The Legend of Asahiel: Book 02 - The Obsidian Key (49 page)

Allion’s heart plummeted, his eyes locking with those of his startled friend.

“No,” he said, then whirled upon Skull. “No!”

The shaman pretended not to hear him. Or perhaps the elf really couldn’t, given the tumult surrounding them.

He stalked right up to the shaman then—or would have, had Spear and another guardsman not intercepted him, using their weapons to block his path. The sudden and threatening movement brought a stunned hush to the unruly throng.

“Not her!” Allion yelled at Skull over crossed spear hafts. He then spun around to seize hold of the one dangling its tooth strings over Marisha’s head. With a yank, he forced it away, screaming at the acolyte bearing it. “Not her!”

The spectators gasped. Skull’s gaze narrowed. The shaman spat what sounded like a curse.

“Very well,” Kae said. “You decide.”

The acolyte pulled away, glaring at the hunter with hate-filled eyes. The pit in Allion’s stomach only deepened. He turned to Marisha with a feeling of panic.

“It’s okay,” she said bravely. “I’ll stay.”

“You will not,” Darinor growled immediately. He hefted one of his still-crackling fireballs. “Nor will I.”

Allion looked away from them to the others. Despite his many trials in recent months, he could not recall having ever felt such despair. To cope with the death of a friend was one thing. To be the one to pass that sentence was not something he thought he could live with.

But his choice was plain. Either he condemned one of them, or he condemned them all. He considered each of his companions in utter helplessness. One of Corathel’s soldiers, perhaps? Or Jasyn’s? Any one of them might be willing to make the sacrifice in order to set the others free. And yet, he knew that neither commander would allow one of his men to die in his stead. When the arguments concluded, it would be Corathel who stayed behind, ordering Jasyn to depart. Even if the lieutenant general were to obey that order, they would be giving up what they had come here to accomplish.

All of which, Allion decided, was mostly irrelevant. The simple truth was that he could not ask any of those who had put their faith in him—not even those who were relative strangers—to now lay down their lives for him.

The multitudes were fast becoming restless. The hunter could hear and feel their growing agitation.

“I will stay,” he said, forcing the words past a lump in his throat.

It was Marisha’s turn to gasp, but Allion ignored her and turned back to Skull. Nothing happened. When he realized that Kae hadn’t spoken, he moved again toward the acolyte bearing the ceremonial spear, to stand beneath its grisly strings.

He pointed to himself and repeated, “Grindaya.”

The shaman’s expression became devious.

“How can this be,” Kae interpreted a moment later, “if you are truly the one meant to save us all?”

Many among the gathered masses were grumbling with renewed suspicion. Allion gulped as he realized his mistake. And yet he couldn’t think of what else to do.

As the restive murmurings began to spread, Weave stepped toward him and bowed. Allion realized the native’s intent even before Kae untangled the words.

“He asks that you permit
him
to make this sacrifice.”

“Kae, no. I can’t allow that.”

Weave spoke again before the woman could even translate the obvious refusal.

“He says it is the only way. They will take one of us, or they will take us all. He is grateful that you would sacrifice your life before his. But it is you who will help to drive away the greater darkness from among his people.”

By now, their friends had pressed close—Jasyn and Corathel, Marisha and Darinor—to take part, if necessary, in the whispered debate. Allion’s gaze flew to the Entient.

“Can’t you do something?”

“This is your plan, not mine. Would you risk unraveling it now?”

“It is the only way,” Kae repeated. “Please. He says it will make his journey in the afterlife a short one.”

The native knelt before him, but raised his head. The look he gave was of such courage and comfort that Allion had to fight back tears. He faced Marisha, unable to speak, yet pleading for help.

Her eyes glazing with tears of her own, Marisha grabbed him by the arm and pulled him aside.

Weave stood beneath the symbolic spear, and made a gesture of supplication to Skull and his priests. The viewing hordes raised a cheer.

The shaman gauged his people’s ongoing reaction before coming to a decision. He strode forward, flanked by his retainers. Glancing warily at Darinor, he spoke again to Allion.

“He would send with us a blessing,” Kae said.

