Forest of Demons (26 page)

Quick, look, they are on the move once more.

Around him his warrior brothers began to move into formation. He moved with them, marching through the village to come to a standstill at the base of a huge, regal-looking building edged with gold and silver.

He waited, his spine as stiff as the warriors before him.

The commander came into view, a smug smile on her face as she walked up the line of men, her hand trailing across their chests.

The other warriors eyes’ were milky-white. They were asleep. He quickly averted his own, his heart thumping in panic. If she saw his eyes she would know.

Calm, remain calm.

He blinked as a mist descended over his vision, murky and gray.

Stop blinking like a fool!

He listened to the strangely familiar voice inside his head because, thus far, it had not steered him wrong.

The commander reached him, her pace slowed, her fingers lingered. He remained stationary, staring at a point over her shoulder.

Then it was over, she had moved on.

The warrior beside him reached up to remove his mask. “Another successful conquest.”

“The evil beasts were holding some females captive. Thank The Divine we arrived when we did,” another said.

Aryan watched the warriors around him wake and immediately fall into conversation with each other as if nothing strange had occurred.

“Our arrival has been fortunate for those females. They’ve been saved, and the commander will cleanse them. They’ll make good life-mates for Borean males.” It was Bojan’s voice.

So that was the plan. Kill what they could not use and cleanse what they could. It was heinous and brilliant, and it made him wonder about the discovery missions. Valasea’s words came to mind.

A sharp pain lanced through his temple. He clutched his head.

There you are.

It’s mind control, Aryan . . . mind control.

Valasea had tried to warn him. They’d torn her from her home. Had they known what they were doing? He had sent her to the eternal flame, but she was here. She was with them. She was the new Voice. She was the commander.

He’d forgotten her for a while. He’d been cleansed, but now he remembered it all.

But Valasea had gone to the eternal flame, hadn’t she? So, how was this possible, unless . . . Valasea’s words came back to him. She’d boasted of the power of her people, that her mind and body were strong, so could it be that The Divine was using her body as a vessel to bind the army to him, to control them?

Now you understand. The woman is merely a host, her body strong enough to carry the essence of power. Her soul no longer resides there. Her soul is gone. Now you finally understand. Now we can have some real fun.

The hut was a tapestry of nooks and crannies and gaps in walls where the wood didn’t quite meet or had warped under pressure of the elements. It made for a drafty space despite the heat thrown by the fire. Ravi had been forced to make a second trip to fetch wood before they retired for the night.

Now that they’d agreed to stop, the exhaustion hit, and she struggled to keep her eyes open. Even the hard chair seemed like a luxury.

“Priya. Go, take the pallet. You need sleep.”

Priya raised her drooping head, wiping drool from the side of her mouth. She was too tired to even be embarrassed.

The pallet seemed so far away.

“Come.” Ravi slipped one arm around her shoulders and another under her thighs. He lifted her easily, carrying her quickly across the room and lowering her onto the pallet.

Her body was sinking, but a thought brought her back to the surface of consciousness. “Where will you sleep?”

Ravi looked at the chair. “You seemed to find it acceptable.”

Priya raised her head, blinking sleep from her eyes to really look at him. His eyes were rimmed with red, his skin tight and drawn. He was just as exhausted as she was, but he was a man, and so he would silently and graciously suffer discomfort. She couldn’t allow that.

“The pallet should hold us both,” she said.

Ravi looked surprised. “Are . . . are you sure?”

She smiled. “Yes. I trust you.”

Ravi hesitated a moment longer, but the promise of a soft place to lay his head must have been too alluring, because he finally climbed onto the pallet behind her.

They lay back to back.

She could feel him breathing, his back rising and falling against hers, and sleep slipped away. She closed her eyes, working at synchronizing their breaths. Long moments dragged by while sleep continued to play hide and seek with her. She exhaled in exasperation. Her body ached with fatigue. She closed her eyes and saw their faces, the ones cut down, the ones she had saved; the tiny children she had hid in the temple. She tensed, horrified.

