Green: The Beginning and the End (35 page)

Like a serpent reaching to earth, the Shataiki descended and began to feed. Talons first, ripping into head or backs. Then fangs, penetrating the skulls of any warrior standing. They went down in a tangle of blood and fur.

Warriors abandoned their weapons and tried to run, but the Shataiki caught them and hauled them to the ground. Darkness swallowed the battlefield as the evil creatures poured down through the funnel and spread slowly north.

The valley erupted in panic as the living, a hundred thousand strong still, fled. They could run . . . they
would
run, but they could not hide. Samuel turned his back and faced north, barely able to stay upright for the fear that shook his bones.

The ridge was empty. The Horde command had fled. And the lone tree that stood beside the tall banners was bare now. No leaves. An angular, burnt husk stood alone against the sky, reaching up like a black claw.

What was green was now black.

“Father . . .” Tears streamed down Samuel’s cheeks as he turned back to the valley. “Father, forgive me! Forgive me, Thomas.”

A small flash of purple streaked across the far southern slope, a warrior mounted on a black horse. It’s Qurong, he thought, catching himself. And as Samuel watched, Qurong swung his sword at any enemy that stood in his way. He’d lost his mind and was attacking now, knowing all was lost. Loyal to the bone.

Even now, the reviled enemy of all that was good showed he was more of a man than Samuel would ever be. He blurted a cry of self-disgust.

Here was royalty, in the Horde. And Elyon’s heir was a pitiful traitor soaked in blood.

Samuel screamed his frustration. He snatched up his sword, bounded over fallen bodies, and flung himself onto the back of a panicked Horde stallion.

He would die, they would all die, but first Qurong would die.

And then . . . then the end could come.

44

Her father had committed his entire army, and from what she’d seen as she raced, they were suffering wholesale slaughter. Except for the few thousand albinos who were inflicting serious damage, the half-breeds’ slight advantage as better fighters should have been offset by the Horde’s numbers.

But even her father’s Throaters were falling where they stood. Something was wrong. There was evil at work here, and the concern she had for her father’s life grew with each passing breath.

The mighty Qurong was defeated! Five hundred thousand would be dead, leaving behind a city of weeping widows and children. And what would Samuel do, shove them all underwater until they drowned?

No, that wouldn’t work. The drowning had to be voluntary to work.

She kept looking down the valley for any sign of her father’s colors. Seeing his men fall like this, he would join. He would rather embrace death than go home stripped of his pride.

Dear Elyon, she had to reach him.

She rounded the southern ridge, whipping the snorting mount. She could see the banners far ahead, but the army was gone. No sign . . .

The sky darkened, and she reined in the horse. What was this?

Shataiki swept through the sky above in a massive, slow-moving vortex. The battle had stalled. Silence smothered the valley.

It was the end, then. Elyon would come. For a brief moment, she felt elation, because this had been foretold. The day of the dragon had come. How the rest would come to pass she didn’t know or care to know any longer. Only that Qurong was saved.

And her mother? Yes, her mother as well, of course. But how?

The Shataiki suddenly dived at the far end of the valley, like the tail of a tornado. The damage they inflicted when they touched the earth was no less destructive. They began to devour the living, and Chelise began to panic.

“Father!” Her scream was hardly a whisper in the echoing din below. “Father! Fath—”

She saw him! Trailing a purple cape. Racing across the valley floor on a black horse. He hacked at a fleeing albino fighter, but his goal wasn’t the main battle. He was going for a small grouping of boulders on the western side, where Chelise could just make out several priests in their dark robes.

She spurred her mount and dived into the darkened valley. “Hiyaa! Hiyaa!”

The Shataiki flooding into the valley were spreading out, like so many black hornets swarming through a crack in a cliff. Those who fled were being singled out and picked off as they clambered up the slopes. She still had time, maybe ten minutes, before the black beasts worked their way to this end.

There was a red pool one half mile east, but how would she get to it?

“Hiyaa!” She whipped the horse and raced to intercept Qurong.

Not until she was within a hundred yards did she guess his intention. Ba’al, the dark priest, was kneeling on a makeshift altar, stripped of his robe. His arms were stretched to the swirling Shataiki, and his jaw was wide in a scream of delight. Four other priests had discarded their clothing as well and were bleeding from deep cuts in their arms and ribs.

This was his finest hour. He was somehow behind the carnage as much as Samuel and Janae.

And now her father meant to take out his rage on the frail white skeleton of a man.

