His words turned to a scream as Kale kicked him in the leg he’d been favoring. The weak leg gave out beneath him, and the guildmaster collapsed, sprawling on the ground. “Oh, but that is not the way to kneel,” Kale said, chuckling. “You must be on your knees, Guildmaster. Here—let me show you.”
He grabbed the man by the hair, jerking him roughly so that he fell to his hands and knees before him. “There now,” Kale said. “That’s better.”
“Do what you will to me,” the man hissed, clearly in pain, “you’ll never be my Chosen. I’d rather die than serve you and your forsaken goddess.”
Kale looked at the man curiously. “Why, Guildmaster, don’t be ridiculous. I would never seek your death, would not see such a fate befall you. After all, in such troubled times as these, men with your training are more important than ever. Your wife and child though…”
At the mention of his family, all fight went out of the guildmaster, and he seemed to shrink in on himself. “What do you want from me?” he asked in a dull, lifeless voice.
“Eskal,” Kale grinned. “I want your help, of course. If you would be so kind as to give it, that is.”
“Fine. You’ll have it.”
The man started to rise, but Kale slapped him hard once, across the face, and he fell back down again. “I know, Eskal,” he said. “I know that I will have it. And you, I suspect, will be honored to serve your Chosen in such a way, will you not?”
The man rubbed a hand across his mouth, wiping the blood away, then he met Kale’s eyes. “Of course.”
Kale felt better than he had in days, weeks. Power, she had promised, and power she had given. The power to bend men to his will, to watch those he had always known as less than himself cower before him. “Tell me, Eskal,” he said. “Just how honored are you? For there are other guilds out there, you know, to which I could have gone.”
“I’m…very honored,” the man said, each word a struggle.
“Oh?” Kale asked, grinning widely. “Enough to beg?”
***
Kale watched his guards lead the crippled guildmaster out of the audience chamber, feeling pleased. The last few weeks had been trying, but things were finally beginning to come together. With the “assistance” of the Lightbringers, the merchant caravans would begin running again, and soon the people who whispered about Kale and his ineffectual leadership would come to celebrate his rule. And those who did not…well, where one example might be made, another might be also.
Grinning, he looked down at the floor where some of the guildmaster’s blood stained the tiles. He would have to get a servant to see to that, and soon. His eyes caught on one of the long sleeves of his tunic, saw that it had been pushed up in the brief fight with Eskal, and that gray, rough skin showed beneath it. His good mood evaporated in an instant, and he tugged the sleeve down with a hiss, once more covering the rash.
In the last few days, the rash had spread dramatically, covering nearly all his arm and half of the shoulder on the same side. “It grows worse,” he said to the empty room. “You said that it would get better, yet this damned thing continues to spread.”
“Ah, Chosen,” the Proof said, and Kale turned to see him walking out of a previously empty corner of the room, “it will, in time. The medicine needs time to begin working—until then, the rash might spread a touch further, an inch or two, but then it will begin to recede. Soon, it will be gone forever.”
“So you keep telling me,” Kale spat, rounding on the man and jerking his sleeve up, exposing the gray, scaly skin. “And yet all I see it is getting bigger, growing. How long until I am some monster, some freak?”
The man made a breathy sound at that, one that might have been a laugh, but when he spoke his tone was respectful. “I understand your doubt, Chosen. Truly, I do. Yet, I ask only that you trust not just me, but our goddess. Does the medicine not stop the terrible itching?”
Kale frowned. “Yes, but what of it? If this continues the way it has been, I’ll be forced to wear a mask and walk around like some actor in a play. And how seriously, I wonder, will the people of the city take their new ruler when he looks like this?”
“It will go away in time, Chosen,” the man said in a soothing voice. “As for how the people of the city will treat you…have you not seen evidence of that now, in the guildmaster who, I daresay, regrets ever refusing you?”
Kale felt another flash of contentment at that, but it was gone a moment later. “I do not like this. Not at all.”
