“What are you getting at?” Quiet Surata asked, intrigued. While she knew that the team she had assembled would stick together for a heist, she was far less certain that they would resist killing one another if their own survival was on the line.
“The Wretched Race demands that we fight one another, right? We kill, or we’re killed. Bets worth fortunes are placed on our heads, and the gamblers hope that the one they bet on wins while all the other racers die in the Race.”
They listened to him, trying to see where he was going. Ahiram stood among them the way Tanios did when he led the Silent’s assembly. The Silent made eye contact with each of them, except for Huska, who lowered his eyes, and Bow, who kept his head down.
“So, what if,” he added carefully, “instead of fighting one another, we worked as a team to reach the finish line together? What if we made sure no one dies?”
Slippery Slued was the first one to react. “You mean, all of us survive?”
“Exactly.”
“That’s crazy,” cut in Krom.
“Why?” asked Ahiram. “I’ve been on missions with crews in hostile territory. We looked out for one another and we made it safely back. What’s different?”
“I’ve thought about it,” Quiet Surata said, “and I came up with a plan, but I don’t know how to do certain things. How can we escape the attacks from the crowd? How do we prevent the partisans from killing one of us?”
“I am a Silent,” Ahiram said. “We’re trained to deal with these types of problems. If we work together, I’m certain we can make it work.”
“They won’t expect this,” Slippery Slued said. “That’s a sizeable advantage, at least for the start of the race.”
Quiet Surata got up and faced Ahiram. “Why should we trust you?”
Quiet Surata is definitely the mastermind. “You don’t have to,” he replied. “Tell me your plan and you’ll hear what I have to offer. If you don’t like the ideas, so be it.”
“If Quiet Surata has a plan, I’m in,” Slippery Slued said. “Let’s hear what you both have to say.”
“I’ll hear nothing of da squirrel,” Huska snarled, and he charged Ahiram.
“Huska, no!” Quiet Surata shouted, but it was too late.
The burly Kartagenan saw the roof pivot along an elegant arc and suddenly felt a searing pain flash across his shoulder blades and found himself sprawled on the ground. Twice. The second time did not take him by surprise, but it was just as painful.
“You know how to fight,” Mango Karthal observed.
“So does he,” Ahiram replied. He bent over Huska. “Like I said earlier, I think we can survive. All of us.”
Huska swung around on his belly and pulled himself back to his feet. He cracked his neck and massaged his right shoulder. “I’ll hear what da squirrel has ta say.”
“Why do you care that we survive?” Sweet Gondolaz cut in. “Why should we trust you?”
That must be Sweet Gondolaz, Ahiram thought.
“Beware her voice, boss,” Manassa had warned him. “She can rile you up or depress you. Don’t underestimate her.”
“I’m a Silent. We protect the innocent. That’s what we do. That’s what I intend to do here.”
Quiet Surata’s face remained expressionless.
Krom broke the silence. “So what’s the plan?”
Quiet Surata scowled. “Not a plan, really, but the start of one. The Race is set up so that most of us will be dead before we reach the arena. If we fight one another while the crowd is ramming swords, spears, and arrows down our throats, we have no chance of surviving.”
“So,” Huska thought aloud, “we stick together like da toes to da shoes and no one turns us into da scrambled eggs, and we reach da arena and slurp da prize. What’s my cut?”
“Your life,” Ahiram replied, smiling, “and twenty-five gold diegans.”
A stunned silence fell on the room so suddenly that Huska’s ear began to whiz. “What da ya said? My ears da twitch me,” he asked as he yanked his ear with such strength that Ahiram feared he might just pull it off.
“You heard right, Huska, two thousand five hundred pieces of gold. I am betting four hundred gold diegans that we will all reach the arena alive. If you cooperate, you save your life and become rich.”
“That’s at least a fifty-to-one bet,” Slippery Slued observed. He whistled appreciatively.
Quiet Surata nodded. “That’s an appropriate bet. How do we know you’re not lying?”
“He’s not,” Sweet Gondolaz replied. “His voice and intonations tell me all I need to know.”
“And who’s to say that when we reach the arena alive, you will not get rid of us?” Quiet Surata persisted. “And then get to keep all the money?”
Ahiram was sorely missing his friends from the Silent Corps. He was now deeply appreciative of the training, cohesiveness, and teamwork of the Silent. This group of undisciplined ruffians. That’s what I have to deal with … but I’ve got to make it work. I don’t want to see anyone die in this awful game.
