Restoration (51 page)

“Don't follow me, no matter what. If the Aveddi arrives before I return, it's up to you to warn him. Use my name. Tell him that Seyonne is sure the Danatos have been warned. Do you understand?”

“But I should be with you.”

“Only if you can sprout fur or feathers in the next breath. I'll be back, lad. Your duty is here.” I was getting the feel of the distance we could be comfortable apart. And so, praying he would stick to his post and neither run away from me in terror nor after me in dream-induced fervor, I considered bats, swallowed my own unpleasant boyhood memories of the creatures, and shifted.

 

Bats are not blind. So my teachers had told me. But then, neither can they see with as great a clarity as a falcon nor even so well as a sorcerer with or without his melydda to help him. I had thought to enter the Danatos mine unremarked, and that was indeed the case, but I was unprepared for the confusion of sight caused by weak bat eyes and sputtering torchlight and large men moving in and out of patches of unrelieved darkness. Somewhat disconcerting also was the need to hang upside down to do any stationary observations, as my wretched feet were too weak to hold me up. Bats don't perch. Fortunately I could hear very well, else I would have given it up and chosen another form. And eventually I managed to decipher what I was seeing.

Massive beams supported the weight of earth and rock above the mine. The cavernous atrium was lit by torches set in iron holders bolted to the rock, and was piled with barrels and crates, coils of ropes and chains, grinding wheels, and bins of tools. The small two-wheeled carts lined up beside the doors would be used for distributing rations of water and food to the slaves bound within the mine, and for hauling out the gold they hacked from the earth. Under the supervision of a bearded overseer, two slaves were unloading barrels from a large wagon and stacking them. The smell told me that these particular barrels contained octar, not water. A great deal of octar. Two slaves began soaking fresh torches in the contents of one barrel and throwing them into the carts. Three more overseers hovered about a group of some twenty slaves, all strongly built, horribly scarred, and hobbled by short lengths of chain stretched between their ankle bands. The sullen group stood waiting in front of a massive pair of iron doors set into the back wall of the atrium—the doors to the network of shafts that were reputed to riddle this entire ridge. Rumors said the tunnels spanned some twenty leagues or more.

Everything was wrong. From the first moment, I felt it. Smelled it. Tasted it. Why so many barrels of octar? Yes, torches dipped in octar would be the only light inside the mine, but why so much at once? And where were the Derzhi warriors? I fluttered from a corner near the entrance back into the shadows of the cavern, dodging the disgusted swipe of an overseer's hand as I passed close over his head. I saw no one else. Not only were there no extra guards awaiting the outlaws' assault, but there were no guards at all. How could they have left the mine undefended? From their huddled terror and mumbled curses and prayers, I would have thought the slaves were new workers being introduced to this living death. But their scars were old, and even the youngest of them wore the distinctive hunch and permanent squint of mine slaves. And where was the noise? Truly the sounds I'd heard from back in the rift had been my own imagin ings, for the mine was profoundly silent, save for the activity I saw right before me.

Slaves were commanded to open the iron doors, and only as two men lifted them from the brackets where they rested did I note the wide metal straps that had been laid across the tight-fitting doors. The mine had been locked. Sealed. Dread gnawed at my spirit. Two other slaves manned the gear wheels at the sides of the doors, and the moment the grinding clamor of the opening doors began, I abandoned my corner and flew through the slowly widening gap.

The cool dry tunnels smelled foul—the stench a familiar one for anyone ever held in close confinement for a long span of time—and they were unremittingly dark. After a few brushes with solid walls, I let my instincts take over and guide my flight by the sound of my own high-pitched squealing. But my instincts led me nowhere that a man or woman of any shaping could wish to be. Nothing lived in those tunnels, nor in the wider rooms I felt expand around me from time to time before narrowing into another passage. Every once in a while, I would come to the end of a tunnel, the face of the rock where the veins of gold lay exposed, ready for the taking, and I would feel them there ... soft bodies, still and lifeless. Not warm. Not anymore. Everyone was dead.

