Fireborn Champion (33 page)

“Let me do this!”
 

“No.” Batbayar’s knuckles whitened on the blade. Blood seeped from his palm like a wet rag twisted. “I have survived too much to die here before this
shotgoch
. If you were a man, maybe I let you die here. But you are still a boy, and a boy named Iron has much to learn. Come. We leave.”

Caspran strolled toward them as Batbayar yanked a gourd from his leather strap and squeezed, spreading cracks along its tanned surface. Without a second look at the alp, he tossed the gourd and kicked it at the priest.

The explosive whistled across the plaza. Caspran smirked and caught it, examining the object more out of curiosity than anything.
 

Batbayar yanked Iron away. “Move!”

The others stood dumbfounded for a moment. But when Batbayar lurched forward, they followed. A blinding flash lit the plaza. Air slammed against Iron and nearly tossed him from his feet. Caspran’s scream shook the stones nearly as hard as the explosion.
 

“I hire protection for us,” Batbayar said. “But I guess no protection comes. I have another way. I always have another way.”

The man rushed them into a building built against the cliff. In a room filled more with sand than anything else, he shoved his hand into the dirt and yanked open a trap door. Crude stairs spiraled deep into a basement, where they ended at a shoddy tunnel sloping upward.

“This goes to desert. I raise greyhorns just outside city. My desert greyhorns will see us across the sands to Ker.”

“Did you dig this?” Nephele asked, peering into the tunnel’s black throat.

“I told you I have been waiting. I do not lie. I have had much time for digging. Now go!” He stood at the mouth and motioned for each of them to head up the tunnel. Iron went last. Batbayar gave him a disapproving look.
 

Iron barely noticed. His plan had fallen apart. He’d planned to sacrifice himself for them to end this war and save the ones he loved, but the ones he loved didn’t want him to leave. Now, he’d have to face them. They would be angry. Anger wouldn’t begin to describe Ayska.
 

Only he could see Fang’s light. That made the tears staining her cheeks even more painful as she wiped them from her face in what she thought was total darkness.

It didn’t take long to reach Batbayar’s pasture on the outskirts of Athe. Here where the city met the desert, minuscule oases dotted the landscape. Batbayar made an oasis of his own and built quite a herd of desert greyhorns. The beasts had shorter hair than the greyhorns in the Everfrosts, and instead of ashen coats, theirs was more of a ruddy variety. Like the greyhorns he knew, males grew two long horns that swept before their dark snouts and curved nearly into a perfect circle. Females grew only two small nubs, although despite the males’ imposing horns, females were the more difficult mounts when it wasn’t mating season.

Behind them, a wall of smoke blackened the sapphire sky. “He’s not finished with us,” Iron said.

Batbayar grunted and pulled a large greyhorn over to him. “This is correct, which is why we leave now. I know the way through the Simmering Sands. There are small pockets of green and blue in the sea of dirt. We will survive.” He tossed Iron a strap weighed with two flagons of water and motioned to the beast. “Take your mount.”

The others had already taken to greyhorns. The words he’d just spoken with Batbayar were the first he exchanged with anyone since they escaped the Old City. He sighed and bounded onto the beast. It grunted and shuffled to the side, but Iron kept his balance. They formed a line with Batbayar leading and Iron bringing up the lonely rear, and together, the quiet party fled Athe.

Warm winds blew from the south and washed his cheeks with sand. A sapphire sky formed a perfect, crisp dome over the dusty waves, the only thing to mar the blue a burning eye slowly sliding from one horizon to another.
 

Sweat plastered Iron’s clothes against his skin. It glued sand onto every conceivable part of his body. At first, he fought the desert. After the sixth day of traveling, he accepted its filthy kiss and retreated into his thoughts as the animals trudged from one dune to the next.

Despite the heat, a chill frosted the space between him and his companions. Sander floated like driftwood around a whirlpool named Nephele. Every so often, Iron would catch his master’s wounded gaze flick toward him. Ayska kept to her sister. He feared speaking with her the most. Their distance left a bitter taste in his mouth. She just couldn’t understand why he’d done it, why he’d take his life to save hers. The bitterness swelled that awkward space between them until even thinking of it made him angry. Iron no longer knew what they were, and that made everything about them awkward.
 

