Shadows of Blood

by L. E. Dereksen

  “Drink,” the Chorah’dyn commanded them.

  Together, they drank.

  Guardian

  The Desert

  Year 456 after the fall of Kayr

  The desert calls to me.

  We are born into a life not our own, imprisoned behind walls of fear. I begin to feel it in my blood. It quivers in the empty air. It speaks to me.

  Our task is not complete.

  Something waits for me, drawing me across the sand. A question. A purpose. A wrongness at the heart of everything. I must be more—but I am afraid. I don’t know if I have the courage to act. I don’t know if I can do what must be done.

  I only know it will destroy me.

  Chapter One

  Ishvandu ab’Admundi

  Shadow wrapped around us, hemming us in. Pouring over the walls of the Guardian’s Hall. They were coming.

  “Sumadi!” I shouted. “Fifth point!”

  The Guardians merged seamlessly—two wheels, one inside the other, standing back to back, all shifting and moving as one.

  I stood in the centre. Bright-edged keshu bristled around me. The third kiyah. My kiyah. I drew my own sword, and it sang as I turned. A real Guardian’s keshu.

  As always, the thrill of the fight ran through me. There was fear, yes—but I wasn’t alone anymore. I was a Guardian. We had been practising this, honing our skills every night of Kaprash.

  Two months and six attacks later, we were finally starting to improve.

  My senses strained through the dark. The Sumadi rushed at us. Two at fifth point, three circling. “Seventh!” I called out as I tracked them. “First.”

  They melted beneath the outer ring of Guardians, into the ground itself, then sprang at me, clawed hands materializing out of the blackness. I swept up with my keshu.

  One hissed as it burst back into shadow. The other grabbed for me, now visible as if traced in starlight. Its mouth parted; its body dripped with putrid flecks. Clawed hands tore through robes and skin, and cold fire danced across my back as I spun.

  Then Koryn, head of the third kiyah, severed its spine. The creature screamed and buckled backwards. Ab’Tanadu finished it off with a stab through the heart.

  I wheeled. Three more attackers had split off, whipping so fast in their shadow-forms it was impossible to track them.

  “Be ready!” I shouted, which was code for: Yl’avah’s blasted might, I can’t see them anymore. Defend yourself!

  Two shadows rushed together at Jil. He was the youngest of the group, fresh off the Novices, along with Breta and I. He slashed and ducked. No! He wasn’t supposed to duck.

  The Sumadi rushed over him, slamming into Breta, throwing her to the ground. It clung to her. Its edges blurred. One instant, and it would rush into her eyes and nose and rip out her mind in the most excruciating way possible. Like Bray.

  I screamed and lunged. I wasn’t going to lose another friend. Like Bray, like Polityr. Not again.

  My Guardian’s blade hammered it back into the Seen Realm. It shrieked. Breta rolled free, slashing up as I leapt back. The Sumadi exploded into light and hit the ground.

  I hauled Breta to her feet. She stabbed at a shadow behind me. I spun, but ab’Tanadu got to it first. Its head sailed through the air. Three dead.

  Jil’s cry snapped my attention. He had staggered out of line, one of the Sumadi swirling around him, clawing his skin, undulating between shadow and light. I could hear it laughing. Laughing in the Unseen Realm, where most of it resided. The hissing, grating, screeching noise that only I could hear, drilling into my mind.

  “Jil! Fall in!”

  Jil was swinging madly, but the creature was dodging every blow, too close to be hit. It kept striking at his face. Driving him further and further from the group.

  A second shadow! It leapt at him, sensing a kill. Jil whirled, but the keshu was knocked from his hand. They pounced on him.

  “Form up!” Koryn shouted. “Form up! Third point!”

  The kiyah responded as one. The nearest Guardian, Manysha, slashed at the creatures, cutting so close we could hear the swish of Jil’s robes being parted.

  The shadows scattered. Jil scrambled back into the circle, breathing hard, keshu-less, but snatched from death. Breta and I formed around him. The whole kiyah shifted and moved, spreading out to adapt—waiting for the next attack.

