He buckled, clutching Scourgey.
She whined, from far away.
And suddenly there were more voices. The mob was louder than it had any right to be—as if not just hundreds stood out here, behind their rightful queen, but thousands and thousands, all amassed as one. He heard them, and he felt them, in the dark he had fallen into, the tunnel he found himself in the darkest parts of …
So many voices, all vying for volume. So many languages, swirling about him. A veritable cacophony, his head would be crushed under the sheer weight of it all—
And then it eased. The souls were still there, these departed ancestors of people. Jasen felt them still … but their presence was suddenly a comfort.
There were so many of them! They moved around him, and he felt them, knew they were there in the dark tunnel and outside of it, spread across Tarratam—and farther, too, a throng of souls that extended beyond the imaginary walls of this city, out of this country, across this entire world.
He had a sense of being dislocated in time. Many moments were overlaid, all at once, and perhaps if he had not been so exhausted already, it would have nauseated him. But he could unjumble them; if he picked out one voice among the others, it was as if that soul had clung on to some last remnants of the time they had left behind. He could see where and when they came from, could feel their stories, like dipping his toes into the cool pool that had been their lives, breathe in just a little of it. Here, this one—she was twenty-one, with long, dark hair, almond eyes, with a gap between her front teeth. She’d loved fishing, but not with anyone from her village; she went to a creek by herself, up near where the spring that fed it burbled out of the ground, on the side of a mountain of her own, gently sloped and green. The fish there were black, and she only ever fished them if she could count four dozen in each of the pools where the creek languished a while before rolling on down the slope to a bay where a man lived, a very handsome man, with a crooked smile and a turned-in foot—but she loved him, thought he was so beautiful, even if he did not see it himself …
And then this one. An old man, close to eighty. His bones had been tired at the end of his life, almost four score years. When he was a boy, catching polliwogs and skipping stones, he’d wanted to live forever. But when his wife had died—there was something wrong in her breath, the doctor had said, and the illness ate her alive in less than a season—he had awaited death impatiently. It had taken so long to come, longer than his bones had been tired. He’d waited what felt like forever to find his wife again.
He had her now. Jasen saw her, just behind him, their hands entwined. His bones weren’t tired anymore, and nothing black ate her from inside.
Another and another and another. Jasen could pick out information about them all, as easily as if he were plucking blackberries from a bush. This person came from a far eastern land whose name Jasen could not pronounce. That person had been deeply unhappy, for a long time, too long. This person had had an affair, their air of conflict still hanging about them so many years on.
Why were there so many people? Why all here?
He could pick the answer out—but they were moving again, Scourgey was pulling him along, and though his feet were far, far away, he forced himself back to them, out of this dark tunnel and back to Tarratam …
The gates were open. How Huanatha had convinced the guards to open them, Jasen couldn’t know. Probably the great mob of people she brought with her had been a deciding factor.
Alixa gripped Jasen’s wrist. “Are you okay?” she whispered.
“I’m fine,” he breathed.
“Just then, you sort of slumped. I thought …”
“I’m fine,” he repeated, more firmly.
Alixa pursed her lips at him. She did not argue, though, just walked on with him through the expansive courtyard leading to the fortress, with its tall palm trees and scrubby, dry-looking bushes.
Her hand remained upon his wrist.
The fortress was entered via a huge pair of doors. Easily the size of one of the Prenasians’ trolls with half of another stacked upon its head.
Guards, three of them, stared in muted horror at Huanatha’s approach.
She shouted, raising her fists—
The guards leapt into action. Two ran for the mighty door.
The third bolted across the courtyard.
One of the guards shouted after him.
He did not turn back, and nor did he answer; he just ran, flat out, faint puffs of rusty dust kicked up by his boots as he pelted away.
The two remaining guards levered the doors open.
Huanatha surged in before they’d even come fully apart.