I fluttered frantically from one passage to another, desperate to find any evidence to contradict my belief. The hobbled slaves were now chained to the two-wheeled carts, dragging them through the dark tunnels and lighting torches along the way, illuminating the buried horror. Seven hundred, Aleksander had said. And only these few souls had been spared, now charged to haul out the dead and burn them. Thus the octar.

Time ... The sun must be nearing the horizon. I was too slow to explore all the passages, hunting for one body that might still be breathing, something to relieve this vile darkness that enveloped the world and was seeping into my soul. I allowed instinct to guide me back to the mine entrance. No need for me to explore the passages so as to tell the full story. The others would come soon and discover the magnitude of our defeat. Perhaps they would find one who lived—a small victory to wrest from the ruins of the night. For now, I had other duties. The missing warriors. Where in the name of all gods were they waiting?

I emerged from the cave into dusk, the last edge of gold outlining the rim of the cliffs far above me. With only a thought I changed from bat to falcon, stretching my wings to catch every shift of the air, rising and circling wide over the rift and the pockmarked cliffs. No sign of the missing Derzhi. No sign of anyone save the small party of horsemen riding toward the stone columns where Feyd stood, a tiny dark figure waiting for them. Heedless of secrecy or wonder, I touched earth behind the Suzaini, changed to human form, and waited for the horsemen to halt.

“Where's the Prince?” I said harshly, sparing no time for explanations. “I thought he was to lead this assault.”

“Seyonne!” Three voices said my name at once—and the three painted faces each revealed something of truth. Feyd's lips murmured an invocation to his god, his expression already reflecting the horror that I knew. Roche's pleased surprise quickly faded into a puzzled frown. And Gorrid ... was I wrong to think the dislike in his hard eyes was laced with fear?

“There was word of trouble,” said Roche. “Lord Aleksander has gone to—”

“Don't tell him anything,” Gorrid commanded. “You heard the stories of Dasiet Homol, how the women said he was possessed by some fearful being. We daren't trust him.”

I ignored Gorrid. “Roche, tell me where I can find the Prince. Everyone on this mission is in danger. Feyd will witness as to what we've found at the fortress, and in the first moment you step into the mine, you'll know of treachery so foul you'd wish your children blind before they laid eyes upon such vileness. Remember what you know of me from Andassar, from Taíne Keddar, from Blaise's trust. You must tell me where Aleksander's gone. His life depends on it.”

In the moment I spoke the words, I knew them true. What could have compelled the Danatos to take such a drastic step— to murder their own slaves? Only the need to use their troops for something other than securing the slaves, along with a despicable determination to deny the freedom they could no longer prevent. Perhaps they didn't realize how few outlaws were coming, or perhaps there were not a hundred and fifty warriors garrisoned in their fortress. But no matter the numbers or the plan. I could think of only one reason that could inspire greed of such monumental consequence—the prospect of something infinitely more valuable to replace their dead property. The Kinslayer. They were after Aleksander.

Feyd broke in. “The fortress is empty, Roche, and the archers have been withdrawn from the watchpost. It's surely a trap. You must tell us where the Aveddi can be found.”

“We got word that there were more warriors at the sluice gate than we thought,” said Roche, convinced more by Feyd than me, it seemed. “The Aveddi said I should take command here—to reap the glory in his stead, he told me—and he took out alone to help them at the sluice.”

Of course. Stupid of me not to see it. Slaves could be replaced, but the mine could not. The Danatos could never allow the mine to be flooded. And, too, the dark hillsides that opened onto the green shelf and the lake were perfect places for warriors to hide and so to capture their wayward Prince. If they were sure he would be there, if someone had betrayed him, sent him there believing he was needed ...

“Gaverna,” I said to a Basran woman who was one of Blaise's fiercest fighters, “get up to the mine watch. Tell Farrol that only twenty slaves are left living, all chained to the carts. Only four overseers to deal with, no guards, no warriors. Set a watch and do whatever you can to confirm that no one else survives, but make it quick and get out.”

“Only twenty—” Gorrid and Roche spoke together, aghast. Gorrid's bronze skin lost color.

