Light of Eidon (Legends of the Guardian-King, Book 1) (57 page)

Carissa was long past exhausted. It took all her concentration just to keep
putting one foot ahead of the other; each time she stumbled she could hardly
save herself from falling. And it seemed she kept hearing things in the darkness around them, ghostly sighings and whispers that could be the dead or
Esurhite soldiers or, more likely, Dorsaddi sentinels. They would be watching,
certainly, perhaps with arrows nocked. Even Carissa knew of the Dorsaddi
reputation for shooting first and questioning later.

This was truly a foolish endeavor. Did she really think they would be able
to walk into an encampment Beltha’adi’s men had been seeking for days?
Besides, it would be light soon, and then what would they do? Hide in the
tombs? And for what?

The command to stop was on her tongue when Newbold dove left into
one of the openings, dragging Philip after him. Danarin did not hesitate to
follow, but Carissa stopped just outside the door. Cooper came up beside her.
He didn’t even have to say anything. She could feel his antagonism, could
almost hear his thoughts-echoes of those she’d just entertained-which
goaded her onward.

She stepped into perfect blackness, glad again for the half-veil, since even
with it to filter the air, the sudden increase of the stench almost made her
retch. It took a few moments to realize that her eyes were useless here. Newbold’s excited panting and tiny whines filled the room, but she could see
absolutely nothing.

“We need a light,” Danarin said. “We’re not going to get anywhere like
this.”

The need was granted at once. A fist-sized orb of harsh white light materialized on the tips of Philip’s fingers, held chest high, swerving and jumping
as Newbold pulled at the leash in his other hand. The orb cast eerie shadows
up his face and seemed to emit a high, tooth-jarring whine. “Will this do?”
he asked.

A chill crawled up Carissa’s back. He was a Terstan, marked with evil. For two years she’d traveled with him, knowing it full well, but until this moment
she had never seen the reality of it.

Beside her, Cooper gaped with open mouth. Danarin scowled, tight
lipped, as if he, like Carissa, were gritting his teeth with revulsion, as if he,
like her, wanted to snap at him to put it out at once. But he didn’t, and
neither did she, and so the youth turned and, lifting the orb ahead of him, let
Newbold drag him down an aisle lined with ranks of carved-out niches that
held the remains of the dead.

The aisle went on and on, finally spilling into a large, hewn chamber with
two stone sarcophagi standing side by side at its midst, apparently the family
patriarch and his wife. In the wall behind them were several panels of basrelief, detailing the exploits of the couple’s lives. Newbold went straight to
the central panel, tail whipping back and forth, his whines interspersed now
with half bays, choked off by the cloth muzzle.

“He’s found something,” Philip said, his light bouncing wildly with his
efforts to hold on to the dog, who was now scratching at the door in between
sniffing and trying to bay. Choked as they were, the sounds reverberated in
the chamber with such intensity Carissa worried they would be heard by
someone outside. If the Dorsaddi hadn’t known they were here before, they
surely did now.

“It must be a hidden doorway,” Danarin said, hurrying to Philip’s side.

“If it is,” said Cooper, “it’s no doubt barred from the inside.” Newbold
loosed a particularly piercing cry, and Cooper swore. “I told you to keep that
beast quiet, boy?”

As if the words had somehow penetrated Newbold’s one-track mind, he
backed suddenly from the door and turned to face the aisle of corpses now
behind them, exploding in a fury of choked-off cries. The rest of them turned
to find themselves faced with five pale-robed figures, drawn steel gleaming in
the stark light of Philip’s orb. Five pairs of dark eyes glittered in dark, hard
faces.

We’re going to die, Carissa thought numbly. Struck down before we can utter
a word.

Suddenly Philip was thrusting the leash into her hands and striding
around the sarcophagi to meet them, carrying his orb with him.

“Please,” he said in his rough Tahg. “We seek the Pretender-and the Infidel.”

He stopped a few strides from the Dorsaddi, who had not moved, beyond
lifting their swords a bit. They had slings and spears, as well. And there were
more of them standing in the shadows back down the aisle.

Moments ticked by. Newbold had quieted his barking, exchanging it for
low growls.