“Of course not, Chosen, and why would you? But you have done well—is it not clear to you, even now, that the goddess has blessed you, has put you into a position of power where those who oppose you are made to bow at your feet?”
Kale hesitated, nodding slowly. “Yes.”
“Power you asked for, Chosen,” the man went on, the shadows under his hood seeming to writhe, “and power you have received. Our goddess is faithful, is she not?”
Kale nodded again, scratching at his arm where the damned rash was beginning to itch. “Yes, of course.”
“Does it pain you, Master? The rash?”
“It itches,” Kale said, scratching more desperately now, yet he could feel nothing, get no relief, for the itch, as always, seemed to come from somewhere beneath the skin, from his very blood itself. “Gods, but the itch is enough to drive one mad.”
The Proof studied him. “Come then, Chosen. It is near time for your daily medicine. And trust me—trust our goddess. We will see that you are well taken care of.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Damned desert. Damned sand.”
Katherine glanced away from the back of the stretcher and Alesh’s form lying there to where Rion walked behind them. She wanted to say something, to tell him to stop complaining, but instead she only looked away again, continuing to trudge behind the Ferinan. The fact was, she was too tired to argue with Rion, too tired to do little more than put one foot in front of the other. The sand made even such a typically easy task as walking a challenge, seeming to shift beneath her feet as if it was possessed of a will of its own. A will that, more than anything, wanted to see her fall.
Marta walked beside Rion, uncharacteristically quiet, apparently too exhausted to bother with her usual stories. One good thing, Katherine supposed, about walking all through the night was that nobody had any energy left to argue which was just as well. The heat of the sun baking her skin made Katherine short tempered, and judging by the looks of the others, she wasn’t the only one. They all looked miserable, hot and tired and annoyed. Except, that was, for Darl who, when he glanced back from time to time, was smiling.
Rion must have noted the most recent look, for he grunted. “What in the name of the gods are you smiling at?” he demanded in a breathless voice.
“It is good to be home, friend Rion,” the Ferinan, his gaze taking in the sweeping sand around them, the tanned, featureless landscape unbroken save for the dunes that rose out of it seemingly at random.
“If this was my home,” Rion muttered, “then I’d take up traveling. Or dying, maybe. Either one would do.”
Darl laughed, apparently in too high spirits to be offended by the other man’s dour mood. “You will see, Rion. When we reach my people, you will be treated like a king, as all visitors are, and I suspect that your outlook on life in the desert might be changed.”
“Not likely,” Rion said. “And anyway, how do you think to find this tribe of yours? All I see is sand and more of it.”
“It is nearing the close of the year,” Darl said, “and so the Palietkun will have ventured to the northern oasis. We should not be far from them now.”
“Not far,” Rion grumbled. “Well, I hope you’re right. If we have to walk through this damned place for much longer, the Redeemers and that tattooed bastard won’t have a chance to kill us—we’ll run out of water and all die of thirst.”
“I wouldn’t worry so much about it,” Marta said, glancing at Rion, a serious expression on her face.
“Is that
right?” Rion demanded. “And why is that?”
The girl shrugged. “Well. Because you’re old. When old people worry, they get wrinkles.”
The stunned look that came on Rion’s face was too much for Katherine, and she began to laugh. Darl followed, then Marta, and soon even Rion was grinning.
“Gods forbid I get a wrinkle,” Rion said, shaking his head, and they walked on.
To Katherine’s surprise, she began to feel better, as if she had found some reserve of strength, of will, that she had not known she possessed. Perhaps it was the simple laughter, or maybe the Ferinan’s obvious excitement at seeing his home once again was infectious. Either way, the litter didn’t seem as heavy in her hands, and when it was time for Rion to switch with her, she thought that she could have walked another mile, perhaps two without much effort.
Instead, she let the man take his turn at the burden, checking on Alesh and wincing at the fever that practically burned her at the touch. “Gods watch over him,” she whispered, then she made her way to the front of their small group to walk beside Darl. The Ferinan was still smiling, had even begun to whistle softly. A tune she did not know but one that, Katherine realized, she could have played just the same, had she but lifted her harp from its case where it was slung across her back.
