Heart of the Maiden: (Lords of the Deep Hells Book 3)

by Paul Yoder

  “What about that lot that just left?” Reza heard the mounted city guard ask as they made their way slowly past the new batch of travelers waiting to get into the city.

  “Just a class from the enchanter’s college. No strange foreigners there. Well, no foreigners there; can’t rightly say about the strange part,” the lead guard answered unconcernedly.

  “Am I glad we found you when we did,” Arie breathed next to Reza.

  “Believe me, me too,” she said, letting out the breath she had been holding since they passed through the gate.

  6

  The Soft Light of an Old Memory

  The day had been long, and without mounts, they had been forced to hike to Daloth’s Spire from the northern gate, making their way off trail along the foothills as hidden from view as possible.

  It was well past sundown when they finally decided to take a break, Zaren refusing to move another step that day, halting their progress prematurely.

  Cavok, Jadu, and Zaren were the first to doze off, and after Gale, Eilan, and Jasper briefly caught each other up on the day’s events, they too took the forced stop as opportunity to rest, leaving Reza speaking with Terra, Arie, and Kissa in hushed tones in their fireless campsite.

  “So Metus went east with the Hyperium, and five-hundred Tarigannie horsemen were riding after them last you saw them?” Reza restated, wanting more clarity on the brief update Jasper had given earlier that day on the hike.

  “And they were catching up fast. Their horses were fresh. Our dolingers have been on the road for nearly a week now,” Arie confirmed.

  “That’s why Jasper didn’t want to stop tonight. Metus could be in great need of us,” Kissa added, more than a little annoyed by Zaren’s mulishness.

  Well, some are not used to the road,” she said, thinking of how old Zaren actually was, and how surprised she was that he even made it as far as he had that day on his own two legs, as well as Jadu, considering how short his legs were.

  “Speaking of which, Terra, you should rest while we have time to do so. No need for you to be up,” she said, looking to the young girl who did seem well and tired, but also excited to be in the presence of the three strong women.

  “I will in a bit, if you don’t mind me being here for a while longer,” she said, attempting to sound as mature as the presence she kept, though each still looked at her as though she were a child staying up past her bedtime.

  “As long as you don’t lag behind like that Zaren fellow over there…,” Kissa mumbled, and Reza decided to leave it at that, getting back to the topic at hand.

  “So tomorrow, we find their trail—won’t be hard to find with so many riders—then we follow. Are we sticking together as a group, or sending anyone up ahead?” Reza asked.

  “Though the old man’s pace will be an annoying setback, I do not want to split up again. We’ve done that too many times already, and thankfully, have been lucky enough to rejoin without too many issues, but now that we’re together, let’s keep it that way,” Kissa answered as she looked to the stars, charting them to determine if they were still headed in the general direction she thought they had been.

  “Agreed,” Arie said, smiling. “When I first saw you at the gates, you were so stiff, I thought I was going to need to catch you if you fainted out of shock.”

  “I didn’t make a show of it,” Reza shot back, a bit embarrassed, remembering how cool Arie had played her role, never being the one for theatrics herself.

  “You did look quite startled. It was a bit of a show,” Kissa added, her tone slightly more playful than her usual hard edge.

  Arie and Terra chuckled, seeing how Reza had so easily been made to blush.

  Reza turned to Terra, who quickly stopped giggling.

  “Perhaps it is time for you to turn in,” she said harshly, meaning it as a joke, but the sarcastic nuance flew past the young girl.

  “If you say so,” Terra breathed, abashed that she had so quickly managed to end her time with the adult women.

  “Reza—” Arie scolded as Terra got up to join Cavok’s side, having slept next to the hulking man for the past few days on the road.

  “Terra, wait,” she said, trailing after the girl, catching up to her halfway to Cavok.

  “You’re right, it is late, and today was exhausting. I’d hate to be a burden tomorrow. I was trailing behind a bit today…,” she whispered, refusing to look into Reza’s eyes.

  “You were fine today,” Reza said, resting an uneasy hand on the girl’s shoulder, trying to think of how to dig herself out of the awkward hole she had placed herself in.

  “Oh,” she exclaimed, fidgeting with something at her collar, Terra turning to look at what Reza was pulling off from around her neck.

  “I meant to give this to you, well, for a while now. I just didn’t know when or how…,” Reza gently said, handing the amulet she had recovered from Bede’s body the previous year.

  The talisman had the symbol of her faith clearly inscribed along its worn surface. She knew who it had belonged to. She had seen it many times in her childhood, had let it been used as a trinket to keep her toddler hands busy while her grandmother and mother had talked….

  “Bede…,” Terra whispered, tears welling up easily as she played with the warm metal in her hands once more.

  “I would have given you it sooner, but—” Reza fumbled for words, “—I’m bad with this kind of thing—” she muttered, but was cut short as Terra buried her head in Reza’s chest, hugging her in the dark, Reza patting her on the back to help ease the girl’s emotions.

  Noticing some dim light glowing, Reza gently pried herself from her embrace, whispering, “It glows—”

  “Oh. Yeah, it is,” Terra said, slightly sobbing, but the oddity helping her to regain her composure.