Longwell and Kuura followed. Alixa and Jasen were next, with Scourgey carrying him. Burund brought up the rear, a hand perched upon the hilt of his sword, just in case.
And behind them all, unstoppable, marched the massive mob from Tarratam. It flooded into the courtyard with shouts and cheers.
Jasen heard one of the guards bleat something. Then he was sprinting away; his partner deserted too a moment later.
Given the general squalor of Tarratam, the interior of the fortress was surprisingly lavish. Pedestals were arranged throughout the wide open corridors, with trophies from distant lands upon them. A vast, sparkling purple geode sat upon one; on the next was a carving of a man, cut out of a black rock with glittering silver sparkles within it. There were paintings of boats upon the seas, of tropical forests, of animals that Jasen did not recognize, with orange fur and black bands running across them. Enormous animal skins, which must have come from great beasts that required a dozen men to take down, were displayed on the walls.
Huanatha stopped at a podium with a fine glass vase upon it. It was blown superbly, with iridescent swirls all over its surface.
“My cousin’s stolen trophies,” she snarled. And she took it in hand and flung it, as hard as she could against the sealed doors at the far end of the corridor. It exploded in a vibrant shower.
“I AM HERE, TRATTORIAS!” she roared. “YOU WILL NOT DEFILE MY THRONE A SECOND LONGER!”
She broke into a run, flying down the corridor to the room at the end. Longwell burst after her, and Alixa and Kuura too. Burund hurried onward, and Jasen gripped Scourgey, who slipped fully under him so that he rode upon her back, and then she put on a frenetic burst of speed that carried him past all of them, to the fore, hurtling alongside Huanatha—
She leapt, as though she threw herself across an invisible chasm and
smashed hard into the doors.
They burst open.
And here was the throne room. Expansive and grand, decorated with more of Trattorias’s stolen treasures, it was almost empty of people; there were only a handful of alarmed guards, who must have come from the parapets or elsewhere in the courtyards, addressing a dark-skinned man with a chiseled face and curly hair. He wore a bold crown made of gold, inlaid with deep blue gemstones.
The guards whipped around as Huanatha hurtled in.
Their faces fell as they stared at her, their mouths agape.
The king stared too.
But Jasen looked past them all, past the terrified guards, surely about to abandon their posts just as their comrades already had, to the man at the throne’s side. A spindly, spidery sort of man with two glowing orbs settled close to his shoulders, his expression showed no shock, no reaction of any kind. He looked toward this sudden intrusion with only a faint interest.
“Baraghosa,” Jasen snarled, eyes beaming daggers at the sorcerer.
“My, my,” the sorcerer murmured. “The dying boy from Terreas lives … and he comes to fight me once more.”
25
Trattorias rose.
“What is the meaning of this?” he barked. He had a somewhat high, reedy sort of voice, not entirely unlike Baraghosa’s, which was just a mite higher than a man’s ought to have been. He stood nearly as tall as Longwell. His broad chest would not have been out of place on the Lady Vizola.
And th
ere was no missing the jewel-encrusted scabbard at his side.
Huanatha’s eyes flashed upon it in an instant. They bulged. “You thieving snake,” she hissed. “You have no right to my armory.”
Trattorias rested his hand upon the sword’s hilt. “I have every right. I am the king. And you, cousin, are exiled from these lands.”
“Not anymore,” she growled back—and she took a threatening step forward.
Trattorias called for his guards in his own tongue, voice rising with alarm.
They hesitated a moment, but they stepped in front of him, raising their own swords.
Trattorias’s eyes flashed. “Tell me, cousin.” His tongue flicked up and down like it was a serpent’s, tasting the air. “How did you gain entry to my fortress?”
“This castle is mine,” Huanatha growled.
“I asked how you gained entry,” Trattorias snapped. “You will answer your true king.”
Huanatha growled. Her teeth gritted, she rested her hand upon the hilt of her blade—
“Drawing a weapon upon the king? You traitorous wretch!” He snapped off something to the guards—ordering them to seize her, perhaps—and their nervous looks grew more panicked.