“Excited to be home?” she asked, more as a means of making conversation than anything else.
The dusky-skinned man nodded, his eyes getting a faraway look. “It has been many years, Katherine, since I have been among my people. I did not know how much I missed them until I came so close to returning. And what news I bring?” he said, grinning. “The Son of the Morning has been found, as well as others of the gods’ Chosen.”
A Son of the Morning, yes, Katherine thought, glancing back at Alesh who twisted in his sleep—if what had befallen him could even be called sleep. But one that is doing poorly. Gods, let it not be too late.
“He will be alright,” Darl said, having noticed her look. “You will see. The eldest of the Whisperers knows much of the healing art, far more than any man or woman I have ever met. She will make him well again.”
Katherine nodded, not trusting herself to speak past the sudden lump in her throat. Just hang in there, she thought, watching Alesh turning and mumbling in his sleep. The world needs you to be okay. I…I need you to be okay.
“Well, thank the gods.”
They turned to look at Rion, and he was grinning widely, pointing ahead of them. “Smoke. Your people must have some campfires going, cooking lunch. Gods, I hope it isn’t desert snake, but even if it is, I’ll probably eat it. I’m starving.”
Marta was grinning too, and Katherine found a smile on her own face, one that slowly withered as she noticed the Ferinan’s troubled expression. “What is it, Darl? What’s wrong?”
“My people do not cook during the day,” he said. “We do so at night. Resources in the desert are scarce, and since we must light fires at night to ward away the Bane, it makes sense to do our cooking then as well.”
“So maybe they just decided to cook during the day,” Rion answered. “Gods, Darl, no matter how shitty our luck, you’re always grinning like the world is nothin’ but rainbows and bunny rabbits and now you’re worried over a little smoke?”
The Ferinan didn’t answer, staring off in the distance at those thin pillars of smoke, the source of which was hidden behind a large sand dune.
“I’m sure everything’s fine,” Katherine said. “Rion must be right—they just decided to cook during the day, that’s all.”
“Perhaps.”
“But you don’t believe so,” Katherine ventured, feeling concern bud in her own chest.
“The Palietkun are an old tribe, Katherine,” Darl said. “And with age comes tradition and the honoring of it. Cooking at night…it is a small thing, but it has always been so.”
She could see the anxiety in the normally unflappable Ferinan, could see his eagerness to see what was wrong. “Go,” she said, “I’ll take the stretcher.”
“You’re sure?” he asked, turning to her.
“Of course.”
“Thank you, Katherine,” he said. No sooner had she taken the stretcher from him than he was gone, darting off in the direction of the smoke. Katherine was shocked to see how quickly he moved, as if the man had limitless energy. She, too, was eager to see that everything was okay, just as she was eager to have the woman Darl had spoken of, the Whisperer, see to Alesh’s wound. But at the rate they’d been traveling, she thought it would be at least another hour, perhaps more, before they reached the source of the smoke.
“What’s wrong with him?” Rion asked.
“I don’t know,” Katherine said. But that wasn’t exactly true. A dread had begun to rise in her as she stared at those gray pillars, writhing and shifting in the air as if beckoning them onward. There was something cruel, something malicious about that beckoning and a tune began to play in her head. A somber tune that sounded like nothing so much as a funeral dirge.
***
The smell reached them before they made it to the top of the dune. The smell of death, of meat left to rot in the hot sun. Rion grimaced. “Maybe I’m not so hungry, after all.” But looking at him, Katherine saw that his flippancy was not genuine. Instead, it was a shield against that awful smell, and his expression showed that he shared her misgivings about what they would find.
“Marta,” she said, when they were near the top of the dune. “Why don’t you wait here with Alesh? Rion and I will go make sure everything’s okay.”