  It never came.

  I sensed them vanish. The shadows slipped off again into the Unseen. The lurching horror in my stomach eased.

  “Hold,” I said breathlessly. The Guardians held. They wheeled slowly in their formation: Koryn and ab’Tanadu in the inner circle, Manysha and Nolaan facing out, Breta and I within, standing over Jil.

  The formation worked best with a full contingent, five out, five in, and two at the centre, calling point, but the third kiyah had suffered heavy losses. Three dead in the first attack two months ago, then old Jarayas killed last month. Only seven Guardians of the third remained, three of those freshly-sworn recruits. Umaala was trying to make up for that by assigning a bright-eyed, unsworn Novice for us to train, but right now the kid Benji was holed up in the Novice’s quarters.

  Yl’avah’s blasted might, how were we ever going to survive?

  It was Kaprash—the Emptiness, the time when the Avanir ceased to flow and our city lay open, vulnerable to the creatures of the desert, vulnerable to hunger and thirst and every sort of disease. The time of death.

  My mind sparked with fresh pain. Blood—blood dripping down Tala’s thighs, vivid as a scream. Like a knife in my mind, the stench of it, sharp and urgent. My helpless shouts: Do something, Kylan! Do something! The tiny child, half-formed, too small to breathe or cry out. Another—dead to Kaprash.

  I groaned at the memory, still so horribly fresh. Still alien. Like it belonged to someone else. Not my own. Not mine. Not mine.

  Oh, Tala!

  “Vanya, are they gone?”

  Koryn’s voice was sharp. He glared at me. Like it was my fault—all of it. The attacks, Kaprash itself, his sister’s pain.

  Maybe it was.

  I forced myself to breathe, to close to my eyes and focus on the task at hand. My mind stretched into the Unseen, chasing after the Sumadi as far as I dared, that presence I was beginning to recognize, like a rotting trail in the Unseen.

  I let go and opened my eyes. The inner yard melted back into view, its dark lines softening with the first blush of dawn.

  “They’re gone,” I said.

  The third kiyah breathed in relief. If there were any Sumadi left in Shyandar, I would have felt them. As far as I could see, the attack was over. It had been short, but the damage remained to be seen. How many this time? How many dead?

  We wiped and sheathed our keshu. There was work to do. Reports to make. Injured to gather. But now the danger was over, all I could think of was Tala.

  “Koryn?” I turned to the head of our kiyah.

  Koryn grunted. He knew what I was going to say. He didn’t want me running off, but Tala was his sister. Like it or not, we were bound.

  “Go,” he said. “And take Jil with you. Gather any other wounded on your way.”

  I nodded. It would slow me down, but arguing would cost me more. I plucked Jil off the ground, his face and arms covered in lacerations. He was in pain, but he bit back a cry.

  “Can you ride?”

  He nodded.

  “Good. Let’s go.”

  White Temple walls rose out of the shimmering morning heat. I pressed my camel into a gallop. Yma complained, but stretched out her neck and ran, and I leaned with her, flying over the last distance of open ground. I could barely wait for her to kneel before I was off. Jil would follow in his own sand-blasted time.

  I tore through the gardens and up the Temple steps to the healing rooms, Acolytes hollering after me. They knew me by now. Knew I wouldn’t listen. Why did they bother shouting?

  The moment I crossed into the healing rooms, I was hit by the stench. The halls were full of people, so
me being carried in, some being carried out. White-robed Acolytes hurried to and fro, calling for help, for supplies, for someone to get those damned rotting corpses out of there.

  Sumadi. There had been an attack here too. Three bloodless Sumadi corpses lined the hall with their distinctive stench, like meat left out in the sun: rotten, burnt, and decaying. I had to leap over one to get to Tala’s room.

  Yl’avah’s might, let her be okay!

  “Vanya!” It was Alis, Kulnethar’s new wife. She threw herself in my way. “Hold on a moment. Where do you think you’re going?”

  I shoved past her, through the curtain, into—

  I stopped. Pungent salves and medicines wafted towards me. Men and women were stretched on the ground, healers moving amongst them. The room was full. But not one of its occupants was Tala.

