Dawn of War (9 page)

“I see you as well, goddess,” she told it, baring her face to the glowing orb. “Bring the Tumult, Mother. Show us your righteous fury. Together we shall exterminate the idolaters that infest your flesh like creeping vermin.” Sultae dropped to her knees and pressed her forehead against the cool grass. Her quiet words sunk into the earth.

After a moment, she got to her feet and returned the veil to its place. Without so much as a glance back, she strode into the trees, slipping through the tangle of their branches and into the Dead Lands. A’ree fading from her sight behind the gnarled canopy, she could still feel the great eye’s presence.

The time had come.

Chapter Eight

Domor sat comfortable in the enclosed raft, lulled by the rhythmic splashes made by Jerul’s rowing. He watched the oars slice into the water, little more than shadows beneath the river face, until they burst from the surface in a white spray, only to dive once more in an endless rhythm.

Jerul’s tireless pace drove them on, the shore gliding past in a rush. They had cleared Domor’s homeland of Vel quickly, slipping away from his people without being seen. It had made that part of the trip much easier than Domor had expected. He had no answers had the Velen been about to question his departure.

As they neared the far border of Y’Vel, they were spotted by several Yvir who bathed at the shallow banks of the river. The warriors, both male and female, stood unabashedly naked on the shore and waved to the pair as they passed. Domor felt his cheeks flush at the sight of their veined breasts bared so brazenly before him, but he didn’t look away. The Yvir knew no shame at their nakedness, so he felt it was only right to accord them their respect and view it as something natural, and not as something indecent. He kept his eyes level and looked to the moment as it was intended; innocent. He succeeded; mostly.

Jerul called out a greeting and returned a quick wave, his hands gone from the oars but for an instant. The warriors shouted back and returned to their ablutions as the raft sailed past. Domor was glad of Jerul’s fast pace as the Yviri bathers disappeared from sight just a few moments later. He drew in a deep breath and glanced up at Jerul, who met his eyes with a disapproving face.

“You Velen are not as close to Ree as you would like us to believe.” His voice was quiet, the words sharp.

Domor’s cheeks nearly burst into flames at his blood-companion’s words. He had forgotten how closely the warrior could read his emotions, as though he were reading his thoughts. His lust had been as plain to Jerul as if he had given voice to it.

“I—I didn’t—”

Jerul glared for a moment, then broke out into raucous laughter. A broad smile split his face in twain. He fell from his bench as he laughed, nearly dropping the oars into the water. He scrambled to keep his hold on them as Domor stared, realization dawning slow like a misty morning.

“Fear not, Velen, we can always blame your wantonness on the Yviri blood that flows through your veins.” He gestured back toward the shore where his brethren had been, his rumbling laughter barely contained. “But if ever you were to give up your chaste ways, there is none better than a Yviri woman to help you sing a proper song of praise to Ree.”

Domor, catching on, growled. The heat from his cheeks shifted to his ears. He stared at Jerul for several moments until his anger at being teased broke apart on the waves of his blood-companion’s unrepentant grin.

“You are a devious savage.” He settled back with a deep sigh as Jerul continued to chuckle. But for all his discomfort, Domor had to agree with his blood-companion’s assessment, though he would never admit it.

Grateful still for Jerul’s company, despite the teasing, Domor gave his companion a wan smile, then twisted about to glance ahead, and to hide his thoughts so clear on his face.

It was only a momentary concern.

A chill settled over Domor as he spied the darkening forest just ahead. Jerul’s laugh drifted away behind him.

“This is truly the last safe moment to turn about, Velen.”

The sound of rowing dropped away. Domor watched as they glided toward the darkness that appeared to hover over the trees. The sounds of the forest that had followed them since Vel seemed to die down as they grew closer to the Dead Lands. Domor could no longer hear any birds chirping in the trees or insects buzzing in his ears. Silence fell over them like a funeral shroud.

Domor steeled his courage and waved Jerul forward. “We must go on.” The words were certain, but his voice wavered.

Without hesitation, Jerul leaned once more into the oars, driving the raft onward. Domor watched as the shadows of the Dead Lands swept toward them, then overtop as though it were a storm cloud readying to unleash its burden.

The temperature dropped and Domor felt his skin prickle at the sudden change. The trees that had stood so straight and tall just twenty yards back now drooped and bowed as though they shouldered a great burden. Their branches were twisted and deformed, bringing to mind the elderly of his race, their fingers gnarled and useless on the trunks of their hands.

Where there had been clear sky and sun above them just a moment before, there was now a knotted canopy that seemed to reject the light, letting little more than random pinpricks of daylight through. A palpable hush settled over them as they sailed into the shade. It was as if the trees had swallowed all the ambient sounds, leaving only the splashes of the oars and Jerul’s grunts of exertion.

Domor clutched to his pack and eased it open as he glanced back at Jerul. The warrior shifted to sit at the edge of the bench and leveraged the oars against his ribs. He loosed his swords from the cradle at his back and set them side by side at his feet. With a smile that failed to brighten his eyes, Jerul sat back and took up his oars again. He bore down and Domor could see the strain at his chest as his blood-companion endeavored to speed their journey as best he could. The purple veins at his neck pulsed in time with his effort.