“Are you awake?” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“Do you think anyone escaped . . . the children in the temple?” Oh God please say yes.

Ravi shuffled and she realized he was turning over. She shifted too, turning so they were face to face.

Flames flickered in his eyes. Priya stared into their depths mesmerized by their intensity as they roved over her face.

“We can only hope they did.” He smiled reassuringly, but it failed to touch his eyes.

Her own filled with tears. She should have gone back for them, found a way to take them with her. Instead she had run, saving her own skin.

“No. Don’t think that! We did what we could. If we had taken the children they would have frozen to death; they would never have survived the journey.”

She wiped her cheeks with her sleeve. It was uncanny how easily he could read her. And he was right, but it did little to dispel the piercing guilt that clawed at her belly.

She ducked her head, pressing her forehead against his chest. After a moment he slipped his arm over her, pulling her into his embrace. She closed her eyes, inhaling him, sighing as sleep finally began to steal over her.

She tilted her head to gaze up at him. “Thank you . . . for being here, for taking care of me.”

He closed his eyes, extinguishing the mesmerizing twin flames, and exhaled slowly. “I will always be there for you, Priya. You have nothing to fear. Sleep now.”

With his warm breath brushing the top of her head she drifted into a dreamless sleep.

It was the chill that woke her. Brushing against the nape of her neck like a creepy caress. She blinked herself fully out of sleep and sat up.

The pallet beside her was cold and empty.

Ravi was gone.

The fire was down to smouldering embers.

Her mind told her to wait, Ravi was perfectly capable of taking care of himself, but her gut told her to go after him. Papa would have urged her to listen to her intuition, so slipping from the pallet she quickly moved toward the door. One peek outside and she quickly backpedaled to the hearth where she used the remains of the fire to light the old, dusty lantern.

Brandishing the lantern like a weapon against the inky night, she relinquished the safety of the hut.

Outside, a strange, musky scent hit the back of her nose. She coughed, her eyes watering. Wiping the moisture away with the back of her sleeve, she set off on a quick circuit of the hut. Maybe Ravi had gone to fetch more wood for the fire? The pile of wood and the axe buried in a log told her otherwise. Regardless, she had to be sure he wasn’t nearby.

The hut wasn’t very large, and the circuit she made, accompanied by the strong musky scent, confirmed only what her gut was already screaming.

Ravi was in danger.

She dithered, torn between following the sensible path, or the path of the foolish hero.

She’d always struggled with sensibility.

Holding the lantern before her to illuminate the frozen ground, she searched for his footprints. She found them soon enough, leading away from the hut. She followed the trail and stopped, staring at the huge animal tracks that surrounded the ground around her in dawning comprehension.

Her pulse hammered in her throat as she looked wildly about her for more of Ravi’s tracks but found none.

A howl ripped through the night air, as loud as a boom from one of the invader’s batons, and Priya backtracked quickly. She was almost back at the hut when shame grabbed her by the throat and shook her hard. What kind of person was she to run from aiding a friend in need? Would Ravi simply leave her to die?

The answer was simple. She’d go back, and she’d save him. She didn’t question whether he was alive, choosing to trust her instincts. First though she had to find a weapon.

Filled with purpose she ran back to the hut and round the back where she’d stumbled over the axe.

Pulling it from the log she practiced a few swipes. It cut through the air with a satisfying whistle.

Making sure she had a good grip she hurried in the direction Ravi had been taken.

She dove deeper into the woods. The lamp flickered, almost out of oil. She cursed under her breath. If she lost the light then she was doomed.

A branch snapped up ahead. Priya froze.

Something was breathing, heavy jagged breaths that surrounded her and made the hair on the nape of her neck stand at attention.

It stood outside the circle of light cast by the lantern, but she could sense its mass—larger than a rakshasa. It waited for her to advance.

Her mouth was dry, and her blood pounded in her ears so loud that it almost drowned out the deep rumble of its growl.

Priya turned and ran.

