The Last Warrior (24 page)

A grinding, grating rumble told Tao the bad news: Big Lume had barely peeked above the horizon and
the entrance to Kurel Town was already being pulled open for the day. By the arks! Of all mornings to be opening the gates early. Hadn't the guards heard the howls?

Even if they had, they wouldn't know what they meant, likely assuming the howls were a sorcery of some kind. Gorr were familiar to soldiers and few others. “No!” he shouted to the guards in the gate shack. “Keep them closed!” But the men stared at him, stupidly, too baffled by the sight of a bare-chested Kurel on horseback, armed with a crossbow, chasing after two monsters from the Hinterlands.

A group of Kurel formed a hasty blockade bristling with clubs, homemade spears, rakes and hoes. Tao's chest swelled with pride at the courage of the spontaneous militia, and also alarm; they were civilians at the mercy of their inexperience.

Fangs snapping, the Furs clawed their way through the Kurel to reach the gates. Tao had feared he'd see many more fall to the Gorr, but those who'd taken a blow from a passing claw were being pulled out of the way by the others.

Home guards waited in the street on the Tassagon side, likely drawn close to the gates by the howling and chaos in K-Town. But they were unprepared for what was coming at them.

The larger of the two Furs took a guard down. Horrific snarling ended the man's scream abruptly.

“Move aside!” Tao warned the remaining, shocked guards. Like the Kurel, they'd never fought or even seen the Furs. He wanted them out of the way and the streets cleared for battle. “Stand back.”

Automatically in the confusion, they responded to the military authority in his voice. Meanwhile, shouts of “Gorr” had sent screaming townspeople scurrying.

Tao kicked the mare and rode out the gates after the Furs. A tall, lanky Tassagon guard remained in the middle of the street, in the path of the loping Gorr. His comrades called to him but he didn't respond. The blade he'd been brandishing had fallen from his fist to the ground.

Charmed.
The man had caught the eye of the Gorr as it came away from feeding off the fallen guard. The creature fell into a crouch, bright blood dripping from its fangs. It coiled, then sprang. As it launched its body on powerful hind legs to attack the paralyzed Tassagon, Tao let an arrow fly. A satisfying
thwunk
—the arrow sank into its ribcage with a spray of black-red blood. The leaping Gorr continued to fly at the man's throat, but it was already dead.

Tao's last glimpse of the near-fatal attack was the guard sitting up, blinking in astonishment as he shoved a limp Gorr off his chest.

Tao gripped the prancing mare with his thighs, waiting for a clean shot at the last Gorr. By the time
he could safely take aim, the Gorr had taken a spear in the withers. Navi's whoop was unmistakable.

“Good shot, Navi!” Tao reloaded to fire on the wounded Gorr. His mare stumbled. The arrow went low, skidding over the dirt. The fleeing Gore turned on him, panting. The vaguely human face and ears, the flat snout and fangs, the thin tail swishing in warning—it was a scene burned in his memory, a nightmare he'd lived for much of his adult life. Usually there were hundreds of them, relentless, indescribably vicious attackers. Now just this one last monster.

Tao lifted the bow and took aim in the name of all the men he'd lost, all the lives over all the long years that had been ended too soon because
of them.
The Gorr.

“Uhr-Tao,” it growled. “Uhr-Tao.”

Tao jolted with shock. Everything about this one indicated it wasn't an alpha, thus it should not be able to speak the human language, let alone know his name. It wasn't supposed to be any more than a mute foot soldier, a brainless beast.

Was something happening amongst the vanquished Furs that he'd never anticipated? Had the alpha blood become so concentrated that the traits of speech were being passed on to all pups?

No time to worry about that.
If it got away, it could reach the palace in too few leaps, and he couldn't have that. Tao let the arrow fly as the Gorr came at him in
a suicidal leap. It met its end in midair and fell to the ground. A few twitches, and it lay still.

Tao turned sharply back through the gates into the ghetto. He was still a fugitive, to be arrested, and likely shot, on sight. Shock on the part of the guards had been the only thing saving him so far.

The pounding of hoofbeats met him inside the gates. Clearing dust revealed a makeshift, ragtag cavalry coming up the main street of K-Town. Kurel had mounted horses and even a mule. Others were driving a motley assortment of carts and wagons, speeding toward him. Behind them, a second wave of Kurel militia came on foot.

