The ledge narrows until we are running single file, becoming little more than a shelf of rock and soil clinging to the cliff face. Ahead of me, Chadan runs with the lightness and speed of magically enhanced strength, but his steel armor is still heavy. The shelf gives way, collapsing beneath his feet.
“Chadan!” I reach out, catching one of his pinwheeling arms. I throw myself back, heaving, and might have pulled him to safety, but Arick is not able to pull short against my sudden stop, slamming into me from behind. He falls onto his backside, and I watch him stare in horror as my prince and I tumble down into darkness.
* * *
—
I awaken in a pile of loose stones kicked up on our descent. I remember tumbling head over heels, striking the stone slope of the cliff again and again, then blackness. I groan, putting my hands under me. I have no idea how long I’ve been unconscious. Seconds? Minutes? Hours?
Chadan lies a few feet away. I pull shattered ceramic plates from my robes, dropping the shards to the ground as I go to him. I slip shaking, filthy fingers under his veil, feeling for a pulse. He’s alive, but unconscious. No doubt the charged alagai-scale armor protected him from the fall, and even now its hora and wards work to speed his healing. He looks better than I feel, battered and bruised with cracked ribs that scream every time I take a full breath.
I don’t know how far we fell, but it was a long way—removing us from the demon ward entirely. Even without my spear and shield, I don’t feel the pull of its flow at my aura. There’s no way to know what happened to Iraven and the others, or even how to get back to where we were. The cavern wall quickly becomes too steep to climb.
With the wards on my helmet I can still see, and I retrieve our weapons and shields from where they lie amid the rubble. Even if we’re off the demon ward, we are not safe. I don’t know if the sun is still shining above, but here beneath the Ala, night is eternal, and the alagai will not withdraw and give us time to regroup or escape.
I still have my satchel, and open my robe to clean and stitch the worst of my wounds while I wait for Chadan’s armor to restore him. When he groans, I go to him, giving him a sip of cool water.
“Olive?” His voice is a harsh rasp. “Where are we?”
“We fell from a ledge,” I tell him. “I don’t know where we are, but the alagai still hunt us. Can you sit up?”
He nods, allowing me to support him as he wobbles to a sitting position. “I’m all right. I just need a moment.”
I hear a clatter of stones from behind a mound of stalagmites and get to my feet, spear and shield at the ready. “We don’t have a moment.”
“Olive.” Iraven appears from around the bend before Chadan can attempt to rise. “Thank Everam I’ve found you.”
I cannot deny my relief, but still I tilt my head. “How?”
“The armlet.” Iraven holds up a tiny sphere of warded glass. Inside, a gold arrow floats in its center, no doubt containing a sliver of the demonbone that powers my armlet.
The arrow is pointing at me.
“Mother made this to locate you,” Iraven says. “She gave it to me after you…escaped the harem. It seems you found a way to evade its signal for days, but inevera, it was working after you fell. Come, I will take you back to the others.”
“Are they all right?” I ask.
“Safe, for now,” Iraven says.
Chadan struggles to his feet, but after a moment, he looks steady and determined. “They will not survive long without us.”
Iraven waves a hand at me. “This way, sister.”
Sister? Iraven has never called me that—not since the night I was taken from Hollow. I look at him again, suspicious. How exactly did he find us? The compass would not have navigated the tunnels for him, and with his two greatest rivals fallen from a cliff, why search for us at all?
I remember the story Mother told me, about how the corelings tried to assassinate her. I was lured from the wards by a mimic demon that took the form of a friend, calling my name.
Iraven seems himself. His helmet is in place, and I can clearly see its mind wards. His armor is covered in blood, ichor, and filth, but it is as I remember. Could a mimic demon duplicate his wards?
With his spear and shield on his back, Iraven’s hands are free. “Hold this a moment,” I say, tossing him my shield. Iraven catches it instinctively, unaffected by the touch of the heroes’ bones.