Had he been thinking clearly, the hunter might have flinched as Skull reached out with one hand to grip his forehead. As it was, he paid it no mind, his eyes turned toward Weave as he searched frantically for another solution.

The crowds quieted. The shaman muttered for a time with bowed head, keeping his hand in place. Whatever he had to say, he did so quickly. By the time the A’awari withdrew his touch, Allion’s mind was as barren and useless as before.

Skull gestured. The guard circle around the hunter and his company tightened. They were being dismissed. Allion resisted at first, as another set of guards closed about Weave. But the elf nodded to him encouragingly. Trapped in a daze, the hunter allowed Marisha and the others to pull him away.

Darinor led them this time, still bearing those swirling balls of fire. Escorted by the ring of warriors, they cut northward, back across the clearing through the gathered hosts. Some of the elves bowed or called to them, while others surged past without a glance, fighting anxiously toward the center. Every so often, Allion craned his neck, peering back with shock and worry, trying to catch a glimpse of the one he was leaving behind.

When deposited at the outer edge of the hollow, Allion followed his companions in climbing the embankment to reach the jungle fringe. There he stopped and spun about, refusing to be led farther, needing to see for himself what was to become of their Powaii guide.

From that elevated vantage, he gazed past the heads of his escorts, who
were melting already back through the crowd. It took only a moment to discern what was happening. While those particular guards had been guiding him away, others had gone to work on the poles previously used to secure Corathel and his men. The poles had been lashed together, forming a triangular mesh to which Weave was bound with his arms and legs spread wide. The entire assembly was now being carried to the top of the spur, where it was planted like a standard into the ground.

The Grindaya spear was tied on so that the tooth strings hung over the doomed elf’s head.

As Allion looked on from afar, the shaman called out to his congregation, working his way through a rhythmic invocation. A ceremonial knife was brought forward—a hatchet, really, with one of those Mookla’ayan half-moon blades. Skull took it, and with a line of acolytes standing by with torches, raised its glinting head high.

His stroke removed one of Weave’s feet at the ankle. The Powaii elf wailed, calling out for strength, perhaps. Marisha threw her arms about Allion’s neck, burying her face in his shoulder. The hunter wanted to do the same, but forced himself to watch.

Before Weave’s cry had ended, acolytes rushed forward to close his wound with their fires. The shaman, meanwhile, retrieved the foot and cast it to another pack of attendants, who quickly carved it up with their own knives and began distributing the slices to a violent press of their clansmen.

The recipients devoured those slices raw.

The ritual seemed to last forever. Piece by piece, Jaquith Wyevesces was cut apart, his wounds closed to keep him alive, his severed scraps consumed by the bloodthirsty natives. Those farther out urged their clansmen on with lusty howls, singing cruel praises, delighted by the torture of a hated rival. For as long as he had strength, Weave continued to call out to the unmerciful heavens—cries that resounded in Allion’s ears far louder than those of the vicious hordes.

Though the hunter’s companions begged him to depart, he remained transfixed upon the heart of that hollow until Weave’s head sagged and his body grew still. There wasn’t much left of the elf by then—little more than a ruined torso. But the process continued, and Allion could not make himself avert his gaze.

“Come,” he heard Darinor say.

Reality crept back slowly. In the brush behind him, Kae was sobbing. Marisha clung to him as if otherwise unable to stand. He could sense the others—Corathel, Jasyn, and their men—standing frozen with awe and reverence, like sentinels at post upon consecrated ground.

Corathel was the first to respond. With military stoicism, the chief general had his soldiers light torches from the flames Darinor still carried. When that was done, he sent them northward in pairs, side by side into a jungle dark and chill.

A moment later, Allion felt a hand upon his shoulder. It was Jasyn, still with him at the hollow’s rim. The Second General wore a pallid expression
that shone red and yellow in the fiery light. His eyes were those of a man beset by ghosts.

Without a word, the pair of them turned together, drawing Marisha with them. They followed Corathel, leaving Darinor to take up the rear. The Entient did so, releasing one of his fireballs into the ether, while bearing the other as a lantern at his daughter’s back.