Domor looked once more to the way ahead before scanning the canopy as they sailed beneath it. The eerie silence and monstrous trees seemed to close in on him, a garrote around the neck of his spirit. Though he knew it was Ree’s blood that corrupted the land so deeply as to make it untenable, he felt nothing of the great goddess’ presence. It was as though she had turned her back upon the Dead Lands, letting its malignance fester and grow unchecked, virulent in its gangrenous deformation.

He saw none of her beauty in the shadows that clung like a thick mist to the shore, its darkness bleeding into the water to taint it black. Domor leaned over the side to examine the water closer. The glassy surface of the river no longer reflected his wavering face, but seemed to swallow the image, drowning it in an obsidian shimmer. He moved away from the side, a nervous sickness growing in his stomach.

Domor had no fear of the river itself, for his only certainty in the ruin of the Dead Lands was that nothing living dwelled in the water’s depths. In her wisdom, Ree had damned the water of Ahreele to never carry natural life within its current. The heavy water that sat so still was like a sack of stones in one’s lungs. While it could be ingested in small quantities, as was necessary for continued life, its unnatural denseness was an anchor that would pull one down into the depths should a body ingest too much.

It was the same for any living creature.

As a child, Domor watched a horse stumble into the river. Its thrashing attempts at swimming filled its mouth with water, its panic driving it to swallow. As its stomach filled, the horse sank lower and lower, drowning with its head still above the surface. Its frantic motions caused only more water to be ingested until the horse ceased its thrashing and sunk silent to the bottom of the river. The mirrored surface, no longer broken by the horse’s motions, settled to a fine sheen. Just a moment later, it was as though the horse had never been.

Domor purged the image from his memory and focused his attention on the way forward. The forest felt as though it were closing in on him, the silence deafening in its somber strangeness. Domor hunkered down inside the raft, his eyes just high enough to peer past the retaining wall. He slid his hand inside his pack and clasped the hilt of his dagger.

It would be a long trip to Nurin.

Chapter Nine

Arrin stumbled as he emerged from the forest, the walls of Lathah suddenly looming before his vision. For fifteen years they had stood ominous in his mind, a memory both cherished for what they protected and despised for what they had kept him from. They were far grander than he remembered. His recollection was but a pale substitute for the spired glory that now filled his eyes.

The soldiers at his sides righted him as he took a moment to collect himself. They released his arms and took a step back. Oblivious to their withdrawal, Arrin stared at the outer wall that projected from the mountain itself as though it were the jaw of a giant, the crenellated battlements its dull and stained teeth.

The inner walls, of which there were nine, were set in rows within one another, each providing another layer of protection for those behind it should the wall before be breached. Since Lathah had risen from the mountainous land on the backs of its people, it had never happened.

The great gate stood solid near the western rear of the outer wall. Placed thusly, it forced a sieging army that wished to test its stoutness up an incline and into a narrow valley that had been designed for just such an occasion. Lining the length of the city wall was an array of murder holes that looked out over the makeshift valley. A lower wall walk was set behind them, which allowed a legion of archers to fire upon those in the valley as the men on the walls above provided support between volleys.

Were that not deterrent enough, a massive collection of skull-sized stones sat piled in a small cave that bore into the mountainside, its camouflaged mouth open just above the valley. Beneath it was a steep slope that prevented enemy forces from reaching the cave directly, the only entrance being through a network of tunnels that run through the mountain itself, all the way into the back of the city.

The frontal slope provided a direct line of fire into the valley. Several wooden troughs, adjustable and mobile, had been built inside the cave mouth that could be loaded with dozens of the stones at a time. Once the barricades were removed, the stones would tumble from the troughs and down the steep slope, gathering momentum as they careened toward the valley. Like a miniature avalanche, the stones would crash into the enemy forces and shatter bones and crush skulls. At the very least, they would scatter the attacking soldiers and break apart their formations as the Lathahn archers rained death down atop them.

“We have yet to be seen by the watch. Do you still wish to go through with this mad scheme of yours?” Barold asked, drawing Arrin’s attention from the city’s defenses. The sergeant looked even paler now than he had when Arrin first told him his name and demanded to see the prince.

“There is no other way, sergeant.” He met the man’s gaze. “Olenn will never believe a message from me is sincere if I do not offer myself up to him as proof of my warning. However stubborn he may be, he is not stupid. I’ve spent fifteen years of my life longing for my love, my child, and my home, yet never once set foot upon Lathahn soil. To see me here, now, he must recognize that I am serious to so willingly cast all that aside and risk his wrath.” He gave Barold a grateful smile. “Thank you for your honor, but this is what I must do.”

Barold nodded. “Then it is as it shall be.” He motioned his men forward.

The soldiers at Arrin’s side latched onto his arms once more and tugged him forward. Arrin drew in a deep breath, savoring the rich scent of the oaks and evergreens as he was hauled toward his destiny. He might never smell them again.

There was no doubt in his mind he was being led to his death, placing his neck in the noose for what he believed would be nothing more than a valiant waste of his life, his feet to swing just days before the truth of his words were to be discovered. It sickened him. He was no martyr to be prostrated for a cause, but he knew it was the only hope he had of saving Malya and his child from a horrific death.