“This is a sacred item,” Iraven growls as I make a show of fixing my robes, rearranging the remaining armor plates for maximum balance and protection. “You should treat it with more respect.”
I nod and our eyes meet as he hands it back. They are not clouded like Levan’s were. It’s just my imagination.
“This way.” Iraven gestures to one of many paths leading deeper into the crevasse. Chadan follows.
“That’s not the direction you came from,” I say.
Iraven does not slow. “It’s faster.”
“How can you know that?” I ask.
“I’ve been wandering around down here for hours,” Iraven says, “trying to find you.”
It makes no sense. The Sharum Ka left his warriors hiding in a demon hive to spend hours searching for us by himself?
I’m not the only one who notices and comes to the same conclusion. “You sent Chikga to kill Olive, didn’t you?” Chadan’s voice is calm, but I know his spirit is nothing but.
Chadan is ready for an attack, but Iraven is quick. The hidden blade he pulls from under his vambrace is long and thin, perfect for slipping between the scales of Tazhan armor. Chadan tries to block, but before he can fully react, Iraven has buried the knife in his lung.
I scream as Chadan coughs blood, his breath a wet wheeze. He falls to his knees as I charge, hora spear leading the way. Iraven leaves the knife buried in Chadan to the hilt, turning to face my charge. In one smooth motion, he rolls the shield off his shoulder and onto his arm, taking his spear from its harness.
“I’ll kill you!” The words escape my lips before I realize I mean them. Twice now, my brother has taken everything from me. I won’t give him a third chance.
But my attack is undisciplined, born of anger, rage, and surprise. Iraven turns it against me, twisting out of my path even as I am tripped and sent sprawling. I try to regain control, but take a bash of his shield to the head instead. I keep moving, trying to create space while I recover my senses.
“Do you think Mother and I spent the last fifteen years working to regain power,” Iraven growls, “only to let you steal my glory and give it to your push’ting prince?”
“His family has led the Majah for three thousand years,” I say. “What gives you the right to take it from them?”
“My father is the Deliverer,” Iraven says. “My mother was called by the dice to be Majah Damaji’ting. It is my birthright to rule our tribe, and if I reclaim it, I can hand Desert Spear back to Father on an electrum platter, without a drop of blood spilled.”
“Then you will be handing him a lie,” I say. “Chadan bleeds here with us, and Chikga and Thivan and the hundreds of brothers we brought to bleed in this forsaken place.”
“Still nothing,” Iraven says, “compared with the ocean of blood that will wash over the sands if Father takes the city by force. But it isn’t a price you have to pay, sister. You are not Majah. You owe no loyalty to Aleveran or his scion.”
I spit at his feet. “I have already paid. You made me a pawn in your schemes and bled me with the alagai tail on the sacred floor of Sharik Hora, before the Skull Throne, itself. Will you tell Father that, as well?”
“Tell him yourself,” Iraven says. “When we deliver Desert Spear to him side by side.”
The image flickers across my mind’s eye. Meeting Father—really meeting him—for the first time, presenting him something he has sought for fifteen years—the reunification of the tr
ibes of Krasia.
Father would notice me. He’d have no choice.
Desire, long repressed, wells in me. Dreams of my father coming to Hollow to see me, or visiting him in New Krasia. Dreams of being someone he was proud of, and not just one of seventy children he was too busy to know.
My spear starts to dip. Behind me, Chadan lets out a hoarse gasp.
“I’ve waited my whole life to be noticed by Father,” I say.
“It is in your grasp.” Iraven’s voice is all charm. “If we escape this place together with the same tale, none will doubt us, or question it when I take you into my house and make you kai of the Spears of the Desert.”
“No.” I lift my spear again. “If this is the price for Father to notice me, then I have overvalued his attention.”
Iraven looks genuinely disappointed, but he nods and begins to advance. “I promise a quick death with honor.”