Then one of the Dorsaddi stepped forward, the movement sharp and
explosive. He reached out with his sword and pulled aside the neck edge of
Philip’s tunic, revealing the golden shield burned into the boy’s chest. For a
long moment he stared at it, then stepped closer, the sword point still pressed
to Philip’s chest, and rubbed at the mark to be sure it was genuine.

“Why do you seek the Pretender and the infidel?” he asked finally in a
low, harsh voice, the Tahg oddly accented and almost too fast to follow.

“I believe … the Infidel is my brother.”

The Dorsaddi eyed him sharply, then nodded and drew back, lowering
the sword. He started toward Danarin.

“He is not marked,” Philip said. “None of them are. But they are friends.”

At the leader’s sign, the other men spread into the room, briskly fanning
out to relieve both Cooper and Danarin of their swords, then patting them
down in search of other weapons. As one pulled a blade from Danarin’s boot,
another loomed up before Carissa, yanking back the veil and headcloth
before she even realized what he intended.

Seeing her face and golden hair, he jerked back with an oath, eyes wide.
The short, clipped, guttural words brought the other men’s heads snapping
around. For a moment five pairs of eyes and narrowed brows fixed upon her,
followed by an exchange of glances she could not read. Then the leader nodded, and the man proceeded to pat her down as well, hard hands sliding
brusquely over her body. He found the knife at once, slipped his hand
through the slits in her gown to remove it, then continued down her legs,
inside and out. She burned with embarrassment, choking on the gall of her
utter helplessness and sickeningly aware of the fact that she walked a land
where northerners held no station but slavery, and women even lower than
that.

At the leader’s command, the Dorsaddi closest to the panel now stepped
to it and gave it two sharp raps. Something thumped behind it. Newbold
backed against her leg, growling and half baying, shaking his head and trying
to rub the muzzle off with a paw. She hauled up on the leash to stop him, and the panel scraped open, torch-bearing Dorsaddi spilling into the room.

Newbold went wild, lunging, straining, wriggling-frantic to get away.
Then, before she could collect her wits and gain control of him, he somehow
backed out of his leather collar and bolted for the open panel. Several of the
men leaped to catch him and, failing that, raced after him in vain pursuit.

“Don’t hurt him?” Philip yelled after them. “He belongs to the Infidel”

But the Dorsaddi were already gone. From within the passage Newbold’s
songlike bay echoed from increasing distance, then chillingly turned into a
series of yelps and ended.

By the Flames! This is growing worse with every moment. What had she been
thinking to let Philip talk her into this? She should have known it would
never work. Now Newbold was hurt, maybe dead, and they were caught
and—

She closed her eyes and refused to think of that. Meridon was with them.
Newbold had followed his scent down that tunnel. If it was true he had survived Xorofin and lived with the Dorsaddi, surely he would stop them before
it came to that.

What makes you think he has any authority over these men? the insidious
voice of her fear demanded. What makes you think he’d even know? Or care?
What—

Stop it. Stop it!

She swallowed hard and made herself breathe deeply. Hysterics would
serve nothing. Above all else she must be calm. If one of these canyon men
did try to take her, perhaps opportunity for escape would present itself.

A harsh voice ordered the northerners forward into the dark passage, a
warm, musty draft pressing against her face. The tunnel wound left and
upward. From behind came a grating noise and then a whump as the panel
was closed.

Shortly they entered a small, lamplit chamber, one wall lined with waisthigh clay jars. There they were held under guard while most of the men disappeared into one of the corridors leading from the room. Moments later
another man strode in, stopping abruptly at the sight of the captives. He wore
a headcloth and beard, but Carissa recognized him at once, even as Newbold
trotted up happily from behind-it was Meridon.

He stared at Philip in round-eyed astonishment, and the boy stared back,
unmoving, both of them seemingly turned to rock. Then Philip gave a shout of joy and rushed into his brother’s arms, gripping him fiercely, the two of
them nearly the same height.

Carissa found her fear momentarily forgotten as a lump rose to her throat
and tears stung her eyes, her joy for them bittersweet in the sudden, wrenching realization that there would be no such happy reunion for her.

Finally Meridon released his brother and stepped back, his glance falling
upon Carissa. His brown eyes widened, and once more he went rigid, but this
time his face turned slowly white. Mechanically he walked around Philip and
stepped toward her, stopped. “Lady Carissa?”

