Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades (67 page)

Kaden nodded. This was like the
beshra’an,
he realized, throwing himself into the mind of a creature, only this creature lived inside his brain. He let himself sink deeper into the vision, laid a hand on the bird’s heart and felt it beating.

“Can you
hear
her heart?” Tan asked.

Kaden waited. A mountain wind skirled in his ears. Something down the slope somewhere knocked free an avalanche of pebbles. Behind it, though, beneath it, the bird’s heart beat, quick and light, thumping, thumping, until it filled his ears, his mind. He held the creature in his hand—so fragile, he could crush her with a squeeze of his fingers. She was terrified, he realized. He was terrifying her.

“Now let her go,” Tan said. “Open your hand and let her fly away.”

Slowly, Kaden opened his fingers, reluctant to let the thrush escape his grasp. It seemed important that he hold her, for some reason, that he clutch her to him … but Tan had said to let her go and so, ever so lightly, he let her slip from his fingers.

“She’s flying now,” he whispered.

“Watch,” Tan replied.

Against closed lids, Kaden watched as the bird dwindled, smaller and smaller against the great blue of his mind’s vast sky, smaller and smaller until she was a smudge, a speck, a pinprick on the great open emptiness of the heavens. And then she was gone. Blankness filled his mind.

He opened his eyes.

Almost overhead now, the kettral shrieked.
They’re close,
he realized,
but they’re too late.

Then he saw the eyes. At first he wasn’t sure what they were: glowing bloodred orbs, at least a dozen, some the size of apples, others no larger than Annurian copper coins, floating up the slope below. As they drew closer, he could make out the irises, pulsing with crooked veins, dilating and contracting, and then he understood. The
ak’hanath
had come.

He should have been terrified, and yet the realization carried no fear. The creature was a fact—no more, no less—like the fact that night had fallen, or that Pyrre stood, staring, at his side. Like the fact that people would die tonight. It was strange, he realized, this lack of feeling. He
used
to feel something. Only minutes ago, before he had freed the bird inside him, his mind had been a welter of emotions: fear and confusion and hope. Inside the
vaniate,
however, there was only a great, blank calm.

The
ak’hanath
was larger than he had expected, almost the size of a female black bear, but it skittered up the rocky slope more quickly than any bear, claws clicking over the stones, chitinous legs flexing and unflexing, causing the eyes at the joints to bulge under the strain. A dozen paces off it paused, turned back in forth in the darkness as though sniffing for something, then let out a thin but piercing wail just at the edge of hearing. Twice more the creature uttered its unnatural scream and then, from father down the slope, an answering call.

“Two,” Tan observed as the second horror approached.

As it drew near, the first
ak’hanath
raised wicked, slicing pincers, as though testing the air, clicking them open and shut spasmodically. One of those things could hack through the skull of a goat. They had killed Serkhan back at the monastery. Facts. Just more facts.

Kaden turned to Tan. “Is it too late?”

“Not if I kill them.”

“About that,” Pyrre interjected, hefting a small stone and hurling it at one of the creatures. It flew true, striking one of the eyes with a sick, popping sound. The
ak’hanath
spasmed a moment, let out another high-pitched shriek, then sidled farther up the slope. Kaden could make out the tiny limbs around its mouth twitching feverishly. “Any advice?” She might have been asking about the best local wine.

“Leave them to me,” the monk replied. “You have your own part to play.”

“You don’t want help?”

“The
ak’hanath
are trackers, not killers, although these—” The monk frowned. “—they differ from those I have studied.”

“They seemed like they were doing plenty of killing back there in Ashk’lan,” the assassin pointed out, crushing two more eyes with two more thrown stones. The spiders were agitated now, thrashing violently, and they had resumed their approach.

“In Ashk’lan, they had not come up against someone who knew how to fight,” the monk replied, stepping forward to meet the foe.

Even from inside the
vaniate,
everything seemed to happen at once. The closest creature, still a few paces distant, crunched itself into a ball, then sprang. Kaden had watched crag cats attack—they were the fastest animals in the mountains, quick enough to take down a deer in full flight, but even at its fastest there was something relaxed, almost languorous in the cat’s motion. The
ak’hanath
moved with the violence of a mechanical device tightened past tolerance in an explosion of grasping claws and slicing arms.