Spurred by the ringing clamor of hundreds of bloodthirsty A’awari, they pressed ahead through the darkness, while, behind them, smoke and fire and savage screams filled the night.

T
ORIN ROCKED GENTLY IN HIS SADDLE,
listening to the rain as it drummed relentlessly upon the sodden earth. As he had on the previous day, he rode behind the others, where he could keep watch on those in his company.

Where none would interrupt his thoughts and suspicions.

They plagued him now as before—as always. He had hoped that once removed from Neak-Thur, he would find a measure of peace. But the fresh air of the open road had done little to alleviate a host of nagging concerns. Nor would it, he now realized, as long as those who were the cause of his concerns rode with him.

They carried on as he did, bundled tightly unto themselves. Conversation thus far had been limited and lifeless—and not simply because of the disagreeable climate. Undoubtedly, his companions were as troubled as he by the nature of their forced camaraderie, wary of how this unlikely quest might unfold.

The tension began with Warrlun, Lorre’s appointed captain. Riding atop his overburdened gelding, the old soldier had positioned himself well ahead of the rest of them, leading them along the bemired roadways of northern Yawacor at a distance that did not invite discussion. He had uttered barely a word since their departure, even when all had camped together the night before. Such aloofness did not necessarily make the man untrustworthy; and yet Torin could not deny the doubts that clawed within his stomach like a pack of rats. There was something in the old soldier’s air, a dangerous intensity in his eyes, that unnerved him. The man had accepted this mission for personal reasons, and whatever those were, Torin could not make himself believe that they coincided with his own.

Despite these reservations, it was Saena who concerned him more. For as innocent as the young woman seemed, she was the one, he was sure, who had been sent to memorize the path to the hidden Finlorians—should they be able to find it—so that she might lead Lorre’s armies to it later. Whatever else came about as a result of this search, Torin had no desire to bring harm upon those whose support he had come to beg. But how might he accomplish the one without risking the other?

As a matter of reflex, he had sought solace from such fears in the company of Dyanne. But the young Nymph posed perhaps the most discomfiting
dilemma of all. For reasons he didn’t dare examine too closely, he had found himself feeling less and less comfortable around her. Surely by now, he might safely consider her a friend. Why, then, did she cause him to feel so unsettled and inadequate? She did nothing to demean him; yet he felt like a child in her presence, unworthy of her attentions, awkward and fascinated all at the same time.

More and more, he wondered what she thought of him—as if it should matter. He thought constantly of asking her, of making some attempt to confess to her his uncertain feelings. Perhaps her reaction, whatever it was, might help him to better understand his own irrational state. But he could not bring himself to do so. He could no longer even speak to her without fighting a lump in his throat and a nervous pounding in his chest. The very notion of approaching her on such a topic made him dizzy with fear.

He did his best not to dwell on the matter. As with his reservations toward Warrlun and Saena, his inability to confront Dyanne had no tangible basis, and might have no relevance at all beyond the wilds of his own imagination. Perhaps he had merely grown weary from his trials. Perhaps he needed a crutch, yet understood that it was not fair of him to use her so. Perhaps he simply cared for her enough as a friend that he did not wish to say anything that might upset her.

Or perhaps he cared for her too much already.

As always, he shielded himself against that possibility with recollections of Marisha. But even these had taken on an increasingly darker cast. For he could no longer think of his betrothed except in relation to the Nymph Hunter, arousing feelings of both shame and guilt—particularly because those comparisons seldom favored the woman he had offered to wed. Physically, Dyanne held an unfair advantage in that she was here before him while Marisha was an ocean away. But appearances were less important than the way each made him feel. And in that regard, the Hunter was once again the clear winner. For thoughts of Dyanne and her kin generally inspired dreams for a hopeful future, while thoughts of Marisha invariably reminded him of a bitter, strife-ridden past.

Perhaps because, as difficult as it had been, his time here in Yawacor had been marked by one unexpected discovery after another, whereas so much of his time with Marisha had been marked by war. Whatever the reason, such associations were clearly unjust. But one did not feel differently simply by willing himself to do so.

