Firestorm (4 page)

Three

The wind whipped down from the mountains, setting the perpetual light torches on the four corners of the exercise enclosure to fluttering wildly. The erratic undulations of the blue-violet flames plunged the hard-packed dirt yard alternately into flickering, demented shadows, then eerie, otherworldly light. Teague stepped through the solid robur-wood door and locked it shut behind him. He set down the heavy orichal metal brazier of charcoal and the sheathed ceremonial dagger and glanced up at the heavens.

High in the cloud-strewn firmament, three of Bellator's five moons gleamed in the blackened sky. Star clusters twinkled. Tangy woodsmoke from his dying cookfire assailed Teague's nostrils, followed closely by the pungent scent of the evergreen sempervivus trees that surrounded the monastic grounds on three sides.

A pleasant eve to be snugly ensconced in a hermitage, Teague thought, with a small pang of longing, the wail of the wind and sounds of the night rising around him. But the time for the Grandmaster blade ritual was long overdue. And perhaps, just perhaps, the ancient ceremony—known only to the highest members of his order—would finally afford him the peace of mind and strength to face the morrow. It had always sustained him before.

With one final glance at the star-studded heavens, Teague turned to his disrobing. He removed his long, sleeveless black overtunic, carefully folded it, and placed it before the door. Next came his gray homespun robe and black breeches and boots, until he stood clad only in the simple red loincloth of the Brotherhood. Teague retrieved the brazier and long dagger and strode to the center of the exercise yard.

Once more he laid the dagger beside the brazier and squatted before them. A small tinderbox hung from a red cord tied to one of the brazier's handles. Teague opened it and removed the stone, a piece of metal, and a bit of dried grass. He soon had a small fire burning in the pile of charcoal.

The sharp fragrance of aromatic wood gum from the sacred cedra tree filled the air. Teague inhaled deeply, mentally visualizing the incense filling not only his body but his mind, consecrating him, cleansing him.

Purify me
, he solemnly intoned the opening words of the sacred blade ritual.
Open me, heart and soul, to the cleansing odor of righteousness. Guide me so that I may soar to the highest regions of the mind. Free me, if only for a brief moment in time, from a body constrained by base urges and the sordid corruptions of the flesh.

Teague reached inside the narrow band of cloth that covered him and withdrew a small vial of oily fluid. Unstopping it, he poured a generous amount into his palm, touched his fingers to the liquid then began to rub it onto his body. The peppery scent of sacred herbs, overlaid with the heavier odor of musk, rose on the freshened breeze. The brazier blazed hot and bright now, warming Teague's flesh and the ceremonial oils.

His fingers glided over the swell of his chest, then down the length of his arms, then back over his chest again and down his belly. Teague's skin began to tingle. A fire flared to life, searing deep into Teague's bone and muscle and sinew. Strength such as he'd never experienced, save in these rare moments of consecration, surged through him.

Teague closed his eyes, willed himself to breathe slower and slower. Willed his pulse to slacken. With long, languorous strokes, he smoothed the remainder of the oil over his thighs and down his calves. Even as he did, he felt the power swell within him. It was time for the first, most intricate movements of the blade ritual.

He rose, the sheathed dagger in his hand. With a firm motion, Teague crossed his left arm over his body, grasped the dagger's hilt, and sharply withdrew it. Lunging forward on his left leg, he gave a guttural cry and thrust the dagger to the sky. For long minutes he stood there, every muscle in his body taut and straining.

The wind gusted down, tossing his long, tawny hair into his face and across his shoulders, the strands clinging to the oil coating his body. Teague paid it little heed. In an effortless flow of powerful muscles, he leaped back, then wheeled, sweeping the blade through the air with a sharp, slicing motion.

Changing direction with catlike swiftness, he spun about once more. His hands moved in unison with his legs, slashing and kicking. He swung first to the right, then to the left, over and over and over, until his muscles began to burn and clench with spasms.

Yet still Teague forced himself on, the sweat beading and sliding down his body to mingle with the sacred oils. There was no surer way to reach the heights of self-renunciation, no surer way to drive the demons from his flesh and heart. The night was young, and only in the pinnacle of his torment would he at last be free.

Free ... to attain the final purification—and earn the right to take the ultimate test of all . . .

