Sands (Sharani Series Book 1) (27 page)

Kaiden turned away from her and glanced at Taren, who stood a few feet away, watching the battle below. “Take Lhaurel below,” Kaiden ordered, whistling shrilly to summon Skree-lar. “Lock her up for now. I have work that needs doing.”

Taren scowled but saluted.

Lhaurel cried.

Am I the cause of those screams?

-From the Journals of Elyana

Khari spun in a shimmering dance of death, sword a metallic blur that dripped scarlet. Somewhere she had lost her Gwyanth. It had been a quick death, thankfully, but now she was forced to continue fighting on foot. That was fine by her. She fought better with her sword than with her lance anyway. In the back of her mind she knew that without her aevian she would not have any chance of leaving this place alive. That, too, was fine by her.

A sailfin burst upward from the sand on the far side of the broken Oasis walls, a powerful leap to take it over the broken red sandstone and into the Oasis itself. Khari pulled her blade free from the creature she had just killed and, following the momentum of her feet, clove the genesauri perfectly in two. The two pieces dropped from the air and plummeted onto the rocks, renewing the stain.

It was no wonder that the sands were red. Red from countless centuries of death and destruction. Years of countless painting with the blood of its defenders. The blood of its people.

The berm on the horizon continued to draw nearer, though slowly. She knew what it was, though fear had long since died within her. Khari would be here on the rocks to greet it. She was a master of the blade. She was death.

The karundin was said to be the mother of the others. Perhaps that was it. Khari had never been blessed with children. Those she helped lead among the Roterralar had been the closest she’d ever come to experiencing what it was like to be a mother. She would be here to wreak vengeance for her surrogate children.

She paused for a brief moment to take a drink from a waterskin, one of many at her waist. The liquid rushed through her like a raging fire, urging her to act, renewing her strength and her power. Her lips formed a thin line. Her eyes narrowed. A marsaisi breached the top of the sand, bony headplate a dull, metallic grey.

Thick bone covered most of its head and a small section of its back. But right between the neck and the headplate was a tiny crack. Khari leapt from atop the rocks, blade extended downward in front of her, point aimed at the narrow crack. Blood dripped from a dozen wounds, but the sword found its mark. Her sword was wrenched from her grasp, but she found a discarded spear that she collected, letting it dance in her hands.

The heat of the contest washed over her, burning away pain and fatigue, but also smelting time. It passed in large dollops, a double handful at a time, or else seemed to slow to the speed of a tortoise arising in the predawn haze.

A dozen sailfins surged upward over the rocks in an effort to cross over into the Oasis. But at the very crest of the broken mound Khari danced, spear spinning up, over, and around her. It was neither her favored weapon, nor the one with which she was most skilled, but at that moment it sung a perfect harmony to her dance of death. Only three of the dozen sailfins made it back down into the sand on the other side.

The red-grey stones ran slick with blood, but the gritty sandstone gave Khari the purchase she needed. On the other side of the hill, the berm of moving sand continued to push forward, driving packs of sailfins and marsaisi toward the Oasis. Khari didn’t mind it. She was one with the spear. She was one with the pulse of her own beating heart. She was death.

The berm exploded outward as a horrendous, toothy head burst out of the sands.

Death trembled.

*              *              *

The sound of sobs echoing in a small, dark chamber had an eerie cast about it. At times, Lhaurel thought the returning echo of her own cries sounded like the murmuring gurgle of a distant spring, sending water up to the surface from a hidden reservoir far below. Other times is sounded like a dam bursting, a cacophonous din of sound caused by too much water trying to escape from too small an opening. And sometimes it simply sounded like the pitiful sounds of a broken will.

It was the last that finally broke through her mental barriers. The pain of experiencing so many deaths all at once had left her without feeling, left her clinging to her own life with as much strength as she could muster. That left little room for much else but tears. A simple manifestation of a wide range of emotions or none. And yet, hearing her own sobs coming back to her, she realized the time for tears was gone. The clans were dying. Kaiden was wiping them out one by one. The genesauri were his weapons.

