Heirs of the Fallen: Book 03 - Shadow and Steel (20 page)

“The time for taking captives is for later,” he advised. “Retrieving Belina and killing Leitos is our only purpose.”

“Had Belina not stopped me,” Nola said, “I would have cut his throat when we found him.” She searched the empty corridor. Only Damoc among his party had ever entered this domain, and his daughter’s apprehension mirrored that of the others.

“Do not fret over that,” Damoc said in a placating tone, sensing his daughter’s coming words before she spoke them.

“When this is over, we must confront Belina. Her decision to betray our trust has endangered the clan, perhaps all Yatoans.”

The warriors around them gave the pretense of ignoring the conversation, but Damoc knew they sided with Nola.

“She did not betray us,” Damoc said firmly. “She made a mistake, much as Robis blundered in heeding her.”

“And how many such mistakes will you allow her to make, before you enforce our laws?”

He dragged her close. “You are speaking of your sister,” he said against her ear. Nola tried to pull away, and though she was strong, he was stronger. “Trust that
I
will deal with Belina. Not you, not anyone else. And before you think to pass further judgments, remember that she is your sister—a sister who has, time and again, ensured your safety, when others would have left you in the hands of our enemies.”

“She has saved me, but only as I have saved her, on occasion. Past good deeds cannot erase present wrongdoing.”

“We will speak of this later,” Damoc growled. “For now, concentrate on our task.” Only after Nola nodded agreement, did he release her, and set out ahead of his clan.

As time had seemed to slow when first he had ventured into the Throat, it did so now. They had passed what he judged was the midway point, when a brief rumble filled the corridor, fading slowly.

Damoc signaled a halt, sure that buried under that noise he had heard a voice. When the silence persisted, he waved them forward.

The first time he journeyed into the Throat of Balaam, he had been searching for his eldest daughter. He found instead a breeding ground at the corridor’s end, a place rife with demonic spirits, Alon’mahk’lar, and fires spread across a seemingly infinite plane. Countless women and older girls had been held captive by invisible bonds across that endless expanse. All had been stripped bare, and they had gazed about with deluded, lustful eyes….

A night had not passed since that he did not relive the horror of those wanton expressions, or the dismay and revulsion he had felt upon witnessing the captives crying out for the brutal touch of Alon’mahk’lar. At the center of all that ruthless madness, the Fauthians and the Faceless One had overseen the loathsome ritual.

Remembering filled him with fresh fear. He could not let that happen again, not to anyone, and not to Belina. Damoc sped up until he was running.

The rumbling came again, and this time Damoc was sure he heard words. A moment later, a feminine scream raced down the corridor to meet them, and knew her voice as he knew his own.

“Belina!” he bellowed.

No answer came.

He and the others flew down the corridor.

Moments later, a figure appeared far ahead, running toward them. Damoc halted everyone with a warning shout. Movement to one side drew his eye, and he found one of his men raising a bow and drawing back the string.

“Hold, Kasem!”

The man cast him a confused look.

“It may be Belina,” Damoc explained, and noticed that Kasem’s eyes flicker toward Nola, before he grudgingly lowered his weapon. When Damoc glanced her way, Nola stood peering down the corridor, as if she had noticed nothing. The downturned corners of her mouth told a different story.

“Father,” Belina cried, sliding to a stop. “The Faceless One has Leitos!”

Damoc, blinking back tears of relief, tried to embrace his daughter, but she pushed him away. “There is no time. We must save him!”

He despised her senseless devotion to the youth. When he spoke, that hatred burst out. “Cease this deluded nonsense! We did not come for an outlander who has chosen to cast his lot with the Fauthians. We came for you.”

“He is not one of them,” Belina insisted, putting a pace between them. “It is as I have always told, he came to destroy the Faceless One!”

“The Faceless One cannot be killed,” Damoc scoffed.

“I told him as much, but he refused to listen. Believe me, his loathing for our enemies is as strong as our own. In that, he is an ally—but also a fool who believes he can defeat the Bane of Creation, by himself. Please believe me, if only this once. We must help him.”

“No,” Damoc said, refusing to acknowledge the nagging in the back of his mind that told him his refusal was a grave error. “We must leave.”

“I will not,” Belina said defiantly.

“You will heed me, child. One way or another.” As he spoke, he searched the faces of his companions for support, and found one face missing. His heart became a frozen lump in his chest. In a croaking voice, he asked, “Where is my daughter?”

Feet shifted uncomfortably, but no response came. But he knew the answer. All eyes turned to look down the corridor, just as Nola vanished into the cold burning light of the Throat of Balaam.

“No!” Damoc called, but it was too late.

Nola had not come to rescue her sister, but to hunt.

Chapter 28

Adham looked at his hand, moved his fingers. Not long before, that hand had rested a foot from the stump of his wrist. After Adu’lin had chopped off the appendage, he had healed him the same way he had healed Ke’uld’s leg. “Only to gain favor of the Lord of Light and Shadow, do I do this,” he had said.

It sounded like a favor Adham wanted no part of.

Adham’s father, Kian Valera, had seldom spoken of the abilities he had briefly held after being exposed to the shattered Well of Creation—but then, how often did a man need to hear the tale of bringing the dead back to life, before it stuck fast in his mind? Somehow Adu’lin, and maybe others, had gained the same ability for healing, despite being half a world away from the Qaharadin Marshes and that forgotten temple, which had protected a secret never meant for humankind to uncover.

A mystery of which I’ll never learn the truth
, Adham thought now, raising his head to look at his companions. All the remaining Brothers were bound and blindfolded, unlike himself. He guessed Adu’lin wanted to torture him with the illusion that, if he tried hard enough, freedom might be attainable. The presence of armed Fauthians ensured that if he tried to escape, however, he would not get far.