A gust of wind ripped through him, carrying with it a sharp and sudden chill. It really didn’t matter. He had sworn an oath, to himself if no one else. He needed no ceremony to make it official. He was pledged to Marisha, and as long as she felt the same toward him, he would do nothing to jeopardize their eventual union.

As he was making himself this promise, Saena pulled on her reins to fall back alongside him. Just as she had the day before, he noted, when she had started up front with Warrlun before dropping back among the girls, and now finally to him. She greeted him with a smile.

“You look lonely back here.”

Torin shrugged and grunted. Though he would have preferred she left him alone, he couldn’t bring himself to say so.

“Warrlun says that we should reach Vagarbound by midday,” she offered.

Torin made himself nod.

“It’ll be good to sleep tonight in a real bed.”

Torin’s jaw clenched. Either she couldn’t see or didn’t care that he was trying to ignore her. He still didn’t trust her, not after the way in which she had played herself off as an innocent prison attendant while he had suffered in Lorre’s dungeons. Better that he keep his distance. If there was any chance she served again some secret agenda, he would rather not play into it.

And yet, her disposition beneath the gray and sodden skies of Lorrehaim was as carefree and disarming as it had been within the bowels of the overlord’s newest city. Despite his evident lack of interest, she plied him with another of her one-sided conversations, carrying on about anything and everything and nothing. Try as he might, Torin could not be so rude as to disregard her completely.

“I think I know why Lorre sent you,” he said finally, trying to steer the woman’s chatter in a meaningful direction. “But why Warrlun?”

Saena’s eyes shifted toward the front of their column, where the old soldier rode as if oblivious to those who followed.

“I know little about him,” she replied. “Only that he is one of His Lordship’s most trusted lieutenants.”

“Isn’t it your job to find out about people?” he asked, somewhat pointedly.

“Well, look at you, for instance. I’ve already spent more time in your company than I ever have in Warrlun’s. Other than the stories concerning your reclamation of the Sword of Asahiel, and aside from the nature of your quest as you related it to me, what do I really know about you?”

“There’s nothing more to know,” he assured her.

Saena laughed. “There’s
everything
to know. What is it that makes you smile? Do you have a favorite color? A favorite food? Who are your friends and family? Is there a queen of Alson?”

Torin’s eyes flicked toward hers. All of a sudden, he felt a flush of embarrassment, fearing that somehow, the personal questions with which he wrestled had been exposed to her all along. “The answers to such trifles are hardly relevant to what we mean to accomplish here.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” she agreed. “I use them merely as examples. A person is defined by many things—tastes and fears and passions—characteristics that are ever evolving. It takes a lifetime and more to truly get to know a person. We’re lucky if we ever even get to know ourselves.”

Torin couldn’t help but chuckle. “Is that why you carry on the way you do?”

Saena gaped as if wounded.

“I only mean, you seem as if you intend to share everything there is to know about you with any who will listen.”

“If others would share more, perhaps I wouldn’t have to reveal so much.”

He thought he might finally have succeeded in offending her, until he turned to find her grinning. “Well, you might consider doing us all a favor by starting with that friend of yours up there,” he suggested, nodding to indicate their guide ahead.

“A badger would be more agreeable.” She huffed. “I much prefer your company to his.”

She smiled again. Torin could only shake his head.

He reverted to silence after that, grunting now and then as she rambled on. Whatever plans Lorre’s chosen pair might be harboring, trying to uncover their plot now was clearly a waste of time. Especially when he could not even decide who was the more troublesome of the two.

While lending one ear to his companion’s nattering, he went back to his own concerns, worrying now about distant friends—Allion in particular—as well as those nearer to him, like Moss, Arn, and Lancer. It disturbed him to have left one after another as he had. When all of this was ended, would he be able to make things right?

At midday, as predicted, the mists parted and the city of Vagarbound came into view. A thick and rain-lashed palisade bounded the city on three sides, with its back, like Neak-Thur’s, built upon the mountain slopes. Guardsmen stood post atop various watchtowers, monitoring a light flow of traffic heading in and out the city gates along a narrow and rutted road. Just outside, wooden schilltrons kept visitors hemmed along a desired course. These, along with the giant wall of sharpened stakes, gave the city a bristling and hostile look.