***

Gusts of wind slammed down the mountain, buffeting Raina, impeding the determined progress she made toward the hermitage and her meeting with the monk named Teague Tremayne. It had already taken her over an hour to make the trip from the royal palace, through the city, and up the road that led into the foothills of the Cams Mountains. Though she could now easily make out the perpetual light torches at the four corners of some stone enclosure beside the monk's beehive-shaped hut, the increasing steepness of the trail and the encumbrance of the wind would lengthen the remainder of the journey yet another hour.

Nonetheless, she was determined this very night to meet with the indecisive monk. The Volan threat would only worsen with each passing day. Raina needed to ascertain as soon as possible if the monk, warrior though he might be, was a fit partner for the mission.

In her cycles as leader of the Sodalitas, she'd seen plenty of so-called warriors who, when it came down to the requisite skills, were more bluff than ability. Yet though she needed a partner in this undertaking, if for nothing else than to take the crystal back to Bellator, she didn't need one she couldn't depend on.

Incendra held nothing for her. Let the planet and all its people rot, for all she cared. But she'd do anything for the Sodalitas. If they truly were threatened by the Volans—and she had no reason to doubt the truth of Marissa's words—it was her duty as their leader to do whatever was necessary to protect them. If that meant journeying back to Incendra, then so be it.

However, once the mission to retrieve the special crystal was completed and the fate of the Imperium secured, Raina meant to stay behind on Incendra. She had left there fifteen cycles ago an emotionally and physically ravaged girl with no ability to avenge herself. She'd return this time a warrior, skilled in battle and the hunt. Return this time to track down the men who had betrayed her, track them down and kill them, even if, in so doing, she died. Her honor, long besmirched, demanded no less.

First, though, she must survive the journey through the electromagnetic field, then the rigors and dangers of finding and harvesting the crystal and getting it back to the spacecraft. For that, Raina needed a skilled, intelligent partner. Yet for all the tales of the magnificent prowess of Exsul's warrior monks, Raina had grave doubts that any were up to her exacting standards. Few men ever were.

The whitewashed walls of the enclosure and conical hermitage gleamed in the moonlight. Though the perpetual torches burned brightly, the small windows of the monk's dwelling place were dark. Raina frowned. There was yet an hour or two before midnight. Was the monk already abed?

A soft man, to be sure, fettered by his personal needs and creature comforts. A man who'd find the hardships of Incendra a rude awakening. A man who would also have to be continually coddled and prodded.

At long last, she crowned the final incline and headed across the small plateau toward the hermitage. Pulling up outside, Raina listened for sound of movement or life within the small stone hut. There were none.

Stepping up to the door, she had lifted her hand to knock when a guttural cry pierced the air. Raina wheeled, one hand darting to the dagger strapped to her thigh. The wind howled and wailed as it streamed through the tree-strewn ravine. For an instant, she wondered if she hadn't mistaken the wind for a human voice. Yet the sound seemed to have come from the walled enclosure.

Raina hesitated a moment more, then rapped on the door of the hermitage. There was no answer. She knocked harder. Still no answer.

"Brother Tremayne?" The wind snatched the words away and spirited them off into the night. "Brother Tremayne, are you in there?" she asked again, more loudly this time, and moved to peer into one of the darkened windows. There was no sound or movement from within.

Squaring her shoulders, Raina turned on her heel and strode across the short expanse of stone and dirt toward the walled compound. Obviously the monk wasn't abed after all. It seemed more and more likely that he was in the enclosure instead. The door opening onto the interior, however, was locked.

"Be damned!" she muttered under her breath. She put her ear to the door, listening for any sound of movement within. The whistling wind swallowed any noise that the thick door and stone walls didn't mute.

Raina leaned back. The walls were over three meters high and half a meter thick. Even with a running jump, she couldn't reach the top. She crept close and ran her hand over the texture of the wall, searching for hand-and footholds. There was a small overhang just beyond the height of her head.

She examined it and found it deep enough for a foothold. But was there another above to grab onto? None that she could find in the flickering light of the perpetual torch burning nearby. Cursing softly, Raina began to walk the perimeter.

Luck was with her. On the far side of the enclosure, lush sempervivus trees grew. She eyed them critically, finally settling on one particularly stout one in the middle. It looked sturdy enough to bear her weight and certainly was tall enough, towering over the walls by a good five or six more meters. It would also, she realized, give her shelter once she topped the walls. The monk, if he were inside, need never know of her presence until she chose to reveal it.

She grabbed hold of a branch above her head, swung up into the tree, and began to climb. The pitch oozing from the rough bark was sticky. The sempervivus needles pricked at her face and hands. The tree's pungent odor made her want to sneeze.

