by Gia Tsiknas
Hours later the trees ended, announcing the southern bank of the Jied River which split the Northern and Southern Leas, and her final destination. Machi walked the southern bank, following a half-hidden game trail that wound between the bushes that ended at a cave. The cave was large enough to hold a small party and partially shielded them from the elements. Machi brought her horse as far into the cleft as she could and opened one of its saddle bags.
“We leave the animals here.” Removing her spare set of hunter garb and her weaponry, safely stored in oiled cloth, Machi turned her back to Hanaq and changed from her sodden, muddy garments. She shivered as she felt his eyes on her back as she dressed. They were intense, but not invasive. Machi laid out her wet clothes as best she could in an attempt to dry them; she could not risk a fire. She strapped Brizna’s twin swords to her back, her own to her waist, and stowed her knives on her person. Once dressed and armed, Machi fingered the icy blue stone of Brizna’s ring, Her thoughts were a storm of uncertainty. The alley girl, the slave train, the beast, the Gray Demon, Brizna’s kidnapping, now Hanaq, what did it all mean?
“What is that, huntress?” Hanaq’s voice was low, curious but not demanding.
“Nothing.” Machi dropped her hands and turned towards him. “Just a trinket.”
Hanaq’s eyes were intense behind his mask. “You look at it often for it to be a trinket.”
“We leave.” Machi ordered as she ignored the implication.
“The hunt, then.” Hanaq’s voice was humming in anticipation. Machi let the excitement infect her, relishing the anticipation. He now wore the traditional Hunter garb. He had a blackened steel sword strapped to his belt but showed no other signs of hidden weapons. Machi frowned as she looked into his mask.
“Why the mask?”
Hanaq drew his sword, studying the edge with intense scrutiny before answering. “My kind hides their face from those unworthy to gaze upon us. We reveal ourselves only to those deemed worthy of our attentions.” His gaze shifted to hold Machi’s eyes. “Are you curious, huntress?”
She twirled the ring around her finger, then slid on a pair of gloves. Her face flushed. Something about his tone seemed too intimate for her liking. “Let’s go.”
With one last, cursory glance around the small cleft Machi walked back into the rain and made her way to the road several hundred paces away. The bridge that spanned the river was submerged by the ravaging waters that came this time of year. There was a man-made clearing above the riverside, tucked within a ring of trees. The north side of the hill was a wall of gnarled roots, washed of soil, but stubbornly holding the hill in place.
Machi could feel Hanaq following her as she made her way to the high ground. She walked the ring of trees before choosing one with full leafy branches and climbed. Once she ascended the height of three men, she settled onto a thick branch to wait. The leaves blocked her view of the advancing slave train, but she didn’t mind. Soon they would settle below her and she could watch them while remaining hidden.
“Wait for the camp to settle. Then find Brizna. We will take him to the alcove for the night and set a false trail. Once the Poachers halt their search, we hike back to Den.”
Machi didn’t expect to be pursued long in this weather and with the other slaves waiting to be ferried. A growl of annoyance sounded below her. Hanaq caught her eyes as she looked down to him.
“Why should we wait? They do not have your prowess or my strength. Kill them all, huntress.”
Visions of glorious battle swam to the forefront of Machi’s mind. Her body felt alive and powerful, calling for action. Hanaq was right, why should she take the coward’s road? Let them fear her righteous fury. Machi’s hand warmed as she breathed deeply and exhaled, clearing her mind.
Never be blinded by blood-lust. Brizna’s words flowed through her like a soothing wind. Think before you charge into a fight.
“No.”
Hanaq stiffened, holding still as his anger passed, his eyes glued to her hand. After several moments he nodded and scaled the tree, settling on a branch above and behind Machi.
Several hours later the slave train arrived. The many carts of supplies acted as a barrier for the camp from the road. A select group of slaves set up the tents for the Poachers and started the campfire, a difficult task in the rain. The Poachers jeered and cursed the slaves’ failed attempts to set a flame in the dampened wood. Once the slaves completed their tasks, the slavers chained them amongst the remaining cargo and huddled around the fire. They leaned into each other to speak and a prickle of unease ran down Machi’s back.