  “Just like it did…for Bede,” she said, remembering the significance of the small detail.

  Reza slowly looked from the warm light and up to the girl’s face, whose eyes, still moist, seemed weighed down with exhaustion.

  “If I don’t get you to bed soon, you’re going to fall asleep while standing right in front of me,” Reza said, putting an arm around the girl, walking her over to Cavok’s side, seeing that she got into her warm enchanter’s robes before bedding down next to the slumped-over tattooed man. She knew Terra would be kept warm and safe next to Cavok. She had slept to his back many times over the years. She knew that the man did not move once asleep.

  As she was about to turn back to rejoin Kissa and Arie to further discuss the plans of the following day, her eyes lingered on the enchanted girl, lightly brushing the small, warm, glowing pendant, closing her eyes to fall into sleep.

  7

  Sick and Dying

  “Are they ready?” Metus asked Darious as the burly man walked up beside the sultan and his war general as they finalized the number of horses they had left in the corral.

  “They are more than ready to leave this place,” Darious said, even the hardened man resorting to covering his nose and mouth with a rag momentarily as another wave of putrification drifted their way from the slaughter a few blocks down.

  “Then let’s get these horses hitched to some wagons and get the injured and disabled loaded. Tell your people to bring what they can carry. We’ll only be using cart space for necessities for the journey,” Bannon ordered as he waved for one of the injured Blood soldiers left behind to help round up their company.

  They had seventeen soldiers heading back with them, all bad off enough to only serve as a hindrance to the rest of the Hyperium that had headed out earlier that morning back on the road with the prisoners of war.

  Bannon was quick to round up his people; a total of fifty-eight men, women, children, and elderly. Most could move without aid, though a few were bedridden, needing to fill up space on some of the various carts and wagons they had in store.

  The Shield Company had gathered quite a number of horses early in the night before dawn, thirty-two in total. The rest of th
e dolingers and horses found were used by the fifty or so Hyperium troops that had departed that morning.

  They had burned their dead troops in a communal pyre before daybreak, and with it, all troops had been accounted for, confirming that indeed thirty Hyperium soldiers had been slain in battle the previous night.

  Metus knew it was going to be a long day, but no part of it would be longer than the time they had to spend in the rotting town, signs of death on clear display on all sides of them.

  The backcountry trail to Sansabar was smooth enough a trek, up until they reached the canyon. The paths were narrow, and the caravan had to travel single file to squeeze through the rocky pass.

  The long off-road day trek was beginning to wear on everyone as not everyone had seats on the carts or on horseback. Metus and Bannon led the group alongside Darious, who knew the occasionally used back trail from the enclave to Sansabar.

  “Call for a stop!” a voice yelled from a ways back in the canyon, getting the three’s attention at the front of the line, which they promptly did.

  “Stay with the lead,” Metus called to Bannon, motioning for Darious to come with him to investigate what the trouble was.

  A cry of pain came from the narrow part of the canyon, and around a horse-pulled wagon stood a group of unclean onlookers that made room for Darious and Metus as they arrived.

  A man patted the horse that pulled the wagon, trying to calm the beast, another refugee remaining pinned, wedged between the narrow canyon walls and the cart, the wheels crushing the man slowly as the anxious horse nickered and bucked its head, pulling the cart an inch further into the wedged man’s crushed frame.

  “Get these people to move on. They’re spooking the horse. And if this horse decides to bolt, we’re all getting run down,” Metus quietly said to Darious, the man slowly moving to whisper to everyone to make their way out of the canyon.

  “Do you think you can work on backing that horse up once its calmed?” Metus asked the man attempting to handle the animal, who was doing much better once the crowd in the front had all moved on down the canyon.

  “What do you think I’ve been trying to do?” the man snipped back, reining at the horse to scoot it back till its haunches were touching the wagon.

  “All of you in the back, you’ve got to pull the wagon. The horse shouldn’t be fighting you now,” Metus called, moving next to the horse to attempt to push the cart back, hoping that those behind heard him and were going to start helping him.

  The wagon creaked and the man let out a painful cry as the cart started to budge. Metus felt the others pulling now, and with a loud snap of the man’s ribs, the cart lurched back a few feet, dropping the man to the ground who had fainted from the pain and shock of half his chest caving in.

  “Grab him. Get him out of the way,” Metus called to those who were pulling the wagon, and after the man was drug back a ways, he motioned for the man leading the horse to move it forward, slowly, to get it out of the canyon before it could cause any more issue.

  Metus shrunk into a side pocket of the canyon, letting the wagon pass, then rushed back to the man who had a circle of unclean standing around him.

  “Let me see,” he said, asking for space as he knelt down to inspect the man’s vitals.

  Blood started to seep from his mouth, slowly at first. He coughed, spraying blood in the air, Metus shielding his face just in time. The man’s head lurched to the side, passing away before Metus could think of what to do or how to help.

  “We lost one of our men just now. Looks like he lost too much blood through the night,” Bannon morosely said as Metus made his way back to the front of the line, adding, worry present in his voice, “What happened? There’s blood on you.”