His paranoia and suspicion compounded against the backdrop of a silent wasteland. All evidence pointed to betrayal. All evidence pointed to a spy, and only Ayska made logical sense.
 

“We will reach first oasis soon,” Batbayar said. The man’s shadow blocked the sun from Iron’s eyes as he slowed his mount until it trotted next to Iron’s.
 

“What will we find there?”

Batbayar shrugged and slapped his greyhorn’s neck. “Snakes. Hares. Water. Trees. Rock. Sand—always sand.”

“Always sand.” Iron wiped the back of his hand over his brow.
 

“Your words hurt them.”

Iron didn’t reply except to clench his jaw.

“Do you not see how? You curse the Six. You curse the ones who care. Why does your tongue lash so bitter? Why are you so quick to leave them?”

“You don’t know my story. You don’t know—couldn’t know why I did what I did.” His gaze darted to Fang, its weight resting on his thigh. “Fighting the Serpent Sun is useless. Even if we win, we lose. The gods are gone, and their blessings are empty.”

“They fought for us. They sacrificed themselves for their children in the Godfall. Do you not know the story?”

“I know a little about it. King Sol attacked the temples and killed all the priests and priestesses. He destroyed the holiest places of the Six, and the Six fell because of it.”

Batbayar snorted and pressed the small of his back against the greyhorn’s hump. “What simple way to describe the darkest day of the Third Sun. You make it sound like the Mother fell and scraped her knee. You are
elchgharat.”

“You keep calling me that. I don’t know what it means, Kerran.”

“You don’t want to know the meaning. You are
elchgharat.
Not ready to be
arphanarat
. Not yet. Maybe I teach you how to be more than what you are. I have not decided yet.”

“I don’t even want you to—”

“Godfall.” Batbayar crossed his arms, lips puckered. “Was dark day indeed, but gods began their fall long before that night. Magic faded from my fingers a full season before.” His chin dipped as memories whirled around him. “I still remember my last spell. Little girl broke her toe. I fixed it. Then, I could not fix her brother’s leg. The infection took his life soon after. If I fixed leg first, they both would have lived. I still think about that poor boy.”

“It must have been difficult feeling helpless, knowing you couldn’t save him no matter how hard you tried.” This was something Iron definitely related to, remembering the faces of those Caspran slaughtered as he watched, unable to help thanks to a Sinner’s Oath and a useless weapon.

“I stayed with him until the end, and then I sent his soul into the Child’s arms. I travel to Sollan to see the temple and pray for power, but I came too late. I saw the fire split the sky. I heard the screams as a man who called himself Good King murdered men, women, and children. It was not just gods who fell that night. Many innocents followed them to their graves.”

“Sol hates the Six,” Iron murmured. “But he has good reason to.”

“He hates more than Six gods. He hates mankind too. All of us.” Batbayar pursed his wide lips. “But no, the Six were falling long before that night. Godfall did not crush them. That is a lie the king tells. He destroyed temples for other reasons.”

The words tickled Iron’s curiosity. He focused his attention on the man. “Then why do they call it the Godfall?”

“Because lies fall like Skaard snows from the lips of this High King. On that night, he sought not to kill the Six. He sought something else. He sought something that was but should not have been. He sought a weapon that could destroy him.”

“Sounds like he found it. He won that night.”

A grin inched up Batbayar’s round jaw. He glanced at Iron from the corner of his eye. “Foolish
elchgharat.
He did not win the night. This weapon is not his. He seeks it still.”

Fang swung from Iron’s thigh and wobbled side to side. He grabbed the scabbard and readjusted its position on his leg. Fang might have been the weapon, but it made no sense why Sol would destroy temples in Sollan for an object buried halfway across the world in the middle of a sea. He was still missing something in this story.

“You must fight this High King, Iron. There is a darker fall coming than the one that silenced the Six.”
 

He looked up to find Batbayar drinking him in with a steady glare. Such kindness swirled within those deep eyes.
 

“But I tried to fight Caspran, Batbayar. He killed my friends and toyed with me. If I can’t fight one of the Serpent Sun’s priests, how in all the damned dead gods am I supposed to fight Sol?”
 