Why were they so anxious? No one would bother them in this weather. Machi strained to hear their whispers, but the storm drowned out too much noise. Machi frowned, then settled back against the tree trunk to wait. Her gaze moved over the crowd of slaves. Trying to make out details and features. Her eyesight was hindered in the gloom to finer details, but she could make out a Tanner squinting into the night as he took first watch.
Brizna had not been among the select group of slaves, so Machi expected a long night of searching sleeping faces. Time passed slowly in the tree. Machi’s leg bounced in agitation as the men lingered near the warm flames. Hanaq’s displeasure radiated off him as they waited for the men to return to their tents for the night. To distract herself, Machi shred a thumb’s length of jerky before consuming the pieces. She noted the positions of the sentries but didn’t expect them to notice her in the rain. Five pieces of jerky later the slavers trudged to their tents, and the camp grew quiet.
Machi waited until the abandoned fires grew dark before descending the tree. She motioned Hanaq to watch for the sentries as he landed, lithe as a cat, onto the ground. When he trotted off she started searching. The slaves slept in the mud between the slavers’ tents and the carts. Their chains were staked to the ground, but with the ground so saturated with rain a quick tug could upend the stakes with ease. A sly slave could use this moment to escape. The sentries were blind from the storm. But they lay motionless, huddling together for warmth, their misery overriding their drive for freedom.
Spineless cowards. Machi cursed. She slipped through the group, checking faces quickly. A sleeping slave turned toward her as she got close. She froze, waiting for an exclamation of surprise. The slave mumbled incoherently and settled back to sleep. Machi sighed. She had no problems making out the men’s features. They glowed slightly from the heat of their bodies like small candles in the night.
The faint “hello” of a male voice made Machi duck behind a mother and daughter embracing in their sleep.
“Is someone there?” The slaves voice called a light tenor. Machi’s heart soared as she recognized the voice’s soft tones. “Please, if you really are there, free me. I have to return to Den.”
“Brizna?” Machi scrambled forward. The voice called again, and she turned toward the road. “Keep whispering. I’ll find you.”
“This way.” New life flooded his voice, and she started running through the clusters of slaves, too anxious to walk. She tripped over an old woman, dead from the cold, and landed in the mud. Machi cursed, and the voice replied. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. I’m almost there.” Machi stood and drew close to the carts. “Where are you?”
“The middle cart. They didn’t want me catching the death in this weather.”
Machi crept along the inner wall of carts. “Why is that? Slavers don’t care for cargo.”
“They caught me special.” Brizna’s voice sounded behind Machi.
Shadow take me. Machi turned around and headed back as he continued speaking.
“And they want me alive and in good health or they won’t pay.”
Machi smiled as she lightly knocked on the cart. The return knock let her know she had the right one. She surveyed the area around the cart, but the rain didn’t let her see far. “Where are the guards?”
“I don’t know. They chained me in here, then left. That was hours ago.”
Machi glanced into the
covered wagon, but it was too dark. She rubbed her eyes, why couldn’t she see anyone? “Where are you? I can’t see you.”
“It is dark as a tomb.” Brizna snapped. “Of course, you can’t see me.”
Machi narrowed her eyes. “Come forward, so I can release you.”
A whistle trilled into the dark. Machi turned to bolt but lancers leaped from the neighboring wagon. She ground her teeth and dove under Brizna’s wagon, cursing. With unified precision rarely found in Tanner thugs the lancers circled the wagon. Machi leaped for the next wagon before their circle closed, slashing daggers at ankles. A lancer cried out as she rolled and dove under the last cart in the line.
She tumbled forward, a shower of rain pelted her like ice-water. Machi tried to rise, but ice grew around her limbs, freezing the soaked fabric into a stiff prison. She cursed again.
An elderly woman dressed in long, boxy robes, stepped towards her. Her voice rang with power as the ice held against Machi’s thrashing. Her feather-collared black cloak claimed her rank as a Castor of the Black Guild. The witch sat in front of Machi her hand gently massaging her throat. As she spoke her voice pitched from a tenor to a mellow soprano. The lancers, donning the black armor of Crusaders, ringed them, their spears forming a barrier of steel. “Accursed voice magic. Takes days for my throat to stop hurting.”