I have lived a good and long life
, Adham told himself.
If it ends here and now, I am ready
. He eyed Adu’lin standing beyond the ring of pillars, speaking in a quiet voice to some of his men, and vowed he would not die alone.

Adu’lin approached. “My men have caught those you freed.”

“You are a poor liar,” Adham scoffed. “Had you captured them, they would be here, with the rest of us.”

“Had they not fought,” Adu’lin countered, “you would be correct. But fight they did, bravely, ruthlessly …
futilely
. A pity none survived.”

At this, a few of the trussed Brothers gasped.

“You lie,” Adham said again, but with less conviction.

He had hoped Ulmek and the others would get to their weapons, and then return to teach these spawn of serpents a brutal lesson in the arts of war. But some hours had passed with no sound of fighting, and no alarms raised. He imagined Ulmek’s stony features gone slack in death, and his throat clenched.

“Believe what you will,” Adu’lin said. “The truth will become known to you soon enough, after I finish what I began this night. I think you will find it—”

At that moment, a guard glided near and spoke urgently into Adu’lin’s ear. The Fauthian leader’s face contorted for the barest instant, then smoothed to its usual bored indifference. No matter what mask he wore, Adham knew something troubled him deeply.

Adu’lin spun away, taking the guard with him, and signaling others to join him. Adham strained to hear, but could only make out some concern about a throat, or some such. Adham hoped the throat they were speaking of was a Fauthian’s, and that it had been cut.

Adu’lin sent his men off with a word, and moved deeper into the shadows. He spread his arms and bowed his head, like a priest of old honoring a god, and began muttering under his breath. Adham felt the hairs on the back of his neck stir, and a breath of damp ice teased over his flesh, as the words became clear.

From the darkness between the stars,

Came He, the Lord of Light,

To deliver peace and safety upon all lands.

Praise the Faceless One,

He who suffers the unworthy.

Praise the Faceless One,

He who blesses the contemptible.

Bow to His wisdom,

Bow to His righteous judgment.

Praise be to the Merciful One,

Praise be to the Lord of Light and Shadow.

After a few moments, Adu’lin ceased his supplications, and returned. He grinned down at Adham, revealing a malevolence that Adham had never before seen on the man’s face. From a leather purse hanging at his hip, he produced a handful of cords. From each hung a stone of protection. “As I was saying, Izutarian, I think you will find what I have in store for you and your companions
enlightening
.”

Chapter 29

With the Faceless One’s cruel laughter hounding him, Leitos rushed across the plane, its surface erupting with fire and crawling with demonic spirits. He ran as hard and fast as he had ever run in his life.

As in coming, he seemed to travel no distance at all, though he could make out the archway where he had left Belina, and that azure glow guided him. And then he saw a feminine silhouette emerge from the light, and come straight for him.

“Go back!” he cried, waving his arms. She did not heed him.

He cut off when a great arc of twisting flame rose between them. From its highest point, some steaming, pestilent liquid began raining down.

Leitos slid to a halt, searching for a way around, but in every direction leaped roiling flames, and from those fires oozed terrible creatures of mist and shadow.

Seeing no other way, he ducked his head and ran into the ghastly deluge. Hot drops splattered over him, reeking of sickness. He gagged, bent over and retched a thin drool of spittle, but never did he cease going forward.

The tacky rain fell harder, forcing Leitos to squint. Where that fluid touched bare skin, a burning itch spread outward, until it seemed that he had been flayed from head to toe with stinging nettles. The stench intensified, stealing his breath, blurring his vision. And still he ran, a slogging shamble where every step seemed to stick to the ground, before pulling free.

Without warning, he burst through the other side of the rain, staggering, his skin afire. He swiped a hand across his eyes, fearing he would go blind if even one drop of that damnable wetness dripped in them.

Suddenly remembering Belina, he cast about. Instead of Belina, came the last woman he had ever expected to see. He told himself that her presence was impossible, but in this place of infinity, the domain of the Faceless One, who could say what laws could be bent, or shattered entirely? It struck him that none of this was real, and that she was but an apparition, a memory plucked from his dreams and placed here, in this realm of nightmares. A single thing bound all those ideas together, and that was the guilt he felt, now and forever, for killing her.

She loomed closer, green eyes ablaze with unforgiving malice, her face as beautiful as he remembered.

“Zera
,
” he gasped, “I am sorry.”

Her sword, rising to strike, paused, and a look of shock crawled over her features. “Dare not speak that name,” she hissed, the tone of her voice different than he remembered.

Leitos snapped his eyes shut, then opened them. This young woman before him resembled his first and only love, but she was not Zera. She had not her years, and by her garb and the long bow slung across her back, she was Yatoan. A mingling of disappointment and relief flooded him. “We have to get out of here,” he said.

The girl smiled darkly. “Only one of us will leave.”

“What?” Leitos said, alarmed. He took a careful step back, glanced over his shoulder to find Mahk’lar gathering like a great knot of entwined serpents, growing more numerous within that arc of fire and venomous rain.

“If we do not flee,” he said urgently, looking back at her, “we will die. We can deal with your concerns later, once we are free.”

“You
are
my sole concern, Leitos,” she said. “And by that, I mean your death is all that matters to me.”

One moment she stood rigid, the tip of her sword aimed at his heart, the next she swept in for the kill, her flashing blade alight with a thousand flames, her grace making Ulmek’s poise and skill seem clumsy by comparison.

Her first strike slashed toward his neck, and he leaned out of reach, barely. The tip nicked the skin of his throat. She reversed her swing with a flourish, and again her blade cut him, leaving a shallow scratch along his raised forearm.