Elyon (15 page)
Marak didn’t answer. Darsal stepped away from him, toward the door. “Enter, Captain.” Her voice was dry, her throat parched.
The captain came in, saluted Marak, and surveyed the room. Jordan’s Circle necklace was beneath Marak’s foot. Cassak’s eyes narrowed. “What happened in here?”
Still Marak didn’t speak. Cassak’s hawkish gaze turned on Darsal, accusing.
“Is Sucrow ready to leave?” Darsal asked sharply.
The captain’s scowl deepened. He gave a short nod. “Sucrow sealed the blood in a vial. Qurong’s given us leave to go. It’s almost sundown.”
Now Darsal and Cassak both stood waiting for Marak to say something.
Finally the captain said, “Go ready his horse.”
Darsal blinked, then ran out the door, face hot. Marak didn’t even yell after her.
N
ight fell over Middle, made darker by the swarming cloud above them. Sucrow looked up, fascinated and terrified all at once. Such a glorious sight, the silent shroud of Shataiki slowly drawing up over Middle, coming to cover them beneath black wings.
Sucrow’s elite surrounded him, each Throater’s robes glistening in the torchlight borne by his acolytes. Neither stars nor moon, merely the ruby-red eyes of his master’s servants.
Soon, soon all would see the truth, even obstinate Marak.
“You’ve the book of rites?” Sucrow whispered as Warryn rode up alongside him. The tall serpent warrior gave a single nod. “Keep it close.” His eyes narrowed in the direction of Marak and Josef. “I don’t want it in the hands of infidels. And give the blood to one of the others. I’ll not have any more tricks. Get the captain in place.”
An hour out the scouts ahead slowed. Marak clucked to his horse and rode forward. His albino slave rode close, holding a torch for him to see. Her dark eyes fixed on Sucrow.
Sucrow cackled. “Lost already?”
“I’m not lost, General,” the scout protested, making his appeal to Marak instead of Sucrow. “The bats block out the sky.”
“Why don’t you have a torch?” Sucrow demanded. “Am I surrounded by imbeciles?”
“A torch will not show me the stars,” the scout snapped. “I’m trying to ride beyond the swarm, but they’re fast. I sent three ahead and told them to loop back.”
“What’s wrong?” Josef rode up, brooding.
“Our illustrious priest doesn’t seem able to comprehend the concept of scouting,” Marak quipped. Sucrow bristled. To the scout Marak said, “Try to stay ahead of the swarm. And take another torch. What happened to yours?”
“I got caught in some mud and nearly fell into one of those foul red pools,” the scout said.
Marak didn’t comment.
“Well, get on with it,” Josef scoffed. “There is no reason to stop.”
That drew Marak’s attention. “Blame the priest.”
“It’s your scout, I might remind you,” Sucrow warned evenly. He scowled. This Josef would have to be done away with. The Master would not be pleased that such an unbeliever held his servants hostage. And Marak was in the way.
“And it’s Josef ’s directions and your bloody ritual,” Marak snapped. He sent the scout off. “We’re wasting time.”
Sucrow waited until Josef and Marak broke off. He called Warryn to him. “Wait until tomorrow,” he said. “Then invoke the Law of Naroush.”
A knowing look crossed the chief serpent warrior’s face. The Law of Naroush was the cry for blood on behalf of a petitioner.
Josef had started them on this path. Surely he would not mind using his own blood to petition Teeleh’s blessing.
ONCE MORE JOHNIS SAT ASTRIDE A HORSE, THIS TIME NORTH-bound on the west side of Middle. Once more into the unknown. If he looked back, he couldn’t even see the city anymore; it was so consumed with the black cloud of Shataiki. The boiling cauldron was quiet. Johnis dropped back to Silvie.
Shaeda’s cold talons dug into him. This many Shataiki so close made her nervous, despite her control over the swarm. She lingered in a hazy place between gloating and panicking. This, on top of Johnis’s own apprehension, didn’t help matters.
“You fear them more than I do,” he whispered.
“Silence,”
she hissed. But her mind was open, thoughts set on her goal. They had conned the Shataiki amulet guardian and bound him. They would destroy the Horde and return victorious, and then she would be powerful enough to undermine Teeleh, to usurp his power and take it for her own.
Johnis blinked. Where had that come from?
“What was that all about?” Silvie’s face was impossible to read.