  “Bah.” Alis threw up her hands. “Light and all, don’t you ever listen? But look! You’re bleeding all over yourself.”

  She pointed to the spot on my back that was burning like fire.

  “Later,” I snapped. “Where’s Tala?”

  “Now don’t get all shouty—”

  “Sands take you, girl, where is Tala?” I seized both her arms, a dark panic rising up, threatening to choke me.

  “Less manhandling, you big oaf.” She pried my fingers off, then ducked under my arm and waved off two Acolytes that were hurrying over to help. “I’m trying to tell you. But you can’t overreact. Promise me.”

  “Where?”

  “Promise!” She waved a finger at me. “Tala’s been through enough without you blustering all over the place.”

  I followed her into the hall, forcing myself to calm down, though everything in me was taut with worry. Be rational. Don’t overreact. If Tala were dead or dying, Alis wouldn’t be scolding me like a green Tasker. She halted, waiting for my word.

  I took a long, trembling breath. “Fine,” I growled. “I promise.”

  Alis nodded. “This way.”

  She took me straight to the back of the hall and through a curtained entrance. Tala was lying on her side, one knee pulled to her chest, one arm flung over her head. Kulnethar knelt beside her, hands moving carefully.

  “Almost done,” he was saying. “Don’t move.”

  My breath squeezed when I saw her.

  “Tala . . . !”

  “Shh,” Alis clutched my arm. “Gently.”

  I pulled away and dropped next to my wife. She was alarmingly pale. Cuts and scrapes traced the outline of her face and ran along her collarbone and arms. Her thick black hair was tangled with blood, her lips tight with pain. She was concentrating on not moving, though one hand clutched her belly, clenching and unclenching.

  “Done,” Kulnethar said, sitting up. That’s when I noticed the jagged wound on her back, running at an angle from her armpit to her spine. It was freshly stitched, still wet with blood.

  “Yl’avah’s might!” I cried. “You were supposed to be resting.”

  She snorted. “Hard to be resting when Sumadi are running through the sand-blasted halls.”

  “That was you? Three Sumadi. Three!”

  “Four. One of the bastards got away.”

  “Tala!”

  “Shut it, Vanya. I’m fine.” Her eyes glittered at me in warning.

  There were a thousand things I admired about Tala. They were the same things that drove me crazy. I groaned and swallowed my next angry retort. She was right, of course. What else was a Guardian going to do? Cower in her room and let everyone die? Still—facing four Sumadi, alone, and after what she’d been through?

  “We should let her rest,” Kulnethar said, reaching for me. “Let me look at those cuts.”

  “I’m fine. I’m staying with Tala.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t want—”

  “She’s my wife. She’s hurt. I’m staying.”

  “Enough. Both of you.” Tala pressed a hand to the ground, forcing herself to sit up. I could tell every movement was painful, but I knew better than to try to help her. Not right now. “All I want is a bit of peace and quiet, and Vanya, the last thing you need to be doing is brooding over me. You’re a Guardian, so act like one. Go find something useful to do.”

  “Tala . . .”

  “I mean it, Vanya. Go.”

  I heard the pain in her voice. She was pushing me away again, and it had nothing to do with my duties as a Guardian. Go. Go. I glanced up at Kulnethar, his hand still hovering towards me, palm up, like a warning. Suddenly, I wanted to break that hand. A quick, violent jerk. Snap.

  I dashed the thought away, angry at myself for even considering it. Why? Kulnethar was my friend. He was only trying to help. He probably saved Tala’s life.

  “Fine,” I growled. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  “No, you’ll be on the wall,” Tala replied. “Where you’re supposed to be.” Away from her.

  She was right. Still, I felt a jolt of anger. What was wrong with her? Didn’t she realize what she was doing?

  “And tomorrow?” I asked, voice tight, unable to stop myself. “Will you still hate me tomorrow?”

