Ashwalk Pilgrim (24 page)

Mara clenched her teeth.
Of course he would not come
.
There is no easy path from this.

She faced the crowd. Ialane and Caspran surrounded Gia. Ialane shook her head. She gripped one of her swords, strumming it impatiently. “Very well, Mara.”

With a flick of her wrist, the priestess unsheathed the sword. Its long, curving blade glimmered in the lamplight. She brought the razor edge to Gia’s tanned and sweaty arm, slowly sliding it down the woman’s flesh. “Perhaps a cut or two will draw you out?”

Mara’s eyes widened. She stepped into the curtain of leaves. She lifted her chin and braced herself for the reveal. “I cannot let you suffer, Gia. Not another. Not for me. The Six will guide us both to safety, I know it.”

Somehow, whether through dumb luck or a last, fleeting blessing from the Six, Gia’s good eye fixed on Mara. They connected, two souls shining in a crowd of violent darkness. Gia’s lips trembled in a sad smile.
 

You made it
, she mouthed.
Remember me.

Gia spun lightning fast. Her knee connected with the back of the Caspran’s leg, and he went flying to ground. She whipped her braid around Ialane’s sword and used it as a cushion for her hand, thrusting the blade away.

Caspran buckled. The priestess stumbled back. Gia leapt to her feet with all the practiced grace of a dancer. “My name is Gia Winn. I lived as a moon maiden for the House of Sin and Silk.”

Mara’s friend balled her hand into a shaking fist of pale knuckles. “But I die a priestess of the Burning Mother, a loyal servant to the true gods!”

Caspran bounded to his feet as Ialane regained her balance. Gia’s fist snapped like wound spring and slammed straight between Ialane’s masked eyes. The woman’s head jerked back. The pale mask cracked like thunder and split. It shattered and dropped in alabaster shards to the ground.
 

A collective gasp slipped from the crowd, and the mob stepped back.
 

Sister Ialane straightened. Her hair fell in ivory waves over her shoulders. Her skin was pale as frost, her smooth jaw hard as iron. Her full lips twisted in a sneer that bared two sharp fangs, and she scowled at the crowd with dark pupils rimmed by polished gold.

Gia stumbled back. “Gods, what are you?”

Ialane’s nostrils flared. She swallowed, surveying the crowd that gazed dumbstruck at her as if she were some sort of freakish animal carted from an unknown land. The woman’s lip trembled. Her sword arm shook. Her perfect, porcelain nose wrinkled in a snarl.

She turned to Gia and shrieked. The serpent around her neck uncoiled and buried its fangs in Gia’s arm.
 

Gia gasped. Ialane thrust her blade through Gia’s chest. Mara’s friend crumpled over the blade.
 

Ialane shoved the sword deeper and leaned into the dying woman. “Tell the Six we’re coming for them.”

Mara lurched through the plants.
“Gia, No!”

An urn tipped and burst on the tiles in a mess of shattered marble, black soil, and spongy leaves. The crowd turned. Caspran flicked his wrist, a tiny, silver blade glinting in the light. Ialane kicked Gia’s lifeless body from her blade and rotated toward Mara, flipping the waves of her ivory hair behind her.
 

The priestess smiled. Terror froze Mara’s veins.

Ialane Donra wiped the blood from her sword as her serpent wound its way back up her leg and around her neck. The priestess pointed the tip of her blade in Mara’s direction, the woman’s odd eyes searching the area by the fallen vase. “Ashwalk pilgrim, tonight you die.”

Ialane Donra’s fanged smile glittered hungrily over Gia’s body. Brother Caspran snapped his fingers, and the dagger in his hand whistled toward Mara.

Mara couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. Ialane’s cold grin held her in its hungry grasp. It was a smile born of eons of hate, a smile born of endless hunger. Yet, her eyes did not focus on Mara.

She cannot see me
, Mara thought.
How can she not see me?

A black form swelled before Mara and wiped away the world. She blinked, her body finally released from its unnatural hold. Mara stared at the dark wall. A mask appeared within the black, calm and smiling like an old friend seen after a long trip across the sea.

“Silent son!” Mara stepped forward, cupping the mask. “You’ve saved me.”

The priest of the Loyal Father heaved. Blood trickled from his mask. “Go…” he whispered in a voice racked with pain and panic. “To the steps, Mara. To the Mother’s steps!”