“Father!”

Qurong thundered on, sword raised over his head, roaring.

“Father!”

Movement far behind and to her right caught her attention, and she snatched a glance at a half-breed racing toward them like a dragon heading out of hell.

She spun back. “Father!”

Ba’al surely knew that his slayer had come, but he trusted only in his master, Teeleh, to save him. But Teeleh was clearly in no saving mood today.

Qurong rolled off his horse at a full gallop, came to his feet ten yards from the altar, and rushed Ba’al with both hands on his sword.

Ba’al was weeping at the heavens now, frantic with his own kind of pleasure.

“Father!”

Qurong planted one foot at the base of the altar and swung his blade like a club. The razor-sharp steel severed the nearest of Ba’al’s raised arms, then slashed through his neck before glancing into the air.

The dark priest’s head toppled off his body and landed on the stone, jaw still spread, silent now. Ba’al’s priests fled, crying out to Teeleh like frantic women.

“Qurong!” Chelise pulled up and dropped to the ground. “Supreme Commander of the Horde, I beg you to hear me.”

Her father turned slowly, bloody sword limp in his hand. He stared at her as if he didn’t recognize her, lost.

“The end of the world has come, Father. Your army is gone. Your people are without husbands.”

“Chelise?” Slowly his face wrinkled with anguish, and he sank to one knee.

“Yes, it’s me, Father,” she said, stepping closer. “And this is not the way of a mighty leader. You are called to Elyon’s side as you once were.”

He tried to stand but could not.

“You have to drown, Father.”

“Never.” His voice was weak, but his jowls shook with his stubbornness. “I will never drown like a coward.”

“Stop this madness!” she cried. “It’s life, you old fool! You’re here on the edge of hell, and you still resist the call of your Maker?”

“I serve no one. Hell cannot touch me now.” He tried to stand again, this time wincing. Was he in pain? Was he wounded?

She remembered the sight of Stephen, the Scab Janae had exposed to her vial of Teeleh’s poison. Her father had come in contact with it when he’d entered the battle, and was dying already.

“The pain you feel is his betrayal. Teeleh’s disease will kill you even if you’re protected from the Shataiki. You’ve been betrayed!”

“I . . . will . . . not . . . drown!” He managed to stand, but shakily, like an old man.

She grabbed the bottle of blood that Johan had given her. Thomas’s blood, which Janae must have carried knowing it would affect the disease. Why else bottle it up? She broke off the top, exposing a sharp jagged edge, and held it up to him.

“Blood, Father. Thomas’s. Cleansed by the first lake.”

“Don’t be a fool.” He spat to one side. “Ba’al makes me drink Teeleh’s blood; now you want me to consume your husband’s blood? We are in a battle here!”

“And you are dying! Your people are slaughtered by half-breeds and eaten by those who have a thirst for Teeleh’s blood.” She paused, not sure what to do. “I think that if Thomas’s blood mixes with your own, it will stop the disease.”

“I would spit on the blood of Thomas!” Qurong roared.

Chelise was so outraged by his abject refusal to engage common sense that she moved without thought. She rushed him and slashed his forearm with the vial.

He stared at his arm, aghast as Thomas’s blood mixed with his own. Chelise stepped backward and dropped the vial. Behind her, the din of the slaughter pressed closer. But she was dressed as a Horde warrior and was with Qurong. They were safe for the moment.

“I don’t know what else to do except pray that his blood will protect you. But you must drown, Father. Please, you must!”

He was looking down at his arm, breathing deeply. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what’s happening.” Tears welled in his eyes and spilled down his cheeks.

He sank to both knees and buried his head in both hands. “Forgive me,” he wept. “Forgive me.”

“I forgive you, Father.” Now she was crying. She stood not ten feet from Qurong while the black beasts ravaged the Horde, and she begged like a mother pleading for the life of her only child.

“Drown, I beg you, drown. The Shataiki won’t consume you now, you’re protected by the blood. We can make it out, to a red pool nearby. Please, please, I beg you, Father.”

She heard the faint pounding of hooves behind her, and an image flashed through her mind. The half-breed she’d seen.

Chelise twisted back and saw the horse upon her. Saw the sword on its way down. Heard the roar of protest from her father.

Saw in a fleeting glimpse that this was Samuel, turned Horde.

Felt the sting of the blade as it cut into her neck.

And then Chelise of Hunter’s horizon went blue.

A brilliant sky rising from a perfectly silent desert. Nothing else, just a rolling white desert and a perfectly blue sky.