  The room went silent. Kulnethar’s eyes narrowed at me, disapproving, and Alis gaped. Tala sat there, unmoved. She held herself perfectly still, one hand cradling the empty roundness of her belly. Abruptly, I regretted my words. Wishing I hadn’t spoken. Dreading the answer. In that instant, despite the bodies crowding her, she looked so painfully . . . alone.

  “Alis,” she said quietly. “Please . . .”

  She nodded, grabbed Kulnethar’s arm, and whisked him from the room. For the first time since that terrible night two days ago, Tala and I were alone.

  I held my breath. She couldn’t look me in the eye. She could barely speak. Her pain was like a wall between us—how could I ever hope to reach past it?

  “Do you have any idea?” she said at last, voice brittle as unfired clay.

  I swallowed. “I’m sorry, Tala. Please. I . . . I just want to help, and you—”

  “You can’t.”

  “But maybe I could—”

  She seized my hand, thrusting it against her belly. “She was there, Vanya. I could feel her. Alive. Alive. With breath and skin and hands and feet. A spirit all her own. A whole world. And now that world is gone. And do you know what I’m left with?” Tears were hot on her cheeks.

  I shook my head, not daring to speak.

  “A hole. A hole inside me. A hole.”

  “Tala . . .”

  “And you.” Her gaze hammered into me. “You never wanted her.”

  “Tala, that’s not—”

  “Don’t lie to me, Vanya. You think I don’t see it, every time I look at you? The relief? You never wanted a child. You wished she would disappear, and then she did, and you’re sorry for me, I know you try, but not . . . not for her.”

  I shook my head, panic welling inside. “We’ll . . . we’ll try again. We’ll have another—”

  “Get out.” She released my hand with a shove.

  “But Tala, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I don’t know what you want. What do you want? What do you want me to say?”

  “Nothing. I want you to leave me alone. I don’t want to see you. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Not the day after. And when I can look at you again, I will send for you.”

  My breath ran out. I sat there, staring at her. She hated me. She really did. And why? Because my grief was different? Because I was more worried for her than for a baby I had never seen?

  Don’t Tala. Don’t do this to me!

  I rose numbly. I walked to the curtain. My voice was leaden inside me, and I couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

  So in silence, I left.

  “Ishvandu!” Umaala’s voice was sharp when I returned weary to the Hall. The Guardian Lord intercepted me, red cloak snapping around his daunting frame.

  I bit back a groan. Two months of Kaprash. Two months, and every night of it on the walls, waiting for Sumadi, waiting to sound the horns and throw all of Shyandar into terror
. And when I wasn’t doing that, I was practising formations with the third kiyah, or teaching green-as-leaf Novices. All I wanted to do was turn my camel over to the stablehands and collapse in my dark room, alone.

  “You look terrible,” Umaala rumbled. He tugged my shoulder, frowning at the blood still caking my back.

  Sands. In my haste to obey Tala, I’d forgotten to get my cuts looked at.

  “I’ll see a Hall Hand,” I muttered.

  “Good. Now what in the blasted sands happened last night?”

  I bit back a caustic reply. I was overtired, but it didn’t give me an excuse to snap at a Guardian Lord. Umaala might be closer to the third kiyah than others, but he was still on the Circle. “I don’t have answers, sal’ah.”

  “Well, it’s time you did.” His voice boomed, frightening and final—loud enough a few passing Guardians glanced at us. And glanced quickly away.

  I shut my eyes. I knew this had been coming. I had seen it from the moment they named me Guardian, or rather the moment he had—the Al’kah, plucking me out of disgrace as a ditch-digging Labourer, defying the Circle itself who’d sent me there a year ago. A year. So much had happened in a year.

  “I don’t know why the attacks are increasing, sal’ah. I told you. I can’t read their minds.”

  “But you hear them. You speak with them. The Al’kah chose you to take the oath for a reason. It’s time you proved yourself.”

  “With all respect, sal’ah, if two months of night watch isn’t proof, I don’t know what is. I’ve been doing my best. I’ve given warning every time. Every time. What more do you want?”

  “More,” he growled. “Much more.”

  A sense of dread crept through my gut. “More, sal’ah?”