A dagger’s bloody, pointed edge appeared beneath his mask. It twisted, tip first, toward Mara as it tunneled through his flesh.

The silent son fell, and like a falling curtain, he revealed the highborn crowd, the soldiers, the stage, and the two priests of the Serpent Sun standing upon it.

Mara tucked her son into her arm and leapt over the silent son’s body. Her feet pounded on the plaza tiles. Wind threw her burlap in flapping wings around her shins. Her dark, waving locks unfurled and flew behind her.
 

“Kill her,” Ialane roared. “Soldiers, kill the woman! Slay her where she stands and any who aid her!”

Chaos erupted amongst the crowd. Soldiers peppered in its midst unsheathed their swords and barreled through the panicked highborns.
 

Mara angled around the mob. Soldiers and swords trampled toward her, swinging their blades wildly. Ialane and Caspran bounded unnaturally high from the platform, their weapons gleaming in the light.
 

Oh gods, I will not let them take me
.
They will never take me!

An inferno lit her heart. Her eyes focused on the Mother’s steps even as the line of soldiers before it barreled to meet the other soldiers hacking their way toward Mara. Her feet bounded like a mighty antelope. She couldn’t slow, she couldn’t stop. One misstep, and she would tumble. Somehow, she did not.

An arrow whistled past her. Another struck the plaza stones and shattered.
 

A gale wind bellowed through the plaza. With it, the shadows lurking beyond the lamplights raced across the smooth stones and swirled around her feet.
 

The shadows coalesced. They thickened. They grew into a mighty river with churning black waves.
 

A soldier flung his sword at Mara’s head. The shadows swirled and rose. A silent son’s mask appeared in the cresting wave, and the sword buried in his back.
 

Another soldier leapt toward Mara. The shadows lurched as another mask appeared and caught the blade. The silent son twisted out of the black and flapped like a dead fish atop the startled man.

The shadows swirled and roiled, rising and falling like the waves of a river spewed from the mouth of a god. “Protect her!” the black river roared in a thousand mighty voices. “We are silent no longer. We speak with one voice. We pray with one soul. We are the silent sons of the Loyal Father. We speak, and we summon the Six.
Loyal Father, protect the pilgrim.
”

Thunder cracked like no other thunder Mara had ever heard. It shook the plaza. It rocked the temples. High above the hill, a column holding up the palace cracked and crumbled.
 

“Shining Child, protect the pilgrim.”

Clouds laced with violet lightning birthed in a once starry sky. Ialane’s piercing shriek sliced through the air like a razor through parchment.
 

“Gentle Lover, protect the pilgrim.”

Lightning blasted the plaza, flinging guard and noble alike. Masked and hooded priests of the Serpent Sun bounded from rooftops and sped from shadows like a hive of pale spiders. They cut down all in their path on their murderous flight toward Mara.

“Coin Counter, protect the pilgrim.”

Mara clenched her teeth. Her throat burned from her heavy breaths. Her legs had long since numbed, but a warmth welled within her and increased her speed. Arrows and swords buried in the river of silent sons. Masks appeared and fell away.
 

“Slippery Sinner, protect the pilgrim.”

A hail of black arrows crested from the palace behind the temples. Mara looked in horror as they blotted the stormy sky and rained like hell from a demon’s mouth. The river of silent sons crested over her, their shadows swelling into a raging tunnel whose end opened to the Mother’s steps.

The arrows thudded into the priests, and the river faded as the last of the holy men died. The shadows thinned, and the wind embraced her.

A sharp pain lanced into her shoulder. She screamed at the burning point digging into her flesh. She glanced over her shoulder. Caspran’s dagger buried in her arm. It twisted and dug like the fang of a hungry snake.

Tears blurred her vision. She bit her lip so hard, she tasted the tin of her blood.
 

The steps loomed large through her watery vision. Crying out, she leapt toward them. Her feet left the ground. An arrow whistled beneath her. One passed a finger’s width from her face and broke on the stairs.

Mara landed hard on the marble steps. She fell forward and caught herself. Her wrist twisted and bent. The bone cracked, and she screamed at the fiery pain. Her toe hit a step. She collapsed, her knee slamming against the stone.
 

