Thy Father's Shadow (Book 4.5) (11 page)

“We have a fugitive from the Sovereign’s justice,” Amenon went on after a moment’s pause, “a heretic who has been on the run for some time. We’ve been sold a piece of information that he has found refuge in the city of the titans, hiding under their very noses unnoticed, much like a rat would do in one of the hovels of the poor.”

“Only one solution for a rat problem,” Verret said with a cold edge to his voice.

“I quite agree,” Amenon said, “as does the Sovereign. However, he wishes us to extract a piece of information from the prisoner, and so we shall, by any means necessary. If he parts with it immediately, we will leave his corpse to rot in Kortran. If he does not, he will return with us and enjoy our hospitality until he surrenders that which the Sovereign desires.”

Terian watched the assemblage as they nodded idly along.
Torture. He means torture
. Terian blinked, and he tried to bury his growing unease deeper within.
We’re going to torture this poor bastard until he tells us what we want to know
.

“Any questions?” Amenon asked, giving a quick look around the room. “Very well.” He shot a nod to Bowe, and the druid began to cast a spell.

He’s not even really allowing time for a question, nor for doubts, nor for us to do anything save agree with him and go along. There’s no time to even grab anything, though I suppose Father expects we’ll all come to his meetings prepared
. Terian felt his grimace deepen.
Prepared for missions that involve capture and torture
. His hangover felt suddenly worse.

He said nothing, though, and the intensity of the druid’s magic kicked up, filling the study with a teleportation whirlwind that carried them away, off in the gale of a magical tempest to a destination far, far from where they had been standing only a moment before.

Chapter 11

Terian squinted his eyes against the brightness of the Gradsden Savanna. In contrast to the snows of Reikonos that he had left only a day earlier, it was miserably hot. The scent of the heavy grasses swaying in the delicate breeze hardly compensated for the oppressive warmth and humidity. The horizon shimmered in the wafting heat, and in the near distance he could see the beginning of mountains.
And the gates of Kortran, I hope
.

“You look like a newling venturing outside Saekaj for the first time,” Thalless said to Terian with a grin. His healer’s robes looked cool and light in the oppressive midday sun, and Dahveed himself seemed to be taking the dramatic shift in temperature from the warrens of Sovar to the open savanna much better than Terian would have anticipated.

“It’s the heat, the humidity and the flies,” Terian pronounced, swatting at a fly larger than his thumb and knocking the fat thing out of the air. “Actually, I can swat or curse the flies. It’s mainly the heat and the humidity.”
Though should I run across one of the oversized animals that inhabits this land, I’ll be cursing them as well—as I run away.

“It does have a way of making a body long for home, doesn’t it?” Thalless wore a wide grin, seemingly untroubled by the terrible weather conditions.

“For the first time in a long time, yes,” Terian said. “I was here a few months ago and I’d swear it wasn’t this bad back then.” He struck another fly. “But then again, maybe I’m misremembering.”

“The skywatchers say that the sun shifts,” Grinnd spoke up from behind them. “I was reading a book about the movement of the stars through the seasons, and they speculated that it changes position as the winter comes to us, and the southern lands grow hotter for some reason.” Terian shot Grinnd a quizzical look and was met by a shrug in return by the beast of a dark elf. “It’s all very fascinating.”

“Reading is an unseemly hobby for such a dull warrior as yourself, Grinnd,” Verret said. “You should stick to breaking rocks and smashing skulls.”

“A man needs hobbies to balance himself,” Grinnd said, slightly affronted. “There is more to me than just my muscles, after all. A true warrior sharpens his mind and his sword, as both require use in battle.”

“Is it just me,” Terian mused, “or does ‘sharpening your sword’ sound like a euphemism for sex?”

“You’ll have to forgive my son,” Amenon said after a moment’s pause in which no one said anything. “He seems to suffer from a near-terminal case of needing to speak every insignificant thought that springs to his mind, even when best they remain unshared.”

Terian felt his cheeks burn with the dark navy of his embarrassment. “Or maybe unlike you I simply feel a need to talk about things I enjoy in my life. I suppose that would take feeling an emotion for you to understand.”

