonya would learn the depths of his fury.

  ***

  Despite his newfound power, Sevrin was afraid. His god had ordered him to take the girl, to bring her south, yet for all of his ability to travel through shadow, flitting from one to the next, the one who pursued him seemed to never tire, was possessed of a strength, a will that was hard to fathom. More than once, he had sensed the man only a short distance behind him, had pushed himself to his own limits in order to evade him. The Redeemers waiting in the woods, those who Sevrin had warned of their target’s coming had, so far at least, done little to slow the man, buying with their lives no more than a few spare seconds between Sevrin and his hunter.

  He had thought, once he had experienced the unbelievable pain and terror that had accompanied the powers his new god had given him, that he would never be afraid again. To find himself scared now, of this man, made him angry, and once more he considered slaying the unconscious girl in his arms outright, considered exacting from her flesh, her soul, the pain that he dared not try to bring to the one hunting him. But, not for the first time, he rejected the idea. After all, so long as the girl lived, she was a barrier between him and the man chasing him. Besides, to kill her would anger his god, and the pain of his recent displeasure was still too fresh in Sevrin’s mind for him to consider disobedience.

  Take her south, the shadow had said. And so he would. And then, when he reached those allies of which his god had spoke, he would make the man suffer for daring to chase him. And when that was finished, when the man lay broken and destroyed beneath him, then he would find Rion. He would find him, and he would make him pay.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Darl awoke to bouncing, and the sounds of growled curses from beside him. Memories of the fight, of the Redeemers, flashed in his mind, and he jumped to his feet, lurching as the ground on which he stood shifted, and he felt himself falling. Then a hand was on him, pulling him back. “Sit down before you fall down, you crazy bastard.”

  Frowning, Darl looked around and realized for the first time that he was sitting in the front of a wagon. “Thank you, Mister…?”

  “Mister Stupid as Shit’d do well enough, I think,” the man said, shaking his head and sending his thick jowls to quivering before he turned and spat off the side of the cart. Then he scowled at Darl. “Well, don’t just look at me you damned fool, sit down.”

 
Darl complied, feeling as if he must surely be dreaming. “Forgive me, sir, but you are a stranger to me. And…what’s more, where are we going?”

  The man sighed, clearly annoyed. “You ask me, we’re on our way to the land of the dead, and in a hurry too. Not that anyone does ask me, mind. As for who I am, I’m the damned fool Sigan paid to get killed alongside you all.”

  “‘You all’?” Darl said, finding it surprisingly difficult to order his chaotic thoughts, and the cart driver’s penchant for cryptic answers was doing little to help matters.

  The man grunted, then clucked at the two horses who slowed then led the cart to the side of the road and stopped altogether. That done, the driver turned and slid open a compartment leading to the wagon. “Well, why don’t you tell him? Just hurry it up, will ya? I expect we’ll be dyin’ soon enough either way, but that ain’t no reason to hang around and wait for our deaths to find us.”

  Darl leaned over, peering inside the opening, and grinned as he found Katherine and Rion staring back at him. “Ah, you are both okay, thank the gods. It is good to see you.”

  “It’s good to see you too, Darl,” Katherine said, and although she smiled convincingly enough, Darl had spent the last several years as her partner and had seen enough of her moods to know that something was troubling her.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  She glanced at Rion who only winced and looked away. “How much do you remember, Darl? About…about what happened at the cave?”

  Darl frowned. “They found us, the men in red cloaks. I do not know where the Dawnbringer was, for he was on watch, and I awoke to the sound….” His eyes went wide suddenly, as fear lanced into his heart. “The girl, Sonya. She was taken.”

  “By who?” Katherine said, leaning forward. “Who took her, Darl?”