A wicked laugh pierced the chaos of the battle. Mara twisted around. Sister Ialane stood at the base of the stairs. The priestess brandished both swords. Her serpent’s ruby eyes locked on Mara’s son. Its forked tongue flicked from its jaw and tasted the air.

“So close, ashwalk pilgrim,” Ialane said. “But I see you now that Caspran’s dagger found its mark. It looks as if the Six did not have the strength to save you. Their sun sets on Urum, girl. The Serpent Sun rises, and with it, the loyal will feast on the old gods’ flesh and take the Six’s power for our own.”

“You will never defeat the Six.” Mara struggled up a stair using her elbow.

Ialane casually climbed a step. “You are a fool. You have always been a fool. You will always be a fool. You will die tonight. You were born to die tonight. You never understood the truth, and it is a great pleasure of mine to send you to oblivion, knowing you will never discover it for yourself.”

The priestess raised her blade. Mara grappled with climbing another step. She cradled her son and pressed her broken wrist against him as a shield against Ialane’s hungry serpent.
 

It flicked its tongue and uncoiled from the woman’s neck. The creature slithered down her body and up the steps. It rose before Mara and slowly opened its wide jaw with a dripping hiss. Two pale fangs coated with poison gleamed in the light of the temple’s burning braziers.

“Time to end this,” Ialane said.

“Not quite,” boomed a familiar voice. A small orb whistled past Mara and slapped inside the snake’s jaw. The creature snapped its mouth shut and gagged and writhed. It spat the dark orb onto the steps and hissed.

“No!” Ialane swung her sword in a silver arc at Mara. “You won’t be saved this time!”

The orb exploded in a plume of inky smoke. Popping sparks erupted within the black like fireworks bursting in a cloudy sky. The smoke stung Mara’s eyes and disoriented her with its bright flashes.

Ialane’s sword sliced through the smokescreen. A hand wrapped around Mara’s neck and yanked her flat against the steps. The sword swished over her head, cutting air instead of flesh.
 

The strong hand jerked Mara up the last steps and snatched her to her feet. She twisted around as the hand pulled her toward the Mother’s doors, and she finally saw her savior. He wore tight black garments and boots trimmed in black. A dark hood hid most his features, but Mara instantly recognized his hooked nose and faint scar running beside his lips.

“Sander, you came!”

“Took me awhile. I never said I’d be there that instant, you know. So imagine my surprise when I try and come save the silly pilgrim woman, and I see this bloody battlefield with silent son corpses and damn near half of Hightable bleeding out at the Mother’s temple.”

“We must get inside!”

“Eh?” He glanced down the steps.
 

Ialane tore through the smoke, coughing and wheezing. Her serpent had slithered up her leg and coiled around her neck. It glared at Sander, bearing its fangs with a piercing hiss.

Sander’s face lost its color. “Fuck me, the Serpent Sun priests are alp? So there was a demon sorceress from the Second Sun in Sollan after all. It’s just not hunting our king. It’s
working
for him.”

“That’s an alp?” Mara stumbled back. “But all the alp are dead. All living things died when the Second Sun fell.”

“The stories they tell common folk are often laced with lies. If you’re smart, you might discover a different truth. Or rich. The rich can always buy the truth. There’s a fancy saying for both, but I’ll be damned if I can remember them. Don’t you hate that? I wanted to sound all wise and priestly, but ah well, maybe the next brush with death, it’ll come. At least we know why you were so good at keeping out of their sights. There’s a reason the Mother makes her ashwalk pilgrims wear ash and burlap.”

Sander pulled Mara against the temple door. Brother Caspran swatted through the remaining smoke and stood by Ialane’s side. The priestess tightened her grip on the sword and pointed the tip at Mara. “No matter. The door is sealed and the faithful trapped within it. They will listen to your screams as we kill you both and my snake devours that child. Then, the temple will become their grave.”

Mara pressed her son tight against her chest. Sander clucked and shook his head. He threw back his hood and bowed before the two priests of the Serpent Sun. “That’s the thing about dealing with a man of the Slippery Sinner. No doors bar us, and we’re just so damn hard to catch.”

He twisted and slammed his palm against the door. An odd sensation racked Mara’s body. She fell backward, her flesh warping through the crack in the doors as if she was water down a drain.