Amenon sent a scalding look his way, and Terian actually felt himself quail before it. The others, if they thought anything of it, were wise enough not to comment.

The party continued on across the savanna in silence, and Terian fell to the back of the pack. A few minutes later, Dahveed joined him at the rear, his white robes swishing with the calm exertion of his steps. “I find it strange to see you here with us, Terian.”

“Why is that, Dahveed?” Terian asked, listening to the gentle tapping of the blades of long grass brushing against his armor as he walked. “Because my father can’t stand me, I can’t stand him, and yet here we both are, together again in misery?”

“No, that’s easily understood,” Dahveed said with a shake of his head. He reached out his hand, letting the tall tops of the long grass, their seed pods extended, brush against it as he passed through them. “Your father had need of an heir, you had nowhere else to go, and money was offered. That’s simple.”

“I didn’t
need
anywhere to go,” Terian said, almost growling. “I’d found a life in Reikonos.”

Dahveed’s expression was purest amusement. “I heard about that. You cannot tell me that you, raised in the manner you were, would ever have been happy simply being an idle guardsman scraping by in that human city.”

“There are more than just humans there,” Terian said, avoiding the obvious point that he had no refutation for.

“There are,” Dahveed agreed. “I have been there myself, you know. But that’s a minor point to quibble with when the greater accusation I just leveled had more to do with you consigning yourself to doing less than you’re capable of.”

“I always do less than I’m capable of,” Terian said with a grin. “It keeps expectations low and allows me to slide right on by doing what I want to do instead of more things that I’d have to do.”

Dahveed nodded sagely, a strangely puckered grimace on his face. “So I’ve heard.” He looked sidelong at Terian. “But I had thought you had changed in the wake of your admission to Sanctuary. I had heard rumors—rumors only, I suppose—that you had decided to stand up and become a person to be counted—not a low, slagging wretch drifting through his life like you were when you left. An officer of the guild, intent on fulfilling the great purpose set by the Guildmaster.”

Terian felt his lips purse and the warm wind ran through the cracks in his armor as a trickle of sweat ran down his back. “How do you know about Sanctuary’s purpose?”

Thalless laughed as though this were the greatest joke he’d heard, his robes swishing and bright red hair shifting in the hot wind. “I didn’t know it was a secret.”

“It’s not,” Terian said, shifting his attention to the mouth of the valley visible on the horizon. “It just isn’t … widely circulated.” He felt his head dip, as though shame were forcing it down. “Guilds aren’t renowned for having greater purposes. They’re a step above a mercenary band; treasure hunters, beast killers, explorers—we adventurers are a fractious and self-interested lot.”

“Indeed,” Dahveed said. “I thought it most peculiar when first I’d heard the news. Terian Lepos, the wastrel, officer of a guild that professes to fight against the darkness?” A wide grin split the healer’s face. “I thought perhaps I had heard it wrong.” He raised his hands for effect, then clasped them back together again in front of him. “But, no, I heard it again and again, in whisper and rumor, circulating among those who would know. I pondered it for a piece, truly I did. And suddenly it did not seem so strange to me.”

“Why is that?” Terian asked.

“Because the one thing you have lacked since the day you left was something you could truly believe in.”

“I believed in what I was doing in when I was still in training at the Legion,” Terian said, but it didn’t even sound like his own voice.

Thalless laughed, loudly—too loudly for the wide, grassy savanna, and he drew a stern look from Amenon. “Your lying needs practice.”

They walked on, and Thalless said no more. Terian did not press him, either, but not for lack of interest.
A part of me wants to know what he has to say; the other thinks it’s all foolishness
. He felt a sourness build within him.
He hasn’t known me in years.
The bitterness grew as he said the words in his soul.
No one does. Not anymore.

If they ever did
.

Chapter 12

They crept through the outer gates of Kortran under a spell of invisibility cast by Bowe. They made their way down a rocky path, one that Terian had trod only a few months earlier. He didn’t know it well enough to know the curves, but they kept to the shadows cast by the boulders as they hid in the lee of the trail. They made their way in short bursts, Verret at the fore and scouting carefully the way down. He paced them by a hundred feet on the wide-open trail and signaled every few minutes when a patrol came in his sight. Always he hid before they saw him, and the rest were forced to cover. There was no shortage of boulders in the road—small stones to the titans, no doubt—and they hid truly and well from the few of the enormous beasts that they encountered on the way down.