Crusaders were the Don’s enforcers. Had she really messed up that badly? Or was something else going on? Machi’s anger grew, festering and boiling, threatening to engulf her.
Call me. A growl echoed through the night. A few of the Crusaders glanced around, but the darkness revealed nothing. The Castor signaled to a lancer and the butt of a spear knocked Machi unconscious.
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAINS
Painful, aching consciousness came slow to Brizna. Dazed, he tried to grasp his surroundings, but there was only darkness. Panic seized him as his memory flooded back. In his panic he thrashed. His limbs came to a jerking halt as he hit the end of the chains that fastened him to the floor. After taking a few moments to calm himself, Brizna closed his eyes and called forth a soft globe of light. It took several times for Brizna to push aside his thoughts and settle his mind enough to allow his gift to take form. The reward was a small floating orb of light revealing metal bars. He was in an animal’s traveling cage.
Brizna tried to cry out, but he couldn’t produce any sound. In another flurry of panic he lost his light as his hands flew to his throat. A warm band encircled his neck, etched with fine grooves. It hummed against his skin.
What is this? A muffling collar? Brizna moaned. Raboni?
Silence.
Fear flooded him; a crippling, terrifying fear that paralyzed his senses. Where was he? Why wasn’t Raboni answering? Didn’t he promise to always be near?
Raboni! Brizna cried out. The empty, painful loneliness he had once battled was back. He tried to scream; to break the silence of his isolation, but he was mute.
The sharp click of a heel on stone broke through the void.
“What is the meaning of this?” Her voice was velvet-smooth and hard as ice. It was young, too, not much older that Brizna himself. He found a small hole in the cloth, took a breath and stretched towards the voice, his chain strained against him.
He could make out candlelight reflected off ebony. Ebony? Who decorated a floor with such a precious stone?
“Answer Milady’s question.” Whispered a second voice, this one sounded old, but not feeble as one might expect. There was an edge to it.
The Great Hall was ebony granite from floor to ceiling. The majestic inlays of stone and carvings spoke of wealth and power that was staggering.
A younger voice, a woman, wore a deep violet dress, low cut and elegant. A length of the cloth trailed the floor behind her. Silver encrusted shoes peeked under the drapes of fabric. Silver trimmings accented her thin waist and delicate wrists. Her long, blond hair was in an ornate knot off her right shoulder.
“I didn’t know, My Queen. Not at all. Not at all.” Croaked the man. “But I brought them as I was bid. Oh yes, yes.”
Queen? Aguden, his home country, had no queen. An elite council ruled them. Brizna tugged against his chains as he tried to see more of the room.
The queen sat in an gilded throne on the dais. Her icy eyes bore into a white-haired man in his middling years. His many gray robes hung on his gaunt frame. The man stood, fidgeting in front of her as his milky-white eyes darted around the hall. The room with its ornate pillars, castle livery and low lighting drew the man’s attention away again and again. A crone stood stooped behind the Queen’s throne. Dark shadows stirred over her shoulder.
Fear trickled down Brizna’s spine.
“I ask for survivors from Drakia and you bring before me a Denarian and a dead man.” The queen snarled. The man flinched, a shadow shifted behind him solidified into a pitch-black horned mutt, underfed and feral.
“But he was there. He came just as I was told. And the man fought…”
Before the Queen could retort the crone interrupted. “Perhaps, milady, the orders were not explicit enough for him and his mutt to comprehend.”
Brizna couldn’t take his eyes off the man’s dog. How many times had Machi described the Gray Demon and his abomination? Why hadn’t he realized? Where was she?
“You defy me as well?” Zafirah’s voice grew icy.
“No, no, milady.” The crone soothed. “But this tool has its uses, albeit limited.”
The Queen paused, letting her thoughts form. She mused a moment more before continuing. “Leave me. I will call upon you when I require your skills once again.”
“Oh thank you, thank you.” The man cawed, his words thick with relief.
