Elyon (24 page)
He could not kill Darsal.
“Get them!” Sucrow screeched.
They would die up here. Marak grabbed Darsal’s hand and swung up behind her. Darsal kicked the heaving beast and sped across the top of the plateau after Johnis and Silvie, knocking aside the priest.
They jumped over the ledge and raced down the side of the plateau, past the mass of warriors led by Cassak. At the sound of attacking Throaters, the battlecry went up. Cassak screamed from above. Marak glanced back and saw his captain jump astride his horse and barrel after them.
Darsal threw Marak the reins and sprang from the saddle onto another mount, knocking off its rider. She slapped leather against flesh and raced on. “Come on, Marak, ride with me!”
“Loyalty, integrity, and honor,”
Shaeda hounded.
“Are these not your own words?”
Darsal snatched his wrist.
Shaeda—Marak—grabbed at Darsal’s throat with claw-like hands.
Johnis caught Marak by the tunic and yanked his face close. “We
are
completing the mission! Our mission is to put a stop to this, to keep the Circle alive. I swear on the books, I’m getting the amulet to the river and away from Sucrow—with or without your help! You are a general, Marak—a general under Qurong, the greatest of them all, in league with Martyn! Now, stop fighting the Leedhan with your mind and start thinking with your heart!”
Then Johnis was gone, Silvie and Darsal following.
Marak bellowed at the horse and spurred him after the albinos. Shaeda screamed in his head, the pull of her voice irresistible. He started to slow.
Darsal circled back. “To the river!”
He put the amulet around his neck next to Jordan’s pendant and followed.
T
eeleh guided Sucrow’s feet for three days as they crossed into the northeast and through a series of plateaus and mesas. The terrain was changing again, turning to quicksand and becoming a bold, fiery red.
Throaters and warriors sped over the rise and down the sharp ravine. Sucrow stood in his saddle with his staff raised high over his head.
Bloody fools they are, thinking they could lose anyone with two million Shataiki in their wake!
He felt Teeleh’s power funnel through the staff and into him. A shaft of lightning broke out.
His senses sharpened. He could smell the Leedhan, smell the humans over the edge of the black, ashen ravine. The wind picked up. His skin prickled with excitement.
Cassak kept pace, his torch high. The wretched fire blazed between them, turned the ground the color of blood. Cassak signaled the men. The warriors split and fanned out into a broad semicircle. Sucrow rode ahead with his Throaters. Gradually they surrounded Marak and his albino pets, bent on trapping them.
The chase took them northeast, well beyond anything they’d charted. The ravine grew increasingly desolate, naught but a vacant wasteland. Here only the dead seemed to thrive—even cacti perished beneath the brazen sun swallowed by a Shataiki storm.
The air grew stagnant, repulsive. Sulfur filled their nostrils, mingled with blood and mire. Rotting flesh curled Sucrow’s nose. The horses squealed and reared, balking at the stink of death. Sucrow urged the beasts on.
“Hold fast,” he bellowed at the men.
Nervous horseflesh quivered beneath him. Sucrow licked his lips. All was silent and dark. The animals were desperate to stop, to turn back, stumbling with fatigue and soaking in their own foam. The ravaged beasts wouldn’t survive the trip back.
Good. That meant no one could tuck tail and run.
Tens and twenties of men surrounded the ravine. Sucrow took the point position and rushed through the narrow valley. Hard-packed dirt thumped beneath their mounts’ hooves. At this point not even the vultures circled.
They reached the plateau in time to see the blonde albino dart over it. They were gaining now. It was only a matter of time.
He sneered. Marak and the albinos would be dead within the hour.
T
he throng of bats seethed above. Hot, red sun vanished behind two million Shataiki. The bright torches from Sucrow’s posse behind them looked like so many fallen stars beneath the canopy of black bodies and beady, red eyes. Darsal felt the horses pound against the hard-packed earth, already weary from their previous run, northbound over rugged, untouched wilderness Shaeda knew well.
All the while Marak had struggled with Shaeda, with the amulet. They fought and reasoned with him endlessly during the three-day chase. Barely avoided Cassak’s three-pronged attack by using directions Gabil gave them to navigate a series of tunnels in a sprawling cave.