A fine way to spend one's evening, Raina silently groused. Curse the monk for making things so difficult! Already she didn't like the man.

The scent of incense wafted by. The red-gold light of a fire caught the corner of her eye through the tree boughs, then a fleeting glimpse of bare skin and movement. Shoving the branches aside, Raina turned and positioned herself for a better view.

In her shock, she nearly lost her grip on the tree trunk and toppled over backward. A man, long of hair and scant of clothing,- his hard-muscled body glistening in the torch light, stood below. In his hands he clenched a long ceremonial dagger. Before him on the ground burned a coal-stoked brazier. For the space of an inhaled breath, he remained totally still. Then, with a harsh cry, the man wheeled and executed an intricate series of thrusts and parries, followed swiftly by a seemingly endless, athletically fluid repetition of front and side kicks.

Raina couldn't take her eyes off him. Was this truly the warrior monk Teague Tremayne? He was one of the biggest, most powerful men she'd ever seen. Few men intimidated her, even in height, but this man—this monk—was magnificent in every way.

He wore a narrow red loincloth that left his muscularly rounded buttocks bare and covered him only briefly in front with two strips of cloth that came together in a large knot over the swell of his manhood before falling to mid-thigh. The smooth planes of his bulging chest were ritualistically tattooed with huge bird talons reaching down across his pectoral muscles nearly to his nipples, and a mythical bird of prey twisting in flight down each of his upper arms.

Raina had heard tales that the warrior monks of Exsul received such tattoos upon gaining the exalted status of a Grandmaster, but she'd never seen them until tonight. With his long mane of dark gold hair tumbling down in his face, his superbly fit, all but naked body glistening in the firelight, and the long, lethally tipped dagger in his hands, the monk appeared some primally potent and dangerous animal.

She had thought to come here tonight and shame or intimidate this man into agreeing to go with her to Incendra, if he seemed even half the man she needed as her partner. Now, after seeing him, Raina knew she would do neither. Indeed, even the sight of him filled her with unease and set off a primitive warning vibrating deep in her gut. She didn't know why. She just felt it.

Yet, even knowing this, Raina couldn't take her eyes from him. He was strength and beauty and sleek, gleaming perfection. His stamina, as he executed one flawless battle maneuver after another, was breathtaking. Would he never tire, never quit, until the night burned away to dawn?

At that moment, with a low groan, he sank to his knees on the dirt floor. His head lowered until it touched his chest. His body shook, suddenly wracked with tremors. Then he went still.

Nothing moved but his hands. He lifted the dagger and brought the tip to rest against the middle of his tautly muscled abdomen. The monk took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. Then his forearms bulged, flexed. In a blinding movement, he drove the blade into his belly.

Raina choked back a horrified cry. Her nails gouged into the rough tree bark and she maintained her position by sheer animal reflex. A wave of nausea washed over her, then dizziness. But never once did she take her gaze from the man kneeling below.

She waited for the blood to spurt and drench the ground before him, waited for the death rattle, for him to fall. Waited, and saw nothing but him kneeling there, head bowed, dagger clasped to his belly.

The seconds pounded by, each marked by the crazed thud of her heart and the rush of blood in her ears. The world spun, whirling about her until she was caught up in a deafening vortex of light and sound. And, at its center, knelt the monk. A man who, with one violently irrational act, had become the focus of her heretofore uncomplicated universe.

The tension built, plucking at her already strained nerves and perceptions, until Raina thought she'd scream from the pain. Then the monk moved. With a low groan, he wrenched the dagger from him—a dagger as immaculate as it had been when he'd first plunged it into himself. He picked up the dagger sheath lying beside him and rose, turning to face the three moons shining now just above the mountain and trees where Raina hid. With a smooth, supple movement, he brought the dagger up to his lips.

Once more, Raina choked back a gasp. She saw his face fully now, and its sweat-slick planes were bathed in such terrible, anguished beauty. Unconsciously, she reached out a hand to him, then caught herself in the uncharacteristic, shocking act.

It didn't matter. He had already lowered the dagger and, in a sharp, ceremonial move, resheathed it. Then he turned and strode over to his clothes. Gathering them up in his arms, he unlatched the door, opened it, and strode out into the suddenly calm, eerily silent night.

Behind him, in the center of the dirt-packed ground, the fiery coals in the brazier slowly died and a thin wisp of scented smoke curled to the sky.