  “One of Darious’ people—died. Wedged between a wagon and the canyon—caved his chest in,” Metus wearily offered, wiping what blood off he could as Darious ordered for the caravan to begin moving once more.

  The caravan somberly started moving again, slower this time, and with less chatter.

  The night came on, and in the distance, they could see the lights of Sansabar speckle the horizon. They would not make it to town that night, and in fact, they did not plan to lead the caravan through there at all, other than to send Bannon on a supplies run with what little gold Darious had to offer for trade.

  They were still in Tarigannie, and they needed to cross the border sooner than later. Having the whole Enclave of the Unclean there would not only put Sansabar on edge, but news would travel fast to the capital, and they did not need Rochata-Ung officials knowing where they were or had been.

  Setting up camp, the enclave and the Hyperium hitched up lean-tos separately from each other, the fear the Hyperium had to contracting leprosy being a legitimate concern shared by the troops and Bannon.

  Sultan Metus finished up his rations well past after dark, having been more than busy helping tend to other immobile soldiers as they bedded down for the night.

  Gods he wanted nothing more than to hide from all the misery and despair—to leave the moaning and cries that came on once the sun had gone down. He knew he couldn’t, but the thought persisted, like a gnat that kept returning to buzz in your ear.

  Taking a few swigs of water, he got up from the side of a wagon he was perched at and went looking for his general.

  “Looking for something, Sultan?” a soldier on makeshift crutches asked, seeing Metus poking his head around the wagons.

  “General Bannon,” Metus stated.

  “Ah, yeah,” the soldier said, immediately more downcast than he had been, “General Bannon’s with the medic. Jose and Lennon, they both ain’t doing so good. They’re over there,”

  The soldier pointed Metus to the right cart, and he peeked in to see one of the Shield Company medics drizzle a brown glass vile of myrrh along the gruesome, deep gash the Blood soldier had along his thigh and abdomen.

  Tears streamed from the soldier’s eyes, or beads of sweat, Metus couldn’t tell which, and the man writhed as the medic worked at cleaning and suturing the part of the open wound that had not already been sewn.

  Bannon kept a wet cloth over the man next to the other two, soothingly talking to him words Metus could not understand as the man shook violently, sweating his clothes and bandages through.

  Metus moved to Bannon’s side of the cart, inspecting the soldier closer. He had been stabbed somewhere around the armpit on the left side. His bandages were deep red, and his skin was pale. The shivers came and went at random. Listening to Bannon’s speech up close, he realized it was a chant, religious perhaps, but not in a language that he knew of.

  “The boy’s deep in fever,” Bannon whispered to Metus, not taking his eyes off the shaking pale man.

  “Is it contagious?” Metus asked, not sure if he should be worried about the announcement.

  “No. This is the warrior’s fever. One sustained from battle wounds. Infection, when it gets deep in the blood, will begin to rattle a man apart.”

  Metus looked to the poor soul who didn’t even seem conscious and asked, “Will he live?”

  “If he beats the fever…perhaps,” Bannon reverently said. “We will know tonight.”

  “Others may need you Sultan. We are taking care of these two for now. Go, tend to your men,” Bannon said, eyes still on the soldier as he started up his strange chant.

  Metus took one final look at the two gravely wounded men, and then walked away.

  Looking to the camp, he could see eyes on him. His men and women. The ones he had brought on this mission. The ones that had followed his orders. The ones who had paid the consequences for his orders and actions with their own bodies.

  He wanted to go and hide, if only for an hour, to escape all the lingering, sleepless pain and death. To clear his head.

  He went to the closest soldier who looked longingly for some form of comfort, a bloodied bandage over her right eye, blinded from battle. She was part of Shadow Company. Perfect sight was one of their qualifiers in that co
mpany, he knew. She would have to be dismissed after all this was over, if she survived the trip back to Sheaf.

  He wanted to hide away that night.

  8

  Allies and Enemies

  “Jadu, get Zaren up, we’re losing daylight,” Reza said, her voice cracking in irritation, not happy with either the praven’s disinterest in rousing his master, or the old man’s ability to oversleep.

  “He sleeps well past sunrise most days. He’s not going to like being woken up so early,” Jadu argued, looking at the sleeping old man bundled up in his robes with more than a little hesitation.

  “We do not have time for beauty sleep, Jadu!” Reza scolded, adding, “He’s your teacher, you wake him. We’re moving out now.”

  “You’re not the one that’s going to have to do extra mantra concentration exercises,” Jadu grumbled under his breath as he went to nudge Zaren slightly harder, calling for him to wake up.

  “That old enchanter better be up in the next minute or I’ll deal with him,” Kissa harshly whispered to Reza in passing, the rest of the company idly waiting, ready to begin the day’s trek.

  Eilan came silently down the boulders they were camping next to, her haste denoting urgency.

  “Dolingers and horses coming this way. Quite a few. Lots of soldiers on foot as well. Could be the Hyperium,” she reported, Reza and Kissa turning from glaring at the sleeping old man to consider the scout’s news.

  “How far out are they?” Kissa asked.

  “Still miles out. Time enough for us to move to intercept if that’s what you’re thinking,” Eilan answered, both looking to Reza to help them make the decision.