“I can’t promise the same,” I tell him. “You sold your honor long ago.”
* * *
—
I dodge a thrust of Iraven’s spear, swinging my own in an arc to knock him off balance with a whack across the back.
It never connects.
Iraven whips his spear up over his shoulder to block my swing, then reverses the move, cracking me atop the helm with the butt of the weapon.
Again I stumble back, but this time Iraven follows me in, his spear pumping as rapidly as a hummingbird’s wings.
Loath as I am to admit it, Iraven is an amazing fighter. Better than me. Better than Chadan. Our father was said to be the greatest living sharusahk master, and he instructed his sons personally. I was a fool to think myself a match for him.
In his alagai-scale armor, Iraven is as strong as I am, and less vulnerable. My own armor is missing several plates, and having watched me position them, my half brother knows where the vulnerable spots are.
I focus on defense, keeping out of range when I can, blocking with my shield when I must, and parrying when I have no other choice.
It makes no difference. Every move I make, Iraven finds a way to turn against me. When I step, it is in the direction he wants me to go. When I parry a blow, he twists it into a new line of attack, forcing me to defend rather than counter. When I attack, he turns the force of it against me, guiding me into position for a counterstrike that more often than not hits home. Two more of the plates in my robes are shattered. Soon they will offer no protection at all.
“I’m disappointed, Olive,” Iraven says. “You are blood of the Deliverer. For all the glory you’ve garnered, I expected you to fight better than this.”
He’s right. Not for the first time, I curse the years wasted on herb lore that could have been spent learning the spear.
I want to blame Mother, but I know she did her best. Hollow needed Mother’s healing hand after Father and the Deliverer purged the demons from our lands. Preparing me to succeed her meant pushing aside who I was and trying to make me into her mimic, that I might carry on her steady rule.
But the war wasn’t really over. The enemy was still out there, regrouping. Hollow needed a healing hand fifteen years ago, but it’s time that hand held a spear once more.
I growl and charge in, seemingly more reckless than before. I know what Iraven will do. How he will turn it into a circle to redirect the force.
At the last moment, just as he begins to move, I shift my weight, throwing my body away from my target.
And into the path of his step.
My thrust is perfect, with the full weight of my strength driving the spear into his chest, a blow even warded armor cannot withstand.
At least, it would have been, if I’d carried a properly warded steel spear. Against the alagai, its sharik hora magic made my weapon all but indestructible. Against Iraven—a hero himself—it is only bone and lacquer. The speartip shatters against his Tazhan armor like it was made of glass.
Still, Iraven is driven back by the force of the blow. I seize the advantage, grabbing the shaft of his spear and delivering a push-kick to his midsection that folds him over and sends him reeling back, weaponless.
I have the initiative now, pressing him with quick thrusts of his own spear, driving him away from Chadan.
But even disarmed, Iraven is dangerous, and incredibly fast. He bats away my thrusts with his shield to create openings for kicks, punches, and shield-bashes. He gets in close, snaking his arm around the spear shaft, then throws himself into a tumble that pops it from my grasp.
I’m sent sprawling, and Iraven might have ended it there, but instead he tosses the spear aside, dropping his shield, as well. I think to keep mine, but I realize too late a shield is a disadvantage in sharusahk. It makes me slow, throwing off my balance. Iraven grabs the edges, and by controlling the shield on my arm, he controls me. He lifts it out of the path of knees he throws into my unprotected midsection, blasting the breath from me, then he somersaults, and I am forced to yank my arm from the straps before it’s broken.
I have a moment’s hope things might be better hand-to-hand, but Iraven fights with a dama’s skill and a Sharum’s ferocity, turning my own moves against me to amplify his already enhanced strength. One of his punches connects so hard it shatters one of my few remaining armor plates and drives the shards into my thigh.
His takedown happens a moment later, and my leg buckles as I try to stop it. We hit the ground hard and Iraven drives my face into the rock, stunning me as he works his way into a death hold. He increases the pressure, cutting off the flow of blood to my brain.