Someone had to do something. In here she could no longer feel them. The oppression of the Oasis walls kept out the sensation of death and destruction.

She felt weak and tired. The manacles on her hands clinked, and she scrubbed under her nose and wiped away the moisture that had pooled there. As she did so, her eyes fell upon her fellow prisoner. She could only make out his outline in the darkness, but she could sense the gaping wound in his stomach. Blood dripped into the sands beneath him.

She grit her teeth and struggled to her knees. It took effort, but she managed to drag herself over to him. She was helpless to save the people dying outside, but this one she would save. This one would not die if she could protect him.

Pulling him onto his back, Lhaurel felt his hot breath on her face. The smell of blood filled her nose. He was close to dying, hovering on the verge of the darkness. Placing her hands over the wound in his stomach, she reached out to her powers. It answered her call easily. Red mist formed around her, a cloak of blood. This man’s blood and hers mingled in the air as fuel for her power. Energy surged through her. Grasping at it, Lhaurel willed the flesh back together. She pushed the blood back through the open wound and back through his veins. She could feel his heart begin to beat faster and faster as the torn flesh knit itself together between her fingers.

The man gasped, and his eyes snapped open, the whites showing clearly even in the darkness. An icy chill swept through Lhaurel’s body, and without even thinking about it, she pulled at the red mist in the air around her. The mist dissipated, returning to her body. The chill vanished, replaced by a wondrous feeling of euphoria. A quick tug on the chain that held the manacles together sent the links scattering across the sand. Where had she gotten such strength?

The man sat up, feeling at his stomach with hesitant hands.

“Who are you? I should be dead.”

“I healed you.” Lhaurel stood and felt along the edges of the room until she found the door. Testing it, she found it locked.

“I am called Gavin,” he continued. “One of the outcasts. My water is yours. May you ever find water and shade.”

Lhaurel blinked. So formal.

“Lhaurel,” she said.

“Lhaurel. Okay, Lhaurel. Would you mind telling me what is going on? The last thing I remember was fighting an old man.”

“Taren?” she asked, ignoring his question.

“Is that his name?” The man, Gavin, sounded oddly light-hearted for having almost died.

Lhaurel placed an ear up against the door but heard nothing coming from the other side. Her muscles still trembled with strength and she clung to the vestiges of power that still surged through her. She could sense Gavin, behind her, and felt strength and power radiate from him, as well. He was a relampago; she could feel the power within him. Did he know? The thought was a comforting one for some reason, like the warmth of the sun on a cool spring morning.

“I overheard his plans down below. He said he was going to be king. But how could he . . .” He trailed off, standing. “I take it he succeeded, then.”

Lhaurel paused and turned to look at him.

A noise sounded in the passageway behind the door, the sound of metal striking against rock.

“Get back,” Lhaurel hissed.

Gavin lay back down in the sand and curled up how he had been before.

Lhaurel secreted herself behind the door, strength still surging in her arms. If people came in, she would deal with them. She had to get out and find Kaiden. Put an end to this.

A key scraped in the lock. The door swung inward, and light flooded into the room. The smell of pitch and the way it flickered revealed it was a torch. As soon as the door opened, Lhaurel’s senses shot out into the passageway. The person in the door was Sarial.

With a muffled shout, Lhaurel slammed her shoulder into the door. The heavy wooden door slammed into the woman and knocked her to the ground. Lhaurel spun around the door, but before she could get to Sarial, Gavin was there, slamming a double-fisted blow to the side of Sarial’s head as she struggled to rise. She slumped to the ground, motionless.

“Come on, then,” Gavin said, grabbing the sputtering torch. “Let’s get out of here.”

Lhaurel hesitated, looking down at Sarial’s form, the only movement the slow rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. It would be so easy to simply pull the dagger hanging from her waist and end it there. Spill her blood onto the sands. It would be easy. She’d done it to her own brother. She didn’t deserve to live.