Tan’s
naczal,
somehow, was there to meet it, smashing the creature aside as the monk rolled with the blow, coming back to his feet in a fighting crouch the like of which Kaden had never seen. The strange Csestriim spear spun above his head in quick, looping arcs.

“Stay behind me,” he said to Kaden, not taking his eyes from the creature.

Pyrre had kept up her assault with the rocks—she would have run out of knives long before the creatures ran out of eyes—but the effort of the attack didn’t seem to wind her.

“I never expected to find a Shin monk fighting
dharasala
style,” she said, a new note of respect in her voice. “And in the old forms, too.”

“I wasn’t always a monk,” Tan replied, and then it was his turn to attack.

He darted between the two spiders, swinging the spear in a great overhead arc. For a moment Kaden thought the man had missed his target, then realized the true intention behind the blow as each end of the
naczal
connected with one of the
ak’hanath
. In the cool space of the
vaniate,
Kaden wondered how long Tan must have studied with the weapon, how carefully he must have trained. Had he learned those skills among the Ishien, or were they older still, a remnant of some prior life Kaden couldn’t begin to imagine?

Tan stood almost between the spiders now, in what seemed an impossible position, too close to maneuver, surely too close to bring his long spear to bear. And yet, with short, savage motions, Tan was striking them, each blow counting double as it connected with the creature before and behind. More, when the spiders thrust back against his blade, metal scraping against shell and ichor, he was able to use the strength of one against the other, allowing the
naczal
to pivot in his hand. The creatures were landing their own blows, vicious cuts and snaps, but the monk was able to keep them away from his head and chest, driving his own attack harder, harder, until, with a great plunging motion he was able to force the spear between the flailing arms and into the gullet of the first
ak’hanath
. As the thing spasmed and screamed, he ripped the blade free, wrenching it overhead in a crushing arc that staggered his remaining foe, then stepped in close to finish it.

For a hearbeat, the mountainside was still and quiet save for the sound of the monk’s breath rasping in his chest.

“You’re hurt,” Pyrre said, stepping forward, but Tan held up a hand to keep her back.

“Nothing fatal.” He glanced down at his robes. “Though the creatures should not have been so large, nor so strong.”

“When this is all finished,” the woman said, giving the monk a hard, appraising look, “you’re going to have to tell me where you learned to fight.”

“No,” Tan replied. “I won’t.”

Before the assassin could respond, a clicking and screeching broke the silence beyond their small circle. At first Kaden thought that Tan had failed to kill one of the creatures, but both spiders lay still, their horrid red eyes dimmed by death. Down the slope, however, fifty paces away and closing, more eyes floated through the night, dozens of eyes, scores.

“They brought more,” Tan observed, a hint of weariness in his voice.

“How many?” Kaden asked, trying to sort through the glowing red orbs into individual spiders.

“Looks like ten, maybe a dozen. They weren’t at the monastery all these months. We would have seen them. They must have come with the Aedolians.”

“You can’t fight a dozen of them,” Pyrre said.

“Can, or cannot,” Tan replied, “it is what needs to be done.” He turned to Kaden. “You can both still escape them if you break free. They followed the others here; they cannot track you in the
vaniate
.”

“You’re going to die here, monk,” Pyrre observed.

“Then your god will be glad,” Tan replied. “Go now, both of you. The time has come to make good on our words.”

And then the monk was moving forward, the
naczal
swinging above his head. A part of Kaden knew he should be frightened, horrified. But fear and horror—they were like distant lands he had heard of but never visited. Tan would live, or he would die. Either way, Kaden’s own role was clear. He was to run. As his
umial
ducked and stabbed, sliced and hacked at the fetid tide rolling over him, as Rampuri Tan fought for his life against something dark and unnatural, something that should have been wiped from earth millennia earlier, as the old monk struggled for the very survival of his pupil, Kaden turned into the darkness and ran.

*   *   *

It wasn’t good territory for a breakout. The wind and cold had scoured everything from the notch but a few erratic boulders, scattered about like the remnants of some dilapidated tower. The Aedolian lanterns didn’t cast much light, but still, the moon was out. Valyn frowned. Whoever planned to cut them free had a good bit of open ground to cover, with only the treacherous shadows to shield them from prying eyes.