His reinforcements. When they saw him thrust a triumphant fist in the air, a gesture emulated by Navi and the many Kurel who had created the blockade, they cheered.

Tao soaked in the feeling of victory that was made even sweeter when he saw a woman running toward him, holding a spear with bandaged hands, flame-red hair streaming behind her.

He jumped down from the horse, his heart still kicking hard from battle. Seeing her agonized, tear-streaked face kicked his pulse up a few notches higher.

She crashed into him, the spear clattering to the ground as he crushed her to his chest. His hand was spread on the back of her head as he drew in her scent, her essence, using her to anchor him to the real world,
and away from death and the pounding, blinding, bloodlust of battle.

Only belatedly did he realize she was speaking to him. No, yelling at him. “Don't ever do that,” she was saying, her voice muffled against his neck as she pounded him with a bandaged fist. “Never again. I looked and you were gone.” Her voice shook. “I ran… I didn't know if I'd find you alive or dead.”

He gently caught her injured fist, feeling helpless in the wake of her tears, the first he'd seen. “I had to fight them. There was no time to say goodbye.”

“They never said goodbye, either.” Her body shook. “I ran. I ran to this very place, and I found them.” Her voice was a ragged, anguished whisper. “I found them
here
. Dead.”

She meant her parents, of course. She'd run the same route again, today, chasing after him. Reliving the trauma of the day her parents were slaughtered.

The intensity of her reaction proved how much she cared for him. The intensity of his feelings for her shook him to the core.

He took her face between his hands. “Beth, I'm alive, not dead. This is the present.
We're
the future.” He pressed his forehead to hers as she nodded, absorbing his words. “Take this moment, this day, this memory, and replace the other.”

 

“H
AVE YOU HAD CONTACT
with your brother, Aza? Tell me!” Xim pressed his fists to his throbbing temples,
trying not to rant, but he was so angry he could self-combust. He'd sent out the assassins and they'd turned up dead. Only Uhr-Tao had the expertise to fend them off. Rumors flying all over the capital spoke of a new hero, a Kurel warrior. One who looked and sounded suspiciously like Uhr-Tao.

Tao shook his fist at Aza. “Have you? Tell me!” His shout echoed off the walls of the luxurious bedchamber.

Only Aza's pale face and rapid breaths hinted at her upset. She otherwise stood silent, her hands folded over her distended belly, their unborn child.

“You, of all people, making me look a fool,” he said.

“Tao and I have not spoken since the night of the banquet. I miss him so.” Her eyes filled with tears. He hated when she cried. It made him feel even more a failure. “I have not spoken with him, Xim. It's the truth.”

“I don't believe you!” He swept a row of priceless perfume bottles off her vanity.

She startled at the smashing glass. “Stop it!” She grimaced, clutching her belly. “You're scaring the children.”

He became aware of the muffled wails of the children, locked in the nursery next door. Aza was so petite, her chest heaving, but with her fierce mater
nal protectiveness, she suddenly loomed bigger and stronger than he was.

Protecting her children from their own father.

“You and Tao are too close,” Xim argued. “He wouldn't have gone away without leaving word as to his welfare.”

She reacted to that, the tiniest of twitches of the corners of her lips.

“I knew it. You're lying. My own wife.” He closed the few feet separating them, almost slipping on the spilled perfume, his hands raised like claws to squeeze the truth from her traitorous lips once and for all.

His own shadow stopped him. He saw it loom over her fragile frame. She hadn't flinched, but waited with her head turned to the side, as if she didn't want to watch him kill her.

He couldn't. He'd never. Didn't she know that?

Or, could he? The curve of her throat was vulnerability incarnate—slender and white, the pulse visible.
Beautiful.
He wanted to touch her there, caress her… Yet, sometimes the darkness inside him welled up so powerfully it blotted out all reason. He'd been angry for as long as he could remember. So much injustice, so much unfairness. His father's doubts. Now this, betrayed again by those he loved the most.

He pulled his hands away from her. His entire body shook. He'd let Gorr loose on the city, and all four had been killed—by Kurel, no less—two on each side
of the ghetto gates. Hundreds of Tassagons had seen the body of the slaughtered guard, and those of the Gorr, too, before Beck's men had removed the stinking corpses and disposed of them. Everyone was terrified.