“The Danatos decided that their slaves were not to be free,” I snapped. “The rest of you—the battle is at the sluice gate. If not for Aleksander's sake, then ride for Blaise; his life is at risk as well.” For if Blaise, manning the watchpost, saw Aleksander in trouble, he would surely fly across the chasm to his aid. And if we didn't get there in time, every man and woman of the outlaw party would die ... except for Aleksander. Aleksander's death belonged only to the Emperor. “And if not for Blaise, then ride for the seven hundred dead.”

I turned to my dreamer. “Your fight is waiting, Feyd. Will you come with me?”

Feyd straightened his back and loosened his sword in its scabbard. “Four hundred years ago, on the first day of Wolf's Moon, Parassa, the royal city of Suza, fell to the Derzhi Empire,” he said. “On that cursed day, every girl child of Parassa was slain. Every woman was ravaged, bound, and sent to the slave markets of Parnifour and Vayapol. Every boy child was cut to ensure that the noble houses of the Suzai would come to an end, and the men and boys were condemned to dig mines like this under the rocks of Suza. All these years the Suzai have waited for the Firstborn of Azhakstan to return to the desert and make amends for the deeds of his fathers. I will not fail him.” He mounted his horse. “Lead us, Master.”

With a surge of melydda, I shifted into my warrior's form, and as the last of the sun's gold vanished, my own golden light flared bright, and I took wing.

 

No perspective of a battlefield can rival a view from the air. As I raced westward, following the dark network of the rifts that would lead me to the green meadow, the sluice gate, and the trap laid for Aleksander, I could see the darker smudge that was Feyd and Roche and the ten riders galloping along the same route below me. The moon already hung over the desert beyond the wall of these mountains, and as I veered to the right over the green shelf, its wavering image was reflected in the evening ripples on the lake. At its northern edge, the level meadow broke over into a steep slope, crisscrossed by a narrow track leading downward to the valley floor.

I caught one glimpse of deceptive peace. Five Derzhi warriors protected the gate, two of them mounted and riding slowly about the rim of the lake on patrol, two standing stiffly, spears in hand at either side of the sluice gate, one tending a fire. Three horses grazed nearby. But at the very moment of my arrival, five riders reached the top of the steep track and shot across the meadow toward the gate and the guards, four painted outlaws led by a Derzhi voicing the wild and throaty war cry of the desert. Aleksander. Four of Blaise's outlaws could never out-match five Derzhi warriors, but with the Prince at their side, they would believe the balance tipped in their favor ... except that I knew better.

For the moment I stayed high and circled the meadow, anxiously searching the cracked shoulders of the adjacent ridge, the narrow slots in the cliffs where men and horses could hide until they heard a signal to descend upon the unsuspecting raiders. There! Even so high above the ground I felt the quiet tension in the dark gully below me ... twenty ... thirty men and horses, surely no more than forty, well disciplined, waiting until the attacking outlaws were fully committed. Of course the Derzhi would believe forty enough to take the Prince and a handful of outlaws. But then where were the rest of the warriors? I assumed that the Danatos, determined to take their prize, had sent all of the garrison into this combat, prepared in case the outlaws got wind of the treachery and sent their entire force to attack the gate. But my search revealed no more warriors, and the clash of steel and angry shouts below told me that I had no more time. The hidden horsemen burst from the slot in the cliff. I circled back, drew my sword, and descended on the line of Derzhi spilling out across the meadow.

Surprise is a formidable weapon in combat, and awe and astonishment are its worthy companions. My wings were fully spread, and my body glowed fiery gold. I killed seven Derzhi before even one thought to aim sword or spear in my direction. Even then I had half of them circling and running into each other trying to see what I was and from what quarter I would come next, while others remained cowering in the gap in the cliff, afraid to face me. But while I reaped the benefits of successful surprise, I saw Aleksander suffering the consequences of the reverse. The five guards who had seemed to be pursuing quiet routine were mounted and battle ready before the outlaw party had crossed half the distance from the edge of the meadow to the lake. Perhaps Aleksander suspected the trap even then, for he tried to pull up, but his four companions were not so observant and rushed on headlong. Not one to retreat at any time, the Prince released his mount, and when the two parties clashed, he was again at the head of the outlaw band.