“That’s a risk worth taking,” Slued observed. “Think about it Surata, what’s the alternative? Even if we don’t kill one another, the crowd will most likely succeed.”
Gondolaz did not answer. Krom the Hunter moved toward Ahiram and looked at him. “I see that you’re good at hand-to-hand combat,” he said, “but can you wield a weapon? How do you propose we cross the three miles and avoid the traps and deadly arrows of the crowd?”
Krom saw the Silent look past him and gasped when Ahiram’s sword leaped free from its sheath and landed with the hilt in his open palm.
“Away from the wall,” Ahiram yelled. “Move! Now!”
All of a sudden, the opposite wall shattered and exploded in a cloud of shards. Two creatures leapt inside the barn, each with a gray sword.
Those are the beasts I fought at the lake! “Do not interfere,” he said to the others as he raised his sword above him. Mentally, he called on the Letter of Power and the tile materialized in his hand, then blended inside his sword’s hilt and a bright, white-blue halo enveloped the blade. The others gasped as Ahiram went on the offensive. In three lightning strokes, he forced his attackers back out of the training hall. The rain had momentarily abated, and in the relative lull, he noticed that the back of the barn was less than twenty feet away from the mountain’s edge. The other prisoners crept up, weapons drawn.
“Bow,” Slippery Slued urged, “can you help? Bow?” But the bowman was not there.
Outside, the deadly dance was reaching a frenetic pace. One of the creatures tried to stab the Silent in the back. Ahiram crouched and let the blade whiz over his head. He then pivoted and stood up, met the fuming blade with Noraldeen, and forced it back. The beast whipped his tail at the Silent’s head, but Ahiram blocked it. The creature flicked his sword in a wide movement—pretending to swing it laterally—but at the last moment, pivoted his wrist and thrust his sword from bottom to top. Ahiram instantly bent backward and the blade flew a mere inch over his abdomen and stood a hair from his forehead. The enemy flung his tail, aiming at Ahiram’s exposed neck, but the Silent dropped to the ground, rolled end on end, and sprung back to his feet. He counter-attacked just when the first beast jumped and lunged.
“Mango, Huska, with me,” Krom shouted as he attacked, sword raised. The second monster swung his sword, but Krom sidestepped him and Huska spliced the beast’s tail with his two swords. Mango slammed into the creature with all his weight and sent it hurtling down the ravine. They both turned around to see the second creature with its tail pinned to the ground by Quiet Surata’s daggers. Sweet Gondolaz hit it with a mace just as Noraldeen shattered the gray sword.
The creature gripped its throat, desperately trying to breathe. Within seconds it was dead, as if someone had strangled it. Its body shook violently, then quickly dissolved into a dark cloud of dust.
Ahiram moved toward the edge of the promontory and looked down. He could see nothing. He walked slowly along th
e promontory’s perimeter with his sword before him, on the lookout for any more vibrations, but none came. He planted Noraldeen into the ground and faced the other prisoners, who were struggling to understand what had just happened.
“What were those atrocities?” Gondolaz asked.
“I don’t know yet,” Ahiram replied. “This is the second time I’ve faced them. I’ll eventually find out.”
“A-A-A,” Slippery Slued stuttered, “A …”
“A what?” Quiet Surata said. “Breathe Slued, breathe and relax. You know that you stutter when you get worked up.”
“Annuna-Ki,” he managed to say in one breath, “those monsters are Annuna-Ki.”
“Are you sure?” Quiet Surata said, shocked. “Are you absolutely sure?” Slued nodded energetically. Slowly, she turned around and faced Ahiram. “He says that they are the dark hordes from Killiam-Ki, a deep cave several hundred miles south of Mount Sheor. They are known as ‘Dor Skull’ in Babylon, or the dark angels, and as ‘Zaltur-Min’ amongst the dwarfs. Their like has not been seen since the close of the Age of the Second Covenant.” She studied Ahiram. “Why are they after you?”
“I don’t know. I’m curious, how come you know so much about these creatures. Have you seen them before?”
Quiet Surata glanced at Slued, who looked down. She faced Ahiram squarely. “We are treasure hunters. Once, when we were looking for Andaxil, we heard about those creatures that are straight out of ancient legends.” She shuddered, wondering to herself what all this meant.