They were looking to their king for guidance.

For leadership. As they'd once looked to his father.

He grabbed anguished fistfuls of his hair to keep from screaming in frustration. No one must know he was behind the Gorr attacks. His actions, his weakness, sickened him. But he'd been afraid, and he'd trusted Beck. “What to do now?” he cried out. “What to do, Aza?”

He choked on a sob. He'd failed her as he'd failed his father, Orion. “How did it all go so wrong, Aza? I didn't mean for him to die. It just…happened.” He was shaking so hard; he couldn't help it.

As if in pain, she was standing slightly hunched over. “What happened? Xim, tell me.” The smell of the spilled perfume was thick in the air. Distantly, his children were crying, calling for their mother. For his Aza.

He sensed he'd reached the end of his rope with her. She was the last one in the world who loved him. No one else did. If he didn't have her, he'd have nobody. Filled with remorse, he knew there was no choice but to come clean. To have a second chance and redeem himself.

He crouched down at her feet, his shoes crunching on glass. “I want to start over, Aza.” He glanced up, trembling. “Do you think we can?”

He was afraid—afraid to tell her.

Afraid not to.

“I don't know what you mean.” She stood there, waiting. So patient. So beautiful. Her eyes so kind, even looking at him now, a wreck of a man. A man willing to start anew.

“I never told you what happened the morning Orion died. We argued, and he had an attack. He sent me to summon help. But I was so angry, Aza. You don't know. In that moment I hated him.”

She grew even paler, her eyes almost sunken in her fragile face, her mouth tight with pain—from what he was telling her, or from the child growing in her womb? “I know you hated him, Xim. But Orion loved you—”

“Not like he should have! You know it as well as I do.” He clenched his fists. “I didn't go for help, Aza. I didn't.” A wrenching sob welled up. “I stood there and watched him die, and, Aza, it was the first time in my entire life I felt as if I had any power, any control over my destiny.” He let his face fall into his hands and wept. “I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.”

After a while, he realized he heard nothing. Fearfully, he lifted his head. He took in the sight of her gemlike eyes, the piles of glossy brown hair, a face
shaped like a heart. Slender limbs. Rounded with child, his child.
My wife.
He'd never really, truly appreciated that fact until that moment. He'd never realized just what Uhrth had granted him, all his blessings. His family.

He reached for her with a trembling hand. “You're so beautiful, Aza.” But those ever-forgiving green eyes were in retreat, horrified. Worst of all, disappointed.
Like father was disappointed with me.

Panic exploded inside him and he shot to his feet. “No. Don't, Aza. Don't stop loving me, Aza. Please.” His voice cracked. “I don't know what I'd do. I couldn't bear it.”

Tears falling slowly down her cheeks, she shook her head and opened her arms. He walked into them. Stroking his back, she comforted him like a child as he wept.

“Love me Aza. Love me. Everything will be better, you'll see. You'll see. I won't keep you and the children under lock and key for long. I promise. Just until I get everything sorted out. You understand why, yes?”

“Yes. I understand, Xim.”

“You always did understand me. You're the only one.”

Determined to prove his competence as king—to her and to his subjects—he fled the chamber, ordering the guard to lock the doors behind him.

T
HE ELDERS VIEWED THE
two Gorr corpses that had been killed in the ghetto. The musky odor had faded some, but it was still pungent enough to wrinkle the noses of the uninitiated.

Farouk was solemn. “So they are what severed our ties with our mother world. Stranding us here. Leaving us all on the edge of extinction forevermore.”

“We came back from the edge,” Tao argued. “We survived.” By Uhrth, if anyone knew it, he did. He'd dedicated his heart and soul to preventing the destruction of their race.

“Alive but alone.” The elder's voice was tremulous, from emotion or age Tao couldn't tell. “We told them not to come after us, you see,” the elder continued. “Not to attempt a rescue. We lied, making it seem as if there were no survivors, sending a final message that this world was destroyed.” Farouk's eyes were hooded, veiling a mysterious, meaningful glint. “So it is written.”

“Always written,” Tao complained. “I want to see where.”

“The Log is not here, young Tassagon. It is protected in the Barrier Peaks. It recounts our origins, and tells of the days of the Old Colony, the decision to cut ourselves off from our home. We did not want these Gorr finding the human birth world, and doing to it what they had done here.”