Darsal’s night vision gave guidance through the tunnels and back out under the stark cloud that was the Shataiki swarm. Derias swooped down and circled Marak the moment he stepped out of the cave. There the Shataiki spilled into a canyon fed by a black stream and overrun with briars and tumbleweed. Sucrow and Cassak came from opposite sides of the gap. Darsal led them in a sprint out of a winding, snakelike canyon into billowy dunes.
On they fled, Sucrow and his Throaters at their heels. All three albinos and Marak were starting to slump in the saddle.
The horses were exhausted and not going to make it much longer. Darsal felt her mount try to slow despite her urging. The poor beast had run from Middle to the Teardrop Canyon; back from the Teardrop to Ba’al Bek, which was well beyond Middle; and now to Elyon knows where.
“They’ve topped the ledge,” Silvie announced. “Faster!”
Darsal’s muscles momentarily went rigid. The long shadow of Shataiki drifted over their heads. All was dark and bleak, pain and death. The Shataiki queen, Derias, was up there somewhere. A chill snaked around Darsal like a noose and pulled tight.
A hot rain started to fall. Darsal smelled brimstone and ash. Death ruled this place.
Marak shook on the back of the horse in front of her, torn between two wills. His skin carried a glossy sheen and peeled away easily in the desert heat. His face was set, and he said very little. Every muscle in his body curled into tight knots.
“I gave you my love, Marak,” she said as she rode alongside him, for probably the hundredth time since Ba’al Bek. “I give it to you still. And so does Elyon.”
They headed through another canyon, trudging through sand that was gradually turning from red to deep purple. Crossing beneath another overhang, they left the canyon and rode and rode on. The river had to be close, in fact if she stilled her breathing she thought she might hear the sound of water even now.
Darsal glanced over her shoulder and saw the dust rising from the army behind. It all came down to this, she thought. They could go no faster and Sucrow was gaining. The end would come now. Dear Elyon, deliver us to safety. Bring us the river!
Then the river was there, looming suddenly as they raced around a bend. A red river. Darsal gazed at the other side and caught her breath.
There appeared to be no sun across the river. A dark, forboding landscape that looked like it might be hell itself! They’d come for this? Dear Elyon, help!
She spun back. Any minute Sucrow would catch them. They were trapped between the river and the Scabs.
“Hurry!” Johnis slid off his mount and dropped to the ground. His stiff legs collapsed, and he struggled back to his feet and brushed himself off.
Marak halted alongside and jumped down with Darsal. Silvie followed suit. The foursome stumbled forward and stopped at the water’s edge.
The river was about fifty feet wide where they approached but widened both up- and downstream of them, stretching as far as the eye could see. The water was crimson from height to depth, bank to bank, length to length.
“Well . . .” Johnis stared at the water. “This is it. We have to cross.”
Marak quivered, staring across the river. “Impossible. I’d rather fight here and die.”
Dark, barren wasteland. A place for the dead. The mighty river was nothing more than a craggy red line that separated them from sulfur springs and the stink of rotten fish. Not even the carrion birds came this way. It was the back side of hell.
Sucrow was almost to them. All eyes went to Marak.
Darsal stepped closer to Marak. “Marak, please, for the love of Elyon . . .”
Marak stared at the water as if it were a thing from which to flee, as though to merely touch it might kill him.
“You have to drown,” Johnis said. “It’s the only way across and the only way to stop Sucrow.”
Darsal tried to put her arms around him, but he withdrew.
I can’t lose you, Marak.
“I can’t do this again.”
Johnis shed his cloak. He was going, of course. Going, and no one could stop him. Or maybe he was hoping Marak would jump in after him.
“We’re out of time for arguing.”
Marak wasn’t answering. He stood trembling, grasping the medallion in his fist. His eyes were purple, his skin transluscent white, so thin Darsal could see his blue veins.
The Shataiki cloud had reached them above and formed a semicircle on this side of the river, spread all the way around the humans, boxing them in. She could see Derias now, crossing back and forth above them. The whole hive writhed in fury. Not one of them flew across the river, even the queen.
The bats were probably the only ones with any energy left in this chase.
Sucrow’s Throaters pounded around the bend with Marak’s warriors, now led by Cassak. They fanned out on either side and came to a stomping halt on worn mounts. Teeleh’s priest trotted up the center, gloating in his victory already. Everything grew quiet as Sucrow savored his moment. He had them, could kill them at will.