Staring with wide eyes at their former queen, they took their swords in shaky hands and stepped forward, slowly and carefully.
Longwell gripped his lance. He took a menacing step closer, standing at Huanatha’s side.
On the other side of her came Kuura and Burund.
The guards stilled.
Trattorias’s face fell. A dim horror swept over it, but then he regathered his wits. He boomed something to his guards—
And then came a thunderous noise from behind.
Huanatha and Longwell did not move. Nor did Kuura and Burund, poised and ready to throw themselves into the battle if the guards pressed.
Jasen, at the back, did look. He turned his head to see the mob surging into the fortress.
Now Trattorias paled, like a caramel ghost. He barked orders to his guards. They did not move. He shouted again.
The guards stared in terror, past Huanatha—
And then they broke. Sprinting away in a mad flurry, all three of them bolted in perfect unison toward a side entrance.
“Baraghosa!” Trattorias cried.
The sorcerer moved in a whirl. One hand, he thrust out toward the door through which Huanatha had come. It slammed closed, and a steel beam, on a hinge, fell down with a quaking clang across it, barring entry.
The other hand, he thrust out in the direction of the guards.
They jerked back as if a string affixed to the base of their spine had been yanked, pulling them backward in a spasm. They rose into the air, and with a subtle movement of his fingers, Baraghosa twisted them, bringing them before the king.
They struggled. Invisible bonds wrapped them. They could buck, they could squirm. But their arms were glued to their sides, their legs stuck together like they’d been sewn all the way from crotch to ankle. And their mouths were stuck shut.
Terror gripped them as they thrashed, silent.
“What would you do with them, my liege?” Baraghosa asked.
Trattorias glared up at them. “Their loyalty has ended. Kill them.”
A faint smile lifted the corners of Baraghosa’s mouth. “As you wish.”
He straightened his fingers—
The heads of all the guards twisted. Three cracks came all at once, loud, like the bough of a tree snapping.
Their bodies fell limp.
Baraghosa discarded them, a casual wave sending them to the side of the room where they dropped in a heap.
And now he stepped before the king. Unnaturally long fingers pressed together, steepled before his chest.
His eyes were always so flat, so black, no depth to them whatsoever.
He raked his gaze over them.
When Jasen had stood before him, in the assembly hall when he made his choice for the year’s trade—the year’s sacrifice—he had felt himself shying away from those eyes. Just the feel of them upon his skin brought gooseflesh to the back of his neck and made his hairs stand on end.
He’d fought the urge to recoil from Baraghosa’s gaze for years. For if he did … if the sorcerer saw his fear, the way Jasen inched back from him … then Jasen would surely be chosen.
Now, the instinct to recoil was gone. Baraghosa was a twisted man, but Jasen no longer feared the power he wielded.
He felt only hatred for him, and that hatred surged through him in waves with every beat of his heart.
With Scourgey’s help, he approached the front of their entourage.
Baraghosa looked at him. He cocked his head slightly to one side.
He did not blink. That was another thing about those flat, terrible eyes. Jasen did not think he’d ever seen them close.
“You are here,” Baraghosa said at last. There was the tiniest little hint of surprise in his voice. Yet, like always, he sounded barely interested at all.
“I’ve come to kill you,” said Jasen.
That quirked Baraghosa’s lips up.
Behind him, Trattorias boomed a laugh. “You? You can hardly stand. Is this one of your warriors, come to defeat me, cousin? A cripple gripping his malformed dog?”
Now Alixa moved forward. “Do not speak that way of him,” she threatened, her dagger in hand.
“No—you bring two children.” Trattorias smirked. His eyes glinted. “Is this the full force of your resistance, cousin?”
“I have brought all of Tarratam with me,” said Huanatha. “Your slithering puppeteer locked them out.”