“I never heard this,” Elsabeth almost whispered. “We were not lost? We were not abandoned?”

“It has been kept secret to all but the elders,” Farouk said, nodding. “Perhaps we were mistaken in doing so.” His lips thinned. “Now that we've seen a real Gorr, I know so. The consequences of inaction and of leaving Xim in power are clear. The Kurel are fully committed to working with your rebellion.”

“Our rebellion,” Elsabeth corrected her elder firmly but with respect. “All the human tribes are at great risk if this king continues on his path of destruction.”

“Yes, yes. If humans turn on each other, darkness will consume us and we will be lost to Uhrth forever. So says the final verse of the Log of Uhrth,” Farouk said crisply.

Elsabeth remembered what the elder had said about lying to Uhrth about the Old Colony's fate, and the significance of the darkness passage hit her for the first time. “‘Lost to Uhrth forever.' That means no chance of our mother-world learning what happened to us. Because we'll all be gone. Extinct.”

She felt Tao's intense, suddenly curious gaze on her. Farouk nodded. “That is correct.”

“I always believed the purpose of the Log of Uhrth was for us to learn about our origins, but it's not really that, is it, Elder Farouk?”

The old man's gaze observed her with the patience born of being alive for more than a century. She forged ahead. “It's to teach us how to survive. No—more than that. It's to teach us how to be victorious, so we can ultimately reunite with our human family, our ancestors. And go home.”

All the elders gaped at her. The silence stretched out, and began to cramp her stomach with worry. Had she insulted them, or the holy Log? Then, finally, Gwendolyn turned to Marina and said smugly, “Of my blood, that girl is. Do not ever dismiss her as a halfie again.”

“So, I'm right.”

Farouk's nearly invisible lips receded, baring his teeth. It was a rare smile. “Yes, Elsabeth. You are right.”

Her heart leaped. She thought of her dream of sailing the stars in an ark. “If the Log teaches us that we must defeat the Gorr so we can safely reestablish contact with Uhrth, then why is it all such a secret?”

“Because of ignorance. Because of fear. And because this cursed war is not yet over.” He turned to Tao. “Show us what we need to do to ensure peace
between our human tribes.” Then he tapped the floor with his cane as if impatient to begin.

 

“Y
OU'RE A GOOD, BRAVE
warrior.” Elsabeth brought Prometheus to her lips, pressing a light kiss to his feathered, warm body as she prepared to send the pigeon out with news of what had transpired that day.

“I'm jealous,” Tao said.

“I'd do the same for you if you were headed out on a dangerous mission.”

“In that case, I'd want more than a kiss.”

The promise in his voice made her grow warm with anticipation. Despite the danger and the sometimes choking fright, she knew that at the end of the day his kisses, his caresses, his body, would be hers. She came up on her toes and whispered in Tao's ear, “Believe me, you'd get more than a kiss.”

His husky chuckle told her he was pleased with that promise. She carried Prometheus to the hatch on the side of the aviary where he'd been trained to fly to the Barrier Peaks. There, she set him down and waited. It was important that the pigeon take off on its own accord.

It would seem logical that a bird would want to stay close to the safety and security of home, but with much cooing and strutting, Prometheus made it clear he was anxious to be off.

“Warn the Kurel who live in the mountains,” she said. “Tell them what has happened.”

The pigeon cocked its head to look at her with its black bead of an eye. Then it hopped onto the perch and, with a loud drumming of wings, took off on its long flight.

 

“G
UARD
! G
UARD!”
The warning cries stopped the departing Kurel militia cold. A horseman had galloped through the ghetto gates and was making his way through the warren of homes.

Dressed in blue and white, the helmeted guard demanded, “Uhr-Tao! Where is the general? Show him to me.”

When not a single Kurel cooperated, the rider pulled to a halt and jumped to the ground, then tugged off his helmet, his demeanor infinitely less arrogant. “Tell him it's Markam. His friend.”

 

M
ARKAM TROMPED INSIDE
Elsabeth's house. The sight of the broken furniture, the shattered picture frame sitting on the floor propped against the wall, the bloodstains that would need to be scrubbed clean seemed to barely register with him. His sharp features were made even more so with his facial muscles hard with tension. His lanky frame was as tight as the string on Tao's bow. “Aza is in danger.”