“Do not fail me again.” He froze as her emerald eyes burned into him. The man fled, pushing the line of guards.
The queen rose, her dress shimmering as she strode towards the line of cages. With an unspoken command they ripped the cloth off of the cage. He cursed, glancing around the room and trying to memorize it.
A line of purple and silver-clad guards stood at attention behind a row of cages identical to his own. The men themselves stared straight ahead with an empty expression. Brizna swallowed hard and turned to the cages. There were five total. One to his right held a man twice his age. The other cages to his left each held children: two girls and a boy. Each wore a collar.
The two girls were twins his age, their faces twisted in agony and fear, screaming to their father. The boy, only a toddler, sat and cried, tears glistening down his face. Not a sound disturbed the hall.
The man didn’t move.
The boy and the man were bald, and white peeked in the black hair of the twins. All of them had crimson eyes.
He wasn’t meant to be sitting in this cage. He wasn’t intended to be at the Broker’s meeting.
Brizna’s heart froze.
The queen came to the first cage, the one containing the young boy, and smiled, fingering the large stone pendant around her neck. She reached forward and tipped the boys chin up to look into his eyes. He looked into the woman’s face, and a blue mist wafted from the boy’s mouth. The swirl of blue danced to the queen until it came to rest on the pendant around her neck.
“Come now, dear.” She waved to the guard. He bent and unlocked the cage, removing the chain and collar from the boy. The toddler looked with rapt attention at the queen, his eyes glazed and peaceful. She held out her hand, and the boy took it, stepping to her side.
One twin reached for her the boy, trying to beckon him away from the queen, but the boy’s eyes did not move from the queen’s face.
The queen stepped to the next cage in line.
Brizna screamed, but he couldn’t force any sound from his throat.
Again the queen summoned the mist, and her pendant absorbed it. With a dazzling smile she held her hand out to the young girl, and she took it, a smile alighting her face as she stepped from the cage. The queen whispered to the girl, and she stepped back with h
er brother.
The monarch now stood before the remaining child. She held the pendant around her neck and coaxed to the girl.
Nothing happened. With a mild frown the queen whispered and coaxed once more. No mist came forth. Rage climbed the queen’s face.
“No matter, Queen Zafirah.” Whispered the Crone as she came to the queen’s elbow. “There is time to break her defenses.”
Zafirah studied the final girl a moment more before waving the cage away. A guard covered it and two more towed it from the room in perfect silence.
“Now, what of you?” Queen Zafirah studied Brizna with a level of apathy that made his skin crawl.
She fiddled with her pendant, absent-minded. Her face pulled in and out of Brizna’s vision. He couldn’t focus. The stone caught the light and shone in a strange array of colors. The tones befuddled his weary mind as he tried to look at his surroundings; tried to plan his escape. He couldn’t tear his eyes away.
“He may be useful.” The crone smiled. “If we use this opportunity, we could draw the girl out into the open. Let the search lead her to us.”
“Perhaps.” Zafirah smiled. Brizna shook his head, a persistent ringing in his ears destroying his ability to focus on her voice.
With a tremendous control Brizna banished the haze. Zafirah’s smile was now an icy glare. She stepped up to the cage, towering over him and forcing Brizna to strain to look into her face. Ancient words slithered from her throat, demanding his obedience.
Machi… Brizna fixed his friend in his mind; her tears, her smile, her anger, her vengeance. Brizna’s mind calmed, and he glared into Zafirah’s eyes. Shaping his will into a whip of blue magic he lashed out at her. Zafirah waved her hand and a shield of purple crystal blocked the whip. She signaled to her guards and turned. One kicked the cage, and another drew the covering over him before Brizna could lash out again.
The darkness alarmed Brizna, but the confrontation distracted him too much to let the fear seep in again. His cage rocked as the guards lifted it. Brizna tried to use his hands to steady himself, but a sudden shift landed him hard against one side of the cage. The mis-balance made a guard grunt in effort, inciting curses as he got a better grip. Another guard hissed for silence. The cage dipped as they set off, but kept balance this time. Brizna tried to keep orientated to his surroundings, but he soon lost track.