“Sucrow being Sucrow.”
Shaeda turned her focus to her missing mate, away from her plans for glory. She understood now. Silvie was to him as Rasmuth was to her.
Johnis’s eyes flicked toward the enraged Derias. He’d taken Shaeda’s mate, but Shaeda wouldn’t explain everything about such.
How aware of the Leedhan’s movements was Teeleh?
Sucrow, of course. Teeleh could guess through his priest.
So what would he do when . . .
Shaeda took his mind from those troubling thoughts.
Johnis fingered the amulet. So close, so close. And soon he would conquer the Horde and rule Middle with Silvie as his queen.
They reached a series of canyons and spread out to cross what otherwise was too narrow a path for the horses to pass through. A loud, snarling roar went up, spooking the horses.
“What’s that?” one of the warriors asked.
Johnis’s head whipped around. Shaeda completely balked. His nostrils flared. “Derias,” he said, fingering the amulet around his neck. “He hasn’t forgiven us for his imprisonment.”
A flickering of fear snaked through him.
“We shall have accomplished our mission, yet upon its end what shall befall? The Guardian shall be full of wrath once he is released.”
Johnis stiffened. “Shaeda, what do you mean?” he whispered.
Silvie looked at him. “What’s wrong?”
He shook his head. What
would
Derias do once the amulet’s powers were spent? They couldn’t hold him forever—even Shaeda knew that.
“Have no fear,”
Shaeda soothed, as much to herself as to him.
“We will order his own termination ere this ends.”
The ritual that unlocked the amulet’s power required Sucrow’s presence. He alone knew the incantation. Only a priest of Teeleh could deliver the offering and approach the high place.
“Do you hear that?” Johnis whispered to Silvie. She eyed him. “Derias will kill us if we lose control of him before our mission is complete.”
He grew uneasy. His entity was not telling him everything. Her dark presence came over him like a hot, thick blanket. He wasn’t supposed to tell Silvie of his private conversations with the Leedhan monarch.
With Shaeda’s night vision he could see Silvie fingering her knife. “Yes.”
“Whatever happens, we cannot let the priest have the amulet.”
Silvie was quiet a moment. Then, “So what do you want to do?”
“We need to plan.”
THE SCOUTS REPORTED BACK TO MARAK CLOSE TO MIDnight. At least, that was his best estimation. The foursome traded off riding ahead and doubling back, a system that took them beyond the eclipse and beneath the stars.
“Past the canyons is a stretch of open desert,” the lead scout told him, thumbing northwest. “If we turn west now, we’ll bypass the foothills, then make north again along the rim. That’ll take us to the peak.”
“How long?” Marak snapped.
Easy, brother,
he imagined Jordan saying, half-amused that Marak had let a girl get to him, and half-frustrated with Marak’s tyrannical behavior since the fight with Darsal.
What did that scout do to you?
Nothing, you bonehead.
But it didn’t matter. It just didn’t matter.
He caught himself fingering Jordan’s Circle pendant.
“A few hours, General,” the scout was saying. “The delay will be inconsequential. It would take longer to go through than around.”
“You’re certain.”
The scout hesitated. “General—”
“We’re ready to get this done. Tell the captain to follow your lead.” The scout saluted him and galloped off.
“You kept it.” Darsal’s voice surprised and agitated him. They had barely spoken since she’d destroyed Rona’s journal.
Marak’s hand closed around the pendant. He put the necklace away. Thoughts of the pool mingled with those of the high place. He had the strange urge to break away from the others and ride until the horse dropped dead to the high place, to not wait for the priest or the others . . .
Focus, man.
“Sucrow has his hands in too deep,” he said, changing the subject. “And what do you care?” Of course, he knew the answer as quickly as he asked it.
Darsal raised her torch higher and glimpsed in the direction of the enraged Shataiki queen. “I shouldn’t have done that, General.” General. In front of the men he was just “General.” Behind their backs he was
her
general. Her Marak.
He snorted. “The albino admits she’s wrong.” Teeleh’s breath, she destroyed everything, and now she was trying to dig in again.
She pursed her lips and waited for the apparent frustration to pass. “I was a fool.”
He’d had some time to think about this. In some strange way the ripped journal knotted a loose thread, let him say good-bye. Tore the last of the barbs out of his heart.