Lhaurel reached for the dagger and pulled it free.

“Good idea,” Gavin said, reaching down and pulling free the sword belted at Sarial’s waist. “We’ll need these.” He switched the torch to his left hand so that he could hold the sword in his right.

Still Lhaurel hesitated.

Gavin gave her a curious look. She recognized him then.  He was the outcast who had told the story of Eldriean so long ago.

She sucked in a breath and shook her head. Enough blood had been spilled.

“Help me move her in here,” she said, stowing the dagger in her belt. “We’ll take the key and lock the door. That should buy us more time if anyone comes looking for us.”

“Good idea.”

They were done quickly.

Lhaurel turned the key in the lock and then stowed it in a pocket. “Let’s go.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” a cold voice said.

Taren and a woman Lhaurel did not know blocked their way. Taren held Gavin’s greatsword in one hand.

Gavin stepped between them, putting himself in front of Lhaurel.

Taren laughed. “Isn’t that sweet. He’s going to protect you, Lhaurel. Poor fool. This time, I’ll make sure he’s dead when I leave him behind.”

A red mist formed around the woman, and crackling energy formed on her fingertips.

Lhaurel reacted without thinking, letting instinct reach out to her. Just as the woman raised her fingers to attack, Lhaurel pulled the bloody mist around the woman to her, dispersing it into the sand. The energy on the woman’s fingers died.

“What—how?” the woman stammered, a look of stunned disbelief on her face.

Taren tried a much more pragmatic approach. With a lazy salute, he charged forward, sword raised before him. Gavin was ready for him. Their swords met once again, and Gavin pushed forward.

Lhaurel ignored them for a moment, drew her dagger, and advanced on the woman. Red mist formed around the woman again and energy crackled. Lhaurel dismissed it again. The power was in the blood—that was what formed into clouds of mist around the mystics, carrying the individual powers with it. She realized consciously now what she had known almost from the moment she’d first acknowledged her powers. Without the blood, there was no magic. And Lhaurel was master of blood. She wasn’t a wetta at all. She was a blood mage.

“Enough,” Lhaurel said, skirting around where Gavin and Taren fought. “Your magic is useless. I will continue to dispel it.”

The woman grit her teeth in frustration and drew her sword with a shriek. “Fine, I’ll just kill you the old fashioned way. You’re nothing but a slattern, a mangy whore. I don’t know why Kaiden prefers you to Sarial. But with you dead, no one will stand in her way.” She dropped into a middle guard and waited.

“She can have him,” Lhaurel said.

The woman took a step forward and then suddenly stiffened. Her mouth opened wide, as if she were about to scream, but no words came out, only a thin, bloody bubble of spit. For a moment, Lhaurel was confused, but then she saw the bloody tip of a blade sticking out of the woman’s chest between her breasts and sensed the presence of someone else standing behind her. The woman slumped forward to her knees, fingers clenching and unclenching and scrabbling at the sand. Behind her, an old man stood clutching a bloody short sword in steady hands. His face was twisted in disgust.

“Cobb?” Lhaurel’s voice was thick with incredulity.

The older man looked up at her, eyes going wide for a moment. Then they slipped past her to the battle that was taking place behind her. His expression hardened. With a shout, Cobb hurled the short sword in his hand with all his strength. For a moment, Lhaurel thought that the man meant to kill her, but the sword tumbled passed her, wide by a considerable margin. He’d been aiming for Taren.

It missed Taren by less than an inch, struck the wall in a shower of sparks, and then dropped to the sandy floor. Both men leapt back, turning to see who had thrown the blade. Taren spotted Cobb and cursed. He tossed his sword at Gavin, who dodged out of the way. Taren seized that moment to scurry away, slipping around Gavin while he was distracted and vanishing into the shadows.

Lhaurel turned her stunned gaze toward Cobb, dagger still half raised before her. His face bore a grim note of satisfaction, though his eyes were full of pained tears. Blood poured from one of his legs.