As if on cue, the door to the throne room boomed. Many shoulders must have been rammed against it.
The rabble outside grew in volume. Shouts could be heard. They were muted by the thickness of the doors, but there were too many out there to be silenced.
Trattorias’s mouth drooped and he swallowed.
“These traitors will be punished,” he said, gathering himself once again.
“You will not lay a finger upon them,” Huanatha said. “You have driven this city to desertion. You have brutalized and killed these citizens—my citizens. And you killed my family—your own family.” Her glare burned with white-hot fire. “You are a conniving, traitorous, thieving, murderous bastard.” Her lip curled. “And now your end has come.”
She stepped forward—
“Baraghosa!” Trattorias cried, reeling backward.
But Huanatha stopped. She had not yet drawn Tanukke. Her hand rested upon it, though, and Jasen knew it would not be long.
She watched the sorcerer with equal contempt to that she surveyed Trattorias with. “And you—the serpent who pulled all these strings in the first place. You, who creeps in shadows, who whispers and sows dissent among a people.”
He only watched her with distant curiosity.
“Your end approaches too, snake,” Huanatha spat.
Baraghosa’s mouth drew up at the corners. He looked at her, with his flat eyes, then at Longwell and Kuura and Burund, then Alixa, and finally Jasen and Scourgey.
And then—
He laughed.
It was an unnatural sound, pitched as high as a child’s laugh and oddly mechanical.
It raised the hairs on the back of Jasen’s neck.
“You will laugh no longer,” said Longwell, “once we are through with you.”
Baraghosa’s chuckle did not stop so much as wind down. He caressed the corner of his right eye with a fingertip, his pinky finger extended, an almost dainty touch as he wiped away a tear.
“Of course, of course,” he said. “You warmongers have sought me out once again.”
“Warmongers?” repeated Longwell.
“You hear correctly. What else would I call you, when you sail across the seas to do battle with me?”
“We are purveyors of justice,” Longwell said. “And you must now face it.”
“Purveyors of justice …” Baraghosa echoed. He almost tasted
the words, letting them roll over his tongue, trying out their sound, their flavor. “We have discussed this before, Samwen Longwell. I will not be held to account for my father’s crimes.”
“We have discussed it,” Longwell said, “and you will recall what I said to you then. Yartraak received his own justice at the hands of Vara Davidon. The crimes you are being held to account for are your own.”
Baraghosa weighed this.
He looked to Burund, then Kuura. “And why do you stand against me?”
“You spread destruction in every land you touch,” said Burund. “I have seen the fallout myself here in Tarratam, and in Nonthen.”
“Ahh … Nonthen.” Baraghosa nodded. “And you?” he asked Kuura.
“There are few people in the world I will allow to call me old,” he answered. “My children and my wife. You are not among them.”
A shallow smile lifted Baraghosa’s lips again at that. “Fair enough.” He steepled his fingers, tapping his forefinger and middle finger to his chin. Slowly, he paced away, turning his back to them—
Wrong move.
Longwell leapt, his lance raised high. So too did Huanatha—
Baraghosa spun.
Trattorias loosed his sword with an alarming shick!
“BEGONE!” he bellowed—
And they all surged as one—Huanatha for Achacthua and the rest of them for Baraghosa to end this—right here—and right now.
26
Longwell flew through the air in a blur, his lance speared out in front of him—
Baraghosa pivoted on his heel. He drew his folded cane from his jacket and extended it with a sharp flick.
The lights hovering over him spun down, so they rested just above his shoulders. Pulsing with white light, they shone brighter than Jasen had ever seen them, as if somehow the sorcerer had distilled the sun itself into the glowing orbs.
He jabbed at Longwell.
The tip of the cane exploded with energy. Jasen did not see it—but he felt it. It impacted Longwell with the force of a full mountain coming down on him. Longwell grunted as he was flung backward, over their heads, limbs spinning madly—
A Home in the Hills Page 20