The good news was, Balendin, Adiv, and most of the remaining Aedolians had drifted to the eastern end of the notch, fifteen paces distant, staring out over the great gulf of night. There seemed to be some confusion over the signal fires, the ones intended to mark Kaden’s direction of flight. Balendin was arguing with Adiv while stabbing his finger alternately at the flames and the night-shrouded peaks beyond. The wind whipped their voices away before Valyn could make out more than scraps of words, but it seemed as though something had gone awry with their plan, a supposition that kindled in him a little bit of hope. Two men still guarded Valyn and his Wing, but they looked distracted, ill at ease, as though they wished they were with the others, comfortably within the compass of the lamplight. They carried swords sheathed at their sides, but it wouldn’t be too difficult for an experienced fighter to get close enough to fire a couple of shots, or, barring that, cut their throats.…

But Kaden’s not an experienced fighter,
Valyn reminded himself grimly. Aedolians might not have presented any great threat to a Kettral Wing, but they were nonetheless accounted among the most capable soldiers in the world. Any mistake, and they’d raise the alarm, and once that happened, there wouldn’t be
time
to loose any of the captives. Valyn chafed at his helplessness. He had come to save his brother, and here he was, trussed like a yearling lamb. He had a dozen questions for Triste, but after Gwenna’s brief outburst and the girl’s whispered warnings, the two Aedolians had cuffed them all into silence.
Just get us out, Kaden,
he thought grimly.
Just get us out, and I can take it from there
.

He smelled his brother before he heard him: just the faintest whiff of sweat and goat wool off to the north. He twisted his head in time to see a shadow ghosting down the nearly sheer northern wall of the notch. It looked like a difficult climb even in daylight, but Kaden had spent half his life in these mountains. Maybe he’d learned more than painting and pottery. Valyn glanced over his shoulder, worried that the guards would catch sight of his brother, but they were oblivious.
They can’t see,
Valyn realized.
They can’t see into the darkness the way I can
.

Suddenly, a clatter of rockfall broke the silence on the eastern slope, over by Adiv and Balendin, a hundred paces from where Kaden finished his treacherous descent and started forward, flitting between the boulders like a ghost. The minister turned an ear to the darkness, his lips pursed in a slight frown.

“Eln, Tremmel,” he said, gesturing to a couple of soldiers. “Take a quick look down the eastern slope.”

“There’s no one there,” Balendin said, his voice calm, confident.

Adiv turned to face the leach, as though studying his face from behind that uncanny blindfold.

“How do you know that?”

The youth shrugged. “I’m on this Wing
because
I know things like that. Trust me. There’s no one there.”

He can feel the emotion,
Valyn remembered with a sudden stab of fear. Talal had insisted that Balendin relied on emotion directed at
him,
but perhaps he could feel the residue of other feelings, too. There was no telling just what twisted well of power fed a creature like that, and if he could feel emotion, it meant he could feel Kaden. However brave Valyn’s brother had been in trying to stage a rescue, fear and excitement must be coursing through his body like poisoned wine. If Balendin caught even an eddy of that, the game was up.

Hurry, Kaden,
Valyn prayed silently.
Hurry
.

The minister considered the youth a moment longer, then gestured to his men once more. “Check it anyway.”

The two guards watching the prisoners had drifted toward the rest of the group, curiosity sucking them a couple paces toward the light.

Now,
Valyn thought.
This is the time.

And then, as though summoned, a shadow broke away from the darkness. Valyn stared.

It had been eight years since he’d last seen his brother, since he and Kaden raced around the hallways and gardens of the Dawn Palace, playing at being Kettral. He recognized his brother instantly, their father’s jaw, their mother’s nose, the distinct line of his mouth, and yet the person standing before him was a boy no longer. He was lean almost to the point of gauntness, the bones of his cheeks, the thin striated muscles of his arms tight under sun-darkened skin. Kaden had grown taller, as well, a few inches taller than Valyn himself. Of course, the Bone Mountains were a far cry from the luxury of Annur, from those pampered childhood mornings sipping
ta
and slurping down porridge in the warm kitchens. During his quick search, Valyn had seen enough to know that the mountains were a hard place, and Kaden had hardened as well. He held his belt knife as though prepared to use it, but the knife was the least of it. Valyn’s gaze was riveted on his brother’s eyes.