Batbayar spit, his eyes narrowing as his thick finger pointed at Iron. “First: Try not speaking
shelasthran
when you speak of the Six.” The man straightened. “Second: You are young and stupid. My people have this saying: The hen won’t roast itself on the spit. You must work for your meal. I see you fight. You know good stances. You will learn the Shining Step. It is best way to fight. Better than the rest.”

“I don’t need to learn another step. We don’t have time.”

He laughed and slapped his belly, a painful reminder of Round Gil. “We have much time. We are weeks from Ker. You will fight like master soon enough. You will do this for those who died on the Godfall and all those who died by Sol the days after. Fight for them if you will not fight for the Six.”

Stupid priests and their ways with words. Only a few days had passed since Iron met the man, and already Batbayar knew how to herd Iron closer to the Six even as he tried to push the gods away.
 

“For those who died, then,” Iron said.

“We begin tomorrow.” Batbayar kicked his greyhorn, and the beast sauntered toward the front of their line.
 

The moon hung high against a sky bleeding violet. The first stars poked through the cloudless blanket and glimmered in the twilight. Iron led his greyhorn to an emerald pool lapping at a rocky shore. Tall, soft grasses tickled his elbows as crickets chirped a rhythmic beat safely hidden from his eyes.
 

Thirsty from its travels, the greyhorn buried its snout in the cool water and began slurping its nightly drink. Iron filled his own flagon and leaned against a palm, staring at the moon.
 

“I caught a few hares,” Sander said. “Ayska’s going to cook them. Nephele and Batbayar are setting up camp.”

Iron glanced over to see his master parting the grasses like a wraith as the man strode to the pool. Sander took up residence next Iron and leaned against the trunk.

“That’s good,” Iron said, trying in vain to soothe his nerves. “Thanks.”

More words passed between them now than they had since their escape from Athe. Sander’s sigh joined the wind as it rustled through the grass. “Batbayar tells me he wants to teach you the Shining Step. He tells me he watched you fight in Athe and that you’ve already mastered the Gentle Dance. You’re getting stronger. I’m not sure how you can learn these stances so quickly and master them so well, but you are.”

Iron crossed his arms and tapped an elbow. “Master, do you know what happened at the Godfall?”

The air tightened with tension like a throat constricting. For a long while, Sander remained quiet. Then, he spoke. “I have nothing I can tell you about the Godfall that Batbayar didn’t already say.”

“You could sell that tapestry of words at a market, you weave it so finely. Why do you keep lying to me?”

“Despite what you might think, Iron, some things are beyond even what I can tell.”

“Would you lie to me?”

“If I had to. I’m a Sinner’s man. I would lie to save a life.”

“So this secret saves my life?” Iron pulled away from the trunk and turned to Sander. The man chewed on a stalk and stared intently at the moon.

“Maybe it saves more than just your life.” Sander looked him in the eyes and pressed his lips into a thin line. “Why in all the gods-damned hells are you so fucking angry, boy? Those things you said back in Athe, what you tried to do, they were so far out of line, they sat on the horizon. You’ve got a lot of nerve trying to abandon us like that after all we’ve been through together.”

“Kind of like the gods abandoned us, don’t you think?”

“Sinner save me, get over it, Iron! What’s done is done. They
fell
. We might be screwed, but we might not be! Are you going to sit there and act like you’re five again, pounding away at the snow because you had to eat root stew instead of elk?”

“What do you expect? You hid me from the world, and when we finally returned to it, all I get is lie after lie, secret after secret—or worse yet, knowledge that makes me hate the ones I used to worship.”

“You don’t hate them.” Sander swallowed, leaning closer. “What did you really learn at that shrine on Rosvoi? You told Ayska we had hope. You said there might be a way. Well, now that we’re speaking of lies, tell me why you lied to her then? You said we need to cross the Simmering Sands and make for Ker. But I can’t help but wonder if there’s something more. Look who’s come to us! A man of the Shining Child. Don’t you think that’s a little more than convenient?
 

“We only need to find the Coin Counter and the Burning Mother to complete the number, to complete the circle! I’m not stupid and I’m not addle-brained. You told me your vision of the doe. A circle’s broken and we’re doing a helluva job gathering the pieces back together, now aren’t we?”