Ahiram sighed in frustration. He could not shake the feeling that a great terror had risen and that he was unable to stop it. “Alright,” he said, “we can’t do anything about these beasts now, but we must survive the Wretched Race. We were a good team fighting them, don’t you think? Surely, we can make it alive out of that race.”
“What kind of blade is this?” Krom had been eyeing Noraldeen since the battle with the Annuna-Ki ended. Ahiram let him examine the sword. “This is …” he eyed Ahiram, uncomprehending. “I don’t understand … this is meyroon,” he said softly while rotating the weapon in his hands. The others gasped. “This blade is wrought out of pure Meyroon. There are only three such blades: Terragold, the blade of Muhaijar, King of the Marada, Utal, the sword of Salfaran the Fair of the Desert Legions, and Layaleen, the famed weapon of El-Windiir.”
“Wait a minute,” Slippery Slued interjected, “I recognize you now, you are … you changed the name of the sword … you call it …”
“Noraldeen,” Ahiram said softly.
“That’s right! Noraldeen, after the daughter of Lord Orgond from Tanniin. I was there when the urkuun …” He looked at Ahiram as if he was seeing him for the first time and gasped. “You are him, aren’t you? The one who slew the urkuun? This is Layaleen, the blade of El-Windiir, but you renamed it Noraldeen in honor of the princess, isn’t it so?”
“It is,” Ahiram confirmed. “It is.”
“Wow,” Mango Karthal said. “You own the artifacts of El-Windiir?”
“Triple da wow,” Huska the Fat added.
Quiet Surata confronted Ahiram. “What’s your game? You could escape from this barn any time you wished. You can use El-Windiir’s artifacts and simply fly away, and the giants couldn’t do a thing to stop you. So why don’t you? Why are you still here? What is it to you?”
“Everything,” replied Ahiram. “Absolutely everything. Did you know that I was a slave when I fought the urkuun? Noraldeen gave her own life to save me. She was a princess, and I was a slave, and she didn’t think twice about it. She was my best friend, my …” He wanted to say “my love,” and that thought surprised him and threw him into an inner turmoil he struggled to hide.
“Apple of da left eye and the pear of da right eye,” Huska said, completing Ahiram’s sentence. He wiped his teary eyes. “Aaaahhh …” he sighed with a smitten look on his face. “So beautiful.”
Ahiram blushed. “Anyway, she made me promise before she died that I … Let’s just say she made me promise to always help if I could, and that’s what I’m doing.”
“So, it’s an act of charity?” Sweet Gondolaz protested. “Is that it?”
“It’s not just about you. If I don’t run the Race, a horrible curse will be triggered and will kill nearly everyone in Little City.”
“So that’s what’s forcing you to run the Race,” Sweet Gondolaz said. “I could sense a tinge of anger in your voice. Now I know why.”
“Besides,” Ahiram added with a shrewd smile, “we can turn the Race into a sound financial investment for all of us. I’m going to make a massive profit and trounce these imbeciles who are betting that we’re going to kill each other. But even if it was an act of charity? What of it?” he asked. “Slaves gladly accept acts of charity. I don’t see anything wrong with it. Now, who’s with me?”
“Well,” Krom observed philosophically, “if we’re against you, then we will have to face your sword, and there isn’t—and I mean, there just isn’t—a normal blade that can withstand Layaleen.”
“Noraldeen,” corrected Slippery Slued.
“So, I’m with you,” Krom finished.
“I’m with ya on account of da apple and da pear,” Huska the Fat added.
“You’ve chopped the urkuun’s head,” Slippery Slued conceded. “I intend to keep my head firmly attached to my body. I’m with you.”
Bow came over. He bowed.
Mango Karthal looked at Sweet Gondolaz. She nodded and faced Ahiram. “We’re with you … for now.”
“I’ll join, but on one condition,” Quiet Surata added.
“I’m listening.”
“I’m in charge, and you’ll assist me. I plan, you figure out how to make that plan happen. Are we clear?”
Ahiram smiled. “That’s fair. I’m all for the best of plans.”
“All right then,” Quiet Surata said, “let’s plug this hole before we freeze to death, then I’ll fill you in on my plan. Stay close! I need all of you alive in the arena, so there is no sense in getting killed before then.”
Kalibaal wondered if Sharr was going to make it. He was watching him undergo the yearly trial to prove his mental fitness as a leader the Temple.