One moment—searing pain as the sword’s metal edge sliced through her neck. The next—absolute peace in this bright world spread before her.

No pain.

No sorrow.

No blood.

Several long seconds slogged through the perfect silence.

A child laughed behind her. She turned around and saw that she wasn’t alone. A thin boy of maybe thirteen stood on the bank of a green pool.

Yes,
she thought,
there is the pool.

“Hello, Chelise, daughter of Elyon,” the boy said.

She knew at the first sound of his voice that he was far more than just any ordinary boy. Her voice trembled when she answered.

“Hello.”

He grinned mischievously, looked at the water, then at her, then back at the water. Finally, his bright green eyes settled on her again.

“Are you ready?”

Are you ready?
She couldn’t find her voice any longer. And she suddenly couldn’t see, because her eyes were blurred by tears of desperation.

Unable to contain his own excitement, the boy turned and dived.

Chelise tore her feet from the sand, gasping. She’d already taken three steps when his body splashed through the surface and vanished beneath the emerald waters.

Then Chelise dived headlong into Elyon’s lake, and the pleasure of her first contact with him took her breath away.

He leaped to his feet and threw out his hands, thinking one of his men was mistaking Chelise for an Eramite threatening him. “My daughter!” he screamed. “She’s my . . .”

Then he saw that this was an Eramite warrior whose bloodstained armor made him nearly indistinguishable from his own warriors. Still, in the last moment, he thought the half-breed would heed his cry.

But it was too late. The momentum of the fighter’s sword could not be stopped.

His blade sliced cleanly through Chelise’s neck. Her head flew from her body, bounced off the attacker’s horse, and fell to the ground, eyes still open.

Qurong didn’t have time to consider the horror of this sudden change before the warrior swung again with a cry of rage, now at him. He ducked under the blow, aware that the pain he’d felt only a minute earlier was nearly gone. The attacker’s sword clanged off the rock behind him, then the man was rearing his horse for another pass.

But there was Chelise, lying dead and bleeding from her neck, and Qurong could not manage the sight of it. He had killed his own daughter, as clearly as if he’d swung the sword himself.

She smiled in death. A pure, clean face, free of any blemish. This daughter, whose forehead he’d often kissed and who’d often strutted around announcing to all that her papa was the strongest, greatest man in the world—this daughter named Chelise was dead. On his account.

Qurong wanted to die. Let the half-breed end it now!

Saw that this woman was not one of Qurong’s guards as he’d assumed from the cloak she wore and the horse she rode.

Saw that this woman was Chelise. His mother.

Terrified by the sight, he jerked his sword back and away, but the momentum was too great, and his blade slashed through her neck as if it were made of white clay.

His boot bumped her falling head as he rushed past. His mind lost track of his mortal enemy, the father of his mother. He was mistaken; this woman could not be his mother! He could undo this. Mother would never be cloaked as a Scab, riding a Horde mount!

But scream as it may, his mind drained of blood and reason as he struggled to force his horse around. He rushed back, pulled the horse up, and dropped to the ground. Qurong was there, on his knees, face white with shock.

And there on the ground, ten feet from him, lay . . . yes. Yes, it was her.

Samuel’s world spun. The horizon started to fade, all but the green eyes staring at him from the face of this impetuous woman who’d scolded him so often, yet loved him as her son.

Chelise. Chelise!
Mother! Dear Mother
.

“Mother?”

He was facing the valley darkened by Shataiki, but in that moment nothing existed except for his own foolishness and the longing to join his mother on the ground, dead.

Mother?
Mother?
Qurong felt his rage rise and his self-control slip.

Thunder crashed overhead, and Qurong turned to look at jagged lines of lightning that stuttered through the sky. The core of the black swarm circling the valley scattered as light cut through them. Thousands of Shataiki began to fall from the sky, screeching. It was as if a wide shaft of white-hot sunshine had bored through their middle and burned them to a crisp.

The light slammed into the battlefield, and the earth beneath Qurong’s feet shook.

The world was ending.

Qurong slowly turned back to the half-breed. The world was ending, and there was only one task that would bring the smallest measure of peace to a man who’d lost everything.

Qurong reached for his sword, snugged the hilt tight in his fist, and rose from his knees, shaking from head to foot. He rushed the half-breed who was frozen by confusion. His wrath came out in a long bloody cry from the bottom of his chest, and he swung the blade with all of his strength, severing the man’s body nearly in half at his chest.