Her body moved on instinct, dodging loose roots, and jumping over rocks. She wasn’t thinking, simply reacting. She felt the ground vibrate under her feet, and heard the beast’s pounding pursuit.

Branches raked at her face, and ripped at her hair. The lantern went out. She dropped it, running blind.

Her boot snagged on a root, her ankle twisted. She cried out in pain before smashing face-first onto the frozen earth.

She flipped onto her back and bit back a scream as a lance of fiery pain shot through her ankle. She scrabbled to stand, and crumpled in agony, and then its dark mass was descending on her.

She screamed, bringing the axe up, and embedding it in the beast with a dirty thud.

It roared.

She was going to die.

She screamed again as its talons slashed across her chest.

“Priya!”

The beast’s roar morphed into a bloodcurdling shriek. It slumped across her, and warm heat spread across her chest.

She couldn’t breathe, her lungs refused to be filled, and then her chest was expanding with too much breath, her arms and legs tingling with power. She shoved at the beast, sending it flying into the darkness.

“Priya? Priya! Oh Gods.” Ravi reached for her, trying to hold her still, trying to contain her, but she would not be contained. She was brimming with energy. The darkness was filled with light. Her body felt as if it were about to explode. She had to move.

She wrenched free of him, and began to run toward the hut, her feet barely touching the ground, her hair coming loose from its plait and flying behind her like a flag.

She reached the hut, and collapsed on the bed, her head swimming with flickering images.

“Priya?” Ravi cursed. “Priya!” She felt him shaking her, but the energy of a moment ago had evaporated turning her limbs into useless wet rags. She could barely keep her eyes open. She felt him tugging at her clothes, and some deep part of her, trained in propriety and decency by her parents wanted to object, but the other part, the part that craved the touch of his hands was stronger.

She shuddered as air kissed her skin.

“Oh, God, thank God,” Ravi whispered over and over again.

The world looked better with her eyes closed.

They had set up camp in and around the beautiful gold-edged building. The strange idols had been smashed to pieces, trampled upon and desecrated. It seemed that the savages worshiped demons, but Aryan knew better. The only savages here were his warriors.

The voice counseled him to keep his peace, to help build campfires, to drink brew, and to banter with his people. He did all this, hiding his pain under a smile.

Reunited with his Hand, Aryan sipped at his brew, listening to their talk with only half an ear. It was more of the same, more of the lies fed to them by the commander. He wasn’t sure what she was anymore.

She is The Voice, of course.

Yes, yes, he knew that. But what
was
she.

That is a question that must be saved for another day, for the answer is complicated and would require my time and your concentration.

“Chief? You hear? There’s talk of splitting the troops to cover more ground,” Fen said.

It was news to him, but he figured if he were connected like they were it wouldn’t be. Was this a trap? He settled for nodding in a noncommittal manner.

Fen stared at him through narrowed eyes.

Was that her, watching him? Studying him?

He raised his mug. “I’ll take some more of this though.” It seemed to break whatever connection had been made, because Fen’s youthful face broke into a grin.

“Look at you, Chief. Really putting it away,” he said.

Aryan winked. “Well, we have much to celebrate. This land will soon be cleansed, it will soon be ours.”

“I’ll drink to that!” Bojan raised his mug, and the others followed.

They downed their brews and slapped the mugs against the ground.

“Having fun?” Darius said. He stood over them, hands on hips, a smile tugging at his full lips. “I forget, this is your first time away from home.”

Aryan tilted his head to look up at him. “You’re giving me neck strain, come sit with us.”

Darius glanced over his shoulder then back to the group. “Thank you.” He crouched beside Fen. Cadoc passed him a mug filled with brew.

The smell of cooking meat, animal this time, filled the air. Although Aryan wasn’t sure what they were eating. The beasts that had attacked them were unlike anything he had seen before, and the ones they had slaughtered were now filling the warrior’s bellies. The rest had dispersed not too long into the attack. They had hit hard, but the tussle had been brief. He wasn’t sure how many men they had lost during the attack but knew better than to ask too many questions.