The other members of the Inner Council stood on the tip of ten rays stemming from a mystical mosaic of the sun at the foot of the giant statue of Baal. Alone, the high priest of Babylon stood inside the image of the sun and faced the figure of the god. Sharr struggled to control four orbs of power and four concentrators. This was the trial required of the high priest. While any priest or priestess worth their salt could raise four orbs, only a highly skilled one could lift four pairs of orbs and concentrators, keep them perfectly still and in close proximity to one another. Presently, Sharr kept all eight spheres in a cross formation with the concentrators standing a foot behind the orbs. The first exercise, known as Baal’s Breath, required the priest to keep the orbs from moving while repeatedly bringing the concentrators a hair’s breadth from the orbs, pulling them back to their original position. The oscillation of the concentrators had to be smooth and continuous without jerkiness or halts. The priest had to repeat this twelve times. Sharr’s veins bulged and his extended hand was seized by a light tremor, but he completed the exercise without a hitch, and the back and forth movement of the concentrators vaguely resembled the heaving of a chest drawing breath in and out.
The second exercise was known as Baal’s wheel-within-a-wheel. Sharr started rotating the concentrators clockwise while rotating the orbs counterclockwise, and as he did so, he began bringing the two circles closer and closer together until the orbs and the concentrators were zipping by one another with barely any space between them. Not only did Sharr prevent them from colliding, but he constantly forced the concentrators to latch on to an orb, then disconnect without a jolt.
Next, he let the orbs move along a horizontal circle, then, inside that round space, he forced the concentrators to move along a vertical circle. Slowly, with his finger, he
forced the circles of orbs and concentrators to turn counterclockwise in tandem. He kept moving his finger until the two whirling circles returned to their horizontal and vertical planes. Beads of sweat smeared the high priest’s bald head as he rotated the circles twelve times. The silence in the Temple was absolute.
Sharr began the third and hardest exercise, known as Baal’s fist. He drew all eight objects to the common center of the two circles. Slowly, the distance between all eight objects shrunk and the speed of their rotation increased rapidly until they became eight spheres of light. They were now forced into a space smaller than a two-foot cube. Slowly, Sharr pushed the rotating objects back until all eight of them were zipping around the statue’s right fist. Their speed was now so great that they began heating the air. Sparks crackled between the concentrators, which produced the vivid impression that the fist of Baal was generating the sparks and powering the magic. Then Sharr raised his left hand in imitation of the statue and closed it into a tight fist. All eight objects came to a standstill in the perfect arrangement of a cross.
Kalibaal swallowed. Hard. This was Baal’s Fist: the ability to keep the concentrators and the orbs aligned in a fixed position and in such close proximity was awe-inspiring. Four drummers in the back of the Temple produced a slow beat. Sharr’s frame shook under the effort and his body was now drenched in sweat, but he maintained the objects in place for the full duration of the drumming. Then the musicians beat the drums twelve times in a rapid sequence and stopped. Once more, Sharr raised his left hand in imitation of the statue and all eight spheres vanished. Kalibaal inhaled sharply. How Sharr could do that, he did not know.
Eight priests rushed toward the high priest with a silver bowl, a gold water jug, some towels, a new change of clothes, and a portable partition. After completing his ablutions according to the rite of purifications required by every high priest who performs an act of magic in the presence of the god, Sharr addressed the assembly of Methodicals, Kerta, Shogol priests, and Adorants.
“The Seer of Destruction lives,” he proclaimed loudly despite his exhaustion and the nausea that racked him. “He is a slave from Tanniin, who has in his possession a Letter of Power.” The hush in the Temple was complete. “His name is Ahiram, a young lad who is upright of character, courageous, and generous. A good young man by any measure, and well trained by the famed commander of the Silent. Yet none of these qualities matter, for if he gathers all twenty-two Letters of Power, these instruments of destruction will subdue him. They will slowly worm their way into his mind, break every moral resistance, and change every good desire into evil. They will turn him into a dark tyrant, into a self-absorbed cruelty bent on satisfying every impulse, every desire his heart commands. He will then turn the entire world into his plaything. He will consume every living thing that grows, and devour every living thing that roams the earth. There will be nothing left of this world once he enters into the fullness of the power. The good, he will destroy; the evil, he will destroy; and the innocent, he will destroy.”
The Wretched Race (Epic of Ahiram Book 3) Page 60