“Or I can wait with him,” Rion said, “if you’d rather.” He seemed to wither under Katherine’s glare, then swallowed. “Alright, alright. I’m coming.” He eased his end of the stretcher onto the sand and came to stand beside Katherine, who did the same.
Katherine glanced at Marta. “You’ll be okay?”
The girl nodded, apparently her own worries and fears leaving her without anything to say. Katherine turned to Rion. “Ready?”
“Not really, but we’d better go before I lose my nerve.”
***
She could see the devastation as soon as she crested the rise, and she heard Rion give a sharp intake of breath beside her. Feeling as if she were walking in some dream, Katherine started forward, and he followed, neither of them speaking.
The air felt thick, and it was hard to breathe, as if the terrible violence that had occurred here had marked this place, profaned it. Tents lay scattered across the ground, torn down and ripped apart, and she saw several camels with their throats slit, lying on their sides amid blood-drenched sand. But neither of these were what caught her eye, not truly.
Bodies lay here and there among the carnage, possessed of grievous, often unnecessary wounds, as if their killers—whoever they had been—had not been satisfied with their deaths but had insisted on carving into them even long after they were nothing but corpses. Something niggled at Katherine’s mind, some errant oddity, but it could not make it through the dull haze that had settled on her thoughts, could not pierce the creeping numbness that horror at such destruction brought.
Rion was also silent. He uttered no flippant remarks, no complaints, and Katherine almost wished he would. Something, anything to pull her out of this nightmare, to show her that she was more than just a ghost wandering through a massacre, a silent witness to some terrible tragedy. But he said nothing. And they walked on in silence.
Fires burned—it was they which produced the smoke—but no food cooked on them. Instead, they consumed tents and the belongings of the people who had died. Dozens of corpses. Dozens of fires. But Katherine did not feel the heat of them on her skin, for what heat they created was not great enough to overcome the numbness, the cold spreading through her.
The Palietkun, at least, had not died without a fight. Clasped in the hands of the corpses, she could see spears similar to the one Darl carried, and she felt some small satisfaction that many of their points were coated with crimson. But what contentment she fel
t at the sight quickly dissolved. What did it matter, after all? Perhaps they had wounded many of their attackers, killed many of them, but not enough. Not all. So what difference whether their spears were bloody or not? They were dead. All of them dead.
They found Darl at the end of the camp. He was on his knees beside the corpse of an elderly woman, his head hanging low, looking wretched and terrible in his grief. Bodies of Ferinan lay all around the woman, as if this was where they had made their stand. Among them were other corpses of men in black armor and red cloaks. Katherine stared at her friend, at the grief writ plain on his features, and she wanted to say something, to offer some words of comfort, but found that she had none in her. It was as if her insides had been scraped out, scoured away with the flames and the blades of the Redeemers. So she only stood beside him. It was not enough, too weak an answer for what had come, what had happened, but she could do nothing else.
“They stood here,” the Ferinan said, his tone lifeless, as if he were already dead. “The Palietkun. My people. They stood and tried to protect the others, to hold the men off for as long as they could.”
Katherine placed a hand on Darl’s shoulder, found that it was shaking, and she forced her eyes away from her surroundings, to the woman lying by the Ferinan. She could not answer it all, could not begin to approach that great tragedy not even within her own thoughts. But, perhaps, she could answer this one, at least. “Who was she?”
Darl’s face writhed, and for a time he did not speak. Then, when he did, he did so in a voice that was barely audible. “The Whisperer, my people called her. The eldest among us, the wisest. She was without equal.”
He covered his face with his hands then, and he wept. Katherine felt tears winding their way down her own cheeks, and a glance at Rion showed a stricken look on the man’s pale face. He had not known these people, just as Katherine had not, but it did not matter. In their pain, in their tragedy, they knew them. “Darl,” Katherine began, “I…I’m…” But words failed her. What could she say? What could anyone? “I’m sorry?” What did such words even mean when placed against this? What could they mean?
The Truth of Shadows Page 34