Her horse drew abreast of his. Their knees brushed briefly. Heat shot up his leg. Marak threw her a look, eyes narrow. Darsal seemed not to notice. The torchlight gave her skin a strange cast, made it glow orange red.
His mind drifted again, just for a minute, just long enough to consider they could reach the high place so much faster with fewer men . . .
“Green for Elyon’s lake,” she said under her breath, just loud enough for his ears alone. Her voice brought him out of the wanderings. “Black for the Black Forest and the Great Deception. Red for the blood mingled with water.”
He softened. “Jordan told you that.”
“He did.”
“And the white center?”
“Yet to come.” Darsal moved a step ahead of him, looked up at the Shataiki swarm. “Sooner or later.”
“Albino.” The word came out more sharply than Marak had intended. He caught up to her. She glanced over, then turned her eyes forward again. Marak hesitated. He wanted to keep it. Now it really was all he had left.
“Get out of my blind spot,” she corrected quietly. It was one of the first things he’d said to her when he’d taken her to his home as a slave.
Marak drew a breath, then offered it to her. “It means more to you than me.”
She managed a half smile. “I think he’d want you to keep it.”
“He gave it to you.”
“But not to keep.” Darsal spurred her horse and rode well ahead of everyone but the scouts.
Sucrow shouted after her. “Marak, get ahold of your bloody albino!”
Marak pocketed his brother’s necklace before anyone could notice. “She’s on orders, Priest. Let her alone.”
The priest fumed and threatened, but Marak’s attentions were lost. A sense of dread washed over him. With every step toward the high place, it increased. After an hour with no sight of Darsal and the gnawing still in his gut, Marak called Cassak to him.
They studied each other, remnants of a friendship scarcely there. Cassak rubbed a spot on his neck, a strange habit he’d picked up over the last few days.
“The Eramites relocated,” the captain reported. “They reached the base of the foothills, turned around, and went back south.”
“Did something spook them?” Marak’s stomach knotted. Cassak had stolen from him once; what else might he do?
“Nothing that we’ve seen. But we did find a few stripped skeletons, both horse and human.” Suspicion clouded the captain’s eyes. Marak could tell there was a lingering question his old friend wanted to ask but wouldn’t. Probably about Darsal’s running off. She’d likely left to let Marak think. As for Cassak, he had always used indirect methods to communicate and came to his point at his own leisure.
But that Cassak Marak no longer knew.
“Jackals?” he asked.
Cassak’s expression turned dark. “Marak, I don’t think a jackal could do this.”
His first impulse was to look skyward, but he resisted. Knew already. Instead Marak looked long at the priest, then in the direction Darsal had gone. Something was wrong. Darsal was missing, Cassak was behaving strangely, and Marak could not shake his foul mood. He felt like a Throater.
“Find out.”
Unease settled in. A slow draw toward the high place, a desire to hurry, seeped over him. He needed to get to the high place. He needed to keep an eye on the priest.
“General.” Marak blinked. Cassak was still standing there, waiting.
“Well, go,” Marak snapped.
T
he sky ahead was gradually turning from gray to purple, just barely hinting at the dawn of morning. Behind them, abysmal black dotted with red engulfed everything in its path. The Shataiki cauldron boiled hot, its queen raging from somewhere within the throng. Faster they flew, blotting out those last wisps of light from beyond. The mere sight made Shaeda’s—Johnis’s—skin crawl.
The scouts led the expedition party out of the canyons and west across open desert. Not exactly according to plan, but not hindering either. This way they would have less climbing this afternoon.
Shaeda’s anticipation mounted. She hadn’t punished his thoughts of keeping her powers, and he began to think she’d forgotten, not heard, or forgiven him.
Yes, that was right.
Wasn’t it?
Her prompting led him to the front of the pack, along the left flank, away from the others. Of course he would go. Why would he not? Idly he fingered the amulet in their hands. He licked his lips. Oh, yes, the time was nigh. He had overpowered and enslaved this queen, and now he would do Shaeda’s will. Teeleh would be pleased, very pleased.
“Joh . . . sef.” Silvie rode up beside him, her pale eyes narrow. “Where are you going?”
Johnis’s mind snapped into focus. He glanced at her. Silvie had found a piece of flint and now sharpened her daggers to thin, lethal edges. She remained skeptical. “You’re too far ahead.”