They reined to a halt outside the gates, awaiting their turn with the outer guard. Ahead of them, inspectors examined the cargo carried by a small wagon caravan. When at last that team was cleared to enter, Warrlun spurred himself forward at the head of their column.

Torin was surprised not to be waved right on through. The city captain straightened noticeably upon viewing Warrlun’s token of rank, but even then asked them to declare the nature of their business. Warrlun did so, presenting a small scroll bearing the seal of Lord Lorre himself. A series of follow-up questions was asked, and signals exchanged. All the while, a scribe took notes on his tablet, marking down names, anticipated length of stay, and more. As part of this interview, the guard asked them to present any weapons for inspection. Once again, Torin looked to his company’s leader, as if to ask if this was truly necessary. But Warrlun himself complied with the request, and nodded gruffly at the outlander’s hesitation.

Though reluctant to make himself and his belongings a matter of public record, Torin saw no reasonable way to refuse. Not surprisingly, the Crimson Sword drew openmouthed stares from both the guard and his scribe. They remembered their duty, though, and withheld comment, moving on to make note of the various blades carried by the others. When finished, the guard saluted Warrlun once more.

“If we can be of any service, Commander, let us know,” he offered, motioning them on.

“I will, Captain,” Warrlun assured him, then urged his mount forward through the wide-flung gates.

“A bit overzealous, aren’t they?” Torin muttered as they left the patrol behind.

“This isn’t the Southland,” Warrlun scoffed. “His Lordship likes to maintain the peace, and the best way for a city to do so is to regulate who and what passes through its gates.”

“And that doesn’t bother you?” Torin asked, returning the stare of a gap-toothed street patron.

“I’ve nothing to hide,” the soldier replied, facing forward again with a haughty air.

Torin left it at that, falling back among his more civil companions. Though it felt now as if the eye of every citizen were focused on him, it was too late to change matters. He could only hope that come nightfall, the list to which their names had just been added was not sold to a band of thieves—or worse.

From what he could see, calling Vagarbound a city made generous use of the term. As with most of the communities he had visited here in Yawacor, it was more an outpost, a collection of shops and homes and services catering to a wild rabble of huntsmen, tradesmen, and prospectors that roamed this northern region. The streets were unpaved, covered over with wood shavings in a vain attempt to help travelers against the mud. Buildings lined the rutted avenues, beaten by the near-ceaseless downpour. Despite the weather, activity abounded, with vendors hawking foods and garments and tools to an organized throng of haggling patrons. Wheels creaked, mules brayed, mud sloshed under hoof and foot. Soldiers wearing the insignia of Lord Lorre were everywhere, keeping watch.

The assorted smells caused Torin to grimace. But he kept his discomfort to himself, hunkering in his saddle, hood lowered against the rain. He considered asking Warrlun how exactly the old soldier intended to gather the information they had come here to collect, but decided he could wait to find out.

They ventured for a time down the principal roadway, paying no attention to those who stepped forth from booth and stall and storefront stoop to bid them look closer at various wares. The banners and signs were garish enough, fighting for prominence like forest trees in search of the sun. Torin quickly lost interest in them, for they all seemed to offer the same things—none of which he had come here to find.

Their first stop was at a small shack wedged back between a pair of competing taverns. After a quick survey, Warrlun bade his companions wait where they were, then hitched his steed and went marching down the narrow boardwalk.

Only after careful search did Torin find the pricing board that suggested this to be the headquarters of an expeditionary outfit. The place looked abandoned, but when Warrlun knocked, the door opened, and the old soldier disappeared inside.

“Don’t worry about us,” Holly quipped. “We’ll just sit here and keep our saddles dry.”

Torin snorted in agreement, looking to Dyanne to see if she might glance his way. She didn’t.

Their guide left them mounted in the rain for several minutes. Torin was about to propose that they tether the horses and duck inside one of the taverns for a warm drink when the old soldier reappeared. The commander stood framed by the doorway a moment longer, shaking hands with whoever it was on the other side before making his way back to them.