His astonishment turned to dismay, then outright horror. “What are you
doing here?” he whispered. “You can’t be here. Not now.”

She frowned, having expected a more positive reception. Swallowing the
remnants of the lump in her throat, she lifted her chin. “We have come to
bring you home-or away, in any case. Though our plans are somewhat in
disarray at the moment….” She trailed off, staring at him as if she might
somehow see the truth in his face-that Abramm was dead and how he had
died.

Meridon returned her stare, dumbstruck. Other men had followed him
into the chamber during the reunion, but they had stopped just inside the
opening and Carissa had ignored them. Now the Terstan turned slowly to
look over his shoulder. After a moment she followed the direction of that
gaze and found another northerner among them-the tallest of the lot. He
was staring at her with the same horrified, thunderstruck expression as Meridon. He, too, wore a beard, thick, short, and dark gold in the lamplight. It
gave him a fierce look, accentuating the hawkish cast of his nose, the dark,
level brows, the intense blue eyes.

Familiarity smote her in a series of blows, harder and harder until recognition broke through the gates of her denial and pulled his name from her
lips.

Abramm?”

She was not aware that either of them had moved, but somehow he was
before her, looming over her. How had he gotten so big?

Tears once more blurred her vision. “I thought you were dead,” she said.
“I thought-” Her voice failed. She flung her arms around him and buried
her face in his chest, marveling at how hard he was, less a thing of flesh and
blood than of steel and stone. The rough fabric of his robe pricked her cheek, and he smelled of sweat and dirt and horse. She hardly noticed, sobbing in
earnest now, clinging to him as if he might dissolve beneath her grasp.

The storm passed, and they drew apart. Wiping away the tears, she
peered up at him again. He had changed more than she would ever have
thought possible. Yet he was obviously a Kalladorne. With the beard and that
hawkish, imperious glare, his resemblance to their father was more pronounced than ever.

“What are you doing here, Riss?” He spoke the Kiriathan words with a
strong Esurhite lilt, and even the timbre of his voice had changed-deeper,
more resonant than she remembered it. The anger that sharpened his tone,
however, was all too familiar. “Bad enough you were in Qarkeshan,” he went
on, “but Jarnek is on the verge of war.”

“I know.” She sighed deeply, feeling light-headed. “But there was plague
in Vedel so we had to go around and … It is a very long story, Abr … er …
I mean, Eld …” She stopped in uncertainty, her eyes flicking over him again,
snagging on the sword scabbarded at his side, the dagger in his belt.

He scowled and dropped his hands from her shoulders, stepping back and
half aside. “You were right the first time-it’s Abramm. And that, too, is a
long story.” He scowled at Meridon.

Carissa stared at the aquiline profile-lean and strong, with a hardness to
it Eldrin had lacked. She had gone so still she could hear her own breath.
You were the White Pretender?”

Her brother grimaced and shifted uncomfortably. For a moment she saw
again the man who had strode so proudly into that awful arena, the ridiculous
outfit utterly overshadowed by the regality and defiance of his manner. She
saw again the white figure thrown by magic across the field, battered, bloodied, but staggering doggedly upright, inviting blow after blow until he had
managed to shatter the arena gates and fashion a way of escape.

“There is more steel in him than anyone credits him,” Captain Kinlock had
said to her. She did not think even Kinlock knew how right he was in that.

“Carissa, stop looking at me like that.”

“I saw you fight at Xorofin, Abramm.”

The grimace deepened. “Aye, well, I was very lucky. And we have other
concerns-” He broke off, his brow furrowing. You were in Xorofin?”

`After Katahn betrayed me and took you, I wanted to make it right-if I
could. We’ve been following the Pretender ever since….”

His expression was growing more and more aghast. Are you out of your
mind?”

“Well, I have Cooper with me. And some others……

Abramm’s gaze shot to her traveling companions. He frowned and bent
his head toward Cooper. “Is that you under all that, Master Cooper?”

“Aye, Your Highness.” Cooper stepped forward, bowing deeply, his earring
shining in the torchlight. As he straightened, she saw that his eyes were wide
and fixed upon Abramm as if he were a ghost.