Terian caught a look at a titan as it passed. Massive, it stretched into the sky the height of twenty men stood on end. The ground shook as it went by, sending vibrations up his ankles and knees. The shadow of the ledge above him helped keep him concealed, and Terian’s face sweated inside the heavy metal of the helm covering the sides of his head. He kept his hand still, though, not quite ready to make a motion yet, even though the titans had yet to look back.

“We’re like mice to them,” Grinnd said quietly, prompting Xem to nod along with his statement.

“Xemlinan,” Terian’s father said in a low, commanding voice, “join Verret at the fore on scouting detail. We’ll halt outside the city until the fall of night.” He looked skyward. “That seems likely to be about six hours or more from now, and we’ll need a quiet, out-of-the-way place to stay hidden until we can pass through the streets unseen.”

“We could just use an invisibility spell and go now,” Grinnd suggested.

Amenon did not glare at Grinnd, but the dismissal in his tone was hard as iron. “Those spells are notoriously unreliable. This mission calls for minimal risk of discovery.” He looked at Terian with a knowing glance. “Should we be discovered, they will hunt for us high and low, and their guard shall increase in the days that follow.”

Terian nodded along with his father. “It’s true. It happened when last I was here, a few months ago. Someone penetrated their defenses, and they were on guard at the very least on the night after it. I wouldn’t be surprised if their vigilance carried them through at least another month.”

“We shall keep our presence to the shadows,” Amenon said quietly. “No engagement with the titans unless it can’t be avoided. As much as I’d enjoy matching my steel against these beasts in the name of the Sovereign, we shall keep our focus on our mission, on our orders, and leave the desire for battle to another occasion.”

“Such as after we’ve killed the traitor?” Grinnd suggested.

Amenon let the faintest smile show. “Perhaps. Perhaps then. But only then, once we have finished our duty.” The smile faded, as though swallowed whole into an abyss. “And in this matter, as with all others I undertake in the Sovereign’s name—I will not fail.”

Chapter 13

Time marched along surprisingly quickly. They found a cave further down the path, the discarded bones of small animals littering the ground. “Looks like someone of our stature has camped here at some point,” Verret observed.

“You don’t think it was a titan, do you?” Grinnd asked, looking around the darkened cave, surveying the castoffs, the garbage left behind by someone who had long since vacated the small cavern.

Terian snorted. “You saw them. You think they could fit in here?”

Grinnd gave him a wry look. “All it would take is a good grasping hand.” He gave a glance to the mouth of the cave. “I expect they could fit a finger in for a good poke that’d end a man. Or woman.”

Terian let a faint smile cross his features. “Most women I know enjoy a good poke.” He cocked his head to the side. “Though not necessarily in the end.”

“The women say differently,” Xem murmured under his breath. “At least from you.”

“Enough childishness,” Amenon said with sufficient quiet menace to shut them all up instantly. “We’ll sit here, quiet, until the hour of darkness.” He met each of their gazes in turn. “Strictest silence. Let there be no chance that our voices give us away.”

They did indeed sit in silence, occasionally rummaging through small pouches on their belts for preserved foodstuffs. Terian chewed on a hard lump of jerky that he had purchased long before he left Reikonos. The salt was heavy in the thing, overpowering any other spices that might have been used when the meat was dried. He gnawed on it, let the faint, smoked flavor cover his taste buds, and listened to the sound of water dripping somewhere behind him.

The rest of the party did not make much noise. Grinnd could be heard breathing, just barely, and he sat still, as if he had merged with the wall, his eyes open but staring straight ahead. Terian realized he had not moved in several hours, and would have been concerned but knew the warrior could be intensely quiet and still when he desired to be.

Bowe seemed to be in some sort of meditative trance, his hands held out to either side, palms open. Terian watched him as he sat there, his long hair tucked over his shoulder and his face serene. He gave no sign that there was anyone around them, or that he was anything other than content to be sitting in the dark, in a cave, his eyes closed but not sleeping.