Johnis, Darsal, and Silvie traded looks and stood facing the Throaters, backs to the river.
“Marak,” Darsal said, loud.
Marak’s expression changed. His face became dark, angry, full of something she’d seen only after the execution of his family.
“Remain, Priest,” he growled. His eyes had gone fully purple, his voice husky and surreal. Shaeda. His eyes narrowed. He palmed the amulet.
A mirage of Shaeda appeared, white-gold hair streaming down. Mist surrounded her like a robe. “Toy not,” she warned. The Throaters and warriors stepped back. She raised her hands over her head and let out the highest note Darsal had ever heard. The river surged, the ground quaked, and the horses spooked.
Darsal drew her sword and stepped to her general’s right. Sucrow extended his remaining hand. “So that’s how you want it.” A starry-eyed serpent slithered around his neck, unnoticed by the priest. Darsal’s eyes widened. She glanced at the others. Johnis and Silvie both saw.
The Shataiki queen suddenly swooped overhead. Derias came in low, straight for Shaeda. His talons slashed Shaeda’s face. She remained silent.
Wounds opened on Marak’s face, mimicking Shaeda’s. She was still inside him, merely projecting an apparition. A flaming orb appeared in Sucrow’s palm, and he hurled it at Marak. It slammed to the ground at his feet and turned to ash.
Shaeda chuckled. “Amusing,” she taunted, gently wiping blood off her cheek. “The Great One sends his servant to deal with me.”
“Marak,” Darsal whispered. The Throaters tightened their circle on them, each armed with a curved silver sword.
“Contend, then, Dark Priest of the Usurper,” Shaeda hissed.
Sucrow growled at her, snatching up his staff. His eyes turned dark and cold as he began his chant.
A low hum began, a thrumming sound that made the earth vibrate beneath their feet. Sucrow’s sneer grew as the thrumming gave way to a chant in a tongue Darsal had never heard. She gripped her sword.
Come what may
.
In return, Shaeda began to sing, a beautiful, mournful siren’s song that echoed through the air. It rose up, higher than the human ear could detect.
Sucrow countered with a low, snarling note. The sky grew darker, and the Shataiki above began to shriek and writhe in flight. A thick bolt of lightning split the air. The river began to boil.
Darsal’s eyes darted back and forth from Sucrow invoking some sorcery to Marak trembling on the bank. She couldn’t attack Shaeda for fear of hurting Marak. The pain in her head rang.
Sucrow’s chant grew louder. To hear the priest actually pray was worse than hearing any of his other utterances. A death knell. His voice grated against her skin, raising the hairs on her body.
Marak snarled like a man possessed and flung himself at Shaeda.
HE KNEW IT WAS FOOLISH, BUT MARAK COULDN’T STAND himself a moment longer. He lunged, felt her presence bear down like a heavy rock inside his chest, and fell to his knees. Her laughter cackled through the air.
“Fear not, my pet. It will soon end.”
He swayed, barely staying conscious. Everything crashed back on him, his family’s deaths, Darsal, Cassak’s betrayal . . .
They were all going to die here, by Shaeda’s hand or by Sucrow’s.
The water. The water could save them.
Sucrow laughed. “And what’s in the heart of a man who tortured his own brother to death? Give it to me, Marak. You’ll have total amnesty, and all will be over. We’ll forget this . . . this lunacy in the desert.”
The apparition of Shaeda stood in front of Marak, blocking him from the priest. Marak sucked a breath, set his jaw, and stood.
MAN AND BEAST WAITED ON THE BANKS, ANXIOUS TO SEE what the general would do. Darsal felt her body weaken.
Marak held the amulet in his fist and kissed it. For Elyon’s sake, what was he waiting for? She groaned. Shaeda melted back into the general.
Marak was going to die.
“Servants of Teeleh,” the general said softly. There was a quality about his voice that silenced the sky. The Shataiki grew still, and the color drained from Sucrow’s face.
“Guardian of evil in this world,” Marak continued, his voice stronger. Resolve clipped each word. “I hold in my hand the power of command and loyalty and servitude.”
Darsal’s heart sank. The general had made his choice. He chose Deception over Romance, Teeleh over Elyon. Knowing all that had happened, he spurned her still.