Worse than suffocating, I feel like my head is swelling, face growing hot. I slap helplessly at his arms, struggling to get to my feet, but Iraven has his legs wrapped around mine, shifting his weight to drop me back down every time I start to rise.
Blackness forms at the edge of my vision, closing with alarming speed. This is it. This I how I die. I twist to look my brother in the eye. I tell myself it’s because I want him to remember his betrayal, and not so I won’t be alone in my final moments.
Instead, I see Chadan tackle Iraven off me. The impact makes my head spin, compressing my chest when what I need more than anything is to breathe. My vision goes dim, but then the weight is off, and I pull a heaving breath, and then another, watching the battle as if through a distance lens.
Iraven kicks Chadan away as they tumble across the cavern floor. The knife is no longer sticking from my prince’s chest, but that is not necessarily a good thing.
Iraven rolls to his feet, but then his leg buckles under him, and I see Chadan returned my brother’s blade in the pass, burying it in the gap between alagai scales on the Sharum Ka’s thigh.
Iraven does not cry out. He looks Chadan in the eye as he regains his balance, standing tall as he pulls the blade out. The impairment will be short-lived. The stored magic in his Tazhan armor will speed the healing.
But my prince is not so fortunate, his breath still a stunted wheeze. No doubt he counted on a similar restorative effect when he pulled the knife from his chest, but even Tazhan wardwork and alagai hora aren’t quick enough to keep a collapsed lung from filling with blood once the blade is pulled free.
Chadan is on his feet, but only barely. His ragged breaths are long and shallow, his face pale and sweaty. I can see his aura dimming. He might be able to exchange a few weak blows, but win or lose, it will be his life.
I try to cry out to him, but I have no voice. An attempt to sit up met with equal failure. I heal as quickly as they do, but Iraven came closer to killing me than I want to think about. For now, all I can do is watch as both men assume sharusahk stances.
Suddenly a high-pitched keening sound echoes through the ravine, and something happens to Iraven. He stiffens, then removes his helmet and the protection its wards offer his mind.
I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve watched Mother’s herald Kendall spi
n tales of mind demons in Mother’s salons. Part of the act was pulling willing victims into a plush chair at the center of her circle, where she would mesmerize them with a combination of soothing words and the music of her fiddle. Then she would suggest they do things not in their nature, like shouting animal sounds, or planking between chairs so Kendall could stand on their backs.
Like those party guests, Iraven’s eyelids grow heavy and droop closed, but there is a twitch in the skin as his eyes move rapidly beneath. After only a few seconds, he relaxes, opening them to offer me a flat stare I know instinctively does not belong to my brother.
“Long have I waited for this moment,” Iraven says, but it is no longer him speaking. From out of the shadow of a stalagmite mound, something stirs.
Delicate, compared with the alagai I’ve seen—this demon is small and slender, no larger than Faseek when I met him in sharaj, with a large, conical cranium. Its eyes are giant, pools of polished black, alien and unreadable. A ring of short, vestigial horns poke through the tough, charcoal-colored flesh to form a sort of crown about its brow. The horns become ingrown as they run down its body, creating jagged ridges in the leathery flesh.
Demon drones, like those we kill in the Maze, lack sex organs of any kind. This one presents with a small penis hanging in the shadows of its slender, bipedal legs. The talons at the ends of its fingered hands look more like manicured nails than savage weapons, but I have no doubt they are sharp.
But most overwhelming is the glow of its magic. So powerful I have to squint as if from bright light until my warded eyes can adjust.
I know him on sight, as would anyone raised in Hollow. There are paintings of the Father of Demons in both the cathedral and Mother’s keep, illustrations in the histories of the demon war, even a statue in Gatherers’ University of my father, Arlen, and Renna Bales leading him chained down into the Core.
Alagai Ka, the demon king.
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